>> from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to the best of "bloomberg west," where we focus on technology and the future of business. i'm emily chang. every weekend we'll bring you the "best of west," interviews with the power players in global technology and media companies that are reshaping our world. it is not just new iphones with

bigger screens that apple is working on but also new ipads. this as the company tries to get its customers excited about tablets again. they started manufacturing them just in time for the holiday season. a new full sized ipad could be unveiled as soon as this quarter and mini will be available by the end of the year. all of this according to familiar with the matter. it is a move to boost their business. sales fell last quarter to 13.3 million down 9% yearover year. i asked gene what apple can do to get customers excited about ipads again. >> it is probably not going to be that different from the existing ipad. they can add a touch i.d. sensor, and a less glare

screen. when are they going to make a bigger ipad, something that is more of a pro version? in the supply chain, we're are not picking that up right now. i would not expect that this fall. eventually, i think that is going to happen. to your earlier comments, i think the ipad is still the troubled child. i do not see some of the changes this fall being enough to get that business kick started. there are some other things going on could potentially get that going, as far as this fall, that is not going to be one of the focuses investors are going to be eyeing. >> what about these new iphones? couldn't they can blies ipad sales if they are as big as 5.5 inches? >> you're spot on. that's the big one ipad is going to face. it has been down 3% every year, year over year. i think there is going to be cannibalization, and that is a good thing for apple. the reason is that the a.s. spmbings going to be around

$700 where the a.s.p. on an ipad is about half of that. you have higher gross margins, more revenue. i think the best thing that can happen is for apple to cannibalize their ipad sales with an iphone. >> ok. now we have seen reports today that apple is speaking with hospitals about integrating some features in the healthkit, which might be a big feature of ios 8, and in an iwatch, if that is coming. what is your reaction to these reports? what do you know? > we know that healthkit and homekit will make your ipad and phone do different things in the next few years. i think this is important framework to how we are going to think about apple devices. i would not expect anything game changing in the next 3-6 months. you put homekit and healthkit along with what's happening with he i.b.m. announcement for

intersurprise and you start to see how this company can create new uses of technology. i think they are doing all the right stuff. i think investors will be satisfied with the updates to the iphone, along with a watch in the near-term. i think longer term the healthkit, homekit and i.b.m. relationship should yield better units. the simple takeaway is that numbers should be inching up as we get into 2015. >> as you are hearing more about what is in the product pipeline, we know tim cook has said it is the greatest pipeline in 25 years. another apple executive says that. do you believe that? now that you have some clues about what's coming? >> we have thought a lot about that. we have gone back and pieced together all the things we are talking about. if you are checking the box for the greatest roadmap or the greatest product releases, i think this is going to be close to it. as far as the number of things

that are going to happen, it is the biggest in the last 25 years. as far as the actual impact to the model, that is debatable. obviously, the iphone transformed the company, and all these combined will not transform apple like the iphone did. epending on your perspective, if you look at the quantity of announcements, i think they are spot on. if you look at the substance of it, it is definitely a positive, but not to the same magnitude as the iphone. >> how confident are you that an iwatch is coming this year? give me a percentage. >> i would say there is an 85% chance it happens this fall. there are still plans in asia. i think at the end of the day, the only reason this does not happen is they kill it at the 11th hour, which is highly nlikely. >> up next, buzzfeed is building some serious buzz about itself.

