carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. in this week'srol: issue, iconic companies tackling our global macro concerns. we have the ceo on combating global warming.

then, we have the global cover story. president trump's government shutdown. jason: how it is redefining politics. carol: what is interesting about your story, this shutdown is different from what we have seen in the past. >> it really is. i have been covering washington politics for 20 years. there have been 10 government shutdowns since 1980. this is the first one engineered by the president himself. that has created a set of circumstances that explain why things are so contentious, why it has dragged on for so long, and why there is no end in sight as we enter month two of the crisis. jason: take us back to the prologue, the famous meeting in the oval office, and the

president says, "i will own this, this is my shutdown." does he regret that? >> i think what happened is trump planned a confrontation. the problem is he got caught in a bickering match and accepted responsibility for the crisis in advance before it kicked off. that is the worst thing you could do from a strategic standpoint. the minute the government shut down, the question that is asked is who is to blame and trump has taken that in advance. one problem we have had is there is no easy way out of the crisis because trump does not want that blame. he is saying there is a crisis, but at the same time trump is the president, he has been able to mitigate the nastier effects of the crisis. he is in a strange division where he cannot go on but it is not clear how it will be resolved. carol: what about when it comes

to perception and the constituents, whether democrat or republican? who is losing? >> everybody is losing. what is interesting about this shutdown as opposed to ones in the past, it was congress that shut down the government. last spring, the government try ied to get progress on daca. ted cruz tried to shut down the government and block obamacare. the problem is that the president can turn around and exacerbate the pain from the shutdown. obama closed national parks, and commodity prices were not available. it caused a lot of disruption. republicans could not withstand the pressure.

trump has done the opposite, he is using the presidential power to mitigate the effects. when it became clear the irs cannot process tax returns, trump ordered 46,000 irs workers back to work. we are lacking the forcing mechanism that has ended every shutdown in the past before now. it is not clear what that mechanism will be. jason: you talked about pressure on republicans, and it does feel like in the senate, that does feel like the most vulnerable group to some extent. a handful up for reelection. mitch mcconnell has come back onto the scene in the past few days. what happens there? does this rest on the senate? >> it does rest on the senate. the other thing different from previous ones is that in the past, usually the broad middle of the country has turned against the party that orchestrated the president. -- that orchestrated it, the president. this time, it has not happened. trump's favorability has gone up

amongst republicans. that is a fact that republicans are rushing to their teams. republicans in the senate are stuck. they do not want to go against trump or voters. there are few like cory gardner from colorado, lisa murkowski from alaska who are up for reelection and need to get the government open. we see movement but not enough to break the dam. carol: i wonder, are we getting another page from president trump's playbook, if he does not get his wall, will it come up in a few months with the debt ceiling? >> this is the scary scenario. trump is in this for one reason alone, get money for his border wall so he can run for election saying i said i would build the wall and i am. if he is forced into a humiliating climb down, i flash forward six months to a scenario where the debt limit is about to be reinstated, treasury can pursue extraordinary measures, but if the u.s. is running out of borrowing power, i do not see anything from stopping trump to take the debt limit hostage and say if you do not give me money for the wall, i will not raise the debt limit.

that is more scary than anything we have seen. jason: another way to look at the shutdown is how it is impacting consumer confidence. we pulled up a chart that breaks it down, and it is clear. carol: what we are seeing is americans are not confident, and it is falling to a two year low, the lowest we have seen in president trump's presidency. consumer confidence, wages, job prospects, but the continued uncertainty has really weighed on people. jason: you see that sharp drop there. the government shutdown started then, there was worry about it, but it has gone on and on. carol: it is one for the record books. already, we know that. coming up next, how global companies are faring in the face of the u.s.-china trade war. jason: our conversation with a pioneer in equities.

who says what americans get wrong about beijing. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. jason: i am jason kelly. you can catch up on our daily with our podcast on itunes. carol: you can find us online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. the economic section is all about china. jason: specifically, the risks and rewards with beijing. carol: check out this chart.

