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tv   Best of Bloomberg Technology  Bloomberg  July 15, 2018 6:00am-7:00am EDT

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♪ emily: i'm emily chang this is "best of bloomberg technology." we bring you all of the top interviews in tech. coming up, beijing has called trump's decision to slap tariffs
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on another $200 billion worth of goods "totally unacceptable," but they stopped short of spelling out what they will do in return. we discussed the fallout in the ongoing trade standoff. plus, a downbeat debut. xiaomi shares drop as escalating trade tensions and uncertainty leaves investors feeling skeptical. and our exclusive conversation with pandora's ceo. we talk about their recent partnership with snap and how they are fighting off the likes of spotify and apple. but first, to our top story. another day, another escalation in the ongoing u.s.-china trade dispute. this time, the white house is threatening to impose tariffs on chinese made products. the list includes tech goods like television, car batteries. one of big-ticket item missing are smartphones made by u.s.
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companies like apple that are assembled in china. so while your future iphone may be spared, but consumer tech might see some price hikes. we spoke with bloomberg tech mark gurman. mark: the first thing is it does not appear apple products are affected. there are a lot of reasons why. one of the biggest points of emphasis is that apple is a california company based in the united states. donald trump and tim cook have talked about this. cook says he does not think these are a solution to the problem of the administration is saying is that there. there are other facets the to it. products are designed in the u.s., though they are manufactured in china. they are sold all over the world, so it is unclear what the tariffs would hit. lot at stake here. emily: what about the components that go into iphones and ipads? mark: if you look at the components on the list, it is not a big amount. iphones are increasingly made of
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stainless steel, different metals. and we're seeing some materials, and it is unclear what percentage of the phones are impacted and if there will need to be a price hike on the iphone. could they switch to other components if necessary? would they do this for phones sold in the u.s. and china? but if you look at tesla, they are down because cobalt battery technology is on the list. that is the core of the batteries that power electric vehicles. emily: i have a chart in my gtv library that tv's from china may be getting a lot more expensive -- what is going to happen? mark: that is interesting, i don't think it is a big deal because there are very few high-end china-based manufacturers that sell their tv's in the united states. many sold in the united states are made by sony, samsung. those are companies that are not necessarily affected by the tariffs. emily: what are the impacts on consumers here? what should we be worried about? mark: cobalt batteries, as we see more electric cars happening. but i think outside of the u.s.,
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we have to focus on retaliatory tariffs. what is china going to do about this? that is where apple can be affected. about 20% of the sales across 2017 were in china. if china slaps growing tariffs on the u.s. for selling iphones in china, that could be bad for apple in the region. there have to be decisions made. apple cannot get away from not being a company affected by u.s. tariffs and not be an affected by china's tariffs. they will be affected on one side or another. it is to be seen which side. emily: we saw tesla working towards opening a plant in china. this has been going on for a while, but it goes against trump's direction here. what are other solutions for these companies? mark: more solutions are to have a homegrown manufacturing of different components. building cobalt in the united states. if you look at apple, building devices in the united states, bringing up metals and other technologies. but that also has an effect on consumers as well. as we know, products developed in the united states, anything
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with a made in the usa stamp on it are traditionally more expensive because the labor costs in the u.s. are far higher than they are in china. emily: all right. as always, thanks for keeping us posted. in the meantime, president trump has embarked on a european tour with a sequence of high-profile events starting with the nato summit in brussels. let's get to caroline hyde in london with more. it was quite a dramatic and remarkable day. walk us through the events. caroline: just extraordinary. in some ways, tech was involved because a lot of the arguments seem to come out via twitter, of course. trump's favorite mode of communication. he took to twitter ahead of nato saying the spending was not high enough, complaining about the trade deficits he has in the eu. the so-called tariffs and barriers to entry. he had such a twitter tirade that it sparked the other donald we have. the presidents of the european
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council hitting back saying the u.s. does not have and will not have a better ally than the e.u. he also has mike pompeo saying what a wonderful institution nato was on twitter. it is extraordinary. they even have the old secretary of state, john kelly, saying he has never seen anything so strange or counterproductive than what has been going on in terms of the president trump's reaction at nato. notably, really hitting aggressively at angela merkel's germany saying germany is too reliant on russian energy, russian gas. an unprecedented nato meeting. emily: was there any agreement between these seemingly fraying allies?
