He writes in an oped at wired magazine online, im submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the fcc. These enforceable rules will ban paid prioritization and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply for the First Time Ever those bright line rules to mobile broad band. I spoke with chris lewis and doug break. Not a lot of big surprising news, but i must say that i think it is a disappointing move. It is largely an overblown response into a narrow question of what sort of Legal Authority that at the need to police the open internet. I am disappointed. You are disappointed because they are trying to change what disappoints you about it . Title two, there are all sorts of legal entities we crossed into. A big part of the open question is how the fcc will do the forbearance process . There are provisions of title two that just about everyone agrees are outdated and unnecessary. Give me one example. They were written when people were using homing pigeons to communicate. What is outdated about this . There are a number of things. The loop on bundling and those sorts of provisions that were put in place in the 96 telecom act for what were then regional monopoly telephone providers. Just about everyone agrees those sorts of regulations are not appropriate in the broadband market today. How exactly the fcc goes about forbearing is a big question and there is tension in justifying the need or title two, apart from whether it is justified at all. There is tension between the forbearance findings and the change in classification to a telecommunications service. Chris lewis, just about everyone agrees that it will not work. Are you just about everyone . No, i definitely do not agree with that. What i think everyone can agree on is that neutrality protections are important. The question before the fcc is how you put those into action. We support chairman wheelers decision to use title two, because in 2010, the fcc tried to enact Net Neutrality rules and have it struck down by the court. In that decision, the court basically said the rules were too close to title two type or commentary rules. By chairman wheeler putting out a proposal that uses title two and make them more likely they will pass court muster. We think it is a historic decision and are very supportive of him moving forward. I get the idea that the fcc needs title two. They cant just make laws. Do you think that is the best way to make sure things that go across the cable modem are unhindered by the Cable Company itself . Chris . Yes, we think it is the strongest rules the fcc has at their disposal. Congress could always update the telecommunications act. There is talk of doing that. That process takes time. Consumers have been without Net Neutrality protections for over a year now. We are very supportive of them moving forward now, and then if congress chooses to clarify things, we would hope they would do it in a way that would protect the Net Neutrality principles and empowers the fcc to do it job as a cop on the beat for Internet Service providers. It sounds like this is the best tool they have got. Tell me one negative impact that could come in this room is what it sounds and is implemented. I think the biggest negative impact is it has a lot of litigation risk. It will likely be overturned on appeal. I do not think it is likely to stick. It has always been fundamentally a fight over the jurisdiction the fcc has to police these networks. There is not a lot of strong disagreement over what Net Neutrality itself should look like, but the fcc jurisdiction. I think we should go to congress and get it clarified once and get this fight settled once and for all. Doug brake and chris lewis. What they are thinking in washington, we now know, but what does Silicon Valley have to say about this . Here is a big tech lobbyist, Internet Association ceo michael beckerman. What we asked for is that there is no blocking, so any website you want to visit, as long as it is legal, you can get there. There is no throttling, meaning that your Cable Company cant degrade some of the content of the video site you want to visit. There is no discrimination. At the end of the day, Internet Users should be able to access whatever website they want and internet startups should be able to reach their customers. I always use the examples of uber and lyft. They are both supporting the Internet Association. Wheat if this makeup fantasy Cable Company, mr. Byrns cable acquires lyft and suddenly slows down all of the uber requests and the uber business disappears and lyft is the only option for a ride and they cant get to customers as quickly as everybody else . Yeah, under Net Neutrality that would be prevented and competition is what is allowed the internet to flourish and become what it is today. You have Companies Like lyft and uber that can compete. The isp should not decide who wins and who loses. Netflix shares sold off with this news. I wonder if it is because people say wow, these guys have open themselves up to more competition. Why do the Big Companies support the open internet when they are the ones who have the advantage because they can build their own Networks Like google has or apple and they can do other things like pay for it as netflix has. All of our Member Companies have thrived and we look at what makes the internet great. It is the idea of Free