goods monday morning, welcome to "squawk alley." kayla tausche is with us. jon fortt is with us on the busy days of the market, even though we are on the dog days of august. begin with the piece on amazon by the "new york times" over the weekend. the article called "inside amazon, wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace" claims amazon has a cruel working environment based on several interviews with employees. mean tile, cnbc obtained a memo sent by ceo jeff bezos to employees saying i strongly believe anyone working in the company really described like one in the "new york times" would be crazy to stay. i know boy leave such a company. joining us this morning one of the reporters behind that article, "new york times" reporter david straightfield joins us. good morning to you. it's good to have you with us. >> good morning. >> it's obviously -- story is a

monumental effort, so much work has gone into the reporting and the storytelling. can you give us the backstory on how the idea began, what the genesis of the story was? >> the genesis of the story is probably about 20 years ago, i was an early amazon customer and i started writing about it then and i've always been fascinated by the achievements and the level of intensity of the people who work there which has enabled them to achieve great things so i wanted to know more about it. >> david, there's been quite a response to the piece, including a piece on linkedin by an engineering manager there. and i guess i got two things that i'm hoping you can address. one, the story seems to suggest through the sweep at the top that pretty much everyone at amazon has the same experience, just a different tolerance for it, and amazon hasn't changed much over the years and there's been quite a bit of push back on those two points.

what's your response? >> well,le point about changing much, amazon has always seem ed to revel in the fact it is such an intense place and that intensity, they have always said, has what has led them to do such amazing things. my favorite quote from jeff bezos is that our culture is friendly and intense but if push comes to shove, we will settle for intense. that is not a company where people are going to be encouraged to take sunday or even saturday off -- i'm surprised. >> goes ahead, david, go ahead. >> i'm just surprised that amazon is now saying, well that's not really us. >> a lot of the management practices you talk about, you know, conference calls on easter

sunday, cycling out the lowest performers in your organization are not new ideas, right? a lot of this goes took jack welch and the days as ge was transforming itself i wonder how much of this you actually find terribly novel right now in american business. >> i think is november toll do it at this level and this intensity in a company that say proeching 200,000 employees. what i think is jeff bezos achievement is he kept the intensity of a tech startup, you have 20 or 40 or 80 employees who are working all the time, devoted to making this company rise up and succeed and kept that company in 180,000 employees now. i would not have thought that was possible t is a great

achievement. >> david, one of the criticisms of this piece i see emerge, i'm trying to draw a he they had here, it is unfair because it takes a look at one segment of the population, the engineering manager who wrote the piece on linked in say he was writing this on his weekend, his own free will doesn't work weekends, doesn't particularly care to. there was a post on read it earlier this year from an employee saying interns stay away from this culture but some people responded to that saying, well, maybe your manager's like that but my manager is not. bezos saying that he doesn't recognize the company that you described. there is some very specific push back to this from amazon employees, amazon didn't readily make a lot of employees available to you, you state that, do you see this counternarrative arising saying, hey, they are actually wrong about this. this isn't the overall culture. there maybe just a few managers or maybe even several managers

who are holding this practice over from earlier in the company's culture? >> i'm not really sure that's true. why know in amazon would say that the letter jeff bezos sent to employees, didn't deny anything we wrote, he merely said he wouldn't work at a company like it. he didn't recognize it. he didn't specifically say anything was wrong. amazon, again, it has revelled in its intensity, the unofficial motto of the company, the first two words are work hard. this is not a company that has ever tolerated -- i don't know, ever called itself lac selself s cal or easy going. >> there something wrong with

that? oracle pitting sales people against each other, netflix, culture deck saying if you're a b performer, we will happily hip find some place to work, the stories about facebook, the early days, mark zuckerberg having a sword around the office, threatening programmers and steve sin november ski, former microsoft executive, stories from the late '80s, mid'90s, microsoft being this velvet sweatshop programmers were working so hard. isn't this perhaps a common story in technology? >> i think somewhat common but definitely the companies that succeed have that sort of intensity and have that sort of mission. what if you are an employee who is 30 years old, perhaps has children, perhaps has medical issues, what happens to them? what is the company's responsibility to you, which i think is a real question.

