Foundering

Coding boot camps are everywhere these days, promising to arm you with the most highly sought skill in the modern economy: computer programming. While many programs charge thousands of dollars for just a few months of instruction, one school, started in Paris by the French billionaire Xavier Niel, offers a three-year curriculum for free. This week Bloomberg Technology's Sarah McBride and Marie Mawad report on Ecole 42's newly-opened Silicon Valley branch, which is hoping to repeat the Paris school's success in training underprivileged youth. But things haven't quite turned out the way administrators were expecting.

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(Bloomberg) -- Now that the holidays are approaching, chances are you'll be doing at least some of your gift shopping on Amazon.com. But before you click "buy" on the first favorably-reviewed item you find, take a minute to learn about how you can avoid getting duped by the site's fake reviews and phony products. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone and Spencer Soper report on the extreme tactics some vendors are using to get an edge on the competition, and what Amazon is doing to crack down on those people who are gaming the system. As we do more of our shopping on the internet, the stakes are only getting higher.

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On the night of the U.S. presidential elections, one of Facebook’s former product designers turned to Facebook to vent. His claim: The social media platform may have helped inaccurate and partisan news stories reach more voters, setting the stage for Donald Trump’s victory. Two weeks later, Facebook’s fake news problem has become one of the most hotly debated issues in America. This week, Bloomberg Technology’s Aki Ito and Sarah Frier speak to not only that former Facebook employee, but also two prominent investors in Silicon Valley as well as an editor of fact-checking site Snopes.com. Together, they grapple with the responsibilities that Facebook shoulders as a source of news for a growing portion of the world.

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Virtual assistants such as the iPhone's Siri are now everywhere, reading us the news, recommending restaurants and navigating a path to our jobs. But any casual user knows they're far from perfect. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito and Alistair Barr visit Professor Terry Winograd, a pioneer in artificial intelligence who amazed the world with a precursor to these assistants half a century ago. Terry tests the assistants from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon and explains why, despite all the hype, computer scientists are still far away from building machines that can outsmart humans.

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A handful of websites have launched in the U.K. over the last few years, allowing not only the rich but also the rest of us to invest in startups. How likely is it that you'll end up striking gold on the next Facebook? This week, Bloomberg Technology's Adam Satariano travels to Scotland to meet one man keeping track -- and at least so far, the results are not promising.

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When Antonio Garcia Martinez was trying to raise money for his fledgling tech company, he worried that an honest pitch wouldn't get him the funds he needed. So he lied. This week, Brad and Bloomberg Technology's Ellen Huet explore the murky world of early-stage startups -- not just with Antonio but also with one of his startup's investors, as well a business school professor. In the absence of the strict rules governing public companies, are Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs getting away with too much?

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Donald Trump insists that we don't know who was behind the cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee. Is he right? Bloomberg Technology's Jordan Robertson talks to Mike Buratowski, who oversaw the investigation into malicious code that spied on emails sent by DNC officials and others. After examining the hints left behind, they tackle the big issue: If hackers backed by Russia really were the perpetrators, what more could they do to mess with Americans' votes and U.S. democracy?

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Very few things have stopped Uber in its quest for world domination -- except Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing startup that in August announced it will buy Uber's China operations. This week Lulu Chen and Brad Stone tell the story of how Didi rose to prominence, and the battles its founder Cheng Wei waged to defeat dozens of Chinese rivals before taking on Uber. Now that it's conquered the world's largest ride-hailing market, can Didi finally make money?

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Just a few years ago, Fab.com was valued at $1 billion. Today, it's remembered as one of the most epic flame-outs in the history of U.S. technology startups. Bloomberg's Sarah Frier, who in 2013 was the first to report on Fab's internal turmoil, talks to founder Jason Goldberg about how he felt as the company soared and then collapsed. Jason also recounts the lessons he's learned -- so he won't repeat them as he prepares to launch a new business all over again.

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The global technology industry is a powerful engine of innovation that drives the economy. It's also a collection of insular communities full of hidden projects, quiet rivalries, and uncomfortable truths. Join Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone each week as he and the team's reporters uncover what actually happens behind closed doors.

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