♪ -next, a "kqed newsroom" special on local business leaders changing the way we live, work, and connect with our communities.ut -we sento build a resource that connected neighbors to the information that was most relevant to them. -a co-founder talkabout helping neighbor tear down walls online. also, an executive at reddit talks about the challengeshe facingopular online forum. -what we have tried to focus on is, what is the core that makes reddit powerful? and it's that conversation. -plus, we hear how one startup is winning over consumersd by ditching branbels. -millennials don't want to buy the products they grew up with, because those brands were "trust marks," and they lost trust. -and a ceo's mission to makere . -it's very personal, and it's very high-impact. we need to do something about our broken food system. -hello. i'm thuy vu. welcome to a npecial edition of "kqsroom."

on this program, we're re-visiting interviews fr-c our archives with ganging business leaders who are using the web to create and strengthen communities or pioneering new alternatives to staples in our fridge and pantry.as we alsthem about the difficulties silicon valley especially in key hleadership positions., our first conversation is with prakash janakiraman, the co-founder and chief harchitect of nextdoor. the san francisco company allowseighbors to create private networks online to share resources and information about their communities. according to the company, more than 180,000 neighborhoods from the us tourope are using nextdo to share hyperlocal content. and we want to disclose that kqed is a media partner of nextdoor, using its service to deliver content to foubay area cities. welcome. -thanks for having me, thuy. -so, how did the idea for nextdoor come about? -so, about seven years ago, when we first started thcompany, we noticed a trend of social networks

becoming more ubiquitous and mainstream. cebook for your friends. twitter to connect with people with whom you shared interests. and of course linkedin for yo professional network. but we found it sort of strange that there was not a networkco where you coulect with the people right outside your front door -- n yoghbors, the people that were most important to you in your local community -- and so we set out to build a resource that connected neighbo to the information that was most relevant to them, -so, what are some of the most interesting interactions you've seen among neighbors because, you know, i've used it. i've used it to ask for moving boxes when i was moving, and then gave it back n'to other people when i w i posted about them. and there are ceainly a lot of posts i see about missing dogs -- and found dogs. but there was also someone who found an organ donor. -yeah, that's right. we've seen everything from day-to-day kinds of recommendationsrs that neighxchange with one another for babysitters, plumbers, auto mechanics.bu we've also seen more critical use cases, especially around disasters. for example, in hurricane harvey or the napa wildfires

or theentura county wildfires, we've seen neighbors banding together when the public infrastructure is under a lot of strain, especially 911 or first responders. and in the case of the liver donor, we did see that a neighbor put out a message saying, "hey, one of our neighbors is in the hospital and looking for someone to donate an organ," and we actually found a liver donor within the neighborhood community, if y can imagine that. -extraordinary. -so a wide variety of different use cases. -yeah. but, you know, there are lots of other entities that offer similar services, right? you could do facebook groups. craigslist has a function where you could form a group. there are homegrown forums. why should people use nextdoor? what sets you apart? -so, i think there are ts things that really setart. the first is, when you look at networks like facebook or twitter or some of these other social networks, these are largely platforms for self-expression. they're a place for you to share photos, status updates and really reveal a little bit more about yourself.ne door is purely utility-driven. people are coming to nextdoor to use their neighbors as a resource to help them solve problems.

and the second thing that i think is unique about nextdoor is, everyone that you're interacting with iseach neighborhood geograpd of the neighborhood communitya entity on nextdoor. -how do you verify that they actually live there? -we have a number of different ways that we verifyc do mobile-phone verification. we can do verification via postcard, through the mail, where yokeredeem an invitation that proves that you actually had to go to your mailbox we have a number of different verification mechanisms. and once people are verified, th t increases the level st that they're interacting with people who are actually in their neighborhood,d cilitates a wide variety of more intimate types of exchanges than on these other platforms. cil-and in this world where the internet is so ubiquitous, as you say, there's a concern that people aren't interacting face-to-face more. so, why is a neighborhood social networkecessary? why can't neighbors just go out and say, "hey. hi. i'm your neighbor. let's chat face-to-face. -yeah, i think we are combating a trendn that has bppening in the united states especially over the past 50omears of a decline innity.

in fact, one of the inspiring statistics that we saw when we started the company was that 29% of americans claim to know very few of their neighbors, and 28% of americans claim to know not a single neighbor by name. so you're talking about over half the population wand so, as strange may seem in our kind of modern, technological world, to use an app to facilitate these in-person interactions uain the community, it ay is happening. we feel like our job is best performed when an online interaction on nextdoorof leads to aine interaction. for example, your box story. when you needed boxes, ultimately, you had to go interact with someone for exto exchange the boxes, and now you know a new neighbor in your community. and we see that all the time. -you've also had some growing pains, like many tech compies. there have been some problems with racial profiling. residents s,re posting urgent aleor example, about people of color in their neighborhoods. -. -what have you done to address this?

