Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170303

Business community compared to nafta the job on ttp was so poor and it was all lead by government and totally the opposite to 20 years before on nafta. And there is the moment for the Tech Companies to stand up and not just them, but also the customers. The dry cleaner or the Small Business person whos running it on a pc that costs 700 bucks instead of 1200. This is critical to the success of the economy forward. Tett all about the tech sector for the hour when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Tett good eveningk im gillian tett of the Financial Times filling in for charlie rose. Its been a busy week in the Tech Industry. Shares of snap inc opened at 24 thursday morning pricing its initial Public Offering above the range. The Company Behind the disappearing photo app went pub look at a valuation twice as facebook in 2012. Meanwhile uber, another darling of the tech sector has suffered from a string of recent scandals. The latest involving a video of c. E. O. Travis cowlich we rating a driver. Now weve been here before. A decade ago wall street was riding high and producing dazzling boons and dirty scal dan equal measure. So how do we make sense of what is going on in the tech world . Is there a tech bubble about to burst . Joining me now is max chafkin who is a writer for Bloomberg Business week who has been covering uber. Richard edelman is the president ceo of ed e8man, a leading Global Communications firm, and william cohan, a special contributor to vanity fair, and author of, why wall street matters. Im very pleased to have them all at this table. Welcome. Now max, i would like to start with you. One of the things that put uber in the spotlight is that weve had this extraordinary video released of travis in a cab arguing with an uber driver. And this comes on top of the big scandal created when one of ubers own female employees wrote a blog saying that frankly its a very sexist place to work. This really is a iming of a pr nightmare for the company. Tell us a bit about this video. I mean its been an extraordinary month for uber. You didnt mention the delete Uber Campaign that started in january. There is a lawsuit with google. This video came to us, our beat reporter eric newcomer, it was passed him by a driver. And it is clearly a dashcam video of travis, the c. E. O. Of uber basically getting into a very spirited debate with a driver. And i think it kind of reminded me of the joe the plummer video if you remember that. Where you have a lot of uber drivers who have long felt that the company doesnt always have their best interests in mind. And you have a driver suddenly voicing those concerns, and being treated in a somewhat dismissive way. Tett i think one of the reasons the story is fascinating is that uber, lyft, these ride sharing apps is something embedded in our lives these days. I couldnt survive without these kind of apps. And yet as you say there is so much controversy about the way that company is actually being run. What do you think this shows about the Actual Company culture, and in particular about the personality of travis st . I argue that its all kind of tied up. I mean one thing about uber, one reason they have been very successful is that theyve been able to overcome opposition from basically taxi industry lobbyists and unions. You know, in a lot of cities, the taxi Industry Private cars are heavily regulated and they adopted this very aggressive approach. And theyve been really, really almost unbelievably focused on growth the all costs. So i think when you look at the Sexual Harassment thing, you have a company that, and i done know exactly what is going on inside of the company. But i think when you talk to people there you have a company that is singularly focused on growth to the point where they didnt really i dont think they really cared about anything other than hiring a lot of people very quickly. And that the whole function of hr at a place like uber is hiring. It isnt making sure that bosses are behaving appropriately. It isnt policing these kind of things. And i think unfortunately that comes from the top and some of that is on the c. E. O. And the senior managers and also on the board of directors. Tett i mean you have a situation where you have growth, this crazy hubris you just have seen coming ople are so busy doingo. Eir job they kind of get disconnected from the real world. It kind of sounds a bit familiar to me. I mean bill, you have spent the last years looking at crazy behavior and hubris on wall street. What do you make of this . Gillian, this is a classic narrative arc to me. One thing we like to do, the Business Press loves to do is sort of find these darling, like travis or like mr. Snapchat, mr. Snap inc and sort of build them up, make them seem almost myth logical. Make them seem largerthanlife. And we like to build them up, build them up. I think part of the reason that the uber story has gone, as viral as you said is because it has what, a 70 billion valuation. Its a private company. It doesnt i mean i would argue and we sort of had this discussion when vanity fair last year when we were talking about the new establishment list and everyone was saying how great travis is, we have to put them at number one. This is a taxi company. Were valuing a taxi company, 70 billion. It is something we all use. But even if we all use it, it is still just a tacki company. Everyone says it is so much more than a taxi company. You dont understand it is the way well have everything delivered, our whole lives, it will be the jetsons. I think we have priced for the jetsons. And i think that once you begin to say travis is just like a regular guy, puts his pants on one leg at a time. It is kind of just like a taxi company. There he is in the back of a taxi abusing a driver. The Sexual Harassment blog was stunning. As soon as i read it. Tett one of the former uber employees who was a Software Engineer who talks about this stuff in extraordinary detail about how she was three percent of the employees there were women and they were subject to extraordinary treatment. And hr did nothing. She would report it to hr and hr did nothing. Tett but this sounds so reminiscent of the banking secretarier a decade ago. I