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tv   Best of Bloomberg Technology  Bloomberg  July 8, 2018 5:00pm-6:00pm EDT

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♪ >> i am brad stone. this is the best of bloomberg technology. we bring all of our top and it is from this week in technology. hour, we in the next just became a real card company. -- car company. those were the words of elon musk. plus, dell is going public again. a cash and stock deal
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worth $21.7 billion. entering a new stage of a turnaround plan. and moist additional investors are jumping into crypto's. how one of the world's biggest crypto exchanges plans to send billions on a management by the end of the year. first, to our top story. a productionred burst with the model three. thousandsurge has more of the cars in transit towards buyers. for the first time, tesla exceeded its target of building 5000 model threes. but tony socgen 90 questioned if were of theree cars same quality as those made inside the plant. the stock tumbled off the doubt. we spoke with ivan finds that --
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ivan on monday. >> the stock is down because of ito trade issues more than is up because of tesla meeting the milestone. i think that they have no produced 5000 model threes in the week is very powerful and very positive. brad: the big question is if it is sustainable. 5000 cars is a great accomplishment. is this a company that can routinely make 5000 model these every week russian mark -- threes every week? ivan: i think so. they are in a facility that wants to produce over 300,000 cars. there is more than enough capacity. today they have one of the most
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advanced auto assembly lines ever made. i think they will be able to sustain the production level. this does take tesla to the next level of taking it from a niche car producer to a mainstream auto manufacturer. brad: you covered tesla four years. tweeted that he spent the night in the factory. they can't take a break. there is a lot of pressure on this company. is this the turnaround let some tesla watches hope it is? it seems like he has been up all night, he is sleeping in the factory. you hope that he will take a day or two and rest. all of these tesla employees have indicated in this emailed that bloomberg published yesterday is that they have been working nonstop to hit this milestone. i think what they are doing now is not sustainable. the hope is that as time goes on they will be able to improve the
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robotic manufacturing line. that will be able to get them up to around 5000 cars. the idea would be to hit the same type of production numbers without feeling like you have been punched in the face. that is what has been happening to tesla. elon tweeted to employees that he thinks that they just became a real car company. why did he write that? the model three production level is the transformational car for the company. it takes them from a niche car producer which i originally started selling 20,000 cars per year to an hundred. that to be 12 months from now if they maintain the model three production rate, producing over 600,000 cars per year.
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that makes them able to fill what is very strong demand. they rolled out the production of the truck next. they are evolving. they view themselves as more of a technology company than a pure car company because they do so solar panels and the batteries as well. >> if you had an order for a while on the model three, does it concern you at all that your automobile was made in a tent outside of the accurate russian mark did we know whether tesla ?as cut any corners >> the overall quality of tesla's cars is very high. the customer satisfaction level is very high. this drink in the car is its simplicity. it is the power, the design and the technology. they had had very few
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technological issues. if it's a lot of the monitors. a lot of the cars fix the software issues by pushing down software updates from satellites. they are always adjusting and improving the cars that have been on the road for a long time. elon's twitter feed has been such an enjoyable circus show. does the company have to grow up now? continue to be entertained by elon and his push back on some of tesla's critics? >> i think the real car company statement was more of a joke. i think that he has felt for they were a real car company. elon musk has really started paying attention to what wall
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street and outsiders are saying. outsiders said you have to hit this milestone. he said ok, i will do whatever it takes. planesgoing to fly cargo , we will build this giant tent. we'll do everything we can. i think that is interesting. it strikes me as a concession that he made both to wall street and the outside world where he has to start acting more like a conventionally public traded company. conventional public traded company. >> will they have to raise more money to do things like the truck? ivan: absolutely, they need to and they should. the meeting of this 5000 car milestone will make it easier. could be on track to do so by the end of the third quarter. it will make it much easier to raise capital.
