carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." in closing -- a lot coming up in this week's issue, including a possible trade war. we are talking about the battle between u.s. and china. jason: we go inside volkswagen. carol: i love the story. we talk about the cost of becoming the first billion-dollar athlete. you know who we are talking about. jason: tiger woods. carol: yes we are. >> all of that is -- jason: tiger woods. that is ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

>> we are here with the editor-in-chief of bloomberg businessweek. we have to start with remarks this week. it is my favorite story. i feel like it is a must read here. it is a history lesson about the relationship between u.s. and china and the role the u.s. has played in developing the china we know today. >> as with any good history story, we must try and look forward a bit. i think it helps connect dots. this is why it is a must-read. this is a skirmish right now that could very well escalate into a trade war. but there is a bigger conversation about what is our relationship with china supposed to be and how has that changed. >> and how has it changed. you go through the history, but it informs where we are at this moment and what is at stake. >> yes. that gets to where we might go. keep in mind, china was viewed as a backwater not that long ago, and the west basically brought it online. as a result, it has made china

actually pretty wealthy. but we are seeing from the trump administration now is trying to walk a bit of that back. maybe they came along at our expense, right? so that is where the trade war talk and all the tariffs and all of that are rooted in. what is our relationship going to be like with them going forward? will we be partners or is this an adversarial relationship? carol: what the u.s. does in terms of its actions, how president trump treats china going forward, this could be potentially lead to another cold war. >> it could and it could happen quickly because of mistakes. -- the stakes. the skirmish right now involves a tit-for-tat. sort of if you put a tariff on , that, we will do a tariff. as we see these things evolve, it becomes a matter of, is that going to ratchet up? think --rk just a cute

pork just a cute thing that we will put out there and here is some bacon, we will distract you? or is it going to become a fullk on cold war? jason: the other interesting element is that we talk a lot about economics, but politics as well. while you are having these discussions around trade, you also have this geopolitical element, not the least of which is north korea where president xi welcomed the leader last week. >> correct. this is how when we look at business and what we try to do with businessweek is the intersection of all of this. you can't look at these in isolation. they are interconnected. you start pulling on one thread and it affects something somewhere else. we have a global supply chain and everything is connected now. how politics and economics and everything -- this is why this issue is a must-read. carol: i love that you said you can't look at anything in isolation. having said that china is big , about promoting its own interest. it has its own long-term plan and nothing seems to remove them from that. >> that is why this collision is happening.

you have a trump make america great nationalist agenda running against xi's and china's. both of those things are intended to be long-term visions, and i don't see either of those visions being anything that anyone is going to take a foot off the accelerator. carol: no. jason: what a brilliant transition to the volkswagen story. three years since the omissions scandal -- emissions scandal. the cover itself is eye-popping with a car emerging from an explosion. what is happening at volkswagen? >> this is an incredible story. >> volkswagen, three years ago, dieselgate almost brought the company down. right. this was a huge scandal. it ended up costing them almost $15 billion in the u.s. alone. three years later, they almost turned a corner. where the company has gone in that time is remarkable, and that is why we made it the cover.

volkswagen's great escape, how did they get away from this? carol: it is such a bmx, right right?moth, it still has a lot to go before it's fully out of this scandal. >> absolutely. it has a firm grip on being the world's number one automaker. they have a number of brands. this diesel problem has almost been contained. they have been proving they can be a force to be reckoned with with electric vehicles. the growth in china they have seen, in asia, they have fended off toyota and have a hold on firmly -- firmly have a hold on this number one position. carol: we have more on volkswagen from matthew campbell. >> volkswagen had used software to make around 11 million diesel powered cars look cleaner than they were. what happened is that these cars would go into an emissions test scenario and start running in a different way from how they run on the road. that meant cars were actually emitting more nitrogen oxide

than they were supposed to. that of course contributes to smog respiratory problems, , potentially premature death, the rest of it. this was one of the biggest scandals in the history of the auto industry, and the auto industry has had more than its share of scandals. but it was really bad carol: the . cost alone. we are talking billions of dollars in terms of litigation. 11 million vehicles were affected. >> the best estimate for the cost at this point is about $30 billion. that is an extraordinary amount of money. it is an amount of money that volkswagen, with its huge scale, can afford it. if you look at bp, their costs for deepwater horizon are at about $65 billion. volkswagen still has a long way to go to match that record. jason: in many ways a case study from a public relations perspective, at least in the early days of the scandal, of

