our $225 offer. that's $150 off the mattress, plus a free pillow - and free shipping too. go to buyleesa.com today. you need emily chang san francisco. this is "bloomberg technology." amazon confirms what we already knew, exploiting it second --dquarters betting big on travel.

airbnb is the latest company to for noted arbitration just sexual harassment but discrimination. will it be enough to keep employees across silicon valley happy? to the top story. after 14 months, amazon has whittled down 238 locations to two. they officially confirmed its to it'snew headquarters -- two quarters. nashville will become the operation center. we caught up with the senior vice president and talked to him about the plan. we will have shareholders meetings in these headquarters, board of directors meetings, all hands meetings, employee and the in new york d.c. area likely have them now in seattle. he will move around. the rest of leadership will move

around. as the new headquarters grow, we will have senior leaders based in each of these location. i live in washington d c right now and i come back and forth to seattle and will be going to new york a lot now. company,seattle-based be more than just yet though. over $160vested billion in the u.s. alone in the last seven years. as you know, we hire a lot of up and down ony the income scale. these jobs are high-paying and bringing a lot of positive benefits to new york and easy. emily: how do you feel -- and dc . emily: how do you feel that amazon took advantage of cities in return.eful data >> on the question around data, the data we used was based on

about 100 different metrics publicly available about education and housing, and transportation and the like. that citiesrmation readily provide to any potential investor or that you can find in surveys and other fits of research. helped us make our decision and helped other companies as they look to investment decisions. one of the things we learned through the process is that there are great places that may not have been the right place to greet 50,000 or 25,000 jobs with great cities across the united states and north america. we have announced over 6000 jobs competingthat were that were not selected for hq to . we think this process has been positive for us and for the city's that were chosen and

cities that went. one thing unique is that we are planning in advance for this growth instead of growing organically like we did in seattle. we are more than 45,000 employees here. we're working ahead of time with new york, virginia to make sure this growth has a positive effect on those communities. emily: does the amazon senior vice president there. to talk more about amazon's decision to split it second headquarters in two, i want to bring in the executive director barry lynn who joins us. that the suspense is over, who do you think the real winners are here? >> i think amazon is a big winner. they made the selection process highly public and the generated kind of a year of free publicity nationally and in each of the

-- andin which amazon each of the city's for the location of hq two. i think amazon is probably the biggest winner here. emily: i know you are a skeptic about this, the you think amazon took advantage of cities in this process? >> absolutely. there is no doubt about it. as we were talking about, amazon got an immense amount of data from cities all across this country. it's not just publicly available data, this is data available about what kind of deals tax deals, tax breaks, subsidies that these administrations will put forth to lower in investment by amazon. a lot of this information was entirely secret and available to no other company. thisn is huge winner in problem is a general

across the country in terms of how we treat large companies. emily: what did you think of jay carney's response to this? as a company creating this many jobs, shouldn't they be getting these tax breaks? if the data is available to all, couldn't it be useful? shira: i think barry's point is right that amazon was in secret negotiations with municipal economic development stories so he has a good sense of what those cities and states are willing to offer amazon. this is a company that has employees and operates warehouses, data centers, and other facilities in just about every state in the u.s. and around the world. it needs to have information to figure out what are the best places to put our growing demand for warehouses and white color offices and data centers and, laces like that -- places like

that. jay carney is right but it does not to you the whole story about what amazon got out of this process. looking out, amazon said this process will create -- take two decades. how do you think this will change arlington, virginia and long island city? barry: i think the issue is how it changes these places today. what it reveals is that officials and -- in long island city and new york city at the local and state level are willing to give away a whole lot for not that much. we have to remember they were originally promised the whole deal. they were promised the whole hq2.uarters, bestch case they got at half of it and in some cases less than half based on the investments revealed. what we see, if you are a

taxpayer and citizen in new york city and northern virginia, you can say what did my officials and the mayor and governor just give away? these subsidies and tax breaks, that is my money. youy: at the same time, have google talking about expanding its presence in new york but not getting all of this fanfare. is that fair? as a google also said it has not applied for some of the tax subsidies amazon maybe has , although google is mostly in manhattan and amazon is coming to queens. there's a bit of a difference, but just to be a little fair to amazon, economic development is a controversial process. the ticket lili this idea of giving tax breaks to already affluent companies --

