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[captioning made possible by bloomberg television] >> from our studios in new york city this is "charlie rose." >> in his state of the union address this year president obama praised small businesses as the lifeblood of our economy. semple initiatives are assisting entrepreneurs to grow

their companies. one of them is called 10,000 small businesses and led by global investment bank goldman sachs. there was a conversation held today at bloomberg headquarters and i moderated a discussion between the c.e.o. lloyd blank fine and the former mayor of new york city who is the founder of bloomberg, that is michael bloomberg. we talked about the importance of small businesses to the economy. >> all big businesses started out as small businesses. you wouldn't have those if you didn't have the small businesses. small businesses give you the opportunity to try new things, from the economy's point of view, from society's point of view, new inventions really come out of small businesses. and then there's the economic impact of generating jobs. if you were to go to goldman sachs with how many employees do you have? >> 32,000. >> or bloomberg with 16,000. exactly half that number. there is a structure. you just can't run a business of that size without a lot of structure. and there are a lot of people that wouldn't ever get through

the screening process unfortunately at either of our companies because they have nontraditional educations. they have stuff on their resume that just big businesses would have difficulties dealing with. you have people need flexible hours. people have different set of skills. small businesses can accommodate people who are different. and i can speak for lloyd. i think both of us have very similar backgrounds. we were sort of young and up and comers and wise ass is not the decontraception but both of us were not traditional -- following a corporate path. we both did -- he was a commodity trader. i was an equity trader. we did what we did and we looked for organizations that allowed you to be yourself. and most companies don't do that. of any size. the small companies do. and now the struggle for both of us is to make sure that in our companies, to the extent

humanly possible, we have those career paths for the nontraditional person. but nevertheless, i think it fair to say it's the small company that can adapt to the needs of the employee, the bigger the company is, the more the process has to go in the other direction. >> and you would add to that? >> i'm sitting here and i'm -- when i listen to mike i'm part of the audience, too. because i'm thinking i feel a little bit -- i'm glad to be in his company. because the fact of the matter is mike, the mayor works for a company called bloomberg. i work for a company called -- not a blankfein in it. the fact of the matter is -- >> a little bit of envy there? >> well, of course envy. who wouldn't? you would have to be crazy not to. but what i do is appreciation and also appreciation of the difference. and that's something that the mayor has more in common with the entrepreneurs in this room than i have with the entrepreneurs in this room. i joined a company in full swing and was a great company. even before i got there and i'm thinking about how to maintain it and a little -- a

professional manager. the mayor like the entrepreneurs in this room took a lot of risk and took a deep breath and went all in. and knows a little bit about the trials and the tribulations and the sweaty palms that you get and of course you're in this big building now. and it's hard to realize there was a time when the mayor was like the people sitting in this room and i never was. >> do you remember what it was like sitting in this -- >> i gave a welcome this morning and talked about the first day, my biggest accomplishment was a getting a small refrigerator and a coffee pot and some milk and instant coffee. the second day we had four people. and it grew from there. you want to describe how you got into goldman sachs? >> well, i got into -- i got into goldman sachs really by acquisition. because i had gone to -- now, i grew up in east new york. the projects. and i did go to very fancy schools along the way but my resume really wasn't up to a wall street set of resumes. i went to college, law school

and practiced law for a while and like a lot of people in that era wanted to get a job in finance and new york being a finance town. everyone you're running into being like that sounded exciting and fun. i applied to nalm of wall street firms. including goldman sachs. and got turned down by all of them. including goldman sachs. which is why to this day i admire the firm that i run today. because they have the good sense -- they had the good sense. but i did -- the only job i could get that kind of had related to wall street was jay ahren and company which was a commodity trading firm and on the prestige meter between equities and fixed income and commodities was just above the toaster. compared to the other jobs. but i got a job there. and soon that firm got acquired by goldman sachs. that's how i got into goldman sachs. >> and just for the record, when i got out of school, instead of going to vietnam i applied to two firms. both offered me a job. goldman was one of them. i turned them down and went to

salomon brothers. >> was that a close between salomon brothers and vietnam? [laughter] >> yeah. and then you got fired. >> and then i got fired in 1981. yeah. best thing that ever happened to me. but i've always thought tomorrow is going to be the best day of my life. and i really -- i can't remember -- even the day i knew i was going to get fired i had never been fired before. and i wanted to see what it was like. [laughter] i just -- i have nothing in common -- >> like going in the deep end, isn't it? >> i have nothing in common with people who are looking at the glass being half full. it is what it is. that was yesterday. what are you going to do about it? just tomorrow. and it's always been a successful formula. i think most people are successful. every once in a while you buy a lottery ticket that gives you $100 million. but most people optimists go out and create things. and i've always described a good salesman is a salesman that if the door is slammed in his or her face, she or he goes

