emily: i'm emily chang and this is "the best of bloomberg: technology." we bring you the best of the week in tech. coming up, the house of mouse takes on netflix. we talk to ceo bob iger about how disney plus will reshape the global streaming landscape. plus, calls to breakup bid tech can congressr but force change on the biggest players? we will hear from u.s. senator mark warner. and softbank announces a new

technology fund focused on latin america. hear more in our exclusive interview with softbank coo marcelo claure. first to our top story -- disney is attempting to reshape the media landscape as the number of cord cutters grows. the entertainment giant shared new details on their anticipated streaming service. disney plus is expected to drive the fastest uptick of any direct consumer platform to date. i caught up with disney ceo bob iger in los angeles on thursday. what makes you think consumers will pay for this on top of everything else they are already paying for? bob: disney, pixar, marvel, "star wars," "national geographic." these are brands that are beloved and have a long history of serving the consumer for many, many generations. and i think that are still popular and still relevant. i think making them available on a new technology platform, a

technology platform that is simply more modern and growing in popularity, at a price that makes sense with a user interface that is beautiful, i think that is why we feel confident that this is a product that people are going to sign up in droves to have. emily: parents will be happy to know that some of the animated classics are coming out of the vault, but in general, how will you decide what to put where and when? between the theaters, between the channels, and between lee streaming services? bob: well, as it relates to films, movies made for the big screen, they will still be and what we will call traditional window. that window has served us extremely well. our studio has done over $7 billion in global box office twice just making about a dozen movies. and so we have no intention of using this platform to force movies onto this service from a timing perspective.

any movie that we make for the big screen will be on this service exclusively from here on out. and the same thing in terms of television. we're still going to make television shows for traditional channels, because they are still of great value to us, but we will also make original programming for the new service that will only be available on the service. emily: now, you have said you will likely bundle disney+, espn plus, and hulu. when and what will drive that decision? bob: i think you can figure we will bundle espn plus and disney+ fairly soon. i do not have an exact date. we are launching disney+ in november. hulu, we are still minority partners, and everything we do has to be done in a way with them in mind. so bundling, it would be something we might take to the hulu management and the board, but it would require approval. but we think there could be consumers that want all three

and eventually we want to make it possible for consumers to buy all three. emily: will you be attempting to buy hulu? bob: we will see. we have been in conversations with both partners about that possibility, but it's still a little early. emily: you to give up some partnerships. you mentioned some of your distribution deals. you talked about roku, sony. you did not mention apple or amazon. why not? bob: well, the app, in all likelihood, will be available through traditional distributors. apple being one of them. i am fairly certain that if people want to buy the app, i'm sorry, subscribe to the app, is a better way to put it, they will be able to do so through apple and the itunes store and there will be other platforms that will also sell apps, we will do that as well. we do not have any announcements because we have not made deals

with all of them yet. emily: you are on the apple board. now that they do have a direct competitor to this service, will you stay on the apple board? does that make sense? bob: i am mindful of my responsibility to apple shareholders as a member of the board. and when the subject is discussed in meetings, i am careful to recuse myself. i am in constant dialogue about making sure that i am not doing anything that in any way would essentially cause me to be not in keeping, that would not be in keeping with what a board member would do. but it is still relatively small, and it is not really discussed all that much. so far, it has been ok. i am in constant discussion about it. emily: you've noted a lot of losses. you said disney+ will not break even until 2024. should we assume you will be flat to down? or will you make it up somewhere else?

bob: well, don't forget, we are still growing the company and our theme park businesses have delivered great growth over the last number of years. our networks have been healthy, and the studio has delivered great growth. we are also observing 21st century fox and it's businesses, and that will start factoring into our growth going forward. we are not getting projections about the whole company, but we are confident we will continue to deliver value to shareholders, both in the near-term and long-term. emily: what do announcements today mean for disney content overseas? specifically in china and the broader asian market, where we have a lot of people watching right now? bob: well, i think you can figure that all of the content that we make for the service will be available internationally in different forms. in some markets, we will launch the service as a subscription model. that will not be the case right away and it won't ultimately be

