From the heart of where innovation, money and power COLLI in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Emily Jay. I'm Emily Check in San Francisco and this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. A security incident at Octa, the latest details on just what hackers got access to, as President Biden warns US businesses to harden their cyber defenses against Russia plus Robin Hood and veils a new debit car that will prompt users to round up their small change and invest it in stocks and even crypto as you spend an exclusive interview with the chief product officer. Coming up and how to get more women into n f T S and web three, the so called future of the Internet will be speaking with Randy Zuckerberg. But how she's trying to make sure nobody gets left behind in the next technical wave. Let's dig in now to the Octa breach. What exactly happened, What did hackers get their hands on? How serious is it? I want to bring in Bloomberg's Jeff Stone, who covers cybersecurity. Jeff, the initial reporting of this was that it was a security breach, often now saying their service wasn't breached. What happened here, that's correct. What Octa is saying Emily doesn't quite fit with the hackers. He might not be surprised to learn. But essentially, what the company said this afternoon is that someone an attacker, had access to a third party employees excess account for five days, which would give them um really what appears to be a dramatic amount of access into the systems at the company. The nature of the breach, though, still is under investigation. This is really important because Octa is a service that is used by businesses around the world to keep them safe. Looking this most recent blog post buy Octa, they're saying the service hasn't been breached, it remains fully operational. There are no corrective actions that need to be taken by our customers. So what do you read into about how significance this significant? This breach, if you will, was anytime a security firm or an identity management firm in the case of Octa, goes through an incident like this, it's a serious concern because of the amount of information that they carry about their customers. Without really knowing the depth of the incident, Octus customers certainly have reason to be on guard. We've seen UM some early reporting out from cloud Flair, for instance, indicating that cloud Flare also detected this and they had some further safety measures in place that prevented them from being affected. We hope that other customers are are in the same boat. Do we know who's behind lapses? And also I believe Telegram played some sort of role, that's correct. CIS is a new UM digital extortion group. They are using the messaging app Telegram to essentially announce their purported breaches and auction off their data and and hopefully recruit insiders for access for further access at companies UM like Octa. They also have claimed breaches at Microsoft, Ubisoft, a number of other firms. Do we know of LAPSES is tied to a nation state, of course, you know, with these threats of more cyber attacks coming from Russia, coming from President Biden himself, it's hard not to jump to that conclusion. UM. One thing that we need to keep in mind as this invasion of Ukraine continues is that financially motivated hacking still is going UM, if not accelerating. LAPSES appears to be a financially motivated group researchers initial research at least suggests that they appear to be located in South America or in Brazil. That's based on some of their targeting UH and some victim data, but they don't appear to be particularly skilled at the other end of the spectrum. They also claimed to have access to Microsoft source code, so difficult to say. So that said, give us some more context on President Biden's warning that businesses US businesses, businesses around the world should be hardening up their cyber defenses. They're preparing for Russian cyber attackers to double down. That's correct. We were expecting a much louder, noisier, perhaps more devastating cyber war, if you will, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine got underway a few weeks ago. That hasn't really happened in the way that analysts initially expected. UM, but the warning yesterday certainly UM gives US companies reason to be on guard again. Some of the reporting that we're starting to hear is that, while there may not be specific technical details in the announcement from the White House, that update may have been based on intelligence that would indicate that as Russia's invasion hasn't on according to plan, they may resort to cyber activity to either raise money or create havoc in different ways. We know that US companies certainly are on guard, all right. Jeff Stone, who covers cyber for Bloomberg, thanks for helping us break down some of these complex issues happening in cyberspace. Coming up robin Hood's new cash card. We're gonna hear from Cheach product officer Aparna China Progatta on how they want to make investing in stocks and crypto as easy as buying a cup of coffee. This is Bloomberg. If you're a crypto curious gen z and millennial, you can you need and kind of like go deep into the rabbit hole of crypto. You can just you know, round up the speed change, invest in a a in bitcoin, or invest in crypto without kind of like going off the deep end. And I think we think that that's actually one of the things that will be pretty interesting too. Or you can split your paycheck and get some of the money in crypto. Robin Hood just unveiled a new debit card that will prompt users to take their spare change and invested in small increments for you. That means, if you buy a cup of coffee, round up your purchase to the nearest dollar, robin Hood will invest it in the assets of your choice, including crypto. We caught up with robin Hood chief product officer Aparna Chinna Pergatta exclusively to discuss. Of course, we're working on you know, many other products that are that make investing easy for an entire generation of folks to get started with. But particularly excited to share here the robin Hood cash card um and what it does is it's basically suspending account and a cash card, a debit card that allows you not only to spend on things that you need, but will help you turn that into investing on things that you want. What do I mean that it does three things really really well. One is it does actually help you kind of round up the spare change you buy a cup of coffee, will turn that into a spare change that you can invest in crypto or stocks, uh so turning spending into investing. The second it also we robin Hood will give you a weekly bonus to reward you for that and help pitch in and support your investing journey. And finally, we're also working with merchants and retailers to say, how can we help you get even more savings, especially in this context of inflation and price rise. Now your question is valid, which is what why this? And we think of this is just another step. The next big step in investing is really tackling spending because we think that this is expanding the definition of investing. You don't have to wait till you grow accumulate wealth to be able to then invest to grow it. You start investing at the beginning of the financial journey right when you start spending. So far, robin Hood earned the majority of its arab A you from trading activity. What are the signs you have that a cash card or spending account is something that robin Hood users want. There's a couple of things. First of all, we have a cash management customers that have been using it as part of the brokerage account. We do know based on customer research, that the next generation of m folks are debit primary. They're wary of credit card bills, they're wary of kind of the pitfalls. But at the same time, they have high interest in investing, whether it's being stock market or in crypto. And so we think that this is a way that we can actually help them not only just like go about their everyday existing behavior. This doesn't require them to change anything, but as they do so, they'll start to kind of like put away a little bit of money towards their tomorrow, towards their futures. So the early signs that we're getting from our product testing are very strong that people love this connection between spending and investing. One customer in our research described it as this is a debit card with all the trappings of a credit card and none of its pitfalls. So how much revenue do you expect to earn from this product? In particular, I think there's a couple really strong things that we're looking for here. One, of course, is our customers really who sign up for it, really loving the product, using that for their everyday spending, turning that those you know, cups of coffee into investing. Uh. And of course, like just like many other fintech products, there's the interchange fees that that we have that have been interchange that we learn from this. But the second thing, which is also really powerful for customers as well as us as a business, is it starts this virtual cycle of spending turning into investing. That is really good for customers for their longer long term. Obviously compound interest is great um, but also great for us as a business, more diversified and more connected and we have multiple product lines. Now. You mentioned in your announcement that for gen Z credit cards just aren't as popular as a payment method for millennials. Why do you think that