the other question is if amazon was built on intensity, and built on the eninn tensity of 10,000 employees can it maintain that if it has 200,000 employees, i think a somewhat open question whether any company could do that. i don't think microsoft, starting in about 1995 found it could maintain that intensity and spent ten years somewhat figuring out what its next role was. >> yes. yes. we talk about that all the time. to hear, david, to hear you call bezos' management of the culture a great achievement, would you describe your story with jody cantor, would you call it a critical article or not? >> i wouldn't use words like that i hope it was a fair look at what amazon is like and how

it has benefited from being like that it is one of the great successes in american businesses over the past 20 year bus also how that hard-driving attitude, some people feel they have been left out that they have been -- that they suffered from t >> and finally, you know this just comes part and parcel of writing for the times, bezos "washington post", a war especially on digital between the times and the post, any relevance at all regarding your story? >> i work for the "washington post" for 15 years. it's where i first started covering amazon and actually introduced jeff bezos to katherine graham who's son he later bought the paper from. i don't feel we are in any competition with the "washington post." it's great newspaper. and if we succeed, they should succeed f they succeed, we

should succeed. >> david, it's certainly lit a fire today, just an amazing response to your herculean effort. we appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. >> david straight feld joining us today from the "new york times." we do want to check in on the market, dow started heavily in the red, down 135 points, session lows, but currently up 32. liberty interactive announce is going to buy online retailer zoo lily. moving to the downside. we will talk more about that coming on. when we come back, tesla on the move after a top analyst said revenue could triple by 2029. is that too good to be true? plus, before it hits stores this week, an inside look at the samsung galaxy s 6 phone, john has here, a live demo coming up. and drone racing is real and it's coming to new york city. where and how that's going to work when "squawk alley" comes back.

samsung launching two new devices last week, the galaxy 6 edge plus and the note 5. is bigger better? i think it might be. here is the galaxy s 6 edge. and it doesn't feel as big in your hand as you would expect. here is next to the -- sorely, it is the edge plus next to the edge. and you can see them in the

happened. this curved screen here is going to allow you to have apps launch on one side. you can also have contacts on the other side. these, the phones that are going to work with samsung ping, which they have demonstrated. it is going to work with magnetic stripe. and the build quality on this, you take a look at the back. it's pretty much gorgeous. they have done a nice job with it. i don't think you would mistake it necessarily for the iphone 6. different design i.d. with the finish. check it out. >> we have watched samsung go through some of these design issues before, the period where they were accused of having too many bells and whistles. you think this is -- you think this fits what the market is looking for? >> i think they can absolutely damage further the android competition with this phone because they have an ecosystem within android, samsung pay,

really interesting. they lead ahead in android pay, coming with this thing that works with magnetic stripe, already bruising the likes of htc, by every an he is account makes a beautiful phone but hasn't been able to gain market share in this environment where apple and samsung are far and ahead the leaders, you can see that in qualcomm's results, of course, samsung going with its own application processors in these phones. >> what does a curved screen get you? what is the upside? >> it makes the phone just a little bit thinner at the edges, easier to hold and also, it is a navigation element. you can kind of slide out and get apps to work on those edge areas instead of having to go straight to the home screen. so kind of like apple did with the dock at the bottom, where you can -- >> sure, i remember that. >> slide it up. and have those functions in here, which people are using them all the time. all the time. >> yeah. yeah. >> and also when double tapping to launch apps that you might

have up on your screen now you can get something similar with the samsung phones and the edge screen is something that samsung can do because they are the leaders in display technology. far and away, they have got the best display technology, they managed to do this edge thing. when i was talking to jk shin, the ceo of the mobile unit in barcelona earlier this year, he said nobody can copy this i think this is going to be a differentiating feature. he was right, didn't realize how right he would be, because they didn't make enough. now they are doubling up. >> think iphones for apple could be negative come december quarter, they said they don't -- they said it doesn't represent a competitive encroachment because the 6 and 6 plus comps were so strong. >> here's what i say that might run counter to that, all of the trends that we see with the iphone thus far suggest that it might not be a negative here because with iphones, you're not necessarily competing against the other phones out there, you are competing against older