will ask richard about this. This kind of. Tett is tech the new Banking Sector . Well, i mean, i think there is it certainly has become a darling like the Banking Sector was. I mean in terms of people coming out of mbas or graduate schools or whatever, wanting to go in the tech sector. They dont want to work in Investment Banking any more. Reporters dont want to cover Investment Banking any more. They want to of could the tech sector. Tett so max you are doing the heartbeat right now. Congratulations. Richard, your job is to go around firefighting and to deal with companies that have messed up spectacularly. You dont first of all, if you were advising travis right now, what on earth would you recommend that he does . Because he came out with this extraordinary statement, which to my mind, was in some ways perhaps encouraging. He said eventually he needed leadership lessons. He said that he needed to grow up, like the rest of the tech sector. Do you think thats the right approach for a c. E. O. To take right now . I think he was really smart in trying to staunch the bleeding. And apologize wholeheartedly. And without reservation. And i think it was he was very clear that he had messed up. And that he had a lot of work to do. But i think there is much more to play out here. I think max was correct that the Sexual Harassment kind of initiative, Arianna Huffington and the former attorney general of the United States holder are leading is deeply important for the company to get done. And there was a special investigation by the two outsiders brought in to basically fix the culture. And so she is actually helping to lead it, withholder as an outside counsel. And i think it will be a fundamental look at do we have a problem. If so, what are we going to do about itment and then further, i think travis has to establish himself as a person who accepts that hes running a big company and that hes not just an entrepreneur any more. And this arc has actually been followed by many. And in a successful way. I look at a person who actually started, you know, steve jobs, there are others who have matured over a period of time in the c. E. O. Job. And i think made significant strides. And i think you know, hopefully travis can do that. Tett what i am curious about, you have a survey that comes out once a year which looks at the level of trust amongst people in 18 different countries, in different business sectors. And i remember the reason i first mentioned that is because i used to write about the Banking Sector. And im banking completely collapsed after the financial crisis. Now what was amazing to my mind is that trust amongst consumers in the Technology Sector has stayed sky high. These guys have been like gods. Do you think that is dangerous . Do you think well see a cracking of that sky high trust as a result of some of these scandals. So the Tech Industry has really benefited from cell phones and other sorts of products that people use every day that continue to show be affordable. And the sense that show theyre good employers. Now the idea show that theyre not good employers gets around, that is really corossive. The idea show that c. E. O. S are entitled, really problematic. In fact youll remember that from the data, the huge drop in trust in c. E. O. S this year cross every one of the 28 countries. We did the work in. And you know, c. E. O. S are down there with government officials. Really a great place to be krz i think journalists were even lower. But in fact, the opportunity for technology is substantial. You have people like benioff who are interested in health care or sustainable cities or i think that the arc is different to technology. I just wanted to disagree with bill slightly because i think that theres a record pierre omador who is at ebay have actually made substantial kind of philanthropic, bill gates also, and have been activists in the foundation world. Tett okay so they can try and buy their way into a halo. But im curious, bill, having seen wall street go from god to devil, becoming everyones favorite pinata if you are a politician, do you think that there is a chance of that happening with tech . And if you were running your own massive pr company, what would you be advising all those Tech Companies to do . I think there is a chance that it happens with tech. And its because of this arc of the narrative, if you will let me go back to that a little bit. Because i think regardless of the industry, i think we like to build up these titans of industry. And then when they stumble we like to kind of tear them down and bring 24e78 down. And you know, once it is not a great place to work any more. Everybody is flocking to tech because they perceive it to be like its a google plex. Free food all day long. You can take your skateboard with your computer and go to your little nook. And if you want to take a nap, you can take a nap. It just seems fabulous. And i think a lot of people on wall street who were forced to work really long hours. And ive written stories about people on wall street who have committed suicide because of the long hours and how horrible that is. And so wall street between the financial crisis and the long hours has gotten a very Bad Reputation which they havent been able to dig themselves out of. If that arc begins to change for tech then i think you will see. Its interesting. Mbas, tbrad yaits of our leading universities vote with their feet very quickly. Theyre like traders in that regard. They will go into a hot industry when it is sexy and exciting. But once they see a crack or its not giving them the kind of image that they want for themselves, they immediately go to something else. Tett im curious because you covered the tech sector, not just uber. One thing happening, as we have these ipos with these crazy valuations. It sounds a bit like 2 thousand all over again. The amazing thing about the snap ipo today is that weve come out with this prize, 50 on the first day, and snap actually if business right now is actually not growing that fast, is threatened by other rivals and its not even giving its shareholders any voice. So i think its important when we are comparing tech today to tech in 2 thousand or to banking to look at, are these Companies Creating value for consumers. And i think that