♪ emily: i am emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology." coming up, twitter's ceo makes his exit. why the men crucial to the company's turnaround efforts took the top job at sophia. the ceo of uber plans to put the ride-hailing giant on the road to profitability. highlights from his conversation with bloomberg from davos. amazon go is open for business. we open the doors for an inside look at the brick-and-mortar convenience store.

first, to our lead. a shakeup for the leadership team at twitter. the ceo has resigned from the company to take the ceo position at a fintech startup. he has played a leading role at the company. he has his work cut out for him. he will fill a leadership void that has existed since the cofounder resigned as ceo last year, amid accusations of sexual harassment. we got all the details from bloomberg news tech reporter selina wang. >> that delivers a blow to twitter, especially just at the very early beginnings of their turnaround strategy. several analysts upgraded their company. they are finally showing revenue and user growth. noto did put in place much of the structure they needed to continue this turnaround.

including the livestreaming, the contact strategy and paring back some of the other businesses to focus on user engagement. some sources have said that this could provide a good opportunity for jackson. he and noto haven't always agreed on product division. this could be a way for him to pursue other paths that haven't been possible. emily: interesting. there was a tweet. he has been a friend, partner, and mentor to me for years. he always has my support and gratitude. thank you. there was plenty of commentary. now twittervorite, has three interns and a part-time ceo. let's let's talk about the logistics. they are not revealing this position and what that means. >> i just got off the phone with a source.

they are going to ss, -- they are going to assess, do they keep the current organizational structure that was reporting to noto? he was in charge of the business structure. do they want to change that? if so, do they want to promote someone to fill that role, or do they want to hire someone from outside? as of now, they will disperse that and have the top ring fill in the position that he is now leaving. you are right, we have a dual ceo at this company, and without a coo, a present the problem. emily: by all accounts, this seems to be a win for sofi. what is the word you are getting? julie: it is a boom to their business. i view the company as a darling of fintech. it has always done very well. 2017 wasn't a great year.

now all the cofounders are gone. they lost their cfo, their chief revenue officer. now they have clarity, bringing leadership in, and a big-name. it should be good to get the company back on track. they are answering questions a lot of people at the company have into what the direction of the firm is. years ago, cagney said ipo is on the horizon for 2016, was the original timeline. we are already in 2018. sort of where all that stands now. emily: i can only imagine that the culture there has been somewhat beaten down by all of the sexual harassment allegations. which didn't just surface with mike cagney, but other executives. how would you describe the culture of the company now, the sentiment among employees? julie: right now, people want to wait and see what anthony brings in. they are glad to have an adult in the room, to have a leader, someone to look to.

before, there was no one to say, all right, this is our strategy, this is where we are going. everyone was in wait-and-see mode. emily: twitter is about to report earnings. the company has been improving when you look at the numbers. what are we expecting? is anthony noto leaving on a high note? selina: i think that is a great way to put it. he has put in place a lot of the fundamentals. he planted the seeds, and now they are ready to bloom. it is an opportune time for him to leave. expectations are good. analysts don't think him leaving is going to change the company. twitter has stopped shrinkage and are starting to grow. one of the metrics that looked positive is the daily active user growth -. the growth rate has been looking positive in terms of the users coming to the platform, time

they are spending on the platform, and a lot of that should be credited to jack as well. he is the one spearheading a lot of the user interface and product updates, like the algorithmic timeline and notification changes. it has been an effort between them. him leaving is not going to change that. emily: that was selina wang and julie. bloomberg lp operates a global news network on twitter called tick-tock. in the biggest blow to the renewable energy industry yet, president trump decided on monday to slap tariffs on imported solar panels. the u.s. will impose duties as much as 30% on solar equipment made abroad. it is a move that threatens to handicap the $28 billion industry that relies on parts made abroad for 80% of its supply. the industry has predicted tens of thousands of job losses in a sector that employed 260,000. coming up, uber's ceo speaks to bloomberg tv from davos.

