♪ caroline: i am caroline hyde in london. this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all of our interviews from the week in tech. coming up, zuckerberg breaks his silence and is called to testify in d.c. the fallout over the revelation that cambridge analytica got access to data of millions of facebook users. plus, uber halts its autonomous car tests after a pedestrian in arizona is killed. where uber goes from here.

and tencent revenue jumps, but the company celebrates the good news with a warning. we will look at the latest earnings report out of asia's most valuable company. first to our lead, and what a week it was for facebook. the fallout continues from the site's exploitation of data from millions of its users by political consulting firm cambridge analytica, which has links to president donald trump. the stock got hammered this week and led to a larger slump in tech. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg broke his silence on the crisis after staying silent for a few days with a mea culpa on cnn wednesday. mark: this was a major breach of trust, and i am really sorry that this happened. and we have a basic responsibility to protect people's data. and if we can not do that, then we do not deserve to have the opportunity to serve people. caroline: zuckerberg pledged to investigate whether cambridge analytica still holds the information it obtained from a third party app creator, and promised to broaden the probe of

other developers that may have run afoul of facebook's rules. still, these pledges were not enough for some, and on thursday, zuckerberg was called to appear before a house panel, saying zuckerberg is "the right witness to provide answers to the american people." emily chang spoke with mike hoeffinger on thursday. he is facebook's former head of global business, and the author of "becoming facebook: the 10 challenges that defined the company that's disrupting the world." mike: i think we have a very, very unique situation here simply because of the scale at which facebook is now operating, the relevance that it has in all of our lives. i think we saw mark say the right thing yesterday, that this is of course all about trust. when you get into a situation like this as a leader, you have to remember, that it is about trust and heart and communicating in that way as opposed to communicating logistics and blame. and i think we have seen giant technology leaders struggle with

rationalizing their way through -- maybe the pentium processor crisis in the mid-1990's, or even steve jobs trying to rationalize the way the iphone antenna gave way back in the 2000's. the time is now for him to show how committed he is to these expectations that we have made very clear to him. emily: you have seen facebook weather many other crises. do you think this time, public trust in facebook is fundamentally damaged? mike: i think it is, and i think it probably comes on the back of a 15-month arc where we began to wonder a little bit how we feel about newsfeed, where we began to wonder whether we are potentially being manipulated, either organically or through paid means. and we are now, of course, in the last week, we have become very cognizant of the fact that our data may be making its way to places that we had never agreed to. and facebook clearly needs to understand that we don't expect cambridge analytica or aleksandr kogan to take care of us.

we expect facebook to take care of us, and i think that is the message that mark, sheryl, and others are receiving quite clearly now. and given the scale that they are impacting our lives in good ways, and perhaps in ways we need to take a harder look at, it is important that they hear of it now. emily: absolutely. there have been clips circulating of things that zuckerberg has said over the years. in 2009, he told the bbc facebook would never sell user data, that that data belongs to users. is that a lie, or is that just painfully misleading? mike: i don't think it is a lie. i think it is important to understand, to the extent facebook sells anything, it is access to communicate with people, to connect with people, but what they have to do is really take great care of that access. who are the players that are able to receive that access? who is given access to people, and what are they able to communicate?

and understanding that while he wants to open the world to many, many voices being able to communicate on facebook, which has been so crucial to the positive changes that they have brought to 2.25 billion people using it, that they need to really take care of us when it comes to the manipulators that want to enter the system, and to create a system that does not allow them to be a part of it to begin with, and certainly, does not allow them to get distribution into the newsfeed that plays such an important role in our lives. emily: that said, how does facebook make that decision on who should and who should not have access? in the end, it is a judgment call, and we know there are malicious actors out there that want to break the rules. and then, how does that ultimately impact the business, if that data is now not available? mike: absolutely right. i think there are some things that are incredibly clear. for many, many, many years, facebook has had to prevent nazi-sympathizer content, for example, from being distributed in germany. to, of course, keep nudity and other objectionable content off the platform. those are extremely black and

