we hear from the heads of the new york stock exchange and nasdaq on market sentiment for tech firms going public. first, to our top story. researchers are not sure exactly what infected amazon ceo jeff bezos's phone after rows of -- revelations it was hacked. suspected -- forensic experts detected a massive spike in data being siphoned from it. hours after bezos received a what's up message from a saudi royal. the malware behind mac remains a mystery. to discuss in washington, marcus fowler, director of strategic threat at ai conformity. and in studio is our reporter. let me start with you. we have had a few days to digest all of this. what do we know about the malware that was implanted in that video message via what's up? >> we have not hurt -- not learned a whole lot. other than the chronology of hout jeff bezos's phone was attacked. he met with the crowd -- the saudi crown prince in 2018, they exchanged numbers. he received this message that presumably included malware, spyware that corrupted his phone. followed analysis has and shown that it -- there was this massive spike in the data being transmitted out of his phone. up to millions of times what it would be ordinarily. the question remains exactly what does the malware look like? and what will be the way forward to protect against similar attacks. what we don't know is the malware was embedded to a downloader that was encrypted on whatsapp, the analysis looking inside of that. the researchers need to break into the phone here that is what is next. taylor: marcus, let me bring you in. your note points out that this is not a jeff bezos problem, this is a global leader problem and you think about all of the people that potentially could be at risk. what do you make of this being a bigger issue that we are thinking about? marcus: absolutely. very sophisticated attack. andy relationship with an application like whatsapp is very advanced. it is the next generation of the classic spearfishing. we know the vulnerabilities via email in these areas are greatest when it comes from our contacts and they take advantage of our communications. our relationships with these apps is different. the speed with which we read and move on, you get you might evaluate it. you get a chat, you move through it quickly. the usage of this is prolific across any number of industries and senior leadership. taylor: marcus, a follow-up here, you seem to note this attack from people that are in our inner circle are on the rise. why? just because it is easier? marcus: sure. when we think about a spearfishing attack or a cyberattack, you think of it coming right at you. the vulnerability, especially if you are a senior official or individual with a high security posture, you are more likely to be targeted indirectly. friends, family, so's associates associates. your vulnerability is greater and the security posture lowers and you are likely to click on something that appears that it comes from a trusted confidant, one of your children. this is another way to attack and go after their primary target. taylor: this seems to be a differing type. the last time you and i spoke, we were talking about iran. a massive cyberwar warfare on the grid. how has the type of spyware evolved over time where this is a bigger threat? kartikay: what is interesting is that it is unclear exactly how this malware has evolved. the industry and the space behind spyware has certainly changed in the last decade or so. in the past, we saw spyware as part of a cyber toolkit that might be throwaway tools used by a hacker. downloaded on the dark web. now, fast forward 10 years later, you have sophisticated companies with valuations worth hundreds of millions of dollars doing business with nationstates doing -- willing to play millions for these tools. at the same time, you have the apps we use every day in the operating systems getting smarter about defending against attacks, which makes any vulnerabilities and the ability to hack into these vulnerabilities more valuable. hackers might save these exploits for a rainy day or when they have a valuable low hanging fruit target as was the case with mr. bezos. taylor: how do you see ai helping to enhance the defense? let's say i trust someone and i'm a human so i can't read the malicious form of communication. do you cai playing an important role there? marcus: absolutely. you hit on it in the beginning. we talked about the spike in activity after the download. it is that it -- is that anonymous -- anomaly detection that artificial intelligence can play an increasing role. we have seen it be successful at the corporate space, whether it is iot or industrial in these other areas. we have seen artificial intelligence being able to provide us that anomaly dissection. what we talk about here that happen on jeff bezos's phone was a dramatic change. really, more granularity into hundreds of different attributes, you have created a lot of insight into what is happening. no matter what that threat or attack looks like, you are protected or you are aware of what is happening within your device, within your digital enterprise, across your network. that is going to be keep moving forward. taylor: i can't have you here without talking about any implications this may have on the 2020 elections, if you think about hacking into someone's individual phone like a presidential candidate for instance. it is kartikay:. devicesinds or in the of influential decision-makers in the u.s. be it a presidential candidate, and member of congress, a state lawmaker who is relevant. certainly, the ability to exploit this kind of vulnerability and do so presumably without the user actually having even click on it. if that was the case here, it would be a very dangerous flaw to presumably execute in the election. taylor: marcus fowler and bloomberg technology's, thank you both for joining. shares of intel jumping thursday and after trading. they gave full revenue forecasts suggesting personal -- personal computer demand remains strong. the company says sales in 2020 are forecasted to be $73.5 billion, beating estimates of about $72 billion. coming up, what facebook is doing to avoid making the same mistakes in the 2016 election. we will hear from the company's em ea vice president next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. you can listen on the bloomberg cap, bloomberg.com and in the u.s. on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪ taylor: facebook remains under fire after the cambridge analytic because scandal which came to light in 2018. it was revealed the firm had harvested the personal data of millions of people's facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes. as you can imagine, it remains a sensitive topic going into the 2020 election. facebook cmea vice president nicola mendelsohn assured leaders that the scandal was the thing of the past. she spoke to francine lacqua in davos. nicola: i think the mood is different this year. i think the reason it is different is because there is a more thoughtful conversation going on around how globally business, governments can be working together with the tech companies. i also think there is an acknowledgment of the investment that facebook has been making across oh many different areas, that we have had a lot of scrutiny. sometimes in the past, that scrutiny has been deserved. i think it has been good. there has also been a lot around the economic impact. what is the economic impact of the tech company? actually, there has been a lot of welcome positive reception to that. there was a research survey that came out, a report by copenhagen abenomics -- economics, looking at facebook. it talked about how the fact how in europe, we can see through small businesses, the 20 -- the small businesses out there platforms, that it has been responsible for generating over 200 billion sales in the last year. which on the economic, you look at that, that is over 3 million jobs being created. francine: when you speak to the ministers, do they ask you about regulation? how you use the data? do they ask you what your purposes? -- purpose is? nicola: we have a lot of conversations about regulation. that is something mark zuckerberg has been calling for, how we can work with governments around the world as we have been doing with a number of different governments around the world looking at the areas of regulation. we already have regulation. francine: gdpr. how has that changed facebook? nicola: it has changed us a lot. we put in a whole new process in terms of making sure that people were aware of the information that was being collected from them, who they were sharing it with. giving them options as to what they wanted to do. that is something we are continuing to evolve with. we didn't just do it in europe where it was regulated. we did it -- we thought it was a useful way of thinking about things so we rolled it around the world as well. francine: we are in a political election year in the u.s. has facebook changed the way that some of these things get pushed through? nicola: definitely. i think we have changed fundamentally in the way we elections. thinking back to the 2016 election, the threats were different to what we understand could have been imagined back then. the worlds around misted it. intelligence agencies around the world missed it. what we have done is the investments we have made, we have had units, probably over 100 different elections around the world. every time we are increasing the scrutiny we place on safety, so come this 2020 election, it will feel different. the reason being it is a thing we have introduced. we have introduced the fact that political parties have to be checked with, authorized with us. the fact when ads run for political parties that says is it paid for by that party? those ads go sit on an ads library and you can go and have a look, anybody can look and you can see the different messages that the different parties are putting out. francine: how can we be so sure that there is no manipulation interference from another site that we have not figured out? nicola: one of the other things we're looking at, we are not just waiting for elections anymore, we are looking at patents of an authentic behavior networks.m big in 2016, we took down none. in the last year, we have taken down 50. we see these different networks out there. we stay vigilant, we know it is a race to make sure that when we feel we have got better control, that there are other things i could happen. we are very alert to the risks that could be there. francine: what is the potential for ads on what's up? nicola: that is not something we are progressing at the moment. it is early days. we are making sure that the way that people are using the platform, that is a most important thing. it has grown nicely from that side. francine: what will make you decide? do you worry people will be put off it? what are you trying to figure out? nicola: we are just looking at the moment in a different way. we do test all the time. one of the things you will see is across all of our different platforms, we are always looking at different ways to evolve. we also do it carefully and an way that works for the businesses and the people who use the platforms. taylor: that was facebook cmea vice president nicola mendelsohn . sarahre, we are joined by frier who covers facebook at the very end, they talk about a conversation about ads on what's up. uni are talking about whatsapp in a different context -- context and the hiking -- and the hacking of jeff bezos's phone. this is according to the