save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. washington. you are watching bloomberg technology. congressional members from both sides of the aisle will meet with president trump to head off the looming government shutdown. funding ends december 8 and with congress so focused on the tax bill, little work has been done on issues surrounding funding. three military personnel that traveled with president trump to asia have reportedly been reassigned from their jobs. the washington post says they had improper contact with foreign women during the vietnam leg of the trip. it work for the white house communications agency.

the white house is disputing a claim from a democratic senator that trump economic advisor gary cohn fake a bad reception to get off the phone with the president. tom carper says he was in a meeting with cohn when it happened. the white house says the story is completely false. a former bosnian serb general rajko melodic was convicted for his actions during the war of the 1990's. he was ejected from the courtroom when he said everything they say is a lie. he was sentenced to prison. you are watching bloomberg technology. this is bloomberg. i'm alisa parenti. ♪

emily: this is bloomberg technology. our continued coverage of uber, the company concealing a massive data breach. after delete the information and keep quiet. how this can impact efforts around the world. russian election meddling on social media. one of facebook's earliest investors sells off all of his remaining shares. why he is selling now. uber has been racing from one disaster to the next leading to boycotts, lawsuits, criminal probes, and executive decisions. the ceo was supposed to mark the beginning of a new chapter. he continues funding more horrors at every turn. yesterday, we broke news that uber concealed a massive cyber attack that exposed personal data on 57 million customers and drivers globally.

bloomberg's businessweek's matt, and we have agencies around the world launching investigations into this? >> three in europe, and eric snyderman is on this. we will continue to see more states get in on this. it seems to be regulated at the state level. and they say they should've disclosed this breach. it seems pretty clear they did something wrong. emily: the interesting thing is that they paid the hackers to cover it up and seems to imply we could take hackers at their word. max: it is pretty insane when you look at it. i'm not really sure what else you would call it. the idea that you can take these hackers, clearly not necessarily

trustworthy people, and try to get them to sign something or get them to promise or swear that they will not give away the data. and thinking that's enough, not to tell your customers, that's really troubling. it raises questions about how hard it is for uber to clean up. when we step back and look at the data breaches we have had over the past year, it is just very concerning just from a consumer perspective. emily: it's not like these are young kids and this was their first rodeo. the chief security officer that was fired was chief security officer at facebook for five years. ellen: when i talked to security experts yesterday, they expressed the same thing. it seems like that after this speech was discovered, uber

tried to package the $100,000 payment on a more above bounty program. julie: and above bounty program is when the company pays outsiders to find flaws in their system. and rewards them. max: it usually happens ellen: it usually happens in that order instead, of the other way around where they say, pay us or we will do bad things with the information. julie: softbank is poised to invest $10 billion in uber. you wonder if they can lower the price of the share that softbank is willing to pay. max: what is going on now, there is the one billion-dollar investment. and there is a negotiation with $9 billion worth of shares.

they are looking for a discount on that valuation. this is yet another brand problem. another instance in which the company looks less than trustworthy. data breaches, especially when talking about a company like uber that knows where you live, where you are going, who you're going with -- as well as, trustworthy. typical stuff like contact information. that is a lot of information. with other rivals outside the u.s., it is part of a toxic stew they've had to confront. julie: in this particular hack, they say they did not get credit

cards or trip history data. but at this point, it's difficult to take uber at its word. are there other skeletons in the closet? ellen: that is probably the question they are asking themselves. what else is there to find now that i've taken over leadership of this company? you have the ghost of travis kalanick and the culture he built have repercussions. julie: he's still on the board. ellen: he continues to be a big presence at the company. something that investors and people watching the company have concerns about. it's not just another data point in that column. julie: they've had their license revoked? and multiple u.k. agencies looking into this? max: as we learn, one uber mistake in a jurisdiction will reverberate around the world. it makes it that much harder to negotiate for the municipalities.

