♪ emily: i'm emily chang, and this is "best of bloomberg technology." where we bring you the top interviews from this week in tech. coming up in the next hour, apple reports earnings that beat expectations with an up the forecast for the current quarter. we will bring you the highlights. snap reporting his first drop in daily active users. what the company is doing to stay on the radar? and google wants back in. left beijing over

censorship rules and is working to do it again. but first, elon musk could be switching lanes could on tuesday, the ceo sent shockwaves down wall street after tweeting he considering taking the company private at $420 a share. the board is not surprised. the director said they knew last week about mosque's proposal, but the board and the ceo of a long way to go to convince investors this idea is credible and now wall street and washington are asking, where is the money? where is this funding? with the up correspondent. tweed violated disclosure rules? >> the sec has been clear that individuals can make announcements about nonpublic information through social

media. it isn't necessarily a violation, but the issue is really going to be about if the sec looks into this? the tweet you pulled up, funding secured? people are going to be wondering, what does that mean and does he have what the tweet indicates? he double down on it on tuesday soing he did have investors i guess we have to see how this plays out, but it will come down to how sure what he said at that time and how much did that reflect what the reality was? sayinghe did double down investor support is confirmed. but we don't have any evidence from our sources that investors

support is confirmed. that the sec has decided it is ok to disseminate information on social media. regards to made in netflix who announced important numbers on facebook. they decided it was ok. to this point of funding, what do we know about who could be supporting it and if they are? >> the universal funders a small. we are talking about sovereign wealth funds and the saudis. out saying thee saudi investment fund had 5%. a big tech venture investor like softbank or a big tech company

like an apple or a google. in terms of a traditional -- this deal would be a leveraged buyout, but companies that are targets for bile cap profits. that is not something that tesla has. it would be like trying to turn tesla into something like uber. basically, a high potential, private company with a high valuation. chart meantime, i have a in my library, showing tesla's the cash that is never made money and has been burning cash every year. ben, what are your sources on the regulatory side saying about what happens next? what are they going to look into? whyhis is to the point of ceo's and corporate executives don't announce this kind of stuff on twitter. this is like a long,

deliberative process, so even if this were to move forward, we are talking months here a back-and-forth were probably the board would have to form a special committee to look if this. there will be lots of lawyers and back and forth, and don't forget, investors who feel this isn't the right deal could take legal action. what we are hearing right now is that we have to see how this will play out. the fact that elon musk the fact that elon musk ultimately will determine state laws. it is a company registered in delaware. we are kind of trying to get a sense here of where this goes? and the funding question is really central to all of that. he says he has funding. where is a funding going to come from? and what is that you look like?

meantime, spacex has launched its 15th mission of the year. it deployed in indonesian satellite into orbit on tuesday. rocketsable socket nine will lift off from cape canaveral. the first launch landed on a drone ship. up, snap's second-quarter revenue was solid, but the daily active users are on the decline. are snap's the state behind it? and we will discuss. you can listen on the bloomberg app on serious no xm.

♪ emily: snap posted quarterly revenue gains showing it can compete in a market dominated by facebook and google. they also reported a decline in daily active users. that worries and i was looking for rapid growth. snap did win the endorsement of the key investor, a saudi billionaire, who took a $250 million stake. is this a bump in the road? we spoke with a senior analyst who has a market perform rating on the stock. not a great surprise. they warned us that the changes they made to the app last year had caused some disruption, so it is not as rise we saw softness. the question from here investors

are asking, can they return to growth and what time period? they had been struggling with the android platform. user experience on android is inferior to the ios. they had been working on re-platforming the app for android. we will see if it as the impact of growing android users who are returning to growth and android users both in the u.s. and globally. as of now, they did slip sequentially. the question is, will this trend continue? emily: right. david, this isn't something we saw at facebook in the early days or even twitter. i mean, do you think snap's best days could be behind it seeing we're seeing a sequential the klein in the lifecycle -- a sequential decline in the lifecycle? they have a head-to-head competitive copying their every move, that is instagram. i think that is slamming them.

