♪ emily: i am emily chang. this is "best of bloomberg technology." we bring you all of our top interviews from the week in tech. why amazon is teaming up to improve its voice activated virtual assistant. we will speak with the creator of alexa. a wide-ranging interview with the former ceo of microsoft, steve ballmer. ceo ofwill hear from the

starbucks to hear how the company adapts in the age of technology. this week we took bloomberg technology to seattle for the geek wire summit. we spent time with the biggest names in the region including amazon, microsoft, and starbucks. let's kick it off now with my exclusive interview with amazon vice president of alexa devices. she tells us that they would not rule out partnerships with major rivals like apple and google if it means improving their voice activated technology. >> i am focused on trying to reduce friction for customers and drive towards what we call our customer experience north star. really the idea there is that alexa is more humanlike. it is more conversational. weekend shorten the path from where the customer is starting and where they want to be with less and less work on their part.

emily: will alexa be responding "uh-huh's" like in the snl skit? >> something like that, yes. emily: when it comes to understanding human language, whether it is an adult talking or a child talking, are we there when it comes to how much improvement can be made? >> we are definitely not there. it is day one, super early stages. machine learning, artificial intelligence, i think we will see a lot of improvement over the next few years. emily: how so? >> i think the technology is there. having, ourselves included, but developers able to build features in the cloud which will allow for a lot of computer

power, and i think you will see a ton of innovation out of that. emily: what is missing from alexa? >> i think part of it is that northstar human conversational behavior. alexa and the skills we had today are great at reducing friction and making the customer experience very delightful, but we still have a long ways to go to make it an even more robust experience. emily: you recently partnered with one of your biggest rivals microsoft and cortana. what do you see customers using cortana that they are not getting out of alexa? is it office and email? >> it is definitely in the space of productivity. we see this world where there will be multiple ai's. ai'sill have a eyes -- that are expert in different domains. it is kind of like the internet in a way. customers will be able to search

out an expert in a particular space, and then you will have a group of ai's who could handle your question. emily: do you see more partnering with other rivals like google in the future? >> why not. emily: how do you make those calculations? >> for us, it is very customer focused. we are super passionate about the customer first approach.cal? we work backwards from that. if we believe it will benefit customers and improve the experience, then we will work towards it. emily: is alexa at the center of a network of home devices, or is it the center device in the home? >> we see alexa being an ambient experience in the home. you know, customers can invoke this experience wherever they are. we also see that going outside the house. we have announced partnerships with automobile manufacturers, so that alexa can be embedded in

some of the cars. bmw is one of those. we also have partnerships for when you are traveling on business and you are checking into a hotel you can experience alexa there. so we see this going beyond the home as well. emily: do you see home security as an area of interest? >> potentially. emily: what do you mean by going beyond the home? >> more like the autoor hotel rooms. emily: amazon got a jump on the market, but now other competitors are there. what are you doing to stay ahead? is there anything that you see your rivals doing that is impressive? >> i am impressed with a lot of the innovation happening in this space. we are super focused on building new features and experiences for our customers. we stay very focused on that. we think that, in the end, the customers will win. emily: still with amazon, we

spoke with the president of the web services division who says that the shift to the cloud is just beginning. shares surged as sales rose to more than $4 billion. i spoke exclusively with amazon web services ceo and asked about amazon's explosion in the cloud. did it even surpassed his wildest excitations? >> it has certainly grown very fast, and i do not think any of us had the audacity to realize -- predict it would grow as fast as it has. amazon, which is a very strong technology company, we have a lot of internal development teams that wanted help moving faster and more quickly in building their technology platform. the fact that amazon wanted this made us think third parties would want it. so, i do not think we would have predicted that it would be $850