to the next door believing that they are going to make the sale. a great salesman knocks on the same door. >> comes back, yes. >> pessimistic entrepreneurs is an oxymoron. yes. >> but i suspected that lloyd has the same quality you did even though he was not founder of goldman sachs in the sense running the firm with a kind of risk taking, entrepreneurial passion. >> and it's a balance between - we are very regulated world. litigious world. there's -- nobody does anything on their own. lloyd answers to a board. he answers to his employees. he answers to his wife and kids. we all answer to lots of people. and -- >> who do you answer to? >> is diane in the room? my girlfriend. >> just gravity. >> but it's the balance. how do you keep it open to the next rocket scientist that's going to come in and do something that just -- no chance this working.

and yet it is. at the same time, you still have the obligations and the bigger you get, it is harder to -- i was talking to sam pomosano and they have 700,000 people in i.b.m. or something like that and how do you keep the spirit going? and i.b.m., if you are a computer scientist, and you want to really forget about the commercial side, you want to really -- i.b.m. is today the old bell labs. this is where the great ones, they've been able to keep that culture. >> for 100 years. >> that's exactly right. >> they had to go through a transition, too. there was a while that they were slowing down and brought in. >> everybody does. who isn't an entrepreneur where everything is a smooth ride? and you go through these things and you get criticized and you have to have a thick skin. . >> yeah. >> you've been there? >> i've been there. >> and by the way, you don't -- you don't buy a thick skin. and you don't even know you have it until somebody starts to try to puncture it and you discover what you're made of. >> but there is some value in terms of understanding what

mistakes you've made. or what successes you have had to understanding the elements of them so you can continue them. and learn from them and take -- >> although i think in business and in life, any decision that is reasonably well thought out and presented to others correctly and followed through on probably doesn't make any difference whether it was a or b decision. but the big problem is when nobody makes a decision or that just not even thought out or they make a decision with no way of implementing it. but there's no right and wrong answer. and it's not like a physics problem where you can replicate the experiment a number of times to see which is better, a or b? it's over and done. >> life gives you mid course corrections whether you want them or not. so you're going on this area and it's wrong and you know it's wrong instantly. people mark themselves for the opportunity. you knock on the door. the door slams in your face six times and you change your pitch. >> but at the same time, when

you look at the quality of people that you're hiring, at goldman sachs. tell me what you're looking for. >> well, i listen to the mayor talk and this is one of the things, we do get a little bit channeled at goldman sachs. we have people who came up a certain kind of way. re-creating themselves in the next generation. which by the way, i look at -- i told you my background. my -- c.f.o. of our firm went to rutgers and my president went to american university. and we -- and we only go recruiting at wharton and harvard. these things don't always work that way. and sometimes you get overly channeled and there's a bit of laziness that seeps in. because it's so much easier to just fall into that pattern. i would say that the realm of the people who do well in our operation is so broad that you have to narrow it artificially and it has you excluding a lot of people that are

nontraditional the way the mayor described it. >> mike, did you have a management philosophy having to do with performance of your employees? and how you -- how you both quantified their achievements or failures and how you inspired them to go beyond? >> i think you can attract good people if you do two things. one, you've got to give them authority to go along with responsibility. i don't know anybody that wants to take a job where they don't -- where they're not going to have the opportunity to do something. >> right. >> and i thought the administration that we put together in new york city government, we attracted people, including very senior person from goldman sachs. bob steele. because you gave them the authority, they weren't just going to be spokesmen for the head office. i think -- if you look at presidentialed a mingses, and it's not just obama, but most presidents modern day, all the decisions are made in the white house and then out in foggy bottom or the pentagon or wherever they implement. but they don't have a lot of

authority to make decisions. and i think those are unattractive jobs and wouldn't want to take it. the other thing is you always want to work in a company where the person that you work for has your back. as they would say. if one of our people screws up, city government or here, and it was a rational thing, they try -- and just didn't work. or just said something stupid. we all say things stupid. if you're going to shoot everybody that said something stupid, there would be nobody left. and so i want to make sure people see me walking down the aisle with that person telling a joke, laughing. and having a cup of coffee. and -- because people have got to understand that if they don't try or if they don't fail, they're going to be -- how do i phrase it, that they can't fail and succeed. the truth of the matter is you want people to try skiing double black diamonds and ski double black diamonds you're going to fall. if you don't fall you aren't skiing the right steep slopes. >> and you aren't challenging

