oliver: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm oliver renick. i'm coming to you from the magazine's headquarters in new york. in this week's issue, apple ceo tim cook talks about doing business with president trump while western union finds itself in the crosshairs of the white house. then, fallen hedge funder phil falcone is making new bet on vietnam. all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: we are here with "bloomberg businessweek," editor-in-chief megan murphy.

this is an exciting week. new magazine, new website, app. megan: i am excited. i'm a little tired right now. it has been a great week, and these past six months behind the scenes, we have been doing a complete redesign of the magazine online, and we have totally overhauled the app. we are creating daily content we are pushing to readers. also we are putting us at the forefront of our events here at bloomberg. we are thrilled with the results. i think the look will feel -- the book will feel familiar to people, but as we go through the project, we have been making sure we are available wherever our readers are. when will you get to showcase feature photography and longform journalism. but also just making it more simple, cleaner, easier to read. we really want the journalism to shine through and stand out.

i'm absolutely thrilled with the results. oliver: i like the ubiquity of having it on so many different platforms. where do we go to get the app? will it be magazine stories, different type of stuff? you mention it's going to be a day-to-day thing. megan: we will do two things, if you want to experience the magazine in a traditional digital way, we have that option for you on the new app. we are also pushing for six to eight new pieces of content that are relevant to where you are of that day and dissect the biggest daily stories. we want to build a community around businessweek. we want to have a daily touch, daily interaction with our readers and be known as the trusted name for business, finance, technology, excellent journalism where you can go to get a quick take not only of what happened but why you need to know it. oliver: that's the idea, in many ways, you pick it up and it feels similar. the content feels similar to my

-- the content feels similar, it takes the complex subjects and make some open. this time around, i think it is a little bit more in depth and in the weeds. megan: we're trying to dial into the areas where we feel we have an advantage, global business, finance, technology, but we sometimes call "power." economics. we want to play in our lane. we have 2700 journalists, we want to really leverage that and we have so much invested, so much resource investigative league year. we want to continue to do that kind of journalism and make sure we are mobilizing the strength of the newsroom to tell the global stories that really matter. taking people behind the scenes of the people, the entrepreneurs and innovators driving the

change you will see play out not just this year but in the upcoming decade. oliver: you guys have done a great job kicking off with some of the debriefs. this week's debrief is especially good, it is also the cover story. it is an interview with tim cook. what did you learn from him that our readers need to know? megan: i interviewed him right after they introduced the foray into the home speaker market, and anyone who has the amazon echo or has used alexa, it has become a crowded space. i think a lot of people thought apple's foray would be a category killer. in the sense of using siri to motivate this home speaker. what is interesting is how focused he was on music. i was interested as a man, how passionate he was about the speaker. oliver: i thought it was funny, you're talking about people jamming out. my reaction to the homepod was them trailing their peers. but he said that we were not always first, but we did the test version.

-- the best version. he thinks it will be the best version of the in-house speaker. megan: i'm a lot older than you. long time ago, i was a first purchaser of the original ipod. you have probably never seen. 1999. tim cook was honest about this. he said apple does not need to be first or necessarily want to be first. they want to be the best. i think every time -- again, you are younger than i am -- they have been counted out more times. now we will remember it, whether it was the apple ii, the macintosh computer, the forays into other business. artificial intelligence early on. never count them out. if they produce a product that is a must-have, it becomes integral to how you conduct your life, they are forcing their way in. there was another thing we talked about, their entry into the enterprise market. and how they are going to

service business. they see that is huge growth for them. people are so attached to apple, and moving into the business sector is a big future for them. oliver: and they need to be looking at ways to drive growth. you also talked about politics and branched out beyond the apple device world. megan: he was very involved in the climate debate, and the trump administration decision to exit the paris accord he took very personally. one of the things i felt was interesting is he said that america is more important than bloody politics. he will continue to fight for what he believes in, where you see synergies with the administration, he is not going to be afraid to make his voice heard. gave knowledge the very open differences he has with the president. but he also acknowledged as a ceo, his responsibility to build an america he wants to live in and his workers to be part of.

oliver: a great interview. you guys covered a lot of different things. making tim cook into a cover model was the job of rob vargas. important first issue of the magazine, and you guys are putting tim cook right on the cover. it is very much about him. how did you make this choice? rob: we had this one photograph where he looked very pensive. the photographer got him from behind a window. you see it little bit of reflection in front of him. we thought it was an interesting shot. oliver: it is a strong image of him. the interview captures a lot of different topics. the caption you chose up on the cover is about politics. did you put the quote about politics because of the seriousness of his pose? rob: yes, it was broad enough not only does because role at apple but his role in the country and beyond. oliver: tell us what you think about the new version of the magazine. rob: subscribers will notice there is a cover wrap.

