♪ taylor: i'm taylor riggs in for emily chang and this is the "best of bloomberg technology" where we bring you all of our best interviews from the week. up next, silicon valley is listening to your most intimate moments. we discuss the smart speaker craze and how vulnerable users are. facebook and google drop out of

the top 10 places to work list but docusign makes the glassdoor list. we talk to the ceo about what makes the company unique. a self-driving a semi makes it's first run. silicon valley is listening to your most intimate moments, the first of a bloomberg piece of how the craze left users vulnerable. it was one of the most read stories on wednesday. i spoke to journalists about the story, including the devices and use of contractors to transcribe intimate conversations. we spoke to guests in san francisco and new york.

>> we spoke to dozens of transcribers from everywhere from ireland to india and they had ethical quandaries with this service. they were eavesdropping on a lot of customers to improve the systems speech recognition capabilities. the fascinating thing was that profound disparity you mentioned. a lot of contractors felt this was a dubious, but a lot of folks we talked to did not think it was such an issue. they saw this as a way of improving quality assurance. one executive at apple who had worked on siri described this as a way of fixing a voice bugs. the big question is whether or not they disclosed this to

consumers. taylor: any guess if big tech takes this more seriously? >> we have seen companies issuing new disclosures and disclaimers. but when it comes to companies like facebook and apple, in particular, who say they have privacy at the center of their core values. this is an indication they do not respect users and their data privacy. taylor: let's bring in matt day to explain some of the security concerns. they gave the impression of privacy while not getting. your take? >> they were first out of the gate and realized microphones would be potentially controversial. they had a couple of transparent measures to give them cover. one was letting you know when it was recording, the other was to go in and delete your audio recordings. they leaned very hard on that transparency. they were not so upfront with

the fact they were using user data to improve the service. to figure out exactly what they were launching with alexa. taylor: i want to get to facebook's latest. what's interesting here is facebook is a new entrant to the market. why the heck would they get in now? >> even after all of the controversy, facebook still felt it was important to do the same with their data and they did not think of it as different from the other things they collect from users. as you scroll, type of and interact on the service, facebook thinks you understand you will parse through everything you say and use it to make their system smarter. the thing is, there's a difference between a machine doing that and human beings doing that. especially with audio data, there was something intimate about the way this works. if it was so natural and obvious to the companies, why did they feel it was not necessary to disclose. of course consumers are alarmed. taylor: given everything else going on, any sense customers are trusting facebook with this device?

>> they are purchasing it. there are a lot of compromises we will make for our own convenience but i think a lot of people are not aware about the network looking at that audio to do quality assurance and trying to improve speech recognition. facebook looks at this as an accessibility issue, making sure all types of human voices can be recognized. the fact that they need humans

to do this, that was not part of the marketing. taylor: finally, i want to bring in garrett to covers google for us. google continues to use humans over some of the technology at contractors. does that help give them cover? >> yeah. google is also using contractors that is a point my colleagues have just raised. for me, learning about this and digging into the story, this was mostly being done by contractors. these were not google employees. in some cases they are. mostly people employed by different countries far away from the headquarters these companies are based in. with google that hit home when one contractor in the netherlands walked out of his office, taking with him

recordings who gave them to journalists who were able to figure out who the actual humans were. those consumers who were not expecting that. that started a bit of a scandal and google has said they have paused human transcription. of course, they need to transcribe these transcriptions with humans to continue to improve the service to understand people around the world. they will surely start doing that again sometime soon to keep up with competitors. taylor: to be get a sense they will start to use more technology and with that give us comfort? >> these companies which they could use technology, but the reality is, it's still not quite get enough. you still need humans to double check that these things are

learning and improving. for the time being we will need humans. same way with tesla cars. until we get to that point in the future when the machine can fully take over. taylor: that was bloomberg technology's austin car, matt day, sarah frier and gerrit de vynck. the sprint merger deal is currently being challenged by 13 states and the district of columbia. 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 network and has generally week business prospects. dave bloom, the vice president of networks and engineering, testified quote sprint would not be viable than the next two years. it rebuts claims from states that sprint has a viable plan b.

