news reports, epstein had purchased at the age of 14 jpmorgan terminated epstein's accounts in 2013 after staley moved along to another firm. we reached out to jpmorgan, but the firm had no comment on the record staley has not responded to an emailed request for comment. according to news reports, he has previously denied any involvement in epstein's actions. the u.s. virgin islands are requesting jpmorgan pay damages and fines and provide restitution of all ill-gotten gains. back over to you, david. >> eamon, thank you. eamon javers that will do it for us on "squawk on the street. a great long weekend to all of our viewers. "techcheck" starts now good friday morning. welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa this hour, higher for longer a couple of fed officials with hawkish commentary as hedge funds rush to rally at the

second fastest pace in a decade. we'll debate the case for a new 50-basis-point hike. a dash of doubt. doordash unable to hold gains despite an upbeat outlook. we'll hear from tony xu. snooi. salesforce to settle we hear they soon may reach a deal, ahead of exclusive interview with steve ballmer from the l.a. tech summit. jon? >> would he start with what you mentioned first, fed higher for longer jim bullard and mester making it clear a 50-point rate hike is back on the table for next month. steve liesman has the details. >> hawkish speech yesterday, braces for an onslaught of speeches next week more than a quarter of the fed committee is scheduled to take the podium to talk about the economy, along with minutes from

the february meeting cleveland fed president loretta mester and st. louis' jim bullard said they supported a half-point hike at the february meeting and wouldn't rule one out for the next one all of this effect in the fed fund futures market has moving the pricing for peak rate. to bring the year-end pricing almost directly now in line with the fed's own average forecast of 5.13. next week we have new york fed president williams on wednesday. collins from boston, mester from cleveland, and jefferson and fed governor waller. they'll be in new york city on friday we have the chicago -- university of chicago school's monetary policy coming up. the comments of mester and bullard show the fed is not unanimous in the apparent new regime of responding to economic data through quarter-point hikes as the data come in. at least some still want to front-end load rate hikes. the market continues to price in

the quarter for march. i think that's the most likely bet to go with, at least for now. guys >> steve, why? because the last two major data points we got, at least in my mind, the jobs report and the cpi number, i guess you could throw the ppi print in there, too, would suggest, hey, a 50-basis-point hike should not be off the table at all. why would they continue with 25 when they told us over and over again that the threat of letting inflation get out of control was so high? >> good question, jon. i think the issue is they wanted to downshift into something that was not as extreme for two reasons. one is there was a sense that, perhaps, they had gotten ahead of the issue or at least come equal to the issue of inflation through those big 75-basis-point rate hikes, the four they did over the course of the summer. the other reason is that they were afraid or have some concern about, perhaps, overtightening so, an idea moving down to a

quarter would make it more responsive to the data and also leave that regime of front-end loading. if you look at the history here, jon, of this january 24 fed funds contract, the market's come a very long way to where the fed is right now it is now sort of, what's the word, implementing the tightening that the fed had wanted to be out there so, now they're in line. if you take a longer look at this thing, it's really quite extreme. back when this contract was first launched, it was like a 3% outlook for 2023 now it's 5% and change. >> things have changed quickly mixed messaging from the data. i know they look primarily first and foremost at cpi and labor. how about tlings like credit card debt? we just found out from the new york fed that it has hit a record high. the average rate is near 20% that's a nearly 40-year high how much do they take that into

account? >> yeah, i mean, deirdre, if you're not confused, you're not paying attention i think that's the way to think about these things the data coming in is so extreme. the philly fed is screaming recession. the jobs numbers are screaming a buoyant economy. the retail sales numbers look good as you point out, those debt numbers, those credit card numbers make me think that the consumer is reaching and taking risks with high interest rates in order to maintain standard of living amid inflation. so, it's very hard to puzzle all this out the best way i like to explain it is, we're still in the middle of this transition from the covid and the lockdowns and restoring the economy. so, we're going to have days like this where it's going to be recession one day and buoyant economy the next. >> that's what we're seeing today. certainly risk-on. steve liesman, thank you very much you have a puzzle at the macro,

