Bloomberg's Emily Chang breaks down why major social networks are struggling with fewer ad dollars, and takes a look at Airbnb's strong earnings but disappointing outlook sending its shares down.
From the heart of where innovation, money and power collive in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Emily jay I remember the check in San Francisco, and this is Bloomberg Technology coming up in the next hours. Some of the world's most recognizable brands, from Apple to Coca Cola, are being worn to pull advertising from Twitter, depending on how Elon Musk moderates content or not. But it's not just Twitter that has an ad problem. All major social networks are re link from fewer AD dollars will even go to social media in the future or fleet to streaming we'll discuss. Plus Airbnb gets a reality check as consumers shift away from higher cost rentals that thrived in the pandemic. CEO Brian Chesky joins us to talk about his outlook on travel and address those high cleaning fees, and as tensions between the US and trying to persist, how do businesses change their strategy? Plus where is Jack mob? A former Ali Baba Exact will join us, but first a little bit more about Twitter and advertising. Elon Musk taking over Twitter at one of the most precarious moments for big tech companies that have built massive businesses based on ad revenue. Platforms we've taken for granted, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram have been free to users thanks to those ads. But that I'm beginning to change and could continue to change fast from where I want to bring in Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner. Kurt, before we go any farther, what's actually happening with Twitter's ad products right now? We've there's been talk about a potential advertiser boycott elon musks, but some ideas out there about a subscription. Where do we stand right now? Yeah, I mean right now everything is sort of where was, you know, last week, But you just mentioned there's some looming things that could be incredibly impactful. The first is this potential boycott, right like this idea that advertisers are going to say, hey, we're not going to spend money on this platform and unless you do certain things around speech or or policing of speech. And we saw that with Facebook a few years ago, Emily you probably remember, and it was a big deal. But Facebook was able to weather that storm um for a couple of reasons, and one of them was that, you know, they had Cheryl Stamberg out there talking to advertisers and other senior leaders. Now all the senior leaders that Twitter who would be having those conversations are gone. And so that's why I feel like an advertising boycott at Twitter could be kind of dicey um. If indeed that is the route that some people go, which you know, as we've seen they'd be willing to do it before, I wouldn't be surprised if that something like that happens again. Meantime, you know, Twitter is grappling with the fact that advertisers are potentially going elsewhere in general, and also facing a massive econom mic slowdown. How our advertisers thinking about whether to spend their dollars on social media or look to things like streaming. I mean, this sounds so obvious, but if you're an advertiser, especially right now, when budgets are a little bit tighter, when there's this massive inflation issue that's going on, You're only going to spend money where you can see a return on that investment, Right. So that historically has been places like Google and Facebook, places with really strong direct response businesses. Right. So I put a dollar in and I know, with some you know, consistency, I'm going to get a dollar fifty and sales out now. Twitter is always been different than that. They've always specialized in what's called brand advertising, right. It's the kind of stuff you see around the super Bowl or on a billboard or whatever that is not necessarily something that is easy to measure for r O. I, it's not the kind of thing that I think when uh, you know, times are tough and money is that you want to go spend a bunch of money on that. So I do think, regardless of what's going on with Ellen, I just think aending money on Twitter right now is probably a tough you know, sell, just given the environment that we're in economically. We heard a little bit from Kathy Would, who seems excited about Elon Musk's plans per usual. Let's take a quick listen to what she had to say on Bloomberg earlier today. This subscription advertising model is a very smart move if he goes in that direction. The verification that little check is very important to people and could help clean up the platform considerably. You know, it's not surprising that someone like Kathy Would would be excited about Elon Musk's plans, But you know, what do you make of her support and whether you know there will be a wave of advertisers and and people out there who like what Ellen is doing. Yeah, I'm smiling, not because you know, I I necessarily disagree that the blue check has value. I'm just not sure that this idea that it's going to clean up the service of FO really makes a whole lot of sense. We've seen Elon talk about this as well, right that, well, once I start charging for the blue check, you know, bots won't pay for the blue check, and then we'll know who's real and who's not. Well, that implies, emily that regular people are going to pay for a blue check mark two and eight dollars a month. Uh, is not, you know, necessarily