authors, and ceos, along a look with our team of reporterste from reuters and "the new york times," dow jones, "mit technology review," and cnet. this week on "press:here." ♪ scott: good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. christmas has wrapped up. hanukkah is still going, kwanzaa too. however it is that you celebrate with your family, you're likely still doing it. and we have a new year right around the corner. we are also with our families and this morning we're offering you a "best of" show. this allows us to do two things: one, give everyone the day off

and, two, showcase some of our favorite interviews. let's start with jay chaudhry who's a frequent guest on this show because he keeps making his investors and his employees so much money. scott: good morning to you. joined by joe menn of reuters and jon swartz of "barron's." so your stock, if i've got this right, is up 68% in six months. is that right? jay chaudhry: something like that. scott: something you're--not that you're keeping track or anything? jay: my investors are. scott: the last time you were on you told me at your first startup, 70 of the 80 employees there became millionaires. you're on--it's fifth startup, right? jay: yup. scott: you were estimating the last time we talked a few hundred of your employees at zscaler would become millionaires. would that turn out to be about right? jay: it should be. scott: that's just phenomenal, the wealth that you've created in this valley. jay: i think it's the employees, it's the team that makes it happen. leaders have vision but execution is the true thing.

so i put together a great team that makes it happen. scott: all right, well, let's get to it. how do you keep that team on focus when the temptation is to look over in the corner and watch cnbc and watch that zscaler come across the ticker? jay: while money is an important factor in people's life, the people who are drawn to a startup like zscaler are the one who really want to make something happen, who really have a mission. so at zscaler we don't really look at it as a business. we look at it as a mission and the mission is to make sure the internet and cloud is a safe place to do business. scott: all right, but put that in context with lyft and uber and whatnot. what advice would you give them? jay: i would give them the same advice that i took in practice as after we went public we kept our eye on the road ahead. we focused on our customers, we took care of the employees, and if they do so, the rest will automatically

take care of itself. jon swartz: so you're echoing what the zoom ceo told me today. so today, we're filming on a thursday. this is the first day that zoom went public. this is their debut. they were up 80%. their market value is worth more than pinterest, actually. it's worth more than $15 billion, and he said, basically, first, "this is crazy. oh my god, i can't believe what happened here." but then he stopped himself and he said, "i just wanna get back to work. i wanna get over this day and kind of move forward." so it's kind of like that long-term thinking or mentality. jay: that's exactly right. and, you know, there's a massive opportunity in front of us. some of these numbers that look big today, they may look small tomorrow. scott: but let me interject here and say that you own about 20% of zscaler, right? okay, and zscaler's worth, what did we say, $6 billion, $8 billion, somewhere in there? jay: about $8 billion. scott: about $8 billion. you have to--do understand and you came from very modest means, you didn't have running water, that kind of modest means.

but you understand that when you are a billionaire, it is easy to say, "now, you know, money's important but it's not the only thing." to a lot of us, money is the most important thing, right? i mean, so somebody who's suddenly rich or at least suddenly can pay off the student loans, that's a game-changer. jay: absolutely, so having said that, i do know that a lot of people who financially become independent and that to me, personally, is the most satisfying thing. i know lots of teslas in the parking lot and a lot of people who have bought houses and i think it's a result of all the hard work they have done. scott: jay also spoke to me on our podcast, "sand hill road." he spoke about growing up poor in india, finding success in america, and the day his children discovered their parents were very rich. jay: my kids for a while had no idea about any of the wealth we had because in atlanta we lived in a simple