on the other hand, their ability to withstand that is impressive, even though they did show a slight decline in daily active users. to effect that revenue is going from shows advertisers is the key constituency, are still pretty much happy. emily: what about the revenue, peter? we're seeing significant revenue growth. we're seeing there able to compete in a market where it is a duopoly. what do you make of the fact that even though the user trends are not promising, the revenue is? was overvenue growth 40%, but when you dig deeper, you look at the regions and you see trends that could signal alarm. revenue growth in the u.s. was 20%. and the question is whether that decelerates further? revenue per user growth was only compared to.s.,

much higher growth in europe and the rest of the world. how much more room to they have? keep in mind, snap's business in the u.s. is only 3% the size of facebook. really, you have a question here of, what is the head roma monetization per user? is the demographic skew an issue here? the issue of the snap user presents a limiting factor on growth. and they have to expand the older users. instagram thick competitor. and they need more -- instagram is a key competitor. and they need more users. emily: instagram is certainly a key competitor, also responsible for copying a lot of snap's features, and sometimes doing it better than snap has. what do you think it's snap can succeed at getting older users?

>> it is a tough challenge. they have done a good job of product innovation over time, even if every time they do anything it is copied by instagram. they had been quite innovative. i would not put it past them because it is a creative company . even the brand shout teenagers and young people. to get older people to use it, really would be more than a product design change issue, it would be a branding issue, and it could turn off the younger people. that is challenging. be ais never going to scale of facebook. it is a good company and probably still has potential growth, but don't think it is the next facebook. it is never going to be. to defendtinuing twitter's conspiracy alex jones.

thing is, in the past, we do not communicate why would take action on tweets or suspend temporarily or permanently. we want to communicate those reasons to the person the was suspended, or tweets in question and the reporters. simple communication within the product, but we have done a great job of indicating our principles. we are getting better and better step-by-step, but we have a lot more work to do there. emily: we went with someone known with hate speech. as reddit cl,nths i of seen the good, bad, and ugly on reddit. powell was a partner at a firm with a wanted to invest in

twitter. the company passed and divested in 2010. she then sued for gender discrimination. she lost the case, but has become a voice for gender equality. we started with her reaction to dorsey's fence. >> it seems like he is standing on his own. he feels like he can change twitter on his own without seeing what other platforms are experiencing. that is the piece that surprises me. we learned so much in the past five years. he is not incorporating any of that, building any empathy for the people who are being harassed on his platform. instead, he believes there should still be this free for all that he can somehow control and manage. emily: it seems to reverse some of the press that twitter has made in the last few months? >> it is a surprise that he

would not take this opportunity to protest people honest platform who are being harassed. i have seen people leaving the platform. i have not decided for sure that i am going to leave, but i am , and i don't feel like participating anymore. you feel like you're contributing to this fight that is allowing harassment, that is allowing hate speech, and harassment that comes from it on the platform and contributing to it if you're participating in it. emily: despite facebook, google, apple, spotify have all taken action against alex jones, the up info wars is rocketing the charts and is more popular than cnn and even fox news. is all of this just helping him? >> we will see. the jury is still out. at least the people at those companies can feel like they have stopped their platforms and

spreading it is much as possible. apple was keeping it on its .latform and i am not sure if you make it harder and put some friction in it and it is better than doing nothing. emily: carol fisher wrote a post about twitter and what they value. the rules have never been clear at twitter or help enforce the rules. for good about where you draw the line. is there a different way to draw the line? how you draw the line? could twitter do that differently? empathetic to the problem because rules cannot address all the changing circumstances. ,o, you have this clear rule people are trying to get around it and you will make mistakes. and never seems clear. but in this case, this is a person who is perpetuating harassment across the internet. usedour product is being

