>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight we look at new developments in brain science with "new york times" reporter james gorman and dr. eric kandel. >> and one of the big challenges is that trying to cope with neuroscience is like -- i mean, this is -- >> tell me about it. >> it seems bigger than the universe, you know? so all we can do is do a sampling of some of the projects and we thought, well, let's start out with mapping. it's not -- it's not everything but it serves as kind of a foundation. let's talk to some of the people who are trying to map the brain in different ways. >> rose: we continue this evening with the director of the new film "philomena" starring steve coogan and dame judi dench. >> john huston used to direct and you can hear -- you know, you can hear the music in it, you can hear the conviction in

it. and you hear the shape and the musicality and it's -- it's a ridiculous thing about the cinema but it's more interesting than the faces. i've known lots of people who it's just listening. and you can hear when it's right. >> rose: we conclude with alexis ohanian, the co-founder of reddit. his new book is called "without their permission." >> and while the internet and this technology is not a magic wand, what it does enable is you or toy say to someone with a straight face "if you have an internet connection and a laptop you can build something from a little apartment that eight years later can have more traffic than the "new york times." " in the case of reddit. >> rose: brine science, stephen fears are and social media when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> we've been using mepl rye machines for the last ten to 20 years to try to look at brain function and brain connectivity. i look at how the brain works together to produce behavior and that's the most simple way to think about the connector. >> rose: in our charlie rose brain series we have explored our magnificent human brain through two remarkable series with my co-host dr. eric kandel we have brought together many of the world's best scientists and researchers on brain science. we continue this project a looking at researchers from wa wavr university and st. louis. james gorman writes about the "new york times" about the team's work to develop the first wiring diagram of the living human brain. this data could help us answer this important question. how do differences in brain wiring relate to differences in our behaviors, our thoughts, our emotions, and our experiences.

research is part of the human connectom project an effort supported by the national institutes of health. james gorman joins me and with me on this journey to help understand this research and its potential impact is eric kandel, dr. eric kandel. so i am pleased. i mean, with great excitement i read this and called him up like "we're back in the saddle again!" (laughter) >> brain science is alive! >> rose: you gave us a great moment. tell me about what led you to this because not only did you write but you were the a guinea pig. >> we've been thinking that -- we covered a vances, news stories and neuroscience often but we have been thinking as many people have, as you have that we ought to do it in a little more systematic way and

so a while ago my editor asked me to start looking not so much into treatment and some of the sort of applied research but into the nitty-gritty. how neurons connect, what's going on in basic brain science. it's thoofb's a huge -- the technology is changing, the money is flowing into it. there's a lot of xhiplt and around the same time that we were getting going president obama announced an initiative, a grand challenge so we thought how are the ways we're going to look at this? and one of the big challenges is that trying to cope with neuroscience is like -- >> rose: tell me about it. >> it feels bigger than universe. so all we could do is do a sampling of some of the projects and we thought let's start out with mapping. it's not -- it's not everything but it serves as kind of a foundation. let's talk to some of the people

trying to map the brain in different ways. and the question was whether we were going to start at the level of the electron microscope very small or the level of the whole human brain and that's something people relate to immediately because they have one. >> rose: so we know about the mapping, eric, of the human genome. now we talk about the mapping. give me your sense as a neuroscientist of the significance of the things that he reported on. >> >> i think the difference of this is several fold. one is we want to understand how the human brain works and the key to understanding is that is how the different components interact. many people have been looking at this from a variety of perspectives through imaging studies. this particular study moves it forward in the following way: one is it is very systematic. it doesn't take the three of us, it takes 1,200 odd people,

number one. number two, these are people from normal walks of life. men, women, baseball players, academics. >> rose: who have their brains skand. >> who have their brains scanned and deena is going about this in a very systematic way. she wants, as jim pointed out in this article today, to work out in general the connectivity of the brain and she's doing this by doing four studies. someone she just wants to see functional imaging to see what areas of the brain are active. she wants to see how areas interact and she's got two ways of approaching it-- one in a resting state to see what areas are active together. then she has a way of actually tracing connections. connectomics which she calls the pathways, the white matter in the brain. and finally and critically important she's going to combine these three imaging approaches

with behavioral studies. she's going to see what happens when you learn something. when you sing a song. when people interact socially. so she's going to get a variety of different perspectives on this. so what is unique is not that any component of it is you but that it's systematic and that's one of the purposes. >> rose: by the end of this it will be available online. >> already much of it is available online. and they have a web-based program called workbench, any scientist in the world can go in there and essentially query the database and look for connections between different activities in the brain or different qualities that people have. >> i think's another very nice thing about this. it's a wonderful environment in which she's going to work. one of the pioneers brain imaging, david holz man an outstanding neurologist that we

