snap chat and groupon turned down their multibillion dollar offers. we'll get an economic forecast from one of the bay area's top economists, learn what's going to happen to your house and your job and many jobs of the internet's reporter, with reporter of the "new york times" and alex wilhelm, this week on "press here". >> good morning, i'm scott mcgrew. i saw a tweet that said 1213 the year you turn down $3 billion. 2014 the year you take $3

billion. 2015, the year where someone from 2014 or 2013 will regret what they did. snapchat turning down a $3 billion offer from facebook in november of 2013 and nest, the maker of the start thermostat taking a $3 billion from google earlier this month. jason venkin knows a thing or two about selling a company. he recently sold his company eco sign to adobe, and so when did you know the time was right? did you take the first offer on your company? over the life cycle we had about six firm offers that were term sheets. >> there is a thing like poker where you know this is going to bet it. this is where we know how do you know? >> it's tough. two thoughts, first of all, it turns out deep down in your gut

there is a magic number. i didn't know this. i worked on eco sign for over five years before we sold. i didn't know the magic number until three weeks beforehand when a good friend of mine asked. and that magic number has nothing to do for personal wealth. it's a number that clears. unless you're accelerating so quickly, there is no number. because you've so exceeded that number and you're mark zuck zuckerbe zuckerberg, it doesn't matter. >> what's it your decision or other people? your invisters and others that kind of influenced it for you? >> you know, it ends up being a collected decision when it's a good outcome and team. if you sell your company, my first company we acquired for $15 million after 12 1/2 months -- >> it was very nice, especially back in '03 when the market was a little lower than it was -- it seemed like a big number at the time.

that wasn't a big group decision. okay? we knew in our gut the odds are one in a million. we're acquired by the monopolists in the space. >> does he make you uneasy, somebody thinks we are. you know, some big company thinks that we're worth more than this or they wouldn't have paid it. do they know something we don't or we pulling the wool over their eyes? >> i'll tell you what i learned. first of all, you never get the process right for one side or the other. what i learned is you're either like hugo from lost or a huge car salesman. he wanted to give his hundreds and millions from the lotto back. pay pal seems like hugo, built this huge success and one of the paypal guys tweeted, ebay should

remain itself paypal, then the other scenario, i pulled the wool over these guys eyes and so i've never heard anybody two years after an acquisition saying this is perfect for all sides. >> which are you? >> adobe announced for last year eco sign and related businesses hit 144 million recurring revenue rate. therefore by definition, as much as i'm proud of what we accomplished in adobe, i'm hugo. if you see that epic growth, that paypal like growth, inherently, at least as entrepreneur, you're hugo. you know your child and baby had more years to go. >> sometimes these companies do well only after because of the acquisition like youtube and google, they've done so much. >> and perhaps nest as well. they have all of these

resources, et cetera. >> having said that, and i agree, what i've learned and made a study of all of my peers and friends, the synergy thing cuts two ways. in some cases there's great synergies and on the other hand there's a lot of taxes and procedures and policies and sometimes it is hard to know which one is either way and even youtube had its issues but it was well past scale. would youtube have failed without google? i don't think so. >> the faster they go, the more money they lost. they need a huge cash cushion to rest upon and google has some money. >> today it's less of an issue though. >> back then they didn't. that would not cover the flow back then. >> did you stick around at adob bs e? >> i was there for about 16 months. >> did you leave as soon as you -- >> did you leave as soon as you were able to? >> i left as soon as the business was -- could sustain

itself aadobe. >> the last thing you want is a founder -- some will see it differently. most important thing to me was that this survive. i was the first to go. the entire core team was there at least two years for 24 months. i'll tell you that's a large piece of the reason we saw the success we did post acquisition because that same team knew how to twist the knobs and do the dials and giving them the resources behind them but keeping guys with the domain expertise is separate. >> your young companies, is there a tem tags to say let's wait to go public, we'll make more money that way. you've got to calculate your best exit, i understand that. in the long run in a smaller investment, it doesn't kind of matter to you as much. you could -- let this ride, we'll let it ride, not that big of an investment, the kids

