cory: live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west." i'm cory johnson. a check of your bloomberg top headlines. u.k. ftse index, a new record. taking more than 15 years and $1 trillion of quantitative easing to regain the losses from the tech bubble. the chancellor of the u.k. economic growth forecast. greece could get bailout money as soon as next week if the country puts forth adequate for

measures. that word from an eu official. here is the greek prime minister, alex said chris. prime pminister: i think that all the sites confirmed their intention to try to do their best to overcome the difficulties of the greek economy as soon as possible. cory: the prime minister and his meeting with angela merkel was warm and friendly. he said they did not get into details about which reforms were needed. terror in yemen, two suicide bombers attacked mosques during friday prayers. no group has claimed responsibility. after years of debate and delay

the obama administration has finally issued the first federal regulations for fracking. drillers on federal lands must meet certain well construction standards, safely dispose of contaminated water, and disclose the chemicals used. the oil and gas industry opposes the new rule, arguing state regulations already govern hydraulic fracking. biogen shares are rising after the company's experimental drug for alzheimer's showed promise. in an early stage trial, the drug slowed progression of the disease, showing progress in two key areas. biogen is skipping mid-stage testing and moving to final stage trials that will begin later this year. now, to the lead. a gender discrimination trial is taking a new twist. matt murphy testified that he pleaded with ellen pao to

improve her performance. murphy said pao was prone to conflict said did not respond to his advice. his first notes were dated days after pao filed her lawsuit. katie you were at the trial yesterday, i believe? what was it like? katie: the trial has been interesting almost every single day. the defense has done a very good job of painting ellen pao is a difficult employee. her story is that she was not only discriminated against, but it was generally an unfriendly place for women to work. she did a good job of establishing that case. they had a great witness. she talked about how she had been sexually harassed and how poorly the firm handled that. that was great for ellen pao.

cory: the stage was set for, this is a place where sexual harassment happens? katie: inability to deal with having women in the workplace who wanted to be just as aggressive and successful as the man. the last two witnesses are today. each one has found a way to portray pao as someone who is difficult to get along with. the question becomes, despite the fact this place may not have been great for all its female partners, would ellen pao not succeed because they discriminated against her, or because she was difficult to get along with, and is murphy said did not take advice and did not know how to get along with her colleagues? cory: they are not mutually exclusive. she could have been a crummy venture capitalist and was harassed or discriminated against because she was a woman or beyond. katie: exactly. this'll be a difficult case for the jury to decide.

closing arguments should start tuesday or wednesday, hopefully tuesday. then they will deliberate trade could take a while. they have asked thoughtful questions. it is clear they have been listening carefully. they have been thinking a lot about what is happening and the judge has told them they can take as many days as they want to decide. cory: what murphy had to say yesterday was interesting but the notion that his notes were dated after the suit was filed -- talk to me about what that was like in the courtroom. it was an "law and order" moment. katie: i believe that moment happened the day before yesterday. if you look at what happened pao's lawyer smiled, ellen smiled, now it comes out. they are trying to establish she was retaliated against for suing, that kleiner might not have wanted them there, but suing was the final straw.

they started building a case against her. it was a very interesting twist. the defense, kleiner, has been trying to prove that ellen pao never wanted to improve and she never wanted from to improve. for years, she was quietly gathering evidence against them. cory: did it seemed like that was the case? katie: i would not say from day one, but a few years into her term she did start compiling e-mails, putting them together in a file. there was a very telling back-and-forth exchange she had with a friend of hers at work who walked her through, this is how you collect e-mails and im's, put together some sort of legal action. clearly she was thinking about this prior, quite a few months prior to filing suit. they have portrayed ellen as someone who in a calculated manner was gathering evidence and creating a case. when this information came out about matt, it was very

interesting. it gave pao's attorney a chance to say she files this lawsuit and all the sudden mysteriously four days later, these notes appear where you are writing down all the things you find wrong with her performance? cory: do you think that had enough of an effect to undo all the time -- the kleiner side of the case saying she was a litigious person first and also a crummy venture capitalist, and now they can say it -- was it convincing enough to say kleiner was just as litigious and focused on this, thereby throwing out that argument? katie: i can't say what the jury would think. it's hard for me to believe that if an employee sues at a firm that tiny it is possible tensions did rise soon after she filed a lawsuit. cory: and it's a partnership.

