alisa: you are watching "bloomberg technology." president trump welcomed the colombian president to the white house today. the first official meeting of the two world leaders. colombia wants u.s. support with a peace accord they signed last year with fark. the appointment of a special the russianversee interference investigation -- it is said that it is a negative thing that shows the u.s. is divided. the doj granted former fbi director robert mueller sweeping powers to investigate potential collusion. mr. trump could be on the verge of naming a new fbi director.

he said today he will make an announcement very soon. he confirmed former connecticut senator joe lieberman is a candidate for the job. one person is dead and more than 20 wounded after a honda plowed into pedestrians in times square. police say the 26-year-old driver was taken into custody and is being tested for alcohol. they do not suspect terrorism. the former u.s. presidential advisor and fox news founder, roger ailes, has died. the county medical examiner's office said he died from bleeding on the brain caused by a fall at home. he was 77 years old. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. from washington, i am alisa parenti. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: i am emily chang and this

is bloomberg technology. coming up, donald trump saying an fbi director could be named soon. and is it the end of the internet, as we know it? we break down the fcc's first moved to break down net neutrality. alibaba profit takes a hit. they dazzle on revenue. we had to hong kong and put the fourth gambles under the microscope. the e.u. sends a message to big tech with a $122 million fine for facebook. how the block and the u.k. are pushing tighter web security by clamping down on social media's biggest players. first, to our lead. president trump insists there has been no collusion with russia. speaking at a news conference with the president of colombia, trump called talk of impeachment totally ridiculous. ask then fbid not director james comey to back down on michael flynn. he also said he will announce the new fbi director very soon.

in the meantime the legislative , agenda hangs in the balance, including on issues like net neutrality. on thursday, the fcc voted to start to unwind net neutrality rules. -- rules put in place by the obama administration. have internetu service providers like at&t, verizon, comcast now barred from , creating so-called internet fast lanes. on the other side, you have tech giants like facebook, google, and netflix, could be hurt if the government starts interfering with the internet. the fcc chairman has been pushing the proposal. also with us from new york, our guest host for the hour, david kirkpatrick. thank you so much for joining us. with you.ill start what does this mean in terms of exactly what happened today, what are our next steps? larry: nothing happened at all that matters in the short term. it'll be a long process, several

months before the fcc votes. when they do vote, all they are talking about his undoing what was done in 2015, the reclassification of broadband as a public utility. they have not said they would undo the net neutrality rules themselves. they are looking for alternative authority under which they can keep them. emily: does it matter that the fcc keeps reversing itself? it does, it is terrible for tech companies. this kind of uncertainty back-and-forth it is like , groundhog day. the solution everyone understands in the long-term is for congress to act, passed a law, make clear what the rules are, make clear the fcc's authority, and get us out of this mess. emily: david, how do you think the uncertainty is impacting tech companies like facebook, google, netflix? david: clearly, they do not like flip-flopping, uncertainty, but i do not think it has hurt them much. these companies have so much money that they can spend a few more dollars on lobbying if need be.

honestly, i think the basic point of view i have on the extreme rhetoric surrounding this discussion is that it is really overheated and not appropriate. there has never been any real sign of fundamental impropriety on the part of carriers, even though there certainly could be. we have not actually seen any. i see a sort of anti-corporate mindset among many people that leads them to just plain suspect that at&t, verizon, and others are going to be nasty players, and therefore they ought to have roles to prevent them from possibly doing things down the road. you can make the same argument about facebook and google, which are the ones supposedly celebrating the fact that the rules are being changed -- or complaining about the fact that the rules are being changed, sorry. emily: larry, are we ever going to be able to consider the issue settled if the rules keep changing? larry: no, i do not think they will settle until there is actual legislation. there was legislation proposed