iphones, which are ready to be upgraded, got these early upgrade plans in the u.s., might be a better call than people think for apple. up next, forget nascar, the next big thing might be drone racing. that's coming to new york city. we will talk to the man running new york's drone racing league next on "squawk alley." ♪ no student's ever been the king of the campus on day one. but you're armed with a roomy new jansport backpack, a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop, and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger. that's what we call that new gear feeling. you left this on the bus... get it at the place with the experts to get you the right gear. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.

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racing groans for sport got a big boost, the miami dolphins owner steven voss putting money in new york startup drone racing week. how big of a business can drone racing be? the founder and ceo of the drone racing league joins us and matt binges at rse ventures. i got to ask you first, nick, why racing dproens? is it about figuring out those performance elements that are going to make these that much bigger, a technology in the future? >> sure, i mean, i think you

race drones because it is incredibly exciting. the way you actually race them, put on goggles and those goggles give you a feed from a camera on the drone. so for the experience of racial, it is like being in the cockpit of a drone. these drones are going 70-plus miles an hour, buildings around obstacles, so it's thrilling experience. it is completely immersive, it is exciting, a lot like other speed sports and it touches on that heritage of racial, exciting to see people race and talented people compete, it brings all those elements together. >> and matt, where's the money going to be in this? are we going to be sitting in our living rooms watching drone races? are drone pilots going to be the next sports heroes? >> i think all of the above. three years ago if any of us wish we could have predict there had would be 100 million people a month watching e sports on twitch or madison square garden would have 30,000 people sitting there watching, you know, game players compete for $250,000, so to me, this is the next iteration of that whole phenomenon and i think the sky's the limit. i don't know where the's going

but i know it is going somewhere. >> what kind of drones are we talking about, price points, how many do you crash before you become a legitimate racer? >> sure, they are quad copter drones about a foot and a half in diameter. and you crash a lot of them. one of the fun things about the sport, makes it visual, has a lot of crashes, very exciting collision, pretty robust, you change a few propeller, get them back in the air, keep flying. price point for entry drones, $300 to $700 to get into the sport. and you can just go up from there as you increase performance. >> crashing has got to be expensive, but i imagine there's some sponsors who would be happy to help defray some of these costs. what are you hearing from the likes of a go pro out there that have doubled down on drones lately saying they are going to build their own, beside he is their cameras on on these. >> a great tv product. >> do you already?

have you heard from the sponsors? >> only launched it a few months ago, once the articles came out a good sign, the inten has has been inbound, heard from sponsors who want to get in early, makes total sense, great on tv and great in an arena. we got to work out all the details but the sponsor interest is coming inbound. >> participants coming from a racing background in other sports? >> what's great about it, to me, formula one meets twitch, right? not only are you operating a drone and that's an incredible experience, flying above and watching from the venue, per spec if the of the drone camera, you have to have tremendous reflex and be very talented, right? >> you have people just into drones to people who used to race motorcycles or cards have that reflex feed, people who were e sport comp pet to people who played video games professionally and translating that skill, a huge background of people. hand/eye coordination, ability to deal with speed. >> sure. yeah. >> logistically, where does this race get held in new york? >> we just -- we hold one recently, haven't released the video yet, an abandoned power

plant in yonkers, pretty amazing, put the video out and the sky's the limit where we can hold them. >> how fast do these things go? >> 70, 100 miles an hour, very fast. think about the skill it takes to go through something going that fast and flying through something a normal door or window flame, down a hallway or around a concern. >> i notice there's no people in this video, by the way, i assume the perimeter for safety, you're nowhere near these things? >> exactly, like that old saying, professional pilots on a closed course, these are well away from people. >> what do you say to folks like jeff bezos who think it is just a matter of getting the regulatory stuff worked out, we know that drones can fly in heavily populated areas and deliver packages. you work with a lot of drones. >> sure. fortunately for us, we side stepped those issues. i think the regulatory environment is incredibly complex. we are racial only on closed courses that are, you know, for the most part indoors, entirely enclosed, away from crowds, away from people. i think the challenge for amazon

