Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20240712

Squawk alley. Were going to begin this morning with literally an epic battle royal they are claiming anticompetitive behavior after launching a new way to buy accessories giving users a discount but cutting out the app store in the process this, of course, violates the terms of both app stores that take a 30 cut of digital sales. They both removed fortnite as a result epic games responded with lawsuits and a parody of apples famous 1984 ad platform unification directives for years they have given us their sums, their labor, their dreams in exchange we have taken now a tribute out of it, out of our control. This power is ours and ours alone. We shall prevail see what they did there . Lets bring in alex. You have get with the app stores for a long time and you continue to what side of this do you come down on . I am now the little guy so i have to be careful with what i say, but i like the odd of challenging apple and google and getting them to reduce the tax they charge all of the developers there are two potential issues here the tax is decided by apple and google and it can be changed at any time there is no other way to get on the devices. And sectly kind of similar to ticketmaster in the 90s. Pearl jam went against them. They control the eco system as well as the ability to advertise in their store to get your app downloaded i love apples clean well lit ecosystem. But if there is a bigger player with leverage to help the rest of us run a more successful and more profitable business i would be all for it. Im stuck a little on how you started. You said im the little guy and i have to be careful what i say, why do you say that i can easily be kicked out of the app store. There is a variety of small difficult to understand clauses. And just about anyone that has dealt with apple or google know that you can be yanked with a big explanation and you have to just keep trying to see if you can get a human to speak to you to get back into the store david is on vacation right now, and might not weigh in, but you announced on twitter, he announced last week that he was on the hey app they appeared to patch that up and now you have epic games. This is even bigger in my view they have a Cross Platform game, and they have their own eco system and economy inside the game that rivals the power of app apples app store at its height tim sweeney is doing this very, very deliberately. If you follow tim on twitter or in general you know he has been on this campaign for quite some time, since before they started their own ecosystem, where they let developers opt into their fee system he feels that fortnite is large enough and scaled enough and that apple needs fortnite more than google needs apple. He wanted to be kicked out of the store so they could make this very public and so they could have a lawsuit so where does this end up . I think given the are scrutiny that apple is facing, and that apple is considered the good guy, and google is considered opportunistic, i think there is a very good chance that they will come back and reduce the fees and opt into something firm i guess im an internal optimist in hoping for that, but i think this is a pretty inexpensive way for both apple and google to say listen, listen, listen we heard you guys, we heard the developers, and were going to dot rig do the right thing alex, that may be very optimistic nap may not be the tone that were hearing from apple right now. Tim sweeney was on our show not that long ago. Apple has locked down and crippled the ecosystem by im posing a monopoly on this distribution and monotization of the software and theyre keeping things from being developed in their ecosystem by excludeing competitors from each aspect of their business that theyre protecting yeah, we did have some foreshadowing i think the spotify example is particularly strong, spotify has been the leader in subscription communication, and apple launched a competitor, and they dont have to pay themselves ae 30 tax so apple can operate on a 30 higher gross margin. To a lesser extent they launched a video service, that eco system is a little different. In the case of spotify, no pun intended, it is apples to apples the same song, the same fee, but youre keeping 30 more. And for the case of spotify, they take 30 of all of the revenue. There is no question that tim is correct. But it is becoming harder and harder to defend giving how they are. Right, well alex, it may be harder to defend, but we know how important, especially here at cnbc, how important the Services Revenue is at a time for apple when were seeing saturation in the smart phone market i like your optimism, but what makes you think that apple will back down here two things. Thing one is the potential threat of government of regulati regulation i think this is a tricky one google they could force google to spin off youtube and other services it is hard tore er to do with a. They will break up any meaningful way but google might move first. If they change their policy there is suddenly significant pressure on apple. They have a larger revenue share. And the second one which i think is more important to someone like tim cook that cares about the perception of apple is when the consumers revolt this has been a battle with the chief technology officers, and now 14yearolds are going to say what the hell, fortnite is no longer available in the app store and that pain will not be insignificant. What