Macau. We will see who is winning and losing at the gaming game. And moreover the next hour. I want to get headlines from my radio cohost phil massar. The hotelowner of reporting losses. Sent marketing documents for potential buyers. The team is not for sale. Of Deutsche Telekom told the rector says see the sale of the table tmobile unit is less likely. The executive appointed pointed to hurdles as to why the sale is less likely. Very constructive, that is how john kerry described talks today in paris in order to resolve the crisis and ukrainian crimea. Showed no signs of leaving crimea and congress is preparing to authorize sanctions. Peter cook has the latest. John kerry says progress was made that but risks remain. He spokewas upbeat as in paris late this afternoon. The comments followed separate talks with not only russia plus foreign minister but ukraines foreign minister. He is talking as well with several of his european counterparts. All part of this effort to resolve the you came ukraine crisis. He suggested progress was made. We agreed today, both sides and the ukrainians also that where better served if this can be resolved through dialogue. That is important. Ukraine, ground in the the special yuan envoy forced to cut short his visit after being threatened by 10 to 15 armed man and ordered to leave the region. He took refuge in a local coffee shop before he did head to the airport and leave the area. In washington, jack lew making the case to congress for 1 billion in loan guarantees for ukraine and immediate financial help. House republicans harnessing to do more than that. Theyre preparing to vote in the coming days on the loan guarantees for one but separately a nonbinding resolution. On russiannctions individuals and banks. Were giving the administration the necessary tools it needs to tell mr. Prudent to stand down. A note of bipartisanship when it comes to ukraine. The senates chris discussing similar legislation. Even in elon musk was talking about russia. He played the russia card in washington. What did the head of tesla motors have to say about russia question mark the situation playing a role. Elon musk was on capitol hill testifying at a hearing on the bid to win more of the governments satellite launch business. Spacex is in is competing. It is a joint venture between lockheed and boeing. He pointed out after the hearing that united launches rockets using engines. We are contemplating sanctions. It does not make sense to reward russia with a huge multihundred Million Dollar contract for rocket engines. That would be inconsistent with policy and now the red thing to do. Sounds crazy to me. Rex united monster line to dismiss mosque. They have blueprints to build their own if needed. Everyone is meeting up beating up on russia including elon musk. You can be sure that there are u. S. Companies and their thing playing out. Those that are doing business pretty nervous about what is being discussed in washington. It seems again ongoing diplomatic aim. Thank you to our washington correspondent peter cook. The risks and the rewards are different. Gaming reporting that they had losses. Tell me about what is going on with boyd. What is up with them specifically . The results are in line with expectations. The take away is that las vegas continues to better their locals business as well as downtown. There is a pretty high margin flow and given some costcutting. That is a key driver for the company. Is everybody benefiting from the change in las vegas . Biggests the beneficiary of the trend. Vegas is Getting Better and we have low supply. Things are looking up. What about the pipeline, tell me where they are spending their money . It looks quite strong. A 2. 9 billion budget up from 2. 6 billion and macau. That is a huge catalyst. The company has won a couple of domestic opportunities. Secondly they will be out a stones throw 10 minutes from the capital. I have been hearing possibility that japan will be changing its gaming laws. That could mean growth for some of the players. Theirrybody has focused attention. We think youre six months away from legislation passing. Your talking two years before they figure out who gets licenses. This is more likely in 2019 or the year 2020. A lot can happen. This is a key economic engine especially in front of the olympics. Tell me what is going on with las vegas. You have to look at what is going on and macau. They have had tremendous runs. Year to date the trends are very strong. Revenue is up 25 . We had a softer january and a very strong february that averaged out. There has been on a beating growth innabating macau. We outperform on las vegas sands. We are cautious on valuation. You see a lot of largecap growth money pile into the stocks and that is what has been driving the more recently. They do not have that International Profile and macau. They went to their big transition and spun out there company. N is more under pressure. They did win a license new boston last week. The company is not bit of a transmission transition mode. We still like it, it isnt in the stance of stock. What about the gaming industry will be a game changer if anything this year . Were focused right now on online gaming. We are turning our attention to california. It is potentially the next jurisdiction to legalize. You can look to them to find some kind of real money play online maybe this year. I do not follow them that closely. They can be one of the entrance in that market. If you look at the math it is a