is one thing maybe getting lost a little bit. Is that people, you brought it up. People really like uber. Their numbers are increasing every week. And i think you know, branding problems aside, a business like that has value. And i think snapchat, yes, we can sort of make fun of it, it is sort of silly. But the thing is that teenagers and people in their 20s are spending enormous amounts of time with this app. And yes, its an app that we as sort of older folks maybe dont totally understand, but it is getting a lot of attention at a time when Mainstream Media companies are really struggling. When you look at sort of what espn is going through, what some of the News Networks are going through, theyre really struggling to find younger users. And younger users, not just click on a link like facebook but sit in front of it for minutes and hours at a time. And i think thras, when people are, you know, paying sky high val yaigs for snapchat stock, that is what they are banking on. They think that this is television and snapchat owns television. Tett thats a great point. As a parent of betweens and teenagers i do not feel like snapchat adds much value to the world or global civilization or period but one day will you have betweens and 20s too. But you make a good point. Clearly these businesses are thriving right now. When we km back to uber, one of the things that is really interesting about the video that us kad this whole scandal, todays scandal, yesterdays scandal, is the television that travis actually has with the driver. Because he says were not dropping the price on stsh dissh. Taxi driver says yes, he says we have competitors if we didnt drop the prices wed be out of business. And to my mind in some ways that is a really interesting wrinkle because it suggests that maybe this uber miracle isnt that miraculous after all. Maybe it is more fragile than you realized. I think hes right. Its more fra givment i think he realizes it is fragile, a lot of people that see sky high valuations dont understand that it is very easy for consumersers to move say from ub tore lyft or one of these other startups that are basically trying to build companies on top of ubers driver network. And the thicket that is maybe even a little scarier, if you are sitting where travis is sitting, it is very easy for drivers to move. If you get into a uber you will notice often that they have two or three smartphones for different apps. And because ubers model is really attractive to investors because these drivers are not employees. Theyre contractor ises. Uber cant tell them when to work or when not to work. But that is a dubl edged sword because they can leave at any time. They can two time or three time uber as much as they want. And because so many investors have poured money into ubers competitors, those companies arent able to subsidize payments to drivers. So it is kind of in a box even though it has enormous valuation. Drivers, i have found uber drivers will bad mouth uber and actually tell you that you are better off if you just use get or lyft. Tett you have had people say dont use uber. A uber driver that i was in with my wife said do not use this is not the right service, you should use get or lyft. To your point there, these companies, snap, snap inc. , uber, have, yes, theyre like networks. Theyre like tv networks. They have a lot of eyeballs now. They have a lot of people engaging with them. And i think there is a lot of value to that, but i dont understand the valuations. So 70 billion for uber. To me it is just a taxi company. Snap inc. , okay, it was priced as you said, the high end of the range and traded up 50 . It has a loss of 550 million. That sounds sort of amazonnesque. Even amazon now is actually making money for the first time. And maybe it will grow into its paws as we like to say, maybe it will be like facebook and just be a rocket ship to the moon. But i do not understand these valuations. As someone who was a banker on wall street during the last internet bubble, i never understood them then. And you know, as is Warren Buffett investing in these companies. He didnt invest then and he was right. He is not investing now but he invested in apple and made a ton. Apple is an extremely Profitable Company and doesnt have anywhere near these valuations. I think the difference between wall street and the tech sector is that the tech sector has absolutely got to retain its employee base. They are the key to the success. They are not so of moable as the 258 ent on wall street. They have to have programmers and that is the essence of their success strategy. And so if you think forward about whether its uber or any other, youve got to absolutely put employees at the center of your communication strategy and so go from inside out, and rebuild 24 trust. Because in fact, now you see some degree of crack in the ed i fis. And whether its pay, whether its benefits, whether its a reconsideration of Workplace Safety for women, all of these have to be part of the recommendation for travis. Well, lets turn this around a bit. Because one of the interesting angles of this whole thing is the question of Sexual Harassment and a climate for women in Silicon Valley right now. By the way i think its fabulous that we have three males talking about this because i feel too much it is women talking about womens issues and it needs to be a joint conversation. But if you believe, richard, that actually companies are going to have to work hard to actually hang on to their employees, one of the most interesting things right now is that we are about half a Million People short of employee stem employee, computer employees in america quite now. And at the same time only 70, 80 women in Computer Science courses in america. So one question is, is there anyway to make these cultures of Silicon Valley less macho, less male . People talk about the bro culture, how do you get women into Silicon Valley . You dont do it if with susan, right. Susan fallo the employee of uber who came out. Who was an engineer, who wanted to be, was happy to be an engineer. Was assigned to a group at uber that she was happy about. And then basically was mistreated miserably. I mean so unfortunately wall street does that same thing or has a history of doing that same thing. You know, i