the case in all markets. there are laws in china that still govern services that we have to comply with. we are not certain how the overall disney+ service will enter the chinese market, but ultimately, the product being made for it will be available to consumers in another form. emily: you are working on three new tv shows for the disney+ service related to "star wars." you have a movie in december, are you a little concerned about "star wars" fatigue? bob: no, not at all. first of all, the movie that is coming out in december, the ninth movie -- it does not have a name yet -- soon -- emily: [laughs] bob: we think is going to be great. and we have not announced specific plans for movies thereafter. there are movies in development but we have not announced them but i think we will take a pause and take some time and reset, because the skywalker saga comes

to an end with this ninth movie. there will be other star wars movies, but i think we will end up in a period of a bit of a hiatus, and that is what is great about what lucasfilm is doing for the service. we will fill that time with "star wars" live-action series, which have never been done before and at a quality level of the movies. i am not concerned at all. emily: you have completed the acquisition of fox assets. there have been some layoffs, but it has not been as dramatic as some thought it might be. will there be more? bob: we still have a lot of integration to go. people know that. with the integration comes consolidation. we have already said that. we have been transparent about that. we have not talked about specific numbers or timing, but it will definitely be more consolidation going forward. emily: you are making a huge transition here. where do you see disney in five to 10 years?

do you see disney as more of a technology company? bob: we have always seen disney as a technology company going all the way back. technology was incredibly important to do two things. one is to use it to make the product better, this camera and what we did to the backgrounds in 2-d animation films. also to improve the experience of the consumer. in five years, i think you will see disney, at its core, being a content company, a storytelling company that is using technology to do all of the above. make the product better, make the experience better, make it more accessible and more relevant. in other words, distributed in more modern ways. emily: that was bob iger, ceo of disney. coming up, it is one of the biggest tech ipo's in years. we will bring you new details on uber's plan to go public and if it will usher in a massive wave of listings. and if you like bloomberg news,

check us out on the radio and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: it is the biggest ipo

this year. uber has officially filed, offering new details on operations and finances. we got some early reaction soon after the filings. take a listen.i that it is able to account, this profit was really a loss. if you add it up, i think it was $4 billion last year or $3 billion. it has been $10 billion in operating losses accrued, so this is a massively money-losing company. caroline: which we are not surprised about. you watch lyft significantly, another loss making company that has been hammered in

anticipation of these numbers. how much is the investor base worried? olivia: well, it seems they are not worried at first. i mean, lyft came at this price and then saw a drop several days later. it went down 1% today when uber's filing came out. caroline: let's get mitchell's take here, because i am fascinated by the fact that these companies can grow so big on vast quantities of private capital and be able to come to the public market. was there anything in the filing that give you pause for thought? mitchell: first, we are investors in the company. i want to make sure we disclose that. i have not got through it in detail, obviously, we are existent investors. we know it well. they did break out uber eats, which is growing crazy fast. the core business is growing every year.

here is the reality, public market investors, and we do public market investing, is crazed for growth. they are dying to have companies that are growing really fast and that they can invest into. look today at this software company that just went public and treats at 23 times revenues and grows revenue at 46% a year, this company on the road, zoom communication is one of the hottest software ipo's in a decade. it is an enormous company that will trade at an extremely rich valuation. but investors are just dying for growth. three months ago, if we had all sat here and said lyft would be a $21 billion company, i think all of us would consider that a wild success. caroline: i want to dig into what you mentioned. you talked about uber eats growing crazy fast. i am surprised at how tiny it is. the bulk of the $2.5 billion

made in the last quarter was sheerly the ride-hailing business. is that not a shock? is that not a surprise? mitchell: i have not gone through all the numbers in detail. it filed an hour ago. but in q4 of 18, uber eats from a volume perspective was $2.6 billion. sawly know that because i it a while back. but i have not look at revenue numbers. caroline: let's turn our attention to a man who has. i was surprised by how dominant ride-hailing has been what has so many other parts of growing. eric: right, because uber wants to sell this vision. the focus is the suite of services, but when you dig into it is very small

