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Mark Zuckerberg's Libra sell

Moving the Market: Mark Zuckerberg's reveal of the Libra cryptocurrency has had immediate ripple effects across the Market, as businesses position themselves for the impact of a new financial system while lawmakers sound alarm over Facebook's expansion of power.

• The big picture: Facebook's ambitions in cryptocurrency will be tested by rival tech companies, wary governments and users who may not trust Facebook to protect their financial data.

1. Libra expands Facebook's position over tech rivals. While it will be run by a nonprofit entity in Switzerland and 27 other companies are involved, the most obvious benefit will be to Facebook, as its services would become the hub for global financial transactions.

• The other companies in the Libra Association ⁠— Visa, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, etc. — see the coin as a tool for global growth, as Spotify's Alex Norström explains here, but their respective $10 million investments should for now be seen as a mere ante to see where the game goes.

The more significant detail is who is not in the Association, FT's Izabella Kaminska writes, "notably Apple, Amazon, Google, and all of the banks." Together, those companies could create strong headwinds for Facebook.

• To wit, note that Google's Caesar Sengupta got the jump on Facebook's announcement with a blog post about the importance of working with banks and governments "to digitize economies and increase financial inclusion."

2. Governments, too, are wary of Libra, which isn't surprising given Facebook's litany of failures in protecting the data and privacy of its users in recent years.

• In the U.S., House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters wants Facebook to stop development until lawmakers and regulators have an opportunity to review the system and establish oversight.

• In Europe, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has sounded alarm over Facebook becoming a "shadow bank," and said that Libra "can't" and "must not" become a sovereign currency.

3. Finally, there is the issue of user trust. Since 2016, the conversation about "trust" and Facebook has centered around abstract concerns over data, privacy, speech, etc. — concerns that users have tolerated as they continue to use Facebook services.

• In matters of finance, "trust" means something far more specific. To date, financial blockchain systems have established trust by decentralizing power. But as The Verge's Russell Brandom writes, "Using Libra means trusting Facebook, which is a hard sell in 2019."

All that said, as Recode's Teddy Schleifer notes, "Facebook may have too many users for its cryptocurrency to fail — even if you don’t trust it." Indeed, as Schleifer puts it, "the platform’s unprecedented user base is the only global population that’s big enough to organize around a single currency."

Programming alert: Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg will speak today at the Palais at 1 p.m. CEST.

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Sundar Pichai: $1b to housing

Big in the Bay: Sundar Pichai says Google will give $1 billion to help alleviate the San Francisco Bay Area housing crisis, a move to counter the affordability crisis that has metastasized in tech's own backyard.

• This will include repurposing at least $750 million of Google’s land as residential housing, establishing a $250 million investment fund that will go toward 5,000 affordable housing units, Pichai said.

• Google will also "give $50 million in grants through Google.org to nonprofits focused on the issues of homelessness and displacement."

The big picture: Firms up and down the west coast are starting to become more serious about the rapidly growing homelessness epidemic that has come about in part as a result of their growth.

• State of the Bay, via LAT's Benjamin Oreskes: "San Francisco saw a 17% jump in the number of homeless residents over the last two years ... in Santa Clara County [it] increased 31%... in Alameda County 43%."

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On the other side of the spectrum, Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person, has officially joined Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in "the world’s most exclusive wealth club with a fortune of at least $100 billion," per Bloomberg.

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Dan Snyder ports in Cannes

Big in Cannes Bay, big in the Beltway: "Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder roared up to Cannes Lions in his $180 million yacht as ad sources speculated he’s in town to find a title sponsor for the team’s new stadium," Page Six's Emily Smith reports.

• "Snyder, worth an estimated $2.2 billion, hopes to build a new facility at the site of RFK Stadium — the team’s historic former home — in D.C."

• "On Monday night, Snyder hosted a dinner and party on board with guests including Julie Haddon, SVP global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL, and Andy Sriubas, chief commercial officer of Outfront Media."

• "One Cannes Lions source told Page Six, 'Dan and his team are here to find a title sponsor for the new stadium for the Redskins, and they are taking meetings with brands and marketers.'"

The big picture: Snyder "has reportedly been working with congressional Republicans and the Trump administration to include language in a new federal spending bill that would help pave the way for the new stadium."

• Bonus: Emily Smith is on yacht watch.

Market Links

• U.S. advertising agencies are winning big in Cannes (Adweek)

• Jim Meyer faces a new copyright lawsuit at Pandora (Billboard)

• Jonah Peretti deals with an unrelenting union fight (NYT)

• Angie Grand explores the news benefits of TikTok (Nieman)

• Ted Sarandos reveals record-breaking film stats (Variety)

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Shari Redstone moves merger

Talk of Tinseltown: "CBS is preparing to make an offer for sister media company Viacom in the coming weeks, following a meeting of CBS directors last week in which a potential deal was discussed," WSJ's Ben Mullin and Keach Hagey report.

• "A deal is far from certain. Determining the price for a stock transaction — which requires setting a value for the companies relative to each other — is one major hurdle."

Overheard last week in Stockholm: Redstone telling fellow guests of Brilliant Minds that if the merger doesn't work out, "We have other options. Trust me, we have other options."

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Bob Greenblatt talks 'peak TV'

Talk of TV Land: WarnerMedia Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt spoke at the Palais this morning about the challenges of doing business in the era of "peak TV." Some highlights:

• “It’s an arms race [to retain talent] as every platform comes online."

• "The talent pool is stretched even thinner."

• "Just because you increase the volume [of shows], you can't increase the number of really talented people in the world that can produce these shows."

• "Volume is both a good thing and a bad thing. It requires us to put things in production faster than we should."

• "We are in a world now where it’s insatiable. You cannot get enough programming."

• "Ultimately it’s a danger if we keep going at that pace... I don’t know if that’s good in the long run for our business."

The big picture: The Hollywood streaming wars really are wars. While the top services will be able to co-exist and fuel more opportunities for content creators, there is a limit to that precious resource known as talent.

• Bonus: Asked about WarnerMedia's pending $500 million deal for J.J. Abrams, Greenblatt said, "We hope to keep him in the family. ... when someone comes along as a J.J. Abrams does, once in every generation, you want to hold on to them."

🌞 What next: If you're in Cannes, I'm moderating a panel at 2 p.m. CEST today on connected television and analytics at Le Rooftop, with folks from Innovid, IAB, true[X] and Omnicom. Come by.

Otherwise, see you tomorrow.