have, david van essen, it's a wonderful environment in which to work, lots of interesting people to talk with and work with so this is going to be a thought through and reliable set of studies. >> and she would be the first to point out she's one person working on one part of this. >> she comes from psychology. >> rose: she comes from psychology. >> so many people involved. >> rose: interesting, the psychology, because there is this sort of series of questions too. you went through this. >> yes. >> rose: tell me what it was like. >> well, the m.r.i., as anyone knows who's gone through one is very noisy and confining and most people have -- are able to cope with the fear because they're there for some sort of diagnosis. that was one thing. the tests you do in the m.r.i., there's a variety of them. some are as simple as curling your toes to map where your toes are. others require a kind of memory activity that made me convinced that i had completely lost my mind. are (laughs)

>> rose: really. asking what you remembered about -- >> well, you see a series of pictures and you try to remember whether the one you saw two times ago or oneq9q or however this was two times ago is the same as the one you're seeing now. so you see it typed and then you see a tree, then a car, and then you have to push, is that the same as the one -- no, it's not the same. then the pipe, well, yes. no, that's not -- pretty soon you're so -- it's very hard to do. and of the fascinating thing she is said to me afterwards, i said "i was working so hard on that." she said "that's one of the things that this might show because you're going to have your emotional -- your emotions are tied up in competing in this test. that's not going to be true for everyone. some people are going to be very different. they're not going to -- they're going to take it much more easily. >> rose: you write neuroscience does not have a baseline database for structure and activity. structure and activity in a healthy brain that can be cross

referenced with personality traits, cognitive skills and genetics. don't have it. >> exactly right. we don't have that. >> rose: and how important is it to have that? >> it would be marvelous to have but this is not around the corner. >> rose: it's within the next ten years? >> we talked about this once before. my feeling is a complete understanding of the human brain we're speaking more like many decades. helen mayberg who we had here and you mentioned very prominent in this thick, she's done wonderful imaging on depressed people and delineate it had beginnings of the neural circuit of that. if you look at psychiatry, for example, there is no area, to disorder that is really understood on this level. schizophrenia, autism, we're just beginning to understand which areas -- >> we have not been able toll do this before because we did not have the tools to do it like we do now? the imaging tools? or is it some new theory of --

>> there's no new theory. the imaging tools when they came along were noisy and not completely reliable and it took a long time to really work out the difficulties with it. they're now much more reliable and this is a very reliable group of investigators, number one. number two, you need resources. you need huge resources to carry out these large-scale studies. three, the problem is extremely difficult. she's not asking herself what is the cause of schizophrenia, which would be a very difficult problem to tackle right on. she's asking herself "how does the brain function in very general terms? how did people handle the same task in somewhat different ways?" >> rose: explain this to me because you've said in your piece the central question is how do differences between you and me and how our brains are wired up relate to differences in our behavior, our feelings and our emotions? i've said this in the introduction. >> well, one of the things that

i did for instance-- which haul the volunteers go through-- is you fill out a questionnaire. and interestingly, the person -- the research assistant who's there leaves the room because it's private. how often do you feel sad? you know, have you -- do you feel discouraged? so it's trying to get at -- and these are very traditional well-used psychological tests that many people have used over the years so they can tie them what that says about your state of mind. so if you have 1,200 people and you have data on how they take these tests, you may be able to see what the variations are that correspond to the variations that show up on the test. but maybe not. but you may be able to see something closer than what you have before and that may begin to give you an idea. the other thing is that you're not just looking at a difference in size of struck dhur, you are looking at what happens when people are doing something,

which parts of the brain -- >> patterns and connectivety. >> rose: explain that. >> i'll give you a simple example. this would not apply to new york cab drivers who get lost all the time. but in london you have to pass an examination. >> rose: you've actually said this before, but go ahead. >> if you look at the brains of london cab drivers, their hippocampus-- the part of the brain concerned for memory-- gets larger the more they drive and when they stop driving it shrinks a bit. so this is wonderful. but we don't know what other areas that this region interconnects with and these are the kinds of things we can find out. we know individual cases if you just oppose your finger miss, many times or if you play the violin the representation of the left hand, the fingering, is much larger than for people who don't play the violin. in the motor area. so we know in very primitive ways that different body functions are represented in the

brain and they change with experience. but a systematic -- >> rose: and use. >> yes. and they shrink. and, of course, we know with certain disease states that certain areas involved and not overs but a systematic study of normal behavioral patterns, this is a wonderful beginning. this is not the end. this is a systematic beginning. >> rose: but it's a heck of a beginning and a lot of great universities. there's one program that's got -- >> mass general and harvard -- >> rose: they're involved with u.c.l.a. oxford is involved with minnesota and somebody else. and washington university. >> it's a very serious program. >> rose: and you just got $200, $300 million to do what? >> (laughs) >> rose: mort zuckerman gave columbia $200 million for mind behavior initiative. >> rose: what's that? >> we want to tackle problems of the brain on a variety of

