emily: i am emily chang. this is the best of bloomberg technology. we bring you all of our top interviews in technology. marc benioff on his new co-ceo, his new magazine, and the responsibility tech leaders have to shape the world. filtering out, instagram's founders are leaving facebook. rising concerns over the future of the social network and competition with snapchat. congress and big tex agree on

the stronger need for digital privacy laws. how strong will those privacy laws go? we will have the latest. salesforce kicked off its annual conference this week in san francisco with a record 170,000 attendees. this year, there outspoken cofounder marc benioff had a lot to talk about. he bought the struggling time magazine. co-ceo, promoting chief block to the top job. we sat down with him for a wide-ranging interview on the company, the economy, and facebook, a company he says it should be regulated like big tobacco. i started by asking why benioff agreed to share his job and title? he's fabulous.

he is a great operator. he has done a great job at salesforce. i felt like he needed to be recognized. he is co-ceo. the company is more successful than ever. i really feel like he needed to be recognized. now he is co-ceo. the company is more successful than ever. i cannot be happier. we have a great relationship. because we had a great relationship, giving him the title is how we were running the company in partnership. i have been running salesforce in one capacity or another for 20 years. titles don't really mean anything to me. the most important thing to me is the success of all of our stakeholders, our customers, our employees, our partners. that is what i really focus on. keith isxcited that

not co-ceo with me. emily: there were reports that salesforce was eyeing twitter to buy. investors did not seem to excited. do you still think there's a possibility of salesforce having a consumer facing subsidiary sunday? marc: we have one billion users today using salesforce in want to or another. the biggest thing for me is our stakeholders. when you think about investors, they are one of my key stakeholders. customers are a stakeholder. employees are a stakeholder. public schools are a stakeholder. investors, i'm about to meet with them. you will probably cover that. when i am talking to investors, i am listening to them. when they said we would like you to buy this company or not that company, or this strategic relationship, i take that seriously. consistently, and we have been public 14 years, a business for

20 years, we listen to them. you look at our stock chart, the reason it is up into the right is because we listen to our stakeholders, including shareholders. emily: do you have any interest still in buying twitter? marc: i look at every company. we have to look at every deal. we look at private companies, public companies. we just bought an amazing company called zeta ramos who are able to do market analytics in an amazing way. this year, we bought an amazing integration opportunity called --atomer 360 builds with company we bought for $7 billion. we are deeply integrating that product. it is amazing. it is one of the reasons we raised our guidance again.

you will continue to see us do deals where it makes sense for our customers and where we are hoping to get our customers to connect in a whole new way. emily: speaking of acquisition, facebook bought instagram six years ago. we now know the founders are leaving. for facebook,sign that something has gone wrong? marc: it is a sign for them. they need to start thing attention. i have been talking about this for nine months. our industry has changed. every ceo needs to ask themselves, what is the most important thing to you? what is the most important thing to your company? what is your highest value? i know what our highest value is at salesforce. it is trust. nothing is more important than the trust we have with our customers, employees, top executives. when you see top executives customerst, questioning your privacy

, you need to wake up. i am not going to call out anyone company and say this company has to change. what i am saying is for every ceo in our industry, we see what the employees are saying. we have to operate at a higher level. let me give you an example, we just created a new office of equitable and humane use reporting directly to me. when employees have concerns, or customers or partners or other stakeholders, i want them to come directly to me and have that conversation. we are in the fourth investor revolution. everyone wants to know, is your product being used ethically and humanely? every company has to operate at a higher standard. every enterprise company like us and every consumer company like a facebook and others. every ceo has to look at this. it is very serious. that is why the government is

involved. you know i called for regulations in january. emily: you said that facebook should be regulated like big tobacco. that was before cambridge analytical. that is before they were called to testify. how do you think they should be regulated? marc: facebook is the new cigarettes. it is addictive. it is not good for you. consumers need to be aware of what can happen. that is why the government is involved and needs to be more involved in the regulation of facebook and other social media companies and in the example of companies that have questions productsare their being used safely and ethically? technology is never good or bad. it is never good or bad. it is how you use the technology that matters. to be crystal clear with your employees, your customers, your partners, with

