Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Technology 20170811

For alleged incidents for domestic abuse. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Caroline i am Caroline Hyde in london. This is bloomberg technology. Tensions escalate across the Korean Peninsula. President trump is meeting with his advisors after tweaking tweeting military action is locked and loaded. We will explore every angle of the crisis. On helping to push the cryptocurrency market to an alltime high. Could tensions on the Korean Peninsula be partly responsible . We will look into why this volatile asset is being considered a safe haven. Validating valuations. Tech stocks have entered record territory. How long will it continue . We analyze the data. President trump is doubling down on his threats to north korea. Speaking in new jersey, the president said north korea will regret any action it takes against the u. S. Or its allies. President trump if he utters one threat, which by the way he has been uttering for years and his family has been uttering for years, or if he does anything with respect to guam or anyplace else that is an american territory or american ally, he will truly regret it. And he will regret it fast. Caroline this comes after president trumps earlier tweets saying the military plans to deal with north korea are locked and loaded. The president is expected to speak after his meeting with Rex Tillerson and nikki haley. We will bring you the president s remarks when he steps to the podium. Joining me from washington is bill faires. What are we expecting to come from the meeting with nikki haley and Rex Tillerson . Diplomacy behind the scene . Aree may hear if there plans for the u. N. Security up someto maybe take more consideration of tougher sanctions in the days or weeks ahead. It was literally just a week ago that the Security Council passed 1 billion in sanctions against north korea. I think a lot of people have debate inised by the the tone north korea has taken and like to give sanctions more of a chance to take a bite. Talk about the risk and how realistic it is we could. Ee any sort of escalation the Russian Foreign minister tensions are high. Is more imminent . There are a lot of things we would look for if it were about to happen. We do not see that taking place right now. We put out a story on sayingrg. Com about this in terms of deployment of additional naval forces or farmers to guam bombers to guam or the pacific, those things have not taken place ship. U. S. Personnel, families of diplomat, and the military stationed in south korea, normally you would try to get some of those people out or give them an option. None of that is taking place. On the north korean side, they would be undertaking Civil Defense measures, practicing getting the elite out of pyongyang. A lot of those signs we would expect if a major conflict were imminent are not on the table at this point. Caroline i know we have become slightly numb to the fact donald trump takes to twitter to announce things. It is quite shocking it is being used in this means. Talk about the democrats reaction because theyre worried andt a flareup intentions like to remind many of the constitutional requirements of a predictive struggle north korea. A couple of things. Has gone used to overthetop rhetoric from the north koreans. We have never seen the u. S. Respond in kind in more than 20 years of difficult relations. Democrats are saying donald trump is drawing his own redline and it could lead to a nuclear catastrophe. They are pointing to the same kind of criticism trump had a president obama when he failed to attack the Syrian Regime after their use of chemical weapons. Democrats are saying trump is redline over north korea and we dont think he is ready to enforce it. Caroline thank you. We will be bringing you that speech from donald trump when he finishes his meeting with Rex Tillerson and ambassador nikki haley. From geopolitics to another area where trump has had an impact, the tech sector. The number of requests from u. S. Companies to foreign tech accordingopped by 60 to data released by the jobsite the matches employers with candidates. The drop in interest indicates u. S. Companies are thinking twice about hiring foreign tech amid worries about immigration policy from the Trump Administration. Joining me to discuss is my guest cohost for the hour, russ shaw. Welcome. What amazing statistics. Not only was it 60 in the second half of 2016, but even a Second Quarter of 2017, we are still seeing a fall off of u. S. Companies willing to interview tech talent from abroad. I think we will see that drop further with the announcement to ask ago that further integration restraints will be put in place and reduce by half in the next few years. This trend will continue. I think the Tech Industry in the u. S. Must be pulling their hair out because there was already scarcity of really good talent. This is compounding the problem. Caroline what does that mean . Hubs see potentially other benefit, maybe in europe even . Russ one of the immediate beneficiaries will be canada. Canada has a very friendly immigration policy, especially toward entrepreneurs. I think we will see europe and particularly the u. K. Benefit. A couple months ago, nearly 60 said trumps policies will be favorable to u. K. Tech. This will have global ramifications. Caroline we are facing the brexit concerns, immigration issues of our own. Are you hearing from entrepreneurs in london they are struggling to get workers into this country as well . Russ we are seeing something similar