billiondollar poker market in california. A lot of interested parties and a lot of hands in the cookie jar. They have to wait until there some movement on online gaming. What about the companies that exist, do you get the sense that mgm or las vegas sands, they would be willing to get into this business . Him of the Largecap Companies are interested like mgm and you have other folks involved on the Technology SideLike International gaming technology. I would say they are wild card. He is looking to possibly craft legislation. Why is that . I am not sure what motivates his move. His bread is buttered and macau and broader asia. It is not really a game changer from their perspective. Can we describe the situation in las vegas as saying that things are back to normal . It is pretty good. The numbers were above the prior peak. Vegas is still very inexpensive. 18 . Room rates are we want to thank you very the director at credit suisse. And risks in the yogurt business. We will be speaking with the founder of maia yogurt. And Benjamin Netanyahu at 6 p. M. Eastern. Mike my guest has gone from the risky culture of wall street to the risky culture of yogurt. Started aolwell Company Called maia yogurt. Thanks for being here. You were doing structured derivatives at jpmorgan and what happened, did of old a Lightning Strike and he decided i have to go into the agribusiness, how did that happen . Mike cousin was pregnant and she was looking for a solution. This is before greek yogurt became cool so she challenged me to make her a better yogurt and that was it. It was thankless at times. The overtinto business. Did you know how to make yogurt . Well, no. I learned really quickly. I had lots of bad batches. I started on my stove and we worked with some great gary labs and Cornell University and did what we needed to take this to the next level. This involves 100,000 cops are being made each week. Debord. Res selling maia the projected growth is 1000 this year. Where does this all happened, where is yogurt central to maia . North ofufacture harrisburg. We spend as much time in new york and connecticut as possible. How tough was this to get onto the shelves of major retailers, challenging . Very challenging. We are entering a new space and everyone is trying to get in there. We have been embraced by the great retailers. Giantmarket, stop shop, among whole foods has been great. Is it important to know how many calories, how many cap grams of protein . Most important to me and to our customers is the lack of sugar. Sweet greek and we pack it with probiotic so it is a healthier yogurt. We find that people come back to us for that taste because they trust us. Probiotics question mark they are tiny bacteria that go into our intestines and make us feel good. This is for Intestinal Health and for the taste and the pro team. Correct. What is the profile of the market right now in terms of who buys lowfat greek yogurt, is it everybody or is there a segment of the population . Rex it is becoming a popular. It is a great category. It is men, women, children. Everyone is embracing the new lowfat greek yogurt. What is next on the menu . You want to crank up the production in pennsylvania . We are trying every day. Have to get a people who are interested in the same product. How do you compete to get the right kind of milk to make the yogurt . Rex that is tough to we have great farmers and great family farms that we source it from and we make a premium product. Isnt that different making yogurt and selling it to the public as it is structuring derivatives and trying to sell that to investors, which is more challenging . Rex yogurt. Yogurt. When i started by myself i did not know who to lean on. Just this little guy. How many employees . Rex where 10 fulltime and many parttimers who go out there and preach our message create one of the things i keep hearing about is it is less expensive to start a company than it was a quartercentury ago. What has been your experience . Rex intech certainly. When you are dealing with the product am a alive product, it helpt cheap. It requires from everyone. From your family and friends and from your investors. You have to have that constant refrigeration. You have a particular flavor, what is so great about the flavor . Rex they we have eight flavors. Peopleess sweet and love that. What is your favorite . It depends on the day. Several. He is the founder of maia yogurt. Looking to purchase the home a home . Our next guest how do you get that deal . It is next on taking stock. Rex moore judge Mortgage Applications in the u. S. Increased. You can thank a drop in borrowing costs. Homes are more affordable and that means you can refinance your existing mortgage. Help shop for mortgages on line. Loandepot. Eh is from great to have you with me. Explain for people that may not ot whatliar with loandep is this online world of loandepot . We are a retail mortgage lender. Approved lender. We have been in business now a little over four years. What is the reach, you say 50 states but if you want to get a mortgage in one state you want to be looking at a variety of offers for that money. We have a hybrid approach. We have four fulfillment sites that handle all our online customers. We have more than 60 branches throughout the country under brand where we, to your home and give you that type of mortgage advice. If someone were to go to loandepot. Com, what would they find in the trends in Mortgage Interest Rate . Rex the 40 affordable index has