Russian bots were found to be targeting certain hashtags, including gun control now, gun reform now, and parkland shooting. It is just one way to widen the divide among u. S. Electorate on how to handle gun control, making compromise even more difficult. This has happened with past issues like that nfl anthem debate and the 16 president ial the 2016 president ial election. This ultimately led to Robert Muellers indictment of 13 russians. Facebook and twitter are doing more to expose these bots and fake accounts. Are the tech giants doing enough . We spoke to the senior policy advisor for the counter extremism project from washington. Not only did you see that russian bots come out in full force after the horrific and tragic events in florida but you , also saw the Robert Mueller indictment. Citing facebook thirtysomething times, twitter and youtube. The Tech Companies have a number of problems on their hands. The bots try to create division with divisive rhetoric and fake news conspiracy theories. This is not new. The real concern here is that the same tactic and strategy is going to be taken again in the Midterm Election and the same tactic is also taken by terrorist organizations on the platform. What you are seeing right now is another area that russia is trying to exploit. They clearly have the ability to do so, despite the minor reforms that were made. Take us through it step by step. I spoke to the researcher of the hamilton 68 project who has been , tracking this and he says it was almost exactly the same as what happened in vegas. One, the bots are tweeting and retweeting the breaking news. By day three they start to promote conspiracy theories. This is something that we have seen over and over again. You mentioned earlier the nfl anthem issue and the president ial election, so the fears that this playbook will be applied to the Midterm Elections coming up. How big of a concern is it that this could move to not from just sewing discord, but also fabricating reallife events . We now know that the russians were behind creating a reallife islam protest in in texas . Could we see more of that . Absolutely. Its right out of the russian playbook. They are going to continue to repeat it, it doesnt require them to employ a lot of resource. It is easy and they have been effective. The Tech Companies need to get down content that violates their terms of service, and there are other measures that they can take. You arent going to be able to control every individual does online if they do not cross a particular threshold. ,aving said that, on ad buying there are specific measures that congress is pushing them to take. Companies say they are pushing against it. Why are there so many bots still operating on these platforms . If twitter was serious about that measure, i have seen a Different Levels of reporting, i think 15 of accounts are bots. In any case, there are enough bots that are amplifying the messages of these Counter Intelligence operations, russian propaganda that may influence our elections. If the companies are serious, that are clear measures they can take to crack down on this, unfortunately we have not seen that yet. You cover twitter extensively. What they are doing what they are not doing. How are they actually cracking down here . Twitter is doing all that it can come but they have multiple constraints. This is a company that has had financial issues. They only recently just reported their first profitable quarter. They are dedicating as many engineers to the issue as we can, but we have not heard them actually take steps to hire new people to address the problem. Another issue is that even though these algorithms that twitter has are getting better, these bots are changing their tactics much faster than twitter can keep up. I spoke to some who used to work there who describe it as a whackamole problem. The moment twitter changes are andrhythms to address spam bots, we see a new type of pattern emerge. Thats the challenge that they are up against. They have made steps for transparency. Theyre starting a center for transparency in political ads. They are going to try to keep it as free from russian meddling as possible. When you hear that twitter is doing all that it can, do you agree . If you look at these companies and the amount of money and the size of these companies they are sort of technical wizards. They are able to do a lot with your data when they want to do a lot with your data, and i think they can address some of these problems. Particularly when the line is been crossed, and i would argue that laws are being violated, in terms of what was happening with ad buying. I dont think the Tech Companies are going to have the luxury any longer of being able to operate in this free space where laws are potentially been violated being violated. I think what is going to happen here is that you are going to see not just the public start to get fed up with it, but your you are seeing other parts of the private sector, most notably advertisers. You had unilever executives threatening not to buy ads on these platforms because to be frank, ad companies dont want advertisements running on platforms where there is russian bots undermining our elections. It is bad form for advertisers. I think you are going to hopefully see the Tech Companies step up. I think your seeing pressure out of the u. K. They grilled tech executives here in d. C. Youve seen them being grilled on capitol hill. Mueller has indicted 13 companies and three individuals involved in russian meddling. Are these the same parties were behind this . What we are seeing from the indictment is what russia is doing is much more sophisticated than what congress could have even imagined. I definitely think