million revenue business growing a little over 40% year over year. i do not think we would have predicted that we would have as that several times the business as the next several providers combined or that we would get a six year head start. emily: of course, your competitors want this, too. how do you make sure that amazon stays in the lead position? >> it is not a surprise to us that competitors are trying to build what amazon has. it is such a great value proposition for customers, and that is why it is being adopted so fast. others will want to participate. i think there are some real differences between the platforms today. the first thing is aws has a lot more functionality than anyone else. we are also iterating at a faster clip. that gap in capability continues to extent. i think there are also different ecosystems around these platforms. it is not just that thousands of system integrators that have

built practices around aws, but most isps will build their infrastructure around particular one infrastructure platform. some will do two, and only a few will do three. and they all start with aws. i think the maturity of the platforms are in very different places. we have an expression we use internally that says there is no compression algorithm when it comes to experience. you just cannot learn certain lessons until it comes to the scale. many have just not learned the lessons yet, so you see that in a variety of infestations. emily: you just added ge as a customer while at the same time losing spotify. tell us about the lengths you are going to to keep and maintain your customers. >> we have millions of active customers. we think of our customers as a non-amazon entity which uses our platform over the past three

-- 30 days. they really span the gamut. most of the successful startups have built their businesses completely from scratch on top aws. these are companies like pinterest, airbnb, slack. over the last few years, the adoption has really increased with the cloud and aws. you see every meaningful vertical business segment using aws. if you're talking about oil and , and financial services capital one, in manufacturing you have ge. they have been using aws for a long time. they are moving 9000 applications to aws. technology, netflix runs everything on top of aws even though we compete with them in our video business. in the public sector, we have

3000 government agencies worldwide using aws. we just have a lot more customers in every imaginable segment than you will find elsewhere. emily: that was president of amazon's web services. coming up, we have more from our coverage of the geek wire summit. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: qualcomm was accused of -- find a record seven and $17 million -- $717 million this week. qualcomm was accused of violating antitrust rules in taiwan and collecting licensing fees from local companies at that time. qualcomm disagreed with the decision and intends on

appealing. we have more from our geek wire summit in washington state. i sat down with brad smith to talk about microsoft's impact in seattle and started by asking about microsoft's reaction to president trump's stance on immigration. >> daca is an issue we believe is important for the country and to our business. in our industry, we critically depend on having the best and brightest. many of the best and brightest are among these 800,000 people registered under daca. if the government seeks to support any of our employees any , of the 44 microsoft employees who are daca recipients, we are handsing to sit on our and watch. we are going to help them get legal counsel. we will be by their side. we want our employees to know that we have their back.

emily: microsoft has a history of challenging the administration where you believe it is warranted. >> we have a history of working with and challenging every administration. we sued the executive branch for times when president obama was heading it. in part we are continuing some of the debates that started in the last administration around privacy and protection of customers. certainly immigration is a new and challenging issue this year. we stepped forward in the wake of the travel ban, and we step forward again in the context of daca. we believe we need an immigration system which is in force and balanced, that we also benefit -- balanced, but we also benefit in this country when some of the best and brightest in the world, and work by our side.

emily: are you concerned about any sort of retaliation or blowback the federal government? >> the good news, in our perspective, if we are principled and explain things clearly -- we never make things personal. we stood up strongly for daca. i went to a virginia school with with ivanka trump to stand up for technology. our view is simple. we will stand up where we can instead of our there we should. emily: what do you have to add? >> i really have nothing to add. this is an important issue, and microsoft is always very principled in their actions. emily: we were talking about fake news early in the show. facebook, google, twitter, all were called before congress to answer for these russian political ads. are you looking at microsoft whether russia did anything similar on microsoft's platforms? >> we are looking, but we have not found anything yet.

