♪ taylor: i'm taylor riggs in san francisco, in for emily chang. this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, here is an earful -- silicon valley is listening to your most intimate moments. we will discuss the smart speaker craze and how vulnerable users are to the conversations being transcribed. plus, the best in tech -- facebook and google drop out of their top 10 best places to work list, but docusign makes the glassdoor list. we talk to the ceo about what makes that company so unique.

and a scathing report -- prominent shortseller andrew left of citron slaps a $5 price target on peloton. we'll hear from left. but first, to our top story. silicon valley is listening to your most intimate moments. it is the focus of bloomberg businessweek's in-depth piece on how the smart speaker craze left users vulnerable to their conversations being transcribed. it was one of the most read stories on the terminal on wednesday. and here with the story, including the devices and use of contractors to transcribe those intimate conversations, is matt in seattle, sarah from san francisco, and garrett and austin in new york. let me start with you, austin. contractors in your story seem to have a problem with this, while the management of big tech didn't. why? >> we spoke to dozens of transcribers and contractors in the story, everywhere from ireland to india. they really had ethical

quandaries with the service. they were eavesdropping on a lot of siri or alexa customers in order to improve the system's speech recognition capabilities by transcribing a recordings that we spit into the cloud. the really fascinating thing was the profound disparity you mentioned. a lot of the contractors felt this was ethically dubious, whereas the silicon valley folks, executives and engineers that we talked to, really did not think this was such an issue at all despite years of privacy issues. they saw this as essentially a way of improving quality assurance. one executive at apple who worked on siri a few years back even described this as a way of simply fixing voice bugs. the bigger question is whether or not they disclosed any of this to consumers, did they have a sense that humans may be listening to their recordings at some point? taylor: austin, any sense that big tech takes this more seriously going forward? >> definitely. we have seen a lot more of the companies issuing new disclosures, new disclaimers, particularly when it comes to companies like facebook or

apple. apple in particular says that they have privacy at the center of their core value, but this would seem to be an indication that they have not quite woken up to the fact that users expect more privacy considerations and more data privacy when it comes to interacting with these devices. taylor: let's bring in bloomberg technology's matt d. now to explain some of the security concerns that surround amazon. what was interesting to me is that they gave the impression about privacy while not really actually getting it. your take? >> amazon was the first out of the gate with smart speakers. they realized that putting a microphone in people's homes was going to be a potentially controversial thing. they engineered a couple of transparent measures they thought would give them kind of a cover and trust from consumers, one of them is the spinning light on top of the echo speaker, to let you know when the thing is recording. the other was sort of the ability to go and delete your audio recordings and view those through a web portal. there were very hard on that

kind of transparency. but at the same time, they were not so upfront with the fact that they were sort of using user data in a massive r&d lab to improve the service, to get new ideas for the launch on alexa, and for new features and to sort of correct errors in the system as it stood. taylor: now i want to get to facebook's latest. sarah, what is interesting here is facebook's newer entrance into the market. why the heck would they get into this market now? >> even after all of the controversy over these listening devices, facebook still felt like it was important to do the same with their data, their listening data, to try and improve it. they really didn't think of it as very different from all the other things that they collect from their users. as you scroll facebook, as you type, as you interact on the service, facebook thinks that you understand they are going to look through everything you say and do and it use it to make their system smarter. the thing is, there is a difference between a machine doing that and human beings doing that. especially with audio data. there is something so intimate

about the way that this works behind the scenes. and if it was so natural and obvious to the companies, why did they feel it was not necessary to disclose it to consumers? of course, consumers are alarmed. taylor: given everything else that is going on with the lack of trust in facebook, any sense that customers are trusting facebook with this device? >> well, they are purchasing it. there is a lot of compromise people make for their own convenience and entertainment, but i think a lot of people are not aware about the network of contractors that are listening to these audios to do as matt explains, quality assurance, testing, and trying to improve the way that speech recognition works. and facebook looks at this as an accessibility issue. they are trying to make sure all different types of human voices can be recognized by their computers. the fact that they need humans to do this because the machines are not ready yet, well, that just certainly was not part of

