Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Best 20170617

Credit policy is being managed. Tim cook holds forth on apples future. Where v is steering the company. Where he is steering the company. We are focusing on Autonomous Systems, and clearly one purpose of Autonomous Systems is self driving cars. Ramy and some of the worlds most influential leaders weigh in on critical issues. Brexit is a decision we have to accept. Stronger gdp is good news. It is unqualified good news. I am very optimistic about about what president mccrone president macron will do. Ramy it is all straight ahead on bloomberg best. Ramy hello and welcome. Im ramy inocencio, and this is bloomberg best, your weekly review of the most important business news, analysis, and interviews from Bloomberg Television around the world. The week started on an anxious note for tech investors as a selloff that began friday continued into monday. Everybodys favorite sector, tech sold off in a big way on friday, leaving the nasdaq to a biggest decline in four weeks. The selloff has spread globally with europe and asian markets tumbling as well. The nasdaq established a new intraday high friday morning at about 10 30 in the morning, prior to the beginning of the selloff into today as well. And even with yesterdays or fridays action and todays action, the nasdaq remains over 13 year to date. This is a pause. Stocks go up and down and thats all we are being reminded of. 27 of the drop over the last couple days is due to apple alone. Google, facebook, microsoft have also made up a big part of it. Only 30 of other stocks in the nasdaq composite are interesting. In our view, what is happening is you have stretched the rubber band too much. Not in terms of valuation or any negative connotations with respect to future earnings, but when you have a sector such as tech that outperforms energy by 35 over a sixmonth period, and when you look at the daytoday correlations of those sectors, and they are almost uniformly inverse, thats the kind of imbalance in the markets that we did not see and we dont see as sustainable. Which is why our view is the technology selloff has a bit further to run. We think you can see tech come off around 10 in aggregate over the course of the summer. U. S. Attorney general Jeff Sessions has emphatically rejected claims that he has colluded with russia, calling these allegations appalling. Addressing the Senate Intelligence committee, he denied speaking to any russian officials about alleged interference in last years election campaign. Jeff sessions i do not have any recollection of meeting or talking with the Russian Ambassador or any other russian officials. He was adamant that he had no place of collusion, communication with russian officials. He was pressed on this and to be frank, you are going to hear from this hearing strong criticism coming from democrats that say he did invoke executive privilege. That the president did, because he dodged repeated questions about his own communications with president trump. Republicans are going to say it was pretty much a boring hearing. A shooting at a congressional baseball practice in virginia. Congressman Steve Scalise was among those wounded. The shooter was armed with a rifle. Many reports anywhere from 50 to 100 shots were fired. The shooter came to the baseball field and began firing indiscriminately. Representative scalise was on second base. The Congressional Republicans practicing for the baseball charity game against the democrats. We have a name for the suspect in custody james , hodgkinson. President trump authorities are continuing to investigate the crime. The assailant has died from his injuries. Congressman Steve Scalise, a member of house leadership, was shot and badly wounded. And is now in stable condition at the hospital. This is as united and nonpartisan as you are ever going to see congress gets. We saw a rousing bipartisan Standing Ovations for paul ryan and democratic leader nancy pelosi. It has certainly dialed down the temperature on the hill today. We are not hearing lawmakers go after each other or not hearing a right versus left debate. This is simply a think members of congress realizing on their issues they can intensely , disagree on policy matters, but on this the people who matter will be united. It is not business as usual in washington today after a gunman fired at a baseball practice. But Federal Reserve policymakers will resume there to the meeting as scheduled. Michael as expected, they raised their benchmark rate range by a quarter percentage point to 1. 25 . Also, the dot plot that they take as a rate forecast still sees one more move this year between three or four more next year which would put the feds , funds rate target at a median of 2. 1 by the end of 2018. Here are the three takeaways we want to highlight. The fed laying out its Balance Sheet rolloff planned for later in 2017. The median stays, and inflation estimates revised down a little bit with the fed saying it is monitoring inflation developments closely. Janet yellen our decision to make another gradual reduction in the amount of accommodation reflects the progress the economy has made and is expected to make. This is relatively hawkish on a day when earlier this morning in the United States, first they release the cpi report, which was very soft. And then the Commerce Department released the retail sales, which was also soft. It was amazing that the fomc basically glossed over both of those readings. There was no reference to the retail sales data. Sterling spiking higher and reversing overnight losses as a hawkish boe vote surprised traders, 53. The bank kept the Interest Rate at 0. 