happen here. The message to the government is brexit is reducing the number of job applicants. Internationals do not feel welcome. We dont want to lose them. We are pushing hard to say we need an immigration rethink. A tear five tech visa. Initial indications are very receptive. We will see if it happens but we will be pushing hard for that because the government knows he needs to adjust the situation and they see the opportunity from the u. S. As well. Caroline u. S. Tech giants are doing a lot of hiring here. Russ they are remaining committed, a lot of investment. Google hq has been formally approved. E are seeing that commitment double down. We want to be prepared with the level of talent and lets not forget the homegrown talent. There is a twopronged approach. Policyet immigration right and invest in homegrown talent. Satline you are a man who on the board of one of the chip makers in germany. Im looking at a great chart u. S. Tech has performed since Donald Trumps inauguration. We have seen asian and european stocks lower. We have seen a selloff in recent weeks. Is not stoppedp the bullish run in tech stocks. Why do you think that is the case . Look at overall markets, the emphasis on deregulation and cutting red tape is permeating his administration and cabinet. Even though he takes up a lot of volume on media, at the same time they are not happening behind the scenes. Sectorsthe technology in terms of stock valuation have been benefiting. Weve seen the markets rise and rise. Unemployment is at record lows. There is going to be a point where this is going to start to change. Is that within the next couple of months or years . We are not sure. I think valuations are very high. Can they stay at those levels . Caroline we will be talking about private Company Valuations later. Great to have you with us and sticking with me. Battle for control of the board room at uber continues. They sent a letter to benchmark capital saying the lawsuit against Travis Kalanick was designed to hold the company hostage. The investors asked benchmark to step down from the board. To be clear, they do not hold seats on the board or a majority of the Company Stock but they say they are seeking other shareholders to add their signatures. Bitcoin is bigger than ever after it hits a new record high. We will discuss the efforts to make cryptocurrencies more mainstream among Institutional Investors. This is bloomberg. Performancetcoins shows no sign of letting up this week. Take a look inside my terminal. You will see the Digital Currency reached another record high friday after weathering the toit that was threatening jeopardize mainstream interests. Some are speculating it could be a haven amidst rising geopolitical tensions. The total value of all cryptocurrencies set a new alltime high today. Here to discuss the growing interest in the markets is russia russ shaw. Fascinating move. What is so interesting is you are seeing the south korean yuan being one of the major currencies traded. Could bitcoin ethereum, and Digital Currencies be the currency of choice . Russ every time we see episodes like this, it awakens peoples interest in cryptocurrencies. With what is going on in north korea, what i find interesting is the dollar has stepped back. Normally, the dollar is a safe haven currency. Cryptocurrencies and bitcoin are doing really well. As investors look to diversify and move into digital assets, bitcoin is going to benefit. Caroline there is some nervousness. There is the lack of liquidity. There are exchanges raising money. You are not seeing the institutional players getting in quite as quickly as they might wish. What is the cautiousness year . Russ i guess it is a bit of a chicken and egg. You want the Institutional Investors to start embracing it, but many are still worried about security. They are worried about the lack of liquidity. The exchanges are very fragmented so there is a discussion that is saying, do we need to centralize the exchanges and have the Larger Exchange where the liquidity issue starts to disappear . When you see Something Like that happen, many more Institutional Investors will start to pile in and it will keep going. We have to remember, it is still very early days. This is a relatively new concept in currency. Most people are on the sidelines. You have the more risk aggressive investors looking at this. Thisy and steadily, will become more mainstream as those issues get resolved. Caroline this currencies want to strip away the need for middlemen. You have bankers and institutions saying we will not do it unless there is a clearinghouse. Tricky but that is the classic behavior we have seen with banks all along. They have not embraced disruption. They have gone in the other direction. If they are smart, they are going to say lets embrace this. Some of them are investing in blockchain capability. They are trying to get in and understand it and get behind some of the startups to see if blockchain is going to be part and therefore if there is an opportunity for them to get more deeply involved. My view is they will start to embrace this much more. Caroline ripple is the number three cryptocurrency. We sit in a Financial Services hub that is london. You have new york. Where are the winds in terms of fintech . Russ i think we will see multiple hubs. I think london and new york will do very well from this because you have a lot of talent already here. The valley will do well. China is investing in this heavily. There is a lot of coin mining going on in china Bitcoin Mining going on in china. You will have pockets