cory: live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west" where we cover technology, innovation, and the future of business. i'm cory johnson. here they check of your bloomberg top headlines. investors have recovered one of the black boxes from the flight that crashed in the outs. it dropped already 3000 feet in just eight minutes without a single mayday call. the ceo of germanwings airbus company lufthansa.

>> but for now, in this dark hour, our thoughts and feelings and prayers are with the relatives of the passengers and of course our crew. cory: spanish and german officials are joining hundreds of french firefighters and police trying to recover bodies. the search will resume tomorrow morning. the plane went down in a remote area that is difficult to access. president obama backed off from plans to cut the size of military force in afghanistan. the president agreed to keep troop levels at the current 9800. president obama: it's the judgment of general campbell and others on the ground that providing this additional time frame for us to be able to help the afghan security forces succeed, is well worth it. cory: the president is still sticking to his timetable to

withdraw nearly all u.s. troops from afghanistan by the time he leaves office in 2017. the president spoke also about the iranian nuclear deal in talks in switzerland this week. take a listen. president obama: i'm confident if there is an agreement, it will be a good agreement that is good for the region's security. if it isn't, then there probably won't be an agreement. cory: the things left on the table still, is the nuclear capacity iran should be able to keep and sanctions on oil. amazon says the federal aviation approval for tron testing is too little, too late. amazon has developed new drone levels. he pointed out that the testing approval process is more quick in europe and asia. a major wireless deal in the u.k. agreed to by the o2

business for $15.3 billion. it's expected to pave the way for a merger to create the u.k.'s largest provider. a deal valued at $1.4 million. it operates resorts in niagara falls, the poconos, and the wisconsin dells. google poaches one of wall street's most powerful women. morgan stanley chief financial officer ruth porat will become the new cfo at google. she is no stranger to the take industry. she is a longtime tech banker. she worked closely with former

analyst mary meeker. she is the second high-profile banker to become a technical cfo in recent months. the question is, is this the latest trend leaving wall street for silicon valley? this is an interesting move. i don't know if it says more about wall street or more about google. grexit is an interesting move. the hot topics right now are deals and gender diversity is a super hot topic. google choosing a woman to be the cfo is very powerful, but it's an opportunity for any cfo to take on. there's so much going on with google right now. cory: i looked at the balance sheets of both companies and google has 40% more cash and equivalents. it's hard to imagine going from

morgan stanley to a bigger financial powerhouse but she has done that. >> absolutely. if you look at the diversity of the opportunity she has and the different opportunities, it's got to be exciting for her. google has their fingers in lots of different rings. it looks like what google is saying is, we want someone who can drive growth and new deals possibly some new areas for that business. cory: i know her really as a banker, doing a lot of ipos back in the dot-com bubble. >> is really interesting, i'm sure google put a ton of thought into this because they care about culture and the executive team chemistry.

the outgoing cfo talked about wanting to make sure he would stick around for the transition. but that team chemistry you need to be able to whether what is in front of you is important. it will be interesting to see how that works. the team in place now has been together for quite some time. this is a new element that will take time to take hold. in a community of developers, the biggest fear developers have is that the cfo is going to tighten the rains with new idea generation our budgets to drive things. that will be one of the things the google staff is going to watch carefully, how actively she is going to be putting controls in place or not. cory: tightening the rains that google, that doesn't go together. it's a place known for its beneficence to employees. you were right down the block at

linkedin. can you describe what it's like to be around the google campus and be around the company that spends so liberally on its employees in every way? >> when we were building linkedin in 2009, we were physically surrounded by the google complex. it almost got to where we had to have orientations to avoid being run over by the google glasses. they are a fierce -- by the google buses. it doesn't seem like they spare much expense. it is incredibly frustrating when you're in a new tech company trying to establish itself and you don't have the google brand or the assets they have. this is probably true for mode -- most startups, google makes more in a day or an hour than a lot of these companies make in a year. it is really hard to compete against that. where there is the cool factor

a place i can go is a top-notch developer and really make a difference and do something new, and something that will be impactful, or am i going to get lost in his the of other engineers? that's one of the challenges google faces as they get bigger and the organization continues to grow. corey: i'm slow to connect dots and draw lessons from people leaving to be cfo of twiddle and -- twitter and google respectively. the top graduates of the top business programs, whether harvard business school, leaving to go -- the great desire was wants to go to wall street. the great engineers once pointed to go work for governments and work on the nuclear program. now they all want to work for google. >> it is still the wild west.