is a much bigger one. >> well, yes, and i guess car racing is different from city driving as well. >> absolutely. nick, matt, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> thanks. bring in simon hobbs, going to count us down to europe's close in six minutes. >> europe is higher at the moment. [ inaudible ] happening here in the united states, higher at the open, dived to 1% loss or more on the dax and then came back. i guess the bigger picture is that you're coming back from the quite heavy losses last week in europe, down about 3% overall compared to not much movement here in the united states as a result of china, through go the bigger picture trying to bounce back from those losses. top gainer today, al some, delayed reaction to the news on friday looks like ge's $14 billion deal will now not get past the regulators, however, they have sweetened that offer. a top gainer up 7%. ed big event for europe probably this week will be wednesday when the german parliament votes on the greek bailout. this is angela merkel on television yesterday, talking

for the first time after the bailout. i mean, there's still huge questions obviously about imf involvement, but she has actually been rearranging her trips to brazil and italy in order that she can address the party tomorrow night. the likelihood is that it will ultimately get through. the other fallout we have from the bailout package on friday, we now know the depositories within the greek banks, recapitalize those in probably october, they will be protected, not true of the senior bond holders, those bonds are falling and you can see the market capital been further whittled away as we speak. the bigger question in greece, in the wake of friday's vote. remember, the bailout got through the parliament there locally, the greek prime minister only able to gain less than 120 votes from his own party. the bigger question is whether or not you have the political stability to adapt the reforms needed in greece to satisfy fit bailout conditions. senior members of his own government are saying after the party revolts on friday, he now needs to have his own vote of confidence. if there's a vet of confidence in the prime minister at the

moment and the opposition party's abstain, he will lose and therefore, we will probably go to early elections, just be aware that could happen. i see some people suggesting a confidence vote on thursday. whether it will be that rapid, i'm not sure. the polls suggest he would win again so he will still be in power, but we will have to go through that kind of protest, probably in september, october. back to you. >> love watching election returns from greece. always good times. thank you, simon. when we come back, shares of tesla surging after a top analyst raises his price target by nearly $200, saying the company's poised to dominate a new era for the automobile. should you buy in on that? more on that in just a moment. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts, ♪ 800,000 hours of supercomputing time, 3 million lines of code, 40,000 sets of eyes, or a million sleepless nights. whether it's building the world's most advanced satellite,

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good morning, ever., i'm sue herera. here is your cnbc news update at this hour. a security exchange and commission says two citigroup units are pay $180 million to settle financial crisis era charges. the fcc alleging they defraud investors in two hedge funds by telling them they were low-risk investments. the unit is neither admitting or denying the charges. indonesian officials say a search plane has spotted at wreckage of an indonesian passenger plane that crashed sunday 54 people on board. it was located in gooeshen's eastern mountainous region. bad weather hampering the search but a ground team is on their

way to that site. fighting flaring up between ukraine government forces and pro-russian rebels in two separate parts of eastern ukraine. local authorities say at least two civilians were killed with several more injured. rescue and recovery teams continue their work at the scene of that massive explosion in the chinese port city of tianjin last week. the death toll now rising to 114. 70 people still missing and unaccounted for. and that is our cnbc news update for this hour. let's get back to "squawk alley." thank you, sue. joining us today, ed lee, managing director at rico joins at post nine. good to see u good morning. >> good to sue guys. ample lot to talk about. first up, this piece that everybody is dissecting a piece by the "new york times" looks at amazon and the russell aren't exactly pretty. it paints a cruel picture of the working environment there, claiming workers are encouraged to tear apart each other's ideas, be on call essentially

