Shareholder is describing carl icahn. He is called a rater trying to cash. Im ron burgundy and i will read anything in the teleprompter. It seems the anchorman has been everywhere, lately. He has the viral marketing blitz, a new business of buzz. Breaking news and a new name emerging in the microsoft ceo search, the board considering qualcomm ceo steve mollenkopf. We dont know yet, but one candidate who may be fading is forbes ceo mullaly. There were concerns about his lack of technology experience. They want a new ceo, ideally, before the end of the year. Tom giles, good to see you on the east coast. It is like bloomberg east here. This is a big deal. They are busting the phones to find out what they heard, tell us about it. It turns out we found the name of the person, he is the coo of qualcomm. A well regarded company and has done well in terms of the stock price and growth. They are a leader in wireless technology, specifically the chips that a lot of phones you and i use. Microsoft has had an area of weakness, and that is where it that is an area of expertise that he can bring. It is a really different focus for the company. Someone who can fix the company, he has done it once or arguably twice. Another guy outside is looking at mobile. All of them this is where areas that microsoft could focus on. This is where microsoft needs strength. This is a scenario in which mullally is taking a shortterm role at the company. One scenario being considered. You can imagine him playing some kind of a role. People that we have talked to have said one area where he lacks Computer Technology these other candidates like tony bates have a great deal of expertise. He certainly shows no sign of lacking energy. It seems like he is on the ball. Absolutely. He is well regarded and has a great reputation. You right off into the sunset sunsetride off into the after your stint at ford where you had a very good run . They brought that company back from a great deal of difficulty as was the case of gm. He is also quite wealthy, worth over 100 million in just his shares alone. Now we take a look inside foxconn and some of the other asian manufacturers of some of the worlds most popular gadgets. Apple supplier foxconn is allowing employees to work excessive overtime in order to meet production goals. Apple, a Fair Labor Association members says that foxconn has addressed 99 of the flas recommendations, adding that apple has led the industry in addressing excessive overtime, reducing the average work week to 53 hours. It is well below industry norms. There are internationally recognized standards. It was a great concern that one of those employees is only 15 years old. Gordon, let me start with you. When i read the story this morning, the thing that jumped out at me was not apples that these deaths are not related to working conditions, but that the worker, at least one of them, was only 15 years old. With tight timetables, things like this are going to happen. There is a stressing frequency to these reports. These are going to continue as long as apple puts pressure on its contractors. I am really kind of leaning on apple are the ones out there saying that they are the problem, they are trying to change it. I am really torn about this. There are lots of other companies manufacturing in the same facilities and they are mom. Um. First of all, condolences to the families. It is terrible news to find out that a son has passed away. The child was working at a factory. Anywhere in the world, you can have kids run away and it can happen. I am curious as to when the last time a factory in china belongs to either foxconn atron. I walked around the factory in 2011. Are they different . Cleaning up working conditions, making them better for the employees there . Gordon . I think that there has been some progress, especially since the worker suicides at foxconn in 2010. Obviously, these problems persist. These problems persist for a reason. You have contractors under very tight timetables. This is going to continue for quite some time. How apple can say that the number of hours are 53. I dont believe it, largely because we know the way this system works, a lot of unreported overtime. These contractors dont tell apple the truth. Apple actually knows this. So what is going to happen . People are going to die. We have seen similar reports about samsung. Samsung has said nothing about this. If they are doing anything to investigate this, but i wonder if we find out that samsung is moving 40 of their production to vietnam, if they are going after even cheaper labor, who knows . Maybe worse conditions . The last time i went there was 2011 foxconn reported a when number of suicides. The factory i saw was still very impressive. In what way were they impressive . They were huge. The number of employees was 400,000. That is roughly the population of oakland. The number of murders in oakland was 104. I will argue based on statistics that it is safer to work at the plant then to be nearby in the bay area. The second statistic, one million factory workers in china. Over one million. We look at that versus elsewhere, and it is way better. This is not the shoe manufacturers of the 1980s before people had awareness. I dont know if it is fundamentally fair to compare ofcompare the conditions poor people in their homes to people working in factories making expensive computer devices to face the same risks. China is still developing. It is a third world country. [talking over each other] foxconn versus apple, i will have to agree with gordon. It is something that they should think about. Not just the factory workers, but also the terms for the manufacturers themselves. They are much better people than people portray them to be. Thank you very much. We will be right back on bloomberg west. Carl icahn wants apple to take its giant pile of cash and give it to shareholders. What do the rest of shareholders think . Calpers with a pension of 2. 