remember. And women are actually onpr wall street. Its an infinite es mallly small number. Is it better or worse than Silicon Valley. I think its better. It just seems like culturally it is a more forgiving. You know, you can have more flexible hours. You can work from home. You can do those things that are more helpful to women if they choose to be that way. On wall street i remember at lazard, when they got the the first woman. Why do we have to have a woman. And then there was one woman who was a banker. And then somebody suggested another woman. And the edict came from down on high saying why do we need a second woman. We have one already. Yeah, no, ive been there. What do you think, max. These companies, i mean it seems to me one of the problems is you do get some women at the top like shar sil sandberg. You get people join the company at the bottom. What happens in the middle in terms of the lack of women. Its interesting, to bills point, if you poll the average Silicon Valley worker aside and ask them, quiz them about their beliefs about gender, what you will find is they are generally progressive people. Generally people who believe in equality of pay and basically are horrified by the allegations in that blog post. But as a whole, because they are not supersophisticated in hiring, you end up with a culture thats overwhelmingly male. There is all sorts of interesting ways that Silicon Valley investors talk. But one is they talk about pattern matching where you try to scwint at a company that you like say like facebook and then you look at another company like snapchat and see if they are similar. That pattern matching thing is basically discrimination. And i mean thats what that is. And so that is, i think that is the cultural thing that is probably more insidious than the sort of general broiness of Silicon Valley. The only question i would have to this, if you have got a 70 billion market cap, and you are claiming not providing to women who need help, and rooting out this bad behavior, that susan wrote about, i just dont get that i think euper especially. It kind of gets thrown around a lot. Ub certificate a really big company that wasnt acting like a big company. It was acting like a startup. As a startup you dont care about the possibility youre going to get sued for Sexual Harassment. If you are thinking very hardheadedly. All you care about is surviving the next six months or next 12 months and that is insidious no matter what. But i mean its super insidious when are you talking about a company that employs thousands of people. And they for whatever reason in case their investors didnt demand it or immaturity at the top werent able to get there. When travis said i teed to grow need to grow up, not just as a human being, a leader. His Company Needs to grow up, and the tech sector as a whole needs to grow up, if you like. But im curious, you are in the business of dealing with nightmare problems what do you do about the women in Silicon Valley . I think the women in Silicon Valley are part of the bigger exercise in the industry. This is the industry that in fact is my mind at the greatest ris frk President Trump, i think has the biggest challenge on supply chain, on imgraition, because in a certain way, the the workforce is deeply diverse, deeply global. The supply chains are deeply global. They do not base their business on a maid in america kind of label. And they have to sell in china and sell in mexico, and make sure that their data is secure in those places for the local governments. And across purposes with an administration thats deeply unilaterally focused on american jobs and american security. And closing the bridges in a certain way. And so i think the Tech Industry has to lead the fight in a way for that which is america as part of the world. The values that are global values. At a time that is not necessarily so popular. I think all the c. E. O. S in Silicon Valley have to in a way work with the administration but also stay true to what they believe in t, theyll really be inse that is why travis actually showed some leadership when he came out against the immigration ban or what we call the immigration ban and stepped off the c. E. O. Counsel that trump formed with Steve Schwartzman as the leader of it i think he actually showed, that was like a good travis moment. He has had a couple of bad ones since then but absolutely the issue of, Silicon Valley is more depend ent on these kind of not only the brain power but the diversity of a workforce more than probably any other sector in the country. And so thats why they are up in arms against this so called immigration ban. Of course if the immigration ban is imposed it will get even bigger which again comes back to tied together to the question of whether you can get more women more women in Computer Science, more women involved. But max, do agree with richard that the tech secretarier is potentially vulnerable to not just a consumer backlash or liberal backlash, but also a political backlash from President Trump . I think theyre boxed in, in a big way. Because you know, on one hand, you know, trump is baiflt asking c. E. O. S to work with him in one way or the other, whether its keeping jobs or showing up on advisory boards. And as richard says, i mean the vast majority of employees at uber, at all these companies voted for democrats and donated to democrats and they dont want to work for a company that is seen as not as accommodating, you know, somebody they dont like politically. I do think that the trump, that there are ways that trump and tech may end up being closer than people realize right now. I dont know that tech is going to end up being this bastion of resistance. You look at a couple of very Large Companies that have kind of seemed to cozy up to trump, intel and oric el. Somebody like he long musk who is a died in the wool pretty liberal guy, he is pro, you know, wants to stop climate change. Is on a committee with trump and has said some nice things about rex tillerson. And i think just when you look at what trumps sort of economic nationalism, there are ways in which Silicon Valley which is creating jbs in the u. S. In large part appeals to that. And so i dont think its obvious to me anyway that this is going to be some pitch bat well