relative to ridesharing. it is growing on gross bookings basis, and when you dig into net revenue, it looks like it reverses because of the subsidies. if you are grubhub right now, you have sort of got to have a little laugh, at least for the time being, because uber is able to operate their food delivery business unsustainably while trying to grow market share, but relative tos small the ridesharing business. caroline: this is a company focused on growth and growth potential. it is also spending significant amounts, about $1 billion, on driverless cars. can you paint the picture of the future of driverless and how important autonomous is? at the moment, they say they might never be profitable. mitchell: every company that is unprofitable always says they are not going to be. i think autonomous is much further away than people think, that is my personal opinion. some think it is two years away, i have a hard time believing

that i will get in an uber or lyft in downtown san francisco, and it will drop me off in palo alto with nobody in the car in two or three years. i'll take that bet with anybody. i think it is a lot longer away. there is another important thing in terms of the ability to make money. uber is one of these companies, lyft would be one, amazon would be one, and alibaba would be one, where they have upward sloping curves. where customers spend more and more money over time on the product. thinking about it quickly, think about everybody who joins uber or alibaba or amazon in january over time, those people spend a lot more money over time. why that is important is they don't have to reacquire you as a consumer. every time we get into an uber or a lyft, they are quite

profitable because they're not having to reacquire us. i think one of the more interesting stats, someone text ed it to me right before i got on, is that over 50% of people who use uber eats, it is their first time being on the platform. so i think the ridesharing business has a huge runway still to go, given that 50% of people that use uber eats are new -- have never used the ridesharing. caroline: able to grow off of that user base continually. i'm going to get your perspective about what this says about other companies coming forward, i think zoom even makes a small profit, but what are we expecting in the so-called herd of unicorns? how much oxygen is going to be sucked up by uber? olivia: herd is not the right word.

it is a stampede of unicorns. the appetite is insatiable. zoom, as you mentioned, is going to go, pinterest, postmates going soon if they don't sell, and it just seems they cannot get enough. caroline: i want to get your view on international growth. did any numbers surprise you? i was surprised by how big latin america is. eric: one amusing thing with this contrast they draw between the market share and category position. the market share is very small and it sees a huge amount of growth opportunity for ridesharing. but category position, relative to competitors, it says that in a lot of regions there is over 65%. whether that is canada, latin america, or europe. uber is saying we have a dominant position all over the world in these regions.

and yet, we think we represent a small share of what is possible. that is certainly the messaging coming out of uber. being able to confidently say that they have a strong position in the countries they operate in or they own a stake in major players in those regions is a compelling international position. caroline: mitchell, briefly on international growth? mitchell: i think international is very strong. i will draw a couple, one, i think dara is a master chessplayer. he understands it from expedia. they have big investments at uber in southeast asia, russia, and china, all exciting businesses. latin america, it will give them a near monopoly in the middle east. australia is a very profitable region for them. it is interesting. if you think about lyft, it is

worth $21 billion. it implies uber is worth $40 billion. emily: coming up, there is rising investor demand ahead of the directive listing at the workplace software maker goes for double their valuation. and later, he is one of the most critical voices in washington on the topic of big attack. we hear from senator mark warner about his new push to protect personal data. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: earlier this week, bloomberg reported slack's valuation has risen. ahead of the company's trading debut some investors are buying , stocks for more than double the price of the last funding round, which value to the company at $7.1 billion. shareholders have sold at prices as high as $25 or $26 a share.

this as the company plans to directly list on the new york stock exchange in june or july. bloomberg's ellen huet joined us with more details. ellen: slack is preparing to go public by a direct listing rather than a traditional ipo. emily: just like spotify. ellen: in preparation for doing so, there is a thing spotify did that slack is doing as well. which is starting to release some of its stock on secondary markets and allow some sales to go through with the idea of two goals. first is to do price discovery around what range they might want to price their shares and maybe trying to manage volatility ahead of the listing. this is based on reporting we have done with people familiar with sales. the company is not commenting. it does seem like demand is high. the last time slack raised

money, in august, shares were and the12 a piece valuation was around $10 billion, and based on what we have seen, it could be small, one-off type stuff, but it does seem to indicate an interest in slack stock at least at double the price. emily: and it is the opposite of what we seeing with pinterest, which is in the middle of a roadshow aiming to raise money at $3 billion less than its last private funding valuation. why is there so much enthusiasm about slack in particular? ellen: i think investors see an opportunity for growth. they have always had strong performance, a lot of people paying for the service. they have a free version, but most people pay to access slack. they have had strong growth. people just see it as a strong software bet. and there are questions that remain, especially given lyft's stock price performance in the last week. emily: absolutely.