24/7, be held to standards that even the company says are unreasonably high. we talked to the eighter, david straight feld about his piece earlier this hour. >> it has benefited from being like that it is one of the great successes in american businesses over the past 20 years, but also how that hard-driving attitude, some people feel they have been left out that they have been -- that they suffered from it. >> silicon valley come to their defense. >> if nick, saying what a get a place to work, where things are

quantified and that there's competition and people want to strive to do better and be better. that is a blunt read a lot of employees felt that way, happened to them. whether the company is designed to be that, that is the contention, that's what they are kind of claiming is not the case. >> the criticism of the piece i frankly didn't feel like david streitfeld addressed head on, this linkedin piece by an engineering manager, i'm writing this on a weekend, i'm not being expected to work, i don't get calls at midnight. this piece describes some practices at amazon from a couple years ago. but not the amazon of people. the company's managers recognize people were burning out and make changes. maybe there are pockets of this, maybe times before a launch when the environment is more a pressure cooker, but this isn't day-to-day amazon for everybody. >> not day-to-day amazon for everybody, also a big company. straight feld interviewed a ton

of people, over 100 people for the article for sure, but thousands and thousands of workers there, how representative is that? still hard to nail down. i think that may -- you could point that as sort of a failing of the piece, but doesn't deny the fact that a lot of workers feel that way have that sort of issue, the bigger issue, is silicon valley like that a lot of companies, data-driven companies, look at data, look at code, look -- quantify things in general and jeff bezos is famous for doing that does it speak to a larger issue at the valley all together? >> headlines are so powerful. this is going to be one headline. it flies in the face of the netflix paternal -- parental leave headline. i think a lot of americans should be moving the other direction, a little more coddled or courted. >> examples, companies like google have free lunch and free food and great service and people like to stay on campus all the time, they have so many great things going on at the workplace. so, it is a mixed bag. >> netflix is tough. we don't talk about that enough

perhaps, but they make no bones about saying, sure, take as much time off as you want, but if you are not an absolute top performer, we will cut you mercilessly and they brag about it got it in their culture deck explaining how they do what they do. >> the other big picture is this, if amazon was designed this wake the point is create competition to make the best product you possibly can either be that person or you're not. you can't create structures around it necessarily, going to be a competitive person, a high achiever regardless of whatever structure you're in. >> a point i don't get. one hand, talk about uber saying isn't it horrible, these contractor, not employees, working whatever hours they want, but the other hand, look at amazon employees, oh, they are employees, their benefits great, look how hard they have to work. >> you can't win either way. >> another story today, tesla, big move for that company today, shares soaring after morgan stanley's adam jonas upped his

target from 280 to 465 largely based on a new business model that we will not likely hear about for the next 12 to 18 months. jonas making his bet on self-driving cars, saying tesla is poised to dominate the car of the future. he thinks this model could more than triple potential revenue buys 2029. if this were to happen, uber would seem pedestrian looking backward. this is about ordering transportation that's fully automated. >> i was stunned by this note what do they know that the rest of us don't? it was so specific and so, like, doubling this price target, clearly, they are in on something that the rest of us respect quite privy to the sense that i get. yes, you are right, if it's true, comes to pass, could dominate a whole lot of industries beyond just uber itself, the car industry all together. >> in on something? >> in on something. on something. >> another way to think about it >> see this with companies on high valuation, people looking for any excuse for it to go higher but a number of things that could intervene here, right? google is working on

self-driving cars, has been for a while. nen to cause glitches with people's plans. >> detroit themselves, sure they are always looking at some form or another, they don't want to lose out on, this the business of moving people around. going to be an automated business, yes. whether it's uber or tesla or am, they are well positioned to do that >> what is it about this company that people see just extreme optionality, right? last year, about the changing the electric grid, which was also a morgan stanley call. >> yeah. >> i mean, people want this firm to be more than an automaker. >> i mean, it's a company that definitely thinks big, thinks out loud and tries audacious things, i think as an investor, the idea of investing in tech companies, what you want to see. you don't want to see people playing margins. >> revolutionary games. >> right. want to change the game, change entire industries, you have the thing to do that. >> founder premium, perhaps? >> a big part of that. >> jeff bezos, mark zuckerberg,