running the company may feel differently, we could have had money. >> two thoughts, you're right, first of all as an early stage investor it's all good. will only invest at 20 million or lower valuations, whatever the exit is it's going to be great and that's all good. whatever the founders want to do is terrific. now that we have a few unicorns in the portfolio. >> explain that. >> worth a billion or more. when you have a few of those, you can only lose one in your investment and if the company has something, you want to roll the dice. it's never worth it for the vc to sell if you have the success in the portfolio. you do what the founders want -- >> how hard do you -- >> you don't push at all. you listen. what you should do, this is an opportunity to help. first of all, what you should do if you really feel like you shouldn't sell, whip out the checkbook. as a founder you're going to

make, pick a number, $10 million, that's a lot of money. i'll give you 2 to keep going. we're doubling down together. all vcs should do that. they don't all do that. that helps. you see that happen a lot of auk ses stories either explicitly and that aligns interest. then you should explain the way you see it, one way or another i'm going to double down with you. if you still don't want to double down, you know ten times better than me and more importantly it's your life. the one thing you can't do is make a founder do something they don't want to do. >> last question -- >> while we have time, snapchat turned down $2 billion. >> we started with that, right or wrong? >> i was awe struck, as i'm sure we all were. i was awe struck. but it wasn't the magic number. collective team. i don't know why. assuming the offer is real and i'm a tiny bit skeptical it was real. let's assume it was a signed term sheet.

then it didn't hit the magic number. and then from financial, it's perfected that might have been the worst move in the world but from life experience -- >> maybe they can believe they can do it again. >> jason, thank you for the advice. i think it was excellent. >> this was great. >> thank you for being here this morning. >> do people who block google buses have a point or are they just yelling at a bus?

>> pro testers in san francisco yelling at the bus, they accuse the people on pt bus of driving up rent in the city. welcome back. i have a hard time understanding why people who live in san francisco are upset at other people who live in san francisco and yell at them while they are on the way to work. personally, i think pretending to be a dead person to protest

twitter's ipo is a bit of a stretch. let's take a closer look to see if there's a legitimate point to be made. is the economy growing too fast? what a problem to have? scott anderson, one of the smartest smieconomists we know. thank you for being here. without taking too many sides, is it possible to grow too fast and what happens if we do? >> absolutely, there's a possibility to grow too fast. when you grow up you feel them. cities are the same way. things like infrastructure, roads, bridges, public transportation systems, housing, these are key things in the metropolitan area. >> are these things we can solve? i mean, we know bridges by growing and gaining taxes to build the bridge, right? >> absolutely, but you have to reinvest in the community. so when you are seeing strong growth, a lot of people moving

into the city, immigration doubled since 2009. we need to think about long-term growth rates and what we need to do to sustain. >> one of the problems in san francisco is people don't think about the long term because it's been boom and bust town for a while so you expect it's going to be a bust. and do you think that's the problem? people are expecting that just like happened last time, there's going to be a bus why bother with the longer term infrastructure and other solutions to this. >> hopefully we're not forecasting a bus. we're more bullish about 2014 than 2013. i do think there's a mentality. one thing i worry about, i'm a fairly newcomer to the bay area, i've been looking for a house and housing affordability is crazy. and it's a huge problem. there's a consulting first demographica that said san francisco was the third worst housing affordable in the world.

