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tv   Bloomberg West  Bloomberg  October 11, 2014 3:00pm-4:01pm EDT

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>> from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to the "best of bloomberg west." where we focus on innovation, technology, and the future of business. i am emily chang. every weekend we'll bring you the best of west. "vanity fair" hosted its first ever new establishment summit in connection with the new establishment list right here in san francisco. on the list are the most influential people in technology, media, finance, politics, and more. one of the big names, disney's
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bob iger. stephanie and i started by asking him what he thinks about the concept of disruption. >> i get energized by disruption and i actually preach similar reaction at the company. i think disruption creates opportunity. while most people may look at disruption as a threat, again, it's an energizing force and something we look at to take advantage of. and the other thing i like to preach all the time at disney is let's disrupt before we're disrupted, so what are the things that we can do that disrupt our own business model? because it's inevitable so we might as well get ahead. >> jack dorsey has been on your board, cheryl, been there for a long time. what do people bring to disney? >> steve jobs before that actually. so we had some mighty disruptors on our board.
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first of all, i think boards in order to be effective need to have a diversity of opinion, diversity of background and voices. i think it's really important both as the ceo but for shareholders as well. they bring a perspective that oftentimes companies need to thrive. so i love the fact that jack is on our board, a disruptor, and cheryl, and of course steve. they're forward thinking. there's something about the technology business that's always looking ahead, never standing still. that's really important. and they just bring an energy and insight and advice on where the world might be going because that's what they're thinking about and that's very valuable. >> what's the most exciting thing for you right now inside disney? >> i'm fortunate that i have a lot of thing that is excite me within the company. the businesses we have are fun and exciting to run. the two things i'm most excited about are the development of the construction of shanghai disneyland, which should open up
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in a couple years, and we're making "star wars" right now in the u.k. that's extremely exciting. there's always something going on on any given day. >> how are you going to protect yourself when it comes to shanghai not going the way of euro disney, which is in trouble? >> two very different circumstances. euro disney's troubles date back a couple of decades, due to the financial structure of that business almost at inception. they took on a lot of debt. their pricing models were off. and they ended up in an economy that was very, very bumpy over the years. the announcement we made recently was due to the debt burden that business had and the european economy. we learned a lot from the experience that we've had there. the financial model for china is very, very different on very, very solid footing financially.
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a market that is as robust as any market that we've seen. and even if there's a softening in the chinese economy, there's still a huge population base, people who are interested in disney, people who are interested in going to a theme park and can afford it. so we think that environment is not only much more receptive, much more likely to produce solid results over the long term. >> the economy is not getting any better in europe. so why continue to inject cash into euro disney when the outlook isn't positive? >> first, ongoing operations needed it. secondly, we have a brand that we're proud of that we seek to protect. unless you invest in continuing to burnish that brand, making the experience great, whether that's what the hotels look like or the rides or whether we're developing new ones, that's really important. and we also look at things over the long run. we never look at things just over a quarter, really. it's about the long term health
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of that business. unless you invest in it, it's not going to succeed. >> how excited are you about four more years, disney extending your contract until 2018? why? >> two more years because i had two more years left. >> but altogether four. >> well, i went to speak for the board on this. it was a mutual decision. i have one of the most exciting jobs in the world. >> because you get to go to disney world for free. >> and not wait in line. >> like "frozen." >> 25 times. >> we have a collection of great brands and very dynamic businesses, and it's great to have this experience and not only have i enjoyed it but i feel that there's a lot of unfinished business. there's a lot that i'm still looking forward to with great energy and enthusiasm. so why not? >> what does it mean for succession? you said you are looking for the next steps, the next leader. how do you decide who is going to be coo?
