carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." . :.son we are here in new york. carol: in this week's issue, a new product that plans to get superhero-like hearing powers to the masses. jason: in the next biggest thing in social media. anyone under 15, we know you are watching, probably already knows about it. they have used it for years. carol: and the global cover, is inflation dead?

this new era of low-flation is confounding economists and calling into question the independence of the federal reserve. peter coy has the story. >> the fed is having a series of conferences this year culminating in chicago. it is called fed listens. it is a combination of listening tour where they talk to people from all walks of life and economists. they are trying to figure out what they are doing wrong. it is not just inflation by the way, it is broadly monetary policy, but inflation is at the heart of monetary policy. >> that leads us to an important point because monetary policy and fiscal policy. monetary policy being what a central bank does and fiscal being what a government -- taxing and spending. we have an administration that

probably would be very ok if those two were done a little bit more hand-in-hand. there is a case to be made for that. >> it is interesting that lefties hate donald trump, and i think that is a fair statement to make, and yet they share some interest. both of them believe the economy can run hotter. trump is all over jay powell for what he says is throttling the growth we deserve, holding back the stock market. the people who agree with trump on very little also believe the economy can run hotter. so the fed finds itself being attacked from two very different directions. jason: running hotter would basically mean do not raise interest rates or cut them. >> that would mean the unemployment could fall.

maybe people are ok with that. carol: but this idea of combining federal reserve policy with fiscal policy. the idea of the fed giving up independence and working with congress or something, or the government on fiscal spending policies to maybe help. >> larry summers is one of the people talking about secular stagnation as a persistent chronic threat. , kind of saying that the fed alone can't tackle that. there is a chronic shortfall of private investment demand. we have more savings in investment that pushes interest rates down and the government can come in by spending more, investing, soak up some funds. put a floor under the interest rate. carol: we talk about that with infrastructure. there is all of this private money waiting to be put to work,

and yet the u.s. government or local governments have not moved on infrastructure. >> one thought is that you could crowd in. by having more government investment, rather than crowd out private investment, it might induce more private investment as complementary. jason: taylor riggs is here with another look at low-flation. taylor: low-flation. this is interesting because despite all of the comments from the federal reserve, we can see their target or 2% inflation. i have charted pce in white, their preferred measure, you have bernanke 320 14, janet yellen from 2014 to 2018, and jerome powell from 2018 to present cutting rates and not even able to push inflation off. -- inflation up. even to 1.8%. conundrum. what do you do? carol: exactly right.

up next, spies and refugees make bogota the new casablanca thanks to the crisis in venezuela. jason: and the new risk all nuclear power plants face thanks to climate change. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg: businessweek." jason: join us for bloomberg businessweek everyday on the radio from 2:00 to 5:00 and p.m., catch up by listening and subscribing to our podcast. get that on itunes, soundcloud and bloomberg.com. carol: and you can find us online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. this week mercenaries, spies, , double agents and refugees are all gathering in bogota. jason: the troubles in venezuela are turning the colombian capital into something like a casablanca.

carol: seemingly everyone is looking for a way to help or take advantage of the venezuelan crisis. more from ethan bronner. ethan something like 1.3 million : immigrants have moved. immigrants refugees have left venezuela. next-door neighbor. so many colombians moved to venezuela when it was in oil-rich paradise. there is a lot going on there. columbia is relatively stable, i don't want to overstate that. there are risks but -- jason: after years of being the opposite. ethan: that's right. these marxist guerrillas. farc. suddenly, you have a country which has kind of come into its own in a position to be welcoming of refugees. unlike syrian refugees in germany, they all speak the same language and have a similar culture. there has been a generous opening of doors.

carol: immigration has never been an issue for this country correct? ,ethan they have never passed an : immigration law because nobody wanted to move there. carol: you say that if this continues, venezuela will surpass syria in the scale of its refugee crisis. ethan it is amazing. :we believe if the situation with madero, president of venezuela continues for the next year they will reach from 3 , million to five or 6 million refugees. jason: this is much bigger than those two countries. the united states has taken a strong stance. other countries have taken a strong stance. how does the rest of the world play into this narrative that is happening? ethan: that is a great question. i think there are several key points in the world today. north korea, syria, venezuela is not alone. it has really become a central superpower rivalry hotspot.