trump on one side and the value on the other side. Tett do you agree . I dont. I think its quite inevitable that there will be a lot of tension particularly on trade. Because of supply chain, particularly mexico and china. Also on security and privacy. Bas you know, this administration is deeply focused. I also think that there is a terrific opportunity for tech to take the initiative and explaining retraining of employees. You know, there are going to be three Million People who drive trucks for a living who are going to be having to have different work in ten years. And no one is addressing this. And i really believe that the tech. Basically were going to get the Driverless Cars and trucks, one of the ironies of the whole uber story if you like, actually in 2e7b years time there may not be any more taxi drivers for uber. I dont know why the Tech Industry wouldnt say look, were going to Fund Specific Training Programs in 25 cities across this country and others, that help people make this transition. And make sure that they, these drivers have the skills necessary for ten years out that would be responsible, that is something that travis could, for example, do for people at uber. Is it time for the tech sector, i wouldnt say buying to buy the halobut actually get really aggressive about trying to get more involved in the public debate, get involved not just in philanthropy but actually trying to find solutions to these problems. My view is that the classic role for business to be actor, innovator and now you actually have to get involved in making Public Policy and helping make these transitions on automation. Its got to get out of its traditional box. Its not just for halopurposes. Its actually to make sure that they have a viable Business Model ten years out. So they attract the best and the brightest people. Exactly. Because this generation, this millenial generation, my children, they want to work for a business where they can have a full wellrounded life. I mean. Tett would your children work for uber, do you think . Well, one of my sons wants to be a politician the other a writer. So i done know that theyre going to work for uber. But i think they want to have a balanced life. And i hear this, consistently from people who think they want to work on wall street. And the hours are punishing and the competition is punishing. And its really hard to have a balanced life even though wall street makes a big point of trying to insure that people dont work all day every weekend, but they find that people are so competitive, that they have to demand that they not come in on a sunday or whatever. That is not really a balanced life. You need to have balance. This new generation wants balance. And if i think thats one of the great appeals that google has had is just that sort of notion, i was talking about before, you can skateboard your way through the office while you are feasting on free food all day lock. Its ironic because actually it keeps you there much longer than you otherwise would be. So it is kind of brilliant. But i think google in many ways epitomizes the company that people be want, young people want to work for. Tett way yns and a lot of these Tech Companies enable change. For example, if health care can really be show addressed by having people with di vices or show better medical records or others, this is something tech can own. And again make change, you know, as they did with cell phones. Something that makes them important and sim pathetic. Tett i would like to come to another issue which is that one of the things that makes this video with travis so compelling is that there he is in the backseat of a cab being filmed by a camera on the dash board, presumably. Camera on the dash board. Tett which show found its way to bloomberg, congratulations. But getting filmed as they go out of their every day business. And it makes at somebody in ang watching unguarded moment is actually doing. You see travis stroking his cell phone. Makes me also wonder, if someone put a camera on the dash board of the taxis i travel every day, what would we all see. None of us are used to this 24 7 scrutiny. So im curious, do you think there is any chance that there is going to be a backlash against this kind of constant scrutiny . I mean i think we saw it a little bit even after publishing the video. And i think you know,. Tett people complaining of the video. There was some discussion about whether, you know, basically where the line is. And you know, from our point of view, it was news worthy. Uber relationship with its drivers is at the core of the company. And they were directly speaking to that. But that said, i think one of the things thats scary about tech maybe broadly is the way that its eroding privacy. Tett do you know whether, is it Standard Practice for uber drivers to be filming their passengers. Its pretty comoon in black cars in general to use camerases alike a security measure. Tett i can see both bill and richard looking pretty shocked right now. How many people watching knew that you were being constantly filmed in the back of a car. We are being filmed everywhere now adays. If you are in the big city, you are filmed in the subway, walking down 6th avenue, everywhere. When you go by the trump tower on fifth avenue, you think youre not being filmed. You are being filmed. We know the nsa can even listen our phones when they are not on and film us when they are not on and people put tapes over the camera on their computer because theyre afraid of getting filmed. This is what i find fascinating. They look and say this is so scary. Were all living in brave new worlds. The other way to look at it is that actually this is a major victory for democracy and the power of the people. Because at the end of the day it was actually a taxi driver who forced traf nice this unbelievably embarrassing apology. If you imagine 10, 20 years ago, taxi drivers wouldnt have had that power. If you think back to your days on wall street, bill, what would have happened if you actually had cameras filming what was happening every day on the trading floor. Or in offices behind closed doors. It would not be pretty. But the thing that i just cannot imagine, i cant cant compute at the moment is, so we live in this society. I mean whether