taylor: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm taylor riggs. we are inside the magazine headquarters in new york. still ahead in this week's issue, we look at china's new gateway into europe, a billionaire working overtime to impeach donald trump, and youtube having its worst year ever. all of this straight ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ taylor: we are here with the editor-in-chief bloomberg businessweek, joel webber, and we start with a fascinating story.

it is the cover story for asia, and it takes a look at the malaysian prime minister. bloomberg got an interview with him. >> he hasn't spoken in about three years. this was a coup, and we are especially interested in talking to him because this is a couple weeks before the election in malaysia. it is not a sure thing. if you kept an eye on the country, it has been rocked by this scandal. and it is still kind of lingering. there are still investigations that are happening. the fbi has been involved in some of it.

here we are three years later, he has not been very public in any of this time, and now he is up for reelection. carol: talk to us about the scandal. at bloomberg we have covered a lot, but remind us what this is all about. >> this is a development fund. the allegations were used almost -- were that it was used almost like a slush fund. it was mentioned as one of the people who might be affiliated. as one of the crackdowns, he has cleared the decks and has asserted himself. taylor: what do his proponents say? the people who support him? he said he has a strong support base, even with the scandals going on. he feels confident. what do his supporters say? >> what is more impressive is three years ago, it would have been unheard of that you could have said his name and reelection in the same sentence. and yet here it is, and he is definitely a front runner in this. they like that he has a trumpesque hold on power. he is very assertive. the economy still is bumping

along, but this is a massive economy with massive potential. here is a chance to have stability. one of the amazing quotes he said was "change, that is a cliche." carol: what's interesting is the malaysia economy is doing fairly well. unemployment is low. the thing is though his party has not been really able to get a majority. they have had some stumbles politically over the past few years. >> including the one mdb scandal. what is interesting also is that for the average malay, they don't even know what a bond is, let alone what one mdb does. it is a very complicated financial transaction. friendly, we are still unraveling three years later what actually -- frankly, we are still unraveling three years later what actually went down. carol: what is crazy about the scandal is all of a sudden $700 million showed up in one of his bank accounts. he was saying it was a gift from the middle east. >> a lot of finger-pointing. carol: yeah. >> i think about him almost as

the teflon politician. you cannot throw a bigger scandal on anyone and yet here he is. and that is why we chose the cover line "the survivor." taylor: i want to switch over to the u.s. cover that is youtube. it started out with a very sad story -- the shooting that happened a few weeks ago. youtube taking a really bigger, broader crisis in what they are facing in the controls and privacy in the videos they allow. walk us through the cover story. >> youtube is a fascinating story because it has had hypergrowth. 450 hours of content gets uploaded to the site every minute. carol: it is staggering. >> it's staggering how much content is on this site. but in the past year, it has had a very bumpy, messy year. there has been a lot of fallout over unsavory clips. and it goes everything from isis propaganda, all the way down to prominent people tazering rats, which is weird and unsavory. so here we are, from a strategy perspective, the biggest

competitor that they really have is something like television. television is heavily regulated. yet here is youtube, not regulated at all and even struggling to put in a cleanup plan that helps them self regulate. that's where our story picks up. here they are having this gigantic mess. a highly profitable year, but what is the cleanup plan going to be? carol: what is next? we have more from reporter lucas shaw on youtube having its worst year ever. lucas: for the past year, maybe going to last march, youtube has dealt with some type of crisis. every couple of weeks, every month. more of kind of a public relations and marketing perspective. just to be clear, the business of youtube has continued to grow because it is the best place to reach someone between the age of 18 and 34, which most marketers want to do.

