>> live from san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west," where we cover innovation, technology, and the future of business. i'm emily chang. first, a check of your bloomberg top headlines. it's decision time in the u.s. senate for the keystone xl pipeline. the senate has begun voting on whether to move a bill forward that approves construction of the project. the bill, pushed by louisiana democrat mary landrieu, ahead of her runoff election needs 60 votes to get through. that number could fall one vote short. president obama is planning action on immigration reform as early as tuesday. immigration is, of course, a key issue in the tech community. the executive order would let

four million to five million undocumented immigrants stay in the united states, according to people familiar with the proposal. this would include undocumented parents of u.s. citizens and permanent legal residents. parents who brought their children into the country illegally wouldn't be included. how dangerous is the economic situation in japan, now that the country has slipped back into a recession for the second time in two years? here's former pimco c.e.o. -- >> i think that number yesterday, the negative 1.6, was a horrible number. now, japan is moving quite quickly. today we got news that not only

will they post upon the consumption tax, but we have an election. so there will be an attempt to revamp the economics approach, so that's good news. but the message to the rest of the world is don't get stuck in this general malaise because it's very difficult to get out of. >> the japanese recession may have a big impact on u.s. companies. japan is the fourth largest trading partner of the united states. boettcher capitalist wants more bitcoin. he tells bloomberg that he plans on bidding again when the u.s. government auctions off 50,000 bitcoins that were seized. he was the winning bidder in the first auction, buying all 30,000 bitcoins. he calls it one of the most important technologies that has come along in his lifetime. to our lead. uber c.e.o. travis kalanick responds to comments uber executive emil michael made at a

recent dinner party. michael suggested at a dinner last week that uber hire researchers to dig up dirt on journalists unfriendly to the company, singling out sarah lacy. he sent out more than a dozen tweets today, starting with these three. emil's comments at the dinner party were terrible and do not represent the company. shows a lack of leadership, a lack of humanity and a departure from our values and ideals. his duties here at uber do not involve communication strategy or plans and are not representative in any way of the company approach. joining us now, david kilpatrick, founder and c.e.o. and cory johnson with me here in the studio as well. david, i'll start with you. has uber done enough here? travis has apologized, but it's fallen short of extreme disciplinary action for emil michael. should he be fired? >> my opinion is, it's not really enough. i think he's clearly saying the right things, although it sounds kind of like david plouffe wrote that for him. i think they have a lot of work to do if they want to fundamentally change their image, which he is saying they want to do. they have a very negative image among people like myself, who are professional watchers of technology. certainly sarah lacy agrees. >> now, travis kalanick, in the rest of the tweet -- it was quite long -- added that "i believe folks who make mistakes can learn from them, myself included."

emil michael, meantime, has apologized to sarah lacy directly tweeting, "i would like to apologize to you directly. my comments were wrong and i deeply regret them." sarah hasn't responded directly but has retweeted a few things, including, "not going to cut it." cory? >> first of all, sarah is a woman, duh, she's a mom. some stuff's scary. the notion that the companies that you cover will retaliate with personal investigations or, you know, who knows what that means? we've seen this in the past and it's been terrifying. the company has said they're not doing that. but it's disconcerting and it shows a sort of mentality of you're either with us or against us, of fairness and truth be damned. >> to that point, sarah lacy did publish a piece earlier today before the apology from travis, saying, "a chill ran down my spine." this is when she got the phone call.

"i immediately thought of my kids at home halfway around the world just getting out of their baths, groggily pulling on their pajamas and how the new line this company was willing to cross would affect them." serena, you just got off the phone with david plouffe, the head of marketing and communications now at uber. what did he have to tell you? i'm curious, were travis and david in the room when this happened, and how did they react? >> ok. to be sure, it was because of another story i'm working on. but, of course, i asked him, i couldn't resist. and i said, you know, how ironic they bring you onboard to fix their image, and look what they did. what a miss misstep. don't you think uber should fire emil michael? and he wouldn't comment. and then i said, can't you say anything else? i am sure you advised travis on his twitter feed.

and he said, you know, i stand by those comments, and to be sure, those tweets were -- the content of those tweets were first emailed internally to all our employees. and i stand by those comments, and we don't have anything else to say for the time being. >> you know, emil michael, who's been on this show, is one of uber's top field guys, if not the top guy. travis kalanick, one the most lauded c.e.o.'s right now in silicon valley. david, i'm seeing some hashtags on twitter, "delete uber." but is this really going to affect their business? >> i suspect it won't affect it too much. i wanted to clarify before, when i said about the negative opinion of uber, it's not as a business. it's an extraordinary business, a transformative business.