epic games has done here is, i think, unique. They put the consumer in the middle i said that it doesnt matter because to the consumer the app store works great. I might also argue that there is a huge amount of users that will be upset about fortnite. What about we chat in china, right . That is a whole country that could soon not have access to that app that is arguably a lot more popular. Do you think that will have an effect too will apple make concessions for ten cent because they had to we chat is more regulations because there is regulations in the government that is a way that would have more more difficult to model the apple position in china is much more tenuous than apples position in the u. S. When it comes to market share. Most people will not switch their device because theyre favorite app is not available. In the case of we chat that is a environment for every consumer in china its how you pay for things. You get in touch with your family and friends if there is no we chat you cant youre not going to get the device plus there is are meaningful and significant alternatives to apple when it comes to premium phones in china. This is tencent and then the u. S. And Chinese Government, and i think the Number One Party that apple will listen to, it pains me to say, in china, is the Chinese Government yeah, thats the only party you really get to listen to. I might want to sum it up this way. I think the argument from apple and from google play is Something Like we created these app stores, the ecosystems, made them safe, made them easy, if you want to play here pay us the fee. Should there be a right. A consumer and third party right to retail choice on these computing platforms . Should there be a right to have a secondary app store if you dont want to play by apples rules. Should google and apple be able to install native apps on their devices. I think apple has some real credibility in that, they have done a phenomenal job in creating a review process that makes it very difficult for Third Party Apps to steal their data and do a variety of bad things you have on your pc, right . And it took microsoft a long time to get there, and the iphone and the ipad have avoided those negative app developer behaviors. Sometimes their accidental and sometimes theyre inintentional. That said the concept of the app store or a native app is invented that apple decided to invent for a wall garden ecosystem. I might argue they didnt intend to create it. Steve jobs wanted web apps, he didnt want an app store and developers pushed him into doing it but if you recall back in the day when they launched they had apps, but they were built by apple. But youre right, apple at the time advantaged their own apps aggressively more than the web App Ecosystem that was very poor so there is absolutely a way of creating, and google talked about it, a chrome based App Ecosystem where you have a lightweight environment that operates entirely off of chrome. And im a little on apples side candidly i prefer for there to be a clean, well lit garden and Developers Like myself that work really hard to make really well designed apps for apple and google and would prefer a Good Environment where we had been validated. Security it important, too. I hear that. Alex, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me coming up, you may remember them as the vaccine maker that the president lealgedly tried to poach from germany stay with us get realtime insights in your customized view of the market. Its smarter Trading Technology for smarter trading decisions. Fidelity. Curevac set to go public today. The ceo joins us now ahead of the open of trading for the company. Congrats or your initial public offering, nice to have you this morning, mr. Haas. You have been focused on a vaccine for rabis, tumors, and why bother with covid . So many other companies are focused on it, why not continue to be focused on what you have been focused on . Thank you for having me we want to make the most of our technology we have had it for 20 years, and this is a unique opportunity for us to make a difference to show this Technology Platform can trance for transform the medicine that is what what rna is all about. So far rna has not created a vaccine that has been approved in the United States or europe, is that correct . Yes, but that is what innovation does. It starting somewhere, the first product will soon come and were planning to have our product in the market in the middle of next year that is pretty fast and we can produce it tell me about manufacturing what are you doing for manufacturing and what advances do you bring to the market we started in 2006. And there was no manufacturing available and this is what were doing. Two years ago we started with an industrial scale facility. We never thought we would trigger such a request so we know how to produce and and how to broadly produce it, and it provides already quite a few doses. Are you obligated, if you are successful, in terms of developing a vaccine for the virus in providing it only to jer ma germans . No, this is an Equity Investment finally, what are you doing with the money, right . Its not being sold secondaryly right . What are you going to do with it we, were already working on the field. And the other clinics as well and the antantigens and part o this upscaling our manufacturing. This keeps us busy and requires a lot of investment. Congrats again on the initial public offering. The San Francisco District