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caroline: you have to ask the question, and while we see donald trump calling for greater spending, he wants the other allies to double their defense spending, but there seems to be something they are working towards. it is involving tech. it is cybersecurity. we did get a key announcement from stoltenberg, the nato general secretary, saying yes. we have agreed to up our investment in what they call hybrid warfare ensuring they are protected against cyber attacks that are then interweaved with armies on the ground. they have a new cyber operations center to be announced drawing on member's capabilities. there was some agreement there but notably, an awful lot of tension. emily: bloomberg's caroline hyde in london. u.k. regulators may find facebook thousands over the cambridge analytica scandal. they failed to present user data from falling into the hands of the consulting firm. regulators say the data belonging to as many as 87 million facebook users may have been misused.
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coming up, xiaomi calls their company a new species. different from any other tech company. but are investors buying it? and later, president's supreme court nominee making the rounds. what tech cases might come before him? we will discuss. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ emily: it was hong kong's biggest coming-out party in two years as xiaomi makes its public debut. the market value is now in the region of $50 billion, making it the world's third biggest publicly traded smartphone maker. our chief north asia correspondent stephen engle has
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more from hong kong. >> xiaomi shares fell out of the gate on its ipo. in the hong kong stock exchange. a lot of uncertainty about this company and its lofty valuation, it put it more than apple, facebook, tencent. also, the true nature of its business. is it a low-margin handset manufacturer, or is it like the chairman lei jun says, a broader internet services company? oh, and also there is the backdrop of a growing trade war between the u.s. and china that has dampened sentiment here in hong kong. the company says it is a tough one to pigeonhole. >> we are a new species. we are in internet company that can do e-commerce at the same time. i don't think there is anything like us. >> xiaomi is now a $50 billion company, the third largest in the world for handset manufacturers, but a far cry of an earlier estimate last year of a valuation of $100 billion. the size of the ipo also scaled
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back, down $3.1 billion from an initial estimate or aim of $10 billion. one dampening prospect was the elimination of a corresponding listing in china in shanghai of a cdr, china depository receipt. even the regulator in china shared concerns about the lofty valuation and true nature of its business. stephen engle, bloomberg news, hong kong. emily: we dove into the debut from every angle. >> they have a lot to prove. they are very localized in china and more developing markets like india. they are doing well in india and china. but that is just one portion of the world. there is obviously the trade war tension and the ability for chinese hardware makers and to
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get their devices in the u.s. and europe is increasingly difficult problem. emily: shelly banjo also joining us right now. she's in new york right now, normally based in hong kong. how much of a disappointment is this? >> i think it is big, just because of how much expectations were built up. if they would have come to the market either as they were, it was a big compliment for what they were able to do eight years in business and becoming one of the world's biggest smartphone companies. they did not just rest at that instead of saying this is who we are and what we make and instead said we are this $100 billion company that is an internet services business. that is where the mismatch lies. emily: i just want to point out the ceo is an investor in your fund. would you be a buyer? >> i am. emily: at twice the price of
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apple? >> i am. [laughter] the business is underestimated and misunderstood. it is a company that delivers a product, hardware that is actually a delivery device for multiple services. in order to be a $100 billion company, they have to really disrupt and destroy an entire business and this is i.o.t. what they have done is and put itocratized everyone.ds of not just in china, but in multiple merging markets and gives them a platform to deliver services at a high margin. emily: mark, you cover apple. is this worth twice as much as apple? >> if you look at unit sales that apple is selling at, it is unprecedented, but if you go back in terms of delivering services across the world, that is where the lucrative markets are. we see apple, google, amazon all shifting towards this strategy. they are a china-based company and have so much competition in the services world. we have tencent and everyone else tried to get a piece of the pie there. it is a whole different world, in terms of services, and it is not ahead of the pack.
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emily: you heard the company make the argument that they are new species, are they really an entirely different new species? >> there is nothing new there. >> i think they are. again, in the i.o.t. space, you had these makers, like fitbit, they have wiped all of them out by making a product they can sell at a tenth of a price. still at profit. but then they can integrate things into their platform. it is in their early days. things like health care, insurance, finance, all kinds of other apps they can plug you into, it is unprecedented. but when you buy one of their televisions, for instance, you are forced to watch advertisements on it. once they are in your home, and they will because it is superior quality at half the price, you have to take their services. emily: how much of this result is about being caught up in a trade war? >> that's the line we are going to hear from a lot of people,
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that this is bad timing. they are not wrong. this isn't great timing for the markets if you look at china and hong kong in general. both markets are down and there are a lot of jitters about the trade war. but the thing is, they are not even in the u.s. their business isn't going to be affected by anything having to trade war at least in the near future. emily: mark, you have done a ton of reporting including new iphones, what is the hardware that they will be up against? from apple and others. >> i think there is an opportunity for a player whether they are a u.s.-based or china-based to come in with a higher-end phone. at a sub $500 price point. we have seen other phone makers do that. companies like one-plus and apple is working on a cheaper iphone. no one has nailed it that is good and cheap that people are going to buy in high volume. xiaomi had that opportunity.