it allowed me to get to the studio on time and there were two other ubers parked outside picking up people at the exact same moment. this service is what people want. that is going to help them over the long run much more than this will hurt them. but i do think they are the tough guys in tech and they've really done a lot of things that i think cross lines. i think sarah lacy's piece today was passionate and really eloquent. i think they should read it and give it a lot more thought than they clearly have done up to now. >> sarah lacy called the company morally bankrupt. peter has called it ethically questionable, cory. does it matter? will people stop using ubers because of this? >> do morals and ethics matter? yes, they absolutely matter. and let's put this in context. i mean, there is a "washington post" reporter who's been in solitary confinement in iran for four months. that's a real chilling of journalism. this is on a different level. but this is a level that the companies in silicon valley have rarely gone to. we saw this at hewlett-packard several years ago when they were secretly capturing the phone

numbers that journalists were calling, when they were going through the trash of journalists, trying to figure out who their sources were. some of that was illegal. most of it wasn't. but i think the notion that this company -- anyone who doesn't agree with their business practices or isn't supportive of their business is somehow hurting them, tells you a lot about uber and may affect their ability to partnership. it also may affect journalists. the guy who said this is no dope. he didn't say this knowing there are not journalists in front of him. if you write something negative about me, you better think twice because we're thinking about investigating journalism. maybe this is off the record, maybe i think this is on the record, but regardless, i want the journalists to know you should be scared if you're going to cover uber and say anything negative. it will have the complete opposite reaction.

those guys at uber said this about a colleague in the press. they don't like the way this went down. >> i have no idea why somebody would say that to a journalist, the very kind of person who could make their life miserable. >> let me just suggest -- >> not to mention that uber has all of our personal information and knows where we go and where we are all the time if we're using their service. >> that could be why it was said is to have that chilling effect on the journalism, to make the journalists not write negative things about the company or think twice or shy away from things they might want to report. i think it's going to have the opposite effect. >> exactly. serena, you're a journalist. what effect will this have on you? >> i frankly love this service and i won't change my use of it. but i also think we should put this in perspective. what emil michael said is terrible. but let's not forget that the media is a bubble and knees kind

of stories resonate with us much more than they resonate with the rest of the public. a lot of people are going to overlook this story, and i think users will keep on using uber. also, let's not forget they're about to raise a round of financing and the silence from their investors is actually quite loud. i checked some of the twitter handles of their investors, some of them on the board. they haven't tweeted a word about today's story. and i've written emails to those investors prompting reaction and i got no reaction at all. and i think investors don't care and they'll keep on investing in uber as long as they believe it's a good investment. i think it still is a good investment. this is a cynical view, but i think it's the view that most investors will take on this. >> let's talk about that a little bit more after a quick break. serena of "bloomberg news" in new york, david kilpatrick founder of techonomy. we'll be right back talking more about uber coming up.

>> welcome back to "bloomberg

west," i'm emily chang. we are talking about uber and comments made at a dinner by a senior uber executive, suggesting that they would dig up dirt and investigate some of their harshest critics, including journalist, sarah lacy, the founder of pando daily. travis kalanick has apologized, and emil michael, the executive who made the remarks, has apologized, but is it enough? i want to bring back in david kilpatrick, and serena, from "bloomberg news" and our editor-at-large, cory johnson. david, i guess i wonder, you see uber making missteps again and again when it comes to public opinion. are they ever going to learn? >> well, this is a company who's even got an aggressive name. they don't seem to have any problem with super uber aggressiveness.

i think a lot of their behavior has bordered on thuggish. and this is disgusting behavior that was uncovered today. but in the long run what matters even more is the way they've intersected with governments with such contempt, and that is something that really ethically they have to work on. they have to recognize however great they think their service is, people have to be -- they have to be willing to work with the community in order to get it to the success that they believe it deserves. >> you know, i was thinking we could call this uber-gate, but it seems like almost every week, corey, there's an uber-gate. as much as i use the service every week, many times a day sometimes, they continue to make these mistakes. >> david's right. we talked about this in our morning meeting, about how we should cover this story. this is an important story not because i care about sarah lacy, and i do, and the journalist sort of tempest in a teapot, but i think this does reflect their values. it reflects the way, as david mentions, they margin the communities and they say we don't care about your 100-year of tax history laws, we don't care about the drivers who have families, who have built up a career around providing a service in a certain way. we're not going to try to work with you. we're going to show up in your

