>> live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west" where we cover innovation, technology, and the future of business. the senate will vote as soon as tuesday on a bill to approve the keystone xl pipeline and bypass the opposition i president obama. here is wisconsin republican ron johnson. >> i'm a blue to easily pass it in the senate will stop whether president obama signs of rot, the onus will be on him and then the people will see the republicans are not the party of no. it's pretty much the president and harry reid being the one-man party of no. >> mary landrieu push for keystone ahead of her election

runoff next month. warren buffett's berkshire hathaway is buying duracell from procter & gamble. the deal allows buffet to wind down his position in procter & gamble which he has been cutting for years. the transaction also fits with the strategy of narrowing focus for procter & gamble. steve ballmer has just made a significant gift to harvard university, his alma mater. the size was not disclosed, but it will allow harvard to hire 12 new professors in computer science. it is the school's fastest-growing major. he also got a tour of the new facilities harvard is building. taylor swift's management team is taking issue with spotify's comments that she would have made $6 million this year. he said the label received less than $500,000 in the last year

from spotify. he said swift made more from streaming site vemo then spotify. the amazon web services conference is going on in las vegas right now, but there is even bigger news today. amazon and hachette have ended their standoff. exact terms were not disclosed, but they said it will allow the publisher to set prices with financial incentives for the french publisher to keep them low. amazon also promised to restore titles that they had been delaying. welcome gladwell's book is still temporarily out of stock. joining us from amazon web services conference in las vegas is cory johnson and by skype, the founder of the ideological company that has been involved with publishing were nearly 50

years. we don't know the details of the deal how but both sides say they are pleased. what is your take? >> my take is i think everybody is glad it is over and i think the other side of relief is from simon & schuster who did the deal with amazon in the last few weeks. simon & schuster made a deal where they can pull the prices and the nightmare for them would have then nobody else did and amazon would be cutting everyone else's prices and there's would remain high. i think simon & schuster is pleased that amazon seems to be moving toward similar deals with all the publishers were publishers will be setting prices. >> cori, you are at the conference right now. any indication why the breakthrough? >> the amazon web services business really stands separate

from the book publishing business. but the publishing business runs on the very same server. this conference is focused on the technologies that make the internet in all technology work. as it relates to this settlement, both of these companies badly need each other. there was a suggestion that amazon sales were hurt i this deal. the books are still important to amazon and needs the largest book retailer in the world if they are going to sell books. they both needed a deal to work, but they needed it on terms that would benefit them in the long-term, not just this quarter or this year. >> some say they lost 90% of their earnings. i spoke with malcolm gladwell before this deal was done and all five of his books sold on amazon -- take a listen to what he had to say about how much he had lost. >> it has cost me a lot of

money, that's for sure. it breaks my heart a little. i had thought of amazon as in partnership with writers and for a company to try to make a business point by turning its back -- i have sold through amazon millions of books. i have contributed mightily to their bottom line will stop i would have thought they would have seen me as an asset will stop me and other writers have wrought people to their site in droves. and now they have turned on us. it is to say the least a puzzling strategy for a business to turn on its assets. i would love to have a conversation with jeff raises about the self-destructive nature of this particular strategy.

>> we did reach out to gladwell for comment. it's unclear how much he thinks this is a win. overnight, the price of his latest book trop about seven dollars, so it is temporarily out of dock. other titles from gladwell, saying they will take one to three weeks. for the authors who lost so much money along the way, how much of a win is this? >> from the sound of it, it is a win. it is a win for the authors from major houses. i guess it's a win for independent authors to because the major house looks will be priced with a real differential between them and the indie books. i guess everybody wins, assuming the deal is as we understand it to be, one where the big publishers are going to be able to maintain the price

differential that they have been trying to maintain, which was the source of the argument in the first place. >> sales have been locked in the course of this dispute which has been going on for months. >> those sales are not going to be made up. what was lost in last six or eight months is unfortunately lost. >> what is your take on how this plays out going forward? they just did deal with simon & schuster. is the question over how oaks should be priced, how flexible books should be when it comes to models, is that debate over? >> i think it is about control and one wonders what it means for procter & gamble and their ability to sell products on amazon's site or others who sell goods on amazon in their ability to control prices. it's a fundamental change for amazon where they have been about cutting and lowering

prices for their customers, suppliers be dammed. it's a big change and might suggest other changes in the future of the things that are sold on amazon. >> cory johnson at the amazon conference in las vegas. thanks to the ceo of ideological company for weighing in on the deal today. you can catch more of my interview with malcolm gladwell. don't miss the full edition of studio 1.0 tonight only on bloomberg television. up next, the pilot who survived the virgin galactic crash telling his amazing story. find out how he lived after the spacecraft broke up in midair. ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. the sole survivor of the virgin galactic crash is sharing his remarkable story of survival. he said his parachute opened by it tells after he was thrown into the air nine miles above earth will stop joining me now from washington is bloomberg news reporter alan levin. how did he survive when his spacecraft is integrated midair? >> it is a really amazing and remarkable story. we still only have sketchy details but his story is starting to emerge will stop he says the spacecraft disintegrated around him. he was not wearing a pressure suit which astronauts and fighter pilots normally wear at these altitudes at about 50,000 feet or there about. there is essentially no oxygen, not enough to sustain life, so he is thrust into this

environment and your body remains conscious for perhaps nine to 12 seconds after being thrust into that thin air. somehow, he managed to unbuckle his seatbelt. that was critical because the parachute doesn't work unless you are free of your seat. the parachute deployed automatically. >> it is absolutely incredible, especially when you think about the fact that this spacecraft had no escape hatch, right? >> it had exit doors, but it was designed to keep the atmosphere constant. it is built with carbon fiber, so it's a resilient structure, but it did not survive the early deployment of its raking system and it did break apart.

