emily: i would like to welcome all our bloomberg television and radio audiences for an interview with the microsoft ceo. microsoft kicked off its inspired 20 when he won conference, unveiling a cloud version of windows for remote workers as the world adapts to a hybrid working model. always good to have you on the show. perhaps the biggest headline is you are offering a new delivery system for windows, the ability to download your pc to any device from the cloud. who is the target user? >> thank you for having me.

it is an exciting week for us. a partner conference is something i have grown up with at microsoft and it is a great reminder of what is unique to microsoft. 400,000 partners are going to create 10 million plus jobs over the next four years and for every dollar microsoft makes, $10 are made in the partner ecosystem. in hybrid work, the real need is more flexibility and more options for how to get to your software, your content, your files. we are excited about this new category, the cloud pc and windows 365. we are all getting ready to welcome interns and a way for

them to have a pc available in the cloud, so it is easy to provision. in the height of the pandemic, software engineers, industrial engineers had issues with productivity because they wanted access to the most sophisticated computer activities. they can be working on their home computer or corporation issued computer but will have access to all the content they need. emily: you spoke about this this morning, you are focused on giving your partners the most productive technology and tools. how does this fit into your vision of how we will be working differently a decade from now? >> one of the exciting announcements from this morning's if anything, these silos that exist between communications, collaboration, and business process have to come down. friction all has to be broken. that's what the collaboration application, many of them got

built during the pandemic. people were building the connections between dynamics 365 or power apps and teams. this morning we announced we are going to make that friction free from a licensing perspective. i think it is going to speak to the overall need of flexibility. when we do our own surveys with employees, 70% say they want human connection and 70% say they want flexibility. that's the hybrid paradox. it requires structural change. we are working across all those dimensions. emily: you are also cutting merchant these -- merchant fees. how does that position microsoft competitively?

>> we are very anchored as a platform company. our job is to create more opportunity for our partners and that means providing the best economics of any company out there. when it comes to the marketplace, whether the azure marketplace or the app store, we cut from 20% to 3%. our partners can take that surplus and invest in their own ip and create opportunity for themselves. that's the cord to being a great company and we are focused on that. emily: the business -- the biggest complaint in the business world is how to get

workers back to work and what benefits to give your employees. microsoft is asking employees to be in the office 51% of the time but you are flexible about the rest. is that a permanent policy? for the companies saying you have to be back 100%, are they on the wrong side of history? >> at microsoft we want to be much more data-driven. a year from now we will have more sense of what the real structural change and needs and expectations of our employees and customers are and we will think about long-term policies based on having that data behind us. otherwise we are being overly dogmatic when i think we need to be more experimental in the approach to return to work, because i believe the world has changed. people expect more flexibility. 70% want more talks with others but at the same time have flexibility. on tools, we are making sure we

are going to be great and have remote and together communication. in the past we could have gotten away with good in one or two quadrants, but now you have to be world-class in all quadrants. when it comes to how we think about productivity, how we outfit a conference room -- remote participants are not going to put up with anything other than a first-class experience, so we are making sure cameras in conference rooms allow us to do that. when we talk about remote work, sales, or service, going forward in a world of flexibility or hybrid, it is sales support and service and we need to make the change to our operating model so we accommodate our changed expectations and changed world. emily: the cloud makes many

parts of business more seamless, but there are concerns about key industries moving key data to the cloud consolidated among few companies. the bank of england recently called out some companies for secrecy for the concentration of too much power in the hands of too few. how concern should we be about cloud security and the concentration of that power among cloud giants like yourself ? >> there are a couple dimensions to that. one is the security dimension. one of the most important things coming out of the pandemic, which needs to be a priority for all of us, is implementing zero trust architecture, whether at the application layer or identity layer. this is not even about having the security technology, it is the operational security posture to recognize threats. we are investing a lot, building a lot of technology, evangelizing, making sure our

