Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Technology 20240713

The ceo says it is part of the plan. He tells wall street to look for the long game. And, many state and local elections are taking place tuesday. In our electioneering series, we examine free speech versus falsehoods when it comes to political ads. To ban or allow . It is pitting facebook against twitter. First, uber tanked on tuesday after failing to prove itself to wall street. While the ridehailing app is projecting profitability by 2021, it did just not seem to be enough. Shares hitting a record intraday loss. The reported a rocky quarter on for more, i want to bring in an monday. Mkm partners executive director. Walk me through the share price action tuesday. What is your take . Thank you for having me. I think that what uber did was, i had of its ipo lockups ahead of its three ipo lockups, they should have reported a good quarter but they reported a mixed quarter. They had higher take rates which led to a beat in revenue. It was a mixed quarter. Ahead of lockups, investors are not willing to stick around for a longer time given tomorrow, an estimated 800 million shares will be for sale. Thinking about how many shares are off in the options. Taylor bear with me because i know you are on the phone, but i want to show a chart you are to the bloomberg terminal audience showing the market cap of the Company Versus the value of the free float. Right now, it looks like there billion ofut 5. 5 free float outstanding. How much of the price action seems to be a technical issue around the lockup ending versus the fundamentals that you were also highlighting . Rohit it is both. I would add a third factor. The third factor is regulatory overhang. Issues the company is facing in San Francisco, london and new york. Three issues the company is facing. Technical, somewhat mixed fundamentals, and what is happening with the regulatory environment. In the near term there will be more shares coming down the pike. I agree with the investors bailing out on the stock today. Taylor do you think there is so much pressure on these recent companies that are ipoing to be profitable, that no matter what they say, nothing is good enough right now . Rohit i think there is a factor of how much you are going to believe in the story. Most of these names, they have been great stories. In terms of the story, we want to see execution. We want to see a clear pathway. I think uber is taking steps, but baby steps right now. We see the Company Getting to profitability, we see some numbers trending in the right direction but it is very slow. Taylor rohit will stay with me because i also want to pivot to another company out with earnings today, peloton. They are forecasting Strong Revenue growth and they reported a narrower loss than expected for the quarter. We met up with ceo john foley and asked about the report. John it will be profitable over the next couple of years in the u. K. And canada. Our tread businesses subscale from our manufacturing perspective so it has lower margins but as it gets to scale, the margins and Unit Economics go up. We dont need to launch more products or more platforms. We may choose to invest on those things over time but it is not needed for profitability. To lower prices . We have free trials being offered. How fierce is competition . How fierce how essential is it that you win the scale in markets like u. K. And germany . John right now, we dont feel we have a true competitor, a likeminded competitor. A textbased wellcapitalized company. It has always been the question of, should you lower the price on the peloton bike . I found that the company has been incredibly academic to think about lowering the price. When you double the company in size every year, including last quarter, 103 topline growth, it is somewhat academic to think about lowering the price when you are selling them as fast as you can make them at the price point. The value members see when they buy one, they can buy them for 58 per month and you can divide by two because your living partner also rides. 29 per month for the hardware and 39 per month for the subscription but for a household, less than 50 per adult for unlimited boutique fitness classes with the best bike, software, instructors in the world. It is a pretty good Value Proposition at the current price point. Taylor that was peloton ceo john foley. Speaking to caroline hyde. You are staying with me, give your thoughts on the share price reaction. You have a stock today off almost 8 , decent fundamentals from the company. What do you make of it . Rohit i agree. A goodpany did report quarter. Objectively speaking, the numbers tell a very good story. The company is growing revenue year on year, five quarters in a row, having stable Gross Margins with rising Gross Margins on the subscription side. Things are trending in the right direction. The company is pedaling in the right direction. I think, today, investors want to see profitability. I think the story here, what peloton is telling the investors, look, we will invest heavily this year. Stay with us this year and next year we will show a real progression. It is just about patience, how patient investors are willing to be and willing to accept the story today. On top of that, you are selling a very expensive product. We dont know how large the market is. A year goes by and if we are in a macroeconomic slowdown, what happens . That is the worry investors have today. We