i have been living out here fortunately for 20 plus years. there is still a sense of freshness and excitement, there are still tons of new opportunities and the chance to do something different. what's different about moving from an investment bank where i'm sure the compensation was great, is to get to come out and actually put your hands in and build something special that can fundamentally change the technology landscape. in both of those companies, twitter and google, have proven they can do it. is there more space for that? that's got to be attractive for route to be a come out here and do that. cory: we will wish her the best. thank you very much. we will be right back. ♪

cory: coming up, lawmakers fight to protect kids digital rights. the cast of game of thrones takes over san francisco. first we have some top headlines . george soros calls the greek financial situation along festering problem is handled from the beginning by all parties. he said it is a critical time for both greece and europe. george soros: europe, if it pushes greece out of the euro it will hurt itself. >> is it a 50-50 possibility? >> i would say so. it has deteriorated.

cory: he also spoke about the conflict in eastern ukraine and citizen was disconcerting issue on the world stage will stop he said ukraine will deteriorate and the oligarchs will come back into power. hungary jumps back into monetary easing after consumer prices in the country plunged the most since the 1960's. the hungarian currency has gained more than 5% against the euro, one of the biggest gainers in eastern europe. and a weather pattern that has kept the east cold and the west warm this winter is keeping the u.s. relatively free of tornadoes. there have been just 20 tornadoes in the first few months of the year compared with an average of 130. this month, there have been none. meteorologists say march has not been this quiet since 1969. the schools use technology and parents and educators of a new problem to worry about -- data

collection of their kids. two congressmen are interested in putting limits on the way companies can use the data they can collect. one of the sponsors joins us now. thank you for joining us. this is interesting and like so many issues we talk about here on bloomberg, it's a weird one. it's confronting a lot of parents and i don't think they realize what's happening when their kids log on to the school's website. >> we hear a lot from parents concerned about what is happening with their kids personal information. there are no federal laws against it being sold without permission and these are minors we are talking about, marketed to specifically with private information that was entered. we seek to empower parents as representatives of their children to be in a position to know what information exists, to be able to delete it if they want and we are working on a draft federal law that will hopefully accomplish just that.

cory: i was shocked when my eight year old said to me a few weeks ago, daddy, i love to google. unbeknownst to me, she goes to my laptop and searches random things on google. knowing what i know about google's approach to gathering customer information and marketing to them, it's a disconcerting thing and i wonder how common that is. >> you are probably wondering why you are receiving all of those my little pony adds. cory: friendship's magic, i don't know if you are aware of that. >> on one hand, the educational technology is exciting. in terms of offering a personalized education for children. the appropriate use of information so that kids can be challenged, where are they in reading and what are the diagnostic products -- problems they have? that is what parents want. where we get into trouble, and

this is what we hear from parents and school districts in many cases have thrown out the baby with the bathwater -- what about this information my eight-year-old has entered into as being sold without any disclosure to me. we don't know who is marketing this information to my child or in what way using this information. that's a legitimate concern that parents have and i think it is important where able to get the utility of the educational software we want and at the same time protect privacy. cory: the marketers make the argument that if they know what is on the other end, they can protect that child because they know what's going on, but their ability to monitor that is changing faster than the law can adapt to it. >> and there's certainly no problem with them knowing it is a child, it's around the unique characteristics of the identity of the child and that's where parents have trouble.

again, in their home environment, parents can consent to their children using sites. presumably if you're child uses google, you know they are doing it, but at school, schools operate in place of parents. what ability should they legally have to acquire and sell your child's personal information without your permission as a parent? it is currently the wild west out there and it's a violation of parental rights in the privacy of the child. many of the educational technology companies that are good actors are at least somewhat on board with coming up with reasonable standards that can make sure parents have confidence in the privacy of these products. cory: you guys have only released a draft of the bill. have you encountered any horror stories in your work that might change the former bill? >> i think it is just a matter of fine-tuning it.

