it involves charitable deductions for property taxes. plus we'll go live to a craft brewery where owners are toasting the new tax law it's friday, february 23, 2018, "squawk box" begins now. ♪ live from new york where business never sleeps this is "squawk box." welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin will join us in a bit. let's look at the u.s. equity futures. big news in the olympics -- >> what happened >> curling we won the gold for the first time ever. >> i thought we still have to play the final >> the men -- you're right we get into the gold we would win the gold for the first time -- >> i barely know anything. >> he said last night when he

won, i want the gold >> i watched a couple hours of it unbelievable, right? >> i'm still trying to understand you try to get it in the center thing or not >> you want to new york the other guy out. >> what's the hammer if you have the hammer --. i don't know the terminology >> come on >> i know we won by knocking them out >> those guys are intense. >> this guy has been there for several olympics >> when the guys get -- what is he called? >> who does the pushing? >> yeah. >> they score. he's like 9% or something. >> when the guy on the other side is holding the brush -- >> i think they're getting rid of the friction in between to make sure it goes the right direction. >> i know, but the guy at the other end, he is not moving, they're aiming it? >> there's a lot more skill involved than we have given them credit for >> yeah. and what if they're running down

and a foot hits -- >> is that a technical >> they have to be careful it is slippery >> there's a deal breaking >> not a curling deal. general mills buying blue buffalo for 8 billion in cash or $40 a share. blue buffalo specializes in natural pet foods. surprised they don't know anything about it. god, i spend a lot of money for dog food you have to be careful can't be too rich. they try to tell you there's a lot of meat, a lot of times it's grain. is it worth $8 billion looking at it right now. market cap 6.6 before the move today. amazing. okay there's your deal.

it's important to talk about, but it did kind of wreck my mojo on the curling discussion. that's okay. with andrew maybe we'll get back to that. i heard about the figure skating. >> that was -- that was not great. >> why for us >> for us. >> you're still with the xenophobia >> the russians were fantastic >> there was a one point difference between the two >> did you see the speed skating where the two koreans knocked each other out >> no what time was that on? >> 9:15, 9:30. >> no wonder you're cranky that's too late. too late >> the difference between the winner and loser, the first place and fourth place in that was 0.4 seconds. >> this is my point. this is my point this is why there should be

participation awards >> that's a blink of an eye. >> that's what i mean. suddenly you're chanting usa because 0.4 seconds versus -- >> i want to celebrate our ath reit letes. >> you're so america first that's really not en vogue stocks to watch today, hewlett-packard enterprise -- did we pass canada yet we were supposed to get maple syrup. what are y >> what are you giving him >> we have a lot i think they have molson and maple syrup, that's it i'm kidding. best trading partner, best people on the planet reporting better than expected first quarter results. the company benefitting from rising sales of storage and

networking devices hpe will hike its dividend by 50%. buy back more than 5 billion of its stock by the end of 2019. hp inc.'s first quarter profit and revenue beat forecast it sold more pcs and printers. the company is raising its full-year profit outlook rbs posting its first annual profit in a decade in 2017 however the bank posted a fourth quarter loss rbs is still awaiting a decision by the u.s. justice department on a settlement of a probe into probe into a misselling of toxic mortgage securities. >> is curling big in canada? >> i think so. >> i can hear the canadians -- almost like a fargo type

quality. >> they're from minnesota? >> no, but i hear it in the announcers >> all right >> so it's a big deal that we beat them. >> who are we playing in the final? >> i don't know. but the canadians were the ones who always stood in our way. >> exactly you don't -- doesn't matter, as long as it's america winning >> pretty much >> let's check the markets we can look at futures you can see there are big gains this morning dow futures are already up by 140 points above fair value. s&p futures up by 12 1/2 the nasdaq up by 36. it was a mixed day yesterday the dow was up by 160 points, the nasdaq was down by 8 points. it's the fourth session in a row that the nasdaq has been down. what's the longest losing streak since november of 2016 we are still on track at this point to post some losses for stocks for the week. we'll see.

these are big gains as wehood towards the opening bell if you look at what happened or what's been happening in europe right now, looks like things are relatively flat. the cac and the ftse are both down by 0.2% you can see that the dax is essentially flat in asia overnight, let's look at those results, the nikkei was up by 0.3%. the hang seng was up by 1% stocks in shanghai were up by 0.6% ten-year note has been something we're watching it's off the four-year highs just off the four-year highs we set back on wednesday. ten-year is yielding 2.899%. the two-year is near nine-year highs. the world's biggest asset manager is looking for answers from gunmakers after the deadly school shooting. blackrock is the top shareholder in ruger and american outdoor. it's also the second largest

shareholder in vista it holds those stakes through etfs and mutual funds and passive aggressive products. >> you're right. >> blackrock says it does not have the ability to sell shares of a company in an index even if it disagrees with management in a statement blackrock says we will be engaging with weapons manufacturers and distributors to understand their response to recent events. we are working with clients who want to exclude from their portfolios weapons manufacturers or other companies that don't align with values. >> prior to the whole gun issue, we were talking about blackrock's move to do this. that's when we came up with the passive aggressive moniker blackrock sort of revolutionized passive investing. then this came along, putting it into practice. >> this is the first real

example of that that we've seen since larry talked to us about that about a month ago. >> right >> the ply play sweden tonight, 1:35 a.m they won a total of four games, the u.s., in the last couple of -- >> this is the same team who was in the last couple of olympics they have just gotten better and better >> you know we have curling on cnbc >> yes, i do know that 5:00 >> you understand this >> i wonder if they were going to take curling away from us because it was such a huge deal. >> can't put that on cnbc anymore. >> we need it. >> people are actually watching. no, that's horrible. china's government seized control of the anbang insurance group and it prosecuting its chairman nancy hungerford has more

detail details. >> chinese regulators are stepping in and prosecuting anbang's chairman, wu xiaohui for economic crime anbang's spending spree totals over $13 billion and put the company in the spotlight raising questions about its ownership and financing structure. the chinese insurance regulator said the takeover was warranted to prevent insolvency and it would welcome private investment into the restructuring the markets took the decision in stride the shanghai finished in positive territory and traders say the steps will alleviate fears of an asset fire sale. some insiders questioned whether the move is less to do with systemic risk aversion and more

to do with punishing anbang's perceived bad behavior whatever the motivation beijing is sending a clear message about its resolve to tackle financial risk and rein in financial spending we will -- this is me. >> they said go. >> okay. they didn't say go joe? >> i heard two different things. >> it's on me now. >> go. >> keep you updated as we learn more about why the chinese government stepped in. let's go deeper into the marke markets. joining us now to talk about stocks is steven desantis, managing director at jeffries, and david joy. david, i want to start with you, i want to look at broader picture before i dig down on this with steven we are down about 6% off of the highs that we had set earlier this year. there's a lot of back and forth

at this point. people who are arguering the two sides of what to do with stocks. where do you come down >> i think stocks will eventually move higher we're struggling now with little resistance at the 50-day moving average. that will sort itself out once we get stronger economic data. there's so much stimulus in the pipeline it will drive economic activity. and that will translate into a strong earnings growth in the first half of the year i think eventually stocks will move higher. maybe as much as 10% from here >> that's because why? because of earnings? because of the new tax law because of what you see in the economy? >> it's all related to earnings. it's driven by all of this stimulus that we're getting from the tax reform act and from the budget deal. earnings growth year over year in the 15%, 18% range perhaps. with a little pullback we've had recently, that make stocks

cheaper. i think overall the index will move higher and get pushed up towards 3,000 or so. >> i see you nodding your head through all of this. you're in agreement. >> i think we do have more room to run in the market i think that we have to acknowledge that the overall climate has changed. so we'll have more volatility in the market it won't be a straight line. >> so you mean the overall risk -- >> right >> appetite that's out there >> yeah. but again 9 wasn't the right number for volatility. 39 is not the right number we need to settle into a number. you do have good earnings growth you have valuations coming down. but you do have the risk of inflation. you guys keep talking about the rise in interest rates that's on everybody's mind what is the right multiple to put on stocks if we have a ten-year pushing 3.5% by the end of the year. >> we had jim bullard on yesterday. he said that he thinks people

are maybe getting a hehead of themselves if they expect four rate hikes in 2018 that's priced to perfection. that they'll take their time that's only one person on the fed -- >> but the other issue is the fact that we have inflation that is ticking up, whether you see it in raw materials, wages >> he also said the bond market has been doing their work for them we have seen yields push up. >> true. we've gone from 2.40 to 3% do we go from 3% to 3.5% it's how we move we jump from 2.40 to 3%. if we go from 3% to 3.5% but on a steady climb, the market would be accepting of that because you have much better growth because of the inflation. i i had think if you jump up fr% to 3.20, then the market gets shaky here in addition, the pullback was healthy given the amount of money that came into the overall

market and in the month of january, just the pure speshg lags th speculation that you needed to have some of that come out >> let's focus on small and mid caps people have said those stocks will outperform the big caps you agree with that? >> at the start of the year i did not. in the pull back i got more optimistic we did have valuations come down the trend and the revisions have been good for the reporting season, with the better gdp growth you will get much better earnings growth. small cap companies have been lagging large cap companies in terms of earnings growth that is looking to change as we move through 2018. that's the thing we need to focus on whether or not the smaller companies that are focused on more u.s. economic activity, if they could put up the numbers. yes, that will outperform. >> david, we heard from blackrock this week, they are now overweight on u.s. stocks, underweight on european stocks as a result. what do you think about a move

like that? >> we're in the same position and we made that shift on a relative basis once the tax reform act was passed. we had been overweighted in the eurozone and in japan. and we rebalanced that a bit in favor of the u.s we still like these other gee ognyo geographies, but we felt this gave the u.s. a little bit of a kicker we're relatively late in the cycle, we like some cyclicals. materials, financials are well positioned here. i think the technology has more to go. though there's some pushback on that i think, you know, they'll benefit from the accelerating growth that we're likely to get over the next few quarters >> david, thank you very much for joining us today steven, thanks for coming in now let's get an update from the winter olympics in pyeongchang, south korea andrew ross sorkin is there. i need to see the medal totals,

andrew >> we'll show you the metal totals in just a minute. >> curling >> we will medal we can't not medal in that that's the good news let's go to the videotape and show you ice skating the two top spots going to the russians, 18-year-old evgen evgenia medvedeva and alin alina zagitova both winning there. zagitova got gold. th brady tinnal, karen chen and