i spoke to jennifer, who was in the courtroom on monday. >> that was the worst of the day the companies in terms of the deal. those were bad documents. the chief officer did suggest that maybe what they could use as part of their negotiating tactic to get a better price is at the deal would mean an increase of five dollars a month in average and that t-mobile is not taking that into account. they did do a decent job in trying to play this down. it is a very damaging document. he said, this is just a hypothetical. i didn't do any real studies. i was just guessing. i am a marketing guy and this is the way that marketers think. he did not really think that was something that was used as part of the negotiation. i would say that was probably the most damaging part of the trial today for the company. taylor: that was bloomberg's

jennifer rie. coming up, peloton has seen it shares a slide due to a wall street activist short seller. we find out his reasons next. and if you like bloomberg news, listen to us on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ taylor: shares of peloton taking another hit since tuesday. is not due to another widely criticized commercial, but thanks to one of wall street's most active short-sellers. he put out a note saying he sees quote clear flaws in the business model and predicts the stock will fall 85% next year. i spoke to andrew on the phone on wednesday. >> people have criticized that, same one we look at numbers per subscriber. that's all. if you see the chart i put out, it shows how much wall street is currently paying for every subscriber of peloton compared

to planet fitness, and per subscriber, it's over $15,000 for peloton versus match.com, it's 2100. taylor: we are showing that chart there. 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, and that is pretty much what people are buying the company on. if they are a growth company, a growth stock, people are not buying it on current subscribers. people are arguably buying on future subscribers. what do you say to that? andrew: i mean, fair enough, but the 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? 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, and when you buy the bike you buy it for 1395, 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 very sloppy. you can enjoy peloton and not have to pay over $2000 for a bike. taylor: do you short peloton or connective fitness as a whole? andrew: oh, no, short peloton. at five dollars a share, if it ends up a $2 billion company from it's a major success. this is a spin bike. they did not create spin bike they did not create streaming classes. if it was a $2 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's like saying, would you have bought fitbit or gopro? 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. [laughter] taylor: ok. andrew: 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. taylor: you were making a joke, i know, 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. the share price versus the short interest, which is now 66%. it's one of the companies that have ipo over $1 billion that are being the most shorted. 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 if 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 it around. 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 in a year from now. taylor: you have talked about the bike and the treadmill and 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 are going to do it later this year or next year. 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. understand month from the stock to go from where it is to 15, it does not have to fall off a cliff, just shows 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. they have already picked the low hanging fruit. this is not something for everyone. of course you 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 bike. as consumers become more informed, it will be a battle. taylor: does the announcement of introducing a rowing machine change your thesis? given that is a new piece of hardware.

andrew: everyone has a rowing machine. their competition has, like, six different sku's. while pellets on was preparing for the ipo, high-fiving, and introducing the $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. very important. people see stock prices 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: that was andrew left of citron research. up next, intel surprised the public eye releasing information it could have kept secret. later, tiktok has canceled meeting with -- meetings with senators over immense scrutiny of privacy concerns. we find out why they pulled the plug.

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taylor: an unusual move for intel. the chipmaker is the first so willingly disclosed its pay in -- inequality data. intel release details about the -- released details about the pay disparity in 2017 and 2018. the company provided the data to the u.s. equal employment opportunity commission and the results are not flattering. bloomberg's jeff green in detroit joined me to discuss on tuesday. jeff: we probably did not learn anything that is a big surprise looking at the numbers. the big surprise is we can see

the numbers at all. this is data every company had to release as of september, but intel may be the only one, at least so far, that is willing to share it. this is the macro information that feeds into what you would think of as median income that shows where women are and where men are in their jobs. it is not flattering, but it is the first step to figuring out where the problems are. taylor: where are the biggest problems? jeff: kind of where you would expect. white men and asian men make the top paying jobs and women are

