"press here" is sponsored by. this week with a start up ceo turns down $2 million. mcafee's ceo ponders facebook security in a facebook world. and bitcoin causes problems for taxpayers who have never heard of cap caital gains. our reporters for "associated press" and martin giles of m.i.t.'s technology review. this week on "press here." good morning everyone. i'm scott mcgrew.

i don't like the financial risk. i choose the 30--year-old mortgage even though the variable is cheaper. i play blackjack in las vegas but leave the second i'm up a couple of bucks. if i was on "who wants to be a millionaire" i would leave the show for a few thousand. if i had a start up, i would sell it to the first person who offered me any money. i'm not sure i would be wrong. google once offered my friend andrew mason $6 billion for groupon and andrew said no. he should not have turned the money down. sisco offered jay for the company and he apparently said no and instead he took -- >> it was the fist big tech ipo of 2018 in the public markets rewarded the decision. and they held more or less

steady since. and putting the value of the company at $3.12 billion. he talks about the ipo and the way forward. joined by martin of m.i.t. technology review. pretty good reporting. you got offered $2 billion at the last minute. >> i'm going to need to write the story. >> okay. let's offer you money for your the company. were you offered money for the company? >> many companies that come and talk to us over the past several years. >> okay. >> this company was built to be a lasting public company. >> you were right to take it public. is there a moment? i'm so conservative. i think the minute somebody gave me a reasonable number. you had it and must have known this company was worth far more on the public market. >> yes. we think it will be worth a lot more than it is today. and i think entrepreneurship is about taking risk. managing risk.

the first start up i did secure i.t. i put my life savings on the line. >> you literally did it at your kitchen table with your wife. >> absolutely. it was a risk. i put most the money, a lot of must be in -- money in this company it was a good risk. i have a long way to go. finding the right opportunity at the right time and buildingsoming that solves the problem with disruptive technology. it's a disruptive nature that is really getting big customers to protect their internet and cloud access. we're proud to have all these big companies depend on us to enable their e commerce. >> you've had over start ups in the past. >> yeah. you had to face it by yourself. what was different this time for you? you decided to go public and not

sell. it was the market opportunity or something different about yourself and you wanted to try to go public? >> a combination of both. at that time, the decision was different. so when they did the first start of secure i.t. it became pretty successful. wow. it was wonderful. can i do a start up again? it's one of the things in my mind. >> let me point to the viewer, you did it five times more. >> yeah. you were on the show a couple of years ago. we decidwant to get to the vieww phenomenal your success has been in silicon valley and how many people you have workers and employees. >> quite a few. actually, a first start up is the highest percentage. i don't have a map here yet.

i'll do the numbers and come back and talk to you as we probably have a few hundred millionaires because of stock options. and that's the current price. as we grow out, everything needs to grow. but we are focussing on building a lot. we're looking at sales. >> what made you go public now? i mean, the markets have been a little sort of choppy. you know, it's an environment. it's not exactly the ideal time to go public. why did you choose now? >> some companies need to go public because they need to raise funlds. >> right. >> they kind of say my first opportunity. some go public because the investors who invest early on said i need it. we had none of those issues. we had the freedom to see when do we want to go public? we want to get to a certain mass

size. we want to make sure we feel comfortable about being able to predict our consistent growth. as we got comfortable, we said let's move. >> since you went public, spotify. what they did was a game-changer? >> we thought about it. a few companies had done it. in this case, we said let's take a traditional route. there are some good bankers who have done it several times. but we chose to take traditional route. why? >> what made you go to the conventional route? >> so, honestly, i would have had to do some more research and figure out is it good or bad? i would rather invest most of my time working with customers and technology and growing my sales. >> you did a good job explaining the reasons to go ipo very simply. let me ask you to be that simple in this response. on thursday beaued on the nyse.

you were on the nasdaq. what was the decision one makes to decide where to list? what goes through your head? >> yeah. technically speaking probably the differences on aren't that significant. in our case, the relations played a big role. the nasdaq worked with us. >> are you comfortable? i mean, when you go public, you're in the public eye. there's quarterly reporting and obligations and legal and otherwise and you wouldn't have if you sold it. >> yeah. >> selling wasn't in the cards. this time. so when you want to build a lasting company, then you say how many lasting big companies are private? there aren't that many. most of my companies are large

enterprises. ge and auto nation. they want to do business with public companies. for us, number one reason to go public was to be able to do business. >> i want to squeeze in one more question. you alluded at the beginning of the interview. your first company you built with your wife around the kitchen table. you know, compared to taking a company public for a value of what is about $3.4 billion now. which was scarier? which is riskier? >> so the risk i took for the first company was probably more than this cub. i took more from savings. >> sure. >> i think to be a good entrepreneur, you need to be able to say i do it for passion. the first company offered tons of money within one year and

said i i'm afraid to walk away from it. one reason for my success is not being too attached to money. and that's what we've done. >> jay had six successful companies. we look forward to having you on at number seven. thank you. i will conclude by saying that the world has changed. it's all about cloud. security is still is stuck in the daylight central. we're changing that to make sure that the enterprises can have secure and fast. up next i'll advertise for people to pay. >> bitcoin is causing all kinds of trouble on taxes. next chris young ceo of mcafee with us.