>> somehow that weirdly pleases me the economist having trouble finding a house. >> my question is, how can we build to ease these pains? the bay bridge didn't add lanes. how can we spend appropriate toy to reduce this? >> you need to plan ahead. these things -- problems don't go away overnight so we need to start planning today for 5 and 10 years down the road. public transportation system is sadly in need of updating here in the bay area. i take part every morning and sometime the b.a.r.t. is not running or door is jammed. we shouldn't settle for those things. when you're a business owner and looking at where to locate, skilled workforce is important and they look at infrastructure, if the public information systems aren't keeping up, that

is a real problem down the road. >> do you think targeted taxation can be ugsed to invest in those things? >> i think we have to look at all possibilities here. there's certainly an opportunity for that. san francisco is blelblessed wi highest per capita incomes in the world. i don't think distributed equally -- >> some of the resentment here stems from the fact that a lot of tech companies got a huge tax break and that's why they stayed in the city. and now, does it seem like they need that continuing tax break to stay there? from what i know, i don't think twitter is going to leave in the taxes go up. >> you don't want to kill the golden goose. it's a fine line. there's a lot of things that the bay area has that is not easy to rep plik indicate, the world class university, a lot of variables remain. >> you touched earlier, when we

forecast we're bullish. one of the most common questions you get, what's going to happen to my house? what's going to happen to my job? i'm speaking only of the bay area here, not the nation. in the bay area, what is your forecast? >> well, people have more job growth in 2014. we had 3.5, 4% job growth in the city and things have passed down over the past 12 months. job growth has slowed according to bureau of labor statistics and 1.5% growth rate which is close to the national average. there has been a slowdown in the strong rebound we had in 2012. but we think things are looking up. one of the key factors is the u.s. consumer and consumer looking very, very strong. we're expecting more job growth, more real income growth. that's part of the reason why or getting this debate about google buses and everything else. the gains haven't been evenly

distributed. real wage growth has been flat to down. and a lot of people don't feel we're out of recession yet and it's still an issue. if we get better job growth, some of the gains will go to more people. >> sneak one in real quick. >> at what point do you worry it might reduce the growth? that people will have trouble moving here. >> i do worry about that. we saw that in 2005 and 2006 when it is worse than it is today. a lot of people at least domestic migrants couldn't afford the market. if that were to happen, your long term growth rate could slow. >> scott anderson, a economist without a house and we appreciate you being here with us this morning.

my next guest started

manufacturing gadgets while still in college. his latest is striker tracker, it helps you find your car keys or whatever. you decide what you want to put the sticker on. chris herbert speaks fluent japanese, cto of phone halo as well. curious about japan and you know a bit about it. dominated in the '80s and we've seen less stuff coming out precisely as the entrepreneurship gets more strong. >> absolutely. i think you can compare it to what's happening now in the bay area where startups are popping up everywhere and there's so much venture capital. >> it is happening in japan? japan is not making the news as far as enpreprenewership? >> it's really stagnant. there isn't the venture capital community to support them. and it's a lot of kids after college going into the big corporations and -- >> or coming here. >> or coming here. >> what do you know now as a

young enpreprenewtrepreneuentre. what do you know now you didn't know then? >> starting up a company is a lot harder than you think. people have this exit in three years and be a snap chat but that's usually not the case. it's hard work day to day making things happen. >> how long has it been for you? when did you start the company? >> started the company in 2009. and just now this last year we really have seen big growth and have over a million in revenue just this year. >> were there moments in the first year or couple years where you thought why am i doing this? should i continue? >> i think every entrepreneur has that moment where it seems like everything is shutting down. it separates the want to bes from the true entrepreneurs.

>> what was your nearly crashing down moment? >> i think i've knee nearly bankrupted the country a few times. one week left of cash in the bank and then you have to say, all right, how am i going to make payroll in three days. >> we've been thinking about a lot of hardware startups in the last two or three years, a big trend. why do you think that's the case? they are building physical things again. >> i think it has to do with crowd funding. you would have to take the entire hardware cost yourself and you're not sure if people will like it and what price point will people buy at. you get to validate the price point and get funds to produce it beforehand and you prove there is a market. >> do you think we'll see more use of indy go go and kick start? >> i think it's a huge potential for the market. we've only seen it just now for hardware. i i'm surprised we haven't seen

