Are seriously injured in more than a dozen fast spreading wildfires in a north California Wine country. A fire official says at least 1500 structures are destroyed. And turkeys president says the washingtonspute that is having is very saddening. The dispute started after turkey arrested a national that worked in a u. S. Consulate. And senator feinstein is throwing her hat into the ring toin, the democrat taking social media to say she is running for a fifth term. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries around the world. This is bloomberg. Cory im cory johnson, in for emily chang. This is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, russias google connection and googles russia connection. The Big Tech Company saying they took money from the kremlins sponsored hackers during last years president ial election. Well discuss googles role in fake news. Plus, tech and taxes. Apple ceo tim cook meets with macron in. Emmanuel paris as they waive sweeping overhauls of digital platforms across europe. And a wide ranging interview with the former microsoft ceo and clippers owner Steve Ballmer. His thoughts on twitter, trump, immigration and his enduring legacy. But first, to our lead. Russia linked accounts used google to influence the 2016 u. S. President ial election. Google investigators found that nearly 5,000 from the kremlin. Theyre also investigating another 53,000 in ads spending coming from russia at large. First reported in the Washington Post and the new york times. The admission is new. Google previously said it couldnt find any evidence of russian interference. But data from twitter proved the earlier contention was wrong. Mark bergen, who covers google for lumber, joins us. Shoe covewho covers google fr bloomberg, joins us. What are they telling us thats you . Mark theyre not telling us anything which is frustrating. Theyre still beginning their probe. But we know that theyve used google properties. It sounds like they found, as you said, on there 5,000 worth of ads. Were not sure if they ran on youtube, gmail search. Google right now the problem is focused on facebook but google has a much bigger Sprawling Network of advertising. Theres a bunch of different channels that russian actors could use. Cory we talked about this on Bloomberg Radio a little while ago. People who wanted a preview of this conversation could have been listening to Bloomberg Radio in the last hour. But one of the interesting things is they have all kind of systems supposedly involved to make sure that their customers paid them. Or to understand that the content gets there on time or gets delivered in a proper way. It looks like they didnt have any system either to vet the stuff before it went out, or even afterwards. Weve been talking about russian interference in this election for more than a year now. Google just coming with this information. Mark i think part of the issue is drawing the line. This morning, they were saying bucket, 50 uckepoll 53,000 worth of ads. These are either trolls or spreading misinformation or lies. This is just russian accounts that were spending on. Cory the notion otherwise is that some of it could be legitimate ads. Not fake news. Mark yeah, i think so. I think thats where theres probably behind the scenes, both in the board room and negotiating with congress, where the line is drawn here. Cory it might be drawn at disclosure, right . Advertising everywhere, whether airways, oron the cable, all have to say where the money comes from for a political ad. Mark right. And that seems to be the direction were moving. Congress is putting more pressure. Facebook and google have been resisting this for a long time. Political spending is pretty big on the platforms and its growing. This election was a really good case point for that. Cory we talked to a congressman last week who has seen what the facebook ads were. Facebook wont share that with us. Theyve seen at that time least. Check this out. When you talked generally about the issues of race, the divisive points in our country, the issue of immigration and migration and how the American Public was reacting to that. Just remind yourself how candidate trump used those issues to heat up the American Public and clearly the russians exploded that at the same time. Mark, the idea that this is the stuff that was about it was the racist ads, at least on facebook, racist ads, perhaps antisemitic ads. Certainly antiimmigrant things. The very things that were stirring up voters in some places to vote for president trump. Mark right. I think with google, its interesting, a lot of these websites that had a big presence on facebook, one of the ways they are making money is with google display ads. A lot of the fake news sites probably had banner ads that were run by google. But both google and facebook were in the weird position, where they would tell each other, we have amazing tools for reaching consumers. And now they are facebook and particular, and i imagine we will see the same from google where they will say, these were not as effective and certainly not the deciding factor in the election. Cory it was interesting. The bad actors in russia were so on top of the latest trends in advertising. I can look at the role that google and facebook have in a Global Advertising market. What you see is number one, that the number is growing. You can see these pies are getting bigger. Bars actually. The columns are getting bigger which is to suggest more money. But also in