shifted. A challengeore of these days. We did see mortgage index climb in the last week or so. Over the last quarter has been a little bit challenging. Inventory is tight and Interest Rates continue to increase. Do you expect that trend to continue, increasing cost for money . Rex a think so. There is not a lot of inventory and were seeing multiple offers in certain markets and that becomes a little bit of a challenge. What about the investors russian mark of those people who timebought, is this the they should be thinking of selling . You have mentioned there is tight inventory. We have seen historical low Interest Rates. Some of the homeowners out there are hanging on to a 30 year Interest Rate with a three percent handle. Many are reluctant to sell. We are starting to see a trend where there could be a situation where there is an accidental investor and homeowners are buying another home by keeping their existing one and renting it. You mentioned home affordability. I wanted to expand a little bit on that because i am wondering whether you will see if you think there are changes to supply that comes on the market. Real estate prices have held steady. We are seeing in certain hotter markets affirming up in the prices, inventory is fairly low and you have rising Interest Rates which means that if you borrow the same amount of money, your Monthly Payment would increase because of rising Interest Rates. When you add that to the fact that real estate prices are going up, not sharply, but they are firm enough, both of those add to a significant higher Monthly Payment. Does this mean that the Mortgage Loan business unless youre doing this online and doing this efficiently as possible, maybe it is not that half of will of business right now create the mortgage industry is looking at a down year. It will be down 35 . The industry is bracing for some challenges this year. To date. Thank you for it joining me. Anthony hsieh is the founder and chief executive of loandepot. Time for on the markets. Averagejones industrial loses 35 points. The nasdaq adds its points. Next, Muhsin Muhammad is one of three nfl players to score a touchdown in two different teams in the super bowl. His story next. This is taking stock on bloomberg. I am pimm fox. College board will make the sat test more optional more is ate tiered words. In the optional the assay will be made optional. Sought 1. 5 billion dollars last year. Honeywell has said it plans to more than double its spending on acquisitions over the next five years totaling over 10 million. To speed uping their sales growth. That is a look at some of the headlines. Back over to you. My next guest is a former panther. The carolina panther and he is known to his friends and his fans as moose. He wants to serve you chicken. Allow me to explain. Former carolina panther muhsin explains. Aka moose forin serves as a director carolina partners. About howst talking wild wings has someone who is named moose in charge of it. You said it is because your the bull. You are the bowl. You got to be able and you got to be in charge. Panther, abull and a moose, and a bear. You have scored a touchdown for two different teams in the super bowl. That is right. And i have a super bowl record. Now i am scoring touchdowns in business which is a bigger accomplishment. Very good. I like the way you did that. There is a lot of correlations between football and business. Was that transition like to go from the nfl to the world of business . I would like to say it was glamorous but there was a lot of hard work. A lot of ups and downs. Just like football, there is a lot of determination with that. We made it happen between my partner and i. We race defined and bought the business in 2012. A great business. Identified with ports, great food, great hanukkah offering and it is a great investment. Great investment but there are a lot of investments you can make. How did you decide that this was the risk reward choice that you felt comfortable taking . We did our it Due Diligence were cold time people on restaurant businesses. You have to remember 2008, 2009, people were scared of the restaurant business. We made a decision taste on the core fundamentals of this product and great food. And differentiate the brand. You look at what Buffalo Wild Wings is doing and he the other sports bar businesses and we felt this was poised for growth and it was a great business. We did our Due Diligence and ran the process. That is what i am good at is getting the blue book and the playbook and running the process and we did that. We came to the realization that this was a great business. You make the realization this is a great business but now you have to execute. There are a lot of great ideas before lunchtime. Now it has to be put into place. Can you name some of the stories are the anecdotes that have changed the way you have created wild wings because it was founded back in 1990. It is a 20yearold business. We have built out what we want to see for potential acquisition. Wild wing cafe checked all the boxes. It was scalable and rod demographic appeal. Great food am a differentiated itself within the place and great volumes. Consistent stability and we love this brand. This is the perfect rent for people who want to go in and invest. Either make a business for themselves or a mom and pop organization to have a single unit. Did you want something that was also geographically nearby to where you were so you could check in on this on a regular basis rather than