♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> good evening. i am jeff glor, filling in for charlie rose who is traveling. pbs newshour will air a new series called inside prisons .ussia the product of reporting by journalist nick schifrin and zach fannin. everything from the relationship to the u.s., to propaganda, and the fate of putin's enemies. the first episode deals with the popularity of president putin.

here is a look. >> the idea the state is more important than the people is not new. russians have had a collective identity. >> for us, it is a collective concept. we consider ourselves to be part of the whole. to be russian means to share the same cultural and historic identity. >> for years, he inspired the kremlin's ideology. he says the elected identity comes from patriotism, projection of power, and respect for rule. putin taps into all three. connecting it to its imperial grandeur. >> it is not something additional or artificial. it is not something additional or artificial because it is our breath, our skin, our organic way of life. >> today, the kremlin uses the patriotism to convince the

population and convince them that only a powerful state can protect them from enemies. enemy number one, the u.s. >> america is on the brink of the revolution. reporter: they accuse the u.s. of humiliating russia are expanding nato to russian borders and supporting revolutions in former soviet states and satellites. he advocates by fighting back against the west with asymmetric war. you talk about introducing geopolitical disorder. actively supporting dissident movements. extremism, racism this seems , much more. >> exactly. we are supporting any kind of national, including russian. you are doing the same thing against us. >> nick schifrin joins me now. i am pleased to welcome him to the program. the first part of the program is how russians see vladimir putin versus how americans see

vladimir putin. >> i think this goes to white russians, when the u.s. tax russia, russians see it as an attack on their identity. over the last 15 years, putin has brought relative stability to russia. anybody old enough to remember the 1990's will remember the economic and political chaos. that is the first step. the second step is re-creating russian traditions like the orthodox church, pre-soviet traditions, into a level of pride in shared religion and traditions. that has tapped into a collective identity that russia has long had. that means the pride russians feel, the patriotism russians feel today, yes, there is some manipulation, propaganda, and repression. but it is also a genuine perception that putin has made

the country more stable, better. russia is able to project power, and that means putin's popularity is genuine. >> it is nostalgia. >> it is imperial grandeur. some would call it imperial delusion tapping into russia's imperial history. it is legitimate in the sense that you have russian traditions, russian religion, the orthodox church, and a real sense of the ability to project power. that is fundamental to the russian identity and putin brought that back. >> the combination of the old and the new area what new things is he doing to maintain that level of support which is overwhelming? >> it is. it is not quite 90% like it was right after crimea, but it is still city percent or 70%. things like crimea, syria are able to convince russians that putin is strong, respected on the international stage, and can project russian power.

a lot of that is propaganda. you get an echo of the points on russian tv with anchors saying putin is strong and everyone is weak. part of it is that. but they do see that russia has a huge part to play in the middle east. >> russian television, americans get a bit of that through rt. >> there are two parts of this. one is the propaganda machine in russia. it has gone through different messages and changes, but the consistency is this. we have to rally around russia, and there are lots of enemies. right now the message is russia may not be great, but the west is not great either and you should support us. you should support the government because you need strength right now. the second part is the external focus, rt, sputnik. and the head of rt and the most

popular anchor in russia admits information is a weapon and they have aimed it at russia's in these. -- russia's enemies. that means trying to destabilize the west through propaganda campaigns. the propaganda campaigns went far into the united states. president trump certainly echoes some of those propaganda points. >> information has been weaponized. cyber warfare has been weaponized. >> it is one and the same. the russians do not see it differently. early last year, there was a fake story about the so-called rape of a german-russian girl. it was fake. the russian media knew that it was fake. the russian foreign minister knew it was fake but used it as a tool against german chancellor angela merkel. you have a real notion all of this combined, whether diplomacy, information, you can use all of the tools at your disposal to try to weaken your enemy.

>> there is economic suffering in russia. i wonder how the putin administration fends off any negative discussion of that. >> this is where you see a generational divide. this is what we are seeing in the last few months. a lot of people say the 90's were worse. and maybe the economy is not so great, but putin has brought stability. you have a younger generation saying, why are there potholes in the road if we are in crimea? why is my life not better? that is what the lead opposition figure has tapped into. he says these people are crooks and thieves taking your money. the younger generation agrees. they say we are not as rich as we should be. the older generation is holding on to the notion of the russian identity. >> let's talk about the opposition. where is it and is it growing?