also a puzzle at the micro let's get to the growth bounce we've been seeing and talking about. crypto, risk-off today, it's back near 25,000 up more than 40% on the year other crypto related name, coinbase and microstrategy so, kate rooney, what is driving this rally i mean, i feel like -- you should give me the same answer that steve gave, which is if you're not confused, you're not doing this right >> i love that line from steve one thing helping crypto and high-growth stocks is inflows from individual investors this week we've seen crypto related names like coinbase and microstrategy tend to attract and see relatively low institutional data research shows the highest level of inflows ever from retail investors. that hit a record. net inflows topping $1.5 billion. among the top stocks, coinbase

d.a. davidson downgraded the stock after it doubled in the face of what he told me was objectively bad news for coinbase, referring to some regulatory crackdowns we've seen out of d.c analysts note short covering has extended this rally. coinbase has 24% of the float or available shares microstrategy, 34% silvergate, a crypto-related bank, sees 73% of the available shares sold short despite tanking yesterday. that crypto bank still up 20% on the week bitcoin, meanwhile, has seen its own resilience in the face of negative headlines it has the opposite dynamic going on barclays points out a boom in buying, and retail is sitting on the sidelines. there's optimism that the worst could be over on the regulatory front out of d.c. and also bullish activity on the options side of crypto markets.

>> broadening this out beyond crypto we have a number of earnings airbnb the top laggard on the nasdaq 100 investors were celebrating it's down 7%, 7.5% these names, too, that have run up i know a lot of the ones you cover like fintech, too, have run up so much i guess the question is, is the bear rally ending or is this, you know, a start of a bull rally, is what people are trying to figure out? how much further is it going to go short selling you mentioned. >> short selling is a part of it another interesting dynamic we call about the fomo rally, the fear of missing out. one of the dynamics is they're not seeing a lot of dip buying they're seeing a little more buying on days where the market is up, indicating there's a -- it's sort of excitement and froth around when names are up, there's people chasing into those names versus seeing it as a long-term opportunity. that's often a sign of risk. in terms of this being a sustainable rally, there is

seasonality. people tend to slow down, at least retail investors tend to slow down a bit after we see earnings fizzle out, which is happening. >> that's what dan niles told us he said this may be a really extreme january effect he's not holding his breath for this to be all that sustainable. kate rooney, thank you >> thanks, dee speaking of risky plays, short sellers are closing out their tech bets at the second highest level in a decade, according to gold man sanction the nasdaq rally 12% to start the year the pace of short covering exceeded by the meme stock phenomenon two years ago when short sellers were forced out of gamestop info tech and communication services stocks are leading the charge this time, according to jpmorgan mike santoli joins us to discuss and sort of put it in a framework of, i don't know how it colored the beginning of the year so far. >> yeah. one way to describe it, it was a massive positioning shock that we had most of it running through january. remember how downbeat december

was. we did have a good rally off the october low but then waves and waves of what we interpreted as tax law selling really did depress a lot of these high-growth stocks you had people leaning short in those directions you have this burst higher into the new year the short covering activity, i'm sure in the near term, cul culminated a couple of days ago. we're looking at these numbers and saying people were forced to cover. what that means on a forward-going basis is, okay, you exhausted a little bit of buying power you probably have prices up at a level where folks will look to reshort them to me it's a question of whether, again, this was just an echo effect of the boom we had before and everything is reliant on when you start the clock in terms of, are they up a lot or are they down a lot? because there were hundreds of nasdaq stocks, i would argue, down 70%, 80% off their highs. we peaked two years ago, february of 2021 really in the high-growth part of this market. so, you had them completely washed out now they bounced in a partial way. some of them are distinguishing

themselves because they got better fundamentals and we talked about doordash a couple hours ago. that's the kind of thing you'll have some emerge out of that but i don't think you can either say it was just a short covering rally, therefore, it was somehow artificial, or that that's just going to continue and have this be the leadership area of the market and we'll go back to small caps of the nasdaq ripping higher so, i don't think there's a big conclusion to be drawn about whether this is the start of something big in terms it of the broad market because it would look like this whether it was the start of a bull market or just a quick aftershock of the bump. >> how about this is driven by hedge fund and institutions and retail, where we knew orders were a huge part of the overall volume. >> it has. retail has been revived. i was looking at interactive brokers stock chart, it's going to the moon. i think it's everybody