clustered in the lower paying jobs. it is a structural problem in society and particularly in tech. that is sort of what intel is saying they want to bring the light, that the industry has a problem. they are willing to share theirs, would you share yours? taylor: exactly. it is notable that intel is openly sharing more data than they need to. what is intel trying to tell us about why they are doing this? jeff: they are admitting this exposes them to vulnerability. they got beat up a bit today. those charts don't look awesome. for some people, it is a revelation. you have them paying attention to what's going on in society so it's like a fresh attack. their thought is this only gets fixed that everyone is pulling in the same direction, and it -- they need pressure to be on everyone to look at this structurally and figure out what's wrong. also on themselves. they put a part of their pay for the top executives is fixing this. there is kind of like some external pressure for everyone to be able to look, employees included, and see how this plays out. taylor: do you think this creates enough pressure where other tech companies would step in and do the same? jeff: not if some of the recent examples are any evidence. citigroup did this with median pay and there has not been a flood of banks joining them. uber gave a report last week saying this is how many results we had. it is not like every other platform was like, here are our numbers.

i guess it starts somewhere. you start to add these things up. potentially, may be a regulator or changing government may weigh in. it is a loss leader thing where you are taking a big risk at of -- out of the gate that may pay off in the future. taylor: it is notable these results for 2017 and 2018 were pretty much wrapping up 2019. any indication that 2019 could have been better? jeff: we will never know. this data was collected under a program that was brought forth by the obama administration. and the trump administration has said we don't need to continue this, it is hard on the companies. this data in the current form will not be collected for 2019. we will have to see if there will be a new program or companies coming up with something voluntary that shows this. that is the sad part about this. this data is really interesting and we may never get a chance to see it again. taylor: jeff, do they offer any potential solutions on how to be the first to at least try to fix the problem? jeff: one of the things they pointed out is the industry is about 26% women available intact. they made it a goal to make 26% women. but the management is only 20% women. they are saying one of the ways you change the ratio is by making 26% of the executives women because that will push the women and see the higher paying and then it is math. what you really need is more women in higher-paying jobs then lower paying jobs and that is

something that in tech, pre-much -- pretty much every industry, it has not happened. the overall pay difference in the u.s. is women make $.81 on the dollar compared to men. this is just being able to see it one person at a time. taylor: i am not sure if you or anyone, frankly, can answer this point. i'm from new york and we thought it was a big problem in finance. we come to san francisco and find out tech is even worse. why is tech the biggest sector

that is struggling with this? jeff: i think it is who do you get coming out of college who wants to go into these jobs -- you get the graduates and then they come into the industry, from everything i have seen, the data i look at, they don't stay. they look at it and say can go somewhere else with his expertise because everybody needs tech. they go somewhere else and they are treated better. that is another thing intel is focusing on. they call that the warm line. if you were going -- you can call it if you need to think you need to leave and you can talk to somebody. they are collecting the data and try to figure out why people want to leave. why can't we keep these women? taylor: that was bloomberg's a jeff green. officials from tiktok were supposed to meet with centers over security concerns. we get into why those meetings are not happening. check us out at technology and follow our global news network take on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ here, it all starts with a simple...

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taylor: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology technology." tiktok is under pressure from those who worry about data security and user practices. executives have canceled a number of scheduled meetings with u.s. senator's set to take place in washington this week. bloomberg's paul allen and i sat down with kurt wagner on tuesday. >> we are told these are delayed and they will be rescheduled in the new year. part of the issue is you may have heard other things going on in washington, d.c. these days

with the potential impeachment of the u.s. president. as a result, the feeling from the tiktoc side was there is a lots going on right now. not the best times to be having these meetings. of course, some of these centers are curious as to why they pulled the plug but we should be hearing about these again in 2020. paul: when those meetings take place, what kind of questions will the senators want answered? kurt: all of the biggest questions have to do with user privacy and data storage. it is owned by a massive chinese technology company. there are is a lot of concern around where this information is being stored. is it being stored in the u.s., mainland china? really talking to the company. this is a relatively new app and company to most of the u.s.,

especially most politicians. getting basic questions about how the business works. what the data is collected and where it is stored. it will be the primary purpose. taylor: it seems like we have had a few moments of what looked like progress. namely this week, $1.1 million settlement kids privacy suit. where is tiktok responding? kurt: they want to have these discussions. the fact they were going to be in d.c. this week was a signal they were willing to answer some of the questions. obviously, we will wait and see if these meetings get rescheduled. they are seriously going to answer the question. i think this is a really popular app in the u.s. and things are going well for the app and for the company. if they want that to continue, they realize they have to play ball a little bit.

