collection, the only thing they want to do is look at others collections. that's the first thing you do. that you want to save and do more of it. that was the principal of it. if you have anything you are passionate about, whether it is a hobby, and idea, a place anything. >> do think people will think i'm cool if i have a comic book board? >> absolutely. pete from leslie ---- pete from nestle, he likes skiing. you can collect anything on the topic of comics and become an influencer on this topic if you'd like. >> do you have a lot of men on pinterest right now, or is the perception of women inaccurate? >> in the u.s. it is 7030.

we started out by reaching to mom bloggers and crafters around the world. when we do that, we see the mix there. >> what are your international percentages of terms of total usage? >> we have expanded. we have offices all over the world. international growth is a big focus for us. >> awesome, thanks again for joining us. [applause] ♪ >> okey doke, we are on time and running. that's a plus for us. our next founder is pretty much a genius. there's a good chance you will understand what is being spoken on stage.

she bought ecologic for 1.4 billion in the middle of 2008. she is the biggest boss here. please welcome paula long. and our moderator ron miller. ron: alright, so these are aptly called founder stories. paula founded not one, but two companies. she sold the first one for $1.4 billion, which is a fair amount of money. to put that into perspective -- i did some research, and it was one of only 20 it companies in the last 10 years that sold for more than $1 billion. that's a pretty good company. i am wondering, when you were going back to 2007 and selling

that company, where you actually looking to sell? were buyers pursuing you? paula: this is an interesting dance. if you go to fcc.gov you see that we filed. our s1 was approved. we closed the papers on sunday night. if we had not closed the papers. we were doing our roadshow on tuesday -- so we were minutes away from becoming a public company. the 1.4 billion is an impressive number. we were profitable. we had were thousand customers that were happy. -- 4000 customers that were happy. 98% satisfaction rating. we were going to go public. when the numbers given, someone said i wanted to buy 500 million. that is a lot of money. but, if you look at our revenue

it was not a lot compared to the revenue. if someone offers you something with a b in it, you should think about it. you might not do it, but you might want to think about it. i think it was michael dell. -- who tipped me. he was passionate about the mission. he called me personally in wanted to know how to make this happen. i think that commitment from the company acquiring us help tip it a little. ron: were there other companies that were pitching you at the time? paula: periodically people would come in and talking about buying. one person said they would rather die first than be bought. they would be rude. i can't tell you who that was.

we had a bunch of offers, people looking at us as we went along. we were focused on growing the company. we had never discarded and acquisition. ron: when you went to the negotiation table with dell and the numbers started flowing up, what was your reaction of you and you are fellow offenders. -- fellow founders? paula: i wasn't in the immediate negotiations. i was running product at the time. i work all the time. anybody who is a founderyou work all the time. i was at my son's parents weekend for the conference. i got a call, they said it's over a b now, should be do it?> it's like, priorities. i said you guys do what you think you need to do.

i wasn't as engaged as i probably should have been. i was watching my son's material science experience at cmu. learning about helicopter parents, which i was trying not to be. someone called me and asked arthur any other founders that can answer this? i wasn't in the last nuances of the details. ron: maybe he was better that you are caught up in some thing else that point. you are a ceo and have held a lot of high-level management positions. as you just alluded to, you weren't ceo at first company. how is it different being ceo of a startup as opposed to being part of the management and founding team of a startup? paula: i got a bit of a taste of ceo at data logic.

the company was growing faster than my ability to learn all of the roles. i decided that if i started another one, i still feel passionate about the company and our position in the market. i understand the business and technology, so i said i would do ceo. what i found is that you care about product and people. as ceo, you care about people and people. it is much more about focusing on the customer. ron: as ceo, is there more day-to-day pressure to make sure all of the pieces are moving and working in cohesion? paula: for some reason, i found as a founder that if i failed, it would have been my fault. for me, the pressure is about

the same. you have asked your friends to join you and you are responsible for their livelihood. you have asked people to invest in you. there are limits with retirement and college funds. you are very responsible for that money you took. you are affecting people's livelihood. it feels like it is a race. but it is about the decisions you make, and i take that pretty seriously. ron: how does that drive a founder? paula: i think it is a healthy fear. if a founder is not worried every day, they are focused on it the wrong thing. you are playing chess and checkers at the same time. you are trying to write out your next move, but also what you are going to do in six months to a year. it is a lot of fun, but there is a lot of responsibility that i take very seriously. ron: s going back to thatal --

going back to that sale for a minute. that was 2007. we were just getting the starts of the romans of what would come in 2008. -- we were just getting rumblings of what was to come in 2008. did that have any impact of the negotiations, that kind of economic climate? paula: we were in a market that doesn't get as affected as others. storage is something you need to have. everybody needed databases. it you were to look at companies, data storage companies were not as impacted and came back quicker. what we were thinking about was that dell wanted to get into the business, so workere two other

firms. do we want that kind of competition, or do we want to cooperate with them? ron: if you had waited six months, do you think it would have made a difference? paula: all three got bought for more than 2 billion. you could say we went to early. -- too early. you have to decide what a good point is for you. some of the venture guys may have said they went tot too early. they experienced the dip and did just great. ron: data gravity is your second company. what was it like launching a company the second time? and as successful as equalogic

was, did you ever say there were things he would never do again? -- you would never do again? paula: launching the second time is interesting. i have been in startups that have failed. you start to think about your next one, you think about your legacy. i left lots of great customers a great company culture, of great monetary exit for employees and investors. now you say to yourself, okay, do i have an idea that is big enough? it took me some time. datagravity is going to change data storage in a fundamental way. right now data is not know anything about -- storage does not know anything about the data it holds.

i was pretty sure that i was on to a great idea. i got a great cofounder in john joseph. the one thing i said i wouldn't do -- as i started to raise money, i made sure that it picked the partners i wanted, i was careful about how we went across how we would grow the company. we would really focus -- on equallogic, we focused on the customer, but we double down with data garavity. we are ramping up successfully but cautiously. the one thing we didn't do -- we had no interest which are at equalogic. when we started selling, we couldn't go fast enough. other than that, it is pretty much the same playbook.

ron: when you sold equalogic it was 2007. the cloud wasn't on most people's radar. the work a lot of clout discussions. -- cloud discussions. how is the storage market changed between the time you sold equalogic and the time he started data gravity into pretrial -- the time you started data gravity in 2012? paula: we were one of the first people doing all inclusive -- so once you bought the product, now you get all the features. now everybody is doing that. cloud was a term in 2007, 2008, but no one was really doing it. when the application and storage are together, cloud is a great place. not such a great place that the application and storage are

separated by some distance, hence thr e gravity comment. and depending on what regulatory information you have, it's not as deep as you think. there is a balancing act. ron: the gender conversation is definitely prevalent right now. given your experience, how has the conversation on gender changed from the early 2000 to 2015 as a female ceo? paula: that's really a good question. i have an unfair advantage in that i was responsible in coming up with the idea and strategy. i have been treated pretty equally. it is hard for everybody but i don't think my gender has certainly. it is cool in some cases to be a chick in tech.