at the page the goes on top of the cover which gives you the headline in a short table of contents. people who buy it on a newstand will notice a cover flap. like the new yorker has, which gives you a headline of a short table of contents. it liberates us from having to shout the headline every time. oliver: business week, people knew about the designs, you have gotten creative at times. what is the philosophy when you think about how to design the inside of the magazine? rob: it is cleaner. we have a lot of information, and we figure out a way to organize it to make it easier to digest. i think we are still developing our sensibility. for now, especially we have has such good photography in this issue, we want more of that and to showcase it. oliver: up next, world leaders try to make sense of president trump's foreign policy. and robert moore assembles his -- robert mueller assembles his dream team to get to the bottom of the russian question that has

been hanging over the white house. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ ♪

oliver: welcome back. on oliver renick. you can find us online at businessweek.com. in the remarks section, the selling author and former "time" magazine columnist joe klein discusses president's competing -- confusing foreign policies and what they mean for the u.s. going forward. joe: nothing is easy with donald trump. everything is radical. everything is different. this represents a break from a consensus american foreign-policy. that existed in the center, mostly realistic. trump switched that.

alliance-based policy that had existed since the end of world war ii, and now it is more america first. he placed more emphasis on short-term gains than on long-term stability. what we have seen as a result is some fairly concerning instances of instability and possible breakup of the existing order. oliver: what are the most egregious examples of that so far? joe: i think the fact that he had to struggle for weeks before he was able to say that he supported article five of the nato agreement, which means all the signatories of the treaty, all the european nations and us, we come to each other's defense. the last time it was used was when we were attacked on 9/11 and many european allies came to afghanistan. oliver: you are a sort of

analyst and a historian. when you look at what is happening so far in the trump administration, you try to sift through the new ideas that are out there. how do you gauge the metric for success? how we know when or if these new policies will have long-term fruition? as you point out, they are novel to some extent. he was not a lot of precedent. -- there was not a lot of precedent for this type of idea. joe: that was the idea going in. he is been very contradictory sense. sometimes he said he was going to stick it to china, now china is his great ally. he has been very unpredictable. to me, and i am kind of an old so be -- old foagie at this point, the measure of diplomatic success is the hippocratic oath. first do no harm. that is what obama was about and george w. bush was not about.

he went into iraq and destabilized the entire region. we will not know for years whether and how trumps foreign-policy will work. on the plus side, a number of people he has chosen are really stable, smart, honorable people. they've had to deal with trump's occasional eccentricities. oliver: do you think of someone who is concerned about foreign policy, they can take solace in the team, or are we seeing that trumps personal brand and style will outweigh that? >> you can take some solace, because in the instance of military action or threatened military action, i think he is listened to his military advisers.

there was a judicious strike in syria after the use of chemical weapons. i don't know how long that will last, and a lot of the things he says could be construed as ways to destabilize the region. for example, qatar, and this is a guy absolutely opposed to terrorism up to the saudi border. the saudi's have supported a network of radical schools across the region and also funded terrorism in the region. but he has not had a bad word to say about him. oliver: robert mueller is simply -- assembling a crack team of prosecutors to ferret out any connection between donald trump,

the white house, and russian meddling in the u.s. election. >> robert mueller is the longest tenured member of the fbi. -- fbi director of the history of the fbi. he served 12 years. he has been in private practice since he left. he was succeeded by jim comey. he was tasked to be special counsel. we've not seen a special counsel in a long time. this role is vested with unique powers. he is the ability to operate basically like a traditional federal prosecutor. he can file charges, subpoena people, he can pull people in front of grand juries. he can, in theory, interrogate the president. the extent of his power will kind of -- we will not really learn about it until he chooses to exercise it, and we have issues of executive privilege at play.