the marketing. taylor: garrett, google continues to use humans over some of the technology and contractors instead of real employees. does that help give them cover for all of this? >> yeah, i think google is also using contractors. that is the point that my colleagues just raised. for me, when i first started learning about the story and reading the reporting of my colleagues, was that this was mostly being done by contractors, not google or amazon employees. if people were employed by completely different companies, sometimes in countries very, very far away from the headquarters that these companies are based in where they make their big decisions. and with google, that really sort of hit home earlier this summer when one contractor in the netherlands walked out of

one of his offices, taking with him a bunch of voice recordings, gave those over to some journalists, who were able to listen to them and figure out who the actual humans were whose voices were being recorded. those consumers who were not expecting that to be listened to. that started a bit of a scandal, and google has said that they have actually paused human transcription of google assistant audio. of course, they need to transcribe these transcriptions with humans to continue to improve the service and make sure that it can understand people with different languages, accents, speech impediments around the world. they will surely start doing something like that again soon to keep up with their competitors. taylor: should we start to get a sense they would use more technology versus human review, and should that give us comfort that not actual humans could be listening in? >> i think all these companies would like that, but it is still not quite good enough. you still need humans to double check that these things are learning, that they are improving.

for the time being, we are going to need humans the same way with tesla cars, there are going to be accidents, we are going to need human drivers in some of those self driving cars until we get to that point sometime in the future, not sure when, that the machine can fully take over on its own. taylor: austin, matt, sarah, garrett, thank you all for joining us. now, the update on the t-mobile/sprint billion-dollar merger deal currently being challenged by 13 states and the district of columbia in a new york city courtroom. a sprint executive says the wireless phone provider will not survive much longer without the t-mobile takeover because it lacks the resources to upgrade its networks and has generally weak business prospects. the company's vice president of development and engineering testified that "sprint would not be viable within the next two years." the testimony rebukes claims

that states made that sprint has a viable plan b. several states are suing due to antitrust concerns. the trial is expected to last about three weeks. coming up, we go through glassdoor's list of best places to work. how hubspot earned the top spot, while big tech players like facebook and google slide from the top 10. that's next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, you can listen on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: apple is offering a number of eye-watering pricing options with its new mac pro desktop computer. it will cost you just above $6000. fully loaded, the mac pro will set you back about $52,000. and that doesn't include the $400 wheels for easily moving around the office. big tech companies used to be seen as some of the world's most desirable workplaces, but now appear to be losing some of their luster. facebook and google have dropped out of the top 10 best places to work in the u.s. according to glassdoor's annual rankings. this year's top four are hubspot, bain & company, docusign, and in-n-out burger. to discuss, we are joined by glassdoor chief economist, andrew chamberlain. big tech is continuing to drop out. why, what is going on? >> you have to remember, this is the 100 best places to work for, so even being on the list anywhere even if you drop is

still a great place to work. the big story with tech is these big companies have big company problems today. facebook, of course, with political scrutiny, the cambridge analytica scandal, it is changing what it is like to work there. -- we are that another big tech companies. there are now 10,000 plus employees. that is starting to weigh down on culture. taylor: facebook in particular caught our eye, because we talk about that company so much on this program, dropping 16 spots. just two years ago, they were number one. is it really becoming a big company? >> it has partly changed because of the political nature of some of the controversies. their motto really doesn't hold up in an era where your product disrupts the u.s. election. we see those kinds of comments in the glassdoor ratings. the other thing to know about facebook is that we look at all the different kinds of ratings, the work life balance, and pay,

and one that has slipped is senior leadership. some view facebook with problems there. taylor: taking sort of a positive spin on all of this, big tech still takes up the largest group. 31 companies make up that top 100 list. why is big tech such a large portion of the positivity? >> they have done this list 12 years in a row. now it is for nine different countries. tech is always toward the top of the list. it is because they have been in this intense competition for talent. tech really invented the great workplace experience out of necessity. today, it is being copied by people more and more, because they know that it works. the common theme is simple. it is not ping-pong tables and pay and free lunches. it is career opportunities so people feel like they can grow, having senior leaders that people believe in, and it is having a clear mission and vision so it is not just a job,