welcome back to "press here." the latest advisor to leave the white house was tom bozell. we're not sure why he left and no replacement has been named. but that does not leave the president without advisors. this is the president's national security telecom advisory committee made up of silicon valley executives. they're heading the meeting along with chief of staff john kelley.

on the left side you'll see mcafee's ceo chris young. in the center you'll see chris young. chris is at the forefront of cybersecurity both in business and in government. which he says is a lot like a "game of thrones." thank you for being with us this morning. i assume you don't mean the government. i would assume you mean the business of security is like "game of thrones." >> ha. >> that's what i mean. >> that's what i mean. >> you love sports analogy. >> i do. i'm a big basketball fan. >> what sort of things can you communicate with sports analogies, after all, not everyone understands. >> one of the ways i use sports analogy frequently with my team is we have to play to win. we're out there every day working on behalf of our customers. and our goal should be to play to win with we should not just show up to the game. we should be there to win. and there's so many different analogies i can draw with sports. strategy, competition, winning,

preparation. so many aspects. >> but then we seem to be losing a lot of insights security. every week there is some new breach that some ransom ware. it seems like, you know, we're on the wrong side of the "game of thrones." we're losing. is there anything you can do to help? >> there's a lot happening in the industry. we in the constant battle against the adversaries. they're buried in their approaches and attacks. we're seeing, you know, one day we see a data breach. the next day we see rise in ransom ware. those are two different types of attacks. as an example. the reason i use the "game of thrones" analogy for cybersecurity you've got over 1500 companies in the space and we're all kind of trying to focus on what we do better than

the next one. but then the enemy is out there which is the real issue. the attacker. that's the one that affects not only governments and large companies but it affects the consumers. the individual. that's one of the things about mcafee that we try to focussed on. we're protecting consumers and governments. and you know we are competing with our other companies in the space, but we also got to give this problem right. it's one of the reasons i've been doing it personally. been in this space since the mid 'out. >> one of the big stories this past week was mr. zuckerberg goes to washington. during his testimony, he made the insertion that one of the reasons facebook or the reason facebook tracks logged out users is for security purposes. do you see any reason they need to do it for security purposes? i was puzzled. >> i think it's important to

track user behavior. if i look at one of the big trends in the cybersecurity industry. it's user behavior. attackers are becoming harder to identify. it used to be you had to focus on what you call malware or anti-virus. you're working on files and applications and things you can save. now our attackers are so sophisticated. they're finding their ways into systems. into data repositories and they're doing it without leaving anything behind. you do, in today's world, whether you're facebook, the government, or anyone you have to pay attention to user behavior. if you want to be good at cybersecurity. >> can you imagine a product in some future, yes, there's the virus anti-virus that i think mcafee of being. and then the phishing attack which you since added in there. i'm not sure that this website is what it is says it is. can you imagine a third product

it's looking at sort of what facebook does? i'd buy that product. it's been other websites. what we're doing is, according to the user agreement, and you said yes we're going to put our hand up and say hold on. one of the things i find is security and privacy are sort of two sides of the same coin. >> yeah. >> sometimes, actually, they work in concert with one another. it's difficult to have privacy good privacy if you don't have good cybersecurity. on the flip side, you know, you sometimes run into issues where you want, actually, cybersecurity, or cybersecurity requires you look at things that might comprise it. >> right. >> we went through it in the encryption debates two years ago. things i focus on is over the long-term we have to look a little bit more of a hand on it. it's a new thing for a lot of organizations. it's a new thing for our communities. and i think individuals, the

government if there's anything i learned from watching the testimony. there's more to be learned and shared in government and privacy sector and how social media works. >> and i think we'll see more products pop up around social media. everyone for corporation the now to do a lot of our business on social media. we have social media presence. you know, not just facebook but places like linked in and others. there are companies that help you manage your presence on social media. >> you're on the board of s.n.a.p. how will it change the dynamic was that company? i'm interested in another thing that mark mentioned that facebook is a a monopoly. one of the reasons it is a monopoly. do you think they're a monopoly? >> i think there's a lot happening in the social media space. s.n.a.p. is doing some unique things. facebook has similar

capabilities in part too their portfolio. they're quite a bit larger. i think we're at the beginning how we use social media and mobile devices and the camera and microphone is how we communicate interpersonally and remotely. i think we have a long way to go. it's going to be playing out over many years. >> let me squeeze in one last one. mcafee was bought by intel and spun back out and you helped spin it back out into its own company. was there any consideration -- i love the look on your face when i say john mcafee. was there any consideration naming it something else? >> mcafee is one of the most trusted brands in cybersecurity. we thought about it. we tested it. we feel good about where we are and where we're going. >> i appreciate it. your face when i said it.

thank you. >> thank you. well, i would assume you've done your taxes by now. we're down to the final hours. the stories about young bitcoin investors who didn't know anything about capital gains but do now.

welcome back. there's a guy on reddit.