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and in this climate with this administration, it doesn't seem plausible that they are going to have that success in the u.s. emily: you are an investor in other chinese companies that are planning to go public soon, do you think that could lead companies to change plans? >> i don't think so. again, it is tough timing. they were out the first gate with the dual structure. they had the cdr hiccup at the beginning. it is a difficult position for them. and global investors understand it because it replicates existing models under one platform and shows how it integrates. much more understandable than this new species. rex, thel it dominus
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combination of multiple business models under one roof is really difficult to understand. emily: xiaomi also has the mainland china half of its listing to come. how is it going to work and could the company recover? >> that is something that remains to be seen what will happen with the cdr. and they tried to push for it. they want to be part of it, but there is a big disconnect between what regulators want and what companies and customers want. and so it is going to take at least six months for xiaomi and regulators to work for this. it could take a year or never happen. there is this new thing that no one has been able to figure out and they were supposed to be the and test case and that didn't happen. we'll see if other tech companies, established companies, like alibaba, come forward first. that might pave the way for a company like xiaomi to come after that. emily: there is a new sign the long struggling music industry is continuing its comeback. china's tencent plans to spin off its business and list shares in the united states. it will let american investors
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bet on music streaming. those services have brought new life through an industry plagued by piracy. for a second year in a row, consumer spending on music has seen double-digit growth. last year, u.s. music lovers spent up words of billions in 2017. speaking of music streaming, pandora's ceo joins us for an exclusive conversation. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ emily: just last month, snap made their first big foray in working with outside developers by launching snapped kit. one company working with them is
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pandora. pandora listeners will be able to send the songs to friends, expanding their social capabilities. recipients of the shared music can swipe up and listen to the song through premium access features. pandora and snap are not the first to do this. earlier this year, it was announced instagram would partner with spotify to share music. we spoke with roger lynch, ceo of pandora. roger: music is fundamentally a social experience. the ability to share it on snap is meaningful. emily: instagram has a close relationship with spotify. they had a close relationship with facebook. is that why you picked snap? roger: we chose snap because -- you know -- they have a younger listener base. younger listeners tend to be more engaged with music and it was the big social media platform that had not enabled music sharing in a way we thought we could do something
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really unique with. emily: pandora has been going through a lot lately. a lot of executive turnover. a big investment from sirius. how have things changed since then? investors were hoping for a buyout. roger: all that happened before i joined. so, last year it did go through a lot of turnover which led to me joining the company in september. it has settled down quite a lot since then. we closed the sirius xm investment at the time i was joining and we have refocused the company on a few things. one is we are, as you mentioned, the largest music streaming service in the u.s. and 70% of revenue comes from advertising. you know, digital audio advertising is the one big digital advertising business not controlled by google or facebook. pandora is the largest, so we have been investing in that. we bought a company called adswiz which helps us invest in our strengths of digital audio while we continue to grow our subscription business nicely. emily: there has been a perennial question of whether pandora is a standalone company or an acquisition target. is it a wait-and-see? is that something you are open
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to or do you see pandora going it alone? roger: i can see why other companies would find pandora attractive because there are few companies that have the scale of pandora. but our strategy is to build on our core strengths. as i mentioned, we are the largest in digital advertising and we are investing in that mentioned, we are the largest in digital advertising and continue to growth that revenue base and with the investments we are making well growing our subscription business. emily: yet you have apple, amazon, spotify, google all chasing music with minimal profits. what is your strategy for profitability? again, if you think about consumers, they are not homogenous. not every consumer will pay a subscription. most will consume music like they do on terrestrial radio today, which is a $16 billion marketplace, still waiting to migrate away from traditional broadcasts to ip streaming. pandora is well-positioned for that.