because the russians are really resisting the american effort, the trump administration, which does not have an active foreign policy, has taken a deep interest in what is happening in venezuela. jason: why do you think that is? before we get any further i want to ask you that question. ethan: i think there are several reasons. the whole shift in the region which was focused on leftist populism with brazil, argentina, peru, cuba has begun to shift in the past for years. that fits with the ideology of this administration, which is very conservative. a great believer that socialism has seen its last days and that we the united states need to , help push it out of the region. there's also the revitalization of the munro doctrine. -- monroe doctrine. without any sense of it being old-fashioned has said that we need to say that maybe not in syria we will not be dominant but this is our region.

we are not going to let the russians push us around here. and with a little more work we , can get the cubans to play a big role in venezuela. and in nicaragua. john bolton has picked a venezuela, nicaragua, and cuba as the countries he views as a kind of troika of terror. he wants to see the united states play a role in turning the region around. jason: nothing dangerous could be named peach bottom, right? carol: we have got an interesting map that shows the u.s. nuclear power plants that may be facing risk. from flood zones. jason: and if you look at the red dot, those are the real danger zones. it incorporates the number of flood risks that were not incorporated. you can see a lot of nuclear power plants and a lot of red. carol: conditions have gotten worse because of climate change.

we have more on the story from chris flavelle. chris the whole point of the : exercise is post-fukushima analysis in the u.s., look at what is the most extreme event , flooding or otherwise that is possible enough that it is worth accounting for? the industry makes a point that, well, in any high-tech industry there is always a question of how safe is safe enough. there is no perfect answer, but at least they are trying to get the data. give us your best guess about what kind of flooding. storm surge flooding. rain flood. ice flood. the criticism is not around the process, so much as what happened afterwards. in january, the commission said the steps taken to address these updated risks would not be mandatory. they would remain voluntary. critics say that is not good enough. jason: these guys are not deeply incentivized to give a worst case scenario.

chris: incentives are tough. to be fair to the industry they , have a pretty strong incentive to avoid a meltdown. because, as we saw in japan and germany, they can lead to the entire industry being shut down in a country if public opinion sways against it. i think there is an insistence in this country and a reliance on regulation, especially for potentially dangerous industries. what is important is it is an example of the way climate change makes regulation more difficult. you have an existing system where you balance risks and costs, and climate change sort of throws it off whack. you have these additional risks getting worse but no one knows how fast they are getting worse. also what do you want to do? , you cannot reduce the risk to zero. how much can you spend for the marginal increase in safety?

carol: the owners have said that rather than redesign plants to address increased flood risks, it would be enough to store emergency generators and equipment and on-site bunkers. the commission agreed with the industry finding, saying emergency agreement was adequate. this january, they ruled it would be voluntar. is there a political pressure? what happened? chris: it is a five-member commission, three of whom appointed by republicans. the current majority says the current system is safe enough. they do not have evidence that is necessary to impose this requirement. the two minority members disagreed. democratic appointees. there is this question of how much of that is just a function of the fact and how much of it is this new deregulatory philosophy we're seeing under the trump administration? whether it is nuclear or some other industry. it is hard to separate the fact s from the baggage.

the people who are saying this is not enough tend to be environmentalists. i've talked to them at length, and they know their stuff. but their frame of reference is the priority of safety. the frame of reference for industry and arguments shared by the current commission is let's keep this business working. this is a tough time for nuclear. they are under pressure from natural gas industry and from environmentalists. the industry never won favorite with environmentalists despite their claim that they provide more carbon-free energy than any other source. that has not really gotten the many points. jason: up next, we are able to keep mobile phone secure with face cannon fingerprints but , cannot do the same thing with handgun. we explore why. carol: and a french tycoon hopes lady gaga can turn his lousy year around. ♪

jason: welcome back to "bloomberg: businessweek." carol: you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a.m. 1130 in new york, 106.1 in boston, 99.1 f.m. in washington, d.c. jason: a.m. 960 in the bay area, and london on dab digital, and through the bloomberg business app. carol: in the technology section, why we have smartphones but not smart guns. jason: firearms makers have resisted digital innovation that could theoretically transform public safety. polly: the clinton administration cut a deal with smith and wesson, one of the oldest gunmakers in the united states. a really recognizable name worldwide. they said they would put in 2% of revenue, a substantial sum, into finding out whether there was a research and develop a path for smart guns. the clinton administration really supported this. folks on both side of the aisle