what not what to do. they said at first it was just a rogue element, a small number of people, and then it just widened and widened, and they could not get ahead of it. >> as often happens when something like this occurs at a large company, the initial message was very much this was the work of a few bad actors. we will assess what occurred, punish those responsible, and move on, but of course, the bad news didn't stop. the number of models believed to have been affected kept going. a lot of people in the community -- investor community felt these explanations were inadequate, that it had to have been more systemic than a few people in the company trying to alter car performances on the test. really come it ended up cleaning the bennett -- really it ended up claiming the then ceo took a , huge amount off of volkswagen market value and the shattering damage to the brand.

that damage has in many cases amazingly now been repaired. , jason: you mentioned the .ncoming ceo where is he now and what has he done with the company to stabilize it? >> volkswagen has recovered in terms of profit. it has largely recovered in terms of its share price. it is selling lots of cars, particularly in china but also in lots of other places of course. it is a company back on the front foot, and the front foot is increasingly electric vehicles. matthias muller, who was brought battlefieldof a promotion -- in sort of a battlefield promotion to take over during the crisis, has unveiled what is the most ambitious electric vehicle program in the global auto industry. volkswagen has said that it will have electric or hybrid versions of every one of its cars. it would do this by 2030. that is over 20 car models, so

that is a huge endeavor. they are spending tens of billions of dollars on batteries, new production for electric vehicles, and they are taking this extremely seriously. this is the new volkswagen. the new volkswagen is going to be about ev's. carol: it is all about ev's, but that is going to be in a few years. i understand the money, time, effort they are putting into it, but they are still a diesel car company. that is their bread and butter. >> that is right. there is a slightly ironic situation here, which is that volkswagen is laying the groundwork for sound huge numbers of ev's at this time. for now, many ev's are not particularly profitable. batteries are expensive. elon musk and others are trying to bring the cost under control and they are making progress, but it will be a while. in the near-term, automakers --vw, and also the other job automakers need to sell diesel. diesel cars perform rather well on carbon emissions. in europe, which is their most

important market, carbon is what the regulators are interested in. carbon as historically being the most important regulatory metric. they need to keep selling diesels even though they have a terrible reputation at the moment. carol: chris put volkswagen on the cover of bloomberg businessweek. >> obviously a lot of both did not really think volkswagen could make a comeback from this huge scandal. we wanted the cover to get at the very dramatic return they have had to success. and so we kind of played on this action movie trope of the fire ball and car flying threat. -- flying through it. it is provocative, because it points to this is a dramatic chapter for this company and also the time where there is big existential questions about the auto industry. it is fascinating. >> yeah definitely. , the cover will grab you. people aren't quite thinking about volkswagen, but i think this will bring them back into the conversation. carol: did you have ideas or was it this is what we want to do?

>> we had an idea for the feature of playing with a flower and tailpipe. which i think gets that more the -- at more the electric car side of the story, but this one plays at the dramatic comeback. >> up next we head to the u.k. ,carol: where we uncovered a secret plot to reverse brexit. >> this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ ♪

carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. jason: you can find us online at businessweek.com. carol: and the politics section, i love the story. it is about a secretive group in the u.k. trying to derail the plans for brexit. jason: i love that we are inside the room here. we going to talk to the editor, matthew philips. >> check out the de facto leader

of this plot to stop brexit. they have been meeting in secret for months every week, and they are coming out of the woodwork, coming public with their campaign, because for the first time they actually feel like they have a chance to stop this thing. jason: where does the confidence come from? tell us about that. >> one, brits are starting to realize what this is going to look like. what brexit is actually going to look like. by most accounts, it is going to lower gdp, and theresa may suffered two very bad defeats. one, when she called the election last june and lost seats, and when members of her own party in december turned against her. 11 members of the tory party went against her in a crucial vote in december that sets up this make or break vote in october. it allowed lawmakers to get a vote on the contours of this

