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tv   Bloomberg Business Week  Bloomberg  May 12, 2019 7:00am-8:00am EDT

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emily: i'm emily chang. this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all our top interviews from this week in tech. coming up, google hold its annual developers conference in mountain view, where it is doubling down on privacy. plus, melinda gates opens up. we talk about her new book, where she is investing, and what she thinks the biggest priority should be for the tech industry. and as apple attempts to branch out in services and streaming,
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some have forgotten about the customers at its once flaunted retail stores. some current and former employees think so. first, to our top story. it is the biggest ipo in years. uber made its public debut too debut to much fanfare on the new york stock exchange on friday. i spoke with uber's ceo dara khosrowshahi soon after shares started trading in new york. dara: today is a tough day for the markets with all of the china uncertainty. no one knows exactly where that is going. so you cannot pick when you go public. you can control how you execute as a company. are you building a great service? and are you bringing in happy consumers all over the world? so we are going to focus on what we can control. we raised a lot of capital to invest and grow for many years. that is what we are focused on now. emily: emily -- emily: so the president set the markets aflame this morning with his tweets, we have trade talks on
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the rocks and you are right. there is a lot of red on the board. how much do you think this has to do with that, and how much do you think it has to do with uber, which is still losing billions of dollars a year? dara: it is. but we do have a road to improve profitability. listen, as you know, the mario gotze -- the markets are an amalgamation of lots of states. there are external issues and internal issues. i don't spend too much time worrying about what is affecting what. again, i and the team are focused on building a great service. i think if you focus on that, we will build value for long-term shareholders. emily: you are on the road and the price dropped to the lower end of the range, lower than what your bankers had floated a couple of months ago. what were investors responding to? what were they telling you? dara: there is a group of investors that absolutely love the story, the platform story of and services, a
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$12 trillion marketplace. but i think that how hard it is to execute on that vision, how extensive it is an capital -- and capital-intensive it is, those are all challenges. i think the good news is we have found a set of investors who are long-term oriented, believe in our vision and we have to execute to make sure that the bet they made on us is a great bet. emily: you have compared the company to amazon. you've got some investors out there who think it is more like ebay. there is questions about how big the ride-hailing market can be. how do you deliver on the amazon? dara: we have to execute. and when you think about what amazon did, they went beyond a book seller to other categories of retail. we are doing the same thing. rides are to us what books were to amazon, and we are expanding. as we expand these categories, we expand our audience around the world. and i think that the ones who have bet on us, the investors who bet on us long-term will be happy. emily: one thing we did not see with amazon is growth slowing down. growth is slowing down.
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so let's put it this way -- how much do you think you can grow revenue in your five most mature markets? dara: when you look at the platform in general, audience growth for q1 is at 33%. 36% year on year on a $50 billion size. there are few companies in the universe that can carry that kind of a growth at the $50 billion scale. when you have a $12 trillion market ahead of you, you have plenty of penetration. emily: even in the mature markets? dara: i think you have to put "mature" with a quote. emily: lyft has struggled on the public markets. how much have you been following that, and how much did that today,the pricing we saw and the sentiment we are feeling right now? dara: i think there is certainly some effect. lyft is a very different kind of company.