more software related non-profits. >> it's -- >> democratization of venture capital. >> is that what went through? what did you guys do? >> when 2009 was before the entire crowd funding phase, we kind of boot strapped it initially just kind of hang on by a few friends and family. this year we took to crowd funding and that enable d us to grow. >> is that why we were talking earlier in the break, the first device was interesting, did kind of same thing, helped you find lost devices and looked klunky xp compared to this very slick little circle it is now. i don't think it's all technology that's made it better, right? it's what you've learned over the years and the amount of money that you're able to invest in it, what made your gadget that much better in that short period of time? >> i think it's definitely a little bit of a technology story

but also getting feedback from users. in going out to the market, shipping something and getting that feedback. >> reed hoffman says just be embarrassed. i'm not saying you should be embarrassed but be embarrassed by the first it race of everything you do. by the third, would you have been able to do that without crowd funding? did crowd funding bring in money that you wouldn't have had otherwise that you could make it that much more excellent? >> i think crowd funding definitely enabled that for us. we were able to spend the time on the design, on the ap to go above and beyond. >> how much did you raise? >> on crowd funding with wallet tracker we did 50,000 and sticker tracker, $350,000. >> wow. >> the other thing i know about you, you're not based in the bay area, right? what is the story there? >> yes, i'm based in santa barbara, california. >> so far.

>> so far, it's a quick drive up but it's definitely has created some discussions with investors, not a lot of people know there's a thriving tech startup, double click are from santa barbara. >> what are the advantages of being there? >> there's people want to move in there and when you recruit and hire, people really stick around because there's not that many other sexy startups in town. >> to fight for engineers and others. >> that's interesting and a couple of really good schools to draw from as well. >> chris herbert, the ceo of phone halo, his product is sticker trackr, sounds like something out of the hunger games but it works to find your car keys and everything else. >> thanks so much.

welcome back. one of the most important facets of this show the thing i take the greatest pride is in nowhere else in the world are you going to see the collection of technology reporters that you see here. bbc, npr, time, tech crunch, cnbc, holy cow have we gotten a lot of use out of him. you need to understand a little history, until recently these two guys were the most influential tech columnists in the world. david poeg on the right, "new york times." both stepped down recently. farhad stepped in at the wall street journal. but who would replace david poeg at the times? believe it or not. farhad again, he left to join "the new york times," the two biggest openings in his field and takes both of them.

as one person on twitter said, all of your tech columns belong to farhad. this must have been an incredibly difficult decision to leave a very great position for another very great position. >> yeah, i described it on linked in where i wrote about this, as choosing between too delicious pieces of cake. you can't really choose wrong in this but i've been a fan of the "new york times" for forever, been getting it since i was a teenager and really wanted to work there. >> i've known you a while, you're a really nice guy. >> thanks. >> i can imagine the pressure of walking into the editor at the wall street journal and saying, i've worked here what, six weeks -- >> yeah. >> tell me about that. that must have been awful. >> it was awful. and particularly because the short time i worked there i really grew to love those people and they are doing a great job. there's been this resurgence at the wall street journal in the

tech team and they've hired a lot of great people and i was one of those people. and then i left and felt bad about it. >> should feel bad about it. all angry with you. >> the real question everyone wants to know, when you published the piece explaining why you left, you put it on linked in, the least likely choice of all time. >> or twitter or tumblr. >> i think linked in didn't get enough love. no, i didn't want to post it on facebook then it would be my family and friends. i wanted to be -- >> didn't work. >> my mom didn't read it. >> everyone wondered the same question, what in the world went on. you explained it very well. in the few seconds you're going to have left, what you are you doing for "the times." >> i'll be writing about the tech industry. i want to take a larger look at tech, how tech is influencing culture and politics and

everything else but mostly whatever is interesting. >> congratulations on taking the two best jobs in technology journalism and thanks for being with us this morning. alex as well. thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

yankee stadium, bronx, new york, the new york yankees have played in this neighborhood for 91 years. today the closest rivals in the nhl, 14 miles apart, on the banks of the harlem river. yankee stadium, the timeless cathedral of the baseball world. >> the bambino. >> speak that magical name today, and thoughts drift to, yes, hockey