katie: this is not a large publicly traded company. keliner desperately needed a large hr department who needs -- to knows how to deal with these controversies. i'm going to reserve judgment on that. i'm going to say it does not surprise me the firm would start feeling defense mac -- defensive and finding additional fault with her work. cory: there is sex, finance, lawsuits. it's a great story. will it change anything in silicon valley? do you get the sense -- katie: no. it will change something, but people take hiring a personal a lot more serious now. partnerships will understand the value of hiring someone who will handle nothing but the sorts of issues. historically when you look at other industries media, for

example, finance, it takes a big class action suit to really change the culture. morgan stanley was hit with a couple class action lawsuits saying they were discriminating against women and in their upper management division discriminating against minorities. it did help change the way that wall street treated women and minorities. in the media, "newsweek" was sued by all its female staff. these suits, when they and in these big settlements, it is eye-opening and it forces some sort of change, at least in the rules. it is hard to do that when you have these tiny firms. cory: good stuff to hear. i appreciate it. we will turn to another big story. everyone is talking about the business of march madness. the fans can't get enough of the games. thank you, betty lou. i got your e-mail. shelby holliday is joining me from new york. how are you doing your brackets? shelby: don't ask.

my brackets are practically busted. thank you, iowa state. it was a tough night last not -- night. cory: the digital experience going across all media more so than ever before. people are doing the brackets online. what is happening there? shelby: when i was researching this segment, i was having a flashback to last year, watching games on my smart phone because it's so easy to do these days. the digital audience is doubling every year. it is up about 50% year over year. in 2014 24 million people watched it on mobile devices, 25 million on desk tops, 11 million on tablets. this statistic was particularly striking to me. there were 15 million hours spent watching games on live stream thomas 5 million more than the winter olympics in sochi. that should give you an idea of the interest, especially on

digital, for this tournament. turner and cbs sports have been a good job of broadcasting these games across devices. i spoke with david leavy, the president of turner broadcasting system. take a listen. david: one of the things we talked about early on when we bought the opportunity to televise this event was we were hoping that at some point advertisers would realize that they should produce commercials for march madness. if you take a look at the sponsorships now that are happening in march madness whether it is buffalo wild wings or coca-cola, or at&t unilever they are producing spots for march madness. they are developing content for the event itself. both digitally and on television. when you get to that phenomenon you know you have a huge success because they are realizing it's part of their marketing campaign

that moves product off the shelf. shelby: it's not just advertisement rate it is social media. we saw yesterday a possible partnership with snapchat. brands are starting to advertise on facebook, on twitter. the tournament is all over the place. cory: the twitter thing is interesting as well because i feel like it amplifies the conversation. twitter has talked a lot about how they work so well with tv particulars of all medium, they sort of drive people to it. my twitter feed is usually filled with people talking about stock fraud and finance. even now it is overwhelmed with the upset. shelby: it is the cycle of revenue. you have twitter driving people to watch the games, people watching the games who see some hashtag online and they go to their devices. it's a huge revenue monster.

it are more tweets -- the -- than the b.t.s. and world series combined. david leavy also talked about what the companies are doing in terms of the digital space. take a listen. david: march madness live. you can download it for free. he gives you the opportunity to watch any game at any time their telecast. it also gives you the opportunity to be in social. you have the opportunity to talk to other fans, share clips and highlights and see what is happening in your brackets. shelby: this tournament generates more than $1 billion in advertising revenue. it is the most lucrative sports -- postseason sporting event if you don't include championships like the super bowl. digital is adding to that pile of cash for these networks. cory: thank you very much.

we appreciate it. "bloomberg west" will be right back. ♪

cory: coming up in this hour, eric schmidt is in hot water for interrupting megan smith onstage during a recent event. amazon takes a big leap with its drone program. iphones are helping the visually impaired. how one educator has seen that happen. top headlines -- president obama is wishing the people of iran and happy persian new year and urging them to support a nuclear deal with united states. president obama: a nuclear deal now can open the door to a brighter future for you, the iranian people. this is what is at stake today. this moment may not come again soon. cory: talks will resume next week.

california congressman maxine waters is calling for investigation into citigroup, demanding answers after the bank failed to pay 24 thousand people owed money as part of a settlement over foreclosure abuses. bloomberg news broke this news earlier this month. turning to the issue of diversity among silicon valley's workplace, earlier in the week eric schmidt got some heat at the sxsw conference. the topic, a lack of gender racial diversity in the tech industry. eric kept interrupting megan as they talked. one audience member called out schmidt for his actions and the audience erupted in applause. a ceo joins me right now. what is going on in the field right now in terms of recruiting women? has it changed? guest: it has changed.