are not willing to stick around with the patients that john is asking them to have. Taylor are you sticking around with that . The ceo came out and said, we could be profitable tomorrow if we wanted to but we really want to invest in growth at this point. Are you comfortable knowing that . Rohit longerterm, i think we would be comfortable. Today, given the investor sentiment, given that the company just acquired a manufacturer, they are investing they are overburdening the cost structure, investing in marketing, investing in a lot of things. We will feel, we will wait on the sidelines until they step towards generating some cash flow as a whole. Youor does it comfort knowing the ceo says there is no competition at this point . Rohit i would take the other side. From a comparative standpoint, there is nothing like the peloton bike on the market with the integrated ecosystem, but content and the bigscreen. But when you look at consumers, where can i work out today . Where can i spend 150 per month and what can i do . There are a lot of connected products. I think if you take a broader view of options that consumers have, it is getting more and more saturated. History says that at home fitness, you have not seen a very longterm trajectory of that yet. Maybe peloton is the one that will show that pathway but we havent seen it yet. Taylor Rohit Kulkarni of m km partners, he is the executive director. Thanks for joining us. Coming up, lessons learned. We hear from the ceo of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, about what he is doing differently following stinging losses from wework and uber. Thats next. Shareso to break, match plummeting in afterhours trading tuesday after they reported a gift disappointing revenue forecast. They are citing mounting legal costs and conditions like brexit for part of its sales problem. The ceo saying the company is embroiled in two or three big lawsuits. Last month, match was sued by the federal trade commission for allegedly deceiving consumers. Shares down more than 15 in afterhours trading. This is bloomberg. Taylor Goldman Sachs stung by losses in both uber and wework but ceo David Solomon has a message for investors in growth stocks, that profit does matter. He spoke on the current state of the ipo market including what could be the Worlds Largest ever ipo, saudi arabias aramco. David we are involved in the aramco ipo. We have been in the ipo business for a long time. Have been involved for the last 30, 40 years, so generally speaking, when there are significant transactions we are fortunate to be in a position to help clients. It seems difficult to value this one and ipos in general. There was a time when people were talking about wework as a 60 billion, 65 billion company. It is clearly not. Why is it so hard to put a value on companies this close to going private . David at the end of the day, when the rubber hit the road, what are investors willing to pay for a company when they have the transparency of the real Financial Information that has been vetted and presented in an appropriate way . When you have that, the market will speak. Using wework as an example, there is a lot of hype around that. When investors were able to have a discussion with real Financial Information and provide feedback and work with an Underwriting Group to work with the company, there is a clear view of where the company could go public. This group of companies, the unicorns, that have had ipo problems or have not performed well postipo, like uber, are you concerned that we are seeing reflections of the dotcom era where it was all about churning higher revenues and no one focused on making money . David these are real companies. We can debate the valuations, but these are certainly real companies. That is very different in the narrow slice of time during the dotcom bubble, where there were lots of companies that were in a different state that were getting to public markets. , do think what is happening is the Monetary Policy that has been rampant around the world has forced people on the risk curve, forced people to look for other ways to drive returns. One of the things they are chasing is growth. Growth at all costs. I think there has been a sentiment that if you can hook your wagon to a company focused on growth, that something good will come to that. That has incented lots of companies to take the capital they are raising from investors and spend it aggressively to drive topline Growth Without understanding how that can translate to profitability. The market is speaking and telling people, lets rein that in. It is important for people to grow, but there has to be a clear and articulated path. I am a believer that over time a company can only be worth the future discounted value of its earnings. It is important to have a Business Model that can generate profitability. I think there is more market discipline coming into play and i think that is healthy for markets. Taylor that was David Solomon. For more, lets bring it bloombergs sonali basak in new york. Part of what you do is covering banks and ceos. Have you ever heard them talk so much about that growth, about the market starting to discern between the path to profitability . Beeni the markets have very irrational for a while now. As we get into the next leg of the central banking policy, frankly, this irrational type behavior that is driving these skyhigh valuations has to come to a reckoning. Everyone is not amazon. People