>> welcome to "bloomberg west." our focus is on invasion, technology and the future of business. we're following a few big stories today. going to obility is

drop box. we're going to look at what woodside's hire means for drop box. he is a long time google veteran. google is famous railroad mapping the earth but its satellite images can be as old as three years old. we're going to look at the startups trying to change that. >> the two biggest cable operators in the country are joining forces in a deal ha is nothing short of shocking. comcast agreed to buy time . rner cable for $45.2 billion this faces a length thay approval process. fit goes through comcast will have sealed it's dominance turnover industry. we've got a great round table of guests to talk about this today. jon erlichman is with us from

l.a. peter cook is in washington, d.c. with the regular tear angle. understand new york alex sherman joining us. john, i'm going to start with you, how did this happen? >> we know that there has been reported a lot on this. this enter from chart tore get bigger. in a world where people have a lot of options outside traditional cable. facebook, any big platform where they can spend their time these days, the cable industry feels like it needs to get bigger so it can spread the cost around, the cost of making the service better and the technology that goes into that. charter had this great interest in doing this deal with time warner cable. time warner cable wanted them to pay more money. they wering about the possibility of comcast acquiring some of the assets of time warner cable and along the lines

they decided comcast, it's a better move to get bigger than everybody else and have control over marks like new york and los angeles and chicago, philadelphia, the d.c. area. they truly are the biggest player in the cable business in the united states. >> but is this deal going to go through? the regulators made it clear ith at&t and t-mobile they wanted four wireless carriers. is it going to be any different? >> it is because they are different businesses. the government is going to scrutinize this carefully. you get number one and number two joining together, that raises a lot of flags. because there is that full sprecktrum of competition from the satellite providers and google and the things over the internet, a lot of folks i'm talking to say this is going to be looked at a little differently. but they are going to ask a lot

of comcast. they are going to ask them to divest subscribers that would put them over the 30 million mark. they are going to ask them to do a range of things with regard to net neutrality. this is going to be a difficult process and it's not a done deal. comcast making the case in favor of this from the competitive standpoint but there are folks in washington who think this will be l get done although the conditions may be very painful for comcast. >> i want you to take a listen to about this deal. >> these companies have to get as big as possible as fast as possible nort keep their programming cost down, in order to create even more economies of scale and marketing back office systems, all of that stuff. >> i want to bring you into this. we've talked to apple talking to time warner cable about a new deal for apple tv. what does this mean for

invasion, does this slow that down? >> there is argument it could speed it up because comcast technology is spoir to time warner cable. you make them bigger and give them more resources and bigger scale, you can get more customers on the same page as far as expedited the way that people watch television. comcast has guide the "x" 1 and x 2 they are called. they are state of the art individual crow guide. they look like netflix or amazon prime than your cable grid you are used to. you add on a lot more customers to that and it's possible that many more people can have a more advanced television viewing experience than they can today. >> however, i want you to take a listen to another thing that jonathan kline had to say about how monopolies impact things. >> they take audience for granted and that is an enormous

opportunity for new comers to come in. time warner loves to say don't leave us we have this cool new apple thing coming down the road. the problem is apple doesn't have content relationships. >> what does this all mean for apple? >> i found myself thinking today about walter isaacson's book on steve jobs and the comment where steve wasn't that big on paying for cable, decided i'm going to sign up for comcast. and then after signing up, he called the c.e.o. of comcast and roberts said steve told me it sucks. that's a reminder that comcast does have some cool technology and brian roberts does think about putting out a more innovate tive service. but most of us view the cable companies as slow and trying to

squeeze us for money and have been hoping there might be some new great type of tv watching experience that is more like the experience you have on your phone. i think that's why a lot of people have been pointing to apple. as bloomberg has reported in apple's talks with time warner cable, the challenge apple faces is breaking up that cable ecosystem, being able to sign competitively priced deals with all the content players that are similar to the ones that the cable companies already have. >> you did an interview with disney c.e.o. bob iger. disney owns nbc, i want to talk about the content perspective. first take a listen to what iger had to tell you in that interview. >> whether this consolidation or ownership of the existing multichannel business changes, we're going to be as in demand as we've been.

you can't go after the subscriber without offering them our product so it doesn't really mean much to us. >> given comcast also owns nbc, that adds another wrinkle into this whole potential deal. how does that play into this? >> it's a big factor. they are not a straight cable player. they are a content provider as well. it's an important wrinkle and it's one of the factors that will make regulators look at this differently and why the stakes matter more than cable bar. one thing very important to remember is the consent decree they signed with the government when they took on nbc, they agreed to do certain things in that deal, thoings pro mote more competition in terms of programming and expect they are going to have to follow that same roadmap in this deal. they might have to exceed that to win regulators approval.

