♪ emily: i am emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you our top interviews from the week in tech. president trump withdraws from the paris accord where leaders from tim cook to elon musk speak out. uber fires the star engineer at the center of its driverless car division. why is was time for anthony levandowski to go. and there's a new phone on the

block. we will hear from the coo of essential and find out how their device stacks up against apple and samsung. first, to our lead, president trump has announced the united states will withdraw from the paris climate pact and that he will seek to renegotiate the international agreement in away that treats american workers better. president trump: i will immediately work with democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into paris under the terms that are fair to the united states and its workers or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers. emily: the tech industry already responded to trump's announcement. elon musk taking the lead, announcing his departure from the president's tech council saying "leaving paris is , not good for america or the world." we spoke to a member of the bloomberg energy finance team

, david kirkpatrick, about the impact of this decision. david the gap between president : trump and silicon valley is a grand canyon at this point, but i think what is more interesting to me is the question of how committed business has become, not just silicon valley, but most big businesses in the united states towards climate change remediation. the issue of whether climate change is happening or not is not really controversial among most business leaders. it is accepted, as much of your reporting has suggested. clearly, a lot of progress is going to still be possible even without the u.s. in the paris agreement despite the fact that everyone agrees it is a stupid, stupid thing to pull us out. emily: let's talk about this, colleen. how are tech companies and broader u.s. businesses actually going to respond in action rather than words? colleen: great question, emily. we have already seen action out of silicon valley from these companies. if you look at the tech amiche,

amazon, apple, google, microsoft -- they got together in defense of the clean power plan and we have seen them repeat that climate change is one of the most significant issues facing our generation globally and they are actually putting action behind these words. they have said -- all four of these companies which represent $2.5 trillion of market cap have set renewable energy goals. they want to source all of their electricity from renewable energy globally and google came out on record saying they will hit that target in 2017. we saw amazon be the number one procurer of clean energy and 2016 in the united states, and apple is even signing deals for wind farms in china for clean energy for their suppliers. they are very much behind this. it's not just words. they are taking action as well. emily: china has reiterated their support for the paris agreement. i wanted to take a look at the bloomberg. we have a map of the solar

plants across the country. the green shows plants already in operation and the yellow shows plants that are planned. how does this map change in five years as a result of this or does it? colleen: that's a great question. in some ways i think you would expect to see that green appear even more heavily in those states in which solar is already very concentrated. it is important to talk about what is going on on a federal level, but equally important in the u.s. to be inking about what is happening on the state level, too. just yesterday, the californian senate passed a bill to get 100% renewable energy by 2045. that still needs to make its way through the assembly, but there is absolutely activity on a state level that will contain to -- continue to drive wind and solar build. at the same time, we have seen cost fall dramatically which means it is becoming more economic to install solar in more areas of the country. just from 2008 and 2016 we saw

the cost of tv modules, only part of the panel, but the cost of tv modules fall by 90%. this is helping more states to actually invest in solar as well. emily: david, president trump is saying he's trying to protect american jobs and on the other hand there are concerns about jobs in clean tech and new energy. are we seeing this potential big market opportunity to other countries like china? -- are we seating -- are we ceding this potential big market opportunity to other countries like china? david: absolutely. i think it is widely believed particularly among people who have a sort of future centric view, which you would hope most business people, but there is a massive long-term business opportunity in remediating climate change. it is almost like what i was thinking before. if you think about what world war ii or what wars due to motivate a country to really gather all its energy together and make rapid progress or look at what the depression did to create the wpa and all the

infrastructure we created greater facing a crisis can be one of the most motivating things in the economy and it is happening in china right now. they look at it that way and they are really aggressively moving forward on remediation technologies across the board with solar being a leading example. i want to quickly point to another thing that is really relevant to the connection between tech and industry and this decision. in most states where they operate, tech companies are the number one power consumers because cloud centers are such a gigantic consumer of power. there was an article not long ago even in west virginia the coal state, the utility there is now shutting down coal plants and putting in more renewables partly because microsoft and other companies are their biggest customers and they are saying we want renewable power. emily: that was colleen regan of bloomberg new energy finance and david kirkpatrick, ceo of

