carol: welcome to bloomberg businessweek. yahoo! is up to sale but what's with the negative valuation? david: they are building a stadium for the atlanta braves for anyone but the atlanta braves, that is up ahead on oh "bloomberg businessweek."

we are joined by ellen, "bloomberg businessweek"'s editor. there was an article last week about amazon that is attracting attention. >> we did a story that showed that six major cities had amazon prime available but it was not available in predominantly black areas and was not the intention of amazon to discriminate but the results were there were these lines. in boston, it was extremely obvious because the delivery service excluded roxbury and was surrounded by areas that were able to get the prime one day service. there was a hoopla and the mayor asked questions and senator markey of massachusetts demanded answers. as of today, amazon have that track and said roxbury will be getting this one-day service now. david: in the global economic section, a he's about wild cap minors going after amber in going afteriners amber in ukraine.

>> ukraine is a bit of a mess area they have rebels backed by russia fighting in the east. there is a lot of tension still going on and the attention is -- economy is really bad. in certain areas, people are illegally trying to mine amber which is made of resin from ancient trees and it's the is veryrange gem that expensive. when authorities are around, they are trying to make a living with the amber, and they scatter around.horities are it's a messy process. >> it really is, you have to dig into these ancient pools of

water and sometimes these gems are getting damaged and cannot be polished properly. the gems are not as valuable. it's a desperate attempt to replace lost income. david: what is the ukrainian government doing about it? >> costing them a lot of money. so many of their resources are being directed at other things area they are trying to do something about it but they haven't made much headway. david: the cover story is about yahoo! with bids being tendered and people are looking at the tenure of marissa mayer's. what is the story about? ellen: the story looks at all the pressure on yahoo! and whether the ceo could have fixed it. yahoo! is an old tech company as silicon valley goes. it has a ton of problems and a lot of its value lies in its stake in alibaba which will probably spun off in one way or another and there are tax problems associated with doing a full-fledged spinoff.

and so the question is, could she have fixed this company? she has been focused on products, but it has not really made a dent on it problems. david: max chafin talked about that story. >> yahoo! with nine thousand employees and services, it the way that you and me and our parents get on the internet. that is one part of the company and then there is another part of the company that has a stock portfolio and that stock folio by its they'll is worth more than the entire market value of

yahoo! because it's a camp located tech situation but it has to do with the fact that investors have lost confidence in marissa mayer. carol: take us back because at one point it was a successful company. was fifteen years ago it unstoppable. it went into decline starting in the early oughts. more recently, around the time marissa mayer took over with the rise of mobile. they make money through banner ads and it does not work well on cell phones. she inherited a position that was almost impossible. carol: when she was brought in, people thought it was a great move. >> some directors and investors were kind of charmed by her star power. i think they lost sight of how challenging it dan b. if you want to lay some blame on the management of yahoo!, you might say that marissa mayer and some of her management team got taken in by the same weekend do anything" kind of

feeling. this was a troubled company from the jump. carol: who knew that changing coffee at their headquarters would make a difference but a changed morale a little bit. >> it's funny to look back at the press when she first took over. she made lunch free and everyone said that's amazing. wind the clock back just a few months ago, investors were talking about her profligacy and she spent all this money on these perks and nothing had come of it so it shows you the way that the narrative has shifted in six months. carol: she also went on a buying spree, bunch of acquisitions and paid about $1 billion for one company. did they make sense? >> it depends are you ask. one acquisition did not pay off which was tumblr. that did not work out so well. the smaller acquisitions, that's more open for debate. i think there is truth to it but she has said that yahoo! needs to hire smart people. that is how it's done in silicon valley. that was the strategy and it

sort of worked. "acquihire."n carol: does she get to keep the job ultimately when the assets are sold off? >> it seems unlikely. what is most likely going to happen is that ya ho will be toyahoo! will be sold verizon or a company like it. if marissa mayer were allowed to keep the job, would she want to? she is a product person. over the next couple of years, there will be a lot of cuts and

integration and corporate synergy. it is hard to imagine that she is the best person to do that or she would want to do that. it's much more likely she will wind up at a venture capital firm or a start up. she is very talented. i think this was a case of maybe a bad fit. carol: you may have noticed the cover page. david: we asked tracy ma how she came up with the concept. >> we were visualizing yahoo!'s last ditch effort to save itself envisioning selling the company. what's interesting about the cover is that everything you associate with yahoo!, all the nostalgic feelings, all of that is a negative asset. we tried to maybe put that art of desperation into form that people would recognize. david: did you come up with this immediately?