i think we need to do two things. first, we need to look at 2016 and ask what we can learn from this. it doesn't matter whether you are twitter, facebook, anyone else. the more you learn, the better you will be. the question we should focus on is not what happened in 2016, but how do we prepare for 2018? how do we prepare around the world? there will be a new prime minister elected in 2019 in canada. there will be a presidential race in the united states in 2020. let's assume that there are people who are going to get more sophisticated in trying to abuse these social media platforms. they are going to get more sophisticated on these cyberattacks against political candidates. how do we get better as a tech sector and to get government to work together to use their voices to say that this is an attack on democracy and it needs to stop. emily: do you think we can trust

microsoft to take on these issues? >> as a lawyer, i think we are going to need some congressional action here. >> i would agree with that. we need to accept once again that, as an industry, we have a high responsibility. we might even have the first responsibility, but it would be a great mistake to think that these fundamental, frankly illegal acts under international law or something that the tech sector can defeat by themselves. it is like seeing people looting a store and telling the store owner to just put better locks on their doors. we need the governments of the world to rally. this is an attack on our democracy, the democratic infrastructure of our country. the government needs to come together, and the governments of the world need to come together. emily: i believe i heard earlier that these tech companies were willfully ignorant in this

regard. do you think so? >> i do not think so. the truth is that these platforms are large. there are so many different people using them, and there are some any different types of ads being purchased that i don't think it has occurred to anyone in the tech sector, the government, or the media to ask are there people from a foreign government buying ads. if it did not occur to anybody at bloomberg, i bet it did not occur to us either. emily: they did say that they started looking into it in june which was several months before the election, but, at that point, they say they did not understand the scale. >> it is kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack. if you look at all the ads purchased on a social media site, it is quite a big haystack. you do get better at finding needles once you learn how to look for them, and i think as an industry we are starting to

discern that. i will continue to be the voice to say we need to do more, we need to look better, and we need to look ahead, because those attacks are going to get more sophisticated. let's not assume the government should do nothing here. emily: europe is considering more regulation. it could be coming in the united states. are you concerned about more regulation coming for tech companies? are you bracing yourself? >> i worry less about more regulation than i do about less thoughtful regulation. i think there is a place in the world for good regulation. the whole industry is focused on may 25, 2018, which is the date next year in europe when the so-called general data protection regulations take effect. there will be stronger privacy protections. i think that is good for people around the world. anytime it is good for people around the world, that is not

bad for technology. it gives us more legal clarity. if we can get good regulations, we figure out how to manage them. >> when i moved here, microsoft was 12 people in albuquerque. there was not a lot of technology here. times have changed. you have become the 100 technology company to open an engineering center in the seattle area. you have obviously played a role in encouraging people to be here. talk about the competition here. >> i think seattle is the cloud capital of the world. it is definitely cloudy in the weather, but it really is between amazon, microsoft, and all these other companies. you will find an extremely fervent environment for creativity and engineering. i think as we continue to grow, and as you mentioned, i was happy to encourage the people of

baidu, we have some great relationships from microsoft, in part it is personal, and i think as the world comes to seattle, we will have new opportunities to play a leadership role in the world. emily: amazon is your biggest rival, so to speak, and especially in the cloud. >> yes. and that is great. we are in an incredibly competitive industry. the truth is that we have some of the best competitors in the world. if you want to look at competitors doing great work, all you have got to do is look at amazon and google and facebook and apple. we also work with each other apropos your point of corroboration -- cooperation. we do need to collaborate on problems like cybersecurity attacks. at the end of the day, if more people have confidence in the cloud, if we can move the frontier of artificial intelligence forward -- this is

a big world, and there is room for all of us to be successful. emily: on tax reform, you might be more in line. what are your thoughts on progressive tax reform? >> i think we need tax reform. we have needed tax reform for a couple of decades now. it is overdue. we want to see a territorial system which is like what the rest of the world has. let's get rid of the system we have today which creates incentives for us to keep profits offshore. let's figure out how to get money back into the united states and put it to work in the united states, and let's bring our tax system into between -- into the century. that was brad smith, microsoft president and -- university of washington professor. coming up, a discussion on president trump's stance on trade. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: chinese web search giant new -- bypening creating a new base in seattle to develop ai technology. we spoke with mr. zhang about president trump and his dance on stance on china. >> china is becoming more open than ever before. the technology industry is growing phenomenally. emily: is that the case? when i was in china, facebook and google were allowed, but then they all got shut down. >> one thing is obviously there is a lot of momentum in china for the internet industry, but it is also hugely competitive.