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so when we think about competition, of course we think about spotify and apple for our subscription business but 70% of the revenue is advertising. that is more of our competition there which is about terrestrial radio. emily: what is the plan if artists start to push buying their albums on paid streaming services? roger: that is great for our business. you know, our paid streaming services grew 63% year-over-year. so, it is a fast-growing part of our business. but, again, we think consumers will be -- some will choose add -- ad-supported and some will choose subscription. emily: do you think content cost will continue to go up? roger: i think there is a moderating effect. we see it as the platform start to gain more scale in streaming. it is to the benefit of the industry. we are now being music industry growing again after 15 or 18 years of decline. emily: right, it has been a long time. roger: it is growing because of streaming. there's a balance between labels, publishers, and streaming services that understand their needs to be
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healthy ecosystem. it is the future of the industry. emily: listener hours were still down in the first quarter. when do you see it turning around? roger: we have a big opportunity to grow engagement not just listeners, but hours with our listeners. that is a combination of what we do on the marketing front, what we do with our product, new features, personalized playlists and premium access that lets any listener play any song. those things start to move the needle for us on engagement. emily: do you think you could turn them around by the end of the year? roger: i think we will continue to start to see improvements in that. just like last quarter, we saw an improvement. it was a decline from the prior year, but a big improvement over the prior quarter. we expect to continue to make improvements. emily: that was roger lynch, ceo of pandora. up next, we hear from a london-based company on how
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brexit is affecting the investing landscape. and, bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. check us out and follow our global breaking news network on tictoc. this is bloomberg. ♪ retail.
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♪ emily: welcome back to "the best of bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. it has been two years since brexit, but now the road ahead is in question. prime minister theresa may has proposed to keep britain closely aligned to the european union on trade and regulation after brexit. while most in the conservative party seem happy, the move towards a softer brexit led to the resignation of may's chief
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negotiator david davis and boris johnson, the face of the campaign. prime minister may: we do not agree about the best way of delivering our shared commitment to the referendum. it is a proposal that will take back control of our borders, money, and law. but do so in a way that protects jobs, allows us to find new trade deals, and keeps our people safe and our union together. emily: with may's own future, the future of the relationship and a referendum in the balance, what does it mean for britain's vibrant tech industry? we spoke with caroline hyde. caroline: they are concerned about the proposal at the moment. they are very concerned that it sections out services in particular. 80% of all export from the tech sector in the united kingdom are services based. they are saying this is a
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lopsided deal. what theresa may's proposal spells out is that you will have some sort of free trade arrangement in terms of goods that you are seeing imported and exported between the united kingdom and eu, but not services. and therefore it saying that we could see two separate regulatory environments, this is a necessary concerns for united kingdom based tech businesses, more headaches in terms of the regulatory environment that they will be facing. they have also laid out that there was not enough visibility yet in terms of the freedom of the movement of people. this has always been a key battle cry for the tech sector. "we are worried about talent." the u.k. government has been backing new ways of having entrepreneurs come into the country, but it is not enough, in terms of hiring.
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they have other key concerns going forward about the way in which brexit might occur and the regulatory environment for data as well, the way that data is processed across the border. so at the moment, tech united kingdom, a key voice for the tech sector is saying we are worried. emily: how likely is it that this deal, you know, it is clear that prime minister's party is behind her, but how likely is it that the deal will be accepted in the u.k. and by e.u. lawmakers? caroline: at the moment, it is not very likely. it is believed already coming from michel barnier. he is a key negotiator on behalf of the e.u., and he is already sounded off today, that he doesn't like the sound and the smell of what is being proposed at the moment. i might add, at the moment, all we have is three pieces of paper coming from the united kingdom government. we don't have the actual white paper which is some 200 pages, but as it stands, the fact the u.k. has thought of trying to cherry pick here, wanting to have a free trade agreement in terms of goods but not services, there are saying look, that is not cool. what we want is if you want to opt in to our single market, i am afraid that you have to allow
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the free movement of people, capital, goods and services. you cannot pick and choose. so it looks like michel barnier and the e.u. might push back really hard, even though we have the likes of companies like airbus, saying, go easy please on the united kingdom, trying to extend an olive branch. but at the moment, it sounds as though this won't cut mustard when it comes to the eu, let alone to get support for the prime minister in her own parliament and the united kingdom. remember, she doesn't have a majority in government, so she would have to get all the conservatives to toe the party line, and perhaps look across the aisle to get the labour party to support her as well. emily: caroline, stay with us, because despite all the uncertainty, investments continue to hover near record high. through the first quarter, it is reported that european venture capitals have invested 5.2 billion dollars, the fourth highest quarter in the last decade, and it would match the last year's record pace of
