cory: shares of linkedin heading higher. the company reports solid third-quarter earnings. ♪ cory: i'm cory johnson, this is "bloomberg west." coming up, ea reports that the videogame company continues with news of a blockbuster new franchise. plus, shaking of the board and continuing to fend off questions about mystery technology. and if you thought silicon valley was not the only game in

town of self driving cars, general motors is ready to make it a race. but first to our lead, linkedin shares jumping after hours after a strong quarter. even better guidance. the company reported revenue of $780 million. , linkedin raise revenues for the year, saying they will taken $2.98 million on topline earnings, fueled by stronger demand. for the recruiting services, of course. james, when you look at these numbers from linkedin, i feel like i don't pay enough attention to this company because it does so well so often. james: hi, cory. yes, what we saw this quarter was then able to move past a lot of the challenges we saw during the first half of the year during the salesforce reorganization. the display business, and on top of that, the accounting issues. they were firing across all cylinders.

talent solutions doing quite well as they expanded relationships. on top of that, the sponsored updates, which is their mobile advertising product growing triple digits. putting that together, it was an encouraging quarter after what they went through in the cory: first half. that salesforce reorganization was interesting because it didn't seem like they were having a lot of issues. but the ceo just decided that he needs a cleaner grasp on what is going on in the sales efforts. james yeah, i would say, it : wasn't -- it is something that they have done every year. the issue was the magnitude of the reorganization they did. and the issues they had were not on retention, but the ability to upsell new products. you are putting your sales in front of new customers. so what is happening is that it limited their ability to expand. and i think as they strengthened

those relationships, got more comfortable with each other, the customer account is now around $40,000 and growing nicely, now you can leverage the enterprise as well. so it seems a lot of the issues -- they have moved past them successfully. cory: sequential growth of users, pretty good. they said in a press release they were already at 400 million. and of course, this current order is only about halfway through. more than a third of the way. james: 400 million, compared to facebook and twitter. clearly, they are doing something right. i think one thing to keep in mind, this is not a one trick pony. you have the recruitment product and the advertising product. and on top of that, you had the ability to get in front of sellers through navigators.

this is something that i think will be on the desk of every salesperson in the world because social selling will be increasingly endemic to the sales process. going forward, i think putting those three products in the synergy, i think we are very much in the early innings, as by the long history of the company. cory: a long history, indeed. let's talk about their main business, getting companies to use linkedin. it is really growing. the company is 10 years old. they grew what, 46% year-over-year? and they are accelerating growth. is that about the salesforce reorganization working? james it is partly attributable : to that, because you are segmenting salesforce into different types of accounts. smaller, faster growing, slower growing and getting the right people in front of the right accounts to drive greater wallet share. as those businesses look to

expand. now, you have lynda.com. that has not been talked about that much, it is something due to them and they paid a lot of money for it. it caused a lot of accounting hiccups. as you think about hr function and automating a lot of the things that hr has to do, on top of that, putting those products in front of professionals to boost their skill sets, that is something that can become a new growth lever in its own right. cory: let's talk about marketing solutions. this is a business that publishes stuff, people go to linkedin to read things and it is maybe important with people using it more often, 20% year-over-year growth in publishing. james, i have worked in publishing for a long time. if you worked at time magazine you would kill to see that , growth. what are these guys getting right the most media companies are not?

james: cory in one word, native , advertising. their sponsored update projects. think about your newsfeed within linkedin. these are advertisements that look like content and that is incredibly engaging and very much conducive to mobile. and that segment is half the revenue at that point. growing at 100%. and the reason it is not growing faster is because you are seeing the headwinds on the display side. secularly, desktop displays have fallen. that segment is falling double digits. but it is only 15% of their business now. as you see mobile eclipse that along with their new product , called lead accelerator, which changes the whole b2b marketing, as we know it, that is a segment although impressive, can it maintain? cory: really quick, i want to ask you about messaging. you had a intriguing comment about linkedin, china to get us

-- trying to get us to think of them not as a jobsite but as a message site. james what they are doing right : now is changing the way you interact with each other on linkedin, new messaging tools, new collaboration tools. linkedin for work. as we think about the companies that are successful in social are the ones that really optimize for communication. you can see that with facebook and you are seeing it with linkedin. as you think about the future of linkedin, it is increased communication and collaboration and publishing as a destination for reading things that are all related foress whatever interests you may have. in whatever category. so that is really what i mean about the messaging and collaboration aspect that i think is underappreciated. cory: fantastic. james, great to see you. this far apart across the world -- at least the country.