this 15-year-old girl was extraordinary. what she was doing the whole time was putting all of her jumps at the end so the first half of what you do on the ice was effectively she would skate around it was beautiful basically you get 10% premium by doing all the jumps once you get to the second half because arguably your legs are more tired. and if you put your hands up in the air there's a greater premium. that's what she did that's how she won and beat her older partner. extraordinary evening. not for the americans but for her. ending the games on a more successful note, mikaela shiffrin, the 22-year-old leaving with two olympic medals. a gold in giant slalom and a silver in alpine she told us what she found was

the most challenging about the olympics >> besides this olympics with the schedule changes, the most difficult thing is how much more media -- everything is more intense. everything, every word you say, every tweet you make, it's put under the microscope as well you can't blow off a tweet and expect it to be fine people are looking at that reading into it. so i just stepped away from my social media nor the entire time i was competing, basically for the last three weeks i have not gone on until yesterday after winning the silver, i finally went on my instagram, twitter and facebook and was catching up on things that i've been missing, posts started posting. people are like, what? we haven't heard from her. i thought we saw some posts. do you have people >> yeah. when i wanted to make a post or if i had a sponsor post that i was supposed to make, i chose

the picture i wanted, i wrote my caption and sent it to my manager and said post this for me today or whatever after the giant slalom race i made a post. but the point was just so i wasn't seeing comments i wasn't reading anything. i just didn't deal with the social media part of it. for me that's adding a certain amount of stress >> fascinating to hear her talk about social media we also asked about her relationship with teammate lindsey vonn >> for sure everybody -- like, ski racing is an individual sport. everybody is first and foremost a competitor i would say that's how she sees me as well she was one of my biggest idols growing up and she has been in some ways throughout my career, has been some form of a mentor. but i also always felt like when

i came on to the scene i didn't want to get in her way i wanted to put myself in her shoes, here's this little girl trying to get in my way, distract me from my job. i didn't want to be that person who did that to her. i wouldn't want somebody to come up and do that to me if that makes sense. i was just always trying to watch her from afar. the biggest thing i noticed about her that set her apart from anyone else was how professional she was about doing her job. making sure all the details were accounted for. that's a huge, huge, huge piece of why she's had so much success in her career. >> we have lindsay vocey vonn ln the show we'll hear from her on competing in her last olympics and what she plans to do next and later, ivanka trump made her way to seoul, just arriving. we have a shot of her just arriving

she will be meeting and having dinner tonight with the president of south korea then she will make her way here to pyeongchang to see some games tomorrow, and then the closing ceremonies on sunday you asked for them, let's show them to you. let's show you the medal count where things stand now each day we try to do a bit of math to figure out where we are, but also how far we can go right now we're in fourth place, 21 medals. germany, 25. canada, 27, norway, 35 it's getting harder for us -- we might be able to get i to where t -- get up to where the germans are, but the math is not in our favor. >> how many events are left? >> only a handful will get you there. >> can we do really well in the closing ceremony or something? >> no. >> i was counting on -- >> i'm wearing the gear today,

because we're supporting the team try doing what i can >> i won't get maple syrup from noah blackstein. when you were going over there, did you think about there would be a lot of foreign names you have to pronounce? that's your worst nightmare. >> you know -- >> i saw you gloss over those two russian names. did you even -- that's when -- like you're a skier coming down seeing a mogul when you see those names coming >> yes yes. >> did you practice? >> i tried to practice >> it's like a dismrouchount -- >> i do what i can, joe. >> gosh. what happened? kach canada won eight medals yesterday? >> they were successful. by the way, hopefully we'll have video of it later. the u.s. ice skaters botched this so badly. it's very, very sad. we'll show you some tape, i

think of some folks who are sad about that in a bit as well. >> all right lindsey vonn, you didn't ask her any -- knowing you, did you ask her any political stuff? did you try to go there? >> no, we're talking politics. you will hear from lindsey vonn on politics. you will see that in the 7:00 issue. we talk social media we talk business sponsors, what she'll do next. we get into it >> you're the man. >> will be fun you'll see some of that. i don't know if we have the tape, we even got into conversations about gun control. it goes far. >> you hopefully didn't high five her about the trump comments, did you? you just asked, let her explain. >> i just asked the questions. >> okay. yeah i know >> straight down the middle.

>> down the center like all of us that's big that's good that you got her you wear that polo stuff well. looking good, isn't he this is the team outfit. this is our last day here, we had to support i'm going to show you later the coat that everyone is going to wear we always talked about these electric coats >> like the one from the summer olympics, right? >> the battery powered -- >> from the summer olympics? >> no, when we were in davos, getting those battery powered vests. this coat everyone will wear on sunday is battery powered. >> does it light up like the jackets from rio >> it does not >> is sweden good in curling do you know? >> clearly >> i know, but -- do you remember the miracle on ice? that was not the last game that was not the gold medal -- but it was getting through the

russians >> one comment on your curling you guys were talking about curling. it's not they're trying to get rid of the friction. they're warming the ice. >> we got it >> it makes it slide faster. >> right you can curl it. >> you can send it in a different direction. >> before the guy throws it down, his teammate on the other side is holding a brush. i didn't know what that was. i don't understand, can the other team -- when is the other team allowed to use a brush on the opposing team's rocks? i don't know >> we'll figure it out >> you're right. >> they do i've seen it, but not all the time >> we'll go some homework on that >> see you in a bit. when we come back, squawk booze news why american craft brewers and distillers are raising a glass to the new tax bill. and on monday, be berkshire

hathaway's warren buffett will join us for three hours. you can send your questions to us on twitter, @squawkcnbc we'll be right back. let's get started. show of hands. who wants customizable options chains? ones that make it fast and easy to analyze and take action? how about some of the lowest options fees? are you raising your hand? good then it's time for power e*trade the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. alright one quick game of rock, paper, scissors. 1, 2, 3, go.

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♪ welcome back investors and makers of craft beer, cid eshg dshgsciders ani8 landon dowdy has the details >> reporter: i'm at half full breweries, one of the many producers with a bit more reason to raise their glass these days, that's thanks to paying less taxes. so brewers pay an excise tax on each barrel of beer that they

sell under the new bill, the tax is reduced to $3.50 a barrel, down from $7 for the first 60,000 barrels. for all other producers and importers, the tax drops from $18 to $16 on the first 6 million barrels, and then pay $18 on every million barrels after that that potentially adds $320 million in annual economic growth for the beer industry here they're excited to have extra cash for innovation. >> things that we're not sure are going to work out, actually translate. at the end of the day you might have it, and say this is weird, not my taste, but it allows us to experiment with that. have it fail, but not have it impact us. >> it's not just the beer industry that will see a reduction. wine and spirits will as well. they expect a savings of 4$4.2 billion in the next two years. that's something to cheers about.

>> cheers. thank you very much. >> tax plan at work. exactly what we're trying to do. beer, who doesn't want to stimulate more -- so many benefits to it coming up, easing the burden on tax payers in high tax states this is an interesting one ttim jrsey congressman josh goheeroins us with the garden state's solution. it's absolute confidence in 30,000 precision parts.

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wi'm really grateful that usaaq. was able to take care of my family while i was overseas serving. it was my very first car accident. we were hit from behind. i called usaa and the first thing they asked was 'are you ok?' they always thank you for your service, which is nice because as a spouse you serve too. we're the hayles and we're usaa members for life. see how much you could save with usaa by bundling your auto and home insurance. get a quote today. today, the new new york is sparking innovation. you see it in the southern tier with companies

that are developing powerful batteries that make everything from cell phones to rail cars more efficient. which helps improve every aspect of advanced rail technology. all with support from a highly-educated workforce and vocational job training. across new york state, we're building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd.ny.gov. welcome back to "squawk box. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick. andrew ross sorkin is reporting live from the olympics in pyeongchang. more from him in a couple minutes. state lawmakers in new

jersey think they may have figured out a way around the new limit on state and local tax deductions the proposal would allow residents to make charitable contributions in lieu of property taxes joining us now is josh gottheimer, new jersey congressman. you may be, congressman, becky's representative she had to recuse herself, she's such a big scott garrett backer. >> sorry to hear that. >> she went door to door canvassing votes for him >> no, i didn't. >> you didn't? >> no. >> that was a big upset. that was amazing but he went to penn. enough said. >> enough said >> you deserved it >> thanks. >> i'm trying to figure this out. what do you need to do explain it you'll try to use property taxes and put it under the notion that it's a charitable deduction in the eyes of the irs? any indication that would pass

muster with the irs? >> two quick things. after the tax hike bill passed last year, we faced a tax hike they got the state and local tax deduction to go up we're looking for ways to fight back one way that's been used for decades now in 30 states, 100 programs, they allow charitable contributions to be made for specific purposes, like fixing a road or bridge, a park, paying for law enforcement, and the states, in this case the municipalities can give tax breaks basically give tax cuts to individuals in those towns against their property tax bill. you get a credit against your property tax bill for the contributions you make to new charitable funds in the towns. we put teams of lawyers on this. had the top eight tax scholars in the country putting out a paper on this saying for decades this has been going on

the irs has ruled on it. the supreme court has written about it and this is completely allowed now we're implementing it in new jersey to make sure towns can set up charitable funds, take deductions if they itemize or fall into the amt on their federal tax returns and get a tax credit on their property tax bill >> what has the irs said about this move? the irs may have ruled on this in the past, but if you have lots of states like new jersey, new york, connecticut, california trying to do this, it will be a big impact to the expectations they plan on taking in at treasury the irs has been strict on some things already >> i met with the acting commissioner of the irs last week, leonard lance from nunew jersey, and he didn't say no outwright. i believe it's because 30 states are already utilizing it

