carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. we are here at bloomberg global headquarters in new york. carol: coming up, we zero in on conversations from bloomberg's annual the year -- ahead summit. jason: some of the world's most respected figures in business and politics spoke at this invitation-only event right here at bloomberg. we heard from iac's joey lever and also karen weaver in the

aftermath of the water crisis. jason: plus, historian doris kearns goodwin on presidential leadership in the past and what it might tell us about what is ahead. carol: and of course, we have to talk about the year ahead when it comes to investors. that was an essential topic and where we start this week. jason: tgp group's co-ceo made a presentation on investment opportunities he sees in 2019. it is a dynamic run through, something he recently presented privately to tpg's own investors. >> we have been talking about big data for a while. but this has gone from hype to reality. this is big, this is extraordinary. but it is hard to figure out. let me give you the tagline we are using to solidify our thinking. data is the new oil. been saying this senior a couple of years. it's now being used more

broadly. but let me take you through how i'm thinking about the impact of data and where we are in the cycle. oil and data has been around forever. the first well drilled was in 347 a.d. in china. what makes it a new era is our ability to gather it and refine it in huge volumes. when you have a new industry that's this important that shows up, what you get is early consolidation. in the early days of oil, we had massive consolidation. we are seeing massive consolidation in the world of data. we see titans created. mellon, getty, rockefeller are the titans of today. and some interesting things happened. the industry gets shaped by spills and hacks. the exxon-valdez changed regulations for oil. and hacks changed the regulation for data around the world. both have had testimonies and scandals. when i watched zuckerberg in front of the senate, i flashed

back to ron chernow's book "titan." in 1997 when -- 1907 when rockefeller was in front of the courts. the senate did not lay a glove on rockefeller, just like they didn't lay a glove on zuckerberg. four years later, they broke up standard oil. and there are political scandals in the oil industry -- the teapot dome, and we are in the middle of one right now in the data world. and i think both oil and data will have a disproportionate effect on history. why did pearl harbor happen? because we cut off the oil supply to japan. why did germany invade russia when they shouldn't have? because they needed the oil. we are watching data shape the politics of the world. in the last point -- this is the important one for me -- we tend to focus on the scale of the data. it is all about the products. so the oil industry basically

was not about the oil itself, it was about the products they enabled. so google as a search engine company? it really monetizes the data. is facebook? no, it is a data company. so the idea of data products are going to dominate the years ahead. we are seeing this everywhere -- i love this, it is also a new opportunity. in health care today, you can take your fitness data and get reductions on your health-care premiums. which has created a whole new job type. there are people now who will take your fitbit for a walk. i have heard of dog walkers, but fitbit walkers. there are coffee shops where you can pay -- of students give their info, they can get free coffee. this info is sold to recruiters. jpmorgan uses this in japan, hired 40% of people through data cafes. and around the world, you are paying for things with data. i would argue that facebook, google, etc., these are not free

services. you're just paying with a currency that is denominated differently than you think. you are paying with data. what is the value of the data? how much are you paying for those services? and do we snow around our portfolio, there is data everywhere. spotify now partners with ancestry, so you can figure out your ancestry. music and play it. we're doing taxis in seoul. we run the metering system here. some across our companies, thousands of data products are popping up. but as we begin to focus on data, the point i am thinking about a lot, there is a note of caution. because society always catches up with a new technology. it often takes 50 years before we have an faa. we do not have 50 years now. we will see society catch up pretty quickly. jason: so later in the day i sat down with another important figure in the world of investing, john gray, the president and the coo of

blackstone. more than $450 billion assets under management. this past year was his first year at the helm of the presidency in the firm after years of building and running its real estate group. of course, we talked about volatility in the market, what will happen to asset prices, and what will they be buying and selling in the year ahead? >> we are certainly in a world with more volatility, the data would say that. and i do not think we should be shocked by that. we have had a great run in asset prices for a long period of time. volatility had been fairly low. the fed has begun to raise rates. we've had some issues in emerging markets. we have some issues in europe as well. systems you know, oil prices have come down sharply.