everybody about what your values are. if you don't, you will see customers leave you or executives leave you or employees leave you. we have examples now. you know that. you have been reporting on them. you will see more of this until ceos change. they need to change. they need to pay attention. that is true for me. think markou zuckerberg is not paying attention? marc: i think every ceo has to get to another level of excellence. there is no question. in the fourth investor revolution, we are all connected. everyone and everything is connected. look at this show. it is an amazing example. when we are all connected, everything has to change. trust,pany, built on those companies also have to articulate, what are their values? what is important to them? what are they willing to stand for? we will know if they are acting correctly because their

employees will stay. their executives will stay. their customers will stay. the shareholders will stay. it should not be a question that any reporter or ceo hast asked. we all have to ask this deeply now. emily: you have had some employees be critical of the work salesforce does with u.s. customs and border protection. you said your software is not involved in family separation. we have heard some customers are not happy. what is your response to that? marc: i think this is a moment in history where i can the ceo of salesforce, has to deeply listen. outside the show up conference, even if we have 150,000 people here, i don't dismiss them. i listen to them. i engage with them. everyone who has asked a question, i have personally called. are you deeply connected to the

ethical and humane use of the technology? i am. show us. i have created a whole new structure in the company, the office of ethical and humane use. we have partnered with the leading ethics organizations in the world to build a structure that we can bring everyone in and have this conversation. this conversation is not going away. it is not. now the technology is at the center of everything we do. ethics are at the center of everything we do. every ceo will have to answer that question, are you operating ethically and humanely? emily: you and your wife are buying time magazine. you said you are not going to get involved in editorial decisions. you clearly have strong views, strong political, strong ethical views. how do you plan to run this magazine? how can it not be an opportunity to take a moral stand? marc: we could not be more

excited about the opportunity now to be the stewards of this historic and iconic brand. our whole history of our nation is reflected in the covers of time magazine, the editorials, the stories, the photographs. it is amazing what time magazine represents, and the opportunity to acquire the company to be the stewards of the future was something we could not pass up. i hope it is something that will be a positive global impact opportunity, the way it has been for the last entry. i hope we will be able to usher it into the next century. emily: did you talk to bezos about his expense for the washington post? how can we be sure that your political views will not influence the coverage time does? marc: we are committed to keeping our relationship at arms length. the editorial board is one of the best in the world.

everyone knows that. we are committed to delivering a world-class product. this is going to be a fabulous opportunity for us to unshackle time and let it run as an independent organization. it has been a long time since time magazine was independent. now we are going to see this amazing team and let them go and do something incredible. emily: you have a co-ceo, iconic magazine, continued to focus on philanthropy, would you consider running for public office? marc: this is the greatest platform for change. we understand already, we can see our politicians are fundamentally not able to do that. the opportunity for change today is with business. structure hasical to be a public-private partnership. the mayors were here. our superintendent of schools was here. our local officials are here.

and localeral, government officers are here. let's create a more positive world together. it has to be a multi-stakeholder dialogue. that is how we will create multi-stakeholder action. you don't me as a political official. i don't think i would be a very good one. you know me very well. the reality is i feel very empowered and enabled to make a positive impact on the world based on the platforms that i have been given, and i am grateful for that di. emily: salesforce has done the hard work to close the pagan. now we hear about the equity gap across silicon valley. what are you doing your after year to make sure the pay gap and equity gap does not widen? marc: every ceo has to be focused on equality. at this show, you can see we have the most diverse and inclusive set of partners in the

industry. we are working to make it more so. equity one of the key gas, bringing everyone, having inclusive capitalism. we are fighting for lgbtq the quality so that we do not -- equality so that we do not discriminate against the lgbtq community. these matches the values of san francisco. that is easy because we are the home of the summer of love. everywhere around the world, we are going to fight for the same values, trust, customer success, innovation, quality. these are our core values. we are going to take it to the next level. emily: salesforce founder marc benioff. we just heard marc benioff showed his take on instagram founders leaving facebook. we will dig into what really like to their departure and how the street took the surprise announcement.