does it become too painful so it becomes less attractive to them. they have committed to do some of those things but not all of them. >> what do you think, how does this actually all play out? had >> one important thing to look at is there is no breakup fee in this deal. you could interpret that several ways. that's confidence on both sides something can get done. if regulators did step in and block this, neither side would be paying anything. in a way it also blocks out charter. because i think charter would have seen the breakup fee and said ok if time warner cable has to pay comcast, maybe we can make a case to shareholders we're the better option. without the breakup fee it's going to be difficult for chart tore get in here. they can't pay $160 a share.

they haven't up to this point. it's better than a 50/50 chance at this point that comcast will proceed and divest some subscribers and move forward with the deal. >> comcast is already making their case. they are speaking on a conference call right now. david cohen saying this doesn't redoes consumer choice. we're going to follow this deal to the end. thank you all. >> coming up we're going to talk about drop box hiring its first c.o.o. more on why the company picked the head of google's motorola division. you can watch us on your phone, tablet, bloomberg.com and apple tv as well. ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." sisco has reported a drop in

sales and profit. in the second quarter sales fell 8%. profit dropped 55%. they are being hurt by growing sales outside of the united states. john chambers sees big things on the internet for things referring to devices and connected car. here is what he said earlier today. >> this is the year where the tipping spoipt going to occur in the internet of everything. it will empower to us move to be the number one i.t. company. we've been focused on this for six years. at the world economic forum last month, it was the top technology topic. when google bought nest all of a sudden everybody said i get it. >> chambers said the internet of things could be a $19 trillion market turnover next decade. >> drop box has reportedly hired its first c.o.o.

dennis woodside the former c.e.o. of motorola is joining drop box at their chief operating officer. the company is valued at $10 billion. want to tpwhring john in the studio. works with companies like yelp and box which is their biggest competitor. dennis more of a coo for or drop stpwhocx >> you have to look at it as a cue for drop box. they need to look like a larger company. they have 350 employees so with $10 billion evaluation they need a little more gray here. dennis is not an old guy but he brings that to the table. >> he's worked a lot of global expansion.

drop box wants to be an international company. he spent a lot of time thinking about mobile and mobile is huge for the future of online storage. and if you think about what a company needs to go public you think about a situation like sharon joining facebook and eric schmidt joining google back in the day. they need somebody who has been around the block. >> and maybe some adult supervision too. >> you've interviewed dennis a few times. who is the winner here? >> when you asked me when le november vo bought motorola is woodside staying there and i said yes. i think it can be tough. here is somebody who was a long-time google executive who got this big opportunity with the motorola deal to be a c.e.o. because there was a need for independence. because with android motorola is just one of the partners despite

it being owned by google at the time. it's got to be tough to then have to see the business that you were running sold to somebody else and i think that just creates an opportunity. and just to build on what you guys were saying, here is somebody who over the last year or so has gotten a lot of stage time, been able to do those presentations and the kind of things to your point that makes cheryl a very valuable point of mark e-two punch of u.s.c.er bug and pam of facebook. >> you wonder if he's going to become a more public face for drop box as they focus on box. they filed for an i.p.o. is drop boston red sox trying to get in this same position to be ready? >> absolutely. when have you the evaluation that is being rumored. the next step is an i.p.o. so

you need people around the table that get you prepared for that. >> how do you find best c.o.o.? >> there are a couple of challenges. someone getting someone from an organization who can then recruit talented people. you bring on the assistant coach who is going to bring on his other assistant coaches with him. recruiting someone out of google like facebook did with cheryl and drop box has done with greg is very telling because there are a lot of other telling people at google that might be looking at drop box. >> with zuckerberg recruited cheryl that took months. this has happened quickly. do you think woodside knew this was coming. has he been talking to drop box for a while? >> i will say this, the drop box business is one that google

respects. fwoogsl a very wit tive company looks at businesses and gets jealous and buys those business. for a long time there was a view that google might buy that business. that puts this move a little different than microsoft looking for a new c.e.o. the microsoft story we know. drop boston red sox, this fast growing company google knows well and maybe he said this is an exciting one to jump on for myself. >> and google has its own flalkt completes with drop box. >> exactly. >> thank you for joining us on "bloomberg west". >> are you sick of social media spoiling your olympics if you don't have time to watch the games during your work day like me? >> we're going to tell you about a new app that can help you. you can also watch us streaming on your tablet, phone and