we tell you what the company plans to do with the $50 million it just raised from andreessen horowitz, next. ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. buzzfeed, the website popular for lists and general news gets an opportunity to grow. in true buzz feed style, here are the top five things you need to know -- buzzfeed is getting $50 million in series e funding from andreessen horowitz. with partner chris dixon joining he buzzfeed board. buzzfeed's fund is a reported 850 million dollars. it has raised over $96 million in funding. they will convert to buzzfeed motion pictures which will produce short clips and full-length movies and let them expand internationally to india,

exico, germany and japan. they are among the top 10 most visited news and information sites with an average 150 million monthly viewers compared to 31 million viewers for the "new york times" website. for more on buzzfeed, i spoke with paul kedrosky. --tarted by asking him if he they can become a giant media company. >> i think it is a giant media company. it's just not the kind of media company you and i might most like. i was listening to your list of the top five things we should know about the buzz feed deal. the only thing was a bullet that ended with cap. that's a joke -- the attraction is they kind of hacked our attention and the ability to its stuff in front of people, find out what is appealing and turn it into a list and generate traffic. that is a business. whether that means it is anything bigger than what it

looks like is really hard to see. lots of companies look like toys in their early growth days and that's sort of the pitch here. taking it to something much more profitable is difficult to see. i struggle to figure out how that works from here. >> you have so many tech titans investing in new media. jeff bezos buying the washington post"." andreessen has been particularly alleged on new media and journalism. he recently tweeted i'm more optimistic/glitch about the future of news over the next 20 years that almost anyone i know. it will grow 10 times to 100 times. do you agree with that? >> i think media -- and we are a living example, we are going through a wrenching transformation. i think it's going to get much larger. i just think it is not going to look anything like what it currently

looks like all stop in so far as we are asking whether buzz feed is the next "new york times" or bloomberg, the answer is no. we are creating an entirely different warm up the edits not going to look anything like now. one of the pitches they made in making this deal was that it exemplifies this. full stack investing model that chris dixon and others have, the notion this whole industry needs to be reengineered from top to bottom and the old suppliers are not going to be there anymore. i think that's what you're seeing here. so the notion it's going to turn into something we are familiar with this completely wrong and that will make some people resort to despair. > joining me is the founder of gigaom. you lived inside as an insider at gawker and a huffington post. can these companies the profitable? can they make -- >> absolutely.

you look at buzzfeed, they are profitable according to the "new york times" article. but i think paul is on to something here. you have to stop looking at these companies as news companies and more as attention companies. if you have the attention, you have the business. if you have the attention, advertisers want to go there. you can sell people other things. you can sell them movies. you can sell them music. you can sell them e-books or hatever. i think buzzfeed is in a good position to capture that big part of the media market because some of the older guys are just oing the same old, same old. they've done it good job at going through a more nimble, social oriented media company. i think we should stop comparing.

they're not all the same company. they are very, very different. i think what my company does is different from what buzzfeed is and we are essentially doing generally the same business but not the same industry. >> how profitable can they be? you and i have talked about the value of clicks, but one kind of click is more valuable than another. one kind of user is more valuable than another. 75% of buzz feed traffic comes from social media. is that dangerous? are they overly reliant on social media? >> absolutely. that is a risk every media ompany runs. i think buzzfeed has that rusk, but there are many more large lot forms today. you have pinterest, tumblr and so forth. they have a little less risk

compared to the previous generation players. >> on the profits point, that's the weakest criticism we can make. their costs are minimal compared to a traditional media organization. they are not sending people around the world establishing buzz the bureaus with the latest in taiwanese list. they don't need to do that. you can put together cap lists from anywhere. their costs are much lower than traditional media companies, so if anything, it could be intensely profitable. the biggest risk is that the algorithms change and their traffic shrinks dramatically. that is what they have to engineer against. >> they are not establishing bureaus in taiwan to make this, -- lists but i was looking closely at the reporting in the ukraine when the malaysian plane went down. they're working more on longform print journalism. are they giving companies like "the new york times" a run for their money? >> i think they're being different. i don't think they are doing what the "new york times" has done.