brexit deal that she is able to negotiate with the e.u. so it can't just be her ramming through her policies. she actually has to get buy-in from her own party, and that changes the game. jason: he is an interesting figure. tell us about where he came from and what his role may be in these last few months up to october. >> he is -- i don't know that he likes this nickname, but he is in some circles known as the british obama. his father is nigerian. his mother has irish and british ancestry. he is kind of a centrist in the tony blair sense of things. he is not a progressive leftist as jeremy corbyn, nor is he a hard right tory. he's right in the middle and has been very early -- this is some

thing that he was pushing two years ago as they were moving in 2016.e brexit vote he was in the remaining camp. carol: it's not just a remaining guys and gals getting together every wednesday morning. these are guys who are actually -- this group is meeting with european leaders, e.u. officials. they are kind of talking behind the scenes. >> they have kind of emerged as this crucial back channel to european leaders all over the continent who are kind of privately -- very publicly that e.u. has to be a very hard in their negotiations with theresa may, because they can't show any willingness to join. privately, they are open to softening this. he has become their preferred back channel. they are going around to brussels, they are meeting with high-level negotiators, and leaders in capitals all over the continent.

what they are getting is what they are calling the evolution clause. which is, look, if theresa may suggests publicly her willingness to back down on some of these hard lines, then the e.u. would work with her. he has emerged as the preferred back channel to some of that. it's very interesting. carol: talk to us about the timetable. we know theresa may has been meeting with european officials and getting ready for the final brexit plan. you have u.k. lawmakers getting ready to vote in october. that is an important date. >> right. this is all in the run-up to october, and the remainers have centralized location. they are all in the same office not far from parliament in this high-rise. they are planning for a super aggressive campaign over the spring and summer to stop this from happening and try to water

down this deal and it is leading , up to this vote in october. they will try to pick off conservative members of parliament and force them into a situation that will have them defying their leader. whether that looks like calling for a new referendum, whether that looks like calling for an entirely new election, whether that looks like working around the margins of this deal to soften it it's unclear what that , ultimately looks like, but it's not made theresa may's job any easier. that is for sure. next, warren buffett's inspiration to tackling big deficits. jason: central banks around the globe hunting for a new reserve currency. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ ♪

jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am jason kelly. carol: you can also listen to us

on radio. and on a.m. 11 30 in new york, 1061 in boston, and i am 960 in the bay area. jason: and in london and asia. in the economics section, we have peter talking about new, actually old ideas about ballooning trade deficits and how to fight them. >> warren buffett has talked about it. it's about auctioning off access to countries' domestic markets. here's peter. peter right now, we have 4% : unemployment, which is about as low as it ever gets. it would seem on the surface that the trade is a less serious problem for the u.s., then you have a president who has made this a campaign issue. carol: you're going to have trade deficits and trade surpluses, that is kind of the way it works. you hope it bounces out -- t, but if you look at

the u.s., they have had a trade deficit ongoing year after year. maybe it is worth taking a look at. >> it 100% is worth paying attention to. and with the president on that top to bottom. the question is what do you do? that is where the division comes. so trump's approach is about tarrifs and calling out cheaters. that is the word he uses again and again. in his mind you have problem, trade deficit, solution, get the cheaters. what i am actually saying is that it is actually more complicated than that. there are cases where you could have no trade deficit with a country, even though the country is cheating. let's take china. the trade deficit with china has come down a bit, but the problems with china are real. let's say they are stealing u.s. intellectual property. they are. there could be a change in the composition of trade with china, where suddenly we would be slipping low value stuff to them and they add more value-added stuff to us.

conversely, you could have a trade deficit with a country even though it is behaving perfectly honestly. so i think we need to break the linkage between cheating and deficits. jason: what would you propose? peter it is not me. : what i'm doing is corralling ideas that are out there. warren buffett had a really important one, and it is still kicking around. carol: over a decade ago. peter: it is over one decade ago, and yet people keep coming back to that idea, especially import certificates. if you want to import something, you need a piece of paper saying you have exported something. if you have an equal number of import and export certificates, you should have a trade balance. carol: also in the economics section this week, it is interesting for the first time , in a decade, we look at central banks tapping a new

