Lawmakers in washington to take action. We will hear from the senator who spoke out first. Workplace messenger slack soaring in its trading debut. After forgoing the traditional ipo, the companys shares opened at 38. 50, 48 above. Point, climbed as high as 22 a share, more than double the last valuation on the private markets. It makes it one of the most Viable Companies to hit the markets this year, but will it be able to avoid the slump of uber, both trading below . Is a couple correspondence. Jason horowitz is an investor in and stephen, you were at microsoft for more than two decades, which is a slack competitor. Can slack fend off the big guys . Well, can microsoft fend off slack . Right now, the way the Industry Leaders have talked about slack, its generally viewed as a leader, certainly by a bunch of measures. I think theyre in a really great position. The industry is undergoing a phenomenal amount of change in terms of the way people work. People are looking for things that integrate more software and slack does a fantastic job of doing that. Emily in terms of mechanics, we had a lot of questions on why they chose direct listing. I talked to the ceo, stuart butterfield. Do you think we got an answer . I think so. He was able to explain that the main reason slack was looking to do a direct listing is they didnt want to dilute shares any further. They have a lot of cash and feel confident they dont need to raise any more money and doing a direct listing elastic do that. It allows you to go public and not lose shares. Emily why did they raise as much as they did . It must have felt worth it at the time. He said we were always getting a really fair valuation and we thought capital was always available. And its true, slack has always in a darling of the venture been a darling of the Venture Capital world and i can imagine they were able to negotiate the deals they were really good for them in the private market and dont feel the need to raise more. Emily i have a chart in the bloomberg that shows how tech ipos have been performing so far this year. So, you know, stephen, you ran office. You ran windows. One of the Big Questions about slack is, is it just nice to have . There is a lot of economic uncertainty. Why would they pay for slack and not cut office or why would they pay for slack and not cot not cut office . I think new thing about the workplace, even during bad times, it turns out its a way to invest to make it through the bad times. You communicate better, get more done, search customers better and we have seen that for decades in the way that Technology Investing looks. And i think in this case, slack isnt really nice to have. It is fundamentally rethinking Companies Really approach the sharing information and making it much more modern. Moving from files of email to an open Committee Case and platform. Emily well, you know how Corporate America can be an slack is cool and hip and great and easy to use. All those things are great, but do you think more Traditional Companies will see the value . They already do. Slack has hundreds of paying customers and there are already Traditional Companies that see the value in all of this whether its a target or ibm that are more traditional. I dont think its about seeing the value as much as the company embracing this idea of wow, we can really do better as a company and the tools we use for us and for our employees. Were raising this generation now entering the workforce that are used to communication and also used to openness and those are all the characteristics of slack, not the characteristics of email. Emily right, in some cases, workers are more responsive on slack than their email. What are the challenges ahead . Weve seen Revenue Growth slow from down at about one of your 10 to a projected 50 this year. I think there are questions of what is going to help bolster the revenue Going Forward . I had it explained to me that the slowing is just bigger it gets, the harder it is to double its size every year, and that makes sense. Another thing is trying to explain what slack is to people dont use it. Its a kind of a different category. Its not comparable to what weve seen before. Emily its not just messaging. Its not just email files. You can share files, have video calls. I do think its something they need to keep working on. Its easy to get people to use it, but harder to make that first pitch. Well listen to how they tell their story. I spoke with the cfo after the opening bell and asked how confident he was about listing directly. Take a listen. Well see. At this point, its been working exactly the way it was supposed to work and then the same thing will happen tomorrow. We are very much focused on the longterm. Emily now, youre still paying large fees to bankers and paying a lot of money on the private market, so what problem are you really solving by doing a direct listing instead of a traditional ipo . Well, the first one is we dont need to raise traditional capital. We came into this with 300 million on the balance sheet. We did get a little more freedom with how we tell the story. Instead of only having a roadshow in private rooms with private investors, we were able to do an investor day, livestream it, and make