is and how does that change the future of financing. Yeah, and this is fascinating, Emily, because you know, when you dig into it, there's a few different reasons. One, of course, the default assumption you go in with there's oh, of course they're still building their credit and therefore you know the credit cards are not accessible to them. There's some truth to that. But there's two other reasons. One is we found a lot of interest from customers in terms of like being in control of their cash flows right and not being and being very wary of like predatory rates that dig a deeper and deeper hole of debt and that they're not able to come out of. So that's I think one key reason. I think the second reason you think about is there's always a catch, and this is verbating. Some how people describe it that there is a catch in terms of the rewards are restricted for a few. Right, if you pay or you know, X hundred dollars fee per year, then you get this beautiful card. If you pay this much money, then you get all of these points and so on. We just like we have trying to do, we have been trying to do on the investing side, We said, what does it mean and what does it take for us to give whatever was reserved for the few for everyone? Right? Great looking card, great app with lots of in app security features, intuitive design, and rewards for that that feel like a credit card without any of the catch. Robin Hood's chief product officer a Pargata. There. You can catch a full interview at Bloomberg dot com. Meantime, Mackenzie Scott has made the largest publicly disclosed gifts since she pledged to give away the majority of her wealth. Back in Scott donated four thirty six million dollars to the home building nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. Scott is the ex wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, she is worth more than fifty four billion dollars n f T S the collectible art projects could be the future of content creation, but how do we get more women creating them? That is the focus of Randy Zuckerberg, who was launching a new class featured on Creatively to teach women how to participate in the rapidly evolving n f T landscape. I want to bring in Randy Zuckerberg now for more on this, along with Stacy Vendett, who co founded Creatively and is also the creative director and CEO of Alice and Olivia, one of my favorite brands. Um Randy, talk to me about this class that you're launching to teach creatives. What do you want students to get out of this? Sure, well, I think first of all, n f t s are an incredible gateway into learning more about crypto and finance. They're also an incredible platform for artists and creatives to collect directly with their audience for the first time. I know for me, I've collected a lot of art I've invested in the theater and shows, and I've always just missed having that one on one connection with the artists themselves. N f T s provide the perfect way to do that. So I'm really excited to be partnering with Stacy on this course. Stay see why are you teaming up with Randy on this You're launching an n f T blouse which I believe Randy is wearing. Talk to us about the link that you see between n f T s and real world fashion. Well, I feel like for brands, n f T s are an amazing way to connect with your customer. But Randy inspired me to use our blouse is a way to bring more women into the crypto space. So a lot of women are overwhelmed by how to purchase their first n f T, what to do with an n f T, what an n f T is, and so we thought that if we could create a blouse that's one of our best selling blouse shapes with a fun, beautiful print and give the n f T away with it, it was a way to win vite more women into the crypto space. Um And and Randy offered to teach a class to the Creatively community, which are young creatives and to the Alis and Olivia customers and women who want to learn about n f T s. I think you know, obviously we saw a lot of n f T hype last year, and some seem to think that the n f T hype is slowing down, Like if you look at the average trading volume, Randy, it's dropping. How do you make sense of that, and how does this new audience of of potential creators make sense of that? Whether or not to invest in this space, it's a great question. And I don't know if it's slowing down as much as it's changing. It's evolving. Six or seven months ago, it was differentiated enough to just be a woman creating n f t s put a collection out there and sell out. Today it's not like that anymore. The marketplaces evolving n f t s need to come with utilities like a blouse, like jewelry, like event tickets or me it ups with a v I P or a mentor. And so I think we're in a little bit of a transition point with n f t s and crypto right now, where we're going from this world where was just these collections of JPEG's and art to really thinking how do these become investments with long term utility. There's a big concern that women are going to get left out of n f t s and crypto, like we saw women largely get out left out of you know, the big consumer tech wave, and Stacy, I know you spent the early days of your career coding websites for some of the world's biggest fashion brands in a very male dominated space. How has your experience sort of driven your interest in this initiative? And you know, how do we make sure that women don't get left behind again? Well, we need to educate them, we need to inspire them, and we need to teach them. And so we're hoping that Brandy's classes thousands of women that join to learn about n f T S and crypto and everything in between. And I want to add that I think that of the things you know right now, we saw this boom in you know, billions or hundreds of millions being spent on art world in the n f T space. But there's a whole another side to the n f T space that allows brands to connect with customers, brands to connect with women, um brands to allow n f T s to be this gateway to you know, sort of give all kinds of different incentives and you know, surprises to their customers. So I think we're just beginning to see what the n f T world can offer to both the art world to creatives to consumers, and I think Granny and I both agree that it's really important for women to understand it and engage in it um and I think we're both determined to make sure that women are not left behind in the space. Randy, there's a question of how you strike the right note with your audience. You recently put together a very well produced video focused on Cranto and n f t S and there was a strong response to it, not all of it was positive. What was your goal with this video and and what do you make of the response? Yeah, Well, Emily, you've known me for a long time. We sang together in college, so anyone who knows me should not be surprised that I would put something like this out. But I'm gonna be honest that the crypto world, um, you know, all that we talk about with getting more women into the space, Unfortunately, the crypto world right now is not very welcoming. It's not very inviting for newcomers. It feels intimidating, it feels um you know, challenging to be a woman walking into an industry that's ent mail. And so for me, everything I do in the space, my education, my courses. These videos is designed to make Crypto feel fun and welcoming and inviting because it's not hard and there's incredible opportunity. And so you know what if some of the O g s that they call themselves in Crypto don't like that I'm coming in here to have fun and welcome women, well my content is not for them. My content is for the millions of women and people and newcomers who are going to be coming into Crypto this year and in the coming years. My producers, Randy, are asking me for more details on us singing together in college, so thank you for that. I have last I have a last quick question about the metaverse, because obviously you can't talk about Crypto and Web three and n f t S without talking about the metaverse. Randy, what is your vision for the future of the metaverse? Is this somewhere we're going to be living and working and playing in or is it just gonna be you know, you know, a small subset of our lives. Well, first, I'm just excited to be getting back to the actual verse after two years of living on zoom. Um. I am very excited though about the metaverse. I think um some of the n f T collections that I'm working with are working on building schools and education in the metaverse for girls around the world who can't go to school, who are in areas where it's too dangerous or it's not allowed. I'm excited it about the opportunity for performances and art in the metaverse. So I do think that we, you know, the last two years, as crazy as it's been, has trained everyone to spend more and more of our lives online and to care about our lives and our identity online. So it'll be interesting to see what comes all right. Randy Zuckerberg, tech entrepreneur who also sang Acapella UM with me a lad with Alison Olivia, Creative director at CEO, Stacy Bendett, will be watching this course and see how it all plays out. Thank you. This is a great day for the factory and uh, you know it's uh. I just like to thank everyone who helped. Thank you, thank you very much. Uh it's really made a very big difference UM and to the community. And U, I mean Tesla will make sure that this is a gem, you know, a gemstone for the area, for Germany, for Europe and for the world. You heard it. Tesla is up and running in Germany. I want to get straight