Also, if you want to buy your own Steam Locomotive, i will talk to someone who has them on sale. And it is monday, so my producers will once again try to stump me with tonights mystery guest. First, headlines from my radio cohost, carol massar. In a regulatory filing today the internet Domain Company did not specify the number nor the price range of shares. Those are details that will be provided closer to the offering. Go dottie hats go daddy has 12 million customers. Ebay is moving ceos. It is acquiring messaging startup whatsapp. For 19 billion. Offerson foods raised its for hill scheier brands, outbidding pilgrims pride. 55 ams withdrew its share proposal. Back to you. Thank you very much, carol massar. Another big headline, time inc. Traded for the First Time Since spinning off from time. Time warner. They saw their stock tall one percent. Fall one percent. I think we have the opportunity to super serve our customers in ways we have not done before because in time warner we were stuck in a box. We are breaking out of that box today. One of Times Properties is essence magazine. The cofounder and the author of the new book the man from essence, edward lewis joins me now. Thank you for being here. Lets start off with the time inc. Situation. It is an irony that they are spinning off their magazine and Media Business into a separate company and that is at the same time as your book comes out. What was it like when you first got involved with time . They had a 49 stake in the company for a long time. When i entered into a relationship with time in 2000, they agreed to sell 49 , and i agreed to retain 51 , and during that time, when the deal was completed, we got to know each other. I got to realize the incredible resources they had. Fortunately, they came to me in 2004 they said they would like to buy the remaining 51 . In 2005,ed that deal and it has been a wonderful association in terms of the growth that essence has experienced. Lets start off talking about the four gentlemen that you came together with. None of you had magazine or editorial experience. None whatsoever. And what did you decide to do . We wanted to go into business. We wanted to make a difference. This is against the backdrop of will was going on in 1968 with the killing of Martin Luther king and robert kennedy. 25 of us came together at a private meeting at a home, and they said there must be a need for a magazine for negro women, and the gentleman who brought us together, one of my partners said they had an idea, and says lewis know something about money. Why dont you get together . My other partners came together. We did not know each other, but we wanted to do something that was very meaningful in terms of celebrating the beauty and intelligence of black women. There were some big bumps, because youre going to be a lawyer. I had aspirations. I got out of graduate school, i went to georgetown law school, i knew my life was that. Except the law was not meant for me. The world gave me ups and downs. First National City bank led me to my dream of starting my own business. I want to give you some names from the book, because these gentlemen that you form the company with, it was tough times to raise the money to get the magazine going, even just hiring an editorinchief. Clarence smith. My former partner, we met in 1970. We had an incredible relationship over the many years, the 33 years we were together. He was responsible for advertising, and he did a magnificent job of wanting to make sure the advertisers had an appreciation and determined the power of black women in the marketplace. As far as putting together the whole content of the magazine, it seems as though one of your points and you interviewed people, you wanted to know what they were interested in politically, socially, culturally. It was not just about the publishing business. Absolutely. We were talking about the totality of black women. What it is to be a woman. She is concerned about relationships, family, career. She is concerned about schools, voting, all of the issues that all of us are dealing with, but at the same time also dealing with the issues of beauty and making herself feel good. Essence has been her friend that she can count on. I remember one particular chapter, called black man, do you love me . That came about because of a very heated discussion about the contents of the magazine. Indeed it. We wanted to know one thing i feel really good about is that we devoted issues every year to black men, so that black women and black men can have an appreciation of each other, to understand each other. And from the standpoint of black women, just getting a better understanding what it is to be black men and black women. I mention the bumps along the road. One of them was philip delivered in a box from a law firm. This was back in 1977, you were at the office, and a box arrives. You opened it and there was all this paper. Tell us what was in it. It was a subpoena to us to let us know that my former partners were in the process of wanting to take over the business. Getting the information from the lawyers, it came as a real shock. We had to respond, and respond we did. Im here today. You prevailed. We prevailed. You were able to retain the ownership of essence communications. Yes indeed. You also write in the book that the focus on individual, africanamerican whollyowned businesses may have been surpassed by a general focus by all corporations on minority demographics and groups and customers. What do you have to say about that . All corporations, particularly where we are the part of the capitalist system, and we are part of this country, and we try to run a business, we try to interact with business out there we try to make sure that they understood the power of the market that we serve to that we serve that was , underserved. We wanted to remind corporations and people that if you invest in our market, you will have a wonderful return on your investment. You write in the book that there