$200,000 house like any other middle class family. scott: wait, there was a point in which your kids figured out that you were rich. jay: you know, eventually, they did but this would happened. scott: no, i wanna hear about that. i wanna hear about the day that your kids said, "oh, wait a second." scott: you can find "sand hill road" on apple podcast, google, spotify, wherever you find your finest podcasts. now, you would not be able to play a podcast on your phone or have a phone at all if it were not for something called rare earth, metals that are, good news, not rare but, bad news, mostly mined overseas. to learn more about what that means for america, we asked ann bridges to bring us up to speed. ann bridges: the electronics industry spawned an entire new pursuit of what's really going on in the periodic table of elements and so, for the last few decades, we've been pursuing more and more scientific applications, ways to make

things smaller, faster, able to handle heat. and we've seen this in the semi-conductor industry but now we're doing the internet of things. we have more and more. we want mobility, we want everything, and we have all these emerging countries, china, india, and more, who have a growing middle-class population and now we have all these proclamations that we shall be running electric vehicles by a certain date across the world so there's just a growing demand for the finished product. the problem is that to get from here to there is a huge leap and it's not just what we have in the ground, it's the entire supply chain and manufacturing chain because we have to process these and filter these and purify them and make them into metals and alloys and get it finally into a usable form. erin griffith: so why can't we recycle them? kind of a dumb question but-- ann: well, eventually, we can, some of them. but when you process and purify them and make 'em into new metals and alloys, you're actually changing the chemical basis of it so sometimes you can

split it apart, many times you can't. the other thing, today, recycling isn't a good solution because we don't have enough of 'em out there to have a critical mass to be able to create a nugget then to be able to go back from there. joseph menn: if these are in the earth, all over the earth, why can't we just mimic what the chinese processing capability is? how hard could it be to just do the same processing that they did? ann: well, it's probably not hard compared for americans who are pretty ingenious. we gave up this landscape about 20, 30 years ago, literally. i mean, we don't have many schools that offer degrees in this. and our patents filings on these is going like this and china's are like this. they literally have filed 10 to 20 times more patents over the years than we have on using these things. so you say, "well, where are the meteorologists, where are the mineralogists, where are the geologists in this country? we're importing them from greek*, from turkey, from south america. we just have--do not have the knowhow anymore because, for the last 20 years, silicon valley has been software and apps. scott: but--oh, go ahead. erin: i mean, we're here in silicon valley and we have a

problem and that is, you know, what people here do is innovate their way out of problems so if we're--why can't we--why isn't anyone trying to innovate their way out of this or are there startups or companies that are working on ways around it? ann: there are startups. they're not necessarily here. they tend to be more in the mining areas of the world. what's going on in pittsburgh is truly amazing with carnegie mellon. they've decided that they're staking their claim on the next generation of technology. they're near the auto industry. in--for apple, tesla, they are caught up in having their manufacturing in china and you don't wanna tick off your biggest supplier and where you've cut contracts for manufacturing and where you're trying to sell a product into the consumer class. the problem is that it's our industry and our military that also needs that. and they care about having access to this. they don't care whether it costs 2 cents or $25 when you're putting millions of dollars into a submarine. they need to have something that works. and they need to have a reliable supply. scott: ann bridges, an expert in rare earths.

our "best of" version of "press:here" will be back in a minute. ♪

scott: welcome back to "press:here." now because it's the end of the year, we're doing a "best of 2019" sort of show.

i find all of my guests very interesting. i wouldn't have them on if i didn't, but i was particularly fascinated by rakesh tondon. he is a young man who, along with his business partner, tried to make a business deal with the country's oldest department store, lord & taylor. rakesh wanted, basically, a counter, a booth at lord & taylor's for his company, le tote, the same way there's a section for cartier or makeup. now, that deal didn't go through so he bought the whole store chain and now they work for him. scott: but wasn't there hesitation on the part of the seller in the sense that, i mean, a couple of weeks ago you were just talking to them about maybe, you know, having a location in their stores. now you're saying, "you know what? we'd like to buy you." rakesh tondon: of course. i mean, i think when they did their due diligence on us, realized what we were bringing to the table, made them feel really comfortable. what we really brought to the table was the technology piece