5 million apple shares, they say he is uncomfortable with the news. They spoke and broke the story with bloomberg. This is one of the most influential pension funds. And a major apple shareholder that is not afraid to speak out when it is not happy with what and a somewhat similar tone this it sees from other investors. Time around. When i asked what he thought of this carl icahn plan to buy back stock, her response was that he is a johnnycomelately. The stake in apple goes back to the ipo and we are uncomfortable with a raider coming into a company with a proposal. Cash. Ultimately, this will be decided by long term holders of apple stock and not raiders. She also said they were ready to stand up shoulder to shoulder, as was the case with david einhorn. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Carl icahn as well. Apple has a ton of cash that they are not putting to use. A lot of shareholders think they should use it. Calpers think about giving it back to shareholders . What and simpson says is that we like what they are doing. Returning money to shareholders. Carl icahn is late to the party. Remember that apple has already committed to a large plan to return money to shareholders. That is the context on that, but to your point, here is a company that every quarter is generating lots of cash. You expect this story to continue to be debated out, but here is one large investor in apple with a different opinion than that of carl icahn. He owns barely. 5 of the company, but it is nearly twice as much as calpers. Insuring stuff there, john. 3 is what theyre saying. Between the two of them, they might have one percent but they speak with a loud voice. From car commercials to espn, ron burgundy has been all over the media lately. But will the blitz translate to big bucks in the theater . That and more, coming up on bloomberg west. Im cory johnson. This is bloomberg west. One of the kickoffs to the hollywood awards season, the golden globe nominations came out. 12 years a slave, American Hustle tied for the most nominations. Nebraska, captain phillips, and gravity scored multiple nominations. House of cards scored four golden globe nominations, kevin spacey nominated for his portrayal of conniving politician frank underwood. Jon erlichman back from l. A. And was that the nominations this morning. What is it like . We do our duty, and this continues a conversation on awards and house of cards that started with the emmys. The executive producer joins us now on what has been a pretty busy day for him. We talk about what these nominations mean for programs. The platform that you find it, what does this mean . We had no idea whether we will be eligible for any awards. So now with the emmys and now the Golden Globes, it was closer to the eligible and the icing to be nominated. When the press invite you to the table and says we take it we think you are worthwhile. We like the recognition. What is it about the story and the characters that has gotten so much attention from audiences . I think there is something delicious about someone is conniving and nefarious as frank underwood. He is able to toss all the rules out the window and doesnt have any allegiances. That gives him the liberty to do whatever he wants. Through him we get to do that. I am curious about the marketing story of house of cards as you get ready for the second season. February 14, this big Golden Globes event the month before. It is pretty nice timing. Youre obviously focused on the show itself what are the kinds. What are the kinds of things that netflix can take advantage of given the fact that house of cards is something we will be talking about for the next few weeks. There are plenty of people that havent even watched episode one yet. Because netflix gives the viewer the choices to how they want to experience the show, there are people that hopefully, because of the attention we got today, will watch season one now and will be caught up and ready. I dont think there is anything more romantic than takeout chinese and watching season two this valentines day. We can think of a couple but i will give you that. People want to know how far this show can go. The content, netflix told us three seasons for sure. Beyond that, how far can you go . I am not trying to be cagey, but we are really focusing one season at a time. The very question you are asking is one that we hope viewers are asking. What about content creators . What are they gravitating towards these days . Every time there is another nomination or award for her show for a show that is on a new platform, i imagine there are writers and show runners that say, maybe i should be thinking about netflix or another platform. I think you have seen great artists gravitating towards television because that is where the boldest stories are. Now that you have content providers like netflix that are willing to take chances, artist s will gravitate toward these online ones. We are certainly beneficiaries of that. We talk so much about binge viewing. People who come to a platform like netflix and not just watch one hour, but watch it all. It is like watching a 12 hour movie. Great for everybody involved in the production. How does that affect your decisionmaking on the storyline, each episode . You thinking process for the second season, especially. Ultimately, it hinges on the story. A good story is what is going to sell the show and it has to be able to work both ways, either as a binge experience or a something that you watch week to week or month to month. Just because we deliver all episodes at once doesnt necessitate that you watch it in a binge fashion. So we focus on telling the best story possible and leave it to the viewers to figure out what is best for them. Now we know what your valentines plans are, not that we thought they would be much different than that. Congratulations and we will certainly eagerly be watching for season two. Thanks for joining us. That is the executive producer and show runner of house of cards. Cory, i will send it back to you. That is it for this edition of bloomberg west. Up next, portfolio. Sportfolio. Valley savvy to rebuild the downtown Golden State Warriors. Build is got his sights an nba championship and building a basketball palace in france and cisco. In San Francisco. Meanwhile, in los angeles, kobe bryant is back in the basketball court, but he has his eye and success in a large arena. Im looking toward getting into the trenches and doing more. Ports as part of the plan. Sports is part of the plan. Big dreams, big names and big money. Another big