talk to us about the roadmap for slack and how that will be different for a company that goes the traditional ipo route. what happens over the next few weeks and months? ellen: it seems like slack is preparing to list on the new york stock exchange, probably june or july. as these things go, we never know how is going to happen until it does. but unlike with a traditional ipo, in a direct listing, there is no lockup period for employees. there is no additional stock release into the market. it is just that current shareholders have the ability to sell. emily: so current employees can sell right away. ellen: yes, right away, and that is different for a lot of employees who were waiting for the moment, realizing the value they have made in their equity. emily: what is the motivation for that? ellen: it is different with every company. direct listings work well for companies that have a few things going for them. one, if they have a lot of cash

on hand. two, if they don't need to do a lot of publicity around the ipo, and if they are a household name. spotify definitely did broad ranging consumer service. slack is more business focused, but generally something many people have exposure to. they know it, they like it, the product is well-made. they don't need to raise additional capital, and they don't need to do the marketing associated with an ipo, then they could do this direct listing instead, which tends to be favorable if you meet those qualifications. everyone says slack is a strong position to do this. other companies that have been floated as potential direct listings if this becomes more popular is, for example, airbnb. a similarly strong performing company with a lot of consumer -- emily: awareness. ellen: that is really well-known. emily: bloomberg's ellen huet there. coming up, lawmakers threatening to build up tech. -- break up big tex. what does it mean for google and facebook? we hear from senator mark warner

next. we are live streaming on twitter, check us out at technology and follow our global breaking news network tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i am emily chang. a new bill was presented to congress that takes aim at tech with proposals to ban deceptive features on facebook and other big sites. there has been a rising tide in washington to increase oversight of tech, from a comprehensive privacy bill to a probe. bloomberg's caroline hyde spoke to one of the most critical voices, senator mark warner, on thursday. sen. warner: this is the first of a series of bills i will introduce to put ground rules on social media. this bill is focused on something that for many users

may appear to be an annoyance, whereby you have agreements you cannot understand. you may have flashing arrows, trying to urge you to always agree, you can never find the unsubscribe component on a site. what experts have shown is there is a great deal of manipulative behavior, both as adults, and our bill also focuses on children. we think this is a good starting point. we have decided to take a light touch, and industry driven standard body that would be quick enough and nimble enough to move toward the larger users, 100 million individual users a month as a brake line. we would have the ftc as the fallback regulator. from a financial standpoint is like the security industry standard. i think it is a good place to start.

i have a series of other ideas around identity, content, and around transparency. there will be more legislation coming in each of those areas. caroline: ok, we would like to dig into those in a moment, but first, on this particular bill, do you think it will get the committee behind it to pass such a bill, because at the moment, it does not seem to have that backing. sen. warner: this is an area, my background was in the technology field, so i hope i bring some knowledge to the floor. i believe all the approaches i will take are bipartisan, less about liberal-conservative, and more about future-past. there is a growing recognition that the wild wild west days of social media platform companies is coming to an end, and i think a lot of the commerce committee, where this will be referred, deb fischer, my partner on that committee, there is work going on around the privacy domain. it follows some of the european models.

