brexit is coming and silicon valley needs to be ready. our expert breaks down how high-tech companies will be affected. plus, the push to encourage diversity it in video games both on the screen and behind it. and silicon valley shoots itself in the foot by attracting the attention of washington's regulators. reuters reporters join me this week on "press: here." good morning. i'm scott mcgrew. if you have been through a bad breakup you know it affects more than just the couple. friends get dragged into it, too. case in point, brexit.

the united kingdom, england, wales, scotland and northern ireland are leaving the yueuropn union. this is happening thousands of miles away, but the breakup affects people and businesses worldwide. the effort to leave the eu is picking up speed this morning. the u.k. and the european union have agreed to the terms of the divorce and all that is left is for the british parliament to approve it. we expect that will come in the next few weeks. the deal may hurt silicon valley's trade with great britain, but may very well strengthen our ties with ireland. ireland, you will remember, is its own country. part of the e.u., it's not leaving, and it's home to lots of silicon valley european headquarters. part of ireland's development agency, our go-to guy on european issues here to talk about brexit, what means for silicon valley. it's brexit for dummies.

no dumb questions. okay. so we're at this vote point with the british parliament. they can vote yes to the deal. they can vote no to the deal. if they vote no, it's kind of a disaster. they are calling that a hard exit. what is a hard exit? >> the first thing is the u.k. has been a part of the european union for over 45 years. so you have a whole bunch of regulations, rights, you have directive, et cetera, that he had need to be together. we are in the last stages of the dash. in terms of a hard brexit and that would refer to what might happen should the u.k. leave without an agreement. >> if parliamentarians voted this down, they are still leaving? they are just leaving with no deal? >> yes. there is -- exactly.

they will leave without a deal. there is a lot of uncertainty around the alternative. the default option may be a return to things lining tariffs, trade, immigration, et cetera. there are laws and regulations that need to be then reorganized. so essentially there is a huge amount of uncertainty about it. part of the watch word for brexit over the past two years has been uncertainty. there has been lots of twists and turns in the negotiations. so that's interesting for us in ireland, given that we are committed to the e.u., we have strong links with the u.k., and then we are a bridge to europe. >> you are right in the center of all of this and everything is disintegrating around you when you think about ireland and northern ireland and wales and what not. >> we are part of the e.u. having the close trade ties and other ties with the u.k., we want to see a close relationship between the u.k. and the e.u. and what's interesting is talking to the companies here on

the west coast of the u.s. and there is also a lot of uncertainty that they are looking to and a half fwat as they are planning their european operations. >> is there anything that happens on day one for sure if there is a hard brexit? you know, some international commerce from the u.k. to the continent can't happen or anything dramatic right away? >> again, it's difficult to speculate kind of on the politics or what might happen. in terms of defaulting towards the world trade organization, on paper or in theory it would automatically mean or it would mean reverting to tariffs and things lienke that. this is the first stage. so withdrawal agreement, assuming it's passed, is one part of it. the next part of that is that the e.u. and the u.k. and other countries need to agree what's the future trade relationship going to be like. so again that uncertainty going to continue the next couple of years. so as you are here on the west coast and looking to plan where

you go about or how you go about selling in international markets, that's something that they are considering now, how to go about that. >> is there any advice you would give them at this point? >> again, i think as we talk to companies, there are three main areas that really companies are concerned about. access to markets, access to talent, and then the regulatory environment. in terms of, an example, you are a small tech company here. you are going international. your first jump off point would have been the u.k. it's the largest english-speaking market, 65 million people. we are seeing a change where they are hedging their bets and looking at other location. we have seen a new company set up in ireland directly related to brexit once a week over the past year or so. >> this is good for ireland in the sense that you hate to see your neighbors' marriage break up, but you are now the only english-speaking member of the european union, primarily english-speaking, and you

already have a lock on so many -- apple and facebook. i have a list here. accenture, tripadvisor, linkedin in, paypal, ebay have european headquarters in ireland? >> yeah, i don't think this is good for anyone, my own personal opinion. ireland did not want brexit. we would have campaigned for the u.k. to stay in. politics aside, there is a general acceptance that there is going to be instability. instability is bad for business and especially difficult for companies who are looking to navigate international waters. >> you are trying to stay out of politics. you are not chasing companies saying, hey, if you leave london, then dub llin the obvio, or are you? >> well, we are. we are in the business of supporting the companies thar looking to internationalize. and ireland has a lot of similarities to the nuon chea terms of market. i don't think this is a u.k. or

