Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Technology 20240714

War, and a former employee who forbeen federally charged stealing trade tickets from out for that. We also have another bloomberg exclusive. We will hear from a top huawei executive about what the u. S. Is losing out on as the Telecom Giant remains on the blacklist. First, shares of Tobacco Company altria dropping after the dow jones reported the u. S. Federal trade commission is investigating the marketing. Marketing practices of juul labs. It has invested 13 billion into the popular ecigarette maker. Regulators are investigating whether juul engaged in deceptive marketing. In addition, juul was named in documents by the u. S. Food and Drug Administration as it investigates whether ecigarettes can trigger seizures. Joining us to discuss, the coauthor of that scoop, our Bloomberg News Health Care Policy reporter and a reporter who covers juul. What exactly is the fda investigating . Anna they have gotten reports from people that this has happened to who say they have had seizures and that juul was one of the ecigarettes that some of these people putting reports in used. They said recently, the fda, that there have been 127 reports of seizures possibly linked to ecigarettes. What they have not said is what devices were used in this, and what we found out is that to start this investigation, the reports they were looking at were linked to the juul devices. Emily obviously, this is coming at an interesting time. Weve got not just the fda investigating, but also the ftc reportedly investigating. What does this mean for juul . Anna this is the latest in a series of scrutiny of this company. The cdc just came out with the damaging report showing 193 cases of serious lung disease and one death that vaping cause. Had caused. That they were investigating that. Weve got the cdc, fda, and the federal trade commission all looking closely at this product which until now has gone largely unregulated, with deadlines being pushed year to year. This comes one week before a bunch of new devices will hit the market by the Parent Company Philip Morris international. Emily Phillip Morris, big tobacco has its own ecigarette products. They are coming out with the range of new devices. Anna exactly. Emily which have been approved by the fda. Anna they did get approval in april. Phillip morris and altria split from each other about a decade ago and now, just after all these reports came out this week, it became clear, and they acknowledged they wanted to recombine forces to help launch this new type of ecigarette device. It has been tried since 2014 in other markets around the world. U. S. , it will come next week. Emily just yesterday, we interviewed a researcher who was part of a study that concluded that ecigarettes are no safer than traditional cigarettes. Take a listen to what he had to say. Trulyknow whether vaping causes the same lung disease as smoking, you have to wait 30 years, especially with those young kids taking the risk. There is a Strong Association between lung disease and those levels, and vaping increases those levels, so they are at risk of lung disease. Emily lung disease is one thing. Seizures are another. Tell us more about the reports the fda has been getting about seizures. Anna there were three of them the fda focused on early on when they were just starting to look at this in october that we learn learned from these internal fda documents. There were two from parents of teenagers, both boys, 15 and 16 they were separate reports, but the gist of them was the boys had been using a juul. They inhaled. One of the mothers said her son had an aura and felt that a shadow coming after him, then started convulsing. She ran upstairs to help him. The ambulance came and they paramedics found a juul under the unconscious child, so those are the kinds of reports they are seeing. She said they went to the er and have talked to a lot of people in the Health Care Community and a lot of them agreed that juul was the reason this happened. Emily two moms here shaking their heads. Lizette it is curious listening to what anna was just saying there. This comes even as the fda approved this new type of device, which it had held back from giving full approval, saying it is safer than cigarettes. In fact, the fda went out of its way making two statements in approving it, which is, number one, it will not say it is safer than cigarettes, and number two, because it is so similar to cigarettes, they will not allow Phillip Morris to advertise it on tv or on radio. Emily we spoke with a North Carolina attorney general who has sued juul, sued multiple ecigarette companies, specifically with regards to their marketing and attempts to get young people to use these products. Take a listen to North Carolinas attorney general josh stein. The fda should ban these products when they are not targeted to adults. If an adult wants to buy it, i have no problem. That is their right. If it helps them get off cigarettes, fine. What is happening is children are the buying a large number of ones these products. Emily quickly, what