yourself. >> you aren't challenging yourself. so you got to have some confidence that there's somebody behind you. and i think too many in government, they never stand behind you. that's -- they throw somebody to the winds right away and read in the paper that so-and-so, and i thought kathleen sebelius was undeserving of getting unceremoniously fired in a nasty way. no question that obamacare, software didn't work and it wasn't implemented the right way. ok. they screwed up. but the whole question is obamacare something that the country needs and finding a way is to make it work, and if it doesn't then we shouldn't have it. but if it does it's not going to be perfect and you can't shoot the people who delivered it not perfectly. >> and feel the same way about shinseki? >> i don't know -- just the little bit i read in the paper. it is true the head person is responsible. on the other hand, the head person was not the head of the v.a. the head person was the head of the country. and when we have this, we've

got to fire the head person, they will why aren't you resigning? >> i take full accountability. he's fired. [laughter] >> just in general. you have to be careful. in leadership. not that particular instance. but i say in general, you have to be -- to the point you have to be careful. i just -- a corollary with what the mayor said and an embellishment you have to be -- as a leader, you have to be very careful between learning from your mistakes somebody made this point about going out and learning. >> right. >> versus being a second-guesser. and letting -- the way things turn out, inform your view in terms of the criticism you'll give somebody who made the decision before the events unfolded. so in other words, now that i know it was bad and this software didn't work, now that i know this, you should have known. but really what you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of the person when things were foggy.

and you didn't know. what kind of decision? if you hold people accountable for information that could have had it veers from a learning experience into second-guessing and who wants to through that process? and i think that one of the things problematic in the country today is the process of taking the risk -- the personal risk that someone takes and taking a responsible government job. even if you want to serve. because it's such a dangerous place to be, to be second-guessed and held up and potentially vilified for things not working out well even though you made a great decision based upon the information that was available at the time. and at the end of the day you're going to get people to fill all these jobs. but it might not be the people you want. >> i want to come back to a point you raised and it's often expressed don't let perfect be the enemy of good. the idea is you have to be decisive. you have to make decisions. >> yes. >> you can't just -- >> and that's the executive's job. and the legislator's job is different.

what i find offensive and you see it every day, when you read the articles in the paper, congressmen or senator says mr. blankfein, isn't it an outrage, shouldn't you feel ashamed that you served vanilla ice cream in your cafeteria on a day that the president made national strawberry ice cream appreciation day? and then the guy leaves the room. but you see the congressman saying that. and then when lloyd is trying to answer the question, the congressman gets up and walks out. he doesn't care. he was told and sometimes they just arrested from the national strawberry ice cream manufacturer's association. the question. >> often the questions aren't questions. >> their accusations and the whole idea is to get visibility, inches, minutes, whatever. and they don't want an answer and don't know what they're talking about. there's a city council person and won't tell you who but they are in the pocket of one union. and the person comes in and the city council, and takes the

question and reads it. not -- sometimes fumbling over the words. and then leaves. that's unfortunately the society we have. but the executives don't have that option. you make the decision and then you got to learn to live with it. and very small difference between being pigheaded and having the courage of your convictions and knowing when you gave it the old college try and it didn't work out and time to change and go on. when is it -- you just have a feel. >> what are the lessons you learned during the crises you faced during the heart of 2008? >> well, aside from the content of the underlying things and just taking it as a lesson in crisis as opposed to the specific one, i'd say you learn that people and what people -- you know, the lolet that people have, and the work ethic that people have and the sense of belonging and ownership that people have is hugely important. and i think it's a big takeaway.

myself and other people in this room that you can't do things by yourself. and you also learn in a crisis what people are made of. there are people that i work with who -- world class athletes, manly men. women, strong women. and held themselves out and when the crisis happened, people, metaphorically curled up in a fetal position. then we had people who worked for us that didn't look like they could climb a flight of stairs and they were brutes. and they were stalwarts and worked out well. and you just don't always know what's -- what's going to happen. but it's a very, very big difference how people behave. and i'll say the most important lesson, one notch more important than that, you learn about other people. and people learn about how you act in a crisis. but the most important thing is you learn about how you act in a crisis. and it's very important to know who you can count on, and who you can trust. but the most important lesson is you learn the stuff that you yourself is made of. and that's what either -- that's what either erodes your