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but yes, building cars is a very capital and -- intensive process. they should raise money because every time they have come to the capital markets, they got well received. i think they will come at the end of the year. question, we start of conversation by talking about the underwhelming market reaction. has some of the glow faded from elon? are the markets looking at tesla a little bit different with these days? >> i don't think so. i think the reason for the muted 5000 caris that this milestone was kept secret. if you're reading his twitter feed closely, they were telegraphing this for about a week. i think that people knew they were going to hit it. there was some question of how they would do it. i don't think we know how they
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were going to do this milestone. this is a big moment for elon musk and tesla. also, b nichols in general. 5000 cars is nothing to sniff out. thank you both for joining us. coming up, what is old and new again. taking thel is company he built back to the public, next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. this is bloomberg.
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brad: the world's largest private tech company is going public. dell is planning a return to the public markets by buying a tracking stock in a swap deal valued at $22 billion.
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michael dell preached the benefits of remaining private. >> as a privately controlled company, your time horizon is very different. you reimagine your business and you think about your business in years rather than decade. reconceptualize how you are investing and what the real priorities are. brad: nico grant covers dell and joins us here in the studio. in new york, brooke sutherland has been writing about the dell move. but start with you, this is not a traditional ipo and yet dell is going public. tell us how they are doing it. >> this would be more akin to spotify pause direct listing -- spotify's direct listing.
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dell gets to go public without any of the drawbacks. you are also seeing that it gives him a tremendous and not of control. it helps december 5 the corporate structure. to mirror this. dell has a controlling stake in it. it gets rid of that, it has more direct control. float onto the public markets and get all of the dilution benefits and share benefits without traditional drawbacks. >> you called this the path of read -- least resistance for dell. why? >> they very much wanted this to remain a publicly listed independent entity. they did when that at the cost
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of an $11 million special dividend that was signed cash component. they pushed very hard for that. they were very vocal and wanting to remain in entity that they could invest in as a standalone. as i argue, winning that is not necessarily the best outcome were all involved. i really do this as a more intermediary step. it doesn't go far enough. at least in my opinion. you still have forasmuch as shareholders wanted to push back, it was very much part of dell. they have a majority shareholder that calls a lot of the shots. they do tend to trade at a discount. >> we listened to michael dell sing the praises of being a private company. that was not that long ago. what changed? >> i think what changed is a couple of things. it comes about five months after dell said it was considering
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strategic options. it comes after the company started this big turnaround when it decided to go private. it saw that the hardware landscape was changing around it. if not the easy way to do this was with the least amount of scrutiny possible. michael dell is feeling more confident than he has in a while. that -- double-digit games in terms of service and storage. it has been a good spending environment after years of middling or declining i.t. purchases by companies. he thinks that now is the time to get all of the benefits. he could do a share swap in the future rather than having to pay cash. that is a tremendous amount that they have to pay down. >> it seems like we have seen
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this movie before. bellyflop,famously particularly as the cloud transformation swept over the enterprising -- enterprise computing space. are you confident that it is different? >> i think the proof will be in the results. we have to see how they will handle this. i don't think it solves a lot of dels problems. that is why they were looking at these types of transactions in the first place. it has to find a way to do with that. a lot of the thinking was that it would have to show this balance sheet for that burden. this does not rule out the option of potentially merging down the road but i come back to this as a more intermediary step then a long-term solution. -- than a long term solution.
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we have to get this feel for what the tracking stock has done. for thepaying a premium tracking stock but you are talking about a very material discount. there are some big holders of that tracking stock. elliott is one of them. is this going to be good enough for them? that is something we will have to watch. >> last question, talk about the competitive environment that dell faces. you have hp and amazon and microsoft. how does dell fare? in comparison to hpe which is one of the closest companies, dell will probably in the short term -- should it get past the investors and get it done in the fall trade higher and with more momentum that hpe. i think part of that is because of the close integrations with the software makers.
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also leads the market in so many of these categories when we think about hardware. this.re leveraging i think that when it comes to the public clouds, dell will not see explosive growth. should we see the spending environment cut back a little bit for the hardware vendors dell's stock is going to take a beating. brad: coming up, this e-cigarette is seeking over a million dollars. this is bloomberg.
