no expensive machines, no expensive memberships. get off the floor with aerotrainer. go to aerotrainer.com to get yours now. emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is "bloomberg technology." first, we start with breaking news out of uber. the company, planning to reclassify all 70,000 of its u.k. drivers as workers after a landmark ruling from the supreme court. this means drivers will be entitled to minimum wage, vacation pay, and other benefits. will it impact uber in other markets? we will discuss.

plus, as vaccines roll out fast and furious, will the travel rebound look like the roaring 1920's? the ceo of expedia who took the helm in the middle of the pandemic will join us to share his outlook on how we travel may or may not be changed forever. this as the debate over vaccine distribution continues around the world. president biden under pressure to share supplies with the world before all americans are vaccinated. melinda gates and the gates foundation have contributed $1.75 billion to fight covid and joins us to talk about the road to post pandemic recovery and equality. she says it starts with women. we will get to that in a moment. first, getting a look at the markets. u.s. stocks falling for the first time in six trading sessions. kriti gupta has more on the day. kriti: a lot of red on the board in anticipation of the fed meeting tomorrow, a lot of

de-risking, all except for tech. looking at the screen behind me, the s&p 500 closed in the red. the new york faang index closed about flat, but the nasdaq 100 a notable out for -- outperform or. this comes in tandem with yields that were higher, so this is telling you the inverse correlation momentarily pausing for a second. another spot that saw a lot of love, semiconductors. not only today on a risk off day, 1.3% gains in the market, but on a yearly basis, semiconductors really ramping up. look at the chart behind me. you can see the escalation. 136% in one year. i want to hit some of the individual movers we saw in today's session. tesla, one of the worst performers today but also one that was weighing the s&p 500 as a whole. what was lifting it? that was apple. you can see the big tech players at odds with each other and other names not doing well, online retailers like shopify,

those really tell you there was a lot of pain in the tech sector but some spots of good news as well. lots of earnings stories for that as well. i will turn to katie for that. >> i want to highlight crowd strike in particular. they are gaining in after hours after forecasts that came in higher than expectations. the revenue forecast, the low end of that range is above the highest wall street estimates and clearly, that is giving a lift to the stock in after-hours trading. shares are currently 6% higher and rising. that is after the stock fell more than 2% in regular trading ahead of this. crowd strike is still down about 7% you today but traders see a lot to like in this report. i also want to talk about breaking uber news that the rideshare company will reclassify its drivers as workers. the company was expected to fight the ruling so it is a bit of a surprise and it is shaping up in after-hours trading. you can see uber fell as much as

3%, is down 1.5% currently. that is after it fell over 2% in regular trading because even though this is a u.k. ruling, it may impact how the company is structured globally, and clearly traders do not like that, emily. emily: absolutely. we will talk about that some more right now. thank you so much for that roundup. continuing on this breaking news out of uber, the company announcing it will reclassify all 70,000 of its u.k. drivers as workers, entitling all drivers to minimum wage, vacation pay, other benefits after a huge ruling from the supreme court came down last month. now the changes are limited to the u.k., uber's biggest european market, but it of course raises questions about whether the company is willing to adapt its model in other countries. joining us now to discuss, priya. walk us through what this means.

this has been a debate since the beginning of the company and now we see in the u.k. them making this dramatic change. >> exactly. this issue has been ongoing the company's entire history. it has been a push and pull for years now. to see this happening now, it is definitely a big turning point to say the least. as you mentioned, drivers will be entitled to minimum wage that shakes out to about $12 when you convert to u.s. dollars, vacation pay based on about 12% of their earnings every two weeks, and uber will pay 3% of drivers' earnings into a pension plan. very different from not having those things before. uber has had said that these minimum wage, drivers on average earn more than that. that might not be a factor that -- in costs that the company may have to face as a result, but it is a huge deal and sets the precedent globally.