it is always a give and take of benefits and drawbacks when you are luring high-profile employers like amazon took place -- to a place that has a large workforce and a high cost base. emily: you certainly have some state legislators excited about this. and barry lynn, thank you both for weighing in. up, struggling to become a household name. will rebranding of a business and focusing on travel, change that? if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. listen on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and, in the u.s., sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪ sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the paypal cofounder has built a firm by offering stolen plans to u.s. consumers. the problem is that most shoppers have no idea they are using his company when he choose to pay a check out. its in an effort to make name synonymous with online installment plans, they are rebranding. the firm will list all of the retailers it works with on its website and focus more on travel. --ting consumers pay for it pay for vacations over time. max, why now? we are ready and we have spent an enormous amount of time

and a huge, massive, multi-month effort to really hone down on what our brand promises and the story and what the look of a firm will be. as we go into the mad rush of the christmas sales, we will see the largest number of customers yet and we want them to meet the newer firm. emily: you have seen them put into consumer behavior in the middle of a changing economy with interest rates going up. low unemployment rates. what trends do you see in consumer behavior? max: i think the economy is still generally strong from our vantage point. see -- from our point of view, our customer which is just everyone everyones. -- we serve

from the highflying 1% or's to the college students with high to the loans -- 1%ers college student with high student loans. they're loving to buy the high products launching and people are gearing up to do their shopping. we hearredit quality, from large banks that they are starting to get a little more careful, they are resorting a little more of the losses. that is not been the case from our point of view. the credit is still performing as well which means we are that much closer to the next recession, but who's to say when. emily: another thing you did on top of this relaunch -- >> another thing you did on top of this watch is you made a push for travel. not that long ago in terms of your six year history. what trends are you seeing their? traditionally, consumers do not like using credit for

vacations for wherever they are going. max: the reason we got into trouble is we started noticing our buyers would associate some of the affirm usage with their travel plans. they would buy something they plan to wear on a trip or booking a hotel which worked with online travel agencies for a long time. we started asking can we bring these together because when you are going on a trip, you're probably going to use your credit card to shop and you would like to have a very clear idea of how are you paying for the way of getting there and what you are bringing there with you, and where you staying. bundling them into a single product seemed like a good idea and it took off. the trends in travel, the younger customers -- affirmed generally skews younger. borrowers borders -- are millennials.

they prioritize experiences over possessions. a huge number with our buyers we learned that they want to go to more places, experience more things. we are there to help them with that. emily: cyber monday, black friday coming up. how big are the holidays going to be for you and how it -- how will it impact the companies you choose to work with? max: we work with both highly cyclic and completely e-cig e-cyclic emergence. some are -- merchants. some are stocking and others are saying great they will get a lot of the traffic and we will be there when they need to buy the things in january. we are expecting another record. we have grown extremely rapidly over the last six years. goodnk u.s. economy looks to shop and people are not been

a stay home. -- not going to stay home. many merchants are getting ready to do their black friday in january. >> one other thing you talked about a lot when launching a firm is that you guys had better data, algorithms in terms of figuring out what consumers can afford and had to underwrite for them. d through bankruptcy in the last 30 days and many affirm.irm -- max: the sad reality on human life is that bad things happen to good people. our approach to underwriting is that we do not believe you can this loan, we will not lend to you. we approach credit the same way else,roach everything

with extreme black-and-white miss. --black and whiteness. familyeople have emergencies and pet emergencies and part of our promise was that we would stand behind our customers and if they declare bankruptcy we will sadly let them have their bankruptcy and get out of their way. our underwriting has proven to be excellent, and is generally ,efeated every industry metric but it would be silly of me to say there is no room for improvement because there always is. every merchant and bar, we learn little more. we'll so much have better data but we have better processes on looking at the data coming in. emily: julie, thank you so much

for joining us. tact.g out of love with what has investors fretting about the faangs. we will discuss, next. "bloomberg technology" is livestreaming on twitter. check us out @technology, and be sure to follow our global news network, @tictoc, on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ @tictoc, on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: is love for the faang stocks fading? esters have cut outlooks. 18% of the polls were overweight in the sector. why are investors fretting over tech? still with us to discuss his max -- is max. apple decided not to report unit sales for the iphone, do you think the concern of tech is overblown or do you think there is something there like this