supported it, but the nra did not. if this was said smith and wesson was being traitors, not loyal to the base of the nra. they were citing with the opposition in the clinton administration. they put out a call to their members saying we don't support smith and wesson anymore. overnight, they saw sales -- about 40% of sales plummet and they were sold for pennies on the dollar. carol: a study says nearly half of the gun owners in the united states would consider buying the smart gun. polly: part of the studies is that they all come from different organizations. that is an academic study. there are some studies that come from lobbyist that show slower numbers but the reality is there , is a lot of interest, but the people that are the most diehard issues areof these either very opposed or very for it. while you might have a lot of middle-of-the-road gunowners they might have one shotgun in their home, they might feel a little more open to it. but then you have what we call

super owners, people with 17 or more firearms on average. they are spending very big money. those might be the most loyal. the biggest givers to any nra. if the nra says we are not on board with this 100% that is , going to be difficult to sell. even if there is general interest. jason: tell us about some legislation came through new jersey because a lot of this hinges on that particular law. polly: you are right. in new jersey there was an effort to bring them forward in the form of legislation. however, the way legislation was written stated that if a smart firearm is available, it must be sold in new jersey. that would be the firearm that would be the main firearm of new jersey basically. you saw in california and maryland, there were relatively small gun stores that started carrying this one firearm that the nra tested and found it was

somewhat faulty. carol: a smart gun? polly: yeah. it relied on rfid technology, a bracelet the owner would wear. they would try to shoot it and it would either -- the nra said it would either be glitchy or faulty and would not work quite right. soon after, other reviews from less partisan organization found the same thing. in one case they found some magnets could unlock the gun, thereby defeating the purpose. peoplee these very loyal that are loyal to the second amendment and the nra that see this law in new jersey that says he will make us have to buy this gun? and they really were very unhappy. they wanted the legislation done away with. jason: speaking of politics, i love this. in our podcast this week we were joined by pantsuit politics cohost sarah stuart holland. carol: now she and her cohost beth silver aim to talk about both sides of an issue in a respectful way.

some: and maybe find common ground between liberals and conservatives. a noble cause. here she is. >> because of my experience, i thought i would do a podcast about women in politics. and i have all of these fabulous friends that work in politics and i will start interviewing women. i did an interview, and i like to give answers more than ask questions. i just kind of sat there for a while. when beth came along i thought this is something i can get excited about. we just talked on the phone about kentucky politics. 45 minutes in, i said we are not going to talk anymore. we had good rapport and chemistry. carol: terrific. you started how many years ago? sarah: three and a half. carol: what was the first podcast like? sarah matt bevan had just been : elected governor of kentucky, he was like pre-trump. can i be honest? we thought our friends and family were going to listen.

it took off quickly. we stayed committed to just talking to each other. the important part is the vulnerability between the two of us. carol: and you come at it from two different ways. you are more liberal and beth is more conservative. how do you keep it civil? this has become more difficult in today's environment. globally. sarah we talk about this in our : book. it is not a secret sauce, it is a practice. it is not a one time you have a conversation and you're like i fixed it. you're going to get it wrong, but your committed to the practice of listening. to engaging each other in conversation and getting curious about where the other person is coming from. that grander vision about where we are going with the relationship instead of feeling , like every time we have to come to an agreement about health care, that will not go anywhere. jason: and for more of our interview, check out our extra podcast. download that and subscribe at bloomberg.com. carol: in the finance section, a

french billionaire has had a tough year. jason he was implicated in a : bribery scandal. one of his companies shut down. typical billionaire blues type stuff. carol: he is still the number one shareholder in vivendi. if a sale of universal music goes through, it would mean billions. jason: it may help his family regain and hold onto control of that vast empire. here is ed robinson. ed: vincent bollore is dynamic. -- a throwback to corporate raiders. his style is going in with a minority stake. he has done with logistics and shipping companies. the big one is vivendi. vivendi is a media conglomerate. one of the biggest in europe, and back in 2014, he started with a small stake but exerted influence through that state by taking over the board, drive management decisions. he became chairman and now he

has started a strategy in southern europe to try to build something mottled on disney. modeled on disney. -- carol: they call him the smiling killer. ed has a reputation of being a : tough customer when it comes to taking over companies. and exerting his influence on the board. the big one he has done is telecom italia. telecom italia used to be the state run monopoly with the landline business in italy, and he wanted to use its distribution to put vivendi content. will be familiar to a lot of us. that contentwill be familiar to a lot of us. it is universal music, youtube, lady gaga, taylor swift. it is also studio canal, the biggest film production studio in europe. he had this dream of becoming a kind of disney in southern europe, but it has gone sideways on him in the last year. jason: enter paul singer, not a