white, very clear issues. when it comes to subtlety, communication, maybe even by smaller voices -- how big is the voice that is speaking, therefore they should have access -- the point of facebook is that so many voices around the world can have access. but we began to hear a little more from zuckerberg yesterday, actually, about their ability to use artificial intelligence to interdict what are clearly fake accounts and what are -- we begin to use the phrase "bad actors" -- and i think we will see an era now going forward of mark really beginning to put his finger much harder on the scale of newsfeed, to really throttle and close the aperture on distribution on newsfeed for

sources whom we cannot trust clearly, verifiably, and also for sources that we simply may not know a lot about. caroline: on thursday, tech stocks suffered their worst day in six weeks, erasing almost $2 -- $200 billion in market caps from the industry. they were pulled lower as president trump ordered tariffs on chinese goods and facebook continued to trade lower amid the cambridge analytica data scandal. emily chang caught up with romaine bostick, editor of bloomberg's top live blog, and bloomberg gadfly columnist tim culpan on thursday to talk through the market turbulence. tim: it is interesting, if you think of the areas that donald trump is potentially talking about, essentially metals and so forth, metals and minerals only account for less than 7% of u.s. imports from overseas, so it is actually not a very, very big area. the largest area is electrical machinery, and that is a very broad term that includes everything from mobile phones to microwaves to electric motors. so, it is very broad, but that is a much larger area of imports. but then you look at the tech sector in the u.s.

the largest company is apple, and of course, that is a hardware maker. then we have got amazon, google, and all those other companies -- microsoft -- they do not really do much hardware. and so, these are companies that if you put up barriers, you know, tariffs on -- who are you looking at there? the chinese make a lot of electronic products, of course the iphone and pretty much every smartphone in the world, apart from koreans, is made in china. most computers are made in china, often by u.s. brands. so, you know, when donald trump talked about putting on tariffs, and he talked about protecting the united states, what is his objective here? it is not very, very clear. he seems to be lashing out. and of course steel is a very big area. we talk about american workers and all of the steel jobs lost, but you know, in the tech sector, most of the work is not

hardware anymore. emily: now, romaine, walk us through what exactly is happening with tech stocks. you know, what relates to tariffs, and what relates to specifically what is going on with facebook and the cambridge analytica controversy? romaine: well, you have got two big issues here. there is one, there is this issue about the fact that tech was sort of this leader, and most of the profits that folks have seen this year in the market have largely been in that large cap tech space and in that semi conductor space. so, when you get this sort of crowded trade where everyone is sort of benefiting on the way up, as soon as there is a negative catalyst, everyone is going to rush out the door. that is what you saw with facebook, when the facebook allegations came to light last week, and spilled over into this week. you are also seeing it, to a smaller extent with trade. there is a bigger issue here, though, about the general idea of how much people trust this market right now. there is -- we went through this period in this market where everyone was buying on any small bit of news that they could hold onto. now, we are seeing the exact opposite of that. any reason people have to sell, they are selling. the facebook matter has raised a lot of questions about the viability of the business model. we are still a long way from knowing exactly how this is going to shake out, but not a lot of people trust the process right now to wait and see what is going to happen. you are seeing the same issue on trade. many people are not trusting in the process of what is going on

out washington. they do not want to just wait around and see. emily: tim, how is china specifically likely to respond to these tariffs? tim: well, what is interesting, i think, beyond the tariffs -- the thing about tariffs -- when trump comes out -- or any u.s. leader comes out and issues a big statement, what you are doing is giving fodder for the chinese to react. if the u.s. does not do anything, or does not say anything, put anything in writing, then it is much more difficult for the chinese to react. but when you are putting