something that people are willing to fork over for you know, proven to Elon Muskata that they are a human being. And so I'm curious to see how this works. To me, it feels relatively rushed. Um, maybe there's more nuanced to it that we just haven't learned yet, right because a lot of this he's just conveying via his own tweets. So perhaps there's a much broader plan that we're just not seen. But at least on the surface, I feel like this idea of you know, we're suddenly gonna know who the humans are and who the bots are because the humans are the ones who are gonna pay. It just doesn't feel realistic when you have, you know, hundreds of millions people on the service, Not that many people are gonna want to pay for this? All right? Uh so much more, tv D, Blueworks, Kart Wariner, thank you. Of course, all of your reporting on Twitter will continue to follow. Uh your stuff. Let's get back to earnings now, with Airbnb reporting big revenue and net income numbers, but shares falling after the company gave a disappointing outlook for bookings in the fourth quarter, closing down more than I want to bring in see O Brian Chesky to address it all now, Brian, thank you as always for joining us. So one point to billion in net income, two point nine billion in revenue. These are big numbers, um, but investors still pretty disappointed. What's your response to this big stock plunge. I believe it's the biggest stock market job for Airbnb since going public. Well, you know, I've tried to make sure that we focus on what we can deliver in your ami, we delivered a record quarter a billion and a half of ibada, nearly a billion dollars in freak ash flow, three point three billion dollars in the trailing twelve months. I think that you know, people in the world, this is a very uncertain time and everyone's really looking for indications of what the future holds. Um We've tried to make very clear on the call that we're actually feeling very confident about Q four. So people are traveling, that's why results were really good in Q three, and we're actually feeling really confident. I don't want to make sure people know that. So let's hold on in on this moderating of booking growth that you see. If we are heading into a long term recession, who's to say that that consumers aren't going to cut back on travel or aren't going to choose to stay in cheaper, closer places rather than splurge on that trip abroad, and that that's going to add up for Airbnb. Well, this is a great point, Emily. One of the things I just say, though, is that one of the things we learn in the pandemic is that we have a very adaptable business model. For example, member recall in air bing b was the first company to rebound in all of travel. That's partly why we had such a six sus y p O. And the reason why is we are a more affordable option. We have never nearly every type of space in nearly every community, so if people cut back cross border travel, they might start working more from Airbnb. So we found a very brasilient model and that's something I'm feeling really confident about. Chris Bryant, are Bloomberg opinion columnist, had an interesting take. He suggested, if Airbnb has a problem is that you're making too much money, how do you respond to that? No one whatever told us that two and a half years ago we were losing two d fifty million dollars a year in Evada, And of course now we delivered a billion and a half dollars in Evada in the quarter. You know, we are increasingly investing more in the customer experience every year. The reason we're getting more profitable is we're more efficient. We're incredibly disciplined. We only have six thousand employees. We spent a lot less on marketing than any other travel company of our size in the online space. But you know, with air cover, we're investing a lot more in the customer experience this year. So we're going to continue to be more efficient, but we're going to continue to deliver more more for customers. And I also understand that people really care about value. They want to make sure that Airbnb is still a brand you can come to get a great value. We're known for affordable travel, and I know that people are really concerned about whether or not our our aerbans will continue to be affordable, and they will be. We're going to continue to focus and making sure our prices are competitive, and so that's what we're focused on. So let's talk about the transparency around pricing that you hinted at. I think we've all had that feeling of looking at a rental on Airbnb. Then we click all the way through and and the price change is given, all the fees, the cleaning fee, et cetera. What can we expect that transparency to look like? Well, yeah, and I think there's two things going on. The first is people, we want people to understand our pricing not be surprised. The second is we want to make sure that when they do see the final price, they feel really good about the final price and it's still a great value. So we are working on updating some of the designs for our platform to make everything even more intuitive, and we're gonna have some updates very very soon, so stay tuned. Let's talk a little bit about average daily rates. There's an expectation those are going to come under pressure in the next quarter given the strong dollar, if the bookings mix shifts to potentially cheaper rentals. Can you give us some insight on consumer preferences right now? What do consumers want that you're seeing through the holiday season