phone call, email or press release that he went to get that elliott is after you. ed for the last year, europe has : been watching this amazing battle between paul singer and bollare.ulle -- telecom italia has loads of debt. 26 billion euros. you are dealing with an old technology. land lines in the age of global, -- in the age of mobile. that is tough. singer smelled blood and saw value. he wanted to go in and take the board away and then spin off the landline business. he has actually succeeded in doing that. he has won a succession of battles in taking control of the company. vivendi has 24%-25%, but it can't control the fate of this company anymore. that has been a rare thing. which is a defeat. jason: tell us about the kids and the roles they play.

ed: his 39-year-old son is now the chairman of vivendi and his younger brother just went on the board. because bollore has stepped down , pulled back officially from the board of vivendi because of these problems he's been having. his daughter marie runs the electric car company and sebastian, the oldest, is involved with a gaming company. a video gaming company that is also part of vivendi. bollore wants to do nothing less -- it is similar to the murdochs -- he wants his children to pick up where he left off and his family has controlled. the wealth originally came from a paper company. they made cigarette papers. they made papers in bibles. the pages in bibles. he has taken this small company and transformed it into the empire we are talking about. he wants to pass that on to his kids, but the question is investors want to know if they have the chops to run the empire the way he has.

carol: up next, call it an apple watch or fitbit for your ears. jason: and the electric carmaker outselling tesla at a massive pace. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg: businessweek." i am jason kelly. carol: and i am carol massar korea still ahead in this week's issue, dominating the global ev market. one byd at a time. jason: and lamborghini and bugatti both made a big splashes in new york at the auto show. on carol: and in our features a section, the entrepreneurial success story behind hearing technology. jason: they have outfitted

presidents and popes with hearing aid and are preparing a new product for people who don't even need hearing aids. carol: it is fascinating. we will lead reporter josh dean tell his story. josh: william austin started a hearing aid company in the 60's in his basement. he had this vision that he was making money helping a guy and watched what he did putting a hearing aid in someone's ear. he says that it transformed his life, and he thought, if i am a doctor, i can only change one life a day, if you're lucky. with hearing aids, i think it is a thousand times. literally, he has a vision, he sees this saying on the side of the side of a bus, i don't remember the exact saying. he goes home, sits on his bed and gives himself a pep talk. being a doctor is great, but if i want to change lives, i can bring hearing to the world. jason: they are rethinking the entire relationship and purpose in some ways come out of this thing that goes in and around

your ear. josh: everybody has always thought of it that way, but says that his first vision was in the 1970's and or the 1980's, and then again in 1998, there is clear that future was not a hearing aid of a communications device. he thought if it is in your ear, you should be able to get all kinds of medical data from it. and what if you could translate languages? all these things that weren't possible in 1998. he says he saw them coming. here we are years later, and that is what they are doing. he says he realized this was a good place to take body readings. heart rate, temperature. jason: when you take your kid to the pediatrician, that's how they take the temperature. josh: exactly, right. and now with the tooth, you can connect your phone to it. they looked at the various ways make a leverage a piece of digital tech with chips and sensors, all these things that have gotten smaller and smaller, mostly because of your iphone,

all these sensors are tiny. they have turned the hearing aid into a kind of little computer. carol: this is a way to get so much health care information. josh: they hired a guy who headed an innovative group at intel called conceptual computing. they did drones, tip of the spear technology stuff at intel. you brought him into run this project. thinking, this is literally, you could think of it like a little iphone-type thing. carol: wild! josh: i asked him, what are your competitors in the future going ,o be like, apple or google because you are putting technology in a place where apple was not thinking about. or they did not know how to do it. carol: this is a cool story, you can tell jason and i really love it. but they also went through a tough time. josh: some of the top executives had been caught defrauding the company. jason: just flat out stealing. carol: millions of dollars. like $20 million, it seems , and also went on the payroll,

recruiting others to go and start a competitor. various other things that are clearly in violation of fiduciary duties. we're talking president, human resources chief, cfo. sea level, see sweet employees. a conspiracy inside the company to do for the employees. josh: yes. i refer to it as a palace coup at one point. which is not exactly the right term because they weren't trying to take over his company. jason: trying to create their own palace. carol: by that happening, as they brought in a bunch of new senior executives, like that senior chief from intel, is this what is moving the company to the next stage? josh: yeah austin and his divine intervention idea, he spends most of his time flying in a gulfstream around the world fitting low income people in third world countries with hearing aids. he felt like that is what i should be doing but i lost track with the company. i wasn't paying attention nfl is leap, and look what happened. because of this, he flew back