e.u. situation. going forward the companies who want to go d global and be successful they are going to have to crack international markets and that's having a strategy for the u.k. and the e.u. so we are seeing companies look at scenario planning, look tat backup plans which involve the u.k. hubs and e.u. hubs. ireland with our track record of investments being an he c english-speaking location, we would be that. >> an average of one company a week choosing ireland as their european office or headquarters as a result of brexit. this could put a lot of strange on your domestic resources. a lot of recruiting for talent, real estate even, prices go up like we have experienced in silicon valley. what is ireland doing domestically to kind of prepare for some of these demands and strains on resources? >> the biggest kind of attracting factor, the bigger

tern concern is access to talent. being a part of the e.u. is an advantage. you can hire from across the states. we have made it easier to attract people into ireland from outside of the e.u. so we have a very pro-business visa and immigration system for people from the u.s. or other locations. in terms of the infrastructure, i think obviously we are very concerned about and very aware of the need to provide housing for people coming in, et cetera. so housing and real estate is something the government has put as a priority area. we have a track record over 70 years of being a base for companies. that's about the talent and the track record and also then the infrastructure to support that. >> the irish ida. we appreciate you being with us. a new effort in the video game industry to attract new engineers when "press: here" continues.

welcome back to "press: here." video games have been around for decades now but there have been two recent important developments in the industry that have nothing to do with

better graphics or game play. the first is the rise of esports. people playing video games for money in front of fans, sometimes thousands of fans. the sapp center in silicon valley packed to the rafters recently. the other development is the effort to get more women into the industry, not just as players, but engineers making the game. this is the home of skills, a san francisco company doing both things. managing esports while pushing for more new coders. cnbc named the company the top 50 disrupter companies, the first esports company to make that list. thanks for being with us this morning. i was looking at the statistics. about 23% generally speaking of an engineering work staff is female throughout silicon valley. yours is at 35%, which is still, obviously, not high enough, but higher. what have you done to attract female coders? >> so i think generally in the tech industry there is an issue

historical historical historically being male dominated specifically with skills. we implemented an objective hiring process that runs, first, a skill-based panel for testing the candidates and then later a cultural panel. and we actually correlate the number of people passing all of the skill-based testing against cultural test. >> give me an example of cultural testing. >> people say team fit, spend time meeting each person and see if you like working with them. >> are the skills tests blind? >> they are. they are blind. the beginning of the process for us is actually computerized. we designed all the tests internally. so in any given role when you come into our company you'll test with a laptop in a room. it's completely blind. >> were there any adjustments you made to it to make it better, more likely to be gender-neutral? there was some skills you didn't

test for deliberately because you worried it would skew male? >> not specifically with the computerized tests. but i think generally our mission is esports for everyone. we are very focused on making esports accessible for developers and for players worldwide of every ethnicity, gender. we really want to enable everyone to participate in the industry. i think that kind of concept and mantra has played out not just in our hiring process, but also in our culture and every aspect of the company. and then the natural result from that is that we ended up with a work force that is far more female than many tech companies in silicon valley like twitter or uber or google. >> is there a point in video games where we're seeing there are fewer women engineers doing video games than there are women engineers doing other things? and yet women play video games.

why aren't women coding video games in the way that they are coding in other places? >> i was thinking about this as i was coming down here today, and it's very interesting. i actually learned originally to program and became interested in computer science because of my interest in video games as a child. i think that is very common in the engineering culture. >> you think playing video games creates the programming of video games creates the engineering? >> it relates to an interest in computer science. i think historically video games were more male dominant. we have seen the rise, first of social games with companies like facebook on the web in the 2000s much now with mobile games. mobile games have kind of li live -- proliferated, there 4 million mobile devices, 2.6 billion people playing mobile games every month, and about half female.