a lot of those high-flying stocks have the super hero founders. >> certainly have more secondary it is they are going to afford this new -- >> no other way, cash out. that's for sure. >> finally, according to jimmy iovine the future of music could be in trouble telling "wired," tell a kid tough pick music or instagram, they are not picking music. there was a time when for anybody between the ages of 15 to 25, music was one, two, and three, it is not anymore. despite those comments, strong numbers from an apple he can inclusive, "compton" new album from dr. dre streamed 25 million times in its first week on apple music. remember "compton ""is excuse city of apple music and itunes, a big open for universal, our parent. iovine he has his eyes open the future of music and tech. >> heap experience in music, when he says that he know what is going on. he is reacting to the long -- you know, long, low, slide of music is debundling of the

album, a hit track here and there, but hit albums and fewer and fewer, just means that profits are smaller and smaller. >> i wish he told us how much money dr. dre made off of those 25 million streams or was it just promotion for the movie, which we know did very well? i mean, was the -- >> a nice tie-n >> that profitable, 25 million streams, we know some people will say, some artists have said, hey, i get millions and millions of streams and i get pennies, something tells me dr. dre doesn't go for that >> he probably got a special deal with apple one way or the other. the other thing to think about, a lot of these artists what they want ultimately is for people to buy into these music subscription services, spotify really started that the bulk of their listeners are listening to the free version and artist don't get paid as much when listen ers do that. apple music is setting itself up the alternative, not so much free streams but flying to it. we are still three months into their -- the start of that service and you can buy in for -- free for the first few months, we have to bait and see how many people will stay on and

continue to pay that money. >> a big debate, you asked last week whether or not 11 million users in this trial period was impressive or not. then we got reports that apple tv, the experience, was going to be problematic, hence the delay, right? the push into actually delivering content is a lot harder than making a phone. >> i don't think apple has proven yet that they have shaken that mobile me ping legacy of not being great at internet service. >> cuts like a knife. >> i didn't say that they failed but they haven't shaken it yet. i think we are going to have to wait to see how they do when android comes on board with apple music. that's supposed to happen in september. how do they tweak the service as it moves beyond the free trial period for the people who signed up on the first day? that also kind of midnights in september. then we will see, can they evolve this, perhaps make it simpler, that is one of the big criticisms, there's a lot of stuff in there. we will see. >> the other thing about it new for apple, subscription business, not used to doing that used to doing download-type businesses but whether music or the forthcoming tv, something

they still haven't tackled business-wise and see how they ramp it up. >> it's great seeing you as office. you can cover anything. ed lee joining us from recode. when we come back, a top pintrest exec making a jump to a very different kind of work, personal finance. we will be joined live to explain why next on "squawk alley." here is a simple math problem. two trains leave st. louis for albuquerque at the same time. same cargo, same size, same power. which one arrives first? hint: it's not the one on the left. the speedy guy on the right

is part of an intelligent system that creates the optimal trip profile for all trains on the line. and the one on the left? uh, looks like it'll be counting cows for awhile. so maybe the same things aren't quite the same. ge software. get connected. get insights. get optimized.

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coming up the top of the hour, josh brown making a bold guy by a stock down 30% this year. find out why he made his move. plus, on the heels of today's zulily deal, we look at ipos once love and left for dead and what it all means. then, the stunning call on tesla by the top analyst on the street. a price target tough see to believe. we debate it at noon. john, we will see you in about 15. >> looking forward to it, scott, thanks. online student refinancing startup sew fi drafting a former top pintrest exec as its new coo. here to tell us how the new hire will drive growth, mike cagney, ceo of sew fi, number 25 on cnbc's disruptor 50 list. joanne bradford known for the advertising business mainly, how does she fit here? >> sure, we had explosive growth since we started sophie in 2011,

originated 4.5 billion in loans this year, not just student loan refinancing but mortgages and personal loans as well and we have done some great innovation on the capital market side of the business, our cfo used to be treasurer at wells fargo, opened up securitization and bank participation and helped us grow. we think joanne has the same opportunity on the member side of the business, inher rating strong marketing business development effort and relatively nascent community effort and think great opportunity to deliver more community value into our membership base, helps us further distinguish ourselves from the banks. >> mike, the firm recently jumped into student loan refinancing as well. what's the opportunity here and what are the dangers, because it seems with rising interest rates, one and then just two there's a lot of risk here, people are going to default. what's going to determine who has the formula right to actually succeed in the space? >> sure about 1.3 trillion of student loan balances outside standing of which maybe 2 to 300