levels. we want to understand how the brain works in simple animals as well as cognates. we want to understand the disease states. we want to understand how mental functions have an impact on other aspects of society. for example, how do people respond to work? what is it about music that really moves you in such a way? so to use the mind behavior initiative to interact with other components of the university. >> rose: so to understand what makes us human, isn't it? >> that's right. that's right. >> rose: they also are involved in -- i mean, i assume part of this is not the mapping thing but maybe it is, also, it's the connection between neurons, right? >> yes. they're not looking in this -- at this level with the m.r.i., the connections between neurons, they're looking at the connections between regions and information flow and the direction of information flow in the brain. there areor people in are looking at the connections between neurons more in mice and fruit flies ( >> in fruit flies. jerry rubin is doing a parallel

thing at the howard hughes medical institute in which he similar matally is mapping the brain of the fruit fly using genetic and anatomical technique and will be applicable to higher animals as well. so what we talked about the last time which is -- >> rose: the initiative. >> this is what you're seeing in action. people are doing things they did before more systematically, more collaboratively in order to push this problem forward. >> rose: and are they getting more money? >> no. >> rose: really. >> no. the money is embarrassing. >> rose: you mean in terms of -- talking about money from n.i.h. or money from -- >> $100 million a year at the moment is set aside for the brain initiative. that's not even enough to pay for dinners for the three of us! >> rose: it doesn't seem to be new money. but the point is well taken.

a hundred million dollars seems like -- when you think about -- >> rose: n.i.h.'s budget for neuroscience apart from that is $5.5 billion. >> rose: part of this is coming out of pre-existing funding. and what makes it crazy when you think about that is because it is about understanding a whole range of disease. >> it's an enormous -- >> rose: that affects so many millions of people's lives. >> whether it's depression or -- >> rose: francis collins would tell you-- the head of the small amount of money at the very beginning of the human genome project and it served as kind of a smart to develop the techniques and seed money. so that's the hope. you know, we'll see. in europe they've put one billion dollars -- >> rose: i know! >> -- out for a project that is at least the people i've talked to not as well regarded as the plan that n.i.h. has come up

with. >> rose: a lot of focus similar peer cal. >> rose: focused on them >> trying to see whether you can simulate the human brain in a computer. >> rose: what do you think of that? >> since we know so little about how the brain works it will be hard to simulate it. but there are other people joining in. >> rose: is there a complete sharing of information across the board? what you're doing and what helen is doing? >> that's not a problem. the problem at the moment is resources. the resources are grossly inadequate for the job. i think everyone would admit that who's involved in it. >> rose: what's interesting about this is three dimensional, too, and interactive. >> oh, yeah. >> rose: explain why that's important. >> well, it just -- it makes it so complicated that you need new kinds of mathematical tools and software, algorithms to understand. at harvard they're working to

connect the and map the neurons and jeff lichtman who works there is fond of saying the smallest volume that we can see with the electron microscope in the nano meter range and the volume you see in the functional m.r.i. which is what they're doing, there's a trillion -- one is a trillion times bigger than other. and the one that's the trillion times bigger is -- i may get my numbers wrong but it's one thousandths of a cubic inch. then you have the whole brain and at every level in between there are important interactions going on at that level and between levels. >> this is why it's very important and why this is happening to do the human brain in parallel with the worm, with

the fly and with the mouse. because they can give you solutions to the -- >> rose: simpler solutions. >> much simpler but they have in many cases very parallel behaviors. >> and you can explore them ways that you can't explore the human brain so you can take a fly -- >>ose: we should also point out that this is not the only methodology that's come along recently. we haveoptigenetics. >> rose: what's that? >> it's a way of inserting a gene into a cell so it will respond to light. so you can turn on any combination of cells that you want and cut shells -- cells off. so you can use it in intact behaving animals and it's revolutionized the field. >> rose: has all of this attention-- perhaps not money, but attention-- from my little television series where you to the "new york times" doing all this stuff, has it spurred

enormous interest in young physicians, both medical and researchers to become neuroscientists? >> you cannot imagine. my wife showed me recently a graph of the evolution of graduate education in the united states. for all disciplines it's like this. for neuroscience it's like that. it just keeps on increasing. just keeps on increasing. the problem is that with the cutback for funding for basic research this is discouraging people from going into science. and young people are having a more difficult time, talented young people having more difficult time getting a job than they did before. when i came along, if you could read and write you got a grant. (laughter) now it's a.m.a. jor accomplishment. (laughter) >> rose: well, you could read and write, couldn't you? (laughter) >> one of the problems with grants is that the political need is to say "we're going to cure a disease that hurts you