to our Ed Ludlow, who has been tracking the story, and something Ed got Ellen dancing. Something got him dancing, whether it was the fact that the Berlin plants or line, or even the share price. Just look at this chart over the last six days. Rub almost on Tuesday, as the Berlin plant got up and running, the stock jump eight percent, biggest jump in almost two months. It's up for six straight days, best streaks since October, and it's back above trillion dollars in market cap. A lot to be happy about. And must did make good on his promise to dance at the opening of the Berlin plant, just as he did in Shanghai. I mean, I mean, what do you say, what do you say when you see images like that that quite some moves? Huh, he's got some. Well I'm not going to comment on that, but you know, the Berlin plants so important for Tesla. They actually managed to do it pretty quickly, two years or so since it was announced, going right, and the first thirty vehicles delivered today. But this is the chart that matters, right, This is the projected production for Tess or over the next couple of the years. Shanghai, the orange section, Fremont yellow section. You see the two slivers of pink and blue Berlin and in Austin in texts of course, which has not yet come online, and you can see how slowly analysts expect the ramp to be at these plants. So, yes, good news, they're underway, but there's gonna be some some difficulties. You US talked about how by the end of this year they want Berlin to produce around five to ten thousand vehicles a week. Today it was just the first thirty. But they've experimented with technology. Will be really interesting with this backdrop of supply chain crunch, how well they'll be able to ramp. All right, Well, one thing we know for sure, to our viewers who will never be able to unsee Elon Lask dancing at Lund, thank you. I want to get to another story where continuing to follow the discontent at Disney over CEO Bob Jpex response to that controversial Florida bill better known as Don't Say Gay. On Tuesday, employees across the company many parts of the company walked off the job, including one of the biggest stars of the Disney Channel. What's up with the cast of Ravens Home and the EPs? And we are walking out today in support of this ridiculous bill. We don't like it. We're working mad. It's still we love everyone and um support support, support by Raven Simone there and the cast of Raven's Home. It wasn't just big celebrities though, it was employees across the board joining me now Chris Paul Mary, who attended a walk out in l A. Chris talked to us about the turnout. Well, this is something we've been wondering when this verse was announced by a group of employees about a week ago, that they were asking people to take time off every day, culminating in this big full day walkout today. It's just how big this was. It's not huge. There was about a hundred people in the park that I saw who many of them had locked earlier in front of the Burbank headquarters of Disney. Uh. They're a very passionate goog Though I listened to them speak, I spoke to them. Uh, you know, they feel very strongly about this topic and they're they're not gonna let Bob say back. The CEO of Disney off easy on this topic. So what's your sense of how Bob cha Peck is weathering this. I mean, obviously seems like, you know, he conceded to making a mistake not taking a position initially, but now they have course corrected. A hundred and eighty degrees isn't enough? Uh, Yeah, I mean he corrected very quickly. Remember it was just a couple of days he said he reversed this position. He was going to take a public stance. He's he's had to come out apologize a couple of times. Yesterday, Big Town Hall of all employees. Uh, he's it. He's going to go on a global listening tour uh and talk to folks with other senior leaders he know, put aside of management pow wow that they were supposed to have next week in Orlando to do that. Uh. Took a strong position against the Texas Tech in order that deals with a similar topic. So so he's really trying to to to make amends for this with the community of Disney employees. So is it gonna work? I mean, there's been speculation that he has a year left on his contract, you know, that could be the end. Yeah, I mean this part of the problem for is this dovetails with a lot of other issues that there's a perception that he is not as strong as people person as his predecessor Bob Iger was. He doesn't have the relationships with talent that I developed over the years. And so this is just sort of one example in in that narrative of an executive whom maybees to do a lot better job in connecting with the people who create the content for Disney. Where is Iger in all of this? He obviously came out against the bill fairly early on. You know, the speculation has arranged to you know, Bob check Chpeck could be out, Bob Iger could be coming back. He gave an interview last month where he said, no, no way, that won't happen. Uh. That said, he's a very careful political guy in a way, lift his firestorm for for Chapec by coming out and taking a stand against this bill before Disney had, and that really sort of put started people then started asking, well, what's Disney's overall position, and that's when Chai ultimately responded a couple of weeks later. So, you know, the relationship between the two men is not great. I think chafed at the control that Iger had as chairman for almost two years. Uh and uh and and Iger maybe feels like he wasn't listened to enough during that time period. All Right, we'll continue to watch a report on this CRISP Bloomberg's christ pal Mary, thank you. Coming up, Could Ethereum be taking over Bitcoin? We'll have more on the recent crypto market trends and what it means for VC investing. Next, this is Bloomberg Time for our Crypto report now and a look at what's happening in crypto markets. Crypto assets getting a booze, but divergence seems to be forming between the two largest cryptocurrencies. Our next guest Bradley Tusk of Tuskic Ventures, for his take on markets and crypto specifically. Rad thanks so much for joining us. Obviously if you're looking at the crypto space, but from the perspective of a venture capitalist, how are you advising clients where to put their money given the additional scrutiny, you know, looming regulatory uncertain see and what's happening with Russia and Ukraine and these sanctions. So those are all really good points. I'm definitely a crypto believer. My fund has invested in companies like coin based circles, so we're certainly in it. But at the same time, I do think that regulation is the greatest threat to cryptocurrency, and I think that the crypto community misinterpreted the executive order the President Biden issues two weeks ago around it. I think people because it didn't say, you know, we're shutting crypto down, people were kind of breathe a sigh of relief, But in reality it reinforced all the power that the SEC and other agencies have to regular crypto however they see fit. So I think there should be a bigger concern than it has been so far. How big a concern, Well, look, I mean Gary Ginsler certainly not a crypto fan, and there's really no reason why he couldn't say, you know, we are going to impose these kinds of reporting and requirements or taxation in a way that basically makes consort of transaction possible or prohibiting uh, you know, margin based lending or requiring a stable coin currency reserve. That's unreasonable. So they could do a lot to her crypto. And I think the point here to me is the crypto world has to grow up politically and recognize that because their greatest threat is regulatory risk. Uh, they have to get political in the way that pharma and lots of other industries are, and they find it distasteful. Um, but they've got to do with the protectives. Now there's this big debate happening bitcoin versus a theory. And we heard what Shinali was talking about earlier. I just asked Serena Williams, who's got her own venture capital fund, now what she thinks. Take a listen to what she had to say. I think a bitcoin has had an amazing boom and it's continues to do something amazing and it's it's huge. Right. I'm personally, um, really in love with ethereum. I think gets it's just um, it's more accessible. Brod are you a bitcoin or an ethereum guy? And why so? I will say this if I don't invest in the actual currency either way. My view is we can assess whether or not we think a company will succeed, and then we can impact the company's future and activities and everything else. But whether bitcoin or etherorum will go up and down in any given day is usually kind of beyond my pay grade. But look, I think there are certain things to Ethereum in terms of the type of watching that it's on and it's accessibility that Serena is probably right. It's easy to see why it's started to become a real competent. I'm kind of curious many investors like you are investing in crypto infrastructure given some of these uncertainties around the future around regulation. But from a purely valuation standpoint, are you worried at all that perhaps maybe too much money is slowing into infrastructure companies at a time where there's worries about a disconnect between private and public valuations. Yeah, look, it's a very fair point. And I think back to when we invested in a company called the Wheel, which telemedicine matching engine based in Austin, Texas that just had a billion dollar valuation, and I remember literally