>> it is growing in the sense that 2/3 of the country now believes corruption is the number one problem. that is a sea change. that is not something we would have got nine months ago. he is a 41-year-old prominent politician. a lot of people who are young really like him. he goes to these events and takes selfies with hundreds of people. he speaks their language. there's probably a ceiling to his popularity. partly generational. partly urban, liberal, higher educated russians will be listening to him whereas the other part of the country will be listening to propaganda in the evening. but he is growing in popularity. the kremlin takes him very seriously. he is beginning to change people's perceptions. >> how much does vladimir putin dictate how popular you can become? >> an activist and author about russia has a good sense on whether putin is this massive manipulator.

she says there are emanations that come from the kremlin, that come from the top. it is almost shakespearean. how much control putin has directly in everything, we don't know. we are just guessing. but the system is clearly very much a product of what he and the kremlin and his loyal lieutenants want. right now, there are a lot of efforts to try to discredit him. one of them is president putin never mentions his name, tries not to take him seriously even though the police take him seriously and oligarchs take it seriously. the structures of the state are taking him seriously even if the president pretends he is not. >> vladimir putin has been battling terrorism in his own

country ever since he assumed office in 1999. i know you did some reporting on that. what is the state of what is happening now? >> you have a few examples of that. one is ideologically for russia, that is exactly what they want us to talk about. this is a grand bargain, whether it starts in the southwest corner of syria. this is a civilizational battle to say we need to come together. more locally, they have had to deal with local incidents in st. petersburg recently and moscow before of terrorism. down south, one of the republics on russia's southern border, the insurgency is not that hot. right next to chechnya. it is not that violent now, but there's a huge amount of police and security services present. a lot of what critics call

brutal tactics. that has led to an exodus of some of these fighters to isis. russia is doing everything it can to make sure those people do not come back. a lot of them tell us that right before the 2014 olympics, russian security services facilitated some of their travel to syria to get them out of russia. dagestan is safer. chechnya is safer. whether syria and iraq are safer is another question. >> where does vladimir putin want people in the west to believe he is on ice is now? -- isis right now? >> i think it is relatively genuine when he says we are fighting a civilizational war and isis is the enemy. the technicalities in syria are another question. there are a lot of people in this administration who say

russian jets are not attacking isis. russian jets are attacking whoever is russia's enemy that day and propping up the assad regime. overall, pressure presents itself as an enemy to isis and is trying to align itself with the u.s. on that basis. >> what do people in russia think about donald trump? >> they are disappointed. >> in what way? >> they heard a candidate who said we will not meddle in syria or elsewhere. we will not meddle in other people's backyards, whose that i love putin. he says nice things about me, i will say nice things about him. i think the bombing of syria convinced russians that trump is just another republican president. and there is disappointment he has not been able to deliver on what candidate trump on russian

tv seem to suggest, which was a better bilateral relationship, and that has not happened. most russia watchers say this is one of the most tense moments between the countries in decades. >> fascinating series on "pbs newshour." thank you so much. ♪

♪ >> the trump administration grapples with north korea. there is also trouble brewing between some of america's allies half a world away. a saudi led blockade of qatar is now entering its second month. saudi arabia, egypt, bahrain, and the united arab emirates have accused qatar of supporting terror groups. qatar rejected a long list of demands that included cutting ties to the muslim brotherhood, distancing itself from iran, and closing al jazeera. joining me now from washington is steven cook with the council on foreign relations. good to see you. a lot of this comes down to what the saudis say is terrorism. that is hard to define, isn't it?

>> it is hard to define. i think it is clear the qataris have coordinated and given safe haven to groups that have engaged in terrorist activity and violence around the region. it is one of the chief complaints. the saudis do not have a good track record on this issue either. it seems there is more going on than just the question of the qataris' position with regard to the muslim brotherhood. >> the saudis say it is terrorism. this has been simmering for quite some time. >> that is absolutely right. you have to look at this crisis in a broader historical context in which these three countries and the ruling families of these

countries do not see eye to eye on things. in 1995, they tried to engineer a coup that would overthrow the current emir's father and install their own government more friendly to the saudis and emirates and be in alignment with his organization that encompasses all these gulf states in which the qataris would essentially toed the saudi line. the qataris have resisted that and wanted to pursue more independent foreign policy. >> what is rex tillerson trying to do? >> he is trying to manage this conflict. he is working with the kuwaitis who have positioned themselves

as the gulf mediator in the conflict. the conflict puts the united states in an awkward position. qatar hosts the largest u.s. military base in the region. it is the place from which the united states runs the campaign against the islamic state. yet, others are critical partners of the united states. tillerson is looking for something in those 13 demands that the qataris have said are nonnegotiable and others have said are nonnegotiable that he can work with. my sense is they are trying to figure out parts of those demands the qataris can work with. that can be u.s. conditions that all of the parties can agree to. thus far, no one has been willing to budge.