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>> it's a decision the board will make and obviously with my input. we've been developing executives at the company. we feel very good about that process. not only have we talked about it a lot but we've given people broad experiences at the company and had an opportunity to observe them in their various positions and we feel really good about how we're set up for succession. as we've said occasionally that we probably will name a coo early enough to give that person a chance to expand their experience at the company and give us an opportunity to develop that person. >> let's talk about espn for a moment. you just extended your n.b.a. contract. it is a very expensive deal. what is that going to do for cable bills? >> well, espn delivers huge value to the cable distributor and to the advertiser and to the customer. >> my husband. >> and we've sought over time to not only produce but to license a wide array of very high
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quality sports for espn so the offering we think is not only strong but is only getting stronger. we had the u.s. open tennis this year, the expanded deal we have with the n.b.a. so the value we believe is increasing. that said, we're mindful of the cost of any product that goes into the marketplace and the economy, and the ability of customers to afford it. and with that we continue to invest whether it's our theme parks or media networks in that quality, so the price-value relationship continues to stay high. >> does it mean we're going to pay more for cable? >> what you pay are made by the cable distributor. we charge them a monthly fee for our channels, not just espn, but abc and so on, then they, as other programmers do, as well. and they determine what they want to charge for the so-called bundle of expanded basic channels that they pass on to
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you. that may include telephony as well as broadband access. so it's a bundle of product that is they're selling. so the bill is going to go up, i think it's a little getting ahead of things too much. it's not necessarily the case. >> you talk about the great value of franchises like the nba. is the nfl going to take a hit at all in terms of the value to advertisers or viewers given all the headline negativity they have right now? >> we don't detect decrease whatsoever in viewership. in terms of advertising, we haven't heard from our advertisers who are advertising on monday night football and other programming on espn. so we don't detect an issue there. whether the league has issues with some of the sponsors i've read some but don't have much
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insight. but i think the football fan generally speaking is probably aware of the issue, i'm sure many are concerned about the issue, but it doesn't seem to be affecting their viewership. >> disney chairman and ceo bob iger. up next a news organization that's turned the news business upside down. we are talking to the ceo of vice and one of the company's top investors next. ♪
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>> welcome back to the "best of bloomberg west." i am emily chang. vice media has attracted powerhouse rupert murdoch and
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most recently tom freston of mtv. it has been turned into a powerhouse. we sat down with tom freston and the vice ceo and cofounder shane smith at the "vanity fair" new establishment summit. i started by asking about the evolution of vice. >> we're a comer. so, you know, with buzzfeed, they've done a tremendous job online, which is where we came out of as well. but we're going towards cnn, for example, of being a global news brand. >> but are you? cnn is true news. >> sure. >> do you not blur the lines between entertainment and news? >> not on vice news, which is the news, the fastest growing platform on earth. >> as a former ceo what have you seen in vice? hope?
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>> hope. i like their style. i like the fact they're a bunch of outsiders and created a youth brand. they've been at it a while and had a good vision to get video online when no one else was doing that. to your first question, they're not just news. they've got web sites about food and music and all types of other things. they really cover a whole range. >> do the lines get blurred? because you do partner with companies. also a part of your brand. >> sure. but again for vice news there's no advertising on vice news. what it is for us is just our -- the most popular thing we have on line is our news platform. what we just won the emmy for is news with hbo. so it's the fastest growing part of our business. but we actually don't put advertising next to it for that reason. however, on the travel and on the food and on all the other things we make a lot of money. so we kind of rob from peter to
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pay paul. >> you said you're going to launch a 24-hour news network. what's going to be different about it? how does it stand out from cnn? >> i think we have 35 offices around the world. we have 5,000 contributors. so we already have that global footprint. it's not going to be an american news program. it's going to be a global news program. all different languages simultaneously translated. we already put the infrastructure in, and we think it's going to be unique. >> they already have a 24-hour news network up digitally. >> were you two drawn together because you both have a love for the edge? tom, you are known for traveling to the underdeveloped corners of the world. that's what i think of when i think of the kind of thing that is vice covers. is it really a merger of your taste? >> that's one of the things that first attracted me to him and vice was their adventure and the stories they wanted to cover, thing that is i was interested in. that helped. but they're good. >> the first thing we ever did
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was a thing called vice guide to travel. which was us very publicly going to video production school. we were magazine guys. we were like that was amazing! did anyone press record? no. so when tom saw it he said we should be doing a lot more. so we had a joint venture, and as things developed, we said we should do a lot more around the world. >> is it a threat when gopro says we're going to be in content business? >> look, gopro's a great company. and the more the merrier for what's happening. i think what we do is a lot more. we produce things and we have hosts and it's not egc. everything we do, we do soup to nuts. but there's a place for gopro, and i think they're going to do amazing. >> mtv was a game changer in the tv industry. what other game changers do you see out there in tv with so much disruption happening? >> well, i think the big thing coming up is going to be more of
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these over the top digital networks like netflix. you're going to see more of that. and the whole move from analog television to video. no offense to you. >> we're on video and tv and online. >> that's right. you guys have it all. but netflix has been the gateway drug to the internet for a lot of people. and i think more and more people have their set attached to the internet and will be easier for them to access. and a lot of companies are going to come up with that through platform. >> that makes me think of a little word association. when you think network tv, what do you think? >> it was great movie. >> i was about to say the same thing. i like to watch. >> network tv, what does it mean? >> it's the third screen for me. we started -- >> after your bloomberg show. >> that's right. >> it's the third screen for us.