>> he didn't say no outright, but what did you read between the lines? he's not happy. >> he knew -- i think he knew he was in a tough situation, because you have 30 other states doing it of course they can decide down the road they want to eliminate it, and they will have to eliminate it in 30 other states, mostly red states. and the irs already ruled on it so they'll have to reverse itself it's a way to fight back against the tax height biike bill and g people tax cussed the prepayment option, and that's another case where he made it clear to us, they first said if you prepaid the first half of the year, if there was a liability, you could prepay that. we're pushing for isn't -- if you prepaid the entireyear, a lot of people did that, that should be rabel to able to be d

this year. that's a one-off >> any tax relief for anybody is a win. we need tax cuts >> but you didn't vote for this. that's for sure. >> the tax hike bill i did not. no, i did not vote for increased taxes. >> even some new york and new jersey republicans, because they need to represent constituents >> every democrat and republican in new jersey but one. >> play along with me. you've seen the way public opinion has sort of gone up on the tax bill you've seen some of the stuff that has happened with bonuses, just actual wages being raised, some of the good stuff you see nancy pelosi, your leader call it crumbs. there's been backlash against that do you think the democrats have the right tact here on this? at times it looks like it might be working i know for new jersey residents -- and i live in new jersey i get what you're saying if you were in one of these other states or worked for one

of the companies where bonuses were paid out or wages have gone up, would you think it's a good thing? >> if you're in a moocher state that has consistently taken out of the pockets of those of us in new jersey -- >> moocher states. >> we paid 6$600 billion for som other states, and our taxes go up, i think the corporate tax cuts are good. that was a good move but we paid for it in new jersey and our taxes are going up >> i got it. but no everyone -- congressman -- >> it's split. it's regional. >> the more liberal states or the more liberal representatives say a tax cut for corporations is a tax cut for the rich. i do not remotely take that position i think any tax cuts are good. but tax hikes are not good >> were you at wharton -- >> no, i studied history >> sounds like you know about economics. >> but i worked in business before running for congress. >> but it didn't disqualify you

as a democrat. >> no. lower taxes. what about the blue laws i can't go to foot lock nerbeer bergen county on a sunday. >> i'll find you a store >> and becky wants her own e-zpass lane >> no. no >> i'll get what you need. >> i'm good. >> she backed scott garrett. >> i did not >> we'll see you again soon. when we come back at the top of the hour, a guest host double play, blair schlosstein and ralph effron are here to talk about deal making, the markets and much more. we'll be right back. it keeps your insights from prying eyes, so they're used by no one else but you. it is... the cloud. the ibm cloud.

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welcome back to "squawk box. the process of selecting an olympic host city starts years before the games do. we know that in ten years l.a. will host the 2028 games joining us now is terence byrnes, olympic bids strategist.

let's go through the whole list. >> vancouver beijing. sochi, pyeongchang l.a. >> you just sold your company. you sold your company this week. bruins sports capital. >> the company is called engine shop, one of george's companies. >> very cool help us understand this. you worked with pyeongchang for years. >> two years >> make this happen. >> yes >> how shall we all measure success about the olympics so many times you look at these things, they cost so much money, ten years later they look at places like this and it doesn't look like this anymore there's nobody here. there's lots of questions. >> i understand. i think if you asked that question if we were sitting here in 1988, what do the seoul olympics mean, are they a success? it took a long time. sometimes it takes 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. success is not about the venues,

it's about the culture, about the economy. you can look at moscow 1980, there's a clear line between that and glasnost and the opening of russia and the soviet uni union. >> there's a lot of cities and countries that don't want to bid anymore. taxpayers say no more. we don't want to be part of this they see the headline numbers. they say we can't support this >> right >> by the way, l.a. succeeded in getting its bid in part on the back of saying we have a sustainable thing. we already have the stadiums we don't have to spend the money. >> that's true >> how will that change this whole process? >> it's drachanging dramaticall. it is putting emphases on existing infrastructure. gone on the days where the ioc or international federations expected host cities to develop these pantheon of sport which

don't exist anymore. that did happen and why cities said no. it's happen being our eyes i've been meeting with some of the 2026 potential cities while here most of these cities are concerned about public opinion, government support, and the more infrastructure they use, the less money they have does that mean -- it used to be only developed countries did this then all these developing countries wanted to do this as a way to put the spotlight on them introduce themselves to the world. is that no longer? >> i think you'll still see national branding games in the future i also think you will see a shift from cities that want to spend or build a city around the olympic games, like the russians did. i worked on sochi. i'm proud of those games the actual sochi games only cost about 2.9 billion. >> hard question how much corruption is there really i know that's hard for you you work with the ioc. >> i do work with the ioc. >> what can you say to that?

>> i think it's like anything else in life there are bad players, bad actors in any business but in my 25 years working with the ioc, working around the movement, the people with whom i work are good people they believe in it and are doing their best >> given the fragmentation of media, more people are watching this olympics than ever before, but through social, all sorts of things ratings is a different story when we talk about the olympics, 20, 30 years from now, still the shared international experience or does it break down? >> i don't think the olympics are about sport. i think sport is the path that takes i to a destination called values that draws people here that's why people love this thing. >> thank you congratulations. coming up, tech jobs in america. we'll talk to the ceo of workforce genesis ten. back in a moment clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time.

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welcome back, everybody. competition for top technology talent is putting a major strain on the industry. joining us right now with some solutions to the skills shortage is harley lipman who is the founder and ceo of genesis 10. they're providing staffing and work force solutions harley, thanks for being here. why don't we talk about how big of a problem this is >> well, it's -- it is a big

problem in finding quality, talented people, but it's doable there's a big misconception that you can find the people here, so you have to send work off shore, particularly to india and other places, but the truth is, there is talent here you may have to have some training with it, but the talent is here. >> meaning what? if i'm a company, let's say in ohio, i'll just say, and i'm having trouble finding technology, what would you tell them to do >> well, companies like mine can find them. they may have to be flexible with what they're looking for and there may have to be a little bit of training, but that's what we do for a living and -- >> problem solved? >> problem solved. there are plenty of american workers here who are able to do the work and who are 27% more productive than work done off shore. that's another misconception cio magazine did an analysis and

a study and they found measuring communication skills, innovation, and work effort, americans were more productive than foreign workers >> i think one of your suggested solutions is to say you may not be able to find people where you are in the country but you can do in -- instead of going off shore, you can find one of those help centers in another part of america? >> exactly this way you diversify your risk and you diversify your risk by having work done in various locations instead of not putting all your eggs in one basket. also, you're able to capture a larger pool of i.t. people so in your particular city wherever it is, you mentioned ohio, if you're in cleveland, you may have access to a fraction of 1% of the i.t. work force in the united states if you work for a company that has different locations like we do around the you states, then you could capture maybe 20% of

the i.t. talent that you need. >> harley, thank you for your time we appreciate it >> thank you coming up, a guest host double play. centerview player efron and ralph schlosstein. we'll ask them about deal making and the american economy when we return stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and.

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♪ ♪ they're up following yesterday's mixed session on wall street. we'll find out what's pushing

stocks higher straight ahead. will tax reform push mna to higher levels. blaire efron is here and rash schlesstein are here to talk. plus, andrew introduces us to the amazon of south korea that story and your olympic highlights are straight ahead as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now live from the beating heart of business, new york city this is "squawk box. good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is in south korea covering the olympics. we're going to hear from him in a couple of minutes. there you are. >> reporter: how are you >> good. we're going to check in with andrew in just a few minutes in the meantime, will itet cet s

check out the u.s. equities. dow futures are up by almost 200 points, s&p futures up by 18 and nasdaq up by 51. dow and s&p were up, nasdaq was slightly lower in our headlines this morning, general mills is buying natural pets food maker blue buffalo for $8 million that deal is worth $40 a share in cash compared to yesterday's closing price of $34.12 for blue buffalo. general mills expects the deal to close by the end be of the fiscal year in may. the national rifle association is seeing some backlash first national bank of omaha says it will not renew its contract to renew a visa card. and with the markets increasingly focused on possible interest rate moves by the federal reserve, a potential market moving event is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. eastern time.

that's when the fed is releasing the written text of jerome powell's congressional testimony that he is scheduled to deliver next week on the state of the economy and monetary policy. >> i'm going to do this fast we have giants sitting with us on the set talking about stocks on the move. we want to get to you guys quickly. andrew, is andrew -- did he agree to go to cree a -- >> knowing that these guys are coming >> he may need to talk to you guys on remote about deals and such anyway, hughlett packard after selling this segment, reporting better than exekt ped first quarter results. the company benefitting from rising sales of storage and networking devices the company plans to hike its dividend 50% and buy back more than $5 million worth of stocks. shares of the restaurant chain wingstop are down sharply. outlook for 2018 fell short of

analyst's forecasts and i have said many times about, you know, trying to figure out the wings and the shortage and we've only got two wings per chicken. you saw the chicken shortage. >> that's why costs were up. >> people won't allow gmos, so i guess my eight wing genetic chicken is not -- >> chernobyl chicken >> you only get two wings from each chicken, raffl, right what about an eight winged chicken for buffalo wild wings, wingstop. >> good for you. >> it would be easier on the chicken population you could have a lot more wings but -- you know, people laugh. now suddenly there's a chicken shortage because people want chicken wings. plus march madness is coming up. have you guys thought about this >> it's a good idea. i'm focused on it now. i will do some work for you. >> you throw out the breast and keep the wings >> i think that's what might happen >> have to go somewhere. >> blue buffalo merged with buffalo wing

>> yeah, look how you think. >> you've already come up with a deal. >> there is some news breaking overnight. china's government has seized control of the anbang insurance group. they say they violated lies that may seriously endanger the solvency of the company. they gained national recognition with the $2 billion purchase at the waldorf astoria and 6 5i7b$.5 billion with another group. 2018 looks like another big year for merger activity. the top fees earned on big ticket deals have increasingly gone to independent advisers and boutique firms joined by two of the top groups. blaire efron and ralph schlosstein is president of evercore and one of the

co-founders of blackrock let's start with something that i saw, and becky will be talking to this gentleman on monday, but i saw an article and the headline was warren has $100 billion with nothing to buy. now i don't know whether -- >> such problems. >> yeah, such problems no, but i think that highlights that, you know, he only highlights things that are going to be a great return do you have empathy for that headline, blaire, at this point or -- >> joe, valuations are expensive. that said, what we're seeing a lot of is strategic combinations so because you have a strong tail wind in the economy, ceos, business leaders look at the next 18 months and say if i do something now, the beginning of the transaction once it closes i'll have enough tailwind to be able to integrate, get growth out of the box and start the right way. so that optimism we see is leading to a lot of transactions like you just mentioned through

buffalo and general mills. they think they have business, i happen to agree, that is another growth ad view for them where they bring a skill set in the case of a warren buffet or buyers perhaps without assets to combine with -- >> synergies, you mean >> not just synergy. synergy implies growth in this environment growth is something that ceo is thinking about as much as anything else. >> i just wonder if a year ago when the equity markets were 40% cheaper basically, i'll bet there are people then saying i'm not real comfortable buying at these levels and they were -- they could have bought with both hands, i think maybe we're there again. how do we know >> first of all, you have to look at both sides of the transaction. very often these deals are done

