emily: this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, apple's most important day of the year is upon us. what we can look for and why warren buffett is still betting big on the iphone giant. plus, elon musk, peter thiel, keith rabois, just a few members of the so-called paypal mafia. we'll talk to keith rabois ahead. and azzam zohn searches for its second headquarters, we take a look on the impact it has called home for years.

have they benefited from the tech giant? apple has finally set september 12 as the most important day of he year. three new models include the iphone x including a refresh to the flagship device, a larger cheaper model that comes in different colors. even warren buffett is having a stake in the company. plus, it even says the iphone is, quote, enormously underpriced. for morill' bring in our bloomberg tech editor. is the iphone x underprized? >> well, i had debate about that earlier this year. if you buy a laptop for $1,000 and use it at home you use it less than a smartphone so maybe a smartphone is worth more than $1,000. we use it every day.

emily: what do you make of buffett's resounding endorsement? alistair: we use these devices, maybe you have an android, i have an apple. they have become indispensible. how valuable is that? there's certainly an argument to be made it's underpriced in that, for sure. emily: they september the event september 12 in cupertino. what do we know about it? alistair: they say, gather around. we think the shake of a new apple campus, the shape of a new theater. could they will be a round device? it will probably be an apple watch which will have a bigger screen. these other -- these three phones that they have pretty big screens, a lot bigger than in the past. emily:le home button is round. -- the home button is round.

elistair: and that's going away. emily: tell us about the three new phones. i know mark has been reporting on the colors, features, and what this means for the new family of iphones. alistair: the iphone x from last year, which was a very solid -- maybe not quite amazing as expected this time last year. apple is really doubling down on this. it's going be to be basically three versions of that core esign. the price range will be wide. there will be this cheaper one which will look very similar so one n have a flashy which will look very similar so you can have a flashy iphone x but not pay as much. emily: how do we think the market will view this? amazon is coming very close. but the market is saturating. we see the growth starting to plateau. despite what warren buffett

says. alistair: wall street's concern about that hit apple stock year and a half ago, two years ago, i would say, and now i think the stock has recovered because investors are confident apple has a new strategy to deal with that. they're not trying to get millions and millions of new iphone customers every quarter or with every launch. what they're trying to do is take all the many, many iphone users out there and make sure they upgrade to the new version. they're going to spend more money. while they have all these massive -- this massive base they are going to start providing services and making money through that. emily: meantime, tell us about apple's other big potential bet on augmented reality and what we're expecting to see there? alistair: we don't know if they'll announce anything at the september event but they did yesterday. there was news they acquired an a.i. startup. and so that's another very big hint that's going to be the

next major he product. mark has been reporting for a while that's coming in 2020 or later. it's coming but it's going to be a few more years. emily: you know, mark's reported on these potential a.r. glasses. we've seen many tech-savvy, tech-enable glasses come and go. alistair: this is apple's exactly sweet spot. they take something that's already out there, the cutting edge thing, they wait three, four, five years. when they come out with their version it actually works and everyone wants to use it. that's the magic of apple. great example was the touch screen, the ipad. everyone thinks apple invented the tablet. no. the others were awful. it y: what surprise could be? alistair: charging apple

devices. something called airpower where you basically don't have to plug in your devices to charge them and there's been rumors which i think is very interesting where instead of just putting on like a wireless charging mat between your phone and a wireless charging mat, there might be a way to, let's say, have the airpod and they have the little -- the little thing that you put them to charge in had this little holder, you might put your iphone on top of that charging box and the iphone charges which could be pretty cool. emily: maybe the one more thing. you never know. we will be there, of course. alistair barr, thank you for stopping by. sells of snap fell when the maps feature had renamed new york city with a religious slur. new york city was labeled with this slur on several different apps used by services like snapchat, the weather channel. map box, the mapping software the company used for the

services says it was a victim of human vandalism. it was fixed within the hour and the company has a zero tolerance policy against hate speech and any malicious edits to our maps. coming up, shares of cloud computing firm trulio have skyrocketed this year thanks to a timeline. we'll hear from the c.e.o. ♪

emily: going public in 2016, twillio has been steadily growing its customer base. the company gives clients like app --ir b&b and what's twilio's ceo joins us now. what did you do this quarter to boost profit? jeff: there's nothing we did 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. for example. what do you help them do? jeff: when you install whatsapp, they send me a text message to confirm your identity. twilio powers that. emily: what you see when you engage with larger corporate clients? jeff: we're seeing software become anpart of every company's important strategy. where it used to be you outsourced software, that's not strategic. now, 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. now, if you're a startup, you

bring in twillio 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 ery little friction. maybe put up their own credit card. 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. and to lobbyists. jeff: well, we use use cases in politics. when you think about twillio and engagement, it's about connecting people together. we've been really excited to partner with organizations that are connecting voters with their elected officials, is one of the big areas where we've seen a lot of traction. we announced an initiative couple years ago called voices for democracy. this is part of twillio.org. what we said is, look, we have a very polarized world right now. what wepeople can connect with each need is 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 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. don't try to call us. the phone lines are always busy. now you can text 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 wilio? jeff: we are excited about the newest product we launched, twilio flex, an application platform for the contact center. you might say, why are you building a contact center? thought you were a bunch of a.p.i.'s? 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 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, with all the a.p.i.'s, we can build them ourselves. 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 flexibility, scalability, and reliability. emily: there is talk of sales