and i think that one of the traps i think people have fallen into is you look back to the tech bubble or even before that, the nifty fiftiy, go, go momentum bubble before that. it led to these long malaise periods where people stopped being interested in tech, the retail trading stayed at a low boil but it didn't go away. you didn't necessarily have that moment where it was like, literally, nobody wants to buy ebay, aol and yahoo! anymore in '03 people were saying, they aren't down enough they were down enough by then. finally, we still have zero percent commissions. everybody still has a trading app on their phone who had one before and everyone got used to how options are this highly leveraged short term video game like way to play the markets none of that has been unwound. so, if the market seems like it's friendlier place, you start to have some greed running through it, that activity will revive that doesn't in itself invalidate what's happening in the broader market. >> it is incredible, the

dovetailing of tech and application, innovation, and the cost of trading going to zero. >> you never go back, exactly. >> mike, good discussion thanks mike santoli jon? >> still to come this hour, doordash losing early gains after posting results. we'll have comments from ceo tony xu. plus, we will check in with former microsoft ceo and clippers owner steve ballmer, live, his take on the nba season, the future of tech and microsoft's bing push into ai. we're just getting started hi, i'm debra. i'm from colorado. i've been married to my high school sweetheart for 35 years. i'm a mother of four-- always busy. i was starting to feel a little foggy. just didn't feel like things were as sharp as i knew they once were. i heard about prevagen and then i started taking it about two years now. started noticing things a little sharper,

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. doordash shares turning lower this morning after being up almost 13% after reporting last night now down 4.5%. the company reported mixed results. costs continued to guide but painting a picture of a resilient consumer i sat down with ceo tony xu and asked him what makes him confident about the outlook for the year. >> on the one hand, you're seeing that continued strength in the cohort behavior, both in terms of our, you know, growth in the number of monthly active users we've seen as well as their engagement we had a record quarter in dashpass now with 15 million plus members and subscribers so, you know, that's on the one hand then on the other hand, we have

to be cautious recognizing that no matter how resilient our business is, the consumer is weaker this year than they were last year. that's because there's been several quarters of persisting relatively high inflation. so, you know, we're certainly cautious and all of this is built into the guidance. >> let's talk about the expense side of the equation costs that continue to rise. 60% jump in the cost of revenue in the fourth quarter. what was the biggest contribution to that jump? you named a few things in the letter can you get any more specific? >> well, most of the -- i think part of the challenge here is that, you know, our numbers that we report really are composite score. so, we have overall gross margins which are seeing a greater and greater percentage coming from volt, which is growing 50% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, far outpacing any one of its peers in that part of the world. on the flip side it's earlier in its development on the

profitability curve. so, that's really what's happening. if you actually just looked at the u.s. business for doordash, it's actually improved year-on-year basis from a gross margin perspective. >> i want to go back to dashpass your competitor had a super bowl commercial with p. diddy and looks like they're spending a lot of money i know you're ahead of them right now, but how do you think about that increasing competition and your own advertising or marketing costs of dashpass? >> well, for us i think it's, first and foremost, starts with having the best product. dashpass, if it was given away even for free, if it didn't have the selection or the quality of the experience or the service levels, i'm not really sure it would be a product worth keeping. so, i think first and foremost for us, it's about making sure we continue to invest in all of the dimensions that have made doordash successful and keeping it that way. secondly, making sure that we can keep bringing dashpass to

users that it makes sense for, right in the just because you advertise a subscription program doesn't mean that it makes sense for everyone for us, what we've seen is if we can continue to focus on the execution and bring into the relevant customers, it will continue to grow and i think we've seen that over the last four years and we continue to see that even in most recent quarters >> certainly does that mean it's being greatly monetized as well? >> for us, monetization is just about always maximizing total long-term profit dollars dashpass is a perfect example of what we mean by this if your goal is just to achieve gap profitability or just to achieve profit -- a certain profit margin, dashpass actually wouldn't be a very good investment but if the goal is to create both scale to generate the most amount of profit dollars over time while managing to the delusion, then dashpass is a great investment for us it's not about trying to,