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we are global. we are the global player. we are the category position leader, and we are getting into a number of different transportation categories with them being monoline. while we do not think we are direct consulates to lyft, some people look at it. they went through a tough opening. i think that for both companies, going after car ownership, it is an enormous market. i think long-term, they can succeed, and long-term i certainly believe that we can. emily: coming up, she is one of the most high-profile women in tech. now, melinda gates has written a book on how empowering women is changing the world. we will talk to her about "the moment of lift." and if you like bloomberg news, you can check us out on the radio, the bloomberg app, on bloomberg.com, and on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: for years, melinda gates has been working on global equality. through the bill and melinda gates foundation, she has fought to reduce poverty and increase access to health care and education. now she wants to make sure women get their fair shot, investing in women investors and entrepreneurs and with her new book, "the moment of lift: how empowering women can change the world." -- changes the world." i sat down to talk about where she is putting her money into putting her is money in tech, and why the moment was right for her to write this book. melinda: i have been traveling for over 20 years, and i heard all these women's stories that called me to action. and i felt like with the #metoo movement and so many women running in the midterm election, we have this window of opportunity to really create equality, but that window could close. i want to make sure we really keep pushing and really get
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equality for women. emily: you talk about your decision to stop working and stay home with the kids. you said hill at the time didn't -- bill at the time didn't understand. you also realized you could have done it. you just did not understand. you write that you had growing up to do. tell me about that. melinda: when we got pregnant, i surprised bill when i said i wanted to leave microsoft. for him, i think he actually really encouraged me. after the birth of our first daughter, even within a month, he said, "ok, so what else are you going to do?" because i knew i had that side of my brain, and that i enjoy doing work. but we had to work that out over time. and i think i came into the marriage with some bias about who does what in a relationship at home. i think maybe i gave him a pass on a few things, because he was the ceo of microsoft, and i had to learn over time no, you don't get a pass, you are a dad. emily: my favorite anecdote is when you decided division of
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labor was not fair, and he was going to do school drop off, which is actually a lesson to the other parents -- hey, if the ceo of microsoft can do it, so can you. tell me about that. melinda: it was one of those conversations you have at home about who does what. we agreed where we wanted our daughter to go to school. i could seal the years of traffic and driving, and i said let's wait. let's wait until she gets to third grade to put her in that school. it's not close to our house. bill felt strongly that she start at kindergarten. so he finally said, in his frustration, "what can i do to help?" and before i could even answer, he said "you know, i could drive a few days week." and i was like "are you serious?" because it's an hour commute for him to microsoft. but what we did not realize is that by having that conversation and rebalancing in our relationship, sure enough, all of the sudden, three weeks in, far more dads started to drive their kids, and a mom came up to me and said, "do you see what is happening?" i said, "yeah, more dads are
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driving." she said, "we went home and said if bill gates can drive, by gosh, so can you." emily: you have a chapter on workplace culture. you talked about susan fowler and her exposure of some of the bad things that happened at uber. uber is about to go public this week. where do you think uber would be if the change she ushered in had not happened? melinda: i don't know. i don't think any of us can answer that question, to be frank. but i do know that what was happening there needed to be called out. and it takes courageous women. and when one woman speaks out, other women need to come around, and men, and say this is not ok. the way that we get change in the workplace, or in any culture, is for men and women to transparently talk about what is going on. the reason that is so important in the workforce is that if a woman is harassed in the workforce, she leaves her job within two years at an 80% rate. that just can't be. emily: you are investing in women in technology. you are investing in tech venture capitalist firms.
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and one of your strategies is to invest in women. still, women account for 9% of venture-capital investors in silicon valley. women-led companies get 2% of funding. so despite all of this conversation, the #metoo movement, the momentum, the numbers still look that way. how much progress have you seen in the last year? melinda: i would say that the progress is slow. i think we are beginning that flywheel. but i think this is not just about silicon valley. if silicon valley is too stuck on what it is doing today, we can also take this game to other places. chicago, i was just there -- they are supporting women-led companies. they are not only mentoring and sponsoring them, they are investing in them. it is becoming a bigger part of the economy in chicago. we can do that in dallas, atlanta, and rural areas. so to me, the game is changing. and i am excited that more women-led businesses are starting to be invested in. and we have to talk about people of color. less than 1% of venture-capital
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funding goes to a woman-led business of a person of color. that to me makes no sense because i know there are fabulous ideas out there for many, many women who are of color as well. emily: and the reality is that men are still in position of power, and they can make a difference here. we've got silicon valley visionaries who are building electric cars, self-driving cars, rocket ships to space, and connecting the world. do you think if more men in silicon valley, the leaders in silicon valley, made hiring and promoting women and minorities more of a priority, it will happen? melinda: of course it would. they seem to be able to do almost anything. of course it would. you set a goal and reach it and don't make excuses. people say the pipeline, there are not enough women. well, fine -- create pathways in. we know the best universities in the nation are actually getting more women and minorities by changing that first computer science class. so we can do this. we just have to set it as a goal, and then we have to measure. and i think the great thing that
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is happening is the press is putting pressure on these companies to be transparent. once you are transparent, and there is pressure there, and you also have a tight labor market, women are voting with their feet. young women coming out of college with the tech degree are saying, i don't want to go to companies that do not support women. i will look at other offers i have. that will create change. emily: you are working with nonprofits that are also hoping to get more women investing, more women entrepreneurs. what sort of benchmark should the industry be setting? what sort of benchmark should be companies be setting? should it be 50-50? melinda: eventually. i think we can get to 50-50. eventually we can, and we need to stop saying "that's not possible." we need to not have excuses for it. we need to look at the barriers in society. when young women can look up and see three dozen different types of women, archetypes of women doing things in computer science, engineering, and biology, when they can look up like a young man can, you can see more women
