emily: carl icahn gives lyft a $100 million lift, but is it enough to help the company catch up to uber? i am emily chang, and this is "bloomberg west." coming up, netflix may be teaming up with jack ma. we look at the company will the plan to expand in china. plus, google's self driving cars are about to hit the streets. and one of the highest profile vc firms run by women is getting ready to raise its funds. first, to our top story -- carl icahn making waves in a silicon valley again, investing in

uber's archrival, lyft. the billionaire investor added $100 million, and one of the investor's employees will join the board. uber is valued at $40 billion. lyft a little over $2.5 billion. then there is the reach, 250 cities worldwide for uber, while lyft is just in the states. for more on what this investment means, i want to bring in leslie picker, eric newcomer is here, as well as our editor at large cory johnson. cory, i want to start with you because this is a different kind of investment for carl icahn. why is carl icahn first of all investing in a private tech company, and why lyft over her?

-- over uber? cory: let's think of all the reasons, one, he is wanted to make money. carl icahn has been a moneymaker, but a company builder not by any stretch of the imagination. he likes to look at what he thinks can be better that he can make money. 30 years ago, 30 years ago, he had borrowed money to help michael milken and drexel burnham lambert to help one of the corporate raiders taking over twa, and they broke up little pieces, selling it off. the company did not want to go through this as there were protests and complaints about all quarters, but he broke up the company so he could pay off the debt, so twa could be a different company going forward. that title of corporate raider has stuck with him, even 30 years later. this is an unbelievable different investment from a man known as breaking up companies not building up companies. emily: here's a question, eric

how much will icahn's investment help lyft, and will it help lyft compete with uber? eric: $1.5 billion, compare that with $50 billion, of course any amount of money helps, lyft is focused and so they agree on the red states, unlike uber, so it can spend money in a more targeted fashion. i think it will help. we have to see how carl icahn will help the company, you know. he is not a traditional silicon valley investor. when you think about value-added investors it is not clear what he will bring to the table. emily: leslie, you have been doing a deep dive, you that your hands on a presentation to investors. what is your take on how much this investment from carl icahn is really going to help in the grand scheme of things? leslie: to cory's points, this man looks at companies that are value investments, so when you look at lyft, valued at $2.5

billion, you have to wonder your to himself -- what makes that a value investment? in the financials that you mentioned, we sell that the company is on track to make about $800 million in revenue this year, on track to beat over $1 billion next year, at a $2.5 billion valuation. compare that bit of uber, and you can kind of see how he can get that perspective, especially when you look at the market opportunity. he is looking at this as an infrastructure platform area where he can build out a lyft product to be a delivery service, for example, for all types of different things. emily: interesting. cory, what you make of the idea that icahn could use this investment as leverage with some of the other tech players in silicon valley? cory: this is such a strange investment. i'm wondering if his son is more

invested. his investments in companies even the rate at times he is been times when he has wanted financial engineering to make things better. in the case of ebay and apple, he was expressing a financial engineering. apple, do a share buyback a, pay a dividend, put your cash to work, give it back to the shareholders now that i will be one. in the case of ebay, adding to the management change, talking about how crummy the board was specifically citing marc andreessen as a lousy board member with conflicts of interest lesson those are the investments that are typical for call icon. the technology probably did not matter whatsoever. emily: it is interesting to see him get into bed with marc andreessen. eric: it'll be interesting to see how those two coexist. even though marc is not actually

on the board of lyft, one of his partners is. same for carl icahn. he will not actually be on the board, it will be one of his managing partners, i believe. emily: leslie, what do they say about this investment? leslie: it could be a way for him to build his own empire. how will this strategic health ebay or other investments to build the icahn empire? another thing people are looking at is what does this mean for management? carl is known to come in and shake up management, find out what does not work and replace them with people who may be better suited for the job. those are two things to look out for that investors are keeping an eye on. emily: all right, leslie picker in new york, eric newcomer and cory johnson with me in san francisco. we are interested to see how this icahn investment plays out. in today's edition of drive

google's self driving cars are about to hit the open road. check out this new video of a prototype that actually will be on the streets of mountain view, california starting this summer. here's the lowdown -- they cannot drive faster than 25 miles an hour, and a human driver will always he on board. the lexus suv fleet is already self driving about 10,000 miles a week, and the cars have loved the most one million autonomous miles since google started the project. there have been 11 fender benders, but reportedly from human error. the vehicles will not have too far to go, the test track is in mountain view, which covers about 12 square miles. coming up, netflix may be on the brink of finally cracking the chinese market. how so? that story is next. ♪

emily: netflix wants a piece of the chinese market, and it may have finally found its way in. according to people familiar with the matter, netflix is holding talks, including wasu, a media company that is similar to comcast. wasu is also partially owned by jack ma. netflix's chief content officer said "china is too big to have an asterisk next to it. he says if that is the cost of doing business in china, we will figure that out.