Enterprise and let the users decide, and frankly, our companies are much closer than any other company or industry you are looking at. They care about their users and let them decide who will win and who will lose in their happy to have that fight. Is it a cost concern as well . Netflix has spent tens of millions to pay to get their content faster to customers, faster than their competitors even. I dont think so. I think it is just an issue of fairness, and you do not want to have a chokepoint anywhere in the network. When you have your customers you want to reach your customers and have them reach you and not have an isp or some other middlemen in the middle taking a toll or blocking or degrading content michael beckerman, the ceo of the tech lobbying group, the Internet Association. Dish network uses loopholes to pay less than the billions it bid on some valuable airways. Did this cross the line or outsmart competition . That debate is next. This is best of bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. Well, the largest spectrum auction in u. S. History, 45 billion in bids is on the books. One big winner, dish network grabbing 13. 3 billion worth of airwaves, trailing only at t in the auction. Here is the controversy. Dish is a big business with 14 billion in annual sales, but in this auction it used loop holes to get a Small Business price break in the auction. They claimed 3 billion in discounts. A republican fcc commissioner is livid and demanding an investigation. And a Program Director for the Media Group Common cause also joined us for this discussion. The results of the auction were amazing. They showed once again that Consumers Want and need better wireless connectivity. Its too early to say exactly what to make of the winning bidder. What matters is whether and how they put to use the spectrum licenses they have won. It should be noted that dish has a lot of spectrum they have won before and not put to use. When you look at their use of this loophole to qualify as a Small Business partnering with entities but owning 85 of these companies, could you see this coming . I certainly did not see it coming to this extent. I dont think anybody else did either. I think that is part of what is generating such outrage. It is in front of the fccs integrity. Dish claiming 3 billion worth of discounts makes a mockery of the entire program. Yeah, what was the purpose of that program . What was it intended to do . Originally congress directed the fcc to set up a program to help small entrepreneurs get a foothold in the wireless industry, and engage in what is called facilitiesbased competition, using spectrum that they get at auction, building out a network, and providing enduser service. But what has happened now is the fcc has loosened the rules over the years so much that we get a situation in which the big sophisticated corporate interest can gain the system and use these shell corporations in order to get multibilliondollar discounts. I think that is wrong, as a commissioner and taxpayer. The notion was to help Small Businesses to help competition to help women and minorities. Dish is none of that. Our policy should be facilitating market entry, and we are always glad to see new Small Business, new, diverse femaleowned firms entering the market. Im glad to hear more about facilitiesbased competition. There are all sorts of steps the fcc can be taking to improve that, including by relaxing or preempting bad legislation in the states, preempts communities ability to build their own broadband networks. They could put a stop to the comcast time warner merger. Theres lots on the menu for the commission to do to really ensure that we have marketplace full of options with lots of entrepreneurship. That those issues, todd, what is common causes take on dish using a Small Business loophole to win these auctions . To be clear, we support using designated entities to enter the marketplace and receive bidding discounts. What really matters is from our perspective, on the back end what is a clear timeline for them using these licenses and entering the market . I want to read from the letter he wrote to the rest of the fcc. I think it is really powerful. You wrote, quote, we must change course, and soon, by closing loopholes that allow big business is to rip off the American People to the tune of billions of dollars. The American People should be outraged about this. I certainly am. Youre a commissioner of the fcc. What can you do about this now that the horse is already out the barn door . It is incumbent on a fcc to do a full and thorough investigation into these particular applications. The integrity of the designated Entity Program is at stake. If it turns out that the scandal is what is legal under our rules, it is incumbent upon the agency to reform the rules to close these loopholes. I would note that i dissented last year from a number of proposals to loosen the rules even further. I predicted almost exactly this result, corporate interests would find ways to arbitrage the system and game it at the expense of the american taxpayer. My only regret is i turned out to be right. Why do you think the other fcc commissioners went for this . They support some of the same goals. Is this about maximizing revenue and letting the biggest bidders win in the interests of competitive entrants, women and minorities be damned . You