with hard or largely or all stock. >> right. >> so the currency that they're paying with has been affected -- >> it's inflated prices. >> over valued cats for over valued dogs, sticking with the pets, general mills. >> then the other thing of course is even though short rates have moved up about 125 basis points or so, cash still has very, very low yield so if you're deploying cash and buying growth, that's a pretty attractive thing today for ceos. >> joe, depends on the market outlook. trades 16 times next year, 16 times three years ago. despite the market being 40% that means obviously earnings have been larger if you have a view that the economy through '18 and into '19 holds its own, you'll be optimistic thinking mna. if your view is things are going to get based on some of the

volatility in the past couple of weeks, that economic activity, the next move will be more difficult, you know, because we're at lows across really any economic metric, you'll have the perspective that says you want to be careful. >> because it would be great to ask about -- you've already mentioned 120 basis points yields have gone up. you factor that into things. are you of the belief that it's the -- that there's been a change, there's been an infrektion point where now rates are going up and so that that matters? if they double but they're still historically very low, what matters more, historically where they are and cash doesn't pay that much or that we've doubled from the lows? >> i don't think the doubling -- i mean, intermediate term and longer term rates are still very low by historic -- >> and that takes precedence over the change in. >> i believe it does, yes. at some point though, if you were to ask me what do i think at some point derails its --

first of all, what we've had in washington is every time there's a little bit of gridlock, they add a lot to the deficit so the tax bill added a lot to the deficit. the republicans wanted to spend money on defense the only way they were allowed to do that was to spend a lot on domestic policy so we've added over $300 billion to the deficit. we're going to have a trillion dollar deficit iy? >> it's a combination. >> combination of -- i mean, the debt markets like any other markets are supply and demand. there's some risk inflation ticks up. >> what was the ten year when you found the -- >> i didn't found it. >> when we founded blackrock in 1988 >> yeah. >> must have been 10%. >> 4.5%. >> only 4.5, but people do things in higher interest rate

environments, right? >> you had a 25-year bull run in bonds. >> yeah. what's normal? do we even know? after the '70s -- >> probably 3.5, 4% in today's world. >> in today's world. >> it's all about inflation. i believe inflation is going to continue to be reasonably calm if you believe that, the premium of the inflation rate for treasury should be 1.5. >> i think my knnuchin said it's going to come. i'm willing to say accept a little of the fears to finally start dealing with what you've talked about many times. i mean, income inequality. shouldn't we embrace some wage gains even if the -- if there's some pressure? >> absolutely. absolutely >> definitely. >> and i think companies have -- i admire how many companies have done just that from an at&t to a

comcast to a disney, to take some of that tax relief and get it in people's pockets and more importantly, invest back in the businesses for growth. the best way to get wage gain, isn't going to be through productivity, it's going to be through wage growth. >> you see how he named companies he wanted to do -- grazed them. >> i didn't see it that way. i thought you better mention comcast sitting here. >> it occurred to me. >> hopefully brian's listening. >> you're from philly. you can do whatever you want, becky, but -- so now we've got the inversion idea i mean, it seems like that's -- >> gone, right >> that's gone have you thought about that? and what other companies might now come here or we're not -- companies here might not be as quick to leave has that influenced -- >> absolutely. i think tax reform generally has made u.s. companies much more competitive. you had many guests on, you talked about it. ralph and i see it day to day.

we see companies thinking about how they're going to invest back in people, processes, plant, equipment in a way that you didn't see in 2002 the last time we did a tax holiday, repatriation and rate cut, which we didn't have then. so it is having a big impact i do think cash coming back into the country will be invested here. >> did you see potential deals, potential inversions where foreign companies would come in and be willing to pay a much bigger premium for an american company because they could do it on a better margin because of lower taxes? did that dry up as tax reform was getting closer >> first of all, what tax reform did was make us competitive again. it didn't make us the magnet there are still places in the world that have, you know, good work forces who have lower tax rates than we do, but the combination of significantly lower corporate taxes and immediate writeoff of investment

for the next five years is a very powerful combination to encourage investment in the united states. >> so is it fair to say that you saw companies that immediately wanted to do deals like this >> first of all, we're talking four months so far. >> sure. >> it takes time before you see full effect. >> you've got to be talking to these guys who are already planning it out. >> which is not where somebody's headquarters is. every company we would deal with anywhere is global today what you care about is where are the people based, where are they actually doing the r&d, where are they doing the manufacturing? we're seeing those kinds of investments being discussed back in the u.s. for the first time, frankly in a long while. i find that to be a very -- >> it's where the net new investment is going. it's quite powerful, the combination of reduced corporate rates and immediate writeoff of investment. >> you probably don't own any steel or aluminum, i guess, but do you own any companies that are being hurt by unfair

practices? >> first of all, i'm not going to buy stock that said, obviously there are industries that are having a lot more difficulty than -- >> would you say never do tariffs? how would -- >> i have concerns personally that i think our economy does best when we have more trade. >> but is there any way just not to accept unfair -- when we know for sure someone is doing something that's hurting us, hurting our workers, is there any way to address that? >> we have to do that, but there are global mechanisms for doing that and i think the big change in this administration is that it has been less embracing of global mechanisms in everything. >> but you see -- yeah, the e.u. is like whining to the wto about our tax bill i mean, that's a global mechanism too. >> what i say is this.

the trade numbers as you saw last quarter, negative for us. that said, if you had asked me a year and a half ago would trade be in a considerably worse position than we are, i would have said yes. i'm actually happy very little has happened. >> exactly >> all right yeah, sorry. i said you co-founded ever -- you would much rather take credit for blackrock. >> i have blackrock stock and we talk every day >> you do? >> very much so. >> which is the perfect transition to our next story ralph and blaire are going to be with us for the next hour. blackrock says that it's going to be reaching out to gun makers in response to school shootings. leslie picker joins us now with more on the company's plan leslie, good morning. >> good morning, becky blackrock says they plan to engage with weapons manufacturers and distributors to better understand their response to recent events.

they're referring to the mass shooting in florida where 17 people were killed the world's largest asset manager took some heat in recent days for holding double digit percentage stakes in the three publicly traded gun manufacturers. they hold the stakes passively through the etf and mutual funds. that means if an index provider holds them in their index, blackrock must replicate that index. blackrock doesn't have the ability to sell shares in a company even if they disagree with management but they can customize an etf or index. they are working with clients who want to exclude from their portfolios weapons manufacturers or other companies that don't align with their values. it's one of the byproducts of passive investing. for example, florida state board of investing holds $200 billion in gun stocks. it's tied to the russell 2000, guys. >> leslie, thank you very much

when we come back, we have more from our special guests on media mergers, the markets and washington policy. up next we'll check it in with andrew on the winter olympics. don't forget monday is a big day on "squawk box." we'll be speaking with warren buffet who has his annual letter to shareholders that hits on saturday morning if you have any questions, send them to us at "squawk box" using #askwarren "squawk box" will be right back. what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers)

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ka . welcome back, everybody. right now it's time for an update from the winter olympics. let's get back to andrew who joins us with the latest from pyeongchang. >> reporter: hey there i'm missing the discussion in new york from mna guys i want to get you caught up. for the very first time u.s. men's curling team going to be competing for gold we have a chance for at least a medal. they defeated the canadians yesterday, 5-3 it is the first time since curling returned to the olympics in 1998 that canada will not be competing. before we got off the ice we caught up with lindsay vonn on what was probably her last olympic appearance we talked about the attention she's been getting off the

slopes for her comments on social media criticizing president trump. here's her response to the backlash >> i don't think i was expecting that much hate that came my way, but at the same time that's why i normally don't talk about politics i don't even talk about politics with my family, you know, because no one seems to be able to get along and agree on anything but i -- you know, it's difficult. it's difficult -- it's a difficult balance to find, you know, where you stand by who you are and your morals and, you know, i don't want to skirt around answers to important questions, but i also don't want to, you know, alienate people that do not believe the same things that i do but that's the great thing about being an american is we all have a right to our opinions and i have mine. i may not always vocalize it, but the opinions i do have i stand behind >> reporter: we also talked to vonn about using social media as

using social media to promote her sponsors, under armour and red bull. >> i don't work with brands or people that i don't have the same -- that don't have the same bond as i do i work with really solid people, really great companies and most of them i've been with for a very long time you know, under armour i've been with for over 11 years i'm their longest standing athlete. red bull about the same. and it's just, you know, they're great people and i enjoy working with them and i don't think that -- i mean, i do, of course, on social media want to make sure that i don't alienate them, but i also try to live my life and be the person i am that's why they work with me, because, you know, we have a great relationship. >> tom brady apparently took shares in under armour. >> yeah, i have shares as well. >> did you do the same thing >> i have shares as well. >> how did you decide to take

shares as well >> i took a little bit less money for the shares because i believe in the company and kevin plank is a good friend of mine i believe in his enthusiasm and his hard work and that's why i thought i would invest in the company that's invested in me. >> reporter: little shout out there for kevin plank. more of our conversation with lindsey vonn coming up later today, guys, including who she thinks should play her if there was a film called i, lindsey i don't know if she got to see the film i, tonya. we'll have more. back to you, joe. >> e-mail me, andrew, what i should ask these -- you've got your own thing with these guys tell me what the most mna is what the head of deal book would ask. >> reporter: i'll send you a question ask warren

>> too big to fail a book plug i'll ask it all. i'll get it all in if we can. >> reporter: i'll leave that to you. >> i know. i do that for you. you do anyway, coming up, stocks to watch ahead of the opening the media merger landscape what you can expect this year and how tax reform impacts that sector we're going to hear from today's special guest blaire efron and ralph schlosstein. stocks strong. up 200 again on the dow jones and even the nasdaq has -- it's all yours. wow! record time.