i would say at the moment, it is more of a advantage than a disadvantage. but at any rate, i don't see it as a disadvantage. i'm pretty forthright, you can't shock me. i say what i think, i'm not necessarily intimidating. i also started doing startups in my 30's. i was more confident when i came out of the gate. i don't know how it would have been if i started in my 20's. ron: getting back to data gravity for a second. you alluded to this of it, but it combined storage search, in a single appliance that you install in a data center. as we talk about the cloud as a storage option which more companies are using, there is even a movement from hardware

appliances to software appliances. you don't even have a physical entity now. they are watching those trends. why did you go that route, and have visit helping you as a company? -- how is it helping you as a company? paula: software still has to run on hardware. what you find is that a lot of companies have software to find storage and find out that the hardware compatibility list is so collocated. -- so complicated. they don't want to go to one person for hardware and software for another. they wanted just one solution. storage has become much simpler to manage. that said, i think you will see

it as a metro cloud. so what you will see is a lot of resellers becoming service providers. a trusted partner to the company buying storage. they will host storage off prem. if your data is unavailable people wonder if amazon really cares or google really cares they care, but you have two terabytes. they have a whole infrastructure. ron: given the push for the cost of storage and competition amongst amazon and azure is it hard for a company like yours to compete with those numbers? paula: you have to remember the

numbers are per month and do not include the cost to read it. you can check out anytime you'd like. it is expensive to read it again. there are connection costs. do you really have to do the math on how active the data is? if the data is active, leaving it on prem is likely less expensive. it will be a hybrid. ron: last year at disrupt i interviewed the ceo of pure. i asked him, what was the number that would make you say, i have to do it? his quote was, being sold sucks. i was wondering what it was like after running your own startup -- you said michael dell was supportive, but becoming a part

of the huge corporation, did it take the starch out of your energy? paula: i was there for two years after the acquisition. i can tell you we were on the same mission with a better arms dealer. we went from 140 trailing revenue to a number with lots of zeros beyond that. i saw a real passion to get this right. and i saw a real commitment. 90% of the experience was amazing. there was 10%, welcome to a big company, sign off on this and that. the most part, we were innovating and staying on our roadmap. i do not know if we were in an anomaly, but i was in another company in the 1990's, and the

same thing happened. the trick is, if the company that bought you makes money everyone is happy. we had one of the best margins synthetic operating income. ron: you obviously had a good experience. with that influence -- were just talking about zero gravity being three years old -- would it influence how you exit from data gravity? paula: we are going for lots of happy customers. we would probably go public. but who knows? it is way too early to know those things. when we are at a couple hundred you in revenue -- million in revenue -- i would not rule out either one.

it is a big enough idea to go public. that is the point you have to think about. if you are just a commodity think about getting acquired. but we have a broad enough roadmap to be more than a one trick pony. ron: one quick question. your company lets people have insight into their data. tell me a great insight the customer was able to get using your product. paula: people have found privacy issues that would have cost them finds worth more than the product. people found people leaving the company. someone was data dumping and taking it with them. people found old reports presentations that they did not know where they were. people could trend po's against regions. they are able to capitalize on it and make sure there's no

downside. ron: thank you so much. [applause] ♪ jordan: moving right along. we are about to get into the cannabis startup blaze up panel. i will not make a joke. i will just get them on stage. big round of applause. [applause] >> this is really exciting. i'm glad you could be here this morning. i'm not the only guy on stage was probably high. >> you are, actually. >> but you seem so relaxed.

anyway, before you founded privateer, brendan, you were coo of a bank. why did you leave a bank to grow pot? brendan: five years ago, i was at a subsidiary of silicon valley bank with 300,000 startups our clients. a technology company in the medical cannabis industry came across my desk. i thought it was certainly different than anything i had seen. we started exploring the industry around the country and the world. realized the end of prohibition was inevitable. that we could build companies that would help fuel the end of prohibition. we quit our jobs and put together the holdings. ryan: so prohibition is a strong

word. talking about the end of prohibition being inevitable at a point in time where cannabis is still not entirely legal, how do you justify that? they're all sorts of legislation to be worked through. brendan: we are in a state of transition. we are at a point where politicians and bureaucrats are the last ones to change. when you look at america, our fundamental thesis is this is a mainstream product consumed by mainstream americans. 58% of americans believe it should be legal. 85% believe medical cannabis should be legal. you cannot get 85% of americans

to agree on anything. but they agree on this. ryan: jeff, you look like you like to party. is that why he made the investment? jeff: no. [laughter] jeff: it always starts with a macro idea about the world that we do not think people agree with. for us, it was a high-level macro idea that for the last 75 years, there has been a crazy war that does not make sense that was politically motivated for a range of bizarre reasons. the war on drugs. what of the key tools to perpetuate the war on drugs was the demonization of cannabis. despite what medical professionals, scientists, millions of americans would say cannabis has been used as a tool

to perpetuate war on drugs. because coming to an end. it has been bad for our country on all the levels. look at who gets arrested for cannabis possession on a racial justice level. eight times more black americans versus white. so the legalization of cannabis is socially good, good for society. we wanted to find the right company to invest. one of the companies we found was privateer. ryan: let's talk about that and criminal justice. how is it that you are a bunch of white guys that are going to make bank office product -- this product that hispanic and black

people are still going to jail for? brendan: last year, we arrested 800,000 americans for cannabis possession or distribution. 75,000 for possession. those communities have been devastated microvision. -- by pro-edition. they cannot vote in many cases. it is important for us to create brands that few will change. we are creating a more diverse workforce. it has been difficult. we are certainly one of the most diverse companies in this industry. ryan: from a political standpoint, are you doing any lobbying around legalization? brendan: we do lobbing in individual countries. some in canada and in individual u.s. states, oregon, washington.

here in new york, where governor cuomo signed the compassionate care act in new york. we do federal lobbying on an informal basis. ryan: i am interested in the name. historically privateers were basically pirates commissioned by government that were allowed to operate in certain areas. ransack opposing maybes -- navys . what are you trying to say with that name? brendan: it is a play on the war on drugs, cannabis. we believe we can help fuel the end of prohibition. the war is lost by the government already. it is a matter of time until it ends.