what my hope is as i add these other pillars that may be wrapped into a larger piece of legislation. caroline: let's talk about privacy, where the consensus is building. what it be based on the general protection data rules in europe? sen. warner: i think so. there are members in both parties working bipartisan, on gdpr, there are certain areas that it got right, and there are certain areas that are clunky, that will not alone address the issues. there are issues around rights . we ought to have, knowing when we are being contacted by a human being versus a bot, for example, or putting up a geo locator. if someone says they are in new york, but if they are in moscow. at least having an indication. it may not be a true post where

it originates. we have to have a debate about identity validation. one way to look at this would be to have some level of identity validation. estonia already does that. there are a series of other ideas around transparency. we need to make sure for users to realize these platforms are not free. if we knew how much data these companies are collecting of us, and we knew the value of that data, there might be new operators who can come into the market. caroline: does it frustrate you how limited the u.s. has been in terms of getting legislation through? the e.u. has made facebook once again be more transparent to ensure people know their data is being used. amid brexit turmoil, they have pushed through issues about hate speech. when do you think the u.s. will play catch-up? will it? should it?

sen. warner: i think that is a good point. most of the technology innovation rules of the road over the last 50 years have been set generally by the americans, and i think we are defaulting that leadership. not only to the europeans on gdpr, or to a more bifurcated approach where california has taken european models to do that at the state level. america acting in the best interest, they can end up with a hodgepodge of rules and regulations all over. recently, australia placed extraordinarily challenging rules and regulations on content. these are issues that will be touched. if our government can step up to the task, and i think the good news is most of these issues do not fall on a partisan basis, so i think as long as we can get focused, there are a lot of members who do not understand

handily how these platforms work, so there is an education process going along. emily: that was senator mark warner with our own caroline hyde. meantime, not content to wait for social media companies to regulate themselves, the u.k. is proposing its own new law. if companies like facebook, google, and twitter fail to prevent the live streaming of a shooting or violent act, they can face fines and bans, that could even include penalties on independent managers. monday, we talked about the proposal with tom giles and mark mahaney. mark: they may have a technical challenge which no company can overcome, same thing with youtube and the questionable quality of content. emily: is it a technical challenge? mark: there is a technical element to it, it could be a values challenge. the facebook founder is looking

for regulation, a sign of maturity. there are three major risks for these large platforms. the competition, maturity, and regulation, and regulation has risen dramatically in the last few years, and in terms of stocks, it puts a cap on what they can sustain. there are going to be extra costs. it is already in facebook's numbers, that is what led the company to lower its guidance three quarters ago now. this will be ongoing risk. i do not think it is existential, and the extreme things about having them divest whatsapp, that is highly unlikely to happen. there is an advantage of wildcard regulatory risk by bringing in mainstream regulation. emily: but there was a new law that was very quickly passed in australia in the aftermath of the christchurch shootings, which require the company to pay 10% of the revenue if they violate the law. they are violating the law every day.

there is hateful content of their all the time. good and that be material to their business? mark: i guess it could be, i would be surprised to see that. facebook is a global media platform, we have never seen anything this size. one area of regulation we have not talked about, facebook accounts for 90% of social media usage worldwide. maybe nine part -- maybe 95% since they own instagram. they should be regulated. whether it should undermine the business, that is the open question. emily: tom, you have been walking through the potential new laws. it is dense, but tell us what different countries are looking at. tom: it depends country to country. in europe, you have gdpr. that subjects these countries to 4% of overall revenue, fine, you have the u.k. considering

something extra that goes beyond that that would punish these guys for failing to curb the content we saw in the aftermath of the new zealand shooting. you have france, just a digital tax. there are a lot of questions around exactly what that would look like. would that be a percentage, would that be taken away from the corporate tax? they already have to pay in that country or region. what is interesting here is, mark zuckerberg needs to be careful what he asks for. he says we are willing, ready, we need and welcome regulation, but what kind of regulation does that look like? i do not think what he and sheryl sandberg and jack dorsey are saying is, fine us, take our revenue, please. they are saying, help us come up with guidelines, definitions to help us navigate, instead of -- help us navigate and set a standard for what is acceptable and what the repercussions should be when we fall short.

i do not think they were talking about 4% and plus of revenue intake. emily: "bloomberg tech's" tom giles and rbc's mark mahaney. coming up, softbank is hiring a trail of industry veterans to oversee tech funds. our exclusive interview with marcelo claure next. and no longer something to be imagined in a galaxy far away, we will tell you how scientists captured the first image of a black hole. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a major move for softbank. the japanese conglomerate has tapped industry veterans from jpmorgan and elsewhere to see a $5 billion technology fund focused on latin america. i spoke to coo marcelo claure about this new fund and about the opportunities in the region.