we will see how willing the president will be to submit to any of this, even though he has said he is willing to testify under oath to congress. we will see how willing he is to do something similar in front of bob mueller. oliver: mueller essentially has the tools a prosecutor does, but he can apply them in ways and do people that are often times very much off-limits. matthew: a good way to think about mueller is he is a repository for all things russia. there is a lot of noise out there, political noise, whether it is trump tweets, lyrical allies of the president going on cable news and talking about how the president is considering firing bob mueller, but he is to consider all of this, whether happening congressional testimony, whether it is leaked to the press, anything that concerns russia he is to take into consideration and he has a very broad mandate, which is to follow where the evidence leads him in whatever direction. he has complete independent power to do that. oliver: he has a lot on his

plate. hopefully he has helped from people around him. who will be on his team? does he have one? matthew: he does. he is building one. he has had this role a little less than a month. he is setting up shop about halfway between the capital and the white house. he is building what amounts to a a pretty crack team of defense lawyers and prosecutors. he is pulling from people he worked with at the fbi, and also he is pulling from his old law firm, one of whom worked on watergate. he has three people already from wilmer hale who are working with him. one of whom worked on the watergate investigation. he will probably hire 50 to 100 people. that's about the same size staff as the 9/11 commission that was put together and the watergate committee that was put together in the 1970's. oliver: up next, germany worries

it will be the next victim of russia election hacking. and forget about initial public offerings. we will talk about "initial coin offerings." this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm oliver renick. welcome back. you can catch us on the radio on sirius xm, and on the radio in new york, boston, washington, d.c. and the bay area. also, in london and asia on the bloomberg radio app. in the politics section, concern is growing about russian hacking in germany's election this fall. stefan: in germany, we have seen a range of hacking attempts and successful hacks over the past two years. it started in 2015 when the german parliament was hacked and criminals actually stole 16

gigabytes worth of data. that is about 1.5 million emails. lots of hacking going on and the german government is concerned that in the run-up to the election, increased hacking will go on and hackers will try to influence the german elections that way. carol: talk about the 16 gigabytes. 1.5 million emails. what's interesting is, you put in your story, those hackers were roaming around within the german parliament for about a week. stefan: that is correct. i will walk you through how this happened. picture this. in 2015, several german lawmakers got it you know that looked like it came from the united nations, except it didn't. it came from russian hackers, or hackers believed to be linked to russia. it led the lawmakers to click on a link that looks like a united

nations bulletin but secretly installed spyware on their computers. that initiated a chain reaction and hackers roamed the internal i.t. network of parliament for more than a week until the security agencies found out about it. they stole a lot of data and nobody really knows what they stole. the big concern here is, the hackers will release some of that data shortly before the elections and everyone is concerned. carol: i bet the german chancellor is concerned. it looks like she is politically in a good position, but she has to be worried, as well. stefan: she is. top security officials tell me that she is taking the issue

very seriously. she is regularly informing herself about the defenses that have been installed to protect germany. everyone in the government is aware of that, but you already pointed out correctly that her turnout and her polls looking very solid. as of now, she is doing well. oliver: in the finance section, digital currency startups are issuing tokens as a way to raise money. they are called "initial coin offerings." or ico's. dune: it is like the coin or ether, it is a digital currency. companies are beginning to sell their own -- well, more and more are starting to sell their own coins. a nod that an ipo. one thing that is driving it, obviously, there has been a huge rise in the price of bitcoin and ether. there is a lot of liquidity in

the crypto economy and a lot of excitement about block chain based businesses. oliver: are they starting to offer their initial coin offerings? i feel like the definition of company here can mean a lot of different things because the way i understood it is you can sort of have an initial coin offering without really any kind of status that we would normally associate with an incorporated company or something like that. dune: we've got to a place where there is so much excitement that it is very, very easy to do these ico's. sometimes they are raising money based on a website with a germ of an idea. there is that element of what exactly are they going to do with that? will they do good things? literally we are talking

instantly -- if you can raise $30 million in 30 seconds on the back of an idea? the question is, you have to use that money to make something. oliver: let's say uber does an ipo. any private company decides to go public, they're going to sell shares in the open market, use and underwriter and have a determination of their value of what their business does, and they will essentially sell investors a part of that business. what are the equivalent counterparts for those elements in the initial coin offering? dune: there are starting to be digital investment banks, i talked with a ceo who specializes in this. research companies like smith and crown.

basically, the better run ipo's, you would write a technical white paper laying out what you're going to do and how the tokens fit into your block chain and what will happen here. are you selling decentralized cloud storage? are you selling financial services? what is going to happen? you might put a repository for the code on github. you may or may not do some marketing. it really depends. some of these management teams, you don't actually know who they are. oliver: up next, where brexit could hurt the most and we will find out how bad it is for your health to work around chip manufacturing. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." we will dissect the rain of the uber ceo. phil falcone is betting on what's left of his reputation on vietnamese las vegas. western union, what is good for them may not be popular in washington. that is ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: we are back with megan murphy to talk about more must reads. let's go to the business section.