billion are addressable for refinancing. the athat refinancer agents like sophie have taken look past the fico score, look into things like income, education, profession and feel these are more robust ways to underwrite loans, the rating agencies agreed, the lowest expected defuflts any consumer credits originated through moody's and s & p. i think there is a very interesting opportunity there, not the entire student loan marketplace but if you look at sophie, we are going to do 4.5 billion in year, maybe 2.5 billion in student loan refinancing, barely scratching that surface of the addressable. >> mike, heading into a political cycle with that, there's always the promise, lately the democratic side about helping people exit college with fewer loans, more grants. what is the possibility that in 10, 15 years, lone volume does start to dry up because of the federal government intervention?

>> you have to ground aspirations with reality, you need cash to support the loan program and right now the federal loan program actually provides positive contribution to the budget surplus, the budget deficit, i should say. very difficult for them to exact that out of the market it is a flicks student loan refinancing, two big issues, policy and interest rates that's why we have looked at student loan refinancing as a way to build an anchor or beach head into a customer demographic that we can do a lifecycle of financial services for, personal loans, mortgages, wealth management, building into a more robust offering. >> is there -- we hear about -- millennials get stereotyped all the time, one of the stereotypes that continues to live is that they are more adverse to debt long term. they defer marriage. they defer home purchasessome that true when it comes to student loans as well? >> yeah, i think that's little bit overblown. i think our experience has been

in a lot of circumstances, not so much that millennials are adverse to debt. a lot written in the press that they don't want to buy homes, for example. and we found that, among our members, it was a huge desire to own a home. the challenge was being able to get credit them would go to a bank, as a first-time home buyer, the bank would want a 30% down payment. if you're in an msa like san francisco or new york, buying $1 million condo, which is a lot of money in those cities, not a lot of space, you go to a bank and they want $300,000 down. and so it wasn't so much that there was a lack of desire, there was a lack of credit where opportunity phosphor sofi to come in and provide solutions allowed us to accelerate growth. >> mike, when you look at, you said education level and educational background, one of the things look at, a number of students in the country right now have edge cation debt but never got the degree. and it's one of the really troubling things that people are struggling with. how does sofi factor into that

effect, are those students more or less likely thus far, the way you look at them to pay off their debt? >> sure. it depends on the circumstances of the profession. and what happens is the more work experience that you have, the less relevant your deg grained your schooling become because you're establishing yourself into a community, you're building a network, you're in a situation where you can support yourself and should anything happen, you're able to very quickly move on to the next job. but is a tragedy want education system that you've got lots of circumstances where people are taking on more debt than the value of that education and that's something that i think is a real opportunity for reform within student loans, to actually provide financial literacy for folks when they take out a loan, explaining how much they are borough and whether or not it is commensurate with their profession and then hold the schools accountable have them have skin in the game, people graduate or don't grant wait, can't pay those loans back, some of that goes back to the school. >> all right. mike back nirk the ceo of sofi, thanks so much. >> thanks for having me.

>> interesting discussion. when we come back, the nfl season, as you know, right around the corner. millions studying up for their fantasy football drafts. and who better to break it down than the new season than the star of a new show about fantasy football, one of the stars of "the league" is with us live when "squawk alley" comes back. ♪ ♪ if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. but hurry, offers end august 31st. share your summer moments in your mercedes-benz with us.

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the empire is striking back. disney is planning to bulk up its u.s. theme parks with the new "star wars"-themed attraction. bob iger says we are creating jaw-dropping new world that represents our largest single theme land expansion ever. analysts estimating these expansions will cost more than $2 billion. still no timeframe on exactly when "star wars" land will open, but it will be both at disneyland and at the studios at disney world. stock, of course, has been hit on these concerns about the bundle, john, but it's up more than a percent today. >> it is. i'm a little scared, a little excited, because they say -- disney says that these are going to be kind of real places, kind of like cars land, where you will be able to go into the cantina and meet actual droids from the movie, maybe r 2 will make an appearance. i'm concern it had is going to be filled with grown men dressed up, won't be room for the kids to have a good time.

