david: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." lisa: the hunt for genes to fight disease. david: all that is ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ david: here is editor in chief. let's start in the global economic section. you have a nice graphic showing how folks in the u k and outside feel about the oncoming referendum. it seems like there is some consensus. ellen: they want the u.k. to

stay. all of them want it to stay. germany, the biggest economy in the eu wants them to stay. the only country where a large number of people really were not sure what they thought was poland. i cannot explain that. lisa: it is interesting. ellen: it is interesting. in the u.k. the polls are looking more and more like people want to leave. that there are big differences. the issue is trade. they have a lot of stories pointing out that the u.k. has a lot of economic problems, of many have nothing to do with the eu. a lot of people really want out. lisa:, tested with immigration? is a big concern that people have. when something comes into one country, they can go into any of them. ellen: and they are worried about jobs.

outside of the u.k., they want them. lisa: it will be interesting to see if more people would become double with the idea of leaving is a growing number of people in the u.k. are voting for a brexit. ellen: it will. what is on his people don't exactly know what the new u.k. will look like once they leave the eu. there are a lot of open questions. lisa: let's get to the special global tech edition. there was a story about glaxosmithkline. they are coming up with implants to treat diseases. nanobots. ellen: they really are investing on tiny, tiny devices. some the size of a grain of rice if not smaller. the idea is these devices would send electrical impulses to the right nerves. they would wrap around nerves, like a doughnut, and send messages.

part of the trick is to figure out which nerves they want to send messages to and whether those messages are going to be received by the brain. it is a whole new area. they are in pretty deep. david: this is a company that is not had success with many rounds of pharmaceuticals lately. drugs are becoming ready for generic treatments and. they are betting big on this. lisa: how to get electricity into these little nanobots? today have little batteries? ellen: batteries are getting smaller and smaller. when it comes to medical devices they given implanting batteries for a long time. pacemakers and internal hard different relators. -- this'll be a more advanced version of that. lisa: bookend of diseases can the street? ellen: i think they are looking at neurological diseases. potentially cancerous. it is sort of an open question.

they are looking at lots. david: you profile another company, one that is very science driven. had beens on a guy who offered a tenure-track job in academia. he was lured away. he was working very closely with gene therapy. ellen: that is all about the devotion of figuring out how to manipulate dna to change and to change asthma and a whole variety of ailments by targeting the right genes. we have a photo of him with his incredible looking piece of machinery. you think genes, this looks like something that would create steel. lisa: one thing i found fascinating was the racks riches element of it. here is somebody came from an immigrant family, who had a job, a tenured professor. he had a full scholarship to his own lab. yet he chose to go to this

startup. did you find a lot of tech companies were sort of these-- ellen: that is sort of a silicon valley is partly about. andle taking enormous risks then following their passions. i think you will find throughout this issue is all about passion. at the end there also happens to be a lot of money. what is also interesting about the issue is how global it is. we have a line on the cover which is 70% silicon valley. this is going on all over the world. it is not just in california. lisa: we talked to the reporter on that story. adam: one thing that fascinated me was it took almost two decades for them to get a successful drug. >> there were failures along the way? adam: they ran on ideas for a long time. straight out of the gate they developed a technology that was

so exciting that they got amgen involved. they got a partnership and went public and raised $96 million. the first drug to treat lou gehrig's disease failed. the stock plummeted from $16 to four dollars. at the same time there is more exciting science going on. they found technology pick up on the mother covers of "science and nature magazine." he was cited all the time. the stock had tanked but he was becoming this famous scientist. soon after they were able to ink another $100 million deal with johnson & johnson that also went under. they were developing one of their other proprietary technologies, this amazing, almost sci-fi mouse with a subbeda human genes -- in human genes for the immune

system. lisa: have much leeway to the have to explore and have research development and really invest in that before coming up with a drug that really is incredibly profitable and kenexa creates a value? -- create some value? finding wayspt to raise more money. they did go through some lean years around the early 2000's of a had have layoffs and things like that. it does not seem like they ever had a dry period in terms of scientific discovery. since they were scientists they were not panicking. they were looking for the long game. it is surprising. it took a long time. in fact the breakout drug they developed in the 1990's. lisa: what does that treat?