they are looking at a new model for a whole new generation of viewers, readers. people who want to be entertained. we have this holier than thou notion of news and at the end of the day, what buzzfeed has done is turn that into a light entertainment package. they send somebody to ukraine to do a serious story but there is value in that. the reality is the majority of the business is going to come from being entertainment-oriented. >> what about major motion pictures? paul, what do you think of buzzfeed doing full-length feature films? >> i don't like it, but mark is much smarter than i am. maybe they have figured something out here. the graveyard of roque and media companies and broken investment is longer than demand. look at the inventions with elevation partners. there are many different attempts to build around

entertainment and around content products and particular movies. it is difficult to see how that is a profitable venture on top of something with pretty interesting economics on its own. i struggle to get that. i understand the movie industry is broke and tv is beating up on it in many ways, but that doesn't turn it into a justification for being a movie investment vehicle. >> is video -- no one has really been able to crack the real value of video. it is difficult to organize. you can't just click on it quickly. is there something to be said for putting a lot of investment there? >> youtube has done a good job at making money off of video and so has netflix. >> short content is the key, right? >> right. either do the sharp content the

way youtube does. the netflix model where you aggregate -- nobody wants to watch a two-hour movie but you an watch two or three episodes of a television series in a row. that is where the opportunity is. i have heard the decentralized company will try to do something similar. >> it's an interesting time. the challenge is to not get ambitious. do it better and smarter and faster in different environments. i think that will be a good balance for them to find some news and entertainment. so let's see how it goes. i don't think this is such a bad investment from andreessen horowitz. >> well, after fleeing and returning to the u.s., john mcafee is back in the tech game with the focus on protected

internet privacy. he joins us next on the best of "bloomberg west." ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west". i'm emily chang. john mcafee made his name creating early antivirus software, and years later made headlines later after fleeing belize where authorities wanted to question him as a person of interest in the murder of an american businessman. now, he is back in the tech game with a company called future tense systems, that builds radix to protect her some old data. he recently spoke at defcon and said google and laziness are the biggest things eroding our privacy today. john joins us now from an undisclosed location. you did ask us not to tell anyone where you are, and we are going to respect that. you say that google and laziness are the biggest things eroding privacy today. what do you mean by that? >> google makes its money, and so does facebook, by collecting

information. if it did not collect information, it would go broke. the information it collects is, where are you? what are you buying? what are you doing? what do you like? what do you dislike? it is an intrusive system that has invaded every part of our lives. it is not just google. most of the free apps you download, you give permissions. you can turn the camera on, listen to you, send messages, read your messages, read your e-mail. it is astonishing, the freedoms we have given up or the privacy we have given up willingly. that is laziness. google needs to have another paradigm for making money, because this cannot ontinue. >> you say google is not the only company. you are singling google out. what other companies would you point out? >> i would say facebook would be number two, but google is by far the front runner in the invasion of privacy for the average citizen. it is shocking how much google

knows about you. google would have you believe that if you have nothing to hide, why would you care? i have to take issue with that. rivacy is a very important right that all humans have. i mean, there are some people, for example that may be having affairs. i hear that happens. some people may call into work saying i am sick today but they are not really sick. we all tell little fibs that allow us to live a tolerable existence. if these things are taken away, f we are practicing an alien religion in the baptist belt, we are going to have a very hard time if we cannot keep that to ourselves. >> one of the things you said you have done to protect your own privacy is gotten rid of your smart phone. you have already gotten rid of it. what is that like? >> i used to change phones every week anyway. i will talk about it a little in

a minute. i think the biggest thing i have done is, i started -- and this is why i went to defcon. i wanted to announce my new website, brown lists.com. it is a way to give power back to the little man. it is ostensibly a complaint site, where you complain about something. i was audited unjustly by the i.r.s. whatever. what you cannot just submit a complaint. you have to submit a solution. these solutions and complaints go into the pie and as people read them, they may add their own solution. these solutions are then voted on. it is a way to get anger out of the negative arena and back into the positive arena. we already have 100,000 users per day that are filing complaints from everything from, i got a parking ticket unjustly, i got a speeding ticket, exxon is dumping oil in my backyard, my

congressman sucks. whatever. but you have to have a solution with it. i am going to be, on monday, posting my own complaint, the belizian government is trying to kill me. i will put the documentation him, the whole ball of wax. there will be a lot of people who are very embarrassed. it is a well-known fact that people are after me. my security guards at defcon -- there was very strange activities while we were there. and it all stems from belize. that's where the money comes from. there is a company in daytona beach, florida cauls called a.a.i. we have a video of a man named jean lewis, from las vegas, hiding behind a tree with his phone sticking out, trying to take a video of me. when he was caught, he ran away and pretended like he was on the phone. all of this data is going to go online. this is how i am using my own website to complain about things that bother me.

