♪ emily: i am emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all of our top interviews from this week in technology. coming up, big tech takes on washington as jack dorsey and sheryl sandberg testified before the senate. how is this different from when mark zuckerberg was in the hot seat? plus, amazon joins the trillion dollar valuation club. the air is thin up there so how will the e-commerce giant amazon fare alongside apple. bumble puts women first in the dating game. now the company is turning that attitude towards investment. we will hear from the ceo on her plans to invest in other women.

but first to our top story, big technology took center stage on capitol hill this week. facebook coo sheryl sandberg and twitter ceo jack dorsey took questions from the senate intelligence committee on russian meddling and more. notably absent was google. sandberg and dorsey, though -- lawmakers openly discuss their disapproval over being snubbed. otherwise did was more civil than when facebook ceo mark zuckerberg testified in may. sandberg and dorsey, though contrite, gave familiar answers. >> as a bipartisan report from this committee said, russia used social media as part of a "comprehensive and multifaceted campaign to sow discord, undermine democratic institutions, and interfere in u.s. elections and those of our allies." we were too slow to spot this and too slow to act. that is on us. >> we are proud of how that free

and open exchange has been weaponized and used to distract and by people, and our nation. we found ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for the immensity of the problems we have acknowledged. emily: once that was over the twitter coo answered questions before the house energy committee. republicans pressed dorsey on what they believe is the shadow banning of conservatives. bloomberg's chief washington correspondent kevin cirilli caught up with mark warner and asked about his thoughts on the testimony. >> they clearly understand this problem of russian intervention or other foreign countries intervention, and spreading misinformation is not going to go away. i think they are finally taking it seriously. they did not think that for the first year after the 2016 elections. now i think they realize this is an ongoing challenge. i heard a willingness to sit down and work with us on how we can get appropriate rules. not to over regulate, not to cut

off innovation, but i heard from twitter that they thought there was validity in the point i made that should a human being have a right to know whether they are being contacted on social media by another human being or by computer. does that mean you get rid of the bot? it does mean maybe get that invitation. there is also a question where i thought facebook was very forward leaning about the idea of not only would they make more public the personal day-to-day data they may be using and sell to advertisers, but also how much value they are getting. if you know price transparency i think that is a good thing. they thought there were certain sites that incited violence to such levels, and we cited the example of miramar were there

are military sites and there is minority culpable and that they would have a moral or legal obligation to take down those websites. i heard a real willingness to think about this together in a way that tries to -- you know, the wild, wild west of social media is not going to expand. there has to be some guardrails but not in a way that cuts off innovation. >> they said they were willing to come to the table, but what does that table look like? what is the timeline here in terms of regulation, in terms of there being working groups? >> i think one of the things i was proud of today was our committee showed that a lot of folks had done their homework. this was not internet 101 the way some of the earlier hearings had been. >> i agree. >> we will continue to sit down with this company and others. that's why it was so frustrating that google decided not to participate, which i think was a huge error on their part. but we will sit down with these companies and say, how do we get

this right in a way that at the end of the day allows users of this information to have a better judge of its accuracy, better judge of its origin, and not trying to limit people's discussion, but at least trying to have some sense of what is real or not. >> i want to press you on google in particular. you went there, visit them, met with these companies. for them to essentially say we are not showing up, they were a no-show at this hearing. essentially not just say no to the committee, but also not taking questions from the country just 10 weeks before the midterm election. >> kevin, i do not get it. i have worked with google for years. i think they have been a very forward leaning company and their unwillingness to try to sit down and work with congress, and answer questions that americans have, i think at the end of the day it will hurt the reputation, not just with policymakers, but with a whole lot of google users. what do they have to hide if they are not willing to show an answer questions?

