Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20140401

From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Mindy kaling is the star of the Mindy Project. The Comedy Series returns to fox tuesday and has just been renewed for a third season. She is also the shows creator and coexecutive producer. Welcome. Thank you. There is a measure of stardom in this building. A whole lot of young people who work here, busy behind computers and other kinds of machines. When they converge on the floor where i have my studio, you know that Something Special is going on between you and those people. What do you think it is . I am so excited to hear that. What do you represent . I think for young women, particularly minority women, i have the job that i have, it is exciting for them. I try not to think about it too much because i have too many other things to do, but being the first indianamerican woman with your own show, and the show is not particularly about race, it is really exciting to people. I love that. What is it about . What is the show about . It is about being a better person. Someone who is flawed and selfish and boy crazy and is terrified of aging, who is professionally busy and accomplished, but who is fixated on things that are a little bit beneath her intelligence. I know plenty of women who are collegeeducated, doctors, lawyers, professors, who candidly want to get married and they have great lives and have money, and they have great relationships with their friends and want to get married. There is an embarrassment you feel, but it exists. I knew a little bit about you preparing for this conversation. And you know a little bit about me. You seem like a person i would really like to know. We talked about magazine covers and observations about life. I think that is part of what you have. People feel like they are interested in what you say and who you are because there is an authenticity about you. That is very kind of you. That is such a nice compliment. The nicest thing that i hear, and i hear it a lot, women saying they wished that i was their best friend. I wish you were my best friend. I do not hear it from straight men that often. That is very nice to hear. Here is your book is everyone hanging out without me . Here is elle magazine. All of this suggests that you created your own thing and they came to you. I am very proud of the way i have made my way. I do feel my mother was a surgeon and my father is an architect. They grew up in indiana they met in africa and they came here. No people on tv on my side of the family. I was blessed to have parents who loved jerry seinfeld, though cosby, george carlin. I just i really feel this is this will make me sound 1000 years old, but this could only happen in america and i am weirdly patriotic because my parents are immigrants and i feel so unbelievably lucky. It just came from grit. My mother, who is an ob gyn, worked backbreakingly hard to have a career here. I never saw either of my parents growing up because of how hard they worked. I applied that to entertainment and it worked. It makes me feel good about the country because i could not have done this in india. What is the vision for the Mindy Project . I love romantic comedies. What a silly and wonderful about them. Is only, the focus romance and not comedy at all. Now it is about romance and silliness and girls wearing fancy dresses and falling into cakes. Office and am the group of very hard comedy writers which you are one. I believe in hard joke writing. You are in the trenches. To have a show with a female lead and people often say that i am very girly, i take such pride in writing jokes. It is a very oldfashioned thing. It is something that no brooks did. That no brooks did. Did. L brooks what is the hard joke . Not. Will tell you what is coast on attitude and it is irreverent attitude, which is interesting. Me, makes you laugh out loud. A lot of comedies that i watch i am not saying that my show would make you laugh out loud. I think it is funny. I show that sounds like there was a crafted joke. Wellwritten, people know that it has been finely tuned. Seinfeld has said to me, it is not easy. He stopped the show because it was so hard. Nbc wanted to load up the truck and drop money on you. I was writing on Christmas Eve last year, i do not want to be doing that this year. It is hard. Especially when someone is a master of jokes. , he is one of the funniest people ever born. Seinfeld does not let you in at all. He lives or dies by the business of his jokes and they are so good. Where are you in that arc . Show isharacter on the very wild and parties. I am very different from her. Year, she hadst nine boyfriends on the show. Life. Know nine men in my i like that about the character. I am more retiring. Does start an change that . I do not know that i have started. Stardom. I am on the cover of this, but in general do you know, the people would kill to be on the cover of elle magazine . Fashion magazines, they tell you not to smile and you do look much more alluring. Adjectives like a lowering and mysterious, you live your whole life to be told that you are alluring. That is why