> i do have to ask you about belize. last we checked, the case had gone cold. what have you heard? have authorities contacted you at all? what is the latest? >> i was never charged. i was never even suspected. they just wanted to question me like they questioned all of my neighbors. i just chose not to be questioned. there are no charges. the only thing they did is, they admitted that they confiscated all my property and auctioned it off. it was a lot of property, by the way. it was every penny that i had. the u.s. government is happy with me. i have no outstanding warrants. i have a few parking tickets, and that is the extent of it. >> why the need for secrecy if you are innocent? if you didn't do anything wrong, why not disclose your location? why change smartphones as often as you can? >> because the government has paid a lot of money to remove me because i continue to speak out about belize. i do have all of this evidence

about vast corruption corruption in belize. they do not want that released. they could bring the government down, or certainly the prime minister, who i have on tape ordering the murder of people. you know, it is a dangerous thing to have. they want to silence me. i do not like to be quiet. that is very obvious. i will not shut my mouth. that is my problem. >> beyond the tech products you have been building, you are working on books and movies. what is the status of those, and who should play john mcafee in the feature film? >> i do not know who is going to play me. i hope it is not danny evito. the feature film is coming out in, i think, eight months. spike tv is doing a two-hour documentary. they are choosing the director for that. that should come out in a short period of time. there is a book humming out. paramount is doing one based on josh davis's e-book.

i have nothing to do with that one. i do not particularly care for josh davis as a writer. but, again, that is their thing. >> john mcafee, sounder of future tent systems. can san francisco compete with the tech community and its deep pockets? that is next on the best of "bloomberg west." ♪

>> we focus on technology and the future of business. i'm emily chang. evictions are on the rise in san francisco as the tech boom is driving home and rent prices way up. average rent is more than $2000 a month but some tenants with rent control pay as little as 757 a month. yor ed lee is offering loans

to help low-income resident departments stay in their homes. i spoke with willie brown and asked if it is enough to counter the deep pockets of the tech community? that was a believe misquote by whoever produced that story. $3 million means almost nothing in terms of addressing the housing issue. you need a lot more money than that and ed lee is committed to a lot more money than that. >> you can buy a hubble with that. rents are rising twice as fast and tech immunity neighborhoods as we are in the rest of the city. the most evictions are happening ithin blocks of these tech commuter bus stops where the oogle buses and the buses that go down to silicon valley stop. my question is what else could be done? is it building more buildings? changing building codes so more housing can be built? is it revising rent control laws? there is so much going on. >> it is all of the above.

but most importantly, we have to get away from, in san francisco, identifying the tech community as the culprit. the tech community is not the culprit alone. obviously, that is part of driving the economy, but we desperately need to do all the things that you referenced. we need to change the respective codes of the rules on buildings. we need to be committed to a faster response to those who are interested in building. we need to become more creative, using the tech community to help us come up with ideas on how to best do it. all of those things, plus rent control, must be reviewed to see whether or not that is a cap on how and when and where people want to invest. >> $3 million as a direct quote we got from the mayor's office in terms of how big these loans are. >> i understand that. but there is no way.