is the ftc investigating when it comes to the marketing of these products . Anna it is not just the ftc, it is also the fda, the Health Committee in congress is looking into juuls marketing practices. They want to know whether they targeted kids. Obviously, kids got interested in these devices. They are extremely popular among under age vapers who shouldnt have these things yway and hands and they are trying to find out how much juul targeted them, if they did at all, and they knew that this is something kids might pick up. Emily lots to continue to follow and i know you will be both doing that. Bloombergs Lizette Chapman and anna edney. Thank you. Sticking with regulation, the head of frances antitrust unit has largely played second fiddle to her eu counterparts since she was appointed in 2016, but with a shuffle of top technocrats on the horizon, that might be about to change. Has the storyn from paris. Caroline over the years, she has become known as the nemesis of big tech in europe. She fined google more than 9 billion. Her term is about to end in the next few weeks, but a new woman could become the most feared antitrust regulator on the old continent. Her name is isabel th desilva. She is 49 years old, and she has been the head of frances antitrust regulator since 2016, and she is about to enter a more severe phase of her mandate. Speaking to bloomberg at her paris office, she said she has set her sights on facebook and apples forays into online payments. She also has big concerns about Digital Assistants such as google home and amazon echo. De silva also said her team is planning active investigations by the end of this year or early next year into online advertising, which could impact u. S. Internet giants. France has already started targeting those socalled companies with the 3 tax on National Digital revenues, a tax that will remain in place until a more global agreement has been reached at the oecd level. That is why the french president Emmanuel Macron told donald trump over the weekend at g7 that. As long as de silva is in charge of the regulator, u. S. Big tech could be targeted faster in france than at the eu level. Connan, caroline Bloomberg News. Emily coming up, two years since the new ceo took the helm at uber. In a bloomberg exclusive, he tells us as the company has changed under his reign and his vision for the future as the stock trades at an alltime low. If you like Bloomberg News, you can check us out on the radio, the bloomberg app, and in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Ceoy two years ago, ubers was supposed to resign due to scandals. A former executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, was brought in to clean up the companys reputation. Since then he has pushed the Company Beyond ridesharing. It hasnt been an entirely smooth ride. An ipo sparked excitement, but investors were not. I sat down with the uber ceo with an exclusive and wideranging conversation, and began by asking if he made the right choice in taking the job. Dara we have resolved the governance conflicts the company had. There were many legal issues the company was involved with as well. We have softbank as a partner. You want them as a partner and investor. We have a great investor base. We have taken the company public. The company revenue, bookings have grown 75 since i joined. We have a path to profitability. While we have had bumps on the road, and every adventure has bumps on the road, i like where we are and especially like the position we are in now for the next years. Emily there have been bumps on the road. Despite all the negative stories, uber, lyft, Ridesharing Companies have been transformational. The big question for you is can uber be as transformational as it has been over the next decade as it has been over the last decade . Dara i think it can. Really what uber has done is brought transportation and opportunity at this point to is a smallieve segment of the population. We have 4 million driver partners all over the world, which is a huge number, unparalleled, but we want uber available to everybody. What we are doing now is going into the next step of introducing other transportation choices to uber. Weve always gone with pool, but now for example, we are testing buses in cairo to bring the cost of uber down. Hey dollar, 1. 50, etc. We are introducing bicycles and scooters for personal electric mobility. Any way you want to get around your city, we will be there for you. It will be mostly uber goods, but we will have third parties, transit, lime. Anyway you want to get around, we want uber to be there. If you want food, local commerce, uber eats and other services will be there for you as well. Emily i guess the question is, can uber be transformational and stop losing money . The prices sound attractive, but can you create a Good Business for ride fare for one dollar, 1. 