this year and early next year. >> i was in seattle last week and a to spend some quality time with john legeras a lot of fun. i was really struck by and i met a lot of people that had worked with leger for many years going all the way back to global crossing. one of the big takeaways is this was a plan and they had a plan on how to shake up the telecom industry and drug customers to t-mobile. nedonder if they had a plan response. >> you have to imagine they do. this back-and-forth might make things more difficult. if the merger is going forward -- and by alls accounts it is, you put us together, i am sure they do have some sort of thinking here. thee is no question that two of them are pulling the strings and we hear that john leger is going to be the ceo of this company. no doubt he is involved in the discussion. you could make a case that john leger's entire persona has been a plan. from the people i spoke to, used to be a buttoned up guy and he used to wear a suit and be the normal executive. now he dropped after bombs and swears all the time. -- theysona could be uncarrier. the with alec

john legere. back in march, blackberry's c.e.o., john chen said chances of turning around the struggling smartphone maker have risen 80/20. next we will hear from john chen what he thinks about those chances today. >> welcome back to the best of "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. blackberry's turnaround might just be catching on. the first quarter net income rose 127% to $23 million as the company sold some assets. however blackberry still has major challenges on the sale side. revenue fell 69% in the quarter to $966 million. i sat down with blackberry's c.e.o. john chen and asked him what he thinks of his company's turnaround chances now. >> obviously, when i was talking about 80/20 i had the visibility of this quarter. i will stay with that. one interesting thing is that everybody wanted to hang on to these numbers. we are getting a refined state. i think 80/20 is a pretty good number. i don't want to say anything is 100%, but we are fine. we are a viable company. we have strong balance sheets. l

there is no question that deutsche telekom is pulling the strings and we're that john legere will be of this new company so there's no doubt that he is involved in the discussions. he's involved in the strategy and you can make a case that john legere's entire persona has them a plan the last couple of years. a used to be a buttoned up guy and used to wear a suit and be a normal executive. bs and drops f-bom swears all the times of this could be part of his plan. they probably want to make this the un carrier on steroids. love is in the air with alex sherman -- thank you. following the bread crumbs left by private faces a daunting task but it might help investors tracked young companies in real time and we will tell you about a company doing that next on "bloomberg west." ♪ >> welcome back. file of public companies stock chart for private companies are an enigma to use in artificial intelligence to create a database on or hundred thousand companies, data fox unravels the mysteries of private companies. john ott joins me right now. you showed me the company a few weeks ago. outs reall

there is something i like about what john legere is doing. he is driving down prices in the telecom industry, and it could not of happened to a nicer industry. one of the things that has happened since t-mobile decided they would compete, and they started driving their prices, you have seen average revenue per user dropped all over the industry. it drop for at&t, for sprint, and is finally starting to drop for verizon. that is having a really good effect. the problem is, there is another dog whistle in what he said. he said, the duopolists. that is code word for at&t and verizon. they have a merger plan with sprint. t-mobile and sprint would like to merge. what he is saying is, we don't have a chance unless we merge. while he is being all crazy and wearing his pink t-shirt and talking about macklemore, what he is really talking about is we need to merge. we need to reduce competition to increase, addition. it is a questionable strategy. i'm not sure i buy it. >> and he just tweeted, "dear at&t, verizon, and sprint, almost 2000 of your custome

john legere himself. >> we announced the availability of wideband lt in 16 markets in the u.s.lready, which gives you up to 150 megs of speed, that is a 90 minute hd video in three minutes, and in about 107 million people's locations in 15 markets. but what we found was the 6 billion dollars in media spending that the industry is spending on maps, and a cacophony of crazy messages, makes it hard to come through. what we found by listening to our customers is what they said to us is, hey, we love what you're doing, but we would love a chance to test drive. we have a program called test drive. we're offering something called the seven-nightstand. it is the ability to get the iphone 5 s from apple fully loaded and have the experience for week free of charge, no down payment, no cost. we believe that will change the way the industry purchases wireless services. we're quite excited about it. >> what you're doing is is pretty unprecedented. why don't the other carriers do this? >> whether it is no contract or anytime upgrade or international data roaming, people have artificial barri

by the way, later today you can see the entire interview with john leger and emily.ore the competitiveness of the smartphone wars and the saturation in the u.s.? >> my feeling with amazon is if you're going to take share from apple and samsung, you have to come at the market very hard. it is a brutal market. it's overcrowded. is athey came out with conventional smartphone at a conventional praise. my feeling is if you look at amazon, at their heart, they are a retailer. so what they are after is increasing the average transaction for the prime customer as opposed to winning a monster share in the smartphone market. it is not going to take that many phones to get them where they need to be. so should we actually be talking about what happened last night as less of a product rollout and more of a pr battle? >> i think it was a real product rollout. it's competitive, but it's not a share stealer, let's put it that way. >> why not roll out apple or something? app or something? >> he gets them closer to their customers. jeff bezos was saying i want to develop a device for

. >> t-mobile ceo john legere. never minces words, but after that interview, take a listen to what he had to say to the crowd that came to the news unveil. >> every time we do something, people do not tell me, hey, that is a great idea. they say, how were you able to do that? the assumption is, these high and mighty doo-wop list that are raping you for every penny you have, if they could -- doo-wop a if they could do something nice for you, they would. the truth is, they hate you. but did he go too far? >> he tweeted sincere apologies to anyone offended last night. i had a chance to speak with brian greenlee. >> did he go too far? with the word rape yes, that is , a deeply unfunny word. there is something i like about what john legere is doing. he is driving down prices in the telecom industry, and it could not of happened to a nicer industry. one of the things that has happened since t-mobile decided they would compete, and they started driving their prices, you have seen average revenue per user dropped all over

shaking this hour, t-mobile ceo john leger. he didn't want amazon to grab all the headlines about smartphones yesterday so what did he do? he unveiled his latest when. -- latest plan. t-mobile will a you test drive apples latest iphone for seven days. he spoke emily chang. a contractor,is international data roaming, contract freedom him people have artificial barriers in their mind about why it was done the other way. we talked to apple. --the way, this is great apple, the awareness level by customers that t-mobile has the iphone is very low. this is a chance to testdrive our network, test drive and apple iphone if you have it. tomorrow the question is going to be for the other guys, why don't you do this? >> apple isn't usually one to partner. how did the partnership with apple, abou -- come about? >> one of the reasons apple and we are partnering is it is a small update i provide you, emily, t-mobile is the fastest-growing wireless company that exists. way toould like to find be a higher percentage of the business and get the

my buddy, john leger, there at t-mobile, he's got a unique way to dash of communicating with people.e has really taken t-mobile from zero to hero. i think it will increase the network coverage, because when you bring those two behemoths .ogether, it brings the 4g and that is the disruptor. broadband has displaced cable and satellite. i hope it goes through. i think it is great for consumers and will deliver a wider, larger, and better brats brering -- and a better eadth of offering. >> thank you for joining us. coming up, we will take a look at the hospitality industry. you will meet the chief executive of their lodging, a private equity group that specializes in hotel investments. ♪ >> the hospitality industries among the largest employers in the u.s., indeed in the world. its health is vital to the economy. joining me now with a long and successful track record in the hotel, real estate, and travel technologies, the chief executive of fair lodging. think you for being here. understand a to little bit about your background. you started washing dishes. >> i did. i started at a howard

. >> ceo john leger has new ideas how to lure new customers.e a listen. >> you can go on to the website that will be distributed, t-mobile test drive, and you can in two days you will get a fully loaded iphone a 5s, unlimited data plan to use seven days to marvel in the experience of our network. especially for people in new york where you are, and at the end of seven days bring it back to a store. no down payment. no charge. as you say, you put a credit card up. that's only for security. but there is no charge, no overage, and this is a chance for verizon, at&t and sprint customers to, we call it, have a seven-night stand. cheat on your carrier. >> always puts it in romantic terms. we want to know if you, our viewer, would cheat on your carrier. vote now at cnbc.com/vote. he's consistent in trying to get people tempted to do that. >> and he's a very forward-looking ceo, this is very much what hip and cool companies do now. look at warby parker, let's you get six sets of glasses to try, then you keep the one and send back the others or send the

john leger is said to be the top ceo candidate for the combined companies.words between netflix and comcast is escalating. -- verizon is escalating. netflix ifeatened legal action yesterday if they did not stop siding when shows or movies were slow. is holding its annual meeting in arkansas. this is a regular extravaganza of celebrity employers -- performers. the biggest retailer continues to struggle. sales have fallen and questions of its governance. julie hyman is outside the arena. how much of this has come up during the annual meeting? are these questions shareholders are asking? >> very little. it is a discussion around it. one thing that has come up is leadership and corporate governance. there is a measure on the ballot that does not have a chance of going through because of the walton family control. it would make the chairman of the board and independent position. you have all this fanfare inside and some of the talk about the sales slowing down. when it comes to that extravaganza, walmart does pull out all the stops. we had for a williams reformin

. >> interesting, under the leadership of john legere, disrupting in a way that many expected masa son'sprint would but has not. >> that's interesting. dan hessy not being as aggressive or they don't have the capital? >> listen, this is, as i said, capital intensity of this business is great. you never stop spending. and you do need a balance sheet to support that. a decent amount of debt already from sprint. they will be adding more to that. the potential synergies are enormous were it to get by the regulators and that's where you're going to see investors sort of try to wage their bets so to speak. >> i thought american tower would be down. you need fewer towers. some people recommending those stocks have been hot. the stocks are acting as if there is no deal which is extraordinary given the fact that today was in the conventional press as opposed to what you've been saying because you've been way ahead, saying listen, it's going to be done. it seems like everyone has said now, all right, we know. well, we'll be following it from here. another six to eight weeks potentially for a defin