yuan what role does whatsapp play in that? what's ephesus -- is supposed to be encrypted messages. sarah: that is what makes it complicated a bell for the hacking situation and for an advert -- advertising operation. facebook cannot see what people are sending to each other on whatsapp. there is no way for them to know necessarily what is in a video. there is no way for an advertiser to know what people are sending, and therefore target them with relevant ads. facebook would have to do some triangulation between whatsapp, facebook, instagram and messenger to come up with information to target people in whatsapp. very complicated. with the hacking a particular, we are talking about something that they don't have the keys to de-encrypt. all they can say is there was a video. a default setting where videos get auto downloaded before people start looking at them. it is meant to improve the experience and get it much more quickly viewable. especially because whatsapp is used in so many places that have low connectivity. that could have made it more piece of to get a material that had some malware in it. taylor: in a few days after this incident and in your conversations with facebook, have they said anything about their changing role in how they would look at things differently from that auto download? sarah: they did speak actually in the fall to the threat with the mp4 files. they have spoken about the threat from one security group on whatsapp. with this particular hacking, they have not weighed in. nicola, in a separate part of her talk, did mention that this is akin to if you are open an email, say an email with a link that was malicious, that was going to cause a virus to be downloaded onto your computer, there thinking that -- they are thinking of whatsapp in a similar way. where it is a means of sending messages and the messages themselves, whether it is a risk to your devices up to the maker of the operating system. in this case, apple. taylor: in that conversation, she said 2020 is different from 2016 because this time we are making investments and having a thoughtful conversation about the ways in which facebook can misinformation. then you have a story out that george soros is coming out and saying facebook is conspiring to reelect trump, that they have not done anything to prevent the dissemination of misinformation. your reaction? sarah: this is a situation where facebook is treading carefully because they don't want to upset anyone on either side. to limitt want misinformation on facebook because then they would have to decide what is true and false? they would have to be the arbiters of that. zuckerberg says they don't want to. have that power -- to have that power. she was talking about the transparency they are ringing to the table. that is useful only to an extent. if people are scrolling through ads, howand looking at many of those people do you think are going to the political ad archives to try to check what those messages are compared to other candidates, who is paying for them? they are not going to. it is a passive experience when you are browsing facebook. you are susceptible to getting information that is not true. taylor: a great conversation on whatsapp, facebook. that was bloomberg technology's sarah frier. thank you for joining us. coming up, google and facebook are at odds again. this time is it -- it is about the same issue, privacy. we will have more details next. this is bloomberg. ♪ taylor: another clash between two tech giants, google and apple. google claims the nt tracking tool on apple's web browser is fault -- is flawed and creates more problems than it solves. they are the most popular browsers and this is not the first time google and apple have had a dispute over privacy. joining us to discuss is garrett giving in new york. what exactly are the google engineers saying in this report? garrett: it is interesting. google has this group of engineers that are white hat hackers. hackers for good that try to find vulnerabilities in google software and also software made by other tech companies, and worn those companies about them and eventually release the information to the public so that everyone can fix the software and make sure malicious actors don't take advantage of it. what happened here is google found what it says the problem in this tool that apple released a couple years ago. the very purpose of the tool is to block tracking for advertisers to track you when you are using safari browser. the specific way the tool works makes it possible for hackers if they wanted to, and there is no known cases of this happening yet, but if the hackers wanted to and figured this out themselves, they could track you themselves using the anti-tracking tool. taylor: what is apple saying? the first time this is brought to their attention, they thanked google, said they fixed the problem. gerrit: it has evolved into a fight between the companies. google told apple about this last year. they did it quietly, they did not release it to the public, to give ample time to deal with it. apple said they went and did that. they put out this cryptic blog post in december saying they fixed some problems, did not really detail it and thanked google in that. yesterday, when this finally was released to the public, some google engineers on twitter said that apple actually did not solve all the problems, they only papered over a few of them. apple has not directly responded to that yet. it is kind of a mystery exactly whether this is now something that is out there that hackers who maybe had not known about it before can now potentially take advantage, or if apple has really fixed all the problems. taylor: explain this to me, if the two web browsers our competitors, is google trying to help apple point out the flaws? what