would need to speak to them. We seem to share the same goals of having a Small Business program that works. The question is, are you willing to take on the efforts to reform the program to ensure that Small Businesses benefit . That is where we have seen division. I hope this current episode will inspire the fcc to take action to ensure that those who claim the bidding credits are the women and minorities who historically have not had a chance to break into this marketplace. Those are the people we should be looking out for. Not the fortune 500 corporations that can go to wall street to raise capital for these auctions on their own. Todd, if theres one rule change that has to be made before the next auction, what do you think that should be, todd . The best steps they fcc could take for the next auction are ensuring set aside reserve spectrum for the smaller competitors to ensure we dont have yet another situation where all of the scarce public resource end it is up concentrated in the hands of the big two, verizon and at t. Lets make sure theyre going to smaller players, entrance and upstarts. From selfdriving cars to the rise of Ridesharing Companies technology is transforming transportation. What will commuting look like in 30 years . Im going to talk to transportation secretary anthony foxx, next. Im cory johnson. This is the best of bloomberg west. Here are some stories that made headlines in technology over the past week. The accused mastermind of the drug dealing website is facing life behind bars. He was convicted on all seven charges. Prosecutors said he ran a 1. 2 billion Online Empire selling illicit goods and tried to arrange the murder of five people who threatened the anonymity. Microsoft cofounder bill gates donated 1. 5 billion worth of microsoft stock. 31 million shares went to an unknown entity back in november. He has cut his stake in microsoft to just 3 . Gates now has 99 million fewer shares than his successor at microsoft, ceo steve ballmer. The fight is on between google and uber. Uber has partnered with Carnegie Mellon to work on selfdriving cars. Meanwhile, persons familiar with the model said google is working on its Ride Sharing Service which will incorporate selfdriving car technology. Speaking of google, i went to their headquarters in mountain view, california, to check out the latest selfdriving car prototype and talk about the potential of the technology with the u. S. Transportation secretary, anthony foxx. He was at google for a town hall to talk about the governments report about the future of transportation in america what the next 30 years might look like. Take a listen. The problem were having with transportation is were looking at what is in front of us rather than what is way in front of us, because what is way in front of us will be more impactful in terms of defining our future if we are not careful, so we would like to be in the position of defining our future rather than letting it defined by things that will make it worse for us. So what is the biggest, sort of most difficult trend you feel like the current planning is not addressing . I would say there are two things. One is that their funding approach is not budgeting towards outcomes. If we want to have travel times reduced over the next 30 years it is going to mean investing at a much higher level than we are doing today. Across the board, not just the federal government, but state and local governments. Secondly, on policy, it is not just a question of having more money. It is also how that money is being spent, so looking at the mix of Transportation Needs that we have as a country, between highways and transit and rail, both passenger and freight, we have got some significant challenges at levels about what will optimize us in the next 30 years read we will have to break down some silos to do it. Fundamental changes. You have got millennials not consuming or owning as many cars, doing things like uber using public transit, moving to urban areas, and then the growth in urban areas and the urbanization in america at a level we have not seen in 150 years. It is really interesting to see the growth of metro areas. These are areas that you know, usually there is a city in the core and a suburban ring around the core, and there is a rural ring around that, and that is what we are referring to. People might be thinking of preindustrial areas like new york city, boston, san francisco. But you are talking about places like charlotte and albuquerque. Yes, a wider swath, and it is moving west into the areas like you are talking about, so it is not just the big cities. It is also the mediumsized cities across the country. So are selfdriving cars an answer to this or are they just another problem dealing with the issues that are already out there . There is a lot of promise with the self driving cars, on the safety side with accidents and for consumers, and the challenge were going to have is developing regulatory systems and processes and policies that are more adaptive and flexible that can actually take a brandnew technology and be able to assess it correctly and help the manufacturing get into the marketplace. We interview the ceos of uber and lyft on our show quite a bit, and they talk about winning to approach the regulatory hurdles in their businesses at the local level. They can overcome the local level, but they cannot do