Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Best Of Bloomberg Technology 20180

Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Best Of Bloomberg Technology 20180210

But first, to our lead. Snap spiked after a blowaway fourthquarter earnings report, with revenues topping estimates for the First Time Since the company went public almost a year ago. The earnings were buoyed by momentum in the ad business and user growth. Snap said fourthquarter sales jumped 72 to 785 million. Its daily active users are up 18 from one year ago. We broke it down with a market analyst and a bloomberg reporter sarah frier, who covers snap. What did snap get right this quarter . Well, they have been transitioning their advertising business to make it more automatic, more programmatic, selling ads automatically, which means they can have a bigger base of advertisers. The price of ads has gone down, but the volume in the amount of time people look at these ads is going up, so snap has been able to really make this work for them this quarter for the first time. Deborah, what is jumping out to you . We know they have been doing a lot, the whole redesign, perhaps we are seeing some of the results of that, but what do you think is really driving these results . You know, i think it is a couple factors. First of all, snapchat really needed it this quarter, because the previous quarters were not so good for them. So this is a super positive sign for the company. I really feel that users are still heavily engaged with snapchat. Thats proven out by the increase in user growth rate this quarter, and i think that advertisers, some of them have been skeptical, but they still see snapchat as being a place where they can be super experimental, or they can try new things, and where they can really start to engage with that super important youth and teen audience. Im looking at the afterhours chart on my bloomberg, still up 20 . The big question, can they sustain this over several quarters, not just one . I think that is still a huge question, because this company has not proven that it really has a lot of visibility into the future of its business. Prior quarters included big surprises, nothing to show us that future quarters wont as well. They still have a long road ahead of them, and they are competing in a market dominated by facebook and google. Yes, those big players have advertisers wanting alternatives for their money. Snap is marketing itself as an alternative, much cheaper ads, but it is still very competitive, and instagram is a growing far past what snap has in terms of products that snap invented. Right. Instagram and facebook, both accused of lifting some of snaps product ideas and executing them, sometimes even better. Debra, what do you think the challenges our first snap going forward, in terms of what you will be watching . First of all, to put a few numbers on what sarah just said, we are forecasting that instagram will have 8 billion in worldwide ad revenue this year, compared to about 1. 8 billion for snapchat. 1. 5 billion for snapchat. So there is quite a lot of gap between the companies in terms of advertising revenue worldwide. However, snapchat is growing at roughly the same rate, about 90 growth this year compared to about a similar amount for instagram. So to put those numbers on it. To get back to your question, i think the competition with instagram and facebook is obviously something we are watching very, very closely. We are also watching because net snapchat up until now has been very aggressive with new products and new innovation, and we are starting to see things like maps not perform as well as maybe the company had hoped. We saw spectacles not perform as well as the company had hoped. So the question is can snapchat actually continue to be aggressively innovative and successful at those innovations and stay a step ahead of the competition . And what about the leadership turnover at the company . Is that a concern to you . To me, not so much. Obviously you always want strong leaders at the company. E focus on looking at to two factors, changes in ad revenue and user changes. Both of those were positive this quarter, so i dont think the changes in the management of the company are something that is impacting either of those factors. Sarah, evan spiegel made it clear he knows people who work at the company want to hear from him more. Do you think we will start seeing more from him . I think theres a lot of confusion of the company right now because of this redesign that you mentioned earlier. It was supposed to be done by the end of the year, and now we are seeing it wont be fully rolled out until the end of the first quarter. There are clearly some things that are missing deadlines. There has been that management departure you mentioned. I think the Company Still has a lot to work out in terms of how it grows. There have also been a few rounds of layoffs recently at the company. Emily apple is pulling back on buying Corporate Bonds with its overseas cash as it prepares to bring the money home to the United States, this according to people familiar with the matter. About 157 billion of its 285 billion in cash is invested in corporate debt, making it a leading lender. Investors in Investment Grade Corporate Bonds have been bracing for a market with fewer buyers since the new u. S. Tax law was enacted late last year. Coming up, has the Metoo Movement gone too far . Our exclusive conversation with facebook coo Sheryl Sandberg, and her new call to action. Plus, the paypal cofounder sits down with us on his opinions about diversity and meritocracy have evolved in Silicon Valley. This is bloomberg. Emily the winklevoss twins are not giving up on cryptocurrency, despite bitcoin plunging. We are long on the space. We dont sit there and watch the price day today. We are in this for the long haul, whether it is a decade or many decades. Like i