as a tool for harassment. and these families who have had to go into hiding, like where is your empathy for them? is this what you want your platform to contribute to? i don't understand how you can encourage this type of information. ofly: there is a question how off-line behavior should be considered? so alex jones, for example, could be potentially guilty of perpetuating violence against these families off the platform. how much should a platform like twitter consider that? >> we had this horrible experience at reddit in 2013 in april where people were trying to figure out what was happening with the boston marathon bombing. and somebody incorrectly student as a who was therson

bomber. and that person was a missing person. his family got harassed. they said terrible things about them over the internet. and what i took from that, no, you cannot just look at what is going on on your platform. and it doesn't matter what people's intent are trying to find a bomber. the frenzy that social media creates and immediate actions of people take without thinking, makes -- and it inflicts harm on individuals for no apparent reason. that is something that needs to be taken into account. the fact that you are not the only reason doesn't mean you're not a contributing factor or abdicate all responsibility. emily: given what to saw at a rented the choices you made, what would you do? >> i would take the content off.

i would really look hard at off-line and online. and harvey sent out a message saying they are doing that. i think she is a bury smart -- i think she is a very smart person. this is your opportunity. what are the roles? how do you want people to behave? harassment should be one of the key things. this talk about free speech, when people like wendy west and others are coming off your platform because they don't feel like it is safe for them to share ideas, and these are people who have resources, who out in the public eye in general, and they don't like their platform is safe for them, where is the free speech? where is the sharing of ideas? where are the healthy conversational environments? emily: we will take a look at a massive turnaround with ceo john silverman. and later, more staffing

intrigue at uber. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: since taking over as ceo last may, josh silverman has overseen an impressive turnaround in his tenure. the company is expanding business and eliminating areas that weren't growing. now, etsy has rated guidance in earnings reports. ceo josh silverman joined us on the show. josh: i think you're at the beginning for the opportunity for etsy. when they look at our market, if you take our top six categories and top six markets, it is a $150 billion market opportunity.

so, i think we are just at the beginning, and it is about creating a better buying experience, which translates into more successful sales for sellers. emily: no pressure, though the share price has increased considerably, up over 300% since you took over as ceo. do you have concern investors are being too enthusiastic? josh: my job in the job of my team is to focus on delivering results for all of our stakeholders, sellers and buyers and employees and shareholders. we will continue to deliver the best results we possibly can. and we are very focused on doing the few things we can exceptionally well, and we're seeing great gains from that. we think the result of the past two quarters have been encouraging and we are looking for to continuing to deliver more. molly: what areas are you exploring that may be new or unexpected? josh: part of where we lost our way was losing focus and trying

to turn to quickly to too many new things. if you look -- let's just take three of our biggest categories -- home for earnings, jewelry, and apparel. each of those are multi-hundred billion dollar categories where we have more than $500 million of sales today, but so much room to run. we got a make it easier for buyers to find the products that they love, and to buy those products and took him back and buy more and more. with over 2 million seller selling over 50 million items. items that are beautiful and made with care, there is so much opportunity to do better just in the core categories and core markets we are in today. emily: the supreme court made a big decision that states can now force retailers to collect sales tax, even without a physical there.sence that means more taxes for online shoppers. how does that impact etsy, the business, your buyers and

sellers? josh: it is not a existential threat to etsy, but creates more friction for our sellers. there is about 10,000 different tax jurisdictions in the united states alone, and each of those have different classifications for what types of goods are subject to what types of tax. that is very, very difficult for anyone to implement with excellence. law, andink it is bad we will be working with congress and the state legislators to try to come to something that is more effective and easier to implement. in the meantime, we will have our sellers' back and have tools to reduce the burden and make sure we comply. emily: you also said at the time of the decision, you would continue to lobby congress. what actions have you taken? josh: we are engaged in dialogue with congress. the nice thing is i don't think this is a partisan issue. we are trying to help states achieve their financial goals, -- their financial goals, but do it in a way where we can succeed

and, most importantly, where e-commerce can succeed and innovation tank succeed because that has been a key driver of the u.s. economy. for us, we have 2 million sellers. 87% are women. they exist in 99% of the counties of the united states. are businesses of one, running a global enterprise from the living room. so, we think the needs of these micro-entrepreneurs are really important we are making sure their voice is heard. emily: that was etsy ceo josh silverman from new york. still ahead, samsung unveils its priciest phone yet, hoping a larger screen will rejuvenate sales. but is it enough for the struggling flagship line? and bloomberg tech is live streaming on twitter. check us out on technology and makes it a follow us on tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ retail.