this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: instagram's cofounders unfriended facebook tuesday. sources told bloomberg they left over growing tensions with mark zuckerberg. the duo had been at the company since facebook acquired instagram in 2012 and had largely been able to operate independently of facebook and zuckerberg. lately they have become frustrated with an unusual uptick in day-to-day involvement by zuckerberg, who is now more reliant on instagram, now worth $100 billion, for facebook's growth. sarah frier follow the story. sarah: facebook is so much more dependent on instagram now than it ever was. facebook's own growth is going to slow. they are going to have to spend more to grow in new areas. instagram is so crucial to the

at picture. it just hit one billion users, but there are many more users they can still add. advertising is thriving and they have the products that everyone wants to use. there has been a lot more attention paid to the way that instagram could drive traffic to facebook, which is kind of a new dynamic. basically in the past, instagram was very dependent on facebook for its growth, now facebook is becoming more dependent on instagram. emily: two years ago, i sat down with kevin systrom, and asked him, do you regret selling? they bought instagram for $16 billion. facebook bought whatsapp for $20 billion. of course, he said no and talked about all the great things facebook had done for instagram and talked about how great it was to work with mark zuckerberg. take a listen to what he told me two years ago. kevin: think of it like having like the best board member in the world. imagine how many companies would like to have mark zuckerberg on their board. that's what we get. it's independent, but you get

amazing guidance from someone who has been able to build a tremendous company. emily: fast-forward to today, and this is what kevin systrom says in his statement. we will are planning on leaving instagram to explore our activity again and match that with what the world needs. that is what we plan to do. missing from the statement was anything about mark zuckerberg. sarah: what i thought was fascinating is that at the very end he says something to the tune of i wish the best of luck for both companies going forward. they are the same company. when the founders leave instagram, it is no longer this company within facebook. it becomes more of a facebook product arm. there is nobody with the authority of a founder to challenge zuckerberg's vision, should they want to, and say this is not where we see instagram going. systrom has been historically very stubborn in terms of the

products and the vision for it and what he wanted to maintain for the culture. this opens up opportunities for zuckerberg to do more, to do what he wants, to integrate instagram. at the same time, it could threaten this unique brand that the company has built. emily: meantime, mark zuckerberg did say kevin and mike are extraordinary product leaders, i've learned a lot working with them. i wish them the best and look forward to seeing what they do next. the whatsapp cofounders have also left the company. brian atkin, one of the cofounders tried to kick off this #deletefacebook movement. this does not look good. what are employees on the inside telling you? are they seeing this tension? sarah: the whatsapp situation with the founders of whatsapp being replaced by someone who had run internet.org at facebook, chris daniels, that was heralded as a scary thing that could potentially happen to instagram if facebook was not careful.

they could lose what they built in this independent brand. there is definitely a lot of concern about what happens now. i am told the most likely person to take over instagram from here is adam massari, the man who previously ran facebook's news feed. this is a lot a change for instagram in such a short period of time. they have lost their ceo, cto, coo, will there be any other c-level people in the future? that is really what facebook has to decide. how much do they want to integrate instagram, how quickly should they move to do it? emily: "bloomberg tech's" sarah frier. coming up next, an exclusive conversation with j.crew ceo jim brett. how the company is leveraging social media and why amazon is the perfect partner. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: last quarter, j.crew finally broke 15 consecutive quarters of negative comparable sales. in the last six weeks, the ceo, jim brett, relaunched the brand. he joined bloomberg's retail reporter emma chandra for an exclusive interview where he also talked about the company's recent decision to sell its mercantile brand on amazon. jim: i really don't believe that we compete with amazon on the main j.crew line. i see the products that are being sold on amazon as more value oriented. mercantile is really a new brand as well that's geared towards a younger customer, still with the preppy spirit, and a greater value. we felt like amazon was the perfect home to launch that new brand. emma: but you are not worried about cannibalization? jim: no.