somebody who said $3 million -- it must've been $3 million per transaction or must have meant 3 million something because you cannot buy anything of substance in this city in terms of multiple units at $3 million. >> you wrote last year that a war is brewing in the streets of san francisco and a lot of people could be caught up in it if the tech world does not change its self-centered culture. how should they change? >> the tech world this change and begin to get people like marc benioff and salesforce.com. people making wonderful contributions in one fashion or another. some are only doing it in silicon valley. they really need to do it in san francisco. they need to use that extraordinary talent and skill to help solve the problems of the city. the creativity of google dealing with the issue involving homelessness could be revolutionary, could be

instructional for people all over this country if they would just put their minds to it. i believe they will receive new advice from some of the government relation types who re not techies but are government relation people who have now become part of the tech world. when that happens, the transition will begin to evidence itself with good work. >> i want to ask you about robin williams and his death. i know you were a longtime friend of his. he was a bay area resident. how are you feeling now upon hearing this news and what sort of -- >> i was devastated. robin was a good friend. hen you lose a friend, it is not like losing some person of great celebrity status. robin was someone whom i could call upon for whatever purpose that might be needed. robin would show up for benefits for organizations like glide methodist church and others.

robin would show up at my birthday parties unannounced doing his usual thing. you cannot get him off the stage sometimes. he was just an extraordinary person. t 63 years of age, that genius is lost and i have lost a friend. >> on the question of him doing his usual thing -- i heard he was always on. it was difficult to know the real robin williams. i want you to take a listen of a clip of him talking to charlie rose about some of the issues he was facing and also at the same time injecting that classic robin williams comedy. take a listen. >> i went to rehab in wine country just to keep my options open. [laughter] i came out the other side. >> how were you different when you came out the other side? >> dry. a lot dryer. and sober and able to experience life. it is pretty amazing. before the heart surgery, one of the more sobering moments. just going -- life is

extraordinary. i don't want tot miss it. >> oh, man. >> it is a gift. >> what was he like? was it difficult to find out who he really was? >> that was robin williams. he was never any different no matter what. you can be in an argument with him and he would be resorted to those same tactics and those same words and all the things to throw you off to win the argument. that's who he is and that's the way he was. >> what is your favorite robin williams movie? >> "mrs. doubtfire." >> me too. i love it. it is so good. former san francisco mayor willie brown. mindy"up, from "mork and to "mrs. doubtfire." that is next on the best of "bloomberg west."

♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. hollywood and movie fans everywhere are mourning the

death of actor-comedian robin williams. he was found dead in an apparent suicide at his bay area home as he lost his long struggle with depression and anxiety as well as the early stages of parkinson's disease. he was just 63 years old. he had a movie, tv, and stand-up career that spanned decades. on the way he picked up emmys, grammys and an oscar. he was the leading man in more than 30 films and his movies have grossed more than $6 billion at the box office. for more on the career of robin williams, we are joined by daniel loria, the managing editor at boxoffice.com. i asked about robin williams' success at the box office. >> they did very well. robin williams was an actor who can get hits in the $80 to $150 million range. these midrange hits are not superhero movie numbers but they are the sort of numbers that really elevate the box office. the sort of numbers that maybe we're not seeing this summer.

they might not be grand slams, but they are home runs. >> "mrs. doubtfire," my absolute favorite robin williams movie. i was surprised to find out that was the highest grossing of all of his movies. he also performed in more dramatic roles from "dead poets society" to "good will hunting" which is the movie he won his oscar for. it was really his comedy, i think, that put him on the map, that we remember, isn't it? >> it did. it was his comedy. like many great actors, i think jimmy stewart as well, at the prime of their careers they are able to subvert their personas and take darker roles. not everybody does that. robin williams did that. in the early 2000's, he took roles in "death to smoochy," "one hour photo." he was best known for his comedy but he had a great range of roles and characters that he played throughout his career. >> i was speaking with former

san francisco mayor willie brown who was a longtime friend of robin williams. he gave a birthday message that mayor brown's birthday party and he talked about how robin williams was always on, on or offstage. he was cracking jokes, being the comedian we all know. i asked if he thought the pressure to be robin williams is what got to him. he said no, he thinks robin did not believe in his own genius and always doubted himself. in the pantheon of actors and acting, how genius is robin williams? how will he be remembered? >> i think he is definitely on a great short list, specifically for a generation like mine that grew up watching films like "mrs. doubtfire," like "jumanji." we grow up having him be a presence in our vhs players. on family trips, on family vacations. this is an actor we grew up with.