adam: one of the leading causes of vision loss. mainly on the strength of the drug that their stock is risen almost 2000%, which is what makes them -- him a paper millionaire. david: what are the aspirations going forward here? they had some failures along the way. this ocular drug was a success. wasn't looking forward to doing? adam: it on the frontier of the genetics revolution. what they are doing is interesting. they have inked partnerships with a whole bunch of different researchers around the world. there is a researcher studies mennonite populations. there was a researcher who studies families down in texas. there is a large health care dnaem which is collecting samples from about 250,000 of their patients.

the looking for people with rare mutations. when theyhis started found a bunch of people down in texas that had abnormally low-cholesterol. this through genetic mutation and that to some exciting new drugs to treat cholesterol. lisa: we here for the company developing a breathalyzer to measure phc, otherwise known as pot. david: a booming ocean turbine business. lisa: and the world's most prolific inventors are burning the midnight oil. david: all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

lisa: welcome back. you can also listen to listen to us the radio on sirius xm channel 119, a.m. 1130 in new 99.1 and washington, d.c. lisa: the british defense contractor who is developing a weed breathalyzer? david: we spoke to the cto. like washington and colorado and perhaps in d.c. or marijuana has been legalized, we were looking down the road and deciding that at some point law enforcement officials will have the need to decide whether a driver is driving under the influence of thc, marijuana. we knew in our company we had

technology that we could leverage and bring to bear on the problem of how do you detect consumedone is -- has it without an invasive test? if you develop a breathalyzer to do this, that was the ideal approach. . we have had a relationship with washington state university for almost 15 years. right about the time that we saw the opportunity to develop a product to do this we found out our good friends at washington state, professor hale and his graduate students were looking at the same problem. professor hale understands the science of measurement of these kinds of materials. we had technology that he be brought to bear on the problem. david: there is a standard metric when you breath away some of her alcohol, you know they

have violated the law. we don't have the same metrics here for driving under the influence of marijuana. is that standard going to be coming? will bring that about? jeff: i know in the state of ofhington there is a level thc you are allowed to have in your blood. if you exceed that level, you are considered impaired. we don't know about the policy. we are not lawyers. david: it doesn't matter to you guys? you were out to detect it. lisa: the threshold have to be very low. it has to be incredibly sensitive tests? jeff: the instrument is able to detect it in my new quantities -- minute quantities. the level of thc we have been able to detect is 10 picograms, a particle of thc can be

detected by her instrument now. david: that is small. lisa: so small you have never heard of it. jeff: as a reference, and e. coli bacteria is about 10 picograms in mass. you are talking about detecting particles that are not visible to the eye. david: aspiring inventors never know when or where they would get the next idea. he got his idea in prison. lisa: the undeceived -- undersea turbine nation rich. >> once in a while i get the cover outside inventors. what that means is people with no real engineering background who attained happens and are and are able to get their idea out to the world and be successful. herbert williams made millions. he had little college background. he was a dropout.

he built boats. he was a crab fishermen in alaska. a lot of different jobs. fish for turtles in florida which are not even sure that means. it runs the gamut. certainly no official schooling. lisa: and no turbines. david: he's made a lot of money off of this. he has had investors in his well. project as describe where he works. >> the ocean turbines started generating revenue for his small company. he put that into a wind turbine company that is a whole different take on the typical three bladed turbines you see out in wind farms. these are very much like an ocean turbine. can blades. can look like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. the u.s. department of energy has been very interested in this technology. they say it's ports well to

rural areas and gets small gusts and low altitude and can be used to pump water, run tools, generate electricity. his vision for that is to one day have these in the ocean on a floating wind farm to help generate electricity. lisa: you talked about how we came at a prison with these drawings. how did his time in prison in form is designed of these turbines? >> when i talked to herbert was reluctant to talk about prison. it was an awful time. the first couple of years, understandably, are just very hard. apparently they got a little easier as conditions got better. towards the end he met a fellow prisoner who taught and technical drawings. he started making blueprints, dozens of them a marine contraptions.

he started learning a trade. he left for aail tiny rural town where nobody would know him. he received $27 from the federal officials. he had his blueprints with him. that is how he started. david: by democrats hope the way hillary handled bernie sanders puts her in a better position to handle donald trump. lisa: and are we expecting too much from brazil's acting president? ♪