town, legislate and win this thing for our business and for our customers. the rest of you and your history be damned. i think we also see this in the way that the company said they're going to raise money to try to thwart their competitors from raising money. >> to be clear, he said he warned investors if they were thinking about investing in lift, well, uber was going to raise another round. >> it's not illegal but it's a level of aggressiveness which reflects the way uber sees the world and number two, you don't see this in silicon valley. it crosses the line. >> serena, is uber overly aggressive or wrong? >> they're overly aggressive. on this point, they are wrong. this is wrong, threatening reporters is wrong. but they're not the first to do this. authority has always unliked critical press and they've always threatened. so a lot of authorities have threatened reporters who

criticize that authority. so it's not new. it's totally wrong, and they're totally aggressive. but they couldn't be successful at what they're doing if they weren't as aggressive as they are. i mean, i'll go as long as expressing my opinion on the fact that travis, i'm sure he's very sorry about those comments. i also wonder if he had discussed before with emil michael those plans. probably he's not firing him because they had discussed those plans, and now he's shared them with reporters and thinking that nobody would have found out. i don't know how, but -- >> that goes back to my question. if travis kalanick and david plouffe were in the room, did they say anything? i don't know, i wasn't there. >> they come from a world -- some of them come from a world of d.c., a world of politics, where dirty tricks are well known. that doesn't fly with journalism. it's not good for society. >> you certainly don't say it in front of journalists, the very people who report on you. ok. that's it.

david kilpatrick, thanks so much and serene that. we'll be back after a break. >> i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west."

>> i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west." we have breaking news now out of washington, d.c. the senate has just defeated the keystone xl pipeline project, though voting continues. peter cook is on capitol hill. peter, we know this is not going to pass. why? >> oh, so close, emily. it looks like they could very likely -- supporters of this

project -- get 59 votes in favor of approving the keystone x.l. looks i think it has a lot of hurdles to get over. lothe surface, it makes a of sense for squared to make -- 21 to reach a large audience. they are drawing up lands that are taking place on somebody else's playground. are owneding systems by google and in and ride. it is an -- it is a little bit

within google wallet and apple pay. it is only a few degrees off. it is going to be hard for traction witht this. >> snapchat is saying square will have the information. does that reassure you that the information it is safe and snapchat's history? have a rockyoes history. seven months ago a major breach. lost user names. trackuare has a good record on security. that does not necessarily put snapchat out of the woods. what is going to happen is if a user account is compromised, the money. will take the that falls under the responsibility of snapchat.

strong of ain, how password? all those different controls. if that falls apart, you are losing money. >> facebook, of course, is trying to change things up with facebook messenger. former head of paypal running that product. that makes sense. facebook and twitter though, trying to start these commerce operations that so far have not taken off. what does it mean that snapchat has done it first? >> i do not know if it is first. you are correct to point out the broader landscape. all of these trying to replace the magnetic strip in so many ways. later.[captioning performed by -- it is a big landscape. a big opportunity.

i wouldn't be so concerned about them being first. and imagine, it was so easy for you to use. but it would not necessarily be as easy for you as a user to sign up. a lot of users are younger. they will not be too interested in putting in a credit card and going through all of those steps. i think a partnership faces a lot of uphill battles. >> d you think those users might their security? >> it depends. they are not necessarily going to think about all of those qualifications. items stolen by phishing attacks, there goes that money. for a user having that wiped out, it will be a pretty big deal. will see how popular this becomes and how it works out.

thank you for joining us. thank you. ceo will be very starting by. -- stopping by. next. ♪ >> time for on the markets. in u.s. stocks had. record highs. stocks rallied. ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. thorsten heins, former blackberry c.e.o., has a new job. he left blackberry a year ago after failing to reverse the company's slumping market share.

thorsten heins is on to his next challenge, taking over the reins of powermat technologies, an israel-based company that enables wireless charging of mobile devices. earlier betty liu sat down with him to speak about the role. >> if you look at communication and what wireless has been going through, we call, you know, we surf the internet, wherever we are, whatever we want to do. but then actually you get to a point and you say, do i have enough juice in my battery, how do i keep charged, how do i keep going? we still have these places in airports, people looking for power outlets. i think we're on the verge of solving the next big problem of going mobile, by allowing people to wirelessly charge wherever they are waiting, and they just charge their device and we make sure they stay charged. >> they can do it simply and easily and wirelessly, essentially. >> exactly, no wires, no chargers needed. put it on a table, put it on a surface, it has charging capability and here you go. >> it's a great invention. it's also one of the frustrations, though, i think of the investors previously, where they felt like this company had such a big market potential, but generating very little revenue. seemed like it wasn't able to sort of grow to that next level. how are you going to take powermat to the next level? what are you going to do?