you know, manage to some monetization metric or rule of them it's about maximizing total long-term profit dollars. >> tony, every time i talk to you, your message is the same, you are maximizing for the long term i have to give you credit for that in the short term when investors are looking for greater efficiency, you've already done some layoffs are there more levers you can or will be pulling this year to have that better short-term efficiency >> well, we feel really good about the guidance we put out there in demonstrating some of this efficient growth. when the bottom line is growing from about 360 to a range of 500 to 800, i think that's demonstrating the operating leverage we're talking about you're right, on the head count side, we got a little ahead of our skis revenue grew 7x over the last three years, grew head count 4x. even that catch-up got a little bit too far ahead of where we should have been we course corrected for that in december we're in a very strong spot

right now where we're lean and we continue to, you know, see efficient growth >> let me ask you a fun one, at least this seems fun to me some have speculatedlyft, give its decline in market cap over the last few years could be a takeover target, and some have suggested that dash mart could be a potential fit for the company. i'm skeptical, but i would love to hear your thoughts, especially as it relates to your dashpass, you know, and competition with uber that's obviously putting a lot into it and has both ride sharing and eats for its customers. >> so, i'll say a couple things. the first thing i would say is our business on an organic basis remains very, very strong. you know, despite, i think, others who might be investing in opportunities, we've seen no noticeable impact. this has been for a few years con te consecutively in growth of existing customers or new customers. we lead in both dimensions

highest retention for category and highest share of new customers acquired that's continued to grow in terms of its adoption. the second point i'd make is just when it comes to m&a, i think the bar is really, really high not just because of the current macro environment, but because, to me, m&a is one of those activities that sounds really good on a sheet of paper and is really hard to execu implement in real life because you're talking about people, not just rows on a spreadsheet and what they look like when you combine them together and that's why, you know, for us, we hold a very high bar, not just to what new capabilities or line of business, potential acquisition or partnership can look like, but what does it actually add to our culture and our ability to continue to execute with excellence, which to me is the most important asset we have to protect >> guys, in this environment, when investors are looking for profitability, tony's giving them that on an adjusted ebitda

basis but he's also unique in that he says he's really looking long term. he's not prepared to give up revenue growth in order for that profitability, jon >> yeah. and i'm not sure that this move lower in doordash, now down almost 6% today, has much of anything to do with these results. i think maybe it has more to do with the fed the reason why i say that, i'm looking at tech peers that are up more than 10% this week, but are down about as much as doordash today, or at least down significantly. palantir, airbnb, stitchfix, roblox, twilio many had earnings, were higher and now maybe profit taking on that uncertainty overall i think it's important what he said to you about volt, that european delivery business they bought last year, that's where they're spending some of that gross margin, getting that to scale. he's not willing to sacrifice the future meanwhile, the u.s. business is actually improving on a gross margin basis, which investors might want to pay attention to

>> carl -- >> the bernstein desk today says it's all about the operating leverage, the ebitda guide for the year, which we were hoping to see, margins expected to improve, operational progress. and then increased discipline regarding head count but you could probably apply that as well to what he told you about m&a. >> i'm not entirely sure by that operating leverage it's important when you're in it the gig economy, but when you compare these businesses to some others, it's a very, very long way to real net income when it comes to dash versus uber, i mean, the line on the consumer is very similar they see an incredibly resilient when it comes to ride-sharing and food delivery. again, we started the show talking about data points and ceos embedded in the consumer give us a good look at that. >> like santoli said, every company's different. still to come, microsoft -- former microsoft ceo and current l.a. clippers owner, steve

ballmer live from the nba tech summit. citi adding a negative catalyst watch on salesforce as david faber reports. the company is getting ready to make a deal with activist elliott. that is after the break. (vo) verizon has the epic new phone your business needs on the 5g network it deserves. boost your team's productivity with samsung's fastest processor yet. switch and save up to $1000 on the new galaxy s23 ultra. now that's epic.