each market is its own thing. politicians are obviously looking to protect customers, looking to attract attention. i think this makes the london negotiation harder. it makes negotiations in places like brazil that much harder. julie: he's apologized and said i can't make any lies for this, we are changing the way we do business. at what point do these kinds of surprises stop happening? ellen: the statement is made multiple times since he has taken over. in ways uber has function for the first seven years, continuing to complicate his attempt to change the image and the messaging. and the way it runs its business.

julie: and in the meantime, uber has investigations in the federal government. they've also been very questionable. max: there are so many, it's hard to keep count. perhaps in the defense of the new management, if you take over a company that is full of problems and has all of these ongoing investigations, what you want to do is get it out there. get it out there quickly. if uber is to close this off and we go six or 12 months without hearing another shoe drop, it would be like the 15th shoe to drop. maybe that's good. his job at this point is to exercise the ghost of travis kalanick. the positive is that they found this and they are dealing with

it. it is maybe a year too late, but at least they've told us now. emily: thank you both. we will continue to follow the developing stories. the security and exchange commission likely involved used criminals. intruders may have had access, for months, to a database never meant for public release. the corporate data could have led to illegal trades. coming up, do you hit the like button on any russian sponsored content? did you? facebook is getting ready to show you if you did. bloomberg tech is live streaming on twitter. 5 p.m. in new york, 2 p.m. in san francisco. ♪

emily: more optimism around bitcoin. doubling the price target to $11,500 by the middle of 2018. a 40% gain from current levels. a strategist says a pullback set the stage for the surge. the hedge fund manager projected bitcoin will end at $10,000. just a few weeks ago, the world got to see the infamous russian length facebook accounts on russian meddling in the 2016 u.s. election. now facebook has announced a new tool that will show which propaganda pages or accounts they followed and liked on the social network. the tool will appear by the end of the year and is estimated at 150 million were reached by these posts from internet research agency, the name of the

firm from russia believed to be behind it. max, tell us exactly how this tool will work and how far it goes. max: we don't know that much. a kind of a curious announcement the day before think giving, one of the slowest news days of the year. facebook pops up and says we are working on a thing that let you know how you interacted with the russian propaganda. they some is very brief blog post, it will tell you, basically, did you like a russian internet research agency built add? or did you follow one of these fake pages, these fake activist accounts. one of the things it doesn't do is maybe equally interesting if not more interesting is to see the ads in their feed. unless you interacted with these ads which most people did not,

this is not really going to apply to you. it does give people a window, a bigger window than they had before into just what this propaganda looks like. this full open kimono that some might expect or prefer. emily: what is the internet research agency, the supposedly russian length organization that generated this content? max: people call it a troll factory. the best-known known of these kind of propaganda shops. there's been a lot of media coverage located in st. petersburg. it has a new name now and is basically a call center full of people that are highly trained in sort of american language and culture who are logging on to facebook everyday, trolling people. it may not be the only russian connected propaganda that went on in the election, but it's the

best known one. the one facebook has chosen to make disclosures about. emily: facebook is dealing with a lot of other problems. fake news that is not russian related. the big story about facebook's advertising discrimination. the ability to not show ads to african americans, jewish people, single mothers. these issues are very endemic to the way facebook has been doing business for a very long time. how do they deal with it? max: the pro-public a story is pretty interesting because they reported on the fact that it was using facebook's self-service ad platform to create ads that look like they violate federal housing law. you can't have discriminatory ads, ads that don't advertise to certain groups. facebook said we are fixing this problem. provide look a said they haven't fixed it, not completely. it raises questions about how

much control the company has over its platform. that's important to the russia conversation because lawmakers, most americans would like facebook to come up with a solution to this. to make it easier for them to keep, basically, bad stuff off their platform. emily: hang on a sec. peter thiel has sold off most of his shares, selling over 160,000 shares for a total of $129 million. joining us now, tom metcalf covers billionaire workings. it is important to know that peter thiel sold the vast majority of his shares right after the ipo in 2012. almost $1 billion worth of stock. he's sold almost all of that.