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♪ brad: electronic cigarettes is targetingl labs this market. this funding round with value the company at 15 billion. this is a huge jump for a company that is less than three years old. bloomberg technology reporter joins us now, thank you for joining us. a lot of people probably haven't even heard of jewel labs. tell us what it is. was created as a replacement for the car burning cigarette. they thought that they would create this product that would be better than smoking a traditional cigarette. it doesn't have the tar. it uses a vapor that inhales nicotine. they thought they were doing something great for the world.
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the problem is teenagers love jewel. it has become a very controversial. there are a lot of investors that are not willing to invest in it. but we are seeing a lot are as well. they are raising $1.2 billion. this post over $16 billion. jewel captured over 68% of the e-cigarette market. that is what companies like phillip are trying to get in here. what did they do right? >> they already have 68% of the vape target. they are also replacing traditional cigarettes. we see philip morris is stock go down 24%, british american tobacco is down 24%. japan tobacco is down. what we are seeing is that e-cigarettes are growing. pointsew 3.5 percentage
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and cigarettes are going down. they went down about four percentage points. people are not putting traditional cigarettes. the u.s. fda is looking into this. theyare asking juul how market to teenagers. what are the regulatory challenges for juul? olivia: the fda not on the door. they said you need to tell us about your internal marketing material. what were you talking about in meetings? are you trying to target children russian mark that is an audacious ask. to target trying children? ask. is an audacious they said no. flavoredave candy
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pens. >> there are more kid friendly flavors and colors. >> they could say that this is a healthier alternative than traditional cigarettes but still i would imagine not good for you. olivia: some health experts say it is not bad and much better than smoking a cigarette. causes this thing called popcorn lung. i'm still trying to wrap my head around that. it doesn't sound good. it is relatively unknown. it is a new technology and new product. it is extremely popular. this is one to watch. this one is on a rocket ship. brad: they are raising $1.2 billion, what are they going to do with it? >> it is held in israel. they want to go to asia and south america. brad: thank you to bloomberg's olivia's rescue -- olivia.
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makers chinese smartphone -- $54 are pricing them at billion. roughly half of the initial target. it remains the largest ipo in the region in nearly two years. emily chang spoke with the managing director and see a analyst of citigroup about the ipl and how it fits into the global tech landscape. it is super competitive. apple has clearly said they are not interested in market share only. they want profitable market share. some of the statistics out there made by anye a long of these brands that we may not see up and down the streets of america are growing very fast. the question is if it is
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profitable share growth. that is what apple is focused on. we expect the world to be very competitive in smartphones. it is part of who you are today. >> do you expect them to stand out or be one of many russian mark -- many? >> it may draw investor intention. -- attention. in asia, the market share is very strong. we don't see them very frequently. this week will bring more attention to it. we do want to note that we believe that apple has always seen this on the radar screen. years ago there were other companies that were supposed to dethrone apple. we firmly believe that apple is a stock that you want to buy and own right now that will always have competition. whether we talk about any of these other brands, there is a lot of competition out there. >> you have a new note out on pricing. saturating,market
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despite the fact that they are plateauing, you are optimistic. >> we are. phone,u buy a new apple people are doing in apple purchasing. as well as buying applecare. >> this will never outpace hardware revenue. >> you are correct as far as total amount of the company. we think that they will grow low single digits. surprisely, we see the will be on the trailing models of the iphone 7 in india and china. not so much the iphone x that you have in the u.s.. brad: that was emily chang speaking with jim seward of citigroup. coming up, back to tesla's newly released production figures. why hitting this much lauded milestone could be a double-edged sword for the carmaker. and bloomberg technology is
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livestreaming on twitter. check us out at technology and be sure to follow our global breaking news network at tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg.