in 2015 before the fcc took its last action here. it was seven pages. it gave the fcc authority. at that time it was introduced by republicans, and democrats expecting they would hold on to the fcc with the clinton presidency, were not interested in conversations about it. now maybe with this action, we might see movement on the hill. emily: is there anything approaching a compromise? the debate is so polarized. larry: as david says, the rhetoric is completely overheated and really off the charts, as it was every other time we have been through this. i was testifying a couple weeks ago for the senate. the chairman of the commerce committee and the ranking member agreed that legislation is the solution. they just do not think the atmosphere in washington is really appropriate now for those kind of discussions. maybe that will change with today's actions. emily: as we know, you are on one side of this debate. explain why. larry: the side i am on is the side against public utility, not

against net neutrality rules. public utility treatment is really inappropriate. it will hurt investment and will slow down the way in which we do new innovations, new network investments. there hasn't been much time for that to take effect yet. we are one fcc chairman away. the next democratic fcc chairman will undo what this one did. we will be right where we started. we could start talking about things like rate regulation and bundling all the things that , will really kill investment. emily: david, on the other side are the technology companies. how would they respond to that? david: i think everybody would like to see clear rules of the road. in fact, even though facebook and google and others have sort of supported the overheated rhetoric, criticizing the fcc's decision, i think it would be

positive for all players if congress actually focused in methodically more on the reality that the internet is one of the fundamental drivers of the american economy. as a result, we need to really think methodically at a policy level about how to make it grow in every respect. i do think that is something republicans and democrats, and do some extent right and left, activist, non-activist, all more or less agree on. it is healthy we are having a debate that is forcing congress to think about it more than a in half. general, they have not thought about this stuff nearly enough. emily: how long is this going to take, larry? how long are we going to be talking about it? larry: it has been 12 years so far, so happy anniversary. we will keep talking about it until congress acts. emily: when is that going to happen? larry: what democrats are saying is the climate in washington in general is completely toxic. the fcc could vote in three months, four months on this

proposal, and in that period, we have an opportunity. there is pressure now, and we will hear so much more rhetoric. you cannot even imagine. that may give us the opportunity over the next three or four months to get something done in congress. i am cautiously optimistic. emily: larry downes from the georgetown center for business and public policy. great to have you on the show. david kirkpatrick is sticking with us. tesla may be at record highs, but famed investor jim chanos is not sold. bloomberg's erik schatzker caught up with the hedge fund heavyweight at the salt conference in las vegas where chanos said tesla's stock is not worth a lot. >> tesla will be dependent on the model 3. all the other nonsense notwithstanding, at the end of the day, the company is not worth what it is trading at today on its current business. if you do not believe me, look at what elon musk was quoted in the papers today saying.

he himself said the stock is not worth $50 billion. emily: coming up, salesforce at -- out with its first-quarter earnings. profits and revenue topping estimates. we break down the numbers, next. later, we will hear from jenny lee, who spent over 15 years investing in chinese startups. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: salesforce is getting a

boost, upping the annual revenue forecast as it continues to attract more customers with a broader line of products. it reported first-quarter revenue of about $2.3 billion, up 25% from a year earlier. techonomy ceo,

david kirkpatrick. and cory johnson is with me. cory: continued growth of salesforce. the numbers are kind of baked in. they give us a deferred revenue number. what you want to see is deferred revenue going faster than revenues grew, suggesting things will get better. it is growing at about the same pace, growing about 24% on a year-over-year basis, which is really good but slower than it has been in years past. emily: so can they sustain it? cory: and what are they doing to sustain it? it is growing fantastically. the company lost money in the quarter, actually a lot of money in the quarter. but it is important to look at the fact that they have done billions of dollars in acquisitions. yet growth is coming slower, my -- at a fantastic pace for a very big company, but much slower than it used to be, even though they spent billions of dollars to aid in that growth. emily: david, we have to talk about the threat from microsoft increasingly stepping on salesforce's turf.