the economy -- ceo of techonomy. coming up, another wild week for uber. the startup fired the star engineer at the center of their bitter dispute with waymo. the electric car market has been growing in fits and starts for years. could the chevy volt be the tipping point for the industry? we will hear from one analyst who literally ripped up the car to find out. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: amazon crossed a major milestone this week. the stock traded above $1000 a share briefly for the first time ever on tuesday and has since hovered just below that price. the company has been wooing investors with dominance in online commerce and cloud computing. the stock is up almost 40% from a year ago, out phrasing -- outpacing the broader market. meantime, some frazzled parents may get cash back from amazon. the tech giant will refund customers whose children made unauthorized mobile app

purchases between 2011 and 2016. the federal trade commission ruled that amazon made it too easy for children to make purchases on mobile games. the decision ends a three-year legal battle. the refund amount the top $70 -- could top it was another $70 million. eventful week for uber. their revenue increased $3.4 billion in the first quarter despite thousands of people deleting the app from their phones. they also said that head of finance will leave to take a position at another startup. the most explosive develop and test development of -- the most explosive development of the week was the sacking of anthony levandowski, the former head of the self driving car efforts and the man at the center of the battle between uber and waymo. he was recruited by uber after a long stint at google. alleging heber,

stole patents and used them at uber. he invoked his fifth amendment right not to testify which made it more difficult for uber to defend itself. we spoke about this with mark bergen and our senior executive editor brad stone. >> this is really about 14,000 files. files that were allegedly and surreptitiously downloaded by anthony levandowski from waymo. the judge said he had to turn over those files. uber told him he had to turn over the files and he declined to comply, perhaps because something about them was incriminating. it is interesting, it turns what has really been a two-party case into almost a three party case. we now have waymo versus uber and anthony levandowski off on his own. emily: how does this impact the case? does this hurt uber's case or hurt waymo's case? >> they are waiting for whether

or not this will set the criteria of the judge set up for the injunction. the judge could say uber, you fired levandowski, and he said previously the case was strong, but he said there was no "smoking gun." it seems like uber's lawyers know what they are doing good right now, it is really unclear. emily: is there any chance levandowski could be personally prosecuted here? >> i do think there is a criminal case. he also has a prior case waymo filed against him prior to the february lawsuit against uber. he hired his own lawyers after that lawsuit, criminal defense lawyers, so that is a likelihood as well. emily: levandowski argues he has been forced to choose between his job and his constitutional rights. does he have an argument there? >> i am not a legal expert, but perhaps. emily: uber's driverless car

efforts? what does it mean for them? >> he has been replaced as the head of the driverless car division from carnegie mellon. they hired other folks -- one from the university of toronto started the ai lab in toronto for uber. the risk is the optics of this look so bad that it is going to be increasingly difficult for to hirehigher -- folks and talent is the name of the game right now. emily: there is a public trial on track for october. what is next here? mark: to brad's point, self driving cars are not on the road tomorrow. a lot of experts say they are years if not decades away. there is a chance uber may turn more into a partnership model. they might try to reach out to more carmakers, something that lyft has done and they are also in talks with waymo on a partnership there.

we will see a lot of movement. uber also has the massive investigation into their harassment issues. maybe this is a way to put this on a back on her and deal with a -- on a back burner and deal with a lot of other cultural issues facing the company. brad: there is always the possibility these companies settle. google is an investor in uber. there are reasons for them to work together. it appears from a distance that this case has been about the founders of alphabet, larry page and sergey brin with a personal vendetta against one of their personal employees, anthony levandowski. now that he has separation from uber, perhaps it is the beginning of uber and google coming back out of the side of being allies versus adversaries. emily: interesting. the uber ceo got some sad news of the weekend. his mother was killed in a horrific boating accident and his father is in serious condition. our hearts go out to travis at this time. i want to ask, brad, uber have a