its been the last 10 or 15 years, we should know that were being filmed. Everything that we do is potentially discoverable, findable. I mean one of the great things, you know, policecams, you know, weve caught so many police crime on film that we never had before. We kind of knew that police were abusing sectors of society. And now we can actually prove it and that has been devastating and is leading to change. But even knowing that everything is being filmed or everything could be filmed, it is amazing. Why would travis act that way in the back of a cab. Tett didnt know there was a camera you didnt know there were those cameras in a certain way, you actct with dignity and you exort yourself with a certain decorum. Hes the c. E. O. Of a 70 billion company. Tett tell me, can you say with a clean conscience that if you had been filmed nonstop in the back of a cab for the last 20 years you would be happy with everything . Mi a subway guy so i generally, and my wife, to have us be in a cab. Basically what people would see is us looking at our cell phones. And going through our emails. Tett you know. I would agree with you. I wouldnt necessarily want every back cab ride for sure. But more important, i think the way in which people are communicating is not top down any more. Its peer to peer. And you know also that the most credible person today is a friend. Tett tharytd. Your surveys show, that actually trust these days has shifted away from people having trust in their leaders to having trust in their facebook friends or if you like now their snapchat or instagram or twitter friends. Yeah. And the key difference then is frequent see, and authenticity, and you know, that which is novel. As opposed to experts. Your parliament arian mr. Go said were sick of in regards to the u. K. In regards to the brexit. Thats why the employees matter more than ever. In fact, its going to be a peer to peer conversation or customers being happy, and i think here sharing economies have done brilliantly in having platforms to allow the customers to rate the service and drivers to rate the customer. So there is some degree of transparency that allows mutual ratings. And in a certain way, travis comments undermine that kind of Mutual Respect between Service Provider and employee and customer all you can say is that he has died by his own word f you like. And that he yeeted the system that gave taxi drivers the power to rate people and to essentially have their tboi voice heard and guess what, they use it against their own boss. How many times do we see that happen over and over and over again. The editor you see this all the time look at gawker, talk about dying by the sword. I mean they got hoisted on their own pitard. You may argue about whether or not it was right, peter teel fund the the litigation, they made themselves extremely vuller inable the question i really have, is this actually a story about the power of consumers and the power of employees to overturn abuse of power. I think thats part of it and do i think in the long run this will be goods for uber. Because these conversations have been happening and i any its telling that uber, rather than say this is not a news story or responding in some more aggressive way a poll giez. Because what they realize is that this is a real thing that their drivers are really talking about. And as angry as the driver was, i imagine, i think he did them a favor by putting this out there. And i think you know, a lot of times this more transparent world that we live in is better for the world than it otherwise would be. I think the central issue for the Tech Industry is trust. Look at facebook and google and the issue of fake news. And to what extent were they or werent they part of the election outcome and whats the future for germany and france on fake news, just as an example. And i really believe deeply that the smart tech company will put this on their badge and say we are going to be trusted by our constituents by behaving in a certain way as a company that sees ten years out and takes on the big issues of the time and really has our chief executive in leadership as opposed to just to wall street and making money. And i think theres a bigger expectation show of Tech Companies, that they were sort of borne of the people and they really have to represent the people. I think corporate activism is kind of part of the problem here. And i think that one of the things that has made it challenging for the Tech Industry to deal with Sexual Harassment, for instance, is that they had this idea, its like that the Tech Industry is more merit krattic than everybody else. That they are show exceptional. And i think that makes it harder for whistleblowers to be heard. And i think this idea that Tech Companies are show good or better is, i dont know, i think its really lovely that somebody who writes about tech and who is an avid user of many of these companies, i also think its maybe not totally real. And we would be better off treating them like businesses that want to make money, not businesses that are going to save the world. I actually say look at how diverse the leadership is. Look how many c. E. O. S are indian desent, that is not true in other industries, you can have a entrepreneurdrif be company that gets to the point of being able to be big and keep going as o polessed to just being snapped up. Its different that way. I think 2 would be healtheer for Silicon Valley to be taken down a peg frankly not only in the valuations of these companies but in our estimation that they are show literally changing the world and we need to bow down to them as some sort of uber gods, no pun intended. Its gotten a little out of control just as it did in 1891991919 and 2 thousand because then it was vaporware because there were no earnings or nothing but eyeballs. Now ve have legitimate businesses that make a lot of money. Theyre not gods and i think we can see that with travis and the way he has behaved and people in his company get treated. I think we all need to be more civil, and more, take a step, unfortunately we have a leader in the white house who toed. Ed unrest and bad feelings and made it okay for people to be abusive to one another. And thats rep ri hencable, unfortunately. I think we just need to take a deep