and we're not seeing a major change. I mean, what I would say is the reason that price per night on abomy has gone up in the last couple of years is before the pandemic, most people were using Airbnb to cross the border and stay in a city and stay in a one bedroom, two bedroom a place. Now a lot of people are booking three, four or five bedroom homes and they're doing it because they're going with their friends, their families, their coworkers, or they're living in the house. And so now the average duol rates higher because the homes are bigger. What we think is when Asia recovers, that could moderate price per night a little bit. But that's a good thing because that will actually lead to a lot more volume because you get an entire continent to be traveling a lot more. And I do think you're gonna see that grow. So we actually are expecting a pretty stable average daily rate. We're not seeing major shifts and the way people use air VnB just yet. Long term stays still hugely popular. About of nights book give us some insight on that trend, because I wonder, is it plateau ing at all? Is it slowing down? I mean, is the growth that you saw there over No? No, I mean honestly, long term stays is still the fastest growing segment by length of state on Airbnb. Now because the short term states have recovered, it's now been stable at I do expect in the coming years ahead, though, long term stage will probably increasingly grow as a percentage of a business. And the reason why is because increasingly, I think more people are gonna be flexible, fewer people have leases. I'm not saying no one will, I'm just saying enough for this market to continue to grow. So this is gonna be a huge new grows owth opportunity for us in the coming years to come. It's so fascinating just how much how people use Airbnb has changed just in the last couple of years. Do you have any concern that Airbnb is over reliant potentially on long term stays. No, because, um, you know, we just got to make sure that each segment is growing and the long term stays aren't really coming at the cost of short term stays. So as long as short term stays continue to grow, think of it as another layer. It's kind of like Amazon sales books and now they sell electronics, now they sell another category. We don't think these categories will necessarily cannibalize. These are really different use cases, and a lot of people are coming Airbnb just to list monthly stays, so this I think can open up a lot. I actually think monthly stays can make short term stays more popular because some people might book an air be for a long term stay and say, hey, that wasn't so bad staying at someone else's home. Maybe I'll do it for a short term stay. So may actually have a way of bringing more customers into Airbnb. That's at least what we what our theory is interesting. You do have some analysts out there who seem to be thinking Airbnb is priced too high compared to some of your travel peers, especially if the bookings mixes changing. What are your thoughts on that. I mean, our gusts still tell us that Aaron b is the best value. That being said, we do want to make sure that as the economy slows down, our value is even better. And we do know that hotels are starting to lower prices, and we want to make sure that our pricing is as dynamic. So what are things we're doing is we're investing a lot more in pricing tools for hosts so that they can have more dynamic pricing. And if hotels lower rates and they want to lower rates more competitive, they can do that. So I still think we'll offer a great value, but there is no question that there's a lot more we can be doing on value, and that's something we're gonna be really focused on over the next six months in time for next travel season. So longer term, I don't you know, obviously you've launched categories which I know you're really excited about. Supply is going to be key. How do you see growth in supply over the next two years compared to the growth you saw on supply over the last two years, And how do you convince all of these new would be hosts to choose Airbnb first and only potentially. I think it's a great question. Um well, let me say this. Number One, I expect a lot more new supply over the next two years than the last two years. Um. The last two years actually been pretty hard because of the pandemic. Not everyone wanted other people in their homes. I think the next two years they're gonna be a lot more interested for two reasons. Number One, the further the pandemic is behind us, the less resident they are. But more importantly, Emily, as you recall, we started during two thousand eight Airbnb during the Great Recession, and during the Great Recession a lot of people needed to make extra money and they turned to Airbnb to host for the first time. I think that's going to happen again. And the final thing I'll say, I'm gonna give a plug on November six at a a m. Eastern time. We're gonna enveil a whole new, super easy way to list your home on Airbnb, and I think that is going to be a big driver of a lot. More so, we have some really cool new products. They're going to be launching in fewer than two weeks, and I think that's going to add an acceleration. Alright, November sixteenth, we will be watching. Last question. Airbnb was started in the middle of the financial crisis. You obviously survived and thrived ultimately in the pandemic. What's your strategy on costs through this downturn? Are you considering M and A given all