mark: today the president of the united states conducted a wide-ranging oval office interview with bloomberg news. discussed, aics capital gains tax break, the wto, attacking social media giants google, amazon, and facebook, the president's feelings about fed chair jerome powell, and the job security of his embattled attorney general, jeff sessions. joining me from washington, john mickelthwait, who helped conduct the interview with president trump. here in new york, peter coy. let me start with you. i have to ask, the mood in the oval office.

we have been hearing a lot of reports about tension in the white house, particularly in the west wing. what was it like? john: i would describe it as kind of italy and -- him as kind of a boolean -- of ebullient. as far as he is concerned he is doing a wonderful job, and the world should hear about it. he doesn't -- self-doubt is not an immediate makeup.his he's bouncing. he thinks he has engineered a wonderful economy. he thinks he is winning trade wars. makeup. you can throw in all kinds of buts, but that's the way he's looking at it. mark: john, i mentioned a series of topics that were discussed today. there were so many. let's start with a capital gains tax break, because that caught my eye initially. what are his feelings about that, and why now? john: he talked a lot about

pondering on this, and is certainly something he is interested by. it fits into his wheelhouse in some way. it's one of those things where he offers, especially corporate america, something that will keep on making them keen and drawing in. it's obviously not something -- and peter will point this out immediately. it's not something that will help many middle-class americans, but it would be more red meat for his corporate base, who might be somewhat worried about what's happening to do with trade wars. mark: let's hear from the president in his own words his comments to bloomberg about capital gains and taxes. president trump: thinking about it. i'm thinking about it. there are a lot of people that love it. there are some people that don't, but i'm thinking about it very strongly. mark: "i'm thinking about it very strongly." it didn't sound convincing, but the fact that he threw that out

there suggests what? peter: it's something he has brought up repeatedly. larry kudlow is in favor of it. as john mickelthwait pointed out, it does appeal to his base. by his base, i mean the top 0.1% of american taxpaying households. he has a broader base that will not probably pay a lot of attention to this, certainly would not benefit from it. it is that top 0.1% that would of the benefit from a capital gains tax cut. mark: when we talk about not the overall base, because the president and his administration has been touting the tax cut ever since that was passed, but now this is something to throw to the other side of the equation here. how much money are we talking about? peter: it's not one of these large ticket items. we are in the tens of billions of dollars here, nothing on the

scale of the december tax cut, which really was a pretty gigantic -- it's more of a symbolic move. trump continues to want to do something for his key supporters. talkedohn, the president to you and our colleagues about the wto. he has made no secret that he is not a fan. what's his concern? john: he said, "i think the wto is even worse the nafta. -- t han nafta." the fact that he immediately rejected the offer from the europeans to go to zero tariffs on cars is interesting. he just said, that is not nearly good enough, i want a much broader deal than that. i think many europeans thought this was a big concession by them. i think it's part of the same thing. he wants to rewrite trade rules around the world. of therom the president

united states in an interview with bloomberg news, his feelings on the wto. president trump: i would say the wto is the single worst trade deal ever made, and if they don't shape up, i would withdraw from the wto. the single worst trade deals ever made." trade the world organization is one of the key institutions that grew out of predecessor organizations. it's a key building block of post-world war ii order. mark: the president has made no secret that he believes the united states gets treated unfairly by the wto. peter: we would say the thing -- he would say the same thing about the united nations and international monetary fund. the u.s. is in a special position as the world's most powerful nation and he doesn't perceive the u.s. as having a special responsibility to the world. he and a large part of his base believe the u.s. has been ill treated and should be able to pursue its narrow self-interest,

the same as guyana or nigeria or philippines or any other nation. that would be a big change for the united states to kind of narrow down -- it's what china does. china has a narrow view of its self-interest. u.s. has a broader view. he wants us to be focused just on what will help the u.s. in any given year. mark: not to be unexpected, the president continued his withering criticism of jeff sessions. it makes you wonder how much of this mr. sessions can take. what did the president say? john: to be fair, he sort of gave in to the idea that jeff sessions should remain in his job through the midterms. i suspect under political pressure just to take that off the table. we did ask him how many hours after the midterm was he likely to stay, and trump pushed that away. he made very clear that he anted jeff sessions to do

