Goldman Sachs Technology conference right here in san francisco. We will hear from technology heavyweights over the hour, including the ceo of gopro, ripple, and Goldman Sachs. The year is set up in a way in which i think it should be very constructive for m a activity and ipo activity. Activity. We have got a very healthy ipo backlog, but we also have an environment for a variety of reasons why meeting should set up to be a pretty good year. Are private market valuations private healthy right now . I think private market valuations have heightened the months. The last 1224 capital has been tighter for private market funding. I would not say that valuations are bubbly. Environment where growth was sluggish, investors were looking for a place where there was growth, and Silicon Valley is a place where there was a lot of growth. You look at a company like amazon, it is growing 30 on when hundred 80 billion of and 80 billion of revenues. These are Big Companies with large market caps. They are growing very quickly, and that obviously creates interest around other businesses. By tightening are you saying that valuations are plateauing or going down . I do not think valuations are going down. As long as Growth Continues and the trajectory we are on continues, i think there will be. Arrived ambulance ce. Nce ebbulan how to take advantage of it . The volatility that we have seen as a result of what we were talking about with respect to economic growth. People are seeing signs of wages actually increasing. Using the strong Growth Numbers coming outcome that is going to bring volatility thats why more normal environment. Theres no question that volatility spiked over the last several weeks. It is coming off of extraordinary lows. It would be helpful at this point for volatility to be more normalized in the context of a Broader Market period. I would expect to see more of a normalization on volatility. You are advising qualcomm on a potential takeover of broadcom. Million k the 100 billion dollar size of the deal would be . That is still a large number. They are growing organically. Is it possible that one of these Big Companies steps in and does something that is very significant in size . Sure, that is possible. I think by and large 100 billion is wanted continue to be a very big is going to continue to be a big. We are watching the cryptocurrency space and riskadjusted we are interested. At the moment with our clearing some future products for some clients. That activity is small. We have no immediate plans to start trading these currencies. There is a lot of hype, there is a lot of activity around this. Were watching the space question sleep cautiously. With think blockchain is there Interesting Technology we think blockchain is a very Interesting Technology. What are you doing at Goldman Sachs about diversity and hiring women . Diversity is hugely important for Goldman Sachs. For us to be successful with our clients and excel as a capital organization, we have to have a very diverse organization. We have been working at improving the diversity of our business for 20 years. We hire a lot of people every year, particularly young people out of school. We have been very focused to try to make sure that the diversity of that group of people matches the diversity of the world we are hiring from. Whether it is women, black americans, or hispanic americans, we are looking for opportunities to continue to increase the diversity of our population. Over the past year we have made great progress. We have brought the number of women up by really focusing on that entry points in the pipeline. If your entry point in the pipeline creates a more diverse it istion over time, pretty much the same. You should do brighter i havent better at having a broader pool. We continue to be very focused on the. That was david solomon, Goldman Sachs president and cocoo. Among the issues talked about was a special dividend due to the tax overhaul and a slowdown in the mobile payment space. He also addressed succession plans. He wants to properly pass the baton to the next leader. We talked to the man who used to run twitter. Dick costolo joins us to talk. If you like Bloomberg News check us out on the radio. You can listen in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Predictedceo has amazon style losses. He told the goldman Sachs Technology conference that he had joined the company in crisis, and he has seen no lack of surprises. It comes one day after uber reported a loss for 2017 on net 1. 5ue of one and billion. My next guest is well aware of the maledominated problem in the technology industry. He has made it his mission to hire as many women as men at his latest company. I would like to welcome former twitter ceo dick costolo. Ick i generally try to keep it 50 men and 50 women across all areas of the company. I feel like when you fall behind, as is Common Knowledge based on all of the gender and diversity studies that come out from all of these companies, when to get behind on things like gender diversity and just becomes impossible it becomes impossible to catch up. There are only so many women engineers, the end of spending all of their time interviewing other engineers. Then they dont spend time writing production code. That is just one aspect of how hard it is when you fall behind. I just decided that the way to deal with it is to start off by not falling behind. By not giving yourself the excuse in the early days, we just have to get the right seven people here on day one and we will catch up later. You dont catch up. Emily why dont more ceos and founders think like you . I think they just dont think about it. If youre a firsttime founder, youre trying to raise money. People responsible for you have never been responsible for. They feel like it is something they can do with later. Theres probably a general sense of well, theres only 30 people in the company now, that will be an issue, but we will do with the