confidence in yourself or creates greater confidence in yourself by taking on the next issue. if you gotten through something that's really, really hard, and you aren't going to be daunted the next time you face something really hard. but if you crumbled, your knees are going to knock together and not do well. >> and for a lesson for all small business people. because this stuff applies to you just as much as it applies in a big company and maybe even more so. you really -- you don't do things from distances. whatever. i have two rules i keep trying to insist people follow. one is you got to be genuine. if you screw up, people want to know that at least you tried. if you have to make a tough decision, and they don't agree with it and ats wrong decision and made a mistake they have to know you were genuine. that you dent have an agenda other than trying to get people to work together and come up with a right decision. and if you ever get to the point where you have to lay somebody off, and i couldn't feel more strongly about this, if you fire somebody, and they

are surprised, you ought to look in the mirror. because your first responsibility is to your employees from just the plain selfish point of view. you've invested in an employee. you want to make them work. and it's really -- if an employee isn't work out you're the loser. they're going to lose their job but you have now made a bad decision. and you're going to miss somebody -- you missed the services that you might have gotten. and it's just not fair to the person. you're supposed to be helping them. and you can guide them along and say look, you haven't done this here and i'm going to try something -- find some other place you can be helpful in the company. or this probably isn't the right thing for you. you need something we can't accommodate. why don't you start looking around and we'll carry you for a while. and that sort of thing. that just engenders a loyalty in people and before people leave they say i'm not sure my next boss would be as good as this and i'm going to stay right here. >> if you ask for loyalty you have to give it. >> couldn't better phrase it. >> a quote from president obama small businesses are the

lifeblood of our economy. noting that they create most of the nation's new jobs and lead the way in reviving the economy. is that your sense, do you agree with the president on that? >> absolutely. i do. >> why is that? simply because they're doing most of the hiring? >> yeah. listen, not an exclusive thing. elements, a lot of times big business is throwing off the work for small business. i'll give you an example. we built a big tower downtown. spent billions -- well over $1 billion. building it. and oddly enough, a lot of small businesses servicing our new building sprung up. so there's this kind of symbiotic good relationship both ways. but really, it's the -- it's -- it's the way energy gets focused and cycled in america. in small -- in small business. and most innovation is happening through small business. you know, why -- we're in the m&a business. one of the reasons why there's so much m&a in big companies buy smaller companies because

the big companies themselves don't innovate. because they get trapped in the same kind of narrow thing that i described and we talked about, how we hire some of the people who replicate themselves. people get trapped in a world view. another smaller company is the one that's making the great films or the innovative drugs. or has the new application. or the new technology investment and apple and a big company goes out and acquires them. because you cannot get that kind of innovation sometimes. and sometimes you do more or less. but i think there's a great symbiotic relationship between small business and big business. i will tell you, i've not yet met the small business that doesn't wish he or she became a big business in a certain amount of time. but having said that most people that run big businesses wish they were back in those days maybe. i do. much more fun. you did everything. you could get involved and you can't. >> why is it that big businesses can't maintain that spirit? >> just the size. the structure. you just -- you cannot run

something of the magnitude of goldman sachs or even bloomberg without a structure. >> let me close this. we got a minute left with lloyd talking about how 10,000 small businesses is expanding. and how other people can have access to the program. >> sure. well, we have 10,000 small businesses now. in 23 cities. and counting. the negotiable advice we got from our other co-chair warren buffett is to make sure everything works so start small and work your way up when it worked well. and we decided there would be some cities where there wasn't such a critical mass and infrastructure where you couldn't find great partners necessarily to be the platform for teaching or the cdfi for financing. we have a catch-all collective where we pick people from around the country who aren't otherwise in cities where we have a core program. and bring them -- i think to babson college which has a great -- the best entrepreneurial program. and we run a separate program

out there where we have people in residence. so we're also adapting to the environment. >> thank you all for coming. to be here. good luck. mike bloomberg. lloyd blankfein. >> thank you. [applause] >> when you hear the name robert de niro you think of one of our greatest absentors but there was another man by that name who was a very talented painter. it was his father, robert de niro senior was part of the new york school aalongside fellow artist like jackson pollock and mark roth co-and his work was exhibited by peggy guggenheim but never gained the popular recognition that his other contemporaries enjoyed, art had i storns consider him -- historians consider him a deep talent. a documentary for h.b.o. focused on the paint who are went unnoticed. here's the trailer for remembering the artist robert de niro sr. >> my father created all this beautiful art work. he was the real thing.

