Darrin Peller: Hey. Thanks, guys. Alex, congrats again on the new role, and Gabrielle, thanks for everything. Obviously, we know you’ll be missed by your investors. Guys, I know you lowered your outlook a bit for revenue in the fourth quarter, and I think you said you continue to see a decrease in gross profit for fourth quarter. Can you just give us a bit more color on what you’re seeing in the environment on e-com, both U.S. and perhaps globally? And just if anything you’re seeing in the trends is what led to a more cautious outlook either on the holidays or anything more broadly? Thanks, guys.
Gabrielle Rabinovitch: Yeah, Darrin. You bet. Thanks for the question. Overall, I’d say we’re seeing very healthy trends in our checkout business. We’re heading into the heart of Q4, and we really see no meaningful shifts in our performance or our demand environment. We have taken an appropriately prudent approach to planning for Q4, and obviously, we’ve contemplated a range of outcomes. As you know, headed into Q3, we had expected to see branded checkout accelerate through the back half. Branded did bump up in July. And as I discussed a few minutes earlier, it moderated through Q3. Overall, we’ve seen very solid performance in branded. So, when we think about the sort of what we’re seeing in the back half relative to the first half, very consistent performance in global branded checkout. But it’s just not as elevated as we planned and that’s really what’s informing the outlook.
Darrin Peller: Got it. Thanks, Gab.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Ng from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Michael Ng: Hey. Good afternoon, and thanks for the question. First, Alex, congratulations on the new role, and Gabrielle, thanks for everything. I appreciate your comments around managing the cost base and it being too high. Could you just talk a little bit about how you think about balancing the need for investment versus efficiency? The company previously talked about the opportunity for OpEx to keep declining in the years ahead. Is that how we should think — still think about the future? Thanks.
Alex Chriss: Yeah. Thanks, Mike. First, let me say, as I mentioned earlier, this is a growth company, and we are going to assess the focused priorities where we will invest in growth and we will make sure those are funded for success. And so, I think about that separately, then also being able to manage OpEx. On the expense side, we have an opportunity to continue to manage OpEx efficiently. We have a lot of acquisitions that we’ve done over the past few years. We have a lot of duplication and a lot of manual work that we have an opportunity to invest in automation. We have an opportunity to invest in a platform that allows us to build services that can be reused and leveraged across the organization, which will, again, as I mentioned earlier, actually accelerate us and speed the company up.
So, I think about them differently. We will absolutely invest in growth and make sure that the levers that we have to continue to delight customers and grow the business are funded for success. And then, we will work on building a platform that drives automation and continues to drive down our cost base.
Michael Ng: Great. Thank you for the thoughts.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jason Kupferberg: Good afternoon, guys. Alex, welcome. Gabrielle, best of luck. And I wanted to actually ask about the transaction profit dollar growth. In Q4, will that year-over-year decline be more or less than it was in Q3? And then, how should we think about the potential for this metric to see improved growth into 2024? Maybe you can comment on which of the initiatives that are in place to offer more potential than others to move the needle on transaction profit dollar growth next year? Thank you.
Gabrielle Rabinovitch: Yeah. You bet, Jason. Maybe I’ll start. Well, as you heard Alex discussed and I commented on it as well, our focus really is on driving profitable growth. And we’re putting the weight of the organization against initiatives consistent with that objective. That said, we did see a decline in our Q3 transaction margin dollars. We do expect them to decline again in Q4, but to a lesser extent. So, I really view Q3 as the low point and we’d expect to see an improvement in the profile in Q4. In addition, obviously, we’re not guiding 2024 on this call. Longer-term, our success will, in part, be determined by our ability to reaccelerate profitable growth in the business and we expect to be able to do that. Alex, anything else you want to add?
Alex Chriss: I just — I want to underscore, I know I’ve — I said it in the comments and I just want to underscore it again. We have every opportunity to drive profitable growth. It’s just a focus that — and a discipline that we will bring to the organization. And so, it will take time. There will be a sequential performance improvement over a number of quarters. But when we make it the focus of the organization, we have enough levers at our disposal to be able to deliver on that.
Jason Kupferberg: Thank you.
Operator: We have time for one more question. James Faucette from Morgan Stanley, please go ahead. Your line is open.
James Faucette: Thank you so much for the question. And I want to add my welcome to Alex and thanks to Gabrielle for all the work she’s done in the CFO seat. One of the assets that you talked about within that population of the U.S. is Venmo. And I’m wondering how you’re thinking about expanding its acceptance and kind of the to-dos around that? It seems like it’s really important demographically. You have at least a foothold at Amazon, but expansion of acceptance elsewhere online especially has been pretty slow. So, just wondering how you’re thinking about that as part of the asset pool and the to-do list there? Thanks.
Alex Chriss: Yeah. Thank you, James, for the question. And it is pretty rare to be able to have an asset as powerful as Venmo. When something, again, becomes a verb in language is a tremendous demographic. And you saw with our launch of Venmo Teen, we continue to expand the opportunity set there. As you mentioned, we’re in early stages with Amazon. That is going well and we expect that both from a customer demand perspective as well as a merchant demand perspective, we will continue to drive acceptance ubiquity for Venmo. I think that is very important for us as well as just driving additional services that our customers are demanding for the Venmo app. And so, again, we think about providing different services, expanding the opportunity for our customers to be delighted and use Venmo for all aspects of their spending and managing of money.
I think we’re just, again, scratching the surface of what’s possible with an app that is clearly loved in the market and has created viral growth. So, very excited to accelerate investment there and see where we can take Venmo.
James Faucette: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Alex Chriss for closing remarks.