were some corporations that thought that africanamericans did not buy cereal, paper products, did not contribute to the consumer society. Regrettably. We did not in our Procter Gamble ad until 1985. It was not for lack of trying, it was just because you cannot convince them that black women bought their products. That is the struggle, the fight we had to continue. The Beauty Industry was another industry we had to overcome to make sure that they knew that black women used their products. The fashion industry is another one. It was a continuing struggle all these years for us to convince the marketer that this is a market that you need to be a part of. What is the struggle right now . The biggest challenge in terms of africanamerican and black owned businesses . Is there that sense of purpose that you describe in your book . I think theres a sense of purpose, but we have a changed world. Particularly in the area of print. I sold the company in 2005. One has to be keenly aware of making choices that you know your customer, making sure that you understand the appreciation of cash is king, queen, jack, and everything else. And try to hire the smartest people you can find, and stay out of their way. And listen to what people have to say. Thank you for being here. Great listening to you. Thank you. Edward lewis, the cofounder of essence magazine. The author of the new book the man from essence. Coming up, what yahoo chairman maynard webb thinks about companies who worry about poor performance from their employees. More of his thoughts from the next big thing summit. It is time for our first mystery guest clue. You can say that my mystery guest is in the war against wrinkles. This is taking stock. I am pimm fox. The bloomberg next big thing summit brings together the most influential investors to talk but the next big thing in business. My colleague, bloomberg west editoratlarge cory johnson has been there all day, and he has now joined by yahoo chairman maynard webb. He is not only the chairman and former coo, but he is also an active venture investor. I thought would be great if we can have a conversation about a conference like this and the notion of a next big thing. What is the work that you do to try to identify the next thing . There is a lot. For me, i am always looking for who was the person pitching the idea, how relevant is it, how big is the market, and how different is it . Let me take the last the first. Different part. There are some weird ideas out there, and some that are not fully formed until they become something impressive. You know, i have spent a lot of time investing in earlystage companies. Sometimes the Consumer Companies have already started to spin, but the enterprise company, you have to catch them earlier and you are really betting on the formative idea. For me the team matters the most , he can even if they do not do well on the first idea they can often give it go after the second one. The second thing that matters a lot is what is the idea, and how much do i believe that it is relevant and can be big . Do you do the market research, mba 101 . Total adjustment to market is x if i were to show you some of the pitches we get, you would roll over laughing. Even if youre doing 10 in revenue, next year youre going to do 14 million, and all over the place. The way they capture market numbers is billions of market. We do take a look, and that our team goes out and assesses what we believe what Market Opportunity is when we look at an idea. But things get funky. I had a friend who had mapped out 10 years of monthly revenue and cost. I would not like i pay , very little attention to anything that is two or three years out at this stage when you are so small. It will either be way better, or way worse. Lets say you got these great people. And by the way, or this is an amazing conference. That is the next big thing. The cloud. The amazingloud, fog. You see a great team, a great pedigree, and the market is big but when do you say no . We see 20 to 25 deals a week, and we only invest in about one a month. We say no a heck of a lot more than we say yes. Also, the team may not be quite right or i do not believe that the team is going to be able to pull off what we want them to pull off. The market may not be where we wanted to be or it may be outside of the sweet spot. I try to invest in things i have seen or experienced selecting get a little bit of a differentiation and head start. The other thing that throws it off his valuation. If we are investing very early, we need some good terms because we are taking a lot of risk, so the rewards have to be high. Sometimes valuation you mean the price is higher, but they are not selling a lot of percentage equity . Price everything from on cap notes, to price high, do not giving you enough to get in. Defined on cap notes . Uncapped notes means you give money to the out of print or and money to the entrepreneur, and eventually when they raise the funds, you that you can come in what everybody else is that. I am not a big fan of that. Why i dont go back to hedge funds, people are always asking, and the thing was you were always always wrong. ,it did not matter what happened to that investment. If you got it right, and maybe got into late, you shouldve been earlier, or you should have been in earlier and it did work out yet. And even when it totally worked , you are not big enough. Do you look at every investment as a failure . No. Actually, i look at every opportunity. I think it is hard to be an entrepreneur, and i am really a fan of all of them out there even the ones we have to say no to. When i have an opportunity to get in, really feel like we are blessed, even at the terms we get in that. I feel honored to put my 90 affiliates to work to make the company better. Recently i met one that i thought was awesome, and they offered us a chance and im happy to be in. I think it will be fun. What about salesforce . You an investor . Yes. Were you big enough in that . I joined