currency to build reserves. jason: a lot of people are making a case for the euro. let's hear from christina. >> the euro hasn't gotten a lot of love from central banks in the last decade. but that is starting to change. we have talked to some foreign-exchange strategist who regularly with managers at central banks in charge of the currency allocations for reserves. it looks like the tipping point may be the fear of trump starting a trade war with china. that is having people give the euro another look. >> you mentioned trump and the administration's public statement about the dollar have also been rather confusing. how much does that play into the euro's relative strength? >> that is also a factor. different members of the administration have broken up with a long policy of always talking about a strong dollar, suggesting that a weak dollar

may be advantageous to manufacturing, and that is playing into the calculations that central bank may be making. what it is is basically there has been a number of factors that kind of underpin an improvement in how the euro looks from the perspective of investors. one of them is essentially that the economy of europe is beginning to fire on all cylinders like it hasn't for a decade. and so that is allowing european start talking at least about winding down the quantitative easing program, which is going to lift yields. no central bank wants to be holding instruments that are not paying any interest. ?ight yet ou that is also making the euro attractive. jason: a couple years ago and the immediate aftermath of brexit, people weren't super

excited about necessarily prospects for europe, and now it seems to be gaining momentum. >> brexit was a moment of reckoning, because there was a lot of questions about whether this european experiment was going to survive. there have been a series of crises. rexit, brexit there was g when greece was going to leave. there have been a series of humiliations for the euro. jason: so many adverts. let's say, for the euro. it had its peak in terms of allocation of reserve currencies -- >> let's say, for the euro. it had its peak in terms of allocation of reserve currencies was 28%, which is in 2009. that was a decade after it was introduced. it slid to 20% at the most recent reading. one of our researchers anticipates as much as half a trillion good -- could move into

the euro in the next two years. that is a big deal. that could increase the allocation by 20% and has repercussions for other currencies. jason: the trade rhetoric has played usually into this while -- as well. while the u.s. is taking a more nationalistic and seemingly protectionist stance. europe is doing the opposite. >> that's right. the eu is continuing to cut trade deals. its own trade with china has increased over the last year to the point where it is on the cusp of displacing the u.s. >> that is an amazing moment, isn't it? >> yes. >> that must have ramifications will be on the story. >> that's right. some people are beginning to look at the euro as a hedge against the dollar should the dollar take a beating because of these trade conflicts. jason: next, can anthony bring his wall street magic to his new startup? >> and why trumps billionaire

backer has been secretly volunteering as a police officer in new mexico. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ jason: welcome back to

"bloomberg businessweek." carol: we will talk about anthony noto. we know him well. we will talk about his latest chapter. jason: wall street, twitter, and now student loans. i'm excited to get into robert mercer. he has backed political candidates he's a hedge fund , billionaire and she has been a -- he has been a police officer in new mexico. carol: we will take a look at the latest season of billions. jason: spoilers ahead. ♪ carol: all of that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." jason:

♪ jason: we're back with the editor and chief of businessweek. so many must reads in the magazine this week. what is the story with anthony noto? he is well-known on wall street and also in silicon valley. goldman to twitter. what is the story here? >> are you familiar with sofi? they are huge with lending and with students, social finance is the name of it. you get student debt, that is been a problem. it keeps going up. sofi steps in and helps solve the problem for consumers. it was founded by a guy who exited under not so great circumstances. there has been a lot of interest in sofi in general because it is a disruptor. and where it can go from not only helping people manage their

debt, but many overtures into other businesses. jason: the noto element is fascinating. he essentially goes to silicon valley, wants to run a tech company. that is the number two job at twitter. -- he had the number two job at twitter. he does by all accounts a pretty good job, then gets a top job, which puts him back into competition with his old boss at goldman sachs. marcus we have heard a lot about, and they are going head-to-head. they are going head to head. >> that is where it will get interesting. you have got this guy now in charge of social finance, which has an interesting user base. you have goldman doubling down on consumer lending. -- consumer lending with markets. so exactly, they will basically be at loggerheads over this. it will be interesting to watch this space and see how it plays out. coming from twitter, it's an interesting advantage, because he is familiar with that silicon valley space. carol: none of this comes easy