terms of percentage of revenue. This is a percentage of revenue for google in the advertising market, much bigger than facebook. Also, a growing percentage of revenue in the Global Advertising market, which shows the Russian Hackers were on top of the most effective ways to reach people in the modern society. Russia got it, even if u. S. Regulators did not. And i think daily beat had a fascinating story, they claimed their video bloggers on youtube, that Russian Networks had paid. Thats where these are, as youtube is all usergenerated content, they might not be even running ads. Certainly isnt something that google made them be aware of. That would be an instance of organic reach. This is not necessarily paid ads but these are using youtube. The worlds biggest video platform to spread lies and propaganda. Cory that is the u. S. Who knows whats going on in other elections all around the world. In europe, in asia, in africa. Emily chang sat down with Steve Ballmer, the Los Angeles Clippers owner, of course, for a wide ranging interview in seattle. Ballmers home. Ballmer confirmed he still has a big chunk of twitter but he thinks the company could be doing more. Steve they are driving forward, like anything that i have been involved with, more, better, faster is always good. We would love to see more, better, faster. Emily more better what . Steve more better products, more better revenue, more better earnings, cost structure, you name it. Thats not a specific criticism. That is just a general view that things need to move even faster. Cory full disclosure, bloomberg l. P. In partnership with twitter to produce a global breaking news video network. Were putting that together right now. Later in the show, a lot more of the interview. Plus, Steve Ballmers thoughts on president trump, immigration and his legacy at microsoft. Coming up, more of Bloomberg Technologys d coverage in seattle this week. Talking to politicians, business leaders, all about the tech industry. Transforming the emerald city. Next. This is bloomberg. Cory all this week Bloomberg Technology broadcasting from seattle. Amazon, microsoft and v. M. Ware, its a hub for technology and innovation. It has been for quite some time, but outside of those tech giants, also a home to a growing number of startups that could lead the way with a. I. And Cloud Computing. Always a pleasure to see you. Look at you with the bloomberg monitors behind you. Weve been talking about this for a long time. You and i have been talking about this for a long time, what makes seattle such a tech hub. We mentioned those great big companies. Certainly microsoft and the history of microsoft in that city, you have to start there. You have to start with microsoft, they have been a huge driver of the ecosystem and now the cloud ecosystem. But as you said, two of the top five market Cap Companies in the world are the Tech Companies in amazon and microsoft. Just a plethora of startups and theres thousands and thousands of folks working to get Companies Like google and facebook up here. So we really have it covered in terms of diversity of perspectives in the tech industry. Cory i guess we leave out Companies Like facebook and other companies that have a very large presence up there. Google included that have hired so many people and have such big operations there. Tell me, is it trying to chase after all those great engineers who might be falling off of all those other places or have gone to seattle for opportunities at amazon and microsoft, but find themselves, oh, wow, facebooks here, googles here, theres challenges to the opportunity . Matt let me give you an example. Theres a great team that was up here for google that invented this Great Technology which manages containers. That team is up here from google. They decided to leave and build a business around that and we funded it, along with our friends. These are the kind of things that happen. For a company like a smart ecosystem,h has an relying on the cloud partners both that microsoft and amazon, building a business now that is well over 100,000 now and rapidly growing. That is what we like to see, talent coming from these Different Companies and often times, they get inspired to build something from scratch and inspire something new. Cory is there any kind of industry area we might want to say that seattle is going to be known for . I would venture cloud is a certain thing up there, with Amazon Web Services and vmware. Matt i think hands down, we are the Cloud Capital of the world. I was visiting with a group of executives from a company today and we have alibaba offices and other companies trying to understand whats next cloud. We believe thats serverless technologies and microservices architectures. But i think whats overlooked sometimes is just how big areas like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are up here. With paul allens Artificial Intelligence institute, the university of washingtons school of Artificial Intelligence. They are just doing great things as well. And then finally, what about all the ways we interface with computing . Think about alexa with voice or mixed reality in some of the areas that microsofts involved with. So, we have really got the full stack here, some of the leading edge things that are going on in next generation computing. Cory i would be amiss if i didnt mention the role of udub which you just did. Not just because theyre 60 and number five in the country right now. But much to the pain of