everyone in this world will be watching this. emily: i guess the question is, could we see this expand to other markets? we know in california, prop 22 passed meaning they did not have to reclassify drivers at least in this state but this is a global company. could it have broader implications? >> that is the key question here. what kind of implications we will see in the u.s. uber has for some time now lobbied for a separate labor class with limited benefits. one difference between the u.k. and the u.s. is, the u.k. has a distinction between employees versus workers. in this change, these uber drivers will be classified as workers. in the u.s. they don't have that and uber has been lobbying for a separate labor class with limited benefits. you have to think this will influence policymakers worldwide who are watching.

emily: what are the financial implications for drivers? i mean, how often are you seeing them making short of minimum wage? >> uber says that the added cost to the company will mostly come from holiday payments, so for that vacation fund and pension contributions, rather than the minimum wage. they say on average uber drivers already earn 17 pounds an hour, 14 pounds an hour in the rest of the country, which puts them above the 8.72 pounds per hour minimum wage that they will have to start doling out. they say that drivers are already above that level and that will not affect them financially. for those drivers who maybe only are logging into the app a few times and doing certain numbers of trips a week and not on a full-time basis, it does provide a floor that they did not have before.

rishaad: could this have an tact -- and them -- emily: could this have an impact on gig economy companies around the world? there are different companies around the world, different delivery companies bigger in europe and elsewhere. will this have a ripple effect across the entire sharing economy ecosystem? >> given that uber is one of the most prominent companies in the space and defined the whole category over the years of gig labor, they were at the forefront of this. it would be very shocking to not see a ripple effect among other companies in this space, i think. to me at least it would be very surprising not to see other companies take action based on this or be forced to take action based on this. it is obviously going to set some kind of precedent. emily: all right. priya reporting for us. thank you so much for your take. a programming note, tomorrow at

5:00 p.m. eastern time right here on "bloomberg technology," we will be speaking exclusively to uber's ceo just one year after the pandemic shutdown across the united states. this is a conversation you do not want to miss. a story we continue to watch, google is cutting the fees it takes from developers on ad sales in half. -- on app sales in half. that follows a similar move by apple last year. google is reducing fees from 30% to 15% of the first $1 million in revenue. the company saying 99% of developers will benefit from that change. all right. coming up, the global response to covid-19. we will hear from melinda gates about how her foundation is assisting in the fight, who is most at risk from the pandemic, what is next, part of our continuing coverage of the pandemic one year on. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the vaccine rollout across europe is gaining headwinds as more countries across the continent have suspended the astrazeneca vaccine. eu governments have said they would lift suspension is as soon as the european medicines agency says it is safe. across the rest of the world, vaccine doses are continuing to be administered with israel having the highest percentage of residents inoculated so far. as part of the bloomberg equality summit, i spoke with melinda gates on the global covid response and asked how her

foundation is making a difference, where the vaccine rollout is working, and not working. melinda: well, i think it is working in some of our high income countries. we are starting to finally see much broader distribution for instance in the united states and in some of the european countries. but it is not at all working at -- yet for middle and low income countries. those are places where people are struggling. they have their loved ones who get ill. they cannot get them to a hospital, much less in icu. so they are really struggling in many countries around the world. emily: so there is obviously a moral case for vaccine equity, but what about the economic case? why should somebody in new york or san francisco care when somebody in africa gets vaccine? melinda: absolutely, it is the right moral thing to do. but economically, we are not to -- going to have as swift a recovery in the united states or europe if we don't make sure everybody gets vaccinated.

what will happen is, this disease, we know it crosses borders. we have seen it all over the world so as these variants breakout, they will absolutely come back into the united states and europe and japan and so our supply chains will not fully be up and running. we will not get our travel and leisure industry or business community up and running in terms of travel. economically if we are going to reopen the global economy, we have to take care of this everywhere. emily: so if vaccines are not distributed equally, obviously there is economic consequences. there will also be more deaths. what are the consequences of that? melinda: more death is a tragedy for every family that experiences a loss, but also we have to remember it is wreaking havoc on the health care systems of these countries. what it means is a mom who is pregnant does not go in for her and he nadel -- antenatal visits

