>> 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," the top interviews with the power players in global technology and media companies that are reshaping our world. first to our lead. uber is no stranger to controversy but this time the ride-sharing service is not clashing with regulator or taxi

drivers. instead over comments michael made to journalists. he said uber should dig up dirt on those critical of the company. they later took to twitter and said the comments were terrible and do not represent the company. his remarks showed a lack of leadership and a lack of humanity. but at least one prominent uber investor ashton kutcher tweeted what is so wrong about digging up dirt on a shady journalist? take a listen. >> i first heard about this from ben smith. the story has been really focused to me and travis and emil. let's not forget, this was said at a table full of journalists. michael wolff, people from business insider. one thought this was wrong. one thought this was wrong and

wrote a story under intense intimidation, and that was ben smith of buzzfeed. honestly, when he called me, i was on a business trip in london and i stepped out to talk to him because i have enormous respect for him and i could not imagine what was so important that he needed to talk to me immediately. i was terrified, and the plan as it was described is not just to dig up dirt. we're not talking about doing a google search. we are talking about a million-dollar budget, four to six staff team to do opposition research on me. that's going through trash. that's following my kids. that is vans parked outside my house. the idea was, we are going to go at her through her family. we are going to destroy her through her family, and we are going to do it until she backs down, and no one will ever know hat uber did this. >> and one journalist thought this was wrong. as soon as i heard this, i was terrified. i also thought, thank god he said it to a real journalist, otherwise he would be doing it and i would have no idea.

>> i want to know how you're feeling right now. you lost your own personal security. security at pando. tell us what you're doing. >> i don't want to deal with detail too much, because the point is for my family to be safe. i have two young kids. uber's view was, let's hit her at her one vulnerability, her kids, and they succeeded. i'm terrified. we have had to totally redo the security at my house. i have personal security with me and my children at all times. here is the important thing, right now we are in this media firestorm about this, but emil michaels has not been fired. we see right after travis apologizes publicly in twitter it will go away. there is no record of it. they have their celebrity investor come out and label me as shady. he backs me away from it, but i'm now labeled as a shady bernal list -- shady

jouranlist. you can see what travis bagged about -- bragged about. that is what is happening. when this dies down, there's no repercussions. investors are supporting it. they are going to either go forward with their plan or do something worse. the story i did a warranted one million dollars smear campaign, that warranted destroying my family got nowhere near this amount of press. got nowhere near this amount of people saying they were going to take the app off their phone. something bad is going to happen. >> do you think emil should be fired? ken put up a post on twitter. >> exactly. i think the bare minimum we can all agree on is that emil michaels should be fired. this is a deep problem within the company. as i have been living this horror for the last several days, what strikes me and what has bothered me about uber is whenever we would cover these stories about assault of female passengers and call the company and ask them, they would say she was dressed provocatively. he was drinking.

it was a classic blame and shame the woman psychology. imagine a woman is attacked in uber in a way. she doesn't have the resources of private security. she can't call you guys and get on tv and get her side of the story told. i feel like this is not about me, this is about journalists, this is about women getting in their cars. this is about a company culture that thinks it can throw money to destroy people's lives and families in the name of a greater valuation, and it's about every single board member and private investor stepping back and being ok with it. people have met my kids. people who have been at my house. in 15 years of covering the valley, i've never seen anything like this. you have to wonder if the hp pre-texting scandal came out, when journalists' phone records were tapped, would there be any outrage? would ashton kutcher be fine with that as well? >> digging up dirt on political

candidates. what should someone like david plouffe be doing to manage this company's reputation and how is it different when it is you and not an aspiring elected fficial? >> i'm not in the political world for a reason. it is scary. if he wanted uber to be recast as a friendly company perhaps they should just start changing ome of the executives. i think it depends on what his goals are. unlike a politician, uber is not running for office. this is a company that we are trusting with our lives. people put their children in ubers to drive them around. women are getting in ubers very late at night and yes sometimes they are dressed provocatively

and yes, sometimes they have had something to drink. this is horrifying. >> do you think this was said to a group of journalists, that all of the journalists would disseminate or do you think it was some guy shooting off his mouth? >> it was not a guy shooting off his mouth. he articulated a plan. this was not spur of the moment conversation. it was a plan. i think it was primarily about me. i think i was the first target because i'm a woman and i'm high profile and they knew they could go after my kids. it is one of two things. it is either they were putting the journalists on notice or -- and frankly it would work with a lot of people. they have done other intimidation tactics this extreme that have worked or they don't think there is anything wrong with it. what are the plans they wouldn't brag about at a dinner? that's why i have private security now. >> i want to get back the this versus off on ver

the record. if you hear something this extreme, do you break that journalistic code? >> yes! i don't understand. i don't understand what has happened with online media today. journalists are confused on where their loyalties lie. they think their loyalty lies to a rich guy there covering who is going to lie to them or say something horrific and illegal the damages someone's family security off the record, and that trumps that responsibility to the reader. i want to be clear to any source of my listening to this, my responsibility is to my readers, >> founder of pando daily and our editor at large, cory johnson. >> she said she has no evidence uber actually targeted her. bloomberg west has reached out to uber for comment.