something concrete down, concrete measures such as tariffs, then the chinese can turn around and say "hey, you are starting a trade war. you are doing this. you are doing that." and one issue that came out of the news today is beyond the tariffs, trump has told the treasury secretary to look into finding ways to restrict investment into the united states by chinese companies in order to protect technology. now, this has been an ongoing thing for many years, even before the trump administration -- the obama administration, even the bush administration before that. this has been a big concern. but this has been handled by -- the committee on foreign investment in the u.s. works behind closed doors, chaired by the treasury secretary, and when they come out with a pronouncement or they knock out a deal, they do not have to tell anybody why. they simply recommend to the president, and the president would go through with it. but if they come out and put down in writing the rules of what can and can not be invested by chinese into the u.s., then suddenly it is put down in writing concrete steps that the chinese can then react against, and they can hold a piece of people and say "hey, you said we cannot do this." or "we will not allow you to do that." so, the fact is they work behind closed doors -- we are pro-open government -- but the fact that it works behind closed doors does give the u.s. a certain amount of cover to say "well, we are not going to tell you exactly why a deal was knocked back." but if you put it down in writing, then you are giving ammunition to the chinese. caroline: thanks to bloomberg's romaine bostick and tim culpan. now, this week, youtube

introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons. they come in the latest battleground in the u.s. gun-control debate. the site was previously a popular platform for firearm enthusiasts. youtube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, and prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms. now coming up, uber's fatal autonomous crash in tempe, arizona. how big of an impact this might have on the future of autonomous driving next. and if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. you can now listen on the bloomberg radio app, on bloomberg.com, and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ caroline: now to the tragic death of a woman hit by an uber self-driving car in tempe, arizona.

footage released on thursday brought fresh scrutiny to the ride-hailing company's autonomous vehicle technology. the video shows that the pedestrian had crossed at least one open lane of road before being hit. and experts are saying uber's self-driving sensors should have detected her. uber has halted all autonomous vehicle tests. we spoke to "bloomberg technology's" mark bergen on tuesday as the story was still unfolding. mark: i think what the autonomous vehicle community -- a lot of companies at large are still waiting to see if there was a perception issue, if there was an issue with the car, if there was an issue with the volvo that uber was using, or whether it was something purely unavoidable, whether it was human or software in control. caroline: nothing -- real update from uber, but as you say, other companies, the likes of apple, waymo, gm, all building their own autonomous vehicles or sort of testing that technology. are we yet to hear or see any reaction from these companies? mark: we have seen some reaction. toyota has suspended their autonomous testing. they put out a statement this morning, saying they are

concerned about the emotional state of their safety drivers. gm crews has said that they are continuing to plan -- there are no stops. they are planning to launch service next year. we have not heard from waymo, which is considered the technical leader in the field. we have yet to hear from apple. there is one city, boston, who is temporarily pausing all tests there. they have a startup called nutonomy that is testing in the city. we did hear that pittsburgh, where uber is testing and other companies, has said that these companies can continue to test on the roads, so they are not changing any plans. caroline: there's an interesting piece out today really showing that perhaps apple is getting into autonomous vehicles, far more than we perhaps had perceived, particularly in california. can you update us on that? mark: yeah, as far as we know, it sounds like apple has more cars on the road than waymo.

part of that maybe that waymo has been doing it for a very long time, and they have been testing on california roads for almost nine years now. what waymo -- california has been a little less receptive. they have laws now on the books that there has to be a human in the vehicle. and there are states like arizona, texas, and washington, that are a little more deregulated. so, you have companies like uber and waymo that are just testing a lot more miles now in arizona than they would be in california. caroline: "bloomberg technology's" mark bergen there. now, as we know, companies, including alphabet, general motors, uber, and tesla, are investing billions of dollars to develop driverless technology. and loup ventures' gene munster believes humans should not drive, and that traffic and pedestrian fatalities will decline under autonomy. emily chang spoke with him on thursday. gene: this is going to take longer than people think to get to this self-driving world, but it is going to be a bigger change than people think, too. i look back to pictures of 1917.

that is when horses were at the peak on the roads in new york city, the most number of horses. when i see a car today, i think of those same horses. that is what you should think of when you see a car out there, that this is going change dramatically. but i want to get to your question, the reason why i think that this still is going to power forward, and we will see this autonomous future, is that ultimately, humans are not good drivers. every year in the u.s., 5400 pedestrians are killed by cars. another 1000 bicyclists are killed by cars, and that rate has been increasing. it increased by 11% last year. that is the biggest increase it has had since they were keeping records for the past 30 years.