breathe here. It is a message for anyone sitting sitting there inn office of any type and is feeling that they have an abusive boss. An abusive people in charge. Dealing with a company, whatever, that they dont like. Is it simply to get out your cell phone and get filming whenever they can. Is that the new check and balance of the american system. Is that what we ought to be doing . It is very easy to say that. But it is also really scary. I have known a lot of whistleblowers on wall street who had the guts to come forward and talk about abuse that they saw leading up to 2008 financial crisis. What did they get in return . They got fired in return. So if you want to put your career on the line and richard would know about this as well as anyone, then you should take out your cell phone. I think susan again was trying to work within the system to try to reform the Hr Department at uber. She obviously felt like she reached a dead end. The only thing she could do was resign. She got another job though. That is what are you supposed to dovmentd eventually, good for her she went public and now apparently theyll face hopefully this report that holder and arianna huferrington are doing is not a white wash thing. I hope it gets released to the public. I hope its very detailed. I hope it ruins other peoples careers at uber who are treating women this wayness i think this goes well beyond the tech sector. I think it has to do with corporate strategy. United airlines, oscar comes in and says we have had an adversarial relationship with the unions for ten years, i dont like this, i will try to change this deal because were ranked number eight out of eight airlines in so many categories. And so i want to make a deal with unions. I want to have better service, better performance. And lets make in a winwin. And so hes raised saltries but also gotten much belter performance. I think united is now third in bag ang and on times and all this. So this actually becomes an explicit decision by the leader who says okay, i can fix this. And do you think that uber is going to find a way to actually learn from this. Because at the moment they are hunkering down. The reason we dont have anyone from uber with us tonight because they are reluctant to talk about there, perhaps understandably. But there is also a lot of soul searching going on inside the company. Morale is not great. Do you think this could be a turning point that revives them . I think when theyre at this position its hard to see how it could do anything but get better. I mean its been a bads six weeks for them. I think that im not 100 percent sure who is going to be in charge of uber in a couple of years. You think travis might be pushed out. I think its unlikely. But i mean when you have this much bad press, you start to wonder if somebody like travis might decide to say, you know, be better if somebody else is running the company. Somebody less controversial. That said, no matter what happens at the top of uber, i think yeah, i think that this is healthy and they will get better. And i think on the other hand, do you have Companies Like lyft trying to capitalize on this. I think that one way or the other, that driver, that business is going to exist and people are going to use it. And maybe it will be uber, maybe 2 will be lyft but thats a real thing. Companies do recover from this. If you look at netflix, its not directly comparable but when Reed Hastings decided to split the company up when they were getting out of the cd business and devoting themselves to the Online Business and he wrote all those blogs and got all of his shareholders angry at him and the stock tank and i think i wrote an vanity fair article about him at that moment and then its like a miracle. It got completely turned around. Carl icon bought into the stock. He made five times his money and the stock, and the Company Became a darling again. So this is a clear moment where if you are a smart corporate leader, you take the bull by the horns at this very moment. And change your Corporate Culture and show that this could never happen again. Travis has to do that if he wants uber to get back into the good graces of not only potential employees but of investors and customers. Hes the leader and hes misbehaving. That sun acceptable. Well, certainly he does love a comeback story. Do you have any examples that you would point to where individual leaders have messed up badly and come bouncing back . Well, you know, go back to iacocca. At ford. But i mean, you know, Howard Schultz came back at starbucks and you know, he had been a great entrepreneur. He turned the business over to someone. He became chairman, he got interested in the basketball team. And then he came back in 2007 just in time for the great recession. And he brought his team to new orleans and said you know, weve got to help fix this wreck from the hurricane. And we got to stand up for our communities and hes completely turned that business. And so i do believe that you know, smart leaders can take this moment in time to get out there, lead from the front but it has to be on the basis of having a great core relationship with your employees. And heres where the great test will come for travis because its a different kind of employee. This is a sharing economy relationship. Its not one where they are full time people. I think his issue is in the driver force more than his full Time Employee but also that he has a Sexual Harassment issue at home. As again one of the great ironies that are you being hoisted by your own pitard that uber is successful because it did not have those perm nentd employees but because you had them, your business mod sell more fragile and they may be disloyalty in that way. I think there is a very interesting labor story here. And i dont know how it will play out. I mean uber drivers and basically sharing economy workers in general are kind of a new class of employee that the world really hasnt figured out, sort of what protections they deserve, how much they need to get paid. And i think that is going to be a big story over the next, you know, decade or even couple of decades as more of us stop having full time jobs and start, because we either have been replaced by robots or because more people adopt these kind of contractor