carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." in this week's issue, twitter advice for president trump. oliver: and we go inside a brazilian construction giant. carol: and how buzzfeed plans to be king of online video. oliver: all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ carol: we are here with the editor-in-chief of "bloomberg businessweek." >> comverge is the head of colony capital, that he also has become very well known for being one of donald trump's closest

economic advisers. he is one of the first people to come forward to become one of his most prominent backers. consistently during the campaign, one of his most public circuits was making the economic and personal case for donald trump beard saying he will be a different kind of president to get things done. it was a great opportunity last night, given what we have seen in the last six months, to take his temperature. oliver: he ultimately said he would not give him a grade yet. he said it is asking before the semester is over. megan: he asked for a sabbatical for giving him a grade. [laughter] oliver: he talked about trump being disruptive the sort of like bloomberg or amazon are to the corporate world. megan: he was specifically referring to how he conducts his

social media strategy. one of the things we talked extensively about with his use of tweets. many of us expected him to sort of stop that come up to take on a more presidential tone in the white house and we have seen exactly the opposite. in the last few weeks, we have had tweets about the terror attacks in london that were controversial. the have seen tweets about saudi arabia and the escalation of diplomatic tensions in the middle east this week. i really wanted to hear what tom had to say about that, and he said the tweets drive everyone crazy, but donald trump has harnessed social media in a way no other public you have. no company has been able to do that. that is at the heart of his effectiveness. the argument he was making for the presidency is that through the chaos, he will chip away at the establishment. that the establishment no longer serve the american people.

the period of chaos we are going through right now, whether it is tweeting, the lack of a policy agenda, there is a method to the madness and it is slowly eroding people's ties to the establishment, including in washington, and at the end of the process, the president will be able to make things happen as a result. whether you believe that are not is up to you, but that was the argument he was saying last night. oliver: let's talk about the cover story. a narrative about corruption in brazil. megan: two numbers put this scandal, this giant instruction company and the brazilian corruption scandal known as carwash. i will give you two numbers. $788 million in bribes, and three tied to construction projects because the company $3.3 billion in profit. this is a level of bribery and graft on an institutional level, how they covered -- carried this out over years. we stripped it all back and

showed how it began and how it ended. we have more form -- from reporter mike smith. mike: it grew over the years on the back of paying bribes in order to get sweetheart deals on contracts.

>> was it just part of doing business? it sounds like it with in the fabric of the company. what it -- when did he get to bribery being such a central part of the weighted business? mike: they basically described a history of at least 30 years, probably going back further. the company is almost 100 years old. his is basically the way business was done. to get contracts for government work in brazil, you have to spread money around to politicians, two campaigns with illegal money. at least, that is what they say. it became part of the culture in order to get the government deals, and a lot of construction companies in brazil. >> without the brides come up with a not have gotten the business? michael: that's what they say. it kind of its like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? it's part of the culture, probably always has been viewed the point is, they paid bribes, but they got massive profits in return that they probably would not have gotten if they had not paid off people. the contracts were way overvalued, which in turn caused the brazilian people and country lots of money they could have spent on things like helping the poor and fix their massive problems. oliver: essentially the net

effect is positive for the country, positive for the political figures, but people are losing out because the costs get inflated. michael: that is correct. they settled corruption charges in the united states. in that settlement, they admitted to paying $788 million in bribes across 12 different countries, mainly brazil, but a lot of other countries in latin america and africa. in exchange, they received business that delivered over $3 million in profits. you can see it is almost like a

four to one margin they got investing in broad -- in bribes. the people who pay are in pretty poor countries. it sucked up money that could of been used for other things. carol: it sound like the money went all the way up to the political structure. it bankrolled campaigns. michael: correct. half dozen presidents in latin america, i think for five former president of brazil, made claims in their testimony that they were bankrolling campaigns under the table and paying bribes to the presidents. not sure about the presidents themselves. they basically put a lot of money up to get people elected, and once they were elected, they got a lot of contracts out of it. it was very calculated strategy that paid off until they were caught. carol: turning the graph machine into a cover image was the job of rob vargas. oliver: the cover story is a wide ranging story. how you represent such a dynamic story?