it was drafted by a number of leading privacy experts across the country. we also consulted with major providers of educational services and there are some tweaks and fine-tuning going on. it was modeled after a fairly successful california law, as one of the states that led the way trying to thread this needle in balancing premises with -- privacy with reaping the advantage of educational technology on behalf of students. cory: i wonder if you've come across some bad actions by any companies out there or if it's more of a prophylactic where you are looking ahead? >> the key thing is that it's in the eye of the beholder. what one parent deems tolerable, another might find completely inappropriate. if there are sites and services being marketed to their child based on private and personal information, a family may be deeply offended or feel their privacy was violated. the key is to empower parents on behalf of their children to have

this information at their fingertips and have some control of the data that flows out of their child during the day at school. cory: thank you for outing me as an -- as a "my little pony fan." "bloomberg west" will be right back. ♪

cory: i'm cory johnson and this is "bloomberg west." giants, dragons and princesses dissented on san francisco last night -- it was the season five year of "game of thrones." the show takes place in an era far removed from gadgets in silicon valley. but the geeks, dweebs and nerds of silicon valley -- it's a strange thing. i went to the red carpet premiere last night and talked to a lot of the people about what this show means in an era of technology when this show is so anti-technology. i spoke with the game of thrones author, george r r martin, and talk to him about the notion of technological information and how it's not just a given in human history. >> the romans had the idea of steam but that -- but they did not come up with a steam engine. the chinese had fireworks and gunpowder but did not make them

into guns. so it is not necessarily inevitable progress. cory: the creators weighed in on how game of thrones is helping hbo as that business is changing with a much more digital focus. >> our show skews younger, toward people who might be more likely to want to experience hbo in this new way as opposed to through the cable companies and i'm sure that plays a role. also the fact that the show travels very well overseas. cory: i had a chance to speak with some of the show's main characters. peter king glitch had some interesting thoughts about how technology is affecting the game of thrones audience. >> their brains are shutting down a little bit. you don't need to remember your mom's own number. it's crazy because it's right

there. what do private detectives do? back in the day, they had to go down the rabbit hole and now you just go down the internet and find out anything about anybody. it's crazy. cory: natalie manual talked about how she learned the sacred languages she's required to speak in the show. she talked to me about how technology is helping her do that. >> he sends me all my lines and then he records it and i have it written down phonetically. it's just repetition to get it right. we have amazing dialect coaches on the staff. cory: the first episode of season five aired -- season five airs on april 12. is facebook becoming the new face of journalism? details on that story next.

you can watch a streaming on your tablet, phone, apple tv you name it. ♪

cory: you are watching "bloomberg west" where we focus on information, technology and the future of business. let's check in with some of bloomberg's top headlines. crews have found one of the lockboxes in the flight of a plane that crashed in the french alps. there are no signs of survivors. the plane had 150 passengers and crew when it went down. here's the french president. >> it is a new tragedy. we are going over this tragedy. we need to find out all the causes and tell the relevant authorities, spanish as well as german and the families of the victims. it's a sense of morning we feel because it is a tragedy that

took place on our soil. cory: german wings is a low-cost carrier owned by lufthansa. german chancellor angela merkel will be heading to the site tomorrow. the european economy shows signs of a rebound with the ecb launching its bond buying program. activity picked up last month according to the purchasers managers index. here's james bullard speaking in london. james: the ecb quantitative easing event was major in monetary policy. it is a large program, and open ended program, which is something i have argued for in the past. i think it will be as effective as other qe programs have then in other countries. including here in the u k and in the u.s. cory: he said the stimulus program is the main driver of the dollar. in the united states, consumer prices rose .2% for the first

increase since october. core consumer prices also rose .2%. despite the increase in the rate of inflation, it remains well below the fed has stated target of 2% as it weighs its first interest hike since 2006. and will special license plates help tesla boost slumping sales in china? tesla says its cars have been approved for a special license plate program. model as buyers can apply for a program that sets aside 20,000 license plates for new energy vehicles. regular license plates can be difficult to obtain in china because they are restricted in an effort to curb pollution. dreamworks may be headed for another loss. some wall street analysts rx -- are expressing fear that its newest feature will lose money when it opens this friday. is the only released -- only release planned for dreamworks this year and four out of their

last six have been money losers. is facebook the future of news? 1.4 billion users have turned the network into a powerful source of internet traffic and generated millions of clicks on various videos and new sites but according to a new report, the social network wants to do more than generate traffic. they are in talks with news outlets to have their content within facebook itself will stop what does this mean for the future of journalism? joining us is the director of the new journalism lab at harvard. this is an interesting story because on one hand, it acknowledges people are starting their interneting -- i made up that verb -- on facebook. facebook wanted to take more control of what happens when they are done with race but. >> absolutely. facebook has an obvious interest in getting you to come back and not getting you to leave. that news -- that was told around linking.