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but there's still a lot of money and audience there. we're platform agnostic. we are going to be on all screens all the time. >> what about apple and the potential for apple to do something innovative in tv? can they? >> everyone is waiting for the killer app, looking for someone like apple to come up with it that's able to integrate online, tv, cable all in one place. so apple would be an obvious company to want to do that. >> they also have a lot of money. the thing that came up in the conference today, they're a natural to buy one of the major networks. >> you think apple could buy? >> they could buy with their pocket change. >> why? >> i think they sort of have done a shot across the bows of the music industry with the new youtube. >> beats. >> and also with the u2 offering showing that there's going to be a different model. i think they're going to look at different models of control of content for their platform. >> is that the only way they can innovate?
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because the partnerships are going to be hard. >> they also have direct to consumer, which is a big thing going forward. direct to consumer, all that stuff is going to be big. and apple is one of the only real companies set up to do that. >> i want to ask how you're covering ebola. we learned the man in texas died today. something obviously vice would cover. are you changing your game plan in any way? >> yes. we've gotten a lot more conservative and safe. so we had teams in liberia for the past four months on different stories. and when the crisis took off, we got them out, quarantined them, got them all the attention. they're not sick but just making sure we had -- >> right. >> and so we would have probably back in the day we would have maybe left them there and said keep recording. now we're just saying, look, we have our stuff, let's get out until we see which way the wind blows.
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we want to sort of err on the side of caution. >> tom, you were in liberia this time last year. are we making a big enough deal? a week ago the president of the united states said we've got this under control. maybe americans feel that way, but should we not be humans before we're americans and should we be concerned with the amount of people dying there? >> liberia is a country with virtually no infrastructure. so they're very ill prepared for this type of crisis. to my understanding, we're building hospitals there now with our military and doing other things. i don't know -- there should be a major effort, though, because this thing could easily spiral out of control. >> shane smith, ceo of vice media and former viacom ceo tom freston. when we come back, max levchin from paypal has been on the cutting-edge of tech and innovation. his thoughts on the current state of moon shot. ♪
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>> welcome back to the "best of bloomberg west." i am emily chang. at the "vanity fair" summit we were joined by paypal cofounder, max levchin, talking about everything from innovation to what will happen now that paypal and ebay are separating. we asked about his fertility company, glow that >> we have 30,000 babies being born and we're shipping out -- >> 30,000? >> so far. so it's working really well. we have reduced costs for the women who thought infertile. it works.