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♪ emily: welcome back to "the best of bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. samsung unveiled its galaxy note 9 this week at an event in brooklyn, new york. the main takeaways the phone , will be faster and last longer without a recharge, and will also come with some automatic photo editing. but these changes come with a hefty price tag. the 6.4 inch screen will start at $999.99 and maxing out at $1249.99. samsung is banking on the device

-- they are struggling to fend off apple's upcoming iphones over the holidays. but will it work? bloomberg tech's mark gurman and bob o'donnell went to the samsung unveiling in brooklyn and came to us with a full report. mark: they are positioning it as this new big thing for consumers, but the reality is, what looks new to consumers in this phone, does not look different than its predecessor. it has a slightly bigger screen, much upgraded stylus, more storage capacity, a bit of a faster processor, but i do not think that it is enough to move the deal to spur upgrades. emily: bob, would you agree? bob: generally i would agree. people are not upgrading every year for any phone anymore, so the market realities have changed. right? people are upgrading every two years, every two and a half years. people have older phones, it is nice. look, mark is right. it is incremental advance. -- at best.

the pen technology is kind of interesting. there were more interesting announcements later in the event, and frankly, if you look at the time spent across the entire event, the time spent on the phones was modest because it was a relatively modest upgrade. emily: now, mark, you have done incredible reporting on the iphones to come. how does what was revealed today compare to what you expect apple to unveil in the fall? mark: that is very kind of you. it is a team effort. it fits right into what we were expecting from samsung and apple this year, not really significant upgrades. apple's upgrade is not significant in september, on the significant it is on how many versions of the iphone x they will have come a -- have, different screen sizes

and pricing strategies. it will really be an exercise in marketing, and that is the same thing going on with the note eight. emily: bob, there have been questions about whether customers are going to pay that $1000 for the iphone x? same question here, do people really want to pay that much for a samsung phone? bob: look, if samsung has an apple fan girl, fan boy equivalent it is the galaxy note , owners. they are the most dedicated, most faithful to the brand first, and there are people in that group that want the best android phone. by the way, the 512 gigabyte model is going to be $1249. they are at an even higher price point there. but this is not the entire market and samsung knows that. this is their dedicated galaxy note people who like using the pen, which is why the primary focus of the new features were around the pen. and so from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense, but to me, what is more interesting is the spotify news. to me, that was interesting because it reflects a bigger picture strategy story from samsung across the board, across all their different devices. emily: and how does that, mark, compare with apple, which of

course has apple music? mark: that is a good question. spotify, at a low level, is not going very much in-house and not building up the streaming music service themselves. they used to have one called "milk." they have had a few over the -- few others over the years and they have terminated their projects. spotify, which still has the best brand recognition, it is a smooth move by samsung. and even spotify investors seem pretty impressed by it. the stock is up several percent this morning. emily: other announcements or revamps, smart watch, home, the -- a home digital speaker. you have been tweeting about the speaker, one and a half times the home pod which is quite large. what is your take on these other products? mark: well, the galaxy watch is a revamped version of the smart watch strategy. i do not think it will move the needle. the market has truly become saturated with the apple watch.

i am not sure where samsung is going to fit in. on the other hand, the home speaker is also coming in extraordinarily late. the amazon echo came out 3, 4 years ago, announced in 2014. almost five years ago now. the home pod was late as well. coming out in february. but amazon and google have a handle on that market, so i am not really sure what percentage of the market samsung is going to be able to grab with this device, especially with such few details they are providing on this. i would not be surprised if it is not released until the end of this year or 2019. so, they are extraordinarily late to the game with the home speaker and it does not appear they are bringing any new innovative functionality to the table that would inspire anyone to buy one of these. emily: bob, is it too late for samsung and apple in smart speakers? bob: well, it is going to be very challenging. you have a strong position for both amazon and google.