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let's get a gut check on salesforce stock lower as citi opens this negative catalyst watch ahead of q4 results they point to slowing demand from q3 and front office fa fatigue. still citi raised the price target and and it has shot up amid the activist investors. crm could reach a settlement with elliott as early as next week we had been talking about a possibility of some meeting of the minds between activists and manager. that's been cramer's base case stock today close to a three-week low.

>> frank holland was just reminding us that they got five activists on their tail. i guess it's great to get one off, but, dee, what does that do for the other four we keep fighting for other stuff now or do they say, oh, what elliott got satisfies us, too? we don't know, do we >> that's what i'm curious, did elliott talk to other activists? did they go together meanwhile, salesforce is in a tough spot we talk about it all the time. that twitter headline from the information that it cut its sales force 75%. yes, that's elon musk and we know he's a certain kind kf ceo cutting wherever he can. but it does raise this question that we've asked for a long time now, is what's need to have, what's nice to have software and where does crm end up in that. talking to someone recently saying the ceos weren't cutting their snowflake bills, weren't cutting other enterprise software but salesforce is kind of on the chopping block. >> i think part of that, and we talked about this on "techcheck," when you're looking at net revenue retention, that

is affected by head count, particularly for things that are paid for on a per seat basis your customers could be just as committed to keeping your software suite overall, but if they need it for fewer people, your net revenue retention goes down so, when you got something like salesforce that's already -- i mean, something like snowflake that's already charged mostly on a consumption and usage basis, and it's for the whole company, right, it's not a head count-based thing as much, but some salesforce's stuff, carl, is different. >> yeah. it's worth going back a few days ago, benioff's piece with "the times" saying i wish i offered lifetime employment, but the reality is when you have a big company, there will be times when you have to make a head count adjustment. coming up, roku and snap, conflicting commentary on the state of the ad market as people take snap investor day into discussion. check out shares of amat,

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welcome back weakness in the ad market weighing on results for companies across every sector of tech yesterday we got more commentary from the likes of roku and snap as investors try to predict the bottom for ad spending our julia has that

talk about investor day and grateful we didn't get big news in either direction. >> yeah. it seems like snap was trying to keep things very much stable after, perhaps, overpromising and underdelivering at its investor day two years ago but this time around, coming off fourth quarter results from so many tech giants, from alphabet and meta, to the media players, disney, comcast and roku, all of these companies, whether in media or tech, have talked about weakness in the ad market, which weighed on all of their fourth quarter results. now, while alphabet and meta talked about ongoing uncertainty, snap and roku this week forecast an ad rebound in the second half of this year barclays writing, quote, we think the digital ad market is soft but stable and growth rates are likely to continue to decelerate and possibly bottom in the first half of 2023. bernstein noting we may have reached a bottom writing, quote, some companies hinted that while

advertising demand has not improved, it is also not deteriorated significantly and the ad business is not a monolith paramount saying food and beverage and the auto sector are an area of strength while roku said travel, consumer package goods and health and wellness are improving, even in this first half of the first quarter of 2023. now, one area that's been resilient during the ad downturn is direct response advertising that's because it's easier to measure these ads' impact. that's why meta, which is very focused on direct response, outperformed youtube, which has more brand ads in the fourth quarter. now, the weakness of brand advertising has pushed snap and pinterest, among others, to build out their direct response business dee? >> it will be interesting to see what, if any, strategy changes at youtube julia, thank you up next, procore up 50%.

some changes in the c-suite coming as well as aiming at its focus on fintech the ceo joins us next. draftkings getting a bump after raising forecast read more on cnbc.com.