service is there. that's one dimension. when it comes to concentration risk, the biggest issue is sovereignty. the question every business needs to be asking is, whatever data i have, do i have control over my own data or is somebody leaking the value of my data to benefit themselves? that is more the bigger issue versus where it is residing, one cloud, the other cloud, or with me. it is more, do you have data sovereignty? it applies to nations and companies. that is the bigger issue. this morning at the keynote i

spoke about that. emily: the scrutiny of big tech is accelerating around the world, accelerating on capitol hill, and microsoft seems to have avoided most of the ire of u.s. lawmakers. you have not had to testify on the hill yet. some opponents have told me that's because they think microsoft is really good at lobbying. what's your response to that? >> the fundamental thing that i think is being litigated out there is -- two sides to it. technology as a scale, what are the unintended consequences for the broader society, whether it is privacy, ethics, cyber, what have you? that is one side, which congress and antitrust bodies are looking at.

the second one is competition. where is their vigorous competition or lack thereof or what are the policies of any providers or aggregators or gatekeepers prohibiting competition? on both fronts, microsoft is on the right side of history. we every day get up and make sure when we scale platforms, we are making sure things like privacy org ai ethics or internet safety are being invested in. when it comes to competition, talk to the people who are investing a lot of capital competing with microsoft. we welcome that. on both fronts we remain vibrant.

we will continue to make progress while benefiting those who partner with us. emily: we are speaking to your competitors as well. the impact you struck with the alphabet ceo in 2015 recently expired, the fact -- pact to not lobby against each other, and the relationship has been tense on a number of fronts. are you concerned about returning to the acrimony between google and microsoft? have you talked it out with him recently or would you be open to that?

>> i have a lot of respect for what alphabet and google and soon there -- and sundar and team have achieved. we compete with them on many dimensions. we are fighting the good fight compete against their colossal lead in that space and we compete in the enterprise space every day. we will compete vigorously and cooperate with them. are we going to do stuff which is not aboveboard? anything we have which is an issue with alphabet or google will be in the public domain with them and with others. it is about cooperating with things we both care about.

emily: microsoft just hit a $2 trillion market cap. it is the second most valuable company in the world next to apple. how do you justify that and where does the next trillion dollars of growth come from? >> whatever success we have achieved and whatever we succeed -- we achieve going forward, especially when we are sitting down with our partners, comes back to what market cap we are creating around us. one country, one community at a time. i always go back to the statistics around the 400,000 partners, the 10 million jobs they create, the $10 they make for every dollar we make. to achieve that, we have to be competitive, innovating, invest in building a new modern platform across infrastructure, business applications, and everything in between. as long as we do that, we are in good shape.

coming out of this pandemic, the most malleable resource for us to deal with any challenge, inflation, the need for rapid digital transformation, it is all software. i feel well-positioned, but it comes down to creating not just technology but a business model that allows for broad success around us. emily: cyberattacks more frequent than ever. microsoft has been a victim. microsoft is responsible for protecting a lot of other companies and your partners. how would you describe the threat level right now? if there is something keeping you up at night, is cyber it? >> for short. somebody described this to me, while we have a pandemic, we have another pandemic, which is cyber. at the same time, what is much more in the consciousness of people is the level of attacks have increased, but the need for a response to be top-notch has

also increased. even the hygiene levels, the operational security hygiene levels, we have to get better as an industry because we are only as good as the weakest link. it is not about the largest companies with sophisticated tools and manpower. it is about, what does the supply chain look like and how does we make sure every business is secure? i think this is an issue that is going to remain with us, but i feel confident we can come together, improve the security posture, and make a real dent on whether it is ransomware on one side or nationstate activity on the other. emily: microsoft ceo, satya nadella, appreciate your optimism. thank you for joining us. investors are favoring big tech with the market value of the five biggest tech companies surging over $1 trillion since june. microsoft shares have made up a quarter of that, hitting a record high today with its own market cap over $2.1 billion. coming up, chicago taking a page from silicon valley as it looks to expand its tech scene. mayor lori lightfoot joins us to talk about her trip to the bay area.