so, something is fundamentally wrong with how humans drive. so, i just want the big picture to be on the table. just to talk a little bit about tempe -- i do not think this fundamentally changes the trajectory of all those trends we just talked about. is that machines are better drivers that humans. emily: so, you have a new note out about where specific automakers stand. you know, talk to us about who is in the lead, and uber specifically, given that they are the ones behind this horrible crash. gene: in the lead is waymo, just because they have the most miles driven. general motors claims that they are going to have level-five autonomy -- which is no steering wheel -- in 2019. so, some may say that general motors is in the lead, but i want to put a little bit of perspective on that prediction from general motors. last week, we did a call with an expert who works around these vision technologies that are used in self-driving cars, and when she talked about that prediction from general motors -- and she is based in detroit -- she laughed, and i have a feeling that she is still laughing at that prediction. and so, when we think about defining what is in the lead, a simple statement from general motors is not necessarily

evidence of that lead. but i think that waymo is, from a technology standpoint, in the lead. i think another company people are not talking about is what apple is doing. they, surprisingly, have the most number of self-driving cars on the road in the state of california -- 46 -- and they also have a bus called p.a.i.l., the palo alto to infinite loop, shuttle that they are working on. so, the simple answer is that companies like waymo, tesla, apple, and uber still is in the lead. emily: so, you know, how far

away, then, given what has happened with uber from -- how many years away are we from, you know, being sure that these self-driving cars are actually safe and safer than humans? gene: it is probably 2025 before we actually see measurable fleets out there. that is how it will start. self-driving cars that have limited speeds and limited areas that they work in. so, think of this, and call it seven years away. as you mentioned, mark grangaard from our loup ventures team, went through and looked at all of the major automotive companies and what their predictions are. most of them say they will have some high-level of autonomy between 2019 and 2023. so, we think it will be beyond that, that it will get pushed back. but it is, as we talked about, is inevitable. caroline: that was loup ventures' gene munster. now coming up, tencent is raking it in thanks to wechat. we head to hong kong and look at just how well the chinese internet giant did during its fourth quarter next. and a reminder that all episodes of "bloomberg technology" are now live streaming on twitter. check us out weekdays, 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ caroline: a story we continue to watch -- uber co-founder travis kalanick is buying a controlling stake in a real estate company for $150 million, and he is installing himself as ceo.

the company redeveloped distressed retail, parking, and industrial real estate. kalanick was ousted as uber's ceo last year. he has since sold $1.4 billion of the company's stock. now, big news for chinese internet giant tencent, announcing on wednesday that its profits doubled to $3.3 billion during its fourth quarter. a driver for growth continues to be wechat, as chairman pony ma pointed out. pony: our platforms also continue to gather strength. and we saved $1 billion after the 2018 chinese new year. caroline: we headed to hong kong and spoke with bloomberg's chief north asia correspondent stephen engle. stephen: tencent still stuck to its bread and butter, and that is, of course, mobile and pc gaming, with like honor of kings, and also leveraging off

its more than one billion users in its wechat social messaging platforms, also qq, to drive that user base as well to other services that they are spending a lot more money to build out to go beyond the core competency, like cloud computing, like artificial intelligence, like the financial services, the wechat pay, and the like. so, the margins have been squeezed. when you have more than one billion users on wechat alone in the first quarter of this year, it kind of begs question -- and these were questions that were raised to pony ma yesterday here in hong kong at that news conference, and that is, you know, is there a chance to have breach, ala facebook, at tencent? and this is what pony ma -- actually, this is what martin lau -- he is the president of the company -- had to say, basically saying there is no chance that could happen. martin: this is at the top of