are starting to tighten the reins. It only took one major flop for people to turn around quickly. We have had the head of Investment Banking and citigroup in Early September tell us that for Bloomberg Television as well. People are already starting to tighten the reins earlier this summer. The talk is getting a lot louder for banks like Goldman Sachs, j. P. Morgan, that stuck with a lot of these companies through very tough times. Taylor talk to me more about jamie dimons comments, saying private markets arent real valuations because you dont have a price discovery, you have an investor telling you that is what its worth. Sonali jamie dimon is saying something similar to David Solomon, that one investor doesnt set of valuation. A market of investors sets of valuation. Things can be volatile until then. Jamie dimon also said something that softbank is also addressing, which is changes in Corporate Governance. That is something we have been waiting for forever here. Softbank, right now, according to the financial times, is thinking about tightening the reins in terms of Corporate Governance for the companies it backs. That is something you heard jamie dimon also address. Taylor another story that caught our attention here as we look at the tech landscape has been robin hood markets. There was a story coming out that put down a deposit on margin and you get infinite leverage. There is a glitch in the system. Sonali basically, you have a certain set of robin hood users who are selling calls and that money is being counted in that users capital. This is such a timely story. We are a week away from money 2020 now. Thousands of people were meeting about the future of fintech. Once we are borrowing from a firm, youre becoming a bank and a personal hedge fund. You are sitting here and having to deal with issues as you scale and grow and robin hood is trying to not only grow but has considered a banking charter. These glitters glitches never looked good but they say it is isolated to certain users. The users that have been doing this say they have levered a 4000 investment into a Million Dollar investment. There are insane trades we are seeing that lots of people are bragging about taking advantage of the glitch. Taylor going back to derivative school to learn about covered calls and margins. Thank you for joining me. Coming up, more from bloombergs extensive tesla model three survey. We dive into how many users feel safer with the autopilot feature. Thats next. Bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. Be sure to follow our global breaking news network at tictoc on twitter. This is bloomberg. Taylor it is the biggest survey of tesla drivers ever conducted and bloomberg has pulled 5000 model three owners. Polled almost 5000 model three owners. We asked about automated driving. It turns out, more than 90 say the feature of autopilot made them feel safer. Craig covers tesla and joins us. So, autopilot, hopeful or hurtful . Craig it is a messy answer to a simple question. Often the case with all things autopilot. This is a system that tesla has generated so much buzz with, that elon musk has invested so much money in, so much reputation in. The findings of the survey are fascinating. There are sort of data points galore in here as you would expect with a survey as big as this was. You have a lot of people who claim that autopilot, some even go so far as to credit the system with saving their lives. Nine people said that. Six within the survey also claimed that autopilot contributed to a collision. You have more than 90 of people that say that they feel like this system makes them safer. Its sort of a running joke covering the car industry, many people thinking they are above average drivers. It is hard to put too much stock into that claim. What we do know is, this messiness of the findings of this survey reflects the messiness of the future of automated driving in that there are going to be times these systems save us and there will be times that as they are ironing the kinks out, that they put us into dangerous situations. Taylor describe to me, as i tried to spit my words out, the distinction between autopilot, i can take a nap in the backseat, versus auto assisted, where i should maybe be paying attention and not just snoozing in the back. Where are we in that technology . Craig we should not be in a position of just napping in the backseat even with autopilot, and that is why the name is so controversial. The name has a connotation that you could do that and we have seen these videos that people take on the highway where they see someone who has fallen asleep at the wheel of their autopilot toied on continue to drive them. We are not at the point where you can safely do that. That is why it is so important that tesla does emphasize that people should be paying attention at all times. But you do get these mixed messages where elon musk is touting the system to cbs last year, he is showing the system around with his hands on his lap. That goes against what is actually in the handbook when you buy a tesla, how you should use the system. This is a company that talks about a full selfdriving package with tesla and yet this is not a system that could be safely relied on for selfdriving in any situation. This is a system where you need to be paying attention and that is why it is technology that is so controversial. Taylor quickly, describe the two different packages that tesla offers within autopilot. There