emily: that was senator mark warner with bloomberg's kevin cirilli right there. i want to walk through the day's hearings and bring in somebody who recently testified before the senate committee on foreign operations in social media, laura rosenberger, codirector of the alliance for securing democracy. as well as selena who attended. walk us through the highlights today. the room was packed. conspiracy theorist alex jones was there, interestingly, probably one of the many people interested in these discussions around shadow banning. were there any surprises? serena: it certainly has been a marathon of hearings and one of them is still ongoing. the senate hearing, you certainly saw that the lawmakers were more prepared and quite aligned on the issues they wanted to hit the tech companies on. we also saw facebook and twitter really evolve their statements to say that this is their number one priority to stop abuses, to

stop foreign election meddling. there are also a lot of questions about, are they adequately equipped to deal with the evolving threat? many lawmakers brought up the new, coordinated miss information campaign coming from russia and iran. in the hearing that is still ongoing, we did see the tone shift, it's a good much more political tone, and we saw the democratic and republican lawmakers really start to divide and be quite combative. republican lawmakers wanted to focus on alleged censorship on these platforms, while democratic lawmakers saw this as an invented conspiracy that republicans are using to push their ideals in preparation ahead of the midterms. the conversation steered towards other issues in addition to data privacy, election interference, and data privacy. jack dorsey has really kept his cool through all of this. this was his first time testifying and it was quite impressive how he was able to methodically and in his own way

responded to all of the lawmakers questions. emily: dorsey was perhaps more contrite than investors would have wanted him to be. we saw twitter shares fall, facebook shares fall as well. what did you make of what we heard from both dorsey and sandberg? was there any new information here? laura: there really was not much new information here. i think what we heard from them was a recognition that there is a problem, a recognition that they have an obligation to do something about it, but extremely short on specifics in terms of what that actually means. i agree with senator warner's assessment that we are hearing more in terms of a willingness to cooperate, potentially with government, in terms of tackling this problem. one of the things that the members asked about was information sharing across the platforms with one another. this is a problem that is not confined to one platform.

our adversaries are using different platforms to different ends, and really to tackle the problem we have to be able to pull all of the information together. jack dorsey came up really short in terms of sharing that information. this is two years after the 2016 election and we are still talking about needing to develop ways to tackle the problem rather than actually doing that in a meaningful way. that is what concerns me. emily: that was laura rosenberger of the alliance for securing democracy, codirector and bloomberg tech selina wang. first apple, than amazon, but what company will be next to cross the trillion dollar valuation. we will discuss. if you like bloomberg news check us out on the radio, listen to us on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: amazon started september with a bang. shares of the tech giant rose this week, pushing the company above a market value of $1 trillion, a milestone apple reached just last month. it is a big accomplishment, not just for the company but for ceo jeff bezos, currently the world wealthiest person. most notably has been the speed at which amazon hit this milestone. shares have more than tripled in the last three years. the talks with the chief investment officer ivan feinseth and global editor brad stone. >> when i first visited amazon in seattle stock prices were falling in the single digits. employees were panicking and he wrote on the whiteboard in his office, we are not our stock price. it is something amazon employees might remember today, because as the chart you showed demonstrates, this company has been propelled, yes, by strong fundamentals and increasing net income, but really by a wave of optimism. that everything amazon is

involved in will turn out well. this market capitalization has tripled in the last few years. everything has to go perfectly for amazon to justify this valuation had keep growing. amazon is not a stock price, it is doing quite well and all of its core businesses. it has transformed its business into a marketplace and service that helps other customers, other retailers sell online, but clearly there is a lot of optimism. emily: let's talk about the reality here, how likely is it that everything will go perfectly, as brad said? ivan: i don't think they really expected to go perfectly. it is a company that takes risks, they get into new businesses, they invest in growth, and continued to expand outside of their core business by adding different services into their online retail supply chain management system, and also their web host amazon web services. they are adding big data analytics, artificial intelligence capabilities, so

they keep expanding what they do. i think the next big area that amazon goes into will be focused on health care. emily: look brad, i am looking at the chart from 1999. and looking at the speed in which shares have risen over the last three years. is this rational? brad: the kind of market decides that. clearly, yes, it is. these are all rational actors that are buying and holding amazon stock. this is a company that has executed extraordinarily well in the last 10 years. the increasing success of the fulfillment by amazon, where amazon turns its warehouses over to third parties. all of the things it does so well, i mean, and online retail is still 5% been total recall in the u.s.. i think some of the optimism is investors rationally looking and seeing that amazon is an extraordinary well run company and markets a have so much room for growth. emily: petrochina tried to pass

the trillion dollar mark. oil prices crashed. do you see some big potential challenge or headwinds out there that could lead to some downside risk here? ivan: there could be with at recent run-up and the long-term run-up, there could be some profit taking. there is a lot of value in a number of other leading tech stocks, specifically google. i think that google is a tremendous value here. it has not increased and does not trade at the valuation that amazon does, yet it has a lot of the key business drivers similar to amazon. also, microsoft is again close to the $1 trillion market, a little bit ahead of google. microsoft is evolving into a leading cloud play as well, so i think you could have some profit taking in amazon and people reallocating the money into