look at the search space. there are more search companies in china than in the u.s. in the u.s. you have google and bing. in china, tencent, alibaba, they all have search technology. you also have half a dozen other companies doing search. every day there are new technologies that compete with us in search. the whole competition is scorching, it is fierce. i think it is a good thing. it will make us more constructive and innovative. emily: how would you characterize the health of the chinese economy? particularly the pileup of debt? do you see a big risk? >> over all, the chinese economy is very resilient. the 6.9% growth in the gdp is such a large pace, it is amazing. overall, i don't see systematic risk. there might be things here or

there that need to be fixed, but overall i am very confident. i'm not an economist. for the people i've talked with, overall things are quite healthy. emily: are you concerned about president trump cracking down on free trade? >> that is that. america benefits from the openness and talent flow. any protectionism would be bad for the u.s. emily: coming up, steve ballmer speaks out. our exclusive interview with the l.a. clippers owner and former microsoft ceo. he takes on tax reform and the notion of fake news next. a reminder, all episodes of bloomberg technology are live streaming on twitter. check us out with days. this is bloomberg. ♪ who knew that phones would start doing everything?

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♪ emily: welcome back to the best of bloomberg technology. i'm emily chang. sheryl sandberg spoke out for the first time when reports emerged that russian actors purchased at to target voters during the 2016 election. she admitted the platform should apologize to the american people, and determine to fight with a new kind of threat. >> will give them the material they want. we want to give them the material. they want the picture to be understood. we don't want this kind of foreign interference. none of us should want this kind of foreign interference. we will all have to cooperate. emily: facebook is turned over

more than 3000 ads to a house and senate committee. twitter will join facebook and twitter on capitol hill next month. steve ballmer says tech companies can't do more at present to police the spread of fake news. i spoke done with the l.a. clippers owner in seattle and spoke with him about the government data website called usa fax. -- facts. >> we lost our platform with data from the government about the government. no fake news, no alternate fax. -- facts. we keep the information current. the real thing we are doing at usafacts.org, is we are trying to help citizens run through topics of the day. we have a walk-through right now double locking to the president's budget in the context of what has happened historically. gdp, tax revenue, the deficit and how does all of that

compared to cbo. we make no predictions. we make sure people can walk through and look at these government proposals in the context of the facts. and then deal with a say does this make sense or not? we have a little video that will explain the citizens this is kind of the data and the way to think about it by the numbers. how do you think about the budget proposal. emily: i know you know these facts better than almost anyone as our lawmakers and the president talk about tax reform and health care. do you have any advice? steve: these things are holistic issues. we look at tax reform, we look at the budget and we look at health care. when you look at the economics of these three things, they are just like this. what is it me to have a budget without tax reform? that is our process. i'm not condemning anybody but it is kind of 90. yet to have a tax plan to have a budget.

it's like an expense plan without a revenue plan. it does not make sense. one of the biggest pieces of expenses is health care. how do these things -- to understand how they mesh together would be a key piece of toice i would certainly give decision-makers, legislators and executives. emily: this is an age of misinformation and fake news. how big a problem is that and what is the responsibility of these platforms? facebook, google, twitter/ ? steve: this notion of people able to the fed whatever is going to make them feel good, because that is what people are doing. people want to feed whatever instincts are. the goal has to be to say you can see it anyway you want to, but someplace you have to be able to take a look at stuff objectively. i'm not sure you can say that is facebook's job. they are not in the news business. they pass on other people' news. that is part of the issue.