it available to everyone all stop i think that has put us in a better position. Emily slack is still unprofitable. How far out is profitability . As we continue to build on what we think is a new category, thats going to be our focus for a long time. Investorso spoke to who are going for cash flow even. We can still invest very aggressively while driving towards that nearterm profitability margin. Ofly so stuart, how much a priority is profitability . I dont want to get too much into it. Theres a lot of deferred revenue. Its not that much priority. As he was saying, bringing more cash than we put out is a priority because it allows us to control our own destiny. The idea is, though, we continually find new ways or opportunities to invest in further growth the business. We dont need a lot of cash flow, just a little bit. Emily what other revenues are you expecting to tap . Were very pleased with Revenue Growth and weve gotten over 95,000 customers today. We have 640 five customers, over at the0 in revenue, so pace were on now, it will come down, but were very optimistic about the opportunity and believe there is a huge opportunity, so we are focused on that. Emily we have charted progress from the very beginning. The first interview i did was in 2011 and you were making a game called glitch which sort of became slack. Into any 15, jared leto crashed our interview. I will never forget that. Your users really love the quirkiness of slack, which was very much inspired by you. That said, you are becoming a public company. You are going to be doing earnings calls every quarter. How do you manage that transition with public Investors Holding your feet to a fire . I think both alan and i have been committed, over the course of many years, building an internal picture that allows us to operate. On the financial business side, that began a long time ago. And weve been working to transition a limited number of ways we do. We believe we can keep the same culture. We believe we can keep the same approach into serving customers. And we believe in making our customers lives more simpler and productive. Theres also a huge admission and i think the challenge for us goingkind of what were to have to pull off, is kind of bringing investors along on that ride and help them understand what the longterm vision is and what we can truly do to support companies all over the. Aily now, youre entering volatile market, in the midst of a trade war with china. You can imagine that an economic downturn, businesses will cut budgets. They might not cut microsoft, but they might think that slack falls into that category. How risky is that . I dont really see any risk and that. Our customers tell us slack was not what they thought they needed, but they cant live without it. It will be cut on a discretionary basis. Much are youn, how following whats happening in the Global Economy . We watch it just like everybody else but it doesnt necessarily affect the way we run our business. We control what we control and the markets do what they need to do. Emily now, stuart, analysts say that startups are a dime a dozen. You have huge competitors like microsoft and facebook with huge pockets and millions of users. Over the longterm, how do you differentiate yourself . How do you compete . Even as you say, you havent figured out the optimal price because it depends on what your competitors are doing . Its hard for me to imagine anything a competitor would do that would cause us to change our plans when those plans are all about creating value for our customers. What you want to do is make slack the Company Become more valuable because the product because more valuable. Because of the platform, because of the incubation. Theres a whole world out there of other software that continues to proliferate, continues in a world where we have 10 million daily active users out of the 200 million plus that we think would benefit, its just wide open. Emily shares now indicating to open to 32 to 34 per share. Its getting a little bit higher. This means that investors and employees can sell their shares immediately. Alan, should we be worried once employees can sell with no lock up . I think employees, like investors, they appreciate how big an opportunity this is. Were just Getting Started here one, where in a category that values user engagement, customer experience. We think that will help for the future. Emily stuart, last question for you. Youve been very diverse in building a team. Unfortunately, other ceos still dont think diversity is a priority. How has having more voices help you improve the bottom line . Well, i think that theres a bit of an increasing return. The better job we do, the easier it is to take the next step. Theres a lot of early employees that made a contribution to the slack culture, opened it up, and brought in people from the network that has allowed us to continue. You said that we have more work to do. That doesnt end if we are part of a larger culture in larger society. My hope is that there are a group of people that graduate from slack and go on to start other companies and spread that way to working. Emily my interview with steward and allen. And if you didnt see it when it happened, heres a picture