and closing the climate gap between long-term goals and a near-term action plan. we are going to speak with vice president -- with former vice president al gore later this hour. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: chicago wants to become a top destination for tech talent and are taking a page out of the silicon valley playbook. mayor lori lightfoot and a coalition of tech leaders visited san francisco last week as part of an initiative to entice 10,000 employees who took tech jobs elsewhere to return to chicago. joining us now, mayor lightfoot. thank you for joining us. tell us about the chicago tech ecosystem today.

how robust is it? what are the biggest companies that have a tech presence? mayor lightfoot: we have a tier one tech community, but part of the initiative and why we went to silicon valley is to make sure we are raising awareness about that community. just this year we have nine new companies to date, which is remarkable, but every industry you can think of in our diverse economy, transportation and logistics, life sciences, food, fintech, there is a tech component that is at the heart of the growth of these industries. we have the most female startups , percentage, in the country. there are a lot of things on the move with us and we just have to do a better job making sure the

rest of the country, particularly vc investors on the coast, understand the vitality of our tech community. emily: you launched a new initiative to get thousands of workers from chicago to come back. what's your pitch to someone who might be working at google,

facebook, or a startup to come home? mayor lightfoot: i don't think it is a hard pitch. through the pandemic, a lot of folks are thinking about where they want to be and whether they need to be in their present location. we want to make sure chicago is part of those conversations.

whether it is a company looking to start someplace, we want chicago to be top of mind. whether it is looking at a second headquarters, chicago should be one of the destinations. or tech talent located someplace else, we want them to think about the vibrancy of the tech community in chicago. it is those three tiers -- startups, expansions, or workforce development, chicago needs to be part of the conversation. we have a robust economy, lowest unemployment of any major city. we have had 32 corporate relocations over the last year, companies that could choose anywhere in the world to locate. they are coming here because of the strength of our underlying economy. when it comes to quality of

life, you can afford to buy a home in chicago. our -- i will put our arts and culture and music scene up against any city in the world. we have a lot of things that make chicago an important and attractive destination. emily: you certainly have silicon valley beat on home prices. you recently came to the bay area, met with tech leaders. who did you meet with and what did you learn? mayor lightfoot: we learned a lot. we met with folks at uber, people at salesforce. we had a lot of discussions with vc investors and ex-pats from chicago. we learned we have to do a better job of highlighting the depth of the talent and vibrancy of the tech community in chicago and telling that story on a national basis, which was part of the reason we took this trip. i think we have to drill down and talk about the nuts and

bolts of why our tech community is so vibrant and what the opportunities are for us and tell that story about the quality of life. those are some things that came out of that. work more with our local tech communities to build that pipeline and make sure it is diverse. one of the things we are focused on as part of our economic recovery coming out of covid is making sure we leave no one behind. no neighborhood, no zip code, no demographic. we want to make sure our recovery is as inclusive and equitable as possible. emily: any early response from homegrown chicago residents? have you gotten positive reception on this plan? mayor lightfoot: very positive from literally everybody we met with.

emily: jeff bezos is giving $200 million to the smithsonian national air and space museum before he heads to space, the bulk of the gift going to create the bezos learning center and the rest to the renovation. it is the largest single donation to the museum since the original founding gift in 1846. coming up, 15 years since the

premier of al gore's inconvenient truth, he is warning that greenwashing may stop the climate fight in its tracks. he is with us, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i am emily chang in san francisco. what are you tracking? >> a mixed picture for tech this morning. the s&p up because only big tech rallied, but the rest of the market was lower, pti prices, in anticipation of that chairman

powell testimony today. that was rallying yesterday, bringing up what you were saying, and today, it is coming right back down, regulatory weighing on those shares. i want to show you, coming back to tech here, apple really marrying each other. apple driving the games. today is no exception, apple hitting a record high. concede on the chart. for microsoft to amazon to of course google as well. emily, it did not bring the rest of the market with it. big tech the sole outperformer today. emily: all right, kriti gupta, thanks for the roundup. there's concern that too much attention is on sustainability rather than managing. investments that make an impact.