have been Software Updates and there are different packages you can or cant turn off. Craig they sell a higher level of capability. Some of that capability, they have not delivered yet. It is unclear how long it will be delivered. But with that subsystem of full self driving, one of the sort of features within that suite of technology, for instance, it is a feature that allows you to call your car to you in a parking lot. It is called summoned. Just with that, we have seen sort of near misses. You do see people that are very excited about it and like to show it off. But again, back to the word controversial. Taylor bloombergs craig trudell, not controversial, thank you for joining us. Coming up, our conversation with the fcc chairman. What he has to say about huawei being caught in the trade war crosshairs. This is bloomberg. Taylor this is Bloomberg Technology global link. We now join bloomberg daybreak australia to bring you the latest in global tech news. Im taylor riggs in San Francisco. With shery ahn in new york and haidi stroudwatts in sydney. Lets take a look at the global top tech stories of the day. Haidi . Haidi Masayoshi Son is paying the price for his bold bets on startups like wework to uber. The softbank founder has seen his net worth fall after his strategy of aggressively backing Technology Pioneers backfired. His fortune tumbled to roughly 13. 1 billion. It peaked in july at 20 billion according to the bloomberg billionaires index. Facebook has expanded its production to vietnam and will manufacture its oculus rift excess x s virtualreality headsets in the country, according to the facebook asiapacific Vice President of public policy. Facebook is seeking partners to manufacture other products in vietnam. And, huawei expects shipments to grow 20 next year even if it is blocked from the google software. This suggest the trump administrations efforts to contain the companys rise may not be working. The president of Corporate Strategies says the company can rely on its massive home market and inhouse software to keep the division humming. Those are the top global tech stories of the day. Shery more on huawei as the u. S. Trade with china plunged in september following fresh tariffs. Both countries aiming to ease tensions with wilbur ross saying licenses to sell to huawei will be coming very shortly. Earlier today, i sat down with fcc chairman ajit pai who warned chinese tech firms pose a threat to u. S. National security. Take a listen. Mr. Pai we have seen a Great Variety of evidence with respect to particular chinese vendors of behaving in ways that are not consistent with the rule of law with free markets and the like. Earlier this year, the department of justice announced an indictment against huawei in which case the indictment specifically States Huawei officials offered bonuses to individuals who successfully stole confidential information from certain businesses. More generally speaking, this is part of the overall Chinese Government effort we fear to leverage their influence over global commerce. Shery no wonder they have to they have a vote coming up to prohibit companies receiving federal subsidies from buying equipment from huawei and zte. Will this banning of firms of selling to huawei or carriers not be allowed to use cheaper chinese equipment have an impact on these u. S. Firms and jobs . Mr. Pai i start with a bedrock principle. When it comes to the security of americas Communication Networks, we cannot take a risk and hope for the best. We have to get it right, especially with something as transformative as 5g. Thats why when we roll out the proposal, we make very clear we dont want federal funds coming from the fcc to be spent on untrusted vendors wherever they may be located. In this particular case, we have serious concerns with chinas National Intelligence law requires companies to comply with requests and not disclose that to any of their customers. Shery beijing argues the 2017 National Intelligence law you are alluding to is defensive, it does not authorize spying. Why are you not convinced . Mr. Pai partially because the Chinese Government has made clear they want to leverage their influence in any particular area, especially when it comes to telecom networks. That is a risk we cannot take. Secondly, we have seen evidence, i mentioned the indictment involving tmobile, that vendor engaged in certain practices we find problematic. We want to make sure the equipment and Services Going into americas Communication Networks are secure. That is the base level every american regulator and consumer should have. Shery the small and rural carriers have bought chinese equipment because they are cheaper. If you tell them they have to remove them and replace them, what would be the financial cost and would you help them . Mr. Pai the only problem with cheap is sometimes it can cost too much. We are talking about national security, that is a risk we do not want to take. Later on this month, the fcc will be voting on my plan to evaluate which equipment from chinese vendors are in the network and think about ways to fund the replacement of it. That is a conversation we will be kickstarting in a couple of weeks. We recognize the concern. Shery where would the money come from . Would it come from the universal service fund . Mr. Pai there is legislation to fund the replacement and removal. Shery would that happen before they go through the process . Some of these small carriers do not have the