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you. all right. when we come back, we will talk media mergers and sector consolidation with our guest hosts, blaire efron of centerview partners and ralph schlosstein of evercore. equities much stronger the dow futures up by almost 200 points above fair value. looks like we ulwod open 20 points above s&ps and nasdaq up 59 stick around, "squawk box" will be right back.

good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square. andrew is in pyeongchang >> after today's closing bell. >> >> with #askwarren. might ask him about 23andme his voice z so distinctive that i was not paying attention to the commercial he's doing voiceovers. >> a little extra scratch, i guess, you know, a little something annoying >> i don't think he made any money. very lucrative. >> he's friends with the person who runs 23andme >> make movies, you get to sit there. you don't have to be out -- but

voice over -- >> i actually asked him about that >> very lucrative. >> he wants as many people as possible to get that message, young people in particular, that you only have one body, you've got to treat it right so if he gets that message out, he's all in favor of it. >> yeah, it probably wasn't for the money. you're right. tesla, meanwhile, is making progress and speeding up progression of its model 3 telling reservation holders that they can configure and order their cars and that's kind of new. previously the automaker had limited actual orders to employees in previous -- had to limit them to customers. that's been problematic. that can be the big car for you guys, production british educational publisher pearson is in talks to public test materials >> it's already sold businesses like the financial times

newspaper. when i was in high school, 800 math -- >> my number has gone up over the years. >> has it really >> absolutely. my kids think it was 1700 >> and i do, too, but it doesn't add up. >> it's gotten better. >> like a fine wine. it's like your able and -- your age goes up, your memory goes down, and your s.a.t.s go way up. >> exactly all right. we are fortunate enough to have two big-time media mna players with us this morning let's talk a little bit about what's been happening in this situation with blaire efron and ralph schlosstein. we haven't focused on the media. this has been an area that has had more regulatory oversight than expected largely because of

the at&t/time warner deal. they thought a republican administration would be full speed ahead on these mergers what kind of a shadow is this casting at this point? >> the media sector, becky, has always attracted -- >> more regulatory. >> go back to time warner/comcast, a deal everybody thought would get through, did not. nothing new here i do think that it is an industry facing more disruption than pretty much any other industry out there, which is why you see so much going on there is no traditional media versus tech versus telecom it's all blending into one you have companies more powerful than ever, new congrelomeratesc emirates they spend $15 billion in cash flow just on content that's more cash flow than a fox, time warner have in total. >> so does that mean you have to be big to survive? >> the point is you have to be big to -- longer term to have

cash flow and financial flexibility to make bets across every changing sector. with that automatically becomes a situation of increased scrutiny and i think the time warner situation will be obviously very destructive for everybody and my own expectation is if you follow the law, it should go through. and i will also tell you that i don't -- >> but you're hedging that by saying if you follow the law that should go through you're not placing money or bets on -- >> i do look at facts and if you are objective, a deal happens. i can't account -- that's not -- my job is not to go into what is subject. >> true, but your clients would be thinking what are my odds >> so what you end up thinking about clearly is on any situation, what is the down side of something not happening we would not talk to a client about any situation and say, this is interesting or not, but

let's say you want to do it and you can't get it done, what does it do at that point to your business and have you set yourself back by making the i i shall inial move >> i think two other things be that are really important. one is that if we had been sitting here five years ago we would have talked a lot about the protected position of distribution, the cable and directv, and clearly there has been a shift in influence from these distribution networks, and it's a long-term process, to content. so you're seeing really consequential aglomeration of content and distribution the second thing i would say is i would say probably one of the hardest deals in the world today is being an antitrust lawyer because you sit there and you're asked, will this go through or will it not go through and i would say at least to this

point the administration's anti-trust policy has been more transactional than governed by any particular historical precedent. so that's why i think -- >> there's not an ethos where you say this passes, this passes >> there's no real consistent rhyme or reason to why one thing might make it through and something else wouldn't and so that has, in fact, put a certain amount of uncertainty in the deal making environment and it's why when we work with clients, that you do have to focus on the down side because you're literally in limbo sometimes for nine months, 12 months. >> longer. >> don't they get paid either way? the anti-trust lawyers don't they over bill by the hour typically? >> i'm not saying -- you know, most people when they're in a professional services business, they like to be right. they like to be right. >> blaire, can you talk about fox and disney at all? >> nothing to talk about other than the fact that it's a very good example when rupert

mourdock and lockton and james, three of the most visionary people comes to the perspective that instead of just buying assets i want to think about my portfolio differently in the new environment. one, it says a lot and, two, you have to give them a lot of credit for being so nimble. >> having saidregulatory is different these days, you have to tell your clients to prepare for that, how do you prepare for a situation like that in a situation like twenty first century fox? >> coming up with that solution that is tailor made to solve any particular concerns which is having two companies and making sure one company is financially independent and financially fortified, that takes away any duplication. >> you were able to work in comcast name in a previous issue. any reason to bring it up here or no? >> i'll let ralph talk about comcast. >> i will not talk about it

either no, look, i think -- >> you don't know whether they're gone you don't -- >> we don't -- we don't ever really talk about individual situations with you on air. >> okay. all right. >> you want to -- you know, i want to work this mood you want to talk about mood or you mentioned it and i think across the board consumers, pretty good mood. small business owners, pretty good mood. ceos, pretty good mood. >> absolutely right, joe. >> and even in some of the polls. >> the polls are actually most stunning you look at commission index highest number since 2000. ceo index at 63%, highest number since 2004 there is a lot -- that optimism, it's interesting because that optimism to me was not there in the business community a couple of years ago every year in january, february we were here, we would have talked about an imf number, cbo number for growth for the year it always would have been 2.5% we would have been here saying

ceos think it's more like 2% this is the first year you see a 2.7 number going forward and most will say, yeah, that feels right. on a global basis, 4%, yeah, that feels right. >> i don't think we should be surprised by this. i remember i was in london on election night, 6:00 in the morning i was watching the returns and at that time dow futures were down 1,000 -- >> on the brexit vote. >> no, this is on our election. >> on our election s&p futures were down over 5%. i got a call from one of our research analysts who was giving a speech in japan about the economy and he asked me what should i say and i said, well, if you want to be bold, here's what i would say. i would say by the close of the market on wednesday, the stock market will be up. he said, why would i say that? here's why trump's going to do two -- three things he's going to reduce the impact of regulation on business, he's

going to cut taxes and he's going to have a large infrastructure program all three of those are stimulative to the economy and are highly supportive of equity markets and the fact that the tax cut was almost 90% focused on corporate earnings -- >> yeah. >> -- is a booster to that >> okay. so our oss, nick deogan, tells me, blaire, that he really taught you all you know about consumer products companies long ago. he took you under his wing >> there's some truth to that. >> so this is your thing, and there are huge -- i mean, media, you know, notwithstanding, consumer i mean, i would be so afraid to be a consumer products company right now. i wouldn't know what to do, i don't think, with all of the challenges of amazon do you know, is it more mnas >> it's not just consumer. every company, the face of

disruption across any industry is happening so rapidly that there is not a company not more concerned than ever about a former non-competitor. you look at retail, it's amazon. look at walmart, going into tech it's been going in all directions if you're a consumer company you're worried about how to reach your consumer, you're worried about data analytics, you're worried about health and wellness in terms of millennials and what kind of product they're eating, and i think that it's, frankly, a big challenge that's not necessarily about mna. >> would you be long campbell, hershey, kraft >> it's company by company i think certain companies do phenomenal job a company like pepsi has figured out how to grow 5% year in year out. >> salty snacks and drinks, i've known this forever salty snacks, combine it with thirst again muchers is that --

>> right nk >> but a company that is very focused on what happens 5 years, 10 years, 15 years out, the notion of sustainability, long-term growth you have to think that way you have to make these kinds of bets. >> coke going to be okay or do they need salty snacks >> there you go. >> i also think you can't ignore, as blaire said, the effect of disruption in every industry i mean, if you're sitting in one of the three major auto companies domiciled here in the u.s. and you have the whole issue of driverless cars and technology and, you know, all of their intellectual capital historically has been in design, not in technology. and, you know, you have these massive disruptive technologies that can't be created in big companies. i mean, walmart should have created amazon no reason in the world they didn't -- >> microsoft should have created

google. >> yeah, except that no board -- you know, no board or no ceo would take 15 years of investment that was dillutive of earnings to build that huge terminal value what happens is that terminal value gets put in companies that don't trade on earnings and then it's so central to the success of companies that do trade on earnings that they merge you see that in biotech. there are all these public biotech -- >> that's a good point i also say added to that, over the past year, two years we've actually seen companies, even when we think about mna, they're so much more focused on the impact of longer term, strategically to help us solve a disruption issue rather than simply saying i need to solve for some near-term depreciation. that's part of it. very much focused strategically and long-term growth

the fact is, it's come to the fore more than ever. >> we've got to go to break. i'm going to give you a chance, ralph. going back in time november 8th, changing your vote >> no. >> even after those three things, less regulation, business taxes, infrastructure really still? >> i'm still -- >> okay. fine i wanted to give you the opportunity to make good on that i'm not going to ask you, blaire i know better. i can needle him. >> we -- >> all right >> we've both profited enormously from two republican administrations but we're still going to vote democrat. >> that's fine that's fine. >> i know your kind. i've seen that i've seen that. >> in the long, long run -- in the long run -- >> it feels so good when you stop. >> those left behind have to be served. >> but how do you do that best does it seem like it worked well

with redistribution for eight years? we had to stay at zero to get economy to grow 1.5% do pro growth stuff. grow the pie don't split it up evenly. >> i waited until 45 minutes in to provoke you. >> i started it. coming up, andrew introduces us to the amazon of south korea the app has taken the company by storm with 99% of all mobile orders delivered within 24 hours. check out the fures tuat this hour, up 180 points right now. on the dow.

mvo: we had support from the interfaith groups, the synagogue, the churches. ♪ when disaster strikes to one, we all get together and support each other. that's the nature of humanity. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ and i'll never desert you. ♪ i'll stand by you.