roles. Tett they say there are 53 million so called contingent workers or selfemployed workers in america. These are not covered with any traditional safety net. I think its really important to also say that driving for uber is a lifeline to a lot of people. And when youre talking about uber doesnt just operate in new york and san francisco. It operates in the rust belt and where my mother lives in wisconsin. And you know, its a job, its a way that you can make money in places where its very hard to find jobs that pay anything at all. And i think that as much as travis and uber have screwed up, i think its worth recognizing that they have created opportunity for people both in terms of opportunity for passengers and also for drivers. And i think thats part of what make this story hard and complicated. Tett in some ways it is what makes it so emblematic of modern america, both good and bad in some way this is the American Dream, free Market Competition in every sense. It is also without democracy people wouldnt be fighting back. But it is also very challenging. The interesting moment at time here is that the trump voter actually is very probusiness. It gives you a license, in a certain way. The other is that businesses the most trusted institution by those people who havent made their minds up about whether the system is working or not working. Business has the chance now, and uber has to be mart of that drive to get to a place where the results are good for the worker and for the customer, as well as the shareholder. Thats the dream. Can i go back to something richard was talking about before at the beginning, talking about retraining. And maybe uber could create some sort of fund or good wil fund to help people get retrained. I think one of the biggest mysteries to me in this election, the so called trump voter is someone who is feeling left behind economicically, by the last eight years of the obama, to the obama administration. And they dont have a fulfilling job. They dont make the kind of income they would like to. They feel like they lost out show. And they are crying out to be retrained. Im like, i dont understand how you are going to retrain these people. Are you going to take somebody who worked on an Assembly Line and an auto plant and show transported him or her to Silicon Valley and have them type in code. I dont understand how that is going to work. That swurch the big mythologies that show were going to retrain this workforce force that has been left behind. And i just dont see it happening. I dont know how it will happen. Tett the problem max points out if they are contingent workers, not evdn on as employees why would a company want to retrain them. I have done some reporting on Driverless Cars. Obviously Driverless Cars could in the superlong run take a lot of jobs. However, first of all, in the sort of middle term say between 5 and ten years, there will be tons and tons of jobs created to sort of help make this possible. And now that includes engineers but it also includes what is sort of known in the business as safety driver. These are people who sit in the driverness car and essentially operate the computer that is operating the car and thats actually a pretty good job that requires some training but not a lot of training and if is the kind of job that would be trained by the employee, by uber, by the employer, by google or uber. The other thing is, i spent time looking at Trucking Companies lately there are the los of vitionzs how driverless trucks might work. Obviously truck drivers, that is a huge sector of the economy, employs a lot of men without college degrees, i think what will happen is those people will be employed, they will just be computer operators. So if you are a truck driver your job is going to change and it will require certain skills but its not like you have to become a really great coder. You just have to be able to operate this machine that is operating the machine. That is the kind of thing that a company can do. I dont understand driverless anything, im sorry. I know everybody is talking about that. I know it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I dont want to get in a car without a driver. Dont want get in a plane without a pilot. I thip one of the scary things yet is as of yet washington has even barely begun to discuss these issues and think about how they deal with the loss of jobs as richard said and the question of how they protect workers or dont protect them. Instead we have this break point where there are stories, the driver of breaking into public consciousness putting these issues on the map. We dont have any answers at all yet. I ths i will the tech company should use this moment in time to begin to turn the globalization debate. This idea show that america has been deeply disadvantaged by trade is so fallacio us, the Company Companies are the winners in ip, in selling product through a Global Supply chain thsm ve affordable products that they can sell through walmart that otherwise people couldnt afford. And the whole mythology around job loss is just that. And so this is a really important topic that the Business Community compared to nafta the job on ttp was so poor 6789 and it was all ars before on nafta. O 20 this is the moment for the Tech Companies to stand up and not yus them but also the customers. The dry cleaner or the Small Business person who is running it on a pc that cost 700 instead of 1200. In is kritd kal to the success of the economy forward. This is where tech and the financial world coinside and the ecoto history become very strong. I must say next time i am head of uber or lyft i will think about this as being a symbol for the American Dream for good, bad and the challenges, but thank you for the discussion, thank you max, richard and bill and best of luck in figuring out what will happen next 6789 thank you. Rose for more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. Boom hello, im julia child. Welcome to my house. What fun were going to have baking all kinds of incredible cakes, pies and breads right here in my own kitchen. Today, norman love executive pastry chef for Ritz Carlton Hotels adds a dollop of his own special artistry to a classic choux pastry as he teaches us how to make these chocolatecinnamon beignets