acquisition. we hear rumors about amazon. any interest? jeff: we are focused on building a great company. we sit at the intersection of one of the largest industries in the planet -- communications. 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: twillio and c.e.o. co-founder jeff lawson, 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 entrance desk. only 13% of private-sector workers in the united states get paid parental leave. coming up next, the startup bungalow, is trying to change how people find homes to rent. we talked to the c.e.o. in

silicon valley. he just joined the board. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: wework is on track to become manhattan's largest office tenant. bloomberg has learned that the co-working giant is in talk to lease about 200,000 square feet at 1 world trade center. wework would push past j.p. morgan chase, which has 5.2 million square feet leased in manhattan. bungalow is trying to help renters find a place to live. bungalow plans to be in 12 major u.s. cities by the end of the year. it has secured $64 million in

otal funding, $14 million in ventures. keith rabois, you have a lot of experience with real estate. you also have another real estate company called open door. what makes you so excited about this opportunity? keith: well, 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. what is excite being bungalow, it 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: everybody has heard about people trying to find an apartment. how does it work? >> for us we streamline the process. we make it much easier with our

online listings. we have 3-d walkthroughs on our website where people can come, even if they are not doing it in person, to walk through, then we 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? keith well, 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 for three to five years and providing a place to live for three to five days. emily: what about the regulatory issues? airbnb has run into lot of regulatory issues. how do city regulators feel about this? andrew: for us we're helping inventory of long-term increase the 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. in that initial lease. emily: so you've been working on this for 18 months. you already raised $64 million.

that's a lot of money super ast, isn't it? keith: you mentioned we work. 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. you can build interesting products and services but it's not cheap. every house open-door buys costs $234,000. when we do it well, we get more than that back. fundamentally real estate can't be done for $10. it takes real money to change the world. emily: opendoor has been called a home flipper. basically -- i know you don't like that term. you buy homes from homeowners, you fix them up, you turn them around. what sort of trends are you seeing in the real estate market given what's happening with rates, what's happening with the administration, what's happening with the stock market? keith: well, opendoor is live in 13 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. so we see markets move differently in the united states. 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. overall i think at the high end of the market, which isn't mainstream, there has been softening for several million-dollar homes. but in the mainstream part of america, people want places to live. they want to upgrade. they want to get an extra bedroom for their kid. they want to move to beater 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? keith: i think the market is still like -- likely to have appreciation across the board, except at the top 1% of houses. but then 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. because san francisco didn't build enough inventory. seattle went through this and decided to build. a lot of cities didn't. the cities that didn't build over the last decade that have jobs, high-paying jobs, have an issue how you have all the people that want to live there? it's a little bit like the immigration debate. people should be able to live in any city in the united states and pursue the best career they can find for the most compensation and the best mission that aligns with their values but they literally can't do that. people can't move to the bay area because there's not enough housing. there's not house be in many cities in the united states and it makes no sense. things like bungalow can do that. people is -- allows 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.

andrew: 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. andrew: i think background checks are one piece of the puzzle. we're also fundamentally doing reference checks, interviews, and helping roommates through the process so it's not just background checks. it's one criteria how we check on that. emily: keith, do you think trump and the rate issue will affect prices? keith: well, obviously there is a connection between real estate values an interest rates. most people buy for a mortgage. the effective cost of mortgage is fundamentally driven by the interest rate. 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 where people can afford less which creates a mismatch and nobody knows exactly how it's going to play out. emily: andrew, what's the cost of the service? you are paying for convenience, right? andrew that's correct, but because we are helping individuals find great other individuals to help with and are renting by the room, it's 40% to 50% less than what a studio apartment would cost. emily: talk about how you're protecting the data? you are getting very personal with these people who are roommates, potential roommates, right? andrew absolutely, but we're 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. thank you so much. keith, you're going to stick

with us for another roaring block. keith rabois. "bloomberg technology" is livestreaming on twitter. this is bloomberg.

emily: it started on august 7 with the words, "i'm considering taking tesla private at $420. funding secured." since then 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 tesla's weekly is still up in the air. output back with us to discuss, someone who knows elon musk, keith rabois. he was considered part of the paypal mafia. you and elon go way back. i always 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? it's not untruthful. keith: i think transparency is complicated. it's a virtue we all talk about and advise our portfolio companies to be more transparent. obviously, 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 thiel was adamant we would continue to provide economic and metrics transparency to all of our employees, even after an i.p.o. and the lawyers who were advising the company freaked out. investment bankers actually freaked out, and they all tried to convince peter that nobody ever did this. peter was adamant. as he can be. he was like, we can't run the company if people don't have access to the metrics. we finally compromised on it. 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. eventually it's hard to preserve transparency if you

are a public company. if you want your employees to be effective, you want to be as transparent as possible. obviously social media encourages more transparency. a lot of c.e.o.'s 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. versus upside. for me, i look at tesla and i think it is a fairly valued company. it's a $51 billion company today and 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 -- a bit. i could see the case of tesla

trading at $3 billion or $4 billion, and they're thinking, 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 exact current metrics so 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. which nobody cares. he should be taking his kids to see the "game of thrones" set, but why lie about it? isn't that a problem? keith: i didn't read "the new york times" profile. emily: how could you read "the new york times" -- not read "the new york times" profile?