salesforce after they were already public. I put some of my own money in in 2008 when the market turned down, and everybody saw drop. Everybodys stock dropped. And i put more money in, and my finance guys managed me into compliance, saying who knows what the market is going to do. What i wanted to put in, they put in half and said you should do that. Which was still a nice number. But, boy, i wish i had done the other half. Thank you. Cory johnson, speaking with maynard webb. The chairman of yahoo coming up next, we will look at the growing market for tablet keyboard cases. It an ipad into more productive business tool. That is next. This is taking stock on bloomberg. I am pimm fox. Worldwide tablet sales create a 200 in 2014. That creates a growing market for tablet accessories. One of the leaders is a Company Called zagg. Joining me is the chief executive randy hales. It is a big business. Tell us about the scale, and the items you ship. It is an exploding category. We like to talk about it as tech accessories. Techcessories. A marriage of tech and accessories. Anything that will hands the users. With mobile computing. Lets talk about the keyboard which caught my eye. This attaches to an ipad mini. Describe a little bit about it. It is probably the same product i use on a daily basis. What we saw when tablets were first introduced was they worry purchased for content consumption. Surfing the internet, watching videos, that type of thing. And now, with the advent of software packages, with ever note, Microsoft Office 365, they have now become productivity tools. To really access a productivity tool you need a keyboard. This has some special features. It has magnets that are embedded in it. Tell us about how it works. The idea behind the magnets is that it allows it to attach to your keyboard when you want to use it for productivity, but also separate it when youre using for content consumption so you do not take away anything got from their tablets early on but allow them a lot more productivity when they are connected. Does this keyboard necessarily need to be charged . Currently the battery life on a typical tablet keyboard will run about 24 months. We are introducing technology at the end of this month where you only have to charge it once every two years. Once every two years. What were some of the technical issues related to building this, because this as protective as well is functional. It really needs to because they are portable all the time. They take a lot of abuse. The technology we developed great battery technology, very , efficient chipsets. And the combination of some software management. You also decided to expand the range of zagg products. Tell us about that. We are introducing a full series of tablet keyboards. We offer the number one selling one for the ipad air and also the ipad mini. It is a very traditional setup, looks like it belongs in an office. We realized a lot of users were mobile users. In the next couple of weeks we are introducing the first rugged keyboard for on the go use. What about keyboards in the future . You will be able to make them fit whatever tablet is in use . Yes. You may be sitting in on some of our r d meetings, but a very flexible web form is something we will introduce extra fall. We can respond quickly to the market. Thank you for joining us. Coming up, lots of folks collect model trains, but what about a fullsize locomotive . This is taking stock on bloomberg. I am pimm fox. For a look at the market moving headlines we go to carol massar. Family Dollar Stores have adopted a poison pill plan or shareholders rights against a plan potential takeover. This after carl icahn revealed the Discount Chain dropped more he had taken a stake. The Discount Chain dropped more than 13 . A record premium offered for the pharmaceutical maker. This caused shares to nearly triple. Big bet on its line of hepatitis b and finally, drugs. And finally, mcdonalds, the largest restaurant chain reporting a sales gain in the month of may at just under one percent. This is for stores open at least a year. A look at asian sales are carrying them. Back to you. Thanks very much, carol massar. After the conclusion of world war ii, france needed a new fleet of locomotives. They turned to the United States to build a oneforone in our class locomotive. Only six of these historic trains survive in working order. One of them is up for sale. Joining me now is andrew cook, the chairman of william cook holdings, which is selling the locomotive. Andrew, thank you for being with us. What comprises this unusual combination of train assets . To begin with i should make a point that my company has a very big business supplying parts to passenger cars, freight cars, those sorts of things throughout europe and britain. This was a little sign line, if sideline, if you like, to boost our image in the world of railway, and to feel a little bit of a gap in the market. Essentially the Steam Locomotive and its service carriage is the minor part of a whole train which is called the classic train. Which isy switzerland, probably the world leader in train travel and train transportation for people some 40 of the population travel on the train every day on swiss rail lines. I decided that we would try and see how we could get on with restoring a classic train, and catering for the trade market, train market particularly in switzerland. ,the locomotive this was really , the icing on the cake to give it more appeal. This was all completed after a three or four year program. We made the first fair carrying passenger trip in 2009. That continued annually with several trips a year. Essentiallyfinding the real attraction from a commercial standpoint was the train itself, the carriages and locomotive. The locomotive was always an additional attraction. But i was approached a year or so ago by a consortium of specialist travel companies who wanted to take a long lease of the train. That has been very successful. Leaving locomotive