and does not go in for her delivery so she delivers at home. we have 49 million women who will not get contraceptives during this pandemic. that means 15 million unplanned pregnancies in one year. that is like adding up the cities of chicago, new york, and l.a. saying we will have 15 million unplanned pregnancies. wow. emily: vaccine nationalism is stepping up. as this continues, you have nations competing for supplies. do you see a better way? melinda: well, i think we well started on -- started off in the world in a good way, which is to try to pool both the demand and matched it to what would be the supply and have financing for that. the u.s. did not come into that financing until the last stimulus bill that happened in december. they finally put money forward, for this facility called covax to purchase vaccines and get it organized. we are just now coming in with

the latest stimulus bill for testing and treatment. that would happen the way to go, to really match global demand and supply and first get it out to all the health care workers all over the world before you even begin. then going to vulnerable populations. emily: meantime, there is continued disinformation about vaccines. how do you see that kind of misinformation? melinda: when you see it, i will say it is incredibly disheartening because honestly it causes death. people not doing the right thing, not getting their mom or elderly father vaccinated. we will lose more people. we are losing more people. so it is disheartening. on the other hand, as more people are getting vaccinated, just take the united states, we are seeing more demand for vaccines. we are finally seeing the countercyclical part of that argument, but it is always disheartening to see something like that. emily: a huge part of your job before the pandemic was traveling around the world, meeting people, talking to them

in person in far-flung places that most of us don't get to go. how has your job changed during covid now that you cannot make those trips? melinda: well, i think like so many others who are lucky enough to have access to a computer and good internet, i am doing a lot of meetings online. and they are pretty continuous throughout the day. i am certainly meeting with , still, leaders around the world and community organizers around the world, but i miss the deep connection and interaction with a woman in her home or a man in the field or the children. i miss that and i look forward to when that will return hopefully in the next year. emily: in your annual letter, you and bill said the recovery starts with women. what do you mean by that? melinda: well, women have had the most devastation. women and people of color in this crisis. we know women have left the

labor force in droves. we know they are at home with this complete caregiving crisis, taking care of the young and e of the elderly. if we are going to have a full response and a swift response, we have to stop thinking of the world of gender equality as this nice thing to do when we get to it or this side issue. no. it is the central issue. if we are going to get a full recovery and a swift recovery, we have to address all the issues that are facing women. we are in a crisis for women and people of color in this country. emily: the last time you and i spoke, it was about your book "the moment of lift, how empowering women changes the world." that came out two years ago on the heels of metoo. there was a lot of hope. have you seen that play out, or have you seen progress derailed? melinda: we have seen -- i would definitely say that was a moment of optimism for me, and i would say now women are in a moment of crisis.

we have seen a lot of work derailed. you know, we have seen women who -- women in the last 30 years were coming out of poverty in -- as a globe and now we are seeing a huge setback in that arena. we are seeing setback in the labor force. a number of women who have stepped back from the labor force in the united states, two thirds of the jobs lost in south africa work -- were women's jobs. i think we are in a moment of crisis. but then on the flipside, i see these female leaders. prime minister jacinda ardern, prime minister merkel, how well their countries are doing. i see self-help groups in india, that immediately mobilized and got messages about covid out to millions of people in northern india. so i see the hope on the other, -- the other side, but there was a lot of work to do. emily: melinda gates, cofounder of the bill and melinda gates foundation. we will have much more on that conversation at the bloomberg equality summit, such as which

companies are leading the way to close gaps in health care distribution, responsible investing, retail, technology, and more. the fourth annual bloomberg equality summit convenes leaders at the front line of industry and policy to showcase these and other topics as well as the steps they are taking to move forward. we will bring you the highlights tomorrow and that conversation with melinda gates. coming up, game on in the electric car space. volkswagen aims to overtake tesla as the global electric car leader. we will hear from the ceo of volkswagen next. and as we head to break, let's take a look. meme stocks falling. gamestop, amc, express down as well. gamestop losing a third of its value over the last two sessions. we know bill gross said earlier on bloomberg television that he has made a lot of money betting against gamestop. we will continue to follow. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: volkswagen shares surging after unveiling plans to surpass tesla as the global electric car leader. the german carmaker has swiftly gone from corporate dinosaur status to stockmarket darling. volkswagen says it will standardize key technology across its sprawling industrial empire. bloomberg spoke to the ceo earlier and asked him about the investment. herbert: we are happily investing in fast charging, which is probably the biggest constraint on the customer front because of range anxiety still. some regions in europe, germany is growing but other regions, we are really lagging behind, like spain or italy, and this is where our investment mostly goes. mostly it goes into fast charging and providing home charging devices.