things can look authentic. we did a poll. when surveyed people would say, i find my information most often on social media and i trusted the least. emily: do you think facebook and google and twitter should be policing this more? steve: they can't. it's not in the nature of what going on. over time there needs to be something the equivalent of authenticated user on twitter, for you get a little bullet that says you really are for you say you are. i think it would be nice to have authenticated sources so people can say i really want to see not just what the crowd is saying, but i want to hear from some authentic sources. emily: what if that information is coming from our own president? is it a problem for he is the one spreading misinformation? steve: no. we elected the president. the country as a whole. he is our president and chief.

i know there are people who have problems with that and people who are supportive of that, but at least when the president speaks he is speaking authentically for himself. in a sense that is a set of facts. what a major policy leader speaks you can say it is true, it is not, you like what he says, you don't, but that is what he is thinking. and every voter probably benefits from the ability to hear directly, just as we hear directly from other people. i get a chance to speak directly on the internet. lebron james gets a chance to speak directly on the internet. not everybody wants to hear what people say to one another. they don't always agree. certainly we have seen that with lebron james and the president. emily: there are some say the president is taking it to another level, perhaps inciting nuclear war on twitter. should he be kicked off twitter? should he be allowed to make these statements on twitter? steve: everybody has the right

to speak for themselves. that includes the president of the united states. everybody has the right to speak for themselves. that is in the fundamental nature of this country. i think it is an important one. i think the citizens have an obligation to elect people who they think will best represent their interests. that gets a chance to get battle tested every two years, every four years. i love our system. people have to constantly prove themselves. if people are doing things that are not valued, that will come across. if people are doing things that are valued. the way our system works it does not take 100% to win. it takes logically 51%. electoral college, that is not really what it is. it takes logically 51% to win and people have a right to hear directly as they go cast their ballots. emily: you read microsoft are

many years. you dealt with immigration. do you have concerns about the stance the president is taking on things like daca? steve: immigration is a super important thing. my dad was an immigrant. my grandparents on the other side were immigrants. i value the fact that immigrants commended this country. i think it is usually important -- hugely important. it remains important. it remains important in terms of high-tech workers coming into the country. it remains important for people moving back and forth across our southern border. they are complicated issues. there are issues of national security, but also issues of economy and fundamental humanity. i do think it is important to look at all those things. including humanity as we address the point of daca. --ly: during her of anything

during our lengthy conversation i talked about sasha dela taking over as microsoft had in 2014. good, he recognizes the the things that need to be changed. has navigated a very well. from my perspective we knew we needed to get into the cloud. i got that started. he has taken it to another level and i respect the fact he had to do things differently. i knew things would have to be done differently in that area as far as the reason it was a good time for change. hardware is a whole different deal. he has pushed that along with xbox and surface and i respect that things needed to be done differently. overtime things need to be shaken up and freshened. if i had been a microsoft the itle time, he reflected -- reflected my personality and

bill's personality. like children thinks you to keep growing. children areen our growing up and making their own way. i revel that he is taking microsoft to its next level, going forth in different ways. -- azure is is the moving along. do you want more, better, faster? steve: i do. absolutely. [laughter] as an investor on the quarterly call, come on, let's keep it moving. let's keep it moving. emily: are you listening in on all the calls? steve: i do a quarterly call with the cfo. i hate microsoft has done a pretty phenomenal job, particularly on the office side. but also on the azure side.

is there a lot of room for improvement, because the market leader on the azure side is pretty daman -- damn big. a better attachment and ability to sell to other development companies. developers, developers, developers. with azure you have to win the developers. microsoft still has a lot more to do. emily: you said you were done being an investor. is that the case? steve: i'm not making "new investments." emily: mutual funds, microsoft and twitter? steve: index funds. that everything pegged to the market. i have a couple of small, private things that i don't do much of. i have a basketball-based investment. i have one investment with a couple of friends. that's it. emily: there's a debate about the future of a.i. and if it is