50 . Dara yes. If you look at our rideshare business, it covered our overhead less about 100 million, so the rideshare business itself is turning quite profitable and we believe the profits of the rideshare business will not only grow topline, but bottomline as well, and there are other businesses, eats, autonomous freight, etc. These are extraordinary opportunities we are funding. I believe we will prove to investors that we can take on a serial basis big parts of our business, turn them profitable, use those parts of our business to Fund Investments in other areas. Emily still, there are execution issues. You just had your biggest loss, 5. 2 billion. The stock has been trading below its ipo price more often than not, you have hiring freezes on various teams. You have fired some of your top hires. You said you believe uber can be profitable, but how confident and how quickly can uber be profitable . How confident are you uber can be profitable and how quickly . Dara i am very confident. The losses we reported was a 5 billion dollar loss from an accounting perspective. If you live in the accounting world, that is a big loss. I live in the real world. In the real world, our ebida losses were lower than q1 and were on a good path in terms of our ebida losses as well. But you are absolutely right. None of this is going to be easy. All of this will take excellent execution from all of our teams, technology, et cetera, and we will demand our employees do more with less, and to execute incredibly effectively in order for us to grow that topline and bottomline. Emily is pricing the main lever you pull to profitability or are there other drivers . Dara scale. Scale. It is getting big when you have over one billion rides a quarter and youve got trip a yearly basis. We think we can use technology to be more efficient. For example, instead of emailing a Call Center Agent or calling a Call Center Agent if you have issues, you can do it in the app. These are Technology Innovations that allow customers to have a better experience and at the same time, they bring down costs, so the combination of growing topline over 30 , Technology Innovation to delight the customer and take costs down at the same time, and good oldfashioned efficiency, making sure costs dont grow as fast as revenue. All of those together give you a formula for profitability. Emily coming up, more of my exclusive conversation with uber ceo Dara Khosrowshahi. He weighs in on trade secret theft charges against an exemployee, next. Emily earlier this week, a former uber engineer Anthony Levandowski pled not guilty to charges of stealing selfdriving technology from Googles Waymo unit. The 33 count indictment adds a new criminal chapter to the saga. This is one of many legacies that Dara Khosrowshahi inherited when he took the top job. I asked him if he still feels the weight of previous leadership. Dara you need different kinds of management for different times in the development of a company. Listen, every management has their faults. Every my faults and Management Team has their faults, but the fact is, they built a Great Company, and now they have handed it to me. I have to take that Great Company and make it greater. I think i am up for the job. While they made their mistakes, the fact is, they built a great brand that had weaknesses, but has incredible strengths. It is my job to take it to the next level. Emily Anthony Levandowski, the guy who ran the trucking business that uber bought was just charged with stealing selfdriving technology, from google. Stealing trade secrets. What do you make of those charges . Dara um, i wasnt here when we brought anthony on board, but what i do know is we went to incredible depths to make sure any information anthony might have acquired from google, and it sure looked like he did, did not make it over to our company. That was our responsibility, and we were incredibly diligent in making sure that we were not guilty of anything that could be nefarious one way or the other. We think when you build come youve got to build the right way. Anthony is an incredibly talented person. It did not work out, but we did the right thing within these walls. Emily the person who was here and spearheaded that acquisition which might cost uber 100 million and might cost credibility, travis kalanick. I asked you this and have to ask it again, do you question his position on the board . Dara i think that i am going to live in the here and now. Travis has an incredible amount of historical knowledge about the company. He is incredibly bright, as are other board members. I use him at the board. He is a strong advisor. His background is incredibly useful, and he is supportive. Ultimately, we are a Public Company and the shareholders will get to pick their own board and that governance process will take care of itself Going Forward. Emily you talk to him often . Dara i talked to him usually during board meetings and offline. Emily he is on the board for now . Dara he is. Hes on the board now and he will be on the board tomorrow. Emily lets talk about the future. To those who say uber is a ridesharing and food delivery company, what is the next big idea . Dara i think the ideas we have right now in this building are plenty of big ideas. Weve got ridesharing, food delivery, micro mobility, weve got autonomous, freight revolutionizing