te, brought the c-sui in new people. saying that was terrible, but it was meant to be, because otherwise, he may have found that three years later when they had taken a bunch of his employees, and who knows what would've happened. carol: such an amazing story. jason: staying in the features, may americans, us among them, we think of tesla when we think of electric cars. carol: but warren buffett knows better. the buffet-backed chinese , is a global leader in electric vehicles. we have a chart showing projected sales of electric cars, and it is interesting, no surprise, we expect ev to grow a lot. what is significant is the chinese share. jason: that is why byd is such an important player in that massive and fast-growing market. and the company has even bigger ambitions. here is reporter matt campbell. matt: byd is a big name, one of a few chinese auto brands that

have really taken off over the last decade or so. what is particularly interesting about byd is it is pumping out more plug-in vehicles, forklift vans, passenger cars as well as buses, trucks, then any other in the world, including a company run by a certain twitter addict south african. so it has really done quite a lot to electrify the electric transportation mix in china while really getting very little attention relative to that impact. carol: why hasn't it received more attention than someone who is on twitter an awful lot? and we are of course, talking about elon musk from tesla. int: for one thing, it is china, a long way from most of the english media. byd doesn't really export cars exporthina, they do taxis, but unless you are there, it is not something you are

exposed to. byd has notcently, been in the glamour business, not trying to create status symbols or something that v c's in silicon valley are going to lust after, it is creating utilitarian, reasonably priced electric vehicles for the masses , and they have been quite successful. jason: take us to the beginning. you mentioned the top, the battery pieces. the origins of this company, how did they become what they are today? matt: so byd started in the the mid-00's, in the batteries business. a chemist started it. a companyy it was that was supplying batteries for nokia feature phones and drills, alldless these gadgets that really emerged in huge volumes in the early 2000. then byd purchased a pretty

troubled state-owned carmaker, a really small company. they were pumping out -- producing a small chinese version of the ford pinto, a bit of a joke. a lot of people were bewildered by this acquisition. but actually, and they are on record saying this at the time, byd said that we are going to make electric cars, they are going to be the next car. and we intend to both make the cars and the batteries. that did not look like such a great bet until a little earlier in this decade when ev took off with byd at the heart of the boom. carol: up next, a retailer breaking all the rules and raking in billions in the process. jason: and some are calling foul on the gig economy. carol: this is "bloomberg: businessweek." ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg: businessweek."

i am jason kelly. carol: and i am carol massar. join us on "bloomberg businessweek" everyday on the radio from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. wall street time. you can also listen to our podcast on itunes podcasts and bloomberg.com. jason: and you can find us online at businessweek.com and through our mobile app. in the business section, you may be overwhelmed if you ever step into one of this japanese retailer don quixote's stores. carol: and that's just how they like it. here is editor jim ellis. jim: the chain bases itself on the fact that don quixote was unconventional and so they are unconventional. they are breaking a lot of the rules retail has had. when you think about large retailers, consistency is something you impose on the chain. you have x in one location, you have them in 500 locations. stores are arranged to the same, but that is not the way it works

in don quixote. carol: chaos, it feels like. jim: floor-to-ceiling sensory overload. carol: you have been there? >> i have been to one in thailand. they are expanding now. but this is a made in japan sort of the nominal on. the japanese like things that are quirky and this place is quirky. what it does is allow store managers and store staff and each store to decide what the product mix ought to be, how they are to be merchandised, and the even allow them to purchase on a local level. carol: like letting store managers figure out the product mix lets them really react to their customer in real-time. jim: it is a place where if your local market wants to have sort of dry sliced plums, you will have those. is verymarket, however, fashion-conscious, you will give them a lot more clothing. for example, they have expanded to singapore.