without a regular user. So, after thinking about it for a bit, i thought, this locomotive either needs to be in the hands of a skilled operator of trains, rather than a builder of parts or trains, which is what i do, or any to be in the hands of an as yet group Enthusiast Group that can cherish it. I have done the hard work, i took this locomotive from a state, a condition where it could not work and i shipped it to switzerland, the most rail friendly country in the world, and i restored it. Put it in full working order. It is a beautiful condition. It is completely compliant with all of the safety regulations. It is time for someone else to have a go. Does this mean, weber ins of purchasing the locomotive and service car, if they wanted to, they could ship it to another part of the world and recreate another age of steam . Absolutely. Strangely, almost perversely as this has been the work of englishmen, it will not run in england but it will run throughout the European Networks with the exception of spain and portugal and russia. It will run in every other european country and it will of course run in the united aids of United States of america. I have had serious interest in repatriating it to the country of its birth. And in so doing we patch rating something with great historical aportance, as well as european and specifically a gallic flavor. It could be uplifted, put on a boat, taken into the usa and seen there and then on the dockside and driven off back to its place of birth. Can you give us a little detail of the history of your family and your business interests . Because you have been making things for a very long time. That is right. My history my personal history , is so colored, and such a roller coaster ride, there are three books i have written. My company was originally a family business. We started making saws in the mid19th century. It gyrated here and there. It started after a Family Division in sheffield, making steel castings. It was a very small as this in the 1950s, and then group for a group for a time and then declined almost into a state of bankruptcy in the early 1980s 1981, actually when i took it , on from the state of bankruptcy. I built it up again and then fought off a hostile takeover bid. Took it private. Took on a huge amount of debt. Paid off the debt, and it took about 40 years to do what some of your more skillful and topical entrepreneurs do in a fifth of that time to get to a point where my family owns the whole thing. It is of a respectable size. In dollars we have annual sales of about 150 million. Sometimes in a goodyear may be nearer we employ just over 800 200 million. People, four factories, and like i say, i have many niche markets, rail components, parts for military vehicles, oil, power, most of the basic Engineering Industries that keep the lights on and keep things moving. Andrew cook, are you going to miss the train . I can always go and see it when somebody else owns it, but i think the businessman in me says it is time to move on, time to address other challenges. I find my satisfaction comes from building things up by creating them, and meeting challenges that no one else will do. I think it is the right thing to do, to move on. I have written a book about it, there is a lot of film about it, and it will always be there. I look forward to coming and maybe even advising the new owner on how to get the best out of it. Thank you. We look forward to it all. Coming up, im good to speak with a gentleman who spent eight years working with alibabas founder jack ma. We will learn how he built the ecommerce juggernaut. And it is mr. Guest monday. Time for mystery guest clue number two. This is taking stock on bloomberg. I am pimm fox. The chinese ecommerce giant alibaba is set to go public later this year. Theyre expected to raise more than 15 billion. Jack ma founded alibaba in 1999, and his partner portman erisman has recently documented this in a new movie called crocodile in the yangtze. You have got to explain a little bit about the trajectory of your life and how you came to be connected with ali baba before we get to the movie. Yet, sure. I went over to china in i wanted 1994. To be a part of what would be the next big thing, which is china and its growth. I happened to be there in 1999 as the internet darted to catch on. My friend introduced me to this english teacher who had just moved his company out of an apartment, and that was jack ma. He had a dream i thought i wanted to join up on, so i joined in 2000. At this point, there is no inkling that alibaba is going to be a 15 billion company . I joined it to be a part of the dream, but he was an english teacher and his cofounders working with teachers and students. It was hard to imagine that the company would become this big. They always had the dream of being one of the top 10 websites in the world. For me it was fun to be a part , of, but i do not think i could have imagined it would become this big. Lets talk about crocodile in the yangtze. Why the title . Ma at this famous quote about ebay being the shark in the ocean and alibaba being the crocodile in the yangtze. Metaphor for saying as a local player in china they had an advantage over this foreign player coming into the chinese market. What do you want people to take away from watching the whole movie . Made it for entrepreneurs. That was what kept me up at 5 00 film. Morning editing the to share this story the , successes as well as the mistakes that happened along the way. I have been showing it around the world for two years at different film festivals and what i want is for people to come away thinking that if they are setting out on their own dream of building from scratch, they can watch the film, and im sure they can relate to the ups and downs. Are there specific ups and downs that would only be relevant if they trying to start a business in china . Not so much. There are some parts in the film i talk about how the internet brought china face to face with the