will be a prolonged low point? i'm the first person to openly admit i've no idea how public markets value tech stocks or other stocks so you are getting straight -- getting it straight for someone who has no idea of this stuff. i think the tech run is so strong for so long, anything causes public investors, especially ones that don't have a long-term holding thesis to say maybe i should cash in. you see this in the market where the jitters are nonstop. every day there are single-digit percentage of movements up or down on your favorite tech stocks. my guess is people say i made a lot of money in this run, maybe i should get out. emily: iva chartier showing the performance of the faang stocks compared to the s&p and they are still up performing the s&p. it's definitely down for more tech stocks have been. specifically, there is a lot of concern of facebook

privacy and an overall feeling of tecate. there seems to be a lot of tech towards -- a lot of anger towards tech. max: i think it is the tech industry to address or ignore at their own peril. a lot of the brands that have been built on this implicit notion of benevolence technology to write all wrongs have been managed. we are here in your phone, on your screen, and it is not quite -- anymore. you have to re-earn the trust. a lot of the brands that have been built ona lot of this is bg transparent and telling the story, and being there with your customers telling them what you are and not doing for and on their behalf. techot convinced the companies have handled as well. there are a lot of examples where they reacted quickly.

they have been very responsive and we want to know what ails our employees and respond to it quickly. a lot of the other companies saying it will blow over. my guess is that these are real concerns and i don't think any of them are on addressable -- unaddressable. they have the ability to address systemic problems, but it is reworked to do. emily: you think facebook will keep growing as it has been or will this disenchantment change the course of growth? network effect is powerful. the fact that you might not like the way they handle your private data does not change the fact that your baby pictures from your family will not be there. amount ofn enormous

tension coming with the territory and they have done well capitalizing on it. is a veryhantment slow trend. facebook already has the majority of people in the world somehow mistaken. there are a lot of people who use such things and that is definitely true. . user growth has to slow down and there are many markets where they are still not available. on the revenue side, there is probably growth. emily: what is your outlook on crypto? been a cryptoways moderate. it is hard to call me crypto skeptic. i repeat this every time. it is not a good currency. you cannot expect it to hold its value and expected to be there tomorrow. there is nonstop legal uncertainty. it's not a great commodity anymore.

be an unknown territory. long-term it will be valuable. emily: so you buy it? max: i don't but i'm not a speculator. people who buy a today are speculating on it having maybe another big run and they can get out in time. technology value that it brings. i've never seen more and more examples of first cut at real-world application how blockchain in the little cryptocurrency ended up making things not just a hammer looking for nails but it sort of is. what i can see as useful thing as opposed to great speculation. affirm, thanko of you for stopping by. coming up, curving tech's

conduct. walked out ines forced change in airbnb is taking a step for their -- step further. we will discuss, next. this is bloomberg. ♪ . .

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emily: this is "bloomberg technology." of google thousands employee is across the world walked out on the job, furious over the company paying executives to quietly leave after credible allegations of sexual harassment against him. rubin was given $90 million to walk away after allegedly forcing a subordinate into a sexual act. google has since ended forced arbitration in such cases, and other companies are taking , like facebook, which said it would do the same.

airbnb monday said it was ending forced arbitration in all cases involving discrimination. something my next guest says is a crucial missing piece and google's policy. how significant do you think these changes are, that airbnb is making, compared to what google and facebook have done here? reallyink it is important that companies like airbnb i saying they are eliminating arbitration for discrimination. using that word instead of using the words sexual harassment and sexual assaultusing is really important because hypothetically, you could have a female employee who happens to be of a minority or dark

skinned, and sexual harassment claims could be tied into racial claims, so with a policy like --gle, you are left thinking is she going to have to arbitrate race claims, but she's free to go to court about sexual harassment? it really needs to be all discrimination claims because sexual harassment is a component of gender discrimination. alphabet's ceo, google's parent company, says she walked out with employees. the company said they fired 40 employees over the past couple of years for sexual harassment. what they do not talk about is the culture that led to 48 people engaging in some kind of that behavior. companies of that size, is that a lot? >> it is still a lot. 48 is a lot anywhere.

what they are disclosing. that is what we know about. a lawyer who practices in this area have to think there could be a lot more than 48, and suchublisher that allows conduct to exist in 48 cases, it is hard to say that cannot be happening companywide. it's a lot, but that's why --itration is such a problem because there's no transparency and companies can hide if his former employees, if it's 40, if it's 400, and that is what has to change. emily: google is not waiting -- waving -- waiving anti-harassment legislation. how much do you think it will change the culture? will it prevent these things from happening, or well other well? have to happen as