it shows you how important china is to many of the world's biggest companies, and what you see, look at apple, boeing, procter & gamble, huge multinational companies. the dark part is revenue from the rest of the world. the white part shows you the amount of revenue coming from china. apple alone, $52 billion. jason: i think back to earlier this month, that news about apple's exposure to china being responsible for its revenue shortfall, that had a huge impact on the market, and it raised the question and turn the ed the tables in terms of what your exposure to china meant. carol: china has always been the market everybody has been looking to to grow their topline. jason: we have more from our economics editor. >> the question about whether its numbers has been around for a long time.

it seems a good time to look at it because the country accounts for 16% of world growth. back in the late 1990's when a lot of conversations began around this question, it was 3%. it was of academic interest if china was cooking the books. something happened in this latest quarter that was interesting, which was for the first time in a long time the official figures aligned with this big range of independent processes including at banks -- what banks have been devising and working on for many years. the question now remains, and it cannot be answered yet, whether china has turned a new leaf, or whether this is an anomaly. jason: i do not want to get too far away from something important you said. the market decided it had to, up with its own figures because it could not trust with

what the chinese were saying. what do they look at to get what they think is a more accurate number? >> it is a huge cottage industry. the irony is it was most triggered by a comment from a chinese official with a u.s. diplomat who said china's gdp numbers are man-made. he said i look at things like electricity consumption and bank loans to gauge what the activity in my own province is. quickly, the economists made own index from those

metrics. bloomberg looks at an index of electricity consumption across a number of industries weighed by their share of gdp. lending is an important industrial production, retail sales, all the things you would expect people to look at in a normal economy. it is often used to gauge the level of activity. carol: it is interesting this went into the history of how statistics have been gathered in china. talk about the difference between what local leaders have to worry about the data and national leaders. jason: and the incentives are perverse. >> understanding incentives would be why china would stop doing this. it used to be from the era of mao, local officials were reporting figures to beijing. the incentive was because your prospects of promotion were tied to your performance of the local economy, the incentive existed to inflate the level of economic activity.

you see that looking back. you wonder, did china ever grow at 14%? jason: for another perspective with aa, we caught up ceo in china. carol: his personal story is a riveting one. from hard labor in the gobi desert at 15 to attending school in the united states and becoming a private equity investor overseeing billions of dollars in investment. jason: he writes that in his book, "out of the gobi." carol: we had him on our daily radio show, and we wanted to bring him back because there is so much insight he provides. jason: he started talking about the trade war between washington and beijing. >> i think, reflecting back on the 40 years of this relationship, both countries have benefited from this relationship.

that 40 years ago, the differences between the two countries in terms of the system, the economy, the ofitics, the social aspects , it could not be as different, more different. they are completely different worlds. at that time when richard nixon first visited in 1972, they found some common ground, common interests to establish a relationship, which was formalized. since then, the relationship flourished. these countries are the largest trading partners. i think, of course, if we look

at the differences today, they are smaller than 40 years ago. china has opened up, it is a market economy. the private sector is the largest part of the economy. there are more commonalities between these two countries. if the two countries just look at the common ground, the common interest, and focus on those, and not on differences, then this relationship will continue to develop. carol: tell me about this book and why you wrote it. >> as the title suggests, "out of the gobi" is my story about china and america, my experiences living through the most horrific part of chinese modern history. i think my stories are rather unique, but they are also very representative of the people in my generation who lived through similar experiences. carol: tell us a little bit about growing up in china as a kid.

>> when i was a small child, i think my life was more normal, even though china was a poor country and we lived in a poor poor standards and conditions. carol: you grew up in -- >> beijing. hell broke loose in 1966 when i was 12 years old and fishing elementary school. the so-called cultural revolution started and the entire country was thrown into chaos. the president of the country was thrown into jail without anybody knowing about it. he died there three years later. many teachers, including mine, were beaten up by students, i tonessed teachers beaten death by their students. it was totally chaotic. three years later, after three years of total chaos, i and many of my friends were sent to the

gobi desert to do hard labor. when i was 15 years old, it was extremely hard work. and in very back conditions. -- bad conditions. we did not have enough to eat. we had to work 16 to 18 hours a day. the worst thing was there was no education, so we were out of school. for the next 10 years, there was no schooling. this generation of mine is referred to as the lost generation because we never had a chance to acquire formal education. jason: up next, while japan sets its sights on flying cars -- carol: we are still trying to figure out safety concerns. jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am jason kelly. carol: i am carol massar. jason: in the technology section, japan does not want to fall behind the technological curve. carol: it does not. the very important ministry of trade is working to speed up the arrival of aerial taxis, flying cars. jason: flying cars. >> we have talked a little bit about it the last couple years , the efforts in the u.s. and elsewhere to make fantastic machines of the future a reality, including larry page, the google founder. but, japan over the last few years has started to take an earnest approach on a