he says the ride hailer aims to be profitable. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. you can listen to us on the app, bloomberg.com, or on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: google's ceo has opened to paying more in taxes.

at the world economic forum, he explained the more important question was where google should pay. the company's current global tax rate is 20%. critics have accused large u.s. technology companies like google of paying too little tax outside the u.s., despite having a large portion of the revenue from other countries. one of the biggest startups on the planet is turning a corner when it comes to profitability. uber has been losing billions of dollars a year. john mickelthwait spoke to uber's ceo at the world economic forum. take a listen. the core business the , ridesharing business can be profitable within three years. we will continue to make very aggressive investments in building autonomy, because that is a terrific opportunity for

building new technologies, such as uber elevate, where near-term profitability is not a goal, but long-term growth is. we will look at the balance of near-term profitability, but as a company, we will always be a company that takes big risks. john: to what extent do you think that drive towards profitability is against this culture change? you talk about making money, but not at all costs. are these two things against each other? dara: i don't think that profitability and culture are the issue. the company, in the past, was willing to make trade-offs as it related to how it did business. i think it was guilty of hubris, was guilty of thinking they knew better than others, and i think that what we know now clearly is

that breakneck growth can hide cultural issues, that there are no excuses for not doing the right thing, and that you do have to make trade-offs. as a management team, we are specifically talking about those trade-offs that you have to make. we have to be more patient, because working with governments, regulators, etc., sometimes takes longer. in the end, you build a more lasting business. maybe what we want through was necessary, but we are here. we can control our actions from this moment onwards, and i think everyone at uber from this moment onwards wants to build a great company, not only in terms of growth but in terms of the kind of company anyone would want to work at. john: can i ask you one thing, the hangover from last year, all the regulatory problems.

all the cases against you. i think there are six criminal probes going on. which ones do you fear most, i suppose? dara: listen, i think all of them are serious issues, and my response is that we are going to be transparent and we are going to take responsibility for our actions in the past. i do think that there are certain circumstances where there was smoke but no fire. as a company, we have to defend ourselves and work within the appropriate frameworks. my goal is to get beyond this stuff. john: some of these things like pricing policies, surely they go right to the heart of what uber is, or am i wrong? dara: i think they do, but i think there is a way to be smart and transparent at the same time, and that is where we got to take the company. emily: we continued with the ceo from davos.

he discussed the future of his industry, like autonomous cars and how technology will help bring changes to the road. dara: we think there are three keys to transport and where the industry is going. autonomous, electric, and shared. i think all three are necessary to get to the next level. there are many cities where up to one fifth of the space in any city is for parking these cars. i do think they -- i do think that you need autonomous, electric, and shared. it will take some time. true autonomy for every single use case is some ways a bank -- is some ways away. what we bring to bear is our developing autonomy, and we will have autonomous cars on the road in the next 18 months, not as a

test case, but as a real case out there. over a period of time, we will bring autonomous transportation and feather it in with other non-autonomous transportation. john: what does feathering in mean? if you are in phoenix, and you make a request to go from a to b, which is what you do with uber, there will be 95% of cases where we might not have everything mapped or it may not be the right weather or there may be an accident on the road or you may not have two or three ways of getting from a to b. you may think that is not an autonomous use case. we will send a driver to pick that person up. for 5% of cases, everything is going to fall in place, and we will send an autonomous car. the user will be able to pick.

do you want the autonomous car, yes or no? we will service that. that 5% is going to 10% and 15% and 20%, as our computers and our algorithms learn more and more about what it takes to drive in a city in a real-life situation. every minute of every day, that driver, the computer is going to get better and know phoenix better and better, and in five years, we will have the perfect driver in phoenix. we will have to retrain that driver in every single city. we will have to build that 3-d map of the cities, and it will take time, but over time, you essentially have a driver who becomes the perfect driver. it will take 10 to 15 years, but that is the feathering in. john: will a child born today ever need to learn to drive?