what has been one of the greatest things about youtube, which it has been this democratizing force, anybody can upload a video, anybody can become a celebrity, has become also an achilles heel of some sorts. because people are paying so much attention to all of the bad videos that are circulating. and so that has been everything from these "youtube stars" who say inappropriate things, and one of the subscribers making anti-semitic remarks. logan paul, another prominent youtuber, filmed himself in a forest in japan known for suicides, he filmed a dead body, and later he filmed himself tazing dead rats. you also had advertisements running from blue-chip companies running in front of terrorism videos, running next to white supremacist videos. you have had inappropriate kid videos. you name it, you have probably seen it on youtube the past year. they have gotten in a lot of trouble for it and they are

trying to figure out how to balance the desire to maintain this very open platform with the need to censor or silence some of these inappropriate and darker impulses. carol: that is -- you ask a question in your story, which where -- which you say, is youtube inherently flawed? are they? they have to have an awareness of the problems that are out there and what's going on. do they want to fix it, or is it the way it is going to be? lucas: i think the problem they have is they have competing desires. youtube wants to be the biggest online video advertiser in the world. it is right now, but it wants to keep growing. it wants every major advertiser, every major media company, it wants the catalog, like google is the search engine for the world, it wants youtube to be the video social network for the world. it is hard to have everything and satisfy the top advertisers

and charge them high rates. because if you are a kid friendly advertiser, you are selling diapers, do you want your diaper ads to run against some of the most disgusting videos you could see on the internet? you don't. and so they need to find a way to make both of those constituencies happy. i and not sure -- i mean, i know they haven't figured it out. they are at something of a crossroads. what i like to view as an existential crisis. i think they have to make some choices between those two. taylor: this week's cover in the u.s. is youtube. walk me through the process. >> we wanted something that got into the kinds of different videos people upload, and how a lot of them are causing problems and having to clean up. taylor: you did the cleanup job. i see a pile of trash. chris: we wanted this image to get at all of the different things. there are all these easter eggs.

we have tide pods, isis flags, a little bit of everything to get people to see there is this big problem and they are trying to clean up. taylor: what i also love is it looks cluttered. that is part of youtube's problem -- you can upload tons of videos everyday, they almost don't have the time to really go back and filter through it before all of these videos are put up on the website. that is clear here, just the clutter-ness of it all. chris: it really gets to the overwhelming nature, and they have this big problem to deal with. you get that with the cover. taylor: up next, apple tries to play catch-up with google and facebook in india. and security researchers can be greedy too, but is that a bad thing? this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm taylor riggs. you can find us online at businessweek.com and on our mobile app.

in the technology section, we go over to india, the world's fastest-growing smartphone market. you have apple going over there to attract kid coders. here is editor jeff muskas. jeff: the first ever of one of two in the world apple app accelerator is up and running in bangor. it has been trying to teach young people in india, kids as young as seven through high school, how to better tailor their software development careers for the app store. carol: tell us about these kids. jeff: this kid started coding on his seventh birthday, and he is not in fourth grade yet, but already has, for india's app store, a fairly successful translation app, a way to convert measurements from one system to the metric system. taylor: these kids get to learn to code and create apps, what is amazing.

what is apple's take? they want to get new apps or they want to learn the skids into their system? how does this all work for apple? jeff: one part of the sales pitch for apple is to look like an inviting place for developers to code. but a big piece of that is catch-up of the 125 million smart phones sold in india in a given year, making it the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, second in terms only to china. out of those 125 million phones, apple is selling about 3 million. if anything, they are losing ground to android in this market. and losing talented developers not only to google's ecosystem, but also to facebook, with big pushes from mark zuckerberg's team to get people to code for facebook specifically. carol: what is cool here is they

are tapping into india, where there is a very, very young population and a lot of developers, so that is one thing. they are also thinking about a young population that needs to buy phones and hopefully get into the apple ecosystem. so they are kind of playing two different things. jeff: yeah, everywhere in the world at this point, apple is focused more and more on services and revenue from areas beyond a simple iphone hardware sale. they did not have to worry about that a few years ago. now the idea is it is tough to talk people in a market with so many way cheaper options than the iphone available to start coding for apple. the sales pitch has to revolve sort of around the kind of customers you are attracting. this idea that we are reporters, and i heard from the kid coders in the story and apple certainly quick to assert that while there are way more people using the android store in india, the people using apple's app store