how well-positioned are they to defend himself? -- themselves? david: they still defined industry they are in. microsoft is a formidable competitor for anyone. but i do not think -- i think salesforce has plenty of room to grow, room to further consolidate their position in the market, even as microsoft has room to expand its position in this space. the reality is, every company needs these kinds of tools. the idea of cloud-based software for running your enterprise well beyond the sales function, which is what salesforce is focused on and microsoft, too, that is the way the business is going to be run as we go forward. what impresses me about salesforce is that they have really kind of captured the imagination of wall street and the larger world in a way no other enterprise company has done. it is for a lot of reasons, including marc benioff.

they were the first with a fundamentally new approach to running enterprise software in the cloud, and they are still getting the benefits. emily: we are getting headlines from the earnings call. marc benioff, the ceo, saying they expect to grow nearly 30,000 employees this fiscal year. what do you think of that? huge. the building, either way, it is the tallest thing out there. cory: it is the tallest building west of chicago in the u.s. it is strange for companies to see this as the edifice complex, holding a big building with her name on it, and the stock tends to fall. not the case for salesforce. they do not own the building but they put their name on it. it is quite a sight to see in the city. let me show you how the market reacts to salesforce.

the function might look complicated, but what it shows you is how much the company surprises by -- beating sales by 1.57%. and it shows the stock market reaction. price change of the stock tends to be 3%, 3%, 5%, 4%, 4%, 11%. the market tends to react. when they beat the numbers slightly, the stock tends to have 3%, an average of 7%. this is kind of a muted response. i think the market is used to seeing this company beating rates. i think they will start to see the slowing growth rate, which matters. my favorite command in the terminal is em, the earnings matrix. it shows you the numbers from every quarter in a quick matrix and then the percentage change. i think this is such an important thing. you can see whether a company is accelerating or decelerating in terms of growth.

what we see from salesforce, we see deceleration of revenue growth. it was growing at 35%, 33%, 32%, 24%. this quarter is less than what we have seen in prior years. it is not great news after spending billions in acquisitions. emily: if they do grow to 30,000 employees, that is about twice the size of facebook, half the size of google. there is obviously a lot of room for them. cory: it is a capital intensive business. we are starting to see those limits. emily: thank you for that update. david kirkpatrick, techonomy ceo, you are sticking with me. sticking with earnings, shares of cisco fell the most in two years after a disappointing forecast. cisco said revenue in the current period may fall as much as 6% from a year ago. the company says it is cutting another 1100 jobs. they face challenges towards a shift towards cheaper software-based networking. chuck robbins, the ceo, was asked about the transition so far. >> the software and subscription transition, we have more than

doubled the amount of dollars on our balance sheets from the last eight quarters, and it was up 57% last quarter and hit 4.4 billion. that transition is moving. emily: coming up, members of the u.k. government proposing sweeping new web security law while also taxing tech giants. tech news out of europe, next. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: in the u.k., prime

minister theresa theresa may is proposing a new tax be leveed on tech companies to fight web-related issues, like hate speech, privacy breaches and , cybersecurity. caroline hyde joins us from london. still with us in new york, techonomy ceo david kirkpatrick. , caroline, what is the purpose of this new tax, and what companies will be mostly affected? caroline: fascinating.

it is coming up in the so-called manifesto of the conservative party. we are running up to the general election in june of the eight, in which the conservative party are due to win. they have come out today with part of this manifesto proposing a law to allow the government to impose levee on social media and communication service providers. they do not name companies or impose levee on social media and say how big the taxes could be, but they notably say that it will support the awareness and preventative action to counter internet harm. basically saying, look, some people think the government should not regulate on this, we disagree, the government should be regulating these sorts of technology movements in the internet. this is on the heels of the wannacry ransomware attack in -- which really took down hospitals and infrastructure in the u.k. this is striking while the iron is hot. this is something the public wants to hear. they want to see some sort of

fight back and protection for those who use the internet, particularly children, particularly against hate speech and fake news. emily: could this set a precedent for other countries? caroline: yes, it can. we are seeing this spread e.u. -wide. ee findsrance lev itself. they said they will be hitting a maximum privacy fine to facebook. we have germany bringing itself towards its own election in september. merkel's party are also considering what would be the strictest laws ever imposed against social media giants, such as facebook, considering imposing fines of per pop if $50 million ever you saw facebook refusing to take down certain content or not being able to hear or see options to complain for those who use the likes of facebook and other social media giants. this is happening across the e.u. we just got facebook being fined