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it really does. >> what about the firm? this is your attempt to reinvent the banking industry. >> yeah. i think it's actually i realize what it really is. not to reinvent it. i'm not sure it needs reinvention -- it needs reputation adjustment. at this point it's very defined. people think banking is awful. >> wait. stephanie worked on wall street -- >> does it need a reputation adjustment? >> absolutely. >> we put silicon valley icons on a pedestal and we attack bankers. aren't there many bankers who fuel the american dream? >> there tons of bankers that are good people. however, when you go into a retail store and tell you how would you like to save 10%? we're going to give you a store credit card -- you know better that's going to get you in the hole and designed to make you paying 29% apr. that is not a good reputation. and yet a credit card or debit card is a great too long. it should be maturing and
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getting smarter with the 21st century instead, millenial consumers hate those things and know better. they don't go to get themselves a card. they run away and switch to a cash lifestyle. my job is to build the bank of the future. that is what i want to be a part of that >> there's so much happening when it comes to how we pay for stuff. apple pay is coming out. paypal spinning off from ebay. the day that ebay announced this is happening. what is paypal's future? is paypal going to be out there buying companies like square for example? because paypal has really been criticized for not invovating. you hope they don't buy square? >> i'm neutral but what i hope they do first and foremost is wake up and say, we have not been friendly to a new type of a participant in silicon valley and that is a startup developer. there are lots of little companies saying i want to plug
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into the infrastructure that is the payment system. and one of the misses of paypal -- in part because i'm an investor -- is stripe. they've made their business on being extraordinarily developer friendly, and paypal deserves to be a participant instead of being stuck in the 1990's when it comes to that. >> what is ebay left with? >> they have a good business. i think e commerce is changing. if you look at offline to offline, offline is still well north of 95%. >> there's a lot of people saying i ought to open a -- an online store finally. ebay should be a platform for that. there's tons of innovation just making e-commerce retail a
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better easier thing to do online. >> what do you think of the new paypal ceo dan schulman? we don't know a lot about him. american express executive. not your typical product guy. >> he is a champion for the underbank, so he isn't your typical wall street love them and leave them. >> i think that makes three of us. i don't think i have met him, i don't think i know very much about him. i very much hope he embraces the culture that silicon valley, innovate or die, take big risks. so i wish him the best of luck. >> is paypal going to become bigger than ebay? >> probably but that's probably hubris talking. it is one of my babies. >> paypal cofounder and yahoo! board member max levchin. well, the battle lines are being drawn between tech companies and the government over nsa surveillance. former nsa director general keith alexander is here with the latest on the tense relationship, next.
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>> this is the best of bloomberg west. it is a hot button issue not going away any time soon. we are talking about government surveillance, requests, and the way tech companies respond to them. at the vanity fair new establishment summit, we sat down with retired general keith alexander, former director of the nast. i started by asking him if trust can ever be restored between tech companies and the government. >> i think there's a couple things that have to be done in this regard. first and foremost recognize that the programs that nsa runs were approved by congress, the courts, and the administration.
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nsa ran those on behalf of the government to keep this nation safe. and did that job well and patesdzfully. and all the review groups and even the president said nobody's been found doing anything wrong. so put that on the table. second look what's going on with isis today. terrorism is a very real threat. what nrn nsa does to protect this country and our allies is something we cannot remove. but most importantly, our government needs our tech companies to make this work. and tech companies from other countries support them. we've got to have an open and transparent way to show that what we're doing isn't going against others but doing it in the right way. that's going to cause for having rules in the road, types of
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behavior, and a way of setting it up so that everybody knows it's being done exactly right. i think there is a way to do that. >> are you saying that apple and goodle and facebook hurting our national security or public perception of our security? >> they're not hurting -- that are going to do what the courts tell them to do. they want i think first and foremost what they want is visibility in what the government asks them to do. that's where most of the complaints come in. if the government serves them warrant them like everybody to understand i'm being served a warrant. in large part because the numbers are actually really small. for google and yahoo, facebook, and others, they're saying, look, we're being asked to do this but on a very limited basis. when you look at the volume, look at facebook if it were the country it would be the second largest in the world. so when you look at that it's 1.3 billion people on facebook. then look the numbers of what they're looking at. if you could have stopped 9/11 with a wasn't by going to one of these companies, should we have? and the answer that everybody found after 9/11 was yes. we need to connect the dots. and the way we came up with that was saying, look, in order to do this you have to have the courts, congress, and the
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administration altogether. these programs have the courts, congress, and the administration all together. that's what our constitution asks for. >> it's easier to replay 9/11 because it's behind us. isis is real and it's right now. if you were head of the nsa today, what would you be doing different that we're not seeing happen? >> that's a tough question. because i don't know all that they're doing today. you know, to be real honest or be candid. here's what i do know from the people that i work with. in the intelligence community at nsa these are great people who are doing all they can to protect our citizens here and abroad and our allies. they work long hours to ensure they do this exactly right. there is nobody shirking their duty. they do it 100%. they protect our civil liberties and privacy and they go after these guys. >> do you believe they're
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underfunded? as americans we're demanding to be protected but are we giving them the resources? >> i think the sequestration. if you were to hit one -- sequestration is a bad idea. they need to remove that. everybody says it but they haven't done it. so if i were to hit one thing i would remove sequestration. but look, to stop terrorism and the way it's growing and what we're seeing you have to have intelligence. all the countries of europe that i've dealt with and others have said, don't leave us out. help us. that's kind of ironic when you think about it because they're also the ones that beat up on our tech companies for supporting us. and from my perspective that's why i think our government has to enter and say we're doing this to help you and us and we're transparent about it. >> one of the biggest threats to both companies and government is threats from within. threats from their own employees.