i think it is natural that you have this kind of volatility at some point during the cycle. so i don't think that is necessarily bad. for our business, this is generally a good thing. because if asset prices keep grinding higher, that's hard to find opportunity. if you have a business model like we do, where you have capital tied up for a long periods of time, you have discretion, when you have a price drop you can move quickly, and because you are not short-term financed or the capital can't be called away, you're not forced to sell. so for us we say, wow, there are lots of assets around the world that have been repriced. we have close to $100 billion of dry powder. this could be more of an interesting investment environment going forward. jason: so they have been repriced already? what was the catalyst there? >> you look at the global stock market -- the u.s. stock market is down 10% from where it was. i mentioned oil prices have fallen 30-plus percent in a

short period of time. some credit spreads have gone out. so i just think -- and certain asset classes have obviously traded off more than others, the energy sector in particular there has seen more displacement there. so overall, when you overlay this decline in prices, multiples have come down a fair amount. so the stock market next year is trading at 15 times earnings. jason: i want to go deeper into each of your lines of business in a minute. but before we get there, help us understand the investing environment vs. the economic environment. obviously they're interrelated but not necessarily super correlated it feels like right now. >> yes. i'd say on the economic side, people are obviously a little bit nervous given this volatility. if you look at the numbers, they are still pretty good. consumer confidence is at an 18-year high. small business confidence is at an all-time high. unemployment is obviously very low.

corporate earnings have been strong. what we are seeing with our companies is generally pretty good, so that is a positive. i think the issue, back to my earlier comments, is as the labor market tightens, the fed naturally is going to move towards raising rates. and that is going to put pressure on multiples. and that is really the shift we are facing right now. so it is very possible you could see a decoupling, where economic growth continues to be pretty good, but because wages go up, that impacts the companies' bottom lines and because multiples come under pressure, valuations don't grow at maybe the same rate the economy does. and as an investor you have to become much more selective in how you deploy capital. jason: coming up, ceos discuss what is in store for consumer brands. carol: weight watchers rebranded as ww in 2018. we know that. coming up, the transformation of that company continuing.

jason: and more from the year ahead summit. this is "bloomberg businessweek."

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. join us every day on the radio from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., wall street time. carol: you can also find us on businessweek.com and our mobile app. consumers and food brands are continuing a wave of consolidation in the face of consumer taste. no one knows that better than our next companies. jason: the president and ceo of ahold in the chairman and ceo of mandalay's international sat down with bloomberg's editor of global business, that's jackie simmons, sat down to talk about growth in the year ahead. >> i think that if you look at our sectors, in this moment

where the growth is coming from, it is about certain segments to be in. not everything is the same in food so if you're center of the store and largely north american focused, that's probably not a good place to be in. if you are in snacking, and 75% of our business is outside of north america, you're in a much better place. if you focus on the segments that you really want to be in, and those are well growing segments, you will do well. if you are a little all over the place, that is probably a difficult place to be in. i am not sure that consolidation is the way to go from a growth perspective, and i believe that we are fine as we are in the snacking space. there's still plenty of opportunity around the world for us to grow, and that is really

the direction we are planning to take. what i think is going to happen, those north american, center of the store focused companies that are having more difficulty getting growth, they will need to find other ways to create value. then you can expect that consolidation and cost reduction, could be a way to go. my opinion on that is ok, once you have done that, what do you do then? you are a bigger company that has the same problem of not growing. so where do you go after that? i think there will be a shift coming, and growth in food is going to be recognized as the way to go. >> does it ever make sense for a big retailer like amazon, as opposed to food retailers like yourself, and a brand like yourself to get married? >> we don't know a lot about retail. that is what i wanted to say, when we do it online, we do it largely to people who well know how to do that.