in singapore, about 80% of the store is centered around food. that is different from what they do in their units in japan, where it is about 30%. they have discovered that people want food in singapore and they also like the idea of japanese snacks, and it appeals to chinese tourists who are crazy about japanese snacks. so you are able to say, ok, do that. also, you can change and turn on a dime. if it looks like the weather will be rainy tomorrow, all of a sudden, the store manager says, bring out rain gear. not just an umbrella's, but if it is going to be sunny, bring out all sorts of sun creams, umbrellas, for outdoors at the beach. it gives you the ultimate control, as if each store is its own entrepreneurial outlay. carol: i think i saw a revenue number forecast, something like $12.6 billion. jim: yes. it is very large, not just a couple of guys sitting around saying let's go crazy. this is in its own way a very

unusual but disciplined retail strategy, which is that by allowing come up wishing down -- pushingn-making down the decision-making as low as you can, it gets you closer to the consumer and therefore makes the consumer want to shop there, and therefore, having so much merchandise in a way that it is difficult to get through, you build a treasure hand feel to the experience. carol: i love that line that describes it as a mashup of t.j. maxx, dollar tree, costco, and ldi,no-frills grocer all with some japanese eccentricities. [laughter] jim: it is this mishmash of retailing styles. but that is what draws people, because it is unpredictable. carol: in the solution section, this is an app that restaurants can use to fill vacancies in the kitchen. jason: but the service is not free and some workers are not happy with the disparity in pay. created for the

restaurant industry to solve staffing problems, but it is one facesse cool apps that both ways, it is good for employers and it is good for their employees as well. carol: i love that. how is it good for both parties? kate: it happens more frequently than you know, every time step into a restaurant, somebody is a no-show. often times it is a dishwasher, because there are so many things going on. but there are crazy statistics that the average restaurant employee stays less than two months, one month and when he six days or something like that, and within 16 months, most restaurants will experience a complete turnover. imagine that. and it costs close to $6,000 per employee to replace them. carol: that is not easy. kate: it is really challenging. so to the rescue, this app started byd

industry experts, this guy who worked at french laundry, who knew what was going on, and also a technology expert. and sayget on the app you need a dishwasher and generally within the hour, some way will walk through the door. jason: how does this work? i'm a cook, i'm running the kitchen. carol: how about you are the cook and i am running the kitchen. [laughter] so if the dishwasher doesn't show up, what a way do? the app and say what you need and they have these algorithms that match you with someone who has experience similar to the restaurant. they will match you with somebody who is in sync with your needs. carol: what will i pay jason the dishwasher? jason: i thought i was a cook. now i am a dishwasher? [laughter] carol: sorry. kate: he is doing it all. that is actually, there is an issue with pared. they pay $20 an hour and most people in the kitchen are not getting paid that much.

jason: and that is an interesting let's say i am a point. dishwasher for carol. [laughter] so i am in the kitchen and my buddy doesn't show up, i dutifully show up for my job. she goes on the app and brings somebody in, and then i learned, because we are washing dishes together, that this guy is getting 20 bucks an hour but i am only getting 15 or 16. kate: you take your apron off and say i'm out of here. i am going to sign up on the app. and there are some things going youehind-the-scenes, like are not getting your taxes withheld on the app, so come april 15, you could have a big you.in front of but it definitely could cause problems in the kitchen if people are comparing salaries and things like that. jason: speaking of apps, have you seen the kids singing themselve and doing jumping jac? carol: we will introduce that plus, the cars showed off at the byo show this week

lamborghini and bugatti. jason: this is bloomberg: businessweek. ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg: businessweek." i am carol massar. jason: and i am jason kelly. you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a.m. 1130 in new york, 106.1 in boston, 99.1 f.m. in washington, d.c. carol: a.m. 960 in the bay area, in london on dab digital, and of course, through the bloomberg business app. in the features section, the next global big thing in social media is made in china. jason: it is fun and irreverent, and it is called tiktok. carol: here is editor match asking. >> tiktok, no relation to bloomberg's tictoc service, is an app that was a little bit little bit like snapchat, little bit like instagram stories. it basically lets kids to do live streams and music videos.