rob: there was not a lot to shoot. we had to come up with a concept. one of our directors came up with a way concept that there is iconography involved with bribery, which is like money in a yellow envelope. we took that sort of approach and wrote just so it is abundantly clear. carol: is it an actual manila envelope you to the picture of? rob: yes, we got some real envelopes. we just had some dummy money to have that silhouette. we just shot it right here. oliver: it took me a minute to figure out there is a silhouette of the cash inside. this feels like it communicates quickly what the story is about. you see brazil, you know the problems, it brings together the

points quickly. rob: it was nice to play with the entire surface of the cover. carol: you have kind of a little explainer box on the side. you like to do that for more context? rob: yes, we like to have fun, but we need to make sure people understand the story. carol: up next, the two arab leaders behind the quarantine of qatar. oliver: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ oliver: -- carol: looking back. oliver: a coordinated effort by saudi arabia, bahrain, just in the uae eased to isolate qatar shocked market this week. carol: it may be the handiwork

of two arab leaders. >> we had a blockade, basically the cutting of ties to qatar by handful of the growth -- gulf neighbors. this relationship has been fraught for many years. qatar is a small but wealthy country. they have the highest per capita wealth in the world. they are sitting on the cheapest, most abundant reserves of natural gas in the world and are the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas feud they did not start producing and exporting into the mid-1990's. until then, they were basically a vassal state of the saudis. over the last two decades, they have established enough wealth and autonomy to start walking on their own and developing an independent foreign-policy strategy that is not something

the saudis and egyptians are fans of, particularly they are cozying, or deceived -- for perceived cozying up to iranians. oliver: as with any situation in the middle east, there are so many angles. i want to boil it down. the financial capability that qatar now house -- now has. there is also deep-seated religious differences between sunni and shiite as far as who is backing who. one of the most important relationships is the relationship between saudi arabia's crown prince and the head of the uae. tell us how that is influencing the situation. >> the statement that was put out announcing this blockade was

not signed. gulf experts see the finger prints of two people directly behind it. namely, the very powerful, very young crown prince of saudi, and the defective head of state, the uae sheik. when the king of saudi died in 2016 and king solman took over the throne and named his son as deputy crown prince, the uae were basically the first people to reach out to them. they have formed a pretty close relationship. they have economic and political interests that really a line around combating extremism, mainly shiite extremism, which they see iran as the chief sponsor of, and that has been the tie that binds. let's also remember these are two entirely oil dependent economies.

they also have economic interests aligned with each other. it is particularly important when we have seen oil prices plummet. carol: u.s. treasury department has a lot on its plate, tax codes, financial do regulations and the debt ceiling. oliver: the agency is running on a skeleton staff. carol: let's set the stage. steve mnuchin has an awful lot of things on his plate. remind us what he is been tasked with doing. >> the agenda is to overhaul the tax code for the first time since the ronald reagan administration. also to cut a lot of the financial regulations that the obama administration spent years putting into place. he also has lain -- has pledged into investing in infrastructure programs across the country.

all of this is meant to boost growth to 3% stable growth over the next couple of years. he says it will take about two years to get to that figure. considering we are right around the 2% point and officials have worked very hard to get to 2%, jumping to 3% or above is quite a challenge. oliver: it's also the treasury secretary could use some help. >> definitely geared he needs the help of congress, for one thing. it is a republican-controlled congress, but the white house needs to send coherent messages so the republican leaders know what their legislative agenda should be. at the same time, they need personnel in the office. deputy secretary, under secretaries, he has none of those. he has four counselors who basically work as senior aides. a lot of former administrations both republican and democrats have relied on counselors for treasury, but there are supposed to be under secretaries

overseeing each of the main areas of the treasury. none of those are filled. you have nominees for two of those stuck in the senate waiting for confirmation, and one has not been nominated. compared to the obama administration transition in 2009, trump is behind with the treasury department. he has not nominated nearly as many as obama had, and not as we confirmed. you could say the same compared to george w. bush. it is taking almost twice as long. carol: what about jim donovan? >> he dropped out. on may 19, he cited family reasons to step down from consideration. we are back to square one. the problem is jim donovan, a goldman sachs banker, was shouldering a lot of management responsibilities that come with being treasury secretary.