that it has some social impact as well as what their business is. taylor: i want to take some of what you said and look at the key themes in the top 10. in-n-out burger versus hubspot, what collectively made up the top 10? >> the top 10 is a really diverse group. there are only three tech companies on it. we had a government employer, you have ultimate software, an hr tech cloud company, in-n-out burger, a financial company, and others. what binds them together? a lot of people are surprised to see in-n-out. what it is is, these are best places to work from the perspective of employees themselves. in-n-out has great benefit, it has career opportunities for their people, and it has senior leaders with a commitment to always serving fresh and never frozen food. they are like a family. those of the things that unite

all these companies -- not pay, not an industry -- some of our winners are located in utah, iowa, not all are in san francisco and new york. taylor: the number one hub spot is notably located in massachusetts. how much is cost of living coming into this? >> this is definitely a factor. we see more tech companies locating outside the super expensive silicon valley area. boston is quite expensive. they have their own version of silicon valley there. the secret is they are drawing on talent from the big universities, and that's what they benefit from. taylor: i want to end on one other company to help us lead into a transition to our next interview, which is number three, docusign. what stood out to you? >> people really feel passionate about their product. also, pople in reviews for docusign say that the culture comes from the top. it is ceo and executive leadership driven. as i can tell you from my research, culture never comes

from the bottom-up, it always comes from the top down. that is one of the main reasons why docusign ended up as number three. taylor: we are all going to go back to in-n-out. i wonder if as an employee you get some free burgers. that was andrew chamberlain, glassdoor chief economist. thank you for joining us. coming up, we continue our conversation on glassdoor's top employers of 2019 with docusign's ceo, dan springer after securing a spot in the top three. that's next. bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. be sure to follow our global breaking news network @quicktake on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: uber and lyft are well positioned to make a profit. they decided that the pair could charge more to make an operating profit with only a modest impact on ride volume. uber and lyft shares have failed since listing. uber is down nearly 39%. we just spoke about glassdoor's annual list of the best places to work. while we saw a big tech names like google and facebook drop out of the top 10, we saw others rise to the top, with docusign landing the number three spot. here to discuss is docusign's ceo, dan springer. what makes your company stand out, why would i want to come and work for you? >> our employees have spoken that there are couple of things we have gotten right. one is we create an exciting vision. to really beyond the signature piece that most people know us for and have a broader platform

to build to be part of the next big thing. that is one. two, the docusign impact investment has given people a reason to be proud to be working at the company. we really try to be a positive role player and what is going on with global warming. the third piece is, because people love our product, employees feel really good about working at docusign, because they hear what we call doculove, they hear great stories from customers all the time. taylor: we just heard from andrew chamberlain that culture starts from the top. how do you set the tone you are setting? >> i say go to a company that is already fabulous, like docusign, that has a great culture with a great leader, but in terms of the small part i have played to improve the culture, i think it is about inclusiveness and listening. we do a lot to really understand what our employees want to make

this the best place they ever worked at. and then try to deliver on those components. taylor: i want to talk about the fundamentals of your company, mainly, you went public in about april of 2018. i hear a lot of ceo's in latest months come out and say thank god i they public when they did, because the environment today is so difficult if you are trying to become a public company. you are happy you went public when you did. >> i think i have somewhat of a contrary view. i think companies should go public when they are ready and not try to time to the market, because you want to make sure you have the right maturity and controls in place. we were fortunate that some of the challenges today we didn't have to give a lot of thought to -- do we want a traditional ipo, which is on the minds of all the folks now going public. but i do think it was a good time, and we got the choppiness of the last year behind us now and we are able to grow very well going forward. taylor: docusign is not profitable just yet.

you have pressure to be profitable? >> we are profitable on a nongap basis. because of the stock charges, net income, i do think we get investors now telling us that growth is the number one imperative. we are focused on doing that. we are trying to build the docusign agreement cloud, we will focus on growth. investors are saying they want responsible growth and that path to profitability. with the high gross margin, we will be a high-growth, but also a profitable organization. taylor: i also want to look at the rest of your stock price. your share prices are still up about 150% or so since the ipo. i wonder if you can live up to all of those heightened expectations you have set for fiscal year 2021, like revenue growth, like billings growth, how do you live up to that? >> we have a lot of confidence. i will tell you, to your point, if you think about the universe, we are in an all-time high for multiples in the space.