that creates some fear among lawmakers and these Tech Companies themselves. If they can be this will organize themselves, they have operatives in multiple companies in multiple countries. They had very sophisticated measures to try to cover their tracks. They were buying servers in the u. S. , computers here, and all sorts of very sophisticated tactics to cover up what they were doing. There are many tactics that these companies could employ that they are not doing. Clinton wants, or testified watts, who testified, from the Foreign PolicyResearch Institute said that twitter should ban all social bots. This is not something that they would do, but there are obviously more drastic measures that they could take. These Companies Need to integrate and talk to each other more, and have some sort of shared database about these bots, and figure out how to target them more effectively together. That was the senior policy advisor for the counter extremism project. The federal Communications Commission officially published that they are rolling back obama era Net Neutrality rules. The move is likely to open a floodgate of legal challenges from parties opposing the changes that empower Internet Service providers. Mozilla and vimeo have already filed challenges to the secs repeal. A loss for at t and its time warner deal. The Justice Department says it does not have to identify if there were communications between the white house and jeff sessions. At t has suggested that President Trumps dislike of cnn swayed the decision. An antitrust decision is set for march 19. Offer Broadband Internet around the world. That story ahead. Facebook cofounder chris hughes on his new book and how Silicon Valley can push back on income inequality. This is bloomberg. Emily apple is in talks to buy supplies of cobalt. It is one of the Worlds Largest users of cobalt for its gadgets. It wants to ensure it has enough of the key ingredient in the midst of industry fears of a shortage driven by the electric car boom. Spacex rocket carrying three satellites roared into space yesterday. It is part of a system that would provide Internet Access to remote regions. This particular launch is exciting for a few reasons. One is that it carried two of their the test satellites for their megaconstellation. Going to have 4000 plus satellites. It is going to give people options to the current cable providers. Most importantly, space x is still going to mars, so this is going to be a key piece in their financial architecture that is going to get them there. Talk to me about this effort to bring Internet Access to the farthest corners of the world. This is something that other companies havent shied away from. How is what elon musk is doing different . Satellites provide an alternative way to deliver these Communication Services that go beyond uav based and balloon based things that we have seen previously. Typically these communication satellites are in geostationary orbit. That is very high up. These 4000 satellites going to be much closer to the earth, which gives you a smaller distance that the signal needs to carry. This is going to be incredibly fast broadband connection to the farthest reaches of the planet, on par with new Communications Innovations coming online. Like 5g. Emily each of these launches, also there are new learnings and progress when it comes to rocket reasonability. What did we see here today . This is very cool to see. Space x continues to push boundaries and keep us all interested. Even in the shuttle and apollo years we sought viewership start to fall off, and it is because people want to see what is coming next. Spacex continues to push the envelope. That shield the satellites can back to earth and they attempted to catch them with a giant net on a boat. They missed, but they came very close, and it seems like they have a good plan to catch them next time. Emily you were at the National Space council meeting. They talked about space entrepreneurship at the Space Council meeting. Looking at space travel as a commercial rather than government endeavor. What kind of progress are you seeing there . It was good to be in the room yesterday to hear the conversations. It is good to your the emphasis on streamlining regulation and licensing. The future of space is commercial. The overarching focus in that meeting was really about space entrepreneurship and how the government can continue to partner with them as a customer. Emily what is the mood, given the messaging from President Trump about turning space into the next freemarket paradise . With certainly all have been working towards that for the next few years. So its good to hear the government getting on board with that message. I think the data is starting to back up the story here in a major way. I think we have reached a Tipping Point where the government has really started to pay attention. Emily as comes more commercial, what are the sort of safety concerns, regulatory concerns that you expect to see popup . Net is a great one with the spacex watch that we can talk about. One is the fcc licenses for spectrum. How you bring this unprecedented amount of data back down to earth, and then also how do you navigate the ever increasingly crowded highways in space . Space is very big by a lot of the key orbits are in demand, so how do you monitor all these things . They provide a lot of opportunities for startups. We are seeing startups address a lot of these concerns with Laser Communications to bypass the radio frequency spectrum, new communications that allow them new ground stations that allow them to steer them electronically, you can do that for much smaller, much less upfront cost. And in debris tracking where we are seeing Companies Come in and really do this in a way that we have never seen before. And a cost point that we have never seen before. Being able to track objects and give is a lot more situational awareness. Emily that was chad anderson, space angels ceo. Chris hughes joins us on his new book. Fair shot rethinking inequality and how we earn. Why he says the American Dream is on life support. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. You can listen in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Emily japans softbank is working with nomura on what could be in 19 billion ipo. Of its Domestic Telecom business. Softbank may market most of the offering to japanese individuals. That ipo would be japans largest in two decades. Facebook cofounder chris uses of the epicenter of the start of one of the biggest Tech Companies. Since stepping away from facebook, hughes has become increasingly aware of what wealth inequality in the united states. We caught up with him and began our conversation on his new book about income inequality. Take a listen. I do think that my story is indicative of an unfairness at work in the American Economy today. Three years worth of work can lead to have a billion dollars in financial reward should give people pause, particularly in a moment where median wages have not budged in 40 years. We have not created fulltime jobs in decades. We create parttime, contingent, flexible jobs. Work has come a part and income any quality is only getting worse. It is important to be honest about the unfairness at work in ader to usher us into situation of wage inequality wage equality. Emily why should we listen to a 1 er about this . A lot of the people i grew up with have told me the American Dream is on life support. When you cant find 400 in the case of an emergency, you cannot find the gas money to go interview for a job, for child care, health care, all of these sorts of things. A lot of us on the left and right are casting about, like what we can actually do about it to change it. That is where i think the guaranteed income comes in. Emily as you came into wealth, how did that shape your ideas around inequality . Did you have your own personal transition . I think particularly in my case where we started facebook and over the course of nearly a decade, grew and grew and grew. I saw my own Financial Holdings grow and grow and grow from the first year that i was working there. For several years after i was not at the company. I was working on different projects, i was working for president obama, i was doing a lot of different things, and yet the wealth just kept growing. It gave me pause. What is the source of this wealth . Is that the actions we are taking more Major Economic forces that are happening behind the scenes . And in a very personal way after facebooks ipo, my husband and i decided to give away the vast majority of this money because , it feels like it is the only way to address the unfairness that it created in the first place. Emily tell me about that discussion . When you were fortunate and you come into this kind of wealth you think about where , this comes from, where did i get it, why did i get it, and what i owed this to particular owed it to other people. What i did with my family and what my husband did with their family, theres a sense that you should be always thinking about what you will one another. We one another. Emily Silicon Valley has created an incredible amount of wealth and somewhat say it comes with a sense of entitlement for some of the richest people. Do you think Silicon Valley is too arrogant these days . Chris i do think there is a sense, particularly among people who have made a lot of money, that it is all because of ones own actions. I think we tend to underestimate the power of these macroeconomic forces behind it all. Things like automation, globalization, the rise of finance. Over the course of 10 years before it went public, facebook raised over 500 million in venture capital. That kind of financing was not possible 30 or 40 years ago. It is specifically because of financial changes that we made in the 1980s. Emily in the meantime, uber has raised billions of dollars. Chris facebook isnt the only company, its a trend. There are many things that are happening that are creating this wealth in addition to anyone individuals contribution to it. Emily Silicon Valley often prides itself on being a meritocracy. Do you think it is a meritocracy . Chris i think we love the idea of meritocracy in america, this idea that one person can work her way up and be successful. Mark zuckerberg said it in a speech that the fact that he was able to learn how to code in high school was because his parents had jobs was an incredible lucky break that made it possible to be at harvard and to create facebook collectively. I think it is a complex interplay between the role of luck in the role of work and the role of work. All of these successes are you are combination of both. Emily that was facebook cofounder chris hughes. One of the fastestgrowing clouded Data Software firms added a tech veteran. We will speak with rubric ceo and microsoft chair John Thompson next. All episodes of Bloomberg Technology are Live Streaming on twitter. This is bloomberg. Emily welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Technology. Ive emily chang. The data in clout Software Company rubrik has grown rapidly since being launched in 2014. It hit unicorn status last year with a 1 billion plus valuation thanks to interest from investors. Now it is picking up the momentum with the help of microsoft chair John Thompson, who just joined the board and is advising the company. We spoke with rubrik ceo and cofounder. We built rubrik to have a Single Software fabric that