of jared leto crashing our interview in 2015. We recognize him with the sunglasses and the pink hair. Just a reminder, bloomberg lp is an investor in slack. Coming up, apple is pleading with the administration to not proceed with tariffs on china. This is bloomberg. Emily apple is urging the Trump Administration not to move toward with new tariffs, as much as 25 on a new slate of products imported from china. The tech giant says it would reduce the companys contribution to the economy and global competitiveness. It would affect nearly all major apple products, including the iphone. Joining us now, mark and sarah. Mark, ill start with you. This is the first time apple has specifically mentioned the iphone in a plea to the u. S. Government. Are they asking for special treatment here . Mark yeah, youre right, this is the first time they mention the iphone. It represents two thirds of sales and pretty much other sales because they buy that because of iphones. Are they asking for special treatment . Sort of. Apple is the most significant phone maker coming out of the u. S. Its the only company in this unique position of being such a global conglomerate that has such a stronghold on this market while also being an American Company that produces almost everything in china. So in a way they are asking for special treatment, but i think if it was granted to other phone makers, they wouldnt be too upset about it. Emily we know that tim cook, the ceo of apple, has met with the president several times, certainly made an effort to keep the conversation going to stop the tariffs. If the administration does slap the new tariffs on the products, would apple be an exception . Sarah tim cook was in washington as early as last week. We do know that he does have the ear of trump. We also know that in previous rounds of tariffs, apple was able to get a couple of its products off it. Other companies have gotten other items taken off. Companies can apply for exemption. So, there are options that apples behest to try to avoid the tariffs. That being said, i think the Trump Administration really wants to make an impact, so its really hard to tell how much flexibility they have. Apple comes up, in almost every conversation we had, but theyve really had no impact on any tariffs weve had at all, correct . Mark , so first of all, i wouldnt correct you if you were wrong, but youre not wrong. There have been some accessories, some wireless routers that they dont even sell anymore, but the iphone is really apples breadandbutter and is the core. Weve been talking about is the iphone going to be impacted for a year. This is the first time apple is coming out and think, please, dont do this to us. Basically, theyre saying this is going to hurt their contributions, but what it will actually hurt are their very high industryleading margins for these products and they dont want to sacrifice that. Sarah, which way is the wind blowing at the white house today . What will be the result of the president s meeting with president xi at the g20 . Sarah i think theres two ways they could go. One, they both are scheduled to meet at the g20. Best case scenario, they chart a path forward for talks to continue. The other path, i suppose, is for trump and xi to not come to any sort of agreement and if that happens, trump says he plans to move forward with the tariffs and the u. S. Trade representative was at a hearing on capitol hill this week and spoke for hours. One of the comments that really struck me was he said theres going to be some discomfort to get a deal with china and that is going to happen right here in the u. S. The Trump Administration doesnt be big impacts. It does sound like it may be backing china into a corner with these tariffs. They believe china pays the tariffs. Apple is saying in u. S. Companies are saying they are paying the tariffs. Emily right, and apple is one of many u. S. Companies. Thank you both. Coming up, waymo is partnering up with the Worlds LargestAutomotive Alliance for more opportunities in driverless cars. Details on that next. This is bloomberg. Emily on thursday, apple recalled some of its macbook pro laptops. The recall is due to batteries that might overheat and could pose a safety risk. This problem affects the 15 inch version of the older macbook pro. Apple said it will replace the batteries in these models at no charge. Waymo has agreed to more Driverless Services with renal renault. They will Research Related to legal issues with Driverless Services in france and japan. The city of austin, texas is looking better and better for tech workers. The cost of living is lower and certainly than san francisco. And paychecks are getting fatter. They rose 15 over three years to an average of about 125,000. Thats according to the recruiting platform hired. Coming up, in the public eye, we look at why Cloud Companies like slack seem to be so beloved by wall street. We talked to one investor who saw it coming more than a decade ago. And later, facebook is creating its own crypto currency. But one senator says not so fast. Well hear from Sherrod Brown. This is bloomberg. At comcast, we didnt build the nations largest gigspeed network just to make businesses run faster. We built it to help