Oracle shares rising on news the company could be the winning bidder for tiktok but it will not involve an outright sale. Bytedancehinese owner Sarah Ponczek has been following the ups and downs. Tech has been leading the comeback. Also, this latebreaking news ikola, and the sec investigating the company over shortsellers. Sarah the last i had checked, down about 8 or so after the market closed. Examining nikola based on this claim that came from the platform hindenburg. 30 , 35 ors fall so from last week. It has been quite the ride for nikola. Still up more than 200 this year but certainly getting hit pretty hard after these original allegations took hold. Now, getting even more focused with the sec taking them on. Emily this on the back of gm taking a huge equity stake in nikola. Lets talk about tech more broadly. News, continuing development. Oracle is in the leading position but a potential deal still under review. Oracle shares did rise. Walmart could still be a part of this. Sarah there are reports that walmart could still be part of this through the ecommerce division. If you look at shares, the reaction, we did see oracle shares spike the most. However, we did see microsoft and walmart shares in the green as well. If you look at what analysts are saying about what is going on with oracle and this tiktok bid. First of all, the structure is still evolving. Still unclear. It is going to be more of a Corporate Restructuring than a sale. Reactionssome mixed when you look at what city wrotets are saying, they that they could not find a sound likely tothat it is change the competitiveness of oracle in cloud. Some look at this as a positive and that it is another potential diversified revenue stream. Emily thank you so much for that update. We will talk a little bit more about this tiktok situation. Oracle moving into the lead position. Steven mnuchin saying the federal government will now undertake a twotrack National Security review. Stake in a company, more of a Corporate Restructuring. I want to bring in the cofounder former of coda, and google Vice President for youtube. I am sure you have walked tiktoks rise with some fascination. What is your take on this . Shishir it has been a lot of fun watching the tiktok rise. I think that new social interactions like this dont form super often. It is interesting to watch when they do. I have two young daughters. You cant walk into a room without one of them doing a tiktok dance. I think the impact it is having on society is very large. We pair that with this interesting dynamic with multiple governments and multiple companies, it is interesting to watch. Emily what do you make of oracle as a potential owner or partner, given that oracle was certainly the more farfetched candidate in this particular situation . Shishir as your last segment pointed out, it is not done yet. Usually, m a negotiations are two parties. Least four. Oracles of it being versus not, one of the obvious things is that it cant really go to the company that everyone would think is obvious, for antitrust reasons. If it has to get sold, it is going to end up with a company that may seem unnatural. Oracle would be as good as any. I am not sure i have a good or bad reason for them. I think the more interesting thing is what is being bought. Depending on what is being bought, each company has a different interest. Emily what is interesting about that and how big a threat do you think tiktok is to a facebook, a google, the companies that might make sense as owners but cant buy it for antitrust reasons . Shishir i look at sort of three things in terms of what can be bought. Includinghe product, the experience, algorithm coming users command content. There is the second set of users and content. There is a discussion as to whether the algorithm can be split out . The third is the right to host and serve data. It is somewhere between number two and number three. It is clearly not the overall product. It isk my viewpoint on this is a little bit contrary to other people i think the algorithms are important but maybe less important than people think. In this space, algorithms for products like these tend to be tuned to a specific set of data and over time, they need to be upgraded. Also, i think the challenge is in scaling the algorithm. I think this i think between the second and third of those buckets is reasonable. Emily that is definitely counterintuitive that the body rhythms may be less important than you think that the algorithms may be less important than you think as they have been pitched at the crown jewel. What do you make of the political aspects of this, that the president has forced such a deal. Day by day. Nothing done yet. But what are the implications of running a business in the united states, in Silicon Valley . Shishir in some ways, it is not new. In some ways, it is very new. Anyone who has run a large media platform like youtube understands that you have to operate differently in every market you operate in. In dozens of markets with youtube and we had to be very aware of the political dynamics in each place. At least in the last decade, those markets have been somewhat homogenous in terms of their interest. You could operate in one market and kind of presume that most markets would be the same. All of a sudden, we are in a fractured geopolitical climate. I think the idea that these media platforms archon between that fighting, is inevitable. I think these media platforms are almost a second form of government. The fact that you have to interact with these is not surprising. The fact that it is so fractured is surprising and quite challenging. Emily a second form of government. That is quite profound. I want to talk about the trend toward working from home. A is one of those companies remotelyeople work Reed Hastings has talked about he wants people to come back to the office as soon as possible. He just think people are more productive in the office. What is your take on that . Shishir i think it differs by company. Leaned rightave into that distribute it culture from the start. For us, it was very natural. We shifted toward working from home. About 10 or 15 of coda employees who have physically moved their homes to other places. I think for us, that is here to stay and for a lot more companies, that will be here to stay. Thank Shishir Mehrotra you so much for joining us. We will be following every tick and tock of this tiktok story. Coming up, similar to microsoft excel and Google Sheets but potentially better. That is what airtable claims to be. We will speak to the ceo. This is bloomberg. No codeir table, a approach spreadsheets, bringing its valuation to 2. 