lot of challenges on its plate. the sexual harassment investigation, the results are coming this week or next week. are we expecting any delays? thread: as far as i know, no. eric holder was due to deliver his report to the board of directors. it wasn't expected that report would become public until next week. obviously, a terrible time for the family and for uber itself. i don't know how much it will slow down the investigation. emily: do we know anything about which way the investigation is leaning? brad: we know very little other than he talked to many many hundreds of employees and he delayed the report at one point asking for more time because of the response he had gotten. i expect it is going to be tough for uber. emily: how have all of these issues piling up impacted the uber brand? brad: in the tech community and the investment community here in san francisco, very much so, you step outside the bubble and go

to another city, another country and uber is an increasing part in people's lives. other ridesharing companies too, it is this weird paradox where the brand has been hurt, hiring has probably gotten more challenging and inside uber is probably a difficult time, but this is a brand and a service and a company people love. emily: that was bloomberg technology's brad stone and mark bergen. of the story we are watching has been revealed. two former theranos directors did not follow up on allegations surrounding the validity of the technology used at the start up. gary ruff had an former u.s. secretary of state george schultz said in depositions that they did not think to question the company's founder about the matter. you will remember both men left the board in 2015 after a wall street journal investigation employees' concerns

about the company operations. we dive into what has become essentially the state of the union for the tech industry. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: nest finally ended an 11-month product drought. the latest product is a security camera. it is the first redesigned camera since it acquired startup drop camera in 2014. it shoots higher resolution video that allows users to more deeply zoom into footage without losing clarity. it will automatically pan to follow a person in the view as they walk around the room. kleiner perkins partner mary meeker unveiled her widely followed internet trends report for 2016. the report covers everything from the cloud and internet advertising to wearables and music subscription services. a major takeaway from the

report, the rise of online ads. with global internet advertising expected to pass tv in six month s and google and facebook reaping the benefits with their combined share of online ads amounting to a whopping 85% and rising. we dug into the findings with bloomberg intelligence u.s. director of research paul sweeney. paul: we are seeing the trajectory over the last 10 or 12 years where we have tv ad spending growing about 4%-5% a year, and digital ads ending -- digital ad spending growing 15% to 20% a year. the lines are just about to cross this year and if you look at the forecast over the next several years from various forecasters, continued upward trend in internet ad spending, double-digit growth versus television in the low single digits. emily: what does it mean for everyone else if facebook and google are getting the lion's share of the pie? paul: if i am an advertiser, i am worried because i have a market where there really is a duopoly between facebook and google.

i only have two platforms to allocate my ad dollars. that is not a good market structure, market dynamic. what we are seeing is of the incremental ad dollars going to the digital marketplace, google and facebook taking just about everything. it is really a challenge for some of the smaller platforms, think twitter, snapchat, 400 million users on your platform these days is not enough. we need to take a look at google and facebook, each of facebook's platforms is at or above one billion users when you think about facebook and instagram and message. it is just a tremendous reach a vehicle and what we are seeing is these big platforms like google and facebook are really trying to target television advertisers because that is where the money is. emily: something else that meeker called out is the measurement of the impact of online ads is very much lacking

and the placement of ads is sometimes rather suspect, perhaps they might pop up next to offensive content. what you make of these potential headwinds? paul: these are significant risks and highlighted by advertisers and ad agencies that represent them. measurement and context and placement are really the two big issues that these internet companies really have to figure out. that being said, the dollars are still going to digital. what is interesting, we are going to have a big data point coming out of the television industry when they sell about 75% to 80% of their inventory of what is called the upfront market and $18 billion or $20 billion will be allocated to television. the expectation is tv ad spending will be flat or down. facebook and google are seeing their top line advertising revenue grow 20% plus. have to compare the markets and you can see where advertisers are going despite some concerns.

emily: on a slightly different topic, she also called out amazon and talked about how it is changing the face of retail, which we know, but mary meeker specifically pointed to amazon baby wipes, amazon batteries, these are products that amazon is branding itself and selling to consumers. what impact is that having on the retail landscape? paul: it is having a big impact. when you get to private branded products it shows the strength of amazon in the retail marketplace. not only have they disrupted the entire brick-and-mortar retail, but they are really starting to think about how they position themselves within the retail market in certain verticals. when you think about amazon, jeff bezos has shown that he will make any investment that he thinks will grow his business long-term because he believes, obviously, that retail sales going to online will grow from today's average of about 7% or 8% to well over 10% and he needs to be a part of that and the leading player.