this is a finding in the sustainability report. going us to talk about it is the chair and cofounder of generation management and former vice president al gore. mr. vice president, thank you so much for joining us today. we are here are 16 years after you help the world wake up to the climate crisis with "an inconvenient truth." today, are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic that the crisis will be averted? mr. gore: well, thank you for having me on, emily. overall, i am optimistic, because we have seen a banner year in 2020 sustainability. there is a threat of greenwashing, and it needs to be monitored, it needs to be dealt with. the new chairman of the scaredy and exchange commission just started taking steps here in the u.s., and similarly, we have seen concerns where it needs to be dealt with, but overall, there has been an enormous tripling of sustainability with financing flows since 2016, and flows into esg funds have had a threefold increase since 2015.

three-quarters of the economy now is in nations that are under zero commitment. last year, if you look that new electricity generating power plants around the world, 90% of those built last year were solar and wind, and there are lots of similarly encouraging examples, but some of these commitments are for net zero by 2050, which is good, but commitments that will mature when all of the executive teams and all of the political leaders involved are long gone from the scene leave a little bit to be desired. so the focus is shifting toward

near-term goals, with a 50% reduction by 2030, just nine years from now. and a lot of companies are making similar commitments, but you have got to pull back the top players and look more deeply, because some of the companies that are making these commitments don't include their full emissions, and some of the ones that make the 2050 commitments don't include 2030 commitments, which is really the key. emily: so you talk about greenwashing as a big issue, is basically misleading the public about how green your company and products are. how do we address it?

mr. gore: the sec is beginning to take steps, and regulators elsewhere are looking more closely at this, but investigators have to play a key world as well. now that we are seeing this dramatic shift into the sustainability revolution -- and by the way, a generation, we believe that we are in the early stages of a global sustainability revolution that has the magnitude of the industrial revolution coupled with the speed of the digital revolution. we are seeing transformative changes in almost every sector of the economy, and that is very, very encouraging. but investors who want to participate in this have to take care to identify the risk of greenwashing. you know, you so recently -- heard and saw the lobbyist for exxon mobil admitting -- i guess he did not realize the circumstances of the videotape. [laughs] but he just admitted that many of us have long known, there have been a lot of highly cynical greenwashing at exxon mobil.

if you look at other large oil and gas companies, most of them do not include the full range of emissions in their pledges to go to net zero. some of them are focused on becoming a little more efficient in producing oil and gas, and that is an example of greenwashing. the european commission took a look at this and found on eu websites, a very large percentage of these statements are misleading. so it is buyer beware. we have to keep cracking down on this, and investors have a role to play. emily: one of the most important trends you would call out in terms of where the money is going. mr. gore: i mentioned one of

them was the electricity generation, 90 percent last year was solar and wind, and the international oil agency projected in the months going forward, it will be 90%, so fossil fuel companies are losing that market. they realize that. next in line is mobility. electric vehicles are really beginning a big surge. they will fall below the price of their internal combustion engine counterpart next year, important model category, and in the next two, 3, 4 years in the fall model category. so they are losing that market is welp your the risk of standard -- as well. the risk of standard assets. you remember the subprime mortgage crisis in the great recession. $22 trillion worth in the subprime carbon bubble, where there may be an enormous bubble of assets there. one of the problems is the financing for these mature set

errors -- sectors, like building retrofit, the problem is it is not going to the developing countries and the volumes that are necessary. more political risks, higher interest rates, and the multilateral banks, including world bank than regular banks, need to revise their approach and stop financing these dirty fossil fuels that kill people and create worse global warming and direct more the flow toward the exciting opportunities of the future that are already electricity is cheaper, from solar and wind, and drivers prefer the electric vehicles. we can see where this is going, but the finance flows need to anticipate this change more than they are now. emily: have you personally talked to president biden about climate, and what have you discussed? mr. gore: oh, sure. he has been a friend for decades. i don't ever talk about

conversations that are in private with a president of the united states. i kind of got into that habit when i was vp. [laughter] i did not talk about my conversations with president trump. i will tell you, they did not go as well as the conversations with joe biden. i think he has done a terrific job, and i think the agreement announced to include so many -- a huge climate agenda in the reconciliation bill is yet another sign of the leadership he is providing. emily: on that note, democrats are proposing a carbon border

adjustment tax in their budget. what do you think? does it have legs? mr. gore: i am all in favor of that, because of a nation, like ours, for example, takes steps that account for the carbon pollution, and then some other countries as know, we did not pay any attention to that, there ought to be a border adjustment. the european union is moving aggressively in that direction. i think that is the way to go. i know it is a point of dialogue between the u.s. and the european union, but count me in favor of the carbon border adjustment. emily: given what you dealt with as vice president, what is your advice to this administration, with so many swings and misses in the past on climate? they got control of congress come about by a very thin margin.