>> that's a good observation. start-ups go through these various phases of inventing something, changing direction, changing courses. it's never a straight line. >> right. >> which also makes it fun. >> blackberry was by far not a start-up when you took it over. >> not quite. >> i've always wanted to know, looking back on the years or the time that you were at blackberry, do you regret anything? is there anything that you would redo again at blackberry? >> first and foremost, i don't regret the time at all, right? it was very exciting when i started. we built a smartphone portfolio, blackberry invented it. we rose the revenue to above $10 billion. that was lots of fun. and then things get hotter. but you stick to the company, right? you stick to what you need to do. but the last two years, frankly, were quite rough, to put it mildly. but somebody had to do this.

we had to save that company, right? we had to put it in a whole different context. very dramatic, strategic changes in terms of the business model and the related r&d programs. if you look back, it's always 20/20 hindsight. at that point in time, i think we were under huge pressure, with an excellent team. what we really did was we laid the groundwork on all these different programs, like the blackberry cloud, the blackberry messenger cross-platform that now the new management team can execute upon. i wish them all the best and all the success, that these platforms carry them into the future and that they actually really manage to turn that company around. >> do you think they're doing a good job? >> yeah, from what i can tell. it's not on me to judge him, right? this is not what my position is. but in terms of what i see from

execution, you know, what his team is doing, i think they're continuing that path on a very disciplined execution. so, again, fingers crossed that they're going to make it. >> you mentioned earlier that the last two years were pretty rough. what were people not understanding, perhaps, or that you felt like were the toughest moment for you at blackberry? >> in order to change the business model of blackberry, we would have to separate the services from the handset. the original business model was you get the best feed, the recurring feed. in order to become an enterprise player and get flexibility in handsets, we had to break this up. sounds easy, but it really was a whole new strategy of how you build a product and enterprise. i think the best time i could say was not well understood or not well communicated. but that actually was the crucial element of the strategy that i laid out and that we executed against. >> where do you think blackberry has the biggest opportunity, in enterprise or emerging markets

or in software? >> clearly blackberry in my view has a play in enterprise. it's the most secure platform, it's the most modern operating system, mobile operating system out there, the most secure one. that gives blackberry room to explore even things way beyond just handsets or enterprise. think about this topic we all talk about, the internet of things, right, or the internet of everything. that business will need what blackberry has. you want all those sensors and things to be secure. guess who is the most secure on the planet on this one? i think the team is executing. they're doing what they need to do. >> what about the blackberry classic? >> yeah, the blackberry classic really goes back to the lovers of the original blackberry. >> would you buy it? >> no. i bought a passport. >> you bought a passport, ok. just on a final note, i know during the last few years that you were at blackberry, a lot of talk about selling the company, right, whether it remains independent or is to be sold.

given how it's slowly being turned around, should it still be for sale, or perhaps give blackberry a bit more chance to grow as an independent company? >> i can't really give advice on that. after one year i'm probably too distant from that. i mean, it's a decision that the management and the board will have to make, and i'll watch it. but it's not for me to give any direction or any advice here to the company and the board. they will do the right thing. >> so it sounds like you're still a blackberry loyalist, then. >> absolutely. >> no iphones? >> to iphone, no other thing, it's blackberry. >> former blackberry c.e.o. and newly appointed powermat c.e.o. thorsten heins with bloomberg's betty liu. we'll take you inside a company that says it's come up with a meat substitute that tastes and feels like the real thing, next.

>> i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west." with 2014 winding down, "bloomberg businessweek's" sam grobart got a look at the technologies and innovations that may disrupt our lives in 2015. today we're talking alternatives to meat. the biggest complaint about imitation meat is not only the taste, but also the texture. one company says, however, it has found a solution. this is the year ahead. >> if you think about meat, it has to come from chickens, cows and pigs.