dara: a child born today? no. i don't think so. emily: that was uber's ceo speaking to bloomberg in davos. it is an all or nothing pay package for the founder of tesla. tesla has granted elon musk the largest of its kind $2.6 billion stock award. if fully vested over a decade, stock options could make him almost $55 billion. he has agreed not to get salary or bonus. it appears to be tesla's way of ensuring musk will stay. coming up, amazon at it again, further disrupting the brick-and-mortar industry by introducing cashierless convenience stores. we will head to seattle next. we will take a closer look at the impact to the bottom line. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: amazon announced a two dollar a month increase for prime monthly members. the spike in price will generate an extra $300 million annually for amazon. cowen estimated that $300 million given the analysis of monthly customers. including students and low income users who pay a lower rate. amazon is making a play for the struggling $550 billion u.s. convenience store industry, unveiling amazon go to the public in downtown seattle this week. the store lets shoppers grab what they want and leave without paying a cashier. we went live to seattle from the store and spoke with bloomberg

tech's, spencer soper. spencer: we have been here since lunchtime, and at lunchtime, the line was around the corner. there is a lot of excitement. it has died down as the afternoon has worn on. this is a store where you walk in, have an app on your smart phone, get a qr code, scan it, that opens the glass turnstile, then you walk in. once you are inside you pick , from sandwiches, salads, drinks, a lot of traditional convenience store staples, and everything is billed automatically. there is no cashier. you just walk out. they are trying to make the check out counter logjam a thing of history. emily: how well staffed is the store? are there security guards, clerks to help? are there folks to prevent theft and the like? spencer: theft is not an issue. today, there is a lot of amazon people on board. they have part of the sidewalk cordoned off to accommodate the line. they are rolling out the carpet.

they are limited by the fire code. they say the technology can handle big crowds, but you can only get 100 people in there at a time, and that includes staff. you figure maybe 80, 85 customers at a time in there. inside the store, they have a number of employees, mostly preparing sandwiches and salads. they also have people constantly stocking and replenishing the shelves, as well as they have a small beer and wine section, and they have to have a person there monitoring to make sure anyone is of legal age. emily: this is the first store. how quickly do we expect amazon to roll these out? sorry, you broke up a little bit on me. emily: how quickly do you expect amazon to roll out more stores? well, they haven't broadcast anything. they said they are going to focus on the store for now, and

they have been beta testing for more than a year, having it employee only. that said they have hired and , listed job openings for people specifically for amazon go. things like site selection managers and construction managers. we can expect them to bring this to other markets, as long as they are happy with what they are seeing here, similar to what they did with their bookstores. which they started in seattle and they now have a dozen or so around the country. emily: how much do you think these amazon go stores could disrupt the brick-and-mortar convenience store industry? spencer: the convenience store industry is fragmented. you mentioned the $550 billion revenue earlier. more than half of it is gasoline sales. more than $200 billion in food and moving towards fresh food, and so they are looking for a market for the on the go person looking for a quick bite to eat.

it is a mini whole foods inside. the opportunity there is largely for amazon with their brick-and-mortar strategy, their e-commerce operation is distanced from its customers. they have warehouses around the country, but generally you don't see them. you don't even know how something gets to your door. amazon is trying to get closer to customers, and there is nothing closer than convenience stores. they are everywhere. emily: emmanuel macron has been calling on paris to be an innovation hub. facebook and google are working to fulfill that. google says it will create an ai lab dedicated to fundamental research on the topic. the company wants the group to be close inside to its team of 120 applied research engineers in paris. facebook says it will double its ai lab there to 100 by 2022. that includes $12 million in hardware spending. meantime intel reported earnings , this week, the first time since the chip flaws were revealed.