how do you get republicans on your side? how do you make it so we can avoid what happened under trump? mr. gore: well, i think there are some important changes since the days when i was in the white house. first of all, perhaps most important, the climate crisis itself is now producing these incredibly dangerous, destructive, climate-related extreme events. . as we are having this conversation, emily, people are being evacuated from 60 large fires in the u.s. the fire season started earlier than last year's record season. we saw hundreds of deaths in oregon from the heat. last week a come a beautiful little town in canada, 121 degrees, and the next day destroyed by fire. lake mead is at the lowest level since the hoover dam was built. the entire west is in a mega drought. you saw the videos of people walking through water up to their waist, and the new york city subway is stopped. and there are similar tragic events all over the world. it is incredible what is happening, and i think it has awakened people to the urgency of this. so i think the political

environment is different. you are right that the resistance among republicans is still high. they are still enthralled to the former president, and, you know, this nonsense that the climate crisis -- they have a view of it that is separated from reality, however, democrats have the opportunity in the senate to use the so-called reconciliation procedure, which allows them to do it even if they don't get republicans votes. and of course the house has majority rule, so it can pass there as well. but i would also point out on 65 college campuses in the u.s., the young republicans clubs have joined together to petition the republican national committee to change their position on climate, less vague lose that -- lest they lose that demographic completely died and i know how far they are willing to go, but it is a good first step. i hear from my republican friends that they want elected officials in both parties to move on this. the vast majority of republican voters in the u.s. are in favor on bold action on climate now. emily: china's carbon footprint still dwarfs the rest of the world. speaking of politics, with what seems to be the decoupling of u.s. and china happening right

now, how concerned are you that china will do its part? mr. gore: today, china announced it will launch his long-awaited carbon market initiative, starting with power plants, but it is scheduled to expand throughou their economy. they are going to launch it on friday. president xi jinping surprise the world by announcing a net zero goal for china -- 2060, which is a little too far out, and i hope that by the glasgow conference by the end of this year, the most important climate conference since the paris agreement, i hope they will bring that goal closer to the present day. they build more solar and wind than the rest of the world put together. electric vehicles, electric buses, more trains, long-distance cables, but they

are still building as much coal capacity as the rest of the world put together, so they do need to do more. but the dialogue between the biting white house and president xi -- john kerry is doing an incredible job facilitating that. they have been going in the right direction, and i am hopeful that china will take more aggressive steps. in the lead up to paris, it was china and the u.s. together that made that a success. i am hoping that history will repeat itself with the glasgow conference. emily: richard branson just went into space. jeff bezos and elon musk thanks we need to be able -- think we need to be able to live in space and perhaps even on mars to survive a disaster. what do you think of the efforts in space or mars as plan b? mr. gore: i am all for inspiration, and i hear those who say let's concentrate on planet earth.

but i would remind everybody that our ability to understand and deal with the climate crisis depends very heavily on space-based assets. a generation has helped to finance the new climate initiative, which is using existing satellite constellations and a lot of internet data streams, to, later this year, identify significant sources of greenhouse gas pollution all over the world. so it is not as if we have to choose. i understand that debate, but i remember back when i was young, and the apollo program was going on, i was always so excited about it. and i congratulate richard branson, i wish jeff bezos well, and elon musk is already out there doing amazing things.