said earlier, we remember when bitcoin was 8, so as far as we are concerned it is all gravy. Emily the twins are early bitcoin investors and at one point their net worth totaled 1 billion each when Digital Currency was at an alltime high. They also told Bloomberg Television that increased regulation is good for Digital Currency. As one of the cofounders of paypal, max levchin grew to be one of the most powerful men in technology, taking a center seat in Silicon Valley. In that position, his opinion around diversity and hiring has evolved greatly. I covered his story in my book brotopia breaking up the boys club in Silicon Valley, now out in stores. We caught up with him and talked about how things operate at paypal. I would describe my efforts at the time, with the benefit of hindsight, as generally unaware. I was not particularly concerned with the gender balance or any kind of balance. I was trying to hire good people as quickly as i could, and the one great source of excellent coders i knew was my alma mater, from where i came less than two years prior. So i was actively vacuuming up the best and brightest that i spent time with in school, which all happened to be met. There were men of lots of diverse ethnic origins, but there were very few women even in my class, which was quite large, and the few that i did know all seemed to have switched majors from Computer Science to Something Else before they graduated. Emily do you think the idea of meritocracy is problematic in Silicon Valley . One of the things people who worked at paypal told me was this belief it was a meritocracy, when in fact you were hiring a lot of people you knew. Meritocracy in a vacuum is not a bad idea. I think being able to say honestly that the people who are here have earned their spot is very powerful, saying you are the best of the best. The downside of meritocracy is if that is the only criteria on you choose, you select the people you know, because you dont know how to reach out into other groups, communities, other flavors of engineers. Youre going to select from a fairly shallow pool. We ran out of candidates because i ran out of male friends, and there was really not anyone else to recruit. Emily one of the most interesting parts of your story to me is where you talked about what happened at slide, where you said there were some br os, and there was a broy culture that developed, and you took action. What happened . What triggered my attention to all these things was really slide, where i started out with basically a neutral point of view, the culture, the shape the culture will shape itself, we will get some right people in. And while at paypal i was too young, we were going to quickly, and i didnt have enough of a worldview to understand what was being shaped. At slide, i had seen enough of these companies and i realized this was forming itself without any guidance, and that was not what i wanted to do. Hard drinking, some of it sexist behaviors, it was really not at all what i was comfortable with. And when i tried to gently steer it, it wasnt going the way i away on its own. That is when i started realizing, if i dont take matters very seriously and start pushing out and drawing some very bright lines on what is ok and what is expected, it wouldnt cure itself. Emily you have taken a different approach now at affirm. You are much more focused on hiring and promoting women. What are you doing differently at affirm that you didnt do at paypal . So the most important thing that we did at affirm was we took culture as a firstclass citizen. There was never a moment when we didnt ask ourselves, what does this decision, what does this process, what does this framing do to our culture . How do we think of our culture . A firm was the First Company irm was the First Company this might sound embarrassing, but it was the First Company where i wrote down our core values before we hired. All companies in the past, the culture emerged, and sometimes it was better and sometimes it was not. With affirm, i came in with the view that i have to control the culture, what i wanted to be when it grows up. Even if we have no employees, i want to know it is a place i am proud of rather than when i am trying to fix. Emily how do we get more people, mostly men, to understand this problem and do something about it . What do you think needs to be done . What do ceos and investors need to do . So i think theres a bunch of things, and i dont know if i have an exhaustive list. Think just being aware of the fact that it is a talent war, and the way you win it isnt just by saying i will go back to the same old well and get the same people out. The way to win it, at least what has worked for us, is you widen the net you cast. That early leads to embracing diverse city and can you find diverse city and Inclusion Diversity and inclusion. You find diverse candidates in diverse places. Emily my conversation with max levchin, cofounder of paypal, now ceo of affirm. Facebook coo Sheryl Sandberg has a new call to action in the wake of the Metoo Movement, all about getting more men to mentor women. Sandbergs lean in initiative has published a survey showing the majority of men are uncomfortable working with women were mentoring them, something sandberg calls unacceptable. We sat down for an exclusive interview to talk about her new mentorher movement. Take a listen. Now is a watershed moment. Metoo has shined a light on the need to end Sexual Harassment, forever, and and that is critically important. It is also critically important, as you write in your book, that we get more women in leadership roles. Today we are publishing a survey done by lean in and surveymonkey that says that almost half of male managers in the u. S. Are common worko activities with women, and it is the reaction to whats going on, men stop mentoring women. That is unacceptable, because we need more women in leadership roles, and women have long gotten less mentorship and sponsorship then men, particularly women of color. Now is the time to invest more in women, not less. So mentorher, which we are launching today, calls on all leaders to mentor women, and also to make access equal. Our survey also shows that a senior man today is 3. 