they have given us statements. up next, more on uber. i'll be speaking with minnesota senator al franken who has written a letter demanding answers on the company's privacy policy.

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. uber isn't taking these allegations lightly. toy have hired harry pearson review the company's privacy policies. meantime they have caught the eye of washington with senator al franken demanding information on their policy.

>> it felt like what he was doing was trying to have a journalists t on who would write critically about uber and i don't think that's appropriate. i was wondering whether uber was taking any disciplinary action with him or not. i guess that is up to uber. >> to that point, you mentioned -- it raises a number of issues. the chilling effect certainly one of them. what are the other big issues you think it raises? >> i'm chairman of the subcommittee and judiciary committee on privacy technology and the law. this is just a basic privacy issue about an individual's right to control who takes privacy information like geolocation. that's what we're talking about

here. that has been a lot of focus of mine and how that information is accessed and shared. it appears they have something called god's view where employees of uber can access geolocation information. it s not clear what purpose is used for. they say business purposes. i ask them to define that but they had an incident where an executive had a journalist some to interview him at his office and he told her he had been tracking her there and evidently that speaks to a certain -- >> and he did not seem to think there was a problem with that? amazing. >> that kind of speaks to a certain cluelessness for a company that evidently stores

your geolocation information and it is a little disturbing to say hey, journalists who have come to my office, i have tracked you here. that suggests a little tone deafness. >> senator, do you use uber or have you ever used it? >> i have. i have used uber. >> will you continue to use it? >> i'm going to wait for the answers -- you know, actually when i used uber, it is because my wife uses uber. so it is usually like how are we getting there? you're getting in the car that is coming. >> but if you don't get the answers that you like, will you continue to use it? i really have to -- i won't rule out ever using uber. i won't do that now.

>> it is going to kill you if you can't take the uber ride. it is an interesting thing. this might-- i think be a wake-up call for them given that the executive told the journalist i've been tracking you on the way over here. it may wake them up a little bit and understand what they, you know, what the proper use of that geolocation information is. and how it is an issue to people. >> we spoke with al franken about net neutrality as well. he is one of the senate's most vocal supporters of protecting the open internet. >> basically what net neutrality is allowing everyone's content to flow essentially to the consumer at the same speed. now the i.s.p.'s, the big

internet service providers like comcast, like time warner cable and verizon have talked about charging extra for a fast lane so there would be a two-tiered system or multi tiered system where content provider would have to pay more for fast speed and that would affect every business, it will cost consumers more because that cost will be passed on to you. all of the innovation that has taken place on the internet has happened not just while we have had net neutrality but because we have that neutrality. i used youtube as an example. before youtube, there was google video which was not very good. three guys started youtube over a pizzeria in san mateo, alifornia. it was better because it flowed at the same speed and everyone was able to sample youtube and

see it was better, so they chose that. a few years later, google and up buying youtube for $1.6 billion. facebook was started in a dorm oom. all of this innovation has happened because of net neutrality and we don't want to put everything in the hands of deep-pocketted corporations who can afford to pay out for the fast lane and stifle all the innovation that would happen from the startups and from eople in dorm rooms. and also just businesses that are operating, have a website, this affects the entire economy and it is a bad idea. >> right. >> it obviously has first amendment implications as well. >> let's talk about those companies. do they have a moral responsibility in the net neutrality debate? >> i think they do.

the internet was created by the defense department, the united states government. they cannot act as gatekeepers. they don't own it. they don't own it. i believe -- yes, the point of the internet is not for comcast and verizon and time warner cable to make as much money as possible. it has other purposes. >> senator al franken, democrat from minnesota there. up next, we'll get a different take on net neutrality. we'll be speaking with the former f.c.c. chairman. ♪

of lcome back to the best "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. cory johnson spoke with michael powell, the former chairman to have f.c.c., now president and c.e.o. of the national cable and telecommunications association. the principle lobbying group for the cable tv industry. >> you should always be concerned to make sure your government is operating ethically and appropriately. i think it is a legitimate question. i think it gets overstated by simplistic looks. i left the f.c.c. for six years before i ever entertained a job in the industry. i had a personal choice not to do any work for companies i regulated for many decades. i'm a policy expert. it is pretty legitimate to ultimately have employment in that sector. >> is the policy so complicated when the f.c. scrmbings looking