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last night delivering a beat across the board in q4 guidance coming in above cons consensus. procore ceo tooey courtemanche joins us good to have you for the folks who aren't familiar, you guys are cloud for construction management, and overall, larger customers doing pretty well. some churn with the smaller ones what do you see affecting the space right now? >> well, there's -- jon, great to see you, by the way it's always kind of great to step back and just remember how big the opportunity is for procore. the strength we saw was really across the board from the largest customers down into the mid-market. yes, we did experience some logo churn at the very, very bottom end of the customer base, but it didn't show up in any of the numbers. just because they were so low dollar amounts so, but in general, the optimism is strong in the market.

my customer calls lead to people telling me that their backlogs are big and growing. >> to what extent is fed policy affecting capital spend and the construction space and, thus, construction management. i know you're working on international growth as well you grew 37% international year over year. i believe. how is the fed policy in the u.s. and kind of the cost of capital affecting just the u.s. and then the global picture for you? >> yeah. so, first and foremost, the fed policies have had an impact, but not a massive impact on the overall construction economy projects that have been delayed because of concerns around inflation are now apparently coming more back online because those projects simply have to get built. but in general, the -- also of the infrastructure act and the c.h.i.p.s. act and all of the

other government programs are actually starting to materialize in the marketplace, which is creating a tailwind. >> so, you said the number of seven-figured deals booked in the quarter were up. i mean, they doubled year over year is that just reflective of the large customers staying active or is there more complexity in construction management and the need to use your tools that's also reflected how is that also being reflected in the number of different capabilities within your suite of products that customers are using? >> yeah. so customers are not only bringing on more volume but they're also buying more of our products, which is our two major growth factors so, in general, we're seeing strength across there. we also had a lot of six-figure customers graduate into seven figures because of volume increases and cross cells. also because we see to owners, general contractors and specialty contractors, we're seeing more of those deals coming from the adjacent

markets, like our specialty contractor and owners markets, which are our newer markets we sell to. >> i think where you are is such an important area to watch, particularly for technology-driven stocks, market caps around $9 billion, and you're connecting technology to what's happening in the real economy. tooey courtemanche, ceo of procore, thank you for those insights >> always great to see you, jon. thank you. after the break, we are live from the nba tech summit former microsoft ceo and clippers owner steve ballmer is with us. >> yes [ applause ]

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welcome back an emotionally, manipulative liar acting unhinged and leaving users deeply unsettled those are some of the reviews from microsoft's new ai powered chatbot. others questioning its own existence, threatening users, admitting to spying on users through web cams for "the new york times," kevin roose told me the real night and tried to break up my marriage. one of the strangest experiences of my life microsoft says thash looking to add guardrails to the chatbot. ceo telling the times it may limit conversation lengths, which i think they're already doing. reuters reports microsoft is

planning to allow paid ads in the chatbot. let's bring julia into the conversation as well here. it's certainly the only thing people can talk about. in the bay area, half the people i talk to are scared about too much regulation, those tech-focused folks, and others of them worry there won't be any. it shows you both sides of this and how delicate and how revolutionary this technology is >> delicate, revolutionary, and also very much in its early days i read that article in the "new york times" with such fascination and curiosity. i thought it was so interesting he said that the biggest risk for ai is that it could be used to manipulate users, the people who are chatting with it, which was so fascinating i also think it's such early days microsoft is going to have to put up guardrails. by the way f you're going to be talking about advertising, brands are not going to want to put their ads in content that's so unpredictable and potentially really risky and disconcerting.

>> keep in mind, everybody, this is not how a search chatbot was built and designed to be used, right? every time there's some kind of an a ichat out there and microsoft has been through this before, users and sometimes, you know, journalists want to do the equivalent of trying to take it out and feed it shots, right, until it does something stupid that's what's happening here the more it's designed to emotionally reflect you and the more you talk to it and the more you feed it interesting information and ideas and emotional cues, it's going to spit out some interesting stuff. so, i mean, this happens yeah, microsoft has got to fix it this is not the typical ai search experience. >> i mean, i love the ap story where bing says, you're lying again. you're lying to me you're lying to yourself you're lying to everyone i don't appreciate you lying to me i don't generate falsehoods. i generate facts