look, the one thing i will say across the board for the different galaxy products is we are seeing samsung talking about the galaxy brand. they changed it to galaxy watch and call it galaxy home. they are trying to build this overall connected device story, which i think is a unique opportunity for samsung. when you think about all of the appliances they make and all of the other things they do, they are the only company in the world that potentially could do that. but again, the real test is going to be in execution, how well this will actually work on that speaker? having spotify bundle with a smart speaker i think is attractive and a unique opportunity from a general music perspective. but look, it will be an uphill battle. emily: that was mark gurman and bob mcdonald. coming up, uber has a seen a serious staffing shakeup in the last year. they are bringing back one of their former employees, hopefully without the drama he left with.

how the auto co-founder will fit into the ride-hailing company, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: new york city council dealt a huge political blow to uber and other app based car companies this week. it approved a one-year cap on new licenses. it set minimum pay standards for drivers. the passage is sweeping industry regulations is showing politicians changed attitudes toward the so-called gig economy and car hailing services. another day, another shakeup at uber. but this time, it is a former employee who is returning. lior ron will start uber freight, the trucking service. ron left uber in march after uber settled with alphabet for $240 million.

over allegations and had stolen alabama -- alphabet's trade secrets. now, ron is returning to uber after a month-long behind-the-scenes negotiation to rework the terms of the auto deal, announced almost two years ago. we spoke with lane kasselman and also with us, eric newcomer. who covers all things uber for bloomberg. eric: what seems to have been happening as behind-the-scenes, renegotiation the of this part of this auto acquisition two years ago so that uber can really invest in uber freight. they're human, trucking, logistics business. once those negotiations got settled with anthony levandowski and lior ron, and cleared the way for ron to come back. now that he is at peace with the company to sort of leave that effort. emily: but if he really at peace? is there a risk of bringing back someone who has some baggage? lane: there are a lot of people

who have worked at uber over the past two or three years that are entertaining coming back now that there's new leadership in place. but the reality is, there is not a lot of people with expertise in this space, so uber doesn't have a deep bench to pick from. emily: let's talk about the bench, eric, because we have seen the head of hr resign in the midst of an internal investigation into whether she was ignoring complaints from employees. a very high-profile woman at the company. what really happened there? eric: there is a lot we don't know. there was this investigation. there had been an internal whistleblower that had complained and those correspondents came out. lawyers basically told the whistleblower there were some things we can confirm, some things we can't, we are not going to tell you which. and their chief legal officer you know, basically said, you know, trying the sort of issues in the court of public opinion

is not a great idea, and it can be unfair. but ultimately, liane horsley resigned right after an all hands meeting. it was sudden and unexpected and it came amidst media scrutiny. we do not know what particular incident convinced her to resign or uber to push in that direction. emily: meantime, the coo that was brought in to help right the ship, "the new york times" has some reporting of some off-color remarks he made about in that featuring mixed race couples. how often do you really see mixed raced couples? lane: the defense is analyzing the ad, trying to understand whether it represented the people they were targeting. people in the room felt it was off-color. we don't know exactly what was said. he is certainly soul-searching and trying to get leadership help around exactly what he should say. it was a terrible moment for uber to have the turnaround

crew get hit with the same type of allegations that travis kalanick and his leadership team would have faced. very hard, so you have this guy doing a lot of the heavy lifting, now is sort of emblematic of the behavior they were trying to leave in the past. emily: now, dara has made some other high-profile hires. has not made high-profile female hires, lane, and also seems to be having trouble getting the ship in order. what do you make of this? lane: it is not a question of if but when? dara has a lot of work to do ahead of a hopeful ipo next year. i think he will look to the existing bench outside the tech sector. right? a lot of folks in corporate america have proven themselves in various capacities and he has to convince them this is a

