>> live from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to "bloomberg west," where our focus is on innovation, technology, and the future of business. i'm emily chang. new details on when alibaba is going public. we get into a look why the company appears ready to list in the u.s. and the guy behind the google driverless car and the online education company offering classes in conjunction with google and salesforce.

we will talk about that later. our top tech headlines -- salesforce has named a retired general as the board of directors. he will be joining salesforce as the company tries to lure more customers. he has been involved with salesforce for a number of years, hoping to create -- helping to great the company's charitable foundations. google will cover drivers whenever they have the uber app open even if they do not have a customer in the car. uber drive struck and killed a little girl while waiting for a fare. and a chinese interbank has --porarily they want to protect consumers while the governor comes up with regulations.

tencent and then to bringgressively smartphones to users. first, to the lead story of the day. ipo as soonaring an as april in the united states. >> this is a big one. this is the one that the technologist and the banks are waiting for. >> summitt said it is potentially the biggest ipo ever -- someone said it is potentially the biggest ipo ever. we do not know. that is a big factor. as $153estimate it billion. we have a guest from new york. tell us the details. what we know? might possibly come

here. it is still possibly up in the air. hong kong could come up with some last-minute deal. it is most likely they will list here and it could come as soon as next month. that is something that is really newsworthy. they have been telling us it is not on a time limit. they could list any time this year or next year. looks like it could be coming up pretty soon. >> alibaba has said repeatedly they are not in a rush. there is no timeline for an ipo. why now? at their competitors. there is a battle of tech giants thechina trying to control internet users in china. there is tencent. do so.ve currency to looking at this and looking at tencent's investment at another

company looking to invest in the this could be inspiring ali baba to list here. >> when you look at their moves and the shares of yahoo!, you could say investors are getting ready for the ali baba ipo and so they're finding a way to invest in a piece of this company before the ipo. >> exactly. if you are a yahoo! shareholder, you look at this as an opportunity for yahoo! to sell its shares. if they do the filing next month, shares would continue to rise up to that point. that is why we saw a spike today. >> in your story, you talked about the possibility they could list in hong kong. i know there are regulatory issues, but they are leaning towards the u.s. at this point. >> exactly. sources are telling us that they have to come up with a solution with a hong kong regulators and

that is over the partnership structure. been able to come up with an agreement with the hong kong exchange. the u.s. regulation allows that to take lace. it is looking like it will take place here. >> thank you for joining us on "bloomberg west." we will follow that story. thank you for breaking bad news for us. now to a new twist in the mystery of the mission malaysia airlines flight. i cannot get enough of this story. i'm obsessed. >> it is funny how the store is how people are sitting there and speculating. we know a little bit. transponder was active for about five hours after the plane transponder was the and pinging satellites. more on the technology

behind the satellite systems and how they can be used in the we have thets, former inspector general of the u.s. department of transportation joining us via skype from south carolina. you have been following this. i feel it the first human question i have to ask is what does this lead us to believe ultimately happened? believe where to was before -- we do not know why these things occurred. there are a lot of people talking. some think it is terrorism and someone turned off the transponder. no. a fewmore than we had days ago. it means the plane stop sending data. system where you can send data back and forth. that was turned off -- that stop sending data. then the transponder stop

sending data. there is no way to know. all we know is that the data stream stopped. four points picked up via satellite from the plane. it is a cool system, but not as cool as it could be. itself has a temperature and sends an update. the triple seven has a system, but malaysia do not pay for that subscription. all we have is that data change. the plane was above water and pointsning and four data past the last known spot. go ahead. >> take me through the technology itself. you mentioned they did not pay for the system, but the systems

that come from the manufacture of aircraft, what systems are optional on which ones are mandatory? >> the system is called the transponder. air traffic control and the whole world, anyone with the capability of picking up the signal, it lets them know where you are. the transponder transform you from a boat to a plane and a #. that was turned off or start transmitting data. you could send messages back and forth. it is a computer-based system. those start emitting signals. thenext system is satellite-based system that is really cool. and is built into the 777 takes the temperature of the plane all the time.

the signals are basically saying we are here. we have four blips. that is the data. that is it. the pings,our flips, does that mean the plane was above water when those happened? >> yes. it means the plane was above water when those blips happened. it does not mean a terrorist without the controls. autopilotne was on when they had a catastrophic failure, fire, explosion, rapid decompression, this plane could be going off. the plane could have been flying on. a plane was on auto smile it and the flu for -- was on auto p

autopilot,s fine on but the passengers had died long before that. why would an airline decide not to have that? >> it is not required. malaysia air would have to comply with a u.s. regulation. it is an additional system and charge. they might have assumed they could provide their own. they could have that they do not need that kind of information. information helps boeing as well. it lets boeing know what is going out there. havingareerir problems out there. it is information that goes both ways. that information was the lifeline for the investigation

to find the plane and find out what was going on. we knew what had happened to 447 before they found the black box. certain systems were engaged or were not engaged. the flight controls or the fight systems were literally going down. the plane tries to shut down certain things to preserve flight. it will keep the engines, but if it is having a problem, particularly if it is a power or electrical, it will shut down anything nonessential. >> where does the investigation go from here? >> investigation has to follow the four pings. that is all we have right now. significant. is there is a chance they will find wreckage at the end of the last ping. thank you. we will be following this closely.