other stocks that also have potential to go across the trillion dollar, or at least increase in value as well. emily: what about the threat of regulation? is that the biggest threat? brad: we talk about this trillion dollar mark, when really it is this objective number. amazon is not different than yesterday or tomorrow. it is important in one context, which is it puts an incredibly visible target on the backs of these companies. there is no better illustration than they dominate our landscape. i think, let, amazon is seeing it from the right with trump and his tweets about taxes and the post office, and jeff's ownership of the "washington post." and bernie sanders about wage growth and public assistance. i think that there is a big conversation about whether amazon prices are having an impact on macroeconomic indicators like inflation. amazon is the biggest thing around. i think regulation is one of their biggest obstacles in the

year ahead. emily: a venture capitalist thinks amazon will be the first company to hit the $3 trillion mark. i know it is hard to look that far ahead, but what do you think of that prediction? ivan: i think the stock still has potential for a number of reasons. it is, along with apple, the dominant stock within the s&p 500. as money continues to go into the market, passive investors have to -- they are both close to four cents each, going into every dollar goes into the s&p index fund goes into amazon and apple. with the rise in the market it will attract more money. i think it continues to trade up on that basis. second is, they are a fast-growing company that continues to evolve into new businesses, and develop new markets, and go after markets that are fast-growing that they can bring their operating efficiencies to, and i think they will continue to do that,

which will drive more growth. i think there is further upside in the stock. 2 trillion, i mean, $3 trillion is probably a ways away, but at some point when the market rises significantly amazon is going to continue to rise significantly as well. emily: 3t, brad. brad: it seems excessive but $1 trillion in 2018 would have surprised me also. an amazon plant a lot of seeds. alexa is one of them, it is a new computing platform and is leading this voice market. if they bring that into vehicles and to the workplace, then i see a lot of different opportunities for amazon. emily: that was "bloomberg techs" brad stone and ivan feinseth uber is introducing a number of features to make passengers. they plan to check up on you to make sure all was ok. there will be an emergency button for drivers and voice-activated commands.

coming up, dating app bumble, where women make the first move, has been battling tinder in court, and fending off facebook's efforts to get into the dating market. we will hear from the ceo. a defense contractor launching the market search for the latest artificial intelligence innovation with a challenge to drone racers. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: china is said to be exploring a megamerger between two of the nation's three wireless carriers. a merger between china telecom and china unicom would help gain an advantage over the united states. in 2012, whitney wolfe herd was the only woman on tinder's team. when she left the company two years later, she did not leave

the dating app scene, she decided to flip the switch on it. she launched bumble, the female first app where women make the first move. today the company is one of tinder's biggest competitors and facilitated over a half a billion connections and now she is investing in other women. last month they launched the bumble fund, focused on investing in female founded and an led businesses. whitney: we are generally flattered when a competitor wants to come into our unique space. what we really stay focused on is being true to ourselves. we were founded based on values and we are a mission driven company. there is authenticity to that. as long as we stay true to that end we just keep innovating beyond that, we are really not too concerned about competition. candidly, facebook has been in the dating business since and facebook started. him the fact that they are actually attaching a label to that is hugely validating to the entire dating industry. bumble has expanded beyond dating. we are a full-fledged social

network. emily: professional networking, is that a foreshadowing of what's to come or will what you want bumble to become? whitney: the mission of bumble is to be the global empowerment brand. we want to bring people together at every level of their life. that should not just bring you a date, friend or business partner. we want to connect you across the board. nobody in our space has ever been able to successfully do that. the fact that we have been able to foray into friend finding and networking successfully, and show that we have this value of when someone meets that significant other, we don't lose that user. they can find a friend or a business partner. this can be a platform for introducing you to people you don't know yet. emily: when you launched, you changed up the norm. i am curious how the trends have changed. is that the norm and where do you see the online trends dating going? whitney: when we launched we were the only platform to ever