company that is ok to come to now, and he has to bring them on board. it is not overnight. he has not been in the job long enough to get a full leadership team. emily: i spoke with tony west and he said it was a tough decision to leave his job at pepsi and join uber. what are you hearing from people who work inside the company as to whether there has been a true culture shift? lane: yeah, that is a great question because the culture shift is being felt among the entire team. it is a huge company now. folks who have been there long time, four years plus, because in tech, we say four years is a long time, but in the real world, it is not. folks who have been there for more than four years feel like it is a new day, new leadership, and the problems are behind them. they are excited and bold about the future. emily: eric, meantime, regulatory issues continue in new york. the city council is poised to approve a cap licenses for uber another ridesharing drivers. eric: terrible for uber, terrible. i mean, i think, i'm curious what lane thinks.

uber beat bill de blasio back and gave it room to grow. and obviously, it has locked in some of those gains, but any idea of the cap would be terrible for uber, and minimum guarantees on drivers would distort the marketplace. from a business perspective, it is pretty shocking, and you know, definitely the travis kalanick crowd asking, did dara invest in the war room-style fight with new york that they had done? i am curious. emily: how terrible? did he mess up? eric: there is a question of whether or not tech companies need to hire policy people, and this is definitely an example. but i think most tech companies are going to need more and this is why. regulations always come back. regulators are always looking for the easy way out, and in this case, this is the easy way out. congestion pricing, changing the price of taxi medallions,

helping the people most vulnerable in new york. those are easy problems to solve capping uber. , emily: now, got to ask you about one more story. before you came on the show, you sold some of your tesla shares before elon was speaking about it being private. you still have some shares? lane: maybe not enough. [laughter] emily: what is your take on this as an investor? lane: i am hopeful the news today means something big is happening, and that it is good for my remaining stock, and you know, on the other hand, i hope i really did not screw up this morning. eric: uber preparing to go public next year and now tesla floating going private, it is such a reversal, you know, just two ships passing in the night. emily: we have not determined how serious elon musk is about this, but does his capriciousness and unpredictability bother you? lane: one of the reasons i am an investor in tesla is because it is so exciting. you just have to go along for

the ride. emily: that was lane kasselman and eric newcomer. coming up, google abandoned china in 2010, taking a moral stand against censorship. now, it wants back in on the world's second-largest economy, but at what cost? we will discuss next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: a semiconductor company that makes chips for iphone says it was crippled this week by a cyber virus similar to last year's wannacry ransomware. the outbreak shut several factories down just as the company was ramping up for the new iphone. ksmc says full operations have resumed and expects a 2% drop in revenue this quarter. google is secretly trying to get back into china with a censored search engine comes the news that it is working with chinese companies on cloud offerings.

google is set to be working with -- said to be working with tencent and others to offer its health services in the second world largest economy. just eight years ago, google abandoned mainland china because it refused to comply with beijing's censorship practices. so, what's changed? to get to the bottom of that, we spoke with shira ovide and bob boorstin. before that, he spent seven years as google's director of public policy, and was on the original team that determined googles entry into china in 2006. bob: i think there are three factors in play here. first is economic. they see a market and i think that is incredibly important to them. they want to be a player. the second thing they have to look at, and now we go negative, is the political side of this. already, you are seeing senators in washington asking questions about why they are doing this, and also, you're seeing a number

of human rights groups taking exception. and finally, there is a moral question. part of the reason google pulled out in 2009, 2010 was moral, and certainly, nothing has changed on that front. in fact, chinese internet regulations are now a lot harsher than they were back then. emily: exactly. the laws are even more severe today than they were eight years ago. senator marco rubio did speak to bloomberg thursday about this very issue, speaking on the reaction of lawmakers. take a listen. sen. rubio: i am outraged by it. number one, they will not work for the department of defense because they do not want to be involved with killing people, but they work closely with a university in china to provide technology to the chinese military. and then here they are in the united states talking about how they stand for free speech, but they are prepared to go into china, and help the chinese