good stuff. making headlines and fighting off skeptics. the new york times reporting that theranos restructured their board of directors. trimming it from 12 people to five people the company has been criticized for not having medical experts on the board. memberave a former board in henry kissinger, george shultz. they have reportedly moved on to an advisory board of counselors. a board of directors, board of counselors, and a medical board. but it does not have the approval to sell things out of its black box. coming up, ea gets a boost from fifa and madden. but it can be nothing compared to the star wars battlefront game. interesting stuff there, the arst google x project has launch date.

project loon lands next year in indonesia. we tell you everything you need to know, next. ♪

cory: sports games. ea once again, said monthly average users for madden and fifa up 30%.

from a year ago. those monster games could get some company in the blockbuster category. a new star wars battlefront game are hitting the stores in november. they could sell 13 million copies. shares are down a little bit after hours. second-quarter sales fell 6% from a year ago. joining us now to discuss ea, pj, the founder of digital world research. and dan. dan when you build a business, , when you look at the world of games, is ea the company where you want to be? dan: yeah, they have been incredible on the gaming space here not only through console games but mobile development. they are the one of the top five publishers in mobile and in regular gaming. they are doing incredible. cory: fantastic. pj, we have been talking about this company for 15 years. they went through a fallow period but the stock went up 215% in two years. it seems like they have fixed a

lot of things. what stands out the most? when you look at today's results. pj: the sports titles are alive and well and they are driving online usage, which has been a bugaboo for them. and had not been historically great. with the advent of the playstation 4, and these guys are clearly riding the coattails. cory: i visited the company recently. when you stand inside of the ceo's office, there is a giant screen, i giant monitor not showing a game but all the statistics about what is happening on online games, wait times for customer service, and it lets him see this in very real time with a cool info graphic. like only a company like ea could create. is that focus on customer experience winning?

going beyond game play. pj: they really had to get that right. it had been a problem for them for several years. they have gotten it right input -wise. and a keen focus on it. the star wars beta did not have that many problems, they had tons of people playing it, and it is a great experience for them to use it during the game launch. hopefully, it will be without any hiccups. cory: i want to get back -- let me stay with you on star wars. i will get back to you in a second, dan. pj, the star wars numbers were really incredible in terms of people trying the beta of just a tiny part of that game. i wonder beyond that, what does that tell you about sales? pj: there is no question that this is one of the largest ip in the history of entertainment. you have seen incredible numbers early on. there have been 10 million people who have watched the advertisement campaign with the guy jumping out of the office building on youtube. they raised the numbers to 13 million and that is still

probably fairly conservative. 29 million ps4's, you can take in a 30% ratio of 15 million and upward. cory: dan there was criticism a , couple of years back that ea was not doing enough in mobile and online. they recategorized results to make those numbers look a little bit bigger. perhaps. but when you look at these guys and what they are doing what are , they good at? dan: they have been really incredible. and have a lot of titles have done an incredible job monetizing that. they have been able to constantly create great titles that people love. you see companies like zynga that have faltered a bit over the past couple of years.

they have not been able to do the same. cory: when it comes to game play, how are they doing? you don't need fancy graphics to make a game good. tetris proves that, candy crush. but these guys -- it seems like in gameplay, it must be working. they would not be selling so many titles. dan: yeah, i feel like they do have great graphics but also the user experience of the game and a lot of loyal users, you can see in their sporting franchises, every time they release a new fifa or madden it always goes to the top of the charts. and they have a loyal fan base him on the titles that they have that are doing well for them. pj, i want to change gears and talk about what is going on with nintendo. what is going on? there is discussion about a mobile app expected today being pushed off yet again. pj: if you look at nintendo historically, it is not the right experience they want to have.

they ship very few games. because of the gaming experience, they tanked. it is not much verizon the history of doing this and it sets up for a calendar in 2016 with mobile games in 2017 to be that much better and to have a with more time to be fully backed before they have time to show games. cory: and not really a company that is known for doing a lot of partnerships, too. right, dan? dan: yeah, i would definitely agree with that. one thing i would point out, a lot of people in the industry were confused on why they didn't go with the mario franchises. i would like personally to see them pushing for mobile next year for what they are really known for. cory: i have to ask you one last question, over your left shoulder, is that vinyl? like lots of vinyl? pj: that is lots of vinyl. the analog world is still alive and well in some pockets of

america. cory: i thought you were a digital guy. it is digital world research , but he has vinyl. pj and dan, thank you very much. developing story, alphabet. personal computers into offering system, according to those familiar with it. their growing dominance of mobile computing and represents ing the unification between two software platforms. dividing lines have been blurred. google announced plans last month to run a tablet running android with a tablet also doubles as a laptop. google plans to debut this new operating system in 2017. staying with alphabet, getting ready to blow up balloons. project balloon is alphabet's plan to give the world access to the internet via balloons in the stratosphere.

