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 alps. 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

-- tech 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? steve, this is an interesting move. i don't know if it says more about wall street or more about google. steve: it 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. steve: absolutely. if you look at the diversity of the opportunity she has and the different opportunities, it's got to be exciting for her. whether it is solar energy, driverless cars. 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. but a lot of tech deals seems to be as much a part of her background as being a chief financial officer. steve: is really interesting i'm sure google put a ton of thought into this because they care about culture and the executive team chemistry. and the blog that 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. and i think in a community of developers, the biggest fear developers have is that the cfo is going to tighten the rains -- reigns 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 reigns and 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? steve: 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 buses. shuttling hundreds of employees from san francisco. they are a fierce -- 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 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. and i think this is 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 -- get lost in the sea of other engineers. that's one of the challenges google faces as they get bigger and the organization continues to grow. cory: i'm slow to connect dots and draw lessons from people leaving to be cfo of twitter and google respectively. the top graduates of the top business programs, whether harvard business school, leaving the great desire was once to go to wall street. the great engineers once pointed -- wanted to go work for governments and work on the nuclear program. now they all want to go to mountain view and 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 make 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 has got to be attractive for ruth to come out here and do that. cory: we will wish her the best. thank you very much. bloomberg best -- bloomberg west 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 a long 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?

george soros: 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 ads. 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 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. himreleased 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 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. cory: thank you for outing me 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 descended 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 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 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.

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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 mourning 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 are

expressing fear that its newest feature will lose money when it opens this friday. is the 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. 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 facebook. >> 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 a daily habit. beyond that, facebook has two huge edges over publishers. one is scale, which is so enormous.

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 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. ♪

cory: let's take a look at at the nfl. this is the day that the nfl announces its game. it is going to be freed to viewers around the world on a digital platform. it will be played in london

during prime time in china, the wee hours in the u.s. this is a key moment as the world moves to digital. here is former interactive cbs vice president and our own reporter, shelby holliday. what are we talking about. one nfl game and the business of broadcasting the nfl. reporter: as you said, this is a critical moment for the nfl because it represents the nfl grabbing power from the network and realizing they can control their own media empire. the nfl network basically said to cbs, look, you can broadcast half of these and they will put

the other half on our network, in by the way you pay for the production costs. the nfl has realized this is the most lucrative inc. they could put on television. averaged 17 .6 million viewers per game. accounted for 50 of the most-watched shows in the fall. they have about three times more viewers than the average programs. why would they not do that? cory: first of all, we love the buffalo bills. jason, this is a intriguing to me because there is no bigger media property then nfl games. jason: the nfl is the most

program -- most valuable programming on the internet. this is the tip of the iceberg. it is a test. the reality is, the rights for television has been locked up for a long time, through 2022 foremost to games. there are a few games for which the nfl can experiment. the international piece of this should not be understated. the ability to reach of fans around the world with a game that is not a big game. 9:30 a.m. on sunday and they contested worldwide. cory: what is it that the nfl doesn't know that they could find out through this? jason: the next generation of

sports fans does not care how the info gets to them. they don't care if it is satellite or wireless. they care about programming. using the internet as a channel is one thing, but using it to interact with fans is another. there is a phenomenal opportunity there. cory: prime time in china important for the nfl? reporter: broadcasting it in china is a really interesting strategy for the nfl. a study said the percentage of fans interested in china has jumped and that means 31 million and people in china say they are nfl fans. they are watching. china is a huge market, so is russia. if they can put these games

online to the point we have been talking about broadcasting it internationally, everyone can watch it. anyone with a mobile phone so this is a huge opportunity for the nfl. cory: i have heard the nba talking about it for years. the nfl has alluded to it but cannot even expand to los angeles successfully. is this what expansion is going to look lack -- look at? absolute -- absolute -- cracks absolutely. especially around live events. you can find new fans and very quickly and there are a lot of people outside of the u.s. that have not been able to be exposed to the nfl the way this will open up the platform.

cory: does this really translate internationally? jason: frankly, this is not about the game. this is about the experience. this is a way for the nfl to reach new fans and experiment. that is what the smartest media companies, and that is what the nfl as, investing in right now. what are the troubles with delivering live sports over the internet. when we think about the experience, it is delivery delays. bandwidth issues. what do you do with that experience on a smaller screen? they want live sports on the biggest screen of available. there needs to be continual research and development to make

sure this is an experience for the next generation and this is the opportunity. cory: shelby, next question. screen size. seeing it on a big screen is really important when it comes to sports. shelby: it is important, but seeing the game is more important they in that not saying. developers say the more they see the more they will watch. the nfl realizes that. one media company said the games last year did about $13.6 billion in revenue. that is about $14 million per game. that is money the nfl can cut out of the nfl networks. there is definitely money to be made and whether or not you are watching on a big device, you will be watching.

cory: thank you very much. thank you. office depot ceo learned $47 million after the sales closes. he gets 7.5 million in cash, $39 million in stock. in the filing, they said whatever happens, staples believe, not the office depot guy. but he will be fine. incoming paypal ceo $14 million in annual cop. he pay -- ebay is going to give him a $48 million package just to walk in the door.

the x-files project will reunite the stars who will reprise their roles. here is how being part of the x-files show changed the leads career. >> i was not in the habit of auditioning for television, but because it needed such a female and compelling a female character like nobody else 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 in my life. cory: bloomberg west will be right back. ♪

cory: our reporter joins me with what? >> 100 million. it's the number of users which twitch has.

twitch of announced yesterday a hack. 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 requiring all of them to reset their passwords into they sent out in additional e-mail warning that parts of credit card numbers could of 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 on, login, watch people play video games and interact with them. it is a very he voted audience. cory: interesting also because amazon has generally been hacked

-- hack-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. ♪

ryan: what began in crimea is now playing out in eastern ukraine. >> this is utter destruction. ryan: but the outcome here is far less certain. war has returned to europe. >> right on the outskirts, and as you can hear, there is a significant underway. ryan: it's west versus east. and slav versus slav. we've come to the front lines and come to the mines.