Name: Is President Obama right about Sony making the wrong call?
Uploaded: 2014-12-19
Duration: 4 min 25 s
Description: On Fortune Live, our panel reacts to President Obama's comment that Sony made a mistake by pulling 'The Interview.'

This Sony hacking story has been all over the news. It gets bigger every day. Just today President Obama weighed in saying this. Take a look. Sony is a corporation. It you know, suffered significant damage. There were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to. The concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake. Alan, do you agree with the president? [ NOISE ] Was it a mistake? Well, let's, let's leave aside for a minute whether they should or should not have released the, the film, which is what the president was talking about there. I, by the way if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the people who've seen the film aren't that wild about it anyway. [ LAUGH ] So I'm not sure we're. True. Hugely deprived by Sony's. Decision. But there is no question that cyber security is the story of the year. Remember, I mean, this Sony thing has gotten a lot of press, it's very embarrassing. But we also had Home Depot, massive hack at Home Depot. We had JP Morgan. I was in an event a few months ago with the CIOs of a, of about 100 very large companies. They all said that they now spend between 25 and 50 % of their time on cyber security. When the best and the brightest technology, engineers of, of our country and our economy have to spend a quarter to a half of their time on cyber security, we have a big, big economic problem. Well George Clooney thinks so too. Academy, the academy award winner also had this to say about the issue, we're talking about an actual country deciding what content we're going to have. This affects not just movies, this affects every part of business that we have. That's the truth. Brian, what's your take on that? Does this really impact every part of business? Absolutely I mean to echo what Alan said I mean it didn't even mention target another huge hack and and a CEO who lost his job partly as a result and I think you see in board rooms around the country that its not just the technologists its the CEOs and the board members trying to wrap their heads around this and because. You know, any company can have an outsider get in and take their secrets and expose them and expose private information of their customers which is a huge threat. Okay. You know I, I love the line that leave it. Someone, two thirds of American companies say they have been hacked. The other third just don't know it. That's kind of where we are. But what about this issue of censorship though I mean Andrew do you think that this is something I mean the president in his remarks also mentioned that the fear is that companies might start to self center and not and and and factor this into their decisions before they even release products to market or to say or something like that whats your take on that. Yeah, I mean that's definitely a worry right we're in the information business here at fortune and that's that's terrible to think about right. At the same time you know, as Allen said, we don't know what's already been censored. It's kind of a, you know, the, the thing you don't know scenario. And all of the companies are thinking about what to do. You know, the thing that has stru -, stuck with me the most about this is it's kind of good that it's out there in the open. This year has been. All about cyber security, and it's, it's finally bringing it to the forefront. It seems to be a board issue now. And for years, companies were just getting hacked and they didn't want to talk about it. But this brings up another issue. We, the epicenter of technology is Silicon Valley. We should own this. Why aren't we able to prevent these hacks, and what's happening in the race to start trying to prevent them? Yeah. I mean, you know, cyber security. That, that whole thing just levels the playing field, right? And that's why it's so hard. I mean, you have to defend against virtually everyone. And so, what's been interesting for me, watching it in the technology industry, is. There's a change of mindset. So, companies are moving from this idea that they can keep people out. Out of the castle. Here's the moat, here's the bridge. We'll keep 'em out. And they're kind of assuming they're gonna get in the walls anyway and how can they kind of isolate them. So there's a switch in mentality and I think that Silicon Valley and any, any all the other technology companies. Are looking at that. I have to say, Andrew, one of the surprising things to me about this, the about this Sony hack is that the North Koreans really have the competence to do this. Do we really think that it was North Korea that did this remarkable act? You know, it seems to be still a, just a hotly debated thing. But here's the truth, it could be anybody in any basement, right? As long as you have an internet connection. And since smarts surrounds computers you can do this too. Yeah. And that's what's scary. [ MUSIC ]

On Fortune Live, our panel reacts to President Obama's comment that Sony made a mistake by pulling "The Interview."