they say websites of the publishers are sub par and their mobile experience moves too slowly and bringing that content into facebook can give a better experience for users and make facebook more money along the way. cory: i have heard mark zuckerberg talk about this notion as facebook as a newspaper, where facebook is the place you can get all the information relevant to you and will guide you to the things that matter to you. is that the goal here or do they just want the ad dollars, the few ad dollars journalism is providing right now? >> i think they think that news is key to making facebook a more than daily habit will stop the -- more than a daily habit. beyond that, facebook has two huge edges over publishers. one is scale, which is so in norma's. they also have the best set of user data available. they know what you are

interested then, they know what you have been looking at and they think they can use that data to sell ads that are more targeted than the "new york times" or buzz feed. they want to make sure there is good content for their users and they want to come out ahead in the end. cory: i feel like the biggest risk here is not giving people what they want, but giving people what they don't know they want and the things they need to know as a citizen in society. i realize that debate has been around for hundreds of years in the hallways of journalism outlets, but with facebook so clearly driven on monetizing clicks and putting relevant information front of people that the stories that enrich our lives won't happen if facebook is the provider or decider of what we see in the news. >> i think that is a very real point. people say i want to know what

the "new york times" thinks is important. so much of our discovery of news comes from the social platforms which can be wonderful but rely on your friends or the people who you choose to follow to be our guide through that. the more that shows to facebook, that's a real concern. the flipside is they are able to figure out what's interesting to me in a way that one newspaper editor in manhattan is not able to and that's the trade-off. cory: we've seen a long history of aol, yahoo! and google trying to organize our news for us. is this effort different? >> it is different. google news is one parallel that brings in many new sources into one searchable database stop the differences once you find out the news, it sends you to a link to go to the website.

the difference here is they want to keep the entire experience within facebook and that's why there has to be a business deal and that's why companies like the times are interested in getting that trade-off. cory: it seems idiotic if the publishers are handing over the keys to the kingdom. if user habits form around facebook as the gatekeeper facebook can determine exactly what the future of pay will be for these media outlets. >> i think you are right and that's very risky. any publisher going into this will want to look into what kind of results it's producing both financially and in terms of user behavior. news organizations have been thinking about that -- retaining the customer attachment point. at a certain point, does that become a losing argument?

a lot of people's habits have shifted. do you complain about that or do you try to engage with them on the platform they want their news on? cory: i don't want to join the chorus ripping on buzz feed, but either gets interesting they are optimized on clicks and were one of the first journalism outlets being vetted for this business. >> i will defend does feed a little bit. -- i will defend buzz feed a little bit. they do a lot of stuff that does not meet the standard of "the new york times." but they have this to tears of content. the equation is different for buzz feed because they don't do traditional advertising. having your content appear on facebook is different from the new york times which has a pay wall and a description model and entirely different cost structure. it's a different measure. cory: thank you very much. "bloomberg west" will be right

back. ♪

>> the kind of wood we use and the craftsmanship that goes into it. back in 1905, my great-grandfather had the first sports endorsement contract. it was with honus wagner. ever since that's how we marketed the bat. that's how it has gotten such a great reputation over the years in addition to just being a great product. >> mike you are the head of wilson sporting goods, a division of the company. can you describe what is it in louisville slugger that makes them fit for wilson? >> baseball is a big part of our heritage in her company. we've been in the baseball business for 100 years with iconic brands such as our 2000 baseball glove.

to be able to partner with john and his family on wooden bats, it's a perfect fit. pimm: i understand the price tag is about 70 million sales annual sales from louisville slugger about $75 million. what is your vision, your goals for louisville slugger? >> we don't do acquisitions every year by any means. we are really delivered about it. our prior acquisitions have been very successful and we expect to take that formula to the louisville slugger brand and really grow the brand in the next few years. pimm: mike, speak about how you would like to bring louisville slugger to places outside the united states as a brand. >> that's one of the strengths of wilson sporting goods. we have subsidiaries in 36 countries around the world so we want to take the brand and infuse it into our 36 offices.

