unknown (0.0 : 21.0) :  Joining me now in his first interview since stepping into the role as the president and CEO of PayPal is Alex Criss.  It's nice to have you here. Thank you.  Thank you, David. Good to be here.  It's good to have you.  You know, the analysts don't seem to love the stock right now.  It's just the last couple of weeks.  I've taken a look at a few reports.  Mizuho yesterday, PayPal faces competitive pressure from A to Z, downgrade. 
unknown (21.9 : 41.0) :  Oppenheimer, PayPal, or persistent profitability pressure has them downgrading it.  Morgan Stanley, slower than expected progress on strategic imperatives.  BTIG, too much uncertainty puts us on the sidelines.  I mention those because I'm curious to get your response.  So what do you say to these analysts to get them to change their mind, or how do you? 
unknown (40.6 : 70.2) :  Well, look, we're an important company.  We've got a quarter of the world's e-commerce running through PayPal.  So that's why we've got 45 analysts following us.  And, you know, look, to be honest, there hasn't been a lot to celebrate over the last few years.  I think innovation's been slow.  The company's been growing, but hasn't been putting out real customer-backed innovation.  And that's why I'm here.  That's why I'm so excited about it going forward.  So, look, I love being an underdog.  I will take all of that feedback and we'll shock the world. 
unknown (70.2 : 72.5) :  You think you're gonna shock the world.  How are you gonna do that? 
unknown (72.5 : 100.6) :  We've got an innovation day coming out on the 25th, where from the first week that I got there,  this was not about trying to figure out what to go do.  It is very clear what we need to do.  24 will be a transition year for us, but it will be all about execution, and it starts with innovation.  So on the 25th, we're going to come out with very clear customer-backed innovation that we will be rolling out for consumers,  for our merchants, for Venmo, and I think it will be a good start for this year.  Any high? 
unknown (99.9 : 111.5) :  Anything you can tell us at this point?  Obviously, I don't want you to ruin the rollout, so to speak,  but when you say you sort of have a very clear idea of what you have to do,  and then you say innovation, any specifics you can provide?  Well, look. 
unknown (111.5 : 141.5) :  PayPal hasn't delivered the value proposition to its consumers or its merchants over the last few years that I think we're capable of.  We have more data.  We see exactly what people are purchasing around the world.  So we need to make a better value proposition for consumers, put more money in their pockets.  For our merchants, we have the ability to leverage AI to deliver an incredible improvement in their conversion rates.  And then we have to let our small businesses and our consumers connect, leveraging AI-driven personalization.  And you believe that. 
unknown (141.5 : 151.1) :  that that, for example, using the data more effectively for particularly the merchant side  can bring, what, higher profit margins? How does this translate? 
unknown (151.1 : 162.1) :  Well, look, we have over 35 million merchants  that are using PayPal.  When we improve their conversion rate,  it improves their business, it improves our bottom line.  We're kicking things off on the 25th. 
unknown (161.8 : 168.0) :  I mean, you do have an awful lot of data.  You ever consider just selling it or working with others as well to sort of pool that data in some effective way? 
unknown (168.0 : 195.4) :  You know, the data is our customers' data.  It's our consumers' data and our small businesses' data.  What we need to do is leverage AI to make it better for them to be able to grow their businesses.  Small businesses are under a ton of pressure right now.  It is hard to be a small business in good times.  It's not good times right now.  We can give them an advantage.  Advertising costs have gone up twice, 2x, over the last few years.  We need to be able to give them the opportunity to leverage the data that they have 
unknown (196.0 : 197.4) :  and improve their business.  Right. 
unknown (197.2 : 222.4) :  Right. When you speak to investors now, and it also is encapsulated to a certain extent in some of these analyst reports as well,  competition comes to mind, your lack of significant profit margin expansion and or actually lack of profit margin.  You know, Apple pay, buy now, pay later. Do you have an answer to these?  You talk about what is a still relatively dominant position, but at the same time,  it seems as though you've taken on a lot of business that doesn't really have a margin associated with it. 
unknown (222.4 : 248.0) :  Yeah, I think we have done too many acquisitions over the last few years, and we've been defocused.  It was one of the things I noticed when I came in 100 days ago.  We've got a lot of priorities.  We've narrowed those down, five key priorities, all focused on profitable growth.  And so I think you'll see us start to move away from some businesses that we may have been in  and really focus our energy and our efforts on building profitable growth going forward.  It's going to be a lot of fun.