according to the project manager, the project will get its test next year in indonesia. currently, one in three people are connected to the internet in indonesia. it is part of the google x lab. coming up, inside silicon valley and the tightening race for self driving cars, next. ♪

cory: american automakers have been dreaming about self driving cars since the days of franklin delano roosevelt but lately,

silicon valley looks like it is closest to making that dream into reality. companies like google and tesla have been leaving detroit in the dust. but bloomberg businessweek takes a closer look at what general motors will do to tighten the race. keith joins us from detroit. keith, first of all, terrific story. i encourage everybody to check it out and bloomberg businessweek. you get a sense that gm sees itself as an innovator, a company that knows how to build cars better than anyone. keith: they are trying to live in both worlds, showing that they are veterans and experts at car building. as i interviewed mark royce, he used the word disrupt 14 times. in our conversation, he is trying to speak the language of the valley. cory: that sounds irritating, actually. that the guy was sort of preprogrammed to say something to you.

keith: they are certainly in a race with google and tesla and apple. what they are trying to do is be an innovator in driverless cars when the mind share at the moment is with google. cory: google -- i was down there a couple months ago and they took the secretary of transportation around and gave him a ride in a self driving car. what is it about google that makes them seem like they are in the lead? the german carmakers, tesla, beyond? guest: when google talks about what it is doing, it describes it as a moon shot. and the cars they are showing, it has no steering wheel or pedal. they are going the full monty. they don't want drivers at all. the cars will drive you. that is it. whereas, gm wants to do incremental improvements, one step at a time to get us to autonomy eventually. that is the contrast.

two very different models. cory: the top of your story gets at that, quoting the gm guy saying, i like driving cars. i interviewed the ceo of maclaren at the pebble beach car show a few months ago for bloomberg radio. i said, are you ever going to do a self driving car? he just laughed. he nearly fell over laughing in my face at that idea. do carmakers fundamentally believe that anybody will actually want a self driving car? because their car guys? keith: mark royce, who loves to drive and race cars, believes that eventually we will have mostly a car sharing economy and that we will be driven and that cars will be for hobbyists. four that racecar driver on the weekend. they do see the change coming. if gm sticks with their model, they will be out of business. he wants to do business with

google rather than against them. cory: tesla has a beta release of something they are calling, self driving-ish. or autopilot. there are some scary videos that show people using it in ways they were not supposed to. because it seems really cool. and the carmaker is scaring the driver. it makes me think of the ethical issues for the builder which is, you have to assume that your users are not always going to be smart, they will do dumb things. where in a world of self driving automobiles, does that leave room for dumb users? or is it better for dumb users? keith: the ultimate would be if the user was not involved at all, that is google's point. robots will drive more perfectly than human beings. that is the expectation. and that will reduce road deaths. carmakers, like the tesla autopilot, still requires you to have hands on the wheel. gm lets you take your hands off the wheel. i drove in the car with mark royce and he put his hands on his lap, and off we went.

his feet were not on the ped als. that requires a higher level of sensors and technology. they have high scanners and face scanners to make sure you are still looking at the road so they can tell you to come back and he will be ready. cory: keith, there are other things about decisions that cars make that take it out of human hands. keith as a terrific story on the cover of bloomberg businessweek today. i encourage everybody to check it out. it is a really good one. shares to expedia, where are rising. the company realizes more cost savings and projected from its acquisition of orbitz. the travel website saw as much as 18% in after-hours trading. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg west." we will see you back here tomorrow. ♪

>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: welcome to the program. earlier tonight, the republican presidential candidates squared off in boulder, colorado, for their third debate. as we tape this, the debate is just beginning. we will have full analysis and perspective tomorrow. >> you have to be patient and stick with it and all of that. also, i can't fake anger. i believe this is still the most extraordinary country on the face of the earth and it troubles me people are rewarded for tearing down our country. it's never been that way in american politics before. >> i would begin by saying that i'm not sure it's a weakness, but i do believe i share a sense