Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Technology 20171208

Law. Japans United Nations Ambassador Says his government opposes any unilateral measures. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Parenti. This is bloomberg and Bloomberg Technology is next. Emily chang, and this is Bloomberg Technology. Up, bitcoin mania. We look at its wild week and a major milestone coming up. Plus, nintendo continues a very successful year. We will hear from the companys head of americas about what they have planned for the Holiday Season and 2018. And notable investor tim draper talks about his new fund and weighs in on bitcoin. First, another wild week for bitcoin, the worlds most valuable cryptocurrency. It has been flirting with 17,000 this week, but that has prompted debate over if it is the real deal or not. I could care less how it trades, why it trades, who trades it. If you are stupid enough to buy, you will pay the price one day. Im afraid this is irrational greenspansto use famous phrase. Of course, he then found the market kept going up after he said it should stop. This is a very unusual market. Shares were not in a normal twoway trading market. It is a scam for criminals amount world. Bitcoin just shows you how much demand there is for Money Laundering in the world. , ibased on everything i know am not guessing that it will work out. The bottom line is it is a religion. You have to believe in it or not. I certainly do not think it is a fraud. Is in a bubble . Maybe. Digital currency has gone through a number of these periods, but you have a new plateau each time it goes up and then it comes back and a bit. Opinionsde variety of there p or he to discuss that, i want to bring in the chief ay rcial officer of bitp wide variety of opinions there. Here to discuss that, i want to bring in the chief commercial officer of bitpay and editorinchief cory johnson. Never a dull moment. I really think it makes bitcoin legitimate. Believe it or not, it is still very hard to buy bitcoin. Tofather calls and asks how buy bitcoin, and i have to explain the process. This makes it a lot easier, and buyers and institutions can get into it now. Emily take a listen to it gary cohen had to say earlier. It will allow people the ability to short it. There has never been a transparent market in bitcoin. We will see what goes on here. It is an evolving market. Emily how do you think the market will evolve . Cory this is really unusual. I dont think we have ever had such a high level of interest in something with such a in thin market. 40 of the coin is owned by a handful of people and does not really trade, so the trading is bitcoin. 40 of you will have options and futures based on this very illiquid market that is also not very opaque. It could lead to some really unusual things. A small trader in bitcoin could , butt the price a lot right now, you can only buy or sell, you cannot short. You will be able to short now with these futures contracts, which will add a lot of leverage. Theoretically, it will reduce volatility, but in this practice, it might increase volatility. The irs is asking questions, how to tax it. Sonny is sunny that is an issue. Its hard to know the right rules. Accounting firms do not know what to do to advise these people. In the case of the bitcoin future, it is interesting in the ability to short now. A lot of the banks are taking a wait and see approach for the next couple of weeks and months, but eventually, it will open the door for more of them to start getting involved, which also opens the door for the etf eventually. This really is ground one. Emily what will that mean . It opens the door for a lot of buyers in the country. Then my dad can definitely by now. Very which brings up the important point of consumer protection. Corey you do not really know how to prices are moving. Cory you do not really know how the prices are moving. I figure will be a frustrating experience for a lot of people. Stocks are hard to trade. That commit a, i used to watch on the bloomberg. With bitcoin, they do not really know what is going on. It is not a regulated market, and when there are unregulated markets in the trading of securities, there has always been fraud. We know in the past for all kinds of other things, that has been the case where people can see an order and adjust the market. Emily there are a lot of risks people are worried about. Are you worried about hacking, for example . Sonny not so much. Made people more focused on security, and there is more regulation coming into play, so its making harder thus making it harder for the hackers. I think security is Getting Better and better it is making it harder for the hackers. Raised 30guys just million. This year, we raise for a different kind of investor. We have been profitable all year. We had more money than we raised from the previous allowance, and our growth margins are very impressive for them. Theyreally like this, and give us expertise in the Financial Services arena to take our company to the next level. If you are not worried about hacking, what are you worried about . Jamie dimon saying this is a complete fraud. Y four years