for someone, they have to go to beenheeler someone who has paid so much money by the industry? >> you to ask the president of the united states what goes into his choice for chairman. tom wheeler was in the trade business 30 years ago. is there a statute of limitations when you can return to public service? i think the country needs qualified, talented in depth public servants. he was widely heralded when the selection was made as somebody who had a deep understanding. i would argue yes, it is pretty complicated. >> talk to me about the membership companies. what do they want in particular out of this ruling for net neutrality? >> it is twet diverse.

we have not only operators, companies like comcast, time warner and charter. we represent all of the content companies like viacom, disney and fox. >> who is giving you most of the money? is most of the money from one side of snap >> our dues are rated by subscription. it is obvious bigger members pay a disproportionate amount of the deuce. i don't think that alone buys you direct influence over the choices they make. i would be the first to con if he is, yes, we lobby. we manage an enormous amount for the industry. we manage the industry's trade show. we represent the industry like i'm doing today in the media. we sometimes are doing the legal federal filings at the commission. i spend very, very little time on the hill in direct contact with members. that is not a big part of what i

do in my job. > in this issue comcast and net neutrality. they say we continue to believe that section 706 provides more than ample authority to improse rules. impose rules. there is this big debate. title 2, which would make a public utility out of the companies that give us our internet whether we're businesses or consumers versus the existing regulation. st. what do you any? >> i think it is a perfect example where the means start confusing the ends. everybody wants to stop blocking. everybody wants to prevent throttling. most of our companies have said they have no interest in paid prioritizeation. they have not engaged in practice even a handful of times that the commission can point to and everybody is in support of increased transparency. hen you get into the legal

minutia about the legal way to do that. >> title 2 with heavy regulation and wheeler's plan is kind of in between? >> in some ways, our greatest concern is the unintended consequences of what else comes with it. title 2 is a regulation of the regulation that exists in the country. it was built for at&t as a monopoly during the last century. it is 1,000 pages in length. it has hundreds of rules that would make fundamentally no sense when applied to internet infrastructure. and the government can't to our satisfaction give you the confidence that it would rule wisely in the administration of those unintended -- >> we have really slow internet speed in this country compared to a lot of big countrys with big businesses and geographic footprints. compare us to france, we have

slow internet speed. ompare us to south korea, we have half the speed they have. >> i can cherry pick companies to compare to. the united states would look outstanding. of the top 16 regions comparable by five, 6-9 of them are united states. we're a country of 300 million-plus people. much bigger geography. a much bigger problem. look at the trend line. the network doubles in speed every 18-24 months. right now we're increasing speed 50% annually. > cory johnson and michael powell, former f.c.c. chairman. facebook, where people share everything from photos to intimate details about their

lives, can it become a available product for the workplace? we'll tell your about their plans to move into the enterprise coming up. ♪ >> welcome back to the best of

"bloomberg west," where we focus on technology and the future of business. i'm emily chang. as facebook expands its business, it is targeting the workplace. the product would allow coworkers to connect with each other using all of the traditional facebook tools like messenger and newsfeed. corey and i spoke with a potential with our contribute editor david kirkpatrick. i asked how big a threat

facebook is. >> yammer was feted to bring social networking inside the enterprise. i think this is a business opportunity. i think there are a bunch of woulds to wonder why they do what it needs to do to go after this opportunity. >> like what? is -- the market here is for businesses to outsource their internet to be run by facebook. that is the software that businesses are looking for. the reason we thought that would happen at yammer was employees internet to look like a social network. a they don't have the design expertise to do that. i do wonder on the security side

of if they are going to want to do the things that enterprise will want them to do. there is a question about whether they will be able to convince enterprises and employees that know the content would be co-mingled with the sort of consumer facebook. ,ow these products are separate it would be a little bit of a headache for them. is a huge issue. there is the question of whether this is supportive to them. they would have to sell it. enterprise sales is something that facebook -- not something facebook as though the past. >> does this signal expanding ambitions for facebook? have beenmbitions expanding anyway with the acquisition of instagram and whatsapp. is tok there ambition

connect everybody. they are aware that people don't use it with as much approval at work as they would like. most people do use facebook at work. some companies still block it. there are a lot of reasons why facebook would want this to happen. i think david sachs has some good points. it could work depending on how it was done. it is something they have talked about and up to now rejected for six or seven years. >> is this something that people in companies are actually going to be interested in using? or is it like google launching google plus? are they trying to get into one another's territory where there is already a monopoly? >> i think employees do want to use social internet at work.