government censor information, and deny people access to information. it is hypocrisy. it is sickening. emily: you had an excellent piece weighing the pros and cons, most of the cons of this. talk to us at what cost this would come to google. there is user trust and you point out, does google have a potential to break back into the market at all given the dominance of the chinese services? shira: that does seem on the commercial front that china has moved on without google for better or for worse. but, for people like me who want the world to come closer together, the internet was supposed to help make that happen. instead, what we have seen over the last few years is not just in china, but another countries -- in other countries around the world, where the government has used the internet as a tool to make the world a more closed place, to crack down on global information, to censor, to shut down dissent, and that is

certainly what we are seeing in china to a large extent, without google being there. and now of course, they are trying to make these compromises to potentially come back. emily: so, bob, the economic potential is obvious. 722 million internet users in china. but on the moral side, wasn't it larry page and sergey brin who personally decided to pull out in the first place? they are still at the company. what is different? why has the moral calculation changed? bob: that is a very good question. i cannot answer that one. sergey argued he did not like the authoritarian, totalitarian nature of the regime. he had come from the soviet union with his parents, so he clearly took a personal offense to what was going on. also, the chinese had essentially invaded google's search engine, and that did not make anyone there happy. what's changed?

it has only gotten worse as far as i can tell. emily: talk to us about the political atmosphere here. this would certainly not be something that i imagine president trump would be pleased about as he is waging the trade war on china. shira: the politics are interesting. you had that clip from senator rubio, and i think he has been very clear on how is it that google on the one hand can refuse to do work with the u.s. department of defense on his military drone project, and all -- on the other hand, it is willing to help the chinese government censor information from its own citizens. that is a little bit of a hard sell in some corners of congress. the politics will be very interesting, given the trade tensions or trade and beyond tensions between the united states and china. it is not even clear to me that google would be permitted by the chinese government to reenter the country with search, or with its other commercial services.

emily: that is certainly another question. bob? bob: i would agree with that. one of the things we have to look at very closely is uncertainty, both in terms of what the chinese government will allow, and in terms of what google wants to do. people are treating this as a done deal, and it is by no means a done deal. but the fact that just beginning -- a beginning of a story about enraged so many, should be taken as a pretty serious thing by google. emily: it is anything but a done deal, bob, you are right. and it also sets the standard potentially for a country specific internet. whenever we ask alibaba or tencent or baidu executives about censorship that they all abide to, they say they are just following the law in their home country. google could certainly say the same thing. but if this happened, what are the standards it would set for other companies like facebook, for example, which is still blocked in china? could you see a domino effect,

you know, going against freedom and access to information? bob: i would argue that facebook will never get into china, and the reason for that is that its fundamental utility is as an organizing tool that allows people to organize. that is the last thing the chinese government wants its people to have. google is in a different place here than facebook is. there are already plenty of search engines over there, and one of the big questions is, is it worth it economically when baidu, the chief competition, already has about 75% of the search market? emily: shira reminds us of a hack attack that originated in china in 2006 on google, where the hackers were trying to access human rights activist information. bob, what was it like being on

the inside of that? bob: i was not there for that exact attack. but it is definitely one of those things you worry about a lot ever since something called the case. yahoo! had a partnership and had to turn over information on that dissident to chinese government. once they did, the chinese put them on trial and in jail for 10 years. any company operating in china, their data is fair game for the chinese government. and if so, they could be seen as, and in reality, complicit with that government. that is not something most -- nothing that most companies want to have on their hands. emily: that was bob boorstin and shira ovide. and that does it for this edition of "the best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest in tech throughout the week. tune in every day, 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco.

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carol: welcome joe "bloomberg businessweek." carol: coming up, a story on apple and whether or not it really is a champion of privacy. jason: we also go to the big news of the week, one must taking his company private -- elon musk taking his company private. carol: we look at the relationship between s