them go beyond. Because beyond risk. Welcome to the neighborhood, guys. There is reward. Beyond work and life. Who else could he be . There is the moment. Beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Emily this is bloomberg technology. Im emily chang in san francisco. Back to our top story, slacks soaring debut. Every cloud has a silver lining. Maybe this case, its gold. 10 years ago, market Cap Companies were around hundred billion dollars. Now its close to 1 trillion. Our next guest is no stranger to investing in the cloud. He has backed box, docusign, and more. You did not invest in slack. Unfortunately, correct. Emily and objective outsider, which i like. So, what chances do they have in a market where youre competing with microsoft, facebook, and enterprise juggernauts . Guest great to be back and its a fantastic company, so huge kudos to the team and the base. Investigators its a milestone event. Investors are reacting with greed, appropriate for this business, paying 50 times run rate revenue. The only hole you can chew and its what is fair value, but its a heck of a company and welldeserved. Emily ive used slack for free in a number of situations, never paid for it. The Company Never paid for it. You often have teams going rogue and using slack. So, can they get people to pay up when they can get a lot of it for free . Guest part of these models, free becomes marketing. They dont need to go out in the wild when for a low marginal cost they can entice users through this premium offering and walk them through a conversion funnel and a very appealing way. A number of Clock Companies have undertaken this method and it works really well if you have this strong product, and they have 140 net upsells, which shows the model is working. Emily how do they stand out or fit into the cloud ipo market right now . A salesertainly theyre business. A lot of people have been looking at this for a number of reasons. Theyre a scale business which puts them on a short list. There had been a class of Companies People were watching closely and also the way in which they went public, i think this will change some of the mindsets in terms of the direct listing and if thats a viable alternative, but theres still 55 companies behind them while the private side valued at 50 billion today in cloud alone, so theres a long list public investors are looking at. Emily with their market cap the higher if they did a traditional ipo or lower . Guest i think it was an absolute homerun for them. Huge credit, i love financial innovation in general, but the fact they got the perception of the pop with the price and the actual opening price and they captured full value for shareholders emily right, they didnt actually leave money on the table. We should be clear about that. Guest absolutely. The halfmillion dollar spread was captured by employees and investors in this listing. Very few companies have attempted this, and its a small class of companies that can pull it off and i think it suggests very good things for trying to do more for market match with these ipos as opposed to the props that have happened with other companies this quarter. Emily if you were to see other Tech Companies do that, would you suggest other companies do it . Guest if provocative, yes. We were one of the largest buyers in pinterest. Weve had five ipos investment this quarter alone. A number of them could have considered this. You look at airbnb, you look at stripe. Ive got to imagine that the boards are sitting around right now thinking is this for us and can we get the best of both worlds . Emily so, 10 years ago, you saw the cloud coming and wrote something called 10 laws of the cloud. That was in 2008, and that was advice for founders about how to start a cloud company. And obviously the cloud industry has exploded since then and is still exploding. So, what are the laws today . Guest i was an early cloud ceo. It was a small group of companies then. 15 Public Companies in the entire ecosystem that were public and only a few hundred of any scale on the private side. You fastforward today and there are 50plus public Cloud Companies worth almost 1 trillion in market cap and hundreds below them price side that are about to flip over. What weve seen is that its a much more nuanced world where theyre getting more sophisticated about product. Our earlier discussion about slack, uc productled companies and very thoughtful metrics to unlock the margin, very producible revenue stream investors love. You get the best of both with these companies. You get the highgrowth because of this generational shift in technology and predictable Business Models because of the subscription dynamics underneath the core customer relationship. Emily now, the cloud sounds like a great idea and obviously in many ways it is if its the only way. It also increases vulnerability. What is the biggest risk to the cloud that you see today . Guest so, i would dispute the relative vulnerability. I dispute the notion that Cyber Attacks are a threat to software and businesses in general. However, absolutely what you see is that a purposefilled company is much better positioned to defend it than a corporation with on Prem Software installed with thousands of