he had done a lot of interviews for senior-level, mid-level and lower-level staff members, political appointees in the building, and now those people are not sure whether their job offer or impending offer still holds, because the person they looked to for contact with the treasury is now gone. oliver: up next, how companies from cisco to microsoft are quietly lying on a lower wage staffers with visas. carol: and an initial public offering. ♪

oliver: welcome back. carol: you can also listen to us on sirius xm, and a.m. radio in new york and boston, washington, d.c. and the bay area.

in the technology section, many h-1b visa applications for tech firms are not going to mid to high level positions. oliver: they're actually going to entry-level jobs. >> the h-1b visa program has been one of silicon valley's priorities for a long time. it creates a limited number of visas to bring workers with specialized skills into the country for three-year giving -- three-year periods. the thing that makes a controversial as you see the outsourcing industry using it basically to bring in lower-level computer programmers at lower levels of pay. this is what people are irked by. oliver: specialized workforce, and it largely exists within the tech space. the h-1b visa is not new, but it has proliferated in the tech space.

josh: correct, it has been around several decades. because it is set up for technical skills, silicon valley is one of the heaviest users of it just because they need entry-level employees. carol: how have companies use this program? josh: what you will see cisco say is, we need to hire master degree level computer programmers and we cannot find enough coming out of american universities. so let us bring some foreign-born engineers to work here because the jobs would otherwise go unfilled. that is the company like it carol: that is the specialties -- specialty skills. but they are using it for workers that do not necessarily

have specialty skills, correct? josh: what we have seen -- what is new here, we have always known there are companies, mostly companies from india, they are getting a lot of visas to higher modestly skilled tech workers to do kind of wrote -- rote back-office work. they don't make a lot of money i silicon valley standards. these are the companies that have become the villains of the h-1b visa program and many people's eyes because they are taking a lot of visas that would otherwise go to phd's or whatever. what is new is that cisco and pretty much every other silicon valley company is subcontracting with these companies to bring the same workers onto their headquarters to do the lower-level computer work. oliver: this is where the value out of the story really tells, because this has been in the

spotlight, it has been a tool bandied back and forth from both political camps since the election. donald trump is targeted it. you have access to some new data. tell us where this came from, because people suspected this has been happening to a certain extent, but the degree to which you have quantified it is new. josh: this is something that many people who study the program have been aware of. people who work in silicon valley know about this because they are at ease companies. it has been hard to tell how much goes on. so i was contacted by basically sort of a hobbyist data analyst from south carolina. he works for an i.t. company, but he found it this way to crunch the numbers. oliver: a good samaritan. josh: exactly. what he found is that each h-1b visa application listed this is where the person will work, and

address. he wrote software that scraped the department of labor's website, pull down all of the visa applications and sorted them by those addresses. so then you could say, you know, one microsoft way is microsoft. but they're all these other applications to work at that site. so these are contractors working for microsoft. oliver: dropbox's seo talks about the company's competition. carol: and the potential for an ipo. max: dropbox invested -- invented what is basically a new thing, which allowed you to store your files on your computer in the cloud and made it really easy. it was very popular.

the initially gave the service away for free and you can pay more money as an individual to get a pro version. what happened was google, apple, amazon, microsoft, everybody basically knocked the service off. the nature of how the technology industry works, when google or apple does something, it is easy for them to push people into that service. all of a sudden, dropbox, which had this nice funnel to get new users, gets disrupted by the fact that google or apple will just say, we will throw in some free storage with your gmail, and they will really encourage users to do that. that basically through -- threw dropbox for a loop. carol: and they also have a lot of customers already. it is a big market. max: exactly. there are people who pay to have a few items in a, but most of the -- but most of it is the companies. there is a special procurement division.