is the purpose of this? gerrit: my understanding of how these kind of google hackers work, is they do not necessarily get told by google executives to go out and make our competitors look bad or embarrass them by pointing out their flaws. you can say on the one hand it is embarrassing but on the other hand, useful down the road for apple to know about it. it is better to be embarrassed in the short-term by a competitor than have a hacker or a foreign nation state take advantage of this and cause you much bigger problems. the way this google team works to my understanding, is they kind of choose the problems they are most interested in. what they think is biggest and they go after it. sometimes it happens to be an internal google software that makes them -- helps them figure that out and embarrasses them. or it is a competitor. taylor: another interesting segment in all of this is not google last week decided to block cookies originally they had not. apple was seen as more of a leader when it came to the privacy issues. how does this put them as we take a look at may the race between the two when it comes to cookies and web browsers? gerrit: what is the irony of the situation. apple's safari browser was seen not just by apple but by privacy advocates as being much better for consumers who are concerned about their privacy. it active -- it asked -- it actively tries to stop people finding you in targeting you ads. google's worldview is targeted ads are good because they help keep the web open, free and accessible. they acquiesced last week to say eventually we will get rid of cookies which are the most popular way of tracking people around the web. now it looks as if this apple tool that in the very first place was supposed to stop tracking, actually could facilitate it. taylor: bloomberg's gerrit de vynck, thank you for joining us. new roles are coming soon that will put more limits on american companies to find huawei technologies. wilbur ross tells bloomberg that some companies have worked around the work -- the world to continue sending crucial electronic components to china telecommunications giant. huawei was blacklisted last year as a security threat by the trump administration. still ahead, we continue with huawei with the latest in the extradition hearing of its cfo underway now in vancouver. that report next. this is bloomberg. ♪ when you move homes, you move more than just yourself. that's why xfinity has made taking your internet and tv with you a breeze. really? yup. you can transfer your service online in about a minute. you can do that? yeah. and with two-hour service appointment windows, it's all on your schedule. awesome. so while moving may still come with its share of headaches... no kidding. we're doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. taylor: this is "bloomberg technology." we are joining bloomberg daybreak australia to bring you the latest in global tech news. i'm taylor riggs in san francisco with shery ahn in new york and haidi stroud-watts in sydney. let's take a look at the top tech stories of the day. bullish revenue forecasts suggesting personal computer demand remains strong in purchasing die -- buying data. will be about 73.5 billion dollars. the company said late thursday in a statement that the estimate of 72 billion. xerox is escalating its paper fight for hp. the company plans to nominate 11 directors to be -- to replace hp's board after the personal computer maker refused to engage in merger talks earlier this month. xerox said it arranged a $24 billion loan to finance the deal. at&t's directv says the satellite it operates is in danger of exploding needs to be moved away from an orbital zone satellite.pied by a the warning came from a filing with the u.s. federal communications commission and cites battery cells as the potential culprit. the satellite provides backup coverage for tv viewers in alaska. those are the top global tech stories we are watching. taylor: the first round of extradition hearings for huawei 's cfo opt up in canada the u.s. is seeking extradition of meng ofzhou, arrested in december 2018 during a flag stopover in vancouver. let's go there now for an update from bloomberg's natalie pearson. can you remind us again how we got to this point, what the case is about, what the trial hinges on? natalie: this is the first round of extradition hearings for meng wanzhou since she was arrested 14 months ago. this initial set of hearings was focused on a core principle of canadian extradition law called double criminality. essentially asking can the alleged crime she committed also be considered a crime in canada? the pillar of her defense has been that no, it doesn't meet that test because the alleged conduct rests upon a violation of u.s. sanctions. canada doesn't have sanctions on iran. so therefore, they are saying she should be freed. the prosecution has argued that no, her case is about fraud, that she lied to hsbc bank, tricking it into conducting transactions that violated sanctions and so therefore, she should be extradited. the judge reserved the decision today as expected and that will come in a written form later. we don't have a timeline for that. it could take a couple weeks, it could take a couple months. taylor: -- haidi: in fact we know the next rounds of the trial, if it does impact and go to those proceedings, would not be until april 27. it could be a drawn out process? natalie: that's right. one thing to keep in mind is however slim this is actually her first shot at release. if the judge were to come back and say her case does not meet the double criminality test, then she would be discharged and in theory, she would be able to get on a plane back to china. canada and the u.s. would likely try to appeal the decision. they would have 30 days