may of last year, when google decided for the first time to unveil their diversity statistics. as google goes, so goes the valley. now you have seen dozens of companies unveil their statistics. we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of those numbers. when those numbers get unveiled for the second time, if those numbers go south, there will be a lot of head scratching. you see companies now scrambling to figure out how do they improve their diversity pipelines in a short amount of time. cory: it's fascinating. from your standpoint as a recruiter, you get hired by companies to bring these people in. are they saying, no more dudes? jon: we have a software platform. for the conversations were involved in what we're hearing from people is not so much no more dudes it is we want to make sure we hire the best person, but we want to hire the best person from a diverse pool of applicants.

if we're interviewing engineers for a role and we're interviewing 20 dudes, we are probably not doing what we should be doing. how do we bring more women to the table, more african, more hispanics to the table. that is what we're hearing in spades from tech companies. cory: these knee-jerk approaches are well-intentioned -- what are some approaches people try that don't work? jon: historically a lot of the efforts have been, let's post to a job boards that happens to have a higher than average number of women or african-americans going to that job board. let's go to a career fair with the same demographic makeup. we don't think there's anything wrong with that, we think it's grossly inefficient. if you want to find a woman to come into your pipeline for an engineering role, there are much easier ways nowadays with technology, with data, to identify who those people are. cory: i wish i went to sxsw. i know eric schmidt and megan smith. i have interrupted her a million

times and i know the dynamic of the conversation can be like that. in a broader context, if you don't know those individuals -- i'm sure eric and megan have interrupted each other and fought a lot over the years. i wonder if this is any different. jon: the person who raised the issue first was a google employee in the audience. it speaks to not just having diversity at the lower levels of the company, but at the most senior levels. it's wonderful that we have a female cco for the united states. google has done a better job than many companies at promoting women through their leadership ranks. sheryl sandberg, marissa mayer, these are people who rose up the letter. megan smith rose up the ladder at google. google sometimes becomes unnecessarily criticized around these issues because they are a lightning rod. they have done some incredible work on this area. cory: thank you very much. ♪

cory: i'm cory johnson. silicon valley is the heart of technology but ultimately holds the future of medicine in its hands. sylvia burwell joined us yesterday in san francisco to talk about president obama's in medicine initiative. what is precision medicine? check this out. sylvia: a number of different things to forward this effort of making sure we can have medicine that is to the individual treating to the individual. the first thing it will do is create a million person cohort or group of people that can be researched so we can understand

the genetics, and so you have a base of people to understand different things for different types of diseases. the second thing the money will go for is to work on using cancer specifically and was able to see that here today, in terms of research going on and meeting a patient whose life was saved. cory: one of the main aspects of the program is to build a cohort, a database of medical information that includes genome sequences and the chemical makeup of one million anonymized volunteers. how do you keep this data safe from hackers? sylvia: privacy and security will be important. we are getting input from consumers as we design the database. making sure the information can be used, because the cohort will come from different places different research institutions will contribute to the millions. we will have to have the

information move between in a standardized way. cory: that was sylvia burwell secretary of health and human services. the precision medical plan is in the white house budget proposed for 2016 trade -- 2016. coming up, amazon and drones coming soon, maybe? ♪

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cory: you are watching "bloomberg west." on cory johnson. let's check on some bloomberg top headlines. john boehner in the congressional recess next week going to israel. this comes four weeks after netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting in congress asking lawmakers to oppose a nuclear zero -- deal with iran. ukraine's fragile six-week cease-fire could be in jeopardy. pro-russian nobles say they are preparing another offensive.

ukraine's army is digging in to defend the key city which could be a target. the eu leaders about to keep sanctions against russia for the rest of the year. the have agreed to new terms to create the world's largest cement company. investors were unhappy with the original deal. there is still tension between the two sides of her new management heard no ceo has been named. a change at the top of taiwan's htc. sharon wayne could take over as ceo. she tells bloomberg news that seat should -- she suggested the move.

