ellen: there's been a of attention on robo advisors over the years. most of the attention has been on startups, betterment and well front, but vanguard has gotten into this business and has immediately become one of the leaders in the field because they already have so much under management. they have added a twist, which is for many of their clients, they do have not just sort of robo advising, but also actually people. david: and use skype with them or talk to them over the computer. ellen: you can do chatting on the computer or talk to them by the old-fashioned telephone, and they will try to get a better sense of what your needs are, what your other assets are and put you in the right place. it is interesting that there is this competition between startups, but there is also competition between the startups and these huge players, and schwab is in it, too. david: there is a vanguard blue

line through -- through-line through this section. one of your reporters tries to track down a pension. there are people with fine benefit pensions. they move from job to job and they lose track of them. she had a heck of a time trying find out where this money was. ellen: it was kind of like a detective story. our reporter tried to track down a pension from way earlier in her career. the company she had worked for had been acquired, maybe split, and part of it had gone into bankruptcy. so the question was, had the government taken over the pension? it turned out that was not the case. she tried looking it up in various places with organizations that track lost pensions. finally she found it. it happens to be at vanguard. just sort of a coincidence, she found it because she talked to someone who had talked to someone who knew where the old pension had gone. it is sort of a warning to people because this happens a lot. david: there are government agencies that try to help you

with this. she kept running into dead ends. ellen: she kept running into dead ends. she went to one agency but they did not handle the states she worked in or lived in, and that became a problem. so she kept moving from agency to agency, talking to people, and she found it. this happens with 401k's, too. it is not just pensions. david: lastly, an incredible piece in the horn of africa, across from yemen. djibouti is not a commonplace that people have been to, but it has risen to prominence after september 11. ellen: it is the size of new jersey, djibouti. it is not a most people's plans for vacations. it has become incredibly important because it is strategically located and it has become a place where lots of countries want to have a military presence. the u.s. has a huge base there. china is moving in. japan's first space in many decades is there.

all kinds of nongovernmental organizations are there. it has become the casablanca of this decade. it has that feel. our reporter even goes into a restaurant, where sort of everybody wants to be seen. it has that vibe to it. david: we talked to our reporter. >> starting with september 11, the u.s. after that was looking for a place where it could establish its first-ever military base dedicated solely to counterterrorism, and it looked for places that had access to both middle east and to africa, and djibouti emerged as the most logical place to put a base. david: how stable the country is it today? >> relatively speaking it is quite stable, but it's neighbors

are somalia, ethiopia, eritrea. south sudan is in the neighborhood. it is surrounded by a lot of countries that are basically on fire. david: what drew you there? it is a very nascent, growing place when it comes to business and development apparatus. >> one of the reasons was that china recently announced that it was opening its first military base abroad and putting it in djibouti. so you have this dynamic where you have all of these countries that are not necessarily -- they are not enemies, but they are also rivals. so you have the u.s., having its biggest military base in the region just four miles from where china is going to open its first foreign military base. japan is right alongside them. i wanted to see the dynamic of all these countries that are forced to exist side-by-side in a small area and see how that

works and how -- what sort of atmosphere results from that. david: you see that at the macro level. you also make your way to a bar frequented by a lot of businessmen, soldiers from these countries, and that is a microcosm that gives you a sense of everyday life in djibouti. >> it is a place that is sort of a local hangout for a lot of the outsiders who come in, and i was told that this place was sort of the melting pot of djibouti. when i went there, it certainly lived up to that. there were german soldiers, americans. there were trench contractors. all sorts of different nationalities mixing, and this has -- it is a really good place to kind of view this dynamic of the country, but it is also attracting the attention and the potential problems that all of these different nationalities and different interests coming

together in one spot might bring. a couple of years ago, two suicide bombers went into that restaurant, and they were targeting french commandos, blew themselves up, injured more than one dozen people, killed three. so it is kind of this focal point in djibouti, where all of the players come together and you can really see how the country is changing at a really small micro level. david: what do folks from djibouti think of all this attention from folks moving to the capital city? monte: the government of djibouti definitely wants to capitalize on all of this. they want to leverage the interest that has come from the militaries into private sector interest. they have a plan that they want djibouti to turn into another dubai. that is there stated aim. within 20 years, they hope that