thank you. 2014 is turning out to be a revolutionary year and telecom potentially. >> what will happen next as the fcc make some important, the decisions, particularly the comcast and time warner deal? ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i am emily chang. sprint is trying to buy t-mobile. comcast is trying to buy time warner cable. >> a lot of stuff going on. who is going to decide if this is a good deal? there is a chain of events that is dramatic. >> will it be the fcc that is the ultimate decider? >> weibel c. our guest joins us to talk about what the -- we will see.

our guest joins us to talk about this. >> no question about it. these are all companies that are beginning to look more and more of like. telecommunications, media, broadband, new media, old media. yes, the fcc has the authority to tie to protect the public interest and act on behalf of consumers. whoou are the only guy voted against the comcast and nbc universal merger. twc?do think about comcast >> i think it is bad. i think it should be dead on arrival. i think it runs roughshod over consumers.

and now internet and broadband bills, too. there's this huge company across an entire national footprint. over theoughshod opportunity, creating potential broadband, which is beginning to look more like the playground of [indiscernible] if you want to cable lies the internet, who better to do it then bid cable companies? i do not think most of us are interested in cablizing the internet. that is not what it is designed or meant to be. >> we have seen a revolution here in the course of the last eight weeks for issues affecting the fcc. ofhave got the big ruling the verizon versus the fcc when the court said verizon could decide favored traffic, if you will. the comcast and time warner cable proposal happen. netflix favored access.

and then the sprint and t-mobile proposal. this is a dramatic time. is fcc ready for this? >> i certainly hope so. it is not new. things are speeding up. those people who think the fcc is not looking, i hope we are going to be proved wrong. i spent 11 years as a commissioner there. i saw too many of these deals approved by the commission and blessed by the commission and as soon as you approve one merger, then the next commended her -- competitor says come you have got to let us get bigger, too. the desire is always open, but it is speeding up right now. here.ing is amiss the consolidation has gone too far. we cannot allow the internet to go down the same row that cable and radio and television went down. at some point, we have to have reason to, public policy

oversight over the entire committee patients it closest him. that is what it is. it is not just telecom on one side and media on another anymore. all of these companies are beginning to resemble one another. he lived in a vast ecosystem. our problems with traditional media and new medium and telecom. it is our responsibility at this up toant juncture to step the plate and put a stop to what is wrong and go on to do positive, good things to protect the future of the internet and consumers in this country. >> what is the insider thought process? what happens in the fcc meeting between the lobbyists and the companies on the conflict of interest within the fcc itself? >> i'm not a fan of the revolving door. we are seeing more of the revolving door. it is the power of big money

that is seen at the federal communications commission and everywhere else. what goes on in those meetings was on in the minds of individuals. i had no objections with contest or any other company coming in and putting their plans on the table. fpor it.onale they are in a position where they could afford more access without really reaching out or without really understanding -- i'm talking about commissioners aw -- that the constituent is resume and a citizen beyond the consumer. quickly, i feel like there is a general belief the internet is open. you can log on to get the same access to a google website as a yahoo! search website and a bing result. we have seen cases where at&t slows down facebook. comcast will speed up netflix.

is that the ultimate concern? the very few companies that own the pipes will decide what we can watch within a reasonable amount of time? >> that is right. and whether they can block content are which news the viewer can see. up here on you guys the stratosphere where no one can find you. so our own has easier access or whatever it is. that is giving too much power to one company. that is why i say i think this deal should be dead on arrival at the fcc. former fcccopps, commissioner. lots of things we will continue to follow. more of "bloomberg west" after the break. ♪

>> turning to our partnership

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uses technology like this thermal image camera to seek and see leaks with painstaking precision. >> we're making these buildings 10-20 times tighter the construction. >> even the parking lot saves energy. what happens when it rains, the water goes right through the concrete and goes down to the pit beneath the parking lot. >> no need for a nosy a/c. all of this is a standard that has been around for residential construction. he and his company are helping take it to a wider commercial space. the market is there now. green construction is worth billions of dollars worth wide. he says you could build according to house efficiency standards at market rates. you could get a 10-50% return on your investment.