the qataris have said we are willing to talk about some of these things, but not until you lift the blockade. we will not negotiate under a blockade. the saudis and egyptians have said these are nonnegotiable items. you have rejected these demands. they are now void, and we will pursue other policies to isolate qatar in the region and beyond. >> this is a big and odd laundry list of demands. some would seem to be nonstarters. >> eight of them are complete nonstarters and the other five are nonstarters from the perspective of the qataris. shutting down al jazeera is something the qataris could not possibly do. al jazeera is a source of the country's influence not just in the region but around the world. to pay compensation to victims

of things, the qataris -- to whom? what is the evidence the other countries bring to the table to end its ties with iran? it turns out these other countries also have outside ties to iran. for all the business the qataris have done with the iranians with whom they share one of the largest domes of gas, dubai banks are also doing lots of business with the iranians. that is not to defend the qataris. that is just to point out that some of the demands from the qatari perspective are nonnegotiable and ripe with hypocrisy. >> can you talk about the gcc? you mentioned iran as it relates to originally iran, iraq, and the war, and how that has developed in the gulf. >> the gcc was founded in the 1980's at the behest of the

united states in the aftermath of the iranian revolution. this was a way in which the united states could coordinate security in the region. most of the security coordination has been at the bilateral level. but it gave a structure for the united states to work with all of these different countries. it has been a difficult group. they have not been willing to coordinate security amongst themselves until quite recently. they have preferred to work bilaterally with the united states. there was a level of coordination and a way for the united states and british and other allies to work with the gulf as a whole. recently, the saudis, the bahrainis started coordinate

more on the military front. you see that in their mission in yemen which has not gone very well, but nevertheless they point to as a maturation of the gcc and willingness of some of the states to work together militarily. >> as it relates to the gulf cooperation council, how much of this dramatic announced blockade was the saudis being emboldened by the visit from the president? >> if you talk to officials in the gulf, they say this is something brewing for quite some time. they decided to take the action when they did because they did not want to do it before president trump visited saudi arabia. they felt they had to give him the opportunity to come and say what he had to say in late may.

but when that was over, they decided from their perspective there was an accumulation of things the qataris had done, that they had not adhered to a 2014 agreement concerning the muslim brotherhood, al jazeera, and other issues. thus, it was time to take this step. of course, they were very pleased with what president trump said in riyadh. and they do feel they have the president's support. if you look at the readout of phone calls the president has had with the crown prince of abu dhabi, who is influential in this, or with the egyptian president, he does say he supports, the president supports the unity of the gulf in the resolution of this crisis. but he makes it clear countering extremism and terrorism should be the first priority.

that suggests to people in the region that the president is more supportive of the saudi side in the conflict than the qatari side. >> are the saudis and emirates overestimating how much pressure the u.s. can put given the importance of the base? >> i think they miscalculated. i think they believed the qataris would cave quickly and not have options. the qataris have vast resources. this is the wealthiest country on a per capita basis in the world. they have vast resources at their disposal. there is the fact of the airbase, which is incredibly important to the pentagon and american military operations

around the region. they have demonstrated they have some options. the turkish government moved quickly to express its support for the qataris, to indicate it believed the demands on qatar were unjust, and importantly established an air bridge from turkey to qatar. iranians have taken advantage of this situation and early on flu about 500 tons of food in. it is not clear the qataris and iranians can have a strong relationships the same way the qataris and turks do, but thus far the qataris believe they can withstand the blockade and look at it as an existential threat. early on, they said this is an effort to overthrow the qatari government and undermine the state's sovereignty. >> qatar wants to manage iran

because they share energy reserves? >> that is certainly part of it. the dome of gas, qatar is the third-largest producer, exporter of natural gas in the world. they share this huge dome of gas with the iranians. by definition, they have to seek cooperation there. they also recognize these are very small countries on the arab side of the gulf and iran is a very large country with a long history. rolling it back, defeating it in some way is practically impossible. better to work with the iranians, try to find areas of cooperation. of course, the qataris are on opposite sides from iran on a variety of issues. notably, syria where the qataris have coordinated and allegedly provided support for extremist groups fighting the assad regime.