that lord & taylor was really lacking. lord & taylor has a really loyal customer base that's been shopping with them for a long time, despite them not having invested quite as much in technology, in e-commerce, that would bring them to the 21st century. what le tote really brought to the table was that technology leadership that lord & taylor was lacking. and that's what made them feel really comfortable about who we were. scott: and i wanna get to the future of retail in just a second but i wanna ask you about the price. it was $75 million, right? did i get that right? rakesh: so it was $75 million in year 1 and $25 million in year 2. and then they have--so it's $100 million and they get a piece of equity of the combined companies. scott: well, it just seems like an incredibly low price. i mean, they must have more than that just in stock on hand, wouldn't they? i mean, you got a really good price on that. rakesh: so we definitely think we got a good deal and so did they because they're getting a big piece of our company which was valued quite highly. so getting a pretty significant piece of our company makes

them feel really comfortable about the price that was paid for it and what this mean--what this could mean for them in the long run which could be worth multiples of what we're worth today. scott: isn't that such an interesting illustration? i mean, you have this long storied, enormous department store that wants a piece of a small technology company because it's the smaller technology company that's gonna be worth something in the future. that says a lot about where we are in the world of retail. rakesh: yeah, i mean, again, what the markets are valuing is really looking at growth, looking at profitability and companies that are appealing to the generation that's coming next versus the generations of the past. scott: rakesh tondon, the new co-owner of lord & taylor. i had great fun with my next guest, bart myers of countable who is trying to create a website where people can debate politics rationally without anger and finger-pointing.

and that is quite a challenge. scott: how is bart myers going to accomplish what it seems like facebook, twitter, and youtube can't? bart myers: that is--that's been the last four years of our journey has really been honing in on that question and building a platform in technology that can really help to create safe, civil environments. and the secret there is really not that secret. you know, when you let people into an open space where they can be anonymous and there are no rules and there's no parent in the room, they're gonna act and some of them are gonna act in extreme ways and we've seen that a lot of the social networks really benefit from this. they can drive great businesses from making sort of the loudest person in the room the focus. unfortunately, that's not--that's not us. that's not the majority of people and i don't think that's really what we're all looking for. ironically, that is what drives eyeballs and, within countable and within the platform that we've built,

we have a slightly different mission. we really wanna give people a platform to have their voices heard and to be able to do it and feel safe. and feeling safe is, on the internet, difficult. and so, for us, there are a number of ways that we do that which we can go into but, basically, it comes down to knowing and trusting that there is an adult in the room, that there's somebody who's making sure that bad actors are caught, that there are community guidelines. all things that any of these other platforms could do, have largely chosen not to do for reasons that it doesn't necessarily benefit their bottom line. i--yeah? martin giles: that all sounds great but, in practice, you know, i've seen multiple platforms, they sort of come in with these great sort of ideas and, well, good intentions, and then all of a sudden they've gotta make money and, you know, then all of a sudden it's, like, "well, you know, maybe the principles can go a little bit to the side while we make our next quarter or our next, you know, return money to our investors." so how do you make money? what do you do with the data you're gathering?

and number three, how do you know that mary whatever-her-name, is actually mary whatever, and it's not some kind of troll from macedonia or from moscow? bart: those are all great questions. so how do we make money? we actually make money by licensing the technology that we've built to do this very thing. so we work with companies, we work with causes, we work with organizations, who are looking for an alternative to facebook. they're looking for a safe place to bring their communities together where their communities can interact and engage with each other and do so in an environment where they don't feel like they're subject to those types of threats and those types of environments. so there's really a backlash forming to having your--and it's not just for these reasons. it's for other reasons. the rules are--keep being changed on your communities, your audiences, on platforms like facebook. jon: could you conceivably work with some social media companies like a facebook? i mean, facebook in a sense threw up a white flag a few days ago where they acknowledged that they are testing this idea of getting away--going away from public viewing "likes,"