i generate truth i generate knowledge i generate wisdom. i generate bing, julia, i mean, this is people's introduction to the product. >> yeah, carl, what's so funny, i think back to west world and this idea that the robots might start off just as robots and then become corrupted. i do have to bring it back to the business implications. for me, i'm not interested in spending 20 minutes chatting with a chatbot what i am interested in is how this technology can impact other industries for instance, today roblox just announced some new ai tools that will make it easier for people on their platform to become creators on their platform remember, creating content for roblox is the engine for that platform so, they have new tools that can respond to your queries and create new things for you. that's a perfect way -- perfect example of the ways that ai can be used productively within these existing companies i think that's more where the game-changing potential is rather than just having a long,

rambling, late night conversation. >> well, speaking of content, there's not much that's bigger than live sports tonight kicks off a big weekend for the nba. you have the dunk contest saturday, the all-star game sunday the main event, well, our frank holland, who joins us with a special guest. frank? >> yeah, if you're in the world of tech like all of us are, the main event is right now. the nba tech summit, it just began earlier today. our special guest is l.a. clippers owner and former microsoft ceo steve ballmer just off a panel at that tech summit. steve, thank you for being here. >> pleasure to be here >> just give us a sense, what are you talking about at the tech summit when it relates to the nba and tech i also want to talk about the new home for your l.a. clippers, the intuit dome. how are you going to use tech to enhance that fan experience? >> we're here talking about essentially the complete transformation of the viewing experience how do you get interactive, how do you augment the reality in a way that the customers really --

the fan's really going to be interested in? how do you add social? how do you add gaming? the nba app, which launched this year, i think, gives us a platform for so many things. how do you do ticketing? how do you move to biometrics? all of that stuff starts with your digital experience. to transform transform that viewing experience, to say to yourself, hey, i want to put my face on kawhi leonard's body and me making that dunk, or i want to view the game from the lens of paul george. the technology is really going to get us in an amazing place. we've been talking about some of that stuff as well as the changes that might happen in the distribution as the world leads to streaming >> i want to ask you about that distribution first and foremost, nothing like a live nba game. i was at the nets/sixers you do have a streaming service for the clippers themselves.

clipper vision moving forward, what's the future of clipper vision and the nba streaming aspirations? you just touched on it there's a lot of talk about potentially a package being given out for streaming as opposed to over the air and on cable like on tnt. what direction is the league going in >> i think the thing that is crystal clear is the investment in the r&d and the content to continue to transform the experience that's 100%, the nba app, clippervision is just a rendition, if you will, of the nba app, which is the right way for us to go we're just locked and loaded with the league. now, how much of the content will be distributed direct to consumer, in partnership with our existing, if you will, broadcast partners, how much we wind up doing with the new streaming platforms, the apples and the netflixes, the googles,

et cetera. that's the remain to be seen and the league will work its way through. it opens up such good vistas now in our building we didn't set out to be high tech but somehow we wound up being high tech we've integrated clippervision 100% into our ticketing experience it's the place that you enroll it's the place that you -- we're buy biom biometric, scan your face or your palm. we've gone all frictionless for e-commerce, grab what you want, a jersey, a hot dog, if you will, cameras in the ceiling recognize you, charge your account for what you bought. we have ultra wide band chips in the seats. there's things we can do there to reward you. we'll know whether you're up on your feet cheering or not. there's so much more we can do we have a scoreboard that is a

flipping acre of score boards, 44,000 square feet, no one has ever done that now we have to figure out how to program it >> i don't believe for a second you didn't intend to be high tech hey, it's jon fortt. i was out in redmond last week where i used to sit down to you, talking to satya nadella and how excited you would be about the revenue and margin opportunity that ai is giving microsoft an being able to take on google in search are you that excited have you talked to satya about it >> i've talked to satya about it it's the holy grail and it's finally here search gets completely redone. big opportunity for microsoft. i'm pleased we started bing. the infrastructure is there. now things can go to the next

level. it's not just bing i used to dream about a world where you can say to your computer, get me ready for my meeting with customer x and it would get the sales records, the trip reports, it would be right there for me we've got that, the elements to make that happen now with what's going on with open ai, the partnership with microsoft as a shareholder and booster, could not be any more excited, jon fortt. >> i believe that is what you used to dream about. now you're probably dreaming about ai in sports, and so what is the role, do you think, large language models, ai chat, things like sports betting and getting player stats how soon can that be implemented? >> well, some of that's happening actually right now if you go to the nba league pass app or our clippervision app can you see augmented reality

