caroline: i am caroline hyde. this is the "best of bloomberg technology" where we bring you all our top interviews from this week in tech. president trump met with c.e.o.'s on his infrastructure plan. but silicon valley execs were absent. how tech could be playing a bigger role. plus, toshiba warns about its future on the heels of a highly anticipated earnings announcement. we will discuss whether the company can recover. 23andme clears a major regulatory hurdle. our exclusive interview with the

c.e.o. on the future of the genetic testing market. first to our lead, president trump's message to corporate america, job creation is at the top of the agenda. he made the announcement at a meeting with 20 c.e.o.'s. the meeting was focused on the $1 trillion infrastructure program as well as tax policy going forward. in attendance, g.m., pepsico, and walmart c.e.o.'s. tech c.e.o.'s were noticeably absent from the meeting. in december of last year, trump had a meeting with jeff bezos and tim cook just to name a few. how is silicon valley's relationship with the president involving? we post that question to the cofounder of elevation partners and silver lake partners. >> i think to staying alive is the only thing they care about.

to me, the infrastructure thing is a headline. it is not actually a plan. relative to silicon valley, so far the actions they have taken are extremely destructive. the head of the fcc has made it incredibly clear he is going to be hostile to the needs of consumers, and by extension entrepreneurs trying to create new businesses in technology. i am not optimistic. i think the opportunities for any president of the united states to build great value through technology are there, but the industry needs help right now. they got a little out of joint over the last few years. there are great opportunities, but i think also challenges. the industry has been too focused on getting rid of jobs. we are in this weird situation where technically the economy is at full employment, but tens of millions of people feel they have been left behind in this cycle. i think they really have. i would like to see silicon valley have a new challenge, but the challenge would be create

industries that employ people in good jobs. i think if you had that kind of a challenge, silicon valley would rise to it and a lot of great things would come out of it. silicon valley created a lot of great jobs. there is no reason we cannot be doing this broadly. caroline: it is fascinating the administration has targeted immigration as the key threat, whereas automation is what many people feel has been eroding the jobs trying to be resuscitated in manufacturing. should we not be looking for a paradigm shift in the way we all work? do you feel we need to somehow have everyone fully employed? what sort of jobs will we be creating? >> that is the challenge. i look at this in a simple way. the economy requires consumers. consumers spend 2/3 of the money. it does not work if a large percentage of the population do not participate in economic recovery.

the goal has to be to make jobs more remunerative, more fulfilling some people have more money to spend. henry ford's great innovation was not really the production line. it was the notion he was going to pay his employees well enough they could afford to buy ford cars. caroline: we saw a downfall. we saw an unbelievable unveiling of infrastructure. >> i would argue one of the challenges we face is we have been doing the same things for nearly 40 years which is cutting taxes and getting rid of regulations. there were huge benefits to doing those at the early part of that cycle. i think the benefits have been accruing to fewer people in recent years. it is time to try something different. caroline: a basic income? would it be better to have a net? >> i don't know. i am not competent to make that call. i am competent to say it does not have to be the way it is right now. we have essentially, you saw

this week united with that horrible situation. the last few weeks, we have had increasing news about wells fargo. those are a direct result of deregulation going so far that companies literally have no regard to their employees -- for their customers, excuse me, and no fear of repercussions if they treat them badly. in my mind, we have to make some changes because those things are not working. they are not healthy for the economy to have people treat their customers that badly. caroline: incentivize silicon valley, entrepreneurs wherever they might be based across the world to create long-term gainful employment. >> that was the model until 1980. until 1980, companies viewed themselves as not just having customers and shareholders. they also had the communities in which they operated. caroline: efficiency, does that erode that? >> why is efficiency the only thing we should focus on? i think it has taken us to where we are today.

too much of a good thing. some efficiency is healthy. caroline: slow it down? >> just reprioritize. say right now we are going to have a time where we reward people for creating jobs, we reward people for industries in which -- caroline: trump is. >> he is signing up to take credit for jobs created by other people. the economy is basically at full employment. there's nothing he can do about jobs. we have to qualitatively change the jobs out there. the sharing economy is not the answer. people have to have jobs where they can take care of things like health care. i don't know about universal employment -- universal income. i do know universal health care would take away one of the biggest fears people have and make it possible for the economy to do better than it is doing now. i think right now we have hollowed out the economy.