joining us now is the executive vice president of screen media and our bloomberg news at her leslie picker. what do you know about these and how this deal might work? leslie: we know wasu is one of seven companies who has the ability to stream internet tv in china. this is a company where jack ma took a 20% stake last year in order to get more into the media business. this is a company that said they want to get more into data, big data, media services. this would fit very well into their strategy. emily: david, i want to ask you because you actually make content deals and sell content abroad, just how difficult is it going to be for netflix to break into the chinese market? there are so many different challenges. david: it is a difficult market to crack into, and by partnering the way they're doing, it is

alleviating a lot of those concerns. netflix learned a lot on their troubles with germany and france. those were not successful launch is that they had elsewhere, and by partnering with somebody who knows the culture, understands the bureaucracy, they are getting a step ahead of the marketplace. emily: i lived in china for many years. i receive is a huge problem there. you can buy dvd's of any show you want, full movies before they are released for, like, $1. why bother, david? david: that has always been a question with china. unless they start giving owners of contents copyright protection that everywhere else in the ball is getting, no one will want to do business in china. i think by this deal, partnering with the companies that they are partnering, it gives a little more oomph to what they are doing, and i think it will give more strength and government weight behind copyright protection. one of the popular shows in china is the netflix series "house of cards." it is very popular there, and i

think what doing by building these international programs is going to hit big in the chinese market. emily: certainly the goal here will be for netflix to show its original content in china. we spoke to the ceo of sohu last year, a rival of wasu, and it is considered to be like the netflix of china. he talks to us about how difficult content regulation can be. take a listen to what he had to say. charles: china is being performed, and policy in a few years probably will not be the policy, so it is very hard to find exactly what is legal and what is not legal. emily: leslie, how does netflix and potentially wasu here, how do they circumvent these challenges? leslie: it is difficult. last year, they put a cap on only 30% of that streamed online for foreign content providers,

so when you look at tv shows like "the good wife," and "the big bang theory," words were taken away from the chinese content viewers, and then you look at something like "orange is the new black" and have to wonder how the censorship would impact a show like that, it brings home a whole different set of issues in terms of what netflix can really do to acquire more users in china with the censorship laws. emily: what are the chances, david, you give of netflix succeeding in china? do you think they can do this? this is a company that has created a whole new model for viewing contents, worldwide, except in china. what are the chances? david: if they were going it alone, i would say 5% or 10% but because they partnered with wasu, i will say 80%. emily: 80%? david: it will have a lot of chinese contents, it will not all be original u.s. content other content -- wasu is going to bring it in.

that is what they would do. that is where they fumbled in the past. they have learned their mistakes. you cannot going to a foreign language market into the same thing you do in an english market. by partnering with such a powerful partner and giving up some of their control, i think they have a strong chance of succeeding. emily: leslie, we have seen so many interesting deals from jack ma. what is next? leslie: this would fit into that category that he wants to make the chinese consumers healthier and happier in the next 10 years than they are today. this media strategy has come from the horse's mouth. he has said this is a big part of alibaba's expansion platform as is buying a soccer team in china to then make the chinese people happier and healthier. it'll be interesting, of course is he does these types of acquisitions and investments

how he entangles himself than with the regulators, who again are involved in these types of businesses just as they are with alipay and his financial assets. emily: all right, leslie picker of bloomberg news, david fannon of screen media, we will continue to follow the progress between netflix and wasu. it is time now for digital you. music companies like rdio and spotify want consumers to understand their business. here is rdio ceo anthony bay. anthony: people are try to figure out different customer offers, and we cannot have that netflix moment where everybody gets what netflix is, we have not had that in music is of the big question is -- how does that happen? if you look at the broad-based subscription, most people do not understand it. people are like, i get behind the tv, i understand downloading a song, what is the subscription streaming thing, what does it mean? the first thing is -- how do you help people understand what is

going on, what the choices are? the second thing is when it comes to spending money, people historically, both on tv's and on downloads in the u.s. emily: rdio just announced a $3.99 streaming plan to announce a broader stream of customers, hoping to attract customers who do not want to pay $9.99 for unlimited streaming but want more than services packed with ads. spotify, tidal, google play, beats music. rdio offers less expensive options. songza provides its services for free. we are expecting apple to revamp and may get into video in the next few months. so what is it like to live like mega upload founder kim dotcom the target of the biggest

copyright case in history, recently showed me around his new zealand mansion. he is currently they are under house arrest. take a look at the home he calls his castle. how long have you been living in this mansion? kim: six years, but i'm stuck here 3.5 years now. emily: ever since the raid, you have not left? kim: that is right. emily: so the kitchen, you designed this yourself? kim: yes, i like it wide and cool. emily: this is where the helicopters landed? kim: yeah, right here in the courtyard, and another one right here where the cars are parked. emily: do you worry that you could lose this? kim: a man's home is his castle and i think it would be a significant victory for the u.s. government, and i do not want to give that to them. emily: who are your neighbors?