rather different job to what they are doing at the moment. that, rather predictably, involved pursuing democrat malfeasance. he talked about them being worse than what happened on his side to do with russia and so on. mark: this is -- speaking of holding a grudge, the president has not spoken kindly of mr. sessions since he refused to recuse himself from the russia investigation. john: yes, it does seem to be one of those things where, to me, it's a little bit of a mystery. you have this man who seems to , in afiring people previous incarnation certainly -- firing people in a previous incarnation, certainly in his "apprentice" days. it goes back to the idea that sessions was part of the senate. he has some difficulty in finding someone who could immediately replace him. mark: the president talked about

auto tariffs. let's hear what the president had to say. president trump: it's not good enough. because they do a lot more auto business than we will ever do. in other words -- well, first of all, it's not just tariffs. they will take the barriers down and charge is no tax, but it's not good enough, because they will always sell more cars. their cars, their consumer habits are to buying their cars, not our cars. mark: the europeans are a little bit tired of this criticism coming from the united states. peter: the point he made about habits is kind of strange. it's like, if germans want to buy mercedes or peugeot or whatever rather than ford or gm, not's something that is really subject to trade negotiations. it's always been perceived that, as long as you create a level playing field, you may run a

surplus in one category and the deficit in another one, but that's just the ballgame. he wants -- he seems like, if we run a deficit, that's prima fascia evidence of a problem. mark: john mickelthwait, we have about 30 seconds left. the word that you used was ebullient. did that catch you by surprise? john: slightly. i thought he would be more on the defensive. i would reiterate what peter said. yousically said to trump, know, look, how on earth can you stop people buying cars they want to buy? he just sort of kept on going. yes, the overall impression is of someone who feels the world is going in his direction, and that is, for better or worse, that is the president that america has at the moment. mark: bloomberg news editor-in-chief john micklethwait from washington, conducting an interview with the president. and peter coy joining us on set.

gentlemen, thank you. emily: this cloud computing software company has been growing its customer base in what has been turning into a crowded industry. the company gives clients like uber and whatsapp the tools to digitally communicate with customers. it posted its second ever profitable quarter, beating market expectations in revenue. rosy projections for the rest of the year. twilio's ceo joins us now. what did you do this quarter to boost profit? >> there's nothing we did in this particular quarter. it's been a gradual process of building the company to focus on customer success. we have a platform approach which puts developers first. developers bring twilio into companies of every shape and size and they use it to build interactions with their customers. we see this in industries from travel and hospitality to real estate, tech companies, old, new

companies, everything you can, imagine. with the usage base model it starts out small -- anything you can imagine. with the usage base model, it starts out small. it is an efficient way to develop customers. this usage base pricing model gives us this great expansion rate. the confluence of all of that is what you see in the strength of our financial performance. emily: whatsapp is your biggest customer. what do you help them do? jeff: they sent me a text message to confirm your identity. twilio powers that. emily: what you see when you engage with larger corporate clients? is an important part of every company's strategy. every company needs to be good at building software in order to differentiate themselves, and when they do, they hire software developers, and those developers bring in twilio. if you are a startup, made you

bring in twilio -- maybe you bring in twilio and that's enough. they follow the lead of the internal developers who get the ball rolling with twilio and often build a prototype with very little friction. then our sales team will come in and help that initial idea that those developers worked on to turn into reality at scale inside of a bigger enterprise. emily: twilio is involved in voter engagement. talk about the tools you are selling to politicians. jeff: if you think about twilio and engagement, it's about connecting people together. we have been excited to partner with organizations connecting voters with their elected officials, is one of the areas where we've seen a lot of traction. we announced an initiative called voices for democracy. what we said is, look, we have a very polarized world right now. people can connect with each other. for representative democracy to

work, voters need to believe that their elected officials are listening to them, and that is the most important kind of communication that needs to happen. direct constituent to representative communication. emily: at the same time we are seeing done -- democracy under threat, we are seeing state actors try to meddle in u.s. elections. how do you make sure those interactions, if you're the middleman, are secure? jeff: we have been working with foundations that are bringing solutions for how to talk to constituents straight into the u.s. house of representatives. they are working directly with the elected officials to power their communications, but to use modern channels like sms. they are in over 200 of the reps' offices, where they say, text us, if you want to talk to us. the staffers are manning that. we focus on working with great organizations that represent official channels of communication and help people to mobilize each other and get out their voices, so that their