it at the federal level. What are the biggest federal issues that Companies Like uber and left have to conquer . They are in a different category, because many of the regulatory systems that basically govern Taxi Companies where there are most of the conflicts, are at the state and local level. There is very little that the federal government has there. But i do think the federal government has an interest in, for example, ensuring that the service that is being done by, for example, somebody who is driving a uber car, we do have an interest in making sure that that person has been background checked and things like that so that folks can be assured that they are going to get where they are going. So are you thinking that if the local authorities do not take care of this, the federal government might have to . Im saying that i believe we have a role to play in urging states towards that. Im not necessarily suggesting that we should pass laws that do that at the federal level, but i do think that is an area that state and local governments are going to have to address. While you were talking about uber and lyft, Bloomberg News was breaking a story that google is about to get into the business of competing with uber. Google has raised a lot of privacy concerns at the federal level. Do you start to realize or do you think about the department of transportation having to think about things like privacy when it comes to these things whether it is drone or cars or whatever. It is a huge issue, particularly with vehicles where Connective Technology both enhances the experience but also creates vulnerabilities that we didnt have with the conventional automobile. Were going to have to address that with the industry. A lot of these modes, whether it is air, rail, automobile, were finding that the industry will voluntarily sit across the table with each other and us to help figure out how to deal with some of these privacy concerns and security concerns. That was u. S. Transportation secretary anthony foxx. Maybe the biggest hack ever at a health care company. Were talking about the recent hacking of Health Insurance giant anthem. What should companies be doing to protect themselves if even anthem cant be safe . Were going to talk about that next. Youre watching the best of bloomberg west where we focus on innovation and technology and the future of business. Im cory johnson. Hackers have struck again. Anthem, the second Largest Health insurer in the u. S. Said it was victim of a sophisticated attack with criminals breaking into the anthem data base swiping the information of tens of millions of customers and employees. Anthem says names, birthdays Social Security numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and even income data was accessed. How big a deal is this breach in the wake of big Cyber Attacks against target, Jpmorgan Chase sony, and others . For more i spoke with Bloomberg News Technology Reporter Jordan Robertson and Michael Kaiser the executive director of the National Cyber security alliance. I think this continues to happen for several reasons. One is the systems that people are putting in places are very large and complex and interdependent. As we have seen like this breach and some of the retail breaches these people are sitting on huge amounts of data. Millions and millions of customers and they are just a very targetrich environment for the bad guys and they want to go after this data and they are going to work very, very hard to get it. To what end . If you cant look, complexity is going to be there. Things are not going to get less complex as the data that governs us all, becomes greater. Were going to have more complex systems. What do you do . Do you have to not worry about the hack but worry about what they do with the information . Yeah, you do. I think this information is very valuable information. Credit cards, this is what people have become used to having stolen. That impact on consumers can be very little. Here we see a rich data set about individuals that can be used by criminals to create false identities, to conduct identity theft, to do other kinds of things. In this cybercrime realm, this data is valuable and it is worth money and having millions of these records is something that they can sell and they can sell these records on the black market and people will try to monetize them in different kinds of ways of course. That is how it will be distributed. It will be sold in bulk. Jordan, when north korea allegedly attacked sony pictures, they wanted to stop the release of a movie. Which they failed at or maybe succeeded at. They wanted to target the executives. Now amy pascal has been fired at sony, so they got what they wanted, perhaps. What do these hackers want . It is unclear. It is one thing that anthem is looking at very closely. I will say one thing. What we know they wanted was a lot information. We didnt know what they wanted to do with it. But we do know they wanted a lot of it and they wanted to keep their options open. This is pretty standard for hacking attacks. If you have access to a company that has not segmented its data center properly and a group of individuals or small group of individuals has access to 80 million Social Security numbers, you will take all of it and sort it out later. Some of the tools indicate that these were possibly statesponsored attackers, you