so i personally do not see easily -- maybe some super premiums in a few stores with very high-end chocolate, i could the us do that, but for the rest, i do not the us immediately getting into retail. for you, it is different i guess. >> it's a little different because we have private labels. we run our own brands in the u.s. in holland, it was 60%. we try to make the differentiation there as well. when you talk about who is going to survive in these markets, which are very competitive. they're not just about market share but also things about who consumers will trust in the future, how consumers would like to shop. can your technology support and offer a more sufficient journey in a store, more time efficient, digitally supported? are there

new assortments in the store with fresh produce today? this is nice to see. but the transparency in the supply chain -- we had this whole romaine lettuce scare, and i think a lot of customers will be more conscious about food safety, where his food coming from, how was it produced? not only in a safe way, but also in a social compliance way. i think transparency will also for the support of technology. we have a trusted brand for food safety, but also for example, data privacy, that's another topic, of course. those customers will also earn the trust of consumers and those companies will grow. jason: so those two ceos continue to adapt to their changing marketplaces. we turn to another chief managing some massive changes of her own. what used to be weight watchers is now ww. carol: mindy grossman is steering the 55-year-old company

through the transition. >> we currently have a health solutions business, but just like we have spent a lot of time relaunching our consumer business, we will be relaunching that business in the first quarter of 2019 to really provide the same ecosystem of support, but with a dashboard that can really help those businesses measure efficacy of health care costs, absenteeism, productivity, satisfaction. when we laid out our goals through the end of 2020, we said, here is what is going to happen in 2018. we will start the relaunch in 2019 of our b2b and health

solutions business, provider, etc.. we have also been doing a lot of work around the emerging markets. so we don't really currently play in latin america and asia, with the exception of a small business in brazil. we think it is an opportunity, but priority one was relaunch the brand in the markets we are in and have that trajectory, then enter new markets. those were really the components. the last component was expand our products. so healthy kitchen, wellness, travel, and hospitality, and wellness check. >> so a big launch for the company -- it is going to be a big year. >> it's going to be a big year. >> you have a marketing campaign coming out with oprah? >> it is actually our most comprehensive mobile brand campaign that we have ever done in the history of the company. oprah has been a great partner as we have been developing the strategies around the brand we launched in the campaigns. we have two new influencers that we will be announcing. >> you could announce them here? >> no, i want to keep new

suspense. i have a lot of people making great guesses. but they will promote wellness out of the u.k. and the u.s.. but it is also telling real stories. real stories of people's lives and how we have been such a partner in transforming people's lives. that is what we aim to do. >> is that the most effective, brand ambassador? it is hard to beat oprah as a brand ambassador. >> you know what, we look at every market as a pyramid of ambassadors. at the base are your evangelists whose lives have been transformed by what you offer, and then there are micro influencers. that could be chefs in a particular category. it could be great body-positivity bloggers. we are one of the biggest proponents of body positivity -- what does healthy mean to you? and then yeah, what we call celebrities. but like our partners, we put

them through our purpose filter. do they want to inspire people to lead healthier lives through their alaskas? and it's not just people who need to lose weight. it's people who represent i want to be healthier, this is how i live my life. we just did a body of qualitative work or we asked thousands of people about their perspectives on health and wellness. if you ask those people, would you like to lead a healthier life, pretty much they're all going to say yes. you ask them what's the first thing you need to do, over 07% say lose weight or eat better. so we know we are not going to give up our science of so many years of being the best program on the planet, but we know people need more to have it be sustainable, and we know that people want inspiration, not just information and that's what we're trying to give them. carol: mindy came to the company in summer of 2017. this past year, this 2018 year, has really been about getting

into the transformation of the company, offering up new services, and they will put it out in 2019. it is going to be a big year for the company. jason: they have to make it happen now. she's made such big decisions, bold moves, even renaming the company. carol: still ahead, the political action group she should run helped a record number of women to office in 2018. is it a one-off or the beginning of a trend? jason: and the energy industry is grappling with the threat of climate change. energy ceo lynn good speaks frankly about the strategy of her company. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm carol massar. you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119

and in new york, boston, washington, d.c. -- jason: am 960 in the bay area, and in london on dab digital and on the bloomberg business app. this week, our focus is looking around the corner with insights from the annual bloomberg "the year ahead" summit. carol: among the a-list ceo's on the company, duke energy's lynn good spoke with joel weber. the conversation very quickly turned to climate change. >> we take this very seriously, and we have a team actually looking at the report that was issued last friday, and it really continues the conversation that started with the u.n. report a few weeks ago. at duke energy, we have been focused on carbon reduction for over a decade. and the industry is really focused on that because we do see climate change is an issue that is going to be important to our customers and communities and investors.