we have seen this company make tremendous investments across businesses because they believe in the long-term story. emily: that was bloomberg intelligence u.s. director of research, paul sweeney. alphabet has been testing a service here in san francisco and in israel and plans to launch in brazil. the ridesharing platform operates more like a traditional carpool where the driver and passengers have similar origins and destinations. unlike uber and lyft -- where drivers pick up and drop riders wherever requested. >> hello. what a nice ride. >> thank you. >> happy car pooling. how many people are using this already? >> tens of thousands of people

have registered. it is a two-app platform. millions of people have already downloaded waze and all they need to do is opt into carpool. we have thousands of carpools every week in the bay area. >> why are people using waze already? what is the need of it? is it work, is it play? >> we are trying to connect commuters who either don't have a lot of options or are tired of driving or have limited parking at their workplace. we are connecting commuters who are going in the same direction and who have similar origins, similar destinations, they are neighbors, they are friends, they are colleagues and simply taking cars off the road. >> what about the money exchanging hands. how much are you getting reimbursed for taking me and how much am i paying you? >> it is a not-for-profit share the expense carpool. these are not actually for profit drives like ridesharing.

as a driver, you get up to $.54 a mile, which is the federal limit on gas and expenses for driving and the rider will pay no more than that as well. a 10 mile ride will probably be about a five dollar exchange between rider and driver in waze is facilitating that. you give us your credit card number as a writer, and as a driver, you register your bank account with us, and we do the transaction behind the scenes. >> why else is waze doing this? is it not making them money or is it? >> today we are not taking any commission on matches, but at some point when we retire density and our quality of service is where we want it to be, we can take a small commission. >> and the data you are getting out of it, where is that of interest? >> definitely data is important to waze. the more people that are using waze, the better it gets for everyone.

something like carpool where we can tell where your home and your business is and it helps us health cities, here are your origin places of density, your destination places of density. we work with 250 different cities around the world to help them solve their traffic problems. >> how does it tie-in to the greater scheme of alphabet as well? >> at this point we are not working within any other entities. it is very much a waze product. something that we hope is important to the future. >> how is the competitive landscape? >> at this point it is early days. there's a few startups working on carpooling. lyft and uber have experimented with carpooling models. they haven't really stuck. emily: coming up, the man who was the mastermind behind android unveiled his latest creation. we will find out why essential

believes there is room in the market for yet another smartphone. and a reminder that all episodes of bloomberg tech are live streaming on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. andy rubin is back and betting big on a big new smartphone. he unveiled a new product from his new company, essential. it has some serious competition with apple and samsung dominating the smartphone market, but rubin believes his company and product will have the it factor to appeal to the masses. >> premium materials, passion, and craftsmanship is what we're bringing back to the consumer electronics space.

emily: you don't think apple has that? >> i think there is a little bit of incrementalism in the last few years. i think there has been a little bit of a boredom factor. the grandparents have the same devices, as their grandkids, as you do. we have the first ceramic titanium enclosure, the biggest screen and smallest formfactor, and a unique accessory port on the back, which has those -- has the most amazing camera 360 that snaps on the back. what will happen with our device is it is going to evolve with you. it's going to allow you to make and phone more meaningful powerful over time. we are going to focus and essential on only what i think is a significant elevation at all times and only significant accessories. this device we are selling for $49.99.

it is something that's affordable that you bring with you, you can capture any important moments, whether it's a sporting event or your kids first steps. emily: this is your first hardware company. what are some custom components? >> its enclosure, materials. we're the only premium product using premium materials. we are not marking up the building materials by a factor of three. we need to be a proconsumer brand that materials on the phones and devices at eight -- at a great value proposition. our full display is the first rounded screen. we have our camera notched through the middle of it. ultimately can think about what , we're doing in the long term of this device by looking at the back. we are using a fingerprint black on the back with a and white fusion color system camera. the next device will actually swallow the edges up. bevel-less at l