i would be surprised if they ultimately bail. i think it is an important dialogue to be having right now. paul: in terms of the settlement from that case in illinois, $1.1 million, that seems like small change, really. is that a surprising verdict? kurt: i don't know if it was necessarily surprising, but you are right -- $1.1 million in the world of technology companies is pretty much nothing. a slap on the wrist. we were describing facebook's $5 billion sentiment as a slap on the wrist. when you think about $1 million, it does not do much. we are seeing a sign that a lot of the privacy issues are becoming top of mind for companies after many years where they were not. even if it is a nominal amount, at least there is some kind of decision that is being made.

at least companies are being held, to some extent, accountable. taylor: we have also spoken with other senators like marsha blackburn who has come out and been a big critic and helped increase the age in which you can make in app purchases to 18 from 13. it sort of seems like small progress but in the big picture, how much is it doing? kurt: senator blackburn is one of the politicians who they supposed to meet with. she tweeted the meeting got canceled. i think we saw something similar last week with instagram. actually requiring users to enter their age when they create an account. you cannot create an account if you are under 13 which is what was always the rule but never really enforced. i think what we are seeing from this pressure is these things do seem small. as a 13-year-old going to create -- is a 13-year-old going to create not one now because they need to enter the birthday? probably not. but at least they are putting in safety measures they should have had all along and now being called out on it for the first time.

and in many cases, they are actually following through. paul: does any of the things have to do with the u.s. regulator also investigating? how is that proceeding? kurt: it is hard to imagine it is not a point of discussion here. they are looking at these tiktok -- excuse me, the acquisition. of music.ly which was been merged with tiktok. i am told there are conversations between the company and the regulatory body. i think if you are tiktok, you have to take this seriously. the cfius arrangements happen while it the acquisition is happening. there is a little bit more that the regulators can do. they can block something. this is an acquisition that happened two years ago. it is well past the point of being able to be blocked. now it is a question of what

types of guardrails can be put up? what stipulations can they put? -- impose upon someone like tictoc? i have to imagine that's top of mind. taylor: that was bloomberg's kurt wagner. coming up, facebook will remain the top target of digital advertiser spending according to bloomberg intelligence. so how much of the credit goes to instagram? later, the first cross-country commercial freight run in a self-driving truck. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: instagram's stories are making a significant contribution to facebook, drawing almost 10% of all ad spending at the end of the third quarter. it also stated advertiser spending jumped almost 70% from the prior year. to discuss, we were joined by eric and sarah frier who covers facebook. >> it goes to show advertisers are starting to catch on to this new user behavior. people increasingly are posting is more ephemeral -- to these more ephemeral forms like stories. advertisers have been slow to catch on. we should not expect advertisers to be fully participating in that format for a while. taylor: in your opinion, how much of an increase is this? stories only launched in 2016. they really just started monetizing them this year. the growth is relatively rapid. instagram is growing at 16% and will account for 20% of worldwide revenue. it will be even higher in disneyland specifically. when you look at instagram stories, most of the monetization is happening within the u.s.. taylor: to play off of that, if the stories are monetizing well, do we expect the next logical move to be go -- to be to go overseas? >> i think you will see more monetization from instagram in general. the problem is users are increasingly migrating to the ephemeral format and not posting as much on the main page. the main feed has ads that are much more expensive, so the overall advertising price has been depressed because of this shift to stories. maybe once it becomes more natural, you will see that improve.