djibouti can be a regional capital for free trade. as for normal djibouti residents, it is a mixed reaction. for example, when the americans came in and started to expand the military base a couple of years ago in 2013, they announced a $1.5 million program to really expand the u.s. base there. they hired foreign workers from other countries such as the philippines to do that work, and there were protests at the base against the u.s. that led to a change in hiring practices and there was a little bit of tension there. a lot of other people see those militaries is something that can provide stability for the country. we mentioned a lot of countries of the neighboring area that have lots of turmoil, and they see the foreign military

presence as a possible deterrent, for example, of islamic militants coming in and trying to take over the country. david: have you ever wondered what goes into making a " bloomberg business week" cover? i talked to the man behind many of those provocative images. here is creative director, robert. vargas. robert: very bright covers. we want to stay away from the cliche twitter blue or grey. so we tried something completely different. orange and yellow, really bright. then there was this interesting cafe. jack revealed it was sort of based on the edward hopper painting. chris shot a great portrait there that leads from the inside. the cover, we thought simpler was better. david: the headline for the graphic was #growth stall. how was that arrived at? robert: it was slightly critical but not overly mean.

david: what do you want the photo to convey? what is it successfully convey to the present picks up the magazine? robert: he looks quite pensive. in terms of body language, arms crossed, which generally represents that you want to protect yourself or are a little defensive. the whole story is about him being in a slightly defensive position. he says in the story that everybody has a theory of why people do not use twitter more. so he is not necessarily being attacked, but people are questioning where the company is going to go. david: next up, what it is really like to risk your life leading people to the top of mount everest. plus, new details on the supersonic plane picking up where the concorde left off. the future of marijuana and what investors and potheads need to know about rosin. all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm david gura. new york to london in just over three hours -- that may become a reality thanks to a start up outside of denver. that's the story in the technology section. i talked to ashlee vance and got the story. ashlee: the company says they are going to carve out a 40-passenger jet that would fly faster than the concorde, and they think there are about 500 routes, most of them over oceans, that this would apply to. they want to charge less than the concorde, and the analysts i spoke to, if they can build this plane, they think it has a chance. these guys are trying to take advantage of all the computer stimulation technology,

materials, improvements like carbon fiber instead of aluminum. by moving fast and cheap, they think they can bring it to market. david: you checked out the prototype so much as they exist now in a hangar that used to belong to john denver. what does the prototype look like? ashlee: you cannot see the actual plane yet. the models they have mocked up are a bit smaller then the concorde. otherwise it looks like the concorde. in this hangar, they have cockpits made out of plywood and cardboard that you can sit in. it feels like a business jet. every seat would be an aisle and a window. it is two rows of single seats going all the way through. their hope is to build a third scale plane by the end of next year, and that is when we would see how it flies and if it meets up with the simulations that they run. david: how much of this hinges on materials? this would be a plane built out a different stuff than the concorde was?

ashlee: it is a big deal. it is the only way you get the price down. they are seeing 30% more fuel efficient than the concorde, but that's all on paper at the moment. we are seeing carbon fiber being used in all kinds of aerospace companies. virgin galactic is using that. that is the only way you really get to the reduction. they have done some design things around the wing and taking some of the weight out of the plane, but it is the move to new materials that is the way you get there. david: what can we extrapolate about the startup culture from the way this company is being run? from who is coming up with this idea to putting it together and seeing it through? what does it say about startups in america today? ashlee: this one is an unconventional story in that you have a former amazon/groupon guy who is the ceo. he comes from the world of coupons and is now making a plane. on the other hand, he has surrounded himself with talented aerospace engineers from the likes of nasa and lockheed martin and boeing, so these people have real experience. this kind of thing used to seem

impossible, but spacex, and with jeff bezos, they have proved that you can be a startup within aerospace and you can run pretty lean for the first few years before the costs go dramatically up. david: you have a new show coming out. "hello, world." what is it? ashlee: it is a tech/travel show where we go all over the world. each episode focuses on a different country and the idea is to show you all the tech happening outside of silicon valley. we go to new zealand, iceland, places like that, meet the most interesting characters, show you the most interesting products, and bring you the most beautiful scenery along the way. david: thank you so much. in this week's etc. section, why nobody smokes flowers anymore. i'm talking about pot. i spoke with editor brett about marijuana concentrate. >> if you are 30 or so or under, you are not using marijuana in