when we got a bit older, we got to see him in more dramatic roles. he will be on the short list of well-regarded actors in the future. >> from his career from "mork and mindy" to "good morning, vietnam" to "good will hunting," it spans so many kinds of roles and different kinds of projects. he was working on a number of different projects, including a potential sequel to "mrs. doubtfire." what happens with some of the things that were in development? >> i understand a lot of the films he was involved in are in postproduction. they are either on the release calendar or looking for distribution deals, specifically the independent films. for a film like "mrs. doubtfire 2," if i understand correctly, it is still very early in the development phase. anything that was very popular ears ago that hasn't had a sequel is also in the development phase.

i don't think that was in the imminent future, but you never know with hollywood. we will always remember him as mrs. doubtfire and i am not sure audiences would like to see anyone else in that character. in projects like this, it is impossible to tell if we would be able to see the film with him had he still been with us today. >> dan loria, managing editor of box office.com. the deadly ebola virus continues to spread across west africa including nigeria. up next we speak with one of the doctors treating the two american who is contracted the virus about how technology is helping their recovery. ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west". i'm emily chang. in west eak of ebola africa is the worst ever with the world health organization confirming that more than 900 people have been killed by the virus. the vast majority of cases are in sierra liaison, guinea, and

liberia, the virus is now spread to nigeria. frica's most populous country. dr. kent brantley, one of the two american aid workers being treated at emory university hospital said he is growing stronger every day. one doctor was on the team that transported these two americans to emory and joins me now from atlanta. i asked how they are keeping the medical personnel safe while treating these patients. >> in the entire transport of the patients from liberia to the atlanta area to the emory hospital isolation unit, the primary mission is take good care of the patient while protecting the workers and the public so no one else can get exposed. the goal is not to come in

contact with some of that bodily fluid. what that requires is providing the healthcare worker the appropriate protections. ou have seen in on the videos. they are typically wearing a water impervious suit that pretty much covers them from head to toe. then you also see these workers wearing what's called a hooded purifying respirator. i want to make this -- stress this point. the centers for disease control publishes the guidelines that we are well aware of to help prevent the transmission of this illness. they require all three, standard contact and drop-off precautions. no health worker or anybody else can get in contact with any infectious bodily fluids. some of what you see on television around the powered air purifying mechanism in the hood, they are more practical because it keeps the provider

covered head to toe and keeps the provider cool because that powered respirator is blowing cool air over their face. some of what you see on television is a result of practical considerations, the cdc guidance that stresses standard, contact and drop-off precautions is what is strictly required to prevent transmission of the illness. >> it has been quite controversial whether these americans should have been brought back to the united states and the kind of drugs they are being given. now that they are here, how confident are you that you can keep the disease contained and none of the people working with these patients will contract the disease? are you 100% confident? >> my confidence is absolute that the health care workers that have come in contact with these two patients are safe and they did not get exposed to any infectious bodily fluids and i'm also very familiar with all of

the procedures to ensure that no one and the health care setting or outside the health care setting could get exposed to any infectious bodily fluids. my confidence on this issue is that it is 100% safe. >> one of the nurses from emory hospital wrote an op-ed in "washington post" that got some backlash but her point was that we want these patients to come here and we want to learn from them. what have you learned so far? >> susan grant to is the chief nursing officer for emory health care is the one who wrote that article. i thought it was very well written. i think what it reminds us that there is a lot of discussion about policies and procedures in different technology being applied, the real story is about two american humanitarian aid workers who got ill with a horrible disease and are looking for their best opportunity for a full recovery. i think that emory university hospital and the staff and physicians and nurses and others