i think they are warranted because of the high growth and the components we talked about showing the profitability, people see something we really have not really seen in the tech industry for a long time, high-growth and a path to profitability. so i think they are warranted, but they are high, heavy valuations, but we are confident with the power we have at docusign to deliver on those expectations. taylor: pick one answer. i'm going to give you two options. going into 2021, would you prefer to up sell to existing clients or target new clients as you look at the revenue growth? >> of course, i want both, but to answer your question, we are a customer success oriented company. it is important we bring you people into docusign, but most focused on driving success. the upsells you are describing, those happen because we are driving success. we had 117% last quarter of the net revenue retention, which means our business with existing customers is growing 17% even without bringing new customers

on. i think that is a powerful driver for us. i would take the customer success driven growth. taylor: you talked in the beginning of the interview about some agreements you have come to with other companies. what more can we see from you in terms of engagements with other companies and securing more future agreements? >> we have always been the partnership company. it was interesting -- before we went public, people thought it was so unusual that competitive companies like microsoft and google and sap were all partners of ours. they were all investors in our company when we were a private company. but we continue to focus on partnership. taylor: finally, there have been rumors docusign could be the next acquisition target for a company like salesforce, for example. are you open to being acquired?

>> when you give up your company, you sort of give up your right to set your destiny, and that is ok, but i can tell you this, we do get calls, we don't comment on any rumors, of course, but i would love to continue to run this as an independent company. i'm having the time of my life. so as long as they will let me, i will continue to run it independently. taylor: i am going to let you get away with that answer for now. that was docusign ceo, dan springer. thank you for joining us. coming up, cisco takes on the chipmaker leaders. can the new data center chip make a dent in the likes of intel and broadcom? that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

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taylor: "bloomberg technology global link," where we join "daybreak australia" to bring you the latest in global tech news. let's take a look at those top global tech stories of the day. paul: amazon's bid to buy a minority stake in deliveroo may get an extended look from u.k. regulators. the competition and markets authority began looking at the investment in october. the reasoning being that the purchase could hurt competition by discouraging the american company from reentering the british food delivery market on its own.

amazon has five days to offer remedies to the agency. the chinese company that owns tiktok is hoping for another viral app success. it is testing a new music app available in india and indonesia. it has been installed by about 27,000 users in what the company hopes will eventually rival spotify and apple music in countries where paid music services have yet to garner large audiences. and the managing partner of softbank's vision fund is stepping down. joined softbank in april 2017 and will be replaced by the senior managing partner at softbank. those are the top global tech stories we are watching. taylor: thanks, paul. networking giant cisco has started supplying switch chips

major data operators. it's already being used by the likes of microsoft and facebook. theo claims that ship -- chip is the fastest in the industry and is offering it to all customers, whether or not they use its machines. joining us to discuss it is ian king, who covers the chip sector. is this a new avenue for business for cisco? ian: it is a big move. they are basically adjusting to the way the world of networking and semiconductors have moved. once upon a time, if you wanted to build a computer network, the best, the fastest, it was difficult until you went and bought a box from cisco. then along came amazon aws, facebook, google. these companies developed their own skill set, and they sent we don't need -- said we don't need these expensive boxes. we can do it ourselves. cisco is saying their components are fantastic, you can use them, go ahead.

shery: what is the driver for cisco? is this a near-term sales goal or strategic long-term shift? ian: normally when companies come out, they talk about a chip coming out next year and this is what they are going to do. part of the surprise today was the fact that they are already supplying them and already using them. taylor: you talk about facebook and microsoft already using some of the chips within the networking components. are they looking to upsell to those existing clients or target potential new clients? ian: they are not really cisco client anymore. less than 2% according to one estimate we have of cisco's revenue comes from hyper scale and facebooks. anything is better than that for cisco, and these products are not cheap, so if it can make major inroads to their data centers, that's good news for cisco. shery: when the industry is expecting less enterprise

spending for 2020, will this shift help? ian: it won't hurt. cisco, as you are referring to, has been suffering. it has had to take down some of its forecasting behind what wall street was expecting. a lot of the big service providers, the comcasts and like that have not been spending on the network and enterprise has been a little bit weak. anything which offsets that, anything going around that kind of dependency is good for cisco. taylor: is there any potential pushback, given that this chip could put cisco in competition with some of their own suppliers? ian: it is putting the cat amongst the pigeons. everybody in this market has really been reliant on broadcom. supply at cisco for some of their lower and stuff -- lower end stuff.