110 million euros by the e.u. today. why? because they say you give us factually incorrect data in 2014 when you are looking to buy whatsapp, saying you cannot merge the data, and you did. emily: they did to say it would not have changed approval of the deal, so i wonder if it is more of a slap on the wrist. david, what do you think? the e.u. has taken a very aggressive stance towards these technology companies. is the law the best way to handle big issues like hate speech and privacy? david: that is such a big question. i think informed law-enforcement would be very beneficial in the era of the internet. but we have to be careful given the degree to which these companies are defining the future economy and beloved, in many respects, by the citizens of every country. if they get impaired, the citizens are not going to be happy, which is why governments want to show that they are concerned about privacy.

they do not want to come down to harden these people. for facebook when profits this , year will be somewhere in the vicinity of it will not hurt $12 billion, them too badly. caroline is right, this could very well be the beginning of an era of harm by 1000 cuts as governments all over the world feel they have to show that they recognize the weight these companies have acquired in society, and they feel like they have to do something. but i am not sure governments generally know what to do, because they do not understand how these systems work and there are not good alternatives. caroline: i am fascinated by your opinion, on the other side of the atlantic, as to what the e.u. is doing about some of these tech giants. as you say, they are such giant companies. apple and facebook dominating. we see 13 billion issued in

apple's direction. in terms of back taxes. and google with three investigations from the e.u. does the tech community in the u.s. see this as heavy-handed from the european union or think game on? david: definitely it is seen in the u.s. by me and the industry is quite heavy-handed. but there is a flip side. in my opinion, at least in the e.u., we had a consistent pattern for the last couple years of the government, the e.u. government and its many tech savvy areas, trying to understand -- like i said before, the problem is these businesses have a weight no companies have ever had. they have numbers of clients and customers that no company has ever had on the global scale. how to deal with that is problematic. in the u.s., we have had an incredibly laissez-faire attitude. i think it is healthy the europeans are looking at it. but i do not think fining them for privacy things will accomplish anything.

probesstill several e.u. into the tech giants, including google. david kirkpatrick, you're sticking with me. caroline hyde, thank you for that report from london. sticking with facebook, the company went public five years ago today, going back to 2012. investors were doubting if facebook would make money, especially on mobile. ceo mark zuckerberg was criticized for buying instagram for $1 billion. that was just six weeks before the ipo. there was that rocky start, shares trading below the ipo price for the first 14 months as a public company. we know how it has turned out. facebook is now one of the largest tech companies on the planet with a market cap of $425 billion. its shares have jumped more than 280% since may 2012. coming up, alibaba shares fell after the chinese e-commerce giant's quarterly profits missed estimates. we will discuss how the ceo plans to boost revenue, coming up. this is bloomberg.

♪ >> it is 11:29 a.m. in hong kong

, i paul allen paul allen with the latest first word news. reports from europe say the u.s. is considering extending the ban on laptops and other electronic devices from aircraft cabins worldwide. homeland security officials have told e.u. commissioners that washington may apply the ruling to all sites heading to the u.s.. the ample warning or change or be given to allow nations, airlines, and passengers to be ready. violence returned to athens ahead of a vote on a new austerity measures. lawmakers are debating fresh to bands -- demands from greece's

creditors. newprime minister wants pension cuts and tax hikes through 2020 to release the next bailout installment. without that, greece will struggle to meet debt obligations in july. fox news founder and former presidential adviser roger ailes has died at the age of 77. 1996,nched fox in promoted a conservative agenda, but was ousted last summer under allegations of sexual harassment. the network said ailes fell in the bathroom of his home in palm beach last week, hitting his head and causing internal bleeding. global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. >> i am juliette, checking the markets this friday in asia. things not looking great, but better than they were yesterday. of volatility has subsided.