emma: are you concerned how they might use your sales data? jim: i think we have a strong partnership with amazon and i believe we will maximize the sales for j.crew mercantile by growing j.crew mercantile. emma: do you envision further j.crew group brands on amazon? jim: not at the moment. emma: you also developed a number of other third-party relationships. recently, nordstrom. how big a part of the business do you see wholesale becoming for j.crew? jim: in the short-term, wholesale has been a huge global opportunity for us. we have our wonderful relationship in the u.s. with nordstrom, but we do not have the relationships across the globe, so recently we launched all across europe in all of the major department stores. and in south america as well, and we are exploring opportunities in asia now. emma: two weeks ago you relaunched the j.crew brand.

what sort of response are you seeing from customers? do you see increased traffic, higher sales? jim: we are excited about the relaunch. we are definitely seeing an increase in new customers as well as reactivated customers, those people who have left the brand and are coming back. emma: are they spending as much as you would like? jim: they are. it's an exciting time. when i started i received so many e-mails from customers saying, i loved j.crew, but i have grown out of the brand, meaning physically, it does not fit me anymore. we are now receiving so many comments via social media of people who are so happy to be able to shop the brand again. so inclusivity isn't just about trying to be everything to everybody, it's about in whatever you're doing, including as many people as possible. in fact, we received a comment on instagram from a woman who said, thank you so much for

showing the extended sizes. please keep doing it. it helps me a lot. emma: you've talked a lot about engagement through social media. that's another thing we saw with the relaunch, a shift in marketing strategy. have you also relaunched the backend of the business as well? how much have supply chains changed? how much has inventory management changed at j.crew? jim: that's reall the work we have been doing the past year. a lot of it has changed. we have a more customer-centric back end process. emily: that was j.crew ceo jim brett in an exclusive interview with emma chandra. still ahead, big tech on the hill. talking digital privacy, and there was some disagreement with congress on regulation. we will hear what next. we are livestreaming on twitter.

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emily: welcome back to the "best of bloomberg technology." i am emily chang. looks like big tech and congress agree on the need for stronger consumer digital privacy laws. take a listen. >> at&t welcomes today's conversation. we believe it is important for congress to weigh in on the issue of privacy, and provide consumers and businesses clear national rules on how consumer information is shared, used, and protected. we are not newcomers to this position. now there appears to be growing agreement about the need for a new and comprehensive federal privacy law.

emily: cali was one of six representatives from big technology companies who testified before members of the senate congress committee. while they agreed with senators on the need for new regulation, they differed on the details of how those new laws would work. we spoke to the ceo of the internet association, a tech lobbying group that represents google and twitter. >> i think it says a lot that, our members in particular, internet companies are pushing so hard for a national framework to give meaningful transparency to all americans over their data. you should know who has your information, how they are using it, and we are calling on congress to pass a law that protects people but also allows for the innovation that has made the technology sector so vibrant in the united states. emily: richard blumenthal and other lawmakers called out these technology companies.

he said when it actually comes to the bill, they will kill it with their teeth. do you think the technology companies are committed to this process? >> that's something that michael can speak to. i think details will be interesting. there were a lot of moments where senators urged the officials to weigh in on a particular issue. this is the law and the language matters, and so it's a little bit hard to go into a hearing environment and ask someone to weigh in on idea or not. i think when it comes time to drafting that language, there absolutely are going to be a lot of differences of opinion, within tech, and also outside of tech.