dangerous or not. elon musk things robots can supersede the human race. mark zuckerberg said that is a responsible to talk like that. what do you think? it is i think effervescent of the tech community. let's say something extreme. a.i.you get down to it, is important? yes. do we know all of what we will accomplish today? no. but getting computers to be smarter at helping people do what they want to do every day, that part can't be bad. i'm sure there is a place in time where we can speculate about all the tough societal issues, but we are years away from that. elon musk, of course what he says in the long run could be right, with the long run could

be a long, long run. ready andberg is and right to talk about that. right now put some of that clutter out of your mind. artificial intelligence stuff will make a big difference. emily: and right to talk about that. you think it is possible the human race could become extinct? steve: no, the human race is not going to become extinct. but how powerful will be computers' ability to reason and will with a fully mean, we don't know. we will not deal with that problem for 20 years. , kelly clippers owner at former ceo john mack are soft. richard branson has joined the board of the renate virgin hyperloop one. they aim to raise $200 million for the futuristic transportation that elon musk first theorized in 2013. after visiting the test site, france and is convinced that

technology will dramatically change travel. coming up, another exclusive interview from seattle. this eeo of starbucks kevin johnson. we will find out for the coffee giant sees its biggest market for growth. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: tim cook met with emmanuel macron in paris this week. that meeting came amid calls by france and other european nations for an aggressive overhaul about tech companies pay taxes. last week amazon was slapped with an order to pay $294 billion plus interest in back taxes -- $294 million plus interest in back taxes and luxembourg. seattle is known for its coffee and starbucks reigns supreme. after opening its first store 26 years ago. i caught up with kevin johnson

and started by asking about the difference between his leadership style and that of his predecessor and founder howard schultz. kevin: howard is an iconic merchant and founder. in many ways he has got years of intuition and i would characterize howard as a much more spontaneous, intuitive leader. with my background in tech and digital i am much more thinking informsing data to help me of decisions and being more intentional about what we do. worked.nd of the day we together for a long time i value his creativity and point of view. i think i bring unique things to the table that will help us as a company as we make this transition into the future. emily: i interviewed you as a tech company ceo at juniper. how would you change the coffee company? kevin: the tech industry and a copy industry certainly have two different business models, that

they have a lot in common. tech industry and coffee, we have to innovate to stay relevant in our sectors. if you think about starbucks innovation, we have innovation that starts with all things coffee. if you get to the roastery up the street you can experience new coffees, weather is is draft micro cold brew. we innovate in our store design, in our digital and mobile connection with customers, we innovate around partner benefits and the social impact agenda. emily: how is how i get my copy going to be different in one or five years? to investwe continue in elevating the experience we create in our stores around a wide range of averages, much of that is focusing on the need of convenience and for data connection. i know you are a busy person. you want these mobile order pay to order your copy and have it ready when you arrive.

other times he want to go to starbucks with your family and you want to down and share your beverages and have a conversation with people. we will continue to build stores, continue to elevate the experience. we will bring new beverages and food items to our stores. runy: what if you have to into a traffic jam when you get there to pick it up? kevin: we have a new technology called the digital order manager. when somebody orders and a beverage an food is ready, they get a digital notification. we are doing more with customers. emily: starbucks has taken a stand on some political and social issues. the planned a higher refugees for example. you got pushback from conservative shareholders. have you navigate that? kevin: often times people misinterpret things we are doing as a political statement. we have an entire pillar of our social impact agenda around opportunity.

that opportunity started with the work we are doing to hire veterans. recall we said we would hire 10,000 veterans and thousands. we have upped their commitment to 20,000 by the year 2020. we identify the fact there are over 6 million young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school and not at work. where hed opportunity first committed to hire 40,000 young people. we are now hiring 100,000. the refugee fortune is consistent with that. that was our first global initiative given the fact that our refugees in europe and around the world that we felt like we could play a role in helping those communities, give us people jobs and opportunities. this is core to who we are. it is not about making a political statement. emily: you get pushback from the board on this? kevin: the board is heavily involved. we work tongs we do,