companies than a hunt to get in there, they have a huge leg up. box, it was another service that was similar that focused exclusively on selling the companies, and that created problems, as well. there were getting squeezed by talks on the small end and the big companies on the big end. they do have a lot of committed users who were using in college and started using it informally at work and convinced the i.t. buyers to buy the product. it is sort of the same dynamic at play with slack, but dropbox was in this category where you see the consumer going toward enterprise. this sort of consideration -- consumerization of the enterprise. oliver: russia and china moving back into america's backyard. carol: and why buzzfeed may need to break into tv. ♪ qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: still in this issue, what may have been a key reason for president trump pulling the u.s. out of the paris climate accord. oliver: the future of entertainment according to buzzfeed. carol: and lessons from some of the world's most influential ceos. oliver: all that ahead, on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: we're back with "bloomberg businessweek" editor-in-chief megan murray. let's start in the global economics section. really interesting story about this resurgence of russia, china, some of these powers

dabbling in the caribbean. tell us about those. megan: this is something that is one of those geopolitical shifts which tells a much broader story of the climate we are in. as the u.s. refocuses its foreign policy, and more being directed inwards toward the u.s. and u.s. interests, countries and u.s. interests, countries like russia, china, are really looking at places like nicaragua, cuba, in that caribbean area, as a place where they can solidify their economic power and political power. let's take those interns. with china, this is a lot about their economic interests. they can solidify their economit they have done in africa and other parts of the world, flexing their muscles to countries that need their access to resources to really build an economic power to them. on russia's side, it is a little bit more poking and trying to establish a little bit of a power base that is really close to our shores, and that sort of tension is going to be fascinating to watch, given how quickly some of those countries

are trying to move forward. and their ambitions. carol: the u.s. is creating these opportunities. megan: absolutely, in the sense of our long-standing issues with cuba. obviously, we lifted the embargo and sanctions, but it is going to take an incredibly long time for cuba to recover, to make steps forward with its economy, and other countries are sniffing that opportunity there as well. one thing donald trump has done is refocus our foreign policy. he has been very clear that he is going to protect u.s. interests first. when you say publicly you are going to protect u.s. interests first, other countries are going to look at the vacuum that creates in other areas. for china in particular, creating this as another potential economic outreach for them is a significant move. carol: let's talk about the ongoing repercussions from president trump pulling out of the paris climate accord. the green fund, you guys dig into this. and the implications of us not supporting it. megan: this goes hand-in-hand with what we were just

discussing in terms of, when you refocus your ambitions outside of the u.s., it is going to have an effect. the green fund has been used to give developing countries, the countries scientists think are going to be the most hard-hit by the changing climate, to encourage both them to invest in projects that will make their climates more sustainable, to reduce their emissions, as well as to force wealthier countries to give developed countries money to fund those kinds of projects. in theory, it benefits us all in reducing emissions and holding everyone accountable for the world we live in. our retreat, and his signal that we will no longer contribute to it, is certainly going to have effects and who scientists say are going to be the hardest hit by climate exchange. oliver: finally, a really interesting story on buzzfeed. they are branching out into all kinds of stuff. carol: you know you read these lists. you know you watch the videos. is a wacky story. there is one they did with

wrapping a balloon in papier-mache, when it is going to explode? we love experimentation at "businessweek." i am thrilled to see big media players taking a chance on upstart projects in video. there is no question they have their fingers on something, because millions of people are watching their videos, and this is a story that delves into the business behind crazy videos we are watching. carol: the wacky and business world of buzzfeed. we get more from gerry smith. reporter: buzzfeed is really one of the digital media darlings. i mean, they have really figured out how the internet works. their content is everywhere, they have a news operation, they produce a lot of video, and they are really good at distributing it on social media. facebook, youtube, snapchat, instagram. carol: those lists. gerry: they are known for their lists, their quizzes. these tasty videos, which are these sped-up recipe videos. they're everywhere on facebook. they are really an internet juggernaut. oliver: ceo jonah peretti has been there since the get-go.

this is a company that has evolved quite a bit in terms of the content on its website. i remember when buzzfeed was shifting and hiring financial reporters to build out a business reporting part of the website, and that was a big deal. that is still there, but it seems like their focus has shifted much more. even in this story, we get about halfway before we start talking about news. this company looks very different than it did a couple of years ago i feel like. gerry: buzzfeed is 11 years old now, and just like a lot of digital media companies, they have shifted towards online video. what buzzfeed and a lot of online media companies realize now is that there is even more money if you take the online video and figure out a way to turn it into a 23-minute television show, or a two-hour movie. a lot of people talk about cord-cutting, and how tv is dead, but there is still an enormous amount of money in television advertising. that is what buzzfeed is going for.