>> i think it is a start, certainly not the cure or the ultimate fix, but it is a start because you need to empower with theployees well? knowledge that if they do speak out that they will be taken seriously, that they will be listened to, and that their claims will be investigated. the best way to do that is to be transparent, so by not keeping arbitration, you are with the knowledgegiving women the abilio speak out and no that they will be heard -- know that they will be heard. emily: with the rise of the me too movement, increasing reporting on these allegations, the allegations of christine ansey ford, have you seen explosion in the volume of cases you are getting, the women you are talking to? >> i love this question because i have been doing this a long time. it has always been there. the sexual harassment that the

whole world seems to just be hearing about now has been going on for years. is that people are actually paying attention to the work that i do and other lawyers in this space, so the volume of cases or the number of women contacting us is not really that different, but what is different is that people are listening. of the we are on the tip iceberg, and i say this over and over again, because many women are still very afraid to speak out about what has happened to them, and it is changing, but it is slow. emily: you are more women to come forward in the future? >> definitely. emily: i want to ask about one last story, the ceo of flipkart, an e-commerce company that in india, has

stepped down for misconduct. how do you handle these cases when you are a global company operating in different places with different laws and different cultures? day, if youd of the are a company transacting business in the united states, you will be held accountable to what people think here is the i do nottandard, and think people are willing to say "i'm going to give so-and-so and pass just because they are operating in a different country or different culture." in manhattan, we have people from countries all over the able tond we are still new york city antidiscrimination laws, and i think that is what has to apply. emily: thank you so much. new york city

blockchain startup ripple is gaining new customers because financial firms are looking for faster, more up-to-date technology. >> you are seeing more and more institutions enter the space. when i was here in singapore a year ago at this same event, there were 30,000 people here. it is part of that regulatory certainty. you have seen fidelity make announcements, and last quarter, we announced there was more .nstitutional interest i think you will continue to see that grow. it will be exciting to come back next year and see how far we

have come. >> how soon do you think, though? of the challenge is you need a global framework and you are seeing some countries lean in and be progressive and provide that clarity. has been ae, the nas leader. that is also true in thailand and to some degree, the philippines and japan. other markets have been slower. in the united states, there is thereack of clarity, but is still work to be done on that. until that clarity is there, it is hard for companies to invest in a good way. i would have predicted 2018 was the year of institutional adoption of crypto, but here we are in q4 and i would say it has underachieved, largely because of regulatory uncertainty and also because of custody solutions.

>> i would like you to address some of the rumors circling around an address the rumors that your biggest rival swift could be joining you. >> swift is owned by the banks, and we are here to help the banks. we feel like watching technologies are a massive step forward. the technology the bank sees today that swift developed decades ago really has not evolved and kept up with the market, so we feel like we are here to help the banks. swift is owned by the banks. there have been opportunities that we have been able to bring to fruition, but we will keep focusing on solving the problem. swift said not that long ago they did not see blockchain switching to correspondent banking. many other customers disagree. anysitate to comment on

rumor because if you comment on the false rumors, you have to comment on the true rumors. >> is it possible ripple could take over swift one day? >> what we're doing executing that data on a day by day basis over swift. some of the largest banks in the world are using ripple technology. we sought the remittance company last week that reduced the price per transaction from $20 per transaction to two dollars, and they saw an 800% increase in usage overnight, and that is the type of dynamic swift is not able to support that we are able to address right now. that is something we saw in the last couple of weeks. we want to see banks succeed and take advantage of these technologies. if we can work with swift to do that, that's great.

emily: coming up, taking the pledge. companies and tech firms signing onto an international cyber security pact, but why is the u.s. opting out? we find out next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the u.s., china, russia, no, butll said microsoft, google, samsung are some of the big tech companies saying yes. what do they disagree on? signing up for the paris call for trust and security in cyberspace, a pledge led by french president emmanuel macron in reaction to the cyber wars futurepact elections no, and attacks on businesses.

to talk about this, let's go to washington to speak with the founder of the national security institute at george mason university. this is a bunch of countries and some companies agreeing not to attack each other in cyberspace during peace time, but if the u.s., china, iran, north korea, israel, russia are not signing on, how much weight does this actually have? >> it is a statement of sensible, not really anything binding in international law. it is a set of principles these companies and countries agreed to.