applications. Also, its a different attack vectors that they dont know how to protect against. I absolutely would bet on salesforce. Com to defend their Software Suite that i fortune 2000 company protecting 2000plus applications trying to do a similar job. Emily when are you coming out with 10 new laws . Guest we just published the 10th anniversary edition. Its really fun. Its actually live on our website actually today. Emily all right, well, i gave you an opportunity for a plug. Thanks so much for stopping by. Sticking with the slack conversation, the partner at Kleiner Perkins helped lead the first three investment rounds for slack. He spoke to bloomberg earlier today. First of all, slack is just an Amazing Company and brand that has a lot of recognition. The company has 10 million daily active users so you can imagine many people just know slack. The company also has a lot of capital that it has raised in the private markets. They need to go out and raise anchor mental capital in the Public Markets. The direct listing is actually quite interesting because it allows you to transact very quickly, allows you to set the right price, and its highly effective. Well, we know they dont need to raise cash, but theres always a question with Tech Companies about the path to profitability. As an investor, what would you like to see from slack with regards to their path to profitability . Well, i cant really comment on the future, but if you look at the category slack is in, software as a service, companies typically have to make significant investments in product and acquisition and can reap the benefits of that over time. For example, slack, on average, has a net revenue expansion of 138 annually, so that means the revenue expands and grows organically with its customers. When you have a scale of 500 million annualized run rate, thats impressive. Maybe a bit of a chill for investment banks if this is a trend. Are there certain, in your view, types of markets or times when a direct listing would work and others when it might not . I think its really hard to speculate on that. I think it depends on the company. Really wellrecognized brands that have a lot of investor interest that can go direct, they dont need to be communicated or put in front of investors. Theyre really well known. They dont need to raise a specific amount of capital. They really want to just get access to the Public Markets and transact. Those types of companies, i think, can fare quite well. We have seen, and i dont know if we can show it or not, but there is a really great comparison of the faang stocks versus companies that have listed publicly this year, most in ipos, not direct listings, but the ipo market has just outperformed in a massive way, even those big tech names. Do you expect that to continue, or is there such hunger for these kind of unicorn names out there . I think its really exciting times in tech. You see Companies Like slack obviously perform well today. Meet, thatny, beyond has done real well. I think whats happening is this real interest from investors to get exposure to tech, to get exposure to high growth opportunities, and again, the brands and names that are recognized will get a lot of attention, and its great for investors. Its great for tech workers,. Its great or everyone that the ipo window is open right now. Emily and a reminder, bloomberg lp is an investor in slack. Investors are tripping over themselves to invest in libra, but the cryptocurrency has not isnt even launched yet. Well discuss. This is bloomberg. Emily this week, you couldnt have missed it. Facebook unveiled its libra crypto project, which may launch next year. Partners include payment giants like visa and mastercard as well as paypal, but chatter and questions abound about regulation. Heres a look. We welcome open conversations with regulators to figure out how to drive accountability and transparency for the libra association. We know that we have a lot of people to work with. We know this is a heavily regulated space. Cryptocurrencies are still a new and emerging technology. Thats why its important we scrutinize them in congress and there are financial regulatory agencies. A lot of it is getting the the legislation right has been a real drawback, a real slow down. Well wind up having quite High Expectations from a sort of safety and soundness and regulatory standpoint if they do decide to go forward with something. Emily senator Sherrod Brown of ohio jumped into the fray almost immediately, saying there almost has to be oversight. He joined bloombergs david westin earlier. Sen. Brown facebook is too big and too powerful. I dont know that people would have said that two or three or five years ago, but the public increasingly believes theyre too big and too powerful, particularly to engage in a risky cryptocurrency system out of a swiss bank. Its a big concern to people. So, we want to, first of all, know more. Second, we want some rules around this. We know what happened to our Banking System 10 years ago and there is this collective amnesia in washington about what wall street did, and we also know the trump regulators the white house looks like a retreat for wall street executives. We know that trump regulators are