we currently have 250 employees at privateer and our subsidiaries who are smart professional, come from microsoft and amazon, starbucks. they are motivated every day to end prohibition. that is really different. we think that we have built a workforce that can help fight the war. ryan: are you pirates or not? brendan: the are not pirates. we are privateers. during the revolution, privateers ransack the british navy to help in the revolutionary war. that is the theme. that is how we think about it. jeff: we love the name. subsidiaries have different names. totally natural, leafly. that is what is most important.

ryan: let's talk about the companies inside of of it here -- privateer. you have three right now. give a little bit of background on what they do. jeff: leafly was founded four years ago. it helps cannabis consumers learn about individual strains of cannabis and their uses. brendan: someone who has cancer can look at strains that other patients are using and can research them and find a location near them where it is legal to obtain the string. we list about 1200 strains of cannabis and 2400 dispensaries around the world. last month, we had about 5.5 million visits. it operates in english and french canadian and spanish.

we operate internationally. wherever there are dispensaries. there is content related to cannabis. ryan: basically a search engine for pot . brendan: it answers what and where. if it is a recreational user, they can find it on a friday night. the second company operates primarily in canada. there is a very different system. give a federal license and operate one of the largest federally licensed medical cannabis grows in the world. it is pharmaceutical grade. we ship using the canadian model. we ship hundreds of packages every day directly to patients from a 60,000 square foot facility in british columbia. the third company is marley

natural. we did this in partnership with the family of bob marley. it is a retail cannabis brand based on the jamaican cannabis strains that we will launch this year. topicals and lotions, jamaican cannabis strains, and a line of accessories. either to consume cannabis or store the product. jeff: what are the marley's like? brendan: there are 11 children and his wife rita. they had been approached by lots of people over the years to launch a brand in the space. they came to us about two years ago. it was an obvious deal.

you cannot think of a larger global, cultural icon more tightly connected to this product. it was an obvious play. ryan: the family itself -- i heard you had to go and visit each one individually to get them on board. brendan: we probably had a thousand meetings over two years. not as many as with jeff, but a lot. a lot of them came to canada to see the grow facility. last week, i spent a weekend in jamaica. i have a very unusual job in that last week, i was at a very large outdoor cannabis grow in jamaica. certainly things i never expected to do. [laughter] ryan: jeff, what is the facility like? jeff: mind blowing.

the canadian facility is mind blowing. not in a metaphorical sense. [laughter] jeff: it is one of the most state-of-the-art production facilities across any industry i have seen. we had been talking to this company for over two years. we talked for a year and a half before we made the investment. when we went to the facility in columbia canada, it really came together for me. the execution of talent this team has that sets them apart in the market. when i first met brenndan, he said, we think this is a good market. we are finding someone to make a majority investment. they cannot find one, so they built their own. they built this incredible production facility, created a brand, and a few months later worshiping. i am canadian. up in canada, 24 hours after

placing an order, the cannabis arrives at your door. it is incredible. it is a stand-alone business with a lot of room to scale. the model may be an inspiration for how medical cannabis is distributed in the united states as well. ryan: you were anchor investor, but not the lead. privateer raised $75 million. a ton of money. why was this the only firm willing to put their name on the deal? jeff: maybe we do not care what other people think about us enough. something crazy like that. but it seemed to us like the type of thing that is controversial but most people secretly agree makes sense.

at least from the decriminalization standpoint. we live and die based on our founders. that is the ethos of our firm. we would not make an investment we are not going to talk about. we are proud of the investments we make, whether they were going not. we live and die based on our founders. we are ok sharing we made this investment. ryan: i get this impression that -- you announced you were investing before the round was close. i get the impression that founders fund putting his name on the deal was actually able to get brendan's investors comfortable. jeff: when we made the investment, it was a contrarian market. people were nervous about investing in.

it shifted immediately, which was a little disturbing. it has gotten a lot more crowded since it was announced. brendan: it gave smart investors permission to look at the space. founders was so willing to go public with the investment. we started to see more institutional investors, other companies. certainly, we have had eight figure investments from other firms. ryan: is snoop and investor? brendan: our list is confidential, but i can say he is not. ryan: not that he didn't try. snoop as a fund focused on making investments in the segment. we are seeing a few other funds

pop up with the idea of investing solely in the cannabis market. jeff, as an investor, what do you think about that as a thesis? the idea of going all in only on one particular market segment? jeff: somewhat skeptical that there is that much opportunity. there may be a few that were -- work. our view tends to be that, in the best markets, there are a handful that dominate in a 10 year time frame. in this market, i think there will be a limited number of outstanding opportunities. privateer is one of them. but i'm not sure i would want to be an lp in a cannabis-only fund forming at this stage. ryan: when you talk about

founding privateer, that was the idea originally? brendan: we realized it was a very different industry from silicon valley in that it was very fragmented. no leaders, no standards. the companies were not as professional. the leaders were not as smart. that has changed, gotten better in the last five years. but we are skeptical as well of cannabis only fund. a lot of people are building the monster.com of cannabis, a dating site for cannabis consumers. jeff: if you are cannabis specific, you will be competing with every other investor in cannabis companies. it is a negative competition angle. ryan: we talk about this as a

mainstream product. it has really become a mainstream product. full disclosure, i live in california. i recently got my doctor's recommendation to treat anxiety and insomnia. when do we stop presenting that pretending this is medicine and just accept that people like me want to get high? [laughter] [applause] jeff: i think there are a lot of people like you. part of the reason i was inspired to invest is there was a friend of mine dealing with a serious illness using leafly to discover strains. it helped with insomnia. i think people use this product medically. there is certainly a lot of recreational use but it is fun to joke about, one of the things i love about this team as they

do not strike me as the type of people use it recreationally. they taken very seriously. they are one of the few teams that has not offered me more than a grandma product to sample. i have never sample their product. i'm not in the jurisdiction in which they are selling. i should not be offered free weed to invest. brendan: i know you meant it as a joke, but you could not look a mother of a child that has epilepsy in the eyes and make that joke. it is a different product in that consumers and patients on the spectrum from irrefutably a legitimate -- legitimate to people who want to consume cannabis on a friday night instead of chardonnay. our thesis is that the entire segment should be allowed to

legally consume the product and that companies will emerge to provide the market with product. ryan: now that i am schooled, we are out of time. thank you for joining us. [applause] jordan: perfect on time. i'm really proud of them for that. being a reporter growing up meant you had a screenplay tucked away in your desk, hoping to make it big. today, that has turned into a startup. that is what our next guest is. really inspiring as reporters. please welcome element -- emily and colleen.

colleen: a lot of diverse city in the audience, but generally the tech crowd isn't known for products in beauty. emily is well-known in the beauty and fashion space. can you just give the elevator pitch for anyone that does not already know? emily: glossier is a direct consumer company that launched in 2014. colleen: it is born out of into the gloss. i want to talk about where it began, with into the gloss. you started into the gloss five years ago? emily: nearly. colleen: at the time, you had a full-time job as a stylist with conde nast.