bloomberg.com. ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." it's probably happened to you, that olympic event you wanted to see got spoiled on twitter or maybe you didn't get to the last episode of breaking bad but somebody on facebook told you what happened. spoiler shield blocks post about your favorite television programs from facebook and twitter feeds. the c.e.o. and co-founder of spoiler shield is with us. how does this work in >> it's a free app available for the iphone and android and it blocks any spoiler on facebook or twitter when you access our app. we have over 50 television shows along with sports, you mentioned the olympics, we also have nfl,

baseball, nba and we're continuing to add more shields. >> how does it block things in real time? do you have people behind the scenes monitoring anything that could possibly be spoiled? >> so we've developed a pro pirate tear al gor rhythm with the help of smart math phd's and it blocks spoilers and let's everything else through. it takes into account the latest hashtags and developments. >> when shaun white exeets in snowboarding and that event happens in sochi 12 hours before i am able to see it, in real time what is your al gor rhythm doing? >> it's factoring in the latest developments, tash tags, who won the gold. we have extensive data base and our al gor rhythm is able to block out any spoiling information.

if you want to see a post that is blocked, you just double tap to reveal it. >> what about movies? >> we launch with tv and sports and those were very successful. we're continuing to add new shows. we'll be moving on the movies. we're going to have a shield for the oscars because the academy awards are march 2. do you ever make mistakes? i'm thinking about how this al gor rhythm might work. it has to be quite specific to something that can actually be spoiled and not just the oscars in general, right? >> that's why we've worked hard on the technology side to improve it. it works extremely well. we've been fortune to bring on a great team to work on the algorithm side. and we are consistently improving it on a day to-day basis.

>> i'm downloading it right now. >> thank you. >> can two startups take a sharper picture of the earth than google? we'll explain next on "bloomberg west." ♪ >> retail sales miss estimates t comcast time warner merger helping boost sentiment and tocks as well. europe, middle east, amp casaw a boost in sales for the new year. and sisco forecasting that sales

this quarter may miss some estimates. the company did post a second a ter earning beat of $.40 share. ♪

>> you are watching "bloomberg west" where we focus on technology and the future of business. le november vow will make motorola mobility profitable in just a few quarters. the company plans to relaunch the motorola brand in china and emerging markets. they are working to get approval for the $2.9 billion deal to buy most of motorola from google. >> verizon wireless is offering discounts under it's more everything plan. they are doubling monthly data allowances offering $20 a month

discounts and including free international access. verizon trying to keep one discounts from at&t, sprint and t mobile. >> twitter says uses of service are twice as likely to buy a new car as the average household. they may be aiming for a larger piece of the auto advertising market had is worth $15 billion a year. >> google is famous for mapping the earth but sometimes its images are up to three years old. what do businesses that need to know how much scorn growing in iowa right now or how many boats are docked in the san francisco bay need to do? ey might need to turn to startups. bloomberg business week wrote about the race to map the earth in this week's edition of bloomberg business week. joining me now. i thought google had this market

cornered. how can a startup do better than nem >> turns out google and microsoft buy their images from these companies that have a handful of satellites each kirbling the earth. and basically there are startups coming in that have cheaper smaller satellites and instead of having a handful each, they want to have dozens that are photographing the earth at all times. >> is this a valuable market for them to be n. how many people are willing to pay for a day old image of the earth? >> that's a big question. the big guys have better quality. they have huge satellites and there are physics behind this. the bigger your telescope, the better your image is going to be. sky box imagining can do about a meter resolution and there is another that isn't as good.

if you can photograph the earth 24 by 7 and provide real time images, there are some new uses for this kind of technology. >> why is this market just getting more competitive now? >> these companies are playing off things we've seen with the iphone and all types of consumer technology. you can build more reliable satellites and cheaper. before they cost hundreds of millions of dollars each and these will cost about $5 million each because the electronics have gotten better and the software behind them. i mentioned corn and boats at the top. what are the uses of this technology? >> the uses are fascinating. there are people talking about if you are a farmer and you want to know the exact time you should plant your field and harvest it based on the weather conditions or even the chlorophyll you can see in the plants. for hedge funds and wall street companies there are guys

monitoring the parking lots of retailers seeing how many cars are going in and out of the shopping season to check and see if the stores are busy. sky box can track where they store oil in saudi arabia to see oil production on a daily basis. >> if it comes down to planet labs versus sky box, who do you see winning? >> so far to me, they are going after two slightly different things because planet labs has the edge, they have 28 satellites up. sky box has the clearer pictures and seem to be the more mature company so far. but both of them are just getting going and we'll have to see if the market develops for this technology. >> is google going to be their biggest customer? >> i don't know if they will be the biggest. but i think they will complement heir apps with these real time images.