take a listen. marcelo: when you look at the market, the latin american market is half the amount of china. it has the right technology, we are looking at tech companies that are growing and the -- and that are leveraging data and artificial intelligence to disrupt traditional business models. in the first few weeks, we are looking at 140 companies, way above our expectations, and the investment we plan to launch in the latin american region. emily: wow. 140 companies in just a few weeks. so the vision fund is raising record capital when dry powder is already at record highs. how does softbank stay disciplined and put so much capital to work at the same time? marcelo: i think we have been quite disciplined. we have a clear investment mandate.

we are looking for that company, that number one company, that entrepreneur who has the ability to leverage artificial intelligence, leverage data, to disrupt traditional business models and enhance people's lives. that is broad in terms that we believe because of artificial intelligence, the level of disruption that we are going to live in in the next few years is significant. pretty much every industry will have disruption, so we choose a winning company we can put our capital and growth strategy, and basically help them grow. so far, we cannot be more pleased. we have over 70 companies, we have invested, they are doing great. we apply the same logic and discipline to latin america. the vision fund traditionally has focused on china, india, u.s., and now latin america because it applies to that region of the world. emily: so tell us about your

day-to-day. how much time will you spend on this latin america part of your job and your duties as coo of softbank group? marcelo: we are pretty well-organized within the softbank system. we have a division fund. i run softbank international. companies we have a majority ownership, such as sprint or energy groups. i run that. i am launching a new technology fund. we are spending time in latin america, but the core of my business is basically running the corporate group as well as the coo of the entire group. the four leaders in the company

are able to accommodate responsibilities accordingly. we have an amazing group of people throughout the world of great investors that basically supplement us. we are busy. there is a lot of activity. at the same time, we are applying the same rigor and discipline to the level of investments that we do. emily: you have a big ipo potentially coming up. softbank is a huge investor in uber. what are your expectation for uber's ipo? marcelo: well, we try not to comment on the potential we have invested in with the ipo. we have a lot of potential ipo's coming in the future. we have invested in a lot of tech companies that are growing at an amazing rate. we are hoping the investments that we have made will be translated into great returns for the investors in our fund, and the shareholders of those ipo's.

i think uber is a fantastic company. i think travis did an incredible job disrupting transportation, and i think they did a great job taking the company to another level. whenever uber decides to do an epl, -- an ipo it will be a , great ipo because it is a great company. emily: you were reported to get one of softbank's uber board seats. what is happening with that? marcelo: i mean, it is complicated. we invest in so many different companies, and the fact that we are a foreign direct investor, that is processed through the different government agencies. to be quite fair, we believe in many cases because we are investors in so many areas, that is why we try to put other people on boards, there is no area for us to join the board. the company is doing great, management is doing great, and they already have quite a sizable board. emily: that was our exclusive

interview with softbank coo marcelo claure. still ahead, ridesharing getting off the ground -- literally. how startups like jetsuitex are changing the way we fly. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: it is being called a breakthrough, and pushing the boundary of science. i am talking about the first ever glimpse of a black hole in space. you are looking at a black hole in the center of a massive galaxy. some million light years away 55 from us here on earth. up until this point, a black hole was something we only saw in simulations or a christopher nolan sci-fi movie. it took eight telescopes from around the world from hawaii to antarctica to make this possible. to tell us about this exciting new frontier, we spoke with

an experimental physicist. we asked what questions a six-year-old might ask a scientist. prof. adhikari: i think children have the best questions. the reason they are excited is why i am excited. they look at it, and it is something you would never see on earth. the laws of physics going on and making that image are the kinds you would only hear about in "harry potter" novels or in comic books. emily: here are questions from my six-year-old son, where did it come from? where do black holes come from? prof. adhikari: these are the best questions. this is what we talk about at an astronomy conference, where do black holes come from? everyone has their own opinions. this is one of the observations we think will help us figure it out. the only way to get a black hole is put together a lot of little things, and this is a billion times heavier than the sun, which is thousands of times heavier than the earth.