we have eliminated the middle class in ways that are not healthy for public companies, for private companies. if you want to be a business person, i think you need to ask the question, is there a better way than the way we are doing it right now? i think the answer is likely to be yes. caroline: we will continue with roger mcnamee ahead. at&t is buying a company called straight path communications in an all-stock deal. straight path is one of the largest holders of a certain type of spectrum u.s. regulators have approved to power 5g wireless services. they are hoping to better compete with faster internet speeds. this is the second such acquisition for at&t this year. coming up, toshiba reports earnings results after delaying the report twice. we will dig into results and the company's warning about its future. your phone addiction is not entirely your fault. we will talk to one former google employee who says the

engineers in silicon valley are the ones creating the obsession. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: this week, toshiba reveal doubts about its future after months of dealing with fallout of the bankruptcy of the westinghouse nuclear unit. >> this westinghouse nuclear power business is so interesting. it has had many problems, many of their own making. a whistleblower suggesting the books were not right. toshiba not really coming clean on this. today, toshiba says we will publish our financial results even though our accountant will not sign off on it. by the way, we might go bankrupt. caroline: just to sledgehammer that in. roger, we were talking earlier about japan's history in chips. they used to rule the roost. >> they really did.

i will never forget the lady meeting the vice chair of toshiba when it was basically just a chip company in the united states. they were so dominant that time. the only american company that showed any liability at all was intel. we were out of memory and beaten by japanese companies everywhere. he basically said you can get rid of your intel. you don't need to be a semiconductor analyst anymore because it is over. we have won. we are tempted to look at google and facebook in apple that way today. i think what is going on at toshiba gives you a sense that in technology at least nothing is forever. >> they made some dumb bets. betting on nuclear power with the westinghouse acquisition was a bad business decision. it is not a great business to be in. >> big companies make bad decisions frequently. >> absolutely.

>> that is part of what comes with the territory of following your market. you outgrow your market and look for something else that looks like it will replace it. inevitably, they are not domain experts in the thing that they buy so something is wrong. caroline: japan a long time ago, the u.s. now. the shareholders who hold u.s. companies to account have seen a garnering of control. some questioned oculus. do you think that safeguards are there for shareholders to rein in bad behavior? >> there is fraud in publicly traded markets. it is important when you look at what toshiba has done, this nuclear power business is one where the contracts are so long and the construction will take so many years. the financial guarantees they must provide to customers, utility companies, are so great that when the company has

financial stumbles, it does not have the wherewithal to recover because they do not have the financial backing and guarantees they can provide to the companies they do work for. caroline: cory johnson, bloomberg editor at large. roger mcnamee stuck around for our next conversation on the growing global addiction to smartphones. perhaps you are concerned about your own addiction levels and would be right to be. tristan harris says engineers in silicon valley are creating phones and social networks to get people fixated in a phenomenon some are calling brain hacking. tristan harris is founder of the nonprofit movement "time well spent." >> it is an interesting problem. all these technology companies are locked into the attention economy. whatever you are building, no matter what you are making, you

are still competing for attention. what i like to create is a conversation about the costs of advertising in the attention economy and whether it is creating the kind of world we want to live in for democracy and in terms of how it affects children with these increasingly persuasive techniques that get thrown into apps like snapchat that go public on networks like this. caroline: who are you targeting at the moment with your not-for-profit movement and the people listening? >> we just went on "60 minutes." there was a great piece with anderson cooper. people in the industry do agree it is hard to accept what is at stake and how to get off the train. at the end of the day, if you are a product manager at facebook, your goal, how you are measured is to maximize engagement. you leave the company saying i increased this metric by 15%. all of this increasing of usage does not add up to what we want