and i think the important thing to recognize -- the u.s. has made great progress. our greenhouse gas and emission reductions are leading the world. there's always more to do but we're building on a solid foundation. at duke, our carbon emissions are down 30% at duke. >> since? >> since 2005. and we are on track to meet our commitments around a paris accord-type standard and we'll continue. we have been able to use natural gas and renewables. we are also investing in our grid so it is more flexible and able to take the technologies that will be important as we continue to transform, but it is front and center. i think the focus of our industry remains very high on this issue, and certainly duke as well on carbon energy reduction. joel: let's talk about what that portfolio right now that you have looks like. where it has been, where it is now, and where it might go. 2030, when you look out to the future, that is what you are

trying to build towards. >> sure. >> talk about the progress you have made, where you are now, and where you want to go. >> going back to 2005, 2008, duke would have been primarily coal and nuclear. and today duke is a third coal, a third natural gas, a third with increasing renewable, about 10%. we are one of the largest nuclear operators. located in the southeast, we have 11 reactors located in the southeast. so if you were located in the carolinas, 50% of the power is coming from carbon free nuclear. maintaining ose plants as -- those plants as long as we can is an important part of our strategy to keep carbon emissions low. joel: nuclear does not get a lot of love. >> it gets a lot of love at duke. joel: why do you think this is such an overlooked asset for your portfolio? >> it's interesting. for the most part, our industry has been a behind-the-scenes industry.

you flip the switch, it works. there has not been a lot of discussions about how does it work, what is making it work? what works all the time? that conversation needs to continue. a nuclear plant runs 95% of the time. it produces carbon-free energy and is an incredibly valuable resource. when you think about running a power system that offers 24 hours a day. natural gas is also an important resource. half the carbon emissions of coal and very complementary to renewables. and then you bring in solar and wind and battery technology and energy efficiency -- you should be painting a picture of a portfolio. we have never been as a country or a world dependent on one form of energy. and i do not see that continuing to be the case as we go forward. jason: coming up, i love this conversation. carlyle group's david rubenstein interviews presidential historian doris kearns goodwin. carol: record numbers of women were inspired to run for office in 2018. we know a record number won in the u.s. congress. the founder of "she should run"

says this is just the beginning. jason: more from the year ahead summit. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm carol massar. jason: two individuals tasked with solving big problems. including the mayor of flint, michigan, and the person working on saving new york subways. carol: first, we have to talk about politics. this guest is one of the world's best known political hifpks.

jason: david rubenstein hosts his eponymous show on bloomberg television. he sat down with doris kearns goodwin to talk about her book , "leadership in turbulent times." carol: this contains lessons for business leaders as well. doris: leadership is about human nature and the way a businessman or a politician builds a team i think has similarities. are you able to build a team of people with diverse opinions and bring that team together at critical moments? that's what obviously lincoln did with his team of rivals. it's what franklin delano roosevelt did with eleanor roosevelt by his side. she was always willing to question his presumptions and speak truth to power. i think any team needs that, in business or not. they said about her that whenever she wanted something

done, she would bring a person he didn't want to speak to because he was tire of the that person right to the dinner table because he'd have to speak to him because he brought an alternative point of view. fdr loved to have people who were down in the bureaucracy come into his office so he could question them against department heads. he put people against one another and said a little bit of competition does a good thing. he would give the same assignment to two different people. they all had ways of getting new opinions into their heads. carol: a great conversation. you can get more in an upcoming episode of the david rubenstein show.

jason: staying with politics, here's something that will happen in early 2019, more than 100 women will be sworn into the u.s. congress. you had a record number of women running for local, state, and national office. carol: one reason for that trend, you had organizations that sprung up and supported women candidates, an incubator of sorts. is devoted to helping women pursue public office, says the loss of hillary clinton in 2016, it has set the stage in 2018. she tells me why she was inspired to start the company. erin: i had been working in politics for a number of years and often with women who had just put themselves out there to run proving their viability to institutional players. we work our tails off. i'd look at all the resources that goes in. the money that goes into politics, the hours that were spent. you would look after the election and see more often than not, we are going backwards in women's representation. the overall numbers were not changing.