goes from one premises to the cloud. This unique architecture has made rubrik into one of the Largest Enterprises for people that want to manage their data. Emily what stood out to you as special here . John every 15 years or so there is an Inflection Point in every segment of our industry. No innovation had ever entered this particular segment for the last 20 years, so my view was it was time. When i got introduced to him, i thought why not make an investment into him . It is time for a change in the sector. Emily why is this versus what amazon or microsoft better than what they have to offer . Just because applications run in the cloud does not mean that the need for Data Protection management goes away. Both amazon and microsoft have a Deeper Partnership with rubrik and we go to the market together. Emily we hear the word partnership a lot when talking about enterprise companies. Who is going to own what . When does the partnership not make sense . When does it make sense to own as much territory as possible . John lets would clear, the customer owns the data. I think it is as time goes on it will become an issue of, who has the strongest share in the enterprise . Clearly microsoft has a pretty strong position. Aws has done very well. With earlystage Companies Looking for a cloudbased platform, for those enterprise customers who really want to move their data and apps to the cloud, they have chosen to opt for microsoft as opposed to other alternatives. I think it is a good thing for microsoft and to those clients as well. Emily what does it mean for the up and comers like rubrik . John rubrik knowledges and acknowledges and recognizes that a certain amount of the data is going to remain on it and a certain amount of it is going to move to the customer cloud. The customer has a choice for where they want their data to reside. Emily where do you see the cloud industry going . There is all this talk about hybrids, but at a certain point, again, it is about ownership, right . Which cloud will be bigger, private cloud or public cloud . Will this hybrid model endure for the longterm . At rubrik the way that we think about our business, we data, whatever their data is, it really does not matter to us. What were seeing in the marketplace is Large Enterprises are looking at public clouds and asking, how do i gain a profitability by going into the cloud . Rubriks growth is kind of based on the growth of the public cloud. The group from zero employees 800 employees. We just hired a new cfo and john joined me on the board. To help us build a longterm thirtyyear company. We are envisioning that various companies will want to run the application. We want to be the Data Management platform. Emily you are making a huge commitment to protect your customers data. This is nn age where data may be more unsafe than ever before . There is so many bad actors out there. John, how would you characterize this threat environment and the importance of protecting your data with a product like this . John there is no question that the landscape has changed quite drastically since when i joined back in 1999. There are more experienced hackers attacking us and there are more geopolitical attacks that are going on, which are hard to separate from someone who is in it for profit, versus someone who is in it for intelligence, if you will. One of the things that rubrik has done is that they have integrated not just Data Management, but Security Management into the platform so customers get the benefit of both when they go to the rubrik platform. Emily thanks to the rubrik ceo and cofounder as well as microsoft chairman John Thompson. Citigroup is a financial powerhouse and the fourth largest bank in the united states. Within the walls is a new incubator for internal startups that aims to compete with Silicon Valley firms that have been around for decades. Withoined us along Bloomberg Tax selina wang. We think it is really important at citigroup to constantly focus on bringing the outside in. How do we make sure we stay involved in Cutting Edge Development . So much of that is being present where entrepreneurs are present. We work with entrepreneurs who might eventually want to be partners, but we also work with entrepreneurs who are thinking about expanding overseas, and using citigroups global footprint to understand the market. That is all aimed at how do we bring in that outside diverse perspective back into the bank. You have ecommerce investments, Machine Learning data, analytics, so how would you describe the portfolio strategy here . And are you shifting . It is aimed at both infrastructure type investments, so things like cybersecurity. That is incredibly important to all Financial Institutions. But also, more and more since i fintech commerce payments. What do you think you have on the typical Silicon Valley vcs . We can really leverage the history of the company and help entrepreneurs of gold their entrepreneurs build their businesses. What can you do to help them reach new consumers and reach new markets . Distribution is a big challenge for many companies. I think there is a place for all different kinds of investors in the ecosystem. What we find is that we tried to work with companies to not only help them grow, but help them learn to navigate working with a large complex organization. It is not easy to know who makes the decisions or when to go in. We think of it as someone guiding you of the mountain. It is not enough to say to talk to selena when you get to the top. We do a lot of those ventures to help a trip was meet their success entrepreneurs meet success. A lot of these companies are targeting aspects of traditional banks. How are you looking at the threat that these fintechs pose . We