kim: recently, the alibaba ceo has purchased a property next door. emily: have you said hello? kim: yes. emily: are you going to have an ali-empire? kim: i will have an ali-baby. [laughter] emily: alibaby, baby. you can watch my full interview with kim dotcom on bloomberg.com. up next, to entrepreneurs working to break up the venture capital boys club, and where they are looking for the next big thing. that is next. ♪

emily: aspect ventures just raised its first investment fund, $150 million. it is one of the most high-profile vc firms in the valley run by women. in the old boys' club world of venture capital, women have a long way to go. last year, just 6% of vc partners were women, down from 10% in 1999. the issue was front and center this year when ellen pao sued her employer, kleiner perkins, for discrimination. a partner testified that it is too hard for women entrepreneurs to get funding, and that may be why there are very few female vc's. here with me to discuss is one of the founding partners of aspect partners, theresia gouw and joyus founder sukhinder singh cassidy. thank you for being here. you have big news about this find. how difficult was it to raise the money, and where do you plan to do it? theresia: we were fortunate. our plan was phase one, founder

funded, which we did. when that happens, we said ok, now time to raise a find so we can build a new find and hire people. it was a combination of between the two of us having 15 plus year track record each with six ipo's, 26 m&a's, and a dozen portfolio companies people could look at. it was very straightforward. we were fortunate to hit the top end of our target range. emily: you guys came on the show to talk about it when you started the firm, and it is a shame that you guys are the rarity here. that is one thing that was brought to the floor in a letter that you wrote this week talking about this issue of women in technology, but you had a different take on it. i want to read a quote from your letter, where you said, "all tech entrepreneurs," encountered by you, "not just female ones, encounter bias. be it gender, age or business model, people make judgments about us as we pitch our vision

long before we have data. beyond biases, we face mixed data signals every day as we keep iterating between vision and reality over months and years. were we to yield to stats or all the negative signaling, no one would ever start a company. but as a startup community, our most universal bias is toward possibility." what do you mean by that? sukhinder: at the end of the day, women face discrimination by us. 67% of women we surveyed said that they encounter that, but when you try to change any ecosystem, particularly ones in the valley, you start with what is possible. entrepreneurship drives on the idea of possibility. so yes, have we faced fires? yes. have men faced fires who are older than the young men, they have, too. if we want to make progress on this issue, we need to show what is possible. the returned to possibility is one of the ways to enable change, so it is important to amplify what is possible in the women entrepreneurs who are successful every day. emily: theresia, you worked at excel partners for a long time.

was it more difficult to raise money as a woman, going out on your own with jennifer? theresia: it is certainly different to be a first-time find, but as i said, we were fortunate to have great support first from the entrepreneurial in -- community, including companies like stephanie's, and then as a result, we were able to have great support from the investor community, including investor entrepreneurs. i should mention sukhinder is an investor in aspect as well. emily: what did you see in the ellen pao trial? sukhinder: the fact that ellen was able to step out on an issue such as discrimination elevated the conversation, and regardless of the outcome, her stepping out brought into the water cooler conversation between men and women what is really happening. it brought forward the idea of unconscious bias for sure.

theresia: the unconscious bias is a part of this is that what it underlines is the culture and how it is important in people's ability to succeed or not succeed in a particular environment, and having the culture discussion is important, and that is why what sukhinder wrote is important for two possibilities. one is the fastest way to make change is to start something new. the second thing is to bring a positive narrative for people who are succeeding and killing it and starting things in silicon valley. emily: like both of you. this is a conversation that will go on much more than four minutes, but we have to leave it there for the purpose of today. theresia gouw, congratulations on the fund, and sukhinder singh cassidy. it is time now for the daily byte, one number that tells a whole lot, and the byte today is one million. that is the number of free miles you could get from united if you are a talented hacker. the airline giant launched a

program to reward security experts that find logs in the system, but do not try hacking a plane while you're are on board. that is it today from san francisco. have a great weekend. ♪

' ue respect, t.g.i.f. john: happy national pizza party day, sports fans. in our lineup tonight, a dinner and a show. first the dinner. tomorrow in des moines, 11 republican presidential candidates are -- or would-be candidates are attending the iowa lincoln day dinner. catch it all live and i promise it's going to be hilarious. mark, who you got?