>> how much of this is the new crown prince in saudi arabia asking for a reset? >> certainly, king salman's son who recently moved up from deputy crown prince to crown prince is seeking a more active saudi role in the region. you see that in yemen, saudi arabia's intervention in yemen in 2015. you see it in a more assertive policy with regard to iran. and you see less deference to american wishes and interests. you saw that certainly at the end of the obama administration. previously, saudi leaders wanted to establish consensus in the region first, work with the united states, rely on the

united states. he clearly sees a leadership role for saudi arabia in the region. >> it strikes a lot of people that as difficult as the relationships qatar is trying to manage are right now, as long as they have the u.s. airbase, they have, no pun intended, the trump card. >> i think that is true. when this began a little more than a month ago, it was clear they were going to use that card. that base is important to the united states. it is clear the qataris are worried about their neighbors, their sovereignty, who the rulers are. they see the base as an ultimate guarantor of their sovereignty.

the pentagon has long wanted a second runway at the airbase. and guess what? the qataris are building a and guess what? the qataris are building a second runway for the pentagon. >> how does this end? >> i think it is going to go on for longer than everybody anticipated. the moroccan these are already signaling that they are willing to turn their back on the qataris and see them go their own way and out of the gcc. that may be in fact one ending of this, that the qataris do go their own way and find their way with a different set of relationships around the world, one that certainly includes the united states, turkey, perhaps a different kind of relationship with iran. there are other arab states that are opposed to what this group of four countries is doing to qatar.

so it is possible that they will do that. the other possible ending is some sort of negotiated solution, where secretary of state tillerson presents a list of american demands or american conditions that all of the parties need to agree to. regardless whether that happens or not, the qataris are going to be isolated from the region. there is too much mistrust now among the leaders of these countries for them to repair the relationship in a way where there is constructive cooperation, common interest, hat the saudis and him are others will be willing to work together. this is something american policymakers ought to get used to going forward. they have this ally called qatar

that is essentially isolated from its surrounding region. given the size of the airbase, given the commitments the saudis and others that they will not disrupt the airbase, it is something the united states can manage, but at the same time, a weakened gcc is a problem for the united states because it provides all kinds of opportunities for the iranians. >> part of the middle east is broken, and however it ends, it looks like at the end of this, it will not look the same as the way it did before. >> that is right. >> stephen cook, i appreciate your time. >> thanks very much. ♪

♪ here, thessberg is influential personal technology columnist retired this month. he first pitched his column to the wall street journal in 1991, predicting the rise of personal computing. loss berg was an early advocate for non-techies. mossberg was an early -techies.for non-taxi he criticized products that were overly complex. his reviews were often unsparing and prompted complaints to modified their designs. he came to be widely revered by the tech committee, interviewing steve jobs, bill gates, elon musk. in 2004, he was called the kingmaker. i am pleased to have them back at the table. welcome. >> i am glad to be here. retired. charlie: when you hear that

word, does it fit? >> it depends on who you are talking about. i feel very comfortable with it. i really think of it -- and i explained this when i announced it -- as a reinvention. that is not some kind of rhetorical dodge. i think every so often, you have to reinvent yourself. when i say i am retiring, it means i am not going to have a regular job, but i am not going to stop doing things. i am going to do some different things. charlie: let us do a little bit of the history. you have been a frequent guest on the show and have often given us a direction as to where technology is going. 1991, you go to the wall street journal and say what? >> well, i went to the managing editor of the wall street journal, a guy named norm pearlstein, he has gone on to do other wonderful things -- i had a great job. i was the national security reporter based out of washington, covering the secretary of state and the intelligence community when we were about to win the cold war. i said i don't want to do this anymore.