25 . Corporate bond purchases at 10 billion. It looks a bit odd given the data news to my mind. It is surprising to me. I was expecting a 71 vote, so this is a hawkish surprise. The key thing is the three dissents were a surprise, but all three of these are the external members of the mpc. They are not the core members of the group. My expectation is carney they will be inclined to work through this, but it does illustrate in realtime the complications of stagflation for a central bank. The bank of japan has maintained its monetary stimulus program, saying improving private consumption will improve the growing economy. The board voted 72. Its inflation target remains elusive. Just like for many Central Banks around the world. It is really no drama kuroda here in japan. They just want to keep everything steady, that is because ultimately, Economic Conditions are good. They are improving modestly. There is neither a sign of a big boom coming, so no risk of any bubbles anywhere. At the same time, you do have a situation where price pressures are few and far in between. So for the bank of japan, it is very much steady as she goes. The boj did change one thing. That was its conception of that assessment of consumption. How important was that reassessment on Household Consumption . The comments are very encouraging. What we are seeing in japan is very interesting and we are seeing other countries in the moment, the economy is doing well. We have had five quarters of growth. We are on our way to a sixth quarter. But we had this persistent problem with inflation. That is the cold core of the boj at the moment. So, we need to see more happening there. The real problem is there is a disconnect happening and what we are seeing is Economic Growth looking not too bad. So, this has been a big week for Monetary Policy, and it has been a critical we can Global Politics as well. Later, we will recap the maneuvers for theresa may after the u. K. Election and the bloomberg scoop explores the scope of election hacking. Plus, emily changs exclusive interview with tim cook and Brian Moynihan on diversity in the workplace. Up next executives making the , wrong kind of headlines. The ge era ends and more tumult at the top four uber. We dont understand how the company is going to run when they have to invest on autonomous cars. Who makes that decision . Ramy this is bloomberg. Ramy this is bloomberg best. Im ramy inocencio. Lets continue our global tour of the weeks top business stories with an unexpected executive shakeup at ge. The change out of the top of general electric, they said tim announcing Health Care Head John Slattery what assume the role of chief executive. Explain the timing of this decision. The timing is a surprise. This was likely, or increasingly likely now that trion have stepped up pressure on ge. Their original position when they bought the stock was, we like the plan and we are leaving them alone. However, after several years with a weak stock, they decided, you know, we are going to step it up. Jonathan what does flannery bring to the table . He is a 30 year veteran. What is he going to add to this party . There are certainly some ge investors that are disappointed. There was sort of this feeling that ge needed an outside ceo, or a ge alumnus that worked on other companies and worked nonge experience. Thinking about shaking up this institutional giant. But, you know, flannery is probably the best of the insider candidates, and he has a track record as a dealmaker. Uber founder and ceo travis calenick taking a leave of absence without disclosing a return date. In the interim, the company will be made by a Management Committee as it tries to navigate a wave of scandals. The board will diminish his role once he comes back by giving some of the ceos Job Responsibilities to a chief operating officer, a position in which uber has been actively recruiting, but has yet to fill. We have heard it will be three months, now it has been described as indefinite. We do not understand how the Management Committee will run when they have to decide how much money to invest on autonomous cars. Who makes that decision . That is not clear. Some of that will go to the board, but i think a lot of people are waiting on this chief operating officer. It who has become this mystical figure in the uber world. However that person is they need , him to make key decisions. I think its sort of a Holding Pattern in truth, until they find that person. Vonnie amazon is agreeing to buy whole foods for 13. 7 billion. This is the most challenging acquisition that amazon has ever done. This is, as i understand it, an asset that is in decline, seven straight quarters of declining samestore sales. A pioneer in organic foods in a world now where you can walk out of your Office Building and get organic foods everywhere. Theyre competing with everyone. So whole foods needs a makeover. Amazon will ultimately have to remake its supply chain. Bring in the benefits of amazon prime into those stores, and turn those into supply chain nodes. It has work to do. It was a surprising deal to me. Its an enormous deal, but it does not come as a complete surprise. First they told us that amazon was exploring this deal last fall and it did not quite go through, but then, after we saw a lot of trial and tribulations at whole foods, that is when it seems that amazon started renegotiating these talks with whole foods. Mark what are you thinking if you are a bricks and mortar