voices are heard by their elected officials. emily: what's next for twilio? jeff: we are excited about the newest product we launched, twilio flex, an application platform for the contact center. one of the neat things about being a platform that developers and companies can use to build just about anything is they show us the unsolved problems of the world, and one of the top spots we saw on our platform in recent years was the fact that some of the largest, most of this dictated contact centers in the world were -- most sophisticated contact centers in the world were stuck with solutions they didn't like. they needed more flexibility than the cloud had to offer at that time. they said they would build it themselves. with twilio flex, what we announced earlier this year is a contact center for the very largest, most sophisticated contact centers in the world that gives them super flex ability, scalability -- flexibility, scalability, and

reliability. emily: we hear rumors about amazon. any interest? jeff: we are focused on building a great company. we sit at one of the largest industries in the planet -- one of the intersections of the largest industries in the planet. it's a transition from hardware to software. we are a leader in our category. we created the space. we are excited about building a very big company for the ages. emily: thank you so much for stopping by. meantime, microsoft has rolled out a new policy for its subcontractors. companies that provide temporary workers to the software giant will have to offer 12 weeks of paid parental leave. those positions include working in the cafeteria, working at the interest -- entrance desk. only 13% of private-sector workers in the united states get paid parental leave. coming up next, bungalow is trying to change how people find homes to rent. we talked to the cl in silicon valley -- to the ceo in silicon

valley. this is bloomberg. ♪

wework is on track to become manhattan's largest office tenant. wework would push past j.p. morgan chase, which has 5.2 million square feet rented in manhattan. bungalow plans to be in 12 major u.s. cities by the end of the

year. it has secured $64 million in total funding, $14 in a series a a seriesllion in a. you have a lot of expense with real estate. you have another real estate company. what makes you so excited about this opportunity? >> residential real estate is the largest asset class in the united states, and it has basically been unaffected by technology. all other areas of the economy have been reinvented over the last 20 years, and it's time for real estate to adjust to the modern world. ow takes existing inventory built in the 1940's to 1960's where families and lifestyles were very different and converts it into the demand we see from millennials in urban environments. emily: it is so hard to get an apartment. it is such a headache. how does it work? >> we streamline the process. we make it much easier with our online listings. we have walk-throughs on our

website where people can come, even if they are not doing it in then weto walk through, help individuals with finding other great people to live with as well. that's the real bread and butter of bungalow. emily: why isn't this something airbnb could do? >> airbnb is not in the business of permanent housing. bungalow is in the business of providing permanent places to live. they are very different. airbnb provides vacation travel and does it very well, but there's a difference between providing a place to live between three to five years and between three to five days. emily: airbnb has run into a lot of regulatory issues. how do city regulators feel about this? >> we are helping increase the inventory of long-term housing. airbnb has paved the way with subletting, now explicitly provided for as long as it's greater than 30 days. our leases are generally four months to 18 months and renters stay with us for close to a year. >> you have been working on this

for 18 months. you have already raised $64 million. that's a lot of money, isn't it? >> you mentioned wework. real estate is expensive. real estate works really well when you know what you are doing, when you have an advantage and can price things accurately. it's not cheap. every house open-door buys costs $234,000. when we do it well, we get more than that back. real estate can't be done without dollars. emily: opendoor has been called er.ome flipp you buy homes, fix them up, turn them around. what sort of trends are you seeing in the real estate market, given what's happening with rates, the administration, the stock market? in 13ndoor is live cities across the united states. we are adding one city per month. by the end of next year, we will be in 50 plus cities. san francisco is a unique real estate market.