and he has -- all three of them, by the way, have been big allies and supporters of solving the climate crisis, and i want to give them kudos for that. all three of them have. emily: as you know, this is a technology show. we cover companies like apple, microsoft, and amazon, which are the three biggest companies in the world. they have all laid out this sustainability plan. i am curious -- do you think big tech is doing enough? mr. gore: first of all, i am on the board of apple, so you will have to forgive me if i am a little bit biased. [laughter] i am very proud of what tim cook and his executive team, especially lisa jackson, have done in reaching 100% renewable energy for the company's operations and soon for the entire global operations of apple. also google and microsoft. microsoft has gone the extra steps to make a commitment to remove its legacy emissions. i think one of the keys is that consumer-facing companies are feeling the pressure from their customers, from their supply

chain partners, certainly from their employees and executives and families. and i think that is one of the reasons why the executive teams, who really want to do this anyway, are finding that it is good business sense to do it for multiple reasons. there are now more than 300 large multinational companies that have pledged to go 100% renewable energy. by the way, those power purchase agreements have played a significant role in expanding the amount of solar capacity and wind capacity in the world. let's take a moment and return to that statistic that 90% of all the new power plants in the world last year were solar and wind. that is incredible! this is one of the fastest transitions that we have ever seen in technology history, and

we saw how the digital revolution disrupted so many sectors of the economy. the sustainability revolution is going to do that even more powerfully and just as rapidly. emily: interesting, and to hear you compare it to the industrial and the digital revolution, former vice president al gore, thank you for taking the time. mr. gore: thank you, emily. emily: a welcome surprise for players of the blockbuster video game nba 2k, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back. let's take a look at some of the

other stories we have been following. amazon has considered developing an alexa-powered wearable device for kids. it provides access to the company's children-focused content and would allow parents to monitor their children. it is unclear if the project will move forward. amazon surveillance devices are continuing to face criticism by privacy advocates. and candace parker will appear on the special edition of the latest version of the block was her game nba 2k. the chicago forward is the first woman to be selected for the coveted role, a step that is two decades in the making for the company's best-selling basketball videogame. the studio added female players only three years ago. coming up, the debate over breaking up big tech. next, we will delve into the arguments at play as some call makers call -- lawmakers call for more. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: apple, amazon, facebook, google, and microsoft make up 1/5 of the s&p 500. they also find themselves the target of legislative and legal efforts. those products are used in nearly every aspect of our lives. this weekend, "bloomberg technology" focuses on big calls to break up big tech here in the united states. here is bloomberg's todd stone outlining the arguments at play. todd: when it comes to antitrust enforcement against u.s. tech companies, a good place to start is microsoft. in 1998, the u.s. justice department filed suit against the company, alleging it had violated parts of the sherman antitrust act. the central issue is whether microsoft, which had more than 90% of the share was allowed to bundle its flagship internet explorer web rouser software with windows, tricking competing navigators like netscape navigator. it was echoed by the ceo at the

time. the judge decided that microsoft's dominance did constitute a monopoly, but when appealed, the ruling was eventually overturned. in the end, the doj settled with microsoft, but the company's once dominant position in the tech industry was eclipsed by upstarts like google and facebook. now we see regulators and lawmakers bring a new antitrust arguments against big tech companies. we have just seen amazon in the crosshairs, as d.c. attorney general carl alleges that a company that prohibits sellers from operating -- offering a lower price at his website is anti-competitive. in december, we saw the ftc and 48 states sue facebook overall whether a crushed competition by essentially buying rivals like instagram and whatsapp. we also have the justice department and more than a dozen states attorney general's investigating google over how it operates as dominant search and add businesses. and we have epic games, which sued apple over its app store prices. that trial even put its two ceo's on the stand. there's the issue of control

over prices, mergers and acquisitions, and whether big tech companies are exerting it fairly. the decisions in these ongoing cases but several residents that reverberate beyond the technology industry, for silicon valley and all of the business technology is watching closely for the outcome. the future of the global economy will depend on it. emily: our bride stone there. you can catch our special -- br ad stone there. you can catch our special friday 7:00 p.m. wall street time, 4:00 p.m. here on the west coast. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." i want to make sure you doing tomorrow, we will be joined by two insiders.

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