credit to do it and then get refunded. Mr. Pai that is one of the things we will explore in this conversation about how to make the transition from the current state of the network to the more trusted vendor framework we would like them to operate under. Shery the reason we are focusing so much on security is because of the launch of 5g. Two companies that have said they will try to deploy flawlessly 5g has been tmobile and sprint. You have cleared their merger. Do you expect the fcc order to have an impact on those bunch of states that are actually suing, that they dont want to see this happen . Mr. Pai i would hope those states recognize that the fcc has recognized what many people has recognized, the transaction the consummation of the transaction would be in the Public Interest. One commitment from the companys that they agreed to was to deploy 5g10 99 of the American Population within six years. 50 megabits per Second Service or greater to 99 of americans, that is a huge Public Interest benefit. More inhome fixed broadband competition. Price commitments. These other kinds of things that will be consistent with Public Interest. Shery the argument though is that would have happened anyway because tmobile and sprint committed to 5g anyway. Mr. Pai tmobile has a very good position in lowband spectrum and highband spectrum, but it does not have midband spectrum assets. Sprint has midband, but not strong high or low. For 5g, you need a mix of all three. We think the newly capitalized company come a once it is together, will be a greater competitor especially when you talk about an industry that by some estimates the two largest competitors have 93 of the free cash flow. We want to turbocharge the third competitor to compete with that. We believe this transaction will do this. Shery when would this happen . It has been 18 months. Expect it to happen when even the hearing by the states hasnt happened yet mr. Pai i cannot forecast when litigation how the litigation will turn out. That depends on the state lawsuit in new york. From our perspective, we want to make sure the public is able to benefit from these commitments we have gotten from the parties that will deliver faster, Better Internet Access Services when it comes to wireless well into the future. Taylor that was fcc chairman ajit pai. So interesting, you spoke with him about other news, particularly twitters decision to pull political ads and taking a firm stance against facebook. What was his take . Shery i asked him that because ajit pai has been vocal about free speech, about transparency among these big Tech Companies. I asked him what did you think about these bans on political ads by twitter and facebook not doing it . He said we dont regulate content companies so he does not want to talk about that. He says it is important to have transparency, that you want to know how these companies are making those decisions. He was very vocal on emphasizing privacy concerns, transparency. Something he actually talked about already in a blog post last year. I asked him what did you think of progress made since then . He said those are coming in fits and starts around d. C. , but at least the conversation is going there. Taylor thank you to bloombergs shery ahn for that great interview and haidi stroudwatts. Much more to come next. This is bloomberg. Taylor it is the social media battle line being drawn ahead of the 2020 u. S. President ial election. In one corner, it is facebook and ceo mark zuckerberg. Their message to politicians, the social network will not police the accuracy of your ad content. In the other corner, twitter and Ceo Jack Dorsey with the stance that no political ads at all on twitter. This all comes at a time when cantor predicts online political ad spending will total 1. 2 billion out of the 6 billion spent in 2020. Who better to discuss this in our electioneering series leading up to the 2020 election than two people who intimately unfamiliar with how politicians leverage social media . In d. C. , we are joined by Jason Rosenbaum. He was Hillary Clintons digital ad director and a member of googles political ads team. I have tim cameron, ceo of flexpoint media. Prior to that, the chief digital officer for the National Republican senatorial committee. I will start with you both, ask the same question. Tim, i will start with you. Your take on facebook versus twitter. Who is right . Tim i think facebook is right. Largely the reason why twitter decided to get off political ads isnt a moral one, it is a financial one. They only made 3 million last election cycle which is basically a rounding error of all the online ad revenue that there is in politics. This is an embarrassingly low number for a company that is arguably the most political social network in the world. Taylor jason, your thoughts . Jason i think both companies approaches are actually problematic. What we are seeing here is a certain abdication of their responsibility, and this is an issue that we dealt with other forms of media for decades. What we are lacking is a legislative and regulatory approach to provide some guardrails for social media paid advertising. Local tv and radio stations for years have been prohibited from running factually incorrect advertising. And political advertising should be no different. So, what we need is for congress and regulatory agencies to implement some kind of guardrails for this technology. The obvious first step would be to pass the honest ads act