mongolia leading the declines in asia, down over 1%. a pickup on the anz. of 1%.3 the worst weekly loss since october. a by coming through in emerging markets. hong kong has turned around, up 1/4 of 1%. mixed movement when it comes to the currency market. the japanese yen is the one you want to be focusing on. 1%,ontinues to rise 1/3 of 113.19. the yen had the strongest week. singapore airlines, this is a three day chart. this is what happened in the course of today. a fourth-quarter operating loss, its third in three years. it has fallen the most in almost six years. the biggest we have seen since

august 2011. the price 10ced singapore dollars. that is it across asia markets this friday here on bloomberg television. ♪ emily: this is bloomberg technology, i am emily chang. tech earnings shares of alibaba , falling despite strong quarterly revenue growth and plans for a $6 billion share buyback. investors focused on their quarterly profit, which missed analyst estimates due to a large tax bill and investments in cloud computing and digital entertainment. joining us from new york is selina wang, our bloomberg news reporter. start with what surprised investors the most. selina: we saw a huge drop in the share price, that was largely because of this earnings per-share miss you had mentioned.

a big reason for that was because of a big tax hit, the effective tax rate went up quite significantly. investors pared back the losses in the share price. i do not think the concerns over this tax hike was too serious. it was because of an investment and a tax break expired. an area of potential concern is pressure on the margins. alibaba's core e-commerce business is still growing quickly, but they are rapidly expanding outside retail into areas like cloud and entertainment, putting pressures on margins. there was a lot of hope and a lot of bright spots in terms of growth in that revenue core e-commerce retail numbers, showing they are able to squeeze more dollars from these brands by getting better content targeting users better. , emily: what kind of progress are we seeing in these new areas like cloud and media? selina: we see triple digit growth in these areas and also very large losses. in the cloud business, there

were some losses even though investors were hoping for -- they would break even. part of the reason is there is strong competition in the cloud space from amazon web services, from tencent. they have had to continually cut prices to gain market share. the entertainment business is a cutthroat space. tencent has been acquiring content, as has baidu. it is a hot market right now, and hopefully prices will come down over time as this market starts to neutralize, but they're having to spend rapidly for content. emily: what are the macro drivers helping? selina: alibaba is able to benefit from the growing chinese middle class. even though we did see industrial numbers come in on the weaker side in april, the chinese consumption has stayed very strong. alibaba has been able to capitalize on the rural population, which is still a very untapped part of the

chinese market. in rural areas, there is not get -- not very good access to off-line retail. therefore online retail is an , important pathway to get a lot of goods and services that were not available before. alibaba has made big investments in off-line retail and that shift to mobile, trying to bridge the difference between online and off-line retail. emily: selina wang, thank you for that update. i want to focus on the broader investing climate in china. since joining ggv capital, jenny lee has helped put the firm on the map in china, investing in companies. while climbing the ranks as one of the most recognized investors in the world, she is based in china but is in san francisco this week. we got to speak about what has changed in china over her long career. jenny: i have been in china for 12 years now.

i have been covering china since 2001, the last 16 years. the significant change is the quality of entrepreneurs. 16 years ago, it was a first-time entrepreneur. today they are more sophisticated now. two, the internet market is bigger and more mature, and there is a larger user base. emily: you launched the china operations in 2005, and the landscape has changed dramatically. china changes every day, let alone every year. what has surprised you most? jenny: yeah, i think the size of the market has always been the most interesting aspect of china. it is not just a tier one city. it is also tier two and three where people are talking about innovation, saying we do not have to work for the government now. we can come out and make something of ourselves. the entrepreneurial spirit is

something we have seen change over the last 15 years. emily: there are several phases of technological change when it comes to china, and you can point to alibaba and baidu and mobile with companies like xiaomi. what is the next big technological shift that will happen in china? >> it is something i have been spending a lot of time on. it is what we call the frontier tech center. it is one where we're looking at car technology, new products, changing the vertical space. it is exciting. i have been looking at cool products and services. emily: you also talk about something called beyond silicon in terms of ai and machine learning. what does it mean? jenny: what we look for there , are three big areas, the first