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investment. meantime, london-based vc index ventures has invested with a portfolio that includes notable tech startups like dropbox, and skype and more. they just raised $1.65 billion for new funds targeting companies in europe and in the united states. a guest at index ventures is with me now. did all of this political certainty around brexit impact your fundraising plans? did you guys talk about this? >> talked about it because it is current news and important. but fundamentally, not that deeply. 2018 has been a good year for us, we had four major multibillion-dollar exits, and hopefully with kronos going public, we will have another one. that environment creates a lot of interest from investors who want to provide capital and invest we are able to raise the. money without too much trouble, fundamentally. the one area that we are always
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on the lookout for is immigration and the movement of labor, that is important to us. but most of the companies we invest in our small and young. and cross-country borders and tariffs are not really their concern in the beginning, they are just trying to build a product that people love. emily: that has been an issue, given all of this uncertainty. is it mpacting your strategy in terms of where you put this money? mike: not that deeply. i think the competition for labor is absolutely critical. the difficult part is competition between the larger, and established companies like google and facebook versus small companies who are trying to get that same labor. having more of that labor is helpful but also competitively positioning against google and facebook and saying why working at a small company is more exciting. emily: and caroline, based on the numbers, it certainly seems like other investors in europe are not holding back either? caroline: yes, london is not only a key tech haven, but it is
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also where the money is. that hasn't changed since brexit. you see, index ventures is a key hub in london. arean awful lot of the vc's are lookinghat europe and aren raising more funds. we have a whopping amount of money coming out of index ventures, but we have also heard from highland in europe, they are based in a key hub in london as well, they have been raising money. optimus ventures, dawn capital. we have got record amounts are being raised and record amounts being invested. despite the brexit uncertainty, last year, we saw a record amount of money coming into u.k. tech firms. i cannot run a counterexample, to tell you what had happened if prices if brexit hadn't occurred, would have been more. but as it stands, london is still the number one tech hub in all of europe. emily: so, you have got some
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competition there. in europe in particular, what are you bullish on? mike: there are a number of sectors we like. one of the areas that the united kingdom helps a lot is that we were very early in the fintech, partly because of the regulatory regime in the u.k. we started early in that sector. one of our companies just went public, another one was robin hood, and the united kingdom really helped us in that context. so we continue to invest in that area. we do like commerce and retail, companies like "far-fetched" and "etsy." far-fetched is also largely based in london, so we are seeing commerce thrive in that environment. another area that we like is urban mobility and transport, sort of like for american audiences door dash. it is actually quite a bit bigger than door dash. they were based in the u.k. we are also investing in e scooters, famous bird. we did no one quite early. aurora, self driving cars.
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those sectors we still invest in deeply. and also enabling technologies and software ai are the key sectors. emily: lots to unpack. let's start with e-commerce. amazon's ambitions seem to have no bounds, given your invested in some other e-commerce companies, how concerned are you that amazon is going to destroy the competition? they have got handmade. mike: i think amazon is a formidable force, and there is some talk in venture capital circles that it is difficult to do anything in amazon's vicinity. but we have found that there are segments which are quite large, particularly for example in high-end fashion. we talked about far-fetched, which serves the high-end of the market. emily: amazon is also getting into fashion. though not the high end. mike: but if you think about it, the brand of amazon doesn't necessarily carry over to the high-end of the market. if you look at all the higher brands such as gucci, they don't want to be necessarily listed on amazon as a product. so i think there is an opportunity there.
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we invest in a company called goat who provides high-end speakers, not something that you would find in amazon. so there are quite large sectors where you can build companies around. it is important to recognize that amazon is a force but it is not impossible to make investments around that. emily: thanks to mike from index ventures and bloomberg's caroline hyde. coming up, charging up and electric scooter. we speak to the ceo and cofounder. plus, tesla sets its sights on china, signing a deal to churn out 500,000 vehicles a year. how big of a trouble is it too trump's trade campaign. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ emily: grab is opening to other external developers and startups. the giant is transforming into a super app, that covers everything from payments to food delivery. think wechat. the ceo says the new services could push revenue beyond a billion dollars.