having a telephone call or Conference Call . I think that is important. We wanted to have something that was located in the southeast, something that we can touch and feel. You are in charlotte. We wanted something that was centralized in the southeast. We have 34 locations in seven different states. It was something that we could get our arms around fairly quickly and close on the deal. You played football not only pro, the panthers and the bears but also michigan state. That is correct. Is there a moment in an athletes life where they realize that speaking to the media, being out in front of the public can not only stand them in good stead while they are playing football and also they can use that same skill later on in life when the going to business . There are certain things that are corollaries from football to business and communication skills is one of them. And meeting people, learning how hownow the team, learning to put together a game plan and look at a Business Plan. Those things translate from football to business. To answer your question, yes. Guys do not go out there and make those connections. This game well and. That is a 100 statistic. One day football will and for all players. As part of the playbook, lets say you have a business and it has this thing called the next appoint in it. When you go through that Business Plan what would you say , maybe get rid of the extra point . I like extra points. Why do you like extra points . If it has extra points it is something that is different or something that you can differentiate yourself in and entering enter into another setting. It is a potential risk. Risksolutely but with one comes reward. You have to weigh the risk versus the reward and make a calculated decision. You have to weigh the risks and rewards of different types of behavior. Im sure you have been aware of some of the confrontation and conversations that have taken place on this on the field. Do you have any thoughts on whether the sportsmanlike behavior has been lost in football or what is your thought on the back and forth burbridge . I will tell you. What i played, i was nasty on the field but i brought a certain class. Idols werere my jerry rice, guys who play the game with a certain level of integrity. When they brought in on the court or on the field that day they knew it would be very intense. There is this nasty classy thing you have to have when you play professional sports but youve got a leave it on the field. When you walk out of the locker room, i had one veteran guy tell me, where see when you come to the games. This is your business, right . This is your business. You never know who is going to be outside that locker room when you walk out. You want to present yourself. Ell so appreciate you being with us. Hurwitz. Ith dan horowitz. Ons is taking stock bloomberg. The cofounder of andreessen [inaudible]ts to withjohnson sat down horowitz for more. Often big thing is people feel like they know me before they meet me. That is a big advantage. I am sure you get that too. If they see you you express yourself and you put yourself out there. They go ok, i know this guy and they come to see us. I already know you. I have this experience myself when i meet people. The first time i met my friend i was like, hey. I always already know you. These kinds of things are helpful in building relationships. That is why it is going to be real. When you have that experience that is the real deal. That peoplehe thing appreciate about the blog in the book. It is the honest side of it. I am not trying to look good or coverup all the things i did wrong. Im trying to say this is what happened. What are the commonalities of the entrepreneurs of this Technology Area that is different from the last one, strengths or weaknesses question mark because Getting Started is easier, in a lot of ways they are younger. Which is a strength and weakness. The strength of being young is you do not have the old paradigm in your head. It is easy to break which is a big deal in Technology Companies and innovation. Is that you are young. There is wisdom that you do not have and that can lead to doing things that have very interest longterm consequences for yourself in the company. I am thinking what specific things are they week at because they are young . I think a big weakness is what building a company is about and what it means to the people who work there. It is great but you have an idea. I am doing it company, look at that, look at me but that is not what it is about. What it is about is like a group of people trying to produce something bigger than themselves. Out and recruit a bunch of super people to come be, ior you, they cannot tried that, it did not work. Or it can be but that team who could have been working at a very high pain awesome job at facebook or google during those years you were paying them nothing is not going to work with you again and they are definitely not going to say nice things in and you have created an amount of misery. That is not something you should takes a lightly. Take so lightly. That kind of thing did not happen the way it does now. Tommy about your firm and the way it is organized. There is ford for credit important changes. What do you think are important about the way your firm is set up . Rex we when i was an entrepreneur, Venture Capital was oriented around finding an entrepreneur with a brilliant invention and assembling a team to build the company against the invention and bringing in an experienced