they clearly will not enjoy this. intel, which is also a cisco supplier. cisco is now saying they will offer our stuff to rival them as well. shery: what other products has cisco announced and what could we expect in the product lineup in the coming years? need theetworks will back end, the data centers to move them around. they are offering a new router. they talked about fiber optics, which is not particularly exciting for most people, but basically transmitting data over fiber-optic cables is kind of becoming a bottleneck, and cisco says it will put a lot of money into making sure that does not become a bottleneck. taylor: you talk about that new component for 5g. who else should we be keeping our eye on as 5g competition heats up? ian: huawei has obviously been a huge supplier to the market outside the u.s.

clearly one of the key stumbling blocks in the trade war has been the u.s. government does not want huawei in this country. that competitive landscape is arguably a bit more fragmented than it has been for a long time. taylor: thank you to bloomberg's ian king. plenty more global stories ahead. that's all next. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: shares of peloton taken -- taking another hit. falling close to 10% since tuesday. it is not due to a widely criticized holiday commercial, it is thanks to one of wall street's most active short-sellers. he put out a note saying he sees clear flaws in peloton's business model and predict the

stock will fall nearly 85% next year to five dollars a share. he joins us now on the phone. in your note, you talk about enterprise value and enterprise value for subscribers. walk me through your thesis on why you feel this company is overvalued on those metrics. andrew: on those metrics alone. people have criticized that and saying why don't we look at ebitda per subscriber, but if you see the chart i put out, it shows how much wall street is paying currently right now for every subscriber of peloton compared to planet fitness, and the number per subscriber is over $15,000 for peloton versus match.com, it's $2500. taylor: you can see on a per value, per subscriber basis, it certainly does look overvalued. i want to break down the ratio a little bit.

if you increase subscribers, the denominator goes up, the ratio falls, and that is pretty much what people are buying the company on. people are not buying on current subscribers. people are arguably buying on future subscribers. what do you say to that? andrew: i mean, fair enough, but business has already taken the low hanging fruit, so we know who bought the first 500,000 bikes. the real problem is who will buy the next 500,000 bikes? the treadmill they introduced is pretty much a flop. they are behind the curve with the rest of the equipment. you see mirror technology coming out from their competitors. they are not there. it is an extremely competitive space, and most importantly, with their digital offering, they are getting for $1295 -- if you buy the bike, you have to $39.95. offering, they are getting for if you are value conscious, you could buy a bike for $700 and enjoy the whole experience, and

that is peloton digital. the ceo said that was their lead generation way of doing it. it seemed really sloppy. you can enjoy peloton and not have to pay over $2000 for a bike. taylor: do you short peloton or short connected fitness as a whole? andrew: oh, no, short peloton. a $2.5 billion company, this is the success. they did not create the bike or the streaming classes. for a $200 billion company, it would be huge. i don't know why wall street has to think this is a $9 billion or going to be a $10 billion company. taylor: i do want to say we have tried repeatedly to reach out to management and peloton for comment, and we have not heard back yet. saying that, would you buy peloton if they were five dollars a share? andrew: no. it is like saying would you buy gopro?or