♪ david: welcome back. politics and policies section, why political ads may be about to get ugly. david: we talked to reporters josh green. josh: there is a new premium on personal attacks.

field role was you don't want your candidate saying mean things because it will poison their image with the public. you outsource it to a tv ad. now trump, as he has in so many ways, set a new standard by showing that if you make a personal attack in front of the camera, that will travel very quickly throughout the media ecosphere. can: taking a step back, you talk about why the democratic primaries have been so free of negative advertisement? in contrast with donald trump's standards? despite the vitriolic way in which the campaign has been covered, especially on cable news, both hillary clinton and bernie sanders are very popular with democratic voters. you run a risk of offending those voters if you run negative ads against an opponent that is also very well-liked. what it came down to was a pyramid idiosyncrasies.

in sanders case, he doesn't believe in running negative at and it's was illegal this senior advisers don't you dare run negative ads. believesfor her part, very much in negative ads. we remember the 3:00 a.m. add in 2008. she has no problem with those kinds of ads in theory. in this case you realize early on that bernie sanders has a lot of supporters, a lot of energy. if i attack him for being a socialist or whatever, i'm really going to potentially hurt myself in my ability to when the voters over. as we can see from the tightness of the trump-clinton matchup, she will need those voters. lisa: is donald trump in a worse opposition because of how -- worse-off position because how he treated his opponents in the primary and how they did against him? own: donald trump is his

walking, talking negative ad for himself. he does a lot of the work that his opponents would ordinarily have to outsource to tv ads. the application here, and i think clinton's people believe this, that it is strong's -- trump's own mouth they'll hurt him. lisa: hold on right there. argue this is the reason why he is in the position he is in today, because he's gotten so it's free advertising from some of the outrageous things he has said. josh: sure, and that helped him in the republican primary where a lot of the people agree with a lot of the outrageous things he said. that he is running for the president now in a general election with a much broader electorate who does not automatically share a lot of those views. david: and may be expecting too

much from brazil's acting president. >> they believe in the government. they are very hands-on in terms of handing -- handling economic policies. they are scared about the economic slowdown. they inject a lot of credit into the markets using state banks. it worked for a while until it didn't work. [laughter] lisa: given the new budget proposal, where have the biggest cuts been proposed? focused one mostly the spending part of it. situation, there is less room to maneuver. most of the spending is mandatory, like 80% is mandatory. it is protected by the congress. to make room, they have to amend the congress.

some of the cuts in social spending and health care. these are the two biggest areas. david: what does this situation pretend for other countries in latin america? venezuela to the northwest for these are probably not much better. maybe a bit worse. are other countries watching brazil? ye: it is interesting. i think it's probably a global phenomenon. people are fed up with the establishment. in the u.s. yet the rise of donald trump. in latin america, because people are so upset with the economic slowdown over the last couple of years, they are shifting to the right from the left. brazil is one example. argentina is another one. people are moving to a more market-friendly regime which is a good thing. people are chile,

also accept -- upset with the new president. he is proposing to be more hands-on or state-oriented. is a global phenomenon. david:, building the first american factory in cuba. lisa: we will great some technicians from 1996. don't be scared to dream big. ♪

>> welcome to bloomberg businessweek. we are here inside the new york headquarters of bloomberg businessweek. why tech companies are on a hiring spree for economists.

lisa: we will look at materials of the future. all ahead on bloomberg businessweek. ♪ we are here with the editor of bloomberg businessweek alan holick. pollack. in technology you asked a question whether the pentagon can really learn to be more flexible. can you talk to us a little bit more about what that means? n: they opened an innovation office in silicon valley to help they can learn about silicon valley and partner with companies on a variety of project. the idea was they would develop the contracts and work together. david: sounds so easy. ellen: but whenever you work

with government, not everything is easy. lisa: really? ellen: it turned out getting these contracts going off and took too much time in silicon valley is used to moving fast. you are dealing with entrepreneurs who have built companies fast and then they would deal with the pentagon and things would move like, not fast. david: glacially. this is a big initiative of ashton carter, a trained physicist. he has made a number of trips to silicon valley. are they impressed? ellen: they were interested that he was coming out and it demonstrated his commitment to it but also would demonstrate commitment of whether they get the funding they need. million,asking for $30 which does not seem like that much when you look at the valuation of some of these tech companies but i suppose it could

go a long way. and it is a start. david: in the global technology issue you have done, reevaluating some predictions from 1996 and saying what came true. any favorites that stood out to you, successes, mrs.? ellen: we looked at about 12 of them from a book that came out in 1996 when the predictions were made. some of them sadly were overly optimistic. 2002predicted that by there would be an aids vaccine and there is not. that is sort of sad. sometimes they got it wrong the other way. they thought there would be a space station by 2004 and in fact there was one by 1998. it is -- it varied like that. they talked about the idea of an automated highway that you would automate the infrastructure.

they suggested that would happen in 2017 and that is not because no one is paying attention to the idea of automated highways. they are talking about driverless cars so they got the direction wrong. it is almost like a time capsule. lisa: what did they get right? ellen: they got right a variety of things. they talked about the advent of the -- and they were -- sh around 1998 when paypal opened its wallet. david: skype, video calls. ellen: they predicted video calls and that skype came into being. another story in the global tech section that i found so fascinating was the idea of bringing the american business to cuba to create attractors.

can you talk to us a little bit about this? ellen: this is sort of another passion story about these two guys who worked together at ibm. they realized agriculture is so important in cuba and they do not have the equipment to do it productively. they are designing a tractor that by u.s. standards is sort of old-fashioned but by cuban standards will be ahead. going to make some in alabama and hopefully open a factory in cuba eventually. david: we talked to the reporter on that story. >> the two characters in that story, they are kind of old friends. they had worked at ibm together back in the 1970's. was going back to cuba -- and he still had a

is going back-and-forth and seeing firsthand, their entire farming system is crumbling. he is a smart guy who is doing the research and said that 80% of the food is being brought in. theillion is being spent government every year to feed their citizens, which is a daunting thing to run into as a businessman. as an entrepreneur the one thing you think about is the solution and their idea was to build the one thing that cuba really needs , and that is a low-tech tractor. david: what does it look like? it after a deity in the santeria religion, the god of metalwork. to it this symbolic value and looking out for the future.

they put that moniker on this machine, which is basically like a bare-bones pre-world war ii single row tractor. david: you invoke the go kart. is wide front of it open so you can dig your head in and poke around with. not something necessarily where you need to bring it into a garage and is and to let. it is very accessible. >> why is this tractor necessary? ian: if you look at the psychology of any nation, they want to be self-sufficient or have a say in the process in which they rely on, especially for something as crucial as agriculture. tractor ora large farming corporation and you are like, now we can sell our stuff to cuba and make a quick buck, the cuban government has to be

ok with the trade agreement as well as the u.s. government, they are going to be like, why would you want to buy something? we could have this company come in, build their own factory on cuban soil, employee and educate cuban workers, and keep the process entirely within the country. at first, the guys are sourcing parts that are being manufactured in the u.s. to bring them to be assembled but over time, once they can round up welders and people with manufacturing experience in cuba they will be able to do everything from scratch on the island. david: why algorithms are not just for coders. lisa: ahead on bloomberg businessweek. ♪

lisa: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. i am lisa abramowicz in for carol massar. david: i am david gura. you can also find us on the radio. technology section, white tech companies are on a hiring spree for economists. lisa: we spoke to patrick clark. patrick: if you are an economist and want to learn about the world, a tech company is a great place to go. david: what is the demand like 40 economists? it is often not just one guy on board. patrick: amazon did not tell me

how many they have on staff but i heard anywhere from 60 to 80 now from friends who have worked there or have been interviewed, and they have another 30 some jobs posted. perspective, ao was cause to believe they might have a big bank like wells fargo. according to the national association for business economists, 20 to 25 is a big number for a big team so amazon is triple or quadruple. lisa: i understand from the economist point of view, they get more money, a trove of behavioral economic data they can derive theories from. from the company standpoint, what are they looking for?

better add placement? a better way to target potential customers? patrick: it could be any of the above and these companies all have big science teams. if you talk to the people who work at these companies, who is an economist? so some of the problems tech companies want to solve, we will take the example of a marketplace, that is a problem in economics of how to match buyers and sellers. companies are hiring economist to serve almost as brand spokesman or to build rand recognition, and they are publishing research. it is not exactly the same kind as if they were working at stanford or princeton, but they are communicating to the public theyopefully, they help

are building a reputation for their companies as a resource for consumers or a name that people can trust. lisa: in the markets and finance system, how barclays is managing its dwindling branches. david: we spoke to gabrielle coppola. gabrielle: now they have video bankers which means that basically you can tap and at and and have a phone conversation with a live human being. david: how is this going to work? gabrielle: they are human beings, not robots. barclays calls it contact centers. you have your call center people just doing telephone calls, live web chats. the have people that monitor

twitter 24/7. david: hundreds of people, thousands of people? gabrielle: i know they have 60 video bank tellers and they plan to expand it to 120 by the end of the year. there's one in liverpool and very are in northern england. lisa: he said they respond to complaints on twitter so they will troll through trying to figure out what people's issues are and try to contact them? gabrielle: i do not know if they are the seamless integration with the video bankers. it is more like a personal service if you have an account with barclays and want to open up a new account or are having a problem and you want to talk to a human. lisa: where investors come up with their revolutionary ideas. david: materials of the future, super materials. ♪

♪ david: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek, i am david gura. lisa: i am lisa abramowicz. there is a photo essay of five substances of the future. moste one that i find fascinating is the blackest black in the world. when you look at it it just looks like a void, a bottomless pit. we show a piece of tinfoil that is crinkled and covered with it but it just looks like a whole. it is fascinating because it is being used in aerospace. they can put it into star trackers or telescopes, things were you have to get rid of ambient light. it is also being used in luxury products. watchre making a wild new where the face will be this

material and it will look like a whole on your wrist. >> are companies investing a lot in developing this? >> there is a small start up that has built this material. they have to apply it. you could not get a little black dress made of it. it is made in a clean room and it is a complex process. until recently it was not possible. >> very high-tech? >> very high-tech. skinwas intrigued by the one. putt is basically, what you on a few different gels on your face and they react and form a second skin. this can completely eliminate bags under the eyes and it mimics useful skin. you can wear it when you are swimming and exercising.

to take it off you can just peel it off. they are also looking at it as a way to develop medications to the skin or protect our natural skin from environmental damage. lisa: another cool photo essay was a look inside the garages where some of these inventions really take lace. -- take place. >> a lot of what they have in common is this kind of mess that they work in. that is what we like to see. some of them are working in a garage with their kids toys or fishing rods and that is what we are looking out, where they are carving out a space to work. david: are these people who aspire to bring products to the commercial market place? >> they are a mix of people. some have brought them to the marketplace. this boy, he is 16 and he has a kickstarter.

he is actually creating these parkinson ranks. david: he lives in a hotbed of technological creativity. >> he is quite charming and has a small space, essentially a table in his parents' garage. , and thisave that woman is interesting. she works on a ping-pong table in her brother's garage. she wanted to style it but this is what she works on with her two laptops and is able to spread it all out. i loved that space. some people did not like it. david: i love that she prefers it. something about the table speaks to her. >> i think she found the color cal main -- call me, -- ming.

>> i think about my grandfather who worked extensively in his garage and it was because of the spare parts that he could be creative with. did you find that most of the inventors were more industrial in nature and it was partly, in order to be able to use those tools that they would choose a garage? soldering. they are >> you need to be able to make a mess. all of these people are building things with the exception of mona who is using laptops to build apps, but i think you have all the material and you can make a mess because it is a garage. africa had aouth plaster of einstein that we liked. certainly i think the garage has all these elements. how youou mentioned

were not interested in the we work spaces, the incubators. there was a movement toward those. yes, there is people working in their garage but there is the to move out ofe the garage. >> i think it was tricky in some countries and places like japan where people do not have garages. there were places where people are not able to work in their homes so they choose that kind of space. there were a few people who did not make it into the magazine. david: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands. lisa: and online. david: what is your favorite story? lisa: i love the idea of the tellers. david: i like the story of the guide drawing up plans to build these turbine on a plot of land.

he is a fascinating character, went to prison and learned technical drawing. see you back next week. ♪

david: you have been in that job when there has been tragedies, huge tragedies in this country. what can we do to avoid this going forward? mr. clinton: first of all, we with intelligence work with federal and local law enforcement, with people who may be lone wolf's. like those people let san bernardino, they were converted to their ideology over the i