to do so. by that point, she could belong ghosn. that said, the chances of that discharge are very slim in canada. if you look at the historical data out of nearly 800 u.s. extradition requests to canada and the last decade, only eight have been discharged or turned down. that is about a 1% chance. taylor: like your piece says, the shot is about one and 100 for beating this extradition law. what can we expect next from her, let's say, if this doesn't work? you said this was her first chance at a shot of being free. natalie: that's right. later hearing scheduled for this year, she is expected to introduce evidence to buttress a parallel argument that she has going that her rights were abused when she was arrested at vancouver airport last year. the strategy there is to show that if they bungled her arrest and violated her constitutional rights, than they would have to let her go. the other track that her defense is pursuing is a politicized asian of the case. if you recall, u.s. president donald trump at one point had indicated he might be willing to intervene on her case if it would help them get a trade deal with china. her defense has jumped on those comments to show that this is a highly politicized case and that canada should not extradite her. taylor: and a developing story. it thank you to natalie pearson. there is much more ahead. stay with us. this is bloomberg. ♪ omberg. ♪ provingamazon is persistent in its challenge against the pentagon's decision to award microsoft the jedi contract. the commerce giant has asked the court to temporarily block microsoft from working on the $10 billion cloud deal until the lawsuit is resolved. i asked microsoft president brad smith last week what he thinks of the lawsuit. brad: i think there is an interesting lesson for all of us, certainly in the world of business. maybe just life more broadly. first of all, never assume that you are so far ahead that you can't lose. never conclude that you are so far behind that you can't catch up. every day, we focus not just on catching up, but leading. tolor: for more, i want bring in naomi nix from washington, d.c. from your perspective down there in d.c., your thoughts on this? do they pause work on the cloud, is this relatively routine? where are we in the fight here? naomi:naomi: look, it is a relatively routine decision for a contractor who is protesting a contract like this to file a motion like this. amazon is essentially asking the courts to force the pentagon to stop working with microsoft on this cloud deal. in the pentagon has said they have persisted and started to work on my contract. . they have already held meetings with microsoft and started to identify programs to use in this project. i think it is a significant thing for the pentagon but a routine decision for amazon to make. taylor: what is the hurdle, the barrier heard a lie should say, for amazon to get this injunction, if you well, to stop the work on the cloud? naomi: that will be up to the judge to decide. -- significantct work on contracts are paused while court proceedings like this are going on. but i think there is a larger uphill battle here for amazon which is amazon's filing a lawsuit, trying to get the pentagon to reverse their contract decision, perhaps either awarded to amazon or to restart the bidding process. that is really the true obstacle that awaits amazon. there is a high bar legally for amazon to make that kind of case. and whether amazon will be able to get enough evidence and make the right legal arguments to win that is certainly difficult. taylor: you said this is a big deal for the pentagon and the department of defense contract. how are you seeing d.c. and the trump administration preparing for the next stages of this lawsuit? pentagon hasthe said look, our war fighters, our soldiers in the battle, they need cloud computing now. right now, the defense department has hundreds of different cloud projects. what they are trying to do with this jedi project is to consolidate many of those projects into one single cloud. they consider that a national security issue. the department of defense has told congress look, we don't want to be slowed down by a lawsuit. we would like to proceed. meanwhile, amazon is saying look, the trump administration, we think, interfered. in the department of defense misjudged our application for this contract. so it is actually important that a judge take a look at this and see whether the defense department made the right decision. and amazon agrees that certainly the defense department needs to move to the cloud. taylor: bloomberg's naomi nix, thank you for the update. now another conflict between apple and the european union. the tech giant is pushing back against an initiative that would standardize chargers for all types of smartphones and devices. . the move is part of the eu's effort to come -- to cutback electronic waste. i'm joined by mark gurman in los angeles. about if thisnder comes down to money because as you know, every time you get a new phone, you have to get three new chargers to match your devices because the old ones no longer work. is this coming down to apple trying to protect one of their moneymaking machines here? mark: you know, i don't think so particularly. i think this is pretty cut and dry. this is the rare case where i do not think apple did anything wrong. apple just has the proprietary thing that they have had -- it is 2020, the last change was in 2012. they have come out with their own connector because they say it works best with their ecosystem. i don't think there is a problem with that. there is no reason for apple to use u.s. pc or another type of or just because samsung huawei use it. taylor: it was interesting because apple was saying that this regulation on a simple things such as a