one of the big ones i am watching will be enforcement. folks will be talking heavily about how they want that to look. >> many of the internet association companies have been critical of gdpr. i want us to take a quick listen to this exchange between a senator and a google official. >> any idea on how many human hours it may have taken for google's workforce to bring the company into compliance with the gdpr? >> we do have some analysis of that that i would be happy to share with your staff. i don't have those numbers available today. i would estimate that it was in the hundreds of years of human time. >> hundreds of years of human time. michael, what do you make of that? michael: gdpr is very complicated. folks are complying with it, but it is a very complicated law, and one that's maybe not best for innovation or startups. there are many american newspapers that have decided

they have had to shut down their website in europe. him and website in europe. outback steakhouse closed down their website in europe. they couldn't figure out how to comply with the -- it. this is exactly why we need an american approach, a federal law in the united states that shows we can be leaders in technology and privacy protections. we need to get it right. the details matter. we are behind this 110%. we are willing to sit down with all lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to make sure this gets done. >> ben, a chairman spoke about data security. what did you learn? ben: data security has been really difficult. it is being negotiated. it has come out over a couple of congresses. this is interesting because security is one of the issues that we have heard, you know, as we have gotten this sort of consensus from industry in the last days and weeks that security has to be a big part of this. that is another big issue i will

be watching. companies are going to be really talking strenuously about what it means to have security, and especially who has the burden for that, and what it looks like if that goes wrong. >> almost all of the privacy proposals that have been floated by the technology community suggests federal legislation should preempt the california state privacy law. what are the key flaws they see in this california data privacy law? >> people's expectation of privacy does not change as you cross from state to state. it does not make sense if you are driving or flying across the country to kick into brand-new privacy laws as you go from border to border. or if you are facetiming with your grandmother in another state to have the two of you be under different privacy laws. i don't think that makes a lot of sense. they got the california law wrong. they pushed it through in a short amount of time. there are things in the california law that you would

will think make people less private and less safe. there are provisions that prohibit companies from de-identifying information. you cannot aggregate information that is not associated with people to meet the requirements of the law. i think we can do a better job. we should have a state-of-the-art, best in class, best in the world privacy law that protects all 50 states and not a piecemeal approach. >> what is your take on what michael just said? consumer advocates have a different perspective. >> absolutely. a lot of them would like to defend tougher state laws, you know. states want to go strict, they say. there is no reason we should stop that. increasingly what i am hearing from consumers is they want the federal law to essentially be a baseline, but it's something that the state can go over and above. i expect that to be another

point of tension between industry and the consumer point of view. i think it's important to know this was an industry hearing. the chairman said there would be an early october hearing with consumer advocates, including somebody who was a real estate developer who was kind of behind that privacy law that went into effect in california. emily: coming up, the eu has cracked down on google, facebook, and twitter. now its latest target is amazon. we will hear from the eu competition commissioner about this latest probe into the e-commerce giant. the woman who helped transform ge has written a new book to help guide other companies. we will hear from her later. this is bloomberg. ♪ emily: world leaders in

finance, business, and technology met in new york yesterday for bloomberg's global business forum. our editor in chief spoke to the eu competition commissioner and asked about the recent probe into u.s. tech giant amazon. >> it's a two-sided market. they have a dual function. they both host the little guy so he can enter into e-commerce, they provide a number of services which allow smaller businesses to be active in e-commerce opportunities, and that's great. they are also big guys themselves. bookstore, you know, everything, groceries, movies, the works. they get all of the data from the little guy and we want to understand how this data is being used, because this is all about competition. when we say innovation, competition is the most important driver for innovation for you to stay ahead of your competitor. >> do you think the future is a

bit like telecoms companies or maybe what happened with microsoft many years ago where you have a platform company which is then forced to let other people trade and have access to that platform? >> i think that is difficult to say, because as was just said in the video, this is a revolution. things change and we have not even seen what is coming with quantum computing, blockchain. we probably have a platform economy that is much more diverse than what we have seen, which is why of course it's important for us to understand, what is the new big? how are companies that benefit from network's effects from huge

amounts of data, from marginal cost approaching zero, how do they compete? for us that is the important thing. >> do you think in some ways competition has been left behind by big tech? it is difficult to intervene until after they have created these neo-monopolies, as some people would see them. >> i think our principles are fine, because they are about human nature, and we don't change, unfortunately. with all of our good sides and bad sides, i think we remain the same. in regulation we need to stay alert. in europe you can be successful, but you should not misuse your power. this is actually the story of the two google fines. we found that they misused their power for competitors not to be as innovative as they ought to, or consumers not to be able to enjoy the benefits of choice, innovation, affordable prices. that of course is where we have to be very vigilant.