retailer today . You are very worried because you have had the physical locations that it in your primary defense against amazon. Amazon is basically going to keep gobbling and gobbling market share as it gets more and more of your spend. Just think of all the other things it can do if it is engaging customers on a weekly basis in physical stores . Mark Deutsche Banks new proposal to help pay for fines of misconduct has a german lender offering to pay former Management Board members a portion of their suspended bonuses in exchange for a group of exBoard Members to forfeit their claim. What they are saying, look, you can keep your unvested bonuses when they vest, but we will take way most of your suspended bonuses. And that will be what they call a voluntary financial contribution to the back, the bank showing their , willingness to contribute to the bank in difficulties. Mark how is this proposal being met then by former Board Members . Its not entirely clear. There are 11 of them. Its not clear how many oppose it and how many would like to accept it. But what is clear is given that they can keep your unvested bonus when they vest, but what those with a larger share of suspended bonuses are not as happy as the other growth. By the group. Deutsche bank has announced a new structure for its Investment Banking division, including Capital Markets operations. I am struggling this morning to see how this makes Deutsche Bank an easier organization to understand or run. I absolutely agree with you. Last year, john did what was sensible in bringing together the corporate financial business of this in the trading businesses. They have been woken up. They have been broken up why the previous business owner. It is not quite clear what they want to achieve. They obviously think they will be more efficient. But what i like to understand if this is about cost saving or being more efficient with clients . Is it about going after new segment . Its not clear from what exactly they are hoping to achieve. David the Trump Administration said it would carefully review eral bank regulating can Bank Regulations and get back to us. And yesterday, we got that report in a 150 page document. The administration wants to cut back on the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau and the volker rule, and ease up on those stress tests. I am seeing some of the results and people are enthusiastic. Obviously, one of the things they could all caution is to pay most attention to the things regulators can do without congress because that is always a question mark. There are quite a few things in here that would lighten the regulatory load. , butfor the small banks also for the bigger banks. Things like reducing the roles rules on leverage lending, which issues to make leverage buyouts. That is one of the proposals. The volker rule, easing the way it is enforced and also some things that have not gone into limits on hedge funds and private Equity Ownership by banks. Bank of america put out a report saying the changes around how capital could be measured would allow and those can be done by regulators, would allow regulators to free up 2 trillion on their Balance Sheet. Chinese factories remain resilient in may, showing further signs of resilience in the economy. What is the key takeaway . Resilience is the keyword they use repeatedly of the conference in beijing. The same numbers from 6. 5 april. Growth. We were expecting 6. 4 . So, it is a very fractional beat on that number. Retail sales steady as she goes, 10. 7 . April was 10. 7 . The survey was 10. 7 urban so the consumer is holding up. Urban investment taking a little bit of the dip, 8. 6 , we were expecting 8. 8 . It was 8. 9 the previous month. The imf has raised his 2017 growth estimate for china while cautioning deep reforms are needed to break away from debt to expense. What was behind that decision . We have been seeing the performance of the chinese economy, and there was fairly strong growth in the first quarter. We see strong growth in the rest of the world, which is also helping. We see the Chinese Government providing some support, both through fiscal policy and the way that credit policy was being managed, so we think this is the right forecast. Now, we do expect the economy to slow a little during the course of the year, but we think the 6. 7 forecast is the right one. Ramy you are watching bloomberg best. Im ramy inocencio. Bloombergs emily chang recently found down for an exclusive interview with apples ceo tim cook, and their discussion created a lot of buzz this week. Among the topics, apples ambitions in china and for the first time, cook elaborated on the companys plans in the automotive market. Tim cook i think there is a major disruption looming there. Not only for selfdriving cars, but also the electrification piece. If youve driven an all electric car, its actually a marvelous experience. And it is a marvelous experience not to stop at the filling station, or gas station, whatever you want to call it. Plus, you have ridesharing on top of this, right . So, you have three vectors of change happening generally in the same timeframe. And so, as we look at it, and what we are focusing on publicly is we are focusing on Autonomous Systems. And clearly, one purpose of Autonomous Systems is selfdriving cars. There are others. And we sort of see it as the mother of all ai projects. It is probably one of the most difficult ai projects to work on. And so, autonomy is something that is incredibly exciting for us, and we will see where it takes us. We are not saying from a Product Point of view what we will do. But we are being straightforward that it is a Core Technology that we view is very important. China for us we make our all of our decisions for the longterm. We are not investing for next quarter or next year. We are thinking many, many years out. As i stand back and look at china, i see megatrends there that make china an incredible market. I dont just mean a market to sell in. I also mean a market for Application Developers. We have 1. 