there's so much efficiency you can get out of the system, so we need to think about it differently. i'm ethan brown, the founder and c.e.o. of beyond meats. and we want to create meat directly from plants. >> people have attempted to make imitation meat out of plants, but the appeal of those products has been limited because, well, the imitation has never been that convincing. >> what is meat? i think about it from the perspective of what's in meat? lipids, amino acids, carbohydrates and water, none of which have exclusive residents in the animal. they're abundant in plants. so we're extracting them from plants and assembling in the architect of animal protein or muscle and by doing that, providing meat directly from plants. >> so what makes beyond meat different from predecessors is instead of trying to take a product like tofu and pass it off as chicken, it's figuring out what makes chicken chicken, and rebuilds it from the molecular level. you might think that key to creating a convincing imitation of meat is getting the taste just right, and flavor is

important. but it turns out it's not the most important thing. >> when i think about the single most important innovation that we were able to create it gets back to the texture. it dates back to our familiarity with animal protein, with that feeling on the teeth. >> they're able to create this unique texture through a combination of heating, cooling, and pressurizing the proteins naturally found in plants. >> i'm going to try some of this chicken. >> all right. >> the texture is really the key here. you get that feeling of -- you use that word fibrous. >> right. >> stringy in a good way. >> without the structure, without the fiber, you're not going to get that mainstream penetration. >> ethan's company is currently selling two kinds of plant-based meats, chicken strips and ground beef. both are designed to miss with other ingredients, which makes their job as passing as animal-based meat easier. 2015 will be a make-or-break year for beyond meat. the company is preparing its next product, one that aims right at the heart of meat-eaters -- a burger. that's a way taller order than some chili.

but they think they have an edge. once you start rebuilding meat from the ground up, you can do more than just make a facsimile of it. you can actually make it better. >> so what you're having right now has more protein than beef. it has more iron than steak, more omegas than salmon, more antioxidants with blueberries. >> it's super meat. >> then the question becomes, are we eventually going to see a meatless future? >> i don't think it's necessarily realistic to think that people will stop consuming meat. i think if you look at human health, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, these epidemics we have, they are correlated with meat consumption, if you look at greenhouse gases, i can make an impact by changing out the amino acids in the center of the dinner plate, and that's really exciting. >> for decades meat alternatives have been stuck in the health food ghetto.

beyond meat hopes to break out of that, not by converting all of us to veganism and not by magically creating an entire steak but judging us to plant-based alternatives. if they're right, if you can't tell the difference between, say, chicken and beyond meat chicken and their product is better for you and the environment, the company is betting its future on the hope that you are about to become much more of a vegetarian than you planned. >> hmm. "businessweek's" sam grobart there. be sure to tune into the year ahead special airing tonight on bloomberg tv. we will look at 10 innovations that will change everything you know about tech, food and medicine. well, arguably no federal agency finds itself more in the hot seat than the federal communications commission. the head of the national cable and telecommunications association and former chairman of the f.c.c., michael powell, joins us next on "bloomberg west." ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. the decision on whether the government will allow comcast to buy time warner cable is right around the corner. c.e.o. brian roberts, c.e.o. of comcast told reporters in san francisco last week that the company is full steam ahead with the acquisition, even as president obama came out against

the idea of internet fast lanes, which could benefit companies like comcast. our editor-at-large, cory johnson, takes a look at the lobbying efforts comcast has made trying to push the deal through. >> in washington there's lobbying and then there's lobbying. the $44 billion proposed merger between comcast and time warner cable is an exercise in lobbying. comcast has spent $18 million in lobbying last year. that's more than any other company for a defense contractor. a lot of that money went straight into the campaign covers of politicians. $37,000 to mitch mcconnell. $27,000 to mark udahl. $27,000 to greg walden. $25,000 to harry reid. but the real power in washington -- take this guy, a former navy seal. he's the c.e.o. of comcast cable but also the chairman of the national cable and telecommunications association. the ncta gave him $19 million 870,000 in lobbying last year, much of it going to the same

politicians that comcast contributed to. that made it the top five lobbyists in all of washington, d.c. last year, and before smith, chairman of the ncta was tom wheeler. where is he now? well, president obama named him the chairman of the f.c.c., the very body that will decide the fate of this proposed merger. and for anyone at the fcc thinking about their next job, former chairman of the f.c.c., michael powell, he's now the c.e.o. of another company. she left the f.c.c. to go to comcast as their chief lobbyist. she's one of 107 lobbyists who are trying to use all of comcast's power, influence and money to urge washington to accept this deal. >> cory johnson is in the newsroom now with ncta president and former f.c.c. chairman, michael powell. cory, take it away. >> michael powell joins me right now.