dont think of it as a threat. What is really opposing change is changes in technology and changes in customer expectations. It opens the door for new players to come in. I think what you are seeing over the last several years is not just fintech come again, but incumbent banks and fintech working together. We have heard people talking about how bitcoin is volatile. Jamie dimon said its a fraud, you try to take them back. What is your position on bitcoin and blockchain is a future technology . We have been experimenting with blockchain for over five years now. It is a very new technology and experimenting is the most important thing. It is easy to say experiments with blockchain. It turns out when youre a big Financial Institution you have to build a lot of internal capability and internal muscle, which we have done through investments in places like chain. Com that are focused on helping large institutions figure out how to use the technology. We dont think that blockchain has any one single use. It is more about exploring multiple ways that it might help us deliver better for our clients. What are some of those ways . I think a lot of people see blockchain as a panacea for all of a banks problems. Is it more like another tool in the Software Suite . You have to think of it as a tool. Released awe blockchain tool. It is fundamentally a Network Distributed technology. Its not so that you can go off to your own Conference Room and experiment with very it is one example that we have used is cocreated with our clients. We do not believe that we can go off and create products and services on our own and keep up with the pace of change. We believe we have to be working with clients creating and figuring out how to meet their needs. Over the coming years and decades we will all find that there are probably multiple uses of new technologies like blockchain to meet with clients. Need. Broadcom slightly lowered its emilybroadcom slightly lowered its offer for qualcomm to 79 per share. The target boosted its own bid for an xp. That is down from its best and final bid of 82. Qualcomm says that broadcom made an inadequate offer. Qualcomm shareholders vote on this next month. Uber is launching its first new product in three years. Details from a top uber executive are next. This is bloomberg. Emily the go at it alone approach in japan is not working. That is with the ceo of the city in tokyo on tuesday, announcing he is now looking to forge partnerships with local taxi companies. He made it clear that japans taxi market is already high 16 billion quality, but it could be more efficient. He traveled to india afterwards, where uber is competing against a local ride hailing start of. In the u. S. , after months of testing in san francisco, uber is officially launching a new feature, uber express pool. The first new product for the is bringing a change to the current model. The idea is to make up make pickups for drivers just as cheap as they are the passenger. Even stop joins us to explain. We asked writers to walk a little and wait a little in order to have a much better ride. Its more affordable because we can match more efficiently, and the ride tends to be straighter and faster. How many trips in the u. S. Are actually uber pool trips at this point . Any moment we are going to cross one billion total uber pool trips. In the cities we are live in 16 , it makes up about 20 of the total ride. Emily what are the percentage of people who request the strip to actually get matched request these trips actually get matched . I dont have those numbers, but we are trying to get three people in the car at the same time. Im sure all of us have experienced those rides what we are the only passenger in the car on the pool. Over time it means that we , cannot offer such an affordable price. Whats great about the walking and waiting with express pool, is it increases our likelihood of making a highquality match, which means that we can offer that affordable product overtime. Emily gizmodo said honestly, just take a bus. How do you respond to that . That is actually a pretty good article that talks about the differences between express pool and a bus. Public transit works very well on very highcapacity roots routes where you can run large vehicles. Uber is good for those complicated, cross city journeys. There may be pickup and dropoff that last mile from a Public Transit option. Emily a lot of riders love it but a lot of drivers do not. How do you find a happy medium . Drivers are working hard and would love to make more money, so we have actually introduced late last year pickup and dropoff fees specific to pool. Looking at the nonmonetary component, there have been some things that we have done in terms of how we manage the service that made it less fun to be a driver. Such as the routes and detours and backtracking you would see as we were trying to make a match between 2 riders who were not necessarily most compatible. We wanted to make it better for drivers, because if you feel uncomfortable sitting in the backseat of a shared ride your driver does not feel any better about that either. Emily how much money does uber actually make on it uber pool make make on uber pool . That is very difficult to break out. We are very pleased with the overall profitability of the company. Some of the public financials we released recently showed that the curve is really a nice we one. Can continue on a path to profitability towards a future idea. Emily how much does it actually contribute to ubers profits . How much of this is driving a mission of more democratized transportation . I realize over is not a charity. Were a very commercial business. What i love about uber is that the combination of the mission of