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electric scooter rentals startup lime has announced a funding round which includes a partnership with none other than uber. details have yet to be finalized, but they say they will promote lime in their mobile app. the financing pledges of their valuation to $1.1 billion, but will it give the company an edge in the brewing two-wheel turf war? >> they will be our strategic partner. right, so they will start as investing, and that we will deal with cobranded and will make our scooters available on the app. emily: are we going to see the uber sign on lime scooters? >> it is possible.
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we are still figuring out the details. emily: how will this drive your business? toby: we do not know, but that is the purpose of this partnership. we will test it out and see how it works. we are thrilled to have uber as a partner. emily: a $1.1 billion valuation is significant. what are the numbers to back that up? toby: this is a massive market. right? transportation, mobility. and first and last model mile transportation has been a challenge for a lot of the high-density fits. so we have seen a lot of people starting to use that for fun. but now, a lot of people are using that for a commute and adapt it into their daily life. and you know, as we look at 2013 when uber was first raised their $3.5 billion. emily: also from tv. toby: also from tv. and now, looking at hoover, it is already over 60 billion. the most important thing is creating a movement that changes people's behavior. if we look at it that way. emily: how many rides a day?
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toby: we cannot disclose that, but i would say we are growing fast. you know, we have already done 6 million trips so far in 12 months. emily: it has been said this business could be more profitable because you don't have to pay drivers. is that a fair assessment? it's hard to believe you could get more money making bikes and -- renting bikes and scooters than uber can make sharing cars. toby: we don't know about their economics, but not paying the drivers and cars is a big cost reduction for us. right? but more importantly, we are solving the higher frequency use case, which is shorter distance. part of people, most of the transportation needs every day basis. so i think that is a big foundation of our potential market. emily: there are challenges in every city and every city is unique and in san francisco there is a freeze on scooters right now. people are not happy with the scooters getting left around and they will be doing a trial program with able pick five
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companies that can have it out, and you are applying for it right now. toby: yes. emily: what will make a difference this time? what can you promise the city and the residents who got pretty annoyed? toby: we share the feedback and one thing that differentiates us from the other players is we take the city relationship very seriously. you know, before going into any market, we talk to the city officials and sometimes the mta or the department of transportation and we hear the feedback from operating about 10-12 weeks in the past. and we are implementing a lot of exciting features. for example, after each ride we ask the riders to take a picture about their parking so people are held more accountable and hiring locally and we have an operation team on the ground to make sure things are in and orderly manner. emily: you are taking a non-uber
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to working with cities. toby: we learn from best practices. good and bad. we want to do the best for the city. emily: thanks to lyman ceo and -- lime ceo and cofounder. tesla is expanding in china, the first automaker to own a wholly owned factory in china and forego a venture arrangement. we have learned they are planning to produce a factory that can produce 500,000 vehicles a year. the plan deals a huge blow to president trump's trade campaign against china. tesla follows harley davidson in a plan to expand production outside of the united states, to tariffs against the escalating trade dispute. we spoke to a bloomberg reporter who covers this for us. >> the difference between this and the harley davidson situation was that harley was manufactured in the u.s. and then made an announcement saying they will move manufacturing because of this table.
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-- trade war. on the other hand, this is something they have telegraphed. elon musk brought it up in november. this has been part of their plan. we are in a politically dangerous waters once you start talking about u.s. china trade, especially right now. emily: tesla was hit by retaliatory tariffs in china. this would avoid that. how big is the market for tesla in china? >> they are focused on electric vehicles and want to be all electric by 2030. also, china is going to surpass the u.s. as the world's largest car market. emily: what do we know about the plant in china? what will they be making, how
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soon, how fast? >> we don't know much. today, tesla signed a memorandum of understanding, the first step to opening the plant. the assumption is it will be used to make tesla's lower end, mass-market cars. that would be the model three and a car they are calling the model y. this is the suv version of the model 3 we are talking about cars selling in the u.s. starting around $35,000. fully loaded more like $50,000. so that is the assumption going in. but the truth is, we do not know how this will shake out. emily: i know you spent some time in china and obviously, many chinese drive u.s. cars. they are also made in china. so it is not quite as dramatic as gm, for example. they built a lot of cars in china. how does this compare to the footprint of other u.s. automakers there? >> actually, i saw more buicks in china that i see in america. they will become the world's largest market, they're focusing on electric vehicles and will be a tremendous opportunity.