of expertise around the world. I dont know if there will be one center, but there may be six to eight centers. I think london and new york will be one of those two of those. Caroline is it something you have been hearing more people start to become accepting up and wanting to know more about . Russ yes, ive gone from shunning it to saying i think i should be trying this and getting in and putting a little bit into it to see and understand how does it work. Caroline how do you do that . Russ i dont think it is that straightforward. You have to have a bitcoin wallet. Companies like when base coinbase are setting that up and making it easier for punters like me to get involved. If you are willing to take the risks and want volatility in the price, this is your gain. As that settles down, i think more people like me will take it seriously and say i might take a small portion of my portfolio and put it into bitcoin. Caroline fascinating. Russ shaw sticking with me. Coming up, more details on teslas big bond deal which had betterthanexpected interest from investors. This is bloomberg. Caroline amazon has hired banks to arrange a series of fixed income vehicles as it looks at longerterm financing for its takeover of whole foods. Bank of america, goldman sachs, and j. P. Morgan will lead the discussion starting monday. The online retailer has previously received a bridge loan from banks to temporally finance the planned acquisition of the market chain. Tesla boosted its debut bond deal to 1. 8 billion from the initial 1. 5 billion. The company turned to the debt market to finance the model 3. Elon musk met with investors and put on the charm offensive. We are joined by dana hull who covers tesla. This is fascinating. While the highyield debt market has had a shaky week, we have seen demand pour in for the highyield bond so much so that it did not have to pay much of a premium and scaled it higher so the deal went well. The deal was upsized which is great news for tesla. They need cash as they ramp up the model 3 and factory in nevada and are continuing to expand sales and service operations. They went to the bond market and the bond market responded quite kind. Caroline how important is this . They have previously gone to the xm markets. That means dilution and a slight bristling of your investor base. This is lighting widening their Capital Market access. It is an interesting move. Cap shareholders were probably getting tired of being diluted. Elon is a top shareholder in tesla. It is good to have a diverse base of cash when you need it. I think the timing is injured sting. It has been an interesting summer for the bond market. This gives tesla another cash cushion as they continue to ramp. Im curious what they do the next time they need cash. Is this a onetime thing . Are they going to continue to go back or is it back to equity the next time . Caroline clearly the demand is there for highyield. Talk about how the ramp is going. Big lines to meet if they will get production out when they need it for the model 3. So far, all we know is they turned over roughly 30 cars to employees and made about 20 others we saw at the big launch event last month. When the next cars come out, everyone is waiting to see whether they will hit this run rate which is supposed to be 5000 cars a week by december. That is a steep production ramp. There is a lot of validation testing that needs to go on. While musk apparently had a blue model 3 with him in new york this week, you are not seeing it on the roads yet. It will be a while before we see the cars. Didink the reason tesla this now is the early reviews of the vehicle have been very positive. Get the money while the buzz is still very strong. Caroline definitely. Dana hull, great to have you. Thank you very much for your reporting. The tech startup climate hits a new record. Investor cash is flooding in. Can it last . We speak to one professor calling for caution. If you like Bloomberg News, check us out on the radio. You can listen on the Bloomberg Radio app, bloomberg. Com and in the u. S. On at him sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Track your pack. Set a curfew, or two. Make dinnertime device free. [ music stops ] [ music plays again ] a smarter way to wifi is awesome. Introducing xfinity xfi. Amazing speed, coverage and control. Change the way you wifi. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Mark i am Mark Crumpton in new york. You are watching bloomberg technology. Is not backing down in the war of words with north korea. On friday, he doubled down on his warnings to kim jongun. President trump if he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat, which he has been a dream for years and his family has been a dream for years uttering for years, or if you does anything with respect to guam or any place else that is an american territory were american ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast. Mark the president says north korea has gotten a pass from former administrations for misbehaving in the past. He added millions of americans support his words because the u. S. Finally has a president that sticks up for the nation. The Trump Administration is quietly engaged in back channel diplomacy with north korea, despite the escalating rhetoric. The Associated Press reports besides have been addressing americans in prison in north korea as well as deteriorating relations between washington and pyongyang. Despite reported t differences, australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made it clear where he stands. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the united states. The treaty means if america is attacked, we will come to their aid. If australias attack, the americans will come to our aid. We are joined at the hip. It is the bedrock of our National Security. Mark the u. S. And south korea plan to move ahead with large exercises this month. That is in spite of the deteriorating situation with which says the exercises are a rehearsal for war. The annual joint exercises now fall during the timeline when pyongyang says it will be ready to launch missiles into guam. They planned to launch interceptors in response to north koreas threat to send missiles over its airspace into guam. It said theyre being deployed at quarter locations including hiroshima. Commission hasal declared the incumbent the winner of the president ial election. The opposition has rejected the results. International observers are urging all losing sides to resolve disputes in court. Itezuelas president wants or a facetoface meeting or phone conversation with president trump. On friday, he addressed the Constitutional Assembly which has broad powers to rewrite the nations constitution. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts around the world. I am Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. Welcome back. Breaking news. Some white house and republican officials are said to be exploring the idea of naming West Virginia democratic senator joe manchin to run the energy department. The move could boost president Donald Trumps agenda. Joining me to discuss, kevin cirilli, who broke the story. Me as to why this announcement matters. How does it help the legislative agenda . Earlier today, i spoke with several sources who tell me senator joe manchin, a moderate democrat from West Virginia who is up for a tough reelection fight in the 2018 midterm election, has emerged as someone who could be a potential contender to lead the department of energy. Switchesd involve some and changes within the president s cabinet. What would have to happen is secretary of energy currently is rick perry, he would have to go to the department of Homeland Security which has left open a vacant seat since general kelly, the previous owner of that spot so to speak, went on to become the president s chief of staff. Should senator manchin, should this all go down, it would allow there to be a new open seat in the senate which arguably would give republicans the opportunity to pick up a spot in the senate just bringing them one vote closer to get key legislative items past, such as the Affordable Care act. I went right to senator manchins office when i was speaking to my sources and asked his spokesman about what would happen and whether or not senator manchin would accept the position if he was offered it. ,he statement i got was senator manchin has not had any recent conversations with the administration about the secretary of energy position. He remains committed to serving the people of West Virginia. Did not answer my question about whether he would accept the position. I can tell you senator manchin was under consideration for this position during the trump transition. According to my sources, he walked away from the deal because he was not guaranteed the opportunity to bring over his own staff. Caroline great scoop, great hustling as well going up and asking politicians. Such an incredibly busy time for you as washington correspondent as well. Talk about north korea and the tensions building between the u. S. The tensions have been building. There are several people in in theton, including republican party, who are apprehensive about the fiery rhetoric coming from president trump. There are others within the trump who viewed this as a political asset, that unpredictability in the geopolitical space, trying to press china to address north korea because that is where the comments coming from people like commerce secretary wilbur ross could matter. If the chinese do not play ball to address this 33yearold to tater dictator of north korea with his brazen attempt to have a Nuclear Weapons program, that could pose more geopolitical risks. The president today speaking publicly saying he does not think north korea should mess with long guam with their missile launches. I think as this continues to develop, you notice what we have seen on the domestic policy front emerge on the Foreign Policy front where the president is using fiery rhetoric where his top officials are being more constrained in their rhetoric. Haset reaction, yes, there been an increase in market volatility predictions. While markets have get somewhat, they have not dipped significantly so far on the developments in north korea. People are apprehensive about them. Caroline we saw a stabilization in the fear gauges. Brilliant reporting. Thank you for joining us, kevin cirilli. A vc a good time to be startup in america. The barometer for private tech firms in the u. S. Has hit a record high, up 44 from a year ago. A new study is sounding the alarm about a certain set of startups. Unicorns are startups worth 1 million or more. The study says the average unit form unicorn is overvalued by 50 . Joining us is one of the authors from Stanford Universitys school of business. Great piece of academic work. Talk about unicorns that are overvalued. When i questioned ubers valuation of 70 billion, am i wrong . Overvaluedorns are compared to the reference points everybody uses. The reason is easy to explain. When people use Public Companies as reference point, Public Companies typically have only one kind of shares, Common