Makes their company ceo. Their company so unit. So unique. Silicon valley is listening to your most intimate moments. It is the focus of bloomberg businessweeks indepth piece on how the Smart Speaker praise users vulnerable to the conversations being transcribed. Here with the story including the devices and use of contractors to transcribe those attimate conversations is m in seattle, sarah from San Francisco, and austin from new york. Let me start with you come austin. The management with you, austin. We spoke to dozens of transcribers and contractors in the stories. Everywhere from ireland to india. They really had ethical quandaries with the service, they were eavesdropping on a lot customers toexa improve speech recognition capabilities. Is really fascinating thing the profound disparity you mentioned. A lot of the contractors felt this was ethically dubious. The Silicon Valley folks that we talked to really did not think this was such an issue at all despite years of privacy issues. It is essentially a way of improving Quality Assurance. Oneecutive at apple executive at apple described this as a way of fixing voice books. The bigger question is whether consumersed this to that they may be relisting listening to recordings at some point. We have seen a lot more of a Companies Issuing new disclosures Company Disclaimers come of a particularly when it comes to Companies Like facebook or apple, apple in particular says they have privacy at the center of their core value, but this would seem to be an indication that they have not woken up to the fact that users expect more privacy consideration and more data privacy when it comes to interacting with these devices. Taylor lets bring in now matt to explain some of the security concerns. Privacytion about without really getting at. Your take . They realized putting a microphone in peoples homes was going to be a controversial thing. They were not so upfront with the fact that they were sort of using user data in a massive rnd lab to improve the service and get new ideas, and for new features and to correct errors in the system. Taylor now i want to get to facebooks latest. Sarah, what is interesting here is facebook is in your entrance into the market. Why would they get into the market now . Even after all of the controversy, facebook still felt like it was important to do the same with their data, theyre listening data to try and improve it. They really didnt think of it as very different from all the other things they collect from their users. As you scroll facebook, as you surface, direct on the facebook thinks you understand they are going to look through everything you say and do and it use it to make their system smarter. The thing is, there is a difference between a machine doing that and human beings doing that. Especially with audio data. There is something so intimate about the way that this works behind the scenes. And if it was so natural and obvious to the companies, why did they feel it was not necessary to disclose it to consumers . Of course consumers are alarmed. Taylor given Everything Else that is going on with the lack of trust and facebook, any sense that customers are trusting facebook with this device . They are purchasing it. There is a lot of compromise people make for their own convenience and entertainment, but i think a lot of people are about the network of contractors that are listening as matt audios to do explains, Quality Assurance testing and trying to improve the way that speech recognition works. Facebook looks at this as an accessibility issue. They are trying to make sure all different types of human voices can be recognized by their computer. The fact that they need humans to do this because the machines are not ready yet, well, that certainly was not part of the marketing. Garrett, google continues to use humans instead of real employees. Does that help give them cover for all of this . Yeah, google is also using contractors. That is the point my colleagues just raised. For me, when i first started the stories and ridding the reporting of my colleagues, this was mostly being done by contractors, not contractors. People were employed by a completely different countries, sometimes in countries very far away from the headquarters, that these companies are based in where they make their big decisions. With google, that really sort of hit home earlier this summer when one contractor in the netherlands walked out of one of his offices, taking with him a bunch of voice recordings, gave those over to some journalists, were able to listen to them and they correct with the actual humans were whose voices were being reported. Recorded. Of a scandal, bit and google has said that they have actually paused human transcription of google assistance audio. Of course, they need to prescribe transcribe these transgressions with humans to continue to improve the service and make sure it can understand people with different light which is, accents, speech impediments around the world. Its to keep up with the competitors. Taylor the us or to get a sense they would use more technology other than human review to give us comfort that not actual humans could be listening and . Think all these companies would like that, but it is still not quite good enough. You still need humans to double check that these things are learning, they are improving. For the time being, we are going to need humans the same way with tesla cars, there are going to be accidents, we need human drivers in some of those self driving cars until we get to that point sometime in the future, not sure when, that the