what do you make of this? >> it is reminder of a couple of missteps. he probably wishes he'd held on to his shares a little bit longer from the ipo. at current share price, it's closer to 4. and just in terms of how it looks, he is really whittling down to the bare minimum. in the context of a $3 billion personal fortune, it's interesting. this shouldn't be a surprise to investors. it's part of his trading plan. it reminds us of prominent facebook investors at this point. emily: to top it off, peter thiel's role on the facebook board has been questioned. if he should be there at all. a guy that funded a lawsuit against gawker.

mark zuckerberg has come out and said we want diversity of opinions. you think peter thiel's time on the board could be coming to an end? max: it has that look. last week, it was reported that he stepped up from the well-known silicon valley incubator and invest in fund. it looks like maybe he's backing away from silicon valley to folks in washington, d.c. peter thiel is a huge asset to facebook. the problem is conveying to everybody that facebook is a neutral party. having a trump supporter, one of the most prominent endorsers of donald trump, it makes facebook a little bit controversial. it gives facebook a lot of credibility with people on the right that worry about it.

that there was a news scandal where facebook was seen to have been pushing down conservative news and opinion. if he does leave the board, it would hurt facebook. it wouldn't be great. emily: there are other big sellers including the cofounder of whatsapp. selling $3 billion worth of shares? tom: and the year before, he sold $4 billion. when he came aboard facebook, he had a lot of facebook stock. the fortune is 80% assets of facebook. the big question in silicon valley, what is he doing with $8 billion of cash or liquid assets? emily: i certainly want to know the answer to that question. thank you both so much for joining us. coming up, the man behind

beloved animated movies is the latest to face allegations of harassment. what it means for disney pixar next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: now to the latest allegations of a hollywood power player accused of misconduct. john lasseter, the chief creative officer of disney's pixar animation studios says he's taking a six-month leave of absence amid allegations he made unwanted advancements and contact with numerous women over the years. the allegations were first reported by a hollywood reporter. he acknowledged missteps and painful conversations. this comes as pixar releases its latest movie, "coco." already the highest grossing movie in the history of mexico. chris, what did lassiter

actually do here? these reports of unwanted hugs? many of them? chris: he was known as a hugger. the report yesterday and the hollywood reporter about unwanted advances with a woman. touching people, excessive. he admitted to what he said was unwanted hugs and gestures. revelations today, trips to strip clubs and lap dances with lasseter. and pixar employees, additional references to women that felt uncomfortable in his presence. things he's allegedly said to them. his initial statement seems maybe not to cover everything. emily: what do you make of the six month leave of absence as opposed to being fired as we have seen happen with many other

hollywood players that have been accused of such things? chris: disney definitely seems to be treating john with kid gloves here. saying they support his decision, very dramatic for media companies to just terminate relationships with people. it speaks to the influence he's had on the company the last 15 years. an amazing track record. the consumer products as well. a beloved man at the company. emily: what does this mean for the business? chris: pixar has a pretty deep than just talent. they were famous for having this

group of directors they called the brain trust. many of them have been in place for a while. it is likely if lassiter dustup down, they can pull someone from there. it might be that they look outside and try to change the culture that allowed this to happen. emily: chris paulmieri joining us. why the stakes are so high for retailers this holiday weekend. this is bloomberg. ♪ is this a phone?

or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data.

see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. emerson will be sworn in on friday. >> he is a former spy chief. economy has hacked 2000. -- halfed since economicat the conference in chicago, as long as democrats feel it is a

reasonable candidate, he will win in 2020. i think we should get rid of carried interest. rate, sont to raise my be it. do not have an uncompetitive tax system in a very competitive world. a i think it is a huge error. bloomberg has been told that some of them have signed agreements to transfer a portion of their assets in exchange for freedom. authorities say, they may recover up to $100 billion in the purge. have a look at what is

happening across markets as we get closer to the weekend. it has been an exciting week. we went into this week with a lot of doubts of whether the rally would continue. -- if you want to divvy up what has happened within the some in the back are also on the way up. energy is still a big story today. japan is of course, closed today for thanksgiving. 3% away from our record high in

2007. fairly bullish there. the general direction is still pointing north. >> analysts appointing strong economic growth and skyrocketing consumer confidence is providing good conditions for the american chopper. -- shoppper.