governmental level. they are calling an old-school moonshot, saying in a next 10 years, we will get from a standing start to air taxis and trucks. carol: where is japan in terms at the high tech universe and who is doing what, because i love the story that says japan uses foot phones, and yahoo! is the most popular internet service. they have kind of fallen behind -- flip phones, and yahoo! is the most popular internet service. they have kind of fallen behind when it comes to high-tech. >> yes, and particularly this

kind of technology, japan is an unlikely source of this moonshot effort. it seems that writers say up front they are stuck in yesterday's vision of tomorrow, the 1980's idea of the future. carol: what is their plan? >> japan's ministry is one of the lead actors here, and in operation that was in the era of the post economic miracle for having come up with the radio, the walkman, but it has been quiet since. here is the government saying in the last year, we are going to make an effort to grease the skids and rolled together together private startup efforts and venture capital. jason: you highlight a couple people who have come across as voices shouting in the wilderness, saying, this is our opportunity. these young guys to a large extent who were running up thatst a large bureaucracy may be a little skeptical. what broke through? >> there are plenty of headwinds. a big one is the fact it is hard

to do anything quickly in japan. much more so in the u.s. where a lot of western societies are safe. there has not been the kind of serious air accident or rail accident that you will see in most developed nations in decades in japan. it has been a challenge for people on the cutting edge of the flying car industry to work their way through the various government bureaucracies in play here. nonetheless, the government allowed last month the test flight of a flying car by a startup group. head tool: now, we singapore for a look at how

ride-hailing apps are getting drivers. jason: what these companies are doing to protect passengers from negligent drivers. >> our technology reporter in singapore has been covering the rideshare industry. he came to us with this story, was -- on the day uber and grab, which is the dominant player in singapore, grab the local champion becoming the acquiring company in that market, got in a grab car and was in a terrible accident. the weird confluence of events, writing about this fast growing company, and nearly dying in this car crash. one of the arteries that was severed, she was in the hospital for days. it caused her as she recovered

to try to think about whether or not the fact of these ride-hailing companies that are growing so fast they have added thousands of new drivers to the roads, may have contributed to the accident. she had an unique opportunity to -- she had a unique opportunity to investigate because she was able to get her own accident records, in singapore there is a law that allows you if you are part of the accident to get the records. but also to get to know the ceo of grab. he is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in southeast asia, and so she was able to get unusual access to him because he started visiting her. carol: he came to the hospital? >> yes. so, grab is different from uber. they presented themselves as a sober, law-abiding company.

the ceo is a christian, and into he shows displays of his faith and seriousness and sobriety. given that combination, after a reporter was in the hospital, he started showing up. you have to read the story to understand what she was going through. it comes off as too much. and you wonder, the subtext of the story is there is a protest too much quality about the grab response. we should say, she did not find anything about grab doing anything wrong. the company apologized to her. the ceo apologized to her. it is more a question of are they giving safety records, are they being honest with themselves about what they are doing to ensure safety? jason: up next, an insider's look at how angela merkel's power faded away in germany. carol: what brexit can mean for small business owners and entrepreneurs across the u.k.

jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ >> welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." still ahead, why you probably cannot sue your boss. >> a section of arbitration and then in the small business section, killer snails, golden state cider, and some really cool sneakers. >> we star in the politics

section with german chancellor angela merkel who is among the list topping of leaders in the world economic forum in davos this week. esence in davos -- >> definitely changing times. years ago, two years and eight month altogether. she is of course a seen as a here, a lame duck because everyone knows she will not run again and she has successor, a her very difficult name. [laughter] >> it is foreign to us because and somebody is out, they are gone, but tell us about how lost andrkel kind of you take us to a day in 2018, june 12. what happened? >> while she was still seen as very powerful and very dominant