areyone agrees these positive things that are useful for the world, but there are the details which are complicated and parted of the reason why some of these major companies did not sign on. emily: how is this actually going to work, and how will they make sure that the folks who standing by their agreement? buthis is not an agreement more a statement of ideas. what is interesting about this accord is the majority of ,ignatories, almost 200-plus our nonprofits, companies, not nationstates. it is not your typical participant, and they are classicto bind the participants, nationstates. a lot oft is there's

the devil in the details here. we're talking about international law, international human rights law. the u.s. is typically very careful in this space and once to know what things mean before we sign up for things that might bind us down the road. we've seen also to documents be used in international litigation that say you agreed to this, so you have to stand by every single last word. the u.s. usually very cautious in that space. emily: there are recounts happening in florida. also outstanding decisions in georgia. that said, what do you think the biggest threats are right now? >> when it comes to cyber, we have nationstates threats, countries like china continuing to seek american intellectual property, and russia still actively looking to manipulate

the u.s. electoral system, not necessarily for outcomes but to create dissension and our banks. while they may not have gotten involved in this election, there is still 2020. companies have to come together, create collective defenses at home and abroad with our allies. to find aork to do solid path forward. emily: what kind of threats from russia do you think we should be looking out for? >> we revealed a lot about what we know. we knew about these communications between some of the actors. they will be more cautious about what they do, sharper about how part of what this is about is not just messing with our electoral system and our institutions, but it makes russia look bigger and more powerful than it is. its economy is not strong. it is not in a good place

internationally, but it looks like a bigger player by monkeying with us and making our own politicians go at each other's throats. thanks so much for stopping by. luxuryup, how global brands are preparing for brexit ahead of a busy holiday season. ♪

emily: it has been a tough second half of the year for global luxury brands. the s&p index that tracks the largest publicly traded luxury companies is down this january contending with a slowdown in and in theade war, u.k., another big potential disruptive force. that is brexit. preparing -- we 's managingherod director about how they are

preparing. >> it's not about the product. it is about exclusive products, about unique products, but it is also about the relationship you build. >> experience is at the heart of value proposition. would you say it is what ? fferentiates you >> absolutely, that retail experience, walking into something and looking at the beautiful areas and almost having a look of wonderment. i think people have forgotten it is actually a privilege to serve customers, and we teach our people it is a privilege to serve. it that relationship with that customer then builds because really good service is not very often these days. >> investing more than $200 million, how is that going to enhance the experience and drive sales? >> we're doubling the size of the things wee of

will be doing that is part of it is we will be putting almost a theater, which has got television recording rights in it, so that when we have the owner and developer of a brand with market makers, artists actually on the stage with our customer, with an audience of people who want to learn, then we put it on social media, it is about building that look for that customer because the product is becoming secondary. it's about how do you look amazing. >> the beauty product i get is something more inclusive as well for a herod's customer -- a harrods customer. >> that is why we are investing so heavily. it is the entry point into beauty. millennials are about 18.5% the european customer and 13.1% the chinese. 33% of our customers are

millennials. it's how you build that relationship and move them from beauty products into luxury products. >> let's discuss luxury more .roadly 80% of what the british luxury sector produces actually goes for exports. while luxury is slightly more insulated from some of the other more disruptive factors we talked about, there's one big disruptor we talked about. how well prepared is the sector for brexit? >> i think the sector is reasonably well prepared, but we still have a lot of unanswered questions, and until those questions are answered, you cannot put those final places into the planning. part of it is it is still about logistics. how do we get products to customer? we just got a promotion with dior, which was unbelievably successful.

getting hene were banks sent from paris because it was so successful. we will not be able to do that under brexit. the redefining of our supply chain is very important, but is important. >> how are you adapting when you look at things like supply chain issues? are you worried it could be detrimental? it will be think detrimental to us. i think we will be able to work with the storm. march is a good time for the fashion industry. position. in a good as i say, luxury has been this amazing barometer throughout the whole of the world that we have weathered all these storms when everyone told us six years ago luxury is dying.

it is not. it is still in phenomenal growth. u.s. ase here in the part of the annual delegation. how important is the u.s. to british luxury retailers? membershiparters of identify america as the place where they want to develop and grow their business. british brands have a fantastic alignment with what we call soft power. the traditions of britain, so following on from the crown, everybody wants a little bit of britain, and that is bringing luxury brands to new york enabling them to showcase it. managinghat was harrods' director, michael ward. that does it for "bloomberg technology." be sure to follow our global

network tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ s is bloomberg. ♪

>> a very good morning. in sydney, markets have just opened for trade. >> good evening from bloomberg world headquarters in new york. asia." me to "daybreak: >> asia-pacific markets facing a weak start.