ago, when i said it had some potential, it is a 250 billion market cap, so i think people have come to the conclusion bitcoin is here to stay. It really is global. Intalk about the appearance silicon valley, but it is happening in japan, korea, argentina. The u. S. Is the thirdlargest. Rading market for bitcoin it is really a global phenomenon. You have other exchanges around the world offering the same type of product, so it really is here to stay actually. Emily 2018 will be the year of what when it comes to cryptocurrency . Cory i would not have predicted 2017 would be the year Sexual Harassment finally came out of the dark, so who knows what to predict for next year . What he said that was so interesting is it allows companies to use bitcoin to pay for things and they do not have to get involved, but Financial Markets will be able to trade bitcoin and a fully transparent way with all kinds of protections that most trading of other things has, so we will see starting monday. Emily we will be all over this on monday, as you know. Thanks so much for stopping by. Coming up, uber is making headlines overseas and not all of them good. We look at their latest troubles in the u. K. And beyond next. And Bloomberg Technology is livestreaming on twitter. 5 00 p. M. Ut weekdays in new york and 2 00 p. M. And san francisco. This is bloomberg. Emily more legal troubles for uber in the u. K. The ride hailing giants operating license is suspended in the countrys fourth largest city. The city council said they failed to meet an administrative role. Administrative rule. They can continue to operate while they appealed the decision, but this becomes one more legal battle for the worlds most valuable startup. Joining me now, Bloomberg Businessweek columnist. What did they do or not do now . Matt it appears to be a technical problem. They basically did not change the name of the executive on their operating license in sheffield. It kind of seems like a small story. Sheffield only has about 500,000 people, so it is about the same size as tucson, arizona, so that isd, this shows how uber having to play defense all around the world where you have regulators watching the united states, seeing the ways in which the Company Faces scandal, and kind of being harder on them. Despite the fact that we have this technicality as the stated reason for it, i do not think it would be wrong to see their brand problems having played into the decision of sheffield to revoke the license. Emily do you think this will have broader Business Applications as they fight these kind of battles in other cities around the world . Max it is just a small cut, but the problem is it is a moneylosing company that is furiously trying to get to a profitable place so it can hopefully go public in 2019 and every time we have one of these situations in london or sheffield or whatever, it creates more expense, makes it harder for the company to gain its footing, and this is not something they would have wanted or foreseen. It feels like a bit of an unforced error for the company and a little bit embarrassing if you screw up your paperwork and that knocks you out of an important market. That is not a good look. Emily we know theyve been to london to work on the licensing issue, but how does this reflect on his short tenure so far . Max much of what has happened can be dated back to the Travis Kalanick regime. The executive whose name was on the license was the head of their u. K. Operation who had been there when london took away the license, so i think you can kind of what this on Travis Kalanick. I think we still have a few months, maybe even another year before people start to blame dara, but again, it is an unforced error. You helped this does not keep happening. Isly same time, uber getting a Huge Investment from singapores largest taxi operator. It looks to be a similar isuation where uber retreating. Do you see a broader pattern emerging here . Max this is something that started even before the kind of blowup earlier this year with Travis Kalanick, but uber had been on this long march to take over the world and were planning to basically dominate every single market, and over the last year or so, beginning with this deal in china, they have a sickly been on the retreat. They have been cutting deals with local players, trying to find ways where they can sort of cut their losses but still continue to play a role. The story also has a cleanup component to it because what did is sell its rental car subsidiary in report to a taxi company. That rental car subsidiary had been embroiled in scandal when it had been renting cars to drivers that had already been recalled. It was sort of another potential problem area for the company that by selling a majority interest to a local company, maybe this is a way to clean up from the bad days, a way to just make things a little tidier, move on from the scandal and also have a better shot of competing in southeast asia. Question for you. Weve been covering the last couple of weeks Sexual Assault and harassment allegations , a big Shervin Pishevar early investor in uber, and he has completely denied the allegations, even as