>> what are we learning in terms of his conversations with ntsb investigators? what else are we learning about the cause of the crash and why did it happen? >> in all of these investigations, it is still early, but we know this aircraft has a very unique system for reentry, that causes it to behave almost like a feather. it just sort of floats into the atmosphere and it does so by moving a giant room at the rear of the spacecraft into an upward position. that thing came up as they were rocketing into space when it's not supposed to be deployed. that broke the ship apart. there's an awful lot to be determined before they look at the underlying causes. >> when is the next launch?

this particular engine, they had a lot of hope for. do they plan to stick to the plan and just change a few things? >> so far, they are building nother spacecraft to replace the one that broke apart. there is no hard dates for testing, but they have said they plan to continue the program. i a lot will depend on what the investigation finds. if for example they need to redesign, that could slow things. there's a lot we don't know at this point. >> thank you so much for sharing that amazing story with us today. tech giants from apple to google have reported this up pointing diversity numbers about their workforces. but how do the numbers of women

and minorities affect the lives of the tech workers themselves? that's next. ♪

>> welcome back. companies from apple to microsoft are trying to be more transparent about their struggle

to get women and minorities into their workforces. the biggest names in tech all reported diversity numbers this year reviewing that men make up about 70% of the workforce that apple, google, facebook and twitter. when you look at the technical workforces for these companies, blacks and hispanics make up a 6% in the united states. how do the numbers shape a tech workers experience in silicon valley? first of all, you heard positive stories and you have heard horror stories all stop what stood out to you? >> i think the thing that stood out the most is that it's not about a big instances of racism or sexism. nobody's going to come up and say i'm not going to hire you because you are a woman. it is the little everyday things that happen like being mistaken for someone's earl friend at an industry party or being excluded from a conversation the guys are

having during their fantasy football discussions when you are just not included in that it's more the unconscious bias that causes grating over time and causes people to feel uncomfortable. >> we also have with us and airbnb engineering manager. this has obviously been your career. what has been your experience? have you felt excluded or have you felt included? >> i've been fortunate that i've worked at companies that are very inclusive and have had very positive experiences, but i'm sensitive to the fact that there are women who have had negative experiences. it's important to talk about it but it's all though important to celebrate the positive stories. >> others were told to not speak about diversity. if you talk about it, it is going to ruin your career.

you don't want to become an activist. >> as you have gotten to this place, hasn't always been so positive? has it been challenging? >> different women have had to front experiences. it is important for women to did together and talk about their experiences and how they have been successful. i have been trying to make it so that things are even better for women and have been feeling this way. >> you see companies like facebook improving their policies for women on maternity

leave and allowing women to freeze their eggs, which is quite controversial. some say that's actually a step in the wrong direction. what is your assessment of how well the companies themselves are handling this problem? >> i think every silicon valley executive will tell you this is a priority. the question is what it feels like on the ground for individuals healing with other individuals on a day-to-day basis. who makes the sly comments or the joe that rubs them the wrong way and adds to their experience. changing the issue is more than just an issue of releasing the numbers and saying you're going to donate -- it's about tainting the organization which is going to take some time. >> how do you feel about

airbnb's approach to diversity? >> i think we are trying to do our best. we have women in the organization, trying to meet up for lunch and making sure if they have concerns that they are heard. we are also partnering with a number of different organizations. i had the pleasure of attending this rogue ramp run by the state department where these women from the middle east and africa came and visited and i felt there was so much her us to learn from them. two things that stood out -- one of them was in rwanda, the parliament is 63% women. the women from the middle east said they don't have a problem with verse of the come in that is actually 50-50 there. we have really enjoyed these collaborations. >> how much do you think is a pipeline problem -- that there

just aren't enough women engineers available and how much of it is a problem farther down the line? >> i think we need to affect each stage of the pipeline. it's important to get little girls excited about it at a very young age, through middle school, taking computer science classes, and in college, making sure people are added equal footing when they start. we have done studies where they have created an introduction to computer science last and that helps to increase their numbers it's important to tackle each stage. when you are in the industry, we want to make sure women stay in tact and don't leave. it's a pipeline problem, it's a retention problem, and i don't think we can single out a single one. >> thank you for sharing your first-person views. it's not the easiest thing to do. a great piece from sarah frier today.

sony just announced a new web based tv service for the playstation console. we will talk about that in an exclusive interview with the president of sony and attainment america when we return. >> time now for bloomberg television on the markets. we want to get you caught up on where stocks ended for the day. a little bit of a ho-hum trade as far as the s&p is concerned. the dow adding 30 points and the nasdaq up .1%. ♪

>> he is a provocative or behind some of the big ideas of our time, a creator of pop science, an unofficial but influential set of laws that govern human behavior. between five bestsellers and two decades at "the new yorker," malcolm gladwell has perked plextor the most chromatic -- critical of readers. joining me now, novelist and thought provocateur malcolm