know, sophisticated attackers. But we dont know what they wanted to do with the data. We just know they wanted a lot of it. The line between statesponsored and criminal is hard to distinguish. Right . Yeah, and there is a very interesting dynamic at play where we have seen cases where nationstate attackers, espionagebased attackers will be inside systems and they will see a bunch of data that they can sell on the criminal underground and they will just take it. Is that a nationstate attack . These were individuals that tried to take a little off the top. Its hard to tell without intercept and nsa intelligence whatever, whats the motivation of these attackers will ultimately be. That was Bloomberg News Technology Reporter Jordan Robertson and Michael Kaiser the executive director of the National Cyber security alliance. I also spoke with a connecticut attorney George Jepsen who sent an angry letter to anthem demanding answers about that hack. Take a listen. It seems that the hackers are always one step ahead. I think whole industries, for example, the credit card Industry Needs to have some kind of shakeout where we shift from magnetic bands to embedded chips, like they do in europe. I think we have reached Tipping Point on these data breaches. Jepsen is part of a task force of state attorneys general that is looking into the number of breaches that have happened from target to home depot and beyond. Up next, 3d printers can make houses these days. Like these houses in china. But are 3d printers really the future . The next Big Technology or the next Big Technology bust . We have the numbers behind this industry next. Im cory johnson. This is the best of bloomberg west. 3d printing the next big thing or the next big bust . The biggest of the 3d printer makers, stratasys, slashed its guidance for the second time. It says it is going to write down 100 million of its recently acquired makerbot business. Stratasys paid 403 million for makerbot just two years ago in an allstock deal when it was growing at 400 . Now makerbot says it is growing at 7 . Or thats what stratasys says about the business at least. What happened to the future of the 3d printer world . I talked with cathie wood, a Portfolio Manager at ark investment management. Stratasys is one of her largest holders of her fund. Makerbot was more about a segmentation strategy focusing on the consumer end. But thats not the main story here. Makerbot next year will probably be less than 10 of the revenues. The real story here is industrial. As these stocks have been going down for the past year, what we have witnessed is analysts and researchers have been raising their estimates of industrial 3d printing for the next three, to five, to 10 years. They have gone from 8 billion to 12 billion. We have mckenzie out there who thinks in 10 years to 20 years this will be a 180 billion to 500 billion industry. Up from 4. 5 billion right now. Stratasys is the leader in this space, we think its a visionary, and we think it has a long way to go. So you have some predictions that things are going to be great some day in the future and you have results that say its not now. I wonder with so much innovation from so many startup companies. Makerbot apparently was not the future of innovation. Why wouldnt that happen at some other company other than stratasys . Maybe voxeljet or x 1. What makes you think its going to be the company leading that business, a falling business right now . I would like to emphasize it is in the fourth quarter, if you take out makerbot, the Service Bureaus, their Revenue Growth was 29 . That is organic Revenue Growth. Thats a pretty good growth rate for the part of the business that we think really matters going forward. I think they are already innovating, and one of the reasons the stock is down is because they are investing against a bigger opportunity than they had expected was going to happen this quickly. We are happy they are doing that. Most other analysts are not happy they are doing that. We invested in most companies where they have chosen to invest against a huge opportunity and we have done it to some success. When i look at these businesses, i want to look at them from a technological aspect. I cant help but look at the accounting, both stratasys and 3d systems. Others. Voxeljet. I went to the voxeljet factory in detroit that was supposedly open and there was nothing there. I look at 3d systems acquiring the Service Bureaus to whom they sell products. I look at stratasys and i wonder if the companies didnt add it to the hype around 3d printing through legal, but accounting decisions that made the businesses look like they were growing faster than they actually are. I think in the case of 3d systems, in this last quarter, people were worried about inventory issues, which smack of something you mentioned. Whether it is accounting or something. In fact, the inventory at makerbot fell because of some manufacturing issues. Im not concerned about this with stratasys. I have watched these Management Teams come together, stratasys and objet, and i think objet has a conservative Management Team as a matter of fact, certainly relative to anything else in the industry. Especially 3d systems, which i agree, growth by acquisition in that case im a little suspicious of. Its like putting a bunch of operating systems together. That was cathie wood, Portfolio