our concern. because we felt this is really, you know, our responsibility, and this is the basis of the users' trust with us. you know, that is why we have a lot of different measures, including technical measures, to prevent the leak of data. stephen: now, a couple of other notes from the tencent press conference, another reason why the margins are being squeezed is costs soared about 72% in the fourth quarter as they have been acquiring more content in video and music, and also martin lau saying, you know, the timing is getting closer to a possible ipo for its music division, also saying that they could, if the market conditions are correct, return to china, with a domestic listing, but again, the rules in china would have to be changed for that to happen, but the chinese government wants these big tech companies to come back and list on the mainland. of course, tencent is listed in hong kong. caroline: yes, stephen, it is fascinating how much tencent is spreading its investment. even over here in europe, just earlier this week, we had tencent put money into a startup based in germany called n26. and some of these are listing and managing to contribute to overall profits, but you say about listing at home, what about the general focus of the business going forward?

are people worried about investments that they do make in these areas? stephen: this is a heated competition with the likes of alibaba, of course, that create this ecosystem, not only in china but globally. alibaba maybe has a head start on global. but tencent, they have acquired more than 600 companies --

acquired or invested in more than 600 companies, so they are definitely going beyond their bread and butter in gaming and social media in payment and financial services in other developing parts of the world, including of course in europe. caroline: bloomberg's chief north asia correspondent stephen engle. now coming up, back to the fallout of the facebook data story. we turn to the political response both in the u.s. and in europe. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ caroline: welcome back to "the best of bloomberg technology." i am caroline hyde in london. now, let's turn back to the top story of the week -- facebook. mark zuckerberg made headlines last year with a tour of the american heartland. and now, he may have to embark on a tour of europe and its government. lawmakers have requested zuckerberg appear before them to answer questions on the alleged misuse of information by cambridge analytica. we spoke with u.k. member damion

collins on whether zuckerberg has responded. damion: i think you should agree. it is down to him whether he chooses or not, but it has been noticeable that we have heard nothing from him so far since this story broke a few days ago about the data breach and the involvement of cambridge analytica. i also think as well, there are important, outstanding questions questions we have following the evidence session we had for facebook in washington last month. we asked them been expressly about their relationship with cambridge analytica. we asked them about the way in which developers can harvest user data from facebook, and the enforcement powers facebook has to get control of the data. i do not think we have received satisfactory answers to in of those questions, so i think it requires someone at the top of the companies whose job it is to know every detail, and he could not go through this properly. caroline: this misuse of data of 50 million or so users of facebook in the u.s., surrounding the 2016 presidential election, they are investigating potentially the role of social media within the u.k.'s vote to leave the e.u.

do you think russian manipulation was done then? do you think that facebook is anything to answer regarding the brexit vote? damien: we know there was russian involvement during the brexit campaign, but at the moment from what has been published, that is a lower level than the case in the american presidential election. but it is still something we are looking to map out that is incredibly important. the u.k. information commissioner has her own investigation, looking at the way data was used during the referendum period. i think data analytics were used to some extent by russian agencies, but also by the official campaign as well. from organizations they know and russian bodies they do not know, there is little transparency around where those messages are coming from. caroline: we have heard your voice calling for mark zuckerberg and the fcc is looking at whether facebook potentially broke the consent decree. do you think regulators will get involved in the next -- in the united kingdom as well?

damien: yes, it is a really interesting issue. in european law, there are restrictions of holding data based on people's political views and opinions. but what that legislation did not necessarily consider is the fact that people may harvest huge amounts of consumer data, data that people consented to give as part of, you know, surveys on their opinions, or on their consumer habits, but never consented for that to be used in a political campaign, and held and used by a company that is not a registered political party. so, i think it is a big area of concern and something the u.k. information commissioner is looking at. caroline: do you think changes will be put in place by facebook? what changes do you want to see that this will not occur again? damion: the way they handle managed data, to understand how easy it is for developers and others to acquire data off the facebook side by their engagement with facebook users. for many people who are facebook

users every day of the week, they will be looking at the story and asking themselves questions -- how come facebook got that much data about me and what do they do with it? and is that data safe? that is what facebook would have to provide reassurance, that they are a safe custodian of that data. a lot of the outstanding questions we have on facebook are about that. there was also the other question about promoted messaging through facebook, to pay for messaging through facebook itself, and whether facebook is good at policing that messaging and understanding who the advertiser is, and if it is a political campaign, they are not breaking laws. i think these are important areas of understanding business practice and ethics that we need to get to the bottom up.