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brad: this is "the best of bloomberg technology." i'm brad stone in san francisco. back to tesla, elon musk hit his long-delayed target goal of producing 5000 model 3 sedans in a week. musk went to great lengths to hit his mark, including constructing a giant tent housing an assembly line. now, the ceo has the challenge of winning over doubters who say this is just not sustainable, and he also need to address the may accusation made tuesday that the model 3 cars made on a tent covered production line were not of the same quality as those made inside the plant. we caught up with bloomberg opinion's liam denning.
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>> fair play to the company, they hit their 5000 a week target like they said they would. and i think, you know a lot of a , bulls will take comfort from that, but i think it sort of misses the bigger picture, which is, you know, to be a profitable carmaker, which tesla has yet to prove they can be, they need to have sustained, high-volume, high-quality production. and hitting that target in one week at the end of the quarter, kind of in a repeat of what they did the end of first quarter, it does not prove that. it hits a moment in time, it hits that one target, but it doesn't prove yet they are on that sustainable footing. brad: you noted in your column that the burst week at the end of the quarter does seem to set a new baseline for tesla's weekly production. are you confident they can do that now with the 5000 model 3's per week? brad: -- liam: it is tough to say.
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what i observed there, just going on the last three quarters. what they have done is hit these burst weeks at the end of the quarter and that sets the average for the next quarter. based on that, you might think they can indeed keep going at 5000 a week. in fact i think in today's release, they talked about getting more to like 6000. but i think the issue is can they do it profitably? and if i think about for example the tent that you highlighted, this second assembly-line they put up, it looks like they made about 1000 cars on that last week give or take. , and if they are working 24/7, which they seem to be doing, that equates one car every 10 minutes. and that is, that is nowhere near what you need to be getting for a profitable mass-market carmaker. brad: liam, tesla was so focused on this 5000 cars per week goal, it really came to, in some ways define what observers of tesla , were looking for. what is the next milestone or
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benchmark that people will be looking for to grade elon's performance here at tesla? liam: i think, two things will be interesting. one is obviously the results that come out in about a month. there, we will see what the cost of the burst has been in terms of profitability and cash flow. obviously, the other big one coming up now is the company insists they will get to gap profitability and some form of positive cash flow. it is not clear what, later this year. i mean, that is really the key to this company. it needs to show it can actually turn a profit, produce a mass-market car, and, you know, and become self-funding. becoming self-funding is the key here. brad: ok profitability and , self-funding. bloomberg opinion's liam denning, thank you for joining us. liam: thank you. brad: coming up, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges is going live with a new custody service. details on coinbase's new customers next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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brad: just last week, coinbase custody accepted its first deposit and is now open for business. the cryptocurrency exchange says 10 hedge funds and family offices have begun using the custody service. the goal of the service is to safeguard digital tokens in a manner similar to traditional securities. coinbase aims to have 100 large institutional customers by the end of the year with as much as $5 billion in assets under management. joining us now with more detail is adam white, coinbase general manager. also with us in new york, bloomberg executive editor and host of "what'd you miss?" joe weisenthal. thank you guys for joining us.