that cash and potentially opportunistic or advantageous valuations out there, you know, how are you mapping this out? Given we could be in this for a couple of years. That's a great question to um. Let me tell you a really important lesson I learned in the pandemic. You know, in between a February in in April of two thousand and twenty, we were one of the first companies hit by the pandemic. We lost eighty percent of our business in eight weeks, and a thousand of us gone to foxhol and we rebuilt the company fair ground up. And the company we rebuilt was a much smaller, much leaner, much more discipline company. The reason we did three billion dollars in free cash the last twelve months is because of that discipline and what I told the team is, no matter how good the economy is, no matter how bad the economy is, we are going to try to not ever run the company differently because of the economy. But you can only do that if you stay disciplined, right, You don't ever want to have to get more disciplined. So I said, we should be prepared for a storm. Whenever it comes. We're not going to change the way we're on the company. And because of that, beginning this year, we were only, for example, forecasting hiring seven percent more employees this year. When other tech comes, we're gonna hire. Now they have to pull back. We're not pulling back. In fact, we're not pulling on the brakes. We're gonna step on the gas. But stepping the gas doesn't mean we to spend a lot more money. It's just a lot more velocity to be a speed innovation and taking more market share. All right, Brian Chesky, we'll keep that in mind. CEO of Airbnb, thanks for making the time today, Brian, appreciate it. Thank you very much. We're gonna be right back with more of Bloomberg Technology after this quick break. This is Bloomberg. China is making moves that will severely curtailed shipments in and out of the world's largest iPhone factory. Beijing is imposing a seven day lockdown on the area in Jung Joe, this after the number of COVID cases in the city almost quadrupled from Monday to Tuesday. And it's a profit in sales miss for Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, Nickelodeon, and MTV Networks, reporting earnings and the big problem continuing weakness in advertising. Still, there's been a turnaround in Paramounts Film Studio, with revenue up for in the third quarter and Top Gun Maverick is the highest grossing film so far this year. Meantime, Amazon also feeling the heat on its ad business and it's now taking more drastic measures to align expenses with a slowdown in sales. So it's just telling Bloomberg that the world's largest e commerce company is freezing staff level in its profitable ads business. Amazon will continue to fill vacancies in this unit, but won't create any new jobs. Welcome back to bloomber Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco. The banking sector says people and businesses are paying more and more in the wake of ransomware attacks. Banks reported one point to billion dollars in ransomware payments last year alone, nearly five times as much as and that is just a taste of what Jeff Stone will explore with Bloomberg's weekly cyber Bulletin newsletter, including exclusive coverage inside the world of hackers and cyber espionage and how businesses are playing defense. Jeff tell us more about cyber Bulletin and what your goals are here. The goal here is to help people understand emily that cybersecurity is a lot more than ones and zeros in the latest big data breach, There's all kinds of characters involved in this world now, cryptocurrency fraud as part of this, disinformation as part of this, all kinds of influence operations, and everyone trying to monetize data. So that's what we're trying to explore here and really help people understand how they can protect themselves more urgently. Now. Cyber threats have been on the rise for a while. Why now are you launching this? We're busier than ever. Mostly we figured we'd take on one more project, but basically since since the invasion of Ukraine really has highlighted Uh, this big explosion of ransomware as you as you just alluded to, UM, it is urgent for people to get a better sense of really what these threats look like and how to respond in cyberspace. Again, I think people are used to this world of email scams and different kinds of fraud through your apps that you're still trying to get a handle on. But we're really going to dig in and help people, um straighten out how to protect themselves at a more urgent time than ever. All right, Bloomberg, Jeff Stone. You can sign up for that weekly Bloomberg cyber Bulletin newsletter at Bloomberg dot com. Thanks, Jeff. We'll stay tuned well for more on the state of cybersecurity. I want to bring in Christopher Alberg, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which is actively tracking the cybersecurity threat level in Ukraine. Uh, Chris, give us the latest there. You've been involved for for several months. Now, tell us what you're most worried about at this time, you know, it's it's really interesting. We started basically we had worked a little bit with one particular part of the Ukrainian government, their national search on the morning of the four February, we sort of stood up publicly can check out our nice tweet on that, and said, look, we would get behind these guys and and help them in every every in any way we can. And so now our our intelligence platform is in the hands of seven