are more likely to pay you. taylor: in the solutions section, we talk about c.t.s. they found vulnerabilities in some of the chips made by advanced micro devices. they sold that information to short-sellers. amd says that is unethical. we get the scoop from an editor. >> we know that c.t.s. labs was researching for about one year what it claims were vulnerabilities in amd chips. amd is one of the biggest chipmakers, right after intel. it is a very large company. in mid-march, cts sent a note, saying we have identified, i

think it was something on the order of about 13 vulnerabilities, and the issue that really developed is c.t.s. went public with this information in a very short period of time. in the sort of world of discovering bugs and going to the companies you discover them at and making them aware of it, there has been a custom that has developed over the years in which people typically give the company the right for anywhere from 30, 60, 90 days to decide how they are going to approach this vulnerability. c.t.s. gave them less than 24 hours. it also turned around and made the information public and sold it to short-sellers. who made money. so what we have is a really interesting ethical dilemma in this world of bug discovery, how it has happened until now. it is fascinating and raises a lot of thorny issues. when do you disclose, how do you

disclose, what is appropriate? in the name of security, what is the best thing to do? carol: it is interesting because c.t.s. labs is set up as a business to find these bugs. typically, these hardware makers have these bug bounties that they will pay. it may be a little bit of money, it may be a lot of money. so there is that relationship between the companies. >> exactly. although in this instance, there was no bug bounty. how much c.t.s., given the other way it is trying to make money, is being paid bug bounties that is something i don't think we know. but there is this whole practice because when you are discovering something like this, you are letting a company know something that is extremely important and very valuable to them. so in a way, they are both rewarding that, and also encouraging people to come forward with what they find. and the time period you are typically waiting isn't just to give you time to figure out your pr strategy. these are complicated and difficult things to deal with. you also do not want to go public right away and give hackers with bad intentions the opportunity to use the information that has just been made public and, in some way, do even more damage.

carol: but c.t.s could go to the black market and sell it to other people who could infiltrate. >> theoretically, yes. and i think there are some people who have very strong reactions and believe that c.t.s. has acted unethically. that they are essentially handing this information over by the way they have handled it, to any bad actor who wants to do whatever they want to do. taylor: up next, cyprus finds itself at a strategic crossroads for china and the threat of a trade war is a wake-up call in pharmacy. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm taylor riggs. you can listen to us on the radio, sirius xm channel 119, am 1130 in new york, 1061 in boston, 90.91 fm in washington,

d.c., am 960 in the bay area, and in london on dabmux three, and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. in the economics section, we go over to cyprus. they found a new trading partner in china. beijing has seen that mediterranean island nation as a way to expand its footprint in europe. we get the scoop from christina lindblad. christina: cyprus, unlike other european countries, has been coy about wanting to sell itself to china. it has allowed allotted -- a lot of investment already, and it is a small economy. it takes, admittedly, we have a source saying a drop of chinese money to make a big splash. it also is a country that has had less controls on a lot of things other than countries like germany and france.

some people have cast it as a weak link in fights against money laundering and issues like that. carol: what kind of things has china invested in, in cyprus specifically? christina: there has been a lot of infrastructure investment, marinas, capital injection, an unspecified amount of money to the flag carrier and airlines. one of the latest investments, of which has been announced, it hasn't started yet. it is this big integrated casino resort that is $670 million project. it's supposed to be the biggest integrated casino resort in europe. carol: more china money funding it? christina: yes. taylor: let's talk about this. when you mentioned infrastructure or investments, usually, that could be a good thing. invest in the economy and spur up the ecosystem. but there is some fear around this. walk us through why the fear.