glu mobile keeps writing high with its kim kardashian game. they announced plans to develop a game featuring kim kardashian's sisters. >> we announced the first-ever competition yesterday to actually get a chance to meet kim if you are lucky enough and successful enough playing her game and the next 10 days. cory: the extended their contract with kim kardashian last year. they are also working with katy perry. the faa has given amazon its first win in the company's request to begin drone deliveries. granting the company and experimental airworthiness certificate to begin testing drone flights outdoors. the company friend to tickets -- take its firm to another country at the faa did not approve their flights. they can only fly during the day within 400 feet of the ground

and within sight of a licensed pilot. join us to discuss the impact of this decision is steve burns. working on his own drone delivery plans. i was surprised by this. i thought this was a publicity stunt. amazon is pushing ahead here. >> the economics are driving it. if you think about what it takes to get a delivery truck up the street to deliver a five pound package that's a dollar a mile cost. a drone can do it for two cents a mile worth of electricity. it reduces pollution. obviously, a lot less harmful to the environment. those two factors are driving it. the faa seems to be -- they have to balance public safety with innovation.

if something helps the environment and economics they will look favorably upon it. cory: what is it like dealing with the faa on this issue? i'm surprised that they are really into this idea of drones and really want to find a way to get this happening quickly. steve: we have met with them. they are surprisingly positive towards it. drone delivery is a lot more complicated than photography from a drone. a drone has to come down to deliver a product. that requires a level of mechanics and software and sensors and sophistication much above what a typical photography drone will do. the economics seem to be bent on things that will save lives. i know they are big on inspection of power lines cutting down on the number of deaths of people in helicopters doing it.

they seem really anxious to do those type of things. cory: let's look at amazon's goal. what is amazon really after? steve: from what we know, public information shipping is a big part of their business. shipping costs -- they are turned to reduce their shipping costs and bring more convenience to their customers. they can get there faster -- next day is not fast enough. how about 30 minutes? it's a move towards convenience and cost cutting. scarlet:cory: intriguing stuff. when i look at the amazon plans, i think of my black labrador retriever at home.

this will never get near my house with the dog. what are the biggest obstacles besides my dog? steve: two things happened -- you have a person near the driver -- the driver is nearby. it will fly autonomously be a gps about the site but we will have pilots in a call center that use the cameras on the drone to bring it down safely and make sure nobody is near it. you have software we're anything comes near it, it will back away. if it gets backed into a corner it will go up. combine that with a human operator and you have the best of both worlds. cory: where does amazon have to come in to make this work for them in terms of cost?

steve: i know we know -- i only know what is publicly available. shipping costs are a big part of it. if you can reduce those dramatically, logistics wise and cost wise it is advantageous to use a drone. even a drone mounted to a delivery truck brings down the cost for a package dramatically. in the end it is so cost-effective that it will win the day. cory: interesting stuff. thank you very much. "bloomberg west" will be right back. ♪

cory: welcome back to "bloomberg west." coming up educators using the iphone to help vision impaired students.

the playstation four goes on sale in china. time for a check of your bloomberg top headlines. the strong dollar getting tiffany's hard. profit will fall 30% in the current quarter due to the issues. sales were flat or in all markets except the asia-pacific. phillips is nearing a deal to sell its lighting components. firms have offered to buy 80% of the unit. $2.7 billion. phillips and their rival have been exit the bulb business. google has created a tablet to help doctors fight ebola.

this tablet has a thick waterproof case so it can be dumped into a chlorine solution strong enough to kill ebola. it is charged wirelessly. smart phones helping the blind to see. several features assist blind and visually impaired through voiceover gps. it has improved the lives of people who are visually impaired . this is really fascinating stuff. what capabilities come shipped out of the box? >> another great thing about the ios devices. the tablet has a set of features -- they improve access for

people with disabilities or people who are older and need a little larger text on the screen. one of the features i use is called voiceover. it's a screen reader that announces the text on the screen underneath my finger as i drag my finger over the screen. cory: in terms of app development, how'd you get people to develop more apps on this? ed: good question. the world health organization -- there are approximately one billion people in the world with disabilities. that's about one in seven. about two or 80 million of those people have visual impairment. -- 280 million of those people have visual impairment. we are finding ways for everyone to make a contribution to the

economy and to government and everything. the development kit provides lots of features that allow developers to give a lot of accessibility for free. cory: how did you become visually impaired? what led you to becoming an advocate? cory: i have -- ed: i have a degenerative retinal disease when ie. when i was 30 years old, i lost the ability to read print. today i have a few degrees of field. at the same time, i am a computer scientist and happiness for technology. there has been a great opportunity for me to make a contribution in this space.