Attorney behind that joining us in just a femite sy th usw nus,tawi vo elevate your senses. The audi a6. Get exceptional offers at your local audi dealer. Im frank holland. Here is your cnbc update at this hour robert trump, the younger brother of the president has been hospitalized. He is said to be very ill and the president will be visiting his brother in new york later today. The u. S. , canada, and mexico have agreed to limit travel to contain the spread of coronavirus. Initially implemented in march and british vacationers will be required to quarantine for 14 days infections in britain are also rising today that is our cnbc news update for this hour. Squawk alley continues in just a moment San Franciscos District Attorney bringing forward a ruling that people would have to be independent contractors instead of employees thank you for joining us this morning. I cant help be think if we see a california or a San Francisco with no door dash, up ber, or lift, the gig economy will take a major hit in the state that may be the out come, are you concerned that california and San Francisco could be undesirable for the dig economy . Thanks for having me on, california and the bay area have always been home to innovation and to new technology and they will continue to be so but the reality here is that we have companying that simply fail to comply with law and we are seeking to immediately require doordash to comply with state law. It is pretty straightforward we need them to treat their employees like any other employee they had over a year to come into compliance with the law and theyre trying to change the law, but if their Business Model doesnt allow them to comply with the law then this is not a sustainable Business Model do you agree that if they cant change their Business Model they should not be operating in San Francisco. Its not fair to other companies and businesses that are operating. They are acting like laws dont apply to them. Labor laws apply to them and their current Business Model cheats and puts their business at riske, it cheats taxpayers, and it unfairly competes with other company thats are complying with the law we welcome companies, innovation, Big Companies willing to engage with their workforce and with other actors in their marketplace in a way that is on a level Playing Field, and it creates their employees with integrity i wonder if the strategy from uber and lift, it seems to be to shut down temporarily and then change the law so they are in compliance with it if they succeed in doing that, in showing people they dont like an uber, lyft, and doordash less world, will you change then of course, were enforcing the law as it exists and were not going to stand by and watch as Major Companies deprive taxpayers of about 7 billion per year in payroll revenue. If they change the law, they change the law, but were not going to allow them to comply with the law just because they dont like it. I think they would argument there are all kinds of extensions for freelance time workers. Freelance work is important. Consulting and this kind of work is important maybe it doesnt have to come from them being employees. Youre absolutely right that freelance work has its place. Were in a new normal. You know what else is really important in this moment is Unemployment Benefits. When Companies Like these decline to pay their fair share, what we have seen is that state Unemployment Benefits have run out and that the funds that corporation thats are playing by the rules and abiding the law are paying into are totally depleted as a result all of these folks that are employees for door dash dont have the benefit of state Insurance Plans. That is not acceptable they had over a year to come into compliance. It is more than enough time for companies that are supposed to be at the cutting edge of technology and innovation. They know what the law is and theyre actively trying to change it. They can do that, theyre allowed to do that, but what we will not tolerate is them refusing to comply with the law. The same money that any other employer is paying mr. District attorney you said just a few moements ago tht you want a level Playing Field so why are you only targeting doordash here. If you force them to shut down or bring on all of their constru contractors it would give uber and post mates a major leg up. We Just Launched our unit, there will be more lawsuits to come, dont worry about that sorry, i dont think that answers my question though will you bring action against uber and postmates, that feels like it would make the Playing Field uneven were working on other lawsuits, you cant file them all at the same time the City Attorney and the attorney general already have similar actions pending. But not ubers food Delivery Business we hope you will come back and talk to us more as it plays out. Up next, the university of rhode island talking about whether or not students should go back to soochl. Dont go anywhere, were back in two. Welcome back, colleges around the country trying to decide how and when they will open a school with over 17,000 students nice to have you with us this morning. Give us your plan at the university of rhode island right now for how youre starting and when youre going to do it happy to do it and thanks for the invitation to join you our plan is one that is the result of a lot of part of faculty and staff. Were emphasizing public safety. Were following all of the recommendations so far of the Rhode Island