west. There were certain issues that came about when alibaba did its partnership with yahoo . Where you had some political differences between the u. S. And china that created a difficult situation. But what i found is the story is universal. Ive shown in silicon valley, in nigeria, and colombia, and entrepreneurs around the world can all really relate to it. What kind of a person is jack ma . What would we learn if we sat down with him and spent some time . He is not well known in the u. S. , but if you go into the store in china there is a whole set of books indicated to his dedicated to his leadership philosophies. People compare him to steve jobs, and i think that is a fair comparison in the chinese context. What i learned is he is a very , innovative person, he is a very idealistic person. A markry similar to zuckerberg or steve jobs or the google founders, one thing to build something for the longterm and not a short term gain. As far as putting the documentary together, was there any challenge to try to retell the story . As the story unfolds in real life you do not know whether it will be a success or not . Hindsight is great. When youre doing the work at the very beginning, you dont know. Exactly. I made the film after i left the company. I spent a few years gathering footage, because we had thrown open our doors to the foreign media and different filmmakers and they each capture different crosssections of the history. I went out and copyrights to the various footage, and put it together to tell a story. I never would have known in the beginning that it would turn out to that, and luckily there was enough video footage out there that is able to put the whole story together. What about his ability to get hundreds of thousands of people excited . Well, i think of them as the pied piper entrepreneurship in china. He built the company through his charisma. Because he was an english teacher he had a lot of experience giving talks and speaking in front of groups. Not only did he build the platform that they have, but he helped to encourage new entrepreneurs through his own example to get on the platform. Ali baba is really more than a company. It is a community of hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs at this point. Can people get a copy of your movie . Thanks for setting it up for me. No, its not. I cap did a healthy defense from the company to keep it independent. Videoondemand vimeo on demand made a deal with me, and you can get it through them. Thank you very much. Portman erisman, the filmmaker behind crocodile in the yangtze. All right, it is time for mystery guest clue number three for my mystery guest. My mystery guest is a dermatologist to the stars, though she wont tell you who they are. Thats next. It is time now for our mystery guest. I have no idea who it is, but our producers have been kind enough to provide us with some clues. You could say that my mystery guest is in the war against wrinkles, an expert in therapy done from her new york city office, and a dermatologist to the stars, though she will not tell you who they are. All right. Lets bring out our mystery guest. Thank you for being here. Nice to see you. I know it can be skin care. They said you were german ecologist. Dont be afraid. Ul therapy. I remember reading about this. Are you the inventor . No. Are you a practitioner . I am. Is this your sole business . No. You are a general dermatologist. You look familiar. Have you been on television . Todayhe view, the program, earlymorning television by any chance . Yes. This therapy uses ultrasound waves . Yes. Boy, and i have 46 seconds. Youre a dermatologist to the stars, so you have actresses come to you. Yes. Boy, and i just and you practice in manhattan . I do. You do . Gosh i am no good at , dermatology. Is this new Technology Something that you are building on to make it better . Or are you just using it . I just use it a lot. Gosh, im just going to give up and say i do not know who you are. Now you do. Francesca fresco. It is a pleasure to be here. Tell us about your therapy. Ul therapy. It is used it during pregnancy to see fetuses, but in this therapy it is used with heat to tighten skin. So, it is performed in a noninvasive way to lift and tighten the skin. So people who want to you look , younger, but who do not want to go under the knife or injectables do this procedure in about 60 or 90 minutes. And they look younger afterwards because it lifts their cheeks and neck. Is it painful . It has a little bit of bite to it but we give medication. ,some people do not even need the medication. There must be other noninvasive procedures. That is a big point. Are there other type knowledge is that are as useful technologies that are as useful . We use lasers to erase brown absolutely. Spots from prominent blood vessels. We can use chemical peels to erase brown spots. And tighten the skin as well. There are are injectables to smooth lines and wrinkles, and fillers to lift the face as well. Explain, if you can, the balance between men and women. Are you seeing an increase in male patients . I most ethnically and seeing a big increase in male patients. The differences men are , interested in being more subtle, and they like the ul is in andcause it out. You can go right back to work with no telltale signs of a procedure having been done. Are there people who should not have this . We do a good medical history. Obviously, if you are pregnant, we would not do this procedure. If you have a history of cold sores, there are medications we give before hand. It is based on your medical history. Most people can have it done. Tell us about your products. This is a peel that we do in the office. This is the homecare box that we give them. This is something that can lighten brown spots. Even out pigmentation, make it look smoother. Again not invasive. , very interesting. Thank you for being our mystery guest. Step thank you. I got stumped. Thanks very much. This has been taking stock, good night