and the level of the science is to say well, i'd like to know how this neuron in a fly detects motion from left to right." you know? >> terrific! >> rose: yeah, yeah, exactly. this is very exciting stuff and we're learning things and there's a lot going on in a variety of different places and yet some of it has enormous connections to it. it's about some basic questions that are referred to. >> and it's going to bring in other sciences, as you mentioned engineering, mathematicians, chemists are going to come into the field, nanotechnologists because their help is needed and they find their problems interesting. not to speak of genomistists. >> rose: but it also reminds me the vastness of what we don't know and the extraordinary

quality of this brain is really amazing. and you have to always ask yourself don't get ahead of yourself because this is hard work. >> yes, it is. >> rose: it is step by step by step. >> but it's very satisfying. after all, you're tackling the most fascinating problem in science. >> rose: well done, james, well done. thank you, my friend. great to have you here. >> pleasure to be here. >> back in a moment, stay with us. >> they have omelets over there, pancakes and waffles, anything. cereal, bacon and sausage. >> i saw. i saw. >> breakfast is included. >> it's just too early for me. my stomach hasn't woken up yet. >> mine wakes up before i do. i'm having a ham and swiss cheese omelet, can i get you one? >> no, i just -- >> coffee? >> no, thank you. >> okay, well if you want to help yourself to breakfast we have two buffets, fresh fruit -- >> she just told me. >> omelets.

>> i know exactly what's on display over there. >> fresh pancakes. >> thank you, trying to have a private conversation. >> rose: stephen frears is here. he directed a book called "philomena" of a woman's quest to find the son she gave up. here's the trailer of the film. >> this is martin, he used to be the bbc's man in moscow. >> you're depressed. >> i got the sack, i'm unemployed. >> rose: >> well, it's not your fault, is it? >> that's why i'm depressed. >> i know a woman, she had a baby when she was a teenager. she kept it secret for 50 years. >> you're talking about a human interest story. i don't do those. >> why not? >> do you think i should do a human interest story? philomena, how are you? >> i had a hip replaced last year, martin. titanium. >> so you have to oil it like the tin man? >> is that righting? >> no. >> he's just joking, mother. >> oh!

would it be possibly not to use my real name when you write this story? what about anne boleyn. lovely name. well, somebody has that. >> we'll have to use your real name, philomena. >> perhaps these older nuns would help us with some of the details. >> i don't think that's going to be possible. >> why not? >> you're a journalist. >> i used to be. >> i was a roman catholic. >> i used to be. my guess is that anthony was adopted and sent to america. >> i think i would like to go. i'd like to know if anthony ever thought of me. i thought of him everyday. >> shall we go for a walk? >> or we could watch "big momma's house" about a little black man pretending to be a black play lady. >> she told four people they were one in a million. what are the chances of that? >> what if he died in vietnam? or lived on the street? or what if he was obese? >> what makes you think he would

be obese? >> because of the size of the portions! that's my anthony! >> i met him. >> where? >> at the white house! >> what's he like? do you remember anything he said? "hello." >> hello! it might have been hi. >> oh, martin! >> i did not abandon my child. they took him from me. >> she's been looking for him, she spent her whole life trying to find him. >> ever you ever been to mexico? it's lovely. apart from the kidnapping. >> i'm pleased to have stephen frears back at this table. welcome. how did it come about? it was based on a true story. this woman lived -- >> is alive and is in hollywood as we speak on harvey's dollar. >> rose: (laughs)

>> i was just hired. i was the last person in. >> rose: were you in because of jude i? did she insist on you? >> i'm on the list of people she trusts. >> rose: dame judi. >> (laughs) i think she'd have a fit if someone called her that. steve bought the book and wrote the screenplay. wrote himself into it. wrote his autobiography into it. all the stuffed about lapse cad thol schism, that's him. >> rose: so he saw a chance to tell his own story as well as he suggested in the trailer? >> yes, yes. >> rose: and how did it -- did he go tell movie and went in search of producers and directors? >> i think he went to the bbc and then they went -- you know, it was very important and eventually they turned up on my

door. >> rose: what was the challenge when they turned up at your door. this is easy. you have a great story. you've got -- steve's a big television star in london. >> it didn't seem easy but they never do. you think "what was i making such a fuss about?" what i really liked was the tragedy and the comedy. that was what really got me. it's quite easy to tell a depressing story. then they got this comic relationship and i thought that was very very good. >> rose: it's the story of a woman who's in a catholic home for unwed mothers. >> yes. yes. >> rose: loses her child. her child is adopted. >> yes. >> rose: and comes to america -- >> that's a kind way of putting it. >> rose: it is a kind way but i don't want to offend anybody unnecessarily. (laughs) and she wants to know who where he is. >> she's kept silent for 50 years. >> rose: so why did she finally is to know? she kept silent about it -- she always wanted to know about it.