and the story also talks about the marketing cost that sofi is bending to get customers, retain customers. it talks about the celebrations that they do to get people. all this is costing money. >> ultimately, it is also going to put the business model in question. right now, they are not putting things in their balance sheet. jason: the balance sheet is so key here. i was so glad the story pointed that out, because while the company has its customer base, goldman sachs has the balance sheet. and banks have the balance sheet. compete with that? that will be the thing to watch at sofi, how he handles the balance sheet question. if he can figure that out, they might be able to compete. it will be the thing that will test his strategy. carol: we have got to go to your must-read this week. it is in futures. who knew this was going on? robert mercer, well-known running the hedge fund, in the

political world, but who knew he was also in law enforcement? >> this is an incredible story. carol: this is a must-read. whot was written by zach, has done a lot of reporting about robert mercer before. he is an elusive, reclusive almost billionaire, we think. he became really famous for renaissance technologies, which is one of the most highly profitable hedge funds ever. he left recently. there a became noteworthy because of his support of president trump during the campaign. also help to back breitbart, bannon, and cambridge analytica. what is really interesting about mr. mercer is that he also has a certain interest in guns and law enforcement. that is how zach ended up in new

mexico. >> he to was a lot more about it. we talk about it here. >> mercer became a police officer in a tiny town in new mexico, a town of 433 people. for most of the past six years, he has been serving as a reserve police officer in the town. the town is lake arthur, new mexico. it appears to be from all indications essentially a way for him and people close to him to be able to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the country. carol: explain how that works. >> sure. there is a 2004 law which was designed to make sure that across the country, regardless of local law, any policeman, police officer, even if they are off-duty, and in many cases even if they are retired, have the right to carry a concealed weapon at all times.

in new york for instance, which was, -- gunict gun laws under the federal law, it , is a matter of you have a license to carry in new york city. if you are a law enforcement officer, you can carry a weapon in new york, even if off-duty. carol: describe law enforcement officer. it is not like robert mercer is there in lake arthur, new mexico this small town every day, , correct? >> definitely not there every day and every week. it was difficult for us to determine exactly how many hours of patrol work he did. the department requires its officers to remain in good standing, to complete 96 hours of patrol or other police work per year. that is a lot. that is like six days of double-shifts. and so we weren't able to determine exactly how much, but the officers down there said mercer showed up and did his work.

jason: he's not alone. this town has been something of a magnet for people with this type of idea, right? >> that's right. there is only one full-time, paid police officer in town, the police chief. the police chief is william norwood and he has essentially created this reserve program that at one point had as many as 150 men from all over the country, mostly hundreds or thousands of miles away. because of this minimal patrol requirement, at any time he had one or two guys in town paying their own bills, their own room and board, supplying their own gear, helping him out. he didn't have to go out on calls by himself. he would have a somebody to help out. jason: you went there. zach: yes. i drove around the town with chief norwood and we talked about what was going on. for a guy like mercer, one clue

we have as to sort of what the thinking behind becoming an officer was was that a few months after mercer and his son-in-law and son-in-law's friend joined the department, they all joined on the same day. the same group sets up a nonprofit in georgia, whose sole purpose is to advocate on behalf of the rights of police officers to carry concealed weapons. it appears he is given more than -- has given more than $400,000 in two years to these related organizations that he set up. carol: what is the mission by robert mercer? you detail all of his involvement. we know he likes guns. there is nothing wrong with that, but he has a warehouse in queens, a bunker where you can see his gun collection. zach he bought a gun dealer that of thewned, kind of one

most impressive collections of machine guns in the world, almost a library of any kind of machine gun that has ever been manufactured for use in war. they had a functioning copy there. carol: movies and filming? that also for research , and training. if you are a special forces commando, you can get training on any weapon on our side, but it might be more difficult to really get to know weapons that you might face in the field. if it exists, they probably have one. carol: up next, how spotify might be changing how companies go public. aramco --he ceo of saudi aramco on his idea. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ ♪

jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek."