our will to look like. it is a world of increasingly persuasive that sucks us in and leads to us having to show the most engaging things, not necessarily the best for us. >> roger mcnamee here. good to see you again. during the election, i became increasingly alarmed by my perception that facebook had basically inadvertently become a tool being used to distort democracy. first and brexit and then the election cycle here. one of the things i discovered in talking to the team was initially a reluctance to accept responsibility, to basically try to dismiss this kind of stuff as we are running experiments, some do not work out. i am curious if this is something you think can be addressed inside the industry or are we going to need some kind of regulatory thing from the outside in order to get the

proper attention brought to it. >> i think you're absolutely right. we need to have much more attention brought to it. the question is where it will come from. is it going to be from regulation or because of consumer pressure when people realize these companies are not building their products just to serve us? they have to serve advertisers. i think you're right to be concerned about how this is affecting the elections. that is one of my deepest concerns as well. think of it this way. facebook has a team of engineers working on the fake news problem. no matter what they do, how will we know they are doing enough? how will we know what they are doing? it is not going to be transparent. how do we know they're putting sufficient resources, especially if what they are doing conflicts with their own business interests? the attention economy is a city of one billion people. our mind lives inside of it. we do not have public representation in the city. three private companies basically run the city. we have been inside of it for a long time. we need more representation. what is that new relationship where we have representation in the city?

>> one of the challenges we face is the consumer has no way to become aware of what the problem is. i look at the issue, the so-called filter bubbles that apply around google and facebook where you basically only see things they believe you like already. you build these walls that are essentially impervious to all outside influences. against that, they have created tools that allow advertisers to discriminate. that business model has been so successful that the economic argument for the status quo must be compelling to this companies. it is really hard to admit that you have caused brexit or contributed to trump's getting elected if your entire business model depends on your having done the very things that enabled those outcomes. >> i completely agree. i think we -- you look through

history, there are often times in history when we discover something is morally repugnant but our economy is based on it. in slavery, there used to be slavery. it took 60 years. the british empire wanted to get off of slavery. they had to give up 2% of gdp every year for 60 years. now our whole tech economy is propped up by advertising. it has served us well and created a lot of wealth and great things have come from it. but when the costs are too high -- if i'm on facebook and have one newsfeed that has built a bubble that confirms your existing beliefs, i have another i can show you that does not confirm your beliefs. if that one loses engagement or does not hook you, everyone else will get the attention. i have to show you the one that confirms your beliefs. and in facebook, i am locked into doing what is bad for democracy. caroline: which stakeholder is

it best to target? the consumer? shareholders, investors? is it for them to hold the executives to account? is it employees you target the most efficacy? >> this is the thing we are working out. i love the idea of having more shareholder control and influence. we realize the cost on democracy and children. i think that is a fantastic way in other industries in the past. the threat of regulation is another one. it is hard in the current environment. there is an option in california with the legislature there. that is the kind of option i'm trying to create. caroline: that was tristan harris and roger mcnamee. coming up, an exclusive conversation with one of the well-known genetic startups. the 23andme c.e.o. on the company's big win from the fda. that is next. all episodes of "bloomberg

technology" are live streaming on twitter at 5:00 in new york and 2:00 in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: the d.n.a. testing company 23andme has cleared a major hurdle with u.s. regulators. the fda has given the company the green light to sell genetic testing kits directly to consumers. it is the first and only company in the u.s. to be cleared to provide such reports without prescription. it is a turnaround for the fda which previously imposed a moratorium on these types of home testing kits, while the u.k. and canada embraced it. we spoke with the 23andme c.e.o. anne wojcicki in an exclusive interview and started by asking about requirements the company had to meet.

>> the fda want us to prove two points. one, to make sure the data is accurate. if i tell you a certain result, we know the quality of the result is reproducible, that is in fact the result. the second thing we had to prove is the comprehension and go around the country improve all different education levels could understand this data. i think that is one of the things that is core to 23andme. we have this believe anyone can be a scientist. anyone can learn about themselves and science is within the reach of anyone. we designed the product and experience specifically so anyone of any education level can understand this information. caroline: 10 conditions have been granted including alzheimer's and parkinson's. how did you select these conditions and will you be adding to them? >> we will definitely be adding to them. that is part of the process. we want to keep consumers up-to-date as more genetic discoveries are happening. we focused originally on