thinking, if I believe in the future of digital health, then I should invest in the Wheel, right. I kind of think it's the same thing here. Um. I do think the regulation is an existential risk to cryptocurrency, but I also think it's here to say and here for the long term. And so look, if it is a piece of infrastructure that the community really needs. I think it makes total sense. I think one problem we often have adventure is because there's so much money in the sector right now, people are investing companies that solve problems that don't really exist in the first place. So whatever problem you're solving has to be a real prop And how do you think about crypto investing versus broader Web three? Do you think that the crypto part of the landscape is under or over invested in here? Look, right now, it's over is simply because we don't have any Web three investments in very few people do, because no one exactly knows what that means yet, right. But to me, where the to get really interesting is when Web three is here, when we're in the metaverse. That's in my view, and crypto goes from being an asset class to an actual curmancy. When tons of transactions are happening completely within the metaverse, totally digital. That's when it really makes sense for vendors to say, yes, we take m X and visa, but we also take you know, ethereum and basically um. And so I think that the two really converge when the metaverse and Web three is actually here. Who runs the metaverse of the future in your view, and how is that guiding your investment decisions. Yeah, that's a great question. So the answer is, you know is nobody knows. Um. But I think where we should take note is, Look, you have companies like Facebook and Microsoft and Apple spending tens of billions of dollars on metaverse development. Um. They want to build walled gardens that basically keep you inside of their ecosystem and infrastructure and spending money on their stuff as opposed to somebody else's. And I think that that I wrote a memo about two months ago on how to regulate the metaverse. And the reason I did it was because I know that if we follow the typical path where a technology company comes up with a new idea, they launch it, and then after some period of time government realized it exists, start starts to try to regulate it, that almost never works, right, Um, And you got to get ahead of these problems in the first on the front end. And so I think that if we want government to have some say over the metaverse. And the reason why that's important is all of the lack of privacy and portability and data ownership that we have an Internet two point oh in this country. I think most people would like to have more protections when the metaverse comes and when Web three comes, and so if government doesn't proactively say how do we protect and look out for consumers in the metaverse, then no one's going to uh and people are gonna have our time. I have another question here about venture capital and how it changes as it pertains to crypto. Given that people are raising money in so many new and different ways in the crypto landscape, do you think if the VC space doesn't adapt that they risk competing very heavily with crypto investment. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So well yes, you know, actually yes, because you're seeing crypto companies themselves start doing internal venture investing. You're seeing funds that are specifically focused just on crypto and nothing else, and they're going to have advantages in terms of the ability to see deals, to analyze deals, and everything else. At the same time, when times are really flush, everyone's throwing the money. And if either because of regulation or some other problem, you know, the price of crypto decline significantly, all these companies making kind of side investments and other crypto startups and infrastructure everything else may end pretty quickly. So I don't know that the competition has longevity, but I do think that right now they have some advantages. All right, Bradley Tusk Tesk Ventures along with our Shinali Bossk, thank you both well. As corporate life slowly gets back to a new normal, the fintech startup Ramp is taking advantage, the company raising another seven fifty million dollars valued at now over eight billion dollars. All will continue to grow. Joining me now the CEO of Ramp, Eric Glenman. Eric, thanks so much for joining us, so talk to us a little bit about ramps business, what you do and why it's important in the fins tech landscape today. Person Emily, thanks so much for having me. So. Ramp is a finance automation platform. We offered the fastest curring corporate card in America with built in expense management, bill payments and accounting automation uh in the impact that we tried for companies as we help the average companies spend three point three percent less each year, enclose their books eight times faster. You're competing with giants like American Express. What do you have on them? Yeah? So, first, it's a fundamentally a design that's focused on our customer UH. And so where there's others in this space have thought a lot about how to design points programs that incentivize companies to spend more than they intended or more revenue for the company. We design our products with the intent of helping business owners spend less money and spend less time. And that's why we believe we were able to grow revenues by a factor of ten times and for the number of car holder juicy Ramp by fifteen times year over year. And you think that a line approach, it's what business owners are looking for eight point one billion dollars and certainly half the evaluation. How do you plan to invest this new capital? Primarily on on hiring. Today RAMP is about three hundred people UH and we intend to double that over the coming year, primarily hiring in research and development, engineering, product design, trying to come up with software that entoufis work companies are wasting time. UM. You know, things like manual expense reports, helping automate that a way fully wasting money, identify where certain companies are getting charged more than others, and helping combat crisis for the nation and ultimately supporting more business owners. We support over five thousand companies today in the US, UH, and we intend to use the funding to help scale to tens of thousands. You're also planning to open a new office in Miami later this year. Why Miami and how much of your workforce will be coming in to that office versus working remotely? Yeah, thanks so much for asking. Um So, first, just Miami has become an incredibly dynamic city, especially coming into and out of the pandemic. We're seeing a lot of new business formation UH founders heading down there. UH. And RAMP wants to be where business owners are forming new companies, where companies are operating, people are are seeking to um treat and grow workforces. UH. And so a lot of this is really around supporting businesses down there, but also to coming throughout the pandemic. We just see that uh. You know a lot of our our workforce wants to work in great places. People are used to being able to work where they want, UM and how they want. And so by June we should open our office. UM. You know, we're gonna be hiring locally as well as supporting employees who want to spend some time and work from a sunny place for part of the year. Given that you're working with a lot of small businesses, what are they telling you? Given geopolitical uncertainty, inflation, there's a lot of pressure and uncertainty about what lies ahead. For sure, you know, we we we talked with finance teams, founders CFOs day and day out. And I think during this period UM, you know, businesses are still trying to do the same thing they're always trying to do, which is you know, grow UM grow business have a great livelihood and support others. But I think what's especially important and people are playing for if if capital is harder to access, you know, making sure we're being prudent for their funds UH. And so you know, for us, a lot of that comes down to UM. You know, can we help companies identify where there's waste UM you know, where certain companies are spending more than others UM and helping companies that are that are that are looking to bring down their spend UM you know, in designing software that helps them achieve that UM. A lot of people are looking for support UM for travel, you know, for you know travel UM as people as workforces have suddenly become hybrid through the pandemic. Even though there's uncertainty globally a lot of a lot of Americans, it's starting to see others in different offices and locations across the country. UM, and so integrated travel management, expense management and like our our hot areas and development for ramping our customers. Quick question, when's the I p oh, No current flends UM. But like we're trying to UM, you know, build a business for the long run and aligned incentives and you know that that's what we're focused on day in and day out. UM, and we'll see where where things take us. Right Eric Lenman, CEO of ROMP, thank you so much for joining us. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. We will be right back here tomorrow. Don't forget to check out our new podcast. Every episode of the show. You can listen on the go on Apple, Spotify, I Heart on the terminal. Of course, we'll be right back here tomorrow. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg

From the heart of where innovation, money and power COLLI in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Emily Jay. I'm Emily Check in San Francisco and this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. A security incident at Octa, the latest details on just what hackers got access to, as President Biden warns US businesses to harden their cyber defenses against Russia plus Robin Hood and veils a new debit car that will prompt users to round up their small change and invest it in stocks and even crypto as you spend an exclusive interview with the chief product officer. Coming up and how to get more women into n f T S and web three, the so called future of the Internet will be speaking with Randy Zuckerberg. But how she's trying to make sure nobody gets left behind in the next technical wave. Let's dig in now to the Octa breach. What exactly happened, What did hackers get their hands on? How serious is it? I want to bring in Bloomberg's Jeff Stone, who covers cybersecurity. Jeff, the initial reporting of this was that it was a security breach, often now saying their service wasn't breached. What happened here, that's correct. What Octa is saying Emily doesn't quite fit with the hackers. He might not be surprised to learn. But essentially, what the company said this afternoon is that someone an attacker, had access to a third party employees excess account for five days, which would give them um really what appears to be a dramatic amount of access into the systems at the company. The nature of the breach, though, still is under investigation. This is really important because Octa is a service that is used by businesses around the world to keep them safe. Looking this most recent blog post buy Octa, they're saying the service hasn't been breached, it remains fully operational. There are no corrective actions that need to be taken by our customers. So what do you read into about how significance this significant? This breach, if you will, was anytime a security firm or an identity management firm in the case of Octa, goes through an incident like this, it's a serious concern because of the amount of information that they carry about their customers. Without really knowing the depth of the incident, Octus customers certainly have reason to be on guard. We've seen UM some early reporting out from cloud Flair, for instance, indicating that cloud Flare also detected this and they had some further safety measures in place that prevented them from being affected. We hope that other customers are are in the same boat. Do we know who's behind lapses? And also I believe Telegram played some sort of role, that's correct. CIS is a new UM digital extortion group. They are using the messaging app Telegram to essentially announce their purported breaches and auction off their data and and hopefully recruit insiders for access for further access at companies UM like Octa. They also have claimed breaches at Microsoft, Ubisoft, a number of other firms. Do we know of LAPSES is tied to a nation state, of course, you know, with these threats of more cyber attacks coming from Russia, coming from President Biden himself, it's hard not to jump to that conclusion. UM. One thing that we need to keep in mind as this invasion of Ukraine continues is that financially motivated hacking still is going UM, if not accelerating. LAPSES appears to be a financially motivated group researchers initial research at least suggests that they appear to be located in South America or in Brazil. That's based on some of their targeting UH and some victim data, but they don't appear to be particularly skilled at the other end of the spectrum. They also claimed to have access to Microsoft source code, so difficult to say. So that said, give us some more context on President Biden's warning that businesses US businesses, businesses around the world should be hardening up their cyber defenses. They're preparing for Russian cyber attackers to double down. That's correct. We were expecting a much louder, noisier, perhaps more devastating cyber war, if you will, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine got underway a few weeks ago. That hasn't really happened in the way that analysts initially expected. UM, but the warning yesterday certainly UM gives US companies reason to be on guard again. Some of the reporting that we're starting to hear is that, while there may not be specific technical details in the announcement from the White House, that update may have been based on intelligence that would indicate that as Russia's invasion hasn't on according to plan, they may resort to cyber activity to either raise money or create havoc in different ways. We know that US companies certainly are on guard, all right. Jeff Stone, who covers cyber for Bloomberg, thanks for helping us break down some of these complex issues happening in cyberspace. Coming up robin Hood's new cash card. We're gonna hear from Cheach product officer Aparna China Progatta on how they want to make investing in stocks and crypto as easy as buying a cup of coffee. This is Bloomberg. If you're a crypto curious gen z and millennial, you can you need and kind of like go deep into the rabbit hole of crypto. You can just you know, round up the speed change, invest in a a in bitcoin, or invest in crypto without kind of like going off the deep end. And I think we think that that's actually one of the things that will be pretty interesting too. Or you can split your paycheck and get some of the money in crypto. Robin Hood just unveiled a new debit card that will prompt users to take their spare change and invested in small increments for you. That means, if you buy a cup of coffee, round up your purchase to the nearest dollar, robin Hood will invest it in the assets of your choice, including crypto. We caught up with robin Hood chief product officer Aparna Chinna Pergatta exclusively to discuss. Of course, we're working on you know, many other products that are that make investing easy for an entire generation of folks to get started with. But particularly excited to share here the robin Hood cash card um and what it does is it's basically suspending account and a cash card, a debit card that allows you not only to spend on things that you need, but will help you turn that into investing on things that you want. What do I mean that it does three things really really well. One is it does actually help you kind of round up the spare change you buy a cup of coffee, will turn that into a spare change that you can invest in crypto or stocks, uh so turning spending into investing. The second it also we robin Hood will give you a weekly bonus to reward you for that and help pitch in and support your investing journey. And finally, we're also working with merchants and retailers to say, how can we help you get even more savings, especially in this context of inflation and price rise. Now your question is valid, which is what why this? And we think of this is just another step. The next big step in investing is really tackling spending because we think that this is expanding the definition of investing. You don't have to wait till you grow accumulate wealth to be able to then invest to grow it. You start investing at the beginning of the financial journey right when you start spending. So far, robin Hood earned the majority of its arab A you from trading activity. What are the signs you have that a cash card or spending account is something that robin Hood users want. There's a couple of things. First of all, we have a cash management customers that have been using it as part of the brokerage account. We do know based on customer research, that the next generation of m folks are debit primary. They're wary of credit card bills, they're wary of kind of the pitfalls. But at the same time, they have high interest in investing, whether it's being stock market or in crypto. And so we think that this is a way that we can actually help them not only just like go about their everyday existing behavior. This doesn't require them to change anything, but as they do so, they'll start to kind of like put away a little bit of money towards their tomorrow, towards their futures. So the early signs that we're getting from our product testing are very strong that people love this connection between spending and investing. One customer in our research described it as this is a debit card with all the trappings of a credit card and none of its pitfalls. So how much revenue do you expect to earn from this product? In particular, I think there's a couple really strong things that we're looking for here. One, of course, is our customers really who sign up for it, really loving the product, using that for their everyday spending, turning that those you know, cups of coffee into investing. Uh. And of course, like just like many other fintech products, there's the interchange fees that that we have that have been interchange that we learn from this. But the second thing, which is also really powerful for customers as well as us as a business, is it starts this virtual cycle of spending turning into investing. That is really good for customers for their longer long term. Obviously compound interest is great um, but also great for us as a business, more diversified and more connected and we have multiple product lines. Now. You mentioned in your announcement that for gen Z credit cards just aren't as popular as a payment method for millennials. Why do you think that