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what is the likelihood of another snoten? >> well, i think -- snowden? >> what nsa has done tries to limit that. but this year we'll cret 3.5 sets of data worldwide more than the last 5,000 years combined. that means people are going to have greater access to data than before. if you think about it a person with access to google today has more access to data than the president did 20 years ago. that means that people are going to steal data are going to have more access to it. so the way we defeat that is the same way you go after the cyber threats based on behaviors. it would have detected snowden. we're going to have to do that for the insider threats as well. >> when you saw that j.p. morgan had an attack and said don't worry about it, did that make you say no big deal? or the fact that the attack happened at all and they even got some information are you worried? >> well, truth in lending. jp morgan -- i have my credit cards with them -- i have no problem with them. i know they're doing the right
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thing. they're working hard and are going to do the right thing. >> it doesn't want to make you move your account? >> i think all the banks, everybody in the financial sector -- think about this. they do more in cyber security than anybody else. as a consequence, if i were worried i would look at other industries more. >> what industries would you be more concerned? >> about the power sector. i'm worried about parts of our government. i think there's more we have to do within the government. as you go out and look at power and other systems, there are tremendous issues that we have to address. so i think we ought to look across all our critical infrastructure and come up with a real plan of how we're going to address cyber security. >> former nsa director general keith alexander. >> i take the stage at the new establishment summit with the next generation of tech founders including air b and b pint rest and nasty gal. ♪
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>> welcome back to the best of bloomberg west. at the vanity fair new establishment summit we spoke to everyone from tech and media veterans to rising tech stars. i took the stage with the ceo of of air b and b, pintrest and nasty gal and talk to them about the theme the rising generation of tech founders. >> recently changed your logo. i know you've been on the record, you say it looks like an ear. what do you think? you're stuck with it. it was controversial. what did you learn from that? >> i thought the reaction were pretty amazing. whether it's tumbler blog, people do with a logo. some of my favorite tweets was where did the bad man touch you? and apparently, this logo is not allowed in more than 100 feet near some schools.
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but think -- honestly, i think i liked our brand to be so iconic that when somebody sees somebody naked in the future they say wow you look like the air bnb logo. but the real description is we, the first logo on the left was an identity that we came up with in like two weeks. it wasn't meant to be an icon that endured. so we realized that we need something that represents what we're about. belonging, embracing and bringing people together. we wanted something that was a universal icon. we didn't want to have a logo where it was a word. we wanted something that was so simple that it could be replicated and the other pretty cool thing is it's so simple that you can draw it in the sand. and we gave -- we built this too long for the community -- tool. and the reason we did that is we
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don't see ourselves as a mass produced brand. the am logo can't be changed or the others. our product are people and every one is different. so we want it had expression to be pretty unique. >> air bnb ceo. nasty gal sophia, and pintrest, ben silverman. up next, fit fit tells apple to take a walk. the startup has no plans to partner with apple. but jaw bone does. next. ♪
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>> welcome back to the best of bloomberg west. apple recently jumped into the world of wearable devices announcing its watch will be released in early 2015. fit fit has said it's not going to work with apple jawbone has introduced a version of its up ap that will work with apple's health kit.