it's just dead money. the best days are in the rearview mirror. if it was five dollars a share, no, i take that back. i would buy to cover some of my shorts. this is not a knock on the product. i think it's a wonderful product. this is not a $9 billion or $10 billion product. this is going to wind up as a $1.5 billion company. taylor: you said to cover some of your shorts, making a joke, but i want to take a look at a serious chart showing inside my terminal for bloomberg viewers. to describe it for you, you know the story. it is the share price versus the short interest, which is now 66%. it is one of the companies that have ipos this year over $1 billion that are being the most shortage. do you feel that your short trade could be a little bit overcrowded here? andrew: if it's crowded, it's crowded. if it bounces on short covering, you just sell more. you always have to properly allocate when you are a short seller, but the thesis is i would never own a stock because it is a crowded short. there's nothing they could do to turn this business around. i made a joke, unless they

create a bike that works out for you, maybe that will change it, but other than that, they are not going to be a $9 billion or $10 billion company year from now. taylor: you talked about the bike and the treadmill. i want to get some of the fundamentals back into the conversation here. analysts really highlighted the lower-priced terminal that could come out into the future. if they do a lower-priced treadmill and you hit a mass market, how does that impact your position, given you could see perhaps the company hit a critical mass? andrew: simple -- no doubt they are going to put out a lower-priced treadmill. they will do it either later this year or next year, because the more expensive one flopped. they have to, because the treadmill is a much more popular piece of equipment than a bike. that's the only thing that will keep this thing alive. it does not have to fall off a cliff, just show decelerating growth. this is what you will see. i was in a mall today and the peloton store was empty. it's not because people are not buying pelotons, but they

already picked that low hanging fruit. this is not something for everyone. of course they are going to put out a treadmill and it will sell, but it will compete against all the other treadmills on the market. similarly, i could buy the peloton digital experience for $1295 with a $700 treadmill. as the consumers are more informed, it will be a battle for telethon -- for peloton. taylor: does the announcement of introducing a rowing machine change your thesis? andrew: everyone has a rowing machine. their competition behind them has, like, six different sku's. peloton introduced a $4000 treadmill, their competition for digital home, health and fitness has surpassed the offerings of peloton. tonal, if you have seen that, super cool idea. digital weights, unique, innovative, space-saving. these are all technologies peloton has not taken advantage of.

instead of thinking peloton will end up a $1.5 billion company, when you say it like that, that makes a lot more sense. taylor: still a few billion dollars. citron andrew left of research. in its continued attempt to stay afloat, wework is looking to sell one of its recent acquisitions. bloomberg has learned the struggling office sharing startup is in talks to sell a has owned which offers technology to help companies manage workplace paths and services. ellen hewitt has been covering the story. managed by q feels like it is a little bit part of the core business helping workplaces, but they are trying to sell it off. explain. ellen: any company that has been acquired by wework in the last couple of years is looking to kind of figure out how to

protect themselves, and knowing that wework is going to focus on its main business, even if you were an acquisition pretty close to the office sharing business, i think there is a concern you might not be wework's priority right now. we have seen the co-founder managed -- cofounder of managed by q is gathering a group to buy back his own company less than a year after he sold it to wework. it has been a tumultuous year for wework. he had come on as an executive at wework after the acquisition and then left the company, and he is trying to make a soft landing for his own company and take it on going forward outside of wework. especially for businesses that maybe were not as integrated in wework's portfolio as well. they have also acquired companies such as an seo company or made investments in indoor surfing companies and things like that. if you are one of those companies, you are wondering

what is your future, and in this in certain future, what is going to happen to us? taylor: particularly after only a month when he sold it, now he is trying to get it back. from wework's perspective, does this deal little bit like a fire sale? ellen: it's really unclear. another question is how much this will actually help wework's bottom line. some of the other acquisitions wework has made in the last year were not that big. compared to the billions of losses they had in the last couple of years, i don't think these sales will make a huge difference. i think it is more the company trying to focus on what they already do, you know, even when these acquisitions were happening and things were looking good, wework faced criticism for investing in businesses or buying businesses pretty far outside their lane. this may be more about focusing rather than recouping a lot of money from these sales. taylor: where is management in that transition back to the core business?