-- shopper. >> a number of retailers are chasing sales. that could impact margins further down the line. many traditional retailers have to provide services both in-store and online in order to compete with big online or e-commerce retailers like amazon. online shopping continues to grow. that is just in e-commerce. amazon is likely to be the big winner.

all year they had 30% of e-commerce sales. that is expected to grow this year. >> retailers are slashing prices and that could impact their margins farther down the line. are expected sales to increase by 20% the season. ceo of us now is the boomerang commerce. what are we going to see this black friday/cyber monday? you look at the trends. over 50% of sales in the holiday season will either be online or be influenced by online. if you have a brick and mortar

store, it will have an influence from online. you look at the battlefront. the primary contenders are amazon. there are others to watch, target, best buy, roy's rs. -- toys are us. saw walmart making a massive acquisition in jet.com. their dynamic pricing technology. how do they become competitive and attract sales? that is yet to be seen. >> how do you expect to see these retailers behaving? up in termss a leg of largest selection, extremely competitive pricing. walmart, they are starting to have that technology

as well. an underdog in this is potentially target. people are talking about target this holiday season. people have been talking about target the last few years. the boomerang that started with the holiday season, they found that they were competitive in 2015 and 2016. emily: in terms of pricing? what about convenience? have the right product and do you have the right prices? getting customers to the store and delivering whatever that is going to be. if you look at target, their prices being so low and being very competitive with amazon, they have a chance at being a dark horse in this market. emily: who do you think the winners will be? >> if i were a betting man, i

would say amazon and target. we are very concerned about a position. to not have dynamic pricing or competitive pricing. emily: what about other brick and mortar retailers like j.crew, the gap? a lot of companies having very deep discounts throughout the year. >> brick and mortar continues to struggle in this market. especially those going with brick and mortar first. retailers are taking advantage of technologies to become more competitive in e-commerce. continue to battle to figure out the differences between e-commerce and stores. emily: how do you compare cyber monday to black friday? >> cyber monday is going to be big. what we have seen over the last two years, the effect of black

friday has gone away. it has started to be gray instead of black. emily: my strategy is that the best discounts are on black friday. should they wait until cyber monday? >> the deals are there. it is a highly promotional market at this point. whether it is now or black friday. emily: how concerned are you >> the deals are there. it is aabout cybersecurity thisy season? we have seen some high-profile attacks. do you think that some of these older school retailers have their cyber security strategy under control? cracks cybersecurity will be very front and center. there is a lot of chatter on facebook. there has been an increased amount of investment from an i.t. standpoint in cybersecurity.

nothing that we have seen in the retail market is very typical of other segments in the industry. emily: so you think they are still vulnerable? >> yes. still as vulnerable as the other segments. emily: you are sticking with me. mark cuban tweeted at president trump and asked if he knew how they get an impact that alibaba has had on the u.s. stock market. seven and a half times are monthly trade deficit with china has gone to one company. alibaba shares have tripled to their $190 a share since ipo. trump has long targeted china for their trade practices, but has recently softened his stance. coming up, the battle for voice-activated home assistance heats up. how a grocery store could give

amazon an advantage. you can check us out on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: amazon's use of its brick and mortar stores could edge out the competition. it is using the brick and mortar store to sell its devices. the company is hoping it will leave tech rivals like google and apple in the dust. will behome pod delayed, missing the crucial holiday season this year.

what do you think about amazon's strategy to try to sell echo at whole foods? on one hand, why not? >> amazon is one step ahead in this. all of the retailers are starting to nail down the story. amazon is starting to nail down on the presence. they are already done with on the channel. about thei think presence of amazon in your homes, all the way from entering my home and i see my amazon boxes laying on the floor and locks and then i go into amazon and start cooking and i use the amazon dash button . starting to thinking of -- think about, how do i capture the mind share of the customer at any