you guys assess data about brexit. megan: this is something you will see a lot more. we are on the fallout from the disastrous election in britain where instead of achieving a majority to force through a hard brexit, it is unlikely to happen now. what this graphic dissects is where a hard brexit or the inability to negotiate between britain and the rest of the eu would really hurt. it would hurt workers that voted for brexit. i'm a british citizen, we are talking about the northeast and sunderland, the midlands in birmingham, places where international companies like nestle and jaguar have moved in and done a lot of the resurgence britain needs to maintain.

those are the areas where it could hit the hardest if they failed to negotiate the trade terms. oliver: one of the overriding teams is if some of these new regimes will benefit the people that put them into power. it is a timely examination. there are a lot of questions out there. let's go to the features section. you guys talk about toxic tech. there is a moving story. it is a reshuffling, a bad side effect of what happens in some of these development for technology. it is incredible. megan: i am proud of this story that was done by kim simpson. he has been working on it for many years and will looking at this scandal in 1990's when many american companies discovered high rates of workers were suffering from birth defect problems and inability to have

children. there was exposure to toxic chemicals. it was agreed that certain kinds of chemicals should be weeded out of that process in the american chipmaking manufacturing industry. the problem was much of that migrated to asia, south korea, some of the big chip makers there. the safeguards are not in place. oliver: chasing loser regulation. megan: this is not a case of chasing regulation in the sense of the risk migrated. the safeguards were not put in place to protect the workers. samsung has come up to apologize to the workers for what they have exposed them to. it is unbelievable that something that could have been universally eradicated has now migrated to an effect where these women, and it is

particularly women exposed to these chemicals, may has been -- may have been exposed to this is latest 2015. oliver: another story, the same geographic area, this is a different story about an ex-hedge fund guy who is trying a casino business. megan: phil falcone. one of the noted persons that made billions for calling the subprime housing market before the crisis. he then lost a fortune. he has started a casino in vietnam and has plunged hundreds of millions of dollars. he is running a casino in vietnam, and you cannot legally gamble in the country. a little bit of a conflict there. just a great tale. oliver: we got the details and the narrative from matt campbell. matt: it is an enormous that by -- bet by none other than phil falcone. to really generate something that he has not been able to do for a long time, which is make a killing.

he has bet heavily on this project in southern vietnam. he has put nearly $500 million into it over the last decade. he is trying to be the person who brings las vegas to vietnam to create something that has never existed in that part of the world, which is a real mass-market casino resort. this place is enormous. it looks like something was picked up off the las vegas strip. >> how did he get into it? matt: he was approached in 2006 by a pair of canadians investors who had put into this project. they were looking for funding. they found their way to phil falcone.

he said, sounds interesting. he wrote $25 million. going forward, either sell or bring in others to dilute that state. this was never intended to be a big thing. the harbinger, phil falcone hedge fund, collapsed. because of this scc investigation. it was one of the few assets left in the portfolio. the other was a wireless business. it became a big part of what phil falcone still has out there. as a result, it is important to him. >> the project in vietnam is interesting. it is not easy to do a casino business in that country. matt: there is one big problem. a very, very, very big problem, which is that it is illegal for vietnamese citizens to gamble. this is not as much of an issue as it might seem at first blush.

the big money is from chinese gamblers. they fly in from mainland china. if you are running a casino in a remote part of vietnam, you want vietnamese gamblers. there is a big battle for years by phil and others to try to get the government to relax these rules. to allow locals to gamble. it looks like that may be on the verge of happening. it is unclear whether the project will get a license to allow it. oliver: refugees, immigrants, and ex-pats make scapegoats for some politicians, but in the case of western union, they are the ultimate market opportunity. drake: it would be interesting to write about a company that is about moving money and people across borders. it has been for a long time, at a moment when both of those things are politically controversial. there has been a huge populace

backlash against immigrants. and the idea that they are taking money and sending it somewhere else. oliver: let's start with western union. this is a focus of the story. what exactly does western union do for this particular set of people? drake: it is a huge financial lifeline for people who go abroad looking for work and for the families back home they are sending money to. they are in every country in the world except north korea and iran. they have been going after a double belonger population. it is all over the place. it started with the u.s. mexico core door -- corridor, and at this point, it is all over the place. oliver: these are people who have homes in two places? drake: exactly. people who have allegiances to a home country and the new place they have gone too.