i think there are applications on top of that that employees need in their work. world, photo is the killer app on facebook. in the business world, it would have to be something different. i think that is probably filesharing. in order for this to work, facebook will have to develop not just a basic social feature but also something that is alike. would have to do dropbox. if they want to go down this path, they have to commit to it. they need to make it a sustained development priority for years. how importantnow it is to them, if they really want to do that. david, somebody like reid

thatan has said for years people want their professional and personal identities separate. do they want separate companies to pursue these identities? >> that's a good question. linkedin is not trying to do this exactly. they are doing some things very successfully. good points. has there is no monopoly at this point. most companies do not use internal collaborative tools. better than anybody else. by microsoft.d there is not a major player that really commands the marketplace here. most companies are very poor at collaboration.al most people live their lives on e-mail and instant messaging and texting and that is primitive and inefficient for the world we are entering where companies need to innovate much faster. i think there is a market. facebook andre on

know how to use it is promising for this kind of product. -- would facebook commit enough to this? companies want to hire young people. they want to be cool for young people. their youngd say to potential hires you can come here and do everything you do normally on facebook to work in our company, that can be very appealing. i could see why companies would like that. coming up, box has been stuck in the ipo pipeline for months. what is preventing them from going public question mark i will ask ceo aaron levy next. ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang.

box originally filed for an ipo in march. eight months of done by and they still have not gone public. what is going on? on the with aaron levie latest edition of my show. take a listen. on money fromook tpg and coatue management. >> we filed to go public in march. about a week after that, there was a market correction in the tech stock space. we saw some volatility and a lot of high-growth technology companies. we thought it was not the best company tong a new market. we had amazing support from private market and late stage investors tpg and coatue

management and they would support us as a private company. totook that money on continue growth without growing public. >> what is the status of the ipo? >> we are still in file, so there isn't lot that i can't share. you will definitely be one of the first people to hear about it once we share any updated thinking. >> have you wondered if you made a mistake in file too soon? >> we should not have filed when we did. we certainly dealt with a lot of distraction because of that filing. i think that whether that was news reports in the cycle that had to happen around the that was obviously brought on because the filing. that was a distraction to what our focus is and has been

witches execution and building the business. any is too short to have specific regrets. we have remained in this full execution road. >> i am curious about what that moment was like you opened your books to the world. some he called box a house of horrors. >> we are competing against the biggest companies in the planet. that, you have to make a significant investment. that is an investment in research and development and infrastructure in our sales team and being able to go to marketing reach these companies -- customers. criticism was the worst spending more on acquiring customers than you were making. every dollar we require is one that is recurring annually. our job is to keep customers happy and successful and compound that dollar overtime. we unveiled our s-1 at a time

when new asked -- new investments had outpaced the revenue scale. now we are at a place where we are growing out and compounding. we don't have as many significant investments. we have done a lot of the international expansion. we built out a lot of enterprise sales force. you are seeing that efficiency play out over time. much everything about selling box as opposed to going public? >> we want to sell our software to a lot of companies. we spend 0% of our time thinking about that. >> will box be a public company? >> it's likely. i would say yes in the sense that that is the path we are on. cofounder and .aron levie can see the entire interview on "studio 1.0." grand theft auto five is out,

but does the latest addition take sex and violence too far? that's next. ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. grand theft auto, the net tory us video game but has grossed over $1 billion in sales is pushing the envelope even further. in the latest refresh, players can have graphic first-person point of view sex with a prostitute. does that cross the line? two veteranh watchers of the videogame industry. i would say they are trying to make a very mature story. it is a mature game. matureature -- a bit gamers. it is not for kids. did they cross the line?

not anymore than they would in a movie or television show. >> take a listen to what he had to say. >> this is a gritty underworld. it is art. i embrace that art. it is beautiful art, but it is gritty. let's not make bones about it. we stand shoulder to shoulder with other major motion picture releases and television shows that explore a similar universe. >> yes, we see murder in prostitution and killing in movies and television. is it different when you are a giving video gamers the opportunity to do it themselves? >> i think it is important to listen to what he said. they stand shoulder to shoulder with other entertainment mediums. supremeot have the court case that but video games at the same level as other entertainment medium. they are first amendment protected. i think you're going to hear