cory johnson took a look at the company's response to the problems and the curious timing of a stock sale. ♪ cory: cef 2018, the biggest party in technology, and among the keynotes, intel's ceo. showing off a kitchen sink of tech from br. replace -- >> we place multiple cameras. >> through a legion of drones, you just witnessed the world's first 100 drone indoor flight show without gps. cory: why not? >> the real tony romo. cory: there was an elephant in the room. the flaws in intel chip design. they allow hackers to steal data from cpus. how many computers? intel makes 90% of the world's

computer processors and makes 9% of the server chips. this flaw puts every pc, smartphone, and server in the world at risk. >> as of now, we have not received any information that these exploits have been used to obtain customer data. cory: not yet, but hackers have proven themselves to be persistent. the patch to the flaws is flawed itself. it can slow chips 30%. it hasn't helped the stock performance. will the security threat threaten sales? company struggles to crack the smartphone market. companies like amazon, apple, and google are working on their own chips. to make matters worse, in the six months since the last time intel had worked to make a big fix, like this was a 1994 pentium recall. the last time they had to fix

the chip was in 1994. that kind of problem might not fly with investors. emily: that was cory johnson. coming up next, we will hear from the former apple and alphabet executive as he voices concerns over tech addiction in children. what one of the original iphone creators has to say, next. a reminder all episodes of , bloomberg technology are live streaming on twitter. check us out. this is bloomberg. ♪

retail. under pressure like never before. and its connected technology that's moving companies forward fast. e-commerce. real time inventory. virtual changing rooms. that's why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent network speed across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver.

♪ emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i am emily chang. the topic of tech addiction is grabbing the attention of parents, teachers, and tech giants. this includes tony fadell. serious concerns continue to circle the tech industry about being addicted to your iphone, smartphone phone, or being absorbed by social media. we sat down with tony fadell how he is handling this issue as one of the creators of the original iphone. tony: i look at it as a whole set of unintended consequences that allowed kids and adults to be on them all the time. if they so choose.

we have tech free sundays where the family is off of electronics, including the parents. we do other things together. not that tech is bad, but there are times we should just be face-to-face and talking about things and doing things together without screens coming between us. we do that. we have screen time limits. it is difficult, because we don't have many controls to do that. we look at our behaviors with screens at night. are the screens in the kids rooms? are the screens in the parents rooms or not? these kinds of things to understand that moderating use of these devices. emily: what do you think the actual impact is on adults and on children? tony: i look at this as -- i am not a researcher. i am not a doctor. i am not looking at it as an addiction. i have seen stories and i have had friends who have kids with

addiction issues, as well as adults. i look at this as we need to have tools and data information to allow us to understand how we consume digital media. if we look at this and draw the parallels with something like food, think about food. today, we have scales so we can measure our weight. we have nutritional information on the side of boxes and different foods so we know what is in there. we have programs to allow us to control our eating habits. we have definitions for words like, what is a protein? so, what is a protein in a digital world? it a protein a digital education map? is a sugar a social mobile app? is something like water the camera app? these are the kinds of things

where we need to build nomenclatures around these kinds of habits and start to talk about them instead of saying it is addiction or not. it is lots of usage or not. we need to get finer language and start to understand that the iphone is just a refrigerator. it isn't the addiction. it delivers food. we can then choose to pick what we want, what is a protein, what is a fat from that refrigerator, and hopefully consume it in the right portions. we have a scale to measure ourselves for seeing how much we have consumed each day or each week. emily: the business models of these companies are predicated on how long we use their products. do you think facebook should be telling us how long we have been using facebook? should apple be telling us how long we have been using the iphone? tony: first, i think not all of the business models are based on how much screen time you have. some are and some aren't. you have to look at the individual business and figure out what their key metrics are.