is and how does that change the future of financing. Yeah, and this is fascinating, Emily, because you know, when you dig into it, there's a few different reasons. One, of course, the default assumption you go in with there's oh, of course they're still building their credit and therefore you know the credit cards are not accessible to them. There's some truth to that. But there's two other reasons. One is we found a lot of interest from customers in terms of like being in control of their cash flows right and not being and being very wary of like predatory rates that dig a deeper and deeper hole of debt and that they're not able to come out of. So that's I think one key reason. I think the second reason you think about is there's always a catch, and this is verbating. Some how people describe it that there is a catch in terms of the rewards are restricted for a few. Right, if you pay or you know, X hundred dollars fee per year, then you get this beautiful card. If you pay this much money, then you get all of these points and so on. We just like we have trying to do, we have been trying to do on the investing side, We said, what does it mean and what does it take for us to give whatever was reserved for the few for everyone? Right? Great looking card, great app with lots of in app security features, intuitive design, and rewards for that that feel like a credit card without any of the catch. Robin Hood's chief product officer a Pargata. There. You can catch a full interview at Bloomberg dot com. Meantime, Mackenzie Scott has made the largest publicly disclosed gifts since she pledged to give away the majority of her wealth. Back in Scott donated four thirty six million dollars to the home building nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. Scott is the ex wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, she is worth more than fifty four billion dollars n f T S the collectible art projects could be the future of content creation, but how do we get more women creating them? That is the focus of Randy Zuckerberg, who was launching a new class featured on Creatively to teach women how to participate in the rapidly evolving n f T landscape. I want to bring in Randy Zuckerberg now for more on this, along with Stacy Vendett, who co founded Creatively and is also the creative director and CEO of Alice and Olivia, one of my favorite brands. Um Randy, talk to me about this class that you're launching to teach creatives. What do you want students to get out of this? Sure, well, I think first of all, n f t s are an incredible gateway into learning more about crypto and finance. They're also an incredible platform for artists and creatives to collect directly with their audience for the first time. I know for me, I've collected a lot of art I've invested in the theater and shows, and I've always just missed having that one on one connection with the artists themselves. N f T s provide the perfect way to do that. So I'm really excited to be partnering with Stacy on this course. Stay see why are you teaming up with Randy on this You're launching an n f T blouse which I believe Randy is wearing. Talk to us about the link that you see between n f T s and real world fashion. Well, I feel like for brands, n f T s are an amazing way to connect with your customer. But Randy inspired me to use our blouse is a way to bring more women into the crypto space. So a lot of women are overwhelmed by how to purchase their first n f T, what to do with an n f T, what an n f T is, and so we thought that if we could create a blouse that's one of our best selling blouse shapes with a fun, beautiful print and give the n f T away with it, it was a way to win vite more women into the crypto space. Um And and Randy offered to teach a class to the Creatively community, which are young creatives and to the Alis and Olivia customers and women who want to learn about n f T s. I think you know, obviously we saw a lot of n f T hype last year, and some seem to think that the n f T hype is slowing down, Like if you look at the average trading volume, Randy, it's dropping. How do you make sense of that, and how does this new audience of of potential creators make sense of that? Whether or not to invest in this space, it's a great question. And I don't know if it's slowing down as much as it's changing. It's evolving. Six or seven months ago, it was differentiated enough to just be a woman creating n f t s put a collection out there and sell out. Today it's not like that anymore. The marketplaces evolving n f t s need to come with utilities like a blouse, like jewelry, like event tickets or me it ups with a v I P or a mentor. And so I think we're in a little bit of a transition point with n f t s and crypto right now, where we're going from this world where was just these collections of JPEG's and art to really thinking how do these become investments with long term utility. There's a big concern that women are going to get left out of n f t s and crypto, like we saw women largely get out left out of you know, the big consumer tech wave, and Stacy, I know you spent the early days of your career coding websites for some of the world's biggest fashion brands in a very male dominated space. How has your experience sort of driven your interest in this initiative? And you know, how do we make sure that women don't get left behind again? Well, we need to educate them, we need to inspire them, and we need to teach them. And so we're hoping that Brandy's classes thousands of women that join to learn about n f T S and crypto and everything in between. And I want to add that I think that of the things you know right now, we saw this boom in you know, billions or hundreds of millions being spent on art world in the n f T space. But there's a whole another side to the n f T space that allows brands to connect with customers, brands to connect with women, um brands to allow n f T s to be this gateway to you know, sort of give all kinds of different incentives and you know, surprises to their customers. So I think we're just beginning to see what the n f T world can offer to both the art world to creatives to consumers, and I think Granny and I both agree that it's really important for women to understand it and engage in it um and I think we're both determined to make sure that women are not left behind in the space. Randy, there's a question of how you strike the right note with your audience. You recently put together a very well produced video focused on Cranto and n f t S and there was a strong response to it, not all of it was positive. What was your goal with this video and and what do you make of the response? Yeah, Well, Emily, you've known me for a long time. We sang together in college, so anyone who knows me should not be surprised that I would put something like this out. But I'm gonna be honest that the crypto world, um, you know, all that we talk about with getting more women into the space, Unfortunately, the crypto world right now is not very welcoming. It's not very inviting for newcomers. It feels intimidating, it feels um you know, challenging to be a woman walking into an industry that's ent mail. And so for me, everything I do in the space, my education, my courses. These videos is designed to make Crypto feel fun and welcoming and inviting because it's not hard and there's incredible opportunity. And so you know what if some of the O g s that they call themselves in Crypto don't like that I'm coming in here to have fun and welcome women, well my content is not for them. My content is for the millions of women and people and newcomers who are going to be coming into Crypto this year and in the coming years. My producers, Randy, are asking me for more details on us singing together in college, so thank you for that. I have last I have a last quick question about the metaverse, because obviously you can't talk about Crypto and Web three and n f t S without talking about the metaverse. Randy, what is your vision for the future of the metaverse? Is this somewhere we're going to be living and working and playing in or is it just gonna be you know, you know, a small subset of our lives. Well, first, I'm just excited to be getting back to the actual verse after two years of living on zoom. Um. I am very excited though about the metaverse. I think um some of the n f T collections that I'm working with are working on building schools and education in the metaverse for girls around the world who can't go to school, who are in areas where it's too dangerous or it's not allowed. I'm excited it about the opportunity for performances and art in the metaverse. So I do think that we, you know, the last two years, as crazy as it's been, has trained everyone to spend more and more of our lives online and to care about our lives and our identity online. So it'll be interesting to see what comes all right. Randy Zuckerberg, tech entrepreneur who also sang Acapella UM with me a lad with Alison Olivia, Creative director at CEO, Stacy Bendett, will be watching this course and see how it all plays out. Thank you. This is a great day for the factory and uh, you know it's uh. I just like to thank everyone who helped. Thank you, thank you very much. Uh it's really made a very big difference UM and to the community. And U, I mean Tesla will make sure that this is a gem, you know, a gemstone for the area, for Germany, for Europe and for the world. You heard it. Tesla is up and running in Germany. I want to get straight