>> we arrived at a pretty quickly i want her earliest meetings. we knew we wanted to sketch out the whole rummage sale/firesale aesthetic a little bit. we ended up with something classic. fun.essweek, good mean carol: up next, the high cost of battling the fcc. and the founding father who may have been the biggest influence on how capitalism evolved, yes it's alexander hamilton. david: all that is ahead. businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back. david: this week's feature section, an investigation as to what brought down lab m d. carol hacking was involved and -- wasl: and yes, hacking involved and we spoke to the editor about the man who led the fight. >> it was a small business doing medical testing for urologists specifically and a loss at all when his business was hacked and

the hackers tried to sell him protection from people like them. carol: nice of them. >> he declined to buy their protection and the hackers turned him into the ftc which try to make an example of him. david: he fought back against that and that's with rare about his story. the ftc in terms of what it requires, it's onerous. many others were just settle -- would have just settled, flat-out. >> every other company caught in similar things did so. there are 60 cases in which the ftc brings these data privacy cases in. it's an extension of a businesses obligation under hipaa. in every other instance, the business did the math and decided it made more sense to settle. carol: he got a second life-changing call that made him realize he had been had.

>> he got a call from somebody who worked for the hackers. carol: richard wallace. >> he said i was engaged in taking the data from your company and reaching in through a peer-to-peer network. he said, "that was me. i did that and other instances as part of the campaign." that finally changed the game. without that testimony -- he called him and over a couple of years, he testified to the same things before congress and finally made the same testimony in the ftc court. carol: that was a long track. >> he lost his entire business in the process. carol: a look at how unions are challenging the t-mobile in-house workers.

>> cwa, the communications workers of america, when they supported the move by deutsche telekom, the german telecom giant, to take over the predecessor company, they had hopes that it was more union friendly and it would mean this would be an easier company to organize. instead, we have a decade-long struggle between the union and the company in which the union and, in some cases, the national labor relations for prosecutors have accused the company of not wallowing u.s. labor law. for deutsche telekom, we have seen some heat from politicians in the u.s. and germany from some investors over these alleged violations of labor laws. in the meantime, cwa, a decade into their campaign, has not been able to get collective-bargaining contracts for any more than a handful of the 45,000 employees there. david: we are talking about dozens? >> that's right, there are

hundreds of employees or 1000 who have shown that they want to be part of cwa but it has not been able to get contracts for more than a few dozen workers at t-mobile. david: do the members site specific grievances with t-mobile and deutsche telekom? blanket,s just a more to bent these employees unionized." >> among the things that workers have raised as concerns are pressure in terms of workload and pace. there are allegations that people make about things like being told to wear a dunce cap if you don't get your work done top or managers shaking people's chairs and telling them to work faster. david: t-mobile has rebuffed these efforts for the workers to unionize but trying to find a new way for them to voice grievances and workers are skeptical. n -- in thisi

"businessweek," a new twist in this fight which is that cwa is alleging that t-mobile has taken a page from american companies in the 1920's and 30's by illegally setting up a so-called company union. it's a labor organization that looks and sounds like a union and that it's made up of employees and it deals with management or workplace issues but in fact is controlled by the company. this is an organization called t-voice that they rolled out around the country last year and described to employees is made up of representatives as their voice. t-mobile has also sent communications to workers crediting t-voice with changes it's made in the work place perks like wifi or cell phone charging stations. from the perspective of the union, this is illegal and misleading. rather than having an organization that deals with worker representatives elected by workers, you have an organization that you tell

employees is their voice made up of representatives chosen by the company. david: up next, the companies fighting anti-gay laws across the south. carol: if you're looking for the perfect beach we got the perfect travel guide for you. ♪

♪ david: welcome back. in this week's politics and policy section -- carol: almost 2000 anti-gay bills are being filed in the south. back-and-fortha

on it. carolina trying to get the legislature there to rescind the law and you have tennessee and south carolina which have backed down and don't seem to be pushing as far forward. you have mississippi considering a set of rules. you have missouri considering a set of rules. missouri, mississippi, tennessee. they are all kind of day to day it simmers back-and-forth determining which law is the one they are focused on at any given time. north carolina will be prominent and then it will switch over to missouri or mississippi or tennessee. it depends on what someone is doing on a given day. we are looking at over 30 states and 200 or so bills. it could pop up anywhere or any time and we are nowhere new the end of this.