we're talking about this notion going back and forth, going from government to go to the private sector. the private sector informed by that, so is government. when people look at that and they see the numbers going back and forth in terms of lobbying, they're concerned. should they be? >> you should always be concerned to make sure the government is operating ethically. i think it gets overstated by simplistic looks. you know, i left f.c.c. for six years before i ever entertained a job in the industry. i had not only an ethical obligation, but a personal choice not to do any work for companies that i regulated for many decades. i'm a policy expert. i spend my life making my career in the communications sector

association -- so it's pretty legitimate to have employment in that sector. >> is it so complicated that when the f.c.c. is looking for someone they've got to go to tom wheeler to hire him, because he has so many close ties, who's been paid so much money, whatever that is, by the industry? >> well, you'll have to ask the president of the united states what goes into his choice. >> i'd much rather talk to you. >> tom wheeler, to his credit, was in the ncta trade business 30 years ago. is there a statute of limitations on when you can return to public service? i think the country needs qualified talented, in-depth public servants and i applaud the president for looking for someone who had that background. he was widely heralded when the selection was made as somebody who had a deep understanding of this material and i would argue, yes, it is complicated. >> talk to me about the membership companies and what they want out of the ncta, companies like comcast, time warner cable and so on. what do they want out of, in particular, this ruling about net neutrality?

>> so, first of all, you should understand our membership is diverse and somewhat by intention of itself. we have operators, companies like comcast, time warner and charter, we also have via come, disney and cox. >> who's giving you most of the money? you may have a long list of the members, but is most of the money from one side? >> our dues are rated by subscriptions. so it's obvious that bigger members play a disproportionate amount of the dues. i don't think that alone buys you direct influence over the choices the association makes. we're a trade association. i'd be the first to confess, yes, we lobby. but we manage an enormous amount. the trade shows, the industry's development of public policy, we represent the industry like i'm doing today in the media. we sometimes are doing the legal work for filings at the federal communications commission or other arms of government so there is a wider array of things we do. i personally, for example, spend very little time on the hill and direct contact with members. that's not a big part of what i

do in my job. >> on this issue of comcast, net neutrality, they gave us a statement. i want to read from it. they say we continue to believe that section 706 as opposed to title 2, provides more than ample authority to impose rules. comcast and cable companies have led the broadband revolution. there's a big debate, title 2, which would make sort of a public utility out of the companies that give us our internet, whether we're businesses or consumers, versus the existing regulations. what do you think? >> i think it's a perfect example where the means start confusing the end. i've never seen an issue where there's such violent agreement on the core objectives. everybody wants to stop blocking. everybody wants to prevent throttling. most of our companies have said repeatedly publicly they have no interest in paid prioritization. in fact, for 20 years without any net neutrality rule they haven't engaged in the practice even a handful of times that the commission can point to. and everybody is in support of increased transparency. when you get into the legal minutia about the most effective

way to do that and that's when you get to this debate. >> heavy regulation, and wheeler's plan in-between. >> our greatest concern about title two is the unintended consequences of what else comes with it. title two is a body of regulations, most heavy body of commentary regulation that exists in the country. it was built for at&t as a monopoly during the last century. it's 1,000 pages in length. it has hundreds and hundreds of rules that would make fundamentally no sense when applied to internet infrastructure. and the government can't, to our satisfaction, sort of give you the confidence that it would rule wisely in the administration of those unintended -- >> i just look at the -- we have really slow internet speed in this country compared to a lot of big countries with big businesses and big geographic footprints and a lot of countries with smaller geographic footprints. compared to france, we have slower speed. south korea, more or less half of speed they've got. doesn't the current structure reward companies for not investing so we don't have that

kind of competition? >> i don't think so first of all, i could cherry-pick countries to compare to, too, and the united states would look outstanding. of the top 16 regions comparable by size, six to nine of them are united states, actual state jurisdictions. so we're a country of 300-plus million people. a more complex problem. look at the trend line. speeds have increased 1500% in a decade. the network doubles in speed every 18 to 4 months. right now we're increasing speed 50% annually. >> michael powell, i wish we had a lot more time. thanks for coming on the show. michael powell, the president and c.e.o. of the ncta. emily? >> all right, cory johnson, thanks so much. thank you all for watching this edition of "bloomberg west." all the latest headlines all the time on your phone and tablet, bloomberg.com and bloomberg radio.

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>> progress is sometimes exponential. new innovations create even knew -- newer breakthroughs. >> it's fairly exciting to think that we might change things someday. >> the pace of change only accelerates. in 2015, the race towards the future continues, from the food we eat to the way we interact with technology to how we communicate.