-yeah, first, we were definitely shocd to see our platform being used in this way. and especially as a bay area native, hearing about communities inakland, where we first became aware of this happening, was a real shock to the system. but we worked together with these communities to re-design our product in a way that i think is almost unprecedented in technology, du where we changed the p. -how did you re-design? -so, a few things that were really importantwe to u, number one, to make people aware of the fact that they were using descriptive text without the context around what actually was suspicious about the activity. so we introduced friction into the posting process to force people to be more specific about the circumstances under which they were postingu not to bly describing people on the characteristics of their race without somewhdditional context as t was suspicious. you know, a person of color riding a bike in a neighborhood is not in and of itself worthy of putting out an urgent alert to all of your neighbo. but if they're casing the neighborhoodor

reaking into cars, now, that's the descriptive text that accompanies it. -so, then, what kds of posts -- how do you regulate something like this? because what about other kinds of posts that other people mafind offensive, maybe concerning gender or religion. where do you draw the line -well, we expect, through our community guidelines, for sort of mandating the social decorum of the communities in which we land this product. so, understanding that we are in 180,000 different neighborhoods he acrossountry, the product takes on a lot of the identity the communities in which you land it. and so there are, in some cases, local, specific issues that need to be discussed, but need to be done with civil discourse in nd. and so our community guidelines, our neighborhood leads, and then we have a support team back at hq that helps when those neighborhood leads feel like they're aittle bit beyond their capability to handle things. -and, in 10 seconds, are you making any money yet?

-we are starting to earn revenue through sponsored posts, native advertising in the feed and in our e-mails, and now. -nextdoor co-founder prakash janakiraman.yo thanso much. -thank you. -turning now from connecting neighborhoods to bringing together millions of people online. imagine a free website where you can find0 more than 100,discussios on pretty much any topic imaginable. welcome to reddi since its launch in 2005, reddit has become the fourth most popul website in the us. each month, hundreds of millions of visitors comment on and post links to various topics, known as subreddits. but with that growth comes challenges. like facebook, twitter, and other social media, reddit is grappling with how to protect frespeech while fighting hate speech and online bullying. here now to talk about all of this is the general counsel and vice president of reddit, melissa tidwell. melissa, nice to have you here. -thanks for having me.di -so, ris one of the most popular websites, not only in the us, but in the world.

yet it doesn't have the same name recognition as, say, youtube or facebook. why do you think that is? -you know, i think it's a couple of things. whewe were about 60 p company and now we're about 400. -that's hypergrowth. -it's a lot of growth. but, you know, in comparison to, sort of, our user growth, we're an incredibly small company. s and so, in terms of us sort, and the brand perception, nt some users are doing iesting things for the world, and some users want to maintain their privacy and have that. -how do you balance reddit users' right to free speech while monitoring and even shutting down hate speech? we-yeah, i mean, i think e having a great conversation today on those questions. i think for reddit, we are focusing on a couple of things as i said, p our growth is growing the company, and growing the functions that we need to have for the company to be successful. so for us, that means we have an actual policy team now that thinks about these things from a big-picture persptive. we have a trust and safety team, which are the enforcers,an that ensure that, as we have policies,

they can enforce at scale. we have the anti-evil engineering team. le-that's what they're cald? anti-evil engineering team? we have the anti-evil -our current name. and so they help us build the tools. -do you thins that social-media sive an obligation to curb hateful cocyent, including conspiheories? -you know, it's a great question. i think for us, as a csepany, what we are foon is ensuring that the conversation is healthy. i think we're at a time where it's importa to have hard conversations, and it's important that, as a platform, we recognize that and facilitate it. it's not okay to allow a small number of voices to short of over-shout what's happening, and that's a hard thing to mage. what we have tried to focus on is, what is the core that makes reddit powerful? and it's that conversation. if there's an article posted about the washington nationals and whether or not they made the playoffs -- is it people shouting ov each other and yelling about the players, or is it people talking about what was awful about them not making i and what they should do about it.

we are trying to encourage those types of behaviors, and we try and do that in differt ways. sometimes that's with our community management team, to reach out to the moderators to say, "hey, yourffonversation has gonehe rails. get your users back on track.w focus t the topic of your community is." -and how do reddit users differ from users of facebook, twitter, or other social media? -i would say, one of the big lessons for me was portance of thinking about the reddit community. come from google to reddit, we do posts on a very consistent basis where we engage with our users. and they're very honest. they give really -- we're almost like politicians. they give us real-time feedback on what they think we're doing right and what they think we're doing wrong. -a-t they're anonymous, too.y'r, so it's just a user name and password that's required create an account and take action. -so, on the one hand, that could be good because if you were talking about sensitive topics, like myou don't want your identity know.hing,

but does staying anonymous also make it easier to bully someone, or trolling? -you know, perhaps it does. but opthink it also allows to sort of stand up. i think on other, real-namis platforms, there's aof, how are your friends gonna react to what you're saying, right? and i think part of the beauty -- wek ave a community called trump supporter, which is, i think, a great community of people who are saying, d "listen,'t agree with everything he says, but i'm here to be a rational voice as to, from a policy perspective, what's actually happening."fa -what abou accounts? facebook has come under fire for allowing fake accounto s or to fan political tensions.fa ar accounts a problem for you as well, and what do you do about it?a -that'eat question. for us as a company, we have voting on our platform, upvoting and downvoting.ur one ofules is that there is not allowed to be vote manipulation. ysso, from our very early we have focused on the integrity of the vote. and that means, for us, looking whether the users r are bots or eal users, fi ensuring that we'rting spam and dealing with those issuest same time, there are good bots.

there are communities who have created bots that will warn you, athe beginning of posting,e rul. so politics, as a community, will say, "we require civil discussi." that is an automated bot,th sog that reminds the users. so i think it's important for us to remember that there are good bots and things b that chelpful to users, and there are bad bots. -let's talk about silicon valley's diversity gap, as wellr prior dit, you spent eight years as an attorney at google. so you've been able to sort of break tough the ranks. but you're a rarity. -mm-hmm. -studies show, government figures show that, in tech companies, the executive it's nearly 70% men.. what can you do to change that and move more women and people of color into positions of tech leadership? -it's definitely a problem in tech, and i think tech is starting to realize that. as a black female executive, one of the very few,

i think a couple of things are really important. number one, it's important that you have the conversation at the execuve level. so, i started at the company. steve huffman, who's our ceo came probably a month or two after i did. and we've had a very open and honestonversation about diversity and the importance of it. -what do you do about it? -you have to acknowledge the issue, and you take steps to address it. i think, for us, as an executive team, our executive team reflects diversity, s and therefore our reporefle. it's not shocking that, as a minority executive, i then have three out of four women who are my leads. it's not shocking that, as a minority executive, it's not shocking that the diversity h of my own team is mre intuitive, because i'm looking for different things. l i king for different perspectives. and we try and talk about that as a company, as to how other teams can sort of think differentlyu you can' search on linkedin. you can't just look for, "iyeed someone who has exac done this at this type of company."

you have to think ou dide the box and do it ferent ways. and so i think it's a problem that's never-ending, and something that you just have to continually work at. -onetep at a time. melissa tidwell, general counsel at reddit. thank you for being with us. -thank you. -moving on now from the way we connect to the way shop. brandless is an e-commerce startup based in san francisco. the so-called anti-brand got its start in 2017 with a mission to offer quality products at a very low cost. their inventory includes a broad range of everyday necessities, from food to beauty products to office supplies, each wh a price tag of $3. kqed's marisa lagos sat down with the ceo of brandless, tina sharkey. -tina, thanks for coming in. -thank you so muchr hav. tina sharkey. -so, everything at brandless is $3, which is very low. tell me what kind of products we're talking about. the whole idea of brandless was to create a simple, organized, edited assortment of the things that you love, from chips to crackers to cookies, you name it.

and then in the essentials -- so, ornic spices or organic all-purpose flours and baking mixes -- as well as personal care -- so luoride-free toothpaste,sent. -was there a particular momen that sorof drove you to create this brand? you've been in business for a while and done a lot of other things that are pretty different from this. -yeah. i would say what's interesting is, it all started with my co-founder. ido leffler and i decided that we actually wanted to change the world together w . and we were both doing lots of other things at the time, but we said, "let's carve out the time and the space to actually figure out what's broken and what we want to fix." i came from building communities. i came from building cmerce and media and direct consumer experiences, all digital. and me came from creating con packaged-goods products. so i said, "what if we were to, like, fuse it and build a community that's based on somethingat bigger than anything that we sell?" -- this whole idea that we could democratize access

to better things at fair prices for everyone. so we set off to do that. -so, how are millennial customers different from, maybe, their parents? -it's so interesting about the millennial consumer, because think of them as first time head-of-household, right? either they're setting up their college dorm room orr hey are setting up thrst apartment or they're having babies. millennial moms see gonna be the largesent of moms. they probably already are. and if they're not, they will be in two seconds. 78% of millennials have said they don't want to buy the products that they grew up with or that their parents used.ha s so interesting to me, because i feel like product branding is so ingrained in us. -i know, but it's changing. because today,e brandy don't represent the value system. and i think it's like 67% of americans say -- not just millennials -- they want to shop from athompany that representr values. and so millennials don't want to buy the products they grew up with because those brands " weust marks," and they lost trust.

so people are turning over their taste. it's millennials, but it's also perennials -- people who are changing their habits, changing their consumption patterns, a social capitalist. and changing the brands that they want to reach for.-yof i mean, how important is it,pe from a businespective, too, to have a company that's sort of aimed at the broader good? oni know you guys give to programs for feeding folks when youuy something. -yeah, so, we partner with feeding america. there's 41 million people in this country that go hungry every day, and feeding america is the largest hunger-relief organization in this country, with the broadest network of food banks. when you cck out at brandless, we will purchase a meal through feeding america in your honor, because we believe that the whdoing in life is what matters, and we don't wait for givinguesday. every time you can do a tangible act of kindness is just kind of how brandless rolls. so our community is always doing things. and, in fact, as we celebrated our first anniversary, we'd already given away over 1.6 million meals.

-w e. so you have a lot erience as an entrepreneur, an executive. you co-founded ivillag which, at the time, was the largest online community for women. you were president of babycter. how's the business landscape changed as a woman in tech, and business broadly? -you know, it's funny, but i never really identified as a woman or a man in terms of who i was as a leader. i'm tina. and i have my experience. -you know, it's funny, but i never really identified i have my passions. i'm also a mom. i'm alte a friend. i'm also a s i'm lots of things.bu when i show up at work, i'm a leader who's there to build an extraordinary business, and i don't think of it as "is a female-run business. it's a business that fully expresses the commitment p and passion of tple that come to work for us and the moveme that we're building. and so i think the landscape has changed in that having tlet real seat at the t is something that's very, very important, onbecause i represent no my own business experience,

but also my personal experience. and 89% of the purchasing in this country is done by women, so the idea that women wouldn't have a seat at the table for any consumer business -- let alone any business to begin with -- is kind of crazy. but i don't think about it as, "oh, i'm a woman, therefore..." i think "i'm tina, and this is my experience." and"i don't want to be "labe or given an advantage other than my skills, my passion, d what i'm building and executing. eso, what would be your bi piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? -i would say always be your authentic self, because authenticity scales. bring smarter people around you that complement your skill set and complement what you can bring to the table. always make room. in diversity and inclusion, it's nac just about color oror ethnicity. it might be about style. it might be about apprch. and so not everybody has the same approach to things. -right. -but as an entrepreneur, part of your job is to sort of convene a diverse set of voices,

a diverse set of experiences, and a diverse set of opinions, and then surround yourself with people who actually want to stay with you and your movement for the long game. -fabulous. well, tina sharkey, thank you so much for coming in. -thank you for having me.ex -ourceo created method, a line of environment-friendly cleaning products. adam lowry sold method in 2012 and embarked on a new mission to reduce the planet's carbon footprint. his new company is ripple foods, located in emeryville. its flagship product is a non-dairy milk made from peash 's right, peas. all right, so, milk made from peas. why pe? -yeah, that's righ pea milk, eh? -yeah. -you know, peas are highin. and the situation right now is, most alternatives to dairy products are actually pretty bad dairy alternatives. they don't have any protein in them, or have very ttle, and most people agree that they're kind of thin and watery. so by making milk out of peas, we were able to make something really high in protein

but real creamy and delicious. and at the end of the day, that's the way we're gonna get more people to eatealthier, more nutritious, and more sustainable foods. -you're a chemical engineer by traing. you were a climate scientist at one point. -youwhere did the inspiration for this company come from? does your environmental training come into it? -yeah, partially. i think big part of this stor also, is my co-founder, neil renninger, who's a phd biochemist. and he created a wgetientist totally pure protein us. t out of any plant source. and when you do that, it's tasteless. many people don't know that proteins ve no flavor. so if you get really pure protein from plants, you can make foods out of it that are really delicious. and then they are foods that a lot more people will buy and enjoy. -and i think you were also inspired by this philosophy of trying to cut down on the carbon footprint, right? -mm-hmm. -tell us about that.yo -yeah. i meanmentioned of trying to cut down on the carbon footprint, right? that i do have a background as a climate scientist. that was a long time ago. and that was a big part of the inspiration

for my first business, method, and environmental impact. tl now, fortunately, that's become a much mormainstream idea now. food is even more personal, and has even more impacts on our environment and on our health, of course, than cleaning products, and so that was why i reallys wanted to get into food, beanuse it's very personal,it's. ab need to do something t our broken food system, and we need to do it through foods that are really delicious eople enjoy. -and that don't cause a lot of carbon output, for example, because dairy products and meat products contribute to the carbon footprint. -yeah, exactly. so, dairy is about a quarter of our food carbon footprint, and food's about 30% of o human carbon footprint. that means dairy is about 8% of humanity's carbon footprint. and most of the alternatives are not much better. you know, almond milk, r example, takes a lot of water. -mm-hmm. and i know that this was also the inspiration behind your method cleaning products,

your prior company, you started ,it with your college bud eric ryan, and in the beginning, you were actually making different method formulas your bathtub. -that is correct. yeah, it was sort of the most ironic place you could think of a cleaning-products company being born, which is the bachelor pad of five guys in theimid-20s. -a probably not-so-clean bachelor pad. -it was exactly as clean as you would think it would be. and, yeah, we made the product there. actually used beer pitchers and things like that initially, and we were selling it door-to-door to grocery stores. but now method is actually the largest green cleaning company in the world. -is it really? -mm-hmm. -that's a great silicon valley story, isn't it? but silicon valley has come a long way. it makes amazing products that billions oforeople use around the. but there's also been criticism that silicon valley companies don't do enough to be good corporate citizens for example, on things like housing. what are your thoughts on th? -well, i think in today's environment, you have to have a civic identity

that has a sense of purpose as a company. it's no longer appropriate for a company to just sit on the sidelines. now, what i don't mean is that a company has to be to jusovertly political.ines. there is a difference between politicsnd policy. and i think that businesses have a responsibility to put forward ideas about how thtt can make the world a place, whether that be environmental or whether that be social, e. whatever the issue may and - -do you think silicon valley has done enough on that front? -well, clearly there are some places where silicon valley has some ways to go. i mean, it's the hotbed of innovation. there's a spir creative that's absolutely fantastic. and i thins we've seen some exampere we need to doso i think that's where busineexamining the impactsarea. at a business can have socially and environmentally is really critical, and then being consciory and deliberate aboutg

to do better in those areas. -yeah. and just real quickly, since we're on the topicra of cor social responsibility, this week we saw a number of companies step forward on the gun-control debate, united and delta cutting their discounts for nra members, for example, walmart and dick's sporting goods changing their gun-sales policies. how do you feel about companies taking stands on controversial issues? -yeah, i think it's important for companie to have a point of view, and to share that point of view. and as i said, it can be a little bit oa tricky line when it starts to toe the line into politics, and the sausage-making of politics.th but i don'k it's appropriate anymore to not be involved. i think that trust in societal institutions, trust in business is really at an all-time low, and we need to rebuild that by saying, "hey, this is what we stand for. this is what we think is right and wrong." t and lit. -okay. adam lowry, co-founder and ceo of ripple foods. thanks for being here. -yeah. thas for having me. -and that will do it for us.fo

more of our coverage, go to kqed.org/newsroom. i'm thuy vu. thank you for joining us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

robert: the mueller report looms at home as the president looks abroad. i'mobert costa. welcome to "washington week." the special counsel's report into russian electionls interfee could be completed in week, according to multiple report, but theustice department isn't confirming anything, but what will be released to the public? president trump: that will bey tota up to the new attorney general. robert: and as mr. trump's former attorney prepares to testify before congress, a heeeping story raises questions about president's conduct. plus, president looks to cut a deal with k northean leader kim jong un and seeks a win. president trump: prime minr