>> reporter: welcome back to "squawk box" live from pyeongchang. we took a visit to one of the fastest growing ecommerce sites in south korea it's called coupang. we sat down and talked to the founder of etail coupang is the amazon of south korea. over 50% of the country's adults have the app installed on their smart phones. >> our motto is let's create a

motto where people ask how did i ever live without coupang. >> reporter: it was founded by bom king it was originally modeled after groupon. before the company pivoted into its current business model to improve customer service>> we realized customers were complaining about delivery. >> reporter: the last mile effort carried out by 4,000 delivery men known by super men deliver orders within 24 hours as part of its rocket delivery service. >> if this is the first order in a while and you'll say, mr. sorkin, welcome back if this is your first order you'll say, welcome to coupang, mr. sorkin. >> reporter: by 2022 it will be

the third largest behind china and the united states. if y >> if you take a look at the windows, the density in cree a and seoul, you just can't find this kind of density in american cities but that's actually how a lot of asian cities are evolving. this is the future of how people are going to live, and there are a lot of problems in this market that we're solving that haven't been solved before >> reporter: kim sees seoul as a template for how it will approach its future markets. cuopang's investors are soft bank and blackrock it could soon go public in the united states by 2020. >> reporter: i should tell you over half the country's population uses coupang. 25% up over last year. doing something right, guys. ralph and blaire, i should tell you, watch for these guys. you may want to try to advise them it's very likely that they will be having an ipo very soon by the way, maybe even bringing

their business, i think, ultimately to the u.s. they want to take on our players as well. i have one question actually for blaire and ralph unrelated to all of this but is related to blackrock and this conversation we've been having all week about gun control. also you saw first bank of omaha dropping the nra just yesterday. i was curious because i know there's been conversations inside a lot of banks this week. would you bank a gun manufacturer right now or a retailer that's selling some of these types of products? >> well, any time we get asked to work with a client, we ask ourselves three questions. number one, is this something that we can do at an a plus level? number two, is this business and a company and a people that we're proud to be associated with and number three, do we have conflicts? if the answers to that question are yes, yes, and no, we do the

business and we are pretty careful about who we do business with because our reputation is our principal asset. >> and for us, andrew -- >> blaire, you have an answer? >> for us, we've had the opportunity to work for a gun company. we passed on it years ago. we would take every situationo its merits and we would have to feel very comfortable that we could do an a plus job or not take it on having had the opportunity and turned it down, that's an indication >> reporter: okay. thanks it's a longer conversation when we come back we'll wrap up with blaire and ralph in a minute squawk returns in just a minute. . but with opportunity comes risk. and to manage this risk, the world turns to cme group. we help farmers lock in future prices, banks manage interest rate changes and airlines hedge fuel costs. all so they can manage their risks and move forward.

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want to thank blaire efron and ralph schlosstein for being with us. when we come back, we're going to talk markets and worries about rising interest rates. it's what's been sending stocks up and down. dow futures up by 170 points up. the nasdaq up by 51 and s&p up by 17. we'll be right back. starting with advanced manufacturing that brings big ideas to life. and cutting-edge transportation development to connect those ideas to the world. along with urban redevelopment projects worthy of the world's top talent.

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work experience... credit history. that more accurately assess a business' chances of success. this is a good investment. she's a good investment. get ready, because we're helping leading companies see it- and see it through-with digital. breaking overnight, regulators seize control of one of china's biggest insurance groups we have the details on this corruption crackdown next. new this morning, multi-billion dollar deal in the works with general mills set to buy blue buffalo. >> reporter: plus, going for gold in pyeongchang. >> i'm coming up on ya. >> reporter: as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ ♪

live from the most powerful city in new york, this is "squawk box. good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square, i'm joe kernen along with becky quick. andrew ross sorkin, it's long, long away in a far, far away place. >> you're here. >> yeah, but the -- >> we don't hear you >> it's starting to -- i don't know, the -- how far you are is starting to affect me a little bit. >> reporter: he'll be back next week. >> not monday? you're not going to be here monday or you are? >> reporter: you have warren becky's got warren. >> that's right. did someone send you the latest idea about sequestering infants? did you see that piece i think somebody -- >> on planes >> on planes there is a move afoot, i don't know whether you started it, but

there is something going on about trying to handle just that -- it might have been after that kid for eight hours was running up and down -- did you see him in. >> no. >> it was like some demonic possession that he had not really, but he was just -- i mean, people on the plane were like -- they're still going -- >> thanks, andrew. >> all the world's important problems right here on "squawk box." >> this is front and center for sorkin on the long flights check on the markets, up 180 on the dow. 56 on the nasdaq, almost 19 points on the s&p. i saw 290 on the ten year earlier. 2.88 now so i don't know. 3%, is it next week, the week after or is it six months from now? nobody knows i think maybe sooner rather than later. >> we don't know for sure, but if you really want to get a read on it, at least how the market is going to react today, you better set your watch for 11:00 a.m. eastern time. that's when the fed is going to lease the written testimony from

jay powell's congressional testimony. he is scheduled to deliver that testimony on the state of the economy and monetary policy next week you saw what happened when we got the fmoc minutes the market's reaction to that. this is going to be a big deal, too. also in deal news, general mills is buying natural pet foods maker blue buffalo for $8 billion. that deal is worth $40 a share in cash compared to yesterday's close of $34.12 for blue buffalo. general mills expects the deal to close by the end of its fiscal year in may. also, breaking news out of china overnight, the government there seizing control of the anbang insurance group and is prosecuting the chairman for what it calls economic crimes. regulators say the company violated laws which it says may seriously endanger the solvency of the company anbang gained recognition in 2014 with its $2 billion purchase of the waldorf astoria. that $6.5 billion deal with the blackstone group joe? >> yes, in other corporate news

the world's biggest asset manager is looking for answers from gun makers following last week's deadly school shooting. blackrock is the top share shoulder in rueger and american outdoor and vista. it holds stakes through the etf and index mutual funds it's all in passive investing products blackrock doesn't have the ability to sell shares even if it disagrees with management, but in a statement the company said we will be engaging with weapons manufacturers and distributors to understand their response to recent events. and in response to client inquiries blackrock said we are working with clients who want to exclude their portfolios from weapons manufacturers or other companies that don't align with their values >> but if it's in the index, how do you do that >> how do you do it with an etf? >> right >> the whole idea -- that was why fink's letter raised so many

eyebrows. >> it's a different way of doing passive investing. this is the first example that we've seen since we talked about it. >> right. >> we'll see how it plays out. also, the national rifle association is feeling backlash from the business world. the first national bank of omaha says it will not renew a contract with the gun group for an nra branded visa card a spokesman saying customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the nra. separately, enterprise holdings is ending its relationship with the nra. they formerly gave nra members discounts. enterprise says the program will end next month. >> i didn't know you could get an nra credit card >> i didn't. >> united credit card. >> zero branded credit cards. >> cash back from my bank for every purchase i make. i'd rather have the cash than

the miles. >> i urge the main spender in the family to spend more to get more miles i do it's like i see these bills and it's like, thank you thank you. no, it's about the miles it's about the miles. >> i'd rather have money than miles. >> maybe i have to reset okay yeah all right. the florida panthers, meanwhile, held an emotional pre-game ceremony last night for the victims of last week's deadly shooting the nhl team plays its games ten miles from the city of parkland. it featured a moment of silence and video and 17 spotlights on the ice for each victim's name the panthers goalie, who lives in parkland, actually, also spoke calling for those in power to take action against gun violence let's switch gears back to the markets. investors are going to be looking for any clues about the future of interest rates when jay powell testifies next week as fed chairman. we'll get a hint of that

yesterday our guest host james bullard indicated that aggressive rate hikes may not actually be in the cards for 2018 >> the idea that we have to go 100 basis points in 2018, that seems like a lot to me that's kind of price for perf t perfecti perfection everything would have to go just right. the economy would have to surprise on the up side a bunch of times during the year i'm not sure if that's a good way to think about 20189. joining us right now to tell us if the economy is going to surprise the markets is vince rinehart he is with bny melon thanks for being here today. >> thanks for vk me. >> you are in the camp of people who thinks four rate hikes is probably going to happen what did you hear from jim bullard? does that change your mind at all? >> a message to president bullard, things are going pretty well we're growing about a percentage point above potential output growth financial conditions even after

the equity market selloff are still accommodative, about as accommodative when they started the tightening cycle way more accommodative than, say, at the beginning of 2016. and we just piled on a tax kutd and spending increases this is an economy that is already at its potential to produce. it will have excess demand and the fed will get into the game. >> we had an hour-long conversation with bullard. let me throw out a couple of things he said he thinks, first of all, the fed can afford to be patient the bond market is doing the fed's work for it by already seeing interest rates hike as much as they have in the early parts of this year and that really when you look through these things, part of what's going to be happening for the tightening process is just watching the balance sheets start to roll off and that will be doing some of the tightening that the fed will not have to do at all with rate hikes what do you say about all of

those arguments? >> he's right on all three counts the fed can afford to be patient. tightening only four times by just 25 basis points each is slow by historical standards and by the end of the year federal funds rate will still be below their estimate of the neutral rate, i.e.,, policy will be accommodative. >> okay. >> yet the balance sheet is running off. that will be an additional source of restraint on an economy that is working with excess demand. and patience, you know, is warranted and everything is state contingent i.e.,, he's right. if the economy softens, if inflation doesn't materialize, they can pause, but for now given our forecast, they're probably going to be tightening four times this year. >> let's look at what bullard said and what you've said. he's saying not 4, so maybe we

could read 3 into that even though he didn't say three rate hikes. you're saying four even if, you know, you look at that and try and combine it, we may be splitting hairs to try to split the difference between 25 basis points additional hike by the end of the year. what's it going to mean for the economy if you're right and there's four rate hikes this year >> it will be nothing but good news think about the headlines we ran last year when the fed tightened three times. each time it was fed confident enough about economic expansion to remove some policy accommodations fed's only going to -- or most likely would tighten four times for the good reason that output is growing pretty robustly the unemployment rate is starting with a three and they are easing into their inflation goal of 2% our forecast of four tightenings isn't a hurried fed trying to catch up to a market with inflation jitters, it's a fed

that's renormalizing policy at the best time it can, when the economy is performing well >> and so over all what you'd be telling people what you expect for 2018 and then into 2019 for the economy is what? what kind of gdp are you anticipating >> something on the order of 2.5 to 2.75% 2.75% is a percentage point faster than the economy's potential to produce that puts the unemployment rate on a pretty distinct down trend. in the low 3s and inflation is goingto be headed 2 poi to 2 an above 2 next year. >> just to let you clarify, we're going to be getting a report at 11:00 a.m. today which is the fed's monetary policy to congress that's what powell's testimony will be based on we won't see his actual testimony until next week on monday what do you expect to hear from jay powell at that point >> jay powell's going to have to

admit that equity prices go up and down and that you have to smooth through that, the financial conditions are still accommodative. the minutes that were released earlier this week were pretty assertive that the economy's performing well. vice chair randy quarrels gave a speech earlier this week where he pretty much shook off equity prices and was positive about the economy. i would expect all of those were written at the same time as jay powell's testimony. >> thanks for your time. good to see you. coming up, the winter olympics racing to a close andrew, what do you have coming up >> reporter: we have lindsey vonn, a lot more of our conversation with her with some fascinating answers, joe you're going to want to hear these. we're back in a moment