carol: a lot of the best well-known corporations, what are they doing? >> some of the biggest names in business are writing letters, going in and having active meetings where they send in their staff especially in cities were they have a big presence. for example salesforce is potentially active in indiana for they have a lot of people and georgia. then you see paypal which was considering bringing people into north carolina. disney is active in georgia raced on things going on with entertainment. you can see the companies get involved where they have people. that is clearly starting to become maybe not enough. carol: they are actually opening up their wallets? >> and they have been providing funding but now it's starting to show up as important to how they will do this move forward and it needs to be coordinated. you need to have someone who says we need another 60 signatures on this letter. so we can get support in the state in many cases, the top 10 companies mean the next 200 companies will sign on. this is a new space for american business. carol: what's next? is there another state that the next battleground? >> you are waiting to see what happens in mississippi and missouri and you look around the

country, some states have 20 potential bills. what they did not know in north carolina is when something will pop. nobody really knew it was going to happen in north carolina until it happened. charlotte said we will let people who are transgender choose the bathroom of their choice, and almost legislaturehe said, no you're not. where in the situation where people are scrambling. georgia knew it was coming and they practiced at last year in indiana. one guy described it as a game of whack-a-mole. david: i asked the editor about travel being highlighted in the

issue. >> airlines like american and qantas have introduced daily nonstop from san francisco and los angeles. it's understandable. it's still pretty mild during the day. david: it's a long flight. >> we have a couple of suggestions. you can stay in los angeles. you can do one that screens movies on the roof. a lot of fun. but also qantas and american have some pretty awesome first-class lounges. if you are not flying first class, you can pay to use them and they are worth it. david: you present an alternative of a little town north of cancun. >> it's actually 26 miles of mangrove. it is also car-free. nice.is really isla holbox. accommodations that range from $200 a night and you can snorkel with whale sharks or just sit on

the beach. carol: up next, more from the travel guide. david: plus, the mississippi town that may woo the atlanta braves. ♪

♪ david: welcome to "bloomberg

businessweek." i'm david gura. carol: and i'm carol massar. david: still ahead, why minor-league ballparks are really a good idea for small towns. carol: and how amazon developed its hit, the echo. david: and how to vacation like a king on a diamond. carol: it's all ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ david: i'm here with ellen pollock, the editor of "bloomberg businessweek." so many must-read stories in this issue. let's start about the opening remarks about alexander hamilton, he's going to keep secretary treasurer jack liu, he's going to keep the $10r hamilton on

bill. this is an historical figure who is been really lionized in popular culture over the last year or so. ellen: our economic correspondent peter coy takes alexander hamilton off of the broadway stage and actually talks about his economic policies. it is contribution to economic thought in the u.s., and how it's had an impact even today. one of the things he did was sort of question laissez-faire attitudes of adam smith and really stressed that the government needed to be able to tax. and that the government needed to spend money. he said power without revenue was a bubble. i'm not sure what that means, but i think it's really important. he also stressed that the u.s. needed a manufacturing base, so we could compete with other markets. david: in the markets and finance section, you will get snowbirds, folks who live in canada been on vacation property here in the u.s. a huge percentage of vacation homeowners from overseas and the u.s. are in fact, canadian. that is starting to change. ellen: you not understand the candidate is cold and florida's warm. it's been a natural place for canadians to invest and have second homes. now, the real estate market in florida is getting kind of soft. and the canadians desire to sell

and take their gains is part of it. one of the things that's motivating the canadians is the strength of the u.s. currency. their gains are looking quite as quite as gooding and they are paying maintenance fees and other kinds of fees, property taxes in florida. they are trying to sell, and take their gains and invest them elsewhere. david: this politics play into this? ellen: they are. we have to talk to a canadian family that owns to vacation homes. they're going to sell one of them, and one of the things that worries them is how this election is going to end up. it's not like they are for one candidate or another, it's just the craziness of the selection is just worrying them. david: if each of these in issue about minor-league baseball team in mississippi just outside of jackson, that bets big on what minor-league baseball is going to be able to do for that town. ellen: it's all about the atlanta braves, and the atlanta braves own all of their minor league teams. they build minor league stadiums in small or smallish towns, they have required big bond offerings to pay for the stadiums. small towns are eager to do

business with them, and hope to read financial benefits. and then they find that the revenues from the stadiums, etc., are really paying what they need to pay back the debt. and they have to dip into the general funds. david: a cautionary tale. i talked to kate smith. kate: it's this scruffy bedroom community suburb of jackson, mississippi. they have virtually no economic development. there aren't any any companies, there are no factories. this mayor who is desperate for development. he is looking for something in the stranger walks into his door, and that stranger is tim bennett. use this want to be minor-league deal maker. he wants to bring teams to different towns. he had a team fall apart in jackson, so we need to newtown in a new team. he goes to jimmy foster and says what do you think about baseball.