to our Ed Ludlow, who has been tracking the story, and something Ed got Ellen dancing. Something got him dancing, whether it was the fact that the Berlin plants or line, or even the share price. Just look at this chart over the last six days. Rub almost on Tuesday, as the Berlin plant got up and running, the stock jump eight percent, biggest jump in almost two months. It's up for six straight days, best streaks since October, and it's back above trillion dollars in market cap. A lot to be happy about. And must did make good on his promise to dance at the opening of the Berlin plant, just as he did in Shanghai. I mean, I mean, what do you say, what do you say when you see images like that that quite some moves? Huh, he's got some. Well I'm not going to comment on that, but you know, the Berlin plants so important for Tesla. They actually managed to do it pretty quickly, two years or so since it was announced, going right, and the first thirty vehicles delivered today. But this is the chart that matters, right, This is the projected production for Tess or over the next couple of the years. Shanghai, the orange section, Fremont yellow section. You see the two slivers of pink and blue Berlin and in Austin in texts of course, which has not yet come online, and you can see how slowly analysts expect the ramp to be at these plants. So, yes, good news, they're underway, but there's gonna be some some difficulties. You US talked about how by the end of this year they want Berlin to produce around five to ten thousand vehicles a week. Today it was just the first thirty. But they've experimented with technology. Will be really interesting with this backdrop of supply chain crunch, how well they'll be able to ramp. All right, Well, one thing we know for sure, to our viewers who will never be able to unsee Elon Lask dancing at Lund, thank you. I want to get to another story where continuing to follow the discontent at Disney over CEO Bob Jpex response to that controversial Florida bill better known as Don't Say Gay. On Tuesday, employees across the company many parts of the company walked off the job, including one of the biggest stars of the Disney Channel. What's up with the cast of Ravens Home and the EPs? And we are walking out today in support of this ridiculous bill. We don't like it. We're working mad. It's still we love everyone and um support support, support by Raven Simone there and the cast of Raven's Home. It wasn't just big celebrities though, it was employees across the board joining me now Chris Paul Mary, who attended a walk out in l A. Chris talked to us about the turnout. Well, this is something we've been wondering when this verse was announced by a group of employees about a week ago, that they were asking people to take time off every day, culminating in this big full day walkout today. It's just how big this was. It's not huge. There was about a hundred people in the park that I saw who many of them had locked earlier in front of the Burbank headquarters of Disney. Uh. They're a very passionate goog Though I listened to them speak, I spoke to them. Uh, you know, they feel very strongly about this topic and they're they're not gonna let Bob say back. The CEO of Disney off easy on this topic. So what's your sense of how Bob cha Peck is weathering this. I mean, obviously seems like, you know, he conceded to making a mistake not taking a position initially, but now they have course corrected. A hundred and eighty degrees isn't enough? Uh, Yeah, I mean he corrected very quickly. Remember it was just a couple of days he said he reversed this position. He was going to take a public stance. He's he's had to come out apologize a couple of times. Yesterday, Big Town Hall of all employees. Uh, he's it. He's going to go on a global listening tour uh and talk to folks with other senior leaders he know, put aside of management pow wow that they were supposed to have next week in Orlando to do that. Uh. Took a strong position against the Texas Tech in order that deals with a similar topic. So so he's really trying to to to make amends for this with the community of Disney employees. So is it gonna work? I mean, there's been speculation that he has a year left on his contract, you know, that could be the end. Yeah, I mean this part of the problem for is this dovetails with a lot of other issues that there's a perception that he is not as strong as people person as his predecessor Bob Iger was. He doesn't have the relationships with talent that I developed over the years. And so this is just sort of one example in in that narrative of an executive whom maybees to do a lot better job in connecting with the people who create the content for Disney. Where is Iger in all of this? He obviously came out against the bill fairly early on. You know, the speculation has arranged to you know, Bob check Chpeck could be out, Bob Iger could be coming back. He gave an interview last month where he said, no, no way, that won't happen. Uh. That said, he's a very careful political guy in a way, lift his firestorm for for Chapec by coming out and taking a stand against this bill before Disney had, and that really sort of put started people then started asking, well, what's Disney's overall position, and that's when Chai ultimately responded a couple of weeks later. So, you know, the relationship between the two men is not great. I think chafed at the control that Iger had as chairman for almost two years. Uh and uh and and Iger maybe feels like he wasn't listened to enough during that time period. All Right, we'll continue to watch a report on this CRISP Bloomberg's christ pal Mary, thank you. Coming up, Could Ethereum be taking over Bitcoin? We'll have more on the recent crypto market trends and what it means for VC investing. Next, this is Bloomberg Time for our Crypto report now and a look at what's happening in crypto markets. Crypto assets getting a booze, but divergence seems to be forming between the two largest cryptocurrencies. Our next guest Bradley Tusk of Tuskic Ventures, for his take on markets and crypto specifically. Rad thanks so much for joining us. Obviously if you're looking at the crypto space, but from the perspective of a venture capitalist, how are you advising clients where to put their money given the additional scrutiny, you know, looming regulatory uncertain see and what's happening with Russia and Ukraine and these sanctions. So those are all really good points. I'm definitely a crypto believer. My fund has invested in companies like coin based circles, so we're certainly in it. But at the same time, I do think that regulation is the greatest threat to cryptocurrency, and I think that the crypto community misinterpreted the executive order the President Biden issues two weeks ago around it. I think people because it didn't say, you know, we're shutting crypto down, people were kind of breathe a sigh of relief, But in reality it reinforced all the power that the SEC and other agencies have to regular crypto however they see fit. So I think there should be a bigger concern than it has been so far. How big a concern, Well, look, I mean Gary Ginsler certainly not a crypto fan, and there's really no reason why he couldn't say, you know, we are going to impose these kinds of reporting and requirements or taxation in a way that basically makes consort of transaction possible or prohibiting uh, you know, margin based lending or requiring a stable coin currency reserve. That's unreasonable. So they could do a lot to her crypto. And I think the point here to me is the crypto world has to grow up politically and recognize that because their greatest threat is regulatory risk. Uh, they have to get political in the way that pharma and lots of other industries are, and they find it distasteful. Um, but they've got to do with the protectives. Now there's this big debate happening bitcoin versus a theory. And we heard what Shinali was talking about earlier. I just asked Serena Williams, who's got her own venture capital fund, now what she thinks. Take a listen to what she had to say. I think a bitcoin has had an amazing boom and it's continues to do something amazing and it's it's huge. Right. I'm personally, um, really in love with ethereum. I think gets it's just um, it's more accessible. Brod are you a bitcoin or an ethereum guy? And why so? I will say this if I don't invest in the actual currency either way. My view is we can assess whether or not we think a company will succeed, and then we can impact the company's future and activities and everything else. But whether bitcoin or etherorum will go up and down in any given day is usually kind of beyond my pay grade. But look, I think there are certain things to Ethereum in terms of the type of watching that it's on and it's accessibility that Serena is probably right. It's easy to see why it's started to become a real competent. I'm kind of curious many investors like you are investing in crypto infrastructure given some of these uncertainties around the future around regulation. But from a purely valuation standpoint, are you worried at all that perhaps maybe too much money is slowing into infrastructure companies at a time where there's worries about a disconnect between private and public valuations. Yeah, look, it's a very fair point. And I think back to when we invested in a company called the Wheel, which telemedicine matching engine based in Austin, Texas that just had a billion dollar valuation, and I remember literally