really put women out there and empower them to be confident and own making the first move. traditional gender norms suggested men had to make the first move. you saw that spill over into the digital sphere. we are also going to evolve. women are becoming more empowered. bumble is in such a right position to continue building upon that and giving women more control through features, and evolving even beyond where we are today. i think you will see a lot of that in the coming years. emily: you have launched a new feature, news, which allows people to take a break from online dating. why can't they just put their phone down or log out of the app? whitney: when was the last time you put your phone down? i am right there with you. this feature is a great way to build upon alitalia. we want to engineer accountability and eliminate rejection. just putting your phone down and ignoring conversations is not pleasant for either party on either end. we really want to empower our

users to take a break when they need to. the beauty of bumble, why we are not nervous about losing our bottom line or our users is at the end of the day we all need human connection, even if we take a break for a moment. when you to connect, need to find love, business connections, and friendship. we will always be there but we are encouraging users to focus on themselves. it is core to who we are. you are looking at these big social media giants right now on capitol hill and apologizing for their lack of accountability, their lack of catering to their users and giving users a break, or taking care of their users and the lack of accountability across the board. bumble, we really want to say we have been here standing up, raising our hands say we are here to bring you an accountable experience. we want to engineer kindness and good behavior in the product everything we do. we have done that since day one. it is really fascinating to see these giants right now kind of apologizing.

and here we are saying, we have been doing this from the very beginning. emily: let's talk about one of the giants in the online dating space, the parent company of tinder. they sued you for patent infringement and you sued back. i know you cannot talk about ongoing lawsuits, but how would you describe your relationship status with match now? and are these lawsuits impacting investor sentiment? whitney: we are not raising money at the moment and our users don't care about what type of a lawsuit the company might be in right now. by the way, we are staying so focused, we are so on track. with scaling at such a level, comes challenges. we are willing to weather the storm with whatever comes our way. i have nothing but respect for their current ceo. i think she is a remarkable woman and i think we will keep doing our thing, keep innovating, building, adding value to our users, and we will see what happens. emily: they purchased hinge. that was stomping on your

territory. does that change the landscape for you in terms of public or private? whitney: no. emily: what is the vision? whitney: the big vision is to add as much value to the users and grow exponentially. we are going super international in the coming year and the year the on. the focus right now is going deeper into our existing market, which will just penetrate the markets we have already had exponential growth in, and then really proving that we can be this global, international, high scale, very scalable brand. what they choose to acquire and choose to do is their own business. we wish them all and nothing but the best. emily: bumble ceo whitney wolfe herd. coming up, genetic testing company 23 and me has high hopes for a new partnership with big pharma. we will hear from the ceo about how they are hoping to cure a range of disease. bloomberg tech is livestreaming on twitter. be sure to follow our breaking news network, tictoc, on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

comcast business built the nation's largest gig-speed network. then went beyond. beyond chasing down network problems. to knowing when and where there's an issue. beyond network complexity. to a zero-touch, one-box world. optimizing performance and budget. beyond having questions. to getting answers. "activecore, how's my network?" "all sites are green." all of which helps you do more than your customers thought possible. comcast business. beyond fast.

emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. defense contractor lockheed martin is looking for drone racing for the next advance in intelligence. we caught up with the company's chief technology officer keoki jackson at the techcrunch disrupt event in san francisco this week. keoki: this is the autonomy of a.i. challenges bringing back to the world of high speed play. we are partnering with video and drone racing league. to compete the best ai's. so for anybody that has seen drone racing on tv, we are raising the bar there and we are raising the excitement level. we are challenging people out here at the conference today and

around the world to develop the technology that will allow autonomous drones to meet and compete in a complicated race. emily: there will be no human intervention? keoki: once it goes, it has to work on its own. that is what we call edge computing, and using that edge ai capability to navigate and complete the course. as fast as possible. these are speeds up to 80 miles per hour. emily: talk about the track that you use and the technical challenges about making this possible. keoki: a couple of things. like i said, this is all about putting really complexed and highpowered computing into a very compact, lightweight, low size weight and power device at the edge. these are small drones. movement is very high speed. they are moving into you have

seen on tv these drone racing courses, these are 3d courses where they have to maneuver around obstacles and have to be able to complete the course in the fastest time possible. ultimately we will compete with these machines, and the ai folks out here develop against top human drone racing pilots. emily: what kind of tracks are you using? are these normal tracks? keoki: we use tracks comparable to what the pilots are using in drone racing today. emily: lockheed martin likes to say it has been in silicon valley before silicon valley was silicon valley, but for a defense company some say this might be an odd fit, how do you respond? keoki: the challenges we face, whether it is defenserelated, or it is putting people back on the moon and out to mars, these are incredibly complex challenges. they are very difficult missions and very difficult environments. they require a whole range of