more women have come forward. What do you make of the tactic he has taken here, even blaming this on a Smear Campaign perpetuated by a Republican Opposition Research Firm . Max it is either four dimensional chess, some kind of very novel Public Relations strategy, or what it feels like to me personally is just a bit of grasping. There has been a lot of apparently erratic behavior coming from him over the last year or so, including this weird activist battle over Travis Kalanick, who is his close friend, and to me, this just deals like kind of an odd Public Relations strategy that is maybe an attempt to either muddy the issue or distract from these allegations, which are very serious, and im sure that who have been dealing with this battle for shareholders and all that stuff just kind of want this guy to go away. It is just yet another issue that is creating problems for this company that until recently was very successful. Max, always great to have you he on the show. Thank you. Coming up, it is blockbuster season for video games. How nintendo plans to keep up with the demand of its switch console next. This is bloomberg. Emily Holiday Shopping season is under way, which means it is blocked western time for video games. While there have been a number realmes introduced, the contender is hardware. Nintendos switch console may even be the hottest ticket of though it hiten shelves eight months ago. It is still so popular that supply could be an issue. Beenliday sales for us has have been very robust. The Nintendo Switch has been one of the hottest telling items all year. Our focus has been on making sure we have enough hardware in stores to satisfy that demand. We have four games that are really motivating consumers to pick up our hardware. Deluxe, and our latest super mario odyssey. Sales are very strong, but there are still four weekends to go to make sure we have a great Holiday Season. As you mentioned, it is one of the hardest hottest hardware tickets in town. How is supply . Reggie right now, we are meeting demand and product is flowing into Retail Stores on a daily basis, but the one thing we keep telling consumers is when you see a Nintendo Switch, you should buy it because we cannot guarantee we will be able to keep up with demand as we continue through the Holiday Season, but we are keeping up with it right now, and that is our focus. Emily the switch has been out or nine months. What have you learned, what surprise you, and what do you see about how people are fitting this into their lives what surprised you . Reggie i would say the first thing we have learned is that we have been very strong at communicating the Nintendo Switch proposition a home console you can play on your big screen tv and then undock and take it with you. Consumers are responding to that proposition. We have also learned that the work we have done to enable a Strong Development environment is really paying off for us. We are getting strong support from big publishers like ea or also gettingwe are strong support from the independent developer, and that is important as it looks to help us with the overall reason for consumers to pick up the hardware. Thats what we are looking for to continue driving our momentum, not only through this Holiday Season but into 2018 as well. Expect the switch to launch in china next year . Big market,a is a certainly a market we continue to evaluate in terms of what we might do and when. Were still in the process of looking at a range of alternatives and different ways to make sure more and more consumers have our intellectual property available to them. No news here, but certainly, china is a market just like brazil and a number of very other large a number of other very large markets we continue to look at closely because we know there is a business opportunity. Emily lets talk about the performance of animal crossing pocket. Sales have struggled. What have you learned from that . Careful withld be your characterization. It has been out only a couple weeks. The monetization element is something that will continue to develop over time. We have seen the consumers who playing ataded are an exceptionally long time, and that bodes well for us. We Just Launched the newest seasonal aspect of the game, tying into the Holiday Season. That is a key element of animal crossing on our dedicated handheld device when we have done that in the past. There is much more to come with animal crossing, and i believe that as we look to next year, we will see the same type of positive trajectory that, for example, we saw with fire and blood heroes fire emblem heroes. Theme parks. Talk what is the status of florida . How will it be different from japan . Reggie the details of florida, exactly when construction will start, what it might look like, we will let our partner at Universal Studios share all those details. The first part will open the first park will open in a soccer, japan. The goal is to open before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Right now, that is the key focus of the team, to make sure that successfully. S we are thrilled to partner with Universal Studios. We think our ip will look