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going into these fields in droves. and the think the other thing is, the more we talk to young women about -- these are not just tech problems, you are creating the future. these are some of the most creative things going on in society. and these are fabulous jobs. you will start having women go and vote with their feet and decide where they want to create the future. emily: you've invested in aspect ventures, which is one of the biggest women-led funds, theresia was on the show yesterday. you said this is a charity. -- you said this isn't charity. you are looking for a big return. how big of a return? melinda: i will not put a number on it, but i absolutely looking for return. i look at all of the investments bill and i make, and we have a scale in which we do them. i want a social return at first and over time, a larger and longer return. we should assume that with our investment dollars. but i know that it is important to not just voice our concerns and to point out problems, but it is also important to move money. because that is what we know -- young companies need to be financed if they are going to
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grow. so it is just time we do it. emily: now, you are also investing in tech ideas that you think will change some of these issues in the world -- family care, child care. how do you think technology can improve childcare, can improve family care, can improve pay inequity? melinda: if you could go on your phone in every city and rural town in america and be able to have a rating system -- these are the caregivers and what their ratings are, do you know how much easier that would make things when you have a sick child? all of a sudden, mom or dad says, "oh, my gosh, i need to go home. i have a sick child at work or school." -- sick child, i have to go pick them up at school." what if we have applications that help us fill in those gaps over time? another one that i saw that was fabulous, a woman is starting a business where if your child needs extra support, maybe they have dyslexia, maybe they have eye issues -- do you know how hard it is to go find
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specialists in the city? if there was literally a platform where you could go and there were 15 fabulous specialists, and you could see ratings on them and you could see whether they were good for other people's kids, that would change things for moms and dads. emily: there is rising concern that technology, for all the good that it does, also has too much power, especially big tech companies. you have elizabeth warren out there saying big tech needs to be broken up, and she is getting support on both sides of the aisle. do you think big tech needs to be broken up? melinda: i think technology has upsides and it has downsides. you have to look company by company, what the technology companies are doing, and are they creating the most good in society? or has the downside gotten too large, and then you have to look at the company and say should it be regulated in a different way? emily: so increasingly, these democratic candidates will take positions on technology. what kind of positions would you like to see them take? melinda: i would like to see them take positions on making it more equal for women. one of the things we know
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worldwide are women are 40% likely to have access to the internet. again, we know that women-led businesses are not getting funded. i would love for them to take positions and say, you know what? this technology should be for everyone. not just these one-off ideas. -- one-off ideas that help parts of society. emily: that was melinda gates, cochair of the bill and melinda gates foundation and the author of "the moment of lift." coming up, tweeting against twitter. the president unleashes his fury against social media once again, saying they are silencing conservative voices. we will talk about it next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: president trump is taking aim at facebook and twitter, claiming once again in a series of tweets that they are silencing conservative voices. "i am continuing to monitor the censorship of american citizens on social media. this is the united states of america, and we have what is known as freedom of speech. we are monitoring and watching closely."
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the latest tweet storm comes after a decision by facebook to ban certain far right provocateurs and conspiracy theorists, including alex jones, milo you an obelisk, and laura loomer, for violating policies on hate speech. tim o'brien joined us to discuss, along with bloomberg tech social media reporter kurt wagner. kurt: one of the things that he tweeted that stood out to me was he said we are in the united states, and we have this thing called freedom of speech. the thing about these companies is they are global companies. not u.s. companies. certainly they are u.s. based, but they are building rules and guidelines for people all around the world. oftentimes, you will see they kind of have these blanket policies because they are supposed to apply not just to people in the u.s., but people everywhere. people sometimes forget that. emily: they are private companies, so they get to make the rules. kurt: that's right, this is a community. if you are facebook, you try to
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weigh what is more valuable to who have free speech but some hate speech, or people who say that they do not want to use the platform because of that. facebook and twitter and others have said that there are rules people have to abide by. emily: many folks say facebook did not do this soon enough. another tweet from the president as part of this particular tweet storm -- diamond and silk, they have been treated so horribly. they work so hard. what has been done to them is very sad. we're looking into it. it is getting worse for conservatives on social media. tim, diamond and silk are commentators who are supportive of president trump. you, of course, wrote a biography of the president before he became president, and i know you have some particular insight into how he thinks. what do you believe is going on in the president's mind at this moment, if anyone can know that? tim: there are a couple of things going on. to the extent the president is arguing for a principle that a
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social media platform should be agnostic and not target anyone's speech, and if they do it amounts to censoring is a worthy thing to discuss, but what we have to remember is, over the past weekend he also tweeted that he did not think the "new york times," the "washington post," cnn, or msnbc should be allowed to publish on twitter. so he is really not arguing from a position of free speech or freedom of press. he is defending his advocates and targeting his enemies. so i think that has to be unbundled when we are speaking specifically about the president. i think when we talk about the social media platforms, i think they are entering into adulthood here. they want to be considered as technology platforms and not publishing enterprises. but the reality is they are putting published material into the public realm, and that has always been subject to regulation, whether it was radio or tv or newspapers.