caroline: do you believe social media companies, not just facebook, but twitter and others, have become too powerful? damion: they have a huge amount of power, and i think if they think they are too powerful, and therefore, sadly above the reach of government in parliament, i think -- of government and parliaments, i think organizations that believe that will find it is different and ultimately, it does not matter how big you are. you have to comply with the law where you operate and if you do not, there are sanctions that could be used against you. but what we should look toward facebook is to be responsible and to act in a responsible way. and at the moment, i think it is incumbent upon them to demonstrate they are, and for the people that when the company, to be more forthcoming and provide clearer answers to

the questions we are putting. caroline: and have they responded to you as of yet? damion: we have outstanding questions from the evidence session, the hearing we had with facebook last month. they still have not responded to those outstanding questions, even though the hearing was over a month ago. we said today that we want mark zuckerberg, or someone of equal rank in the company, to give evidence to us. so, they have a duty to explain the cambridge analytica data breach, what occurred, and what they knew two years ago, but did not act then to make sure data was recovered. caroline: that was damion collins there. and sticking with the european response to facebook, the european commissioner suggested -- spoke on brussels on thursday, formulating a letter to facebook over the data scandal. facebook will likely escape as unprecedented -- that means they could avoid paying $25 million, or 4% of their annual revenue, whichever is higher. bloomberg's vonnie quinn spoke with them about this scenario, and just what she expects to hear from facebook in this upcoming meeting.

vera: i have several serious questions, especially on how this would have happened, whether they neglected their privacy rules, or whether they were carefully enough, or they were following the rules, which should have ensured the trust for the people because these are the central questions for the europeans. vonnie: now, you are curtailed to some extent and what kind of sanctions you can impose.

you said though that you would be imposing really, you know, drastic sanctions. how would you do that? vera: in europe, the member states are responsible for imposing the sanctions. for instance, the united kingdom and the case of breach of privacy rules, they can impose a sanction up to half a million pounds. and these sanctions differ from state to state. which will stop in may this year because we are unifying the rules, including the sanctions. consumer protection will enable the member states to enforce much higher sanctions which cannot be applied on this case because there is no -- possible. vonnie: that starts may 25. well, you are asking the working group, the 29 working party to investigate all of this. have you contacted every single nation in the e.u.? are all on board with this? vera: all member states are represented and 29 that yesterday. and they confirmed that they are unified in launching the investigations in case they find out that privacy rules, and the rights of people in their states, have been, or might have been breached.

this is an important moment, because i think that if they joined the power, so they can take a consolidated european actions. vonnie: could this set some kind of precedent? what are you hoping for as an outcome if facebook were to be found guilty or negligent? vera: i am not happy at all about this case because in my view, this is not only about data protection breaches, this is about the threat to democracy and individual freedoms of people. so of course, this will serve as a precedent for the future, and i can say in europe, we are ready for these cases. also, for the preventive measures.

because as i mentioned, the regulation is very tough. there are very strict rules to be obeyed in the e.u. as far as the consent of the people is concerned because we want providers to have the consent of people. people must understand the purpose by the data is collected, and what the provider will do with the data. and of course, it is clear that the providers are monetizing the data, but the people must know what is behind that, and what are the plans. caroline: that was the european commissioner for justice speaking to bloomberg's vonnie quinn. and in the halls of capitol hill, criticism of facebook also reached a fever pitch. senator john kennedy of louisiana is part of a bipartisan effort that question tech ceo's before a hearing.