the prices here are four times the national average. the days on market for a house is 1/4 the national average. new york city is also very different. at the high-end of the market, which is not mainstream, there has been a softening of several million dollar homes. in the mainstream part of america, people want places to live. they want to get an extra bedroom for their kid. they want to move to a better job. none of that has changed. the number of houses being exchanged, which is the primary metric, how many houses are being bought and sold, is not changing right now. emily: where do you think the market is going? >> i think the market is still likely to have appreciation across the board, except at the top 1% of houses. if you talk about the 83% of houses, the median home in the united states is worth $234,000. even two distributions away from that is worth $500,000. as you think about those homes, there is more demand for them. you see in urban environments,

which is why bungalow is such an attractive investment, there are more people who want to live in san francisco than there are supply of bedrooms. a lot of cities didn't. -- didn't build enough. there is an issue with how do you have all the people who want to live there. it's like the immigration debate. people should be able to live in the city they want and pursue the career they can find with the company is and that aligns -- with the competition -- there's not enough housing in many cities in the united states, and that makes no sense. things like bungalow can help fix that. opendoor allows people to flexibly move whenever they want, which is a better -- another part of moving to a better job, better career. emily: what about the safety and security question here? you are matching up roommates. you have to do background checks, i presume. there are a lot of scary roommate stories out there. >> there are a lot of scary

roommate stories because people can't do those background checks, so they don't have the same capabilities we as a company can provide. that's one of the things that we think the most strongly about. as an organization, we can provide that safety and trust that you can't do if you are searching on craigslist for a roommate on your own. emily: how can you confidently say you can do those background checks? we've seen uber and lyft struggle to do background checks on their own drivers. >> there one piece of the puzzle. we are doing reference checks, interviews. it's not just background checks. that's one criteria. emily: keith, do you think trump and the rate issue will affect prices? >> there's a connection between real estate values an interest rates. most people buy for a mortgage. as interest rates go up, mortgages get more expensive which means purchasing power, of a homeowner declines.

i think there is a fundamental connection there. that said, everybody who lives in the united states needs a place to live, and we are not adding enough supply in cities fast enough, so that causes appreciation which creates a mismatch. nobody knows exactly how it's going to play out. emily: what's the cost of the service? you are paying for convenience, right? >> that's correct, but because we are helping individuals find great other individuals to help with and are renting by the than it's 40 to 50% less what a studio apartment would cost. emily: talked about how you are protecting the data -- talk about how you are protecting the data. you are getting very personal with these people who are roommates, potential roommates, right? >> absolutely, but we are keeping all that information and privacy internally to our team. it is something we think very thoughtfully about. emily: all right. andrew collins, ceo of bungalow. peter, you are going to stick with us for another roaring

block. more with him coming up next. "bloomberg technology" is livestreaming on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

it started on august 7 with the words, "i'm considering taking tesla private at $400. funding secured." it's been a wild roller coaster for tesla and elon musk, scrapping those plans last friday. the story is not over. there are still sec inquiries, investor confidence in musk is in question, and weekly output is still up in the air. back with us to discuss, someone who knows elon musk, peter a boy -- keith rabois. he was considered part of the paypal mafia. you and elon go way back. i love to get your thoughts on him. what do you make of this whole

saga, the u-turn, the tweets, probably being a little too transparent? keith: i think transparency is complicated. it's a virtue we all talk about and advise our portfolio companies to be more transparent. as a public company, there are some limits on transparency that you have to factor in that you don't as a private company. we fought this battle at paypal. peter teal was adamant that -- peter thiel was adamant we would provide transparency to all of our employees, even after an ipo. the lawyers who were advising the company freaked out and the investment bankers freaked out, and they all tried to convince peter that nobody ever did this. peter was adamant. he was like, we can't run the company if people don't have access to the metrics. we stripped out the last line, which was revenue, and maybe one more line in the spreadsheet, but anybody who could do math could calculate it. that appeased the lawyers. it is hard to provide

transparency. if you want your employees to be effective, you want to be as transparent as possible. social media encourages more transparency. a lot of ceos thrive in a transparent world, and they can tweet about their companies, their customer successes. but there are legal constraints. when something goes wrong, everybody remembers with hindsight the disadvantages of transparency. emily: you are a former lawyer. keith: yes. emily: do you think elon musk went too far? keith: well -- emily: i can tell. you think he went too far. keith: there is a downside to the tweet. for me, i look at tesla and i think it is a fairly valued company. i wish all my portfolio companies were worth as much. it's not as if this company is being treated unfairly in the public markets. actually, it's quite well regarded in the public markets. emily: yet he seems to not like how it's being treated in the public markets. keith: that confuses me of it. i can see the case of tesla was