but step-by-step, we see the situation will alleviate. i would say we ramp up in parallel. the bacteria -- the battery capacity, the fast charging capacity and the ev capacity. so far, it is going well. as you know, actually, ev has won the race. all competitors are following us. we feel confident. >> i look across the investment and i see $29 billion for battery factories, $30 billion in the new software focus. obviously, it costs billions of dollars to design these new cars and put them together. how are you financing what looks like almost $200 billion in investments to push into the electric car industry? herbert: we have strong cash flows from our business last year, and we are also providing

to -- i would not say our legacy business, but the internal combustion engine business, we want to keep it strong and profitable and we are working hard to keep it strong and profitable. matt: how long will you keep the internal combustion business? you want to have 15 electric car models by 2030. am i still going to be able to buy a 911 with a gasoline engine? herbert: you should be able to buy still. i think this transition will probably last two lifecycles or so until 2035. probably even longer, it depends a lot on the regional strategies and policies. i also have to say electrification does not make sense in every environment because electrification only works when co2 is the basis.

the primary energy is co2 free. you either use sun or solar or hydro. and that is why we assume that the regions will have different speeds in transition. now, europe has really taken over. there is a strong push now with the new administration in the united states as well. china keeps on pushing. there might be regions which only come 5, 10, 15 years later. emily: volkswagen ceo herbert diess. meantime, a tiny etf tracking innovative company is beating -- innovative companies is beating one of the most famous investments on wall street. the moonshot innovators etf is up 39% this year. our innovation etf has risen just 3.5%. it has faced turbulence with tech hit hard. coming up, we are looking at the

recent rally in the tech sector. will the momentum keep up? that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. let's get back to market movers and bring back bloomberg's kriti gupta, walk us through the day. stocks falling but tech seeing a bounceback. kriti: tech outperformed just about everybody today. that has not been the story this year. since the start of the year, the s&p 500 information technology sector unperformed -- underperformed the broader benchmark. is it fundamentals or

technicals? it might be technicals. i want to show you a charge in my bloomberg terminal that compares nasdaq 100 relative to s&p 500. this is on the right side. compare this to the middle of the chart where you see that 1999 tech bubble. i will bring around the 3.2 ratio so you are seeing technical developments on the idea that in the past few months, we have been hovering around that tech bubble ratio. what will move this forward? i want to broaden this and look at the p/e ratios because that is another way that this sector is being evaluated. the s&p 500 trading at a 23, multiple tech trading about 28, once the most expensive stock sectors in the s&p 500 by this metric. goes to show that although you may have fundamental drivers like investments in electric vehicles or streaming, people are very much i yang valuations and technical levels.

-- eyeing valuations and technical levels. emily: thank you for that update. sticking with tech rallying, we are here with dan morgan, synovus trust portfolio senior manager. is the recovery in tech something that is going to happen longer-term, or are you still worried about a correction? dan: the tech sector, going back to your evaluation based on multiples, if we go to the summer of 2000, the tech sector was trading at 70 times earnings. we are nowhere close to that. projected growth rate this year is 20%, i.t. budgets projected by gardner at 6.3%. i would say we are not anywhere close to a bubble situation in terms of valuations compared to the past, and fundamentals are still very solid. i think we have to bear in mind, you mentioned the s&p information technology index, that is up 90% from a year ago with march lows. they had a huge rebound in the sector, they delivered great

growth last year, rotated in the sector and gone into deep cyclicals, but i believe fundamentals are in place for tech in 2021. emily: meantime, i know you hold some shares of uber. what is your reaction to them reclassifying 70,000 workers in the u.k. for now, drivers reclassified as workers which entitles them to different kinds of pay and benefits. given the potential it could happen more broadly. dan: that is a sizable amount, emily, around 70,000 workers. i think what that does is raise questions going forward about when will uber become positive? the guidance we had before, the consensus that they would do $1.48 billion in 2022 and finally be positive. we have to remember both lyft and uber have not made money and are not profitable. so it raises the question, emily, what is the impact of

