>> 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 to 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, helping to create the company's charitable foundations. uber will cover drivers whenever they have the uber app open even if they do not have a customer in the car. the issue became a flashpoint after an uber driver struck and killed a little girl while waiting for a fare. and the chinese central bank has temporarily suspended paying for cell phones with qr codes.

they want to protect consumers while the governor comes up with regulations. alibaba and tencent have been moving aggressively to bring smartphones to users. first, to the lead story of the day. alibaba preparing an ipo as soon as april in the united states. >> this is a big one. this is the one that the technologist and the banks are waiting for. >> someone said it is potentially the biggest ipo ever. >> we do not know. we don't know if the bull market will last that long. that is a big factor. >> some estimate it as $153 billion. joining us is leslie picker. tell us the details. what we know? >> alibaba 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? >> look at their competitors. there is a battle of tech giants in china trying to control the 618 billion internet users in china. there is tencent. they have currency to do so. looking at this and looking at tencent's investment at another company looking to invest in the

u.s., this could be inspiring alibaba to list here. >> when you look at their moves and the shares of yahoo!, you could say investors are getting ready for the alibaba 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. you want to do this before they file for an ipo. 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 not come up with a solution

with a hong kong regulators and that is over the partnership structure. they haven't been able to come up with an agreement with the hong kong exchange. the u.s. regulation allows that to take place. 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 that 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 story is all about how people are sitting there and speculating. we know a little bit. >> a satellite transponder was active for about five hours after the plane transponder was shut off and pinging the satellites. they believe was flying above

water. for more on the technology behind the satellite systems and how they can be used in the search efforts, we have the former inspector general of the u.s. department of transportation joining us via skype from south carolina. you have been following this. i feel like the first human question i have to ask is what does this lead us to believe ultimately happened? >> it leads us to believe where it 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. what these data means, and it is not a lot, but it is more than we had a few days ago. it means the plane stop sending data on tubing events. events. one was a 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. after those points there were , four points picked up via satellite from the plane. it is a cool system, but not as cool as it could be. we learned this from an air france flight that went down in the atlantic. the plane itself has a temperature and sends an update. the 777 has that system, but malaysia do not pay for that subscription. all we have is that data change. the plane was above water and functioning and four data points 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, 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 transforms you from a ufo to a plane with a number assigned to it. that was turned off or start transmitting data. you could send messages back and forth. it is a computer-based system. one is radio-based, one is computer-based. signals.pped emitting the next system is the satellite-based system that is really cool. that is built into the 777 and takes the temperature of the plane all the time. it would send a signal back to

the airline if you subscribe. if not, the signals are basically saying we are here. we have four blips. that is the data. that is it. it does not say anything more. it does not say what was going on. >> do the four flips, the pings, 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 was at the controls. it could mean that no one was at the controls. if the plane was on autopilot when they had a catastrophic failure, fire, explosion, rapid decompression, this plane could be going on. the plane could have been flying on. >> you are referring to a plane that was on auto pilot and was

fine on autopilot, but the passengers had died long before that. you chose that malaysia airlines chose not to subscribe to that program. 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 did not need the owing assistance on the cinnamon -- system status updates. they could have that they do not need that kind of information. the information helps boeing as well. it lets boeing know what is going out there. whether their 777's are having problems out there. are the things they can do to improve it? 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. it said 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? >> the investigation has to follow the four pings. that is all we have right now. i do think it is significant. 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? will it just be the market? there is a chain of events that is dramatic. >> will it be the fcc that is the ultimate decider? >> we will see. our guest joins us to talk about this.

what can the fcc regulate? issues fcc do with these with the companies that say they are not telecommunication companies? >> no question about it. these are all companies that are beginning to look more and more alike. they are telecommunications, media, broadband, new media, old media. yes, the fcc has the authority to try to protect the public interest and act on behalf of consumers. >> you are the only guy who voted against the comcast and nbc universal merger. what do think about comcast-twc? >> i think it is bad. i think it should be dead on arrival. i think it runs roughshod over consumers who have experienced generations of rising cable bills and now internet and

broadband bills, too. there's this huge company across an entire national footprint. it runs roughshod over the opportunity, creating potential broadband, which is beginning to look on the internet more like the playground of the few rather than the town square of the many. if you want to cable lies the internet, who better to do it then the biggest cable company? 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. we have got the big ruling of the verizon versus the fcc when the court said verizon could decide favored traffic, if you will. the comcast and time warner cable proposal happened.