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adam, let's define our terms. not everyone is familiar with what custody means, with what terms like cold storage means, so talk about what you guys have made life today. -- live today. adam: in the simplest terms, it is a way for institutions to store their currency in a safe and compliant manner. when people look at the space, right there has been a history , of security incidents. at coinbase we have made security our number one goal. what we heard as we move into the institutionalization of the space, large hedge funds and large brokerages said, look, we cannot begin trading cryptocurrency until we have a safe way to store it. we announced at the end of last year we would begin building coinbase custody, and we launched today and are already serving 10 hedge funds. brad: crypto prices have had a rough ride this year, they have been characterized by volatility for a number of years. have institutional investors stayed out because of the absence of the kind of service and will this maybe rectify the
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rough waters that bitcoin and other assets are in? adam: in fact i think it is just the opposite. what we've seen with this recovery, we saw the price of bitcoin touch nearly $20,000, we saw the market cap of all digital currencies reach $800 billion. and has since recovered come down. what we found is institutions are more eager than ever. what they once thought is maybe this is a train we missed. maybe this was the emergence of a new asset class, and now we're behind. they have an opportunity to get in and are watching them do it thoughtfully through services like coinbase custody. brad: joe, do you agree with that? if you are a big institution, have you lost your appetite for investing and trading in cryptocurrencies, considering the depreciation in value? joe: yeah, i do find adam's answer to be really interesting. and probably one of the most important questions or themes for the whole space. there is no doubt that the second half of 2017, particularly the last few months, there was so much interest in that institutional
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money, this wall of money that was supposed to be coming in. and it does seem like platforms like the coinbase platform is what everyone said was missing. that as soon there is custody, a little bit of legal clarity things like that, then that money would be coming in. and i have been fascinated to see this year have we have seen that build-out of the institutional infrastructure, not only coinbase's and others, totally coinciding with just this relentless selling. almost no news whatsoever has boosted the price of any cryptocurrencies for any length of time. so really, the exact opposite of the second half of 2017, where it is clear the infrastructure is being built out, and the capacity for that institutional money has expanded, but it has not done anything to boost the prices at all. brad: adam is demand from , institutions the same as it was when you announced that last year? adam: absolutely. i think it is greater than ever. what we find with institutions is they do not move fast, they
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are thoughtful and deliberate. they do reverse diligence on our form. so we spend a lot of time with our institutional coverage group in our new york office meeting with institutions day in day out educating them on who we , are, the processes we use. they really dig into things like cold storage. and they say how do you do cold , storage? how do i make sure my funds are safely secured? and we bring in things like a faraday cage to make sure the random number generator we used to decipher the keys was military grade, best in class. these are the questions we spent a long time moving down that we work with them on. brad: what do you see from the traditional custodians like j.p. morgan? adam: we tend to not focus on competition and focus more on what our customers want. certainly, there is an opportunity for coinbase to work with others in this space. when you look at what institutions want they do not want just one custodian, they want to store across a few best in class custodians. so we are in conversations with others in the space. just like we are with regulators and our customers constantly.
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brad: joe, pretend adam is not here, and tell me what you think of coinbase's competitive situation amongst the traditional custodians that might be looking to get into this business. joe: well, i think it is fascinating the way you seem to have two different sort of clusters of companies reaching towards the center. so obviously, you have upstarts like coinbase and like others who every, all the time seem to be making inroads to resemble more legacy banking institutions, more legacy brokerage institutions. and so you also have entities like circle and square. and then you on the other hand you have these legacy , organizations which, for a long time, were skeptical about the whole space. an sort of dipping their toe into diving into crypto services. it does feel like some sort of bigger battle is coming and it is unclear which side will win. something i am curious about from adam is that obviously there is a debate about how this whole space will evolve, whether
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it will be bitcoin centric or whether there is room for lots of different coins and protocols. i am curious whether the institutions that are signing up early on for the new coinbase service, how interested they are in holding a multitude of different coins? adam: joe, it's a great question, and it is spot on. what we are hearing from our clients is they want us to expand to more countries and to add more assets. right now when we launch, we are supporting four assets. ethereum.itecoin, plans to add more. as your colleague at bloomberg announced today with the introduction of this, we are starting with four assets but have plans to expand to asia, we will offer many new assets soon as well. brad: adam, i will give you the last question. the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets has been on a steady decline almost all year. is this the kind of thing that is needed for a restoration of trust in crypto currencies?