i want to write a weekly column about computers and technology. the managing editor thought that was a great idea. i explained what you said, that wanted to champion average people and be critical of the industry. he let me do it. but i later found out there was a big fight in the journal about a, whether to let somebody expressed such strong opinions in the paper, particularly about potential advertisers, and b, whether technology was important enough to justify a column. charlie: i love your first line, though. "personal computers are just so hard to use and it is not your fault." you came down on the side of the user early. >> right, and that line was meant to both criticize the industry and provide guilt relief, because if you think back to those days, people -- if they could not get the thing to work, they blamed themselves

instead of blaming, you know, the company that made it. whereas, if you're refrigerator your refrigerator broke, you thought kenmore did something wrong. but if you could not boot up your windows pc, you did not blame microsoft. you thought you were dumb. the first line was very deliberate. charlie: the difference to why apple -- i assume you asked steve about this or his successors, why they never gave instructions about their products? walt: because they believe they are intuitive, and they probably overestimate that on some of their products. some, not so much, but others, yes. sometimes, they gave a tiny brochure with a few little pictures, but drawings of what to do, but you are right. the instruction manual was something they thought, if you needed it, there was something wrong. charlie: after personal computers, what was it that you think drove this remarkable transformation of the way we

live our lives? walt: i think there have been three big -- a million wonderful, interesting products and a lot of junk, but there have been three big things. first was a personal computer, which by the time i started writing about it was around, but had not been democratized, so the personal computer. the second thing, the world wide web. which was the mid-1990's, 1994-1995 was when most people began to have access to it. caroline: we are talking about a little over 20 years? walt: yeah, this whole thing, charlie, starting with the very first mainstream personal computers, is 40 years. that is it. compare it to the railroads, to the auto industry, the oil industry, the textile industry -- charlie: the most transformative sector of our economy. walt: is 40 years old. and the internet part, the world wide web part, is about 20 years old.

that was the second big thing. the third big thing was mobile, starting with the iphone in 2007. which you and i have talked about before on this show, which i think has put a computer in the pocket of -- a really powerful computer, far more powerful than the old desktops, in your pocket. android following on so 2 billion people, 3 billion people have these things now. caroline: we want to talk about a lot of other things. we want to talk about artificial intelligence, specifically, machine learning. walt: augmented reality. charlie: all of those kind of things is where the future is. apps. how predominant apps are in our life. but think about the people you have known. this industry is, you know, famous for some really high profile people. well-known, often on the cover of magazines. steve jobs, bill gates, and

andy grove larry page. , walt: yeah. sergey brin jeff , bezos. walt: i know him. charlie: probably viewed as the most competent businessman in the world today, and by every test. warren buffett at the berkshire hathaway meeting this year did a shout out to jeff, basically saying that there is nobody that has done what he has done, to build two great big companies under one roof. amazon and enterprise services. and the retail. and prime. walt: right. and not to mention, on the side, saving the washington post. the reminds me a little bit of steve jobs, in the sense that, you know, what people don't credit him with is that he save doubtful, he founded apple, then he came back and saved it. then he was running pixar, with

which was kind of his left hand, or right hand. i once said to him, -- and remember, pixar had run off a string of the biggest hits in hollywood for a period of some years there, and won all these oscars and everything -- and i said, "when do you have time to ?"n pixar he said, "i do that on friday." when you use to going to a computer store -- charlie: by square footage, some of the most profitable stores in the world. walt: maybe the most profitable stores. on fifth avenue, it takes in more per square foot than i think tiffany's. he was hugely involved in that. caroline: was he the most interesting for you all of them? walt: he and bill kind of tie in my mind. they are super different people, but very interesting. jeff, very interesting. what i was going to say about jeff is, he reminds me of steve because he is doing retail, he is doing space -- caroline: he is doing hollywood?

walt: hollywood with "transparent." the other things he is making for amazon prime. he owns the washington post. he is extremely active, curious. he just is involved in a lot. somewhere in there. that is my guess. charlie: probably will be the richest person in the world. walt: that does not matter very much to him. charlie: i'm not saying it matters, but it is a fact, a factoid. walt: when i first went into bill gates's office, and he was at the time the richest person in the world, and still is probably today, i realized i was dressed better than he was, and i am not a good dresser. i don't even wear a jacket unless i am going on your show. you know, i just thought "well, if he can dress this way, so can i." caroline: he left it to do even greater things.