i like that cover because, while beautiful, it is not a representation of what my personality is like. That is what bj novak said he said, she is a gangster. I love that. What do you think he meant . I do not think you meant this in a bad way. There are some very masculine aspects of my personality. Determined, driven. Decisive. I think people were surprised how decisive i was. E do not see that in women decisiveness without disclaimers. It can seem very curt. Women, i feel of like that might be a good option, although i see both sides of it. I am not like that at all. Seems natural and inspires confidence. In a woman, it can seem brusque. I wish i was not that way. I cannot help it. I am impatient, which is another gangster quality, did you ever see the September Issue . Documentary about anna wintour. They asked her, what makes you a good leader . The timing was perfect. Hesitation, she said my decisiveness. People think she is cold and i bet it is because theyre scared by her certainty. She is one of the great minds. I just interviewed larry page and i think he would say the same thing. I do not let perfect be the enemy of good. I love that. That is a very i want to memorize that so i can justify living that way. Dr. Mindy about lahiri. I love her and i think she is an incredible originally incredibly original character because she is all over the map. She has streaks of libertarianism. I thought of alec baldwin in 30 rock. My character says things like, i do not like that america recycles. She has that kind of energy. She has a conviction of knowing things are correct because she knows that things are correct. Could you make her more interesting . Is it possible to make her more interesting because she is the way she has the background she hasnt looked the way she does . Ask my character could not exist if she was not indian. A thins being played by beautiful blonde woman, you might find it incredibly insufferable. I have the trappings of a marginalized person and that all over theing map things, she is constantly insisting that she is young and hot to everyone. Who smoking hot doctor makes a lot of money, why cant i need anybody . You have this confidence that is so delusional. It is not my fault, it is somebody elses fault. Plucky and people cannot get her down. Here is a clip from the premiere episode coming up on april 1. Get out of here and go do something useful. Cram do you see this . I want you to show me what you did to cliff last night. Show me. This is dumb. Arm i dont know, here and his hand was a bit cupped. On your breast . In that region. I did not sleep with cliff, i slept next to cliff. Nothing major happened . I massaged his jeans. Was he in his genes . Jeans. Cliff might have my hand, but you have my heart. You write the eulogy by yourself. That is her. Tell me about the relationship with danny. Danny is another doctor that works in the office. They had a very adversarial relationship, but over the course of two years has become very friendly and there has been a sexual tension holding building. His character is incredibly strong and confident, very masculine. He is unbelievable. Needd not done a lot of, when i done a lot of comedy when i first approached him. He was in damages laying a soldier in iraq. Playing a soldier in iraq. There is something about his intensity. It was so masculine and so tough, i thought it played very well with my energy. It turned out to be correct because we have good chemistry. All of the cameos, james franco, did they come out of your mind . We are very lucky because it is a dating show and so many of my friends who are writers and creators are men who could be people i dated. Funny andco was so very strange on the show. He is wonderful. Seth rogen. We have a lot of writer performers who play my boyfriend. Does your success represent anything about diversity . Anything about the possibilities of expanding the world of women in comedy . I hope so. Even when i started on the office, and that was nine years ago, there were not that many female lead comedy shows. Several of my favorite shows, like 30 rock, veep. Women,y are they led by they have created their own shows. Minority, i skinned hope there are more women who look like me who have their own shows. Kerry washington on scandal that is a hit show, actually. What do you think of lena dunham . I love her. Love her or the character . On purpose, they character is hard to love. That is a very interesting and selfish character. Because she is an exhibitionist . That has never bothered me. Character, my supremely confident in a way where she does not have the goods to back it up. Lena is a true artist. She is not setting out to do a sitcom. She is setting out to do a show that she likes that happens to be really funny. Sometimes i feel a little old for that show. She is nine years younger than me. I think im in the target audience, that i think the show it is a very frank show. I am on a network show about romance and love. Nudity and sexual situations, i am just the way that i was raised, very shy around it. My parents are not distinguished artists. She grew up in an environment that was much more