how did you take the time to start a company in your spare time? emily: pretty simply. like a lot of entrepreneurs, it all started with the seed of an idea. i worked on into the gloss, a beauty content destination with a little over a million unique visitors a month. in 2010, i was a fashion assistant at vogue. i worked on into the gloss from 4:00 in the morning until 9:00 a.m. it is an online magazine, so writing, photographs photography, art direction. the idea behind it then and now is that it is an editorial platform that focuses on beauty as an element of personal style. so many beauty purchasing decisions are made via friend to friend recommendations.

into the gloss is a platform that celebrates women sharing with one another, very inspirational women like areata huffington, that the main takeaway is that you are getting peer recommendations from the coolest women in the world. colleen: when you started, it sounded like it was something you are passionate about or just curious about. it is fun to peek into medicine cabinets. when did you realize this was a business? not just a side project? emily: probably when i realized you can make money on publishing through advertising. we were fortunate with into the gloss to have lancome is one of our first advertisers. granted, it was a check for a couple thousand dollars, but

that set us off. now we have a very healthy publishing business. colleen: and he raised some money for into the gloss and glossier. september 2013, it was $2 million seed round? emily: into the gloss was self-funded for the first couple of years. i can hear you. can you all hear her? colleen: makes me feel really important, though. emily: we raised $2 million to build glossier. publishing online can be done with little overhead, depending on what you are doing. it was something that required little resource. but creating a physical product line to produce beauty products

and create formulas from scratch, higher experts certainly took a little cash. that is why we raised $2 million in 2013. it was led by kristen green of forerunner. she is behind dollar shave club. she has a lot of experience in retail. it was important to have a female venture capitalist as lead investor. it was surly one of the more natural conversations i had with venture capitalists. she knew what foundation was. no offense to the guys out there. but, yeah, that was our first round. we closed a series in 2014 right before glossier launched. colleen: was there a difference you saw in the response of investors from when you went out the first time to pitch a

beauty-oriented company to the second time? has there been more understanding of how huge the market is? emily: i would not say there was a big seachange from the seed to series a. there are things that remain true in both experiences. beauty is a quarter trillion dollar industry. several billion-dollar exits in the last 10 years. it is an industry that has not changed and the enormous amount in the last 50 years. it is an industry ripe for disruption. most venture capitalists recognize that. they recognize that into the gloss and our team developed in or mistrust with consumers -- enormous trust with consumers.

we have a large group of women who never cease to inspire us always push the company forward. very much a two-way conversation. i think the smartest companies and brands recognize that. brands are built not just in a bubble. it is not a one-way conversation. consumers have a lot to say. it is so important to listen to them. colleen: it seems like this is an inverted path glossier has taken. a lot of big companies, whether they are in beauty or other industries, they have the brand and the later think about how to have content or do marketing or have a social presence. you and glossier did it the opposite way. you started with a personal brand and now you're making product. how has that taken shape?

emily: really organically. i think something i say a lot to our team is that the mission is the same. the medium has just changed. the first part of what beauty needed is a place that, editorial he, made beauty personal. kind of activated an entire core of consumers who otherwise might have been passive consumers were not super excited about their routines or talking about it. something we hear a lot when we interview women is, what is your beauty regime? -- routine? women say, i am low maintenance. there is a natural inclination to say, i do not spend a lot of

time on beauty. i think it is thought of as frivolous. maybe if you spend a long time you are not taken seriously. part of the mission with into the gloss was to get rid of that perception, bring beauty into the open as something any smart stylish woman in charge of her persona or look can embrace. to get the best information about. into the gloss was the first phase of that because it brought so much information into the open and connected so many women around the world to give one another recommendations in the comment section. now, with glossier, it is kind of a physical incarnation of the same message, which is really that beauty is different today than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

formulas have changed. what women want has changed. and i think glossier speaks to the fact there is no overarching one look that every woman should ascribe to. that is a message that's only brands have pushed forward over the years. get to this look. what we are trying to do is say here are the tools for you to customize your own look. we are not going to tell you who to be. be whoever you want. you can change your mind. glossier products are also really affordable, i think, for women looking to get luxurious products. that is something we want to do -- alleviate some of the stress that comes with beauty. whether it is from a brand perspective, distribution perspective.

we really want to make duty -- beauty modern. colleen: how did you think of what your first product would be? you had data, years of interviews on everything from lipstick to mascara. how did you decide the first product would be skincare products? emily: it is interesting. that actually came a super quickly to us. skin -- and this is one thing i have learned being backstage at so many fashion shows over the years -- we are in a moment where women are really understanding the importance of skin. skincare is something that you develop a routine, a woman develops a routine. it is a very intimate connection with skincare. you will change your lipstick,

but skincare is very serious, very important. something we wanted to do was create a suite of super essential skincare products that may getting ready easy in the morning, or going to bed and making sure you are taking care of very easy and very fun. that is something the market has not seen a lot of. really cool skincare. colleen: how did you think about introducing these? you did a lot of things on social. instagram. emily: we launched and instagram. colleen: can a brand launch purely through social? or does there need to be traditional marketing? emily: i can only speak to what was right for us. we do not spend money on marketing. we did not have money for marketing.

we decided that instagram is really -- and this is totally, i do not know if it is that, but for me, i am on instagram more than any other social platform. i imagine a large amount of millennial women are using a too. for us, it came naturally to build the brand in real time via instagram. we wanted to invite her into our world, to see the messiness, the indecision, all the things that go into creating any body of work. be it a brand or anything else. she really became part of the brand. started to give us ideas feedback. for us feedback has been so important on every level in glossier. colleen: how do you process the feedback?

on your instagram page, there are tons of comments, so much chatter about your product. how do you sift through? emily: we are working on that. at the moment, i just go through manually every night, liking everyone's pictures. the data, we have an enormous amount of data across multiple channels. part of what we are really looking to do in the next phase of glossier in the second half of the year is focus on our digital product, thinking of what i will look like as we continue to break down walls between content, community, and commerce. we have three pillars. i do not think i am unique in trying to solve the content and commerce question, but i think

for us, it is almost not a question. it is a request from users. we are seeing so many behaviors from her. she demonstrates so many different behaviors that show she wants to do more. wants to be more involved with other glossier users. for us, a big part of glossier will be data and breaking down walls. colleen: what is your tech team like? it sounds like if you are building these products, you need a solid team. is that a big focus? emily: a huge focus. the way we wanted to build glossier, i think we have been successful in doing what we set out to do. first and foremost, create a brand women wanted to switch to. for beauty, you have so many choices. there are so many choices on every single product.