we don't know his real name. we know he's an author who posted the message about bitcoin. he bought bitcoin at the low price and made $152,000 and spent the money. the title of the post "i just discovered i owe the irs $50,000 i don't have because i traded in cryptos. am i out of luck?" he didn't use the word "luck" but it was a word close to that. he said he makes $47,000 a year at his job. i'm telling you this on april 15th for a reason. people who got caught up in the bitcoin frenzy may not know about capital gains tax. on tuesday is the actual tax day. a lot of them have to write it. is all my savings gone now? i feel like i might have accidentally ruined my life because i didn't know about the taxes. chris knows about the taxes. he also knows about the bitcoin. chris is a professor of business.

he teaches classes online. in fact, he's the most watched business professor on the entire online platform. chris can teach you everything you need in an mba in eight hours. you could have saved a lot of money, martin. >> darn! >> bitcoin you could have. what's the deal? if i buy bitcoin and sell it at a higher price, do i automatical automatically owe taxes? absolutely. the most important thing to recommend if you made money any crypto currency put it aside. don't buy it with the next one. that was my next question. what if i immediately invest it in another. that one falls and now i have no more money. do i owe taxes on the original

transitions? >> it's done in two separate taxes. if you buy bitcoin in 2017 you sell it in 2017 and it crashes in january of 2018. you're still on the slip for the $100 in profit for bitcoin. >> one things confusing to me. if you use bitcoin to buy something at home depot. are you liquidating it? >> great question. the irs clfbs it as property and not currency. when you use it to buy something. think about the stock. you sell the stock for it the bitcoin. that's the sell and you buy something else. and if you bought and sold with a profit, you pay taxes on that. >> go over that again. >> yeah. >> $1,000 worth of bitcoin. i bought at $100. it's now $1,000. i take the bitcoin and i don't cash it but i take the bitcoin and pay you for something. >> yes. >> am i still taxed on that? >> you are.

>> even though you sold me an object? >> absolutely. >> there's no reason to use bitcoin ever. >> i don't recommend doing it. unless you can actually put the tax aside and save that amount. i don't think people are aware of that. >> no. >> and the issue is that the irs came up with a tax rule on krip tow currency in 2014. one year later in 2015 only 802 people mentioned it on the tax returns. >> my understanding is the irs is basically taken a crypto to court to say you need to give us about the information who have been trading. that's one. how many others will it be? >> yeah. >> there will be a lot. for example, coin-base which is taken to court by the irs. coin base released more than 10,000 names to the irs of people that made a lot of money in bitcoin and other crypto currencies between 2013 and 2015. and the issue, if you don't

claim the tax, not only do you pay a fine. you might go to jail. and the irs mentioned this on their website. >> i already hate bitcoin. you can't spend it without getting a tax. and the secret part is over because you have to report it on the taxes. >> yeah. >> what happens if i invent and i trade them for spotify. we made these. >> right. you created something out of nothing. >> uh-huh. >> that's a problem, right? >> yeah. >> yeah. the irs comes after all of the big exchanges. big engs changes will offer 1099 forms. >> really? >> yeah. >> there are those online. i mean, there are a lot of exchanges. we will give you a 1099 the same way fidelity sends something at the end of the year.

otherwise you have to self-report. >> you do. you do. even because what happens is the second we release capital gains are a short term or long-term profit. you have to declare it on the tax returns. and for anybody that is not. i advise speaking with a tax attorney or accountant. >> i think tax attorneys are trying to learn about it. >> yeah. >> you have lock chains and all kinds. >> yeah. >> you think the tax code is complicated enough. now you put it in. >> yeah. it's complex. the best way to think about it a crypto currency is classified as property. it's not a currency. think of it like a stock. if you use apple to buy something. if you made money on the share of apple. you're liable to pay taxes. >> in reality, how will the irs enforce it? you're supposed to report, like, if you didn't pay your sales tax when you buy something in florida. >> right. >> there's no paper is there any trail? >> there is. >> there is? >> yeah.

if you trade through major exchange. >> i want to point out to the irs. [ laughter ] >> yeah. we have a couple of seconds left. i want to make it clear if i have a bitcoin wallet but i sold it. i don't owe anybody anything? >> correct. you don't owe anything if you haven't sold. think of it like a stock. like apple. you don't sell your share of apple. >> right. i didn't like bitcoin coming in now i like it even less. >> thank you. "press here" will be back.

that's our show for this week. thank you for making us part of your sunday.

damian trujillo: hello, a"comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo, and today, opera cultura is on our show, and they're bringing "bless me, ultima" on your "comunidad del valle." male announcer: nbc bay area presents "comunidad del valle" with damian trujillo. damian: we begin with the monthly visit of the mexican consulate in san francisco. paula linares is the consul de asuntos culturales for the consulate, and she's back on our show. welcome back to the show. paula linares: thank you, damian, thank you very much. damian: so, we're here to talk about a festival that--well, first tell us about your office and what you do as a consul de asuntos culturales for the consulate? paula: well, i'm in charge of all the cultural affairs that we develop in san francisco and 12 counties in the northern coast of california. and all the time, we try to do partnerships and present the talent of mexicans and mexican-americans as well that,