netflix got 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 competitor says you have got to let us get bigger, too. the desire is always open, but it is speeding up right now. i think there is a dawning realization around the country that something is amiss here. the consolidation has gone too far. we cannot allow the internet to go down the same road that cable and radio and television went down. at some point, we have to have

reasoned public policy oversight over the entire committee ecosystem. 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. we live in a vast ecosystem. our problems with traditional media and new medium and telecom. it is our responsibility at this important juncture to step up to 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 have no objections with the folks at comcast or any other company coming in and putting their plans on the table. they rationale for it. they are in a position where they could afford more access without really reaching out or without really understanding -- i'm talking about commissioners now -- that the constituent is a a consumer and a citizen beyond the consumer. >> really 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 if they can block on tent or block which news the viewer can see. if they can say to bloomberg we , will put you guys up here on 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. >> michael copps, former fcc commissioner. thank you so much. lots of things we will continue to follow. more of "bloomberg west" after the break. ♪ >> turning to our partnership

with george washington university's "planet forward." how green construction is helping offices save thousands on electricity in the u.s.. >> if you hate going to the dentist, you are not alone. here is an idea that might help you sit a little easier in the chair -- efficient office design while keeping you cool. this dental office saves up to 70% on power angst to the first of its kind commercial house design, part of a growing wave of green construction. the virginia-based construction company -- it is a dream project. he uploaded it to "planet forward." >> it is cost-effective to be built as a high efficiency structure. >> an airtight fabric seal to keep the air fresh.

he uses technology like this thermal image camera to seek and seal leaks with painstaking precision. >> we're making these buildings 10-20 times tighter the then standard 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. >> that water cools incoming air through passive coils. 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 scale. the market is there now. green construction is worth billion worldwide. it is expected to double by 2020. he says you could build according to house efficiency standards at market rates. for 3% more in upfront costs,

you could get a 10-50% return on your investment. a green investment to promote efficient design and maybe move the planet forward. >> up next, the same guy who invented the google driverless car. ♪ >> you are watching "bloomberg

west" where we focus on technology and 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 udacity. the ceo joins us now. we're here to talk about education. bring us up-to-date on udacity. how many people are using it, where are they from? >> we have about 2 million users right now. we get several hundred sign-ups everyday. they are all over the world. new york is the biggest city. they all want to learn and get a job. we do a lot of stuff in tech and teach cloud computing. things like these that help you find a job. >> what are one of the most popular classes? >> a coding class.

you go from no programming whatsoever in two weeks. 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? if there is, out of those students do? >> i am personally very interested in the arts and humanities. many of our partner companies that the types of skills that kids have leaving college and not a good match for when they leave college. this for more than one year 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, how to do apps. you could become a sophisticated app developer.

with google, more about mobile game development. -- some areion will vocational but you learn a lot along the way. >> in 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. they pay for the content develop and -- development. >> classes that are available to everyone are just students? >> everyone. it's available to everybody. companies pay us to get the content because they care about getting content in the world. we would make the content free for everybody. we want to help the students raise the ceiling. you do this by having a partner with you, a mentor, we do projects with those students.

it is more demanding what you learned more deeply. >> you tweak that model. initially everything was free. , you have 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. also, the everything free thing is a problem. we are limited. you could not do much. you couldn't staff those classes. free is the basic. you could do it. you can teach yourself. it is democratized. it is available. but if you really care about the context of which you can learn something, come to us and we will help you. costs about 10% . >> it will cost $45,000 to get a masters in computer science at georgia tech. with udacity, only about $6,000. >> there's no reason education should be expensive. we should go back to the basic services, we should focus on the student and the product should

make it engaging and great. we do this it is about $150 a month or so. >> do you think georgia tech and harvard are overcharging? >> i'm not saying they are overcharging, but you can get education at a lower price. that is doable. our business model is so we can keep it low price and small classes. >> i spent a lot of time and money shorting the stocks of some of the for-profit education companies. i was shocked to see the number of students that drop out after only a couple of years. it seemed to me it was worse for online. when you look at those models, what did you see? or profitsector -- sector started out more positive. they wanted to educate firefighters and do social good. what happened is the government made money available. the title for money was paid for