taylor: is this a good sign that as long as they are monetizing it an ad revenue is rising, is that really what matters? >> it does appear that it would cannibalize some spending from the instagram newsfeed. that really has not happened, and advertisers are just generally increasing spending. taylor: do these actually work? i see ads, but are people clicking on them? >> first off, facebook, instagram, they have great tools for advertisers. when you look at attribution,

they really are ahead of the pack in a lot of ways. you can type back if someone saw an ad to whether or not they made a purchase. shop will ads will be even more important moving forward. that something closer to the consumer as well. a lot of the ads are brand building. there are a ton of options and tools for advertisers who need to improve roi. taylor: that was eric from emarketer and sarah frier. a bad year for the global tv industry, with sales falling almost 4% in 2019. that is the steepest drop since recession a decade ago. advertisers are following users to the internet, but there are some winners. i spoke to an advisor a

marketing technology company on monday. >> what we are seeing is just a maturation of television advertising. the dollars are finally following consumer idol. what we know is six out of 12 adults three. -- stream, watching more streaming content than they do linear. that's not even taking into account the number of adults that say they will either cut the cord or have already. you look that the holiday season now, a third of consumers say they will watch zero live television during the holidays. a real challenge for marketers who spend 95% of the tv budget in the linear tv channels is becoming very aware of those dollars are moving towards where the streamers are going. there will be winners and losers. taylor: that is a fascinating statistic. you are going to watch zero ads of live tv, zero hours of live tv this holiday season. is that a new statistic? dallas: a new survey came out the harris poll researching consumers that say a third say they will watch zero live television.

there's three ad races to watch as we set up who is going to be the winner in the $75 billion ad race. the platform race, content race and data race. on the platform side roku is the number one smart tv operating system in the world. hundreds of apps utilized roku. roku sells those ads for the apps. there advertising business is up 80% year-over-year. on the content side, a couple of platforms like hulu which is owned by disney and pluto tv which is owned by viacom that have really leaned into the ad supported model. a majority of consumers support

an ad supported model rather than subscription-based. which is why you see hulu, 70% of their users are ad supported. the last, which get the least amount of attention is the data race. television advertising today is bought and sold the way we have been doing it for 30 years. off a few thousand set-top boxes on nielsen that are trying to extrapolate the behaviors of 300 million americans. marketers are saying that does not work. we have begun seeing companies like samba tv, a company that has software on most television manufacturers and devices. they are in 25 million televisions across the world. they are able to provide real-time data for marketers that is driving higher roi for the marketers. for no other reason, we will see ad dollars continue to migrate to streaming because they work

better. taylor: dallas, i want to break down three of those that you just touched on, one of it is roku. you take a look inside my terminal, it is the stock and the average analyst price target. the trend is up, but it has been a volatile story as investors try to figure out what streaming wars mean for roku. do you believe you cannot launch a streaming platform unless you also do it with roku? dallas: i think roku is the undoubted winner in the streaming wars when we think about what happens in the next couple of months and what has already happened. you look at disney plus for example. disney was seeing a million downloads. during that same timeframe, roku downloads were up 50%. people were going to get the roku operating system so they can access disney plus. they are uniquely positioned in the ecosystem to benefit from the $8 billion to $10 billion of content that is going to be spent because you need to watch it on a platform. disney does not have a platform, neither does netflix.

you will be going to your roku device. you have seen the roku television. it is the number one tv operating system in the world. you can buy a 55 inch smart 4k tv for $200. they are in great position today. taylor: you talk about some of the winners, namely hulu, which makes me wonder if it is a price or content? do i like hulu because it is four dollars, five dollars a month and not $15 a month? or is it a content story? dallas: hulu is having their cake and eating it too. they are offering the user either the subscription model that has no ads or the ad-based model. the user is getting to pick and choose what they want. we have seen that 58% of u.s. consumers prefer an ad-supported model, around five dollars, six dollars a month. 40% prefer subscription-based model. i think the real challenge has to be for netflix. i said i believe netflix will have to introduce an advertising supported model. they have reached a saturation point. they cannot raise their price any higher with disney undercutting them.

what hulu has done is they have read the market and understand there is an appetite for both and they offered both. taylor: that was a dallas lawrence of channel factory. still ahead, 40,000 pounds of butter delivered in a self-driving truck. we learned how that happened, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: glassdoor's annual list of the best places to work some names like google and facebook drop out of the top 10. docusign landed the number three spot. i sat down with the ceo on wednesday. >> i think our employees have spoken that there are a couple of things we have gotten right. we have created an exciting vision.