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we sat down with jaw bone founder and ceo at the new summit. we started by asking him why jaw bone is on board with apple. >> we launched many categories with them. we like what they're doing with health kit. we've taken an open approach to the whole thing where we have an ap that works on the i phone. >> you can now use it without having to wear one of these. >> we think it's a way for people to start out if they don't know they want a device and graduate to the device. you can't track sleep that well with your phone in bed. people don't want it necessarily under their pillow. we think it's all sort of additive. it's a way for people to get in the system, find the solution that's right for them wherever they are on that journey of health, and then keep graduating through it. >> what do you think of the apple watch? obviously we haven't seen it yet. we do know what it looks like. is that going to catch on? is that going to be your business? >> it's a totally different use
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case. we are a 24/7 device. two weeks of battery life you put it on forget about it. that's the daytime kind of thing the way we see it. i like it. from a design per spective they're doing it from a price point from materials and integration of quality people haven't seen before. we're going to support it. >> i don't wear this on my wrist. right? >> no. >> do i want to wear it? >> i don't want to wear it but i didn't think i was going to be wearing a device that tracked my steps. i didn't think i would have a smart phone be the number one thing in my life. things change. once we get those in four years we might be saying something different. >> last february you it was reported you raised a million bucks. what are you doing with that? >> we're growing our business. >> how? >> investing in team, technology.
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>> you've been doing this for a decade, speakers and head phones and now wearables. are they the future for jawbone? is that where the focus is? >> it's where we're spending a lot of our time for sure. but there's a way that this all comes together. you'll see. >> give ause clue. >> i think when you have smart connected devices -- we've been in wearables for a long time. the headsets were one of our first. we were there before it was cool to be in wearables. we learned a lot through that that informed what we were doing for danchte application. a lot about materials, sensors, things like that. for us the way we think about the world is when you understand what's happening with the user which ultimately is what we think about the roll of wearables in your life, i've got something on 24/7 it knows me. it should power all of this smart intelligent stuff in your world whether it be your thermostat or car or anything. my car should know that i'm falling asleep or tired. my thermostat should know whether i'm hot or cold not just
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what the ambient temperature is. so this is where it goes. and that should connect the experience, it should know i'm in a bad mood and play me the right song. so i do see it ultimately coming together. >> if you see everyone connected, does that mean you see yourself as being that much more powerful if you were part of a bigger company? when net gets bought does jaw borne need to be part of a bigger organization? >> we're doing great. we're having fun. we're building cool technology. >> i think we said that toofment >> maybe. you should ask tony. >> we are. >> i'm pretty sure they were all doing well. >> look, we're trying to build a great company and i think that we can add a lot of value to users lives and looking at what's the best way. >> how many things are we going to be wearing? a wristband is one thing but are chips going to be embedd in our clothes, in our bodies?
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around us? so that we don't have to wear all this stuff. >> you're going to wear different things for different times. a lot like fashion. you wear a different dress during the daytime when it's hot, when it's cold, at night. these will evolve and get integrated. >> jawbone ceo. coming up, facebook acquisition ok luss making big moves partnering with samsung. ♪
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>> welcome back to the best of bloomberg west. it's been a big summer for occulus. the company announced a partnership with samsung to create the gear vr turning it into a reality device.
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also donating $31 million to build a virtual reality lab at the university of maryland where he spent his freshman year of college before dropping out. started by asking him what he hopes to get out of this donation. >> this is a really unique time where we see the beginning of an entire new computing platform and new industry, think about the beginning of personal computers and being able to be at the beginning and make this donation in the setup center dedicated or has a big focus on virtual reality, robotics, computer vision, and be able to participate in that program and in that center and help students get excited about this come and speak frequently, support them on facilities and equipment, and engineering, the lab and design of it, recruising faculty. it's going to be exciting to do that at the same time that this whole new industry is taking off. >> virtual reality is virtually here. it's not here yet. everybody is trying understand what does this mean for me?