parkinson's and alzheimer's because those are two of the most commonly requested reports our customers want. one thing people don't fully realize is the medical system does not have those. you can talk about whether or not you can do anything with alzheimer's. we found consumers really want this information because they might be making a lifestyle change. they want to be empowered with this information. caroline: they have been seeking information for other things prior to this. since 2013, they have been able to find out ancestry history, how they might react to beverages in a different way, and also what their children might be inheriting. if you have already done a 23andme test, can you find out what your reliability is in terms of the 10 conditions you are adding? >> for customers who are on the existing fda cleared platform will get the reports. for customers on a pre-existing platform, they might have had

the old experience. we will enable some way for them to upgrade to it. for people who bought a year ago, they will get these reports. caroline: you are giving education. you are making everyone a scientist, as you say. how empowered are they to use that information? are we expecting people to run to their doctors because they have more exposure to these genetic conditions? can they embrace it and go to their insurers and show they are safer than they anticipated? >> one thing people don't fully understand is there is a lot of aspects of health care in the prevention world that do not necessarily tap into what we see as the traditional health care system. we find people find out they are risk for something and want to make lifestyle changes. they might want to start exercising more or change their diet. they want to have a coach of sorts. we did the studies and the u.k.

where we found people are not running to their physicians to ask more questions. some of them do bring it up on the next scheduled appointment. but it is not necessarily generating more visits for physicians. people do want to make lifestyle changes. i think that is where there is a real opportunity. when i think big about 23andme, we want to embrace a consumer health care movement where consumers are thinking about her health care, not episodically when they go to the doctor. but they are thinking about it every day, what am i eating? what are the choices i am making? i think that is where more and more as we think about the retail world and other online consumer focused companies, those groups are going to help people make behavior changes we know customers want to make. caroline: on the coaching, is 23andme going to be providing coaching as well? >> we are not providing it. we provide links to individuals. we see our expertise as to not and making it really clear for individuals, the information and risks they have. we want to partner and enable other companies to help

customers take it to the next level and execute in that way. caroline: what about the reach of your own business and where you take it next? you have been using the data. the key question is the privacy angle of 23andme. that springs to mind for many users. can you confirm how the data is used and what the data might do to help push forward research into certain diseases? >> data privacy has always been first to us. we have always defined privacy race on customer choice. if you want to share your data with no one, you share with no one. 23andme will never share individual data without consent. privacy is a huge priority for us. we found people with a specific disease often want us to do research and partner to do research with other companies. it is a matter of choice. caroline: that was 23andme c.e.o. anne wojcicki. coming up, spotify may have an answer for a public market offering that sidesteps a snap-like ipo. we will hear from an investor

next. comcast is looking to take on netflix and amazon. the company's plan for an online video service. that is up next. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i am caroline hyde. now to a bloomberg scoop. comcast is taking on netflix and cbs. the company plans to introduce online video service offering shows from the nbc universal tv networks in the next 12 to 18 months. comcast is still determining many details including whether it will have a live feed of the broadcast network and it will include sports. he broke the story and joins us from los angeles. >> if you are a traditional media company, comcast or cbs, time warner, fox, disney, on down the line, you have watched as netflix and amazon have attracted huge audiences with their on-demand services.

at the same time, you're seeing viewership for live tv go down. what can i do about this? we are still making billions from our tv networks. we clearly need to do something for the future and come up with some new service. time warner has one with hbo now and smaller bets. comcast has done a couple of small ones. they have a web service for comedy fans. this would be a much bigger endeavor pulling together some of the strong programming from across the comcast universe, weather on the nbc broadcast network has football and reality programming, or cable networks and maybe sports as well. caroline: the advertisers could love this because they do have a certain demographic which perhaps are younger than the rest of them. >> yeah. cbs has a product in the marketplace right now called "all access" which is like the cbs broadcast network but online.