abroad in germany, beginning with the refugee crisis, she actually lost a lot of confidence here and this event on june 2018 was the first time that really her own parliamentary group, her own people openly revolted against her and the nobody defended her. >> and why? this was over the refugee crisis, she took a step it sounds like and keep us honest here, that was maybe unexpected or certainly not politically palatable to people even in her own party in terms of her embrace of syrian refugees. it many peopleg were taken by surprise because she was known as a pragmatic politician who always thought about the consequences of our policies and suddenly, she reacted very emotionally, people have the feeling, and it left

many people in here without knowing who was calming and especially for conservatives, there was a kind of very hard issue to follow. >> this is all happening against the backdrop of obviously a very different europe, both in dealing with itself as a union but also dealing with the rest of the world. findoes angela merkel herself a maid this new leadership across europe? >> she was celebrated as the , at leader of the free world name which she herself never really liked. but now, she sees she is one of the few leaders left who seem to whorationally and also still has human values in mind when they make decisions. we think multilaterally,

emmanuel mack ron, but she feels pretty lonely on the world stage. >> and while merkel has lost support among her people and her party, so as her counterpart in the u.k., theresa may. she is to work out a plan for brexit. carol: lawmakers are set to make a bow on brexit this week, and we caught up with respected entrepreneur joe malone. >> it impacts every business owner and anyone who says it does not, it does in some way. i am heartbroken actually by what is happening because -- this is people's lives and when someone gets a job, it affects them and their family, but you know what, that job affects the community in which they live, the city, and eventually, the country. and that is what we are seeing, a slowdown in the economy.

instance,tmas, for you saw things going on sale way before christmas. how do you catch up with that? people were sitting and waiting for 70% discount to come in, and that really hurts retailers. that is why we are seeing shops being empty on the high street. and i do not with the talk is down because as an entrepreneur, wanted for new really great at is picking up the pieces and building something. that is where my mindset is. work threeistmas, we times harder for every pound that we made, but we did it. we did it. it means the next six months for us are much easier than some of the other retailers who were unable to really or were struggling. but there will always be a place in the market for retail. brexit is not going to stop that but it is making it really hard. it is the uncertainty. nobody knows. i would like to think of myself

as a pretty savvy person, but i do not know what is going to happen today let alone tomorrow. how am i supposed to build my business and invest in my business. carol: make decisions. >> make decisions, right, so heartbusinesses where my always lies, they do not have huge teams to advise them. goy do not have the money to and get lawyers and they need to know where are we going? is it safe for me to take this for the next year at the next six months. when you sign a lease and build a business, it is a commitment to yourself, to the community, and the people you employ pre-at the ceo ofext, morris, the candybar kanga, sits down with bloomberg businessweek's joe weber. and pets. also, a rare look inside of an hearing. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. carol: join us for bloomberg businessweek every day on the radio. you can also catch up on our podcast that you can find at itunes, soundcloud, and apple books. jason: and find us online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. in d brief this week, sitting down with joel webber. carol: the company known for its sweet and yet there is so much more. >> mars is a really interesting company, privately held, family-owned, global, and it mints money, north of $35 billion revenues. >> remind us, these are brands everybody -- >> these brands that everybody has this amazing affinity for and yet, highly secretive and the nobody knows that much about. we are talking about brands like

m&m's, mars, skittles. areut wait a minute, we talking about healthier snacks, but he did not seem to back away. you should only do confectionery's and their candy products as streets. they are not supposed to be something that you be all the time. but they do see an opportunity in nutrition and that is something that we talked about. their partnership in india with tata group and that there is a and couldon problem, they help solve the problem for the world. one of the interesting things we talked about the sustainability. i framed around this idea of you have a candy bar, you throw away the rapper, but you can recycle back. does it actually get recycled, and that is one of the challenges he talked about. they talked about it a lot and you look at the oceans with all

the plastic ending up in them, what do you do? was saidre is what about sustainability and global warming. we are basically an agricultural company that takes agricultural products, fish, corn, cocoa, and turn it into brands. we are very dependent on the supply chain of the farmers, so we see what we are trying -- so climate change is real. and we have been cutting out greenhouse gas emissions ourselves, so step back for a second. initially when we are looking at operations, we were looking to just our own operations, and we did some great stuff around zero waste to landfill, renewable correct all of our energy, all using renewable energy. the metricsize that