>> the story came out and she had thought about it on his 50th birthday and she tells her daughter and her daughter makes the connection to the journalist martin sixsmith who happens to have just been sacked by -- lost his job because of the labour government and he needs a job and he decides to tell a human interest story so it all sort of works together in some way. >> rose: as we just saw in that trailer. >> and then this very incongruous couple set out on the road. >> rose: discover america. and even though there's sadness here and she finds what she needed to know, doesn't she? >> yes. i mean, it's best to know than not to know. >> exactly. >> and also finds out that her son was looking for her as she was looking for him. >> rose: and that troubled her because she didn't know that. she didn't know that he wanted to know. >> well, he imagined that -- he imagined that -- she imagined that he thought "well, my mother got rid of me, she can't have

loved me." and she -- so she assumed he was angry with her or didn't like her or something like that. >> rose: it wasn't true at all? >> no. >> rose: so how is it to direct judi dench? >> it's really easy. you turn up and she knows what to do. honesty. >> rose: we're going do these pages today. >> today we'll do page 38. that's all you have to say. she's very, very good at the job and she's a wonderful woman. >> rose: she really is? is she 78 now? >> are we allowed to say things like that? she's getting on. she's the biggest female -- >> rose: no, no, she's the last person to hide that. the last person. >> she's the biggest female star in britain. i mean, it's quite -- the whole thing is phenomenal because she plays "m" in the bond films. >> rose: tell us about steve coogan who was here. >> he's a very, very bright guy

and i think somewhere inside him i always thought he wanted to do something he'd never done before. you know, and he can do -- you know, he can do all that comic stuff. he can actually do the jokes, which is a great relief. >> rose: he can do the -- oh. >> he can tell the jokes and make you laugh. >> rose: he has timing. >> he just knows how to do them. i think he wanted to do something different or -- >> rose: i thought he was enormously talented. >> he is very, very good. and when you think if i got a conventional actor i don't think it would have been as interesting. he wants to be called a conventional actor. i'm just insulting people left and right. >> rose: (laughs) you better think about these things. okay. this is a scene where she is really wondering about her son anthony and some of the things we have discussed already. here it is. roll film. >> we're getting closer. all these years wondering whether anthony was in trouble or in prison or elsewhere. i didn't know and i could always imagine he was happy somewhere

and that he was doing all right. >> don't upset yourself. >> what if he was obese? >> obese? >> i watched this documentary that says a lot of americans are huge! what if that's happened to him? >> what makes you think he'd be obese? >> because of the size of the portions! >> rose: she says it like -- it's like music, isn't it? "because of the size of the portions!" >> i direct with my ear. john huston used to direct with his ear. you can hear -- you know, you can hear the -- you can hear the music in it, you can hear the conviction in it. huston used to turn his back and would -- >> rose: it's interesting you say that because don hewitt, the great executive producer of "60 minutes" who founded "60 minutes" was famous for what he could do on the screen. he would turn his back, i'm told and listen to it. he wanted to hear it. >> i can hear in the voices. >> rose: what are you hearing?

>> you hear the conviction, you hear the shape. the musicality. and it's -- i mean, it's the ridiculous thing to say about the cinema, but it's more interesting than the faces. i've known lots of people who it's just listening and you can hear when it's right. >> rose: it's better with the faces. >> no, of course it is. i'm talking nonsense. but i know i do a lot with my ear. >> rose: i do, too. and i wonder if there's an equivalency between -- you know, there's a sense of itch and people can hear better than other people whether there's a finely-tuned sense of hearing, i assume it's connected to maybe something like pitch. >> yes, i don't know what it is. >> rose: it's all connected to the brain. that's what we know. >> you can hear the conviction and as you say about judi doing those lines you can hear the music in them. >> rose: exactly. >> so it's easy directing judi. >> rose: do you say anything to her? i mean, you don't say things

like -- what do they say? you know, louder, quieter. >> oh, no, you do those. >> rose: oh, you do. >> that was helen's line, is it? there there are four things a director should say "louder, softer, faster, slower." or woody allen. >> rose: helen mirren. >> woody allen says you paid a lot of money, why do you then have to tell them what to do? they're very, very good at their jobs. >> rose: and you want them to come and do what they do? >> there are directors like kazan who was interested in how, brando or james dean got his performance, how he got there. i'm not. >> rose: oh, i am! >> you want to know how they got? >> rose: yes. i want to know how everybody gets there if they do something well. that's a fashion of mine. >> oh, really. well, you're different from me. judi used to sleep. she's sleep at the side of the set, wake her up and she'd do it. here she was always laughing at