which would provide true disclosure for political advertising so we know who is spending what and where. Taylor tim, i want to take a step back and take a look at facebook in particular has taken a stance on this. Part of their advertisements are really hyper targeted. When you talk about this, we want to distinguish how do you make sure that within those hyper targeted ads that they are accurate . How do you go about doing that . Should we not do hyper targeted ads . Should we . Tim i dont think hyper targeted ads are any more risky than broadly targeted ads. You could disseminate wrong information to a small group or large group. This is the cost we pay for living in a free society. To quote former Supreme Court Justice Anthony kennedy, the remedy for false statements is the truth. That is the cost of living in a free society. To protect the First Amendment and to be able to get out there without prior restraint, that is something that is important. Because if we start prohibiting ads, and you look at somebody like Elizabeth Warren who is completely in favor of facebook taking on this role despite saying at the same time that they are way too powerful, you risk potentially republicans from being blocked from saying that her plan on medicare for all will raise taxes on the middle class. You know, maybe not this election, but down the road, that could lead to tyranny. Taylor jason, and your earlier comments, you brought up some local Media Coverage or radio where they are not allowed to run false ads. Im wondering if part of the problem here is the ads on facebook or other sites are not clearly marked as ads. Do we need to do a better job of presenting these ads for what they are . Paid for by, and make it clear these are ads . Would this solve part of the problem . Jason we do have that. Federal election law requires that paid political advertising be disclosed, that there is disclosure on those advertisements. And we should have that. We should also have checks in place to ensure that political candidates, political organizations cant run factually incorrect advertising, knowingly do so. These are checks we have had in place for over 50 years for broadcast television and radio. We have a new technology with social media that is still in its infancy and has proven to be remarkably powerful in its ability to change peoples opinions. We have to ask ourselves, are we going to provide some guardrails here . If we are, and i believe we should, are they meaningful . I dont believe either banning political advertising or throwing our hands in the air and saying candidates can run whatever they want is meaningful reform. Taylor tim, in response to some of those comments that jason was making, i also wanted to bring up a quote from Trumps Campaign manager talking about the 2016 and the election and the role facebook played in that, where he said i think facebook is how we won in a lot of ways. I think President Trump won. Facebook is a point that delivered that message. If facebook didnt exist, it would have been a lot tougher. Your take . Tim i think that is absolutely true. It is a big reason why they won in a big reason why a lot of campaigns have won. It is not the singular reason, but it contributed. Everybody is looking at this from the perspective of the president ial campaign and the implications go much further down. A lot of what these social networks do is enable city councilmen and statehouse reps and smaller candidates to gain traction. What is so outdated about the move twitter made by banning political advertisements is it is going to have a distinct impact on smaller, under the radar candidates like, say, andrew yang who suffered underneath a media blackout for months, and to prevent them from getting the message out. We have to think through what the longterm implications are, because this is bigger than the 2020 election. We are talking about the First Amendment which is something that is fundamental to our society, and hopefully will be here for centuries to come. Taylor jason, finally, as we take a look out at the landscape and the democratic committee, where are they in catching up with online spending . We remember barack obama was very tech savvy. He came out and was able to get that niche, younger audience in part because of technology and social media. Where is the Democratic National party on this today . Have they done enough . Jason we have a crowded democratic primary field. Most of those candidates are running very aggressive, sophisticated programs. It has been written a lot that President Trump is spending significant amounts of money online. Hes the incumbent and he has a large warchest right now. The Democratic Candidates are spending significantly on early states and across the country. And i think, or i believe still far more sophisticated than many of the republican candidates in the field. Taylor tim, earlier in the conversation, jason said some of the solution to all this could be more regulation. I want to give you a chance to comment on if regulation looks like the right answer in your opinion. Tim im always hesitant to adopt regulation around speech. If you look at the comment the Common Thread between totalitarian governments, is that they have a ministry of truth, a ministry of information. Do we need to implement that here . Do we need to have government regulating speech . Look. False advertising and fake claims made by political candidates is not a new phenomena. It has