carol: you can find us online. >> and on our mobile app. in the finance section, alex takes the pulse of the ipo market. carol: she dispels the myth that no one is going public. here is alex. alex: the private funding cycle has changed so much. when you talk to people deep in the industry, they point to 2013, 2014, 2015 as when you saw a lot of cash, not just from the typical venture capitalist but from mutual funds, sovereign wealth funds, what we call tourists coming into the ecosystem. you have all of these people who post recession are dealing with an environment of low interest rates, economic growth globally is not very lovely. they are looking to private tech companies to get this strong growth. they are betting on the next -- hoping they are betting on the next apple, google, or amazon. jason: how do spotify play into this discussion? >> the company is doing

something different to get public. the typical ipo process, what dropbox did is they hired the advisors, they look at their valuation model, set terms, and go on a marketing roadshow. >> they go out and pitch investors. >> exactly. they have a valuation in mind, and judge demand and set an ipo price, and the stock trades off that price the next day. spotify is skipping most of that. they have done some messaging, -- company messaging but they , are not doing a roadshow and most importantly they are not doing an evaluation setting. there are doing a direct listing. the night before you start trading, they will just start trading and there is no valuation set. the price this will trade at will be based on basically a normal open where you see who wants to sell, who wants to buy, and what price. carol: that is why there is a huge range in terms of valuation. >> exactly. that is intentional on their part. they have filed registration documents.

you have gotten financials not not as much as you would get, , but they did include past private transaction valuation. the problem is they meant this as guidance for investors in the public market to set a valuation, but it ranges from the beginning of 2017 into the first few months of 2018 from a low of 6.3 billion dollars to a high of $24 billion. jason: good lord. [laughter] >> exactly. spotify is a music streaming service that has a unique business model. not only are they asking investors to kind of throw their for a new ringgi listing process, they are asking them to bet on a new type of business. jason: aramco, their ipo, looks like we have time before that happens. what are people saying? >> from the company and saudi side, it still looks like they are looking at 2018 with a local

listing first. there have been reports from bloomberg and other saying that an international listing might not happen for a year plus. so there are still questions around the exact timing and whether or not it will be a single venue in saudi arabia first or if it will do wait to a listing ana dual an international listing to a , venue to be determined to later. carol: this is a $100 billion ipo. >> yes. the company is being pegged at $2 trillion. that would be the biggest by a four over alibaba. carol: this week, saudi aramco's ceo sat down for an interview. jason: he asked the big question, the big existential question on wall street when is , the oil giant going public? >> i think there is a lot of investors. that is what a lot of the questions and media coverage and what you see in the news about the ipo and when it will happen. there is a lot of demand for the

listing of saudi aramco in terms , and the data we show when we go on a roadshow. ultimately how our performance and how we are the highest producer, the most efficient, the most reliable, so this is a great company that the data hopefully will show. >> when i speak to people, they are not talking about when this will happen. they are not talking about if this will happen, but perhaps -- that perhaps the whole ipo goes into the deep freeze and doesn't happen at all. >> there is a lot of work that is still ongoing. the government, the government did all the paperwork to make it a joint stock company effective january of 2018. that is an indication that the ipo is ongoing.

aramcoparation by saudi never stopped. we should be, as we always see, trading as a company for listing in the second half of 2018. so we are doing a lot of work to prepare the company for listing. at the same time, they are committees from the government that look at what we are doing and the preparedness that we are doing to make sure the company is ready for listing. >> do you have a set of accounts? for u.s. standards already is , that done? >> the only requirement for listing is reserves. we have the necessary documents. >> so it is not your decision ultimately when this will happen. i'm trying to understand when this will happen. >> the venue and timing, the government will decide on that. don't forget this is a public process. it requires time.

-- complex process. it requires time. >> what becoming the world's first billion-dollar athlete cost tiger woods. carol: get ready for the third season of billions. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly.

you can also listen to us on the radio. >> in london and asia as well. in the pursuits section this week, there is a new book out about tiger woods. it talks about the highs and lows of becoming him. jason: the fascinating journey about what it took to be the first billion-dollar athlete. here is chris rovzar. >> a new biography called "tiger woods" comes out this week and it looks that tiger woods' life from the beginning to the end, and kind of looks at the toll that the amazing things that have happened to him, the toll that has taken on him personally, and how we are seeing him evolve in the public eye. successes, added an incredible amount of pressure on him, and the book gives you a

sense of sympathy for him that you may not have had. carol: this is someone who started at a very young age, put out there with his dad. you just wonder what that does to an individual who starts so young, and that has been his whole life. and when it starts to come undone, what does that mean? >> the book starts about the stuff we know about his dad and the pressure he put on him and his support, but also how his mother was. her attitude was get out on the court and kill. go for the jugular, because if you do not, they will kill you. really intense stuff that as a kid, that shapes you. it looks at that. jason: also a fascinating element of the economics and business of tiger woods. first billion-dollar athlete. >> first billion-dollar athlete. jason nike came in and got : behind him in a massive way. he really changed the trajectory of the game of golf. he brought in a whole new generation of people. to a sport that was at that point starting to decline a bit. >> remember how disillusioning it was when his personal life came out.