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and you want to build locally because of the cost of shipping. and of course if you build locally, you avoid tariffs. i don't think this is an issue with president trump's war with china on tariffs, i think it is addressing a local market opportunity. emily: that was ivan feinseth and max chafkin. we know the supreme court nominee. what tech cases could be weighed in on if confirmed? we discuss that next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ emily: the pick is in. president trump has nominated his pick to replace anthony kennedy. it has provoked strong partisan reaction. take a listen to the senate minority leader, chuck schumer. >> in selecting judge kavanagh, president trump did exactly what he he said he would do, nominate someone will overturn women's
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reproductive rights and strike down health care protections for millions of americans. emily: in the meantime, the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell praised the president's choice. senator mcconnell: judge kavanagh understands that in the united states of america, judges are not unelected super legislators who we select for their personal views or policy preferences. emily: whether or not kavanagh is confirmed by the senate, the supreme court's next session will have some important tech-centric cases to hear. bloomberg tech's garrett de vynck joins us to discuss. garrett: probably the most sort of consequential case have around has had to say in would be about net neutrality. he didn't make a ruling that went into law, he dissented on a judgment made by some of the other judges on his court, and
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he actually was in favor of pushing back on the net neutrality. of course, we know that congress has gone and legislated away those rules put in by barack obama earlier, but he was in favor of getting rid of it. his argument focused on free speech. he said that internet service providers should have the first speech,t right to free to decide what goes over their wires and how fast it goes. that was his take on net neutrality, which of course, is very important for the tech companies and for people who follow tech today. emily: and there are some upcoming tech-related cases that the supreme court could hear in the near term. so if he is confirmed, what does it mean for the future of the supreme court? garrett: he is pretty young for a supreme court judge, 53 years old. in all likelihood, he will serve on the court for potentially decades to come. you can only imagine what kind of tech questions will face him.
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ruling fromget a a.i. shoulder be given the same rights as humans. who knows. looking forward to 20 or 30 years, you can only imagine the kinds of tech questions that will come before the court. in front of us now, there is a case about apple and whether it has the right to charge the commissions it does on its app store, while making developers only develop for its app store. that is an antitrust question, which is, of course, a very pressing and major question for the major tech companies. things like is amazon becoming too powerful, is apple too powerful, should facebook be regulated like a public forum rather than a private company that can decide what goes on in its own network? but he does tend to favor government taking a step back. he has been relatively conservative when it comes to cases about ip and copyright. you know, some more progressive activists might want to push
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back on his strict copyright rules we have seen in the music, recording, and television industries. he ruled in favor of a sort of more conservative interpretation. probably the safest thing to say about judge kavanagh is he is skeptical about the government getting too involved. he is also conservative about the business cases. emily: walk us through the timeline. i mean, the democrats are fighting back and the republicans have zero room for error. especially in mckain's absence, and there are already some republican lawmakers who could be protesting this. what is next? garrett: as you saw, the democrats will make this about roe v. wade. and the republican leadership told president trump that this, as reported by other publications, that kavanaugh might be one of the harder ones to confirm. just because he has been a judge for so long and has ruled on so many important cases, it will be a lengthy process. in terms of the tech response and where they stand, the big
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tech companies haven't said anything, the lobbyist for startups and tech companies are holding their tongues today. if you are amazon, facebook, google, a massive corporation, maybe you want someone like judge kavanagh on the court who will have a pro-business or pro-corporation interpretation on laws that come before him. emily: if you're planning on being out in the sun, you will need some spf, and it is no different for nasa's probe. they're solar probe has been given an altar heat shield to keep it from burning up as it will attempt to get closer to the sun that any vehicle before. temperatures will reach nearly thousands of degrees fahrenheit. help keep thel
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degrees.l at 85 nasa engineers installed the protective shield in june ahead of an august launch, and are hoping to make new discoveries about how he'd only son affects life on earth. that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." we will have full coverage of amazon friday. tune in at 5 p.m. new york, 2 p.m. in san francisco. and we are live streaming on twitter. check us out and follow our global breaking news network on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. here at bloomberg headquarters in new york. carol: coming up in this week's issue, a question. can the republican party survive a trade war? jason: we also look at the complicated relationship, to say the least, between vladimir putin and donald trump ahead of the big summit next week. carol: but we begin with our global cover story about tesla. jason: elon musk has made a lot of promises to investors and customers. can he live up to them? carol: building

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