the average one on google is about three years old sour talking about being able to get new ones every single day. >> check out that story in this week's issue of business week. >> turning to planet forward which seeks out innovative ideas to help our environment. a massive new solar plant is open for business. it is furblely being dedicated today praised by the obama administration as a major landmark in the rise of solar energy. >> there is a new energy creas heating up in california solar thermle. an hour outside of las vegas, this is now the world's largest solar thermle plant. it uses the bright hot desert sun to make steam. >> it comes down to this turbine

that drives the generator to make electricity. >> mirrors follow an algorithm to follow the sun throughout the day. >> we have all those different parts and pieces that make up a typical power plant. we just use the sun's energy to drive it. >> it's fully online and can power more than 140,000 homes in california. c.e.o. tom doyle says using the sun's energy instead of coal is like taking 72,000 polluting cars off the road. >> this is an opportunity to prove a technology and use it nationally and internationally to drive down green house gases. >> doyle says the desert's landscape is a perfect location but there aren't many places like this in the u.s. so he's eying other spots around the world. >> markets like saud day rabe i can't is an excellent market for this type of technology.

>> at more than $2 billion, this collaboration is a serious investment backed by google and the department of energy. it's more expensive than coal and doesn't generate power when the sun doesn't shine. but it's designed to deliver energy when it's needed most. >> the highest point of the day is when this plant is performing the best. >> how efficient is it? >> they are facing competition. >> the golden state is getting a big boost from big solar and just maybe moving the planet forward. >> if you have an idea you'd ike to submit, visit planetforward.org. >> facebook is launching a ferry service, more about how the social network is trying to get employees to work.

you can watch us streaming on your tablet, phone, bloomberg.com and there is a whole bloomberg experience on apple tv. ♪

>> with its shuttle buses facing rocky roads, facebook is seeking refuge in calmer waters. they became the latest tech giant to test an employee ferry service from san francisco redwood city just as google decided to end its ferry program. they have faced growing opposition to their commuter buses. protestors have blockaded several buses in recent months as they try to take employees from san francisco down to silicone valley. >> it's part of the quality

debate that's been raging in san francisco. someone who represents over 376 sill son valley companies is karl. president of the leadership group. the group was founded by david packard. he joins us now from washington, d.c. what do you think of a facebook ferry service? >> it's great to be back on "bloomberg west." i'm impressed with companies who are trying to not only meet the commute needs of their employees, but the good that can do for all of us in our very congested region. if you are taking a bus and putting 50 workers on a bus, that is 50 cars not spewing out green house gases and putting brake lights in front of the rest of us on our already busy streets and roads and highway system. so there are very positive reasons why companies are doing this. but it's a complex issue. and one of the issues in our

region, especially in san francisco and parts of silicon valley is the incredibly high cost of housing and living that we have to deal with. if you look at great companies like google and facebook, they have tried to champion housing developments close to their campuses, often losing in their local cities and towns around them because people didn't want more housing, but then how do you have places for your workers and others in our society to live that is closer to their places of employment. so this is a very complex issue. >> it's incredibly complex. i recently interviewed tom perkins. wall te a letter to the comparing itl come to nazi's and juice. >> i feel that as a class i think we are beginning to engage

in class warfare. i think the rich as a class are threatened through higher taxes, higher regulation. >> what do you make of mr. perkin's comments? >> i've never met mr. perkins and i would not share his point of view. the key is that we all live in this region together. and the leadership groups role has always been define the problem and theb find workable solutions that everybody is all of us. i'll give you a quick example. 15 years ago we formed our housing action coalition. not just employers but the broad base of our community to environmental groups, neighbors, faith community members, our labor partners, trying to advocate for homes that are well built, appropriately located and well tively affordable in such a high cost marketplace. most of the homes that we advocate for throughout the

region are not even for our own workers. they are for those who everybody is us in retail. those senior citizens and those with kids and others that are just so important for a vibe brant and just society. that is how we try to build the homes that we all need and we're going to continue to do that. we form the most innovative housing trust in the united states that helps not only workers looking to buy that first home, but also to build affordable rental homes and homeless shelters, transitional housing and assistance. >> is a facebook ferry putting a band-aid on a larger problem? it still means sort of parallel transportation systems, twhaun the tech elite can -- one that the tech elite can take and nobody else can take. >> the challenge in our region