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adam: you know this this better than anyone, markets are not always rational. right? and i think to work in this space, you have to have a 20, 30 year vision. brian armstrong put out a series of tweets where he said we have , been working in the many years. we have seen the market reacted with these rapid run-up's and recovery. and every time, it gives us an opportunity to stay focused on the mission. that's to help to create an open financial system and to continue to invest the resources to bring this asset class mainstream. for us, we tend to look at other metrics, like the number of developers working in the space, the new teams launching, the number of daily transactions on any digital currency. all those numbers continue to move up and to the right so we're very optimistic. brad: that was adam white, vice president and general manager of coinbase institutional, and bloomberg's joe weisenthal. coming up, ai versus civil liberties. is this new technology infringing on your rights? we asked the aclu next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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brad: we are continuing our look in the biases of artificial intelligence and the pitfalls that can come from this new technological forefront. facial recognition is not only gaining notoriety for misidentifying people based on gender and race, it is also being used as a tool by law enforcement and tech companies to track people. maryland authorities recently said they used facial recognition software to identify the gunman who killed five people at an annapolis newspaper. but there is also a growing
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voice speaking out against its use as a surveillance tool. the aclu calls amazon's recognition software that it claims can find 100 people from a single photo "powerful and dangerous." that software was being used by the orlando police department until the eclu revealed its use. orlando pd has since stopped using the software. our next guest revealed the use of recognition by law enforcement in a blog post last month. matt cagle is a technology and civil liberties attorney for the aclu and spoke with emily chang. matt people should be able to : walk down the street without being watched by the government. face surveillance technology allows the government to track where we go, what we do, whether we go to a church or an abortion clinic, and that's something that the government should be -- should not be able to do. and again, and again, when we see governments deploying this technology, they're doing it without rules to prevent abuse. emily: what about the argument
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that this could be a powerful tool for catching criminals or terrorists? matt: well, there are a lot of unanswered questions about whether this technology works reliably. we know that multiple studies have shown this technology is biased against people of color and women, and just this week, a prominent ceo of a facial recognition technology said the government should not be using it. this technology is not ready for prime time. so right now, it is important that there be an informed debate about this technology before we rush forward with something that could be turned against immigrant communities, against protesters, and against activists going about their daily lives. emily: ok, but let's say, hypothetically, if they work out these issues of bias, if they can correctly identify people, is this something that could be a valuable tool for law enforcement, or is it still dangerous? matt: that is not a question we should answer. right now, what we are hearing from communities across the country, over 150,000 people signing petitions asking amazon to drop this tool, is that this technology is rushing forward without any public debate, without rules to prevent use, in
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-- abuse in a political climate , where protesters are being villainized, immigrants are being targeted, and that is not the time to roll out a dangerous and untested and unproven surveillance technology. emily: do you think it is possible for the government to use this in a way, at all, that is safe? matt: you know, we have seen again and again with surveillance technology, when it is rushed out with public debate, initial uses to quote unquote "solve crime" or to track down criminals quickly slides into uses that are targeted at muslim americans, at immigrants, and people of color. so it is really important before we brush into this new technology -- rush into this new technology that there is an informed public debate about how this could be used and abused in communities. emily: that said, take a listen. we had a guest on earlier talking about the government's potential role in ai. listen to this. >> we need a public-private partnership in how we use ai. it is the early days in ai, but having said that, the issues
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like transparency and explain ability of how these algorithms are being used, we need to be a lot clearer about how these companies are using them and are they respecting the core values of society. emily: our guest from general catalyst. what are the values we should be talking about? what, how how can we find some , sort of resolution on this debate that, in your view, would not violate civil liberties? matt: right. so right now, we are seeing that technology companies' secret algorithms and secret conversations about how to develop these tools are driving how they are used. and we have no idea what these systems look when we open the hood. i think that person is exactly right. we need to have a conversation about the values of transparency, about equality, and about anti-bias. they need to be built into these tools. these are being built by technology companies who may not have the expertise to know what it means to provide officers with dangerous technology that can make or break split-second
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decisions about really important public safety issues. before we hand our officers technology that can actually harm public safety, we should have a conversation about what is actually happening under the hood. emily: part of the problem is -- as our tech reporter has reported there are still no , standards for law enforcement in place here. this is all very much happening in real time. i guess that said, this seems to be the future. this is where technology is going. you know apple uses this , technology to unlock every single iphone. you know how do we avoid this? , it's happening. matt: yeah, yeah. right now is the time to have a debate about the proper limits on this technology. communities deserve answers before it essentially dangerous tools are rolled out on the street and secret algorithms are relied on. so right now is the time to have a debate. our elected representatives should have that debate, and if people care about this they , should join the 150,000
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consumers that reached out to amazon and are asking them to take this issue seriously. emily: california governor jerry brown signed a sweeping data privacy law, which allows consumers to opt out of the sale of their personal information. they can have their data deleted, and they have a right to know what is being collected. big tech not happy about this, but i assume you think this is a step in the right direction. matt: we actually think that is the first step, but this bill does not go far enough to protect californians' privacy rights. in the wake of the scandal, it is essential consumers have a robust set of laws that protect them and help them stop future abuses of their data, and help them address those actual abuses. we do not think this measure goes far enough to protect those rampant abuses of personal information, and we don't think it goes far enough to provide consumers with the right tools to address those harms. and i think that that's an , acknowledgment shared across the industry right now. brad: that was emily chang speaking with matt cagle of the aclu.