he caught up with bloomberg's and it's a really, and discussed why he wants to get facebook to washington. sen. kennedy: it is very powerful. it touched millions and millions, billions of people. data is the new oil. we need to ask hard questions, because some of facebook's behavior lately has gotten into the foothills of creepy. caroline: coming up, when it comes to cloud computing, salesforce is already a towering force, and it looks to cement that stature with its latest acquisition, next this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ caroline: while the financial community watches an internal crisis unfold at facebook with a loss of market valuation, jeff bezos tweeted this -- a picture of himself strolling in the sunshine with a robotic dog. mark zuckerberg may see himself

sinking on the rich list, but bezos continues to sit pretty in that number one spot, especially as amazon vaults ahead of internet rival alphabet in market value for the first time. and when it comes to conquering the cloud, companies like amazon and microsoft and salesforce are vying to be the top provider, and it is the latter that is one of the main disruptors and the only large-cap company with 20% sales growth for the last three years. and this week, salesforce announced that $6.5 billion deal to help expand its presence. we spoke with salesforce's ceo and president. prior to that, he served as facebook's chief technology officer. bret: the landscape of technology is changing more rapidly today than it has in generations. the world's economic forum calls

it the fourth industrial revolution. it is artificial intelligence, the internet of things, mobility, the smart watch, amazon, alexa. and for a company like a google or a facebook, where i was previously, we have building -- full of engineers to grapple with those changes, but if you are a 100-year-old insurance company or health company trying to figure out how i provide a customer experience -- helping every company in the world grapple with these experiences. it is really rewarding as a product developer to an parcel many companies to do that.

emily: now, this announcement that you have agreed to buy mulesoft, it seems to be a desire to stretch beyond salesforce's core customer relationship management tools. bret: if you think about what it means to transform a company that has -- that was not born in the digital era, this digital transformation, we fundamentally think it starts and ends with the company, even if that means transforming a bunch of your legacy systems. and the reason why we are so interested in mulesoft and this concept for integrating all of the legacy systems, is it unlocks the data from legacy systems to enable people to participate in all these amazing new experiences we are seeing on our phones and watches and customer service experiences that are really transforming business today. so, i think mulesoft's platform because it allows to turbocharge, and

they can transform their customer experiences faster, which is our mission. emily: now, salesforce has been very inquisitive, including buying your own company. the deal chatter around twitter does not seem to stop. you are intimately familiar with twitter. you are on the board. do you see salesforce making more big deals in the near term? bret: we work backwards from what are the technologies that we need to have to enable our customers to achieve their goals? we work backwards from the customer, customer experience, will always consider building, buying, or partnering to accomplish those goals. that will continue to be our strategy going forward. emily: what are the objectives? bret: the really cool thing about salesforce as a platform is we are not just targeting developers. we are trying to make a platform that enables a much broader range of people to have access to these new technologies.

so this event that is happening in san francisco next week, thousands of people who come here, many of them may midcareer transition into technology, started outside technology and learned for free using our self trailhead.ools like and by doing so, they were able to get a career in technology. what i think is so powerful about that, and why this event is so powerful, if you look at the landscape of technology today, the society's relationship with the technology industry has really shifted over the past few years. what i am so proud of at salesforce is we are really doubling down this platform of enablement and empowerment, and trying to create a job creation engine, so that not only can we transform our customers' companies, but people can transform their careers in this platform, and that is an empowering message and that is something we are looking to get across next week. emily: you worked at facebook for so many years. you are very close with mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg, and i am so curious what you think about this cambridge analytica scandal.

where did facebook go wrong? and what you make of zuckerberg and sandberg's response, which many thought was far too slow? brett: i think the trend i see is broadly the technology industry coming to grips with the impact we are having on society. and i brought up that fourth industrial revolution concept from the world economic forum. it captures how big this is. and you know, as the technology industry is maturing, i think we need to recognize that this is not just about technology. his about the impact on our society.