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how sit going to be integrated in my life? you think it's going to be bigger than pcs. what do you mean by that? are we going to use it more than our phone? >> it's going to take a while. one thing that everybody gets so excited about virtual reality, the holy grail. we've imagined this for so long, we've seen it in movies and tv shows. people need to reset their expectation and know that just like mobile devices which originally started with the newton and the palm pilot, it took a decade or two to get to the i phone. it took a long time for that platform to mature. virtual reality is going to take a while to mature. it's going to start out with a bigger ski goggle form factor and over time it will get closer and closer to sunglasses or some kind of form factor that is a lot easier for the average person to adopt and enjoy and carry around with them. so we're at the very beginning of virtual reality finely working for the first time, being comfortable, now it will
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take a while to get to that form factor that hundreds of peoples -- millions of people are using. >> it hasn't taken off from a consumer perspective. why is this different? >> google glass is more of a notification reality. kind of in the corner of your eye you're getting your cell phone feed or your updates from your text message. this is replacing hugen vision. that's a fundamental division. that opens up new doors. things like face-to-face communication where you're in a different place than i am is something we've all imagined, something that will ultimately disrupt communication or bring a new form of communication that is to some degree the holy grail of communication, being able to talk to each other as though you're right in front of the other person. >> there's been some wise cracks looking like a very ant social product but you -- and i'm sure you and mark zuckerberg feels this could be an imminently social product.
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what does this mean to us in our daily lives? >> i think people when ever they see a new computing platform, whether personal computer in the beginning and a lot of nerds in closets programming away and work on computers they thought that's b anti-social now i would say computers are pretty social platforms just like mobile is a social platform. virtual reality is going to ultimately be a very social platform because it's going to be largely around face-to-face communication. gaming and entertainment is going to be a big part of it where it begins and over time it will expand into education and other industries. and especially communications. and you can't get face-to-face communications on any other platform that we know of besides virtual reality. >> facebook just closed its accusation of what's officially. any ideas of what you might work with what's up? >> it's a communication platform. one of the most popular.
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one of the services that has the potential to get to and hopefully will get to 1 billion people. those services are incredibly valuable and that's something that really attracted us to the partnership with mark and facebook. we want to get 1 billion people in v rrn. not right now. we have to set the expectation. it will set out as a gaming device but will expand over time. virtual reality will expand into other markets and we want to expand into several hundred million to 1 billion users all connected and hopefully talking to each other. >> the partnership with samsung, how is that going? >> great. they're an incredible company. they're the leading hard ware company in the world. certainly one of the biggest mobile companies in the world. so partnering with them and trying to not just evang line of scrimmage but connect more people in virtual reality, it's hard to pick a better partner than samsung. so it's been exciting working with them. certainly there's challenges.
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any two companies coming together to try to build a product, we're a softer platform and they're doing the hard ware, is always going to be a challenge but they've been receptive to what needs to be done to optimize and make your vr great. john carm yak, legendary programmer has gone in under the hood and made a lot of modifications, talked about those and samsung accepted them, worked with us to deploy it out to the users. >> what about sony? they've got their own virtual reality he hadset they're working on. do you consider them a competitor? >> not so much. the space needs more than one company. we hope that it's an incredible industry that explodes and has many companies so there will be a number of different companies. we are really excited to see what sony creates. we are focusing our partnership right now son samsung. we want to get it right and that's our focus today is getting it right.
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>> what about hollywood? what have your conversations been with the entertainment companies? >> hollywood is getting really excited about this. that's an area that being based in irvine and orange county we're close to l.a. we've been in touch with a number of directors, a number of even actors. keenu reeves came down and got excited about it. he's kind of to us in the company, the matrix and these films are really inspirational. so to be able to show it in bullet time and starting to work in real life is pretty exciting. so it's neat to have that connection to l.a. and hollywood. and a lot of the film producers are looking at, is this going to be the next generation of realtime cinema where you actually feel like you're in the movie. and once you experience it and start to see just how good it can be, watching film on pradigsal 2-d screen starts to be a lot less compelling.
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>> that does it for this edition of the best of bloomberg west. you can catch us monday through friday 10:00 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the west, 1:00 and 6:00 p.m. in the east. we'll see you next week. ♪
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