we have been growing our baseball in asia the last few years and want to continue to do that now that we have a pool -- full portfolio of baseball products including wilson. pimm: is there going to be any change in staffing levels at the factory or the museum in louisville? >> we will maintain the factory here and the family will continue to own it and produce the bat on in the exclusive level. we will be moving some jobs to chicago and redeploying some resources back to the marketing and sales side of the business. pimm: mcdonald's shares posting the biggest single day gain in a month after the hedge fund manager said they cut about $20 billion in value by converting itself into real estate investment trust. our reporter spoke with betty liu this morning. >> that have been totally

noncommittal. they don't want to do what they like, owning the real estate. one analyst told me every restaurant company would want to own all the real estate, but they can't. they were able to do this model to gain control over the business. the narrow, chipotle they don't have the ability to own all the real estate. betty: how much do they own? exporting 5% of the land and 70% of the buildings. more than 14,000 in the u.s. it's a judge -- stuck in a company that owns a lot of real estate. it is so important to their bottom line. pimm: bloomberg contacted mcdonald's. they remain noncommittal. here some of the other headlines

were watching for you today. the white house says there is no indication of terrorism in the crash of that german wings airbus in the french. all 150 on board or presumed dead. the flight was headed for the duesseldorf. here is german chancellor angela merkel. cory: is this what expansion is going to look like as a way to grow the brand and to fulfill as example the l.a. clippers? >> absolutely. there is emerging audience there and the ability with the internet and content the wait can travel, especially around live events. you can find new fans very quickly and there's a lot of people outside the united dates that have not been exposed to the nfl in a way the inner -- they will be able to completely open up the platform for them.

cory: i don't know if you can experience the buffalo bills without shoveling your driveway to get there. does this translate internationally? >> frankly, it's not about the game. we need to move past the matchup. it's about the experience and the internet costs ability to reach new fans and experiment with new ways to deliver that content. the smartest media companies and that is what the nfl is, they are investing in what is that next experience for sports fans? one of the troubles with delivering live sports is there is delivery delays, bandwidth issues, what do you do with that experience on a smaller screen? the sports fan wants live sports on the biggest screen available and the internet can bring new opportunities and interactivity, but there needs to be continuing development to make sure it's an experience for the next generation and this affords that opportunity.

cory: i think screen size is an issue. that is something that were all the desire to get it in a different way, seeing it on a big screen is important. shelby: seeing the game is better than not seem to game. -- than not seeing the game. i was talking to some television executives about march madness and they said the more viewers are comfortable with the technology we have, they will watch it on their devices will stop the nfl realizes that. i was crunching some numbers earlier in the games in the 2014 season did about $13.6 billion in revenue. divide that by the number of games that's about $14 million a , game. that is money that nfl can cut out of the tv networks and go straight to the fans. there is definitely money to be made and whether you are watching on a big device, you will be watching the game.

cory: thank you both very much. let's check some bloomberg top headlines -- office depot ceo roland smith will earn $47 million after the company upon sale to staples closes. he's only been on the job 16 months. $39 million selling accelerating stock. the filing, whoever is the ceo of staples will be fine. ebay gets ready to split into two companies and announces some details. the incoming ceo and incoming paypal ceo each will get $14 million in annual comps. ebay is going to give them a $38 million package just to walk into the door. fox is reviving the sci-fi show "the x-files." the actors will

reprise their roles as fox mulder and dana scully. they discussed being how being part of the franchise changed her career. >> i did not see it as this decision -- i was not in the habit of auditioning for television. but you are right, because it was such an interesting and compelling female character like no other i had seen on television at that time, i decided to go along for the audition which led to me being cast and led to that character playing a large part and science fiction playing a large part in my life. cory: the x-files originally ran from 1993 to 2002. ♪

cory: our reporter joins me with what? >> 100 million.

it's the number of users which twitch has. they are still working through the details and have released only a small amount of information, but they have 100 million users and put out a general warning warning that portions of their e-mail could have been compromised. cory: i've never realized how successful twitch is online. >> it has a huge audience, 100 million subscribers and people who are gaming enthusiasts will go and watch people play video games and interact with them. it is a very devoted audience. cory: interesting also because amazon has generally been hacked free. you can get the latest headlines all the time on your phone tablet, on bloomberg.com and on bloomberg radio. we will see you tomorrow. ♪