charger could stifle innovation instead of help it. what is the case for that? mark: yeah, i completely agree with that. when apple moved to the lightning connector in 2012, their argument for doing so was the previous 30 pin connector which was whiter, also very proprietary, they had to use that for over a decade prior to the switch, but was too big for the smaller devices that they make. to their will become another time in this process of technology where they will have to change the connector again. i think the next wave is no connector. you will see a time where apple is removing the connector and there will be some sort of proprietary mechanism to get the phone -- get to the phone for troubleshooting. there's no way that apple will be able to move from not because they are inventing new technology to make it wireless. i think apple's argument is pretty sound. taylor: talk to me more about that. chargers says -- -- appears to be obsolete because we will be charging our devices wirelessly in the next five to 10 years. is this a goose chase, if you will, going to be obsolete anyways if we will not have chargers? mark: you know, i think so. i think it is going to be for some devices where there will be -- there will not be charging points. there will be other devices where they will need chargers because they can't be on battery constantly. i will give you an example, i don't see a future where our laptops are going to be wirelessly charged. this is going to be for iphone specifically. in terms of other proprietary chargers, the apple watches on a completely proprietary mechanism. the one criticism i have with apple at this point is what is in their own company, they do not have a uniform charging or connector strategy. the iphone uses different connectors from the apple watch, the apple watch and iphone are different but the ipad is also different. the ipad and mac laptops use the same charger about the iphone uses a different one. some ipads use a different charger than other ipads. if you have the ipad pro, if you have the regular ipad, that is lightning. apple needs to worry about itself on this one. i think the response is ok. taylor: the european commission says of course, they are considering legislation. how serious of a threat, how serious are they along in those planes to make this real legislation? mark: this isn't new. they have been talking about this for several years. this was the third time that this has been in the news over the last three or four years. nothing has happened last year or the year before or the year before that. i would be very surprised if there is some sort of legislation. these news stories where governments are trying to get apple to change in terms of hardware functionality, they crop up from time to time. i have yet to see it actually happen in practice. maps in and changes to russia and other things like that, that is a different story. taylor: thank you for keeping us honest. that is bloomberg's mark gurman. still ahead, the appetite for ipo's. we hear from the heads of the new york stock exchange and nasdaq on market sentiment for tech firms going public. stick with us. this is bloomberg. ♪ us. this is bloomberg. ♪ taylor: the tech appeal market has seen its fair shares of high end -- kaizen lows over the last year, drawing skepticism from companies considering going public. should nelly bostic spoke to nasdaq ceo adina friedman on the health of the public market. take a listen. >> i do think the underpinning of the economy in the united states continues to be strong. when you look at the opportunities that exist, the companies looking to tap the public markets, it feels like a healthy environment right now. >> speaking of companies going public, we have so much fewer of them. what are the longer term ramifications of that? >> in terms of the last couple of years, we had 187 ipo's come to nasdaq and a 70% win rate. we had 186 the year before. you are right. if you compare that which felt healthy to even 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, we used it to have 300, 400 on a regular basis. the number of companies are fewer and we do have concerns about making sure that every person has an opportunity to tap the growth potential of great companies coming out. companies are waiting longer to go public or choosing to stay private forever, it chokes off the opportunity to majority of the population. >> do you believe as some people do believe that this is causing some sort of wealth inequality because people don't have access to these privately held companies that are skyrocketing in valuation? adena: i do actually agree that when we look at -- over half of the population in the u.s. has access to public equities either through their pensions or direct investment. when you look at private equity, private equity funds, shares, they are only available to the most wealthy individuals. and through pensions. there is a whole ecosystem of individuals that do not have an opportunity to invest in those growth companies. our view is it is not so much that you want to limit the opportunities for companies to be private. but instead you might want to consider, how do you give more individuals access to private equity funds and make the public markets more invited -- inviting for companies to tap the public markets so more come in and become accessible? >> what is the riskier? as the sec looks at rules on who is investing in these private companies, what could go wrong? adena: i think you have to be careful in distinguishing between private equity fund investment and direct investment of private company shares. if you think about the u.s., we are what we call a disclosure regime. when a company chooses to go public, they have to disclose information about themselves so that the average