excepting of accepting of she grew up in manhattan with artist parents. I did not have that same experience. Im not always comfortable watching it, but i love it. Originality, there is nothing like it on television. Originality is the most and port thing on any show. Most important thing on any show. Rod. Is such a lightning whatever you will say about her, no one is doing it and only she can do it. What did you realize that about yourself at an early age ash and you realize that about yourself an early age . I do not know if i looked for it. You guys were talking about essence of funny with dave chapelle. I know this will sound cocky, but there are people who are funny. I felt in my life that when people are drawn to me and my opinions, it has always been the things that are less effortful. To be kind of the new money and i amimmigrants very patriotic and i have this qualities, love comedy, love glitz. All of those things, i am blessed with an original point of view. If i stay true to it and what i really love, people respond to it. There are not a lot of people like me. There are girls who like the show, but it is reaching them and that is one of the nicest things about the show. It is resonating for people who are not the child of indian immigrants. It is is it a logical extension of the office . Mentor,daniels is my brilliant. The type of writers on my show are very similar. I run the room the same way. It is such a different show. That was a mock human trait mockumentary. My show was not at all like that. What is beautiful is beautiful. People have nice clothing, they have money, it is in new york city. I run the room in the same way. I think there is a lot of similarity. You learned what from steve carell . Office, i was number 14 on the call sheet. 13 actors that precede me in importance. Nice,lywood, it is because they openly say things like that. One. Is number when you are number 14 and you are on a show for eight years, you do not have that many lines, so you listen. I am in the long scenes offending every person. Ime of the lines i wrote, wrote 25 episodes of the office. I watched them and it was like going to graduate school. I dont care if you are the least funny person in the world, if you spent eight years with steve carell, he you become funny. I think you pick up comedy cadences. Ms was on that show. By osmosis, how could you not be funny and steve carell is doing that for so long . No one has ever told me i was not confident. I will say what i thought was so great about being an indian woman and being on the show, there were things that steve did that i believe i am straight up copying. Translate as copying. That is one of the great benefits. Is that part of what the see, it is this confidence . You are looking for a relationship and looking for love, but there is a confidence about mindy . That is what young women identify with. They cannot must project they project. T that is the attitude i would like to have. She never gets upset. Many people, every episode, tell her that she is overweight, not acting professionally. The things that typically make women feel less than or powerless, being told they are fat or ugly or too old. He tends not to affect her they tend not to affect her and i love that i can lay that character. She is a little delusional and shield does a lot of terrible things, but that particular sensitivity does not affect her. Mewomen can look to that or because i weirdly, often, i read comments about me i think this comes from my mother. Hyperf my parents were educated. People can tell you you are fat or ugly, what if people tell you you are not smart, that is the worst. It cuts the deepest. They put a premium on education, first of all. That is truly a shameful thing. What do your parents think of all of this . My father delights in it. Racy he does not mind it. My mother would have loved it. She passed away two years ago, but she would have loved it. My mother was unimpressed i almost everything. She loved the office, and she would give me her honest opinion when she did not think it was funny. It could accept my mom was very glamorous and formidable. When she said something to me, she would never tell me a compliment unless it was 100 true. She was one of those people were you believed them inherently. You start wondering if people around you are telling you things you want to hear. Me morethat person for than anybody. She would have loved it. Of wouldve had her list suggestions, but i think she would have really liked it. 2. 8 million followers on twitter. 2. 