the same way that gen xers did. david: smoking it like a cigarette, using a bong? >> that's right. you are well versed in this. you are probably smoking an extract or ingesting something that has an extract in it to get high. david: there are some definitions we need to get through. dabbing -- what is it? >> that is when you are smoking an extract. the extract that most people prefer to smoke is called rosin. that is what the profile specializes in. david: what is he trying to do? he lives in northern california. he sees a real market for this. what is so great about this rosin? >> he is trying to industrialize this rosin. right now, there's a lot of people in their garages using straightening irons to make rosin. david: industrializing it from that? >> yeah, exactly. if you are making it at home,

which you should not do, he did presses. the key to rosin is that when you smoke it, it gives you a very clean high. we compare it to nursing a glass of house red. smoking an extract is like taking a shot of premium top-shelf vodka. it is a cleaner, more potent high. david: next up on "bloomberg businessweek," sherpas tell their side of the story on the slopes of mount everest. and why warner bros. needs a hit. up next on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

david: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." in this week's companies and industry section, warner bros. is banking on a big box office for its newest release "batman v superman." >> already be know that it spent

more than $400 million and will have spent more than $400 million in putting this film together and marketing it. beyond that, it is bringing out its most iconic characters -- batman, superman, wonder woman. it is putting its biggest eggs in this basket, and hoping that with all of these characters coming on the screen at the same time that it can draw and a new fan base for the dc comics and the whole universe they are planning for the next five or more years with aquaman, justice league, like marvel did with "avengers." it has developed a fan base for its characters like iron man, captain america, and then brought them in together with a big mash-up that had several hits with more films coming out. the pressure is really on warner bros. to make a success of this expensive film, but at the same time, it's an opportunity to revamp one of its core franchises that has not been as

much of a success as, say, the marvel films have been for disney. david: you bring up marvel and disney here. obviously disney making a lot of hay out of those marvel movies. is this one are just shamelessly ripping a page out of that playbook? anousha: warner bros. is really trying to ape the success that marvel has had with its films and building the universe of characters. if warner bros. can have success with this movie, it brings out a lot of possibilities -- spinoffs, sequels, more origin stories of other characters, as it really does create a world of films. if it does not, it has locked itself out of a potentially huge market for the next few years. having said that, some wall street analysts are already warning that the market is becoming very concentrated for movies with fewer big hits and more flops. so this sort of big strategy

that a lot of studios are shifting toward, disney and warner bros. were leading the pack. it is proving a risky bet. david: can a studio recoup $400 million plus with fans of comic books, or are they having to reach out and bring people into the fold who might not know these characters and have a background with these characters? anousha: when you have a movie that is that expensive, you need people of all quadrants, as they say in movie land, young and old, and to get people to come back more than once. david: are these studios doing anything different to get people to their films? anousha: there are a couple of things that are really interesting. fun thing that is very obvious is that warner bros. started off its global publicity in beijing, china, which china is now on track to become the biggest movie market in the world at the time most of these films have come out, so probably in the

next couple of years. so there is that, trying to find a good audience there. but also they have been taking to social media and using snapchat. this weekend one of snapchat's popular filters was being used to become batman. they are using the snapchat discover stories to show more material of these characters. david: in this week's etc. section, another movie that aims to soar to great heights is "sherpa," the true story of people who haul hikers up mount everest. i spoke with editor bret beguin about the film. >> it was making its debut on discovery channel. on it is an interesting april 23. documentary, told from the perspective of sherpas. david: these are the people who help climbers get up the world's tallest mountain.

bret: they are there to help with the assent. in 2014 there was an avalanche, and 16 sherpas were killed on the mountain. this movie looks at the sherpas who were supposed to take the climbers that were still at base camp up the mountain. as you can imagine, there was a bit of tension because they did not want to go, and the climbers that had paid about $50,000 to climb this mountain wanted to go up. that is where the tension point is. david: highlight the economic disparity here. you have people paying tens of thousands of dollars to go to nepal and climb this mountain, some with little climbing experience. this documentary exposes people like that to folks who have been in nepal and climb this mountain many times? bret: you have two universes, both on the mountain at the same time. david: "bloomberg businessweek" is available now, on newsstands and online. i am david gura. we will see you back here next week. ♪

♪ nejra: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. a terror attack devastates brussels. we examined the global impact on policy, security, and markets. >> clearly it is in our business interests that borders remain open. the cooperation between countries has to be strengthened. >> people should not overreact to this. nejra: a big week in tech as iphone goes small while twitter celebrates a big anniversary. bloomberg covers it all, from apple to xiaomi. >> it was a profitable company for a long time. nejra: and in the weeks best interviews influential people , speak on topics of critical