and you know, my boss marc benioff often talks about how important it is that modern companies lead with their values, and particularly lead with the value of trust, and work backwards from that value in every action you take. and i do think that when i look at the sort of lessons being learned in our industry right now, it is reinforcing that it is the most important thing in our industry is stressed, and it is extreme import and that your company is crafted around your values. and i think it is a lesson that we have not had to learn today just because i do not think the impact of these technologies was completely understood by society. and i think that would -- and i think that what is happening right now are those two things converging. emily: right, but you wonder if they were completely or better understood by facebook. you have people like brian acton, the cofounder of whatsapp, which facebook bought, -- which facebook bought for $20 billion, saying to delete facebook. and other facebook insiders, really talking about the potential threats of the social network. are you in that camp? >> you know, i have a great deal of you know, personal connection and loyalty to that company, so it is always a sort of uncomfortable for me to talk about. for me, i do think the right way to think about it is these technologies have changed the landscape of our society. you know, everything from the smartphone to social networks

have changed the way we interact with each other, and they are much more than a technology. the actually change our -- they behavior and interactions. we like to say it salesforce, these companies do not exist just to serve stockholders or customers. it is really about all stakeholders, and that includes the communities around us, the government, includes all of our society. and i think, right now, the way i think about it is, ok, these technologies are complex. their impact is very nuanced. how can we include all the stakeholders to solve these problems? caroline: that was bret taylor of salesforce. still ahead, we will hear from the blackberry ceo john chen, his thoughts on whether big tech should get broken up. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ caroline: virtual reality was supposed to change the world, but it has yet to really arrive. with it facing a threat to be supplanted by augmented reality, will it deliver? oculus is trying to make sure it does with their new headset. bloomberg's mark gurman took it for a test. ♪ mark: virtual reality. it was supposed to be the new age of the world, but it has yet to take off the way hollywood told us it would. but oculus has the vision of facebook and trying to change that. their plan is the oculus-go, new strategy that is cheaper and a different approach to vr. unlike headsets from htc, sony, and even oculus's, "the go" is a completely standalone device. it does not need to be chained to a desktop pc. it has a rechargeable battery so it can be used similar to a phone, tablet, or ipod touch. you can watch movies on the go, play games, or interact with immersive social media apps.

according to the latest data, oculus has 20% ownership of the vr headset market, trailing sony by 40%. that gives oculus a lot of room for growth. at the same time, vr has been referred to as a platform which will be supplanted by ar, augmented reality. basically, a cousin of vr that mixes with the real world and the virtual world. pioneers like amazon and apple are focusing on ar, not believing in vr as a long-term winning, long-term strategy. so, while the oculus go may be a hit product this year and next, it could be a short-lived success story. we will find out soon. caroline: that was bloomberg's mark gurman there. now, blackberry has added another major brand to its portfolio of partnerships. jaguar has agreed to license blackberry's technology and will host some of the engineers to work on a new info-tainment

system. blackberry has deals with ford and qualcomm. bloomberg's, then pharaoh spoke jonathan ferro spoke with blackberry's ceo john chen on thursday. highlighting the facebook scandal and whether big tech should have to get broken up. john: 10 years ago, the name of big tech and 10 years from today the name of big tech is quite different. so, technology has a way, the market, has a way to reinvent itself, so i am not a big proponent. jonathan: to reinvent itself you need innovation, and i wonder whether these firms foster innovation. and foster competition. what is your view on that, john? john c.: this is the great thing about technology market. i remember when google first started out, yahoo! was dominant. when yahoo! first data dow, -- first started out, netscape

was dominant. it is really about the people, the creativity, the brains behind it, and the venture money. so, i don't see that being monopolistic in anyway, shape, or form. jonathan: how do some of these business models that are incredibly, incredibly profitable, do you see that model being threatened with the events of the last year? john c.: yeah, i think you have gone a little too far. that is my personal opinion. at blackberry, we do not monetize data, so certainly not against the customer who provided the data. so, that i believe needs to be looked at. caroline: blackberry ceo john chen there. and that does it for this edition of "the best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest in tech throughout the week. tune in each day at 5:00 p.m. eastern time, 2:00 pacific. remember, all episodes are live streaming on twitter.

check us out during the weekdays. that is it for now. this is bloomberg. ♪ mom, dad, can we talk?

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>> we go inside facebook. >> the environmental protection agency, what about the digital protection agency? >> that is all ahead on bloomberg businessweek.