8 million. Something with great ,rgency and will wanted to have a strong presence in social media . I am 34 and i think i am just a little bit aged out i still think of i am a little suspicious of it and i love twitter, but i think of it as a trifle. I did not have at the time when they could have been important. I got into twitter at age 30 as opposed to age 16. I love it, but it seems like bubblegum to me. To put any importance on social time. Is not a good use of when people submit scripts two point 8 million followers. I guess i am just really funny, charlie. What do youdream, dream . When you think about what might be, what do you think . Is itah oprahlike . While. Wow. That is the problem, i have too many desires. It is a good thing that i am hindu because my desires of what encompass our many more lives than i have right now. I want to much. It is why i cannot stick to a diet because i want to try that and i want to try that. It is the same thing with my career. I look at opera and i think yes, that is pretty amazing. And then i look at woody allen or wes anderson who do not produce anybody elses work. Jj abrams, who does a lot of other peoples works, and directs. Every platform. And i want kids. Person , younger younger versions of me should be around. I do not know how i will do it all. My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach. Sinceave not heard that my mother told me that. It is something older women say. Not something a Young Television actor should say, but i do feel that way. I would love to direct something that i wrote. Ask thank you for coming. Of course, thank you for having me. John feinstein has written about sports for more than 30 years and written well. He is also a radio host and a commentator on the golf channel. His latest book takes us behind the scenes of life in the Minor Leagues of baseball. It is called where nobody knows your name. I am pleased to have him at this table. This is number 30 . 32. What is important to know about Minor League Baseball . You are dealing with guys who are extraordinary baseball players. Sometimes we forget that because we focus on superstars who are making multimillion dollar contracts. The guys at that next level are 100 levels above guys like you and me. I played high school baseball. Just to get to that point where you are in aaa what is the difference between the best of aaa in baseball and the average player in the majors . It is usually one thing. Do you have power in a Major League Ballpark . Can you hit a breaking pitch on the outside corner and take it to the opposite field . If you are a pitcher, can you throw a changeup . It is one small thing, one small weakness. It is an inability to do something at the elite level. Sometimes guys get injured and they do not throw as hard as they used to. Do you remember mark pryor who pitched for the cubs . He was on the mound for that famous game in 2003. I was at a game in Lehigh Valley and he was trying to make it back as a middle relief pitcher. He has had injuries. As he is jogging in from the bullpen, the promotion was whack an intern. It is a box. Two fans take plastic bats and whack the intern. While they are playing that game, in walks mark pryor. No one even sees. Nobody knows your name here no matter who you once were. Not only that, the mode of transportation and the privileges are quite different. There are huge tangible differences. The minimum salary for a majorleague player is 500,000 a year. Most minor leaguers make under 100,000. If you have been around a long time, you might get up around 100,000. In the major leaks, they stay in the four seasons and the rats. They stay in the four seasons and the ritz. Minor leagues, you carry around bags and you have a roommate. The food in a majorleague clubhouse is not that different from the food in a minorleague clubhouse, and it tastes different. What is the average length of a majorleague career . Six, 7, 8robably years. The great one stick around for 15 or 20 years. It is a much longer career than football. What is interesting, the number of guys in their 30s who are still in aaa, who have been to the major leagues briefly, guys heuntered in this book was the mbp m. V. P. In 2002. She tried to get back to the major leagues. He tried to get back to the major leagues. Willis was the rookie of the year with the marlins and he was trying to get back to the major leagues. What percentage of them make it back . Probably one in four or five. Once you make it to aaa, it your chances are one in three. You have to be really good to be drafted. Are their stories of somebody who was in the minors, makes it to the majors and is a huge star . There are guys like that who are late bloomers. They stay in the Minor Leagues for a long time. Mated to the majors early and was an all start, but ended minors, but was released by the pittsburgh pirates. He got signed by the orioles to go to norfolk. Norfolk. T in he got called up to the orioles and he ended up starting in left field. This winter, signed a twoyear contract with washington. That is the kind of hope that keeps guys going. Final four . I know you do not predict who will win. I am always wrong. And you vote with your heart. I still think duke is going to make it. I always have them win because if they do win, it would be great. Who looks strong to you . Give me a sense of what we should look for. You have kentucky comingofage. One game does not mean they are comingofage. I am not buying into kentucky. They finally show the talent that they have. It was a ridiculous draw for wichita state. Immature teen. G, when you recruit one and done players. Mercer. Re that to mercer started five seniors in every single game. They were men and they played like it. He went into the