he will be remembered more for what he is doing in global health. walt: i think he will. charlie: than for creating microsoft. walt: i know you know him well. we just had him on our the conference, not the one i just finished, but a year ago. he and melinda came, and we did not talk about the technology industry at all. we talked about foundation and education and health. caroline: the main thing about him and melinda, it really is a partnership. he now has a lot of responsibilities. but she really led the way. as he gives her credit and warren buffett gives her credit all the time. walt: i give her credit, too. i actually knew her before they were a couple, when she was just a product manager at microsoft. she was very smart the whole time i knew her. and still no her. caroline: what about larry and sergei today? walt: sergei pursues whatever he wants. i do not think he is interested

in the day-to-day running of out is the umbrella company they have created that covers google and other things. larry is an active ceo of this alphabet company, but he is not the ceo of google anymore. a very smart, very nice guy who i have high regard for is the ceo of google. and he reports up to larry. but they, you know, look, i knew them before they had the big jets and all that stuff. and they, just like gates, just like steve jobs, just like jeff, they had a great idea. in their case, they were, you know, engineers, and they invented something that was radically better -- the search engine i am talking about, radically better than anything else. all the other things they do, android and all the other many things they do, came afterward, but they cracked the case sort of on how do you search?

charlie: and how do you create advertising? walt: yeah. charlie: so there is mobile and there is artificial intelligence now. walt: that is where we are heading. we have a little bit of it now. charlie: you say there is a kind of lull now. walt: there is. here is what i think is going on. so i think the activity in the labs of all these companies -- and by the way, of companies we do not even know the names of yet, that are probably sitting in warehouses -- literally, this is how it is in silicon valley. these guys and women are in warehouses making this stuff, and they do not hang a sign outside so you know who they are. but the big companies in these other people, everything in the lab is running on all cylinders. they are working on artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, autonomous driving, augmented reality, and virtual reality, but i think augmented reality is going to be bigger. that is where you see virtual

objects, but you also are seeing what is really in front of you through your glasses. i would be seeing you, but there might be something that does not exist on the table in front of us that we both could see that maybe to viewers could see and we could talk about. all of that stuff is going on in the labs. what is happening, what i call the lull, is not much that is game changing is hitting the market place right now, because this is going to take some time. i asked bezos last year in an interview, when he had just brought up the amazon echo, i said, "are we in the first inning of this?" he said "no, we are in the first batter who has come up to the plate in the first inning. that is how early this is." charlie: the game just started. walt: they have said this is about a 10 year thing for us to get this ai and machine learning down. they are all using it in small ways.

if you look at your phone, whatever phone you use, it uses it to tell you how long your commute is, or like on an iphone, if there is an address in an email, it will offer to show you directions to that place. it knows it is an address. it no something else is a phone number. it knows -- it will say "this person is not your contact, but we recognize it from your email." so that is a very crude, early form of artificial intelligence. so early and so crude. charlie: is there going to be some dominant one? is it going to be a race between apple, who has a new home pod or whatever they call it, echo, which is what amazon calls it, google has -- walt: google home. yeah, there will be a competition between those devices. caroline: one will come out the best, or will they always use a multiple number? walt: i don't know. it kind of depends on the

ecosystems you have locked yourself into. if all of your photos -- so, if you carry an android phone, all your photos are in google photos, all your music is in google play music, you might prefer the google one. if you are using amazon's various services, you might prefer the echo. if you are into apple photos and icloud and all that stuff, the apple one might be the one. i want to repeat. even these things are just, just the first thing. we are heading for what i believe, what i call ambient computing. we are heading for the computer to disappear. i'm not even sure. i'm pretty sure we will have phones in 10 years. i'm not sure we will than 20 years. i think the walls come the carpets, and our clothing will all have sensors and connections

to the cloud coprocessors. charlie: it may tell us what we want to know before we know we want to know it? walt: yeah, the best analogy i can think of is about star trek and how they could just talk into the air and the computer would answer all their questions and throw up visuals on a big screen. you know, i think that is really where we are heading. charlie: if we really are going to turn over our homes, our cars, our health and more to private tech companies, on a scale never imagined, we need much, much stronger standards for security and privacy than now exists, especially in the u.s. it is time to stop dancing around the privacy and security issues and pass real, binding laws. walt: yes. i wrote that. caroline: yes you did. walt: and therefore i believe it. charlie: do you expect it to happen? walt: not with this congress. i mean, they can barely get anything passed. yes, before ambient computing takes over, we have got a little