a green investment to promote efficient design and maybe move the planet forward. next, the same guy who invented the google driverless car. ♪

watching "bloomberg west" where we focus on technology in the future of

business. internet has been promising to revolutionize education in one way or another third time and again, the old school classroom has won out. -- enter in udacity. the ceo joins us now. we're here to talk about education. .ring us up-to-date on udacity million usersut 2 right now. they are all over the world. new york is the biggest city. they all want to learn and get a job. tech andot of stuff in teach cloud computing. things like these that help you find a job. >> what are one of the most

popular classes? >> a coding class. we had over 400,000 students in one class. >> is there a notion that vocational education is the focus here? or is there an interest in the arts? am personally very interested in the arts and humanities. the types of skills that kids have leaving college and not a good match for when they leave college. they spend more than when you're searching even with a college degree for the first job. within half of them are unemployed or underemployed. many companies like at&t are google are stepping up. >> google and salesforce are teaching the classes? >> yeah. >> what are they teaching? >> for salesforce, apps. you could become a sophisticated app developer.

more about game development -- mobile game development. >> and terms of working with companies like salesforce and google, where is the revenue? [laughter] >> profit is a little early. partners pay us to make classes with them. >> classes that are available to everyone are just students? >> everyone. it's available to everybody. ok about getting content in the world. would make the content free for everybody. the studentslp raise the ceiling. we do projects with those students. you tweak that model.

initially everything was free. somebody had to pay for it. it is still a lot cheaper than what you would get in a traditional classroom. >> yeah. anything free is not a good model indication. everything free thing is a problem. you could not do much. you couldn't staff those classes. free is the basic. you could do it. you can teach yourself. but if you really care about the context of which you can learn something, come to us and we will help you. cost about 10%. >> it will cost $45,000 to get a masters in computer science at georgia tech. about $6,000.only >> there's no reason education should be expensive. we should focus on the student and the product should make it

engaging in great. -- engaging and great. >> giving georgia tech and harvard are overcharging? >> i'm not saying they are overcharging, but you can get education at a lower price. our business model is so we can keep it low price and small classes. >> i spent a lot of time and stocks ofting the some of the for-profit education companies. i was shocked to see the number of students that drop out bowling after a couple of years. it seemed to me it was worse for online. when you look at those models, what did you see? -- there profit for-profit -- what happened is the government

-- they really maximize the intake of students. >> 30-40% of revenues going to marketing or more. it is an abomination. >> everything is viral at this point. we are honest about what we charge. we would have the most engaging object. you do it. you sign up. model that a better might lead to more income? >> i do not care about income. i care about helping the students. i want everyone to have a chance. that is much more important to me than maximizing income. >> completion rates from and thanes are lower traditional schooling. how do you overcome that and where do you see this going in the future?

everyone wants education to be more affordable and more accessible, yet people are not necessarily taking advantage of it. i was troubled by this. i would see students engage in the class and then drop out. many people designated with this. we are still optimizing and so on. prices are low and it is easy to get in. we basically match -- >> i know you're big into artificial intelligence as well. in 10 years, how is it going to be different from my child in 18 years? >> you have a lot of time. >> start saving now. >> i wanted to be available to

everyone in the world so everyone has a fair chance and i wanted to be lifelong. away from the whole idea that education is a one-time thing. so many people in their careers need more education. angst aboute great this job is learning as you go. -- great things about this is learning as you go. thank you. >> is the battery insider smartphone causing eluded a rainfall in china? officialse government are halting the mining of one component powering your smartphone next. ♪

>> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i am emily chang. buying an electric car may not help the environment as much as you think. the mining of a mineral that powers a prius and tesla vehicles are causing polluted air and water in china. >> graphite is a fundamental. it is mined. the mining of graphite exposes so much of it into the air. china has polluted rain and the horrible pollution. some of it comes from mining

graphite. >> so ironic because it goes into clean energy. >> it goes into our electric cars if you have electric cars. they are pulling back on the mining of this stuff. what does it mean for companies that want to bring clean tech? one of the great innovations of the tesla was to take a laptop battery with lots of him and use it to -- of them and use it to power a car. >> we're learning there's a bunch of interdependencies with the supply chain for these cars, as well as for computers and iphones and android or any smartphone. to learn theng impact of those interdependencies over time. we will find in the last era, there were things that we understood. there was carbon monoxide. learning with the

upside and downside is in the supply chain associated with this new kind of vehicle. this is not an insignificant issue. when you look at the overall bill material -- i think it will be manageable. in the meantime, the pullback could lead to as much as 30% rise in the cost of graphite. if you are a maker of that lithium ion battery, a 30% price increase in the consumer who uses it the most. that means the prices are going up. >> well done. you are right. the absolute amount in real dollars could be significant. 30% might be an aggressive estimate. previous,ook at a you're talking about something