later. The reality is that once you fall way behind, it is almost impossible to catch up. Everything in the organization starts to work to favor the existing imbalance and to keep it going. Reason,any nefarious but thats just the way that everything in the company is. If you got 90 men in theneering and 10 women, Junior Engineer guys are taking out with other Junior Engineer guys hanging out with other Junior Engineer guys. Once you fall behind, the imbalance starts to reinforce itself. Emily is there anything in particular that you learned at twitter where you saw things go the wrong way that could have been better if there had been michelman and women more equal men and women. Dick i would frame it differently. I always thought that when i have a more Diverse Group of perspectives on a decision need a needed to be made look when you are a leader, 80 of what you do is gathering input so that you can make the best decisions. Input gather the broadest to make a decision that will be better than a very narrow set of perspectives. If you have got a Leadership Team sitting around the table that is 10 guys and your user base is 50 men and 50 women, you are going to have a serious lack of what have of your user base half of your user might be thinking. Matches them that user base at chorus. I always thought that was something you should work towards, to have more of those , letsf you know narrow socioeconomic, demographic, genderbased, etc. Perspectives. Emily we continued with dick costolo and moved on to what else . Twitter. He ran the social media platform got his02015 and we take. Been jack has been backfilling the ranks. There was a lot of news about executive departures in 2016, but at the same time he was doing a great job of bringing in people to fill those positions. The new cfo, everybody speaks very highly of him. Same with the people on the Engineering Team leadership. Worldclass, he is going to be an extraordinary ceo. Anthony did a great job with jack to keep the financial house in order. Emily do you think the turnaround is longterm or is it just a shortterm thing . twitter is one of the most important mediums in the world. I have every believe in the told that it will continue be an independent company and thrive. Things i and or about jack i adore about jack is that he is a very patient and thought the later, which is exactly patient and thoughtful leader, which is exactly what you want. I think he is the right person, not that they have got the company on it financial on a financial trajectory that the internal team like and can work against, he is going to continue to be the right person to lead the company. I love that the folks in the Company Really feel like they have the wind in their sales. You can see it when you go hang out with people in the company now. They feel like they have got momentum behind him now. Emily what do you make of the sale chatter and who could be a likely suitor . Comes. Hat chatter it did when i was running the company. It seems like every couple months there is a story about someone or another big interested in the company. Has been focused on the things that they need to focus on. The people in the company know well enough to not paid any heed pay it any heed. Do you think facebooks loss could be twitters gain this year . Or is this something that all of these platforms are going to have to reckon with . What are the consequences . Dick the biggest consequence for twitter was the statements coming out of facebook just a couple fridays ago that they were going to sort of rethink the way the newsfeed worked to be much more about social sharing and less about news, publishers, and media. Ohat to me is a big boon t twitter. Twitter has sort of always been about that. Working closely with media companies, this is the bulls of the world pulse of the world. Twitter can feel like they are the single distribution vehicle these media companies. That is a huge boost for twitter and its relationship with content providers. Emily that was dick costolo, former twitter ceo. Bloomberg operates a Global News Network on twitter called ticktock. Next we would hear from heather bellini. Her take on performance from 2018 ahead. Later this hour we will speak a ceo about the cyberattack that has already plagued the olympics. This is bloomberg. Emily the ceo of salesforce says a movement is coming at facebook and it will not be pretty. He said that unilevers recent threat to pull advertisements from the social media giant is just the start of a growing backlash against facebook. Ays i posed this question taunus guest, to our next heather bellini. This . Ow important is a chiefnk if you are marketing officer, you want to make sure that your protecting your brand. Brand safety is top of mind. It is not just for facebook, but it is also for youtube and google. It has been experiencing the same type of feedback. I think maybe some of this might be a little bit overdone. I think i dont think that facebook and google are tried to create an environment where this type of backlash is according occurring. I think they are making a lot of efforts and inroads, whether it is investing in people to try and make sure they are getting rid of this content before its online, or investing in a i a. I. To do that. I think they are truly focused on it. Emily how much do you think it will impact revenue . Do think it will have a Material Impact on revenue . You have to think about the platform, whether it is facebook, or google with youtube. These are multibillion user platforms. 1. 