training people to increase the adoption of technology. cory: i have heard about blind square. tell me about that. ed: the name of the app is often foursquare a crowd source way of checking in and rating restaurants. the data that are available with gps information and information about restaurants. blind square was developed to tap into that data and maps data from open street maps gps data and uses the gps capabilities of the device -- the app itself allows people with visual impairment to access all of these great capabilities on restaurants nearby, plan a route

to a restaurant or a museum or a piece of business. i can access any of the gps information on my phone using this app. cory: what is the one thing you wish apple would add to its features that would help the visually impaired? ed: i think the one thing we are looking at right now that is so exciting is something called iv can -- eye you can. -- beacon. they open up this dead space for people with visual impairment -- when we walk inside of a building, the gps signal is lost. these will because allow you -- they serve as gps for indoors. blind square is just now tapping into that technology.

there is a lot of promise for helping people with visual impairment -- cory: navigating indoors. thank you very much. "bottom line" coming up at the top of the hour. mark: it has been a year since russia annexed the ukrainian peninsula of crimea. temporary cease-fires have failed to stop the death and destruction. the eastern ukrainian city controlled by separatist rebels has been a flashpoint for the violence. ryan chilcote spent some time there. he will join me in new york with his observations and what life is like on the ground in a war zone. cory: cannot wait to see that. "bloomberg west" will be right back. ♪

cory: this is "bloomberg west." in the age of dropbox and box and amazon cloud services, the

usb drive has an interesting role here. edward snowden's use of a thumb drive to steal documents -- what if you had a usb that destroys itself when it falls in the wrong hands? it's a fascinating thing. someone enters the wrong password too many times and the device self-destructs. i had an iron key i used for a long time and i found it in my desk. talk to me -- in this era when dropbox and box they say the most secure thing is to put stuff on the cloud. is it? >> nobody puts everything into cloud. you will have some files you want to keep with you and some files you want in the cloud. you have applications you will

want in the cloud. you need to have a combination of both places. ironkey is a secure endpoint. this is completely secure. cory: these devices are metallic. there is a famous cybercrime study where some hackers were testing the security system and sprinkled usb drives around and people take these things up and plug them into their computers. >> you plug it in it would phone home and would it merely note that it is a lost device because you've told it. it would prevent you from using the device, it would wipe the device or would blow it up. cory: these things don't actually blow up. >> there is a fuse. if you try to open it up there

is a wisre. cory: is there collateral damage ? puffs of smoke? >> it is not that bad. cory: talk to me about what's going on in that business. you can e-mail so much more in terms of files. >> right. when does to go is a microsoft product we offer. -- windows to go is a microsoft product we offer. let's take the cloud and office 365 -- everything would be on this. everything on your hard drive is on this stick. you plug it into her pc or mac you have your operating system

and the corporations environment. they will secure the cloud. they have a security architecture around that. you are protected in terms of what is on the stick. cory: you just drop your usb drive into my tea. this will still work? >> it is. cory: that is crazy. how big is this market ultimately? is the usb market contracting? >> because of the threats -- we had seen an increase in sales 27% to be exact. just on storage.

the bigger market is the workspace. that is where you hand the drive to somebody. a company will give you a stick and say use whatever device you want. cory: very fascinating. thank you for joining us. the manager of ironkey. the bwest byte is one number that tells us a whole lot. >> today's bwest byte is six the number of game titles allowed on sony's playstation 4 in china. a sad number considering right next door in japan they are allowing 200 of those titles. cory: what kinds of titles are these? with a limited number of titles -- type of title. >> some of the titles they are

allowing are china themed games. dynasty warriors eight, knack trials fusion, ray man legends and mr. pumpkins and venture. -- adventure. titles not available are some of the once you might expect that make a lot of money. including grand theft auto five and call of duty advanced warfare. cory: it will be interesting to see if they limit the businesses ultimately. >> a lot of people are aware of these games. a lot of people are not used to buying them for $50. they are used to getting them for free online. it will call into question whether sony can make a profit here. cory: thank you very much the

latest headlines on bloomberg.com and bloomberg radio. ♪

mark: from bloomberg headquarters in new york, i'm mark crumpton. this is "bottom line." to our viewers in the united states and those of you joining us from around the world welcome. we have full coverage of the stocks in stories making headlines on this friday. julie hyman has details on the u.s. dollars affect on profits at tiffany. ryan chilcote will have a first-hand report from donetsk as the conflict in ukraine h