he was to me a great artist. but you can never impose that on people. my father felt he was different. and he was different. not only as an artist but for other reasons. he was very particular about what art is. part of recognition is luck. artists are always recognized after they're long gone. i just want to see him get his due. that's my responsibility. >> joining me is the director of robert de niro the artist's son and pleased to have them at this table. my first question is how come you get together? >> well, i was always wanting to do a documentary about my father. just as a documentation. not as a documentary the way it's now which is great. the family, for -- my kids who

didn't know their grandfather. and i kept the studio for a year as you see in the documentary. kilpatrick it until now. and -- kept it until now. and still have it and wanted to see what their grandfather did. so jane rosenthal and i were talking over the years about this. and finally -- >> your partner. >> yes. jane said let's do it now. and she knows perry. and i knew perry a little bit and they were friends and asked perry if she'll do it and so on. and that's how it started. and we finally did it. and someone had -- as you see that some footage there had been done by a guy in his 70's who followed my father around. and he contacted me. and i bought it from him. and i wanted to use -- i gave them that. and we just went on this journey if you will. >> so how did you approach this request? >> you know, it has been a journey. because initially, when jane and bob came to my partner, it

was really not something that was going to be broadcast. it was going to be something that was for the family. and i think that what happened along the way is we all came to the conclusion that this was a story that was more than just about one man. it was about an artist, a wonderful artist at an interesting moment in american art history where the world went from one kind of painting to another first abstract art and then pop art. and for the figurative painters of that time, that was a difficult transition. and so robert de niro sr. who was a wonderful painter was one of many that had kind of been overlooked. so it really became a process. and finally realizing that there was a story here not only of father-son story but an art story. and a story about the meaning of fame. so that was processed. >> do you feel that not only is this for your grandchildren but also in a sense for those who

might not have appreciated your father, they will now know what he did? >> yeah. i mean, it's -- all those things. that's also absolutely a plus. anybody who's been -- who's not aware of him now will be aware of him whoever watches the documentary. >> bob, is it also saying to your father, in any way,ness homage to you but also a sense of -- i wish we had more time together, i wish we spent more time together and i wish that like all kids feel at some point in their life i wish i had spent more time? >> i say that in the documentary. because -- i was busy with my own life. and this and that. and so i wish i had done -- certain things i wish i had done the documentary 10, 15 years earlier. and included my mother in it. and other contemporaries of my father. but this is what it is. i'm lucky that i had at least

got and did it at this point. and that my kids can see it. and my younger kids especially. because they don't have any recollection. they don't know him. >> let me take a look. this is a clip from you talking about your father. here it is. ♪ >> he was the real thing. my father. i see his work. i see how dedicated he was. he was to me a great artist. but you can't -- you can never impose that on people. they have to make their own decisions. the thought of what he's done, all his work, i can't not but make sure that it's held up and

emembered. so i just want to see him get his due. that's my responsibility. >> the reason he didn't get his due was because of where he came as you were saying, perry? was it more than that? >> well, i think -- no. i think that has just -- it's a matter of timing sometimes. and what was going on at that time in the art scene and the art world. just -- he also had left for europe for a few years. so that might not have been the best time for him to leave. but, you know, i still think it was just the real -- just what it was at that time. >> charlie, one of the people that we used on the film, a wonderful man named irving sandler who was an art his torn, called that time period a bloodbath when the art world made this shift. and rob storr from yale another

person who we used who says -- and i think really sums it up so well. that the art world turned its gaze elsewhere. onto pop lart. and it doesn't mean the figurative painters weren't doing their thing and weren't painting away but that the attention went elsewhere. and i think that painters like robert de niro sr. got overlooked at that point. although he really did have quite a bit of success in the beginning of his career. >> when we say pop art we're talking about -- >> andy warhol. roth co-. not to take anything away from what they were doing. it was a different kind of art than the figurative painters. and i'm sure that to some of them it didn't make sense. right? they weren't painting in the same style that the figurative painters were. >> was this hard for your father? >> oh, yeah. i'm sure it was. he was sometimes talk about it. yeah. he saw -- he felt it, yeah. >> he says in one of the clips as bob mentioned there was some footage. and he says i suppose i could

have done, i could have gone and done that kind of art. but it didn't make much sense to me. and i think that really kind of sums up what that experience was. he's used to painting figures. and painting landscapes and all of a sudden people are throwing -- you know, putting paint on canvasses in a very different way. so i think that it was confusing. and frustrating for him. >> he was -- he was in the -- in the country side in central france. and then he -- well, i visited him when i was 18. hitchhiking through europe. turning 19, i was i came back three years later. he's now in paris. and sort of in a hotel and not feeling too good about everything. and in a rut. and so i had to get -- i said, i'm going to send him back.