agencies over there, and look, it's it's been interesting, uh AT. In the lead up of the war, there was a whole bunch of Russian activity at the very sort of crossover into the war. They killed a bunch of communications and infrastructure. The Russians has taken a part a bunch of systems. They have certainly been running a whole bunch of destructive malware campaigns against uh called Ukrainian power, infrastructure and the like ongoingly. What's actually been very impressive is how the Ukrainians, together with foreign firms and foreign intelligence agencies and help people helping them, have been able to withstand this. That's actually the most impressive. But the dear Russians are ongoingly going at it, and we may not hear too much about it because office is as much as when bullets and the like fly in the air, a lot of other things may go to the back. But it's it's full full speed head there. For sure. You've been donating software g political intelligence to Ukrainian agencies. How long are you prepared to do this for no no ending, no ending to that. We we came out and said we would go in all in and and try to help them in every way we could. We announced the big hiring initiative or hiring another hundred people in Ukraine. We're sort of to your point. We've given them software and access to our intelligence cloud in seven different agencies and they're using it to to go at cyber attacks, disinformation and helping on the battlefield. We think it's been quite impactful. You know, obviously we can only do our little part, but we will do it as long as it can, as we as we can and help them in every way they can. They need to to be able to help them basically crush the Russians, because that's I think what this is all about. If I'm slightly blunt, are We've got some big midterm elections coming up in the United States? How would you rate the cyber threat level more broadly and what are you most concerned about when it comes to these upcoming elections? So I would say that it's interesting that there's sort of the broad sort of set of disinformation activity around that is ongoing, and it's sort of at the same level as we saw in I think there's been a lot of good work done by the U. S. Government as a lot of other sort of of firms, whether it's the social media firms and people sort of on top of that in terms of sort of fighting back on some of this. The Russians are still there by no no question. I lay the Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg. They're still trying to go at it, targeting maybe a little bit sort of very targeted audiences that they can come at. They obviously are quite busy on the home front. The Iranians have also been pretty busy on the home front, so maybe not not as much we we could all have read over the last couple of days about some interesting things with the Chinese are going at it. So there are threats there, but I think we're will be in good shape. The election is gonna be safe. It's gonna be a good election. And and even though these guys are trying, I think we're doing better. So what's keeping you up at night right now? That we're not talking about enough. So I think it's you because obviously you know you've heard it in Jeff sort of point here just now. There's plenty of cyber activity and it's not great. But I think we haven't been really sorted yet. I like to say that over the last twenty five years, the world of sort of slowly migrated onto the Internet. Uh, next twenty five years, the Internet is sort of where it starts and the world ends up being a reflection of the Internet. Whether it's world power or business, or currency or money or identity, it all is going to emerge out of the Internet. And in that world, we better have our act together. We think that is an incredible opportunity to build an intelligence company. We want to be the Bloomberg of cyber if you want. But in that but the world better habits act together because the this Internet centric world is going to be quite wild, and so we better all be all be ready for a ride. I wonder how you think about, you know, Elon Musk taking over at Twitter potentially having a more open minded approach to to content moderation. Does the world to have its act together? So so dangerous subject to get into. I think he'll do good with it. I'm sort of a very positive person, even though I maybe sound a little bit scared there before. I think he will have new smart ways to go out condom moderation. Uh you know so, so I'm an optimist about that. But you know, and if he screws it up, the dangerous part or not dangerous dangerous part for him is that these are pretty fleeting sort of audiences. They'll go anywhere else. And and you know, actually maybe one danger here is that if he doesn't handle this one well, we might see too much of this audience going over in the hands of TikTok. And to be honest, I'd much rather have Ill and Musk run a great platform or even maybe not such a great platform here in the United States than having our sort of upcoming generations living their social life on TikTok. I take to take take Twitter over that any day. And why is that? Because I think if our dear Chinese friends are controlling the information flow on TikTok, when they're that sort of controlling the news flow, being able to intercept communications on that in that sort of you know, much too too much control in the hands of the Chinese government to be Frank or Chinese intelligence, and he said, not a good thing. All