5 billion. The company has more than doubled its valuation in the last two years. Joining us now for more is the liu. F airtable, howie i believe you are on the show last when you hit that unicorn status. High valuations can be a blessing and a curse. What do you make of that number at a time when we are in the middle of so much economic, social, and Health Uncertainty . Howie it has been a trying year, i think qamar everyone. The first thing that comes to our mind, everyone is trying to figure out how to transition into this world. , weerms of the valuation have taken a more measured approach than the Silicon Valley would dictate. With this round as well as our prior one, we spent time organically building relationships with investors to make sure we knew that the longterm expectations and commitment we would be making. We have never put emphasis on the valuation. , can we ben for us the biggest possible company in this category opportunity . Makes it easier to create things without having to code. Small business owners, consumers especially at this time, one we are all stuck at home, working from home. Whereas demand been like for you and what are the major use cases you are seeing . When we first started the company, we thought this would be more of a tech startup oriented base. We thought it would be other startups like us that would use our product. We were surprised how much diversity we got before covid. Major farmers, lawyers, enterprises doing things like Film Productions or major product launches. I think what has changed in the time of covid, with enterprise especially, we are seeing this second wave of digital transformation. The first wave was about getting communication in place. When shelterinplace hit, everyone was scrambling to figure out, how do we communicate . It is almost like in the maslow hierarchy of needs, communication is the first layer. If you cant communicate, you cant do anything else. Now that most companies have zoom or slack set up there are opportunities to come in and create structured work in a much more agile, digitized way. That is where airtable comes in. Emily you have microsoft. Excel. Google with its own productivity suite. What sets airtable apart from them . Howie microsoft and amazon launched their own direct competitive offerings in this space. This is ayear that category got validated by the market. Isdiffer because airtable ultimately not just a better spreadsheet but an apt platform. You can actually build real apps. We are taking the product a huge step towards being able to customize. The Film Production use case can build an even more specific addon to do Something LikeResource Management in a unique way. I think our focus will be on continuing to differentiate. Reallyre differentiation matters, winning the hearts and minds of creators. People who will build apps, that is paramount to success in this category. Emily we are seeing a lot of Companies Benefit from work from home trends but understanding how much of this will be recurring demand. Int covid, or when we are some sort of new normal, do you think this growth will be sustainable . Will it plateau even . Think the broader trend is durable for us. This is not just the initial hit of digitization because of the remote work phenomenon. I think this is something that was already happening, and really at the beginning of the trend. The idea that Everyone Needs apps is not yet mainstream. I think there will be 500 million new apps created in the next five years. At the veryy tion ofng of the appifica every part of the enterprise. We hope to empower more creators with paper solution then every other product out there. Emily airtable ceo and cofounder howie liu. Thank you very much for joining us. We will see you hopefully sooner than another two years from now. Coming up, another big deal took shape over the weekend. Nvidia agreeing to buy softbanks shift division arm for 40 billion. This is bloomberg. Emily welcome back to bloomberg technology. Some breaking news about the tiktok deal. We have now learned that tiktok is planning to give sticks to not just oracle but also sukhoi our capital and General Atlantic equoia capital and General Atlantic. An early investor in the company so maybe that means they get a stake in the reconstituted u. S. Version of the company. Bigtime, turning to that nvidia arm deal. Shares soaring after the company agreed to a deal to sell the chip developer arm for as much as 40 billion. Nvidia will be revisiting a plan to go private. Daniel, thank you for joining us. What is your take . Think this is a huge deal across semiconductors. Nvidia had a ton of momentum in , this makesness, ai the Company Really significant and relevant. In the smartphone space is another area where i see it impacting the business where arm has influence across the entire smartphone space. Nvidia is a part of that. Arm will beomers of coming to nvidia now. Intellectual property that has been driving devices like the edge, compute, and these smartphones that are some of the most important devices in our lives today. Emily what does it mean for softbank . Obviously, the company has had its struggles and this is an important exit for them. Daniel there was only a handful of companies that really made sense. Nvidia makes a little sense. There will be some who probably will not be crazy about this deal but by and large, those will be companies that feel they will have