told him i'm going to send him back. and he was terrified of flying and all that. so he took a boat over like the queen mary. but i had to almost push him on the plane to get him back. but he had to. >> you knew you had to get him back. >> yeah. i didn't go with him. i stayed but made him go back. >> here's what your father wrote in his journal. bobby always managed to visit me in europe. and at the opportune moment to help me flew a shock like the one in paris and gave me the courage to leave an unbearable situation. it was who he practically pushed me on the plane to return to new york. thank you, god, for bobby having turned out so well. so he appreciated not only a loving son but also a son who's also an artist. >> well, yeah. he appreciated me as a son just getting him on the plane. and bringing him home. >> and appreciated your work as an artist. >> as time went on and i was a young actor and i was studying. and -- as time went on, of course, he was proud.

i know. of my -- what happened with me. >> do you have any painting talent? >> i'm not interested. i never really concentrated on it. i just -- i did study a little bit on scholarship and music and art for a semester but couldn't -- i couldn't continue. >> what was the most interesting thing for you in doing this? >> you know, it's interesting. as -- to make a film about somebody who is no longer here with us, it's hard to find that person -- that person's voice. and he left behind hundreds of pages of journals and we really felt that we got -- we were able to learn about him and understand him in a much deeper way. because of his writings. and then of course there are these incredible paintings that tell so much. so it was -- it was interesting for geta and myself to be able to piece these various components together. the journals. the letters. the art. and of course with bob's interviews. >> the studio.

you kept it from the -- you never changed it. never changed it. >> never changed it. i had to do some minor things to preserve things and change the sky light for tinted skylights and pull shades. and stuff like that. but basically it is what it is. >> was there time that you changed your mind about your relationship with him? this ust felt that i -- was a responsibility. i gots -- got older i was very close to my grandmother to openings or his openings and when my -- even after he passed away, i take my younger kids and of course my older kids and i think i remember taking them to shows. as i started getting into my late -- late 20's or early 30's and mid 30's. and after that, we would -- it would be pretty much a

tradition of going to openings of his shows. and they would come to openings of films and my grandmother. >> what made him a painter? what did he like about painting? what family meant to him? >> i was trying to find people and students of his. and i haven't, maybe after this comes out. come out. people that i maybe met or some of the places that he taught at. but students liked him. >> i think -- we had a letter from one student who we actually spoke to. and i loved the story because she wanted to let us know that bob sr. was so incredibly proud of you. that your first film, he insisted that all of his students go see his son, bobby, the actor. and everybody said they rolled their eyes. we got to go see the teacher's son? in a movie? and they came back and like ok, we saw bobby. the son. the actor. but that was one of the stories that we were able to find from

the students. >> good for you. >> thank you. >> congratulations. >> thanks. >> let me make note of this. the work of robert de niro sr. will be in new york from june of-july 11. remembering the art is robert de niro sr. premieres on hbo on monday, june 9. >> "charlie rose" is brought to you by united health care. united health care. health in numbers. online at uhc.com.

>> imagine reading paul story's epic war and peace in 10 hours while the first harry potter novel in just over one? a boston startup claims you can do just that using the new speeding reading technology. sprits allows users to read 1,000 words per minute. and over three times faster than the average adult. here's a look at sprits. ♪ >> here to explain the

technology behind the company and what it means for the future of reading are co-founders frank waldman and maik maurer. explain this to me because i am by the nature of this work i do and curious mind i read all the time. so you're made for me. >> well, you aren't alone. everybody reads. and we found interest from all over the world. all age groups. it's really fantastic. people are totally engaged with reading. but the funny thing is reading hasn't changed in thousands of years. >> right. >> and luckily, my co-founder, maik, decided to put research together to enable a new way of reading. >> what did you do? >> just think about the reading process. that's what we did. so as frank said, reading never really changed. reading was developed and we just started to read on stonewalls. and so we put in one character and we have to put in the next character to the right side and the razing direction developed. and today we have digital devices and what you do with

digital devices we try to imitate the stone tablet from thousands of years ago. so then we analyze the reading process and just seen that they're completely new degrees of freedom to do it. and that the way we did it for 4,000 or 5,000 years is not necessary to do today on digital displays. >> how do we do it? >> we do it by so far by moving the eyes or hopping over to text to find a new landing point and to take up a word as a unit and then we have to move the eye again. so a significant part of reading is the eye movement. and so as you turn that around, and say how would reading look like if you don't move the eye, then you're at spritz. so you move the text. you move the text that way that each word is just delivered in a perfect position for your eyes so that you can get the whole world as a unit. and so you take out the time for searching the next word. and that's -- that makes reading a lot easier and