right, Well, appreciate you navigating waiting into some tricky territory with ask Christopher Allberg, CEO of Recorded Future, thank you for sharing your thoughts here. We'll have to have you back soon. Coming up the line between traditional finance and de centralized finance, getting blurb, We're going to talk a little bit more about how next this is Bloomberg. I think some people have avoided this asset class. It's very risky. It's not appropriate for everyone. In fact, when you buy cryptocurrency on so far we say this is a risky asset, it's unproven and you could lose all of your money. So um what prices down at this level, we are seeing people take an opportunity to um, you know, experiment with this type of investment and get to know the asset better. So if it's Anthony Noto there earlier on Bloomberg. As the worlds of traditional finance and defy continue to collide, Bloomberg Shonnali Bossik here to explain more. What is happening? Should I take it away? Emily, I think it's really important to listen to what Anthony Noo over it. So far I had to say about crypto because there are a traditional financial technology firm that successfully acquired a bank and that has helped it really rain in a lot of deposit or money from clients, which then can potentially be used to do things like by a little crypto in a downturn or invest elsewhere. The real reality is options here to borrow, to buy asset, and to to deposit your money for safekeeping at uh you know, so far a higher interest rate than many other large banks. That is the choice that you're faced with at the end of the day. So that rolls us forward too soon after that interview we did with the SOFI CEO to comments that were made by the CEO of Binance, we know that Finance had considered making up as much of a billion dollars or more worth of acquisitions, and you have c Z now talking about the idea of buying a bank. There are people who hold certain types of local licenses, traditional banking, payment service providers, even banks, and we're looking at those things, he says, And we want to be the bridge between crypto and the traditional financial world, he says, So what does that really look like? At the end of the day, when you think about, you know, Binance getting more into traditional finance, can they do it successfully similar to how we've seen FinTechs like Sophi do it. They did it by buying a bank for less than a billion dollars and getting that banking license. I want to show you here what it looks like in terms of multiples though, because if you look at what it means to be a bank or buy a bank. Even coin Base, with that huge draw down you've seen in the stock this year, you're still seeing them trade at a higher price to earnings than you are seeing the biggest banks of the United States, both regional and large investment banks trade at that is, between nine and eleven times earnings, and you're seeing coin based trade at a higher multiple. And when you look back again at what cz had said is that when traditional crypto firms do pair with finance firms, you do see the stock tend to jump of those finance firms. And he says by partnering with those companies, maybe taking a stake or buying out right, what you can get potentially is a higher multiple both for finance and that financial firm. So it will be interesting to see what kind of deals come out of finance and others as we move along, not just through partnership like we've seen for the last year or so, but by pure money put into traditional financial firms by firms that have gotten so large in the cryptospased like finance. All right, Shnali, so much more to come there, I know, Shnally boss, thank you. Let's take a look now at the behind the scenes of one of the world's most influential tech companies in China and the world, and that is Ali Baba. It's the topic of a new book from a former Ali Baba executive called The Tao of Ali Baba. Inside the Chinese digital Giant that is changing the world. So how did Ali Baba take on the world and what's it got coming? Next? Let's bring in author Brian Wong for more, a former top Ali Baba executives. So, Brian, you were the first American that worked at Ali Baba, the fifty second employee and a special assistant to Jack Ma. So you've seen some things. We should say. What do you think is Ali Baba and Jack Ma's secret sauce? Well, you know, Emily I, I wrote this book because I really wanted to share what my understanding and perception was from the nearly twe years I was with the company about you know, the essence of sort of Jack Ma and Ali Baba, And I think, you know, to put it in very um basic terms is uh, Jack really um was able to build a company around a very deep purpose of solving the world's problems. He uh, he created a culture that was very um, optimistic and positive, and he was able to align an organization to all focus on that that mission, but at the same time give them the flexibility to adapt to the constantly changing world in the industry that it's operating in order to for to become successful. So I've seen the company recreate itself over and over over these last twenty years, and I think really at the essence of it was what I called the Tao. But it's really this kind of um, really strong, mission driven and purpose driven organization and culture that Jack helped to create. So the question is, can Ali Baba reinvent itself again? When the company tried to globalize a few years back, it didn't quite work. Should Ali Baba revive