never as aggressive aimed at Big Companies if they are wall street banks or if theyre Silicon Valley as they should be, so we want to shine light on this first of all and figure out what facebook is trying to do and then begin to move with regulators to protect the Financial System and protect the economy, especially in the event of a tax on privacy we know facebook is so well known for. David has facebook been out visiting you yet . Sheryl sandberg said theyre talking to people. Are they up on capitol hill . Have you had a chance to ask them questions . Sen. Brown they have lots of lobbyists, lots of lots of people. Theyre a powerful organization by any stretch in the economic market place, the political place, far too much power with the white house. I have to kind of get in line with wall street and others and Tobacco Companies and gun lobby at the white house, but its a concern. And i think the public already has such skepticism about facebook when it comes to protecting their privacy because facebook has shown interest in one thing two things, actually. Market being a bigger player in the market and making more money. Maybe three things being powerful in the political system, too, but weve to make weve got to make sure peoples privacy first and foremost is protected and there is not much room in congress to do that yet. David theres a lot of questions to ask, and a lot of information to be garnered, but initially, do youve lots about who or what is the best regulatory scheme for this . Because sometimes in washington, you know, ive seen, you can have multiple agencies regulating and companies can slip through the cracks. Is this a banking issue for the fed . Is this a securities issue for the sec . Who do you think should have primary lead on the regulation . Sen. Brown i dont know yet because i dont know enough about what theyre trying to do to run their cryptocurrency operation out of a Swiss Bank Account, but i do know that there is i mean, i am im skeptical of the regulators because weve seen regulators already the trump regulators already at the occ and the fed and fdic and sec , theyve already moved towards weakening rules to keep banks honest, particularly the big wall street banks. So, weve got to tread a careful path here. Weve got to, first of all, i think the role of the media is really important here because all of you i mean, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, all of you shine a light on what facebooks up to. Most of the American Public doesnt know what running a cryptocurrency operation out of a Swiss Bank Account means to americans or to a Financial System or means to your use of credit card or cash in an american store. We need to know so much more. Its one of the reasons these hearings on facebook to here at in are so important, so the july public really does learn what this is all about and what company thathis never seems to be big enough, never seems to be powerful enough, never seems to be rich enough is up to. Emily senator Sherrod Brown. Facebook has clearly jumpstarted the crypto regulation debate with the announcement of its digital coin. Why is washington suddenly kicking and screaming now when bitcoin and crypto have been around for years and screaming for regulation . Naomi thats true. Thats a good point. Facebook is a powerful company and if they say theyre going to do something, washington is going to pay attention. At this time, lawmakers have a lot of concerns about facebook and its operations. Theyre asking questions about whether if the American Public can really trust facebook to embark on a project like that, given that a lot of the data scandals and privacy lapses weve seen over the last year. Emily meantime, a representative who has spearheaded the investigation into the tech industry, of course, the antitrust debate is looming, and it is the house that has officially launched the first investigation. What have we learned about what the investigation will focus on . Naomi in fact, the representative made a speech about that regulation just today where he said we are going to look at a, are these companies being anticompetitive and their conduct . Are they acquiring rivals and squashing out the competition competition . And are they doing it at the same time while hurting Consumer Privacy . Are they taking proper control . And he took a really hard tone against facebook. He said facebook repeatedly makes mistakes and the ceo will go on an apology tour, he said, and then they continue to engage in bad behavior. So we can definitely expect facebook, if its the cryptocurrency boards other activities, will be the subject of this investigation. Emily well, the house investigation will yield Something Different than whatever the doj for ftc investigates, if they actually launch a formal investigation. What does he expect his investigation to produce . Naomi hes looking at a lot of things. One of the options on the table is lawmakers might rewrite antitrust laws. One of the things theyre concerned about is, are the laws we have on the books to protect competition Strong Enough for enforcers to push forward and protect competition . Nix for us in washington. Lots more on this debate to come. I know youll be covering it. Thank