working together to make this happen is going to provide these two americans their best opportunity for a full recovery. as an academic health center, that is something we are committed to every day. these two patients as well. >> as i understand, emory hospital is actually prepared to handle diseases that are much more serious and much more contagious than ebola. can you explain the capabilities of the facility and what kinds of diseases are we talking about? >> this particular isolation unit was developed with novel emerging infections in mind -- in other words, you have all heard about novel influenza viruses like h1n1 in 2009 which did not make people that sick. h5n11 makes people very sick and other novel influenza viruses we have not considered. as they emerge, the scientists

and the epidemiologists don't know that much about these novel emerging infections when they first come out. we are not so sure how sick it will make people and we are not sure about all of the modes of transmission or what the range of the modes of transmission are. an isolation unit like the one here is specifically designed to accommodate those individuals that might get sick with a novel infection where not everything about that infection is well-known that all the containment procedures are in place so that all the health care workers and anyone around that unit are completely isolated from that individual. that is what this isolation unit oes. it is separate from other patients in the university hospital. those patients would be isolated. you are right. the means by which ebola virus is transmitted is well understood and mostly contact and drop-off percussions

but other infectious diseases like sars require additional protections meaning that illness can be transmitted from person to person by airborne means or by aerosol. this unit would be capable of doing that as well. i will say that many hospitals, maybe all hospitals in the united states, have a capability to manage a patient that requires aerosol precautions but in the case of illnesses that are novel and new and not every mode of transmission is well understood, that capability has to be executed with extreme caution and a meticulous approach to it. aren't more why girls getting into engineering? i talked with one nonprofit trying to tackle tech's big diversity problem next on the best of "bloomberg west." ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west". i'm emily chang. by 2020, the u.s. department of labor expects there will be 1.4 million computer specialist job openings, but the majority of those positions most likely will not go to women. while girls make up 57 percent of overall college graduates, they only make up 12% of computer science graduates today. what are tech companies doing to get girls excited about coding? i got an inside look at how twitter is teaming up with one nonprofit to train the next generation of female engineers. meet breanna, a 16-year-old high school senior who spent the last seven weeks at twitter. she is not an employee, but one of the 20 students accepted into girls who code, a program that gives high school girls the opportunity to get hands-on computer science experience inside some of the biggest companies in technology. >> i did not know this is what tech companies were like.

people would tell me that engineers were basically in cubicles all the time, always on a screen. but i see it is a lot more than that. >> girls who code represents what many hope to be part of the solution to a long-standing problem in silicon valley. >> what is your goal? for girls who code? >> our goal is gender equity in stem fields, and computer science in particular. > women account for 47% of the .s. workforce but just 30% of staff at google, facebook, and twitter. at twitter, women account for only 10% of the technical staff. >> we are not happy with these numbers. we would like to improve them, and that is entirely our goal. >> twitter is one of 16 companies that opened its doors to girls who code to help make this change happen. >> when i started doing everything in girls who code, i realized computer science is what i wanted to do. >> a twitter engineer is a

mentor and volunteer. >> as a young girl, one of the reasons you don't get into computer science is because you don't have any idea of what kind of career it could lead to. >> she learned to code at 14, and skipped high school to study cs in college, and knows too well what it is like to be the only woman in the room. >> you would come into this class. you have never programmed before. some guys have been programming since they were 9. >> girls who code wants to make coding less intimidating, more inspiring. talented women engineers are in high demand for the hottest obs. >> it was good. i prepared. i worked hard. >> as the summer program comes to a close, it is up to these girls to engineer their next ove. >> girls who code offers programs in new york, miami as well as san francisco.

and that does it for this edition of the best of "bloomberg west." you can catch us monday through friday. we'll see you next week.

>> the following is a paid program. the opinions and views expressed do not reflect those of bloomberg l.p., its affiliates, or its employees. >> when you turn on your cooktop, do you really know what the temperature is? no! you're just guessing. are you too busy to watch what you're cooking? are you tired of all the burned food going to waste? worried about your kids getting