trading at $3 billion or $4 billion. why are all these people irrationally attacking my company? but at $50 billion, $60 billion, it feels like an impressive valuation for the company. i would be happy as a ceo of a public company that has $60 billion with their metrics. i don't understand the calculation of the upside versus downside of tweeting in this case. emily: he has also told several untruths, not the least of which was saying that funding was secured when it clearly was not. he has also misled in that "new york times" interview about how quickly he flew out of his brother's wedding. he should be taking his kids to see the "game of thrones" set, but why lie? isn't that a problem? keith: i didn't read the new york times -- "the new york times" profile. it is so biased, i just avoid it. fundamentally, i think "funding

secured," there are limits to 280 characters and how much nuance you can convey, but once you are a public company ceo, it will be used against you. you have to calculate that as part of how you propose -- compose your tweet. emily: "funding secured" is pretty clear. there is no nuance there. keith: we have founders who say they have funding secured, but it doesn't mean they have a binding term sheet. a lot of the business world operates this way. emily: do you think he is still the right person to lead this company? keith: absolutely. disruptive changes are generated by and driven by disruptive people. every founder that has created a change the world company has things that are a little bit of a screw loose here and there. i have never met a founder who has been incredibly successful that isn't different from a normal person in some way.

i think you get the upside of seeing things that other people don't see, being willing to do things that other people won't do that leads to these companies that everybody finds iconic, iconoclastic, and that literally transform the world, from apple on down. i don't think you can have a perfectly homogenized ceo and still can't push things in america -- still accomplish things in america. emily: does he need to do things differently, hire a number two, stop tweeting so much maybe get some sleep,? keith: sleep is good. i thinkque would be, everybody should get eight hours of sleep. there are great books like "why we sleep." i think america will wake up and realize most health issues in the united states are driven by lack of sleep. it's a longitudinal data question. one day we will wake up and realize lack of sleep is worse than smoking a cigarette, by far. it destroys people's lives.

i would totally focus on the sleep thing, and that will take care of itself. emily: changing gears, i want to talk about trump, who has been railing on social media, railing on google. do you think trump has a point? keith: without a doubt, if the government ever -- a government agency ever sued one of these tech companies and it was entitled to discovery, they would find very embarrassing enough threads, internal discussions -- email threads, internal discussions. "the new york times" did write ans expose about how some of the best engineers at facebook were revolting. emily: you read that one? keith: i read the headline. fundamentally, these companies have very strong ideological views about the world. they are enforcing those views on their employees, as has played out in some public domains, but a lot of it is in private. for example a talking point, a lot of people think infowars

should be banned from various social platforms. the intellectually interesting question is, do the same people who are arguing to get rid of infowars, are they willing to suppress all of the arguments from palestinians who say 9/11 was a hoax? usually they are hypocritical about that. you are not willing to pull down they are notrom -- willing to pull down the content from palestinian groups. emily: would you go so far as to say google search results are biased? keith: i don't know. i would like to see the evidence. emily: there is none. keith: i definitely know for a fact that their search results against yelp are biased. emily: fair point. keith: the eu has concluded that. emily: ok. so, that said, these platforms are being misused by state actors to spread misinformation. this is concerning. are you concerned about this? i know in the past you said that the united states does the same

thing to other countries, and yet we have a midterm election that is now weeks away. keith: so, i think spreading propaganda is something state actors have done for centuries. it's like the definition of what clandestine agencies do. social platforms are like publishing a book. once the printing press is unlocked in the world, people can publish pamphlets. the united states revolution was driven by mostly anonymous pamphlets, "the federalist papers," in terms of changing the constitutional structure. this has all been a historical, common thing. the united states used to drop leaflets in world war ii into occupied not see -- nazi territory. we had radio free europe broadcasting intentionally into the soviet union, intending to subvert the communist regime. i find it shocking and hypocritical to say that social media is some new thing. emily: you don't want them to be doing this, as an american citizen --

what can these companies do? keith: i think it's a lot to ask these companies to do more than the government does. for example the united states government, under the obama administration officially designated russia as a friend, not foe. asking google or facebook or twitter to conclude that putin and russia were a foe when the president of the united states is calling him friend makes no sense whatsoever to hold them to a higher standard than the u.s. government. at some point, the position on russia has changed based on facts. asking tech companies to apply the government's it is a reasonable thing to do -- government's perspective is a reasonable thing to do. of him for saying this. the facts are in the public domain. companies should do their best to implement policies and tactics that are designed to limit the influence of foreigners in american elections. that said, the united states government bears the primary