been something that has dated back to ancient rome and ancient greece and to the very origins of democracy. We are society that knows how to handle this. I dont think Regulatory Framework is necessarily something we need added on. There are a number of remedies such as libel, slander laws as well as the media combats these fake ads. Taylor Jason Rosenbaum and tim cameron, thank you both for joining. Still ahead, a tech investment taking a tumble. Could this be a tough quarter for one of the worlds biggest investors in startups and Tech Companies . Thats next. This is bloomberg. Taylor investor giant softbank will be under scrutiny when it releases earnings on wednesday. Sources say the companys vision and is planning to swallow a writedown of at least 5 billion, reflecting the value of some of his big holdings. The companys founder and ceo Masayoshi Son will give details of that damage during the Earnings Call and it is expected to include the major loss of the failed attempt to take wework public. Joining us to break down the earnings numbers, it is ed ludlow. What are analysts expecting . Ed a big loss in the quarter. Average analyst estimate is for a net loss of ¥300 billion, 2. 7 billion u. S. Dollars. Compare that with the same quarter a year ago, softbank had a profit of ¥500 billion. Roughly 4. 5 billion. The Company Expected to have a significant writedown out of the biggest investments. Wework has taken the headlines of the money softbank put into wework in its failed attempt to take the company public. Look at some of the publicly traded companies in the vision pond fund portfolio. Names that had been shining stars for softbank. This chart shows shares of uber slack and garden, uber, the white line, and slack is the blue line, have really seen major declines. More than 30 in the quarter ending september 30. Softbank has big stakes in those companies. Another company is the wireless carrier sprint. 3. 5 million shares, 84 of the company. On the cusp of being purchased by tmobile. That deal was given a green light. The sec, regulators. Some good news for softbank which has a lot riding on this deal. U. S. States have brought a challenge on that deal on antitrust grounds. The trial is due to start in december. We will hear about both of those things on wednesday about the underperforming investment and the deal between sprint and tmobile. Taylor thank you. For more on Softbanks Vision Fund and the venturecapital landscape, im joined by mark cannice. He is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the university of San Francisco school of management. As we take a look at softbank, how much of a permanent or temporary scar would be the big writedown for both softbank and their vision fund this quarter . Mark first of all, thank you for having me. I think for any venture fund which is really what the Softbank Vision Fund is, you have to consider it as a longterm fund. Like any venture fund, dont necessarily expect every investment to do well right away or sometimes ever. While certainly in the short run, it is going to hurt definitely, however the time spent for these types of investments is much longer than say a typical public portfolio. Rather, it is really measured in years rather than days or months. Taylor like you point out, the whole point of venture the word alone means venturing out, taking risks. Are we scrutinizing those companies too much and should we assume, yes, some are bound to fail . Mark a typical venture fund, which is typically much smaller than Softbanks Vision Fund by a factor of 100 or more, there is an expectation that many of these companies will, a portion of the companies will fail. The different thing about the vision fund is it is so large and investment are so huge that failures magnify. We have more interest in those because we are talking about much larger numbers. Taylor in your decades of experience, have you recently, lets say in the past year or so, really started to see differentiators between the venturecapital that are succeeding and those that have been failing, you know, publicly in the ipo market . Mark that is a great question. I think typically, the major venturecapital criteria really starts and ends for the most part with the Management Team. Understand, as i Masayoshi Son interviews every entrepreneur before he invests the vision funds funds into the company. All venture capitalists take a very hard look at the capabilities, the passion and sincerity and integrity of the Management Team. Really, it is this type of criteria along with a huge potential market that over time leads to more successful firms. Because Business Models may change, markets may change, but the Management Team and its determination to make something work is often the deciding factor. Taylor we will have to leave it there. Thank you to mark cannice, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the university of San Francisco school of management. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Tune in tomorrow. This is bloomberg. The following is a paid program. The opinions and views expressed do not reflect those of bloomberg epley, its affiliates, or its employees. Announcer the following is an important paid program about humana Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans, sponsored by humana. Sam at humana, we believe its never too late to learn the abcs when it comes to medicare. Sybil i know theres the alphabet, a, b, and c. What exactly does that mean