5 million Application Developers in china now, closer to 2 million now. It is an incredible marketplace for talent and in terms of the size of the marketplace. And so, the shortterm kinds of economic moves up and down, i do not get too excited about. Emily how realistic is it to expect that double digit growth for apple can continue in china . Jim i did say that we will do better this quarter than we had the last several. That does not mean we are growing double digits, or that we will grow, it means it will be better for a yearoveryear comp than the previous ones. I feel pretty good about that. The iphone 7 is the most popular smartphone in china. Plus is the third most popular in china. Last year, the size of our business was almost 50 billion in greater china. So, we are going to stick at it because i think china is a huge opportunity over time. Ramy still ahead on bloomberg best, we will review some of the weeks most important political developments, including diplomatic drama in the middle east and revelations about russian hacking. Plus, more compelling conversations on Global Business, germanys finance minister says if britain decides not to go through brexit, there will no hard feelings. If they wanted to change that decision, of course, they would find an open door. Ramy this is bloomberg. One of the things i am doing is negotiating with the government a different deal for london, if we can. In the meantime, my message to the world as we are currently open to talent, innovation, and entrepreneurs. One of the reason london is the greatest city in the world is we have been open to people from all different backgrounds, opened a different ideas. That is not going to change. What different deal would you like to see for london . The key thing for us is we want to make sure the government recognizes we need a flexible immigration deal. I appreciate and respect that people in other parts of the country voted to leave the eu. One of the reasons was concern around immigration. Whether it is in their interests or not, parts of the country dont want immigration. London voted to remain in the eu. We need immigration and talent. But also the government has to recognize london contributes hugely to the country in terms of the revenue raised, in terms of Economic Growth, and if we want to carry on being a Success Story that we are, we need to recognize that we need to attract talent. Ramy that was london mayor sadiq khan telling Caroline Hyde that he hopes to arrange a special brexit deal that will meet the Business Needs of his city. With brexit talks scheduled next week, many guests on Bloomberg Television focused on the uncertainty ahead for europe, including the u. K. s future and the ecbs anticipated exit from qe. Lets begin our roundup with matt millers exclusive conversation with german finance minister wolfgang schaeuble. We agreed from the first that brexit is a decision we have to accept. We will minimize the potential damage and maximize the mutual benefit. Matt do you think britain has the ability now to turn that around . Is there a possibility brexit does not even happen . It would not be helpful if we started speculation on what will happen with it. The British Government started brexit. We take the decision as a matter of respect. But if they wanted to change the decision of course, they , would find open doors, but i think it is not very likely. Matt what about if they want more time to negotiate . Garnier has said said the eu is ready, but the u. K. Needs to sort some things out before they really come to the table. It has already been three months since article 50. They still have not started. Can they have some more time . I think the negotiations will now start, and i think they had have agreed before the election that in the first round, they will negotiate the points of brexit, and as soon as that is done, we can do what will be in parallel in the sense of time a regulations, and what will be the further relations between the u. K. After brexit, the Single Market and European Union and so on. Therefore, lets start the negotiation. And we will always come to reasonable decisions, but it is too early right now. Matt dont you have to move in the direction of shared debt responsibility, european bonds . Your spanish counterpart was recently saying it has to happen that way. It seems to be the only way if you really want a deeper, closer europe. If you have seen the former governor of the bank of england robin king, that perspective makes things a little bit more difficult. But my answer has always been and remains we can only risk sharing if we have the instruments to implement common decisions. If you have common risks without common decisions, it is the wrong contraction and you will end in economic disaster. We are still not seeing inflation where we would like it to be. We are still not seeing the criteria we have set for inflation to be sustainable. You need a sense of patience here. How much of a nightmare is stronger gdp on qe . Stronger gdp is unqualified good news. This has been acknowledged. That is why we changed our