i know, back in the day when i was at apple, that was not the revenue driver. for apple, it is about selling more devices. if you think about it, i think users will buy more devices if they have the information and control over those devices. i know a lot of parents consider, should i buy them a cell phone or not, a tablet or not? they would buy multiple devices for themselves and family if they knew they could control them. today they are wary, because , they're like, i have to collect all of these devices and set controls on all of them. these controls become cumbersome. extra devices become cumbersome. that is limiting the business potential for a device manufacturer like apple. emily: what about facebook where the business literally is the more you use facebook, the more ads we can show you, the more money we can make? tony: my kids are under 11 years

old. they don't have any kind of social mobile accounts. not allowed. our family doesn't use them. at the end of the day, you need to look at the contents of that social mobile app. what is a protein? i think there is a great protein inside facebook where you can connect with family and friends and share stories. is there a nicotine or sugar component where stories and ads distract you? we need to look at each app and think about its benefits and distractions. if you think about it, i get all kinds of different emails to get me to reengage with certain apps or notifications. hey, did you see so-and-so posted on this? those are interruptions. those are dopamine hits to get you to use that app more. this isn't something apple did. this is something social mobile apps want you to engage with. it also happens with youtube, it happens with games with

in-app purchases. or these games that need you to stay around a long time to use them. where there is advertising driven models. we have to look at each app and understand what is good about it, what is not good about it, where is there interruptions, and be able to assess which apps we should put on our phones or tablets, as well as to our kids. emily: have you ever had any personal moments of guilt, like a frankenstein type moment, where you say to yourself, oh my goodness, what have we built? tony: at the end of the day, you look around and you go, my god, the massive amount of the population, over half the world now has a smart phone. you are in awe of that and i think that is great. there are unintended consequences and we need to work on it. when you look at the app stores, there are certain things inside of an app store, especially the apple app store, and certain

things their arch. there are gambling applications. there are kinds of applications where you can get addicted to losing your money, but we have to think about that in terms of the social mobile applications or other ones that have different non-beneficial customer metrics for their revenue. yes, i always worry about how to improve the technology, and in this case, we have unintended consequences. these are easy problems for the platform companies like apple and google to solve. this is not like self driving cars. this is easier to implement and cheaper. it can instill consumer loyalty and trust in the brands for their families and themselves if they can get information and control over their digital consumption. emily: give me some specifics. what do you think apple and google should be doing?

tony: the first thing is they already have all of the information across all the devices. you can have an iphone, ipad, apple tv, mac laptop, and between all of those, they know how much you are using, how much we are emailing, texting, browsing. these kinds of things. they can give us back a calendar of events just like they do on the apple watch for how many steps, how well we sleep, how our heart rate is doing. they can do the same thing and give us our digital information in metrics about our days in the life of the digital world. it should be a combination of the calendar showing history of physical use as well as digital use. we can see how much we are using these devices and then moderate our behavior saying, that seems like we are doing too much. or, in my case, i am not using

my french language app enough to learn french. i would love to be able to set goals and set controls on this data to allow me to control how i use these devices. i would like a way to set my device so that when i am listening to music i'm not interrupted, being buzzed, or another notification. i want to enjoy my music without interruption, like i did in the old days with an ipod or when i am reading. i don't want to be disturbed. today, we have all these different notifications coming in, all these different interruptions. i would like a single-purpose device sometimes. when we get these notifications, i would like to say never get the notification ever again. when that happens, that happens across all platforms. i don't have to get disturbed and go to every single device to turn off these notifications. emily: you're not just anyone, tony. you could probably get tim cook on the phone in 10 minutes.

have you told this to him directly? tony: i have told multiple people at apple. i look forward to that conversation. emily: that was tony patel. next, the future of cryptocurrency. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: stripe is getting out of the bitcoin business. the company says it will stop processing bitcoin transactions on april 23. the company says bitcoin has become less useful, explaining transaction confirmation times and fees have risen for the cryptocurrency. morgan stanley ceo, james gorman says bitcoin isn't going away, but he does have some reservations about the frenzy over the cryptocurrency. he spoke to bloomberg in davos.