5 times more likely to hesitate to have dinner with the female junior colleague than a junior male colleague, and five times less likely to feel they can travel with the junior female colleague then a male colleague. We have to make access equal. If you are not comfortable having dinner alone with women, dont do it with men. Have lunches and breakfasts with everyone. Or have dinner but make sure everyone is behaving appropriately. What matters is that access for women is equal, because now is our time to invest more, not less, in getting more women into leadership roles. Emily you shared your own experiences with harassment, a hand on your leg under the table at a meeting, unwanted visits to your hotel room to the point where you had to call security. 25 of the people in your survey think the reports we have heard so far of Sexual Harassment are just the tip of the iceberg. Do you agree . And what do you think is the next chapter here . I feel fortunate that everyone i have ever worked for has been not just appropriate, but supportive. And my next seconds sentenced to myself is that shouldnt be lucky, that should be basic. Because every woman and man deserves a safe and secure workplace, and that needs to change. But in order for it to change, we need institutional, long ranging change. So we need companies of all types, organizations of all types to adopt clear policies, policies that when reports are made, things are investigated, swift action is taken. We need victims to feel safe. No retribution, the Legal Support they need, the social support they need, and we need to really end the culture of complicity, where people look the other way and not feel responsible. We are all responsible for what goes on in the workforce, and importantly, we need more women in leadership. It is not a surprise to figure out that organizations that have more women in leadership roles have lower levels of Sexual Harassment and better worklife policies and perform at a higher rate. Because more diverse teams perform better. So in this watershed moment, we need to make sure that we really, really continue to invest and get more women in leadership roles. Emily some people have complained that the Metoo Movement has gone too far, that some of the stories that have been told shouldnt be told, and this is more like a public lynching. What do you think . I think the question is not if it has gone too far, but far enough. Because this cant just be a moment in time where people raise their voice. These brave women that have raised their voices want longstanding change, not just for the day or month, of the but for the years and decades. And that means we have to have the right institutional policies, and those policies have to include due process, investigation. Things need to be investigated and swift action needs to be taken. And importantly, we need to end the culture of complicity. We need to end the process of looking the other way. It is all of our responsibility. Emily ed williams, the cofounder of twitter, told me in my book that he thinks if there were more women on the early twitter team early on, maybe Online Harassment and trolling wouldnt be such a problem, but they werent thinking about this enough. They were thinking about great things that could be done with their products, not how it might be used to send Death Threats. My understanding is also that when you got to facebook, you started asking questions about the content policies, and that may well be why facebook does a much better job of this than twitter. How do you think the internet might be different if women had been more involved and in more equal numbers building it early on . Do you think Online Harassment and trolling would be the problem it is today . I think the data is super clear that more women in leadership roles in all industries have Huge Positive benefits. Higher performance for companies, better worklife policies, lower levels of Sexual Harassment. And i think women play an Important Role in looking out for some of the genderbased harassment that women have long faced. I think facebook is lucky because our leader, mark zuckerberg, takes these issues every bit as seriously as i have. But do i think Silicon Valley would be a better place if there were more women running more companies . Absolutely. I think every industry would be a better place if there were more women running more companies, and more women in government. And when we fought to get here but women are 20 of the u. S. Congress. And i think we often suffer from the tyranny of low expectations. I remember when women got 20 of the seats in the senate in 2012, and all the articles were like, women taking over the senate. Wait a second, 50 of the population with 20 of the seats is not a takeover, it is a gap. And i think we need to make sure that in this watershed moment, we make the longstanding change we need. No Sexual Harassment, ever, for anyone, and investing in women so that women get their share of the leadership roles. We are very far from that, but this is a moment where we can invest more to make it happen. Emily that was our exclusive interview with facebook coo Sheryl Sandberg. Still ahead, with the bitter uberwaymo court battle playing out with former uber Ceo Travis Kalanick taking the stand. His grilling, ahead. And if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. This is bloomberg. Emily this week, softbank confirmed it will take its Japanese Telecom Operation Public within a year, to separate the companys activity broadly into investing and t

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