this u.k. decision to move them from being contractors to employees? will that be a groundswell that moves into other parts of the country and eventually, that really changes the model for uber in regards to becoming profitable? that is a big story and we have to follow that closely because it will change the dynamics in regards to the fundamental view of the stock. emily: does it make you question at all whether you should keep holding it, or no? dan: we don't have a huge position in uber, we have a little position in lyft and uber, so it is not a huge position. at this time we will be in wait and see mode to see if that moves over to other parts of the world. if it did, it would definitely, i think it is something investors would change their view on the stock. emily: taking a look at semis, a number of chip companies are how your today. -- higher today. what is going on there?

dan: you had upgrades from big brokerage firms, ups did an upgrade, you just had a positive swell going on in the group. you have to remember, we have gone through these shortages so that means there is more demand than these chip companies can provide, which is a great environment for them. sectors that weren't doing as well, like automotive end industrials, we are getting a nice rebound. if you look at the chip sector, it is executing on all cylinders compared to a year ago. i think you are starting to see more analysts come out and upgrading the group and we saw that today, and that is what led to kla, applied materials, lam research, all up on that news. so things are going well right now in the chip sector. emily: let's talk about cyber, crowd strike reporting and obviously, we are in a new threat landscape right now given what we have seen from solarwinds and then the microsoft email hack.

what is your take on crowd strike as a name that can help fight some of this? dan: it is interesting, because if you look at their annual reoccurring revenue, it was up 75%. they beat on earnings. they beat on sales. the only negative that came out that led to the stock going back was the fact that the guidance for earnings per share next year, a little bit below the straight but if you can get away from the minutia of the data today and look at the bigger picture, you have a company growing revenues 80% per year. they are a company that is point to point, all cloud, not like symantec and mcafee end older competitors that have been migrating to the cloud. and like you said, emily, we are going to continue to get these threats across the board. and they are positioned really nicely. a company that is growing at a really fast pace right now that seems to be in all the right spots, and it is a cloud play, it is insecure ready and

fundamentals look strong so we would expect that stock to continue to execute after a strong quarter. emily: dan morgan, synovus trust portfolio senior manager. thank you for stopping by. t-mobile is kicking off a bond sale to help buy high-speed spectrum licenses paid the mobile carrier, selling up to $3 billion in bonds. it will use $2 billion to buy licenses and the rest to refinance debt. last week, verizon sold $25 billion in bonds to finance the 5g airwave purchase. coming up, the travel industry is finally seeing a pickup in sales, a year into the pandemic shutdown. the expedia ceo joins us next to talk about the lessons he has learned in the last year, and what travel will look like. in the years ahead. that is next, part of our "pandemic: one neuron" series. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> and we had to face the hard truth that travel, we did not know when it was going to return. and we knew when it returned, it would be different, it would never be the same. emily: that was airbnb ceo brian chesky, sharing what went through his mind as the early days of the pandemic lockdown drove in $1 billion in cancellations. one year after the lockdown started in the u.s., the transportation security administration reported a surge in airport traffic, the number of check ins catching up to last year's levels.

u.s. airlines carried more passengers friday and sunday than at any point since year ago, exceeding 1.3 million travelers on both days and showing solid signs of recovery. joining us to discuss the past year in travel and what the post pandemic looks like, expedia ceo peter kern. peter, thanks so much for joining us. you have had quite a year. i would like to start with signs you are seeing of pent-up demand. some folks speculated it is going to be like the roaring 20's. by summer, if not sooner. how would you characterize demand we are expecting? peter: thanks for having me, emily. we are definitely seeing signs of enthusiasm throughout the world, although it depends entirely on the situation in different geographies. in europe today, it is not so

great, there are lots of lockdowns going on, but in north america we have seen a ton of enthusiasm for travel. you mentioned tsa numbers, spring break has sprung in the southeast and in mexico and other places where it is warm, and people feel like they can get outside and have fairly normal vacations. there has been huge demand, and in many of those places, we are outperforming where we were two years ago at this time. so we are seeing real demand spikes in places where people can enjoy a great vacation, but obviously there are parts of the world and parts of this country that are still much lower, including cities and other spots, where perhaps you can't have the same kind of vacation you would have had a couple years ago. emily: brian chesky, ceo of airbnb, reiterated comments he made to me last june, when he said travel will not be the same. what parts of travel will be forever changed and what parts will bounce back?