retail investor has the same access to information as a professional investor. that is the whole point of an f1, quarterly disclosures. . it is in underpinning of our system. private companies don't have that obligation. if you are going to make them accessible to more retail investors, you need to change the disclosure regime for private companies or a better thought is to give retail investors better access to private equity funds that are professionally managed. most retail investors invest through mutual funds or 401(k)s that are professionally managed. someone, a really savvy person who happens to have chosen great public service who is not wealthy but it really understands investments, why it -- why are they not allowed to invest in it? rv was open that access. one component of that is you have to make those funds more liquid. the nasdaq through the nasdaq private market has launched a liquidity service to allow for private equity funds to have periodic auctions. we are the only company that has received approval. we are excited about that. >> speaking of going public, directly stings have been a hot topic. it is perceived that the new york stock exchange is ahead with a spotify and slack. how are you catching up? adena: i think both exchanges offer a good solution for companies who choose to have a direct listing. we have offered direct listings for a while and i think more companies are considering that path. > how many? adena: is a niche offering. to those companies that are not looking to raise capital and have really great brand recognition out and among retail investors or have a business model that is easy to understand unpredictable. taylor: that was nasdaq ceo adena friedman speaking with our reporter in davos. bloomberg sat down with the president of the new york stock exchange, stacy cunningham, to get her opinion on the advantages of going public for both companies and investors. she spoke to tom and jonathan ferro in davos. there are a lot of conversations of why they are staying private longer. it is capital, regulation, all of these things. the fact that they are staying private means there's less of thereline in governance is less clarity around valuation. are these companies worth what the private markets are saying? where do you need the wisdom and disclosures and transparency to determine that? jonathan: let's talk about pressure. we have the likes of blackrock talking about a leaning on the active management world to lean out of some companies in coal. the pressure really is going to put on the index providers to say to them, you need to get these companies out of the index. that is going to make the most difference. the pressure will be on the exchanges. stacey: i thing it is imported to make sure that investors have access to opportunities and the right to choose. by putting them on exchanges and giving them information about their disclosures, it is helpful so they can make informed decisions. i think it is important to recognize -- the conversations i have been having are for many ceos who are saying we have been doing the work around esg already. it is important to our employees and customers that we take a stand on these issues. even more so than their investors. jonathan: let me ask you this, this is, multiple times over the last few months. you have minimum standards to be listed on the -- listed on the new york stock exchange. why not have esg as part of that? stacey: our standards are focused on investor protections. it is -- the conversations we are having are connected. if we put so many standards around requirements for companies to be public, they have alternatives. it is a different dynamic than it was years ago when you had to come to the public markets to get money. because there is money available in the private market space, we don't want investors to be denied those opportunities entirely. tom: i want your opinion on this. it's important. farrow has recovered from the shock of losing that much money -- jonathan: don't listen to him. tom: how do you respond when on your floor, they do the song and dance of an ipo or even the initial public offerings and they come out and they do the whole modern media dance and the thing goes down x percent. that is not good for the brand, is it? stacey: in a large ipo like that, they sold a billion dollars with a stock. over time, investors were reacting to the valuation of companies. tom: your job is to get it open in the early minutes. stacey:stacey: and make sure investors have the information. tom: did they have the information? stacey: yes. it is a great example of private evaluations versus public valuations. we need to make sure companies get out. the shift, because they do not need capital, is why the direct listing was an innovation we deliver this year. it is not about raising money. privatere is a andation to go public select stocks -- and selective stocks tank. whose responsibility is that? it's not you. stacey: i think investors are asking questions i have not asked for before and i think we will see that in 2020. tom: we are learning. stacey: when you have limited people participating in the private space you are losing access to opportunity and limiting access to information. taylor: that was stacy cunningham, president of the new york stock exchange speaking with tom and jonathan ferro in davos. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." and bloomberg technology is live streaming on twitter. check us out at technology. follow our global breaking news network at quick take on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ omberg. ♪ in an hour. day break asia. >> our top stories this friday, chatter expands, travel curbs as the virus reaches singapore and japan. lockdown ahead of the lunar new year. concern about