carol: in your story, you talk about the buzzfeed ceo, this convergence. right? kind of like old and new media, working back-and-forth. gerry: that is right. buzzfeed has received $400 million in investment from nbc-universal. nbc has also invested $200 million in vox media. we saw disney invest in maker studios. there has been this old media/new media romance going on a few years now, and buzzfeed is very much at the center of it. oliver: the millennials group right now, and in general, always the 18 to 34's, a very prized, targeted range for advertisers. as other companies decide how to shift their material for that group, i feel like buzzfeed is uniquely positioned, because they are the group. i do not think there is any debating that jonah peretti is a very smart guy, and is obviously leading the front on this. but when you talk about the story about what the office looks like, it does sound just like a bunch of millennials run

wild. kind of letting them do what they want. they had studios set up where they are playing games. carol: you went there, what was it like? gerry: i took a tour of their studio, and behind each door, it is like a willy wonka factory. you go behind one door, and there is two male employees who shake hands and start tickling each other. there is people filming that. there is people eating fried chicken, and all of a sudden they get surprised with a live, clucking chicken. this is very much buzzfeed's dna, just wacky, crazy, a little silly. but a lot of that stuff works really well on the internet. the question now is, do any of these sorts of ideas, can they be developed into television? oliver: up next, how israeli tv producers have become heavy hitters in exporting shows. carol: and europe's most famous singing competition, and what it tells us about the future of the tells us about the future of the continent. oliver: this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am oliver renick. carol: and i am carol massar. in the companies and industries section, israeli tv networks have been successfully exporting concepts for shows. oliver: and now they want to start selling their productions across the globe. this is a very cool story about entertainment, and the influences that have changed israeli television. tell us about what is happening there right now. ethan: it is interesting because , israeli tv was like a lot of stuff in israel, not especially great for much of its history. it was kind of slapsticky and not very serious. and in the last 10 or 20 years, there has been a lot of changes in israel. first of all, there has been an increase in the digital parts of the economy, and it has spread to tv. what we are seeing here is, production houses doing very sophisticated shows, and they are being exported. originally, they were exported

as ideas, so "homeland" is a classic example. it was done for israeli tv, and then they made a version in this country, which has been a huge success. carol: a favorite show of mine. ethan: an excellent show. carol: really well done. but it is interesting, that show in particular, i feel like, drew attention to what is going on in israel in terms of programming. and we are starting to see more come out. ethan: what is happening now is, in addition to "homeland"-like things happening, the current sort of hit, although not on the level of "homeland," is "fauda," which is an arabic word, which means chaos, and it is about an undercover israeli unit going after a hamas terrorist killer in the west bank. what is interesting about "fauda" is that it has been simply bought whole by netflix, and is shown here and around the world, where netflix can be seen in hebrew and arabic with subtitles. so unlike "homeland," which

became an american-style thing, that is going on now more and more, shows that are a pure, local content are being made available abroad, and israel has become a factory of high-quality content. oliver: it seems that content is also very thematically geared towards the region as well. you point out that there are a few things that are very sort of mainstream. i feel like a lot of them do center around conflict, terrorism, spies. what is really interesting is "fauda" right now, which is basically a show that tackles both sides of the israeli-palestinian conflict, is this content that people want to watch, and that is what makes it successful? is it about the way this executed in terms of production value or are these things that everybody can relate to and watch? ethan: to some extent, nobody really knows the answer to that. what is interesting is that the company that made "fauda," which is called yes, when it was first proposed to them, they said,

nobody in israel wants to watch a program about the conflict. the conflict is not a particularly popular issue in israel. carol: and they are living it. ethan: to some extent, it is sort of walled off from them, what goes on in the west bank. they live their lives, and that is a more complicated political discussion. they are not especially focused on it, and the idea was that nobody really wants to watch a show about it. and it turned out to be the most-watched show in yes's history, which the about 50 -- 15 years of making shows. oliver: speaking of television shows, eurovision draws more viewers than the super bowl. carol: and the european singing contest does more for the continent than crown the winner. here is reporter thomas rogers. thomas: eurovision is a song competition that is been around for just over 60 years. it started in 1956, organized by european investors, with the goal of fostering european unity and spreading broadcasting technology. since then, it has become the largest, the most-watched non-sporting event in the world.