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>> reporter: welcome back to "squawk box" live from pyeongchang this morning or evening. three-time medalist lindsey vonn just finished competing in what is likely her last olympic games. we asked her earlier how much she was thinking about the end of her olympic career during these games. >> i've been thinking about it the whole time i mean, i've been -- that's why

i've been so emotional the entire olympics because i know that it's my last games and i want so badly to do well for myself and for my family, especially my late grandfather and knowing that it's the last time i'll ever be at the olympics is really overwhelming because i love the olympics. it's the pinnacle of sport there's so much emotion and, you know, patriotism it's just -- there's so much that i love about it that it's hard for me to think i'll never do this again. >> how do you get that out of your head as you're actually going down the mountain? or was it in your head >> i thought about it -- i thought -- the thing is that it's my last shot so i might as well go out guns blazing that's what i -- my whole mentality was these entire games was i have to give it everything i have there's no -- there's no regrets. there's no holding back. i either win or i lose and that's all i can do. >> reporter: if there was a movie made about you, we'll call

it ilindsey, i don't know if you've seen i, tanya. >> no. >> reporter: let's not do that what actress would play you? >> jessica beal or jennifer lawrence jessica beal is super buff and she is a great skier she snowboards probably more than she skis, but that's okay, i'm going to let that slide. but jlaw is really very funny and i think she would be a good me but cooler. >> reporter: we're going to play a little game. i'm going to say two different types of companies and you can tell me which one you like better snap chat or instagram we know you're twitter. >> all of the above. >> i'd say i'm on instagram the most but snap chat occasionally. >> facebook? >> facebook sometimes. i think i do more long-winded posts on facebook, you know, where i really want to write something, you know, important instagram is more about pictures

and twitter is more about information. >> reporter: netflix, hulu, amazon prime >> i have all of them. you know, some shows -- like a handmade den's tale you can only get on hulu. netflix, stranger things got to go with that. amazon prime, there's also movies that you can't get on netflix that are on amazon. >> reporter: spotify, apple music, pandora >> spotify. >> reporter: apple, samsung? >> i have an apple phone i don't have -- i mean, i'm not really technologically savvy so -- >> reporter: are you a siri person or alexa person >> neither. >> reporter: it doesn't understand me. it could be my minnesota accent. i don't know it doesn't compute. >> reporter: cash, credit cards, bitcoin? >> credit cards. >> reporter: credit cards? >> i'm too -- bitcoin is just -- i can't -- i don't know. and i never have cash.

i am always the one that doesn't have cash. >> reporter: she was a great sport with that, playing along with us. as for life after skiing, vonn says she may pursue acting she may pursue commentating. she has not decided yet but you know there's going to be a lot of people watching that was a fun conversation. i'm going to send it back to you guys. >> that was my take, it was like i can't believe how nice she is to you with those -- a lot -- it was like she's sitting there -- >> reporter: amazing person. >> amazing person. >> reporter: we had a lot of fun. we had a lot of fun together it was fun it really was. >> you know what, i know how to do hulu now because of "fargo. and then i thought she's from minnesota. it all came together. >> reporter: bingo. >> it all came together for me, andrew i was thinking that, wow, she's totally nice no matter -- i mean, if you started asking me those things -- number one, i don't know half of what you're talking -- anyway. coming up -- thanks, andrew. >> reporter: okay.

>> did you see ellen degeneres said she doesn't open snap chat. >> yeah, it's down 1.3. >> i'm going to try that. >> may not have the same impact. >> coming up, a century old company using technology to change the game of the wine business pretty incredible family story, too, when we return. then monday don't miss three hours with the oracle, warren buffet send us your questions use twitter or facebook with the hashtag #askwarren hashtag is that little number sign they call it a hashtag now supposedly yes. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. cme group - how the world advances. ♪

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this isn't about me, but older does just mean more evolved, that's true, especially in the wine industry nearly after a 100 years, vitner is still evolving to keep pace with the market. joining me is christina. we would know best riuniti. >> in the '80s and lambrusco was the wine that built the family fortune so we could go back to tuscany and create a wine estate from scratch, banfi.

>> i know there's wine in ohio tuscany, if you're going to own a vineyard -- >> tuscany is where the heart and soul is. the rolling hills, countryside 7,000 acres we have there. >> 7,000 acres. >> that's 11 square miles. >> it's the size of manhattan. >> each vineyard, it's kind of an agricultural state. plus we have wheat, we have plumbs, cheris, truffles, olive groves it's an agricultural sustainable center. >> in the last 10, 12 years how has your wine company involved is there still innovation? >> there's lots of innovation. one thing thanks to global warming that we always have to manage our grapes more sustainably. two, we also use different technology like we have these fermenters that we patented at banfi that are hybrid stainless

ste steel. >> and the benefit of the wood, you want a taste enhancement >> just historically, it's just so interesting to me what a long line your family has in this business you've got to explain it it was pope paul the 6th. >> pope pias xi. >> this is your -- goes back to a great-grandfather or grandfather's great aunt >> correct so my grandfather was raised by my great, great aunt, ta tao delinda banfi. she was the first woman who wasn't the nun to live within the vatican city she ran the entire household for

pope pious xi. >> protocol, all of those things >> everything. >> buried in the vatican >> first woman who was not a nun to be buried in the vatican. >> she raised my grandfather. >> who came to spring street in greenwich village and opened up a wine and italian products industry and named it banfi. >> we have to toast her. >> this is the most classic wine of tuscany >> okay. i've got to try it good >> it's good cheers >> salut. >> salut thanks. >> oh, that's very good. >> elegant. >> no bull >> no. >> it's smooth. >> those words mean a lot, elegant, noble i try to live -- >> elegant, noble joe.

>> that's my thing. >> you're being facetious. >> not at all. >> when we come back, a venture capitalist trying to close the gap in silicon valley with an entirely female led firm we'll have much more from andrew at the olympics. >> reporter: here in south korea beauty is a big business this country exports over $2.5 billion annually and is the fourth largest skin care market in the world the standard of beauty here is known as milk skin it means natural, smooth and translucent. it can take a ten-step regime daily to make it happen. okay, guys, so let's happen it i need to have milk skin, too. so a little drop thanks man. imagine if the things you bought every day... earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card,

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♪ ♪ ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square.

i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is in south korea covering the olympics. we'll have more from him in a few minutes. first, let's take a look at stocks this morning. intuit reporting a quarterly profit of 25 cen35 cents, that s a quarter more than expected the stock is down by more than 3.8%. planet fitness shares are higher after the fitness chain beat estimates with a quarterly profit of 24 cents a share there's a new stock buy back program and predicting a 40% jump in earnings for 2018. i guess that's probably because of taxes paid if you're looking at a 40% jump in earnings but the stock is up by 8.9%. then web hosting company go daddy reporting an increase in the customer base for the fourth quarter as well as a nearly 7% jump in revenue per users. it's been largely fueled by international expansion. that stock up by 4.6%.

let's get back to the markets. the ten-year t-note yield right now below 2.9 again. rick santelli joins us from chicago this morning rick, making a special appearance i like it. >> reporter: yeah. this is great. we could chat. there's no numbers i know that yesterday we toyed around with the notion that 3% may come quicker versus later even though we haven't hit it today, we came close within a handful of basis points in the last 24 hours. we're virtually unchanged on the week here, joe, right around 2.88 or so you know, dollar index is purportedly having a big up week it's still under 90. it's settled at 92 and change at the end of '17 it settled at 102 and change at the end of '16 i think there's a lot of big dynamics in place here, joe, and we can't lose sight of what's going on

there's going to be an adjustment process on the globe and we can all talk about treasury yields, deficits, issuance, but i think the most important thing is that we have a lot of big issues coming together at the same point in time, not the least of which is looking at debt through the lens of not only higher rates on the market side but the fact that when many of these budget deficits were over a trillion in 2009, 10, 11, 12, fed funds are 0-25 there's a big difference if you look at what two-year note yields were, probably an average around 40 basis points, maybe a bit less now it's 2.25. you see what i'm getting at. it isn't that interest rates are the problem, it's that there's a lot of things together that are contributing to making interest rates the focal point. think of a big thumb on a scale. >> yeah. that was going to actually try

to list the reasons that we've had -- that guests have talked about for why rates have been going up one was the stimulant, the tax plan combined with the latest budget to say, yeah, that's why. i go, okay, maybe. another one was gdp has just been the average quarterly growth you can argue and go to the political back drop. it's half a percentage that could do it then inflation concerns and just animal spirits about whether there's inflation. that could do it then you mentioned issuance and everything else. i don't know how many things that there really are factoring in to why rates are headed up, rick it depends on your own personal viewpoint why it's going up. you made a good point. we had trillion dollar deficits and nothing happened with rates. then again people say -- >> reporter: something did happen you had the forces of government helping finance that by keeping

rates artificially low that's a huge difference. >> yeah. yeah but maybe we've crossed a rubicon this time. you know, they say 21 trillion was it, you know 10 to 20 was fine, but when you get to 21, that's when the vi l vigilantes finally come back i don't know. >> reporter: i'll tell you what, joe. another way to look at it is is that we've spent a lot of money in the past. we tried to do it in a moral, honorable way but we just didn't get any bang for the buck. you had the fed praying that they had some fiscal policy. now we have policy in that direction and the fed is afraid of it. central banks have been teasing inflation. i dare you to come out you know it's going to come out at some point. i don't know all of these things are like a long piece of wool, okay you can't use it for a blanket, but you get a lot of long pieces of wool, you knit them together, you can have a nice comforter. in this case there's no comfort

in what we've been weaving. >> rick, good to have you on on friday we're pulling for the u.s. in curling, man gold medal in curling. i don't think we've ever done that maybe it will happen tonight. >> reporter: i like watching sports that virtually anybody could do, you know the whole thought of badminton just makes me perspire too much. >> no way. they make it look easy, it is not, rick. joe and i tried this in davos. >> reporter: oh, i'm not saying it's easy but you could have a pawn muc paunchy stomach -- >> that and golf. >> i've seen a few golfers with paunchy stomachs no one on the set here, not me or anything. >> reporter: of course not thank you, joe. okay only 6% of partners in american venture capitalist firms are women and less than 3% of vc funding right now is being directed towards female ceos our next guest is tackling the gender gap with an entirely female led firm.