>> it took you seven years. in technology, seven years is a lifetime. >> it takes five minutes to break into your home. it will take the police and court system quite some time to find the guilty person, to get him or her convicted. >> hopefully not seven years. >> no, but you still have responsibility to due process. we live in a union based under rule of law and we will never compromise on your right to defend yourself. that being said, of course we can use algorithms too. we can use all of the tools in order for us to be more speedy. >> do you think technology firms have simply become too big in some cases? >> no, i don't think as such,

that you can make that conclusion. i think they can be much more transparent. my colleagues have made i think very good proposals to ensure transparency in the relationship between the smaller business and the platform. that i think is very much needed, the transparency, the willingness actually to deal with people, and to be much more sort of clear that they respect your privacy, your ownership of your own data, so that we as citizens feel that we can build trust with technology. emily: that was the eu competition commissioner with the bloomberg editor in chief at the annual bloomberg business forum in new york. someone joined us to tell more about her plans. >> she was careful to say that they are just looking at what amazon is doing. amazon is a platform that competes with and offers a place for smaller sellers to put their products out into the world.

they are going to look at how products that amazon sells themselves, like amazon basics, are they playing fair or not? emily: we don't know yet about what kind of penalty there might be if there is a penalty, but what are the chances amazon could be forced to change its him and could be forced to change its business practices in the eu? especially given that google has been ordered to do so as well? >> because we are in the early stages of this we are waiting to see whether there are big problems that the eu thinks it needs to jump on. if it does it will open other probes, and at that point the risks become higher. at that point you look at what might be -- what precise market they are looking at. it's hard to assess any kind of him potential fine right now. with the google fine for example, they picked a small market.

there was one fine this summer already $5 billion. will these things can roll and become very big but we're not quite on that track yet with amazon. emily: president trump has not been shy about his feelings about amazon ceo jeff bezos and tangentially amazon itself. what are the the chances that the scrutiny in europe could -- spread to the united states? >> i think that is a question for the united states. the market shares some of these companies have are much higher. in some ways some of these issues are specific to europe, and the behavior that the eu will look at are european issues. i can definitely see that the u.s. has a lot of interest in what the eu is doing. america is the home of antitrust. the eu is jumping on these problems and the u.s. so far have not. doesn't mean it won't.

she is very much trying to explain why she wants to take these cases. that's a message that some people might pick up on. emily: she covers antitrust for bloomberg news. beth comstock talks about being ge's first female vice chair and her new book. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: beth comstock helped navigate ge through many complicated situations. as ge's first female vice chair, her tenure saw the creation of ge and nbc's green initiative eco-imagination, along with msnbc, hulu, and hulu digital. in her new book she shares her own transformation story as well as ge's.

beth: we need to think ahead. we need creative problem solvers. look at what is happening in silicon valley. you could argue maybe we need a few more people that could think about the unintended consequences of some of our technology. emily: within established organizations it can be so hard to harness the power of change. how could big companies such as ge be nimble in this age of technology. beth: i found most companies want to be nimble but taking the action to do so is another thing. you need your core established, optimized, and you need the people who are creating the future. they are different kinds of people with different measurements, different funding requirements. it takes a longer amount of

time. emily: how did the people who are creating the future create the people in the first track to do something differently? beth: that's why you need separate tracks often. they need to come together for some things clearly and you need to set joint goals, but i think you also need these rebel pirates, these people that come in, even in big companies, and try to disrupt what's happening. that creates a lot of attention in the early stages. emily: do you think it's possible for the ge's of the world to compete with the amazons and apples, facebook, and googles of today, or is it too late? beth: i think it's something to think about. ge does not get to be what it is without knowing a thing or two about change. i think we can look at sustainability in these companies, but yes, the stakes are always higher as you get new companies disrupting. as investors, we watch amazon, they are getting bigger and more complex, the stakes are higher, the ability to take risks.