christina: the concern is that once a country owns so much of critical assets in a place that it can start infusing that influence in other arenas. for example, there was an interesting case in which greece, during its debt crisis, china came forward and bought government bonds, which was a sign of confidence. then we saw later on, the european union was drafting a resolution to criticize china's record on human rights and greece successfully blocked the resolution. it's about buying influence, in a sense. these are productive assets, and there is good reason china would want to invest abroad. also, it is a way to extend its power. taylor: over in the politics section, we get the latest on

the chinese tariffs. they are making some republicans in the farm states nervous. we will see how it impacts the midterm elections. here is editor matthew philips. matthew: this is a look at farm state republicans, and how nervous they are about the backlash of the chinese tariffs that have been put in place to retaliate against the ones president trump put in place against chinese goods. they are going to take this harder than anybody else in the country. this is a core area of trump's support. we go to iowa and kansas and talk to farmers and members of congress to gauge how worried they are. they are pretty nervous. carol: how worried is republican steve king of iowa? matthew: i think he is more nervous than he let on. steve king is the congressman from the fourth district of iowa. by many measures, the top agriculture producing district in the country.

if you want to know what farmers are thinking, you go there. steve king is as strong a trump supporter as you can imagine. so are his constituents. they voted by -- for trump by 27 points in 2016, and, yet, they are going to take the brunt of this as much as anybody. there are a lot of soybeans, sorghum, two products china has put tariffs on. we did data crunching and looked at of the 30 congressional districts that are most -- his economies are most affected by soybeans, 25 are currently represented by republicans in congress. all of them voted for trump. we wanted to go and gauge how concerned they are about the backlash. this is happening in a market that is already having low commodity prices. they are already dealing with

low farm income, on top of having 179% tariffs levied by china. they are worried about what this is going to do to their economy. republicans are worried about what that will do to turn out in november. taylor: there are some pretty heart-wrenching stories when you say you went to iowa and kansas and talked to the farmers on the ground. what was the tone and sentiment? there are some pretty heartbreaking stories in there. matthew: they are pretty worried. they remember back in 1980 when jimmy carter halted grain shipments to russia to protest the afghanistan war, immediately prices crashed. in a lot of ways, that was the

beginning of the early into mid-1980's farm crisis. there were a lot of bankruptcies that did not just hate the -- hit the farms, but there were a lot of faces, and places that is fresh in the mind of older farmers and certainly their kids. but on a policy level, the thing we are interested with this story is how -- in the words of one senior republican strategist, he said "this policy is like micro-targeting pain to your most staunch supporters," and we thought that was interesting. this is going to be a test of allegiance that farm state republicans have to the president. it is no surprise he did this. he was talking about trade and protectionist tariffs all on the campaign trail, but that was always aimed more at rust belt, blue-collar factory workers in places like michigan, not farmers. farmers love free trade, they can sell their wheat, corn, grain all over the world. it's not the manufacturing industry that is going to get hit by the chinese retaliatory efforts as it is the farmers. taylor: up next, tom steyer's campaign to remove donald trump from the white house. plus, the board games that are the most popular in boardroom. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ welcome to the xfinity store.

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taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am taylor riggs. still ahead, we take a look at the latest dealmaking trend in the food industry and tom steyer's campaign to impeach donald trump, and a facial mask made from outer space. all of this still ahead, on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ taylor: we are back with our "bloomberg businessweek" editor-in-chief joe weber. in the business section, we are talking about craft science, a company that traditionally does a lot of emanated fuel growth.

they may have to turn organically. walk us through the company. >> craft-heinz, that merger happened a year ago. markets loved it. 3g and buffett had teamed up to bring the deal together. and they know what they are doing. they come in and cut costs, and markets love it because they are reinvigorating this. but the thing is, it really comes about from them making acquisitions. so we have mayo, ketchup, we have everything. what else are you going to do? they were rebuffed in a massive takeover target. they wanted to go after unilever. markets loved the idea, because they were like, this is going to be cost-cutting that will be great for the companies.