edition of sportfolio starts right now. Hello, im rick horrow and welcome to sportfolio, bloombergs weekly inside look at the business of sports. In july of 2010, hollywood producer peter guber and his partner bought the Golden State Warriors for 450 million. It was the highest price ever paid for an nba franchise. Since then, they have gone from perennial losers to bona fide championship contenders. Recently beenhas revalued at 800 million, nearly twice what they paid three years ago. Did anyone see this coming . And found outh what he knew in 2010 at the rest of the world didnt. It hadnt been properly developed. I dont know that we knew anything more than the average fan, i was a fan for 20 some odd years and i thought there was a tremendous opportunity if someone were to really pay attention. When you bought the franchise, concorde was ok, but now you have almost double the waiting list for season tickets. Winning helps, but it can explain all of that. We have done something that you are doing any business if youre coming in and wanted to turn it around. Youd hire the best people. We spent six months trying to figure out who was good and who wasnt good. We gave everybody an opportunity and then six months into it started making changes. There was a lot of hard work and it is not about me and peter guber, it is about the people who are here in the great work that theyre doing. At youru spend time former company . No. Though i was transitioning, had a lot of responsibilities. Necessity i have had to spend a lot of time here and i am virtually 100 here. He is immersed in the nba now, but he first immersed his with the austin sock the boston celtics. Now it puts you in a position to be a majority owner. Was that tough for you . Youre are not a minority owner guy. Was it tough at first . Actually, that is not entirely true. I come from Venture Capital where you never control or own the business. We always own between 10 and 40 . I have been in that position before and that has helped me in this as well. To your point, if its turned really did help me quite a bit by giving me advice. I got to note david stern and know the leak. That really helped when an opportunity came up in my hometown in terms of acquiring a franchised area the hometown lacob. Ion is critical to smile but i wasnt smiling inside. It was personally a hard thing to do and to absorb at that moment. Three years later, everywhere i walk around San Francisco and oakland, people are really nice to meet. They always say, joe, so sorry you got food that day. Think living in the town where you own your franchise is really important because you get involved. You have to hear the boos if youre here. You have to hear the cheers. You know what is working and what isnt. That is what is really important, to be local and international. Impassioned. Lacob will need to incorporate every ounce of civic capital. They plan to open a stateof theart arena with retail space and open public space. The plan faces hurdles and will require hundreds of millions in financing. Theseason vcc is opportunities beyond the obstacles. This will be something to be proud of. I dont know if you know this, but when the Golden Gate Bridge was else, there were a lot of opposers to that. It was tricky. Now it is considered an icon. View this building and what were doing there and all the advantages for the city in terms of seven acres of public space and a park and all the other things like the fire forion as a great advantage the city. The bottom line is, having done a lot of these over 30 years, it requires tenacity but requires stability to involve and compromise. Youve had the intellectual and emotional skills to get this done longterm. The point is that you have to work with everybody. You have to listen to people and everyone has a voice. Owning a Basketball Team and owning a business like this requires a lot of skills that arent required normal businesses heard we own this but we are really part and parcel of the community as well. We do have to listen and hopefully at the end of the day we get that arena situation to a point where the majority of people believe we have got it right. The success on the floor, is it as you had hoped . It is easy to say the expectations are there, are you surprised at how the team is come together and captured the hearts and minds of San Francisco . When do we get to talk about basketball . Surprise . I will tell you this. We had a plan and that plan was to emphasize defense, rebounding and size. We have stayed true to that plan. We turned it around. Fewrafted well, we made a good trades and signings and we need to continue that heard we are not there yet. Getting the playoffs in the second round, nice. We need to go further. The goal is to win a championship and we are very serious about that. The warriors released version 3. 0 of the project in november after San Francisco voters rejected a ballot measure to allow a highrise Condominium Development along the waterfront. The teams latest plan scales down the height of the arena and expands the amount of Public Open Space to 60 of the entire site. The design must be reviewed by the seven cisco Port Commission and other local agencies as the permit process goes forward. Coming up, kobe bryant unveils a new design for his latest shoe and tells Jon Erlichman that these days hes wearing many different hats. The theyou have to wear the satin get the public backlash. Sportfolio is coming right back. Welcome back to sportfolio. Eight months after achilles surgery, the lakers star kobe bryant is playing again. His twoyear extension contract is worth over 40 million. Jon erlichman cut up with him last week at an event celebrating the release of the kobe nine, his latest sneaker. And while the player may have lost a step, kobe the businessman is clearly just hitting his stride. I am an executive for whole brand of products. I learned a great deal from nike. It is tough for athletes because you are asking to wear two hats that contradict each other. If i from an athletes perspective you have to be passionate about her sport and think team first and winning first, right . Then you have to put on the business that and get the public backlash for being a business minded businessperson. For whatever rea