one of their strengths, right? to the point where it's almost kind of a censor--almost a form of censorship whether you like or not like for other people to see. bart: we have spoken with and had various levels of conversations with all the major networks and they're interested. i think that there are intrinsic challenges in these kinds of changes that you're talking about which represent millions of dollars in revenue for them. so making those types of changes kind of willy-nilly isn't gonna happen and it may be that something has to force their hand. scott: you also talk about being the parent in the room and one of the accusations that twitter gets often, in particular, is they will censor certain things and i fully support their right to do that. i mean, i make choices about who's--well, i make the choice about who's gonna be on this show, you know, and the joke is, "get your own show," right? i mean, you know, the-- martin: yeah, yeah, that's good. i love, "get your own show," but at the same time, you know, you can introduce bias by censorship. i mean--

scott: oh, i think i probably do. martin: you know, there are opinions that might get suppressed because whatever people-- scott: yes, and that's to my point is the accusation whether it's fair enough or not on twitter is, particularly among conservative voices, "oh, you know, i've said this and now you've kicked me off the thing." how do you stay appearing neutral when you are trying to keep this thing rational? bart: well, the--there's a lot that goes into that. and i think you guys know this firsthand. i mean, 'cause it's not only about the community, it's also about the topic, it's about the subject, it's about the presentation of the issue. you know, as journalists, you're presenting issues and you're trying to do it in a fair manner. is that always free of bias? scott: no, absolutely not. bart: it's not always free of bias. and then the responses that people have are also not gonna be free of bias but i think the thing we have to realize is that the internet tips the scales. whereas, you're approaching an audience that i would call, sort of a bell curve of political views, and you would say, "this is kind of the moderate view

and these are the extremes." the internet flips that on its head and it basically says, "the extremes, the loudest people in the room, can very easily get the most attention." and as a result, we need a different sort of code of conduct for handling that. like, we--our social contract, as society, as civilization, was not built around letting crazy people talk. it was letting people who care about their communities come together and share reasonable ideas together in a reasonable way. the internet fundamentally has tipped that and, early on, it was amazing, we had these free environments. we didn't think that was gonna happen. scott: our favorite high tech authors of the year when "press:here" continues. ♪

scott: welcome back to "press:here." one of the things i think that surprises authors who come on this show is i have actually read their books, cover to cover. it's kind of a luxury to read and get paid for it. here are three interviews with authors that i really enjoyed. scott: you may have heard the good news. the same guys who did "billions" are gonna do a new show about uber founder, travis kalanick. the new series is based on the book, "super pumped: the battle for uber," written by "new york times" technology reporter, mike isaac.

the "times review" of the book says: "isaac depicts kalanick as an evil bro-genius, bent on world domination through ride-sharing." mike isaac joins us now this morning, along with jennifer alias of cnbc, josé fermoso who writes for "the guardian." you know, you start your book with two quotes. one of them is from travis kalanick. the other one is from machiavelli. and somehow they flow together, don't they? mike isaac: i think so. i mean, i tried to capture what this guy essentially stands for, right? and i really do think that travis is probably not the typical founder in the valley. he had done two different startups before and he was probably in his later 30s by the time uber came around and i think, you know, the point i wanted to get to, at least in the very beginning was he had done a--he had done at least two startups and had been betrayed by his vcs that had backed him initially and that really went to the mentality of "this is gonna be my company.

no one can really take it away from me, and i'm gonna secure it for the long-haul." and initially, the vc, the venture capitalists, were okay with that until things started going wrong a little bit later and it was hard to sort of wrest that control from him. female: what's been the response from the company? mike: it's been interesting. there's a number of employees who do not like the book, just because--probably because i didn't depict them in the best light and i kind of expected that. and then there are people, i think, who are surprised that they thought i was fairer than they thought i was gonna be, you know? like, just totally--rather than completely villainized people, i wanted to really get behind why uber was willing to really push the boundaries of what was legal and in some cases go over the line, you know, a lot of the time or get to this culture of crazy, you know, wolf of wall streety-type thing internally and, you know, it feels good to at least hear people say, "there's a lot of stuff that's ugly and hard for me to read but it's not like you got it wrong. you got it right."

scott: gretchen mcculloch is a professional linguist who studies the development of language with an expertise on the internet. her new book which i have been looking forward to is "because internet: understanding the new rules of language." gretchen, all right, explain the title to your book. i got it immediately but "because internet." explain that to me. gretchen mcculloch: "because internet" is an example of one of these linguistic phenomena that's especially popular on the internet which is this stylized sort of incoherent language used to heighten an emotional effect. so people say, you know, "i can't do my homework because internet," to mean that the reason is so evident that you don't need the full sentence to explain it. scott: i got a sports car because divorce. gretchen: ha-ha-ha-ha. i think the first example that i came across in this phenomenon was, "i can't do my homework because skyrim," so. [laughing] scott: now, what you're talking about is linguistic science, right? gretchen: right, absolutely; so there's a whole area of linguistic called sociolinguistics which talks

about how language and society are intertwined and how different groups in society use language differently. scott: let me read something out of your book to prove the point. you're talking about the words--the letters repeating that somebody might use to emphasize something like the word "so," but using a dozen "os" in "so." you write: "i searched the corpus of historical american english for sequences of at least the same letter dating back to 1810." i mean, this kind of proves what i'm saying and what you're saying, that this is a very serious science that you are engaged in. gretchen: it's a very serious science but i really like the juxtaposition of applying serious science to topics that can seem a little bit amusing or frivolous and the connection between the two is really exciting. scott: joe menn of reuters has been hard at work at his new book, "cult of the dead cow: how the original hacking supergroup might just save the world." it hits bookstores in june but joe is here to tell us more about it. so we're talking about hackers, but we're talking about hackers

some time ago who were good guys, right, mostly? joseph: yeah, that's right. i mean, there are some gray areas, particularly when you're a 14-year-old, 15-year-old, and the only way to get online is to borrow somebody else's phone service where they might not be aware of it. scott: we're talking about, like, "wargames" era hackers, right? jon: is that like the phone phreaks era? joseph: yeah, so these guys started out as phreakers and they evolved, and one of the nice things about tracing this one group is that you can see their moral development. so the stakes start very low: should i steal phone service--a little phone service from a lot of people or a lot of phone service from, like, one company? and then the stakes just keep going up and to, okay, now i've got a software flaw and microsoft won't answer the phone. what do i do with that information? do i sell it to the government? do i disclose it? do i have a big media circus about it, which is what they-- scott: and they were well organized. i mean, they called themselves the cult of the dead cow. i suppose i need to ask why. joseph: so they began in lubbock, texas, and there was an abandoned slaughterhouse and some of them liked to hang out

there 'cause it was creepy and weird and they wanted a little sinister flavor because, you know, you don't wanna be, like, you know, the cult of the strawberry field, you know? you know, you want a little edge. scott: right, and--but they were very well organized for people who were not just some teens meeting in a barn, right? i mean, they had--they had members in various places. joseph: that's right. so it grew pretty rapidly. people from other states and eventually people from other countries. and what's unique about them is that they're still going after 35 years. they're--they--it's a small group. it was never more than 20 active members at a time, and they're from all walks of life. scott: that last author, joe menn from reuters, is of course, a frequent contributor to "press:here" as well. we'll be back in a moment. ♪

scott: that's our show for this week. a big thanks to all of the people who make this show possible. we run credits every week for a reason. they're the ones doing the heavy lifting. now, if this is the first time you've seen our show, welcome. we have hundreds of past episodes which translates into thousands of past guests at pressheretv.com. we'll see you next year. ♪

"comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo and today, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of los mestizos de san josé. one half-hour of dance on your "comunidad del valle." ♪ ♪ damian: they are los mestizos of san josé and they're celebrating 40 years of dance all across the bay area. we're gonna begin actually with my little girls. it's the pee-wee version of los mestizos. isela and malyna are in this first segment. they are dancing from the region of michoacán. ♪