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and i think at some point, social media companies are going to have to come to terms with the reality of that. and it comes with a different set of regulations and a different set of responsibilities. so these two things are sort of colliding with one another. emily: i want to go back to facebook's statement last week when they banned these folks. "we have always banned individuals and organizations that engage in or promote violence and hate. the process for evaluating potential violators is extensive, and it is what led to us removing these accounts today." the word "always" is key, because if you go back to even five years ago, weren't these policies incredibly crude? i heard something like if it was not naked and if it was not killer, it was just -- it was fine.tler, it was just kurt: right. there were breast-feeding photos that were taken down, but bombings that were left up. there were people who picked up the word "always" and said it is not always exactly how it has
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worked, and it has always been complicated, never really clear. we have seen facebook say time and time again that we do not want to be the arbiters of truth and the ones who decide what should stay up and come down. so in november, they said they would create an oversight committee where if you have content taken down, you can actually appeal to an independent board that would then review your case. we have not actually seen that come in to practice yet, but they have announced plans for it. and it is interesting, they are again trying to say we don't want to have to make these decisions. emily: i sat down with senator marsha blackburn earlier last week and after about this very issue. she has been supportive of the president. she has also been critical of the crackdown on conservative voices in particular. here is what she had to say about this issue. take a listen. sen. blackburn: what we have to realize is in silicon valley, a lot of people have a more bent.al that is their preference. they bring that to work. they are engineering and building these algorithms. and then they probably tilt left
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instead of being down the middle, and we know they do not tilt right. emily: now, she is making an important point, tim, that the people who are building the algorithms, inevitably, they impact those algorithms. clearly, this is an issue that is getting increasing interest on both sides of the aisle. do you think that this is something that is going to become a big deal in this election? tim: i don't know if it will be a big deal in the election, i think it is always a healthy thing for us to discuss. i think we have to be really careful about the terms we are using. i do not know necessarily that this is conservative versus liberal speech issue. the constitution has always regulated the type of free speech we are entitled to. we are all entitled to have free political speech. we are not entitled to stand up at a movie theater and scream "fire." and i think one of the distinctions facebook was trying to make is it felt that some of
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the people that it decided to censor were trafficking in violent rhetoric. that is not classically conservative rhetoric. that is not classically liberal rhetoric. what they are trying to do is police violence or aggression on their platforms, which it is in their rights. i think it is something senators from both parties could get behind. thatthink that this idea louis farrakhan or milo yiannopoulos are representatives of conservative speech is a little bit cute by half, when if they are also trafficking in violent rhetoric. and i think that is a really important extension to make. kurt wagnerberg's and tim o'brien. coming up, a pixel price cut. google debuts its newest smartphone -- and at as seriously reduced price. but there is a catch when it comes to what is inside. we will head to google's i/o
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conference next. "bloomberg tech" is livestreaming on twitter. you can check us out and follow our global news network on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i am emily chang. google is looking to make its line of smartphones more attractive to consumers with a cheaper price tag. this after an entire line of pixel phones failed to sell in large numbers. the newer models will range from $400 to $479. nearly half the cost of their predecessors. i spoke with the vice president and general manager of pixel, mario queiroz, about the new devices at the developers conference in mountain view, california. mario: the new phones are really exciting. what we set out to do is design a product at a much lower cost
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and then rely on our software capabilities to bring premium experiences to that lower price. and then to make a phone with premium experiences available at half the cost or half the price of your typical flagship phone, including our industry-leading smartphone camera. emily: so my understanding is that they are cheaper with the help of slower processors and cheaper materials. what is the argument to buy one of these over a cheaper competitor? mario: the argument to buy a pixel 3a is we are using more commoditized, lower-cost hardware. we are in a unique position to have the software capabilities within our company to be able to bring those premium experiences and make them run really fast with really high battery life on the lower-cost hardware. and so, again, we can bring the world's best smartphone camera,