finishing. finding a job was more paid for signing up. some of the universities did, but they really started to maximize the intake of students. >> 30-40% of revenues going to marketing or more. it is an abomination. >> we have a marketing budget of zero dollars. everything is viral at this point. we are honest about what we charge. we want to have an engaging project -- product. you do it. you sign up. you are in. >> there is a better model that might lead to more income? >> i do not care about income. i care about helping the students. i am proud that we can give stuff away from -- for free. i want everyone to have a chance. that is much more important to me than maximizing income. >> completion rates from and courses are lower than 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. >> the completion rates for the masters online classes was in the first wave of things to be designed and in the order of 5%-10%. i was troubled by this. i would see students engage in the class and then drop out. it is not a good result or good product. --ade this wall noon well-known. many people designated with this. we are still optimizing and so on. some people drop out because the cost is low and they find themselves more busy than they thought they would be. overall, we're getting to the point where we can match a good college. >> 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. i want to move away from the whole idea that education is a one-time thing. so many people in their careers need more education. >> one of the great things about this is learning as you go. thank you. >> is the battery inside your smartphone causing eluded a rainfall in china? why chinese government officials 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 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 of graphite. >> so ironic because it goes

into clean energy. >> it goes into our electric cars if you have electric cars. if 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, lots 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. we are starting to learn the impact of those interdependencies over time. we will find in the last era, there were things that we understood. there was carbon monoxide. there was oil that they had to dispose of properly. now we are 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 build 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. when you look at a previous, prius, you're talking about something that has $28,000

installed the battery. you are talking about 12% 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. you may be looking at additional credit, additional tax credits, some sort of incentive from the manufacturers to eat that. that could i into profits. -- bite into profits. >> that is a prius. in the tesla, you have a company that they will have a gig a good the factory, which is better, apparently. i want to be a giga editor at large. one of the articles about the tesla is that people really believe once they get that battery factory, they will bring the cost of the car down. if the cost is the most expensive thing in the car is going up, that doesn't suggest

the overall price is going to go down. quite again, let us take it 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 did not used to be that way. >> there is aggravated value chain. when you can control those costs, you have some options. elon musk wants to control some of those costs. he wants to vertically integrate and potentially control some of those battery costs. innovate in the advanced area. >> we're talking about batteries, not semi conductors. >> i'm talking about a. he was talking about broadband, but the notion of

everything in technology will fall -- >> it does not hold to cars. we would be paying $.15 for a rolls-royce that goes 300 miles per hour. everyone knows that is not the case. but you can put a focus on this. try to invest and try to advance the technology faster that it has advanced so far. everyone has invested and innovated around that battery. few people are taking on the battery. that is what they are trying to do. >> glad to see you here in san francisco. >> thank you. >> seven years after the tv show was taken off the air, "veronica mars: the movie" is hitting theaters. >> what do you think it says about a person? >> compulsive. ♪ >> welcome back to "bloomberg

west." i am emily chang.

an update to a story brought to you yesterday. target is commenting on 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 activity was logged to the team. 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. well, teenage private detective veronica mars is heading to the big screen this weekend. fans brought the show that to -- back to life years after it was canceled thanks to a

kickstarter. millions of dollars were put up. there 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 funding was. i learned how crowd funding works. i started doing back of the cocktail napkin maps. it seemed crazy at the time. could we 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]

>> giving 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. the most common backer level was a $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. it went up to $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. >> had there not been platforms on netflix where people could do binge viewing, he does not think that that show would have reached its conclusion.

"veronica mars" was canceled on tv and 2007. this lifeed to have on other platforms like netflix. what was the effect of that? >> i think we have more viewers today than we did what we were on the air. in fact, i'm of the belief that had netflix and itunes been 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 bought and rented and downloaded all the time. i think we have gained life over the seven years we have been off the air. strangely, more people know about the show today than we were on every week. >> there's also a digital spinoff series through the cw's cw seed.twork called

what opportunity does that present? >> we would do a funny winking spinoff of "veronica mars." ryan hansen who plays 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. totally, 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 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 lansbury's age. [laughter]

we may be doing these for the next 50 years. we're hoping this movie does well. we could be a low-budget bond franchise. no reason why there couldn't be a new "veronica mars" every couple of years. >> i did see one headline that said it is so good, you could expect a sequel. "veronica mars." >> it is hard to imagine being better than the original. i have seen each one dozens of time. >> 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 founder holding that money in his hands. after the company got funded, they received $25 million last year. >> a great story by bloomberg news. it sort of seems like it is not going very well. people are not same very long.

we do not know what they are working on. we will see about that one. have a great weekend, everyone. ♪

>> this week on "political capital" -- we debate the cia versus diane feinstein. vernon silver reports on the pope. we begin with two of the smartest political minds. john sununu. the president has to get off the sidelines. >> the administration wants this