making cities work better and provide transportation i think is going to be tremendously profitable business overtime. Pool is an obvious component of that. Emily as uber starts to think more look more like public transportation, how does . Does this move you closer to bus systems in cities . There are things that we are very good at doing. One of them is providing highly Dynamic Transportation options. The other is building software. I think both of those things are wonderful compliments to a Public Transit agencies tend to do. I think there are many different ways that we can partner with cities in the future. We have a pilot the city of cincinnati. Were starting to explore different ways that uber can complement Public Transit. Not only in terms of coordinating it at data level, uber taking on utes thatership ro are deficient for Public Transit to run. Emily you joined uber 11 months ago. You kicked up a very long series of dramatic moments and leadership changes and now they have a new ceo. What has that been like for you as a new employee . What do you think about the new guard . I chose to join it about one year ago because i knew many people there who were working very hard on the future of transportation. It was a mission that excited me. We had it to mulch with your last year a tumultuous year last year. I think the new ceo has been phenomenal. Im very excited to be working there. Emily that was the uber product manager. Coming up, carmakers looking to capitalize on your data. The possible regulatory hurdles they may possibly face. Next. This is bloomberg. Emily the Auto Industry is racing to a new connected future. One in which wireless connections in cars combined with artificial intelligence. Its spurring in car Advertising Software powered by personal data. But the question remains. Can automakers profit off of all of the data they are capable of collecting without alienating consumers or risking backlash from washington . We spoke with david welch. David Current Companies collect a lot of data. Your car knows a lot about you. It knows how many people are in the car, because the airbag sensors have to know who is seated, and where. Seatbelt sensors on a beach that you of your not buckled in, it knows somebody is sitting in that seat and it probably knows the weight. The weight tells the car whether or not to beep at you. It knows where youve been and it might track your frequent destinations and might even suggest your home or work. If you are driving a certain route it might say to stop for that sandwich, here is some specials on beer and wings, whatever that is. All that is possible. Thats not really happening now. The Car Companies are not selling your data at this moment. They do work with some third parties, but they are not en masse selling your data. They still aggregated data. Its hereto to a limited extent, and its absolutely coming. Emily we are talking about this being focused on the actual navigations screen. We have talked about distracted driving. Is there a safety issue here . It could be. General motors has launched something where you can make restaurant reservations, or order coffee. Simcity groups have already deprived of some safety groups have already hyped up on this. Wondered if we are getting into the area of too much. Is there a safety issue . Gm has made the system pretty simple, so you dont have to spend a lot of time staring at it, but the safety groups are really starting to take notice. They are not in favor of it. Emily who are the big players trying to get in on this . There has been a battle between the automakers and Companies Like google and apple. Those systems right now, there is already a fight about how much data those systems can access. Your apple phone will plug in and it will basically go on screen, but only certain apps will work with your car. That is the Car Companies way of keeping google from mining all of your data in the car. If youre using waze, it knows where you are and it does flash popup ads. On the screen of your phone. It does not have to get in the car itself to track your data and give you popup advertising or market to you or just know where you are. Emily have regulators weighed in on this yet . Not really. And that privacy is kind of the wild west. People are giving up a lot of their information for Different Services online and cars are kind of the same way. Right now car executives are saying they dont want to sell your individual data to marketers, they will not do that. A couple of them said they dont want to make that statement forever. They just said they are not doing that right now. Emily thanks to bloomber david welch. You can read this story on the bloomberg. Com hyperdrive. That does it for this edition of best of Bloomberg Technology. Tune in next week when we will be live from barcelona and mobile world conference. Speaking with the ceos of Deutsche Telekom and many more. Tune in every day, 5 00 p. M. In new york, 2 00 p. M. In san francisco. All episodes of Bloomberg Technology are livestreaming on twitter. This is bloomberg. You shery coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. The u. S. Treasury auctions off billions of dollars of bonds. Basically, we are back to the same kind of demand structure that you saw in october, november, and december of last year. Shery the ecb will be getting a new vp. Banks make news of new construction and staff reduction. Leaders in finance decifer mixed signals coming from markets. We are not expecting any more multiple expansion out of the u. S. Equity market. We think it has to be earnings driven from here. When we look at develop markets, we think the u. S. Bond market and australia are the most attractive right now. There are longterm