one is about transportation. anyone who is been to china knows how bad transportation is. there is still a lot of room for change. whether it is a land transportation or sea transportation. we're looking at the ecosystem around autonomous driving. we talk about computation, that is where software comes in. then we talk about electric cars. in china there is a huge market. that is one area. the second area we look at is the area of robotics automation, and we're looking at home robotics, talking about industrial, using robotics for industries. and a very cool area, there is drones. they have robotic aspects. but they are robot that flies. emily: these are technologies that run into a lot of

regulatory issues in the united states. what is that landscape like in china? jenny: the government is supportive in this area. in the five-year plan they outline specific areas, areas that have been highlighted where the government will invest and encourage development of the industry by either promoting r&d, giving grants, supporting the schools to educate more students in this area. literally in the machine learning and ai area, the third big area coming up. they have committed to spend over 15 billion u.s. dollars in this area as well. i think government is supportive in terms of policies and tangible dollars to promote the industry. emily: u.s. tech companies have consistently had problems entering china. facebook and twitter still shut down. google is out. uber is out.

airbnb is trying. will airbnb have any success? jenny: at the end of the day, if you do come out with a very good service, that service has to be localized for the local consumer. then i think they will be successful. emily: so that is why facebook -- i mean, they were all in chinese. jenny: being in chinese is not enough. it is the behavior and consumer interaction. it is the baseline that the chinese consumer will measure any competing product with, so to compete in china you have to understand that nuance and be able to really address the local consumer needs. emily: do you think facebook will ever be unblocked in china or will google get back in? jenny: if they do come back in, they need to come to the market with a new product something , very different. emily: that was jenny lee from ggv. coming up kkr has been investing

, in tech startups for decades but has stepped up its game. we will explore where the firm can make a splash, next. if you have a moment, check out our new interactive feature on tv . you can watch us live. if you miss an interview you can go back to it. you can send messages, ask questions play along with the , charts on air. it is for bloomberg subscribers only. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: honeywell is starting a

venture fund for a technology $100 million company. and the office will be located at ground zero for silicon valley venture capital.

on sand hill road in menlo park, california. honeywell plans to take stakes and 50 to 70 startups. kkr is also launching a new fund, putting more than $700 million to work in the fields of tech, media, and telecommunication. here to discuss the fund and potential deals is our ipo reporter, who is with the kkr growth equity director for tech, media, and telecom in new york. >> when you think about the investment strategy, i compare that to venture capital, which is not necessarily thinking about the exits like a private equity fund would. with this new growth equity fund, what are you all thinking about that is different given your focus on the exit? >> a great question. one of the things that is interesting now is companies are staying private a lot longer than they have historically. if you look back, companies tend to stay private for six or seven years, and today the number is 11 years.

these companies need a different type of investor to guide them through the process. we think a lot of the skills we have built up as a firm can really help these companies get to a size and scale of maturity where they can either become a viable ipo candidate or become a valuable asset for a strategical acquirer. >> lyft is the smaller of the two u.s. based rideshare companies. why not uber? >> great question. lyft is a business we have known for a long time. we respect john and logan, the two founders, incredibly. they have assembled an amazing team have built a great company. , every time we checked in with them, we were impressed with the progress they made, but there was something that kept us from investing in the company. early on it was regulatory risk or questions around whether ridesharing would be adopted on

a mass basis. later, questions around candidates and cash burn. when john called us in late 2016 and said they were contemplating a capital raise, because we built a relationship and knew the company so well, we knew what to look for. we liked what we saw. we ended up investing with the company. emily: do you think companies like uber and airbnb are making a mistake by waiting so long to go public? we have seen snap come out of the gate quickly and seemed to have gone fine. should the other companies think about going through the door? >> great question. i think the answer depends, it is companies specific. being a public company exposes you to the market overall and helps you become disciplined and understand where you need to focus. one of the things about being private is, you can be a little