that has $28,000 installed the battery. your talk about what percent of the overall value. you increase that and that is real money to the major factor in. i think that is something that people will have to look at. might be looking at additional tax credit for some kind of incentive for that manufacturers. >> that is a prius. companyesla, you have a that they will have a gig a good the factory, which is better, apparently. i want to be a giga editor at large. theof the articles about tesla is that people really believe once they get that battery factory, they will bring the cost of the car down. at the cost is the most expensive thing in the car is going up, that doesn't suggest -- >> again, list ticket back to

tech. why is intel continued to invest in fats and vertical integration? they believe there is value and they can control some of those costs. they can control that costs. >> it needs to be that way. >> there is aggravated value chain. when you can control those costs, you have some options. he wants to control some of those costs. he wants to vertically integrate into potentially control some of those battery costs. innovate in the advanced area. >> we're talking about is in a semi conductors. >> and talking about -- we are talking about batteries and not semi conductors. >> i'm talking about is. >> the notion of everything in --hnology will fall

everyone knows that is not the case. but you can put a focus on this. try to invest and try to advance the technology asterisk that it has advanced so far. everyone is -- has invested and innovated around that battery. that is what they are trying to do. >> glad to see you here in san francisco. >> thank you. >>mary seemed. -- thank you. >> seven years after the tv show was taken off the air, "veronica mars the movie" is hitting theaters. >> what you think it says about a person? >> compulsive. ♪

>> will come back to "bloomberg west." i am emily chang.

an update to a survey brought to you yesterday. it target and tackling its massive data breach. they ignored early reports indicating that there point-of-sale systems were compromised. target said in a statement, "after the criminals enter the network, a small amount of their to the was logged. that activity was evaluated and acted upon based on their interpretation. the data breach affected up to 70 million customers. target is facing dozens of lawsuits now. isl, teenage private veronica mars is heading to the big screen this weekend. fans abroad the show that to life-saving years after it was canceled things to a kickstart her. millions of dollars were put up. "here is the new "veronica mars movie.

why did they use kickstart her to raise the funds? >> a friend of my use kickstarter to fund his band's album. it was a first time i have ever seen kickstarter or knew what crowd found it was. i learned how crowd funding works. i started doing back of the cocktail napkin maps. it seemed crazy at the time. could be raised a couple of million dollars on kickstarter to fund a movie? at the time, the biggest kickstarter project was 900,000. we would have been asking for more than twice of their largest project. it seemed a bit crazy when i thought of that, but we kept pursuing it until we got a yes. >> you have thousands of backers as a result. what do these backers get? will we see a world record of producer credits at the end of "veronica mars"?

[laughter] >> getting producer credit was one of the things i originally was going to offer, but the producers guild of america veto that plan. they get various things. wasmost common backer level $35 level where people would get a digital download of the movie come a t-shirt, and a copy of the script. for $15 extra, they got the physical dvd that includes the making of "veronica mars" documentary on it. $10,000 for one person who had a speaking role in the movie and got to say one line. people could donate at the dollar level and get all of our updates throughout the course of the movie. there not been platforms on netflix where people could do binge viewing, he does not think that you would have reached its conclusion.

" was canceled on tv and 2007. do have this continued life on another platform like netflix -- >> i think we have more viewers today than we did what we were on the air. in fact, i'm of the belief that itunes beenand going at full speed when we were on the air, we might have had a better chance to survive. we are one of those shows that does well in the aftermarket. people are dedicated to the show. our dvds get to balk and rented and downloaded all the time. strangely, more people know about the show today than we were on every week. >> there's also a digital spinoff series through the cw'

on my. what opportunity does that present? >> we would do a funny winking spinoff of "veronica mars." ryan hansen who placed it casablanca's meathead character on our show, it will be about him attempting to get a big casablanca spinoff of the show. it will be very meta. it will be closer to my other show "party down" then it is "veronica mars." it includes a lot of the "veronica mars" regulars and it. >> i know you see a potential james bond lay book future for -- playbook future for "veronica mars." how many films could you potentially do? >> i think we could keep going. kristen bell has said she would go until she was angela lans bury age. -- lansbury age.

[laughter] we're hoping this movie does well. we could be a low-budget franchise. no reason why there couldn't be a new "veronica mars" every couple of years. thatdid see one headline said it is so good, you could expect a sequel. "veronica mars." >> the movie is out this weekend. time for that byte, one number that tells us a whole lot. >> how about $30,000? that is the dollar amount by a er holding that money in his hands. receive 20 family dollars last year -- >> it's sort of seems like it is not going well. we do not know what they are

working on. we will see about that one. have a great weekend, everyone. ♪ .

>> welcome to "lunch money," where we tie together the best stories, interviews, and videos in business news. in world, malaysia expands the search for the missing jetliner. looking into possible pilot and crew involvement. in africa, companies trying to break into the new frontier of investment. apollo, all you can eat. the private equity giant that just bought chuck e. cheese wants a piece of dave and busters. happy friday, 3.14 occupies a special place in our hearts. megadeth, mega-successful.