missed an opportunity. For nvidia, there is not a lot of overlap. Not a lot of direct competition, if any. It expands the business. ,ne of them builds the chips the other is building the intellectual property. With softbank, it got them an exit. Such a large holding in his portfolio, having a solid, profitable exit, it was an important transition and it fell into hands that can continue to propel momentum forward. Emily do you think we will see more m a in chips . Some have said valuations are too high. Others saying this is the perfect environment for m a. Now, big,think, right Smart Companies like nvidia, i think they are always looking for opportunities to make smart acquisitions. Verticallye apple integrating. Apple is going to be a customer of nvidia. I think the continued momentum for m a will have to be something we watch. These are big numbers. Takecould easily help to nvidias market cap tort half a trillion and beyond. That was almost covered just in the growth the company size this news broke. Saw as this news broke. Emily something we will continue to follow. Daniel newman, thank you so much. Coming up, amazons latest hiring spree the company adding 100,000 new jobs in north america. Widespread criticism about treatment of workers. We will hear from an amazon executive next. This is bloomberg. Welcome back to bloomberg technology. Soared in the midst of the pandemic. Despite some logistical challenges, amazon is now hiring 100,000 new employees across the u. S. And canada. That is after an additional 300,000 announced last week. Joining us to discuss, spokesperson at amazon. Kelly, these are huge numbers per tell us more about what jobs you are expect him to fill and what impact these employees will have on the business. Kelly thank you so much for having me. We have 100,000 new and parttime jobs. They pay 15 an hour or more. They start with the same benefits on day one that i have. That will play a huge role in helping us meet demand for customers. In fact, a lot of these roles a re at New Buildings. This month alone, amazon will open up 100 New Buildings across our network. These are centers, delivery stations. Of thee last mile package getting to your doorstep. Also at our air hubs. The roles are across those buildings and we are fortunate we can open those buildings at this time and bring 100 New Buildings continually around the u. S. , but also to be adding jobs at the buildings that we have today across the fulfillment networks. Emily typically over the Holiday Season, amazon does hire additional workers. How is this different . Are these permanent jobs as opposed to temporary Holiday Season slots . Kelly exactly. These are permanent roles. Stay tuned on Seasonal Hiring because it is still early in the season and i expect we would potentially have roles to fill seasonally pure these are for individuals who are looking for regular, fulltime, or parttime jobs. Emily tell us more about the locations of the 100 New Buildings. Where are these New Buildings going to be popping up . Kelly glad you asked. We had a building open last week in florida. We have a new building in spokane, washington. Thesese buildings so buildings are all around the u. S. Jobs, overa bit of 3000 jobs in the seattle area right now we have open. Over 5000 jobs in the chicago area, which have a starting rate of 15 per hour or more. And we are offering signon bonuses for individuals. Those range from 250 up to 1000 as people join. So, we know there are so many impacted right now given what is going on, where people are out of work. These roles really span across most states in america. Anybody can learn more at amazon. Com apply. Faced amazon has significant amount of criticism throughout the pandemic, especially from warehouse workers who complained about working conditions. Some workers have felt unsafe, some have said they are not paid enough. There was a protest in front of jeff bezoss own home where workers were calling for 30 an hour instead of 15 an hour. What is your response to their concerns . Kelly we take every concern seriously. For me and the team who were on the front lines of hearing from individuals, one, we welcome the feedback. But two, i would say nothing has been more important than the safety of our team, since, well, always, but particularly with the pandemic. We feel actually that we would love to see a company who handled it more quickly than amazon. We started early. We immediately hired epidemiologist specialists to work with our already existing safety team, for which we have thousands of members who already work on safety every day. We have rolled out more than 150 process changes and improvements across our buildings. I can only really speak for myself. I have been through several buildings since coronavirus started. I am in the buildings quite regularly. Quite frankly, it is my favorite placed to place to be, to be out in the field at our centers, at delivery stations with drivers. The reality is the vast majority of employees feel like we are doing a great job. We have a mechanism at a at amazon where we ask all employees a question of the day. Every day when i start work i get a question related to how i am feeling about working at amazon. That is not new, but during the pandemic, we have shifted the questions for the employees in our hoyuurly network. They are all about the Pandemic Response and how they feel about working at amazon right now. And our employees and servings are playing such a vital role in serving their communities. The reality and facts shows well into the 90th percentile, including how do you feel about amazons response, do you feel safe at work, do you have the ppe, masks, supplies you need the vast majority, well into the 90th percentile, feel extremely great about our response. We respond and we work hard to be better. But nothing along the way has been more important than keeping our employees safe. And having gone to many of the buildings, i have seen that firsthand. Emily all right. Appreciate that additional context. Kelly cheeseman, ama