you get a live feed and on-demand. they made a point of saying the average viewer is significantly lower than for cbs. if you look at the trend in tv viewership, it is only getting older for live tv. most young people are not watching as much live tv. if you want to reach them and don't want to sacrifice that demographic, you have to come up with something of your own. caroline: something of their own. talking as a man who has come up with something of his own, it breaks my heart because i am a massive fan of jay-z. he decided to pull his music from spotify. is that the reason why? >> he pulled his whole catalog from spotify with the exception of two records with r. kelly a long time ago. about half of his catalog is off apple music. if you want to listen to some of his classic albums you cannot get it anywhere but tidal or song by song on youtube or pandora.

the timing confuses me because they just made a bigger with spotify last week. over the weekend, his music disappears. he is clearly trying to send some kind of message. it would be helpful if someone from his camp would give me a call back. caroline: tidal is his unrivaled streaming music company he bought. it was a european-based company. do we know how well tidal has been doing? it was not a huge success of the businessman might have liked to have seen. >> the big attention getter for them has been exclusive, getting an early chance to release new music from several of jay-z's friends, proteges, partners, and so on.

most analysts think it has 3 million or 4 million subscribers which would make it the third or fourth biggest paid streaming service in the market but behind spotify and apple music. jay-z did manage to sell -- the owners did manage to sell a stake in tidal earlier this year. caroline: speaking of spotify, the company made waves last week on reports it is considering an unusual way to satisfy investors. spotify is said to be weighing a direct listing. it would not involve underwriters and sidestep much of the price speculation of the debut of a tech unicorn like we saw with snap. we spoke with spotify backers along with bob o'donnell. take a listen. >> our view on direct listing is quite positive. we think it signals confidence by management. first and foremost, it reflects this idea the business is financially sound. they have enough cash on their balance sheet to fund their

growth and support the business. they do not need to raise billions in an ipo to be sustainable and successful. that is the first thing. the second thing is it does challenge the notion the business needs to go through the traditional ipo roadshow and process to market the story. our view is great companies, great businesses do not need the ipo or roadshow necessarily to have a following from the investment community. we very much believe in management's capacity to do the right thing for the business and shareholders. and are not convinced the ipo roadshow is the de facto route for companies to go public. caroline: there has been debt taken on by spotify. it confuses me as to perhaps why they would not want to take on more money to pay down the debt. the terms of the debt is pushing

them to go for an ipo or a direct sales share listing sooner rather than later. as an investor, would you like to see this in 2017 rather than 2018? >> we would love to the business to go public. management needs to determine the right time for an offering. our view is the trigger for ipo is not the debt terms. they are not driving the decision to go public. rather, the appropriate market conditions and timing for the company. this past week, they did solidify negotiations with universal. we feel that was a huge milestone in going public. those are the big milestone drivers for the business rather than financial instruments we believe the company can more than support. >> my question is, does this reflect a changing atmosphere around tech ipo's in general? you could argue what we saw with snap and now with spotify, is there this sense that tech companies are trying to take more control to themselves away from wall street?

what does that mean for wall street and investors? >> it is no surprise as innovative as spotify is they are taking a different approach as they think about this ipo and a potential direct listing. our view is historically the ipo roadshows by the investment banking community, stocks can be underpriced. in the snapchat example, the stock went up 40% the day after it was listed. in this case, we let the market determine what the price of the stock should be. it may come at the expense of some investment banking fees, but it is better for all shareholders. it is better for the company. it could be -- we believe it is a viable route for companies in general. our view is if spotify can successfully execute a transaction like this, they can generate investor following on

the equity research side and have liquidity in their stock. this could become a template for companies in the future to go public and do a direct listing versus the traditional ipo route. caroline: coming up, china's farmers are looking to the sky. how the chinese government is planning to replace manual labor with automated farming. that is next. and an e-commerce battle brewing in india with billions of dollars at stake. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: on the latest tech funding board, a real estate-based firm is gearing up to be canada's first tech ipo in two years. the company issued regulatory filings tuesday. real matters is seeking to raise about $94 million for a valuation of about $750 million. the last canadian tech company to go public.