joining us is elizabeth galbut thanks for being here today. >> thank you for having me, becky and joe. >> you know, the number -- i would have guessed that there was far fewer money going to women-led firms that were out there and that there were not a whole lot of women venture capitalists. these numbers shock me what's going on? why -- first of all, why so few women when it comes to vc funding? >> so why so few women first off, it's because traditionally the industry has been quite a bro club. i believe in this next generation there's more women coming up the ranks whether it's within existing firms or new firms like our firm sogal ventures this is important. at sogal ventures we believe women are the next biggest arbitrage investment of this decade women make 80% of consumer purchasing decisions they make 85% of health care

decisions for health care and their families if you're currently an investor in a fund that does not have diverse leadership at its helm, you will be on the losing end of this decade. women are controlling more and more wealth, they are making the decisions. if you don't have that representation in voice and investment perspective within your own firm or fund or the funds that you're investing in as an investor, you will have suboptimal returns in the next 5 to 10 years, i guarantee it. >> elizabeth, try to as well as i can ask this in a way that's okay the portfolio of what you're talking about, the vc companies that you're involved with, is there any gender sort of bias based on that it's the -- these are all sfwhwomen? i would imagine consumer can you even talk about whether there would be a different portfolio from something with -- you know, run by all women in vc

versus -- >> what are the men vcs missing? >> it's not just what are the male vcs missing it's when they're looking at the female consumer getting it incredibly wrong >> okay. >> they're putting their dollars towards the wrong startups that don't actually meet the needs of women. so sogal ventures, we invest in how the next generation lives, works and stays healthy so that is consumer, that's health tech, that's enterprise software a lot of artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, all of the trends any venture capitalist -- >> sounds like there's not a very big difference. >> i think of some goldiblocks, that was fund bed by elbalbert perkins your point is women vcs see things than the guys don't >> yeah. and we evaluate them and we understand them much more

intrinsically well. >> are there a lot of entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs who are getting passed over by the traditional vc funds these days? >> yes there's tons, and that means they're operating at lower valuations, they have higher capital efficiency because they have to be lean. they're not raising as much money, and on average many vc firms, including one called first round capital which is pretty famous in the industry, they actually saw that over a ten year period their companies that had at least one woman founder had a 63% higher return on investment compared to the all male founding teams. >> it's interesting. kevin o'leary from shark tank has been here and said his most successful ventures he's funded have been led by women, too, because they're much more realistic in the promises that they're making in returns and manage the company differently. >> yes at sogal ventures we believe in investing in -- we're not giving a handicap because somebody is a

woman or minority. we see over 3,000 deals a year we're investing in less than .5% of those each year so we are investing in the top of the top, the cream of the crop. >> getting a better track record >> we look at diverse founding teams from a broad basis, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, where they're from, what they've studied, what their professional background is because we believe that the current equality issue in silicon valley isn't going to be solved by investing in the same sort of companies that the past decade has invested in. we believe in a bottom up approach, that by investing in diverse founding teams they'll hiring diverse teams there will be a higher return on investment and the industry will shift. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you. coming up, going for gold in pyeongchang. andrew, what's coming up >> reporter: well, we're going to bring you some laughs i'm training for the biathlon. i told you this was going to happen, guys, and i might have a

gold medal in my future. check it out see you in a moment. [fbi agent] you're a brave man, mr. stevens. your testimony will save lives. mr. stevens? this is your new name. this is your new house. and a perfectly inconspicuous suv. you must become invisible. [hero] i'll take my chances.

>> reporter: welcome back to "squawk box" right here in pyeongchang. one of the percs of covering the olympics is getting to watch, yes, try these sports in action. i had a chance to train for

bye@lon with team u.s.a.'s shawn doherty. take a look. >> thank you for doing this and being my instructor today. before we start, how did you get into this? >> yeah, it's just started off alpine skiing and then fell into cross-country and then a friend of mine introduced me to biathlon it's kind of been all uphill ever since have you done much skiing before >> reporter: downhill, yes this, not so much. >> just kind of a gentle side to side let's try to pick one side to push with poles on. >> now we're rolling. >> reporter: what do we do in the downhill >> point them and shoot. >> reporter: what do you think of racing? >> cross-country skis? >> reporter: like you and me >> do you need a head start or are we just going to go? >> reporter: one, two, three >> i'm coming up on you. just one lap, that's all

i think we've got the skiing stuff down, now we've got to do a little rifle practice. >> all right >> reporter: okay. here we go they call this the dry fire room >> yes we're not shooting actual ammunition. >> reporter: show me the procedure. >> getting the rifle off and getting in and out of position we spend a ton of time rehearsing this. >> reporter: 3, 2, 1 so here we go. bingo. >> there's one shot. >> i think i nailed all five. >> yeah, probably. >> reporter: what do you think >> yeah.

good >> reporter: okay. so i embarrassed myself, but we did that for you guys. as we come to an end of the olympics before we go, the athletes are going home with medals some are not though. one of the things we like to do is ask the competitors we met, what's your definition of success. ♪ ♪ >> success comes in the form of after you've accomplished something ten years down the road, if you look yourself in the mirror feeling you've done everything you could. >> doing the best. win or lose if you can peak at the right time. >> for me, it's happiness. if you're happy, you're successful. >> do my best, regardless of the results. if i put in hard work, that's a success to me. >> obviously winning a medal is what you want, but being an olympian is success in its own .

>> for me, this is a success coming home with a bronze medal. if we didn't come home with a bronze medal, i would find success in something else. it's what you make of it. >> i think success for me is achieving success in what you set out to do. >> success for me is knowing yourself and knowing that you can create the best you possible if that makes sense. success is being the best possible you >> reporter: you know, we've met so many different athletes here and win or lose it is just an accomplishment to get here, be here it's inspiring no matter how you -- no matter how you go home it's been a really cool week so that's all for now. i'm going to sends it back to you, becky. >> great. >> i can't believe the olympics are over went by so fast. >> i was trying to figure out, those are not pellet guns, andrew those are .22s. >> reporter: that's a .22. that's a .22. >> did you fire it or practice

getting into -- >> reporter: no, there are very strict laws. we were in the dry range i could not be touching it actually, unlike in other countries apparently, usually the athletes usually go home with their gunand bring it bac to their dorm room or whatever they have, the apartments they're in in this case they actually had to keep it in a locked room. we actually wanted to go out into the snow to do it but they were not -- even the empty gun they didn't want us playing around with it it's hard, by the way. the hard -- by the way, i tried like 100 times we only showed you when i even made it look bearable. >> yeah, i thought you were good i did. >> reporter: it's so hard to get it off -- it's so hard to get it off your back. >> i bet. >> reporter: that's the hardest thing. >> i imagine the stuff you have on for the outdoor weather would make it harder. >> reporter: it's freezing here, freezing then they wear gloves. so the big issue is you want to wear thin gloves to feel the trigger or if you wear thicker gloves and your hands get too

cold, then it's a whole -- you're going so fast and then the breathing. anyway -- by the way, we should thank him. he was awesome thank you. >> that was your best -- see, i thought you did well even though it was 40 seconds versus nine, you looked -- >> and on skis you're going up against an olympian not bad. >> reporter: if you had seen the other tape, that will be for the outtakes. >> we can look forward to that when you get back. >> andrew, thank you congratulations. safe travels this weekend. enjoy everything tonight. >> reporter: i think i'm going to see you in ten minutes. i'm going to see you in ten minutes. >> never mind. >> reporter: i'm going to give you some questions for warren. >> okay. when we come back, meet the real live george jet son. we will bring you the story of companies trying to make air taxis a reality. stay tuned u' wchg quk x" right here on cnbc d a better world for investing. let's hold ourselves to the highest standards of ethics. as investment management professionals, let's measure up.

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welcome back to "squawk box. the air taxi business, which has been fueled by massive investments by established players, like airbus and boeing is now moving from concept design to prototype development interested in the story phil lebeau has it for us hey, phil. >> joe, it's not much of a business yet, but we are

starting to see some of these prototypes look at this video this is airbus' air taxi being developed. you're saying it's going up and down, not terribly impressive, not moving around. this is the first test flight happened last month in oregon, but the goal here is eventually this air taxi will go four times faster than street traffic but as you mentioned, airbus is not alone in this pursuit of air taxis. you also have boeing, which is working on developing its own air taxi, if you will. this is some video that boeing released a couple months ago of it in development. you also have kitty hawk now, this is really what had a lot of people saying, wow, check this out when they tested it out last year in california. that would be cool if i could have one of those. whether or not we see one of those remains to be seen you also have uber developing what it says will be a fleet of air taxis. animation shows what it could possibly be like in the future by the way, one of the

supporters of uber's air taxi program said to elon musk, how come you're not into this game right now? elon musk responded in a tweet saying, if you love drones above your house, you'll really love vast numbers of cars flying over your head that are 1,000 times bigger and noisier and blow away anything that isn't nailed down when they land the bottom line is this, guys, we are a long ways from seeing this become a reality in terms of you and i getting in one of these let's say in new york and zipping around and landing somewhere. but it is real in the sense that a lot of money is going in both a lot of money is going in both from

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>> here is what is amazing it is battery-powered. inside this thing, this thing is

electric whenever you turn it on, this is back, it is almost like a blanket. it is not going to be as cold we don't think as sunday as it is. >> save it for davos next year. >> is that yours >> you know what, joe? you know what i was thinking about? i was going to make it yours. >> oh. that's a good gift. >> i was going the make it yours, joe. >> i would just like -- >> that's what i was going to do. >> if either one of us was single, man, we could walk around in that i was at the olympic yeah, yeah, luge and downhill. i specialized in both actually yeah, that's cool, andrew. that is. >> it will fit over your suit, joe. >> yeah. >> and, no, no, it will fit over your suit. we got becky something, too. >> yay! souvenirs. >> i will see both of you on tuesday. have a wonderful time.

i will send my questions like everyone else i will send my questions have a wonder of time. a big shoutout we have an amazing team of camera people, producers it is an amazing thing this happen it is a minor miracle. >> the viewer questions come first. you go to the back of the line we'll see. >> andrew, have a stave trip fantastic coverage folks, that does it for us make sure you join us for warren buffett. right now it is time for "squawk on the street. ♪ ♪ >> good friday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." kramer is off today. futurer higher as stocks look to avoid their third losing week in four a little of everything today, some m &