and the nine county bay area as you know is we have incredible traffic congestion, we have homes that very few of us, whether you are in a technology company or not, can afford if you were shopping for your first home, let alone the prices of our rental homes. and we collectively need to find solutions to those challenges. we're going to be significant down with mayor -- >> should tech companies like facebook and google contribute more to public transportation? >> well, they are. we all are and i'll give you an example. the silicon leadership group has led every successful transportation sales tax measure . because of business to business sales, companies collectively pay $.50 of every dollar collected. and when you are competing globally you can't pass those

costs off to your consumers. in our region employers have always been part of the solution not only on traffic congestion, but also on the affordable housing issues we are trying to tackle. so we work to define the problem and then address the solution with real ways that benefit all of us. we need to stress, we need a we society in the region, not an us versus them and that's where i wouldn't agree with mr. perkins. we are in this all together and benefit most when we work together. >> this debate isn't over and not going away. president and c.e.o. of the silicon valley leadership group. thanks for joining us today on "bloomberg west." >> kevin heart is one of the hottest acts in hollywood. what's the secret behind his success? ♪

? welcome back to "bloomberg

west." comedian kevin hart is one of hollywood's hottest names and he as two hit movies in theater right now. what is his secret sauce other than the fact he is hilarious. we spoke with will packer who produced both movies. take a listen. >> it doesn't happen a lot. i think it's resonating with audiences in a real way and broadway. i think that it's a film that is comedy and there haven't been a comedy in a while. everything is timing. i think certainly kevin hart, it's his time. he's somebody i've had the opportunity work with multiple times so i know his skill set. i think this was a good film to show case what kevin does best. he partnered with ice cube gives hat you perfect buddy comedy

action comedy chemistry. have you to have that chemistry and he and cube are great. i got to say i think it's a good film even though it's mine. that's why it's continuing to perform. >> talking about kevin hart, you film ng to continue the furey you guys have had together. he's one of the hottest comics around. how dig do you think his career could get? >> sky is the limit for kevin. sky is the limit because he will not be outworked. he has a tremendous work ethic. it's interesting because the opening weekend of "ride along" when the numbers were coming in looking like we were going to have a record breaking opening, that very weekend, that sunday morning he and i were up at 7:00 a.m. to start shooting pro month spots for "about last night", so that tells you about his

mentality. as a producer you love it. he's somebody no matter what i ask, he's there and ready to perform and give it his all. the sky is the limit. he's only going to get bigger. i think in today's age of digital media and social media, now it's about knowing the celebrity and knowing everything about them and you still can't get enough. kevin is a constant consent generator. he always hs a video going on facebook or twitter. he's engaging and that's going to carry him and lou him to continue and expand -- allow him to continue and expand. >> it's one thing to dominate at the box office and another to make profitable movies. the budget was around $25 million. that sounds like a profitable movie to me. do films need to be made for $100 million? >> certain films do. i've been fortune to have

success making moderately budgetted films, ratherer low budgeted films. we are probably a little under that. that is considered low budget by hollywood standards. i this i the average comes in around $40 million. certain films need to be made for huge sums of money because they need to have scope and huge visual effects and every film doesn't need that. the name of the game is profitability and making money. what i'm trying to do and the model i've had success with is to make names have an audience and that satisfy that audience and do so without having to have all the trappings and huge mega udgets have. my film which was in the 20's,

now we've crossed $93 million is hugely successful in its own way. i like to look at that kind of model and have proportionate success and i think that's making hollywood pay attention. >> you mentioned brand, what about where movies are going and the new platform. have you netflix saying we're going to make original movies too. do you want your movies to begin and live in the theater before they go somewhere else or are you thinking new platforms? >> i think each movie is different and as a film maker, i make films for that large screen presentation. as a producer i have to understand the way consumers are consuming continue tent is different than two years ago. have you a generation that don't mind watching content on their

smartphones or tablets. i think that ultimately you will always have the large screen presentation but you also i think smart producers and smart studios will understand that the netflix of the world are not going anywhere. that small screen format model, you need to make con theant audiences want to see because they will come in and pay for it and those streams of content will be profitable. >> jon erlichman joins us now from l.a. >> he can do anything, can't he many >> i was thinking on this big cable deal, they should have hired kevin hart to help with the presentation of it. saying i know you don't like the cable companies and have fun with it. put a little bit of spice in this story of cable consolidation. >> he's also the voice of waze remember and he's good at telling me to turn left.

>> thank you for watching. e'll see you tomorrow.

>> from bloomberg world headquarters in new york. is is bottom line, today comcast agrees to buy time warner cable for $45 billion. then how an extreme drought is affecting california's economy. and with spring training under way, we'll preview the upcoming baseball season. >> to our viewers here in the united states and those of you yoining us from around the world, welcome. we have full coverage of the stocks and headlines.