oliver: you focus on greece. give us an example. what actually the process is like when somebody arrives off a boat. they get to the country and the first thing they need is money, right? drake: it is incredibly easy. basically, you'd show up and you need a code someone will send you. we talk about wiring money. the money actually does not go anywhere. what happens in transfers is that someone goes to a counter, puts cash on the counter, gets a code, send that go to a relative, and they go to a western union location anywhere in the world and get the corresponding some back minus fees. it is easy. you don't need a bank account. oliver: how a health insurance startup plans to survive. a moscow billionaire challenges silicon valley titans.

this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm oliver renick. you can also catch us online and download our app. in the business section, health insurance startup oscar finds out the hard way it takes more than a founder named kushner to succeed in the trump era. here is our reporter. >> josh kushner is the younger liberal brother to jared kushner. he is married to a supermodel. the company is interesting. it was founded in the idealistic idea of obamacare. it was created to sell obamacare plans by josh kushner. it is an insurance company.

it's all about tech savvy. you are going to book an appointment through an iphone app, text with a nurse, talk to a doctor. they raised almost $750 million from big investors and the kushner family. the demand for a obamacare plans has not been what people expected. that put the company in a difficult position. the election of donald trump makes things crazy. oliver: i remember this company. anybody who rode in new york subway saw their ads everywhere. there has been a fall from grace here. what do they need to do to make this work with obamacare potentially undergoing major changes and potentially a repeal? is it dependent on obamacare?

>> what i learned is it is hard to start an insurance company. now that i think about it, it make sense. if you do not have many members, it makes it hard to negotiate with providers. insurance companies make money by going to a hospital and get a good deal a lot of them. oscar was not able to do that. enrollments were not high. they were losing money. the thing that is interesting here is what oscar is banking on is that trumpcare and obamacare won't look all that different. there are differences, but the basic structure obamacare created is that you have insurance exchanges, something pushing people to buy insurance on the open market. that is probably going to stay the same.

oscar is banking on if they can survive the next year or two, they will be in good shape. was the news we reported in the magazine. they formed a partnership with the clinic. oliver: travis kalanick is taking a leave of absence. i talked to a reporter about the company without a leader. eric: three big things of happened this week. ceo travis kalanick said he would take a leave of absence. he said that right before the meeting where board members presented to uber employees the results of the former u.s. attorney general's investigation into uber about its culture, discrimination, a range of issues. during that meeting, one of the board members responded to ariana huffington by saying the addition of a female board member would mean more talking. was pretty clearly a sexist remark. he has now stepped off the board the same day.

it has been a crazy run of news. oliver: who is running the show right now? eric: that is the question i am asking. the hope is to hire a chief operating officer. that was one of the key recommendations in the holder report. right now, they do not have that position or a chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, general counsel. i think i'm forgetting one other. there are a lot of positions open. travis is taking leave. it is a management committee. they are people like rachel holt and andrew mcdonnell -- rachel runs the u.s. and canada, mcdonald runs latin america, india. they are running these big regions and overseeing them.

there are other people doing product. it is more of a committee where they are gathering everyone together with hopefully the guidance from francis, who is now the senior vice president for leadership and strategy who came from harvard. she helped them change their culture. the hope is she can help the executives. i can't tell if they are going to vote or if there is a consensus type of leadership. it is going to be leadership by committee until they can find a coo. oliver: you have to wonder what the straw was that broke the camel's back. do we know? eric: the report is pretty clear in trying to find other people to turn the company around. it is coupled with a lot of the scandal overall. travis has been tied to this indian rape case.

a lot of the scandals he has been tied to. at the same time, his mother and father were involved in a tragic boating accident. his mother died. the funeral was on friday. he's in a state of mourning. oliver: a software company is a hit in russia. now, it is catching the eye of silicon valley. here's editor jeff mosca's. you have an interesting story about a russian businessman whose product has gotten a second life. tell us about boris. jeff: he runs a company that has, over the last decade or so of its 27 year existence, come to dominate russian business software markets. well market researcher idc would put it second in terms of revenue in the country, at about a third of the market. as the clear winner in terms of installation base. they've got about 5 million russians using the software for things as varied as payroll, accounting, financial planning.