there were incredible individual stories. but the research, at the same time, and it still shows it, that the number one reason why women don't run is because they are not recruited and encouraged at the same rate as men. it is a natural part of the cycle. if you have a majority of men represented in elected office, when a position opens, it's more likely you will pass it to someone who looks like you and someone you know. it is harder for women to break into that. in 2011, we wanted to figure out a way to help provide anyone, men and women alike, to tell us about great women they know who should be thinking about running for office so we could build that bench. we launched the program. carol: how many did you start with? how many do you have now considering a run? erin: sure, when we started, it was slow. we learned a lot of lessons on how to get someone to tell you about somebody they think should run for office. we started from the beginning

and fast forward to today, we are just over 21,000 women who have been asked to run for office through our work. 14,000 of them are actually actively preparing for a run for office. [applause] carol: significant. that is pretty cool. if hillary clinton had won, would we be having the same conversation about the midterms? erin: we would not. we did a big sweep before the 2016 election to look at the landscape and see where we could add programmatic work that could be helpful to the field. we found was nowhere was there a program of a logical place for women to start. we built out the incubator. women come to us to get a feel of what it was like to run for office. we launched that program just before the 2016 election.

we were assuming, like most, because of poll, that hillary clinton was going to be elected president and our work was going to get much harder. we had planned for small numbers. we had planned for how difficult it was going to be to get people into the program. election day came and went. i was thinking of rewriting everything we were doing, to the floodgates opening and us getting thousands of women into the program pretty immediately. carol: we ended conversation talking about what women might be running for president in some 2020, of the usual suspects came out, elizabeth warren. kamela harris. and others. we will see what happens. jason: it will be quite a field for sure. another prominent woman in politics over the past year was longtime justice department official sally yates. she, of course, was fired by

president donald trump for refusing to defend that travel ban in 2017 when she was the acting attorney general. carol: that was just a few days into the trump administration and with controversy over the mueller probe and many other issues. she says the independence of the d.o.j. is still in peril. she spoke with our bloomberg editor-in-chief. sally: you can debate whether you agree with a particular decision by a judge, but trying to undermine the very legitimacy of that judge or our judicial system is something that is not only new but really dangerous. because we can't expect that at the end of this presidency that we are elastic enough to where the public confidence all bounces back these institutions. for a lot of the reasons we were talking about a few minutes ago, these institutions really only function properly if the public has confidence in them. the department of justice really

can only function if the citizens of this country respect and believe that decisions are being made based on the facts and the law and nothing else. >> do you think it's at a worse stage, the department of justice's reputation from that angle or are the questions being asked about this similar to watergate, is it worse now? sally: i don't think the justice department took the same hit in watergate. and there you had the justice department at the end there resisting the efforts of the president to use the department of justice. i am not suggesting decisions at the d.o.j. are being made based on political reasons, but it sure isn't for lack of trying from the president's part. carol: the mayor of flint does not just want the water problem fixed. she wants people held accountable. jason: the president of the new york city transit authority.

can he get the subways in shape in 2019? or beyond? it is a tall order. carol: they both have full plates. this is "bloomberg businessweek."

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar . jason: and i am jason kelly. join us every day on the radio. carol: you can also find us online at "bloomberg businessweek."com and on our mobile app. jason: when you look at big global issues, some of them can best be understood by looking at some local examples. carol: exactly. lack of access to clean drinking water is a problem we see around the world. notably, the emerging world. that is not always the case with flint, michigan, dealing with the aftermath of its water crisis.

karen weaver is leading the way. she does not mince words when she talks about what her city has gone through. it's been rough times. karen: what happened in flint was criminal. when you have kids poisoned, and actually a whole community, but we know that kids under 6 and pregnant and nursing mothers are going to be impacted, some of them for the rest of their lives. when you have people that have dialed as a result of legionnaires, they are looking now at the high cases of miscarriages and stillbirths during that time. one of the things they are looking at now are some of the numbers of deaths attributed to pneumonia. and they're wondering if that was really legionnaires and what was going on there. when you look at the mental health implications -- i was talking to someone earlier and i was saying it is really easy to put a cost on infrastructure, but when we look at the human cost, we don't know what that will be.