you can get a cheaper one, one closer to home, but to get a better one is something we were really really very serious about. so we spent the first six months of glossier really making sure we created a brand that was better, that women would try once and repeat purchase. we are already seeing that they hate your. we are focused on growing -- behavior. we are growing our tech team. we have a team called dynamo in montreal that worked with us on our mvp. we do not just want to be a high-performing e-commerce store. so we are looking. colleen: how do you convince or recruit tech-oriented people to

come to a beauty site if they are an engineer and do not think they are interested in cosmetics? how does that conversation go? emily: it is an interesting conversation. i think something that is important for our company has been hiring people who are passionate about our mission. it does not mean if you are, you know a dude, just because you do not understand makeup does not mean it is not the place for you. if you are interested in data interested in making women feel like they are building a company , because so many of our customers are co-conspirators in making the company happen, you can be excited about what we are doing. i am not a technologist, either. but i am learning a lot.

we are just looking for the right partner who really understand the opportunity. colleen: last question. the way you launched glossier was interesting. a great post. i think it is an interesting way you framed going from one level of the business to a totally different one. you said, the sheer fact there is a place on the internet that celebrates women brings together the best products in the world, is enough to make me retire. you are already really proud of what you had done with into the gloss. how to think about doing something else on top of that when you had already been so happy that you could retire? where did it come from? emily: i think it came from the same itch when i started into the gloss, which is i just did

not love the way -- i felt at hearts with a lot -- odds with a lot of elements of the beauty industry. i do not see a brand i can call my own, that i identify with as a woman with their values. i understand who is behind it, what went into making the products. for me, it was an exciting challenge to think, if there were to be a truly modern beauty brand, what would that look like? one that i would be proud to have as a consumer? that was glossier. colleen: thanks for joining us. emily: thank you. [applause] jordan: good work. pressing forward.

my biggest technological achievement as a 12-year-old was killing six tamagotchis. now we have 12-year-olds learning how to program and outpacing me as a productive human being. that is due to our next guest alex klein. please welcome him and our moderator, the top shalom us. natasha: thanks for joining us. for those of you who may not know, you are basically building a diy computer and coating kit. kids put it all together. and you use raspberry pi and

build an os that is accessible to kids. it is a complex product but you are making it simple for this target age group of seven to 14. is it fair to label it a toy? it has creative and educational potential, but you are designing something for kids to play with. alex: i would say it is a computer. you just happen to make it yourself. it has the intuitiveness and accessibility of a toy, but it is powerful. kids around the world use kano to position solar power. kids have shared over 5 million lines of code. the idea behind the project is to build a new computer company one that puts creativity in the front seat rather than

consumption. it may start with a simple kit but from there, you are building a hardware system. you are hooking it up to the internet. it was inspired by the notion that making learning and playing are intimately connected. all of us have this curious and creative spirit of a nine-year-old inside of us. all you need are affordable tools. play can become one of the greatest accelerants of invention. natasha: is your goal to change computing behavior? is it like teaching kids to cook so they eat more healthily? alex: about 30 months ago i encountered -- natasha: you have everything in your pocket. alex: i encountered the

raspberry pi. hackers were sending it into space, around the ocean. we showed it to a six-year-old my cousin mika. making a server array which wasn't -- wasn't something that appealed to him. he said, i want to build a computer. it has to be as simple and fun as blago -- lego. natasha: but is it simple enough for every seven-year-old to write code? alex: in the early workshops all we had was cardboard boxes with boards and a book. a step-by-step illustrated story. which of these into skills in the u.k., south africa, the middle east. i asked questions. who here has seen the inside of

a computer? we live in this world of 8.2 billion connected devices. none of these kids had seen the inside of a computer. who here can tell me how a computer thinks? tons of ideas. it sends magic waves to you to. -- youtube. question three, who thinks they could make a computer themselves? no hands went up. silence. i said, guess what? in the next hour, you will build your own computer. you will connected to the internet. you will call a video from youtube. you will play minecraft. without me saying a word. sure enough, an hour later, this really intuitive hardware, they built a.

natasha: you are the most popular person about point? alex: we ask is how they feel after the workshop. this one kid said adults think we are incapable because we are so young. but today we made a computer and powered it with matrix code. that makes us super children. i said yes, you are a super child. there needs to be a software company built by you. this generation needs to do more than swiping across prepackaged apps. colleen: --natasha: the name kano has a nice ring to it. how did you come up with that idea? it involves your cousin? alex: the original challenge came from my six-year-old cousin. he challenged us to create a

computer he could build himself so no one would have to teach them. kano started as a strange dream in a north london flat. we realized we could make a simple computer kit at a low cost, $150. from the challenge came a bigger idea -- looking at the world today, these 8.2 billion connected devices, but not all of us know how to talk to them. most of the magic is sealed away. 1% of 1% want to democratize the way to create technology. kano was connected to this. kano jigora was the founder of judo, a martial art that extended beyond a small class in japan.

the founder was a primary school teacher. his motto was maximum efficiency, minimum effort. you are trying to put that improvisational power back in the hands of people when they are young so they do not grow up thinking of computing as a black box in silicon valley. natasha: your team includes your cousin, and another cousin sol klein investor. how important has family been to get it off the starting blocks? alex: the fact we're building this with mika, who i've known since birth, but he would probably not want me to reference that, added a lot of emotion to the product. as for sol, an incredible mentor. he introduced me to my

cofounder. together, we teamed up in london. found a couple of misfits from around the world, ally handwrote from the playstation -- alejan dro from the playstation. all attracted to this affordable attractive computer. that core mission has attracted 18 of 36 -- a team of 36. we are trying to do something different, more creative and experimental with the world of the pc. the pc still sells 65 million units a year. but why are people experimenting like they did in the 1980's hacking it together and inventing something new? the world of the ec has become

too homogenized. we want to put it all over the world with a new sense of experimentation. natasha: very ambitious. you actually started this on kickstarter, crowdfunding. you had some seed funding before as well. you raised $5 million on kickstarter. what is the next step in your funding story? alex: it has been an incredible journey to this point. we are really happy to have brought many investors tinkerers, together, to drive the core kit. for the next age of kano's the relevant, we are excited to welcome jim breyer, who will be

leading our $50 million series a to bring it to new markets and breathe magic back into open source making. someone like jim, who we have gotten to know in the past couple of months, this guy drove the first pc revolution at dell. one of the first investment -- investors in facebook. we are really happy to welcome jim o'neill to the team. he was the chief economist at goldman sachs. we feel kano needs to be in a coating kit all over the world. we need to unlock potential. jim o'neill understands this intimately. we are bringing collaborative ventures along. and you mentioned our backdrop

as a crowd funded company. you will be crowdfunding $500,000 on choir an amazing place for the community to come together and get a significant equity stake in the company, not just buying a product. we will use that community as we used the kickstarter community. new ideas for developing the business, and for fun. the more participatory the company is, the more accessible the final product will be. natasha: i'm curious who the users are at the moment. what is the gender balance? are you thinking about ways to design the kit to be equally appealing to girls and boys? alex: that was a design goal from the beginning, that it should speak to fundamental impulses rather than those delineated by age and gender.