communication to adapt to the changing reality. It also shows our Monetary Policy measures are working, also jobs that have been created in the eurozone over the last 34 years, a lot of them have been created thanks to the Monetary Policy stance. It is working very well. We have an inflation bonds date, so when it comes to the next steps, we will have to focus on inflation. Why was tapering not discussed last week . It is too early to discuss it. We have to acknowledge the changing reality. We discussed a lot of the economic situation, the prospects of inflation. There was a sense of progress also when it comes to inflation, where in spite of the inflation being revised downwards, if you look carefully at the forecast, you see inflation is less dependent on our Monetary Policy measures, which is one step in the right direction, but not yet quite enough to start discussing tapering. Two and half years ago, i said france would be the next big thing. All my friends in the u. S. Said, john, france, business, that does not make sense. A year and half ago i said france would become the startup nation in europe. People said, i dont think so. It actually is the startup nation in europe. They went from an average of 130 companies being funded by Venture Capital and hightech. Here the last year 262, this year, 486. There is excitement going on here, which the new president is only amplifying further. He will make france an example for europe and the world. He grasps how you take digitization and change the lives of all the citizens. Does he have two areas he has got to address in terms of tax regulation and law, and also the social issues from a labor perspective . Yes. Am i optimistic he will bring the whole country with him . Oh, yes. I just came off stage with three hot startups from europe. You would have thought not only were you in silicon valley, with the three startups, one from france, one israel, one germany, but you would realize how much faster europe is moving than the u. S. In terms of new startups and a generation of jobs from those. I am very optimistic about what president macron will do. I think he will be a very strong leader. You are not allowed to sit on the fence from this. Are you more hopeful for labor market reform in france or tax reform in the United States . I think both of them will happen by the end of the year. Ramy some topics in Global Business are not strictly about the bottom line. Bank of america ceo Brian Moynihan joined us this week to talk about diversity and inclusion, issues that are vital to this company and close to his heart. He sat down with erik schatzker. Erik we hear all kinds of arguments for why banks should hire and promote more women. They make better risk managers, they generate higher returns, they are less greedy. Is that true . [laughter] yet i dont think that is any , good reason. Half the population and half the talent base you are dealing with. All those are interesting sideshows to the real reason, which is are you going to draw talent from one half of the population . If you think youre going to get what you want put any analogies out there if you are an nba draft, you only get to choose from half the people, others get to choose from all the people who will come out , better . You are not going to fare as well. All of those ideas get into believe me, we pay people very well that are male and very well that are female. It is on the job and what they do and how they perform. I think those are all sort of soundbite narratives. The real question is, are you going to draw from 100 of the population in an industry, in a company that is completely dependent upon talent . We only do two things we have very talented people and big machines that we operate in terms of artificial intelligence, data, technology, physical machines like call centers. We dont make things. That talent base, if you dont get from 100 of the population, you are messed up, youre in trouble. Erik have you figured out a way to isolate diversitys impact on the bottom line . Another pet peeve. I dont think that is a relevant question. Are you going to not serve half the customers in the United States . Are you not going to serve females or people of color in various representations . There is no bottom line. When i became for years, people came and tried to justify this economically. Why are you bothering to waste our time trying to justify this economically . I can do math with anybody, but im saying, you dont have to prove to me that half of the population should be excluded from our product services, thought processes, our u. S. Trust executives serving women, our consumer design of products. You can exclude half the population thinking theyre not going to be any good. I know some people take a completely different view. To me, it is the most irrelevant question in the world. Ramy welcome back to bloomberg best. I am ramy inocencio. Lets take a look back at some of the Major Political stories that moved markets this week, starting with u. K. Prime minister theresa mays efforts to shore up support and form a new government after last weeks snap election. Prime minister theresa may could be bracing for a civil war within her own party. This comes after last weeks election. She is facing pressure from lawmakers who hold her responsible from the outcome of the snap election that cost the conservative party their majority in parliament. This comes on the heels of the first meeting with the cabinet since the election. I am keeping a close eye on this door, because this afternoon, theresa may has been holding