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which is a pixel camera, into the price point. we can bring the assistant. we can deliver security, we can offer something that is not very typical. your phone gets better with each update as opposed to getting slower. emily: you are trying to make privacy one of the selling points here. what is the argument to buy a pixel when you have apple making privacy one of its huge marketing stands? mario: privacy is very important to us. we build it into our engineering. the pixel 3a, just like our premium pixel phones, comes with something we call call screen. people are bothered by robo calls. we have the capability on device that takes advantage of our language processing and voice-recognition to screen calls and therefore help you avoid robo calls. it can help you determine
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whether a call from someone you might know is something really important that you want to pick up or something that you want to leave for later. this is done entirely on device. nothing gets uploaded anywhere. the information is gone the minute you hang up the phone. emily: will you ever do a foldable phone? mario: we are looking at some technologies. we are prototyping technologies, including foldable display technologies. we don't have any new products to announce. we just excited to bring pixel 3a, the first phone to have true premium flagship smartphone experiences to the midrange price points, at price points, again, which are half the price of flagship phones today. emily: the smart phone market is slowing, and i'm just curious for your thoughts. where do you see the global smartphone market going? mario: we have seen the global smartphone market slow down.
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people are holding on to their devices for longer. this has happened in the premium segment. one of the reasons is they've gotten more expensive. you used to be able to get a premium phone for $500 just a few years ago. they have gone up to $700 or $800. some are over $1000. we set out to build the pixel from the ground up, using commodified hardware and really betting on the fact that our software capabilities, which are unparalleled in the industry can bring those experiences, the right performance, the right battery life, the right security to that lower price. we believe that these prices with premium experiences, we are making the camera in a premium smartphone available to a lot more people. emily: that was google vice president and manager of pixel
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mario queiroz. we have more highlights from the developers conference with our own mark bergen. take a listen. mark: this is the first time they have really leaned heavily with hardware, with their own devices. in years past, they did more experimental hardware, phones. this is a basic phone. they are competing with all of android's partners, like apple, huawei, xiaomi. like you said, sales fell last year along with the rest of the premium market. they are clearly spending a lot on hardware. google has spent money on other things in the past. they have moved from project to project. the only thing that is consistent is their work on search and machine learning. emily: tell us with different compared to last year, specifically the focus on privacy. mark: yeah, you saw a big strategy shift. every single thing they came out with, every product they are
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announcing, the kind of lead with we are thinking about users and privacy. they brought in this incognito mode with the chrome browser. you can browse without being tracked for ad targeting. they are bringing that to maps and youtube and other google products. it is a strong trade-off. google makes their money from advertising, they sell targeted ads from collecting data. at the same time, they see privacy in line with their interests, and they want people to continue to feel comfortable using google services. emily: the question, i guess, is -- will customers buy in? you have also got apple, of course, pushing privacy as a huge priority. you have got a hugely competitive smartphone market. a lot of cheaper competitors out there who have been doing this for a long time. mark: yeah, i mean, google will say that they have been doing
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internet security for a long time as well. they are in a position similar to facebook, where there are a lot of issues around data that are being dragged into the mud in congress, and the 2020 election. they certainly want to talk about being a helpful google. and certainly messaging here is google's utilities, you use search, maps, voice assistants, that help your life. they are trying to contrast themselves with social media, which is associated with addiction and a lot of negative qualities. earlier today, there was a plane with a keynote banner that said google control is not privacy. that is a pretty strong rebuttal from a group that is supporting local journalism. they still have critics. emily: you've got some very googley activity with people jumping behind you, trying to get a good photo, mark. android, only 20% of devices are
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running the latest operating system before the latest operating system. we don't know how many are running the latest operating system. so brand-new devices, they are not up-to-date. that means security and privacy aren't being utilized. how big of a problem is that? mark: yeah. this is been a problem they been trying to address. you could read the pixel as a strategy of google saying we have control over this like apple has with the iphone. it gives them a lot of advantages. today, they introduced features around privacy and security, they introduced away for phone makers to update android phones in a way they've never been able to do before. but again, unlike apple, what google has to rely on are a bunch of third-party manufacturers, a lot of carriers who have been sort of diametrically opposed to google. it is a vast and complex system that they don't have control over.