technology. so to meet those mission challenges, we need to be bringing in not just the very best talent from around the area here. we are looking to partner with companies that have new ideas, whether it is autonomy, a.i., sensors, machine learning, quantum information sciences. these are the technologies that will bring advancements of these capabilities. emily: where do you think you will find tech knowledge he that lockheed martin could help develop? keoki: absolutely. we are looking to collaborate with small companies through large companies. we are here on the floor at techcrunch. we have representatives from lockheed martin ventures fund, $200 million venture fund who are looking for companies who have commercial and interesting technologies. they have a range of challenges from undersea to deep space. emily: we talk about self-driving cars, but in reality they are probably a long way off. are we further along when it comes to drones that can be controlled by a piloted plane

with or without human interaction? keoki: let me give you a couple of examples. i will use one in the military. if you recall, a few years ago there was a big problem with improvised explosive devices harming troops in afghanistan. our engineer said we have technology that can deal with that. we ended up deploying two autonomous helicopters. they did over 1700 missions autonomously delivered over 4 million pounds of food and supplies and cargo. those are capabilities that exist today. on the commercial side we are developing what we call matrix technology. think autonomous fullscale helicopters, doing that the past five years, things like operating in zero-zero weather conditions, indoor or at sea. you can detect a forest fire. you can send a helicopter out to rescue somebody and another helicopter out with a water bucket to put the fire out.

emily: that was lockheed martin's cto, keoki jackson. also at techcrunch was 23andme c.e.o. and cofounder anne wojoliki. they are hoping to leverage its technology and a partnership with farmer giant to develop new treatments and cures for some of the most devastating diseases. she told me why it is a dream close to her heart. anne: 23andme started with the data. we said that drug discovery can fundamentally change if you have an incredible amount of data. the hypothesis we have is if we have all of this information and we discover targets that started from a human genetic component, that will have a higher success rate with drug development. most drugs today in development fail. the reason why it is so expensive to develop a drug is because 95% of everything fails. so if we can actually have a better beginning starting with

human genetics, we believe we have a higher likelihood of succeeding. the partnership is all about helping us scale the drug development process. we can find tons and tons and tons of ideas. each idea is like a child. imagine today, we have 13 children. that is a lot. we have called out the big guns here to help us really develop all of these programs and enable us to scale and really bring, have the potential of bringing drugs to market much faster to our customers and whole world. emily: anything in particular? anne: i'm most excited. i'm biased. we have this genetic that runs in my family on parkinson's disease. i'm excited that they have a program going on. we are going to combine some of the power of what 23andme has from all of our engage it

customers to the drug development that g.s.k. already had going for this parkinson's compound. emily: the f.d.a. also approved you doing a test for the breast cancer gene. which is the first direct consumer. how groundbreaking or impactful is that? anne: i think that is huge. more and more there is a trend if you want to have good healthcare at scale, it can't always be a one to one position. you have to find ways to leverage the internet and leverage ways to scale information across the entire country. this allows people, really important, valuable, life-saving information in an affordable fashion without having to have a physician or genetic counselor. emily: you volunteered 23andme services to help reunite parents and children separated at the u.s./mexico border. what's the status of that? anne: no one took us up on the offer. we had groups contact us whether or not we could be part of this. we said, part of our business is connecting families. there are a lot of issues other people have around it. fundamentally for me 23andme is always about helping people improve their lives. this was an opportunity for us to really help people.

it never came to fruition. there was too many controversies around having us involved. emily: there is his question about could law enforcement subpoena that data? anne: it was a shame it didn't happen. a lot of the children have been reunited. there is all kinds of things that we can do. you can always opt people out of research and being part of the dna relatives. it is anonymous. when you choose this, it is just you. there is no -- we do not cooperate with law enforcement. we don't give your data to anyone else. we felt like we had a good handle on privacy. that is it. we will always offer to help when there is an opportunity for us to help. emily: there is this question once you hand over that data,

there is tons of things that we can learn and security and data. privacy, security are top of mind for us. we have always said we have no business if we can't protect the data of our customers. what we really believe, we have to do everything as a company to make sure we are protecting your data, but at the same time, we want to give you choice. if you want to share your data with me or your mother or a friend, let's give you that choice. if you decide you want to delete you data, you can delete your data.