faster. >> do you understand that? we'll see an example of some books -- so the idea just in case you -- the idea is that you are moving the text and not jour eyes. -- your eyes. you see it as a unit and that means what? you see a whole word rather than syllables? >> not syllables. or characters. you are not reading a word character by character and then put it all together. you know a word of five characters, you catch as a unit. that's what you do. and to land with your eye at a specific point in this word to get the whole world. and this point is always the same. >> so this is not an app. >> no. >> this is a technology. >> correct. it's a technology that it can enable all the apps to read that way. to implement reading in a very compact display. normally for reading you need a lot of space. you need the whole space of your phone. and the phone is getting bigger and bigger because you need that space on your phone. but spritz allows you just to

show certain characters and make a really compact display and so to implement text wherever you need it. >> so when you put together a company you have to raise financing? >> indeed. >> and how did you do that? >> well, fortunately, i've been around for a while. and in technology and had a collection of friends who invest in this type of disruptive technology. so we were able to raise seed funding. and that enabled us to file a bunch of patents on the core technology of streaming text this way. and the integration of it into media. like photos. videos. augmented reality. and also the analytics about tracking the way that you consume content. and so it provides not only the reader with a better way to read but the publisher has a better way to publish. >> was your background computer science? >> no. i'm a mechanical engineer. it's a long way. but why do all the same stuff

all your life? >> what led you to this? curiosity about something that had been the same for thousands of years, perhaps could be changed? >> in general, when you think about innovation, there are innovation gaps all the time. and you see something, we are trying to imitate all stuff with new technology. and so i search for innovation gaps because -- out of curiosity and reading is one of the biggest innovation gaps i've found. >> you looked at innovation gaps and came to reading? >> right. >> thi take a look. this is an excerpt from "old man and the sea" at 250 words per minute. tell me what i'm seeing. >> you're looking at the red character. that's the place where your eye will focus. and the two little marks there direct your eye and try to keep your eye there. because that's where we want you to look. >> all right. let me see that over. could we look at that again? >> so when it begins it will draw your eye to that point. and your eye will recognize each word without moving. and that speed is very slow.

it feels very slow. and what we found is that there is a speed which is too slow. it feels robotic. and as you speed it up, it gets smoother and smoother. and then eventually you go too fast. so really there's a point in the middle that your comfort speed. >> when you go too fast what happens? you aren't -- you aren't -- >> you're skimming. >> skimming and not understanding. >> losing words -- >> comprehension -- >> you're still learning -- >> but comprehension declines if you get too fast? >> that's right. >> if you try to read a page too fast, faster than you can normally read your comprehension will drop. >> take a look at this from "the sun also rises" at 300 words per minute. >> now we're going faster. and you can start feeling that it's streaming to you. we have people that say that it's actually -- feels like it's talking to you. like the words are talking. >> is there a negative to this? >> of course. it's not made for everything. yeah. this is -- this is reading for mobile situations. for the new situations when you

-- you pull out your phone 150 times a day statistically. just to catch up the news. just to read a quick email. this is what -- >> so not made for a long-term reading after book for an hour? >> i think reading, what you mean is it's more than just information delivery. it's the whole feeling of a book. the tactile of feeling of a book. this is more and spritz cannot deliver that. and if you have to work with a text and read a technical paper, and you have to go back and forth and just figure out -- this is something else. this is simply something else. we are not -- we're not trying to replace reading. we want to enrich reading, expand reading. to this new -- >> in certain categories. >> exactly. to this new use case. these use cases have never been there before. >> so show me one more time "the sun also rises" at 300 words per minute and then "for whom the bell tolls" at 350. "the sun also rises." here it is. >> the key is to relax and let the words flow in. especially in short messages. >> now here's for "fo' r for

whom the bell tolls" at 350 words per minute. >> i'm not a native speaker in english so for me this is -- >> at 350 words per minute? >> normal reading is around 230 for a native speaker in english. but this is already an increase. and not necessary to read on 700 or 800 words. if you can do it, great. >> is it possible that this could be used for people with reading difficulties? >> well, what we found was when we launched the company 2 1/2 months ago, people started to experience spritz on our website. and they wrote us in twitter and facebook, they wrote us about how they were dyslexic or they -- a.d.d. and often was parents writing about their children. so we decided to give them a orum so we opened a linkedin group and called it spritz for reading difficulties and hundreds of people engaged with each other. so that they could test their