>> you talk about this space. software services, so on. those of the company to talk about automatically. this guy is a big player. jeff: in russia, yes. the competitive advantage is he is so aggressive about keeping pace with changes in the market, particularly going so far as to hold regular seminars to update clients on changes in russian regulatory laws. >> that gives him an advantage. oliver: why you should try the high risk world of free diving. ♪ ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek."

i'm oliver renick. you can also catch us on the radio. a.m. 1200 in boston, a.m. 960 in the bay area. in london on dab and ux three and asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. a look inside the world of free diving. where holding your breath becomes a competitive sport. we sat down with editor and -- emma rosenblum. >> so great to have this in the magazine. tell us about pursuit. emma: we scour the globe to bring readers the best travel, food, cars, shopping. we do that by testing the things out and using our intelligence to tell you what to buy. >> it is cool stuff. oliver: you are ticking off a few of those big boxes this week. travel and experience is how i would describe free diving. this is pretty wild stuff. tell us about this.

emma: this is our sports category. we sent a writer to a free diving course in egypt. free diving, if you don't know what it is, is when you take a breath that the service, shimmy down a rope down into the sea and hold your breath and go down as far as you can. it is this up-and-coming extreme sport. more and more people are doing. it is crazy. >> how to patrick scott do? emma: he did pretty well. he stayed down for over two minutes and 30 seconds. if you start this with no experience, you cannot even do a minute. if you were to just try it on your own. this was after he learned how to relax his body so much he is able to fight the urge to come up as soon as possible, which is human instinct. it's not to drown. oliver: i can't get past the deep end of the pool. [laughter] he was there for a week, right? he was preparing for this. he's changing the way he thinks and the way he breathes.

it is interesting how you talk about the yoga mindset is akin to what they have to do. emma: it is about relaxing your body using meditation to resist that mammalian dive reflex, when your body says get up there now are you are going to pass out and breathe in water. they use different techniques where they wait themselves. they use wetsuits so it is easier. there are competitions around the world for people into it. people can stay down for five minutes at a time. >> there is a big community. i didn't realize how much. is it expensive? emma: it is not as expensive as scuba diving, because you don't need the equivalent. -- equipment. there are different locations that are good for this. the best one is in the bahamas. the one in egypt is popular with people from london and moscow. there's a direct flight down there. the hotels are pretty cheap. everything is pretty inexpensive, because it is only you when the water. oliver: pursuits is more than a section in bloomberg

businessweek. go online for more stories. i spoke about why now is the perfect time to plan a roman holiday. >> pursuits is a daily website. all of the travel, food, we are doing everyday online. it's a lot of stuff to read, a lot of of stuff for you to go see, read, drink, eat, buy. oliver: not for all of us, but is nice to dream sometime. let's talk about one story in particular. you are breaking down where to go in italy. it looks like it might be cheaper than usual right now. chris: it is always a good time to go to italy, especially the summer and fall. norwegian air announced they are starting on hundred $89 flights, -- $189 flights, which is hundreds of dollars cheaper than usual. they will offer cheaper flights from l.a., oakland, and singapore.

other parts of the world. italy is hot right now. oliver: what is the initiative? chris: they are opening new flights and entering new markets they weren't before. they want to get attention for the new routes they have. the other reason we are excited about italy is there are new hotels that have been renovated. old hotels, new renovations. big grand classic italian hotels that are now totally up-to-date. oliver: i thought you went to italy to get the historic, not necessarily the most modern. we are to go and find a quaint place, but now we will go and these hotels are nice and fancy. that's what it seems like. chris: they are walking that line between you want the classic italian food, flavor, architecture, hospitality, but you also want the fancy bath products, comfortable bed. a classic example is a hotel in

venice that is more than 400 years old. it's an original palazzo, it has the original floors and the original frescoes. it is also a fancy place to stay. it has modern amenities. oliver: how much is it? chris: that is $800 a night. oliver: you are saving on the flight, splurge on the hotel. "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands now and online and on the mobile app. more bloomberg television starts now. ♪ ♪

ramy: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. markets brace for policy decisions from central banks. the surprises are not in what they do, but how they do it. >> it glossed over both of those readings. >> i was expecting a 7-1 vote, so this is clearly a hawkish surprise. >> another hearing raises hackles on capitol hill. ge and uber announces changes in c-suite, and china's economic exert may be getting cheerier. >> we see the chinese government providing some support through fiscal policy and the way the credit policy is being managed. ramy: exclusive insight into where he is stee