wonderful in their Amusement Park space. It is something we believe is just another example of how we are making sure that our intellectual property is touched by as many consumers as possible. President of nintendo of america. Coming up, techcrunch reporting that apple is close to acquiring shazam. We will discuss how it fits into the tech giants bigger music strategy next. This is bloomberg. I am alisa parenti. You are watching Bloomberg Technology. After six months of negotiations between the u. K. And european union, both sides have a deal in place to move ahead to the next phase of the divorce. Theresa may arrived in brussels to announce the breakthrough, which she says will be welcomed by the business sector. Millions of jobs depend on the future trading relationship we will determine. I am optimistic about the discussion ahead. Reaching this agreement makes sure businesses will be able to make investments. Paves the waynt for eu leaders at a summit next week to open the second phase of brexit negotiations covering the transition. The breakthrough includes a guarantee from britain that there will be no hard border between the republic of ireland and northern ireland. Praised ofinister the deal and said it is time to look at the future. Hasy its nature, it strained relations between the ireland and the u. K. Our role now is to make sure we get through that and reestablish those friendships that should exist between britain and ireland and the governments. Is emboldeningl her critics of her 12yearold on power. Of chancellor wants a rerun her Previous Coalition with the social democratic party, but hard lines say that is too high of a price to ensure four more years. They are pushing for a minority merkelent that angela considers to bring to much uncertainty. Peacekeepers were killed from tanzania. The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the congo is the largest in the world. It is the deadliest single attack on the peacekeeping mission in recent memory. Excuse me. President trump has approved an Emergency Declaration in california where wildfires have raged for most of the week. It orders federal assistance and aid for response efforts. Wildfires in Southern California stretch for a couple of hundred miles from san diego to north of los angeles. The biggest fire has grown to 206 square miles inventor a county, destroying in ventura county, destroying more than 400 buildings. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. I am alisa parenti. This is bloomberg. Here is Bloomberg Technology. Emily welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Apple is close to buying shazam according to a techcrunch report. Comes at a time when companies are spending to grab a bigger share of the streaming music market. I want to bring in our bloomberg. Ech reporter who covers apple alex, what do we know . Story, wehe initial have confirmed it with sources. We dont know the valuation. Reporting 300 million. That is not good for investors. Emily shazam investors . Yes. For apple, it does not make a difference. To recognize ai prevents it, but it from going to competitors and differentiate why people buy apple. Emily how do you think this fits into apples broader strategy around music . We have seen apple making inroads into content, but not what their direction is when it comes to video content. Are hiring tv executives and whatnot, but on music, they have had more success when it comes to other streaming services. Along withc side other streamers, they have been doing well. Emily what do you think his next here . Someey are building out sort of video service. The thing about the Music Service is that it is adding revenue, but you have a share of that revenue, which is not the case for the video service. It is infinitely scalable. , it is aam might do similar rationale for why google has a phone them of the access point to direct you towards music. You with siri can say, recognize this song. Push you towards apple music and drive more subscriptions. Music andhave tencent spot a fight making an investment in each other. What do you make of that . Such a competitive area right now. You can see this battle of streaming services that my colleague has been writing about for bloomberg for a while now. Especially with a growing market, tencent has a lot of investments on the technology side. Im sure it would be a great boost for them. We have been reporting about youtube trying to find a new Music Service potentially called remix and revise its chances of getting into music streaming. It is a very competitive area right now. Emily apple announced today that the long time designer at apple who took a step back to focus on designing the new campus is taking control again that the design team. What do you make of it . The head of Industrial Design and user interface, and these two guys were listed on the executive i o page. They disappeared. Page. They disappeared. They were reporting to tim cook. Now they report to johnny ives. Johnny isaksons always been in ivesol johnny has always been in control. Emily does it signal anything about issues with design. It is about how important is johnny ives