how truckers move around and how shippers ship product all over the world. We have elevate, as well. We have enormous ideas, and now is execution time. Emily where is the technological innovation happening at uber . Dara it is happening all over. What is unique about our business is we are a combination of the digital, physical, and the two coming together in unique ways. We have interesting Machine Learning algorithms looking at supply and demand live supply and demand in a city, what riders are looking for and where they are located, and giving our drivers guidelines of where to go to meet that demand. This matching of supply and demand in a dynamic way and the pricing we have is unique. We continue to innovate there, and we innovate in different spots, such as elevate, as to how we can bring together different modes of transportation and tie them together. Walking, driving, helicopter now to jfk. Emily you are in charge of not just visualizing the future of transportation, but trying to get there and create that future. When you look into the future, what does the future of transportation look like . Obviously you have google, tesla, traditional automakers, flying cars, and helicopters how will this come together and be different . Dara we think we can bring it together. I believe we can have that singular app, where when you wake up, anyway you want to get from point a to point b, we can give you information that is relevant to you with live pricing, et cetera. We have mass transit in the app. We will tell you mass transit, you can take the subway, a bus, and uber, and you can take an elevate, as well. We are uniquely positioned as a company to have all that information together, and we can do the same thing for transportation, local commerce, restaurants, which are only the beginning, and we can do the same thing for logistics. Emily we will have more of our exclusive interview with uber ceo Dara Khosrowshahi after the break, including how uber will fare in a possible recession, a trade war, and of course, the future of uber eats. That is next. This is bloomberg. Emily this is bloomberg technology. I am emily chang. Earlier in the show, we brought you the two parts of my First Exclusive conversation with ubers ceo, dora khosrowshahi. We heard him talk about profitability and what it has been like tackling big seeded issues at the company. In this final part, we talk about the newer areas of business like uber eats, autonomy, escooters, but how will uber fare if the economy slows down . Why he thinks uber is recession proof. Take a look. Dara the consumer in the u. S. Is very strong. Were a very global company. The majority of our transactions actually are outside the u. S. , so we really look at mobile growth to the extent that Global Growth slows down. That could be negative for us, but if mobile growth slows down, we will have more partners also wanting to come up with a platform because we expose very , very flexible labor opportunities. I think the growth of the company is such that we will be relatively resistant to any macro slowdown and were certainly not seeing any slowdown with the u. S. Consumer as of yet. Emily what hs plan b if we are in a fullblown trade war . We have heard about investing in vietnam or brazil. What is the backup plan . Dara we are an assetlike company. We dont have to go out and buy we are an assetlight company. We dont have to go out and buy cars, etc. We will make sure partners can source vehicles in an economical way. Many of them source vehicles secondhand. They will source used vehicles, so to speak. I dont think this trade war we certainly havent felt it, except in certain small parts of the business where we are importing parts, for example, there has been some additional specs, but its not having any material effect on the company and we are confident of our growth over the next few quarters, trade war or no. Emily you have a food business, trucking business ebikes, scooters, buses, self driving cars, flying cars. Transportation of every kind. Emily you asked the public to think about uber like the amazon of transportation, but amazon was an online bookstore for a very long time before they started doing all the other stuff. If now is the time to focus on the core . We have been in the ridesharing business a long time as well, and that business is absolutely developing, and availability is developing. We are in the top player in every major market we are competing in an generally taking market share in business. We have a core business that provides the framework or us to build multibillion, and i think it would be criminal if we dont take advantage of that. You are seeing more and more accident companies that are building ecosystems, super apps, so to speak, especially in the east, for example, in china. Tencent with waymo. Dara the super apps are winning, and we can be the super app of transportation, so to speak, that allows us to acquire customers at much cheaper rate than our competitors. It allows us to keep customers because we have a deeper relationship with them, and we think longterm if you can acquire