make sure they are consistent with our mission. they are not politically driven things we're trying to do. the fact is we hire military veterans. they have made our company better. the young people we have hired have been fantastic partners in our stores and make our company better. much of this is core to who we are and get the talent we need. emily: you are getting pushback over paid leave policy. 18 weeks for moms a corporate headquarters. 16 weeks for mom's in the stores. have you -- six weeks for moms in the stores. kevin: we offer the best in class parental leave in our stores compared to anyone else in the industry. every year we take feedback from our partners on what is important to them. for our partners in the stores, what is important is the increase in wage. we made significant increase in wage for those partners in the stores. we invested over $250 million in

wage increase for our partners, trying to do the right thing for them. it is a journey. we continue to listen to partners and try to do what we think is right to help them in their unique situations. emily: check us out on the radio. you can listen on the bloomberg radio app, bloomberg.com, and on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: cities are ramping up their campaign to secure the location for amazon's second

headquarters with initial bids due in october 19. washington governor knows about what it takes to keep tech firms happy in his state. he spoke with bloomberg's given lots about amazon search and how washington lloris tech talent to the state -- lures tech talent to the state. >> this is part of their incredible success. they are growing faster than maybe any other operation of world history. they are still adding another 6000 jobs in seattle. hundreds of thousands of square feet. the growth will continue in washington state. this is a signal other aspirations and additions and growth curve. sure if he is an issue -- geography is an issue. is not a shock to us that they would be willing to look at other options, that are stable suggest some locations for them and they will be some proposals from a variety of communities around our state in the event

they really do see washington as a potential option. one way or another they will grow in our state. is the perfect place for them. some proof of that is her success to date. we are glad they are succeeding. kate: when you look at the growth year and what is to come, is their advice or things you would share with other governors as they look to how to manage or to attract such a large and successful company? gov. inslee: i think we have a strategy for technological growth in our state which is succeeding not just for amazon, but with google and facebook and expedia and microsoft. we have a host of companies that have had rapid expansion. that is several pillars of our strategy. the most important is the development of intellectual talent. we know the number one recruitment tool is intellectual talent, to make it available and help it grow.

that is why we have been focused on growing our computer science programs at our university, graduation rate in our schools. secondly, having an open door welcoming approach to welcome talent to our community. this is kind of a secret sauce that we have welcomed smart people from other states and other countries to be able to help to build these companies. that has been very attractive to develop the nucleus of an ecosystem which they continues to build once he hit critical mass of intellectual talent, which we clearly are. we have learned these companies and industries cross pollinate. computer scientists might be working in the aerospace industry one year, working in the biomedical industry the next. we have a critical mass and it continues to feed on itself to grow these businesses. we also have some smart approaches about policies. we have a light touch from a regulatory standpoint.

it is what we have almost two dozen companies that are working on autonomous vehicles right now, because we had a welcoming for -- welcoming approach. they can grow their new technologies on this new revolutionary straightforward and our transportation sector. we also have a perfect place to live and enjoy life. we are now in a recruiting battle. there is no better place to recruit talent than someone that can come to washington and ski and sail, on the same day enjoy clean air and clean water and a cosmopolitan culture that embraces all kinds of foods and music from around the world. is a great place to recruit a 23-year-old computer scientist. that is one of her secrets of success. emily: that doesn't for this edition of the best of bloomberg technology. we will bring you all the best in tech throughout the week. to noon each day.

all episodes of bloomberg technology or live streaming on twitter. check us out at bloomberg tech tv. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ is this a phone?

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♪ michael: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. daily drama in a d.c. twitter, taxes, trade, and turkey. just some of the trending topics. >> you play this forward and terms of tax reform every vote , counts. >> it looks almost like a strategy the trump administration has put a kibosh. >> a is a slow but systematic attempt to remove the nuts and bolts of the affordable care act. >> earnings season begins with a bang, with big banks reporting. the crisis in catalonia continues. >> for 10 seconds catalonia was an independent republic. >>