yet, that didn't go through. unilever pushed back and now kraft heinz is left reeling. what are you going to do? carol: it is a huge package food company. go figure, they have to be a package food company all of a sudden. it is not great margins, not great growth, there is a lot of competition. joel: food in general has very thin margins. packaged foods, as consumers have shifted taste away from packaged foods that sit on shelves, it is a question of where is a company like kraft heinz going to see growth? taylor: what do they say? have we heard from them on earnings calls? what is their story? are they going to push for organic growth? can they try to go into something more sexy that millennials are buying? joel: it is all eyes on them. this is after just after the unilever thing did not work out. now the markets are starting to look at this and say this is a company that was basically built on private equity style takeover, financial engineering. are they going to be able to find something different, or will this be a different craft-heinz going forward.

carol: what is interesting, too, and you see some of the deals that are happening in the packaged food business, especially those cap starters, people have to pay up because the valuations are going up. it gets expensive. joel: exactly. it is always going to be driven by consumers. where are consumers going to put money? especially when you start thinking about shifting consumer habits. you see meal services that deliver in boxes. you are not buying hot dogs anymore. that is a change in habit that a company like kraft heinz really isn't going to be able to benefit from. ditto on the grocery said, when -- side, when amazon buys whole foods. how is that going to disrupt what they do? carol: let's go to features, i love this story, you talk about kraft heinz reinventing itself. here is an individual who has reinvented himself. we are talking about the billionaire turned activist turned someone on a mission to impeach president trump, tom

steyer. joel: billionaire democrat, seems to have some political ambitions. carol: sounds like it. joel: his main message is the need to impeach donald trump. that message is one that democrats wince at. it really creates a divide in the party of people who are willing to have the conversation, others that say it is the wrong conversation to have. so it is a really decisive person who has taken one side of that issue. taylor: we heard more about tom steyer from our own max stapleton. max: tom steyer, he is a billionaire for one thing. he was a big, big hedge fund manager, one of the biggest in the world, $30 billion by 2008. he quit and became something but the thing is totally different -- but the thing is he quit and became summing totally different, which is an environmentalist. that's not what the story is about. he had basically another reawakening. is sort of makes me feel boring

by comparison. there has only ever been one max. but there are three tom steyer's, and the third is he has become a national political figure. and he is sort of, as we call him, mr. impeachment. he is the main guy who is trying to light this fire and have trump thrown out of the white house. taylor: how did this start? the impeach campaign? carol: take us back to february. max: way back. first of all, have you ever watched tv and see a 60 year old guy in front of a fireplace saying the country is in terrible shape? join us. taylor: i have not. carol: i have. it is pretty ominous. max: it is ominous. we talked about the strings and camera coming closer and closer and closer. carol: the list of things that are wrong. max: steyer came out with this ad, and one smart thing he did is he put it on fox news. who saw it? of course, donald trump. donald trump insulted him, he

called him a crazy billionaire, and sign ups for his list ballooned. he now has something that is substantial. 5 million people signed up for need to impeach. he has promised $40 million for the effort, which makes him the person funding the impeachment movement in the united states. in addition to that, he is spending $30 million to get millennials to the polls in november. all of a sudden, he is a major political force in america. taylor: i want to talk about who are the supporters before the opponents. so who are the people signing up and supporting this campaign? max: i went to washington, d.c., the national press club. the room was filled. it was three rooms put together. carol: now we are going back to february.