customers and keep them longer, that is the winning formula. Uber eats is what, 20 or 30 of your business now . Dara yes, and growing quickly. Bookings grew over 90 in a year and year basis. We are the Largest Global player out there. The category, food, we believe it can be large or even larger than the ridesharing category. Emily there are so many competitors that do exactly what you do in this market and other markets. What if you are just subsidizing our meals, and you dont win the market share, and this is just a giant, hungry money pit . [laughter] dara early on, people could have accused the rides business of the same. Out that the business, you see it with ourselves, with lyft, with etc. , it is moving toward a path of profitability. As you build these businesses so big, there is some subsidization that goes into the marketplace in order to create efficiencies. You need to get eaters, set of you need to get careers, you need to sign up restaurants, and there is investment early on. There is always competition in the categories. We have the advantage because we have hundreds of millions of consumers that we can introduced our brand and let them know that there is more to uber than just riding, there is eating and other areas to enjoy. Emily we havent heard a lot about scooters lately. What is the likelihood you are going to pull out of these businesses . Dara every business is going to have to execute and carry its weight so to speak. We are a big believer in micro mobility. It is an early days. We believe in electric bikes and scooters. And increasingly, i think the mayors of large cities around the world are going to be interested in ways that move people around the dont pollute or create traffic, and we believe micro mobility can be part of the solution. Emily our exclusive interview khosrowshahi. Dara i want to get to new york where bloombergs Eric Newcomer is standing by. Curious what stood out to you there. I found it interesting that he didnt indicate uber would be pulling back anywhere, but that it was scale and more scale that would lead them to profitability. Eric yeah, it is the fundamental challenge of uber, that it needs to be a growing company. It has to excuse the great losses, but then it needs to cut those losses at the same time. That is the challenge they face. Clearly, the hope is that the ridesharing business starts to contribute more and spend it elsewhere. They talk about being like amazon, but we just have to see that happen. It was a 5 billion plus gaap net loss in the First Quarter and that is on everybodys mind. Emily and uber has said over and over again that that was an unusual quarter, that we will not see that kind of lost again in the companys lifetime. That said, shares are still trading near an alltime low. They rose slightly today, but why arers investors not buying this . Eric i think with the economy being certain and stocks down overall in the last couple of weeks, there is concern, a lot uber,ief that goes into belief that other investors will give it a long leash to complete its vision. In a time of uncertainty, is there the appetite to bet on uber when there are so many risks . Emily do you buy the argument that uber is recession proof . Eric i think he makes a smart point, that it is a twosided marketplace, so if customers spend less, drivers might work for less. But theres the question of how little can you pay drivers . There is already so much pushback on uber. In california, we are seeing movement from uber to suggest its own legislation. Minimum income to counter legislation. So in places where uber is locking in the minimum bound of how much you can pay drivers, how responsive can it the on employment, and as you brought up, there are still concerns, drivers have to get quality cars to provide ubers service, and if those cars cost more money in down Economic Times or its harder for drivers to buy those cars, it shortens labor supplies. So there is all sorts of factors. Uber has seen this play out around the world, so they know a little bit more than us looking at one country or the next, but i dont think it is a certainty that they are recession proof. Emily this is the first time we daraearing from khosrowshahi since the federal charges against Anthony Levandowski. What did you make of what he said about the charges against andra lewandowski and also travis kalanick. Eric i was certainly surprised he said it seemed like andrew had taken files from google. Khosrowshahi was very clear that he thought uber had done its part to make sure those files come to from uber. And he made a very blunt statement, making the point that this happened before he was ceo, but it is amazing. This is going to hang over uber. This trial will be covered, and this is a big Silicon Valley moment, and it signals totallyrs path is it over, and about controversies could still come back up. Emily what are the things you will be watching to see if uber is delivering on its promise to be profitable . Not immediately, but eventually . Eric i think we need to see more data on the ridehailing business. I really do think that there is , that wewhat uber says should not expect them to be profitable in each business right now. I think the real question is, does uber provide enough granularity to understand that its old businesses can be as profitable . I dont think we truly understand that. There is not the breakout in the perspective of, here is london, here is where it started to modernize. We have been here at number of years. Here is when it started to monetize. Can they show in the core old business that it works . Emily thank you so much for that analysis. Coming up, President Trump has promised to relax restrictions on huawei. The companys Vice President explains why the chinese Telecom Giant should not be on the list, next. This is bloomberg. Emily the favorite of apple fans worldwide has been announced, and it is september 10. That is apple is unveiling new one iphones and potentially a slew of other products. It will all go down at the steve jobs theater of the companys headquarters in cupertino. Bloomberg has reported three new iphones will be unveiled. Earlier this year, President Trump blacklisted chinese smartphone maker huawei amid escalating trade tensions. As a result, multiple u. S. Companies stopped doing business with the Telecom Giant immediately. Now, President Trump has stated he will relax the restrictions. But relief seems doubtful. Bloombergs Caroline Hyde and scarlet fu asked what the u. S. Is losing out on with restrictions in place. I think if we look at the Global Smartphone market and you talk to some of our customers, very loyal customers over many years, you will find that the products we are offering are superior products with high quality and the features and functionality of all the other flagship phones at a competitive price. I think that is something that consumers are missing out here in the u. S. Both in the smartphone area as well as other products and technologies that we sell and support. Scarlet if you could be more specific on that. One big issue we have is the lack of Broadband Access for people in rural parts of the country, partly because companies do not want to pay for it. Why is it advantageous for Rural Communities in particular to use huawei gear . Tim there are a few reasons. Frankly, theres over 24 Million Consumers in the areas that huawei covers. We provide technology and capabilities for these operators in these regions because of our experience, many, many years of experience in rural china, building up several Chinese Communications networks. So, as we go forward, we are able to provide that expertise both in the Product Solutions that we offer that are scalable, both to high levels to large customers, but also to the small customers. Along with our services and support that we customize based on the needs of the customers. The role customers the rural customers are a small Customer Base themselves and are limited in their funding and capabilities and resources, so we help fill that gap. Scarlet a headline that crossed a couple minutes ago is u. S. Prosecutors are investigating huawei, potentially expanding their probe beyond existing criminal cases against huawei. Caroline this wraps into the issue of stealing intellectual property, which is the main accusation. I want to ask you, mr. Da nks, the new additional instances of alleged Technology Theft is this something that is new to you . How are you responding to prosecutors . Are you in touch with prosecutors in the u. S. Government . Tim i cant really comment on ongoing litigation. I believe that information is related to those investigations. What i can say is huawei is a leader in ip. We have over 90,000 patents globally. We have 20 of the global 5g essential patents, and we are a proponent of fair and equal licensing and so on. We license over 6 billion worth of ip from other companies, and we also sublicense our ipo to our ip to other companies. At about 1. 4 billion annually. We are concerned about ip theft as much as anyone because we do hold a significant number of patents, and we would like to see those issues addressed, but we are a proponent of, you know, of due process and handling of ip in appropriate manners. Scarlet final question to you. We have seen many u. S. Suppliers, whether it is micron or intel, finding loopholes to get around the ban on selling to you. What sorts of negotiations are you having with these u. S. Suppliers . Tim primarily, our ongoing communication with our u. S. Suppliers is just that, our continued partnership with these suppliers. I think the concern we have Going Forward is related to the impact this is going to have on the u. S. Economy. Were talking about 11 billion annually spent by huawei on goods and services in the u. S. With u. S. Companies. That is a significant amount of dollars in the u. S. Economy, but it also translates into a large number of jobs. If you look at economic indicators, that is equating to somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 jobs. And these are not typical manufacturing. These are highly paid, highly skilled jobs in the american economy, at a time when there is some question about the stability