>> i think bitcoin is not going away. it is not a fad. the aggregate market cap of bitcoin globally is less then -- -- less than morgan stanley today. reporter: they could buy you? james: we think we are an important institution, but we don't deserve the price that bitcoin is getting everyday. it is for filling a need at the moment, but it is not something fundamentally changing the global landscape. for the average investor, i would advise them to not invest in them. reporter: another big thing is automation. there is a lot of evidence, all these things people are asking about. do you think in wealth management and investment banking you are relatively safe from that? which way do you see that going?

james: to the core question of automation and how they are related, topics i was asked by a journalist about how much i focus on competitors, and i said, you are in the same industry, but it is not what we get up at night worrying about. i worry about artificial intelligence, automation, cyber risk, digital. all of these new technologies coming to the market at the same time are transforming the way business is getting done. we try and look at each of our businesses. back to your question, with m&a, high-priced, highly complex global transactions. it is hard to automate that. it is hard to advise the board. obviously, the electronic trading and equities has long been going on. fixed income, with wealth management the evolution of the , digital space is not new. they have been providing effectively digital transaction

and advice for two and a half decades. it is going to continue to cause firms like ours to provide human capability and best in class technical capability. joinednasdaq ceo bloomberg from davos and talked therik schatzker about company working on cryptocurrency futures. take a listen. adena: we have been working with the industry and every partner to look at whether or not it is the right thing for us to do. erik: is it? adena: we are still evaluating that. we have been talking with the industry to say, is this something? we already have two bitcoin futures out there. would there be demand? if we are going to create a product, we want to know, are they going to be using? the second thing is we have to , self certify as a futures exchange for this. we would use our license to do

that, but we have to make sure from a risk management perspective we are prepared. those are the two things we are working on. erik: any preliminary conclusions? does it seem appealing? regardless of what you think of crypto as a medium of exchange. adena: our view is that digital currencies and cryptocurrencies will have a role in the global economy. the question is, will they mature to a state that is of use for the transfer of goods? in the meantime, there is a lot of demand out there. it is just a matter of, can we create a construct that is unique enough? erik: would you think of building a futures contract for something other than bitcoin? say, ether or rebel -- ripple? adena: we have two exchange notes that are listed in our nordic markets that have been done through another market. we would look more holistically

at cryptocurrencies and not just at one. emily: that was adena friedman in davos. bill gates says president trump's america first agenda could damage the u.s.'s long-term influence in africa. he spoke with our bloomberg editor-in-chief in davos. they talked about his foundation's efforts in africa and their fight against malaria. bill: there is a tendency, unless you stay committed, one is you get drug resistance, either the insecticide, and we have drug resistance now. we are working in the private sector to get innovation there. the drugs themselves the we use these combinations in southeast asia. we have resistance there. just the energy people put into these programs. one of the great ironies is that, as you get malaria cases

down, then the government will tend to move on. you will see a rebound. the last three years, because a lot of it has been wearing out. we haven't refreshed them as quick as we should. the last few years we have had the number of cases where they have gone up. you always have a little bit of variation in terms of the weather. the wet season is when mosquitoes proliferate in an exponential way. the community needs to get its act together. the central america thing is a key part of that. john: two you think the chinese -- do you think the chinese are really looking at doing pro bono work as opposed to doing things with a commercial advantage. bill: as they are becoming richer, seeing a stronger role in the world, china has had a conference with african leaders on regular basis that i will attend later this year.