about 200 million people watch it every year. oliver: wow. there are a ton of people turning into this. the unity part is what i am curious about, as there are a lot of vivid descriptions. you do a good job in the story, making it feel like i had watched this thing. even though i had not really heard about it. you have crazy costumes, crazy songs. where does the unity aspect come from? tell us about the historical background of this thing. thomas: it is a competition. each of the countries are hoping to win ultimately, but it is sort of sheathed in this european unity ideal. every year, they have a slogan. this year, it was "celebrate diversity." before it has been "we are one," things like that. they very much sell it as a celebration of european identity, as opposed to one of national identity. but of course, national politics

and geopolitical considerations always end up playing a role, so you see this really interesting tension between an event that supposedly celebrates european unity, but there are these national forces that tug it in different directions. carol: what is interesting, too, you include that it is the largest-non-sporting event in the world. at watched -- outwatched only by the olympics. and the world cup. you do say, it gets political, and even sometimes predicts geopolitical shifts. tell us specifically what you mean by that. thomas: some of the dynamics that ended up feeding the brexit vote in the u.k. were in evidence in eurovision for a long time. the u.k. has often complained that continental countries, countries on the european continent, tend to vote for their neighbor countries, and that because the u.k. is an island, they are at a disadvantage. so there have been right-wing tabloids in the u.k. that called for the country to leave eurovision as early as 2008. turkey left the contest in 2013, which many saw as a kind of preview of its move away from europe and towards a more

authoritarian, autocratic political system. then, germany has done very badly the last few years, and many people see that as a reflection of european anger about austerity policies. oliver: it is interesting to think about doing badly in an "american idol"-type contest. but there is a lot of weight put into this. where does this leave us now, because you kind of hint at this, what i think is very interesting, this is supposed to be about unity, identity, that is not always the way. but if you look at the geopolitical landscape right now, this is a time that is particularly nationalistic, where people are having tendencies to support their own countries, their own ideals. is it bleeding into the event in the most recent instance? thomas: this year's contest was partly overshadowed by the conflict between ukraine and

russia. this year, the contest took place kiev, the capital of ukraine, which as you know, is at war with russia at the moment. russia is very interested in winning the contest, so they have done a number of things that parallel other strategies. geopolitically, the kremlin has been actively spreading false news about eurovision. they also sent a singer who was legally banned from entering ukraine, because she had performed in crimea shortly after the russian annexation. ukraine ended up ultimately not allowing the singer into the country, and therefore, russia did not take part in this year's eurovision, which caused a ruckus. oliver: coming up, the wild corporate party that fueled the dating app badoo. carol: and some major execs share the secrets of their success with "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. oliver: i am oliver renick. you can catch us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119. a.m. 1200 in boston, 99.1 fm in washington, d.c., and a.m. 960 in the bay area. carol: and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. in the technology section, badoo is known as a tinder-style dating app. oliver: it is also known for the company's super-sexualized parties in london. here is our editor. tell us how this app differs from the rest in the market. jeff: it is an app with about 60 million regular users, most prominently in russia. back home, at their headquarters in london, mostly what they are known for is ridiculous parties. oliver: corporate parties. jeff: yes, they are internal

parties, for the most part, but they are also used for the company as a recruiting tool, headhunters and people who work for the company. carol: define ridiculous. oliver: don't hold back, jeff. jeff: what has come out, talking to a lot of former and current employees there, is that it is pretty common for the parties to be pretty overtly sexualized, be pretty overtly sexualized, and typically towards one direction. a common trope is for there to be half-naked women dressed as mermaids or in police or carnival costumes, or being, nearly nude models being used as sushi platters with food being eaten off them. carol: your typical corporate party. [laughter] oliver: i don't know what question to pose after that. i am distracted. carol: what is the thinking behind doing these parties in this way? i know oliver is thinking this is the most interesting story,