steve coogan. so they'd be hilarious with laughter and then stop and do the tape. >> rose: but you knew you had it if they're laughing at each other, didn't you? >> absolutely. >> rose: so i don't know how she does it. but she's very, very good at her job and she's a wonderful woman. >> rose: did you change the script at all? you got the script writer there with you. >> rose: >> the whole time we were rewriting and shifting saying "if we turn this scene around, wouldn't it be better?" there's where the work was. >> rose: if you turn it around, wouldn't it be better? >> well, it might have a better dramatic shape. the writing was -- all the work went in the writing. once you got the scene right, once you were shooting the right scene these actors could do it standing on their heads. >> rose: what is this other film you did, muhammed ali's greatest fight? >> well, that was a film about the supreme court and it was about -- >> rose: when he was -- when he took his draft status all the way to the supreme court? >> went right up to the supreme

court and to everybody's surprise -- >> rose: he won. >> he won. he won because my goodness, my mind went completely blank. but one of the justices, his clerk turned him around. his clerk argued with him and said, you know, there's no difference -- you know, it isn't -- you have to accept that he was honorable in his conscientious o.k. >> rose: is this something you wanted to do? >> i read it! >> rose: you what? >> i read it! i read the script. the truth is i met the english writer, a south africa writer. i said "what are you doing?" he said "i'm writing something very good." and i said "can i read it?" read it and said "you're absolutely right." >> rose: is this how you get most of your jobs? >> from partying around at parties. more or less. >> rose: you go to a party and say "hey, do you have a script i should be reading?" >> i wish it was that easy. >> rose: so how did it happen? >> she said "i'm writing

something very good" and she turned out to be write. >> rose: and you're now making a documentary -- a film about lance armstrong with ben foster who's a fabulous actor. he really. is. >> he's very, very good in the film. >> rose: what's the film? is it his life? >> a biopic? dramatic moments? >> it's a dramatic ten years, isn't it? how could a man lie? for ten years he doped and lied. so it's about all of that. >> rose: all those three things. did you go france and up and down those hills? >> we did everything. up and down those hills and mountains and one day there was a picture on a blog that said underneath lance and it was ben. it was a wonderful moment. he's a really good actor. >> rose: yeah, he is. >> by god it's an interesting story. and somewhere in there -- i shouldn't say these things, i'm tempting fate but somewhere around there's a not earn

american tragedy. >> rose: stephen frears, we'll be right back. >> hello, everyone. i am from the internet. (laughter) just a quick show of hands, please. how many of you would like to make the world suck less? don't be shy. great, excellent. wanted to make sure this was the right place. good. that's what i want to talk about because i'd say 99% of us would agree that there are plenty of things that need changing and if we take time to think about it there's plenty of stuff, no shortage of things we'd like to do to improve our world and then the world of our communities. >> reporter: alex ohanian is here, the co-founder of reddit, the popular social news web site. he formed the company in 2005 with his college roommate. reddit was acquired by conde naste publications a year later. he has remained on the board and co-founded two more companies, including the travel search engine hip monk. in twelve he campaigned against the stop piracy online and protect i.p. acts.

critics of the bills argued it stifled free speech online. he's the author of a new book called "without their permission." in the book it gives advice to young entrepreneurs and advocates for a free internet. i'm pleased to have alexis ohanian at this table. welcome. great to have you here. having done aim may it's only indeed. >> rose: tell me about the book. what is it you want us to understand? what's the point here? what made you take time off to write this? >> it's the book i wish i had had before steve and i got started on our entrepreneurial journey. >> rose: right. >> the internet is enabling so many people-- far more people than were possible to be enabled in '05-- to do amazing things online and i wanted to create the blueprint to help people be awesome. >> rose: what was the driving idea when you put together reddit? >> in a lot of ways it was us wanting to create something that would let us live like college

students for as long as we could. we didn't want to have a boss. we'd had enough of those jobs. we'd gotten lessons growing up online from the power of these open discussions that could happen on web forums and we thought maybe we can build a platform to let online communities flourish. >> rose: and at the same time give -- we were talking about a.m.a. and what makes it so popular and the genius behind it is that there's somebody online can ask and take great personal pride and ownership that will generate a wonderful response. >> rose: and that person can be anyone with an internet connection. and the extraordinary thing about the internet to me is that somehow it empowered people to express opinions, to ask questions, to find out what people think. >> rose: and it's exciting. >> and i'm obviously a big proponent of -- i'm going on a 165-stop book tour to talk about this. and at the same time i know it's

so important that we make sure to get internet access to as many people as we can as well as the skills -- >> rose: and how is that going? >> it's a work in progress. even in america, there are millions of americans who don't have broadband because they live in rural america. it's absurd to me. >> rose: should the government have a broadband policy? should it be? >> i would like to see the government take a more pro-act i have approach in at least enabling communities to wire their own broadband. there was a community in north carolina, in wilson. >> rose: i know wilson very well. >> you know the story. to think a bunch of independent american citizens couldn't get together and bring broadband to their town because of lobbying from i.s.p.s is absurd to me. and i -- so i hope the government can take a roll in making sure american citizens who want to bring broadband to their town like in wilson get the chance to. >> rose: as the world of apps given just an extraordinary opportunity for entrepreneurs? >> i believe so. before reddit steve and i were

hoping to start a company called mind mobile menu or mmm which would let people order food -- skip lines from their cell phone. the problem was it was 2004 or 2005. there was no smart phone to speak phone. blackberry and palm kind of existed. and our company was rejected from on that premise. it was too early. today there are a half dozen companies that are competing for because the app market exists because smart phones exist. it's letting a lot of great ideas flourish. >> rose: what's the guy? paul -- >> paul graham. >> rose: he's been at this table. he said too earlly. >> he and jessica livingston, one of his partners and now his wife, they rejected us. they said it's too early and we were seniors at u.v.a. and we were on a long train ride back to charlottesville, hung over because we -- that's how we tried to get over it and he called. and i picked up my cell phone

and he says "you know what? we still like your idea." i said "all right, thanks, paul." "but we like you guys. if you and steve come up with something new, get off the train come back to boston, build something in a browser and we'll fund you." and we got off at the next stop, went right back to boston. met with paul for an hour and what came out of that was red reddit. >> rose: says a lot about him, too. >> i can never give jessica enough praise. >> rose: or her, yeah. >> she -- i later learned it was her pushing for two of us. >> rose: why did you stole conde naste? >> the simplest answer was i was 23 years old, steve may have been still 2 2-2 and we were presented with an opportunity to have life-changing wealth. i never wanted to have a moment in my life when i looked back on

something like that and wished i had done the -- i wish i had taken the offer. i've had that combined with the fact that not long after we started reddit my mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and i talked about in the book and i've talked about how this was a tremendous motivator for me. the role model she and my father played during this period was so inspirational and it made me think my hardest day compared to theirs is a cakewalk. i'm worried about my company failing? they're going through chemo. like, that's -- >> rose: you need moments like that to keep your feat solidly in perspective. >> and at 23 years old to be presented with an opportunity to have that fortunate thing happen and freedom, i was so exstatic to call up my mom that morning and say "we sold it. your unflagging support and everything you've done for me was worth it."

it simplifies thing. -- >> rose: and did you think i'll run it for a while and go off and do something else? >> you know, i really wanted to keep doing it as long as it was fun and to conde naste's credit, i stayed for another three years before i went to armenia. i stayed for a lilt over three years continuing to work on reddit. steve did as well and we had a small team we still felt like what we were doing mattered and had impact. we had enough autonomy. conde naste is not a technology company but they knew to give us freedom and in all candor, we did not know what we were doing. we didn't know this was going to be a site that had a hundred million visitors a month one day. we just thought, hey, it's growing. >> rose: and they come in search of? >> whatever is new and interesting online. there are thousands upon thousands of communities using the platform now and -- >> rose: a hundred million a month? >> yeah and it's -- it started

with two guys in an apartment with laptops in medford, massachusetts, that's where we first started writing code. that's the power of the internet. >> rose: if you had someone who would come to you and say my son or daughter is going to college in september. should they learn code? would you say yes? >> rose: >> yes, absolutely. >> of those stops 77 on this book to our universities. we've done half of them so far. the next half are coming up next week and i spread this message because if the internet is this new frontier, like mark andreessen said, it's eating the world. we're all pioneers on it. but those of us who can build are building the earth in this world. so if you want to have power in this new world it's learning how to code and even if you're a

history major like i was a little software goes a long way. >> rose: it's scary, i think, to most people fact that i could learn to write code. >> i hope we can demystify that. there are plenty of startup it is, code academy is one based in new york trying to gameify it. plenty of organizations -- one of my favorites, i helped to run a fund-raiser to bring them brooklyn called black girls code is going into communities. >> rose: what is that? >> it's a wonderful nonprofit called black girls code that is targeting young women -- not all black but women of color and getting them excited and in front of technology and writing code at a young age this is what is going to make a difference in the next 15 15-to 20 years because the people who can build, the people who can write corrode the ones that will have the ability to create tremendous value as well as wealth and it's important to make sure we don't exacerbate the existing disparity. >> rose: and the other thing that's so obvious is we've just

begun. >> yes, we have. and it -- as a natural optimist it makes me excited but i know that no play book for. this we're figuring out the future of so many different industries because of these technologies that didn't even -- many of which didn't even exist five let alone ten years ago. new hampshire is what have you learned from your mistakes? >> where to begin? the biggest, i think -- here's the challenge, right? you're creating a platform for someone to speak their mind, you ultimately can't control what they say. but what i think more important than ever in age-- and this is all social media. this is twitter the, reddit, facebook, all of us. it's incredibly empowering however this creates a lot of noise and it's more important than ever to have things to find the signal.

to have the trusted organizations. the trusted journalists the people who codo the work to x-way listen, there's a lot of chatter, there's a lot of breaking news but here is the source. here is the light. here's the distillation of what is truth and what is fact. because, yeah, it's incredibly empowering to give everyone a megaphone but you're also giving everyone a megaphone. it's that we will -- and i know eric was talking about this with regard to boston we will do everything we can to curb it on the platform. the challenge is, you know, that was seen by maybe 50 people until a reporter tweeted about it. he writes for because feed and -- buzz feed and it spread and like i said, what do we do? we can try to exercise sort of and encourage the most discipline we can but at the same time this is a bigger

problem than just the technology. >> rose: the title of this is "without their permission. >> how the 21st century will be made not managed." that's sort of obvious, isn't it? don't we make our times? isn't that what happens rather than manage them? >> you know, the thinking i had was so much of value in previous centuries was created by people who can manage resources. people who had access to factories, who had access to capital who could hire labor and do all this stuff. that left out a lot of people. it is made it difficult to have an impact. it wasn't impossible but it made it harder. while this technology is not a magic wand, what it does enable is you or i to say to someone with a straight face if you have an internet connection and a laptop you can build something from a little apartment that eight years later can have more traffic than the "new york times" in the case of reddit. you can build a platform like twitter. you can build a platform like fill in the blank that has a

tremendous impact. even if you're an artist you can find a way through crowd funding to get your film to fruition, to get your album funded. to do things without necessarily having to get the permission of a gate keeper that historically controlled what was going to get the funding or get the spotlight >> what did you mean when you said all links are created equal? >> i -- and this is a big "if." if we can maintain that neutrality. if we can make sure that any link is just as accessible as any other form of browser than the best ideas can win. if all links are not created equal than it's near impossible for -- for graduates to start something on the same playing field as ny times.com or cnn.com. it's this idea that from software or at least from the software standpoint or the internet end link is just as

accessible so you don't have a tiered kind of system where, oh, if you have the default cable package you can get your google search but if you want yahoo! search or some upstart search that's an extra $30 a month. all of a sudden you ear losing out on whatever part of the market can't afford that percentage and that's what makes the internet great. it means someone can have a great idea and it can spread as equally as any other. >> rose: so is edward snowden a traitor or whistle blower? >> he is a whistle-blower. i think there are -- there were tactical decisions he could have made that would have made it easier for the american public to sympathize with him. i think if he had probably -- even if he had just stopped at the fourth amendment violations that were happening to american citizens that would have been enough. but i still absolutely believe he's a whistle-blower. >> rose: should the government do what? give him am necessary any >> i would like to see that. yes. >> rose: and do you think you

represent the sort of -- that's the majority opinion in the tech community? >> uh-huh. >> rose: it's absolutely the majority opinion and i think polling data seems to show a growing number of americans certainly sympathize with edward snowden. >> rose: what's the most exciting thing you working on now. when youbly sky, what do you do? what do you think about? >> you know, the biggest -- the joys of taking a bus across the country, i have to tell you, it's the best way to do a road trip because you don't have to drive. >> rose: are you going by bus? you and steve? >> it's a bus tour. me and a couple of my good friends, joe and asa. this is the book tour. all these yurts, the reason -- my publisher said this is crazy, no one does book tours like this certainly not five months, why you doing this. certainly not 165 stops and i said because this is what i wish i heard when i was in school. i know our generation -- it's not just for millennials but

there is an incredible opportunity we have here and i know this is in the face of so much student loan debt and uncertain economy. but we have an interesting advantage because we are -- we were in many cases raised online and we have a different kind of fluency than the previous most -- the previous generation and i wanted us to take the most advantage of it. >> rose: well, thank you. the book is called, as i said "without their permission: how the 21st century will be made and not managed." many of us love to see the expression of questions coming from a vast public. and see how good they are, in fact. thank you for coming. >> thank you very much for having me. >> rose: pleasure to have you. thank you for joining us. see you next time.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nightly business report." >> sponsored by the street.com/nvr. turning up the heat as temperatures drop demand for natural gas hits a record. and that could mean higher costs to heat your home. >> it's official. jp morgan gets hit with a $1.7 billion fine. but will the penalty change banker behavior. >> regaining its fizz. why the bulls are piling into shares of coke after a flat performance last year. all that and more on "nightly business report" for tuesday,