her cabinet meeting. As you say, leading members of the cabinet have come out and held strong support of her, for example foreign secretary Boris Johnson and brexit secretary david davis, both sharing fairly unequivocal support for the prime minister. U. K. Prime minister theresa may coming under increasing pressure to abandon a hard brexit as she tries to put together a parliamentary deal to stabilize her minority government. How stable is the government of theresa may at this point . She is certainly a lot more stable since the meeting on monday, where she spoke to lawmakers, said, im responsible for this mess and im going to clean it up. There does not seem to be a desire to hold another election anytime soon. Maybe she gets challenged on the leadership front over the summer. That is obviously more likely than another election. For now, there is a bit more stability than there was in the wake of the election. Those talks begin next week. Unease growing over the deadly blaze that devastated a tower block in london. It has highlighted divisions in british society, wealth inequality and frustrations with the political establishment. In the broader u. K. Politics, we still wait for the conversations to take place, or the results of conversations, between the conservative property and the dup. Some news now of the sequencing of the negotiations between the u. K. And europe. Talk to me about that. Certain early concessions from the brits to the europeans. The europeans have argued they want to deal with the divorce first, the financial settlement, what you do with the islands border and the rights of citizens of the eu in britain and british citizens on the continent. They have long said they wanted to discuss that first and then turn to the trade deal that theresa may wants. Theresa may and the conservative government have long said they would prefer to talk trade at the same time as the divorce, discuss the future relationship as a lengthy break up at the same time. Bloomberg reporting now the u. K. Has given way on that and are happy to follow the sequencing advocated by the eu. This concession buys them a bit of time, actually. If they started the talks on monday and spent the first week discussing how to structure the talks, that would have eaten into the time available. This gulf crisis mediator says qatar is ready to understand the concerns of its neighbors and bolster stability in the region. The comments by the Kuwaiti Foreign minister are assigned the weekold dispute between qatar and four arab states led by saudi arabia may be easing. Qatars main benchmark plunging 7 last week, the worst performance since december 2014. What is the latest . It is a statement. It is not the kind of statement that would presage a more wider resolution to the gulf crisis. It is an important step from the kuwaiti side. They have been peacemakers in this process throughout. But we have not heard that much in terms of reaction from the qataris, the united arab emirates. Through one minister asking the question, is this the beginning in which reason and wisdom will prevail . They sure hope so. That quote the minister of state from foreign affairs. What remains to be seen is the role of the United States. We understand Rex Tillerson is on the phone with the deputy crown prince of saudi arabia, but there is nothing tangible to reassure the markets and really be able to chart a path forward. This is about trust, mark. Once trust is broken, it takes some time to rebuild. Lets go to washington and a bloomberg exclusive. We have learned the russian hacking of the 2016 u. S. Election went wider than previously reported. Much wider. People with direct knowledge of the investigation say Electoral Systems of 39 states were hit in the cyber attack. Everybody knew Russian Hackers compromised the dnc databases. Everybody knew Russian Hackers compromised Hillary Clintons campaign emails, because they leaked all of those. What was a lot less clear was how far do these attackers go in trying to compromise actual Voter Registration systems and Campaign Finance systems . Those are critical to function elections. Our story today reported that the federal government, department of Homeland Security flagged at least 39 states where systems were compromised. We consider electoral infrastructure, both Voter Registration databases, which are really key to elections going up without a hitch, and Campaign Finance databases. Greeces creditors have reached an agreement on potential measures to ease the countrys debt burden. This should pay the way for an 8. 5 billion euro trough of emergency aid, possibly granting the nation a return to international Capital Markets. At least that is the hope. Greece did get the 8. 5 billion euro disbursement, what it needs to make the debt obligations due in july, so that box has been ticked. In terms of debt relief, the eurozone finance ministers sought to offer more clarity on greeces future debt path. Outlined possible measures they could take to use its best ease in its burden in the future. Where they stopped short was providing definitive steps. They said those would, the end of the program in mid2018. As you know as well, the big question over all this has been the imfs participation in this bailout. Some think other creditors of the eurozone has been seeking, and the deal they got last night was not enough to ensure the imfs participation. Ramy from the big picture of politics to the laser focus of entrepreneurs. This weeks edition of small to big focuses on brit co, a Digital Media company with Millennial Women its