maybe the question, can these companies continue to compete and be as fast and nimble as we have known them early? emily: that is actually my exact question. now that they are so big, it's hard to imagine them not being so dominant, but do you see that in the future? could they fall from the throne? beth: i think you have to assume that. that is an eventuality. there are people sitting there going, are we still willing to take the same kind of risks? can we? founder like companies tend to get a bit more acceptance. look at these traditional companies who have done reinvention. what these companies do well is culture. take tesla down the way, culture is a challenge. i think these companies can learn a lot from some of these established companies that that have had to figure out adaptation.

i think the scale of companies, these newer tech companies can learn a lot from some of the incumbents. emily: which of these new big tech companies is the most disruptable? beth: i think they are all disruptable. i was out in the media world when we saw netflix as a tiny whisper. we knew that was coming. we did not know how it was going to get there. now you look at it 10, 12 years later. the same forces are going to happen to netflix. i really feel like everybody needs to keep imagining forward new scenarios and new alternatives. emily: your book gets personal and it's rare to hear personal lessons from someone who has had the journey that you have. you were ge's first female vice chair. is why did you leave? beth: i left because there was a

management change. john schneider came in, new leader who wants a new team. i think that's what happens often. it was a bit earlier than i expected to leave, but new team. emily: what are the challenges we need to know more about in terms of getting more women into the top, top positions? like where you are. there are so few people who make it to the level of beth comstock. what don't they know? beth: we need to embrace more difference. it's a human trait we have to overcome. you know it from the work you have done. people have all kinds of excuses about why they don't want to hire people who are different. most companies have a good track record of hiring women at the undergraduate level, and lose women as they progress in their careers. we need to address that complex issue. we need to have programs that allow women to come back in and out of the workforce. at the end of the day we just

need to make way for more women. we need to have a pipeline and that takes time. you need to take your time finding the future women leaders of your company. emily: you have a killer line in the book where you challenge a male venture capitalist who had said we are looking hard for women but not prepared to lower our standards. you said, who created the standards? and you said you can't find any women that qualify? that's absurd. why are more women and minorities not getting hired? they are half the population. beth: people don't want to take a risk on something different. it's not proven. there's a thought that if they don't have the same path as us, they clearly can't be quite as capable at this job. i love the discussion of meritocracy. who is setting the merits? i think a lot of people are well-meaning but they are not challenging their thinking to

say, is this really true? and am i doing enough to challenge that belief? i think we just let it pass. people are not taking enough risk to hire people who are different, disruptive, and potentially going to build a brighter new future. it's the risk i think, at the end of the day. emily: we don't use the word "visionary" or "genius" to describe women, but we use that word to describe dozens of men. how fast do you see change happening? people always ask me how optimistic are you? you have been there in the trenches behind the scenes. how fast are we really going to see the numbers shift? beth: i'm optimistic. there are a lot of people saying we have to make a change. i wish it were faster. frankly, having worked for 24 plus years, i wish there would have been more change. it is disappointing and frustrating. i see it for my daughters and

young women coming up. some of this should have changed my mouth. the salary issues are still what they are? you still are having to work much harder, prove things in a much harder way? how is that possible? emily: what's next for you? beth: i'm doing my book tour. i will enter work in a new way. emily: do you think ge can get back to greatness? beth: i think ge is great. it's a great company. it's in a bad place with the stock market right now. that has some complex issues that they have to work through. i think people underestimated the complexity of ge internally and externally, and it's not an easy fix. emily: that was beth comstock. that does it for this edition of the "best of bloomberg technology." tune in every day 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. be sure to follow tictoc on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> coming up, highlights from the 2018 bloomberg world business form. leaders gather to discuss issues of critical importance. >> the post-brexit britain -- will be a pro business britain. >> there is a lot going on in the world and markets don't care. >> competition is the most important driver for innovation. >> they shared exclusive insight on their global concerns. >> we are working very hard to reposition our economies. >> the metals tariffs took about $1 billion profit from us.