companies defend themselves against the regular list me criticism about violence and sex by saying look, this is art just like movies and tv. now we have a supreme court decision that agrees with us. discussing where -- whether it is too far is extreme. it is censorship. don't play it or buy it. auto,k for grant theft they can make that choice. i don't think it is supposed to be sexy. it supposed to be learned and grim. that is what they are going for. they are going for gritty. >> what is the state-of-the-art of pushing the envelope? i could not believe some of the stuff. the violence is so much more disturbing. what is the state-of-the-art in pushing the envelope question mark >> that is the quest gin that we haven't i gin. real thatey become so

you feel guilty when you kill someone? where is the emotional attachment? we are getting to the point with the graphic fidelity that we are getting close to that. i do think it is a good question and a good thing to ask any good debate to have. grand of the things about theft auto is they are in a setting that is familiar. collins avenue. >> they are trying to make it feel as real as possible. >> it is a glyceryl game. you do get very emotional while playing it. -- it is a very visceral game. >> is that why are seeing the theess of games where enemies are less than human in those first-person shooter games that to mark >> you are telling a war story.

the player is a car thief, just like a movie. like a wargame, what it gets o'grady and really get post-traumatic stress disorder from plaintiff videogame? is it going to get to that point? >> what up the first-person nature of these games and the emotional impact they have and how that plays out when you are a real person interacting in the real world after you play it? >> that's why we are having this . grand theft auto came out last year. call of duty and games like that don't trigger this kind of response. what is it about grand theft auto that is upsetting? it's a real-world setting. i think it is a way the animation is done. you see your arms and legs. if you flip a car, you can see

the sky through the windshield. it has a much different feel than most of your first-person games. rockstar is betting that we will find this upsetting. that is their strategic decision. we wrote yesterday that it is dangerous again. beingyears of not dangerous, it feels dangerous again. this is what they are good at. they are good at pushing the envelope and challenging players to ask themselves what they are comfortable with. there is a scene, a torture scene that made a lot of people uncomfortable. i think it was distasteful. doing it.at they are they want us to talk about this on bloomberg. >> i don't know. it league are not legal, can we talk about right or wrong? seems like this is over the line to me. >> there is a certain thrill

about it. >> don't have your kids and their moyer playing this game. i won't play this in front of my kids. i will play zombie games in front of my kids. >> don't watch a tarantino movie if your kids are in the room. >> watching a movie is different than doing it yourself in this videogame. i know it is technically not real, but it feels real. >> i'm not sure that it is that different for this generation. it's just another form of media. >> one of the sales for this game? >> sex and violence cells. there is no doubt about it. they are approaching 40 million sales. between -- the new generation consoles. i'm sure they would get a good percentage. we may see this bumping up to 50 million soon. this is the biggest entertainment launch ever.

they sold $1 billion in the first month. coming up, kevin rose launches his latest venture. we will talk to him next. ♪

>> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. is bigger always better? serial entrepreneur kevin rose does not think so. he is on to his latest venture, that lets people share tiny photos. he just launched a refresh version tiny 2.0. i asked him how it works. >> when you think about instagram, they are curated experiences.

you get your filters right. you describe what you are doing. tiny is about little moments. you can record something and it loops over and over. you can't enlarge it. it is these tiny things that live in your profile that you share with friends and followers. a great example, ashton kutcher came on it posted a photo of his baby. it was awesome. we saw this tiny moment. he did not want load up. it was a tiny think he could share to people that he cares about. >> that is truly awesome. how does it compare to snapchat, tiny or lessng edited moments. then it disappears. >> it's not about the privacy. we do have a following model where you can come in and follow creative people. people are doing all kinds of skits or getting creative with it. there are different moments they are sharing.

they do every thing dog tricks to you name it. you see all of these animate looping over and over for you to consume. tore are things you want post and take the time to apply a filter or take the time to give at the right description and put it on facebook. we are not trying to compete with that. for us, it's about little things it you do throughout the day. or are having a good time having a beer, whatever it may be. it just gets pushed out to everyone. >> you also launched watch phil. ville. this is a narrow focus. why would this be a big deal? >> there is always room for handcrafted niche markets. the internet is good at collecting all of these people and bringing them together under one roof. there are large in blogs for everything.

they might be comic book collectors or delectable air jordans. wristwatches are something that a lot of people are very into. the luxury goods space, this is not been touched. this could be anything from vintage handbags or luxury watches. for us, it's just an exploration in what it's like to create a space.breed news we might apply this to a different set of verticals. this is our first experiment and the luxury goods space. >> people could say this is just another photo sharing app. i won a note what you're strategy is. you are trying to build apps that are sink or swim. appe were creating a new every two or three months. we wanted to get something out there and see what happens in c with attraction is like. kevin rose.

that doesn't for this edition of the best of "bloomberg west." you can catch us monday through friday. we will see you next week. ♪

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