totally fine. what we want to do is allow you to have choice about how your data is being used. it is part of the reason why we always give you back when there is a publication that has come out of our research, we want you to know about it. emily: that was 23andme's c.e.o. and cofounder anne wojoliki. theranos will formally dissolve. it is reported the silicon valley company will seek to pay unsecured creditors its remaining cash in the coming months. this means more bad blood for founder elizabeth holmes who promised to revolutionize blood testing but was criminally charged in june with defrauding investors along with the company's former president. both have denied the charges. coming up, the technology matching cancer patients with treatments specifically tailored to them. the new platform that has the backing of a hong kong billionaire to take it global. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: a new global platform is aiming to revamp cancer care. driver was developed by a harvard-trained oncologist. a swift specifically tailored treatments from anywhere in the world. the ceo and cofounder told our chief asia correspondent the startup launched in china with a number of cancer patients is exploding. >> we did not pick the timing. we have been in china over three years. we have endeavored to build our platform as a global one. >> in a nutshell, how does it work and what need is it filling? >> the problem driver has is the following. we have a market failure in terms of how a patient gains access to treatment. there has never been more treatment. 50 years ago there were very few treatments. the doctor did a good job interfacing with a cancer

patient and getting them treatment. >> there's a lot of information. how do you get the right treatment? >> there's a ton of information. today, the only way the patient can get access for this treatment is through a physician. and the data is giving the -- that patient should have access to the most advanced therapies in the form of clinical trials. driver says instead of the doctor being by himself or herself responsible for clearing that market, what if we had a platform to help? we are not a new treatment, per se. driver is the middleman, we're an operating system between the patient and doctor, but what we are hopefully curing is the treatment system itself. the cure for cancer treatment, hopefully we can speed up the development and the delivery of many more. >> is that marketplace, the ecosystem that is there between the doctor and patient and what is out there, is that marketplace broken? >> broken. it's completely broken.

i think the data comes from societies like the united states where post obamacare, more than nine out of 10 cancer patients have their cancer treatments paid for. for society at least in the united states, whether it is the government paying for it, insurance paying for it, yourself paying for it, 95% of patients have been cared for. but too many patients don't get the standard of care. the overall statistic is hard to find. the numbers differ by disease. more than 70% of patients will not get standard care. i would say that is a market failure. the treatment exists but the consumer is not getting it and they have the ability to pay for it. the second market thayer is how they get access to clinical trials. it is less than 3% than the number who wants treatment. >> how does this bridge the gap

that we have seen? talk about pilot shortages in the airline industries, but there are oncologist shortages. will: there is a massive shortage of oncologist. two really bad things are happening at the same time. one is there is not enough oncologist, and two is this more and more cancer patients. over the last decade, the number of cancer patients across the world rose by 30%. the majority of that increased ribbon by patients in africa and asia. you take the fact that there are not enough oncologist. and eight countries in africa there are zero oncologist. there is a 10th of the number of oncologists in china compared to the united states. stephen: i think it's 18 oncologists per one million people in china. will: in the u.s., we might have a 20% or 30% efficiency.

if we are not comfortable taking part of the oncologist's job and migrating it to a technology platform, it means you are comfortable with a lot of people in the world not oncologist at all. the way we are going to solve that is by bringing oncologist jobs today and migrating it to an oncology platform. we are a technology company. we're not even a health tech company. i'm not sure why in health care and medicine, if you are a tech company, you need an adjective in front of you. health tech. digital. i like to say drivers know more of a health care company then it b&b is a hospitality company. stephen: how much did this impact how you decided to seek funding? you did not want to be beholden to big pharma or the insurance companies i assume. will: you're exactly right. exactly. many people, when we were getting started, said why didn't

you start off with going to pharma? why we are really excited, we wanted driver to be a platform for the patient, and we wanted to build alignment with those key stakeholders in that room when a patient comes out of treatment, and that's just two people, the patient and the doctor. we wanted to build our platform with the patient being the primary customer, with alignment with our partner centers, and now that we have done that, we are really excited to bring pharma in, but in highly patientaligned ways that can augment their options. emily: driver c.e.o. and cofounder with bloomberg's steven engle. coming up, bbg venture is tackling the diversity problem and making the best on companies big and small on startups up to