transforming the way you see the game things will go to the next level. when you can say, hey, i want to see the game from the perspective of a player, what are they seeing? how fast does the game look? that's there when gambling -- gaming, we can go to gaming, go to gambling, but when things get built into the experience, it's so much easier right there in the application to say, hey, make this prop bet. hey, do this do that. i think we're going to see an expansion as it's really possible in the betting market as well as sales of merchandise and the like i love this. you have our korean language version of clippervision these are two of the most excited guys in the world. i love the broadcast i just wish i spoke korean >> beyond excited. before we let you go, it is black heritage month we're going to talk about your $400 million commitment in a fund to funds with jpmorgan and goldman sachs to fund black investment managers.

why did you think this initiative was so important? >> yeah, as we were looking, our philanthropy, we focus in on what it would mean to help improve economic mobility for folks in the united states and one of the groups that's had the most challenge is african american males i talk to a few people i knew black fund managers would struggle sometimes to get capital. i'm not a venture investor we weren't going to look for those venture funds, but we approached three people, goldman and jpmorgan -- and they're great -- and the guys who had most experience fairview capital. fund to fund out of connecticut. and then separately, it's a little different, we're investing in an actual fund with ariel investments where they'll go out, buy up good suppliers to

the fortune 500 and do most -- do more work and more expansion. it is our hope that we then see an explosion of the number of businesses started by black entrepreneurs. now the fund managers are entrepreneurs, but we also have a commitment to 30% of what they invest in is black entrepreneurs. >> those are good stats. steve, it's deirdre. back to the ai conversation. we've been talking how journalists and others are testing and pushing chatgpt to funny but also scary results and i wonder in the wrong hands at scale, we know china is developing its own technology very quickly as well, what are the risks and are there guardrails needed? >> i have no fear. why do i have no fear? between technical innovation and appropriate input and weighing

in, if you will, from government, we're going to get to a very good place as we have with other technologies. certainly there is a chance for abuse, work needed to be done. the advantages outweigh abuse. people do phishing today, there are still security attacks and yet we remain our investment and grow our investment in technology ai will follow some of the same path just for the people who work for us, preparing, for example, fill a philanthropic grants why not make sure you think it's accurate it writes better than i do today. >> steve ballmer, thank you for joining us thanks to frank holland for bringing that to us. >> that is it for "tech check.

we will most certainly continue to bring you the biggest and most relevant tech stories throughout the day on air, online, interviews that will drive the conversation much like we have been doing here for the last two years jon, i can't wait to see what you and morgan cook up in the 4:00 p.m. hour carl, i know you are steady as always and i look forward to continue watching and what you will create for this hour. >> we can't wait i think it will be improvements across the board and it's going to be great to watch you, d, sort of take this franchise and spread it throughout the day where people don't have to wait until 11:00 a.m. to get their taste. >> and tech is still the story i mean, we were just talking about tech in sports, tech in construction management, just in today's hour, d, and of course you were talking to tony shue about tech in delivery, it's affecting every piece of the economy and especially important as productivity is key >> tech and streaming, right, carl we'll be meeting our newer

audience as well on that platform we look forward to that for those that are cutting the cord, another theme we've been hitting on the last few years. >> indeed. next week will remain busy we'll get macro and housing data and then some retail earnings. we'll get home depot, walmart, nvidia, toll brothers as we continue to toss around the idea of the recession versus inflation. let's get to frank holland and "the half. welcome to "the halftime report." i am frank holland in for the judge, scott wapner. front and center, the state of stocks the mixed economic data raises the possibility of more rate hikes ahead in the next test for the markets coming up next week. joining me all-star panel shannon saccocia, michael farr, jason snipe and steve weiss. let's start with the moment of truth for the consumer we'll hear from big retailers next week. the results, guidance and much more