similarly, our company powers 15,000 game studios that provide video games to about 20 million consumers. we are seeing about 53% of the games being played are being played by females. and i think that interest in video game play will result in creating gender equal any engineering over time. >> i read that the majority of the biggest winners on your platform are women? rnlt yeah. i believe it's -- i want to say seven out of ten. in fact, one of the top ten is a student, female student at harvard. so we are like pretty excited about six years in starting to realize our mission of esports for everyone. >> owners of big sports teams, new england patriots, new york mets, sacramento kings are investors in your company. i'm curious, you guess, if they do more than just cut you a check if you have a close relationship with them? and what about women's professional teams? have you thought about seeking

them out? >> absolutely. so i can't comment on anything about deeper partnerships with those groups. >> look at that face. yeah. >> yeah. >> but i do think that it would be logical if for the future of sports, which is esports, to partner with the companies that have built out the historical sports industry. one of the things that is fascinating, you were commenting on thousands of people spectating esports, it's actually millions of people. and esports has now passed the nba for viewership. >> this statistic seems insane to me. some of your games, there is an entry fee. but then you collect a pot, if you win the video game, right, that it's $675,000 a day? >> yes. >> $675,000 a day. >> yeah, we actually have single competitions that are over

100,000 and prizes for competition. so we had one $100,000 competition in august. we have one now for $150,000, single tournament. and we run literally millions of tournaments per day. so $675,000 in prizes is comprising many smaller tournaments, and actually -- >> but it's still a huge number. i have to go to break in a minute, but that is an absolutely astonishing number. i thought i understood esports. >> some of it must roll over. you don't have to pay that out every day, right? >> it goes into a -- like poker, right? you ante in and take the money out? >> so you don't have to pay to enter into competitions. some of the competitions are paid entry and paid prize. some of the competitions are free entry with winning a real-world item. we have had people win cars. we have had people win many

different types of -- >> andrew paradise, speaking of getting paid, i need to go to commercial so we can get me paid. thanks for being with us this morning. has silicon valley called in a regulatory airstrike on itself? facebook and google and others are attracting washington's attention. we will talk about that when "press: here" returns.

welcome back to "press: here." a few years ago the then chairman of google, eric schmidt, said he never had to make a hotel reservation when he visited washington, d.c. because he would just use the lincoln bedroom in the obama white house. you don't have to go back very far to find scenes of buddy relationships between high-tech and washington. president obama and mark zuckerberg in a presidential visit to facebook seven years ago. oh how the times have changed. the ceo of google is scheduled to testify before congress next week, having skipped the last opportunity as he snubbed the senate hearing in september. twitter's jack dorsey and facebook's sheryl sandberg were there, but no google chblts i'm deeply disappointed that google,

one of the most influential digital platforms in the world, chose not to send its corporate slippery leadership. >> mark zuckerberg was a no show in london a few months ago. they were not shy of making fun of him on social media. irswin steltzer right silicon valley companies have taken dead aim at their feet and pulled the trigger but none have done so much as to turn the political classic and silicon valley and lay the basis of regulation of their businesses as facebook. long-time silicon valley executive and venture capitalist jason lincoln joins us to talk about regulators. i looked at the various ways i introduced you. one was an all-around smart guy. >> i appreciate that. >> i will do that. remember there was a time in which it was sort of this free for all which uber could just do whatever it wanted and, you know, regulators, well, you know, and the scooters and airbnb and regulators kind of said, you know those tech guys,

they do that sort of thing, and they just let that happen. i assume that's over? >> i think it's bigger than ever, but time to draw a line. this is the cult of the ceo. part of what empowers silicon valley, what we are doing is this thing that the ceos know best, right? we all love elon. we were nervous about the tweets, the s.e.c. he is going to take us to mars, right? this is the cult of the ceo. there is a presumption that they will do the right things for the shareholders, for the general public. i think in the early days when you have a little startup, it's probably true-ish. we have to lurn to draw the line. they don't know when to cross that line. >> we are clear will i gone over the line? >> yeah. but as more and more startups are evolved, you have to know when to take the other stakeholders into account for what you do. it's confusing when everyone worships you.