we believe no matter who you are, you have shared urges. we want to look inside. we gave a macbook air to a monkey named lily and watched her try to take it apart. everyone wants to take control and make it play. that is gender-neutral, age neutral. the average age right now is 9.5. 60-40, mail-female. we have kids of all ages. we have 81-year-old grandmothers learning how to code. six-year-old nine-year-olds, the gamut. families in oklahoma using it to create stop motion video of flowers blooming.

artists, painters, creating generations of art. we think if you merge the arts and sciences and take the pc out of its traditional techy mode, you bring different people to the table. colleen: natasha: -- who buys kano? alex: a ton of interest from parents and teachers, but as we took the kit around the world we saw there is a rising creative generation of kids pulling together modular hardware, open-source software, and making things that the brains in this room could never have imagined. we went to freetown.

we met a young man named kelvin. when he was 13, he started pulling electric parts out of the garbage. he looked up what these components to. within a few years, he built a battery. a couple years after that, he built a radio station and was broadcasting across sierra leone. we have spoken word artists using this to compose. we have kids building servers and game consoles. the core audience, a lot of errands and teachers. to prepare the next generation, they will have to again, the audience for this is a company is a new kind of pc expression, one that is created low-cost.

we think back to be mainstream. natasha: do you see yourself building an education company? you are part of this growing learn to code movement. alex: we are building a computer company. look at the early days of apple. it always made education a really important channel. if you can make something that is so simple that a curious mind can walk step-by-step through something that is immediate, and human, you will have value to educators. they still sell a massive amount to schools, and to teachers. fundamentally, you look at kids today, they don't want to be educated, they want to learn. we don' we don't have to give them a prescriptive hierarchy so that

they can grow up and become billionaires or work at google in a beautiful multicolored cafeteria. they want to make. hopefully, whether they work at google or they become an artist, or a musician, or a baker, or a candlestick maker they can take control. because it is fun, that is a more mainstream message. we think that will bring the next generation up. natasha: that is quite a tough design challenge. kids can be a tough crowd as consumers. how do you make sure they think it is fun? alex: i think the physicality really helps. especially with the new kano

which is six times faster. kids want to be given the benefit of the doubt. they don't want to be told what to do. they want to be given a simple set of steps that they can reimagine and recapitulate at will. if you look at minecraft, a global phenomenon. what we did is take a lovely version that microsoft made free and put in a simple coding arena. step-by-step you drag-and-drop these jigsaw blocks. they have real code, by the way. that python gets pumped in. instead of playing by the rules kids are remaking the rules. they are warping into existence a sky jail, a waterslide.

they are teleporting around the map. we want to make its feel like neo in "the matrix." they think it is an artificial world, then see that it is more human than they think. gaming, by the way, is a beautiful metaphor for this. natasha: you have some additional product today. what are you doing what is the new kano? alex: it is a significant step forward for us. it is six times faster, has double the memory. it still is these wonderful creative projects that make art. it is a digital easel to make characters. it is very immediate. the game mechanics are

step-by-step. you learn how to type simple commands, we call the magic spells. you see colors, and shapes appear before your eyes. that is a narrative adventure called "terminal quest." it is a mystery. it is a narrative mystery told step-by-step, where you use command line spells to unlock new powers, and borrow into a new world. you go down the rabbit hole and try to solve the mystery. you don't realize it, but you are learning about the command lines that make a lot of the modern world work. another area is with kano bloc ks, which is our coding arena. you can change games, change music, it should chain software.

you can bring a new types of blocks into the minecraft world. you can maklee sounds appear before your eyes. to put it briefly, it is still the computer anyone can make, but with more speed, more creativity, and more of a sense of play. it allows you at the same price, to make real magic. natasha: thank you so much alex. alex: thank you. [applause] jordan: we are about to go for a quick break. would like to remind everyone to follow me on twitter. see you soon. ♪

>> more from new york with the talkers magazine conference. radio personalities discussed the future and the changing landscape of political talk shows. here is some of the conference on the impact of portable, digital technology. >> you have to marry the live, local base part of radio, and the mary -- and marry the digital part. everybody in the world carries a transistor radio. was the last time everyone

carried a transistor radio? everyone has a radio in their pocket. after the advancement from where we were 20 years ago. when the basically radio was in a car. we took care of that with simulcast. you can test people everywhere they are, anytime, anywhere. >> some of the talkers magazine conference we will have here on c-span at 8:00 eastern. the event works the 21st anniversary of the magazine. >> our coverage of the annual conference looking at tech startups continues. osborne norse, investors and the media -- on screen doors

entrepreneurs heard from the heads of companies with electronics, cosmetics, to online services providing designer dresses. ok, people are still filing back in. we have an amazing speaker, so please had back. here in new york, we are obsessed with the on-demand economy. we are all either lazy, or working harder than the people in separatist go. -- san francisco. i had decided to take on demand to a new level and start asking for ridiculous stuff like a sunny day, or a better attitude. i think i would next guest is thinking along those lines. please welcome him along with john sheave or our moderator.

>> you wanted a good panel, and hopefully we will deliver. let's start off with what is new at post makes? what is going on? >> is he signing on partnerships chipotle, starbucks, a few others in the pipeline. what is interesting is that doing this for three years, in the last six months what happened was a lot of the players in the market got out and started talking to firms like post makes -- mates. they are trying to close partnerships.