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they have produced new numbers today. the stats are a little bit better, but there is a wide gap. apple has been messaging we are the company that can do software upgrades, and we are the pro-privacy company here. emily: bloomberg's mark bergen there. coming up, despite calls for change, the gender gap in silicon valley is still wide open. we will highlight some of the women trying to close it. we will discuss next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: the world of silicon valley has created endless success stories. but they were mainly focused on men. as the industry comes to terms with its gender gap, and one author is pointing out the women. julian guthrie, the author of "alpha girls: the women upstarts
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who took on silicon valley's male culture and made the deals of a lifetime," and theresia gouw, cofounder of aspect ventures, who is featured in the book, join us to discuss. julian: i had come out of my last book, that was very male-dominated. this was surprising to me because you share so much negativity, and it exists and is real in silicon valley. i found these astounding women who had succeeded. i wanted to know how they did it. what does the world look like for them, sitting at the table, meeting with entrepreneurs, going out for funding. it surprised me how strategic they were in their success and how it is possible to increment your way to success as they did, navigating before they could pioneer. i was really wowed by that. by these stories. the stories of "alpha girls" are very personal. it's personal lives, it's
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professional lives, it's how women juggle all they/we do. you are nodding your head. the whole thing surprised me, how women succeed, what the terrain is like, what the outcomes are, there are these important success stories, noticeably theresia right here. and how they did it. it was so inspiring. emily: i am so glad you did. theresia, i did know about you. obviously, you worked in a male-dominated venture capital firm, xl. you started your own venture capital firm. i am curious -- what sort of strategizing did you do along the way? the times you knew you were the only woman going into the room and did something intentionally
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because of that. theresia: i would say the biggest thing is being aware of that, and sometimes you have to think about that, and i tip my hat to magdalena, another one of the girls in the book, and take advantage. early in my career, if i was going to some big tech conference, if everybody is inundating the same entrepreneurs, if i can say something smart about the business, the chance they will remember me instead of someone named joe or bob or jim is higher. i viewed it as a positive. it is an opportunity. emily: there are many women who could've succeeded in silicon valley. what was it about the women you highlighted? julian: that's a great question.
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i think it's what theresia touched on. looking past possible slights. looking beyond that and those things, having a sense of humor was always super helpful. being optimistic, finding an area of specialty, like theresia did. being quantitative. really knowing your stuff, working harder than just about any guy in the room. those were some of the commonalities they had. they love the industry. they love venture capital. they love being part of this ecosystem that is silicon valley. in those ways, they had optimism, and they had perseverance, of course. emily: theresia, you are part of this new movement. you and your partner started a new firm. melinda gates has invested in your firm. there are organizations that are getting funds together to improve the representation of women. do you feel the change happening? or do you still feel we are
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stuck in the past? theresia: first, i have always felt like there's been a more secret underground sisterhood, going back to the early pioneering days. in the beginning, many other people would not put it on dinner with sheryl -- emily: sheryl sandberg. theresia: it was super helpful for us. now it's not only out in the open, the male entrepreneurs see it as an advantage. we have this different network for recruiting, for deal sourcing. it's wonderful to see it be so public and out there. we wouldn't be anywhere without our male allies. julian writes about it in the book. i think the book is about a lot of venture capitalists for venture capitalists who happen to be female. to me, she wrote a book that is
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the story of people from outside silicon valley who came in and had no proven path and found their own way. hopefully that will appeal to a broad range of entrepreneurs and people whose dreams are here in silicon valley. emily: in the middle of my own reporting process, when i was writing my book, which is also about women in tech, the momentum changed. people started talking about the #metoo movement. i was in the middle of writing, and i had to do a bunch more interviews and call people. how did that change your reporting process? maybe it was an underground conversation before, but it exploded into the open. julian: so i thought it would make the women less reticent, more willing to speak out about injustices and wrongs, but with this book, i found that was the most challenging thing. because these women have succeeded by, to a certain extent, by being unflappable, by expecting perfectionism among