4 daily active users for facebook. If you are an advertiser, you going to walk away from that many eyeballs . You have heard Sheryl Sandberg say many times that we could deliver the super bowl, in terms of reach, every day. I think this is a call to action. This that ceos of these Big Companies want to see more done. I dont think they can ignore these platforms. Emily what about the fact that for the first time users in the u. S. Did not go grow . Yes, they declined. The u. S. And canada are about just under 190 million users. Youre at a point where we dont really model a lot of growth, if any government and daily active in daily active users for the company. I dont think that should be a very big surprise. Ir growth has been in a lot of emerging economies. You have to continue to focus on the value that advertisers are getting from these platforms. They are getting a lot of improved targeting, better targeting that they could get then they can get on any other medium. They are seeing return of investment on these ads continue to go up. Your sink at pricing go up pricing go up. Ad Emily Facebook has been making all the rhythm algorithm changes. Interesting to see the dichotomy there. Youtube is struggling with its own issues. What do you think the big headlands are for you to headwinds are for youtube . I would say they are just concerned about that on youtube as they are with facebook. Again, in partnership with the advertisers, and from a measurements perspective, people just want to see the standards continue to move in the right direction. I think unfortunately it has how a sign of the times this message has evolved. These platforms, not that they went off the rails, but the issues is what users have been posting, i think collectively everyone is more focused on it. You have start to see some of that change with some of the algorithmic changes on facebook. Emily that was heather bellini, analyst at Goldman Sachs. Still ahead, bill gurley joins us. Why he is very optimistic about uber under new leadership, next. Bloombergdes of technology are Live Streaming. This is bloomberg. Emily welcome back to best of bloomberg technology. Bill gurley has been making headlines. Gurley took the witness stand during the waymo uber trial. From the goldman Sachs Technology conference in san francisco, we asked about the state of venture capital. This is something that has been going on gradually for a 20 rather than something that happened yesterday. If you go back years, decades, there are famous people who are known for coming into a board room. Competition has made it so that the majority of the biggest fears of our mixing out on the next investment. They are afraid of having a reputation of someone who asks too many questions or pushes too hard. It has led to a situation weather is not a lot of stewardship for discipline and results. What can you do about that . Bill i dont know, it it is a tricky problem. Did that happen at uber . Bill i did not bring it up related to that. There are a lot of investors here who are reaching down into these private companies. When they hear that, they say that is what i experienced. I think it is a broadbased problem. Competition,f that how is the rate increase going to impact the industry . Investors inrtest the world tell you macro is impossible. I offer that caveat i4 i offer commentary. Likely. It is extremely a lot of issues that exist in our industry and investment categories are due to the excessively low Interest Rates. If you give the ability to drill holes, they will drill as many as they can. Low Interest Rates are speculation, and there is more money in late stage available to these private companies than ever before. 500 billion was unthinkable. What changes it. Smart people would say inflation is on the calm, and that will cause the fed to raise. It may not be a wall we want to look over. Emily you have talked to softbank, and a first look at deals with more money than anyone. Is that a concern for you . Is it boxing you out . Things i talkhe about on stage is that it is a National Natural park to the companys evolution. I believe that being public helps the company run better. It is an enforced discipline. These people are extremely smart. They ask provocative questions and you have to be on your a game. College. To being an these massive amounts of money, that natural evolution, here is how i look at it. Like it or not, it is a reality we have to adapt to. We are spending time figuring out how to coevolved. We are forced to play the game on the field. Goobers financials came out yesterday. Help us make sense out of the spread. Are those losses going to go away . Switched with my partner, so i am not involved in those things being distributed. I am further way and excited. The things they are accomplishing, there are some strong profit drivers at the highend of the market. Theyre starting to hear are being very successful. I am very optimistic. We have a great new team on board who know how to run profitable companies. And you are forced to play this game on the field issue. Emily we are making that it tshirt for you. Uber and waymo, how do you feel about that, and what does it signify now that they have avoided a long drawnout trial . How do you feel about the new guard and are you hopeful there are not more skeletons . Bill i am super excited about where we are now versus where we were. I think it is clear from london, dara is starting to build up a track record to put out these fires and attack these problems. I dont know if there are more, but i have a high degree of confidence that our probability of moving through them is better than it was. I think he is starting to earn credibility in that role. Did you know anything about the hack . Bill i did not. Do you think this will have an impact . They spoke in front of the Senate Last Week and answered questions, and went through those details. Do you think the developments will impact programs . Bill it is possible. I think people want to make sure the structure and the system that are set up are being used in appropriate ways. Made comments and martin has made some comments about if they could do it over again, those would become new policies built in everyones program. Sheryl sandberg said it is the very best way to protect yourself. It is the only offensive solution. Most solutions are defensive where you are