or does this go to show that may be tim armstrong should not be in this job after all?it is not the first time that he has put his foot in it. he publicly fired an employee when there were a bunch of other staffers listening to the conference calls as well. the ceo executives that i also he islike rupert murdoch, an outspoken person as well. in fact, as journalists, we like it when ceos are upfront. to learn toas got not talk too much if this is the thing that he wants to avoid in the future. >> when i interviewed tim armstrong, i found him to be a straight shooter. aol, it was over sort of a no-nonsense approach. overall, has he been good for aol? >> he has been. he has turned the company around, improve the advertising, improved it from a creaky dial-up service. they still have 2.5 million people paying to login through telephone for some reason. he transported from that to our premium publishing content play that gets big advertising dollars. has been very upfront and trying to be refreshing in terms of what he is trying to do with the company. in that way, he has de

as tim armstrong it speaks a lot to what kind of ceo he is. with great ceo's do, take a lot of risks theis quick to assess situation but we were not a fad. i think it was hard for him to let us spin bike out. >> he was willing to buy it. you should have known. >> i think it was a good risk that he took another still -- he is still an equity holder in the companies i think it will work out well and long-term. >> what were you able to do that they were not able to do? >> we were able to slow down and focus less on customer acquisition and solve the fundamental problem around engagement. what reason do you have to sign into your page. it's a great page for presenting herself. we had to turn it into something where it's a tool for discovering people interested in you, people you have things in common with and enable you to forge connections with those people. that was our entire focus in 2013. under aol, itk was a product not getting a development focus? >> they give us space to do the development correctly but there were not integration opportuni

tim armstrong is trying. there are better ways to do it. take a look at jim burke, on the tylenol recall, or take a look at massive recalls at mattel more recently where they were handled beautifully by bob eckert. >> is it always better to always come out and say i'm sorry, or are there times when it is best to keep your mouth shut? >> it's never too late to say you're sorry. you have to do it carefully. the big disaster in bopal where thousands of people were killed, the ceo went, said i'm responsible, how can i help and the indian authorities immediately stopped the investigation and said great, you're responsible. they didn't operate it. sometimes an apology if it's careless can backfire. it has to be authentic. you have to be able to show you mean it. some kind of contrition. also, make sure it doesn't happen again. in this case, tim armstrong firing an employee because he was taking a picture on a thousand person call, he has a pattern of doing this. he has to figure out how to correct his conduct. >> this is just about our life, not

>> tim armstrong has apologized in a company wide memo and you and he had a personal conversation. he's the father of three. you believe that to be very sincere. >> yes, do i. >> what more do you want from aol? >> you know, i think aol is actually a company that does strive to take care of its employees and we have generous benefits. but i think that, you know, in the future just with any discussion of health care expenditures which are important and necessary for to us have on a national policy level i think it's legitimate for health care experts to talk about what's appropriate in terms of caring for extreme preemies. given what the costs are and how many people have to do without health care. but, i think in this situation it was certainly not the time or place to have this kind of conversation. you know, we're talking about a company that just posted its best quarterly earning in 12 years. when we have these necessary conversations we approach it with more sensitivity and when we're talking about the dollars and cents we're mindful of the actual human lives that are at stake.

and we invited tim armstrong to appear on this program, but he has declined. let me start off by saying it must be as a new mother myself you must look at her every day and think of the miracle. you write about how you didn't want to name her or connect with her because you didn't think she would live. >> that's true. it was the most traumatic experience that my family has ever gone through. but, i mean seeing her eat her macaroni, see her take her first steps this past week, watching her just fight for every minute of her life in the hospital, i am so grateful for the doctors and nurses who looked after her and i'm grateful for the fact that we had health insurance in a country where a lot of people are not so fortunate and that we were covered in this situation where we experienced something that no one could foresee and there was nothing to do to prevent. >> how did you first hear about tim armstrong's comment? how did that day go down for you? >> i was home taking care of my daughter. i had started getting some emails from my husband, and when i first saw

tim armstrong, chairman and ceo of aol.oomberg "surveillance." ♪ >> good morning, everyone. i am tom keene with scarlet fu and betty liu. gm right now. starting with garlic you on twitter. >> twitter shares are down big time. down as much as 21% earlier after the company reported a first earnings report as a publicly traded company. still losing money, 500 $11 million loss. twice as big as expected. the big story is growth in users. slow down to a 30% increase. hitstock is taking a big this morning. >> it makes you wonder how many will join twitter. green mountain coffee roasters up over 40% in the premarket on news that coca cola, the soft drink giant, will by a 10% stake in the company for $1.25 billion. will help them get into colder drinks. coca-cola will help. >> a big boost. gm. earnings crossed about 10 minutes ago. a big profit missed, but if you act out one-time items, still a big decline. $.67. >> i would suggest a real mess. is duegm cfo says it to restructuring costs and higher taxes. at china headline. non-chin

are they skewering tim armstrong? >> we'll get to that story in a big way in a little bit. >> what's that? >> hold the thought. we'll get to that in a little bit. >>> and we have to talk about -- he's running a business, i'm not sure what he said. i haven't looked at it too close. my point is did "the huffington post" cover what their opener said? >> i don't know. >> okay. there's no right or wrong on this story itself. >> that's what you just said. yes, i do think that. >> well, i know you're going to come down on the side of the -- >> of protecting the individual rights? >> i'm sure that tim armstrong was well intentive in politicking with the way he said. >> i know i have a hard time finding anything he says right in the situation. >> i do know that cvs now has a lot more room for hot pockets and diet pills now that they have cleared out the cigarettes. so they can sell all the stuff -- i think mcdonald's should just stop selling everything at this point in this world. >> i'm shocked that mcdonald's wasn't already

are investors sick of tim armstrong at aol? some employees may be. stock is down today while most of the market is up. as a matter of fact, it's down almost 2.75%. yesterday, he made some very controversial comments regarding obamacare and how the company is paying for extra expenses brought on by troubled pregnancies. julia is live in l.a. tim armstrong is not the only ceo who sometimes says too much but the market is interpreting as what he said was over the line. >> reporter: that's right, sue. tim armstrong explained in a memo to his employees quote, we want to be open and transparent about choices we make and why we are making them. this isn't the first time that tim armstrong has made headlines for potentially outspoken comments. in august, he fired a pactch employee on an internal conference call. he's hardly the only one to spark controversy. a few weeks ago, netflix ceo took a shot at time warner joking that if the ceo of hbo doesn't mind pass word sharing, he shouldn't mind hastings sharing his password which is netflix and an expletive whi

and breaking away from aol before the tim armstrong health care baby scandal.ut.me star tony conrad thinks the online identity site has a much better chance of becoming a top internet brand by standing alone away from aol and its troubles. tony's with us exclusively. plus, the bird about to go the way of the dodo after the creator of the app says he can't handle the truth. truth is, he's too successful? don't despair, fans can still get their hands on the extinct game. we'll she grow how. "countdown to the closing bell" starts right now. liz: good afternoon, everybody. it is the last hour of trading and stocks are trying to move higher at this hour. the nasdaq and the s&p are making it so. one of the most widely held stocks many of you may have your portfolio. the winter chill is freezing the golden arches. the world's largest burger chain joininjoined the department in y retail chains in blaming bad weather in the u.s. costing sales to drop by 3.3% at the u.s. restaurant specifically. restaurants that have been open for at least 30 months. mcdonald's and succe

peel after tim armstrong made this statement regarding health care costs at his company. ershave had two aol two questions -- should somebody who is fiscally in charge of making sure that value is given shareholders, that benefits are available to the company, should that person know about distressed babies and know about extraordinary medical or should he or she not be aware of personal situations like this? guest: i believe there should be an absolute ban on employers knowing anything about employee's health, at least as much is possible. it gets difficult and small businesses but it can be done. the only thing relevant to the employer should be is the person doing the job. that's what's relevant. is doingrong of aol this in a really bad way. all, most of your audience would be surprised to know that pretty much any employer can get your health information whether they are self-insured or not. it's available. it is sold so they can get it. that is incredibly distressing. there are better ways to do this. for example, there are companies that are self-insured like ibm, t

>> this plays into tim armstrong possible content premium publishing strategy.going to help them draw in more users, think of aol as a content destination. i think they want to be a kind of publisher almost. i think there was an element of that to the gravity. >> i thought it was interesting what tim was saying about the content he wants to beef up, including content geared towards women. did you agree with him that there isn't as much out there for women on the internet? >> there was enough out there for everybody. i think his point, which i do agree with, is defined destinations. were you know women are going to want to go. advertisers are always targeting women. >> thank you for joining us. in washington, house republicans are struggling to come up with a strategy to deal with the debt ceiling. time is running out as the deadline moves closer. peter cook has the latest. they cannot agree with what to ask for in return for a debt ceiling increase. they want this trade-off. >> they want to trade-off, but republicans in the house cannot what that asked should be

tim armstrong, no exception.now, msnbc contributor ezra klein, editor in chief of "project x" his new journalistic venture. ezra, since all this press has been around your new venture, i have to ask you, now that you'll be launching a startup within another company, are you going to be taking management advice from tim armstrong and telling people that you're cutting benefits because, you know, two of your fellow employees had sick kids? >> we have extremely good health care benefits in my venture. this is actually an important point, right? box media. aol is orders of magnitude larger. the thing obamacare doesn't really do is affect large companies. there's something obamacare has done that large employers love. it's a huge benefit to them, and the main thing it's done for them is any change they want to make to benefits, they can blame -- >> exactly. >> -- on obamacare. that's a very, very big deal. the 401(k) change that armstrong made has two effects basically. one is the main thing it does, it saves the comp

. >>> speaking of fiks, aol boss tim armstrong trying to fix a pr nightmare. but is that the future of these plans anyway. we'll take a look. >>> and this aol mess is really a battle between shareholders' best interests and employees' best interests. we want to know whether you think companies should take actions more in line with the interests of shareholders or workers? your best tweets @cnbcclosingbell coming up. best interests and employees' [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom. best interests and employees' o. o. but your erectile dysfunction - that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, lik

we of the story on tim armstrong. plus, the obamacare website has problems of its own. has the government messed up yet again? and some wall street analysts say taking a big profit just isn't good enough. what that means for your money. we are watching out for you tonight on "the willis report." ♪ ♪ ♪ gerri: after a public firestorm, tim armstrong apologizes for his distressed baby common and will reverse the cuts to 401k accounts. his comments are resonated. resonating in workplaces all over the country. his problems may just be beginning. with me now is bill from ken who specializes in these work faith issues. so he is saying we are going to dialback the 401k benefits. it is really the fault of two moms that had babies that were distressed. those that had problems that were very expensive. >> what is really distressing is that you have this that people are really hitting the health plan and the pouring where you have to cut benefits and another type of plan, which is a pension plan or a retirement plan, which is more complicated in terms of those responsibilities. the

the ceo, tim armstrong, has reversed himself. we get our report on all of it tonight from nbc's kristen dahlgren. >> reporter: for deanna faye, every day with her daughter is a miracle. little mila was born more than three months premature. >> on her first day we were told we had -- i'm sorry, a one-third chance of her dying before we would ever be able to bring her home. >> reporter: faye's husband works for aol. last week ceo tim armstrong announced in his town hall meeting that it was changing its 401(k) benefits saying in addition to the rising cost of health care it had paid a million each for what he called two distressed babies born to aol staffers. he didn't name the baby, but they knew. >> it was sort of impossible to process that he was talking about my daughter, who was home with me at that time. you know, to hear her labeled a distressed baby. and to me there did sound like the implication that somehow we were greedy consumers of health care benefits, that we had kind of gobbled up more than our share of the pie. >> r

tim armstrong gave employees about delaying company contributions to retirement accounts. he blamed higher health care costs and then said: >> people started asking my husband, you know isn't that your baby that he's talking about? >> reporter: deanna fei's husband works for a.o.l. their daughter meela is a healthy 16-month-old now but she was born four months premature and spent three months in the neonatal intensive care unit. >> the suggestion that her very existence could be called into question and blamed for corporate cost cutting made me really furious. >> reporter: it also angered many at a.o.l. who were disgusted with armstrong's examples and the idea of receiving retirement contributions once a year instead of on payday, delaying a.o.l.'s contributions to employee stock plans would allow it to keep more cash on hand but over time could deny employees better returns. the backlash at a.o.l. was so severe armstrong reversed the policy and called the fei family to apologize. armstrong and a.o.l. declined our request for an interview. in an e-mail to employees, armstr

tim armstrong has foot in mouth syndrome like i have never seen. here he calls on the employee's he will fire in the conference call. >> they think it is a joke if you want to joke around you should pick up your stuff a you believe tod i will be very specific, from experience, put that camera down right now. you are fired. of. you just never hear this because nobody ever does this except possibly tim armstroog. >> it is not the good readers and style to be rate to employees and a public manner i am not an aol shareholder but the italy is in the competitive environment but with government breathing down its back. gerri: broadly i was asking the question how is aol even on the hook? you explained why that babies. >> companies self insured to play all their own medical bills through the administrator. aol s of the folks for premium reinsurance attacks also a new government agency that works on comparative effectiveness so they are real cost that aol will pay. gerri: but aol revenue is up 13% the stock is on fire but yet the employees are not happy. >>

tim armstrong's troubles.he ceo has managed to put his foot in his file for the second time in six months. over the weekend he had to backtrack on a 401(k) policy change. the company said they would match retirement contributions on an annual basis. it was really his comments defending the idea that kickoff employees. he said the company had to save money, because two things happened in 2012, we had two aol'ers that had distressed abies that we had to pay million dollars each to make sure those babies were ok in general. >> there were a few babies that cost them a lot of money. that became an unfortunate aim. as i'm sure you can imagine, it did not sit well with one of those mothers. one wrote a column entitled " my baby and aol's bottom line." it read -- could it have been his mentioning distressed baby? likes the fact that he cited it at all. -->> the fact that he cited it at all. >> could there be a privacy breach? >> i am not an expert there. i think the mother articulated her point in a very convincing wa

. -- tim armstrong announced on a a conference call with employees changes to the 401(k) plans. first, he blamed rising health care costs. he said they were caused by obamacare. >> we would have to actually increased payments per month on health care plans. that is where the balance of that and the obamacare act would happen. there were increases. >> that did not go well according to some employees. then, things got worse. website, to their armstrong went on to blame the cuts on to employees. ressedave birth to "dist babies" that cost the company $1 million each. the public was outraged. so was the staff. away, not apologize right but eventually did and reinstated or one k benefits. employees take no. many businesses, including target and ups, are making big cuts and blami obamacare. who is t this website that broke the news? joining usgain, carrieudoff brnfrom politico. it is now that brbroke your sister news organanization. -- he allbritton sold us wanted to focus on new opportrtunitieand website. what is this? cover new york popolics and medias suessful as politico has covere

cheryl: tim armstrong, a great quarter for you. tim, thank you so much.today, and we can't wait to see what happens in the next quarter for aol. congratulattons. >> thanks, cheryl. cheryl: chairman and ceo of aol, tim armstrong. switching to swg else now, a proposal from the financially-strapped u.s. postal service is gathering support in washington. the plan would have post offices provide banking services. rich edson is live from capitol hill with more on this. rich? >> reporter: well, for years the postal service has been asking for the authority to do other types of business. congress hasn't approved any, but now there is some traction behind allowing them to provide basic banking services, basically, because they need the money. they lost $25 billion over the last three years alone. senator elizabeth warren writing in the huffington post that she supports it. she says we need innovative ways to create pathways for struggling families to build economic curt, and this is an -- security, and this is an idea that falls into that category. quote: the poss

ceo tim armstrong was forced to apologize after blaming the cost-cutting move on obamacare and the medicalsociated with caring for two sick babies of employees. aol had planned to pay company contributions to employees' 401(k) accounts in one lump sum at the end of the year. the company will continue tro matching funds every pay period. >>> "the lego movie" was top at the box office. the toy company sold an estimated $69 million worth of tickets in its debut weekend. "the monuments men" opened in second place following by a police comedy "ride along." >>> dumb starbucks has opened. it's described as parody art according to a new release. iced coffees and lattes are for free. customers lined up for free. the real starbucks, no surprise, is looking into the store. anne-marie? >> you know, a lot of people are in a complete fog before they have their first cup of coffee. maybe some of those people didn't know they were at the a fake starbucks. >> exactly. >> it looks pretty legitimate. >> our money correspondent jill wagner at the new york stock exchange. thank you and welcome. >> thank you, a

aol ceo tim armstrong says he has heard his employees and the internet company will abandon its plan armstrong also personally apologized in a letter to employees for his use of the phrase, distressed babies when talking about high health care costs. >>> shares of aol are up over 40% in the last year but today as you can see, moving slower or lower as the market also moves broadly lower. >>> flying the coupe. the making of the flapping bird viral game removed it from the apple app and google's android stores. flappy bird's developer simply couldn't take it anymore. unverified twitter account showed this tweet. i'm sorry, flappy bird users, 22 hours from now i will take flap by bird down. i can not take it anymore. the free game came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular games to be downloaded of the recently came under fire for its looking similar to the original super mario brothers game from nintendo. not to worry if you downloaded game because you can still play. lori: i think you're consoling yourself, ashley. >>> historic promotion of general motors new female chief bu

tim armstrong apologised for comments made. he said the company was changing his plan because two women with distressed babies were putting up the price. he addressed his mistake: >> armstrong called the two women and apologised personally. one of those women has a child that was born three months premature, her medical bills were in the thousands. >> it was sort of impossible to process that she was talking about my daughter who was home with me at that time. to hear her labelled is a distressed baby and to me there did sound like the implication that somehow we were greedy consumers of health care benefits, that we had gobbled up more than our share of the pie and he had spoken for how bad he feels for causing us this hurt. i accept that. >> after the media outrage the c.e.o. announced aol will keep its 401 plan in place. >> a northern californian company is recalling nearly 9 million pound of meat products. the slaughtered animals were sick and not inspected. lisa bernard reports that some of the meat has been in the food su

. >> a mom's blistering response to aol ceo tim armstrong goes viral after he refers to her child as distressed and the reason he had to cut staff benefits. she's getting a personal apology. i'll talk to her live. >>> plus, women's best friend. a show dog turns into a life saver after detecting his owner's cancer. the doberman and his owner join me live in the studio. he's in town for the big westminster dog show. i'm craig melvin, in for tamron hall. >>> reaction to michael sam's decision to come out, setting up what could be the first time the nfl has had an openly gay player on the field. >> hopefully players will see that they don't judge me by because i'm gay, they see, hey, this is -- this person works hard, can he win us games? can he win us a championship? i can. i'm not afraid of who i am. i'm not afraid to tell the world of who i am. i'm michael sam. i'm a college graduate. i'm african-american. and i'm gay. >> almost immediately the nfl released a statement supporting michael sam's decision, saying, in part, quote, we admire michael sam's honesty and courage. michael is a

tim armstrong cited one reason in particular, two sick babies, born to aol employees.set off a wave of criticism. and now the mother of one of those babies is speaking out. >> to me, there did sound like the implication that somehow we were greedy consumers of health care benefits, that we had kind of gobbled up more than our fair share of the pie. it did feel like a violation of my family's privacy, and it also felt like a complete dehumanization of my daughter. >> the aol ceo has apologized. the company has reinstated its 401(k) plan, or policy, and it should. after all, aol only brought in $2.3 billion in revenue last year. and mr. armstrong earned $12.1 million himself. but still they blamed sick babies for cuts to retirement plans? that is shameful, but it's what we have come to expect from the 1%. one billionaire compared the treatment of the 1% to the holocaust. another said this -- >> the, quote, 1% are being pummelled because it's politically convenient to do so. the 1% work harder. >> the 1% work harder? try telling that to folks working two or even three job

the chief of aol getting heat after slashing benefits, but the ceo tim armstrong blames obamacare and babies. we will talk about that coming up. justin bieber not exactly lying low. see him? hanging out at a club with p . d diddy and prosecutors charge him for felony vand 58ism for the egging attack. we will talk about that coming up. for cross-country, classical. and for jumps, i need something...special. so i use my citi thankyou visa card for music downloads and earn two times the points... plus a little extra inspiration. [ ♪ music plays ] the citi thankyou preferred visa card. earn two times the points on entertainment and dining out with no annual fee. citi, with you every step of the way. . >>> another case of aol ceo trying to put his best foot forward and it lands in his mouthful they are cutting back on the 401(k) benefits and the company calls 2013 the strongest year in a decade. he talked to poppy harlow about the loss and benefits and it was due to the increasing cost of health care partly because of obamacare. he got more specific when he spoke to the employee-wide confe

out.enmosche speaks and tim armstrong came under attack last week when he announced plans to scale backhe company's 401(k) program. it is not the only company trying to change up retirement plans. stay in the loop. ♪ them a a profit of almost $2 billion. the insurance giant also announced a three percent cut in their global workforce. ceo bob benmosche what was behind all of that. we havething more than to continually manage the efficiency and productivity of our government. we spent a lot of time working to move people to lower-cost locations. we have a wonderful relationship with kansas. we are moving people out of some higher cost cities and some offshore as well. when you do that you bring the first wave of people to those locations, keeping the older people in their jobs until we are ready to make a smooth transition. part of this is nothing more than dealing with the jobs that have been going on in parallel. to be able to empower our people more. some of it is just to make sure our employees are empowered and don't have many places to go to get a decision. that is what our clients

the loss is linked to tim armstrong's comment blaming distressed babies to two of his employees. he made the comment during a conference call defending his decision to cut winds. thiarmstrong also blamed obamace for the cuts. >>> professor this all started when aol decided to match a lump sum rather than distribute it throughout the year. what does that mean for workers or parents of sick kids? >> well, the real issue here is not the 401k or the technicals of getting it taken care of. the issue is that the ceo has to convince people of two things. first, that he is competent enough to run the benefits package for the company and the people who work for it. second, that he cares enough about them authentically that they're not going to be thrown under the bus. he has dug a hole and he keepings digging after a while. >> is this bigger than aol. is this a practice sweeping across corporate america? >> i don't think so so. i don't think you would see this in every company or every corporation. i think each of them has to approach the challenges of change in the rapidly changing healt

peel after tim armstrong made this statement regarding health care costs at his company. ershave had two aol two questions -- should somebody who is fiscally in charge of making sure that value is given shareholders, that benefits are available to the company, should that person know about distressed babies and know about extraordinary medical or should he or she not be aware of personal situations like this? guest: i believe there should be an absolute ban on employers knowing anything about employee's health, at least as much is possible. it gets difficult and small businesses but it can be done. the only thing relevant to the employer should be is the person doing the job. that's what's relevant. is doingrong of aol this in a really bad way. all, most of your audience would be surprised to know that pretty much any employer can get your health information whether they are self-insured or not. it's available. it is sold so they can get it. that is incredibly distressing. there are better ways to do this. for example, there are companies that are self-insured like ibm, t

tim armstrong said the blame on benefits could be blamed on parents with children. certainly is. armstrong said two babies cost millions of dollars and changed their major retirement plan. he was forced to bid a hasty retreat and now the mother of one of those babies is speaking out. little mila took her first steps last week, no small feat when her mother didn't know if she'd live to see her first birthday. >> we were told she might not live a week, a month, a day. >> reporter: mila was born four months premature. weighing just 1 pound, 9 ounces, she spent three months in the neonatal intensive care unit fighting for her life. >> one day when her right lung collapsed, one day when she actually stopped breathing, one day when they discovered she had a bleed in her brain. >> reporter: faye's husband working at "the huffington post" which is owned by aol. during an employee town hall meeting armstrong reportedly said we had two aolers distressed babies that were preborn that we paid a million dollar each to make sure the babies were okay. he added those expenses along

tim armstrong is trying to reverse the damage he created over at aol. he is the ceo. they were cutting some of the 401(k) benefit retirements for employees. he said it was down to obamacare and the cost associated with the distressed babies of two employees. there's been a big backlash and said i've listened to what you've got to say and they're reversing those controversial changes. so the guy stood up and said we were wrong, having made initially quite a mistake on this issue. >> fill us in on flappy bird. i'm familiar with angry bird but not flappy bird. >> yeah. you and i should know more about this apparently. i don't either. 50 million downloads already, raking in $50,000 in ad revenue on a daily basis. now the creator is a little-known vietnamese gaming designer, has basically this site and this app. everybody is up in arms saying it is not dodown to legal press just the fame of this game is ruining his simple life as well. he will be developing other games but to give up $50,000 in ad revenues every day is some game. it's a lot of willpower. >> it really is. f

aol's ceo tim armstrong is issuing a back track following a back lash. armstrong made controversial comments last week... citing two high-cost births of "distressed babies" by aol employees as the reason the company needs to cut expenses and would contribute only once a year to employees 401k plans. he also blamed president obama's health care reform. public backlash was swift and severe. "well, he just gave us the hook and it made him look bad -- high costs of births of our employees? that's a healthcare problem, not his problem, so why did he put his foot in his mouth? it was double-dumb" that was car-ee anderson -- a connective behavior expert and a former wall street journal reporter. armstrong issued a memo obtained by reuters to the aol staff over the weekend-- stating: i apologize for my comments. and the company will return to year around matching contributions aol recently reported its best growth in a decade. just as mcdonald's opens its first restaurant in vietnam..comes word the chain is making gains overseas. mcdonald's reported stronger tha

the tim armstrong reversal on aol retirement plans, example of ceos overreaching.icket is the least of your worries, the ski industry prices into oblivion. this is "bloomberg surveillance," live from new york. tuesday, february 18, i am tom keene. joining me, adam johnson and alix steel. robert wolf, founder and ceo of 32 advisors. former chairman and ceo of ubs america, an advisor to the president. good morning. i have a brief for you, starting in the u.k.. inflation cooling in january, slowing to below the 2% target for the first time since november 2009. over to asia, bank of japan ning program after a week gdp report. a: 30 a.m., empire manufacturing, some earnings still struggling out before the bell, coca-cola and duke energy. looks like a beat. after the bell, herbalife and panera. a busy day. companyl go right to news, a possible megamerger in the drug business. close to buying force lavatories actavisbillion -- close to buying force laboratories. am speaking the words, this is now official. i $25 billion, every time screen for revenue growth of theseies in

our first on cnbc, tim armstrong, aol chairman and ceo. good morning. >> how are you doing?e doing better. let's walk through the numbers. i want to understand where all of the money is coming from this quarter. >> sure. the olympics are starting. aol's employees are wishing our politic athletes the best luck, next week in the olympics we had an olympic performance in q4, the best results we put in in the last decade. we had double digit revenue growth and profit growth overall. we announced our sixth consecutive quarter consumer traffic growth overall. if you look at where our business is improving, it's the investments we made a few years ago looking forward which are in video, mobile, programatic advertising. >> real quickly, in terms of percentage, break down where the ad revenue comes from, programatic versus state up banners. >> at a high level, the way to think about our company is basically half of it comes from the display advertising on our owned and operated properties and half of it comes from our network properties. percentages are a little bit off, but at a hig

. >> this remark by aol tim armstrong has employees paver where asking: exactly how much of my private medical information is my employer allowed to see? >> there is a very thin vail between what an employer knows about it's employees health and right to medical. >> under the portability and accountability act. companies can see your information but there are limits. only a handful of trained staff such as hr are allowed to see your details. there must be a firewall to keep the rest of the firm like your boss from seeing your personal information. if information is shared outside the firewall, data that could identify individual employees must be deleted. >> is it good in theory? but challenging to implement. >> companies are not supposed to use your personal medical information for job-related purposes such as firing you. but if you're determined to keep your personal health information private, you had better have deep pockets. >> where we can demand that the healthcare provider not send any information about us on to the health plan or the insurer or the employer. but the trick is,

. >> jeff: aol chief tim armstrong reversed himself this weekend and restored the company's previous 401(k) match policy. armstrong touched off a fire storm last week when he made the cut in the match at aol to the cost to two employees who had given birth to what he called distressed babies. we are joined by cbs news business analyst jill schlesinger. you have followed this closely. what happened? >> aol announced the change to 401(k) match, instead of matching based on every single pay period, they were going to match at the end of the year. this would save them money because any employee who wasn't there by the end of the year would to the get the match. now the reason for the change was according to armstrong, because of these two complicated births for two employees at the firm, as well as an increase of 7.1 million dollars due to obamacare which he didn't really go into detail about, but he said the combination meant that something had to give. and this was the 401(k) match and his mind was going to be the thing this they could pull back. >> jeff: he reversed himself. they will

tim armstrong isn't use today controversy, but you're not going to believe who he's blaming for the risingre in his company. it's a mind-blower next. so ally bank has a raise your rate cd that wothat's correct.a rate. cause i'm really nervous about getting trapped. why's that? uh, mark? go get help! i have my reasons. look, you don't have to feel trapped with our raise your rate cd. if our rate on this cd goes up, yours can too. oh that sounds nice. don't feel trapped with the ally raise your rate cd. your money needs an ally. >> a couple of analysts raising their price targets on expedia. hitting a new high, a huge session up 14%. strong profits at the gap. maybe stuart is there now loading up on new jeans helping the stock at 7%, good earnings there. hey, maybe aol ceo tim armstrong should stay off the conference calls because he's made more controversial comments with thousands of employees listening in. here is a quote, that we had two aolars that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure that the babies were okay in general and those are the

and a conversation with tim armstrong.ill speak with tim armstrong of america online about the challenging path forward for a.o.l. >> all right, fashion, ool school twitter, looking forward to all three conversations. tom, thank you so much. tom keene with "surveillance" in around 20 minutes from now. >> coming up -- daimler delivered as profit surges. we're going to speak to the chairman and c.e.o. about the vehicles. ♪ >> welcome back to "the pulse" live from london on bloomberg tv. >> right, so daimler has delivered and its profits have jumped 45%. that is thanks to popular new mercedes benz models, such as the c.l.a. coup and its revamped s class sedan. the company's chairman and c.e.o., dieter zetsche, jones us now. dr. zetsche, good morning. look, you are really riding the crest of a wave at the moment with some great releases of new cars that are really driving the bottom line. my question is, once we got used to these new cars and sort of the life cycle to evolve a little bit more, can you keep up the momentum? >>

how many are actually exposed as tim armstrong's company clearly is to that lumpiness? always difficult to make generalizations, but if you think about it in terms of categories, to the largest employers, the national account employers, the top 2,000 companies in the united states, they typically will self-insure 100%, or to your point they won't do a stop-loss program because the size and scale of what they have enables them not to do that. conversely if you go to a 500-life employer or below the vast majority of those will always provide some level of reinsurance or catastrophic cover. a lot of the health, wellness, preventive care programs as well as catastrophic care programs are becoming more advanced so we're able to get more moms to full term, so we're able to identify a prediabetic before they become a diabetic, so we're able to get somebody confronting or challenging cancer diagnosis with a center of excellence. and that's the way we actually add value when we work with our employer clients to be able to get the best value for their employees as well and that's

ceo tim armstrong talked about it with betty liu. >> it is $150 billion space. we have almost 20 million --sumers andthe product consumers in that space, and the product, how to get structured. we are going to hang with it and we are big owners of the property, and we're going to work for a closely with them. i was a also one of the things we have been able to do both with hail and the rest of our content robberies as we just purchased gravity, the -- all of these are going to get more personal. >> what is hail going to do that aol could not do? >> hail is very focused on the community aspect of the product, which patch struggled with. we have great editors they're producing a lot of contents, but the focus on the technology for what hail is going to bring to the table, i think they're going to bring a faster way to restructure that product. >> just aa few more -- few more seconds, talk about a tie up with yahoo! >> we are already tied up with yahoo!. >> a further merger perhaps? >> that is above my pay grade. we are focused on turning aol around, and we had an

tim armstrong talked about cutting 401 k benefits at his company.ed two staffers and their babies. >> he later apologized but today one of those mothers wrote this statement. >> more mother's advocates are jumping onboard. we will keep following that. moving onto this celebrity b boxing bout. it has been called off. it has generated strong backlash. he posted this was the wrong person to put in the ring and define celebrity boxing. those are three of the top sht y stories. both those guys need help. saying that you shouldn't been profiting off the back of a teen. >> he should know better. thank you. >> appreciate that. >> it has been over three months since cnn's film "black fish" premiered. first, you will probably know him as a rough and tough patriarch of the orange county chop chopper series. dr. sanja gupta brings us the story. >> there was a time what his future didn't seem so bright. back in the day, i started drinking and getting high and back then you think that stuff is going to go away as you get older. and it gets worse. >> as a younger

s these days and you see this past week tim armstrong being lambasted for some comments he made in a town hall meeting, does it put more pressure on you or do you feel like you've got more eyes watching on you because there has been so much of this kind of news out on c.e.o.'s and they have to be so much more careful about what they say and they have these activist investors on their backs? >> you have to think about your shareholders. if you are doing the right thing for your shareholders, then the activists don't have an issue. if you are doing the right thing for your clients, the clients are happy and if you do the right thing for your shareholders, the shareholders will be happen make sure people work together so the client is getting world-class service and make sure you think about shareholder value and that you are running the company to the point that everyone is satisfied. it's a balancing act. if you become lopsided in any way and the shareholder is not geting a -- getting a fair return -- >> or a little careless even? >> you become careless when you don't listen to your p

. >> it is an about face for ceo tim armstrong. the company is reversing course on the new 401 policy. on a first paycheck basis they would be handed out in lump sum at the end of the year. armstrong had sited obamacare and here is the controversial part. two women who gave birth to distressed babies with more than a million dollars each in medical expenses as the reason for the change. after an employee's backlash and the mother aol reversed course and armstrong apologized. this next story may make your stomach churn, they are recalling 9 million counts of beef because it and i am quoting the usda processed disease and unsound animals and carried out these activities without the benefit of federal inspection. they were processed from last january to january 7th of this year and shipped to stores in california, florida, illinois as well as texas. yahoo is hoping yelp can help improve the search engine local results. they are reporting a partnership between the internet company and on-line review site will help with results. answer