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voice activated speakers are becoming a more prevalent part of people's lives, and the king of the smart speaker market is the amazon echo. according to emarketer, 41 million americans will use one at least once a month in 2018, which puts amazon's market share at 67%. but that is expected to drop to 61% by 2020, but still almost double its biggest rival, google. and more and more of that user base is using smart speakers as a teaching tool. that is something our next guest is making happen. ian fried was the former vice president at amazon where he led the teams that worked on the kindle, echo, and alexa. he is now the ceo of bamboo learning, a company he cofounded that is teaching kids all about music using, you guessed it, amazon's alexa. ian: bamboo learning is a brand-new startup i cofounded. it is set up really to create applications that are fun and
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interactive to teach kids as young as six all the way through teenagers and also adults different things they might like to learn kind of casually in five minutes or less. brad: music theory and learning music, as i recall from my brief attempts as a kid, is very visual, right? you are reading music, you are hunting for the keys on a keyboard or the strings on a guitar. so why is a voice-activated speaker the right forum for learning music for kids? ian: that is a great question. we think there is a few things. one, it is supplemental to perhaps taking music lessons. and one of the interesting things my cofounder learned is that music teachers often won't teach younger children how to play an instrument until they can learn to read.
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and she and i both believe that children as young as six should be able to learn about music. so we have some examples, actually, of a six-year-old learning with bamboo music and deciding, after interacting with bamboo music and doing some of the questions and answers that we have interactively, that she would like to take a lesson. so she is now learning the ukulele, and she is not yet a strong reader, but she is already learning how to play music based on starting with bamboo music. brad: ian, bamboo music now joins thousands, or even tens of thousands, of other alexa skills. for those folks who aren't part of the audience of bloomberg technology, how do they find it? i guess i'm asking you this as a former amazon executive. how does amazon solve the
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discoverability, you know, problem with the echo, considering now this explosion of new apps that are available for the device? ian: well, it's a great question. and each application developer, so we at bamboo learning have to do our own job at getting the word out about bamboo music, so that's part of it. but amazon just created this new feature so that when you talk to your act go, and you would like to try out, for example, bamboo music, all you have to do is say to an echo -- alexa, "enable bamboo music." and it will start the skill. it will start explaining how it works. so we have to do our job, and amazon is increasingly finding ways to make the skills more available to customers. you can also just go to the amazon store and search on bamboo music and find it that way. brad: we don't have a lot of time left, ian, but i want to ask you about your personal journey. you've gone from being an inventor of the echo to a developer for it. you know why leave amazon to go
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, do this? ian: great question. i had an incredible time at amazon, worked there for over 12 years. and i learned quite a bit across the board, from business to technology, etc. i just felt it was time to try something new. i wanted to get back to doing some coding, which i haven't done in a couple decades. and it just started as kind of a fun project. and then with my cofounder, who is an absolute expert in k-12 education and music, we thought it would be really fun to just educate through the bamboo music skill. brad: that was bamboo learning ceo and cofounder ian freed. and that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest in tech throughout the week. this coming week, we have full coverage of xiaomi's public listing. tune in for full coverage each
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day at 5:00 p.m. new york and 2:00 p.m. san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪
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