and go back to the way they were? peter: i have heard brian say that, and i have tons of admiration for brian, but i disagree. i think travel will largely go back to what we knew. if i am hard-pressed to point to an area that will not rebound, a lot of people pick on on corporate travel and there are reasons to think that will take somewhat longer to come back. and it may be forever changed in the sense that internal corporate travel and other kinds of travel may be different. but equally, if we have more remote work, there may be more use cases where business people need to travel and get back together with their teams. so i don't think we know yet. i would say corporate is the biggest question, but i have hopes it will largely be back. and as far as leisure, where people go, how they go, for sure they have discovered some new things. and in our case, it has been a very strong use case for

customers and we think it is terrific that new customers have had a chance to experience what it is all about and we are sure they will think about that when they are planning vacations. i think they have had to adapt and they have found great opportunities to vacation and i think it will largely be back to the way we knew it and i think that will be great for the industry and great for me and you, who are probably dying to travel like everybody else. emily: interesting, you taking a counter position to some of brian chesky's points. let's talk about vrbo versus airbnb. can you tell us how much inventory overlap there is at this point and what your playbook is to differentiate it from airbnb, given that you do rely more, as i understand it, on traffic from google. peter: that is historically

somewhat true. airbnb has said they are out of performance marketing. we are not. but we have been extremely robust and successful during the pandemic. in our largest markets, we have grown share against airbnb. and we have been very successful. as i said, consumers are looking for our use case. the overlap we don't really publish and does not precise since we don't have exact numbers for each other, but there is considerable overlap. i would say our differentiators, we are all about the full home experience. that has been really important during covid, people want the four walls of their building to themselves, whether it is a condo or a home, and there has been huge demand for it and we have driven great success. i know it -- airbnb likes to quote their numbers. we have driven more in new host booking value than airbnb has during this same period, and on

average, our hosts make more substantially than in standard airbnb host. we think we have a lot of great attributes for hosts. we think we have terrific inventory for consumers, but we don't cover our use case in our -- every use case. in the places where we are strong, we have been very strong. emily: i have definitely noticed better prices on vrbo, i will say that. when do you see hotels coming back to pre-pandemic levels? will hotels ever come back to pre-pandemic levels? peter: i have zero doubt hotels will be back. in fact, in places i mentioned, south florida, mexico, we are seeing booking levels at or above two-year ago levels, some normalized levels. it is a question of when and where, which is to say, this summer, if you want to go to a

beach you love or to mexico or the caribbean, you will be hard-pressed to find opportunities in home get their vaccine or when they feel confident to go, there may not be much left to go to. there will be other great places, lakes and mountains, but i think you will see all of that will fill in, with the exception potentially being that it takes longer for cities to come back, depending on how cities open up so when new york opens theaters, when museums are open across the globe, when those kinds of opportunities, when restaurants are open and you can eat at them normally, i think people will flow back into all those places. but in the meantime, it is really a question of what is consumer confidence in terms of your confidence and your safety, and what is the place going to be like? if you go to a beach in mexico, it is going to feel like a beach in mexico. if you go to a city where a lot of restaurants are closed

and you can't go to the theater, that is going to be a very different experience. you might wait. emily: peter, you took over last year in the middle of the pandemic, the flood of cancellations, so you have had quite a year. you went through a restructuring, 3000 jobs cap. -- cut. i am curious what you learned from that and how you think expedia might be a different business going forward, given what you have been through? peter: obviously, it was a terrible time we experienced, which you have heard from all travel ceos across the globe. we had huge cancellations, a lot of customers to deal with, supplier issues to deal with. we tried to take care of our suppliers like we try to take care of our customers.