own experiences of spritzing and organize themselves to do more formal testing and mike is running that group. >> ok. and early indications are -- >> great. tremendous. really tremendous. >> what's this? >> this is the samsung smart watch. those are emails. you're reading that full content email in using spritz and that small display. a few minutes. and you can read all your emails. those could also be news stories and your book and catching a few pages in the book. >> so this is exciting stuff. so final question is, somebody wants -- they heard this conversation and say that's for me. what do they do? >> well, they come to our website. and we offer a lot of information about how spritz works for them. we offer them a place to find where they can experience spritz. so apps like the one on the watch, the one on the phone. there you can read books. you can read p.d.f.'s and go to websites and install little spritz bookmark. and you can read any webpage content. >> what is rsvp?

>> that's rapid serial visual presentation. and that's the way -- that was a technique that was invented back in the 19 sefrnts for presenting words one at a time in a display. long before we had smart phones. and the problem with that is that red letter that you see, that's what we call the recognition point. >> optimal recognition point. >> exactly. that's not in the center. so rsvp centers words which forced your way to move from right to left. to recognize the word. >> are there other companies that are working on this same idea? that are looking at how to use rsvp technologies? >> oh, sure. yeah. >> who's your primary competition? >> well, there -- no one you've ever heard of and that's the point. rsvp was fundamentally flawed. and so none of the applications of it ever became commercially accepted. and so that's the thing that mike sought to fix. >> so where are you going to take this, mike? as you think about it and as --

as this becomes scaleable, and as you think about what -- how else you mayt might apply and other places where there's an innovation gap? >> of course all the variables. all the variables coming up. so the variables started with smart watches. and reality glasses. there loob a lot of different glass -- there will be a lot of different glasses notice future. and we can think of other varblese that will come up in the future. they all have limited space. so unique compact phones and you want a text through these variables spritz is the perfect solution. >> here's what a researcher at the university of california at san diego said during natural reading we go back and reread the text about 10 to 15% of the time. without going back to reread it and fix a misunderstand being speed reading will never be as successful in terms of comprehension as natural reading. you don't argue that point, do you? or do you? >> well, personally, the studies that have been conducted have not been conducted with our technology.

so there is no testing of our technology. >> you would think schools and everybody else would be interested in testing your technology. >> they are and they will be. we've only been 2 1/2 months in the public eye. there just hasn't been time. so we do think, and in fact we're doing our own larger scale research now. that will help address that. but fundamentally, you know, we're a technology. and we think if you implement it correctly, you'll be able to go back. as far as you want. as much as you want. and there may even be better techniques for regrissive reading if you want -- need it for your comprehension. but part of the thing about moving your eye is when the eye is moving, you can't -- your brain is busy moving the eye. and with rsvp you're moving your eye. so that's important. and you're moving it in the opposite direction. and it's very disruptive. and so your comprehension will decrease with rsvp. we've known that. that's why we developed our

technique. >> and comprehension will not decrease with your technique? >> well, we hope to show that statistically. we've seen that just from our users. but we didn't -- we weren't conducting that research formally to release it. >> tell me about the experiments with your users. >> we developed a news reader app. so an r.s.s. reader like pulse. and you can pick any story and spritz it. and we gave that to -- we started with just people we know. and then we asked other people to try it out. and because we're streaming it, we can understand how they're reading with it. and we -- we also -- and tests hat miak conducted, we ask five questions and score them on their answers and test that against reading -- >> conventional way. >> what were the results? >> really great. first very interesting result is you will not answer five out of five questions correctly

when you read the standard way. normally if you read at a normal speed you will also miss some questions and answers. and if you're in your comfort zone, and it was the same comprehension, even sometimes a little bit better. because people thought they are concentrating and focusing better. and it got more time to watch this thing work because the eye was not moving. so there is not a drop in comprehension if you go at your right speed and with right context. so it's -- for specific use cases. if you read very complicated text, you will not do it with spritz is he simply but read your daily news and emails then comprehension will not fall. >> great. thank you for coming. >> thanks a lot. >> thanks for having us. >> this is "taking stock" for

wednesday, june the fourth, 2014. today's theme is fresh. the freshii is opening more than one location per week around the world. we will find out how its founder did it with salads, burritos, wraps. a new fresh take on high end luxury automobiles. we introduce you to the company that cared to pick an exercise bike inside a customize vehicle.