thinking, if I believe in the future of digital health, then I should invest in the Wheel, right. I kind of think it's the same thing here. Um. I do think the regulation is an existential risk to cryptocurrency, but I also think it's here to say and here for the long term. And so look, if it is a piece of infrastructure that the community really needs. I think it makes total sense. I think one problem we often have adventure is because there's so much money in the sector right now, people are investing companies that solve problems that don't really exist in the first place. So whatever problem you're solving has to be a real prop And how do you think about crypto investing versus broader Web three? Do you think that the crypto part of the landscape is under or over invested in here? Look, right now, it's over is simply because we don't have any Web three investments in very few people do, because no one exactly knows what that means yet, right. But to me, where the to get really interesting is when Web three is here, when we're in the metaverse. That's in my view, and crypto goes from being an asset class to an actual curmancy. When tons of transactions are happening completely within the metaverse, totally digital. That's when it really makes sense for vendors to say, yes, we take m X and visa, but we also take you know, ethereum and basically um. And so I think that the two really converge when the metaverse and Web three is actually here. Who runs the metaverse of the future in your view, and how is that guiding your investment decisions. Yeah, that's a great question. So the answer is, you know is nobody knows. Um. But I think where we should take note is, Look, you have companies like Facebook and Microsoft and Apple spending tens of billions of dollars on metaverse development. Um. They want to build walled gardens that basically keep you inside of their ecosystem and infrastructure and spending money on their stuff as opposed to somebody else's. And I think that that I wrote a memo about two months ago on how to regulate the metaverse. And the reason I did it was because I know that if we follow the typical path where a technology company comes up with a new idea, they launch it, and then after some period of time government realized it exists, start starts to try to regulate it, that almost never works, right, Um, And you got to get ahead of these problems in the first on the front end. And so I think that if we want government to have some say over the metaverse. And the reason why that's important is all of the lack of privacy and portability and data ownership that we have an Internet two point oh in this country. I think most people would like to have more protections when the metaverse comes and when Web three comes, and so if government doesn't proactively say how do we protect and look out for consumers in the metaverse, then no one's going to uh and people are gonna have our time. I have another question here about venture capital and how it changes as it pertains to crypto. Given that people are raising money in so many new and different ways in the crypto landscape, do you think if the VC space doesn't adapt that they risk competing very heavily with crypto investment. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So well yes, you know, actually yes, because you're seeing crypto companies themselves start doing internal venture investing. You're seeing funds that are specifically focused just on crypto and nothing else, and they're going to have advantages in terms of the ability to see deals, to analyze deals, and everything else. At the same time, when times are really flush, everyone's throwing the money. And if either because of regulation or some other problem, you know, the price of crypto decline significantly, all these companies making kind of side investments and other crypto startups and infrastructure everything else may end pretty quickly. So I don't know that the competition has longevity, but I do think that right now they have some advantages. All right, Bradley Tusk Tesk Ventures along with our Shinali Bossk, thank you both well. As corporate life slowly gets back to a new normal, the fintech startup Ramp is taking advantage, the company raising another seven fifty million dollars valued at now over eight billion dollars. All will continue to grow. Joining me now the CEO of Ramp, Eric Glenman. Eric, thanks so much for joining us, so talk to us a little bit about ramps business, what you do and why it's important in the fins tech landscape today. Person Emily, thanks so much for having me. So. Ramp is a finance automation platform. We offered the fastest curring corporate card in America with built in expense management, bill payments and accounting automation uh in the impact that we tried for companies as we help the average companies spend three point three percent less each year, enclose their books eight times faster. You're competing with giants like American Express. What do you have on them? Yeah? So, first, it's a fundamentally a design that's focused on our customer UH. And so where there's others in this space have thought a lot about how to design points programs that incentivize companies to spend more than they intended or more revenue for the company. We design our products with the intent of helping business owners spend less money and spend less time. And that's why we believe we were able to grow revenues by a factor of ten times and for the number of car holder juicy Ramp by fifteen times year over year. And you think that a line approach, it's what business owners are looking for eight point one billion dollars and certainly half the evaluation. How do you plan to invest this new capital? Primarily on on hiring. Today RAMP is about three hundred people UH and we intend to double that over the coming year, primarily hiring in research and development, engineering, product design, trying to come up with software that entoufis work companies are wasting time. UM. You know, things like manual expense reports, helping automate that a way fully wasting money, identify where certain companies are getting charged more than others, and helping combat crisis for the nation and ultimately supporting more business owners. We support over five thousand companies today in the US, UH, and we intend to use the funding to help scale to tens of thousands. You're also planning to open a new office in Miami later this year. Why Miami and how much of your workforce will be coming in to that office versus working remotely? Yeah, thanks so much for asking. Um So, first, just Miami has become an incredibly dynamic city, especially coming into and out of the pandemic. We're seeing a lot of new business formation UH founders heading down there. UH. And RAMP wants to be where business owners are forming new companies, where companies are operating, people are are seeking to um treat and grow workforces. UH. And so a lot of this is really around supporting businesses down there, but also to coming throughout the pandemic. We just see that uh. You know a lot of our our workforce wants to work in great places. People are used to being able to work where they want, UM and how they want. And so by June we should open our office. UM. You know, we're gonna be hiring locally as well as supporting employees who want to spend some time and work from a sunny place for part of the year. Given that you're working with a lot of small businesses, what are they telling you? Given geopolitical uncertainty, inflation, there's a lot of pressure and uncertainty about what lies ahead. For sure, you know, we we we talked with finance teams, founders CFOs day and day out. And I think during this period UM, you know, businesses are still trying to do the same thing they're always trying to do, which is you know, grow UM grow business have a great livelihood and support others. But I think what's especially important and people are playing for if if capital is harder to access, you know, making sure we're being prudent for their funds UH. And so you know, for us, a lot of that comes down to UM. You know, can we help companies identify where there's waste UM you know, where certain companies are spending more than others UM and helping companies that are that are that are looking to bring down their spend UM you know, in designing software that helps them achieve that UM. A lot of people are looking for support UM for travel, you know, for you know travel UM as people as workforces have suddenly become hybrid through the pandemic. Even though there's uncertainty globally a lot of a lot of Americans, it's starting to see others in different offices and locations across the country. UM, and so integrated travel management, expense management and like our our hot areas and development for ramping our customers. Quick question, when's the I p oh, No current flends UM. But like we're trying to UM, you know, build a business for the long run and aligned incentives and you know that that's what we're focused on day in and day out. UM, and we'll see where where things take us. Right Eric Lenman, CEO of ROMP, thank you so much for joining us. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. We will be right back here tomorrow. Don't forget to check out our new podcast. Every episode of the show. You can listen on the go on Apple, Spotify, I Heart on the terminal. Of course, we'll be right back here tomorrow. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg