>> it's 1:00 p.m. here in hong kong. i'm angie lau with an update of your top stories. on fridayhe most after doubts that opec will reach an output agreement. saudi arabia pulled out. the cartel has called another internal meeting in a bid to resolve its own differences. -- china has effectively tightened monetary conditions without any official announcement. they have cut back on their seven-day open-market operations. they are raising short-term borrowing costs and bond yields by injecting more funds to 14

and 28-day contracts as opposed to seven. president-elect donald trump has claimed the general election saw fraud. he says he won the popular vote, if millions who voted illegally for clinton are removed. inre are calls for recounts three out of ground states. global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. let's take a quick check of the markets for you right now. afternoon trading getting underway in hong kong and china. we are seeing gains right now. the rmb strengthened slightly. that's your headlines. ♪

emily: i'm emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all our top interviews from the week in tech. coming up the controversy , surrounding facebook and twitter rages on in the aftermath of donald trump's election. we explain how the companies are changing their tune. plus trump doubles down on his , promise to scrap a major trade deal. what that means for tech companies in china. and the silver industry scrambles to figure out what the new administration means for renewables. thefirst, to our lede, debate rages on, did fake news on facebook help sway the presidential race? in the first days after the election, mark zuckerberg told dave kirkpatrick this. >> personally, i think the idea that fake news on facebook, of which it is a very small amount of the content, influenced the

election in any way, i think is a pretty crazy idea. emily: but after a lot of backlash, zuckerberg seems to have slightly changed his tune. he wrote on facebook, "the bottom line is, we take misinformation seriously. we believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible. we do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves." we asked dave kirkpatrick what he thought of facebook's evolving tone. >> he would still say -- i don't think he would use these words again, but that it's a crazy idea that trump won because of fake news on facebook. which is basically what he was saying. but i think what's happened as a result of a huge push back from all kinds of quarters, including the u.s. president, the lead editorial in "new york times," and plenty of other places, they are taking this all gravely seriously at facebook.

they know they have to make changes. what i found impressive, given the pace which developments are going, is zuckerberg on saturday was outlining a series of specific steps they are starting to take to think about how they can change the way the aga rhythms work, the validation of news works. they are going to make concrete changes. there is no questions. emily: let's talk about some of those changes. you talked about stronger detection, easier reporting, third-party verification, warnings, rating the quality of articles. a, are these changes enough? and b, should they be doing more? should they have more human editorial judgment involved? >> i think the question of whether humans or algorithms, meaning software, can do a better job is not really easy to answer. it is very possible, given the volume of content facebook has to deal with, that there is no choice, but that algorithms have

to do the heavy lifting. that doesn't mean they aren't going to need people. they have people. it has been reported about these thousands of people in the philippines and elsewhere that basically are looking at things all the time, not just news stories, but posts by individuals that are also false or harmful, making very quick judgments. we're going to see people involved. but whether they should have an editorial department and have journalists get involved, my gut is they should have some people like that involved at the policy level and possibly at the policy level and possibly at the big picture decision-making level, but they are never going to be able to use those people for every fake news story identification. there's too many things to identify. emily: bloomberg did interview a facebook vice president at a conference in london. take a listen to what she had to say. >> we want to make sure people are seeing the information that

matters most to them, and if they don't want to see that information, they can choose to block it. emily: what about a potentially bigger problem, that facebook and twitter have created an infrastructure in which we can live in our own little bubble, interact, and only see news from people that we like, and people whose views we share, is that potentially a bigger problem? >> i think it is. more than potentially. i would say most urs of facebook would say it is something they experience. i asked zuckerberg about that in the interview on stage and he said that the problem was more that people get the contradictory views in their newsfeed, they just don't read them. they scroll right down the page. which may be true. one could argue they need to do something a little different to maybe put a brake on that. the problem, and i think your

colleague said some smart things the other day on your show, they really want to do what is best for the user. that is sort of what she was saying as well. if they think it is affecting the user experience, they are going to improve it. because that is their bread and butter. probably it is starting to affect the user experience. in a way that's pretty serious. that gives them huge incentives to take action. emily: you can hear more about facebook's news controversy on our podcast, "decrypted." soul-searching in the aftermath of donald trump's election. find new episodes on itunes every tuesday. twitter is also under pressure for the way it's handled hate speech. last week, twitter switched on new features to help users filter out abusive content and took more direct action by suspending a handful of accounts promoting the controversial right movement -- controversial alt-right movem

ent. as social media grapples with the balance of free speech and abuse we discussed the , controversy with another founder taking a stand. dan is a former reddit exec who founded a platform which prioritizes monitoring online abuse. >> we think about it as a culture problem. of course there's technology that is involved in helping us detect and prevent these kind of the biggest thing that we think other companies have really forgotten is that what we are dealing with is a culture. so, we raised enough money so that we could spend a long time in private beta, so that we could start to community -- start communities to actually seed ourculture -- culture. i think you will see on twitter, reddit, facebook, what you really have is a culture of hate. you have a culture of harassment. by having a culture of these things they are really , encouraged and they are really spread far and wide. emily: how do you actually change that? i'm sure reddit didn't start out thinking they would be breeding

a culture of hate, and neither did facebook or twitter. these networks sort of become what the users often want them to become. >> but you have to focus on it from day one. i know that, that these other platforms really didn't. what you focus on as a startup is growth at all costs. especially when your business model is one of advertising, you are forced to focus on growth at all costs. when you have something that is really proving to exponentially grow your platform overnight, you go with that. if that happens to be harassment and hate, you are incentivized to go with that. what we are really trying to do is set up a different business model, one that is in line with the communities, one that is in favor of the community, so that we are forced to make decisions against these things. we know that we can't solve the problem that there are jerks online. it's not something that we can ande, but by merely trying

providing the tools from day one for community leaders and community members to help us help them, we are going to be in a better place. at least that is our belief. emily: friday night, the cast of "hamilton" delivered a message -- a much talked about message to vice presidential elect mike pence. the star of "hamilton" saying, "we, sir, we are the diverse america who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights." president-elect trump said that vice president-elect pence had been harassed. how do you define, and more importantly monitor, what may or worm -- what may or may not be harassment? some people felt that left the cast of "hamilton" discussed wasn't harassment at all. >> there's always a gray line that is hard to tread. we're lucky that in a community

platform we have a hierarchy, so we have community leaders, we have community members, and we are able to service problems like that in a more organic way. you have real problems on twitter that the rules aren't applied evenly. a lot of the things you see donald trump doing, you saw also milo doing, and he was banned when trump wasn't. we intend to enforce our rules equally across all people whether they are stars or not. , harassment is harassment. but we recognize that is a hard gray line. we are focused on scaling our teams appropriately to our communities. which is something you don't see these other companies really focusing on. emily: and what about president-elect trump himself, who certainly has not taken a break from twitter at all, to the surprise of many. you've got a survey that came out today, saying most people would like him to shut down his personal twitter account.

how should trump be behaving? >> i think he should be banned from twitter. if he were doing what he does on our platform, he would have been banned many years ago. he is calling for harassment. it is not proper behavior. emily: you think jack dorsey should ban donald trump from twitter. >> i think he should have a long time ago. emily: still to come, with billions of dollars on the line and the president-elect promising to unravel a trade deal six years in the making, we will focus on the future of the u.s. and china's trade relations and what it means for tech. after a year of megadeals, does the new administration signal a change in the m&a pipeline? we will discuss, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: trade continues to be a hot button issue in washington. president-elect trump made clear in a video message this week that he plans to follow through on a campaign promise to unravel the transpacific partnership, a key policy of the obama administration. pivot to asia. >> on trade, i'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the transpacific partnership, a potential disaster for our country. instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to american shores.

emily: just last week, president obama met with pacific rim leaders who vowed to fight protectionist policies in peru. >> when it comes to trade, i believe the answer is not to pull back or try to erect barriers to trade. given our integrated economies and global supply chains, that would hurt us all. but rather the answer is to do trade right, making sure it has strong labor standards, strong environmental standards. emily: perhaps some conflicting messages from the u.s. for more on what this means for the tech industry in particular, we caught up with the brookings institute vice president of government studies in washington. >> he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do, pull out of the tpp. this is going to create problems for our allies and it also creates a great opening for china.

at the recent conference, china is trying to exploit this possible move by the united states to tell countries in that region, we will create a free-trade zone with you. emily: we've got numbers showing just how much is at stake. in the u.s. china relationship. the u.s. importing $480 billion worth of goods from china, exporting $150 billion worth of goods. lulu, you are on the ground with the leaders of chinese businesses. what is the reaction within china? what are business leaders saying? >> chinese tech companies care a lot about how trump's policies will be. you might be wondering how this will affect the companies that are largest. counting from the top, alibaba has said essentially that if trump wants to create more jobs, and they are assuming that is a

priority for trump, they will need to work with chinese companies like alibaba that are investing in the u.s., and also trying to acquire more products from the u.s. as chinese consumers upgrade. moving to buy do -- baidu, they said that silicon valley is trying to bar immigrant workers in the future. china is more than happy to take those workers as china needs to create its own technology boom going forward. emily: president-elect trump in this latest video message also continuing, it seems, to support the promises he made on visas and immigration, saying, "i will direct the department of labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the american worker." david, we are starting to see some potential policy intentions take shape. what do you make of it? >> a very smart global business leader once said to me that there is a global battle underway for influence between china and the united states, and

every country around the world is looking at the two systems, one very top-down and autocratic, one democratic and highly capitalist, to see which one gets the best benefit for its people. i think, unfortunately, a lot of trump's proposals don't factor in the global impact of his actions on that battle. as darrell and others have been explaining, it is really great that china may gain the advantage based on some shortsighted actions that we are about to take. in terms of impact on tech companies, i think there are going to be positives and negatives. it's interesting to hear lulu talk about how the chinese companies think they could benefit. emily: darrell, how likely is an actual trade war in the traditional sense of the word? trump's advisers have said china's interactions with the united states have effectively added up to an undeclared trade

war. how would this be different? >> i think it would be devastating if the united states did start a trade war. trump has talked about imposing tariffs on goods coming in from china. as you point out, he has accused that country of manipulating its currency. if he were to do something like that we can guarantee there will , be retaliation from china. the risk is that this whole infrastructure that has supported globalization over the last few decades is just going to fall apart and it becomes a catastrophe for many different countries. emily: so, lulu, what companies in particular would feel the effects of this the most? >> well, like i mentioned earlier, alibaba is focusing on expanding globally currently. u.s. is one of its core targets. for them to go into the u.s. in the future, they need to procure products. they are targeting u.s. customers.

trump policies could affect them. tencent, their core business, not so much. in areas they would like to expand, for example, hollywood movies, that is an area that would likely affect them. we're already starting to see a pushback there. emily: a lot of folks i've been talking to have said the bottom line is that trump is a businessman, and he recognizes or he will recognize that the relationship between china and the united states is very important. do you think that, ultimately, we will see a softening of the rhetoric and a softening of the actual policies put in place, or do you believe he will take as hard a line as he says he will? >> i would hope there would he a softening as he starts to realize what some of the negative economic consequences are going to be. it is going to be difficult to bring manufacturing jobs back to the united states. just because of the costs

differentials. -- cost differentials. it is much cheaper to produce those products in china. the thing that i worry about is, when you look at his initial administration appointments, he has appointed real hardliners to some key positions. that suggests he's not going to soften some of these positions. emily: david, closing thoughts here? there's also a contention that trump may not understand how many jobs would be created if apple moved manufacturing of the iphone or even part of it back to the united states. we had alex webb on, saying it wouldn't create that many jobs because automation is so good now. where do you see this actually going? >> those were amazing statistics that alex mentioned before. it costs $.75 an hour to have a computer -- robot do a job, $4 an hour in china, and $40 in

manufacturing in the u.s. those numbers don't lie. in any case there's just no way , that we can bring a lot of manufacturing back without either not creating jobs or dramatically increasing consumer costs. if people want things to cost more when they go to walmart, fine, bring some of those jobs back. create a bunch of manufacturing jobs. i don't really see how this is going to play out. it is one of so many things that, as i said earlier in the show, it is pretty hard to predict right now. trump's rhetoric seems to be directly contrary. emily: that was darrell west, lulu chen in hong kong, and bloomberg contributing editor david kirkpatrick in new york. still to come, everything you need to know from the two hp earnings reports this week. we will break down the numbers, next. plus, the addictive home decor site houzz is looking to india for its next big growth spurt. we will catch up with the ceo.

this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: turning now to the two hp's, the hardware company hp inc. and the fast-changing enterprise company hpe, both out with the results tuesday. we brought in crawford for the top takeaway. >> similar to what you saw on the call. what's interesting is meg talks a lot about remaking hewlett-packard enterprise. they are really a company

that is focused on the enterprise infrastructure space. what people need to get their heads around is the enterprise infrastructure is changing. it's not going away. you have to build out the cloud. you have to build out what's in private data centers. as you talked about on that clip, this kind of industrial internet of things. there's so much data that that the edge that hewlett-packard wants to capitalize on. what's different is and what meg talks a lot about is building a different size overhead structure, building a different infrastructure, to support a company that is not as big. you are seeing that as the company hits its one-year anniversary of hewlett-packard enterprises transformation. they've gone through a lot of restructuring, whether that's in in services or software. what we're starting to see now is this new enterprise

infrastructure-focused company emerge and make business choices that are really around how do they capitalize on better margin pools that are really within that core infrastructure space that can be quite competitive. emily: it's interesting. currently when hp split, not a lot of people saw the election of donald trump coming, and a discussion about m&a yesterday with david kirkpatrick, he suggested that safer in today's it could be unpredictable environment. do you think two hp's are better off than one hp with donald trump running our country? >> i really can't comment on that. what i can focus on is what you are seeing emerge in these companies. i spent a lot of time with hewlett-packard. if i could sum it up in one word, it is focus. this company, through their focus, really has a lot more options. the sales team is more focused on what they are selling.

the products, the time they can spend on crafting the portfolio, that kind of stuff is stronger. you really saw that in the hewlett-packard, the hp inc, the pc and printer companies. you saw the personal systems group growing 4%. that is faster than the market. that is on better execution and better product. as far as what person is in charge meg did mention, she , didn't see the election had a significant impact on near-term results. longer-term, it is tough to tell at this point. emily: what sort of progress do you expect to see with regard to hpe in the cloud, given the giants that are amazon, microsoft, and google? >> what hpe is going to focus on is helping companies that still support hybrid cloud infrastructures, the absolute

best infrastructure, and they are going to go after the highest margin. hpe also has significant relationships with folks like microsoft azure and they want to , with their cloud line servers, have profitable deals in that business, which is incredibly competitive. that is where you want to benchmark them. can they be profitable overtime, supporting the public cloud? that's really a big part of their strategy. emily: still to come, after years of megadeals from microsoft, linkedin, verizon, yahoo!, will we see the same appetite for tech m&a with trump in the white house? we will discuss, next. and if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. on the bloomberg radio app, bloomberg.com, and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> is one of 30 here in hong kong. i am angie lau with an update. there are increasing doubts opec will reach an agreement this week. the cartel called another internal meeting to try to resolve its differences, including whether it ran and iraq will are willing to even cut directions. gold sees its biggest monthly drop in a year. the metal was hit after the u.s. election and donald trumps pledged to boost spending on infrastructure.

gold has tumbled around 6% this month as investors price in a 100% possibility of a fed hike next month. will finallyonnect start next monday in hong kong. the biggest monthly decline since it's devaluation in august. after the shanghai hong kong connect, many chinese technology companies are listed in shenzhen. new strikes this week. pilots on short-haul flights will walk out on tuesday. all pilots will stop work on wednesday. strikes have already led to thousands of flights been canceled. airlines will not be able to survive if it case into this demand. global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. on how the in

markets have been trading in the asian-pacific today. good andlooking pretty late asian trade. we have seen the australian share market closed down lower, 8/10 of 1% during a little bit of weakness coming through from some of the southeast asian markets. very strong movement coming through from china and also korea. we are seeing the yuan strengthened significantly against the dollar. the nikkei down a third of 1%. certainly not the low of the day. notbroader topix index is actually in the industry. verizon moves coming through in the afternoon session. mgm china is a standout. also a lot of the banking stocks doing well in china. there are actually tracking toward in a pichai -- an eight week high.

you're seeing movement coming through for most of the southeast asian markets as well. a big story of the day has been this movement we have seen in safe havens. we will be live from london at the top of the hour. ♪ emily: welcome back to "best of bloomberg technology." i am emily chang. is a donald trump presidency good for the u.s. stock market? that is the question investors are weighing in the weeks following the election. a big impact on whether the tech unicorns decide to go public. jmp group president carter mac shared with us his outlook for tech ipo's to come. carter: i think a lot of the bigger companies are multinational in scale and the policy, trump's policies, generally anti-trade, those

kinds of things are really effecting people's viewpoints of the bigger companies. the amazons, microsoft, ibm. since those are the largest market cap companies, affecting the whole industry. emily: facebook, google, netflix, for example, all down since the election. do you think that will keep up or that once we start to see more certainty around his policies, that could change? carter: i think it can change. i think the tech sector will probably join this rally at some point. i think, you know, we're going to talk a little about ipo's. i think the backdrop for ipo's is good. i think people are looking for high growth companies in the market today, and we see a lot of growth in technology, especially in cloud-based software platforms, and other companies that don't necessarily have as big an impact from these global economic issues.

emily: so, 2015, 2016, pretty dry years for tech ipo's. now we have two political surprises with the election of donald trump and brexit. companies that were perhaps waiting for more certainty may not have gotten it. what does that mean for 2017? when it comes to ipo's? carter: we were saying before the election that the backdrop for ipo's has been good over the last six months. we've had low volatility in the market. we have had five months of inflows into equity funds, generally good performance. in the ipo sector, for the ipo's that have come out in 2016, the average ipo is up about 35%. in technology, the average ipo is up about 45%. so people are making money and outsized returns by betting on new companies in the ipo market. in october, the couple weeks before the election, we saw an uptick in ipo activity.

as the election got closer, people got more uncertain. and that has tailed off, obviously. i do think we are set up for a much more robust ipo market in 2017. emily: so, how many more ipo's? carter: it's hard to say. the backlog of confidentially-filed deals has gone up significantly. emily: snapchat. for example. that was just before the election. carter: that's right. there was a deal yesterday in the cyber security space. there a lot of companies that are filed confidentially. i just know from jmp securities is an active underwriter in the technology and biotechnology ipo market. you know, we saw a number of companies select underwriters and get on file confidentially in the fall. and so we know there's a lot of companies lining up to go public in the first quarter of 2017. emily: so what about m&a?

will companies get more acquisitive? who? why? carter: the backdrop has been good. we focus on the middle market. middle market m&a has been good. our own m&a advisory business is up dramatically this year. we focus in tech and health care and financial services and real estate. we've seen a steady increase in m&a activity. we don't really see that slowing down. a lot of the companies we deal with will benefit, at least from what we are hearing the policies will be, lower regulation, lower tax rate, companies that are more domestically focused, so don't have some of the issues around stronger dollar and trade policy. so, you know, we think it is so far generally positive. emily: david kirkpatrick, one of our bloomberg contributing

editors, suggested yesterday that bigger is safer or potentially safer under president-elect trump. would you agree? carter: i don't know if i agree with that. i mean, the market doesn't necessarily agree with that right now. as i said, russell 2000 is up 11%. that is the area where the small-cap part of the markets that has been rallying. i think there is more uncertainty for large global companies that have businesses, you know, in asia and across the world with the potential for trade wars and other negative consequences. emily: any specific sectors within technology that you would single out where you expect to see activity? carter: well, as i said, we're seeing a lot of activity in cloud-based software. that is an area we cover. we have seen recent deals -- on the coop ipo, which performed quite well. up 65%. we expect to see a lot more activity in that area. emily: that was carter mack. president of jmp group. staying with tech m&a, symantec

agreed this week to buy the identity protection company lifelock for more than $2 billion. bloomberg's intelligence analyst and david kirkpatrick joined us for more insight on the deal. >> right now symantec is really addressing the problems it has with its flagship norton product, which has been bleeding sales. growth has been hard to come by. what they are trying to fix is a really to acquire a steady revenue stream from a company, lifelock, and it partly addresses the problem they have in the consumer segment. the bluecoat acquisition was really targeted at the enterprise segment. emily: so let's talk about the challenges they faced with the consumer. symantec has struggled because its security software was loaded onto pcs, then the world went mobile. you know, how well-positioned is symantec to compete in a world where there are a lot of mobile threats?

david: so, you are absolutely right. the security landscape has changed completely. right now you have seen the rise of a lot of smaller point solution vendors who have done well, scaled themselves up to $400 million, $500 million. they address a specific portion of the threat. they are not integrated platforms, except for palo alto networks. so, i think what you're going to see is a lot of these point solution vendors being acquired because their growth is slowing and they can't address the overall problem. for a company like symantec, they are putting the pieces together. but you don't know if the product synergies are there, and that is where the execution comes in. emily: david, it is interesting to see these first m&a deals take shape. you know, now that we know donald trump will be in office in january, this deal may have been in the works for a long time. preceding the election, but what do you expect from m&a under donald trump? david: i think there's a lot of

reasons to expect tech m&a to grow and not to shrink in the coming months and years. one is, if the repatriation of overseas profits is allowed, which almost certainly is going to happen in some form, that gives these companies a lot more money to spend domestically. they are already buying companies overseas using that money. and i think it makes sense to see that as a factor that will increase m&a. like i've said already twice on the show, we are entering a very uncertain environment. and the more uncertainty there is, i think business leaders like to be big. they just think that makes them feel a little safer. that might be another force militating toward more m&a. i also think the pace of change just continues to accelerate. these big companies can't invent everything themselves. so i have yet another reason. they have to keep buying new technology. i think symantec buying an identity management company is very smart. identity management is one of the big challenges. they didn't develop themselves. they got it from somebody else.

emily: what do you make of that? lifelock has had some interesting run-ins with the ftc over false advertising. they made bold claims about protecting customers' identity. they have had to pay money back to consumers. do you think symantec simply decided that bigger is safer and they are willing to deal with some of these issues? >> absolutely. the fact that they already have a 4 million customer base, it goes to prove that the revenue stream they are getting from lifelock is steady. it helps them fix the consumer segment problems they have been trying to address the last two years. so it is a very good idea for them to pursue this acquisition. the only problem for symantec is they don't have the bandwidth to pursue more deals like this. because their debt could be downgraded to junk. so it does not leave them much room to pursue more deals like this. emily: bloomberg intelligence analyst and techonomy ceo david kirkpatrick.

still to come, the solar industry grapples with what a trump administration means for renewable energy demands. we will speak with the biggest provider of home solar loans in the u.s. next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: in the weeks following donald trump's election, energy analysts have tried to guess what the incoming administration means for renewables. trump campaigned on promises to bring back coal mining jobs and scrap president obama's clean energy initiatives. this week, we got another hint. president-elect trump: on energy, i will cancel job- killing restrictions on production of american energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs. that is what we want. that is what we've been waiting for. emily: but questions remain,

like what will the trump administration do to tax credits that help homeowners install rooftop solar panels? we caught up with someone at the heart of the industry, mosaic ceo billy parish. his company is the largest u.s. provider of solar energy loans for consumers. billy: it has been good to hear from the transition team that they don't plan to target renewable energy tax credits. you know, and that makes sense. because solar is one of the most popular things in america right now. you know, 89% of americans support solar. that is about 85% of republicans, 95% of democrats. solar is creating jobs at 12 times the pace of the rest of the economy. so, it is one of the few bright spots, universally popular. i don't think he's going to go after it. emily: so this is a guy who believes climate change is a hoax, or at least has suggested as much the last few years. there's concern about whether

tax credits will be rolled back. tax credits will be rolled back. how concerned are you? billy: i'm not that concerned. ultimately, this is about which electricity sources are best for the country and the economy. and right now, solar is cheaper than other forms of electricity. so, you know, most of the action is taking place in the states right now. the market has taken on a life of its own. so, i actually don't think there's much he could do to slow down solar. emily: is there any upside under trump? billy: there's a lot of interest in investing in infrastructure. solar and transmission infrastructure are needed. so, you know, we are hoping some of the tax credits he is looking at could be used to further deploy clean energy. emily: so you guys just raised another $250 million. as i said, you are the leader in this space, but you have sun run and solar city providing a similar service. how do you see yourselves remaining a leader? billy: so we work with almost the entire industry. we provide software and loan

products to almost every major installer in the country. so when they are sitting across the kitchen table with someone who wants to go solar, they are using our application to get that customer instantly approved, offer them a loan. so we don't compete with solar city or sun run. in fact, we work with those companies. emily: how does a solar city tech merger impact you or impact the industry? billy: we were excited to see those two good companies come together. we worked with both companies. we financed tesla's power wall as well as solar city's installation. so for us, it is a positive thing, a stronger company together. we are excited to keep working with them, supporting their business. emily: do you buy into that vision of a sort of end to end energy service for the consumer? billy: i do. i think most consumers benefit by going solar. i think anyone who's driven a tesla knows that is a better car than most other cars on the road.

and if you can bundle these things together into a single offering to a consumer and cross sell to tesla customers, i think there's something there. emily: the world's first cyborg olympics is underway in zurich. there, 66 teams from around the world have paired up scientists, cutting-edge robotics, and physically disabled people to push the limits of aggressive assistive technology. check it out. ♪ >> 66 teams from across the globe have come to zurich for a unique competition. in a true blending of man and machine, people with physical disabilities are competing head to head. it has been dubbed the world's first cyborg olympics.

the rules of the games are simple. roboticists, neurologists, and other researchers are paired with disabled competitors that have been robotically enhanced. races are based on different disabilities. the fastest time wins. competitors are grouped as closely in ability as possible to avoid unfair competition. the technology can be conceptual or off the shelf. it just has to be safe. the mission, to improve assistive technology and better integrate those with disabilities in everyday life. i've come to the swiss arena to meet with the team from imperial college london. >> morning. reporter: kevin has a cutting edge robotic arm after an industrial accident more than three decades ago. a computer programmer, his mechanical arm has dramatically improved his life. he's competing in the arm prosthetics race, where he will perform household chores like hanging clothes and cutting bread. >> you can see the twitch going.

i decide what level i want. i can do it on command. if i wanted closer. it is there. it is instant. reporter: the university is using his experience to identify limitations of current technologies. the team hopes to use this info to develop and commercialize their own device. [applause] reporter: also on the team is johnny, who broke his neck in a trampoline accident when he was only 16. he can't move his legs, but by placing electrodes on his skin, he can pedal a modified bicycle. >> one on the end of the muscle. same for the hamstrings and my glutes as well. it comes out in these wires here. and this box here fires the muscles in a sequence and enables my legs to go around. reporter: the electric shock into johnny's legs would buckle you or me, but he can't feel it. the university is building a.i.