david: that necessitates a stadium. kate: of course. that's how the whole thing starts. the stadiums are expensive, it's kind of a matter of what you are willing to give as a town. the braves want to get as much as possible, they want to get the luxury locker rooms, they want to get the dugout tunnel that goes from here to there. as a town, you have to tell them to stop, and if you don't, they're going to get everything. david: how into this team is the town? there, youhem stadium, you hope it

will build a following that will lead to the kind of economic development you want to happen. kate: for the first couple of years, it did. the novelty is interesting. i was there for opening day back in april. there weren't a lot of people there. it was not a packed house. the braves lost, unfortunately. display atfireworks end of the game, i would be over exaggerating if i said there were 300 people left. carol: what's interesting about this story is the liberty media john malone connection, which has been brilliant and how he retrieved his media company.

he's done that with baseball as well. kate: it's interesting. i look at municipal bond trust all the time. i look at them all the time. carol: i'm so sorry. carol: i know, right? when i first saw this deal, you had to reread every sentence for five times. i went over to our media guys and was like you follow liberty media, let me tell you the story. and they were like that is so malone. carol: bottom line, you have these small towns and cities being stuck with a huge price tag were building a stadium. that is kind of become a thing we see over and over again. kate: it's a disappointing story. you always have someone who as well, not quite. we interviewed mike plante, the business development manager of the braves. he just goes right out and says all the sports economists are wrong. it's like, how many studies do you need to read. carol: capturing the struggles of mississippi is a story in itself. >> the obvious thing you want to see is the stadium and the kind of sense of small-town baseball community. we asked a photographer, matt ike, who has done a lot of work with longer-term documentary projects, cut of dealing with poverty, ohio and parts of the southeast in virginia.

i thought he would be able, from his long-term projects, to sort of look at a place like pearl, mississippi and see the layers in the kind of texture of the community. we sent him down with kate to photograph opening day. david: from talking to her, it sounds like this in the community that was pretty economically devastated. there must be some amazing contrasts when you get on the ground in perl. >> sure. there's something about the texture of new stuff, a minor-league stadium, they only ever look so good. there's a contrast, there is new business. there's also a hard quality to the pictures and the place. i think that's an interesting elements of you know, what the actual impact on this town is. carol: up next, how amazon came up with the company's new hit gadgets.

david: detroit tries to combine forces with silicon valley to remain relevant. carol: and a new addiction, credit card turning. david: that's ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." david: a look at amazon's voice controlled speaker, the echo. brad: it may not be life-changing, but maybe reputation changing. the company is known for lukewarm devices like the fire phone, the echo has been a huge hit. it's a nine inch tall

cylindrical speaker that listens for verbal cues, sue can call out to it across the room using its wake word, which is alexa, unless you want to tinker with the options. you can ask it anything, you can shop with amazon, you can ask for the weather or asking questions like you would siri. it's just been a hugely popular hit for amazon, particularly for the hardware division lab 126. carol: take us back, how did the echo get built? brad: it's a great story that we out in this- lay week's magazine. it's like all things, probably a long, circuitous, slightly tortured story. we only see the actual finished product that most of these companies.

amazon had been working on the echo for a long time. it was called the amazon dash at one point. it was supposed to be a more sophisticated, intricate device. augmented reality, it was called, where there's an element of projected images on walls or tabletops. it also had this component of speech recognition, were you can ask it things. ultimately, as amazon's lab 126 hardware division really recovered from the flop of the fire phone, the overall dimensions of this project were narrowed, they really kind of focused in on being a very utilitarian speaker that could listen and answer people's queries. resonateds what as for its customers. carol: i thought it would be apple or google that came out with a device like this. it blows my mind a little that it was amazon. brad: they would like that. they don't want to be counted

out. they don't want to be counted out of this game to find the next generation of software and services that will control our lives. that's why this bet in hardware is all about. david: when you look at amazon and lab 126, and the echo, is it making money? brad: that's a difficult question to answer. like all amazon devices, i think analysts and investors would probably assume that the devices themselves lose money. amazon tries to sell it right at cost. occasionally discounts the devices. is obviously a huge upfront investment and bring them to the market. this was a multiyear project. but the devices integrate so well with amazon's other services. echo,ryone was buying an locks customers into the amazon ecosystem. on the face, it may not be a profitable line item in amazon's financial results. but if it makes customers more

loyal, it's probably a good bet. carol: big automakers are looking to remain competitive, they're are looking for a few friends in silicon valley. david: we spoke to reporters david welch. david: there are a lot of technologies that are converging. ride services like lyft are growing. these things are all done by apps, that's a reservation system is done. you want to have the self driving car that comes in picks you up after you reserve some time with it on a nap -- an app. people are going to be left in this old world business model, and that's the conversion that make silicon valley very opportunistic. that makes detroit and stood guard and tokyo companies a bit nervous. david: you look at why detroit needs silicon valley, you also need the inside of the coin. why does google or apple need a partnership like this one? david w.: google and apple are not in the business of making cars. it is the simple point.