point in time? emily: what do you think about the very big lead the echo has on the home pod? guru: it is a very big lead. it is not just a one-point lead. it is fueling them in a sense. amazon's flywheel has a very key concept of traffic generation. isthe amazon acecho starting to drive more traffic, it is starting to help amazon echo perform much better. actually start to drive purchases through it. emily: how much traffic is echo really driving? maybe you play music, had a couple of things to the shopping cart. is it there in terms of driving

transactions? guru: is it a -- it is a start. you think about information. what amazon is trying to do, if you think about products, they want you to come to amazon. like anything, it is a small step. amazon is known for driving models and getting into the market quickly and starting to drive success. emily: do you think that vision will be realized? guru: it is too early to tell. amazon could leapfrog against its competitors including google home. google home and other competitors, they have to make a leap in terms of the language processing and the amount of information that can be provided back to the customer. amazon has figure that out to a large extent, much beyond the

competitiveness. it also has a shopping element. emily: how optimistic are you about the home pod? it is really about improving the audio and listening experience in the home. which isking at alexa, an all-encompassing product. it does audio. it does shopping. it answers other questions as well. if you are just looking at the device to play music, that sort of device may not be as competitive as an amazon alexa. emily: who wins the holiday shopping season it comes to the smart speaker? guru: it is amazon search. search is through mobile, it is through alexa.

that is feeding into the amazon alexa sales. it's resourcing -- the environment in this market. bets on for my amazon alexa. emily: just a few hours to go and we are there. the former amazon bets executiv, good to have you here. coming up, holiday travel is in full swing. one company is looking to get you on board with its smart luggage. we will look at the founders of the away bag next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: 2-year-old smart luggage has made the unique expansion from online to brick and all over the country. they sat down to speak about this move and the disruption of the global luggage industry. >> we do not think about retail as just a box for suitcases. we think about a physical place that provides context around the travel stories we are trying to tell. if you walk into one of our

retail stores, there are travel guidebooks. there are things you might want to bring with you on your trip. it is supposed to be an inspiring place to get you thinking about your next trip. providing that context to our biggest retail store and giving the community a place to gather. >> the story is hurt -- store is 30% devoted to products. it is about creating an experience. what else do you want them to do when they are coming into your store? >> people were sitting in the cafe booking flights. we created this space for people to think about travel. it is rewarding to see that happening. >> you created a number of different products that work. there is a new podcast, a new magazine. how much of it is about

enhancing the experience? >> one thing that has been interesting is that we created these channels and order to give us more ways to tell our story. our editorial magazine is all about people experiencing stories. giving a piece of travel media we did not think existed out there. the same thing with our podcast. we were giving them an avenue to tell their story. everything we do is providing context around our products, what they enable you to do. and inspiring people to travel better. >> we had two goals. one was to inspire people to travel and support people and for people to think about how they are going to explore the world. the media properties are revenue-generating. be a way of got to

driving sales or creating revenue themselves. fund raising, is this something that your investors are brought into as well? are they more interested in just the product? >> we have had the same investors since we started the business. from the start, we said that we were launching with this carry-on. that was our first source of revenue. at the same time, we will expand the physical product line. this will become a true 360 travel lifestyle business. that would be a revenue-generating part of the business. >> are you looking to be acquired by someone? do you want to take this company public? >> our longer plan is we want to

become the number one travel brand anywhere in the world. if anybody is going on a trip and they need an item or information, away is the first brand that they think of. in terms of a company, we are keeping our eyes open in terms of where we are in 50 years. there is a five-year strategy. we want to be the number one company in the world. cracks there are so many things wrong with the travel experience today. if there is something we can fix, there will be something we can work on one day. >> a company that was considered to be a traditional, unsexy business, what did you learn from them when you launched? >> we learned that a meaningfully different consumer experience can change the way people see an entire industry.

the four parker, people did not think that buying glasses was sexy. warby did a that great job was redefining thinking about the consumer experience. it is not just about product. it is about everything with your brand and your business and how you interact with consumers. this next wave of retail brands, the ones that are successful, will think about that. emily: that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology ." you can check us out at 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. have a happy thanksgiving, everybody. this is bloomberg. ♪ retail.

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