target audience. The co does not stand for company, but for community. The ceo raised 45 million in Venture Capital and is finding success in a very competitive space. She describes her companys journey from small to big. Brit co is a new Media Company that largely reaches Millennial Women and is aimed to inspire, inform, and empower them to be more creative. My path is largely out of tech companies. I worked at google and apple and i started realizing the world of Digital Media is becoming a big trend. I left google at the age of 25, was not married yet and i had saved up enough money to bootstrap my own business for about six months. Ultimately i made enough traction and the rest was history. We have a threelegged pool of revenue. The first is through advertising. We do primarily media advertising, so branded content, experience, and events. We also sell classes online. We have almost 100 courses that women pay for. And the last is our merchandising business. One big challenge over the last 12 months has been the notion of whether or not to put our content natively on distributed platforms, from snapchat to pinterest, facebook and instagram. A lot of platforms will give you more reach further on the rhythm if you are putting content natively on them, but they initially had not built monetization tools. It was a question whether we wanted to sacrifice control. I believe these platforms would get nowhere if they do not have great, quality content, and that they would figure out a way to support people providing the content. That has been paying us. Paying off. We have now reached 125 million uniques a month. We also have 350 growth in revenue bookings yearoveryear. Some of our newer business segments, like online classes, have grown over 300 yearoveryear. We are producing over 100 pieces of content every day and hundreds of videos every month. I think it is so important for a digital brand to have an offline counterpart, especially any brand trying to reach millennials. We started an event called remake four years ago, just a year into the business. Fastforward to today, it is a 15,000 person festival, doubling in size yearoveryear, which is proof it is working and only going to go bigger and better. We know Millennial Women, and we want to create content for them no matter what they are, what theyre listening to, reading, watching, or consuming. Here is what we are looking at. Wcdm. This is one of the many functions on bloomberg. What this helps you figure out is the debt maturity. What you want to do is pick u. S. You go into the debt column, debt distribution, and up is going to pop the maturity profile of a lot of this u. S. Debt. Ramy there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg. We always enjoy showing you our favorites on Bloomberg Television. Maybe they will become your favorites, too. Here is another function. It is quic , it will lead you to our quick takes, where you can get important context and fast insight into timely topics. Here is a quick take from this week. The war in afghanistan was the longest in american history. It officially ended in 2014 when the u. S. And its allies concluded their combat mission, but 13,400 natoled forces, the majority of them americans, are still in the country to support an Afghan Government under siege from the taliban and the newer foe, the Islamic State. If the Coalition Troops leave, the Afghan Military could be defeated by its tenacious enemy. Here is the situation. Since the Afghan Military took over Security Control in 2014, conflict in the country has escalated. The radical Group Islamic state established a presence in the countrys east and has claimed credit for terrorist attacks in the capital kabul. But the larger threat is a resurgent taliban, which has gradually taken over more territory. U. S. Officials are worried that russia may be arming the group. Russia has denied it. Taliban has been helped by the fact that the Afghan Military lacks airpower and has suffered heavy combat losses and desertions. In 2016, civilian casualties rose to almost 11,500, and that the highest level since the u. N. Started tracking. 660,000 people were forced to flee their home. Here is the argument. Some u. S. Officials and lawmakers think it is time to completely withdraw u. S. Troops. They fear getting dragged back into heavy fighting if the kabul government fails. Others say the u. S. Has committed too much to leave and argue that with more help, the Afghan Government can contain the taliban, defeat the Islamic State, and stop a resurgence of the terror group al qaeda, which are provoked the war in the first place by planning the september 11 attacks from afghanistan. Both sides point to iraq. In 2011, the Iraqi Government forced the u. S. Into a total withdrawal. But then the explosive rise of Islamic State prompted a return of u. S. Forces three years later. The iraq experience can stand either as a reminder of the danger of a complete pullout or is the argument for leaving before the bottom completely drops out. Ramy that was just one of the david what propelled you to want to join this company . Brian i always wanted to work for my dad. David did he say you could start at the bottom and work your way up, or could you start at number two . Brian that is what i wanted to happen. David have you ever had problems with your cable . Brian sure. David is it intimidating for the cable repairman to come to your house . Would you fix your tie, please . David well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. Alright. David i dont consider myself a journalist