some of it, we're going to have to wait and see what happens. carol: is it a reminder our society values people differently? karen: yes. what happened in the city of flint, even though there were other cities in michigan taken over by emergency managers, they put cost over the public health and welfare of the people. it could have cost as little as $100 a day for the cost of corrosion control and this would not have happened. carol: one last question. should he be gone after? karen: yes. we've said that for every level of government. from the bottom to the top, top bottom. we want everybody in michigan to be held accountable. if that means the governor, the governor as well. carol: do we now know what happened? are all the pieces in place? karen: there are still some unknowns. carol: because we don't want another flint to happen.

karen: no, we don't and i hope people are paying attention to what happened in flint. one thing i have said is don't let us go through crisis and you don't learn from us. this should never have happened. it should not have. carol: where are we today? we have talked about you are fixing 18,000 pipes. you are almost there? karen: we had three years in which to fix these pipes. we said we would do 6,000 a year over three years so we have until the end of next year. we are ahead of schedule. we have less than 150 to go. carol: is that a problem fixed? karen: not quite but we are on the right track. after they are fixed, we are still on bottled and filtered water. the reason is because with the amount of construction going on in the city, the epa has said you still have a public health risk until you get all of those pipes removed and replaced. carol: what guarantees can you give your citizens this won't

happen again? how do we ensure that does not happen again? karen: we have talked about looking at changing the standards in place. one of the things, we should be able to take water quality standards for granted. but we can't. the standards are old and outdated. they need to be looked at and raised. so we have been working on that in the state of michigan. the other thing is i have told them i am not signing off. i haven't told anyone to drink water from the tap and i will not until we get all of the lines replaced. even though they have been identified, we want to check the other once. if we're going to do it right, let's do it right. if we're going to get the lead and galvanized pipes out, let's do that. but then we have to have the medical community to sign off. that is when the all clear will

be. carol: flint has had troubles for decades. some have been the result of conditions ignored for years. you might say the same for the new york city transit system. jason: you certainly could. the new york city transit system is massive, old, and complicated. in january of 2018, andy was hired to fix it. he is a u.k. native hired all around the world to fix it. most recently in canada. this looks to be his toughest challenge yet. andy: the biggest problem is reliability of the service. that's what people want, that's the clamor and obviously that is the biggest challenge. there have been decades of underinvestment in transit and the fact the service has relentlessly declined in many ways. i always caveat that by reminding people we do move eight million people a day and most people most days are not delayed. but there has been a slow decline in the reliability of the service. we can harvest that to build a compelling case for what needs to be done. i said on day one it is not

tinkering, it is all out modernization. jason: your day one was not that long ago in terms of this new york city job. 10 months ago? january was your first day on the job. >> 17th of january. >> you obviously knew what you were getting into the some extent. this is not the oldest system you have worked on. you worked on the tube which is even older. what has been your biggest surprise? andy: the biggest has been just the scale of the task. i had a big job in toronto, the third-largest transit in north america. and itself had myriad problems that needed to be fixed and has seven bus depose. we have 27 bus depose and c.t.c. has 27,000 employees. new york city transit has 50,000 employees. two million people a day. we carry eight million people a day. i think it is the scale of the job and the challenge. we are dealing with equipment,

signals, some nearly 100 years old, that is ridiculous. jason: and you mentioned to me earlier that so old that the manufacturer does not even make it anymore. may not even exist. andy: we make our own parts. jason: there's got to be a moment where you say are you kidding me. andy: what it says to me is we must prevail in this conversation we started on day one to say if we want to rebuild this thing and give new yorkers the transit system they deserve, we need a plan. we now have a plan. it was put together within 100 days of my arrival. it is called the fast-forward plan. we don't need tinkering. we have to modernize transit from top to bottom, every aspect of it. renew the signaling system, rebuild the stations, rebuild the track and critical infrastructure. get the buses moving again and make the system fully

accessible. it comes at a cost but it can be done. jason: what is that? andy: billions of dollars, around $40 billion over 10 years. jason: up next, joe 11 looks ahead to 2019 in the digital world. carol: and who better to talk about the future of luxury than ian schrager? this is "bloomberg businessweek."