max: now we are going back to february. it is what you always wanted. in february, that month i was also in vegas, in washington, he has these fans. people in the united states, trump has some supporters who who just are absolutely in love with him. but i think it is fair to say that there is a large swath of this country that believes we are heading for some sort of constitutional crisis, let alone something much scarier. and those people are glad to see someone like steyer come up and say politicians need to act. so he is -- in a way, you can think of him as sort of like a bullhorn for the frustrations and anger for people who can't

believe donald trump is the president of the united states. taylor: those people, young, old, millennial, coastal? max: it is fair to say they are republicans. republicans tend to be older, white or -- whiter, and more male, and you asked about opponents, one problem is one group of opponents are trump's fans. they think he is a george soros type of character, a puppeteer in the shadows. he is, after all, a rich hedge fund guy. this is bloomberg news, so i can't mention goldman sachs and morgan stanley. kind of this soros-y creature. but he has this other group of opponents, democrats, mainstream democrats who are not sure if impeachment is the right idea, or at least are not sure impeachment is something we should be doing now, because the numbers aren't there. taylor: up next, a pyramid scheme leaving a trail of unhappy women across the u.s. and what maybe wall street's most popular board game. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm taylor riggs. you can find us online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. over in the features section, we take a look at the risks of signing up with a multimillion -- multilevel marketing company known as mlm. we talked with an investigator,

who was looking into one company called lula row. >> if you are on facebook, you may have heard of the company. there are thousands of women all over the country and all 50 states who are selling leggings on facebook. and tunics, skirts, and dresses, but lularoe is this company that is five years old, and they have gone from the two founders, a couple selling out of their suburban, to a $2.3 billion company last year. carol: possible or revenues? or what? >> sales. [laughter] carol: ok. >> it is unclear. they are a private company, so they are touchy on what they will or will not share. they did sell $2.3 billion worth of clothing last year.

taylor: tell us about the founders, who they are, they are the main characters of the story. >> mark and deane stidham, they are in their late 50's, they are mormon and live in southern california. and they started this company that is called a multi-level marketing company, which is sort of like mary kay, amway, or herbalife where women buy their clothing wholesale and sell them retail for roughly double the price. carol: they are what you call these multilevel marketing companies, then there are ponzi schemes. what is the difference? mlm's are legitimate, right? >> right. so an mlm, you have people at the top who founded the company or got in early, then a built people underneath them.

so they recruit people to also sell, and they get a commission based on what those people sell. and in an ideal world, that commission is based off of what those people underneath them actually sell rather than what they buy. so there have been a lot of court cases. the ftc looks at this quite closely to make sure you are basing it on what people are actually managing to move towards consumers rather than what they are purchasing from a company like this. however, when the company first started, they based their compensation plan on wholesale orders. that changed last year, but that meant for the first several years of their life as a company, they grew enormously because people realized you can make a ton of money if you recruit people to join your team. taylor: we learned there are problems now facing the company, ranging from lawsuits, inventory and merchandising problems, what are all the problems facing this company right now? >> lularoe is facing about a

dozen lawsuits that are in various stages of being litigated or settled or negotiated. one big one, which was in a norma's class-action lawsuit with 22 plaintiffs who had been former consultants with lularoe has just recently reached arbitration. they were trying to sue saying this was a pyramid scheme, but in their contracts they signed, they had to litigate everything through individual arbitration. and it is hard to say what will come out of that. obviously, it is much harder to win a case that way read -- way. carol: what is interesting in talking to consultants, there were things like get your husband to quit their job, go all in on this, use the profits to plow back into the business. so people bought more and more inventory, which is good for the home company, if you will. and also things about gastro bypass surgery? there were a lot of crazy things that went on. >> yeah. i think this is largely a story about women who have started to have kids, then switched from full-time income to being a stay-at-home mom or maybe part-time. they are looking for a way to still earn money and support their families, and also feel like they have some sort of business. lularoe markets itself as a business opportunity for people. so they say, you know, you can help support your family. you can work from home and still take care of your kids. that's why there are so many people willing to get in on

this. taylor: over in the pursuit section, we are taking a look at boardgames. executives say they are gaining in popularity from everywhere to wall street from silicon valley. and the players say it helps them with collaboration and some networking. we sat down with reporter mark ellwood. mark: imagine -- if you are a financier and think of buying a nice apartment in new york, not everyone would buy another one next door just to turn into a board gaming den. this is like a man cave, but nerdvana. boardgames and books. i walked in -- i must admit, i am not a big gamer, but i loved this place. carol: you need to define what gamer is, some people are thinking electronic devices, monopoly, what are you talking about? mark: video gaming is very known. i don't think everybody understands, historically, four -- historically, boardgames were a niche family activity. they have become wall street's favorite analog hobby. instead of poker, you play settlers of catan. taylor: instead of golf, you are getting boardgames for collaboration and networking.