compared to the u.s. in history and today, chinese aid is very small. african countries appreciate. particularly in hiv and malaria. under president bush, the u.s. made big increases. they totally appreciate that we have done that. i think we can't afford to keep , doing it. it's a small part of the budget. i don't think going to them and saying we need to increase aid , to malaria deaths because we are short of something is the best idea. john: there is social good but there is also this question of soft power. is it something you worry about, especially with the current administration? bill: the balance of hard power versus soft power, the u.s. uniquely has the ratio emphasizing hard power. i would hate to see it shift even further. as part of these budget discussions, do you grow the state department at the same

time as you are growing the pure defense budget? even the secretary of defense has been eloquent in you don't , want to give up your soft power tools. it is all being debated. john: isn't this arguably the first case of a global hedge fund willingly giving way that power by not investing in soft power? normally, it gets pushed out and they soft power goes to. in this case, america is actually pulling back from helping the rest of the world. bill: i wouldn't say it is unique. the u.s. has often had this debate. our relationship with the united nations has had its ups and downs under different administrations. keeping some pressure on the un to be efficient and reasonable is not a crazy thing. how far do you go? it is all to do with specifics.

in the case of health, lives are being saved through very small amounts of money, and you can aim to both lift the country up up so it is self-sufficient. it is not a commitment you are stuck with forever. i think these even in this ones, atmosphere, it makes the cut. john: two you think -- do you think george w. bush never got the credit he deserves for trying to save lives in africa? bill: no, he didn't. africa is less visible, not as many people go there. i think his initiative, hiv focused, it was a fantastic thing. i do think, in some circles, he does get credit for those things, but not as much as he deserves. john: president trump has described these countries in a not terribly nice phrase. do you think he should concentrate on this part of the

world? bill: i think you should. -- i think he should. that is the area where i have it was created-- through microsoft and warren buffett has been so generous in providing. i understand that money can be very well spent. i am in there saying, come on, let's keep up the good work. emily: that was microsoft founder bill gates, in davos. taiwan is trying to make sure its scooters are eco-friendly. we will look at one company's mission to go gas free on two wheels, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: tencent is investing in a french retailer to help to challenge alibaba. tencent and local retailers have signed a term sheet for a stake in a china unit. the investment could revive the struggling french retailer's

business in china. the deal would give them 800 plus stores, second only to an alibaba backed company. it would also further expand tencent's we chat mobile payments across the country. a taiwanese electric scooter maker wants to make sure its scooters don't add smog to the air. it plans to launch a trial in japan later this year. our chief correspondent takes a look at how this tech upstart backed by al gore is disrupting a gas entrenched market. reporter: locals call this the scooter waterfall, a daily torrent in taipei of taiwan's nearly 14 million motorized two wheelers, noisy and noxious, albeit necessary mode of transport. here is the thing taiwan is , banning fossil fuel engines in such vehicles by 2035. that is a long ways out, but the

startup is getting a ready big head start. they are called by some, they tesla of scooters. stylish, cloud connected, and juiced. >> for about 10 years, the taiwan government has been pushing for an electric scooter to turn this very dirty mode of transportation to cleaner transportation. throughout 10 years, it was extremely unsuccessful until we came along. reporter: they say i can go zero to 50 kilometers an hour in just four and a half seconds. let's give it a go. top speed is 100 kilometers per hour with 110 an hour range. when the batteries go bad, just swap them out. there are thousands of batteries exchanged every day. >> what changed was the way we fueled the vehicle. pop it in, and then reevaluate if anything is wrong with the vehicle.

it is thanks to the server talk , to the server, program the new battery. seconds, not minutes, not hours. reporter: another green tech company not wasting time turning the status quo on its head is many ways, profitable for the past four years. it turns taiwan's abundance of manufacturing waste to 1200 recycled materials, whether window shades made of discarded circuit boards or tiles from nike shoes and apparel. >> what drives us is anger, actually. with this new intelligence, artificial intelligence, software we can play with, i feel like there is not as many people doing what we can do for the environment. reporter: both companies simply want to get toxicity out of the city. emily: stephen engle from taipei. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest

of tech throughout the week. tune in each day 5:00 p.m. in new york, and remember all episodes are live streaming on twitter. check us out. that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> brilliant ideas, powered by hand a motor. ♪ >> a south korean filmmaker, his films are poetic, sometimes dark and unsettling. marginalized and overlooked, his video work show deep themes like