the other part of that is what they really want to get into the business of making cars? that's capital intensive, expensive, not high-margin. those companies are in massively high-margin low capital businesses. with a would rather do, particularly google -- they would like to partner up with one of the big car companies and brawn, thee the muscle that makes the car. google will do all the brains that makes the car self driving and does the connectivity and links it up to different web services. the possibilities are kind of endless. if you have an autonomous car, would you take people's eyeballs off the road, the limits of what you can do with someone like google and the connectivity is only limited by their imagination. carol: a tip sheet on how to go phone-free. david: i spoke with editor brent vegan.

brett: do take your smart with you or leave them behind? david: what do you do about photos? brett: go to my friends. >> we recommended about a different things you might want to pick up that would make using a real camera a lot more fun. every thing from printers to little mini projectors. we recommended a $100 bullet camera, which is fun and comes with a lot of colors. there's a drone that we recommended. bret: we do recommend the fanny pack. >> you can put your passport in their, a point-and-click camera. it's revitalizing the idea of using your camera instead of your phone. >> there will be those who say i have to take my phone with me. you have a few apps. >> face tune will eliminate blemishes.

there's an app with 75 built-in filters. if you are taking video, it will actually preserve the aspect radio -- ratio on your business. carol: the benefits and pitfalls of being a credit card turner. david: how to live large on the corporate card. carol: that's ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ david: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm david gura. carol: and i'm carol massar. in this week's market and finance section, a look at credit card turners. david: these are people who squeeze credit card companies for free stuff. >> "turning" is the process of opening up several new credit cards for the sign-on bonus, and then moving on to another set of credit cards. and getting those sign-up bonuses. people end up with 20, 30, 40 credit cards. david: this appears to appeal to a certain set of personalities. >> all the terms on the cards are very different. you need to be very organized and have a high credit score to begin with. if you do this wrong, your credit can be complete with destroyed. carol: you can't spend a look what you have access to, or you get into trouble.

>> and you need to meet the minimum spending requirements to get the sign-up bonus, but don't go any further. carol: we are talking about mileage and stuff like that. david: hotel, travel perks, airlines. there are a ton of new credit cards that come out that are trying to get loyal customers. even small airlines have their own cards. david: our banks encouraging this? what are people -- what did i think about these people who have these great cards? >> the banks see this is a necessary evil. they want to have people be loyal to their cards. they have higher interest rates than other cards. they are eventually going to make their money back. but they are doing some things to limit the number of turners who are out there. the people who are gaming the system. they are making the rules and you can only apply for five credit cards in two years. carol: you wrote this story, it is a fun read. what is your advice to someone who may want to do this? >> be very careful. before you get into this. maybe start small.

there are plenty of ways you can game the system in a small way. take out one or two credit cards that have attractive bonuses. see if you can handle that before you get into getting into the deep end. carol: but it is legal. >> completely legal. if the credit card companies didn't want this to happen, they could do some thing about it. david: learn how to vacation on the company dime. here's editor brent vegan. >> you may be able to get your boss to pay for a vacation if you choose wisely. there are amazing conferences, a lot in european cities in june, in berlin, in london. there's also a couple in montreal, and in france. we are suggested that only the conference to go to, but maybe in between sessions, some things to do while you are there so it will actually feel like a vacation. david: there's a conference i can go to in cannes, france. >> june 18 through 26, you still have time to book. starts at about $1700 a person. you may ask your boss is if they may want to send you there. while you are there, you can go to the beach.

david: you have to. >> you are in france in the middle of the summer, what else are you going to do? david: a lot of these european cities tried to cultivate getting people to come there for work. places that i, david gura, who lives in new york, would love to get out and see these other cities. >> there are a lot of cities, conventions, it's a way for you to meet people who are pre-or post pivot investment capitalists, angel investors. they happened to be in great world-class cities. carol: "bloomberg businessweek," is on newstands now. online. >> we'll see you next week. ♪

♪ emily: i am emily chang. this is "best of bloomberg west." we bring together the top interviews from the week in tech. all about earnings and apple posted its first sales in 2003. sales declines 2003. shares have taken a serious hit. is it a new era for apple? we will discuss. a tale of two tech companies as facebook hits the sweet spot. mark zuckerberg says more big