the time. we have thinner edges on the device than anybody else and frankly, it's distinctive. we are bringing back the cool factor. emily: what sort of software customizations are there on top of the android base? >> android's 85% of the market , and we think we know how to take advantage of it better than any other firm in the market. we trying to, frankly unleash , the full power of the pure android operating system. emily: will third-party accessories be available? on opene big ecosystems. our intro ecosystem, play, will have no preloaded apps, minimal preloads, because people want choice. we are going to be able to turn the back into a real standard long-term, a hardware developer network. emily: the home operating system, ambient os, the

idea is to be a connected operating system for the home. they connected home has yet to take off. when will it? what do we need to get there? >> that is a good question. i think we believe that the home is at the same stage of development as the phone was in 2004 when we started android. i think in developed nations it will take us the better part of a decade for us to go from single digital appliances, what people have in the homes. we are to build the first device directly help you or a wrap your home, automate and connect it together. we are doing that without being another walled garden. emily: you think android is just fine, or you ever build your own phone os? >> never say never, but we think there's a lot we did add premium hardware to a great operating system and we feel no one has , done full justice to the android operating system with the hardware.

we are a hardware business when it comes to the phone and the 360 camera. we are software on the home. emily: apples is watching. apple is launching a home speaker to take on amazon echo and apple home. what does amazon bring to the market, or is it too late? we are where the phone market was in 2004 and 2005, just stretching the surface of capabilities. there will be a lot of change. one of the things we're passion -- things we are passionate on is believing in the long run that consumers want stuff to work and they want to be able to buy whatever solutions they want. we don't think the winning model is you have to use all my stuff. we want to provide that horizontal layer to allow you to pick out whatever you want. think about the long tail in the home, it's much longer than a mobile device market was. there's a lot of sentimental value still become.

emily: that was essentials oo.sident and ceo o ahead of the release of the tesla three, the auto team at ubs hold of their biggest competitor, the chevy volt. they took it apart to give a conference of breakdown of the features a comprehensive , breakdown of the features. they discuss what they found under the hood. >> we partnered with the team we lap, andevidence of bunch of data scientists, and we talked about how the chevy volt will be the first mass-market ev with 200 mile range. will be an interesting test in the u.s. and globally. synthesis is an important vehicle, we decided to partner with the company who is an expert in automotive teardowns and provided us a very detailed cost analysis of the entire ev powertrain, which i think is us -- i think gives us a unique edge in understanding this important phenomenon in the industry. emily: give us the highlights on how the volt compares to the

tesla model three. >> we will get full details of the model three, that they are a similar price point. the base tesla model three will be $35,000. the volt with base will be more like $30,000. similar price points. the range will be very similar, both will be over 200 miles. obviously, tesla is more upscale when we compare the two. we put more cost in the powertrain. they will have a nicer interior. given the price point, it is probably going to be more like $42,000, $43,000 with all the options, closer to a bmw three series. emily: you estimate gm is losing $74,000 on every car. there are estimates that tesla will be losing on every model three. how do they close that gap? >> the big driving forces

-- the driving force will be battery cost. there's only going to sell around 30,000 volts a year. a very low number. the r&d costs are really spread off of a lot of units. the big driver going forward is going to be battery costs are going from over $200 per total kilowatt hour today, we estimate it will be around $130 per kilowatt hour. we also assume certain components that have a good step function coming down on the ed -- on the ev powertrain that will help in above average decline on the ev powertrain as well. that narrows the gap from a cost $9,000 premium just a $3000, by 2025.r cost premium when you contribute to the total cost of ownership, lower fuel, lower maintenance, the economics, especially in europe when gas prices are higher makes a lot of sense. emily: what is your projection for the growth in the ev market in general as a result of the volt?

>> we raised our global forecast, because we found costs are lower than we expected and we expect battery costs to accelerate. a lot of experts we talked to around the battery. we are expecting by 2025 about 14% of vehicles globally will be ev, a very high number compared other estimates. a lot of that will be driven by europe with about 30% -- with 3% penetration in europe and the u.s. we are a bit more conservative expecting only 5% ev penetration. we look at it with much lower gas prices, it's going to be more of a luxury vehicle. one of the reasons we are cautious on tesla is we know all the german luxury guys will be coming with the own -- with their own ev's, mercedes, audi, porsche, the competition is intensifying on luxury side. emily: as more companies produce