more loose in some of the ways you look at your business. you may not get feedback directly on how the business is performing. on the public market, you get feedback every single day and how you are doing. that can be a valuable thing for the right company, that type of feedback. >> you have this $700 million plus of new dry powder here. where are you looking within the tech space to put that to work? are there industries that are more a for you right now? >> we try to be very thematic in how we invest. our team focused on a handful of areas for investment. those include things like enterprise software, cybersecurity, i.t. automation and application development. on the media side we are , spending a lot of time on digital media and then consumer internet, consumer marketplaces. lyft is an example of that. >> kkr has a great team and we have seen them help take up committees.

do we see lyft publicly traded one day? >> that is a good question. we have companies a different maturity levels within the portfolio. when the candidates are thinking about a public offering, having a markets team with an alignment of interest with the company is a valuable resource. lyft is at an interesting stage where it can start contemplating the advantages to being in the public market, both for the company and for the industry overall. >> maybe we see a lyft ipo one day with the help of kkr markets. emily: that was with the kkr director. coming up, the vc trying to put chicago on the tech map. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: walmart gained momentum

in its fight against amazon, reporting first-quarter results on thursday. online sales growing at the fastest clip in at least five years. the e-commerce giant saw gross merchandise volume soaring in -- 69% in the first quarter. investors cheered the news, shares of walmart climbing to the highest level in nearly two years in the session. last week we took a deep dive into the tech scene in boston, massachusetts, and now we are focusing on chicago. we spoke with a founder and managing partner of moderne ventures, which is based in the city and recently closed on a $33 million early-stage venture fund. they invest in tech companies in sectors like real estate, home service markets. we discussed how the tech landscape looks in chicago and how it is different from silicon valley. >> the tech scene has picked up in a lot of ways over a number of years. a great vc community here, a lot of great tech startups around here.

as an investor, if you are willing to go outside of silicon valley and willing to go outside of the coast, you can find some really good deals. it is a great place to start a business, because it is about one-third of the cost of living in chicago than some of the other cities, new york and san francisco. meanwhile, great talent and a good vc community. for moderne, we love investing in chicago companies, but we have investments across the country. what we are really unique on is some of the sector focus that we have. we focus on technology companies that are at the intersection of real estate, finance, insurance, and home services. we look at companies often outside of those industries and bring them inside the industry. while we love investing in chicago companies, we go all over. one of the things that is unique

about us is that as a venture firm, we're focused on helping to bring customers to our companies. probably no other firm like that. we have created a network of about 400 or so executives within these industries that we focus on, people who understand that technology and innovation is something they need to focus on to create their own competitive advantages. there is a fund called the moderne passport that creates a bridge, an industry immersion program to connect those companies with executives. emily: what does silicon valley have to learn from chicago? >> there is plenty of interesting companies that exist. coming from the focus that we come from, more traditional industries, looking at technologies disrupting them, you can look at things like the

smart home example that i gave. if you are starting to look at how that affects insurance, being smart about data, you can start to have companies like hippeau insurance, companies that are changing how a homeowner can interact and prices can come down. you can get insurance in minutes, not hours. i guess, really, the things that silicon valley has to learn from chicago is that there are plenty of other companies out there. what i said earlier is that when you come down to fundamentals, thinking about how a company is approaching these different industries, there is a lot outside of silicon valley that is doing really well. emily: that is founder of moderne ventures from chicago.

a word on t-mobile, the cfo says their most logical partner for a tie up is sprint. he spoke in new york thursday, saying both companies could more cheaply deploy airwaves in a future 5g network to better compete. t-mobile is gearing up for consolidation and figures to be a key player. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." on fridays show, we are joined by a member of elevation partners. and we are live streaming on twitter. check us out weekdays at 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

announcer: the following is a paid presentation for the bissell crossways. ♪