Manager at ark investment management. I went to a voxeljet factory just outside of detroit. I want to show you what i found. The idea of 3d printing excites the imagination. Ondemand products from guitars to guns, sexy dresses, fully functional cars, the holy grail of 3d printers are at opposite ends of the spectrum. On one side, you have the small printer, the desktop printer, the laserjetsized printer that can even go up in the space shuttle. On the other side of the spectrum, you have got the huge format printers that can make things like jet turbine or the hood of a car. A German Company called voxeljet is going after that giant 3d printer problem. They said they are focusing on selling to the auto companies. Voxeljets minivansized printers helped it launch a wildly successful ipo a year ago. But in the first quarter, as a public company, it sold just three prints, two of which were sold after they loaned money to the buyer. But now voxeljet is promising a new leg of growth with a second factory opening up in michigan near the motown automakers. Here is what the ceo told investors on a Second Quarter conference call. The facility will initially support four large format printers by the end of this calendar year. We expect to be using ondemand parts by the end of september or early october. Well start to see revenue contribution in the fourth quarter. So i headed to detroit to see this new voxeljet facility. So here i am. Canton, michigan, middle of october. This is the voxeljet factory. You can see there is not much going on here. Lets check it out. Inside, a big, big basically empty room. There are no parts being distributed. No printers being manufactured. Just a few workers doing some rudimentary framing work. One literally sleeping on the job. This is the right address. 41430 haggerty circle. Same as the website. This is about as tranquil as a manufacturing facility can be. This facility clearly wasnt shipping ondemand parts by late september or october. It doesnt look like they will be making large format 3d printers before the end of the year. Perhaps all of the 3d companies will live up to the hype. Some day. But for now, 3d printing is hard and for voxeljet, apparently it is hard to build a factory, even in detroit. So that was my look at voxeljet and their 3d printing business such as it is. Up next, the return of the podcast. Thanks to the smash success of serial, audio programs are making a comeback. Were going to talk with a former radio producer turned podcast entrepreneur. This is the best of bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. Podcasts, are they cool again . Thanks to the smash success of a series called serial, more people are binge listening to podcasts. In fact, Edison Research counted an 18 surge in listening the second half of last year. Enter alex blumberg, a former public radio producer of nprs planet money and this american life. He did that but now he is doing this. Founding his own podcast production Company Called gimlet media. I talked to him about why podcasts are suddenly cool. There is podcast players that come now preinstalled with your phones. I think that has driven a lot of increase that we have seen. The founders of twitter famously aimed to start a Podcast Company after they left google and they thought podcasts, man, that is going to be it. Are there execution lessons that you think youre going to learn from the skeletons of podcasters past . The reason i did this is i saw an opportunity. I saw an opportunity when i was working at planet money. Our audience was growing. It seemed like there was a demand for this kind of programming. To me, it was like it wasnt that much thinking. If you listen to the podcast you know i wasnt thinking that deeply about it when i started it just seemed like something that needed to be done, so i went out and did it. I love youre thinking both on a programming level, creating content and a platform as well. Lets listen. You have been chronicling the launch how else . With a podcast. Lets take a listen to a little byte from that. Go ahead. If i were calling uber, and it said it was going to be here in two minutes, and it was all the time you had, what are you doing . Im making a network of digital podcasts that will that are going to meet im sorry. What will it take to do it . It will take 1. 5 million. I think. Take out the i think. Im looking for 1. 5 million to 2 million. No, no. Youre looking for a very specific amount of money. After an hour, i look over and Chris Holding up his hands. And his hands said what . He gave my pitch back to me. Stop, in the name of god, stop. Please stop what youre doing right now. It was a very humbling experience going out to try and raise money to start a company. I fancy myself a storyteller. When youre raising money youre telling a story of how your company is going to work. Why it is going to be successful. I just went out there and i fell on my face. I was just awful at it. It took a while to get my bearings and figure it out. That was me pitching chris. I see Charles Duhigg is an investor . Yes, he is. The great investigative genius from the New York Times . Yes, he is. Journalists, when they tell stories, they go in it with questions. I can hear your voice saying, i dont know, which is the last thing anyone wants to hear when they are asking for money. You actually dont know whats