you. Still ahead, coming up, we speak to a discount grocer that could hold some competition for amazon after its public debut. Another this is bloomberg. One. Emily slack wasnt the only company to go public today. Californiabased Grocery Outlet raised close to 400 million. An above range ipo. The discount grocer spoke to bloomberg about competing with well asand amazon, as its plans for growth. Its been primarily a west coast story. We have an outpost in pennsylvania. Were really hardpressed to look across the u. S. And see a town that could not support a Grocery Outlet when you think about what we offer. We just want to keep growing, but its meter measure. About 10 growth per year is what were planning and it will take us a long time to get to that max potential, but its easy to see and look out that one day this could be a national story. Nejra here saying theres plenty of room for Grocery Outlet, but youre going public just as the grocery wars intensify. Were talking about the likes of walmart and amazon, the big layers, but also a number of other established grocers. Are you concerned at all about where youll fit in, especially if you become national . No, were not worried about where well fit in. We know exactly where we are. Were a niche player. We plan to stay in the lane we are right now. Weve been in the market a long time and it has become very competitive. Walmart got in. Costco got in. All the dollar stores. Its very competitive, youre right, but i dont see its any more competitive than it has been the last five or 10 years. Our model of savings is very different than many other retailer. We see a lot of upside for Grocery Outlets to continue. You really are focused as a discount grocer, but are you concerned at all by the likes of the competition trying to move into that space . Walmart, especially, extremely focused on price, also amazon going that way and others. Weve seen prices for a number of grocery items fall. Also, a number of these companies are really trying to push the envelope when it comes to convenience, trying to ensure customers just go to them for everything and customers dont shop around at many different grocers anymore, and that could be bad for you. We think its really hard to be all things to all people. We think its very hard to offer service, selection, price, conveniens, all those things at once. I think thats a hard proposition. Well stay and watch and see how they do, but well be really focused on delivering the values we have in the stores today, the Customer Service that we have and really stay focused on the business that we know and the business that we deliver. Talk to me about how you might be incorporating technology. I talked to a number of executives at the likes of walmart, at the likes of kroger and various other grocers and theyre all investing in technology to help improve the back office and drive efficiency. Grocery outlet, by comparison, used to be rather lowtech. Were not showing you all the tech were employing. Were using the most modern tools that anyone else is. Because were small and not quite at the scale of walmart, were not investing the billions that they are, but we have adequate technology. We have really Good Business insights. Were providing merchants in our stores with a lot of data about how they could order better, make better decisions. Were tracking all the products through the supply chain from start to finish. And lastly, i would say on the digital front, were quite modern in how were employing being able to talk to customers on a oneonone basis about deals that they care about and things they want to hear about. ,were really happy with the so, were really happy with the technology weve got. Im sure it doesnt compare to the likes of walmart, but it works really well for Grocery Outlet. You said youre not using Machine Learning or ai now when it comes to data. Do you see this as something you will move towards as you grow . We think the whole world is moving toward it. Were not fast followers when it comes to technology. We watch and see where things settle out. I would say yes, just no point of doing it now. Emily that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. As always, you can find us on twitter and check us out technology and as always, you can check us out at tictoc on twitter. This is bloomberg. Were the slowskys. We like drip coffee, layovers and waiting on hold. What we dont like is relying on fancy technology for help. Snail mail we were invited to a y2k party. Uh, didnt that happen, like, 20 years ago . Oh, look, karolyn, weve got a mathematician on our hands check it out now you can schedule a callback or reschedule an appointment, even on nights and weekends. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Id rather not. The opinions and views expressed do not affect those of bloomberg lp, its affiliates, or its employees. Welcome to a paid presentation for the doctor to nest radiance collection. Design for wound over 40 with maturing skin, targeting fine lines and wrinkles. Sponsored by scientific skincare. How do you dramatically change the appearance of your skin if you are over the age of 40, 50, 60, or older . You use this Skincare System designed by woman as other