and capabilities to examine that got more complete, the that is only a small part of the impact that we have in the world. has anc we found greenhouse gas emission likealent to something panama, which is not insignificant. oure are really got to play part, and we look at our whole supply chain. we are working with cocoa farmers, communities, and another great example that we are doing as a part of inlaboration again madagascar are. .- madagascar we are looking at partners looking at ways to improve productivity and manage some of the effects that are going to come with that change. section, the features what is like to go through arbitration with your employer. jason: millions of american workers sign away their rights

without even knowing. people are familiar with arbitration, maybe they have a sense that has something to do with unions, maybe they have a a consumer when you sign arbitration agreements when you get a cell phone. but it is really a story about workers and american workers, and you and i are both workers, what the american worker has done in the last 30 years is lose what feels like a very fundamental right. our is a right that i hope bosses are listening -- a right to sue your boss in courts should something go wrong. lines of along the sexual harassment, discrimination, or cheated, and workers in america, if they happens -- that happens to them, they will be in this quiet shadow system called arbitration. and no one really knows what it looks like and that is why this story is exciting because it at the shine a light on it. carol: let's talk about it because what is fun about your story is you take us behind

the scenes of what goes on when there is an arbitration case or situation. >> yes. audiencewant our watching to think, arbitration is boring. carol: not boring. >> it is a fun story because it has a real tale. carol: you call it "welcome to arbitration hell." >> that is a good headline, i did not write that. so there is a guy name alex, alex is a nerdy computer guy, he comes from the ukraine, and he was laid off by ubs, the biggest bank in switzerland. he is a tech guy, a very senior tech guy at ubs, and he found out that when he got laid off that he was not going to get his bonus, which he thought he was days away from getting. it was around this time of year, january. not only that, but they were basically like if you want your which iscompensation,

a ton of money that comes with a built in timer, he thought he had all of this comp coming this way, and ubs said please signed your paper saying you are not going to sue us. carol: and we talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> over a million dollars essentially. , he took themngs to arbitration, and the second thing he did was he basically felt that his arbitration clause had a loophole that would allow him to file a class action which is when you team up with someone else. though,eme court, basically ruled that employers can get out of class action lawsuits banks to arbitration clauses, so let's not worry about that fight. what we can talk about instead is after the arbitration was over, i got a call from his lawyer, an iconic civil rights attorney, and said i'm going to

show you the transcripts. carol: you got the transcripts? >> i got the transcripts. you something, it is hard to get transcripts for arbitration sessions because a court case, if you end i decided to take a fun day off of work and go see court cases, you can walk in. you can walk into el chapo's case. arbitration -- carol: it is private. more is more secretive, shadowy, not necessarily all confidential, but from the outside you know much less about it. which is why the me too movement has emphasized arbitration. carol: up next, rebooting a communist sneaker. jason: and out to eat like a king even when you're not in new york or l.a.. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. jason: you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119. 106.1 in boston. babl: and in london on digital. this week solution section is focused on small businesses. jason: specifically, very creative entrepreneurs making cider and sneakers, of course. carol: we got more from our editor. >> it is called zeha. i am not sure how to describe it, one of the classic styles is like a combo of a bowling shoe and a soccer shoe. not to draw comparisons, but i well. some people say they look like campers but they are kind of cooler than campers. leather,n the side, very sturdy, and these were very

popular in east germany before the fall of the wall. kind of competing with the likes of puma, that is what was a vailable. and they kind of went away because then when they were open to all kinds of products after the fall of the wall, people were like, why do i need this. but they were cool and well made. carol: how did they come back, i'm always curious. >> one of the three investors in the business now was somewhere and noticed a friend of his wearing a pair and he recognized them because he grew up in east germany and was like, those look kind of familiar. he was intrigued to so we started looking into what had happened, where there are still a factory and so on and so forth. he decided, i'm going to do this. of somethe advice people, he found the cobbler that works for the original company and the cobbler was like, you are crazy. they're always brands of

footwear and sneakers i have always been competitive. a think of sneakers as being big deal now, but sneakers are always something that i've been very competitive. people want what is the coolest and what is the latest, where is it coming from. carol: sneakers to kill or snails, i have no better segue than that. tell us about killer snails. killer snails, another company based in brooklyn founded by three women, and that is all about science and education and really trying to get kids, teenagers excited about science and careers in science. when the founders of the company who came together in various ways would talk about what was going on with science and science education, they were seeing trends that were troubling in terms of not enough young people really pursuing careers in science. they thought, we have to find a way to excite kids by science. what we want to do with this story was when nick leiber met one of these women, she was