machine can fully take over on its own. Matt, sarah,n, garrett, thank you for joining us. Now, the billiondollar merger deal currently being challenged by 13 states and the district of columbia in a new york city courtroom. An executive says the Wireless Phone provider will not survive much longer without the tmobile takeover because it lacks the resources to upgrade its network and has generally weak business prospects. President of Vice Development and engineering testified that sprint would not be viable within the next two years. The testimony rebukes claims that sprint has a viable plan b. Several states are stilling due to anti suing due to antitrust concerns. It is expected to last about three weeks. Coming up, we go through a list of best places to work. Spotne spot earned the top , while players like facebook and google live from the top 10. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, you can listen on the Bloomberg App , bloomberg. Com, or in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Taylor apple is offering a number of eye watering pricing options with their new desktop desktop mac pro computer, just under 6,000. It will set you back about 52,000. It doesnt include the 400 wheels for easily moving around the office. Big Tech Companies used to be mostas some of the worlds desirable workplaces, but appear to be losing some of their luster. Facebook and google have dropped out of the top 10 best places to work in the u. S. According to glassdoors annual rankings. Years top top 4 four to discuss this years top four, we are joined by our guest, andrew. Big tech is continuing to drop out. Why, what is going on . Even being on the list anywhere even if you drop is still a great place to work. The big story with tech is these Big Companies have they Company Problems today. Thepolitical scrutiny, Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is changing what it is like to to work. We are that another big Tech Companies. There are now 10,000 plus employees. That is starting to weigh down on culture. Taylor facebook in particular caught our eye because we talk about the company so much on this program, dropping 16 just two years ago they were number one, is it really becoming a big company . It has partly changed because of the political nature of some of the controversies. Really doesnt hold up in an era where your product the straps the u. S. Election disrupts the u. S. Election. The other thing to know about facebook is that we look at all the different kinds of ratings, pay, andlife balance, one that has slipped his Senior Leadership. Some view facebook with problems. Taylor taking a positive spin on all of this and big tex taking big tech still taking why is big tex such a big portion . Big tex such a big portion . Big tech such a big portion . They have been in this intense competition for talent. Tech invented the Great Workplace experience out of necessity. Today, it is being copied by people more and more because they know that it works. The common theme is simple. Opportunities where people feel like they can row am i having Senior Leaders that people believe in, and it is having a Clear Mission and a job,so it is not just that it has some social impact as well as businesses. Taylor i want to take some of what you said and look at the key themes in the top 10. In an out burger versus hub spot, what collectively made of the top 10 . The top 10 is a really diverse group. ,e had a government employer you have ultimate software, and hr tech club company, and an out burger, financial, and others. What binds them together . A lot of people are surprised to see in and out. Work ine best places to the perspective of employees themselves. Benefit,t has great Career Opportunities for their people, and Senior Leaders will have a commitment to always serving fresh and never frozen food. They are like a family. Those of the things that unite all these companies, not pay, not an industry, some of our winners are located in utah, iowa, not all are in San Francisco and new york. Taylor the number one hub spot is located in massachusetts. How much is cost of living coming into this . This is definitely a factor. We see more tech bunnies locating outside the superexpensive Silicon Valley area. Boston is quite expensive. They have their own version of Silicon Valley there. The secret is they are drawing on talent from the big universities, what they benefit from. Taylor i want to end on one other company to help us lead into a transition to our next interview, which number three, doc you sign. Focusign. Docusign. People and reviews for them say that the culture comes from the top. And leadership driven. As i can to you from my research, culture never comes from the bottomup, it always comes from the top down. That is one of the main reasons why it ended up as number three. Taylor we are all going to go back to in and out to get some of those free burgers. That was andrew chamberlain, glassdoor chief economist, thank you for joining us. Coming up, we continue our conversation on glassdoors shop employers Top Employers of 2019. Thats next. Bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. Be sure to follow our global breaking news network at quick take on twitter. This is bloomberg. Uber and the l lyft are well positioned to make a profit. They decided that the pair could charge more to make an operating profit with only a modest impact on ride volume. Lyft shares have failed, over is down nearly 39 . We just spoke about glassdoors annual list of the best places to work. While we saw a big tech names like google and facebook drop