we can go beyond what most know is for an have a broad platform to build on. with our impact investment, we have given people the reason to be proud of working at our company. we have announced a new product to try and be a process of role player and what's going on with global warming that in what's going on with global warming -- in what's going on with global warming. and people love working at a company because they hear stories from customers all the time. taylor: we just heard that culture starts at the top. what is your number one piece of advice in terms of the tone you are setting? >> go to a company that is already fabulous, it makes your job a lot easier as a leader but in terms of the parts that improve the culture, we do a lot to understand what our employees want to make us the best place they have ever worked. taylor: i want to talk about the fundamentals of your company. you went public in april 2018. it's been a while, but i hear a

lot of ceos saying, thank god i went public when i did. the environment today is so difficult. are you happy you went public when you did? >> i have a somewhat contrarian view. i think companies should go public when they are ready and not try to time the market. we are fortunate that i think we went out at a time when we did not have to give a lot of thought to the challenges. a traditional ipo is now on the minds of everyone going public. but for us, it was a good time. we have gotten behind the choppiness of last year and can grow very well going forward. taylor: you are not profitable

just yet. do you get a lot of pressure to be profitable? >> we are profitable on a non-gap basis. but i do think we get investors now telling us that growth is number one imperative. the agreement cloud is the next big thing and will focus on growth. but investors want the path to profitability. and what we have shown is that we are going to be high-growth, but also profitable. taylor: that was a dock you sign -- docusign ceo dan springer. a freight run with thousands of pounds of butter. that's what ai did with this truck a provider of technology, plus ai completed the first cross-country haul in three days. to explain what had happened, we were joined by the co-founder

and coo on tuesday. >> it drove from california to pennsylvania. there are federal rules around rest breaks and so on. but all of our truck's are staffed with both a safety driver and an operations specialist so we had to follow all of the federal rules for that. so there were certain segments like road construction the pennsylvania dot asked us to drive through manual. but aside from that, it was mostly autonomous. taylor: what are companies telling you about the cost savings? >> people are excited and interested in the technology. as you know will be sometime for the technology is fully released as a product.

but there will be tremendous benefits in terms of safety and cost. that is what we were setting out to deanna fate -- to demonstrate in this run, going up through the rockies and the great plains. demonstrating the overall reliability and safety. taylor: what is your relationship like with policymakers? you mention working with the department of transportation. how do you ensure you are working with them and getting responsible regulation? >> we try to be very proactive in working with different regulators. earlier this year, we reached out to the state dot in all 48 states. we also announced a partnership with the minnesota dot around testing. what we find is actually quite encouraging. that from a regular standpoint, there's a lot of interest in

supporting the technology. this technology has tremendous potential. taylor: his safety the biggest question you get from regulators? >> there are a lot of questions, but safety is one. how do you demonstrate the safety of the systems? by doing runs like this, demonstrating that it works. taylor: i spoke with a guest from sanford at spacex. she was walking me through the height curve says we are in the cross of disillusionment. this will take way longer than any of us expected. on your timeline, where are we? >> we are focused on level for autonomy. the ability to go from distribution hub to highway, to the highway, and a distribution hub on the other side. we see the timeline for that is around 2023. that is not just a function of when our technology is ready. also a function of when our partners are ready. that's why this run was so important. it's the timeline for when things like the platforms we

build on our ready for autonomous. in terms of electrical and other components, the timeline for things like brakes and steering, you need redundancy. as well as the timeline on the regulation front. as you look across all of those, 2023 is when we think it will light up. taylor: that was the plus ai cofounder and coo. that does it for this edition of "the best of bloomberg technology." we are livestreaming on twitter. check us out and follow our global breaking news network on twitter.

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[ dramatic music ] ahhhh! -ahhhh! elliott. you came back!

carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. carol: this week, silicon valley is listening to you. the humans behind smart devices, they are hearing more than you think. jason: and taking a bite out of lululemon again. they returned to help and made a lot of money in the process. carol: and we hit the red carpet