Shares. Unicorns have only one class of shares. Uber has 12 classes of shares. Billion, raised 70 for 12 classes of shares the 12 classes of shares investors got additional rights compared to everybody else including Common Shares. Theuation people use valuation people use assumes every share has the same rights and preferences as this class of shares. What is happening is if one class has more rights, Common Shares that other investors do inflating prices does not make sense. Areline all shareholders created equal. Not all shares are created equal in a private companies. Who should be informed . Who is most vulnerable to the overzealous violation in these Companies Valuation in these companies . On average, a unicorn has a different classes of shares and all typically have different rights. Employees of these companies should be aware the forrence price they may use options is not the right one. It does not make sense to use those prices to think about the potential wealth. Investors in these companies should be aware the reported valuation used by uber and other unicorns is not a fair value. It is about 50 less. I believe these companies are so important for the u. S. And Global Economy and such an important asset class these days so i think the regulators should find this more interesting to and into, the differences the fair values and reported valuations. Caroline i feel that we have been just referencing uber. How broad a pool of privately held unicorns were you looking at . How prevalent is this . Is every single one overvalued . 100. Look at the sample of all of them are unicorns with reported valuations over 1 billion. All of them are overvalued. Let me give you an example. Thatapron is a unicorn last raised the private round about two years ago with a valuation of 2. 2 billion. That was the reported valuation. We find the fair value at the was overvalued by 37 . The fair value at the time of blue apron was about one points explained dollars 1. 6 billion. Blue apron recently went public five or six weeks ago. Valuation was about 1. 6 billion, which is about 25 below the reported valuation it got two years ago. With our coincides evaluation. This is just another example. Caroline now it is just 973 million. Much for joining us. Irish government are said to be nearing a deal that would protect the government from losses while it holds nearly 17 billion of apple cash. The money was set aside after the European Union told apple to pay nearly 15 billion in back taxes. The e. U. Said apple received unfair tax deals from the Irish Government. The cash will be held in escrow by the Irish Government pending an appeal that could take as long as five years. Coming up, soundcloud scored a major lifeline. We will check out the details of that 170 Million Investment and influx of cash. This is bloomberg. Caroline hewlettpackard is heading to the stars with the help of spacex. Space Technology Company will carry an hpe supercomputer to the International Space station. It aims to test how computers can function in space. Hpe said friday the launch is part of the joint experiment with nasa that will track the supercomputers performance during a year in space. Back down to earth and soundcloud is getting a financial boost from investors. They have agreed to pump 170 million into the popular but financially strapped Digital Music service. That pipeline has come with strings attached. The Digital Music service will replace it c. E. O. And shifted strategy to focus more on selling tools for artists and other content creators. Joining me to discuss is Bloomberg News reporter lucas shaw out of los angeles and still with us my guest cohost russ shaw, no relation. Great piece of research. What are we seeing . The valuation came down hugely in this new round. Yes. Soundcloud several years ago was one of the hottest companies in digital media, especially in music. A huge number of people who use it every day, beloved by the artist community, many dismissed expressed dismay because there had been some thought the company could disappear altogether. What ended up happening is they accepted a deal where they get enough money to continue operations and try to figure out what the Business Model is going to be. Largeloud has had a audience for a long time but never figured out how to make money from it. They will now try a more toolsbased approach. The does not sound like a huge potential business, but it is enough to keep things going. It seems like they did not want to do an outright sale and have a brandnew owner that would take full control, so they opted for this in between deal where they sell large chunks to two different entities. Weoline i remember when heard soundcloud was tried to do a deal with spotify and it was worth 1 billion. Now it is worth far less. What does it say about the urine tea and European Tech scene . Does it worry you at all . Russ i think it says the soundcloud model was not working against apple and spotify even though they have loyal users who loved the service. The model was flawed and they could not withstand pressures from bigger guys. I think they are right to shift the model. The new c. E. O. They are bringing in has a background in terms of how you use tools, how you help music and content creators get things going in the right direction when it goes on to digital platforms. That will be a good service. He came from vimeo where he did that so he knows this world well. Is it going to be big enough to really drive soundclouds future . I think that verdict is out. Caroline you got to be questioning