>> when eiger referenced the ride that puts you behind the wheel of the falcon, i thought get out of the way, kids, 'cause dad's gonna ride this ride first. >> i may or may not be dressed up when guy to the theme park. i don't know. >> unbelievable. disney was, by the way, the best performer on the dow for the jeer year and since lost that role as the concerns about the bundle have billed. when we come back, we will talk star of "the league" on fx about fantasy football in a moment. [ male announcer ] whether it takes 200,000 parts,

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the nfl season is almost here, which means is fantasy football time. fantasy a rapidly growing industry with an estimated 57 million players, up from 42 million from last year. joining is one of the stars of "the league," whose new season premieres september 9 of on fx. good morning to you. >> morn, thanks for having me on >> it's great to have you. is marshawn doing the cold open, is that what you heard? >> yeah, marshawn is the cold opening of the season this year. he kind of comedically puts the super bowl to bed for us. >> i wish you could explain more, 'cause we are still shaking our heads at exactly what happened there. >> well, the clip is online right now, it is -- we kind of

released it out there. yeah he just kind of, you know, it's debate whether he should have run it or could have thrown it and you see what happens when you make the wrong decision. obviously, we saw what happened in february when you make the wrong decision and then marshawn helps us again. >> steve, seven seasons is impressive. i mean, what do you think it says about our culture? used to be we just had march madness. now, fantasy football happens and lasts a lot longer than that. what is some of the response you got based on the rising popularity of this pastime? >> i think football is, you know, arguably the most popular sport in america and i think with the availability of fantasy football to create your own team and really become immersed in the world, it just -- it just spreads its popularity more and more. so, our show having the backdrop of fantasy football really, you know, hooks into people and they

know what it feels like to lose or to lose a matchup or to have a bad play happen and affect their season. so, and that on top of the fact that our show is really just a comedy. it is a comedic look at fantasy football. i think that resonates with all the people that like to watch it. >> obviously, people playing fantasy for years and makes sense in a football season, we keep talking about the rise of daily fantasy and how that changes the game when it comes to high frequency sports like baseball. how much of that do you think is for real? how much of it is here to say and how much of it is a fad? >> if people can gamble on it and win money, it's here to stay, i think. i feel like fantasy football, especially those daily leagues that they have in all those different outlet's and websites, you know, they are becoming more and more popular because people really feel like they know what they are doing and an easy way to make money and they will go for it >> steve, were you surprised to see the players embrace the show

and concept around fantasy football as much as they have? seemed like a few years back, they were shaking their heads that they were getting so much flack from people who have them on their fantasy teams and maybe had a bad game? >> this year, we actually dive into an episode where football players have us in real life fantasy. so, there's an episode where rusken and i decide, we are in a court battle together, so some football players actually draft us and our real lives are then played out in front of everyone for their fodder. so, yeah, we touch on the fact that people, especially football players, they don't care as much about fantasy as we do. so they are -- they just want to play the game well and make money and stay healthy. so, it's us. it's the -- the people that play that are rabid fans. those are the people that fantasy football really, really hooks into. >> well, you got that right. and premieres, as we said, on the 9th.

steve, great to talk to you. enjoy the season. >> oh, great, thank you very much. thanks for having me on the >> joining us from "the league". dow hanging on to a gain after early losses. let's get over to the judge and the half back at hq. ♪ guys, thanks so much, welcome to the halftime show, meet our starting lineup for today, jim leventhal here, steve wyche, josh brown and pete page a juryian. our game plan looks like this electric shock, why tesla's price target is turning head, experts debate the call of the day. into the amazon, corporate culture under fire today. company founder jeff bezos is fighting back, but what are do the allegations mean for the stock in the months ahead. we begin with the markets, stocks after an early laid some the rebound, s & pac