of the american economy. Emily that was huaweis Vice President of Risk Management and partner relations, tim danks. Still ahead, could instagram make facebook backing of ecommerce . We dig into the numbers, next. This is bloomberg. Emily two of the biggest names in the Technology World sparred thursday, on subjects ranging from the dangers of artificial intelligence, to the future of education, and the exploration of mars. Alibaba chair jack ma took a shot at Tesla Ceo Elon musks mars dreams. Take a listen. Fan ofi am not a mars because its easy to go to mars when you go on the top of the hills of the building. Just one step, you go to mars, but you will never be able to come back. Elon that is not how it works, sir. Jack we need heroes like you, but we need more heroes like us, working hard on the earth, improving things every day. Thats what i want. Emily on the subject of artificial intelligence, jack ma is betting that humans will prevail over machines, while musk fears doomsday is coming. Meantime, facebook is already the Biggest Social Network on the planet, but could it soon be the number one name in ecommerce . Think about it. Its marketplace already has more than 800 million visitors per month, more than the number of shoppers at alibaba, amazon, and ebay, and its secret weapon may be instagram. Bloomberg intelligence believes instagrams checkout shopping feature could surpass 1 billion in its first year. Couple that with a survey that says 10 or 20 of Internet Users are willing to shop directly on social media platforms. To discuss, bloomberg techs kurt wagner, who covers facebook for us, is here. How has progress been thus far . Kurt we dont know. They rolled out this check out each are just a few months ago. The idea is not even that facebook is taking a cut of these sales. The hope is advertisers will then spend more on advertising if they feel they can convert a sale on the app. That has always been facebooks thing. It just leads to more at dollars for them. Emily when you open instagram, you are doing Something Different than when you open amazon. It go to amazon, you are intending to buy. When you are just checking a seed. Kurt it is similar to pinterest in that it is more of an inspiration play. Maybe you are not actually shopping that you are in a mindset where you are ready to explore something new. You dont go there to specifically to buy something. At the same time, you might be convinced based on the feeling you have going through your feed that those shoes or that sure looks cool. Emily we have talked about facebook marketplace, which is sort of like craigslist on facebook, but youre dealing with friends and friends of friends, and that is supposedly going very well. Kurt i have heard the same. 800 Million People use it, which is kind of crazy. Every time i go on there, it does look a little bit like a yard sale situation, but i have sold things on their bag, and have actually had incredible success in getting people to reach out, much more than craigslist. I dont know if it is just the social dynamic of being able to see someones photo, use a service like messenger that feels more familiar than emailing some random email, but it does seem to hit a need, which is theres a lot of people with extra stuff, and a lot of people looking to buy stuff in the neighborhood. Might as well put them together if we already know who they are. Emily facebook has been trying to unify the infrastructure of its messaging services. Under the same roof. How would all these Commerce Services potentially come together . Kurt i think there is a Huge Customer service play to this. Any time you buy something online, you usually get an email receipt. If you have Customer Service issues, you have to go to the website, figure out who to call, who to message. It is a little bit disjointed. Imagine if you could go to a retailer, you can pay, and basically have the whole process through a messaging service. I think that is part of a vision. I dont think it is the whole thing, but i do think they see the potential for taking different parts of the Online Shopping experience and putting them into a place you are already familiar with. Emily could this be a good news story in a sea of bad news stories . [laughter] kurt too soon. Right now, it creates more use case for people and advertisers. We will see if they put some dollar signs behind this at some emily thank you so much. Point. Interesting context. That does it or this edition of bloomberg technology. We are Live Streaming on twitter. Be sure to follow our global breaking news network tictoc, on , twitter. 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. The following is a paid program. Announcer the following is a paid presentation brought to you by rare collectibles tv. The California Gold rush is considered to be one of the most impactful events to affect americas young economy turning its first 100 years. It has had a longlasting impression in numismatic history as well. The people of california soon needed a way to standardize the value of the new gold. They set up offices. The offices declared the value