amazon, we will hear from her next, this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: president of abc entertainment, c.e.o. of martha stewart's media company and ceo has worn many hats, and she has greenlit on hits like "grey's anatomy" and "desperate housewives." today she wants to see more women at the top. she leads built by girls, a venture capital firm that looks for companies with at least one female founder and happens to be a personal investor in amazon, which just hit a $1 trillion evaluation this week. >> they are a very unique company. they are a tech company. they are a commerce company. they are a media company, and they have really diversified in the way most tech companies have not. additionally, they have created an ecosystem or flywheel that is

brilliant that moves people from one part of their ecosystem to another very seamlessly. emily: there has been a huge run-up in the shares the last three years. the stock has exploded, but really quickly, does that concern you? that this could be the top, the plateau? susan: i don't think it is the top. i think when you look at -- it is a highly valued stock, let's be fair. but i do think there is still a lot of room there when you think that ecommerce is still 15% of all commerce in the country, and they are the dominant player in that space. as it expands more, they will benefit from that. they are also one of the few companies out there where you can say, they are not going to be profoundly impacted by the trade wars. emily: interesting. i want to ask about that. i have a chart in my gtv library

comparing apple to amazon. what about the threat of regulation? what about the fact amazon is in the president's crosshairs? susan: i think it is, but amazon supports and they enable thousands and thousands of small businesses around the country. so you go after amazon, and you are going after really the mainstay of the president's support system. i think he will think long and hard about how and when he goes after them. emily: you know what it is like to run an ecommerce company competing with amazon. today we saw j.crew actually partner with amazon. you can get j.crew products on amazon.

which is kind of surprising. do you think that is the only choice for a retailer today is to work with amazon, not against, or is this going to be an isolation? susan: i think there are lots of different options for retailers and brands. so one of them is definitely to use the amazon platform because you can reach an enormous number of people, but there are plenty of brands doing very well by going directly to consumers, and those are among the companies we back as a vc firm. there is no question there is a lot of things amazon does really well. one of them is not necessarily developing brand strength. and so for companies like parker and casper, they develop a direct relationship with their consumer. it is an emotional connection, and it keeps the customer with them i think for longer, and on a more consistent basis. emily: talk about bbg.

you came on the show when you launched its fund. every company has a female founder. have you found that to be a competitive advantage? susan: 100%. one of the reasons that we launched bbg ventures is we knew women were the dominant consumer. we are either responsible for or have the last word on 85% of all consumer purchases in every part of life. it is not just fashion and beauty. it is what health care plan you use. it is what insurer you use, it is where you buy your house. all of those things, women are the dominant force in. it made sense to us to back entrepreneurs who understood that end user, and we will speak her language, know where to find her, and how to delight her. how to serve her needs. emily: despite the fact there are people out there like you making bets on women, i have a -- women let company still get 2% of venture funding. a lot of people have said we are looking hard, but we cannot find them. what are they doing wrong? susan: they aren't really looking. we have seen 4000 companies since we launched four years ago, all with a female founder. i think organizations like all raise, which i imagine you have covered, all raise is doing fantastic work in that space. emily: nonprofit trying to get

more women into venture and women funded. susan: correct, exactly. i think there are lots and lots of women out there starting businesses. the problem is the vc world is still dominantly male.

91% of all, all vc partners are male, so that impacts the way venture dollars get invested, and it may seem like it is an arcane part of the finance world and not really important, but it is. venture capital has a much bigger impact than you would think. if you look back over the last 44 years, 42% of all the companies that went public during that period of time were venture backed. if we want to have a more diverse ecosystem of companies out there, if we believe that, that a more diverse group of entrepreneurs will come up with better solutions, then we must find ways for mortgage capital to go to women. emily: bbg ventures. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you all the latest throughout the week. you can tune in every day. 5:00 p.m. in new york.

2:00 p.m. in san francisco. be sure to follow our global breaking news tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg.

♪ carol: carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: we're headed inside bloomberg headquarters in new york. carol: it is all about cities, including some home prices, great for some and not for others. we take a look at affordable housing. jason: and the world's first 5g broadband network is going to bring everything to your phone a lot faster. they may transform the places yov