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.

you could make a case that john leger's entire persona has been a plan.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 in the air sherman today. thank you very much. following the bread crumbs left by private companies is a daunting task. we will tell you about a new company next on "bloomberg west ." ♪ are lot of public companies filing but private companies are an enigma. datafoxart up called unraveling the mysteries. good to see you. idea of this. it is hard to find out details there.ost businesses out >> it is very difficult. there is not a lot of information out there. are fromh is out there disparate sources. your job was doing what? >> to invest in private companies. >> what was the process to find those companies and figure out what was what and who was which? rex any given morning my manager director says we're are getting into the sector or this company. data centers. which one should we be

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

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

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

hardware side, leger has plans of his own to woo you away from your own data carrier. take a listen. >> you can go on to the website that will be distributed, t-mobile test drive, and you can assign in two day, get a fully loaded iphone 5s with unlimited data plan you can 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. there is no charge, no overage and this is a chance verizon, at&t, have a seven-night stand. cheat on your carrier. >> 11 hours ago, tweeted, at&t, verizon, sprint, almost 2,000 of your customers have signed up to cheat on you already. the idea, you get this phone in the mail. check it out. check out t-mobile's network without going to the trouble of porting your number over, getting a rebate for breaking your contract. so we'll see if this works, but an aggressive move. >> a great marketer. it's very -- a very boring business. suddenly it's not bor

legere is also getting some attention for harsh words he had four rivals at&t and verizon.anies one day be able to print human body parts using 3-d printers? it is an area of growing

single one of the city's unions gave back and i am talking about the ones on the city side of the leger, meaning the non-mta side, the dhr does not directly negotiate the transit operators contract, although we are assisting in trying to bring that contract in before june 30th, pursuant to the charter. however, i would like to point out that the transit operators or the one, and only group whose leadership chose not to reopen and give back in the form of wage concessions when the city was going through the worst of its budget times. and the mta transit operators are also interestingly the only labor group not to have or pay the 7 and a half percent contribution toward their own pensions and in this round of bargaining the last couple of groups that had some small portion left to be the city pick up went to full contribution status and we think that is very important, in addition to the furloughs and the wage referrals the period after 2008, the city also worked closely with our labor partners to overhaul the city's pension system, and the city's retiree, health investing and benefit sys

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

legere is also getting some attention for harsh words he had four rivals at&t and verizon.companies one day be able to print human body parts using 3-d printers? it is an area of growing rese

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

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

tea party did not succeed against lindsey graham, he easily won in south carolina, beating out six leger known challengers including the tea party candidate lee bright. he grabbed 57% of the vote well ahead of bright with 15%. the five others were in single digits. the tea party previously failed to unseat mitch mcconnell and john warner. >> in a unanimous vote, the house approved a bill allowing v.a. patients on long waiting lists to see local doctors for treatment. the v.a. would pay for those doctors visits. this week an audit revealed 57,000 new v.a. applicants have waited three months for an initial appointment. the senate will soon begin debate on a similar package. >> coming up later this hour, the smart phone application being offered to help members of the military make a smoother transition out of the service. >> defense secretary chuck hagel will appear before a house armed services committee to defend the release of taliban prisoners for bowe bergdahl. the swap which was approved by hagel has met with harsh criticism from some members of congress who were not consulted before

legere comes in and tears it up. >> he does.eds more capital. >> you know, everyone is always short american power. one, because there's always a story that maybe their books weren't good. nonsense story. american tower, i can't swear by anybody because it's a crazy time, but i've loved minor tower. but you do not sell a tower stock because there might be a merger because everybody needs the antenna rent space. american tower has been one of my favorites as has sba communications and crown tower. >> other stocks to keep an eye on. opentable is about 65 cents above the bid price. and we've got a lot more activity, of course, we want to get to. first, to bob pisani who is on the floor and he'll bring us up to date on what's moving. >> the important thing right now is all the social media stock res moving on the priceline deal. the russell 2,000 is outperforming. want to put up the two big names this morning. opentable is up, intel is up, as well. they rate the guidance upgrade at morgan stanley. opentable, 103.57. look what's up o

. >> 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