like facebook, when they went public mark zuckerberg had all the control. this is a jaw dropper. now it happens in all the ipos. it's been like 30 cloud ipos this year. how many control everything? most of the it's gotten sort of institutionalized and it's time to roll that back a bit. >> over the last several years part of what's driving that is the amount of capital available to these companies. d.c. is hand over fist giving them money. there is so much competition to become a shareholder they give them whatever control they might want. so a lot of this also goes back to the vc and others funding these companies before they get super big. >> it is true. vcs no longer care about the issue. back in the old days these horrible vc stories like the social noetwork, they want to deploy massive amounts of capital. they want to put in billions of dollars because the cloud is

crazy. it is so much bigger than it was five years ago and people are making insane amounts of money. if you as the ceo make me hundreds of millions of dollars, take it all. people are making so much money. it's crazy. >> but given the risk of uncertainty of a huge misstep, uber is one -- >> yes. >> aren't they going to pull back a little bit and say do you really want super majority voting? >> imagine you are an investor and you have five ubers in your portfolio. i did uber and airbnb and stripe and burden line together. if one stumbles, it's terrible. economically, you might be okay. >> those tended in the past, especially uber, appeared to be pr missteps. there has been some regulation that people stepped in, cities have stepped in. i think we are on the cusp of just huge crackdowns by states, by cities, by the -- the federal

government, who i think honestly was a little too chicken to step in before. i think they thought silicon valley knew what it was doing and i thought they were afraid to be on the, oh you old fuddy buddies in washington, you don't know. >> facebook was trying to unite the world and it succeeded twice. everybody pretty much regardless of political persuasion thought facebook was cool two years ago. now everybody hates facebook. doesn't matter if you are left, right, what the reasons are, you are mad at google over china, mad over the 2016 elections, whatever. everybody is mad at it he can. >> do you think steltzer is right, that facebook is the bigge biggest offender? certainly google and others have gotten in trouble. it seems facebook is the one that missteps every time. >> talking about how evil facebook is, someone that was very aligned with facebook a few year ago. it does appear that -- did facebook completely take care of all of the stakeholders? did the public have the same

seat at the table as money, as the internal? obviously not. the public didn't have any stake. they will now. so some of this regulation is good. this attention is good. the flip side is silicon valley and now beijing and others, there is magic here. it's magical. and i think left, right, center, wherever you are, there is a good respect that magic happens and if you snuff out this magic we could kill this incredible engine of innovation. where do you draw the line? it's nuance especially since folks don't understand how it happens. they think it's a couple kids that writes code and it happens. >> if you are on the inside and we are on the outside peering through the window trying to get a scoop every once in a while, is there any kind of peer pressure inside tech to say what you knock it off? you are going to attract the regulators? like a stephen king sort of thing? >> yeah. >> you know, stop it, because you are ruining it for the rest of us. >> there is with these vast amounts of capital going in

there is also much greed. they are talking about how to help kids? juul with $18 billion for a usb drive to take 50 cigarettes? i mean, this is horrible. oh, no, we don't have raspberry flavor for the kids. it's for the grandparents. they love raspberry. this is pure greed. juul is pure greed. the investors are given an incalculable amount of money. nothing nothing to $20 billion in five years? you think they are thinking about that? greed of course is associated about this. we have to be thoughtful about that. >> i have tried to get juul on the show several times. i hope they hear this, no, no, no, they have to respond. thank you for being abowith us. we will be back in a moment. lin

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before we go i want to mention the cult of the dead cow. we will be back to talk about what that webook is about on a later episode. thanks to my guests and thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

d"comunidad del valle." and welcome to i'm damian trujillo, and today it's all about entertainment, local and national stars on your "comunidad del valle." male announcer: nbc bay area presents "comunidad del valle" with damian trujillo. damian: we begin today with one of the winners of our project innovations grant by nbc and telemundo. vanessa martinez is with the ywca here of santa clara valley. she's with the creative pathways program helping a lot of students out there. welcome to the show. vanessa martinez: thank you for having me. damian: tell us about your programs. you're basically out in the schools on the east side, getting kids into steam and stem and whatnot. vanessa: we are. we implemented our pilot program in ocala steam academy in year one, which was february of 2017.