influence. They have always emphasized it is a team effort. , thereents apple files are 20 people on that. So they see it as a team effort. It might not make a huge difference. Emily the iphone x is a huge design shift. Do you imagine he was involved with that . He definitely goes into that andio every now and again makes a call on what he is in favor of. Formalizes what has been less formal. Webb and our guest in los angeles a, thank you. And a Venture Capitalist. What he is looking at, next. This is bloomberg. Alex webb and our guest in los angeles, thank you. Investing from a Venture Capitalist. What he is looking at, next. This is bloomberg. Years, tim draper has been one of the most successful Venture Capital investors in silicon valley. He is now turning his attention to how to make it easier for Tech Startups to go public starting with a specialpurpose acquisition vehicle. Bloomberg spoke with him about it at the nasdaq earlier today. Real have been suffering liquidity block for a long time, ever since the surveys came out in 2004, and all the break relations that followed that have made it more and more difficult for Big Companies to go public. Growth companies to go public. Very Super Large Companies can still go public the cusp they dont mind spending 10 million a year to stay public. Real, it hasbeen a been a real detriment to the start of community, and four years we had real liquidity problems, and people have filled in many different ways. There have then lots of ferent Creative Solutions have been lots of different Creative Solutions. My friend came to me with this solution and i went for it. For a companyway to go public with out all the pain of having to go through the roadshow and the hassles. Bey can take the money, public, and we think this is a ofat solution for the Group Companies that are in the half a billion to five to you in dollar range. Two 5k there is a billion range. There is a range of companies. There is demand . Buthey want to go public, they dont want to go through all the hassle and spend all going throughe this big, long checklist of things they have to do before they go public. Have you targeted any particular companies yet . We are in a search. All that companies were of interest from our irsdpoint or from the and we will see which one is the perfect fit. ,his first one is a real winner because we want to make sure that we come to market with a real winner because we have ventures ambitions for to fill that market position between 500 million and 5 billion market cap. Mffj. Ant to talk about been upheaval as steve left. He sat on the board of a couple of Companies Including tesla and spacex. Do you know who will be replacing him . Been a, and steve has fantastic investor and great partner for 22 years. Im sure everything will work out fine. When is a transition anybody does anything differently. I had a transition. Back with dfj, and the money i invest ford is with draper associates. It allowed me to go after things govtechtech and where a fund like dfj would have trouble because they think he is doing this and now we have to go in that direction. I have freed them of that. You are still an investor in dfj. What are investors being told since he left . Have you been getting information about how the transition will take place . Dfj is a great entity, a big institution. It will live on and on and there will be changes and partners will move and come back and move it will be a Great Success for years to come. I feel like all the investors pretty much feel that. That is the feedback you are getting from them too . Oh come yeah. Emily tim draper with our own m a chandra emma chandra. Hereis a look at events around the w here is a look at in vince around the world. A Central Bank Meeting in the u. S. , england come in europe. England, and europe. This is bloomberg. Emily when it comes to Holiday Party cocktail chatter, it might be hard to top elon musk. The ceo revealed the company is making its own ai chips to power its self driving cars. Elon musk offered no details but ware will beard the best in the world. Bitcoin rose by 3000 to 17,000 today before falling back. Tim draper has long been an enthusiast. He owns 30,000 bitcoins. Ask if he is concerned about a bubble. Becausewearing my time it is a global currency that is frictionless. It has that trusted third party that is not subject to the whims of some political force. You have been a bitcoin bull for years. You said it would reach 10,000. It has surpassed that this year. What is driving the frenzy in growth. I feel like i made it by just one month. It was a three prediction a 10,000, and it hit 10,000 in november. I was getting a little nervous my prediction would not be fulfilled. Once it hit 10,000, now it will find a real market value. It is are recognizing really important part of our global society. Banked andhanks be un gives you a currency that does not have to float with the political winds. If you are in nigeria and you know it will drop 30 a year, why would you want to use that as your currency. Bitcoin . Nt you use or if you are in argentina where the trust has been shattered because 10 years ago they had a