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themselves. to show their vulnerabilities was very difficult. they worked so hard to get where they did. it wasn't easy. it was still something where they had to exceed expectations. it was hard for them to be vulnerable, even post #metoo, so that was another surprise for me. emily: so, theresia, you have been investing for a long time. i'm interested in and update of what you think is hot. i want to hear where you think the puck is going. theresia: it's been a while. as julian mentioned, i have been doing cybersecurity since 2000, when it was a small little backwater. there were a couple of little
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companies. that continues to be a big area of investment and interest. there's also quite a lot of activity, i am sure everybody talks about it, in terms of ai machine learning. some specific places are interesting. companies like chime and deserve are in our portfolio, in addition to those using machine learning in cybersecurity. we are starting to see some interesting applications in machine learning, particularly in digital house. the really boring stuff where a lot of the money continues to be a hot area. emily: what is your outlook on the recent ipo's? uber this week, having just seen lyft. theresia: i think all of those companies are doing quite well. i think we have more in the pipeline. i think this is going to be a really good time for growth in tech ipo's throughout the rest of the year. emily: is it impacting your
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investment strategy? theresia: these are companies that are 5, 10, 15 years after that timeframe. what it does say is for those companies that are further along, it does show that the market is open now. five years later, they are in a later stage, so it is really impacting those companies from four or five years ago. emily: that is julian guthrie, author of "alpha girls," and theresia gouw, aspect ventures cofounder. still ahead, is apple worried about its brand? that's a concern from a number of current and former employees. we will bring you that story next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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emily: apple stores are being hit by complaints that customer service is getting worse. current and former employees tell bloomberg that brand building has become more important than serving shoppers.
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they say the quality of staff has declined during expansion in which apple opened more than 500 stores. apple announced that retail chief angela ahrendts would be replaced by deirdre o'brien. "bloomberg tech's" mark gurman told us more. mark: she tried to turn apple stores into luxury emporiums rather than a place for shoppers. before, it used to be a place you could go when and grab a product off the shelf and go to a cashier and pay for it. that is simple retail 101. you were able to do customer service, go up to a dedicated place, a genius bar, and get it fixed. the problem is, both of those core things are much more difficult. the cash registers are gone. it is hard to know which employees are there to help, to check you out, to navigate you to people. getting things repaired is a lengthy process. times to wait for repairs are
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adding up. the genius bar experience is gone. now you have roaming geniuses. you have geniuses under trees in something called the genius grove. so apple stores are all over the place. it doesn't seem like apple has a vision for what the store should be anymore. under the new retail chief, deirdre o'brien, the hope is apple will start to go back to its roots, which were very successful stores. emily: right, and on the upside, the online ordering experience has gotten a lot simpler. does this have anything to do with her departure? mark: that is a good question. it does not appear that she was fired. my interpretation is she was wanting to leave. she gave good reasons for wanting to leave, spending more time with her family. she is from indiana originally, here in the united states, worked at burberry in london for many years before traveling to california. of course you would want to spend time with your family.
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it does not appear like they did everything they could to get her to stay. i think apple realized it was time to shake things up after 10 years of that strategy. you saw that toward the end of angela ahrendts' tenure. they went back to that hard push of iphone sales and upgrades. they will continue to reverse the sales slowdown of their key products. emily: has apple given you any response to this report? mark: no. they declined to comment. they did hire a new retail chief. that is giving a lot of optimism inside the company, especially with 70,000 retail employees who think there will be positive changes. it is important to be noted, when you have so many stores across the world, there are 505 now, as of this week, there is a new store opening in washington, d.c. there are going to be mixed opinions.
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in recent years, under angela ahrendts, there has been an increase in complaints about customer service, people not agreeing with the direction. there is optimism that there is going to be a shift back to what was so successful under previous retail heads. emily: bloomberg's mark gurman. and that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." you can tune in. you can check us out on technology and you can follow our global breaking news network, @tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ haslinda: hello. i am haslinda amin in singapore. she is the face behind one of the hot new startups in asia, an e-commerce platform valued at nearly $1 billion. still in her 20's, ankiti bose is today's high flyer. in the world of asian e-commerce, there are few more fashionable than ankiti bose. the company she started with a friend and a dream is on its way to becoming a unicorn. zilingo began as a way forl

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