ellen: it has been a more slow last few weeks for wework news wildin october, which were times. the company did lay off around 2500 workers a couple weeks ago, and that was something that in general, what i've heard from sources, that went pretty smoothly. many people knew it was coming, and the severance was pretty generous. four months of paid severance, so a lot of employees, while they are, i think, disappointed to lose their jobs, for many of them, it is not like it was a sudden surprise, and it has not been seen as a very tough landing, but it is hard times for the company, and they are trying to figure out management going forward. they are still maybe toying with a new ceo search and figuring things out. taylor: you talked about that layoff and you had republican senator tom cotton saying given those layoffs, he was hoping adam neumann himself, not just wework should be probed by the sec, by the doj.

where we are in the midst of that investigation? ellen: we do not know much more than what we have already reported, which is just that inquiries are happening, but you are still seeing ire from not just wework people now out of a job, but politicians, industry observers, people saying something went wrong and the company has to be accountable. some people are also saying that adam neumann as former ceo and cofounder needs to be held responsible as well. taylor: all the updates on wework. thank you to bloomberg's ellen hewitt. still ahead, when biology meets technology. we will talk to one of the scientists behind a breakthrough in contraception. it's the pill you only have to take once a month. details, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: an analyst said the

company's unique business model enables it to be the forerunner for multiple trends by the millennial and gen z generations. he expects the company to dominate the digital consignment space with a price target of $22 a share. gamestop shares plummeted wednesday after the retailer reported a third-quarter loss that was much larger than expected. most analysts were bearish on the results. multiple firms lowered price targets, seeing no end to the industrywide shift toward digital gaming that has repeatedly pressured the stock. analysts at oppenheimer raised their price target to broadcom to $350 a share and maintain an outperform rating ahead of the quarterly earnings report on december 12. the analyst expects to see positive upside to revenue following the november 11 close of the symantec acquisitions. those are a look at your top

tech calls. scientists say they have developed a breakthrough contraceptive pill that only needs to be taken once a month. the star-shaped capsule could help reduce unintended pregnancies that arise from users forgetting to take their daily dose of the pill. we got unique insight from one of the study's co-authors, a renowned biotech entrepreneur and mit professor, who joins janet wu from boston. >> they designed a system that you can compress into a capsule, and then when the capsule gets into the stomach, the capsule itself dissolves. the stomach -- it opens up into a shape that is so big that it the little through hole that connects the rest of the stomach to the gastrointestinal tract, so it can't pass through. but it's very, very open, so

food can pass through it and everything. we put the drug in it and the drug keeps coming out, but we designed part of it to basically dissolve in just about a month period, and when that happens, the whole thing goes out, and basically, you deliver the drug for a month. we could actually make it go more or less. janet: when do you expect human trials? >> i don't know for sure. there's a company we have been involved with getting started. i hope it will be in the next couple years. they've already started human trials on other drugs using a system like this. that is for a week. janet: you are closing in on 1500 papers. 163 issued or testing patterns -- pending patents. how do you keep up this pace? >> one of the great things about m.i.t. is you have these incredible students and postdoctoral fellows and collaborators, and it's really them. i feel very lucky i've had such great people to work with over the years, and they are just very excited about doing work at the interface of biology and

engineering. it's really they that do it. it is easy for me to keep up with it because, you know, they keep going over things with me. jenna: we have to talk about some of the companies you have helped found. a haircare company. i once read you never set out to become a founder. mr. langer: that's true. my goal has always been to see technology we have been involved with get up to help people, get out to make the world a better place, make people have happier, healthier lives. i was very naive when i started. we would write papers, like you said, but people read papers and they use papers and cite them, but that does not necessarily lead to products. what i realized after a pretty long period of time is the only way that would happen is if i got involved doing it myself. we patented different things. i worked with my students and others to try to start companies that could hopefully bring products to the world.

janet: of all the innovations and companies you have helped create, what are you most proud of professionally? depends how you look at it. the thing i am always most proud of, which i kind of alluded to before, is my students. they have just had amazing careers, probably close to 1000 students and postdocs students through the lab including many professors in the boston area harbor, m.i.t., northeastern, tufts, and really all over. they have just had amazing careers. i'm also proud of the fact that a lot of the things we have done have led to products that have affected, according to some sources, billions of people. taylor: that was robert langer, renowned m.i.t. professor and biotech entrepreneur. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology," and "bloomberg technology" is livestreaming on twitter. check us out and be sure to

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