out of the top 10, we saw others rest to the top, doc you docusign landing the number three spot. What makes your company stand out, why would i want to come and work for you . Our employees have spoken that there are couple of things, we create an exciting vision. We go beyond the signature piece that most people know was four and have a broader platform to build to be part of the next big thing. That is one. Number two, the impact investment. Giving people a reason to be proud to be working at the company. We really try to be a positive role player and what is going on with global warming. The third piece is, because people love our product, employees feel really good about working at docusign because we hear Great Stories from customers all the time. Taylor we just heard from Angel Chamberlain andrew timberlane that culture starts from the top. How do you set the tone you are setting . To a company that has a great culture with a great leader, but in terms of the small part, to improve the culture, i think it is about inclusiveness in the setting. We do a lot of a lot to really understand what employees one to make it the best place they ever worked at. And then try to deliver on those components. Taylor i want to talk about the fundamentals of your company, mainly he went public in april of 2018. I hear a lot of ceos come out and say they should not have gone public when they did, because the environment today is so difficult trying to become a public company. You are happy you went public when you did. Somewhat of aave contrary view. I think companies should go public when they are ready and not time to the market because you want to make sure you have the right maturity and controls in place. That some ofnate the challenges today, we didnt have to have a lot of thought to, the we want a traditional ipo, which is on the minds of all the folks, but i do think it time, and we got the choppiness of the last year behind us now and be able to grow very well. Sign is notu profitable just yet. You have pressure to be equitable . Because of the stock charges, net income, i do think we get investors now telling us that growth is the number one imperative. We are focused on doing that. We are trying to build the agreement club, we will focus on growth. Investors are saying they want responsible growth and that path to profitability. With the margin, we will be a highgrowth, but also a profitable organization. Taylor i also want to look at the rest of your stock price. Prices when of about 150 or so since the ipo. I wonder if you can live up to ,ll the heightened expectations like Revenue Growth, like billings growth, how do you live up to that . Will tell you do your point, if you think about the universe, we are in an alltime high for multiples in the space. I think they are warranted, anduse of the high growth the components we talked about showing the profitability, people see something we really have not enough the Tech Industry for a long time. Highgrowth and a path to profitability. I think they are warranted, but they are heavy valuation, but we are confident with the power we have at docusign to deliver on those expectations. Taylor im going to give you two options, going into 2021, would you prefer to up sell to existing clients or target new clients as you look at the Revenue Growth . Of course i want both, but to answer your question, we are a customer oriented company. It is important we bring you people most focused on driving success. The upsell you are describing, that happens, because we are driving success. Thead 117 last quarter of net revenue retention, which means the business with existing customers is growing 17 without bringing new customers on. I think that is a powerful driver for us. I would take the Customer Success german growth. Taylor you talked in the beginning and the interview about agreements you have come to with other companies. What more can we see from you in terms of engagements with other companies and securing more future agreements . Theave always been partnership company. It was interesting, before we went public, people think it was so unusual that competitive Companies Like microsoft and google were all partners of ours. They are all investors in our company. But we continue to focus on partnership. Taylor finally, there have been rumors docusign could be the next acquisition target for a company like salesforce, are you open to be acquired . When you give up your company is sort of give up your right to set your destiny, but i can to you this, we do get calls, we dont comment on any rumors, of course, but i would love to continue to run this independent company. Im having the time of my life. As long as they will let me, i will continue to run it independently. Taylor i am going to let you get away with that answer for now. That was the docusign ceo, dan springer. Coming up, cisco takes the chipmaker leader. The new data center ch chipmaker dent in areas like broadcom . This is bloomberg. Technology global link, where daybreak australia to bring you the top global tech stories of the day. To buy azons bid majority stake in deliver roof deliveroo may get an extended look from regulators. The reasoning being that the purchase could hurt competition by discouraging the American Company from reentering the british food Delivery Market on its own. Amazon has five days to offer remedies to the agency. The Chinese Company that owns is hoping forok another viral success. About been installed by 27,000 users and what the Company Hopes will eventually rival spotify and apple music in countries where paid Music Services