total debt crisis and did not pay it back. Now there is a currency that is not tied to the political winds, and that is really powerful. There are a lot of people concerned as we have seen this huge growth and this huge amount of volatility this week. People like jamie dimon and say it is a bubble waiting to burst. He is totallyife controlling everybodys regular fiat cash. Do you think hes going to say bitcoin is a good thing . It should scare him. He is seeing people take money out of his bank and put it into coin base. Of course he is going to say that stuff. You have to look at who is the messenger. People whoe a lot of are worried that because of its not ality that it is great store of value the way it is being touted. Do you think they have a point . I would say volatility against what . People ask me if im going to sell my bitcoin. Into what . Its like taking gold and turning it into shells again. We know the future of currency will be this kind of currency, a cryptocurrency. There is no reason to go back in time to fiat when you can move forward and say this is the new currency of the future. The volatility is the panic in the other currencies saying wait , this is a better way for all of us to do commerce. This is a better currency. So why are we in this old currency . So they will bounce around relative to the cryptocurrency. It is backwards from the question you asked. Is there anything that would give you pause about bitcoin . The am just so excited that world is going to benefit from this new technology. I just think it is fantastic. And yeah, there are other cryptos that might be pretty interesting out there. We have others and i think they could change the way the currency world works. I think the currency will go the way the internet did. Technologyt the best , but it is the one everyone standardized around when they were building out the internet. Not the best technology now because of a lot of new technologies that have come, but it is the standard everyone is building around. The fact it is the standard and a major brand is going to make sure that that ends up being the currency, but there is always the possibility Something Else will happen. We have seen a number of copycats come at many of them this year. There are 2000 of them. Are there some you would recommend to other people to stay away from . Is it of are going to the standard as you are describing bitcoin . I would say in general that people should think that if they are going to participate in an tokens, i think they should think who is behind it. Who are the entrepreneurs . What is their movement . I think just starting an ico to raise money is not quite in the spirit of it. Ico should be a movement, a sociological transformation come a something people can say, yes, this is something we all need. Yes, we need a better environment. We need more peace in the land, whatever, or we need a new kind of a product for us or whatever. Corporates are for the good of the shareholder, and nonprofits are for the good of society. Well this is a new thing. It is for the good of a future customer. It is a little like a kickstarter. So that is the way i look at these and i think that people who want to put their money in and by these coins, they should be thinking, is this the future i want to see . Is this the future . Are they moving toward something . Are they putting that kind of thought into it as they are buying it . I am encouraging it. I dont know what people are thinking when they do it. Maybe they are thinking, this is fun, better than playing the lottery and i might end up earning money. I dont know why we have the lottery . It is like attacks on making stupid decisions. You are holding . I am maniacal about this. This is so important for the world. To dissolve,ers helps us get along better. Having a global currency is like magic. It is taking a big step this sunday with the launch of futures for it. It will beoncerns used as a move to short bitcoin. Is that something you are concerned about . Actuallythink it is great because it is a currency and people should be able to monitor whether it is too high or too low. It will stabilize and become an even more useful currency. The volatility you spoke of will be lessened by having a futures market. Emily Venture Capitalist tim draper with bloombergs emma chandra. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. We are Live Streaming on twitter. Check us out weekdays at 5 00 p. M. In new york, 2 00 p. M. In san francisco. This is bloomberg. That is all for now. This is bloomberg. David did you ever think that one day that you would be chairman of the joint chiefs . Colin it was beyond any possible level of aspiration. David people said this man should be president of the united states. Colin it had never occurred to me. David any regrets about not having run . Some people say it is a great job. [laughter] david no . Colin prove it. [laughter] david a new National Security advisor came in and he wanted you as his deputy. Colin hello, general powell. This is ronald reagan. Yes, sir. Would you fix your tie, please . David well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right