>> for the traditional, or the main business of delivering food from restaurants you're up to 1.5 million deliveries -- >> since last week, we're up to two million deliveries. to the seven and a half weeks to get to 2 million. it is going faster. >> is a lot of that being driven by partnerships? >> those deals are still getting and lamented -- implemented. starbucks will be in june, in seattle. chipotle was just announced last week.

jonathan: when you started the business, it did not start out in food delivery. it started to get someone to run an errand for you. what did you transition to the delivery model? what drove that shift? >> zero traction. the first version was a service that merchants could use to deliver items that they had in stock. we went to san francisco, and furniture stores, electronic stores, we said here is an apt that you can -- app where you can push a button and have it delivered. the merchants thought it was the greatest thing in the world. we thought cool, we will build it for you.

then nothing happened. we had one or two deliveries a day. we call these merchants to ask what is going on? they said i don't know something came up, we couldn't use it. but what happened at the same time -- this is a great way to think about products sometimes -- customers used the app as consumers, and they would try to get into purchase something. it was a go to safeway and get this for me. i would get angry, like i do, because i am german. you aren't allowed to do that. after a while, there were so many of these requests, we

decided to do a test on a weekend. we had 25 people at that point. these are gift cards. there used to make purchases. we set up a little newsletter to our user base, and said if you include the #useitnow, we will purchase that for you. on the first weekend, we sold $10,000 worth of stuff. most of that was prepared food. jonathan: if you look at where the business is today, if you were to launch it right now would it look like one of these on-demand tech services? do you like the interface those guys have? where do you see yourselves falling? >> i am a big fan of it.

even today, the custom order field is a super popular thing that you have. it allows you to say things like get the extra kwok a moly -- guacamole. even when we don't have inventory, i think we were one of those companies that really pioneered it. i think it is a great idea. jonathan: do you wish, looking back do you think you could've spent that time to narrow in on the food category? it seems like when these businesses are successful, they are successful because they attack a niche market, and go after something like organic food, or prepared food.

>> that is exactly what we did. for the public, we opened for your imagination the idea of anything, from anywhere. what we did internally was have a strategy that is based around the idea that food is like books. it is a category that has universal demand, at a relatively low price. there is unlimited inventory in prepared food. just like amazon used books to scale very fast, we did the same thing. now we are the largest on-demand delivery company because we focused on prepared food. it allowed us to scale the fleet very fast. we had a high repetitive usage. jonathan: what is next for you in terms of market? where else can you expand within

this notion of food delivery? would you like to compete with grocery delivery services? >> we're thinking about having a better grocery product on the roadmap. there is a funny notion that we are already competing with them because you can get whole foods or trader joe's, delivered. we have invested very little time in that category. four -- for q3 there are items that will make it much more attractive. that is a lot of interest in that category. personal hygiene is another category. to give a corner store that is another category we are interested in. jonathan: for you, what do

margins at this business look like? how are you doing in terms of revenue? >> so, again we try to build a company that can generate a profit with every delivery. that is what we are doing. i think we have a quite healthy growth margin, and we are very proud of that. we are trying to keep that. we are incorporating more paths to profitability. we want to be profitable as a company if we decide to do that. i think it is something that is very attractive. i think it shows that we are able to carefully handle complex businesses. we have been able to drive improvements. the product is a product that

customers understand that they pay for the valley that it provides. jonathan: i started writing about tech in 1999, or 2000. when i first started, there was an amazing company that had a cool logo and a delivery service. one of the bigger of the first dotcom era. what lessons did you learn from them? could you all be cosmo? how can you avoid that? >> it was a super interesting company. i believe they were way ahead of their time. i mean that they were way ahead of their time with the product that they offered. they were not able to monetize

in the way that you need to do have a profitable business. cosmo was free for a long time. when it wasn't free, it was a low delivery fee. they at the idea they can monetize exclusively on what they would sell, and they would take a cut of these things. they also ran warehouses. they had warehouse space in manhattan. very expensive at the time. there was an old version of the balance sheet on the web, and you find some of these things. when we started, the was not a single mention of single -- same delivery except cosmo. we want to use the city as a warehouse. those are two key differentiators. jonathan: i don't know how many messages they had, let's say it

is around a couple hundred in new york. they routed them manually. it was two way radio. imagine how good of a person regardless of how efficient you were, it is a limit to the efficiency you can derive from that system. this race similar to huber -- uber. yeah these very big teams of engineers trying to make the logistic side more efficient. jonathan: you mentioned the number or profusion of on-demand delivery services. according to crunch-based data, the was $1.2 billion raised for delivery startups. holy shit, that is a lot of money.

how do you deal with all the competition? does the industry have to consolidate? >> it will happen at some point. what is, in my opinion crucial as of the first advantage is there. admin update that the winner takes all markets, but certainly most -- it may not be that the winner takes all markets, and certainly most. l.a. is our largest city. chicago is also large, and new york. we were able to grow at a very fast-paced. getting into these markets early paid off for us. looking at the supply-side is what comes with that. i have said it before, i don't want to repeat the point it was

over 10,000 people doing deliveries. that is twice as the closest competitor. jonathan: for now. but if amazon decides they want to take this seriously, with a just acquired -- would you accept -- some of it any offer with a b i will take a look at. if you got a billion-dollar offer, would you be like -- >> of course. of course you would consider it. jonathan: are you talking to them now? >> no. jonathan: are you sure? >> yes. your job is to make sure that the reason his company has been created can be fulfilled in either of these scenarios. what does that mean? it means that if there is an opportunity to continue to work

as part of something bigger, and return it would mean we could fulfill this vision faster, that is something that it's very entertaining to think about. an acquisition would be great,, here is a bunch of money, now talk about brand x, i think that is way less compelling. all of the three founders, we come from backgrounds that are very middle-class. they're very driven by the idea that we can really help local businesses and i think seeing that through is very important for us. jonathan: when this book and the phone -- i want to shift years and talk about this notion of the on-demand economy. you are acting as a service provider where you have contractors working for you. what does that mean, looking

out, what are the ramifications of that for the broader american economy? are we creating a class of people who let the do these medial shitty jobs -- >> the of a malfunction here. jonathan: i never good at this. while tech malfunction or's get to chill out and make orders of magnitude more? >> i don't think so. i think it is different markets that get created. i think it is probably the best part-time job. i would love to be a full-time job in the future. that are around 15% or 20% that look at it as a full-time job. but it is probably a part-time job. we pay better than other

part-time jobs. if you look at median compensation in peak times, that is $70 per hour -- 17 dollars per hour. that changes the approach and how you want to position the company. we are not running around in claiming this is the greatest full-time job in the world. we believe in a more honest approach. we think this is a really solid part-time job. i think our platform reflects that. jonathan: what is a typical delivery guy employee? what they look like? -- what do with a look like? >> it is people that have another job, or another part-time job. we do tjhese -- these surveys to

the fleet. we get them altogether. the flexibility is what people like as the number one reason. the second is the income, especially at times when they want it. who they are -- they are amazing. i really believe, which is something corporate america should think about there's a movement that is against the 9-5 :00 jobs -- clock jobs. you can now the platforms like uber where they can be active in a much more fluid set up. jonathan: you were not worried about the labor pool, the guys providing the service they won't go away as the economy

improves, as the financial crisis gets better? >> i don't think so. i will give you an example, the founder of scribe was it was made for a few days. he posted about his earnings. he worked for three hours on duty during peak hours. he made $98 doing a bunch of deliveries. that is substantial additional income. i believe there is always going to be room for that. even if things are changing, i think a company has to adjust with these changes. for now, this being a part-time job is very attractive for a lot of people. jonathan: what is the weirdest thing you've have ever seen anyone have to deliver? what was the craziest order?