shares have nearly tripled since then. the european cable giant is planning an ipo for its u.s. business. the billionaire founder is looking to exploit potential stock market gains to fuel further expansion. a preliminary filing did not offer details on how much he is selling or valuation for the unit. it was formed from two u.s. acquisitions worth more than $26 billion. meantime, ebay is investing $500 million in the indian e-commerce giant, flipkart, in a targeted move against amazon after jeff bezos vowed to spend $5 billion. ebay is handing over the local business to flipkart in exchange for a stake in the company an agreement to offer flipkart's products on ebay and vice versa. the downside, it was a down round. that valued the company at $10

billion, down from more than $15 billion in 2015. what does this mean for global e-commerce competition? we spoke with the bgc partners research director who covers both amazon and ebay and the bloomberg technology reporter on the phone. >> the internet market there is overheated. you are seeing consolidation. that is why you are seeing some companies rush in. it is an opportune time to get in on the e-commerce leader while the industry consolidates and venture capital is not going to be pouring into other startups competing in the space. caroline: great timing for us. we spent all of last week talking about the opportunities

for investment in india. it seems as though apple is going in. are many of the tech giants understanding india might be hot while china cools down? is it all about indian e-commerce now? >> india is the world's number two largest population. roughly 1.2 billion people behind china with 1.4 billion. united states around 320 million. to give you an idea of the size these companies are chasing after. many are realizing amazon is positioning to take this marketplace. you're seeing consolidation happening around the remaining companies so they can fend off amazon. in particular with ebay handing off their assets in india and the infusion of $1 billion in cash, these are all companies positioned to compete against amazon. they are consolidating around flipkart to have a viable competitor to amazon. caroline: spencer, update us. this could be a stepping stone

in the saga that is consolidation involving flipkart. snapdeal could be teaming with flipkart in the next couple of weeks. >> that is what a lot of the speculation is. there are some sources saying that deal is in the works. ebay also has wound down its snapdeal ownership but still has about 5% ownership of snapdeal. basically, you are seeing this global coalition building around flipkart to fight amazon in this critical market. your other guest mentioned the population. it is not just the population. it is also the internet access. internet access in india is growing quickly along with wealth. i think it is about 450 million now. the country has, even if you limit it to the number of connected people, it is still far larger than the u.s.

caroline: the global coalition. i like that turn of phrase. the global coalition forming, do you think it is enough to stop the $5 billion bet jeff bezos is making with amazon? >> that is the question. we want to see softbank's involvement in the combination of flipkart and snapdeal that would consolidate two of the players. you would have the formidable rival to amazon. the thing to remember about the marketplace in india is it is still relatively nascent. the distribution channels are fine in tier one cities. in tier two and three where growth is going to be, there will be a massive need for investment. amazon can fund investment from its own cash flow is. companies like flipkart will have to rely on money from external sources. this is an industry burning a lot of cash. we are seeing negative growth margins, billions invested every year.

it is going to be a battle. amazon is well positioned given its capital base to succeed. plus, they lost in china. they lost to alibaba. they want to prove to investors they can win in foreign markets like india. caroline: the winner being alibaba, who at the time was backed by [indiscernible] taking a page out of the playbook. he seems to be willing to sacrifice some valuation in snapdeal which could merge with flipkart. there are rumors we might see an 85% cut in evaluation of snapdeal if we does the accommodation of these two. it looks as if he is willing to take a hit to win longer-term. >> correct. that will be a very interesting transaction to watch to see how it is structured. he may be willing to take that loss on snapdeal if he can get a larger stake in flipkart. he likes to have stakes in that more meaningful category 20-35%.

we saw him do that with alibaba. that was a tremendous investment for them. we will see if they can do that again in india. caroline: the future of farming is heading to the sky. in china, agricultural drones are being used to spray pesticides over crops. the chinese government is encouraging farmers to move from manual labor to automated farming. we have a story from china. >> ♪ >> he farms about 44 acres. this year, he is trying new technology. he has hired a team of drone operators to spray pesticides over his crops. >> the team of six arrived at

dawn with a flying fleet and got to work. >> agricultural drones are taking off in china. in recent years, the government has encouraged farmers to move away from manual labor to automated farming. right now, drones are only used on about 2% of china's farms. the market could be worth $4 billion u.s. a year. the top drone maker is betting more farmers will start automating. >> our drone helps mitigate using too much pesticide by following a planned route. you can ensure more precise spraying.