seo to run the company. That was and whether that happened or not, that is what they were good at. They were good at recruiting and they had [inaudible] was we came in the idea lets assume we want the founder, the inventor to run the company. Then what kind of sturm do you need to build to enable that founder to learn to be ceo and become a very competent ceo. The structure of the firm and the way we talk about things and the kinds of partners we have are geared to enabling a founder to become a ceo. Highest impacte in the sense that you see other Venture Capital firms at least going, we will give the founder of little more room. We may not be help and set up to help them do it but we understand the value. You see there others changing as a result. Definitely. Lower pay for partners is otheru are learning things. If youre a founder and ceo there is two things that you lack. Technologist but not a ceo. You do not have the skill set. For the seo skill set we just require that all our partners the founders or ceos like founding ceos. They actually have some experience and can teach you how to do that job. The second thing is you do not have a network created do not know all the people in the media. Hi in we pay much lower general partners salaries than we use that money to build out the people who run those that works and help you look like a giant ceo even though you may not have been that in your life. Our thanks to ben hurwitz and next, we will focus on trade with israel. I will be speaking with the founder of the u. S. Israel business council. That is next. Is really Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu is meeting with leaders in Silicon Valley. Be sitting down for an interview with cory johnson in just a few minutes. Before that i am joined by the founder of the u. S. Israel promotingouncil, Stronger Economic ties. We noted that the Prime Minister of israel Benjamin Netanyahu will be speaking about technology and the Technology Cooperation between the two countries. Can you describe the current state of affairs between the u. S. And israel when it comes to Technology Exchange and Technology Investments . Definitely. I have actually two hats. One is the founder and president. Andecting 15,000 investors executives in is really startups. Startups. Bring 1500e students. What can they learn from the Way Technology is this is done in israel . Those people are coming to israel and obviously they are pretty shocked. Usually they are not used to hear so many innovative things about israel. When they come and meet with companies it is hairy Innovative Companies with venture funds and they learn about how israel ease think outofthebox. There is not so much hierarchy and people are very open. Is it focused on problem solving . Figure out what is necessary to get the job done and do that and do not worry so much about whether it is the perfect solution to everything. I think israel is the problem solvers and they are very creative in the way they think. Living in israel you always need to be on the edge of everything and think about Creative Ideas for survival. Innovation is definitely a big thing in israel. You can combine a little bit of politics and business because i was speaking to you earlier about Scarlett Johansson who is a spokeswoman for soda stream, a company that is based in israel and traded in the u. S. She got into at least a verbal fight with oxfam because of first authorship. I wonder if you could explain what you know about what happened and why that is relevant. I think it is funny. A lot of people are focusing on bad things. Lets take a company like soda stream. A pretty boring product and turned it into something really cool. Very innovative. They brought 26 faculty and deans to israel. We met with the head of innovation. It was cool to learn how they took this product and turned it soda. Ay homemade people do not want to hurt the environment. Also look at sodastream. They hire a lot of employees, they are israeli engineers. This is a great example of how you focus on good things and grow the economy on both sides. The controversy was that Scarlett Johansson is the spokesperson and they have a factory that employs people took and offense to her sponsorship of this. Is that a constant issue you have to deal with . Luckily i focus on the good rings. I focus on innovation, creativity, and business. 1500 mbaing more than students from the top programs, all the top 20 programs in canada, spain, hong kong, beijing, they are interested in innovation. People are not so looking all the time about the bad things. Onkily i am focused 100 that. Companies like cisco and intel making investments in israel. You can mention google doing a lot of their Innovative Products and israel. Are doing allked their Innovative Products in haifa. I want to thank you very much. The founder of the u. S. Israel does this business council. Will be speaking with israel he Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu coming up at the top of the hour. Thanks for taking stock. Oh i am pimm fox. I am him fox. Pimm fox. Live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to bloomberg west. We cover innovation, technology and the future of business. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Silicon Valley today. He will be joining us live to talk about israels booming tech views on Silicon Valley. We will also be speaking with the cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz about the three big trends he is watching