that will monitor things like how tired his legs get. it is not just an event to see who can run the fastest or jump the highest. instead, it is how tech is helping people with severe disabilities do everyday tasks. johnny blitzed his qualifying race and is through to the final. he starts strong, but quickly falls behind. the california competitor has some of the most advanced technology in the world. johnny comes in second, but his coach couldn't be happier. >> a quarter of my working has been this battle. especially in the last six months. excellent. i'm really pleased. reporter: the research has broad implications. scientists believe studying people with severe handicaps can lead to building more nimble robots and even breakthroughs in self driving cars.

there are no cash prizes for the winners, but that is not the point. it is about pushing the limits of science. emily: up next, the hot home decor startup adds a new market to its global expansion plan. the ceo talks to us about whether an ipo is in the cards. next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: now to a story we are watching. uber is the latest to startup to capitalize on india's currency crunch. they are launching a car booking service just for weddings. it is the height of the country's marriage season. customers can prepay for rides to share with family and friends for wedding related travel. uber hopes the option will appeal in india, where it is common for thousands to attend lavish weddings. they involve weeklong celebrations. turning now to houzz, the online

home decor startup looking to india for its next growth spurt. india would be its 14th market after moving beyond the u.s. to singapore, australia, and japan already. the ceo joined us in studio to discuss what opportunity she sees in the indian market. and whether she is eyeing an ipo. >> india has been a great market for us. we already have a permanent community in india. we have over one million community members that are coming to the platform every month and more than 40,000 professionals that are already very active in the platform. there was strong demand from this community to localize the platform for them, as well as our users all over the world that are interested in india and everything that comes from india, from ideas to products, materials, so we feel like it is the right time to go. emily: it is obviously a huge market. how much business do you think it will drive?

adi: i think it is going to be very prominent. like every country we launched, outside of the u.s., we're going to be very focused, localizing the experience, making sure we provide the features and technology and content exactly as needed by these industries. the monetization and business will follow. like we saw in all the other countries. it is going to be big. emily: there are obviously strong local players. amazon is making a bet on india. what you think gives you the edge? adi: basically, houzz is the only player in this industry that provides one end to end solution, everything people need, from the inspiration and ideas, to the great service providers and professionals, to product and materials. folding it all under one roof is something only houzz can provide, as well as the global community. we find it powerful when people can get ideas, collaborate, hire people from different places, as

well as access product and and materials from all over the world. we think that is a big play for us. emily: you have raised over $213 million. sequoia, ggv investors. what is your take on the broader environment right now? a lot has changed. very recently, given the presidential election, how do you think that president trump will impact the overall environment in general? adi: in general, i think it's a good practice to build an independent company. and then all the options are going to be open to you. and we always did that. we know how to build very lean companies. this is how we built it originally. in a very lean way. this is how we kept growing it. the business followed attraction. when you have the ability to choose whether you want to raise or you don't want to raise, everything is open. that is a good position to be in. in terms of what's going on with the election, i think what we've seen in the industry and what

we're hearing from our homeowners, first of all, the plans for renovation are, you know, starting way before the actual execution. so, 6, 9 months before. many of these plans are being executed now based on things people built a long time before the election. when we are asking in the last few years, and we had hundreds of thousands of participants in our very long surveys, why are you renovating, why are you decorating, why are you doing something to your home? the number one priority we are hearing is to improve our quality of life. to improve the functionality for our family. no president, no election, is going to interfere with that. this is the secure place where people feel like they have full control, full power to build something they love. emily: you mentioned your husband, who you build the business with. he is the president. what have you learned about

working together? how has your relationship evolved as the company has grown? adi: we learned that actually having a cofounder that you truly trust and you know very well is very powerful. and we do know each other very well. we've been together more than 20 years. understanding each other's strengths and weaknesses and what we are capable of is very helpful. trust is a big thing. you need to learn how to put the boundaries between home and work. i think, as the company grew and our kids grew, we had to reinvent ourselves every year. again and again. but it is a fun adventure. it's not for everyone, but it worked well for us. emily: that was the houzz ceo. adi tatarko. and that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." the best of it. we will bring you all the latest in tech throughout the week. tune in every day on tv and live streaming on twitter. that is all for now from san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

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