you know he was put on a , pedestal that was almost absurd. no one could be perfect. now, he is coming into this come back and we are looking at him through different lenses. we see an imperfect vehicle, we see somebody who is incredibly talented, who has gone through health problems, and who is now coming in as an openly flawed person. jason: a book like this also tends to reveal the complicated relationship we have as fans with athletes. >> yes. jason it seems like there is no : better example than tiger woods, who was put on such a pedestal and yet taken down with such ferocity. >> interestingly enough, during the worst of that time when the affairs were coming out, "vanity fair" put him on a cover looking like a thug. remember that? it was bad. the press was horrible. he wasn't playing that badly. that was not a bad time in his career, where that would wreck

somebody else potentially. it's interesting that when his personal life is in turmoil, those are not necessarily the things affecting him. carol: we did put him on a pedestal and kind of beat him up when he was down. it's amazing how people are rooting for him to come back. when you think about viewership when it comes to golf matches, when he plays, people watch. >> yes. if he is going in favored, people will be tuning in. they want to see what happens. jason: online at bloomberg.com, "billions" season three. carol: we love to watch this show. spoiler alert, we got a preview. >> it is the third season. what made the show so popular with so many people inside finance and outside is the fact that they were actually sophisticated in their depictions of how finance works. jason: because they really -- and mark, i was interviewing him

earlier this week, he is a consultant, he shows up in the first episode. they really go and spend time with actual practitioners and ask them lots and lots of questions about how does this work, what do you do, how did you feel, what would you say in the situation? it does ring true to a lot of people. >> exactly. now they have expanded that veracity to all of the other ancillary aspects of being in finance. the fancy restaurants, the art. johns, all ofr this peppered through offices. they also go name checking all of these restaurants and places throughout new york that aren't necessarily tourist spots or things anyone outside of new york circles would understand. carol: i love that you wrote that "billions" takes up where "sex and the city" left off. >> it related.

it was -- really did. it was so crazy. use the city line new , york is a character. it really is. jason: what would be the magnolia bakery for billions? [laughter] carol: daniel -- is in there, right? >> there is a cameo that some might have mixed reviews of. >> is the show good? is it keeping up with previous seasons. >> i would say that the second season was better than the first. i'm not sure i can say that about the third series and -- season, because people have gotten tired. these are long episodes. they are hour-long episodes. there is only so much mano a mano that can happen between the two main protagonists. they are played by damien lewis and paul giamatti. damien lewis is a high profile hedge fund billionaire. paul giamatti is a u.s. attorney bent on taking him down. there is this personal grudge

match that happens over and over. carol: it is like enough, move it on. >> in the third season, they step back and the ancillary characters rise up and have their own storylines. which is really refreshing, but it also threatens to be bogged down by all the different plot lines that are now duking it out for supremacy. carol: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands now. jason: what is your must read this week? carol: it takes a look at the role, a history lesson if you will of the u.s., its role in , making china the economic powerhouse it is today. jason: i loved it, because it really name checked a bunch of presidents and talked about the economic and political levers they pulled. carol: your must read? jason: you're not going to be surprised by this. robert mercer, billionaire, hedge fund founder, philanthropist, political donor, cop in new mexico.

read.a long greed -- long you got to read it. carol: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪ retail.

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♪ emily: i'm emily chang in this is "the best of bloomberg technology," clearly bring you the top interviews from this week in tech. an important stop on the whereberg apology to her he snubs the u.k. parliament but agrees to testify on capitol hill. plus uber agrees to sell operations in southeast asia. we will talk about what they get in return, in the global plans for the world's biggest start. and tesla tumbles the most in two