have yet to garner large audiences. With oring working join softbank in april 2017 and will be replaced by the senior managing partner at softbank. Those are the top global tech stories we are watching. Taylor thanks, paul. Networking giant cisco has to majorupplying tips operating centers. Its already being used by the likes of microsoft and facebook. Cisco claims its tip is the fastest in the industry and is offering it to all customers, if they use its network machines or not. Joining us to discuss it is ian king, who covers the chip sector. Is this a new avenue for business for cisco . Ian it is a big move. They are basically adjusting to the world in which networking at semiconductors have moved. Once upon a time, if you wanted to build the best, fastest computer network, it was difficult, so you went and bought a box from cisco. Then along came amazon aws, facebook, google. These companies developed their own skill set and said they did not knees the dish did not need these big boxes and could do it themselves. Cisco is saying their components are fantastic, you can use them, go ahead. Driver for is the cisco . Nearterm sales goal or longerterm sales shift . Ian normally when Companies Come out they talk about a chip coming next year and what they are going to do. Part of the surprise today was the fact that they are already supplying them and already using them. Taylor you talk about facebook and microsoft already using some of the chips within the networking components. Are they looking to off sell to those existing clients or target potential new clients . Ian they are not really cisco client anymore. Less than 2 according to one estimate we have comes from hyper scale of awses and facebooks. Anything is better than that for cisco, and these products are not cheap, so if it can make major inroads to their data centers, thats good news for cisco. Shery when the industry is expecting less Enterprise Spending for 2020, will this shift help . Ian it wont hurt. To,o, as you are referring has been suffering. Some ofad to take down what wall street was expecting basically because a lot of big Service Providers have not been the network and enterprise has been a little bit weak. Anything which offsets that, anything going around that kind of dependency is good for cisco. Taylor is there any potential pushback given that this chip could put them in competition with some of their own suppliers . Everybody in this market has really been reliant on broadcom. Broadcom is the only what is called merchant silicon vendor. Supplied cisco as well for some of their lower and stuff, so they have clearly they clearly will not enjoy this. This is much more competition coming into the market for them, and intel which is also a cisco. Upplier cisco is now saying they will stuff to rival them as well. Has ciscot else announced and what could we expect in the broader lineup in the coming years . Ian 5g will be needed to move a lot of the data around and they a new router. Transmitting data over fiberoptic cables is kind of becoming a bottleneck, and cisco says it will put a lot of money into making sure that does not become a bottleneck. Taylor you talk about that new component for 5g. Who else should we be looking at . Has obviously been a huge supplier to the market outside the u. S. The u. S. Government does not want huawei in this country, so the Competitive Landscape is arguably a bit more fragmented than it has been in a long time. Taylor thank you to bloombergs ian king. Plenty more global stories ahead. Thats all next. This is bloomberg. Taylor shares of pellet gun hit. On taken another this time thanks to one of wall streets most active shortsellers. He put out a note saying he sees clear flaws in their Business Model and predict the stock will fall nearly 85 next year to five dollars a share. On the phone. W in your note you talk about enterprise value and enterprise value for subscribers. Walk me through your thesis on why you feel the company is overvalued on those metrics. Andrew theres different ways you can look at it and people have criticized that saying why dont we look at either. Ebitda per subscriber, but if you see the chart i put out, it shows how much wall street is paying currently right now for every subscriber of pellet gun fitness, andlanet per subscriber, its over n versusfor peloto match. Com, its 2500. Taylor you can see on a per value, per subscriber basis, it certainly does look overvalued. I want to break down the ratio a little bit. If you increase subscribers, the denominator goes up, and that is pretty much what people are buying the company on. Are arguably buying on future subscribers. What do you say to that . Andrew i mean, fair enough, but the business has already taken the low hanging fruit, so we know who bought the first 500,000 bikes. The real problem is who will buy the next 500,000 . It is pretty much a flop. They are behind the curve with the rest of the equipment. You see mirror technology coming out from their competitors. They are not there. It is an extremely competitive space, and most importantly, with their digital offering, 1295 iftting for you are value conscious, you could buy a bike for 700 and enjoy the whole experience, and that is peloton digital. The ceo said that was their lead generation way of doing it. It seemed very sloppy. You can enjoy peloton and not have to pay over 2000 for a bike. Peloton taylor do you short peloton or interactive fitness . Peloton. H, no, short i dont know why wall street has orthink this is a 9 billion going to be a 10 billion company. Taylor i do want to say we have