those ambitions now? And will it work when there's others pushing for d globalization. Well, you know, one of the amazing things about the company throughout its history is how resilient it's been. You know, when it was very small, it faced some existential crises. UM. Before COVID, there was something called Stars and it was a very small company, and the company actually mobilized itself without even the direction of the leaders. But the staff came together and figured out ways to keep the company operating in its early years, but also to launch what we now know as one of the major retail businesses called Talbao during a lockdown period when you didn't have the conveniences that we have today in terms of mobile connectivity in devices. So I believe that the company, with its d n A and the culture that's been really established in uh you know, institutionalized with Ali Baba, it does have great potential to continue to grow. But also, as you ask globalized, yes, I think that UM, the world now really needs some you know, positive forces UM that utilize you know, things like technology to actually improve society and frankly, to solve a lot of the problems that we're facing. UM, not not just in the developed world, but in the emerging markets. That said, China's COVID zero policies have had a myriad of potentially negative impacts when you're talking about the supply chain and you know, basic consumer demand and execution. Some people say Ali Baba's glory days are over. What do you think, sure, Well, look, I think the challenges of zero COVID and the supply chain are more of a larger national issue that needs to be resolved, and I think the country is trying to work through that. You know, we may agree or disagree with how they're handling it, but really this is something that needs to take place on a national level and then eventually, you know, the companies can get back on their feet and do the things they need to do. I do think, though, this experience has really built up really strong capacity in terms of with uncertainty, and if you look at how companies like Ali Baba, you know, we're able to adapt to the situation over the years. I think they're going to come out stronger once this is all done. The question is, though, how does big tech survive in President She's China. When Beijing crackdown on the ant I p O, it basically put a scarlet letter on Ali Baba and jack Ma himself, what's the way out. Well, look, I think the anti I p O situation was one of of of a string of events that happened, and probably uh, you know, it was so high profile because it was at the start of this kind of change in policy. But also yes, it was a very major decision and quite sudden. But I do think that, you know, what this really indicates is a shift in terms of government policy, one that was previously kind of a late touch sort of governance model where it allowed for room for innovation, to one where it's more heavily regulated. But this is a global issue. If you think about what we're deal with now in the upcoming Supreme Court decisions in terms of anti trust and privacy in these issues, this is America, in Europe we're dealing with this, and also China, and this is where big tech has become, you know, big and influential um and governments are trying to figure out how to how to manage this. So I do think that each respective country and it's it's governments will figure out the solution of the policy for that. But I do think if you're if you're asking about opportunities down the road. UM, there are definitely new opportunities in the market. UM, you know, in higher quality sort of UM you know industries or or or or you know areas. UM. Chinese soundary trying to upgrade its industrial capacity and how companies can play in those spaces is really going to be the secret to their future growth and success if they can really tap into that. Jack mass still hasn't been seen publicly in some time. When is the last time you spoke with him? Where do you think he is and how is he doing well? You know, I've been in touch with Jack, you know, throughout the last two years and and and um in communication and you know he's been he's been free to move around. He's been laying low obviously. UM. You know he's traveled abroad. UM. You know people have mentioned they've seen him in Europe and other places in Asia. But I think he's really um Emily, he's gearing up for his next act, which is really around philanthropy, education, you know, helping uh those areas uh that really need assistance. UM. And it's a passion of his is to really help those who are kind of the more marginalized parts of society to really get on their feet rural communities. Um but also learning. You know, I think he was doing a lot of learning tours, uh in his last two years. UM So, so I think he's okay, but I think that a lot of people have been wondering. And hopefully at some point, you know, he will have his next sort of uh, you know, big thing to come out in terms of what he wants to do in philanthropy and people will know. Brian Wong, former Ali Baba, executive author of the Tao of Ali Baba Inside the Chinese Digital Giant that's changing the world. Thanks so much Brian for joining us. And that does it. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology Thursday, we've got the CEO of Aurora, Chris Urmson, talking about big changes and challenges ahead for self driving technology. I'm Emily Sharing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg