Good morning, everyone. Im scott mcgrew. We could spend the next ten minutes ask being my first guest about what its like to be a threetime olympic athlete or a network tv commentator or an Airline Pilot but largely were going to stick to venture capital. Bonnie is president of jet blue ven viewture capital. Bonnie flew for jet blue, united and used to fly bill graham to rock n roll concerts as well. Let us start with what in the world you invest in. Is it like anything . Uber . Or is it strictly things that airlines would be interested in . No, actually think of very broadly the travel space. From the moment you think about travel until you come back and say, wow, that was amazing. So those who have flown jet blue know its a great experience. Were thinking how do we expand that experience beyond just the flight . We invest in startups and havent yet invested in Ground Transportation but we have in buses, not uber per se. Even broadly. So air taxis. How might you get around from san jose to San Francisco in two hours. This is everything from the reservation app to the food on an airplane we are a Jetblue Technology venture. So the food, unless theres some technology on how it prepared but also how do we run the airline as a fortune 500 company. We have a startup called gladly weve invested in. We invested in a Weather Company because airlines use weather and so do Insurance Companies and Companies Like that. Its how do you rubn a fortune 500 company as well. Air taxis are essentially flying cars. Thats something people dont think will happen in 15 or 20 years. How do you decide to invest in Something Like that that seems so far away. I know recently in january part of the biggest global series fund for joby aviation. Weve invested with joby for about three years. Its about 40 of what we invest in is relevant today. So gladly, the call center technology, climate yecell whic is the jet blue technology. About 60 of what we do is thinkingion the horizon, two years, five years, seven years. How do we ensure we become relevant. If you were a marriott or hyatt or hilton and eight, nine years ago you had an opportunity to invest in a small startup everybody thought was crazy, air bnb, now its valuation is three, four, five times greater than the market value of those companies. We believe that electric propulsion will fundamentally transform aviation, just like jet propulsion did in the 60s. Its actually much more economical. So Battery Technology is at that stage now, right now as we speak, that a vehicle carrying four people can go 200 miles. In ten, 20 years, maybe 30 customers can go 5 hundr00 mile maybe 30 years it can be the size an of an airbus. We order aircraft ten years in advance, right . So joby, its not that far off. Theyll likely have commercial operations in the United States 2023, 2024. What has been some of the biggest innovations youve invested in and maybe have a tangible relationship with consumers. I think one of the most tangible that customers can point to right now up in about three years ago if you wanted to contact jetblue as a customer, you could go to the airport and talk to a Customer Service representative, you could call 1800jetblue or send an email. Well, my daughter who is 21 would not call 1800 anything. And email . Are you kidding me . Thats for like work and school. She wants to chat, text. We had no capacity to do that. And so we wanted an omni channel solution that would say if i called one day and texted the next and then web chatted, want it all into one holistic view and there was nobody that did that. So nobody that a Large Company could go to to another Large Company. You know, there are these Large Companies but they didnt want to do it but startup does. Airlines are a bit like banks to me as a consumer. You all offer checking, you all offer atms. Airlines are the same way. Youre using the same equipment at the same city at basically the same price. So those little extras, they have such an easytouse app or i really enjoy their Entertainment System is about all there is. Thats the differentiator. Now can you chat and text and it goes right to our agent. And it human. Its not a box. So how can we bring that humanness there while at the same time making the technology some people, you go to the airport, you want to cruise through, you want a shorter line so were looking for technology to get you through the tsa line quicker, were building that to make your life you relax when you get on the plane. The most stressful is getting to it. How do we reduce that stress and in destination, how do we make you happy . Maybe well serve up some great activities for to you do . If these things work out, would you give them to other airlines . We are good investors. Good investors would never fence off the startup. Were still a pretty Small Airline relative to some of the larger ones. Some of those other airlines, larger ones, they subscribe to our newsletter. They know when were doing investment and they go in and no whats happening. Jetblue has been really innovate i, from the nba starts to capitol one, everybody seems to be to be getting into venture capit capital. How would you counter that its too much . Startups will be from a tiny startup to world beaters in years. If youre not in early, youre going to miss the boat. Its a business imperative to be in early. Some of the companies are coming in without venture experience and maybe make bad investments. So we are structured as a venture firm and corporate and we really follow all practices and then we have a good operating side as well. The venture firm will say, okay, this is a smart investment and i have a venture ready productiproduction. I want to pivot a little bit, a pilot for jet blue as well, just as something you do occasionally to keep yourself currentwhat is it you enjoy about being an Airline Pilot . I actually learned to fly here in the bay area. I used to teach flying many, many years ago. Do you feel it gives you an edge . With jet blue, our leadership is very engaged with frontline crew mels. So we always need to be out on the operation. For me rather than standing in a lobby and helping customers with tickets, i can fly airplanes and it gives me that insight, some of our operational tul aal tool see how it would be relevant because im also a pilot. And you were in the olympics, a luger and a bob sledder. A pilot, bob sledder and a luger. What kind of personality does it take to do it . People think that risk is in my blood but its actually the opposite. You do not want a pilot thats going to tack rke risks and as olympic athletes you dont want to take risks and get injured. Its knowing precision, following standard protocol and that works for both. Bonnie simi is with jetblue venture technologies as well as a pilot. Appreciate you being with us. Up next, Corporate America is plastering players with ads. Well talk about the San Jose Earthquakes about their advertisements right after these advertisements. Welcome back. I have to admit this news item got past me without me noticing. The Golden State Warriors have added a patch to their uniform to advise for ra kuten. Apparently theyre paying 20 million for that patch, one of the first advertisements to make it on to an athletic jersey. And the soccer Team Announced its responsible ethe inter medi. We provide a suite of services, a business phone system, email, video conferenci conferenci conferencing. There i am, im at the earthquakes, i got my popcorn and my beer, im thinking what i need is a intermedia cloud. Really . Yeah. Everyone uses our products and competitors. Remember Manchester Union ooted used to have aig on the front of theirs. I didnt know what it was until the bailout. People wont know what intermedia is necessarily. It says cloud communication. We have 125,000 businesses and the country that use our product. Our name is not that well known. We sell mostly through partners, i. T. Firms. In this competitive market where we have the companies we compete with spending so much on sales and marketing, we thought it was time at our size, about a quarter billion Dollar Revenue Company that we gain some brand awareness. Why soccer as opposed to an f1 team, nba, maybe just increasing your ad revenue, your ad buying . Soccer is the Fastest Growing sport in the u. S. It the most popular sport in the world. Soccer is the third most attended sports event. The top two are football and baseball. They have more attendees than basketball or hockey, more than the nba, which is surprising to them. And the fan base has a huge attachment to their team. Its an emotional attachment. And they actually are more proud if there is a sponsor on the jersey. It may be counterintuitive but that is part of the culture of the soccer fan. Whats the end game for you guys . An industry source i spoke to about the nba was saying that brought in 175 million for the week but from the sponsors perspective, how are you hoping to benefit from that . As i mentioned, we sell mostly through partners and our brand is not that well known because the partners brand is out there. But our partners were telling us we need help, we need the brand to be better known. Already just since the very first game, they had they sold out of jerseys at the stadium. And every person who wears a jersey on the street is wearing int intermedia as thats right. The quakes were down 21 and with no time left there was a penalty kick and scored a goal, tied the game, front page of the sports section of the paper, there you have it intermedia cloud industries, there you have it. Was there a lot of competition for this particular space . To be the jersey sponsor, sure. There are Many Companies that would like do it. The quakes, like other Major League Soccer teams, theyre very discriminating about who theyre going to put on the jersey. Its a longterm relationship. You become part of the family. We do feel like part of the quakes family. I flipped the coin to start off the first game, we had all of our employees at the game, our partners and customers were there. The players know us. It really is a family type of event. It n its not just the quakes. I believe its through Major League Soccer. Does this mean youll connect with some of the players and put them on your media for social media and things like that . Absolutely. Part of being a sponsor is to leverage the following of these players. The coach, world cup player from argentina, top coach from mexico, hes probably the number one coach in Major League Soccer and by far has the strongest social media following. Every time hes posting, hes posting shots of his players in the game and there will be intermedia cloud association as well. Particularly with the jerseys people wear so proudly, i guess you grow used to it in a way i would be deeply disturbed if my chicago cubs had something written across the front. But if it said miller beer or Something Like that, i would be upset but in a way with somehow with soccer it blends in or maybe im just used to it. Soccer fans kind of expect that. They want that. People tend to wear a soccer jersey in their daily lives as opposed to wearing an nba jersey. The nba jerseys first of all dont have sleeves. Second, the sponsors, its a pretty small logo on an nba jersey. But this all started in the premier leagues in europe where they had the sponsorship. Its just become very common place. Now its extended to Major League Soccer. The fans expect if a team does not have a good sponsor, theyre disappointed. That loses emotional attachment. Ive got just time to say goodbye. Mike golden, tell me one more time what your company does. Inter media cloud communications, we provide a suite of services, your video phone services, video conference, Online Meeting and chatting all in one. Soccer is so much more interesting. Thank you so much, mike. Back in a minute. Welcome back. I want to briefly touch on the storiy of carlos. He is in jail in arizona after being picked up by i. C. E. For trying to cross the border to america. He lives in america, hes a daca recipient, a dreamer. He leaves america because his grandmother is sick, right . Correct. And he comes back only to find out hes not supposed to have left . Thats correct. He didnt know that if he left the country, that you lose your daca writes unfortunately. Hes had issues with mental health. What i wrote about is carlos story illustrates the difficulties that latinos in text, especially Silicon Valley, have had. I had no idea that Daca Recipients cant leave the country and come back. Should he have known that . I think he should have. It was done in a panic. Ill give you that. What i wrote about was that decision, a wrong one, was the culmination of 15 years of struggle, of trying to be a consistent part of the technology industry. He boot straps himself, teaches himself to code and ends up with master degree. He won a coding marathon a month maf before he was jailed. Hes unbelievably talented. A few years ago he was commended on the floor of congress by senator dick durbin about how talented this guy is. So take that story and show why is this guy not working for google . Why is he not working for uber. Or other dreams. The larger story that i found from my reporting was that theres a lot of people, a lot of latinos in tech that have incredible talents and skills and yet because of sadly Structural Racism in the valley are not getting that opportunity. But there is this opportunity for companies to hire dreamers. It is legal for companies to hire dreamers. Absolutely. Lets assume for a minute, give the benefit of the doubt that it isnt racism and youve documented in some cases it is. Is it so many extra hurdles . Is there anything else we can use to explain why dreamers are getting a tough time in Silicon Valley . I found three reasons why. The first is there is a certain bias where recruiters are financially incentivized because they might not stay. Because they might not stay. Most recruiters look for people that want to stay at least six months and most people that get hired by Technology Companies are people that look like the executives or leaders of the companies. The second thing is that theres not enough Financial Support for the diversity programs in Silicon Valley, even though most of the Technology Companies are very up front and loud about how much they support diversity. But thats not actually the ca case. I urge everyone to read about what jose has written about carlos and latin engineers in general. In the meantime, garcia is new to the show. You are with our Parent Company, nbc news. You came from cnn, right . Correct. And you came from new york. Give us the new york to San Francisco comparison. My favorite subject. Silicon valley is very tech focused. Theres so much fascination around the rest of the company what is happening here. New york is a nexus of so many things, theres music and art and film and text and sports but always a fascination of whats happening in Silicon Valley. Its fascinating to be here on the ground. Do you ever have to travel back and forth . Is it a red eye . A lot of people were bicoastal. We were talking with bonnie who said she worked on the east coast. She might have been my pilot. You got to see the red eye. You take advantage. Nbc is our Parent Company, its your Parent Company as well. It is interesting to watch the washington post, the wall street journal, cnbc, nbc, you know, have hired tech reporters just like mad. I mean, i think these companies are really realizing many of us have been around for many years but are realizing how very, very important this is. For sure. When i relocated here with cnn, that was part of that initial push. Now at nbc i cover media, technology, sports, entertainment, so everything from like kim cook to reid hastings, the things that those 100 most important people in those spaces are talking about. I think it speaks to the fact that this is such an important part of the country that it ripples out and has big implications. Well be back in just a minute. Thats our show for this week. If youre just turning on the television, you missed interesting interviews about airline, sports and the business of both. You can find those interviews and hundreds of past interviews at press here tv. Com. This week i spoke with lowe tony about efforts to invest in women and people of color and poker. That takes an unusual twist. My thanks to my guests. Thank you for making us a part of your sunday morning. Narrator when you see this symbol you know youre watching television that is educational and informational. The more you know on nbc. Narrator today on vets saving pets, marley finds that he has more than just a tummy ache. Dr. Boyd theres no question this is a classic bloat. This dog is really, really lucky to be alive right now. Narrator . A nasty virus puts a puppys life in serious jeopardy. Alicia i really didnt think that she was going to make it. It was a rollercoaster ride. Dr. Bryer i know, im sorry. Narrator and pekinese ping is itching for help from dr. Waisglass. Dr. Waisglass there are serious immune diseases that can look just like a skin infection. Narrator with over 20,000 patients each year, this is one of the busiest emergency animal hospitals in north america, and these are the specialists