tried repeatedly to reach out to management and peloton for comment and we have not heard back yet. Saying that, would you buy peloton if they were five dollars a share . Andrew no. Its just dead money. The best days are in the rearview mirror. Share,as five dollars a no, i take that back. I would buy to cover some of my shorts. This is not a knock on the product. I think its a wonderful product. This is not a 9 billion or 10 billion product. Taylor i want to take a look at a serious chart showing inside my terminal for bloomberg viewers. To describe it for you, you know the story. The share price versus the short interest, which is now 66 . Do you feel that your short trade could be a little bit overcrowded here . Andrew if its crowded, its crowded. If it bounces on short covering, you just sell more. You always have to properly allocate if you are a short seller, but the thesis is i would never own a stock because it is a crowded short. Theres nothing they could do to turn it around. Unless they create a bike that works out for you, maybe that will change it, but other than that, they are not going to be a 9 billion or 10 billion company year from now. Taylor i want to get some of the fundamentals back into the conversation here. Really highlighted the lowerpriced terminal that could come out into the future. If they do a lowerpriced treadmill and you hit a mass market, how does that impact your position, given you could see perhaps the company hit a Critical Mass . Andrew simple no doubt they are going to put out a lowerpriced treadmill. They have to because the treadmill is a much more popular piece of equipment than a bike. Thats the only thing that will keep this thing alive. It does not have to fall off a cliff, just shows decelerating growth. This is what you will see. I was in a mall today and the peloton store was empty. Its not because people are not buying. I have already picked a low hanging fruit. This is not something for everyone. Of course you are going to put out a treadmill and it will sell, but it will compete against all the other treadmills on the market. Similarly, i could buy the forton digital experience 1002 hundred 95 with a 700 bike. The announcement of introducing a rowing machine change your thesis . Andrew everyone has a rowing machine. Their competition has, like, six different skews six different skus. Digitalmpetition for home, health and fitness has surpassed the offerings of pelot on. Seen that,ou have super cool idea. Digital weights, unique, spacesaving. These are all technologies peloton has not taken advantage of. Thinking peloton will end up a 1. 5 billion company, when you say it like that, that makes a lot more sense. Taylor in its continued attempt to stay afloat wework is looking to sell one of its recent acquisitions. Bloomberg has learned the struggling Office Sharing startup is in talks to shell a company and has owned for a few months which offers technology to help Companies Manage workplace paths and services. Ellen hewitt has been covering the story. It feels like it is a little bit part of the core business helping workplaces, but they are off. G to sell it explain. Ellen any company that has been acquired by wework in the last couple of years is looking to kinda figure out how to protect themselves, and knowing that wework is going to focus on its main business, even if it is pretty close to the Office Sharing business, i think there is a concern you might not be weworks priority right now. We have seen the cofounder gathering a group to buy back his own company less than a year after he sold it to wework. He had come on as an executive at wework after the acquisition and then left the company, and he is trying to make a soft landing for his own company and take it on Going Forward outside of wework. Especially for businesses that inbe were not as integrated wework. They have also acquired companies such as an seo company or made investments in indoor surfing companies and things like that. If you are one of those companies, you might be wondering what is your future, and in this in certain future, what is going to happen to us . Taylor particularly after only a month when he sold it, now hes trying to get it back. From weworks perspective, does this deal little bit like a fire sale . Ellen its really unclear. Another question is how much this will actually help their bottom line. Some of the other acquisitions wework has made were not that big. Compared to the billions of losses they had in the last couple of years, i dont think these sales will make a huge difference. I think it is more the company trying to focus on what they already do, you know, even when these acquisitions were happening and things were moving good, wework faced criticism for investing in businesses or buying businesses pretty far outside their lane. This may be more about focusing rather than recouping a lot of money. Taylor where is management in that transition back to the core business . More slowhas been a month for news. The company did lay off around 2500 workers a couple weeks ago, and that was something that in general, what ive heard from sources, that went pretty smoothly. Many people knew it was coming, and the severance was pretty generous. Severance, so a lot of employees, while they are, i think, disappointed to lose their jobs, for many of them, it is not like it was a surprise, and it has not been seen as a very tough landing, but it is hard times for the company and they are trying to figure out management Going Forward. They are still maybe toying with a new ceo search and figuring things out. Taylor you