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm carol massar. you can listen to us in new york, boston, washington, d.c. jason: am 8960 in the bay area and in london on digital and on the bloomberg business app. we cannot look ahead to 2019 without checking out two spaces continuing to evolve quickly, digital media and luxury. carol: first up, we have to talk

about the digital space. at the summit, they dug into the price of data and privacy. >> when we think about data, we think the most important thing is that the price and value exchange has the user consent but also passes the smell test. consent can be a tricky thing. >> we as consumers, even people who are relatively tech savvy do not understand what they are giving up the whole time. >> correct. it is hard to explain what they are giving up. number one, you need to give control to consumers. but number two, it needs to pass the smell test. cambridge analytica did not.

it was some personality test thing that had no real value to consumers. in exchange for that, their data went a lot of places that that consumer wouldn't have imagined. when everyone realized that, it was a big problem. i think a lot of those things were accidents. operators of businesses have to be doing a price to value exchange on a valid basis. they have to be able to look themselves in the mirror, look their shareholders or colleagues or family in the mirror and say we charged a fair price for that thing. the fair price was the users' data. when it is not, that is a big problem. we generally favor subscription businesses. it's crystal clear. you pay $20 a month, and you get access to this. >> let's say cambridge analytic a is a rotting fish. where does facebook sit on the spectrum? >> i think they are figuring that out.

i don't think they were doing it with bad intentions. meaning i don't think they said let's see how much we can extract from users. >> intention aside, there is a responsibility that should come with that level of -- >> yes, and i think a lot of people were surprised by that -- including people internally were surprised by the power of that platform and the extent to which misdeeds would or could be done. that was a wake-up call for a lot of people. it's perhaps possible that facebook did not even understand fully the price they were charging. when that data can be used in this other weaponized way, then it became you gave up more in ways they didn't understand they were giving up. >> what do you make of -- >> i don't --

>> you do a lot of business with facebook. >> we have advertisers on facebook. we have business partners. i don't envy what they are going through. it is hard. it is a tough spot. i think they will come through. i think they have been incredibly smart and innovative that's a company that executes unbelievably well and quickly but this going to slow them down for sure. i think they will power through. but it is probably an unpleasant time right now because everyone is piling on. carol: last, we have to talk about luxury. jason: the perfect person to talk about it, legend rill entrepreneur and real estate developer ian schrager. he created the concept of a boutique hotel. ian: i think what happened in europe, which we usually follow is that in london, you have the aristocrats. you don't have much of a middle-class.

you have a big segment of the population. unfortunately, i think we are heading in the same way which is why i think luxury has to be responsive to that. we have what we call here the 1% and then you have another big group. what i found in the hotel business is that wealthy people as much as anybody else want to get a good bargain. and if you can stay in a hotel room and you get the same kind of feeling and experience that you get in a much more expensive hotel, wealthy people would also like to get that bargain. so if you can stay in a hotel and spend $200 and feel as good and have the same access to entertainment and excitement, rather than staying in a hotel where you pay 10 times more, people will take it.

not millennials, not people who don't have as much money. anybody. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands. the year ahead summit in the books. what can you take away from the conversations? jason: i loved getting that sneak peek of talking to john gray, talking about volatility. private equity guys love that because that is where they make their money. what about you? carol: i really liked all the conversations about data and technology and industry. lots of great stuff. we have enjoyed bringing you the highlights from bloomberg's your ahead summit. you can watch the entire year ahead to summit on bloomberg live's youtube channel and on bloomberg.com. jason: check out our daily "bloomberg businessweek" podcast. available at itunes and bloomberg.com. carol: we caught up with the mayor of columbus, ohio. and the executive chairman of of

eke no, harvey spibak. jason: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪

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>> will come to daybreak australia. i'm sophie kamaruddin hong kong. we are counting down to asia's major market open. paul: here are the top stories. optimism in the air as we enter a new week. the u.s. and china agreed to tone down rhetoric and put new tariffs on hold. moscow and riyadh agreed to -- and