but why this approach? jeff: the ceo told reporters that the thinking is basically just to reward staffers, many of whom are young russian men, away from home for the first time, who are working hard on the app. what we heard from headhunters and people who have worked and currently work for the company, is mostly that it is used as something of a recruiting tool. it helps the app compete for talent with some better offers from people like facebook and google. carol: how do the women feel that work there? jeff: over the past year, these parties were happening about once a week at the end of 2015, on the order of $25,000 to $45,000. they were cut down to about once a month, and according to our reporting, the reason for that is that a series of complaints were levied at hr, mostly by women, who tended to leave the company afterwards. oliver: there is a lot of questions i have here about the

money, the sort of trend that they are putting themselves in, the spotlight they are putting themselves in by doing this. let's start with the latter part because there have been a lot of high-profile sexual-harassment cases in tech companies. there have been instances within companies of these dating apps. i mean there was a conflict , between tinder and one of its co-founders, a female co-founder, who then left to start bumble, which is now partly owned by the folks at badoo. there is a lot of interesting things happening. you have also heard about uber announcing they laid off off employees due to sexual harassment claims. the people at badoo, it seems like they are playing with fire here. jeff: a really curious thing about this story here is at a time when at least some silicon valley firms are feeling chastened about their typically retrograde attitudes towards women, and trying to make at least publicly good-faith efforts to change things, this is a company that is very much kind of leaning into a boys'-club notion.

oliver: in the etc. section, a compilation of all the life lessons taken from the "how did i get here?" page. carol: you had one reporter in particular who has often talked to the ceos about how they got to that top spot. reporter: our back page is called "how did i get here?" we have done more than 100 of these pages, interviewing more than 100 chief executives, and have walked away with a lot of wisdom having done that. the first thing she says is, basically, rule number one is, getting time with these people is really hard. you have assistants whose job it is to make sure you do not get on the calendar, and then people like publicists who want you on the calendar, but do not want you on the calendar for six months, and then it is at 8:14 a.m., and then they cancel on you the day before. oliver: so when you guys have this in the back of the

magazine, there are a lot of people that say we want to get in the magazine. how did you guys decide which ceos you wanted to interview? was it about availability, or did you try to find people in offbeat industries, or up-and-coming individuals? bret: we wanted a mix. part of this is getting names on this page you are going to recognize. one we did recently was papa john schnatter, a fascinating story. we did guy fieri, one of my personal favorites. oliver: flavor town. carol: a fun guy. bret: you are looking for a mix, but you are also looking for people who are not necessarily ceos in the traditional sense, sitting in a corner office. you're looking for people who got their hands dirty, and some of the people we interviewed who had the best stories were chefs. klaus meyer, for example, these are culinary entrepreneurs. they have wonderful stories of passed-out chefs on opening night. we love talking to comedians. we talked to margaret cho, marc maron. why?

because they're funny. [laughter] carol: i bet. is there anything she came away with? she talked to men ceos, women ceos. anything she came away with on how to get to be a ceo? bret: rule number one, you have to wake up really early. anyone can be a ceo, as long as you're willing to basically get up, if you like getting up at 3:00 a.m., you're are probably primed to be a ceo. many of them do their best work between 3:00 and 6:00. what she did find is that basically a lot of the people who are ceos today have been working for 30 years, knew smart, driven, motivated people who one day picked up the phone and said, i have known you for 30 years, i trust you, do you want to be ceo of my company? oliver: it is interesting. you hear a lot about the maneuvering that has to go on, and i think it is played up a lot in the corporate hierarchy,

but at the end of the day, her honest takeaway was, just wait and surround yourselves with good people, which seems to be advice consistent among all the ceos. bret: that is right. stick it out, persevere, make friends. this is one of the rules she found in talking to people. you cannot do this alone. you are never going to get to the top without making a ton of friends, so all the people really in the corner offices have done a really good job of that. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands now. oliver: and also online at bloomberg.com. lots of good stories in this issue. where you able to pick your favorite? carol: it was the global economics story having to do with moscow and china moving into cuba, emerging nations, the caribbean nations. china is doing it for economic reasons. for russia, it may be a little more politically motivated. but this is happening as the u.s. steps back. how about you? oliver: i am going to go with joshua brustein's look at the h-1b visa program. they have been doing a great job covering it, a very heated political debate. there is some excellent data-mining here. they were able to go back, and figure what it is being used for. it makes the situation a lot more nuanced.

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