>> ims this question -- i am asked this question all the time. i'm such an idiot, i don't think about it thoroughly. i tell the same story every time. there must be something better. anecdotally, at night, people get whippits delivered. jonathan: we had the weed startup earlier today, now this. >> we had a bottle of champagne and a pregnancy test i reference that a lot. you can figure out which side of the ball that -- those are things like that. jonathan: people are still doing that right? having things dropped off from

one set of town to another? >> most of it is purchases. jonathan: with that, i will say thank you for the time. have a good one, enjoy the rest of the show. [applause] jordan: ok. who here has heard of net neutrality? okay, we will learn something today, then. i was just talking backstage with our next guest. he was talking about an elevator that had to stop at every lane. scc chairman tom wheeler is joining us. please give a warm welcome, as long as -- along with alex wi lhelm our moderator. >> it matches your code. -- coat.

alex: thank you for coming. welcome to the yearly gathering. tom: is this the new york nerds? alex: some of them fly in actually. before we get to net neutrality, we will do a lot on that. recently, the proposed comcast-time warner cable the old is done -- deal is done. i want to ask, were you surprised when congress dropped the ball on this? tom: no, i think it was a responsible decision by brian roberts. what he said, when he said it is time to move on, i think it perfectly encapsulates the reality. why go and fight this through

the courts? let's keep looking towards the future. alex: do you think it would've pulled the deal off? tom: i don't know what they thought. what i think is that it was a really good decision. it was a good decision because it will be a long, drawn out process. and two, because of the whole attitude about it is time to move on. go to the next thing. why do you want to keep fighting that fight? alex: do you think this will be a poison pill for large accommodations? tom: i think we will look at each of them on the merits. one of the things that was really key about the comcast review was that it was incredibly data-driven.

14 months this lasted. there were a lot of economic data, and awful lot of market data, and awful lot of data inside how the industry operated. i think that is why -- how you want to make decisions. alex: do you think the average consumer would of been harmed if visit been allowed to happen? tom: i was concerned it was not in the public interest. alex: define that, in this case. tom: there is a broad definition. will the market continued to operate? what is the impact of the future of video, and video competition? what is the future on cable rates? are there offsetting public benefits? we can to the conclusion, no. alex: it would reduce

competitive environment for the average consumer. tom: that was what we said. it is interesting. competition is a key component of what is in the public interest. the justice department, and we, were going on parallel paths. they have very strict competition rules and decisions that they have to make. ours is fuzzier in terms of the general public interest. alex: ok. now, -- tom: that was a warm-up? alex: that was the opening bit. during the net neutrality saga the massive outpouring of public comment was interesting. were you surprised at the amount of comments that came in?

what was the early point where you thought wow this is bigger than we thought? tom: there was a day early on when we had 150,000 comments being filed, and you go woah. that is why this debate, this decision, was so important. because those 4 million people who were filing with us, and not all of them were pro. it was about 3/4 were pro. alex: that still means that with the -- there were a million people that didn't like the deal. tom: this proved the power of an open internet to free expression. it happened that that issue being decided, and that ability

to communicate using that technology, happened to coincide. alex: when you read these comments, how do they affect your rulemaking process? how do you measure that? tom: obviously the total impact , the total number of comments is something you have to take notice about. this is not something where you make a decision based on bulk. you could, but are not sure that is with the statute had in mind. we make a decision based upon the authorities in the statute in terms again of what is in the public interest. alex: you were not personally swayed are the comments themselves. you did notice the bulk of them?

tom: i think the bulk of the comments indicated how, when you're talking about the internet you are talking about something very personal to people. they used that personal medium of theirs to express themselves. that was what was significant. alex: senator franken called the free speech issue of our time. but it was also called obamacare for the internet. i don't get it either. i'm sure you could tell us, what drives the philosophical divide on this issue? tom: people are divided into two caps. there was not -- camps. you know, i think alex, there

is a reality in all policy debate that people bring their own experiences, and their own ideological approach to the role of government to decision-making. those kinds of comments are not surprising. alex: you were not surprised. i think you were the only one not shocked. you think there is a digital divide between the fcc and congress? tom: i think what the congress -- i got into an interesting discussion on thursday with a member of the house communications subcommittee on that issue. what congress does is an act

broad principles, then delegates that to an expert agency. there is a situation with someone will come in and say oh, that is not what it meant to do. but when you donate to an expert agency, you are counting on the process that agency runs. the courts have held chevron reference. it is based on a supreme court case called the chevron case, in which it says the courts should give the expert agency deference when having to make decisions. they are the expert agency. alex: in this case, we saw congress collectively losing its

mind about what was going to happen. in the wake of the vote, they were still proposing things. why is congress of widely reacting to you doing their job -- your job? tom: they make the rules. there was nothing untoward about that. they have the right to do that. my job is to take the statutes that congress has passed, to look at the vax -- facts presented, and make decisions. if some people say it is the wrong decision, or that is the right decision, that is entirely their right. if they want to change the law that is entirely their right. they are the people's elected representatives. i hope in this debate, what to recognize is that on june 12, when the rules will take effect,

there will be in place the strongest open internet protections that anyone has ever imagined. we should not be going backwards from that. alex: there we go. [applause] tom: but maybe -- alex: how many people are suing you? tom: oh golly. over a dozen. i said all along, the big dogs are going to sue. there is nothing surprising in the kinds of things that we do. it is their right to. you are too nice, i feel. we have, in place the most rigid internet rulings in

history -- stringent internet rulings in history. alex: are you as confident as she is that you can be these lawsuits. tom: when you say be the lawsuits there is a two part process here. about july, it'll probably be filed in the next 12 days, there will be motions filed with the court to stay the order. to keep us from enforcing it. probably double be decided in july, that kind of timeframe. i am confident that we will do well in that situation. for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is a list of issues that the court has to use

to decide. one is -- is there a irreparable harm, and two, is there a likelihood of prevailing on the merits on the argument? i think we will be good there. demi go to the actual argument -- then we go to the actual argument. when you stop and think about the fact that the verizon decision which overturned the 2010 open internet rules was basically based on the concept that the agency had imposed title 2 common carrier requirements without saying you are a title 2 carrier. we solve that. that issue is gone. that was the big issue last time.

the courts said that back to us. they said thank you, we have a dress that issue. i feel -- addressed that issue. i feel confident on that. alex: what is your short-term plan? tom: not to lose. that is our short-term plan. alex: going back to the reform, there are a number of bills propose right now to change the way you operate. you say that is ok. tom: i said what? alex: it is their purview. tom: right. alex: are the bills currently going around, do you think those really conducive to the fcc working well? or will it harm the functioning of your agency? tom: what i said las