>> the drone has a small payload. the operators have to refill the canister every five minutes and change the battery every 10 minutes which means it can only be used on smaller farms about 50 acres. it is tedious but cheaper and faster than hiring laborers. he paid about $20 u.s. per acre to the spraying company. that is almost $7 cheaper per acre than hiring men with backpack sprayers. caroline: still ahead, tesla tops general motors. this week, the electric upstart

eclipse the american auto institution in market cap. what this means for the u.s. auto industry. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. you can listen on the bloomberg radio app, bloomberg.com, and on sirius xm in the u.s. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: the ride-hailing company lyft is now worth $7.5 billion. that is after a $600 million round of financing. perhaps more important is who is investing in lyft. new investors include kkr, asset managers, and a canadian pension firm. they typically provide funding ahead of an ipo. investors have long speculated lyft would be smart to go public before its much larger competitor, uber.

tesla hit a new milestone this week after surpassed general motors to become america's most valuable auto company. take a look inside my bloomberg. you can see when tesla pushed past the competition. the white line being the creeping ascent of tesla, now worth $49 billion. it just went past g.m. and ford. for more, we spoke with david welch. >> tesla has more debt that as to the value. this is more of a symbolic moment where tesla has crossed the line of being more valuable than g.m. and ford. you really have to look at why. investors are seeing tesla as this possible future dominator of electric cars, maybe a leader in autonomous vehicles and electric storage. they have a lot of businesses with potential.

it is a long-term play. with general motors and ford, the problem they have is sales are starting to trail down. not by a lot. both companies will still make a lot of money. gma set another record this year. investors are seeing this as the best is behind us over the last 12 months. maybe we will put our money someplace else. tesla, there is still hope they can grow and give more of a bump in the stock. caroline: the jaffrey analyst put it as optimism, freedom, defiance. these are things the car company symbolize where tesla is. remind us of the disparity and the number of cars these companies are pumping out. >> g.m. will sell 10 million cars this year. tesla got a big bump in their stock when they sold 25,000 in a month. by a factor of 10, way less than general motors. look, it is not about car sales

right now with tesla. it is about the model 3 coming out and being a success. if they get a lot of those out, they prove tesla is a phenomenon. caroline: what is interesting is g.m. has its chevy volt. already, it is showing a similar range to the model 3 tesla will be tempting. it is showing a similar price point. on the road, the optimism is much higher about the model 3 which has yet to start coming off the production line. >> tesla has a couple of things going for it. the big car companies had always seen electric cars is something they made to meet regulations. they make compact cars, things americans typically have not liked. tesla made electric cars cool. the model s is cool and externally fast. the sport-utility vehicle not as

cool in terms of design but still a neat vehicle. people have latched onto it, particularly luxury buyers. you take it down scale was something like the model 3, it still has a design that looks like it is in the same family as the model s but is accessible to people with prior to drive a tesla or just have a piece of the elon musk allure. the guy has a lot of fans, a lot of enthusiasm behind him. it is a connection. the brand has become powerful because of those initial vehicles. people can afford a $40,000 car can get a piece of that. there is a lot of enthusiasm. a chevy with a hatchback that looks like a compact minivan, not so much. caroline: let's remind ourselves it is now number six in the world looking at auto companies.

it could quickly get to the fifth-place if honda does not look out. >> that is right. they could pass honda soon. getting up to the value of toyota is another matter. that is quite a bit more. this shows the trajectory they are on. the real story is the tesla stock has a ton of momentum. we are not close yet to the model 3 launch later in the year. when that hits, that will be a test for how much demand there really is, how quickly they can manufacture them, and can they manufacture them without defects and problems early on. if any of those three things becomes a problem, you can see the stop take a hit. it has always been a volatile issue as well. we will be in for an interesting ride over the rest of the year. caroline: my thanks to david welch. that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest in tech throughout the week with big tech earnings starting to roll out. tune in monday as we kick things off with netflix.

remember all episodes of "bloomberg technology" are now live streaming on twitter. check us out weekdays. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪

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