electric vehicles, what does that mean for the auto industry at large? >> it's an important transformation. when you think of automakers, the whole engine is going to be overhauled here. that is going to be a difficult and challenging transformation. at the end the day, we do think the return on investment capital for automakers will be very consistent with what we have today, and i think there's a very important role for the traditional automakers in the future. we highlighted in our report delphi really have good content, lear has good content on ev. more content than we have on an internal combustion engine, it could be a positive if you are a well-positioned supplier. emily: any idea when chevy will be making the car more widely available with less focus on california? specifically? >> i don't have any official news. they will be ramping production throughout the rest of the year. it only launched in the fall. emily: that was colin langan.

bitcoin has been on the move, we will discuss what is behind the move in the crypto currency next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: intel has escalated the battle against rival amd in the market for high-end computer processors. it developed a new more powerful chip. intel will begin selling chips under a new core i-9 brand aimed at gamers. the only competition in pc processors, amd says its latest , product has outperformed intel chips. bitcoin has risen more than 100% in the last two months. critics say the digital currency is showing signs of a bubble. bitcoin hit an all time high

, only to slump back down. if this kind of volatility that gets people worried. not to mention questions about safety, fraud, and competition from other digital currency. we spoke with the poly chain capital founder. poly chain is a hedge fund that by union square ventures, as well as our bloomberg editor at large cory johnson. y: this is coming from an industry that hasn't been living as aggressively in the public radar. it is more closely tracking the fundamentals. we are seeing a big uptick for that reason. emily: investors told that bitcoin is like gold, a finite resource, and therefore not as interesting. what is your take? cory: i think gold is fascinating, but it's true that the way bitcoin is constructed is meant to be finite and harder and harder to mint as there are

more and more out there. the scarcity value is an important part of the bitcoin plan, and has been from the very beginning. i think for people in the bitcoin community, they steal -- they see all this investment, they see all this excitement, they know all these deals, they can't believe their parents don't understand what they are doing. when they see the price surge as validation of what they have all been working on. there's an element of gold like fervent belief and rabid speculation going on here. you can see that in the reaction of price. and when you showed the five-day chart, five days of are really dramatic one hour 20% selloff and bitcoin, you can really see it is so speculative , this current wild ride that bitcoin is on. while the long-term value of bitcoin may be in the eyes of the holder the volatility is , really in the eye of the speculator. emily: investors say bitcoin is old news.

the new hot cryptocurrency is him.hing called a theory i asked for craig wilson's production for the year and he had this to say about cryptocurrency in general. >> i think that etherium will bypass the market cap of bitcoin by the end of the year. emily: of all the predictions he could have made, about anything, that is what he chose. explain how they are different. >> bitcoin has programming language to interact with the protocol as a developer. it is very limited programming language. etheriem has much more expressive in etherum. we've seen a much richer organic developer system developed very quickly. emily: would you agree with what

fred had to say? you think the market cap is going to replace -- >> i don't know if i would agree with as aggressive a timeline as fred, but in the long-term, absolutely. emily: how long? >> i would extend that out one year, made by the end of 2018. emily: interesting. what are your thoughts? cory: if. -- etherum is interesting. it's more like a pc ip it's fascinating and using the general concept of block chain. it is fascinating and could use general uses. the other problem is that it is harder and harder to use bitcoin , and one of the big issues that people are talking about in the bitcoin world is how hard it is

to close a transaction. the speed of closing a transaction in bitcoin is getting exponentially worse. it's been happening coinciding with the big rise in the price. it's hard to do a deal and bitcoin right now. we have a chart that shows how long it takes to get confirmation on the bitcoin network of a bitcoin transaction , and it is getting slower and slower. that might be a problem embedded into the actual coin itself, so the bitcoin can't get out of its own way with this problem. there's been a lot of discussion for this for well over a year in the bitcoin community, but the fixes haven't worked and the proposed fixes are challenging the very nature of bitcoin, so unless a solution is found, there is going to be a real problem in the face of bitcoin's ascendancy, because the transactions can't get done. emily: what of the safety issues? we just cover this big ransom ware attack, and the attackers were asking for ransoms paid in bitcoin because of the anonymity. will that change?