talking a lot about how everything is based on their testing of their piloting. it is all about that. you do not create a product for kids and middle schoolers and high schoolers especially if you do not find a way to tap into the audience and see how something works with them. re what we would like to do with small businesses identify parts of the business that might be challenging or you might have some questions about, and break apart for you in ways that are accessible. jason: cider, steph curry, bring it all home. [laughter] >> we thought, let's do something funny year. there is nothing official behind the owner of this business, golden state's cider posit. but golden state cider is a cider company is in california, and it does quite well when steph curry is out there working his magic. when we looked at the timeline and the history of the company

as compared to something like when were the warriors in the playoffs, and winded steph curry's sign for the warriors, we thought this is a fun way that we can bring this all together. old family business that was an apple orchard that simply sold apples but they were not enough to cut it in the very pricey sonoma region. more and more the land started selling for more and more. five or 10 years ago, especially because of pinot noir production. they pivoted and decided, we are going to take apples and we are going to create hard cider. there was nothing much happening with cider at the time that this happened around 2015 2014. but, right after that, cider started ticking off and booming. jason: in pursuit of flutie's guide to the best restaurants outside of new york and l.a. carol: from philly to minneapolis, food critics with

the best eats in second cities. citiesnd cities are the that have been overshadowed by their neighbors and have a bigger reputation in the food world, maybe in everything, but certainly where i sit, the food in some of these cities that set a couple of hours away from their bigger, better known all thes are getting headlines and we are seeing the emergence of these really cool cities that you may want to go to even more than their better-known counterparts. and readinge it, through this list, i want to go to philadelphia. >> you totally want to go to philadelphia and the funny conceit of it is, you never would have thought that men have been really stayed would advertise its proximity to queens, right? i am a new yorker, never ever in my lifetime. say,ise, you would not let's go to philadelphia to eat anything besides a cheesesteak, but it has really changed. there has been a critical mass set up shop have

there. it is threatening new york and i carol: say that as a new yorker. carol:you talk about san antonio, minneapolis. who knew. >> austen has been in the foodie world and it has gotten so much attention. away,an hour and a half san antonio was known more for the birthplace of chili con c arne, but now, about a decade ago, the place called "the pearl" was created and is a mixed space. carol: 22 acres. >> it is huge. anchored by this gorgeous old building that is a brewery and now there are 19 food and drink concepts in it. carol: minneapolis, indianapolis, asheville, richmond. carol: i think indianapolis is a

great city. they have actually built up this really, really cool food scene and one thing they have done, the city has been really great about creating paths and parkways to take you from one food area to another. it has helped drive foot traffic, literally. carol: i think that washington dc, you go. richmond, though, just outside of dc. >> it is school. a cool food city, but richmond has a fantastic beer city. when craft in hand, beer starts coming up, you see restaurant developing as well, and they have the boomerang effect where chefs who work who started there went away to make their name and a place like new york city but

now they are going back and establishing their own places and getting recognition across the country which is great. carol: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands now. jason: also online and on our mobile app. your clapping are ready for your must-read. carol: i am. cover story, we love him we get a chance to read something written by josh green and get to talk to him as well. how this shutdown in washington is different this time around. jason: he puts it in gray perspective because his expertise goes back decades in washington, but specifically on this administration, he wrote the book "devil's bargain" and he understands what this makes this president take and he says, this is a shutdown like no other. carol: check that one out and you can also find more stories on business week.com over the weekend. jason: and check our daily podcast. carol: more bloomberg television

starts right now. ♪

i am a family man. i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

♪ joel: grant reid leads the company with global success and some of the most well-known brands in the world. but he keeps his focus firmly on the future. mr. reid: my job is to make sure i'm setting us up for the next 100 years. joel: his vision for growth is linked with an insistence for principle. an emphasis on transparency. mr. reid: we are trying to move with the consumer, give choice, and i think that is working well. joel: and a commitment to sustainability. mr. reid: we are cutting greenhouse gas emissions ourselves. joel: we talked about candy and