a lot of things smashed together, and what we do not know, do black holes make galaxies, or do galaxies make black holes? emily: what are the opinions? prof. adhikari: for the heaviest ones, one of the opinions is when these are flying around in the center of the galaxy, it is crowded, and their gravitational pull drags on each other and slows things down, and they land on the black hole. part of the reason you see this glowing orange material around the supermassive black hole is the friction of these gases rubbing together as they fly at the speed of light. rubbing together, just like rubbing your hands makes them hot. if you rub gas together, it makes x-rays and radiation, and that is why we can see it from so far. emily: here is another question from my son.

why is it so hard to take a picture? why can't you just send a drone in there? prof. adhikari: [laughs] we will send a drone in there someday, i hope. this is a picture taken using radio waves. it is like something you see in the movies. people use sonar or radar to figure out what is going on in the ocean or on the ground, so it is a different kind of radiation from light. but it is just as good. in this case, we use this, the people who observe use this because they can put radio telescopes on different sides of the earth. it is like how something would look if your eyeball was the size of the earth. emily: interesting. prof. adhikari: a black hole is about as small of a thing as you can make, as far as we know from einsteinian physics. if you took 5 billion suns and smashed them together until they collapsed, this is the smallest thing you could make from that much mass.

and it is so far away. it is millions and millions of light-years away. we think it is something small, like an airplane in the sky. that looks small, or the moon looks small, but this thing is millions of times further away, billions of times further away than the moon. the moon we look at, it is a half a degree across in terms of angle, but it is hundreds of times further away from the earth than it takes to get from l.a. to new york, if you do that trip 100 times, that is about how far away the moon is. you would have to do that hundreds of billions of times to get as far away as this black hole is. emily: caltech's rana adhikari there. finally, back on earth, you can take to the skies in a brand-new way. private flights were once reserved for the rich and famous, but all you need is a smart phone to hitch a ride with one of these aviation startups.

imagine you want to take a quick flight for business. instead of shuffling through security lines and navigating terminals to board a crowded commercial airline, you can instead opt for the private flight experience with the touch of an app. blackbird and jet sweet acts -- and jetsuitex are two startups are pushing a private flight industry forward. rudd: we think of ourselves in the same they know is on-demand transportation companies like uber or lyft. we are a journey that goes farther. emily: blackbird is a small company that is focused on the 5200-mile journey. it recently announced a $10 million funding round. it is backed by enterprise associates. jonathan: aircraft is utilized for 1% to 2%, and it is a highly underutilized aspect, and it is an expensive asset. when you can advertise the cost basis, and enable a lot of

pilots who want to fly, you really create a flywheel. emily: jetsuitex, a silicon valley unicorn valued at $1.5 million, advertises semiprivate flying with not-so-private fares. the company utilizes larger jets and pears passengers together. companiesate aviation offers a private flight experience by putting passengers on private jets. justin: what i see is a lot of technology minded people who think with the right algorithm , you can make money from inefficiencies in private aviation. you have big players in the industry. they are operating on schedule. emily: like established commercial airliner delta offering full priced flights and discount flights.

jonathan: on the other side, you have the technology component. that is not to say this is a business that can grow leaps and end -- and bounds and there is not a huge opportunity, it is just that to date we have not seen the regulatory regime keep up with a lot of tech innovation. emily: fai -- faa guidance for bids private pilots from profiting. but blackbird's pilots are commercially certified and own their own planes, keeping the startup cost low while meeting faa regulations. the charter flight industry in the u.s. has grown 2.6% in the last five years to reach revenue of $25 billion. tech startups want a slice of that market. that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you the latest tech throughout the week. tune in every day. we are livestreaming on twitter.

be sure to follow our global breaking news network, tictoc, on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ haslinda: hello. i'm haslinda amin in singapore. his first taste of tea was at 12 and he has been hooked ever since. taha bouqdib is the cofounder of twg, a high-end gourmet tea company building its fortune on a thirst for luxury. he is today's "high flyer." you may recognize the brand, but probably not the man behind the brand.