very big with the teens and tweens. as you said, it is owned by a chinese company. chinesehat these internet companies have had a hit outside of the mainland. jason: that is an important point, i feel like, because we talk about alibaba and tencent, but those are essentially, as because they are, domestic chinese companies. matt: and of course, the chinese market is so huge. but what is interesting here is tiktok, which grew out of a launched in 2016, which was grown through the acquisition of another company called music.ly. it was the last hit app of the moment. and if you are a social media user you have seen a deluge of ads trying to get you to check out this new app, and people are doing it. in a january, according to one

of the analytics trackers, tiktok was the biggest app in the u.s., which is stunning. ahead of instagram, ahead of snapchat. carol: 13% of all facebook ads that ran on android phones were for tiktok. matt: right. this company has raised an enormous amount of money of the most you from chinese investors. the valuation last year with 75 -- evaluation of last year was 75 billion, which puts it in uber territory, or just ahead of uber as the most valuable startup in the world. carol: what is facebook saying? they have got to be watching. matt: it is safe to say that they probably have a room full of people watching this. during the cambridge analytics hearings, you may remember mark zuckerberg getting into an interesting exchange with a senator who was talking about zuckerberg's journey from the dorm room to becoming this , and he said,gul only in america, right? and mark said, well, there are some pretty impressive companies

in china. obviously, he's talking about tencent and baidu. and last year, facebook created a knockoff service called lasso. it did not go anywhere, but shows they had interest. carol: tiktok tapped into tons using a.i. to manipulate that data, show the videos that you want, but all of this information they are collecting has caught the attention of regulators. matt: it is not like to wish is an american style social network, it really is chinese through and through. and one of the ways it is chinese is it has this sort of data first idea. rather than focusing on the social connection, which is kind of the backbone of twitter, facebook, snapchat, it is focusing on a.i. and recommending content to you, which is exactly how it works in china. and it is also much more into censorship and privacy. there is no controversial content on tiktok, it is not a

political app. carol: online at businessweek.com, a reporter got a first look at the numbered in his new spyder before the new york auto show. jason: and here she is with lamborghini's ceo of the americas. >> the goal is to create a ong in the front bumper, and the rear heard, where basically the car has more downforce, and this allows the driver to be in the best condition ever while driving it, because they have the highest downforce in the front and in the back. this has been further improved. so agility, speed, and ease of driving, and control. for control, i would say that here it is a big factor of the evolution of this family because we have the ldi, the lamborghini vehicle dynamic intergraph. it is an integrated dynamic vehicle assistance system that

manages the entire dynamic behavior of the car. so the brain is not anymore a reactive brain system, it is predictive. this means that in this car we meters,t of sensors, scopes, with the intention to of theta, the altitude driver at the same time the car anticipates of the steps of the driver to riyadh we used to say in his number gaining it was artificial intelligence. not at that level, but as it is already a step ahead acan that we launched a few years ago. basically, the suspension, the steering system, four-wheel steering system altogether and the active factoring works together, managed by this brain, to give the utmost experience.

jason: and also online bugatti's mauricio the americas, showed hannah the limited edition car. >> the idea is to make something timeless. to connect the driver with the car without too much, too many items, but just the essentials. it is to make a design that will last forever, and as you can see, this is the essence of a bugatti. you have some specific colors, you have the logo, 110, and the steering wheel is special. >> a unique shape. >> correct, like a formula one. you have all the control balance, you have four driving modes, and it is very easy. maybe we can start? >> of course. good! oh, that sounds that sounds very good! !

[car revving] hanna: they will know that you are coming. >> let's have an idea of the sound systems. 16 cylinder. the only car with 16 cylinders in the world. carol: bloomberg businessweek is on newsstands now. jason: and also online and on our mobile app. what is your must-read? carl's face it is a story by -- dean carol: it is the story by josh dean on the hearing technologies, a fascinating look at the hearing aid technology industry and the man behind it who built this incredible firm. they created hearing aids for presidents, popes, celebrities, it is a fascinating story. he is an interesting individual. jason: and looking around the corner, you start to think about that technology in an entirely different way. carol: yeah! and that is the other angle, what it might mean in the future. yours? jason: tiktok, i felt so cool at home because my 14-year-old watches these videos. he has moved from youtube to tiktok, so i felt pretty cool

saying that i know the story behind this company. check out our daily business with podcasts available on itunes, soundcloud, and bloomberg.com. carol: more bloomberg television starts now. ♪

david: since you have been a leader in the house, you have dealt with three presidents. speaker pelosi: i completely and entirely respect the office of the president of united states. david: there was a tax cut in the first year of president trump's administration. speaker pelosi: this tax bill is a tax scam of the highest magnitude. david: would you call mr. mcconnell and say let's have coffee and talk about where things are going? speaker pelosi: i don't drink that much coffee. [laughter] david: you have been vilified by the republicans. speaker pelosi: once you get in that arena, you have to be prepared to take a punch. or prepared to throw a punch, too. ♪ >> would you fix your tie, please? david: well, people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. just leave it this way.