dressing room to congratulate them. Whatever he does, right or wrong, it comes from here. Is his nature, to respect somebody. He is the best loser i have ever met. He is better with dealing out dealing with losing than anybody. How good is yet coaching . He is very good at coaching. I like florida a lot. They have not lost a game all year. Seniors. Four that is a pretty good motivation. They have a wonderful point guard. Really donovan knows how to coach. The book again, where nobody knows your name. Lily cole is a 26yearold former honors graduate of cambridge. She created a website called impossible. Com. It functions as an online social platform that allows users to post their wishes and help fulfill the dreams of others. It launched in may of 2013 at Cambridge University and it makes its u. S. Debut this month. The internet still faces battles over access and control in places like china and the middle east. The nsa faces criticism as it tries to balance respect for internet privacy with its concerns over u. S. Security. Joining lily cole is Jonathan Zittrain and david kirkpatrick. He is also the author of the bestselling book the facebook effect. I am pleased to have all of them here at this table. We begin with lily. Tell me about where this came from and what you hope to achieve . Impossible began as a student idea three years ago. A friend and i were talking about the economy and it was postrecession and we were talking about why it is that when economies falter, societies automatically falter. We all still have the same amount of skills. We were discussing communities and the fact that society is so complicated that it is often very hard to see the opportunities. I grew up in london and i lived in new york. You cannot see the opportunities to move things around. What if there was an internet platform that would do just that . I was in my last year of university and for the next six months, became obsessed with the idea and wondering why something that seemed to be quite simple did not exist. I started to research the concepts of the gift economy and became very inspired by what i continue to recognize as the social value the gift economy might offer. I went on this journey trying to build it. Put this in the context of what is going on in the internet. I can think of two things that connect. Gift economy is a phrase we are hearing a lot lately and it is probably worth dividing it up further into two sections. Those services that allow people who are not normally in the business of selling things to be able to sell or barter. Ridesharing services, lend out your car or a room in your house. That is one thing, but it is an emphasis on economy. I think the kind of stuff lily is talking about is more on the gift side and it has to do with people able to efficiently make connection with one another in a way that is meaningful. They come away happier for having given something. I would put wikipedia in that category. They are pleasantly surprised at just how well it could work and that leads to my second observation, which is much of the internet infrastructure, the real stuff was built along the lines of that second kind of gift economy. The people who designed internet protocol decided not to patent or copyright it. It is probably telling it is much harder to lock down your wifi station than to leave it open. This is a part of the internet and part of the economy which is not transactional. , you want tothing make a contribution. And someone that else does the same to you, you will still get a return. Is this a kinship to kickstart heer . They are doing something they believe this thing they support will do something good. What she is doing has a lot in common with kickstarter. Structurally, they are different. They serve two different purposes. Kickstarterhow disrupts how things can be funded and conventional economics, it empowers people for that process and brings people together for a reason other than transactional reasons. Wouldes me a person who use this and a person who would receive benefit from this. Away people post, it is written like a tweet. The only ground rule, everything is done for free. Thereby it becomes very open. Some people have been using it for advice. Some people have been giving products. What is it you want to do . You went to cambridge ended well. You were a model and you did well. You have had small roles in certain movies. You have created a website. What is it you want to do . I am driven by two things, one is creativity. I am doing a play this summer. And will continue that. And then i have a vein in me that is very socially driven. Environmentally driven. That has been an ongoing process. Impossible relates to some of the work i have done previously through fashion. By working in fashion, i started looking at supply chain issues and trying to speak for the power of transparency and speed to the idea that consumers have a huge impact on the world by the way they spend their money. The idea of voting with your money. I worked at the body shop for a few years without grounding. I also founded a company in the u. K. The point was to try to create a connection between