i mean, this has so much more going on to it than just boardgames. mark: the story came out of a friend telling me he plays boardgames. he is really nerdy and he was rhapsodizing about this. but he said oh, i have a really good connection with a lawyer who i play with. she recommended a pro bono company. it kind of unspooled where i realized oh, they are playing board games, but it is a way to hang out, meet people, maybe get new jobs. one guy i spoke to said i got the best job of my life with a guy i rolled dice with. carol: it is a great idea to get in touch with a future colleague and see how they react to losing.

are they a good loser? bad loser? mark: that is what i love about it. would you want to work with someone who flips the table and -- if they don't win? i would not want to. there are producers -- settlers of catan is something you mentioned. what is this game? mark: settlers of catan is essentially silicon valley's favorite board game. reid hoffman, who runs linkedin, is a mega-fan and started the trend. because it is entrepreneurship, you need to be good at catan. carol: sorry, i said it differently. mark: to be good at it, you have to be entrepreneurial and strategic. it really dovetails with what makes you good at business today. that turbocharged this wall street, white-collar board game. taylor: what makes you good at business today? does it expand beyond business? do i have to be in finance, or is there a lot of industries and people are excited? mark: the boardgame is a white color person, doctors, lawyers, conventional white-collar people. but what i love about these boardgames are it is not about winning at all costs on your own. a lot require you to collaborate with other players and learn to put your own needs first. give it a little. it is all about being nimble. business today in any form is warp speed, which it wasn't before. taylor: up next, the condo towers that are taking over manhattan. plus, the facial technique tested by nasa. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm

♪ taylor: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm taylor riggs. you can listen to us on the radio, sirius xm channel 119, and in new york on ame 1130, -- am 1130, 1061 in boston, 1330 and 9091 fm in washington, d.c., am 960 in the bay area, and in london on dab mux3, and in asia, on the bloomberg radio plus app. in the pursuit section, a new condominium known as 15 central park west and its architects are gaining in popularity. we sat down with reporter james

tarmy. james: this was kicked off by a man named robert stern, the former dean of the architect. -- of the ale school of architecture. he designed a building called 15 central park west in new york that was completed in 2008. new yorkers and international buyers went just crazy for this. taylor: how come? james: this is a great question. one of the easiest answers is this was a condominium as opposed to a co-op. so a co-op is a building that is actually owned cooperatively. it is sort of an abstract concept. most importantly, co-ops generally do not let international buyers in or people who want to use these apartments as --

they also don't allow people to buy and sell. there is a huge vetting process. the condominium -- carol: it has to go before the co-op board if you are accepted as a buyer. james: completely. with a condominium, if you have the cash, you can buy. and that is extremely appealing to a lot of people who don't necessarily want to have all of their finances scrutinized by an invasive toward. and that is especially appealing to people who like the idea of being able to buy this as an investment and sell when they want, as opposed to based on selling whether a board considers the buyers appropriate. as a result, in the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, 15 central park west did spectacularly well. they were setting new york city apartment records. one apartment eventually sold for $13,000 a square foot. carol: we are in a crisis, and you are saying these apartments are selling like hot cakes. james: yes. so other new york city developers look at this success and were kind of like maybe we should try to re-create it. the other aspect is this is a building that looks like a

co-op, it looks gracious, it has all of these elements that are extremely attractive to people who like the kind of "graciousness of prewar living." so it is not a giant, open kitchen, living room, dining room space. it is discrete spaces, and yet it is all new. this mean ins -- means it is configured to a more modern family, not with a made cozy room in the back or whatever. carol: are they doing well? are they selling as well as the original model? james: this is a question. some of the buildings are selling spectacularly well. the "affordable" ones which are relatively cheaper, around $2000 a square foot, so you are looking at $3 million to $15 million for an apartment. those are the buildings on the upper east side on the east side and upper west side. those are selling like hot cakes because there was one new york real estate analyst that priced them right, so they are selling.