while, somebody in the u.s. government has got to get serious and pass laws that actually address the world we are in now. and by the way, i am not talking about micromanaging, over regulating, and all this other stuff. but i am talking about providing some guardrails that give both consumers and, by the way, the industry -- caroline: you think companies like facebook are facing up to this? walt: i think they are -- charlie: beginning to recognize? walt: beginning to recognize this and getting a little better. i think they have a ways to go. charlie: why are they resistant? walt: i mean, you know, some bit of it is, in fairness to them, they do not want to overstep and be censoring things and making judgments on their own. i think, also, you know, they are not -- my criticism of them is they actually are a media company and publisher of things. they do not see themselves that way. they see themselves as some sort of common carrier. .aroline: some type of platform

walt: but they do business deals with publishers and tv networks and so forth, so i just think they have to step up more. charlie: what else do you worry about? invasion of privacy? walt: you know, it has huge -- i worry about the follow-on consequences like health insurers knowing things about your private health information that will cause them to deny you coverage or raise your rates. employers may be not wanting to hire you because -- charlie: they have information -- walt: information that you didn't know they had. then there is the whole security side. i am very concerned about the weaponization of hacking by russia, by north korea, by other countries. we still do not know -- we are still in the midst of trying to figure out just how badly they interfered with our election. charlie: it is more than that.

if you talk to people at the major corporations or at the defense department, there are efforts made many times a day to hack into issues that are central to what they do. walt: i agree. we need to figure out a path to secure our country, which is every single day increasingly an online country, without trampling on civil liberties. it is not an easy thing. and i am not trying to say it is easy. it is easy for me to write it. it is hard for people to come to grips with it and do it, but we have to. charlie: conferences. everybody has a conference. you guys were in early, andrew and drew the best talent, certainly within the tech world. walt: thank you. charlie: everybody wanted to come. you had steve jobs and bill

gates on the same platform. you don't see them that often. where does that world stand? walt: well of all, i did not do , first it alone. i did it with my great partner, you also know, and where it stands is, like every thing else in media, there is a lot of new competitors, a lot of competition. we just finished, what i think, was a very successful iteration of our conference a couple of weeks ago. charlie: you interviewed hillary clinton. walt: hillary clinton was one of the interviews, and we had others. it goes for about three days. you know, we just have to -- charlie: do people come to hear things or network? walt: both. we try to accommodate both. i think one of the changes, if you go back to 2003, was there was still a lot of networking, but we did not build out the spaces for networking and the time for networking as well as

we might have, and now we do. now, we have more of a balance between what goes on on stage, and what goes on off stage. charlie: what we have seen with computers is the proliferation of data, and a lot of people mine data and therefore give people decision points they never had before. walt: yeah, i mean if you go to a biotech company now, you might expect to walk in and see a labs, normal labs with tissue and they do have the -- that, but lots of maybe most of the floor space in these companies are computers and servers worrying away, trying to analyze molecules, trying to look at this data, trying to correlate patterns, and that is the hope for discovering new drugs. charlie: so the future is a sense of -- you know, you move to another stage of life.

numerous successful stages now, and the evolution continues. so part of this amazing world that you first began reporting on in 1991. walt: yeah, i'm going to try to reinvent myself one more time. i have done it a few times, and i'm going to try to do it one more time. charlie: and you don't know what that will be exactly? walt: i will tell you to bring a few things. there may be 10 things. this is in addition to spending more time with my wife and my family, my little granddaughter, that i'm going to try to write a book. i think i have seen a lot of, like you said, i have known a lot of these people, i have seen a lot of interesting things. charlie: i remember your story about steve jobs calling you at 12:00, complaining about something you had written in the next morning's paper. walt: yeah, so i'm going to try to write a book. charlie: we you come back and tell us about it? will if you call me, i

come. charlie: thank you for joining us. sue . ♪ see you next time. ♪

♪ alisa: i am alisa parenti and you are watching "bloomberg technology." donald trump, jr., has turned to twitter to defend himself about his meeting with a russian lawyer. the president's eldest son, who said he was told the attorney had damaging information about "obviouslynton wrote i am the first person on the campaign to take a meeting to hear info about an opponent. went nowhere, but had to listen." a spokesperson said the only inappropriate aspect of the meeting is that details of it were leaked to the media. the senate intelligence committee will meet with trump campaign officials as part of