producers and consumers. And may also be because people have decided to treat other peoples interest as their own. Why a platform is generative a can go in any number of directions. , if peoplerections bring to an expectation of something interesting, something unusual, they will meet someone not just i may get a guitar lesson. I will be in some new frame of Human Interaction that is safe and fun and fulfilling, that would be great. It is the general case of couch surfing. Net. People were going to give up their catches for no particular reason . I will go to a foreign country and sleep on someones couch question mark it works to me someones couch . Priming the pump with lily personally, she is in the public eye, she has a good measure of celebrity, a lot of people are fans of hers and they are looking for some way to express their energy. Theou have said that internet is facing a major battle for its sole between it for its soul. The consequence of something becoming so truly global, connecting all of humanity, which becomes a platform of all of the impulses of humanity. Idealism in the forefront. A lot of the things that are embedded in possible in an in my book about facebook, zuckerberg talk to me native american ceremony were all of the members and the communities putting anything they have to this common pool and anyone can take what they need. He felt that facebook was representative of a similar set of impulses by posting your ideas on facebook, you are contributing something to the thatn shared resource people could extract what was good for them. Many people find that very unlike what they see facebook to be today. That kind of idealistic impulse is at the root of a lot of the Big Internet Companies that we see today. Even a company like microsoft has some of it in its dna. We have people like Vladimir Putin playing a role in the world today that is so frightening. Exerciseo able to power in a different way because of this universal form of communication. It can be an instrument of control as well as an instrument of freedom. You wrote a book called the future of the internet and how to stop it. What is it we need to stop . We need to stop of movement that happens when early idealism gives way to a swing of the pendulum towards a form of defensiveness and cynicism because a few bad apples can ruin things. Figuring out what to do when things become important enough to be worth subverting is a puzzle that every successful Generative Technology faces. Wikipedia has to deal with vandals. That is what i worry about for the internet. What starts very good can end up becoming too powerful. Even in our own country, the fact that we have these extraordinarily ambitious companies that have achieved so the same time, we have a government that has chosen to use the internet and, in many peoples opinion, illegally. Those Companies Find it worrisome because it reduces trust in the use of the internet at a very fundamental level. You want to talk about the battle between good and evil, it is right in front of our eyes. I see all of the problems you are talking about. The biggest problem facing the internet is giving as many people on the planet access as possible. The usual suspect firms would happily agree with you because those are markets they want to reach as much as anybody and i agree that is the challenge. We need to keep an eye on when they have access, what is it they will getting access to . An unfiltered internet . With what device will they be accessing . Do you believe a filtered internet is better than no internet . If i am offered a stark choice, you bet i want the filtered internet. I would also rather have it with a box i can hack. And awareness of what the government is doing. To preserve an ecosystem where people are not just faced with that choice. It is up to us to try to produce a full loaf which is why Media Companies should be really engaged with efforts to get there bids out, even if they are filtered on the receiving side. The idea of farmers in africa being able to use the internet to get some kind of sense of where the weather is, it seems forward. Be such a leap this is zuckerbergs top. Roject right now, internet. Org he believes it is a human right for everyone to have access to basic internet services, which eather,nclude w wikipedia, social media. Access to medical. Medical, a lot of these companies are working toward this goal. We have seen markets on their with theme amazing dissemination of cell phones to a surprisingly large amount of people. Index, weresting web talked about the measures of country by country access, how much it is surveyed, and it has a long way to go. This is the 25th anniversary of the web. It does not look a day over 50. Transformative impact how did we ever live without it . I hope we do not have to find out. This is taking stock on bloomberg for monday, march 31, 2014. I am pimm fox. Today we will be speaking to deepak chopra, the theme being well being. I will speak with the author, an expert on wellness. He will discuss politics, business, even love. Plus, the wellbeing of the u. S. Manufacturing sector. And it is monday so my producers wi