responsibility for protecting the american people, not google, not facebook him and not twitter. -- not facebook, not twitter. emily: we could go on for hours. rate to have you back. -- great to have you back. president trump, ready to move ahead with china tariffs. he wants to impose tariffs on $200 billion more of chinese imports as soon as next week. this comes as two-way trade talks show little signs of progress. coming up, amazon is looking for a home for its second headquarters, but what about the home of its first? we will take a deep dive into amazon's impact on seattle next. this is bloomberg. ♪ . ♪

emily: amazon has always been a

company grabbing the attention of the united states, but earlier this year, it put the nation in a frenzy when it announced it would be taking bids from cities to host its second headquarters. cities like new york and other well-established tech sectors would compete to be the new home for amazon.even smaller players , like vallejo, california, wanted in. it put a spotlight in seattle where amazon created a home for its workforce. joining us, an author of this latest piece in "bloomberg businessweek." there's a lot of controversy around the idea that amazon could not expand in seattle. so, talk to us about why that didn't happen and what it means for seattle now. >> well, clearly, we are talking about a company, amazon, that just has a tremendous amount of ambition.

to make sure that they can deliver on their goals, they are now looking for a second headquarters. really, they have, in many ways, maxed out what they can do here in seattle. i think it's important to note that, when we talk about hq2, so far, amazon has talked about this as being a co-equal headquarters. it's not like they are picking up and leaving seattle, but they certainly are looking for a lot more space. what we wanted to do in this article was take a look at just how they grew so rapidly here in seattle and what underpinned that. really, at its base, it is a tremendous real estate story. emily: so, brad, should other cities be concerned about some of the negative impacts? brad: go read noah's story, which he wrote with one of our colleagues. it's about a remarkable meeting allen,minds between paul

who was acquiring real estate in this northern tip of downtown seattle when people thought it should be a park, and then jeff bezos, who saw an opportunity to create a single amazon headquarters, and the stress that put on the city of seattle, which wanted to keep its single-family home creative character. the tension that created and the home prices that shot up as a result. a lot of other places like boston or washington, d.c., they will be looking at the example of seattle, the home prices, the traffic congestion, the difficult quality-of-life. but i think the only thing more dangerous than being part of this growing global tech scene is not being part of it. do you want the problems that come with an amazon and its growth or do you want the problems that come with being left out? emily: in seattle, you throw a stone, you hit someone who works at amazon or microsoft. should seattle be concerned that hq2, wherever it is, that that city could somehow outshine -- that that could become the new nucleus of amazon? >> i think that's certainly a

concern amongst the business community here. now, you have to remember that they have signed a lot of leases and they take up a lot of space in town. it's not a situation where they can easily pull up -- pick up roots and leave town. seattle is going to be there home for a long, long time, but there is concern that, on the margin, as they grow and expand, that perhaps more and that -- of that expansion will go on in hq2. emily: so, brad, talk to us about some of the other concerns here for any new city, about amazon creating, yes, a lot of new jobs, but also other issues. brad: there's a great anecdote to noah's story about the central district and the african-american community in seattle and how they have been displaced, largely by justification and increasing -- gentrification and increasing home prices. hq2ty that is bidding for

needs to look at the impact of rising housing prices, traffic congestion, needs to think smartly about where they want to put these headquarters, whether the transportation options are there. i would also think that, like, what happened in seattle was a self fulfilling prophecy. people didn't want the character of the community to change. it happened. the change has happened anyway. you can't really get out of the way of these economic changes when a company like amazon is their growing so quickly -- is there growing so quickly. the community that embraces hq2 has to be receptive to the growth and be willing to make some compromises, which is less single family homes, more apartment buildings, building new, affordable housing. emily: noah, bernie sanders has been on amazon about warehouse conditions, about wages. how does amazon plan to address some of these as it creates all of these new jobs? noah: it is something they are aware of and they have been talking with the 20 finalists