Department of health were inviting students back were planning on having 4,000 students living on the campus of our 17,000 total count that includes undergraduates and graduates. We will have a variety of learning options for students in person chances, face to face, we will have blended classes that will be a combination of face to face and Online Technology enhanced learning, and fully online classes we have given faculty and students a variety of options to construct their schedule some faculty are teaching all online, some are all face to face, some are both. Students can take Classes Online or face to face. Were emphasizing face to face instruction for freshman and having them on campus. We think it is incredibly important for them to be launched in a Community Setting where they can be with their piers and enjoy the campus environment fully. Or at least as fully as you can. Well have students back in a week and a half or so, and well finish up in personal instruction at thanksgiving break and complete the semester online got it. You know everybody has a plan, which is great, you seem to have a strong one i wonder when, lets say the virus, there is a number of students that have it or it is spreading. Do you have a plan for that . Do you anticipate continuing on . Will you quarantine those students what happens very good question and youre right to make the observation. It is really the virus that is controlling this it is not us there are a lot of factors that we cannot control and were planning for that. Yes, we have a number of metrics that we will use if we need to did decide we have hundreds of rooms set aside for tubts to isolate or quarantine in. We have a rigorous testing plan that will be in place. We managed to get the equipment necessary to implement it. It took a lot of effort. We had to purchase trailers, machines, kits, get the ppe, but we assembled all of that so well be testing aggressively and a key metric will be if we start to get near capacity and then we will have to give it back to online instruction there are a couple of other things we will look at, too, but that will be a critical metric for us how quickly can you treat th students, will there be a rolling regime of testing to test whether or not the virus is spreading on campus . All of those things, we will test everyone that is symptomatic. And we will do surveillance testing as well. Hundreds per week, to monitor the health and wellbeing of our students well test athletes and we have the capacity in our turn around time right now, one to two days. Also you also enforce things like potential distancing and ppeus . This is a determine grafic big on risk and big on socializing are ras in toward of keeping people apart. Our Student Leadership is phenomenal our Student Senate is a fantastic group of students. Our fraternity and Sorority Council are fantastic. We have been working very closely with them throughout the summer we will have expectations to share. We will have a pledge that asks opportunities to acknowledge things like wearing masks, even while working out, at all times, maintaining social distancing, retaining from large gatherings. We adopted our student conduct code so that they will understand the expectations of living together, and it can be dealt with quickly question sus ped if need be. Well see them, coming up, an expectation of all of the members of our community. You answered one of my questions, which was how far does enforcement go. You out lined a number of outlines, can you give us a requested of the costs we refunded about eight Million Dollars in housing and dining fees we spent millions more preparing the campus believe it or not, we spent a lot of money making more Parking Spaces for the students that have to commute because they cant live here. We purchased the trailers and the equipment. So we invested many millions of dollars in and thousands and thousands of hours to prepare the campus to reopen it is a challenging time for sure. Another thing that we have done is invested millions in equipping our classrooms for combinations of both online and face to face hearings. They can alternate so we have a lot of Great Technology in almost all of our classrooms we spent a lot of money in air handling so we made a lot of investments to keep people safe and healthy to the extent that we can, and also to improve the learning environment. We will be putting up large outdoor tents for outdoor dining, for instance, to allow students to have a place to go and sit in a relatively safe environment where they can sit outside and have a meal and those will be set up in the next couple of weeks to prepare for the fall yeah, so many things that have gone on in the summer, such an unusual summer as well. Thank you for taking the time, thank you. Thank you, we wish you well up next the company trying to steal Silicon Valleys top talent and bring them to canada. Well explain after thbrk. E ea if you have been down highway 101 recently you may have seen some billboards that are working to lure top Silicon Valley employees to canada ian, good morning. You named a few of canadas success stories, but there are a number of canadian founders that left and chose the u. S. To build their businesses a few examples there, but why has canada not been able to keep entrepreneurs. The original choice was to go to the valley, raise money, and stay that had to do with the maturity of the eco system and the innovation of the ecosystem in canada at