going to happen in the future. Right. But i mean, you know, it was funny because like i went out and tried to raise money and i didnt do very well in the beginning. At the same time, simultaneously trying to raise the money, i launched the startup podcast. I was recording all of my conversations with investors. I launched the startup podcast and the startup podcast chronicled my misadventures trying to raise money. I was horrible at it, i wasnt making my pitch, i was failing to sell to people. But something about hearing me do that on a podcast all of a sudden, the investment came in once they heard the podcast. Theres something about hearing me tell a good story about how i didnt know what i was doing that made people believe that i could pull off what i was doing. I dont know whats going on there, but i have the horse way behind the cart here. Tell me briefly how the business is going to make money. There is two main revenue streams. Ad revenue is one and then listener. I come from public radio where there was and is a thriving listenersupported revenue model. In public radio, you sort of guilt people into giving you money. I think theres a way we can make it a little more fun, and do a freemium model. That feels exciting and gives people value. Alex blumberg, the founder of gimlet media. Do you recognize these memes . The Company Behind them is imgur. It is home to some of the most viral content on the internet. Were going to speak to the imgur director of products about their interesting business. Thats next. Welcome back to the best of bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. Image sharing site imgur has just released the latest gif to the internet. A gif generator. It is a Company Looking to find new ways to capitalize on their viral content. However you say it, you can select almost any clip off online video and make it into a high quality online file including this disgusting clip. For more i spoke with imgurs director of product. It is the internets storytelling platform. Millions of people come every day to tell their stories through images. The stories might be funny, sad, or inspiring. They are stories created by real people. More than 60 billion images are looked at each month. 150 Million People visit us. 150 Million People visit the site every month. Every month. What are they doing on the site . Submitting their own images. Stories from their daily life. Talking to other people about these images and connecting to each other. Were a community. How do you guys get paid . We have small display ads. The display ad business has not been a great one to support websites. Is that Getting Better or worse . The headwinds are against us, but this business is boot strapped. For five years we didnt raise a dollar of outside capital. Were really excited about the tests with promoted posts. So the success of the gif can we talk about this . It is a fairly amazing thing. They have been around really before the internet. In the 1980s. I keep pointing to my hand because i figured out how to copy and paste them on my iphone. They are hilarious to send as a text message i believe. Maybe the bar is low. What is it about the gif . There is something about the gif. For us a gif is short and looping and doesnt have sound. It is a punch line. You dont have to watch the full three minutes of a video, just the best five seconds. We think mobile is driving this. It is people sharing these short clips that can be viewed anywhere without putting your headphones in. To what degree is tumblrs growth . It has been under the radar but very impressive. Is that driven by people looking at gifs . They are popular on tumblr and imgur and other formats i think. They have all grown together. Is your plan to be like a tumblrlike service . The bricks of your house being gifs and images . Opposed to conversations . Were different than tumblr where you follow people. You cant create an account unless you follow people. Imgur you dont follow anyone. As a result there are no celebrities. You can post content tomorrow and youll have just as good a chance of getting the homepage as i do. Me getting undressed has really been made a gif. You can make anything a gif. That is just wrong. I do have shame, not that this show today would represent that. I wonder if you have a sense of what works. What works with a gif . What captures page views . The beautiful thing about imgur is it is a platform. People create their own gifs. Gifs or jifs . Jifs. You can choose. What works . What is funny . What draws the most images . Our job is to create the best tools for people who want to create gifs. They create gifs and things that are popular a copied and grow and become memes. We dont spend that much time thinking about what is popular. We just figure out how to make those tools that allow people to tell their own stories. That was sam gerstenzang, the imgur director of products. That does it for this edition of the best of bloomberg west. You can catch us monday through friday 10 00 a. M. And 3 00 p. M. On the west coast. 1 00 p. M. And 6 00 p. M. In the east. We will see you on monday. The following is a paid program. The opinions and views expressed do not reflect those of bloomberg lp, its affiliates, or its employees. This program is a paid advertisement from United States gold and reserve. 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