for hq2 about. brad's point is key. what we're talking about is how do cities grow inclusively. when you have such a dynamic industry at the core of your economy, you -- there's a tendency if you don't make the right public policy changes, if you don't -- are not intentional about it, that you could end up in a situation where poorer and middle income people get pushed out and they are replaced by wealthier folks. emily: all right. stone.hayar and brad check out that story in "bloomberg businessweek." he has been investing in startups for decades, so what does he have to say about the current venture capital landscape? this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: mike maples has been

backing tech startups for more than a decade. he has made some big vet -- bets early on companies like twitter and twitch and founded a venture capital firm that focuses on seed investments in startups. there he invested in lyft and more. he has some strong opinions. mike maples joins us now. you founded floodgate the same year we launched our show, which was originally called "bloomberg west," and you were on a lot back then. with so much money flooding in, you have been focused on c stage, but i imagine it has become a lot more competitive. mike: it has. part of being a good investor is being your best self and not getting too caught up in the activities around you, the fear of missing out. we try to stick to our knitting . our strategy doesn't change.

we do what we think we know how to do. emily: what is that? investing crazy early and risky in the best founders in the world for the world believes in them, being co-conspirators more than investors, helping them overcome the obstacles and barriers that sometimes a stubborn world will put in front of them. emily: in a recent piece, you wrote "the global startup culture needs to grow up." that shaping your season? mike: i believe that entrepreneurship is fundamentally an act of love and creation, more than it's an act of disruption. when logan and john started lyft, they didn't say death to taxis. it was about ridesharing would be awesome. emily: somebody said that the taxis. -- death to taxis. mike: not those guys. why do you want to disrupt anybody?

if their advisors are giving their -- if their advisors are giving them advice to talk that way, they're getting bad advice. i want to know how they are going to harness exponential power of microprocessing, network effects to make people's lives better. i'm not interested in who they are going to harm or disrupt or dis-intermediate. that's not entrepreneurship. that is sometimes a side effect. but that is not what the best entrepreneurs are in it for in my experience. emily: you have a lot of thoughts on bitcoin and crypto. you recently wrote a piece that says -- bitcoin?ou anti mike: i'm very pro. i think that networks are going to replace vertically integrated corporations throughout society business, government, military. you name an organization that is vertically integrated today, i think it will be a network in

the future. i think cryptocurrency and some of the furniture -- future decentralized technologies portend a future where we have networked money and networked commodities. i think that will be good, because it helps us have a return to sound money. one of the underappreciated issues of our time is how irresponsible the governments of the western world are in manipulating their currency, printing money, kicking the can down the road, putting novocain into the financial system rather than letting the free markets fix some of the sins of the past. emily: meantime, you have been working together a long time. you mentioned brogrammers ea rlier. why isn't the venture capital industry changing faster? why is it hard for top-tier firms to find talented women that i know are out there? mike: in our defense, two of our four partners are women. emily: you are not one of the ones i'm talking about. mike: what i like to say, gandhi

had this statement, "be the change you want to see in the world." i think our first job is to have our own house in order. ann is doing a lot of work, trying to help women help each other get ahead in silicon valley, but also enfranchise men in helping them as well. emily: what about everybody else? why is it taking them so long? mike: change takes longer than we would like. we all try to do the best we can to be part of the solution to that. it's hard for me to tell other people how they should do their job and run their business. i try as best i can to work with our team to do our job well, and then just try to be a positive force on the rest of it. emily: we talked a little bit about what's hot. what's not? what's overhyped? mike: it's funny. i don't quite look at it that way all the time. so, i think that spotting great

startups is like spotting a bird in the galapagos islands that nobody has ever seen before. to me, venture capital is more like bird spotting than trend watching. so, people thought social networking was over when friendster and tribe weren't working out. next thing you know, there is facebook. thought thiel had social networking was overhyped, he would not -- his mind would not have been paired -- prepared for the insight to invest in facebook. it is one company, one founder at a time. emily: mike maples. mike: maybe one thing. i think some companies are raising too much money relative to the value they create. that's not one sector. emily: is there a bubble that will pop? mike: i don't think so. i think it will be more that some companies will face their day of reckoning because they have engaged in fake growth and hidden it for a long time. emily: mike maples, thank you as

always for coming back. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." we will be back tomorrow. this is bloomberg. ♪