now, when we get to more expensive examples, this is a real question. and a lot of people are very interested in the answer. 520 park avenue has not listed any closings yet. there is speculation that they are having real difficulty selling these apartments because they are colossal. every apartment is at least one floor, around 4500 square feet, maybe less, maybe more. carol: a lot of space. james: it is a lot of space. taylor: like you said, if it is not a co-op, you can get the international buyer demand, do we know who these buyers are? a lot of them are through llcs. james: indeed. and no. no is the very easy answer. you know, some people, regular kind of professional new york class are not necessarily buying. if you are a doctor or lawyer, you are probably not setting up a shell company and the seychelles or whatever. however, when it comes to these $250 million penthouses that are apparently being sold in some of these buildings, there is a lot more ambiguity about who the buyers are.

taylor: also in the pursuit section, led masks are growing trends in facial treatments, and the science comes straight from space. here is reporter mark ellwood. mark: we are talking about a nasa technology, which you have probably seen on instagram. taylor: i am in already. mark: it sells more whenever we hear the word nasa. but on instagram, you have seen these celebrities with these crazy jason voorhees masks that glow. you think, are they ok? it is like chrissy teigen's of this world saying, i am fixing my face, one ray at a time. it is called low-level light therapy, lllt. it is derived from a nasa science about growing plants in space and firing infrared at them. it helped the plants grow faster and they realized if they put them on wounds -- like if i graze my hand and i put it on the wound, it will help heal faster. suddenly, someone thought if it would heal wounds, it would fix wrinkles. taylor: you have real companies taking the technology.

mark: they are thousand of dollars, but they are a one-time investment. if you, for example, by one of these which i try. it looks like a yoga mat with lights on it. that could be a couple of thousand dollars, but it will not cost you more than that. there's no maintenance cost. carol: you go to a dermatologist, each time you go it is going to be hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars. mark: exactly. and also, you have to be

patient, this is not a quick fix. we all want a quick fix. this is lying there with tanning goggles on your eyes for 30 minutes a day for a month, probably once or twice a week moving forward. you have got to be patient. taylor: there is acne, wrinkles, what else are we talking about? mark: it depends if you use infrared, visible red, or blue light. the combination, and there are various complicated combinations that they program in, which help with muscle soreness, easing, joint pain, the wrinkles is what i care most about, but the companies do sell it as a medical -- a supplemental medical device and the fountain of youth. carol: what is the regulatory oversight of things like you this -- like this? i am always concerned when you see things like lighting that could be damaging. mark: that leaves me with a big question. when i tried this, i was worried about my eyes. what is important to know is these are not lasers, these are diffracted life -- i will get the terminology wrong, but it is not a unilateral, unidirectional light, which could damage your eyes. they scatter, so there is no risk on that. they are not medical devices. they are not endorsed for overseen by the fda. you are trying these out, but there is very little harm they can do to you. they are like interesting placebos at worst. taylor: "bloomberg businessweek," is available on newsstands and online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. more of bloomberg television starts now. ♪

♪ emily: i'm emily chang. this is "the best of bloomberg technology." we bring you all of our top interviews from this week in tech. facebook crushes on revenue and continues to add new users. we will put the earnings report in focus after one of the most challenging reports of the biggest social media platform. alphabet embarks on a new spending spree to change its biggest rivals. we will break down the earnings report. tim cook faces face-to-face with president trump. details on the apple ceos trip to the whi