keith: it's so biased when it comes to technology so 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 ofcompose your tweet. how you emily: "funding secured" is pretty clear. there is no nuance there. keith: we have founders who say they have funding secured, but what they really mean is someone has given them a term sheet but it doesn't mean it's 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. basically 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 accomplish things in america. emily: so does he need to do things differently, does he need to hire a number two, stop tweeting so much, maybe get some sleep? keith: sleep is good. my critique would be, i think for sleep,everybody should get eight hours of sleep. there are great books like "why we sleep." i think at some point 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. you need to study people over so much time with different variables. 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. i know you have some controversial thoughts on this. 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 email threads, internal discussions that would look terrible in the public domain. there are cultures in the company -- "the new york times" did write an expose of facebook about how some of the best engineers at facebook were revolting. emily: you read that one? keith: i read the headline. showed some diversity in their publication of it. 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. that has clearly had some consequences. for example a talking point, a lot of people think infowars should be banned from various

social platforms. you can debate that forever. the intellectually interesting question is, do the same people who are arguing to get rid of infowars, are they willing to suppress all the videos and all the arguments from palestinians who say 9/11 was a hoax? usually they are hypocritical about that. you are not willing to pull down the content from palestinian groups that are aying 9/11 was a hoax which is -- 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 as driven by pamphlets, mostly anonymous pamphlets, "the federalist papers," in terms of changing the constitutional structure. this has all been a historical, common thing. actually quite important. the united states used to drop leaflets in world war ii into occupied nazi territory. we had radio free europe broadcasting intentionally into the soviet union, intending to subvert the communist regime. this is something state actors do. 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 the companies -- 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. t some point, the u.s.'s 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. it's obviously that russia has different issues than the united states. mitt romney ran on this and obama made fun of him. 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, not twitter. emily: we could go on for hours. i know you have to go to a meeting. keith rabois, khosla ventures. 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. the u.s. has imposed levies on $50 billion worth of chinese goods and beijing has retaliated. 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. also known as h-2-q. cities like austin, 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. t put a spotlight in seattle where amazon created a home for its workforce. joining us, an author of this latest piece in "bloomberg businessweek." also with us our head of global tech, ned stone. noah, 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: first, i want to tell people to go read noah's story, something which he wrote with one of our colleagues. it's about a remarkable meeting

of the minds between paul allen, 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., yes, 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: so, noah, in seattle, it's sort of like 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?

noah: i think that's certainly a concern among 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 -- their home for a long, long time, but there is concern on the margin, as they grow, as they expand, that perhaps more f that expansion will go on in hq-2. 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 gentrification and increasing home prices. a city that is bidding for hq2 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 is there growing so quickly. the community that embraces hq2 has to be receptive to the changes, 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: certainly it's something

hey 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. mily: all right. noah buhayar and brad stone. check out that story in "bloomberg businessweek." coming up, he's been investing in startups for decades, so what does he have to say about the current venture capital landscape? we will check in with him next. this is bloomberg. ♪ bloomberg. ♪

emily: mike maples has been backing tech startups for more than a decade. after moving from austin where he got his start to moving to silicon valley. 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 mapples, co-founder of floodgate, 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. it's good to have you back. 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. but i think that 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. and so we just try to stick to our knitting for the most part. our funds don't get much bigger. we don't change our strategy. we try to do what we think we

know how to do. emily: so what is that? mike: 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." how is 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 death to taxi. mike: not those guys. whenever an entrepreneur pitches me and says, i want to disrupt something, i am like, why do you want to disrupt

anybody? 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 bring abundance to the they're 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 of creative disruption and things changing but that's 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 -- so are you anti-bit coin? mike: i'm very pro. i think that networks are going to replace vertically integrated corporations and organizations throughout society in business, government, military. you name an organization that is vertically integrated today, think it will be a network in

the future. i think cryptocurrency and some of the future decentralized technologies portend a future where we have networked money and networked commodities. the future. i think cryptocurrency and some i think that will be good, because it helps us have a return to sound money. right now i think 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 earlier. why isn't the venture capital industry changing faster? why is it hard for venture capital firms, 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: well, i just think change takes longer than we like. i think 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 ay 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. myspace. and next thing you know, there is facebook. if peter thiel had thought social networking was overhyped, he would not -- his mind would not have been prepared for the insight to invest in facebook. for me it's one company at a time, one founder at a time. emily: mike maples. go ahead. 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.

after all these years. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." we will be back tomorrow. this is bloomberg. ♪

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