olaf: these technologies offer a whole new suite of use technologies that were available before. that includes good and bad. just like the internet enabled both good and bad people. emily: are there any other crypto currency we should be watching? >> many others. i very much like ethereum tokens, and some of the more novel types of signatures, things like the cash or more narrow. emily: when do you think these are going to go mainstream? when will the average novice consumer be paying for things in bitcoin or ethereum? still in the infrastructure building phase before we are ready for user applications. i do think within one to two years we will start to see the first viral applications that are user facing. emily: that was olaf and cory

johnson. standing out in the crowded cloud space generating cash. we will hear from ceo aaron levie about the company's latest earning results in the goals ahead. check us out on the radio. the bloomberg radio and sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: to keep up with competitors, microsoft is giving skype a makeover. the new app has all the features users know, while adding third-party services, simpler photo sharing and a revamped interface for group check. -- for group chat. skype has taken backseat to the convenience of snapchat and apple's message. it will start out with android devices, than on the iphone in about a month.

it was a banner quarter for cloud content management company box. positive earnings push them to a 52-week high. investors were particularly pleased that box maintained its goal of being cash flow positive, a big challenge for a tech firm looking to grow. we talked with box ceo aaron levie about what's next for the company. >> made sure we are plugged into different applications our customers are using. if you are using facebook for the enterprise, their new workplace product, we want to make sure content can be served up securely within that environment. if you are using slack for communication on teams, we want to make sure box can be the backs and system for that content. foran be the backend system that content. really, any application that gets created and used in the enterprise, we want either integration to power the content management and underlying data

management within that app for our customers. partnering is fundamental to our strategy, and we are very excited that in the past year you've have seen some expensive partnerships with companies like microsoft, google, ibm and others. these are very core to our strategy. emily: how is being cash flow positive impact the business? >> this is obviously one of the biggest questions that wall street had when we were first going public. we were growing very quickly and burning a lot of cash. the big question was what was this business going to look at at scale and what was going to be the convergence point? we told the market that q4 of fy 17, in january that we just came through, we said we would be cash flow positive in that quarter, and we did achieve that. that was what we have guided wall street to. now, for the full year for fiscal 2018, the year we are in right now, we also guided that

we will be cash flow positive full-year basis. obviously, we don't have to raise outside capital anymore because we are now generating cash, with over $200 million in the bank. i think more importantly, it shows that as we are growing pretty rapidly with 30% growth on the top line, we are generating a very healthy core business model and we have very strong and healthy economics at the foundation of the business, which obviously is incredibly important to just running our company, but also equally important to wall street's understanding of what we're building. emily: you have been critical of president trump. when he was a candidate last summer, you signed a letter along with 100 other tech leaders saying he would be a disaster for innovation. box shares are up 30%, has trump been the disaster for innovation that you expected them to be? >> i would separate our business performance from some of the policies that have been an -- had been enacted. as it relates to a innovation and the innovation economy, we really haven't gotten much of a clear message from this new administration about what they

believe are going to be the defining factors over the next decade and coming decades to really truly driving a high innovation economy. that would range from things like high skilled immigration, stem education, digital policy issues like encryption reform, patent reform -- a lot of issues where they are still -- it is still really unknown what the administration's viewpoint is on these major issues that are going to be not just fundamental to the tech sector in silicon valley, but really the broader economy as more and more of our economy moves into the digital age. i think it is still very early , and unfortunately we haven't seen some of the policies we would like to see that would drive innovation forward in a much longer term picture as opposed to just the past 140 days or so. emily: what about climate change? what are the biggest threats to the tech industry with regards

to the trump stance on the paris accord? >> when you look at things like internet policy, were we have historically been a leader around the world in setting the tone and sending a message to the rest of the world about really what we are going to stand for and what our philosophies are going to be as a country. emily: that was aaron levie, ceo of box. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you the latest in tech throughout the week. this wednesday, we sit down with meg whitman, hewlett-packard enterprise ceo in an exclusive interview. tune in for that conversation at 5:00 in new york and 2:00 in san francisco. all episodes are now live streaming on twitter, check us out on bloomberg tech tv on wednesdays. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪

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