whether they will be heading to the heady heights of unicorn space anytime soon. Talk about whether the pain is over in terms of staff cuts. They said about 40 of the employee base. Do you think the cuts are over . For the time being, they said as much. After the cuts, they centralized their business in berlin and new york. The new c. E. O. Is based in new york. One question i did not get to ask him yesterday was whether he would be relocating to berlin. My senses he would stay in new york. One of the most interesting iments when my colleague and , newviewed the cofounder c. E. O. , and investors break we asked about morale and the sense that the companys best days were behind it, people upset there had been cuts and maybe too much of a talent drain, and they pushed back forcefully. They were insistent that as soon as people found out there was a new direction and soundcloud had enough money to keep going that it would stop and people would be excited to work there again. Whether that happens, i cannot say. It suggests for now they are happy with the current size and they have a plan. We will wait and see what happens. Caroline some of the musicians that love it i am sure will be breathing a sigh of relief. Great reporting. Thank you, lucas shaw, and russ shaw will be sticking with me. Coming up, we will discuss one of the biggest stock stories of the week. Shares of snap took a hit this week, now trading at its lowest level ever. This is bloomberg. Caroline snap shares continue to sink hitting the lowest mark since the ipo after a reported another quarter of slowing growth. By russnce again joined shaw. I looking at the bloomberg and analyst recommendations. We have one person going from buy to hold. Overall, we have price targets cut in the white line. What is it with snap . Is it just the competition coming from facebook . Russ competition from facebook is key. With instagram, snap has to look at its model and say, can we sustain going headtohead . It has some good things working in its favor. If you look at the average user per day, 40 minutes per day on average for snap versus 20 minutes per day for facebook. The level of engagement snap has is far higher, also against a younger demographic which advertisers love. So they have some things going. The revenue numbers i thought looked pretty good. But can this model be sustained when facebook and instagram have replicated what snap has done . Snap is going to have to think beyond what it currently does to say, how do we do things differently . They are a Public Company now so it will be under that public that they will have to do some things differently. Caroline it is interesting we are seeing the two hoped consans of 2017 bea 2017 in the ipo market has seen the challenges and losing some Customer Base and worried about another key player being amazon. What do you do if you are a Smaller Player . Have they become targets . What is this . Russ i think that will probably be the future for both over the medium to longterm. If they cannot change their Business Models and survive on their own, they will have to put themselves up for sale which is really sad. I think the bigger issue here is you have these Big Technology giants, facebook, amazon, google, etc. , calling a lot of the shots and have the money to say look at this interesting startup, we need to go after them. Either we will go directly for them or acquire a competitor and replicate what they do. This is an interesting landscape where i think startups and entrepreneurs who look at the Big Tech Companies may say, are they really there to help me or will they undermine my Business Model . We are not quite at that cusp yet, but i think we will see more startup backlash against the bigger tech companies. Are they too big to fail . Caroline that is an interesting point. When youre advocating on behalf of startups, what is the optimism like . They are meant to be a group you cannot kick down. Russ the entrepreneurs i meet who have these great ideas are so passionate about it. I think part of it is going to have to be this is the reality of the world we are operating in. This is the landscape with these Big Tech Companies that you have to be mindful of. You need to figure out how you keep them close, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as part of your strategy and figure out, can you disrupt in a way where they cannot replicate where you are doing . Of interestt not to their Business Model . That is part of what i am hearing on the street level. I think there is some concern that could be growing over time. Caroline russ shaw, wonderful to have you here on a friday night. That does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. That is all from us in london, wishing you a very good weekend. This is bloomberg. Got you outnumbered. The dinosaurs extinction. Dont listen to them. Not appropriate. Now im mashing these potatoes with my stick of butter. Why dont you sit over here. Find your awesome with the Xfinity Stream app. Included with xfinity tv. More to stream to every screen. From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Charlie Jake Sullivan is here. He served as deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton and National Security adviser to Vice President joe biden. He was a policy advisor to Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign and has been one of her closest aides for over a decade. Many believe he would have been the National Security adviser if she had won the election. Is now a busy professor at Yale Law School and advisor on the iran nuclear