my heart. Maybek nationally university of washingtons role is overlooked in the role of driving what is the university of washington so good at when it comes to technology. Matt well, one area is this area of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. They recruited an incredible professor five years ago from carnegie melon and he became the amazon professor of Machine Learning. We promptly started a company with some of his team and built that company which was called dato into one of the leading players in Machine Learning as a service. That company was then bought by apple and apples now building a bigger and bigger presence up here in seattle. So i think Machine Learning and a. I. , professors like Pedro Domingo i could go on and on probably one of the most interesting examples now is a ampany called xnor that professor has founded. Thats all about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the edge. So the Edge Computing side versus the Cloud Computing side. Some of the things that are starting to happen at the internet of things kind of area related to deep learning. Cory all right, so, when we talk about all these places that want to start, what looks like Silicon Valley, whether it is new york or phoenix or austin or chicago or grand rapids, you name it, another thing seattle has got going for it you have your strong university focus and technical skills. You have your established Technology Innovators that are throwing off people who have made a lot of money and want to try again. But you have a very active Venture Capital community. Madron has been there since the start of it. You can pat yourself on shoulder right now but madrona has been there from the start. You were one of the early backers of amazon. Whats the venture scene like in seattle and how is it different than Silicon Valley . Matt our focus goes all the way back to the First Investors in amazon back in 1995, focus on day one opportunities and day one founders. Get involved at a very early stage. I mentioned carlos and some other examples. One, but be at day there for the longterm and be there focused on the northwest. We think there are a bunch of great Capital Venture firms. We just happened to focus on earlystage companies in the northwest. We also really work well with those other firms. Theres a growing interest. Once again, there was a cycle in the late 1990s and we are back here once again 20 years later with a very strong interest from Silicon Valley partners, working in conjunction with us and others. We have a vibrant angel community. Not just superangel investors but large Family Offices. Paul allen and others. Or gates, cascade. The trilogy with john stanton from the wireless industry. So theres really a nice mix of folks in the kind of large Family Offices that we like to work with together as well. Cory you cant beat the state taxes. Anini mean, if you are entrepreneur that thinks you are going to get rich i remember this guy, a woman i used to work with, her husband was about to come into a bunch of money from a Wireless Company her father was selling. They moved to washington to establish residence because there wasnt going to be any state sales taxes for them, but they wanted to stay involved in the technology community. It seems thats a big draw for the likes of bill gates, jeff bezos, and others. Matt i think that some of those folks very intentionally either started their company or moved their company here to washington and seattle specifically for that reason. We dont have a state income tax. Thats a massive competitive advantage over other states. And i think thats why youre seeing thousands and thousands of employees from Companies Like google and facebook that can choose to live up here to live up here. So that advantage is very important. But heres the punch line on that. Our tax revenues are up from 28 billion to 38 billion, 10 billion in the last six years. Thats because we have this proinvestment, progrowth, proopportunity community up here in seattle. And the other punch line there is, we have the lowest Unemployment Rate in the history of the city of seattle and the state of washington. So i think we have a pretty good tax system. No tax system is perfect. But ours is growing and our economys growing. I think thats going to really serve the entire Community Well for the long term. Cory couldnt agree more. I dont want to throw cold water and mention the weather in february because thats when the cold water gets thrown but i think its worth it up in seattle. Matt mcilwain, always a pleasure. Hell be joining us again later in the show. So, stick around. Elon musks spacex launched its 14th rocket of the year. Bringing the Company Close to its target of missions in 2017. The falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 satellites for communications. Spacex is scheduled to launch another rocket from florida next next that rocket will wednesday. Deliver a satellite. Coming up, apple ceo tim cook in the city of light. How he plans to combat eu reform without first targeting big Tech Companies. This is bloomberg. Cory apple ceo tim cook met with french president macron in paris monday. The meetup comes amid calls by european nation for an aggressive overhaul of how Tech Companies are paying tax across across the eu. Joining us now, our Bloomberg Technology reporter who has agreed to talk in a funny accent for us today. Thank you. [speaking foreign language] cory thats good. Im all for the french. This i