so it was a very tough time. there was obviously questions about the industry, but i was never that worried that travel wouldn't be back. i am no scientist and certainly had no right to believe it would be back this fast and this robustly, but it gave us time to think very seriously about what we wanted our future to be, and get after the change we want to make in terms of how we put more energy into our products, into our technology, into the underpinning of our business, how we support suppliers. so we have taken the year and really put ourselves into that more than anything. and we think we are going to be a much better, different company in the future, better products, stronger for customers, better ways to shop. more ways to come back. emily: peter kern, ceo of expedia, we have to leave it there, but fascinating to hear your outlook on what is to come after what you have been through. of course we will be watching. coming up, we are going to take

a closer look at the cofounder of one of the most popular new social networks. that is clubhouse. everything you didn't know about the app cofounder paul davison, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> if you think about voice, it is a relatively new thing in the world of social networking in the u.s., but it is the oldest medium. we have been gathering with others and talking for as long as civilization has existed. it is something that is really human. so our goal is to create a new type of network that is more about authentic, human connection, then about gaining likes or follows. and we found voice is a really powerful medium. emily: clubhouse cofounder paul davison there. joining me now is bloomberg's lm hewitt who just wrote a revealing profile on davison. thank you for joining us.

i have been following paul for the last 10 years, we had him on the show when he did highlight, which was this social network that got a burst of energy and then fizzled. and here we are at clubhouse. tell us a little bit more about his journey. >> paul davison has been a fixture in silicon valley for at least 15 years. he is known as someone who has a lot of ideas for social apps. he seems to be fascinated by different ways you can use new technology to connect with people. and you have seen that in some of the things he made over the last decade, including as you mentioned highlight, a very popular, for a short time, app in 2012. it was a breakout hit at the south by southwest tech festival in 2012. it used location of other smartphones near you to show you, your friend or a mutual friend is nearby or maybe someone with the same interest

in the same sports team as you. he has also made other apps that automatically encourage you to share your camera roll with a preselected set of friends. he has a reputation for building apps that push the boundaries of what you think your social app should encourage you to do and how much you should share. emily: how has his personality and experience shaped the way clubhouse is developing now? and i am curious if you think clubhouse is bigger than highlight ever was. is it the next big thing? >> clubhouse is going to turn one-year-old tomorrow. it obviously started a little before that but tomorrow marks the one-year mark since paul and his co-founder started their profiles. clubhouse has had a year in which it has grown in popularity , has made a lot of money including at a billion-dollar

valuation, which isn't so uncommon but to reach that point after less than a year of being somewhat publicly available, it clearly has momentum behind it. obviously, with these apps, it is hard to tell how long they will stay at the top, but you are seeing this ecosystem built up at clubhouse, where people are finding their own place as clubhouse influencers. or those interesting pockets of clubhouse. i am seeing the app mature and i'm curious to see where it will go next. as it relates to paul's personality, i talked with people who used to work with him and they say he is super optimistic, energetic and loves to come up with ideas. but that optimism can sometimes blind him to the ways in which his app can be used for nefarious things. we talked to someone who said, when he built highlight, he wasn't thinking if someone was a stalker, someone trying to hurt you, the app could share more

information than you would want. instead he is thinking, people are great, how can we connect them? emily: it will be facing important questions ahead. bloomberg's ellen huet, a detailed profile of paul davison on bloomberg.com. check it out. a quick word about an upcoming event, we are doing on clubhouse, you can join me this thursday at 3:30 pacific, about a half-hour after the show, the bloomberg opinion club page. i will be moderating discussion on the post-pandemic tech economy. i will be joined by some of our colleagues, bloomberg tech veterans, opinion columnists, and be sure to follow bloomberg opinion to get notified when that event begins. i can assure you, it will be very opinionated. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." make sure to tune in tomorrow for more of our one year on bloomberg pandemic.

we will have a ceo exclusively on the move to make uber drivers in the u.k. workers. peloton's ceo is with us later in the week. you don't want to miss it. i'm emily chang. this is bloomberg. ♪

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