this time we have people in almost every cohort and the vast majority are coming back for business now. I wonder what is happening on the immigration front. There has been a lot of drama around what will happen with students that come in from other countries. Will they be able to stay . What will happen with certain visas. Are you able to capture extra talent first, i want to start by saying im sorry, but that is the focus of what were trying to do. There is a hightech, high potential workers and with the changes in that, and we see it as a tremendous opportunity to say to those people hey, you know, bring us your tired were your poor, we would love to have you in canada. There is lots and lots of exciting jobs and great companies. I understand that this is taking on new importance, but really this campaign has been in place for years. I republican a lot of people in Silicon Valley telling me they how many of them exactly zero what are some of the tangible ways that youve seen canada attract tech talent whether thats in the number of unicorns and leaving shopify aside . What we are seeing is the net gain over the last couple of years coming to canada with this shift in the visa, potentially people will not be able to work that does create fear of uncertainty. We have immigration equivalent which is very, very quick with almost no red tape issuing visas within two weeks we see this as an opportunity to say we would love to have them here i think that america has won in the last decades because of its abilities to attract and retain the worlds smarest people wed like to get in that game. Canada doesnt have the same record of antitrust as the United States does could that attract more engineers to the country i dont think so. Its not about specific policies we are exceptionally comfortable with diversity i think theres a different social contract in canada. On the face, we look almost like north americans but when you scratch on the surface you see much more inclusive and cooperative focus on equity and diversity in this country than we do in the u. S we think that will be appealing to a lot of people we saw the walk out of facebook and we think people will start voting with their feet thanks so much for being with us this morning. Thanks for having me. Canada making the diversity argument versus the u. S. Welcome to 2020. Another ipo as we await Duck Creek Technologies opening trade. The ceo joins us othn e other side of this break stay with us come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. 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What is the particular challenge that your company is solving for in this environment . Well, were very proud to serve the property and casualty Insurance Industry its a vital insurance to protect people and businesses. What we do at duck creek is provide Technology Solutions for pnc carriers we expect superior experience bring new products to market as well as streamline their overall operations and ultimately undergo an overall Digital Transformation the Business Model and the profit model talk to me about that. Were not going to worry about the stock today. This is a long term journey to us to be an industry leader. I think another question you think about is why do investors find duck creek to be very appealing. I think its for two reasons number one, its massive market. Theres over 2. 4 trillion of global premium we see about 88 billion to spend in the overall sector and duck creek has the leading sass solution for insurance carriers. That gives us line of sight to about 15 billion of annual recurring revenue. Were in the early innings of a transition of carriers running their technology in the cloud and were leading the way so i think it just leads to a great opportunity for duck creek your stock is up more than 60 in its debut i know that duck creek does software as aservice but do yo envision going to direct to consumer such as a lemonade in the future we dont. Were a Technology Provider for Insurance Companies so we dont sell insurance ourselves we also have ease of use of our platform we know that we can help carriers themselves do their Business Operations more efficiently. Mike, i realize you may not want to comment on the stock price although 50 right now is pretty significant did you underprice this thing at 27 give me a sense as to why its soaring so much and whether youre frustrated that you could have taken in a bit more money im not at all. Like i said, we entered into this very grateful that we have an opportunity to take the company public. Its an industry that helps protect people in businesses were going to serve the greater good in the long term. Well, mike, it is quite a debut on a day when the major indices are treading water at best the ipo is up. Congratulations to Duck Creek Technologies thank you as i mentioned, take a look at the mayjor averages the s p is just about flat the nasdaq down about a third of a percent. Were watching those if you want to take a look at whats happening with tech, stocks as well, there are a few names, including Applied Materials in the semis that are higher lets get to scott and the half. Thanks so much welcome to the halftime report. The man who called this market move is back with a new target for stocks will tom lee be on the money again. Well speak to him in a moment and debate the big call. Joining me for the hour are stephanie link, jim, pete and rob with ubs private Wealth Management one of forbes top 100 advisers