talked about that layoff and you had republican senator tom cotton saying even those layoffs, he was hoping adam neumann himself, not just wework should be probed by the sec, doj. Where are we in that investigation . Ellen we do not know much more than what we have already reported, which is just that inquiries are happening, but e not justll seeing ir from wewere people who are out of a job, but from distributors, people saying something went wrong and the company has to be accountable. Some people are also saying that adam neumann as former ceo and cofounder needs to be held responsible as well. Taylor all the updates on wework. Thank you to bloombergs ellen hewitt. Still ahead, when biology meets technology. We talked to one of the scientists behind a breakthrough in contraception. Its the pill you only have to take once a month. This details next. This is bloomberg. Taylor an analyst said the companys unique Business Model dominate the be digital consignment space with a price target of 22 a share. Gamestop shares plummeted wednesday after the retailer reported a thirdquarter loss that was much larger than expected. Most analysts were bearish on the results. Multiple firms lowered price targets, seeing no end to the industrywide shift toward digital gaming. Analyst at oppenheimer raised their price target to broadcom for 350 a share and maintain an outperform rating ahead of the quarterly performance rating on december 12. He sees positive upside to revenue following the november 11 close of the symantec acquisitions. Those are look at your top tech calls. Havetists say they developed a breakthrough contraceptive pill that only needs to be taken once a month. The starshaped capsule could help reduce unintended pregnancies that arise from users forgetting to take their daily dose of the pill. We got unique insight from one of the studys coauthors, renowned biotech entrepreneur who joins janet wu from boston. Thate design of a system you can compress into a capsule, and then when the capsule gets into the stomach, the capsule and opens upves into a shape that is so big that it cannot pass through what is called the paul lars, the little hole that connects the rest of the stomach to the gastrointestinal tract, but its very, very open so food can pass through it and everything. We put the drug in it and the drug keeps coming out, but we designed part of it to basically dissolve in just about a month period and when that happens, the whole thing goes out, and basically, you deliver the drug for a month. We could actually make it go more or less. Janet when do you expect human trials . I dont ohfer sure. Theres a company we have been involved with getting started. Theyve already started human trials on other drugs using a system like this. Janet you are closing in on two onto 1500 papers. How do you keep up this pace . One of the great things about m. I. T. Is you have these incredible students and postdoctoral fellows and collaborators and its really them. I feel very lucky ive had such great people to work with over the years and they are just very excited about doing work at the interface of biology and engine nearing. Its really they that do it. It is easy for me to keep up with it because, you know, they keep going over things with me. Jenna we have to talk about some of the companies you have helped found. I once read you never set out to become a founder. Langer thats true. My goal has always been to see companies we have been involved with get up to help people, get out to make the world a better place, make people have happier, healthier lives. When it was very naive when i started, we would write papers, like you said, but people read neighbors and they use papers and cite them, but that does not necessarily lead to products. What i realized after a pretty long period of time is the only way that would happen is if i involved doingot it myself. I worked with my students and others to try to Start Companies that could hopefully bring products to the world. Janet of all the innovations and companies you have helped create, what are you most proud of professional . Mr. Langer the thing i am always most proud of, which i kind of alluded to before, is my students. They have just had amazing careers, probably close to 1000 students and postdocs students through the lab including many in the boston area harbor, m. I. T. , northeastern, tufts, and really all over. They have just had amazing careers. Im also proud of the fact that a lot of the things we have done and led to products affected, according to some sources, billions of people. Taylor that was robert langer, renowned m. I. T. Professor and biotech entrepreneur. That does it for this edition of andomberg technology, Bloomberg Technology is livestreaming on twitter. Check us out and be sure to follow our Global News Network quicktake. This is bloomberg. Here, it all starts with a simple. Hello hi how can i help . A data plan for everyone. Everyone . Everyone. Lets send to everyone wifi up there . Uhh. Sure, why not . Howd he get out . a camera might figure it out. That was easy glad i could help. At xfinity, were here to make life simple. Easy. Awesome. So come ask, shop, discover at your local xfinity store today. Paul good morning. Im paul allen and sydney. We are under a market we are under an hour away from market open in japan and south korea. Sophie welcome to daybreak asia. Paul our top stories this thursday no change at the fed. Rates remain on hold as expected. Jay powell indicates little chance of a move in the coming year. Sterling will be in the spotlight is the u. K. Heads to the