>> i am cory johnson in for emily chang and this is the best of bloomberg west. coming up, ridesharing startups are duking it out over cooper announcing a three and a half billion dollar injection from the saudi find, and we will catch up with lyft's chief usiness officer.

we will take you through mary meeker's predictions of the future of the internet. ernest monfils tell us why he is spending big on tech. but first, $9 billion and that is just the start. $9 billion has been invested in the ridesharing industry since 015. there is more to come. uber's big rival and chinese says it is closer to closing a bigger around. while they are duking it out, the face-off between uber and lyft. one way lift is trying to claw back to uber's market share is corporate customers. more recently with an endorsement from apple we caught up with the lyft chief executive officer. >> lyft has long had a very consumer friendly reputation. it evented the pure to pure model. >> pink mustaches on the grill. >> right. they've sort of moved away from

that but i think that's -- long-time users will think of them that way. business is a good way to grow their user base. e can grow here. >> what is the appeal of the business market for lyft that seems to have a consumer focus? >> it is a huge market, first of all, and we think it is a tremendous growth engine for the company. corporate travel, ground transportation categories is approximately $36 billion spent every year. in the u.s. taxis, black cars, ridesharing, and rental cars. cory: does not include airlines? >> does not, and is a great way to introduce people to lyft and ridesharing. cory: people who are used to using a rented car as their means of transportation, new yorkers are used to jumping in taxis.

people in des moines or even this city, this is not a good taxi city. when you guys came around, when uber came around with bigger numbers, it started to change individual behavior. that is harder than just picking someone from a taxi. >> i would definitely say there is a shift in attitudes and we are seeing that predominately out of the millennial generation. in the next four years they're going to make up over 50% of their work force. they just have a different attitude about car ownership. we see it as an attitudinal shift toward transportation all -- as a service. cory: uber started with the business clientele and moved away. >> they are traditionally black car and one of the things that is interesting, lyft is really willing to cater the product to the customer. i have come up with a concierge program. you and i talked about a couple of ways we are tailoring his.

>> we have a different approach to working with businesses and it is three parts. e are a people source across the board. you may have heard people say, we treat you better. cory: you allow passengers to sit in the front seat. >> they can sit in the back seat if they prefer. cory: very customer focused, very people first. the second thing you are alluding to is being very collaborative. we are listening to our client and designing programs that are custom for each of them. he third thing at lyft, we believe that vision and values matter and a lot of our

corporate clients agree. cory: let's say i am at intel and my company is used to using a certain car company. that is our vendor. my employees are used to using. how do you convince them, what do you say to make them choose you? >> consumers are already overwhelmingly choosing ridesharing in their personal lives and that is beginning to show up in the enterprise. it is the classic b to c to d transition we've seen before. it is just a more convenient, easier, more affordable, and in our case, a friendlier ride. cory: your competitor has more of a market share and has become ore of a verb. >> it is worth pointing out, there is a long road to go. it is an independent third-party data that says lyft has 4% of the share, uber has 40%.

taxis have been plummeting in business travel. i spoke with the president of lyft. you definitely have a lot of work. >> we have our work cut out for us but we are growing very quickly. from q4 in 2015 to q1, we drew 40% quarter over quarter and xpect to see growth. cory: how you are selling me as the imaginary ceo i will never e, why are you not uber? >> it really does come down to the relationship. the mission of our company was to transform transportation, reduce congestion and pollution, and provide communities with more convenient mobility solutions. this is just an extension of that. it is more cost-effective, so it is reducing the travel expense line which is second only to people in most organizations. ground transportation makes up

22% of that. what they are coming for is the cost gain. cory: i really would've thought hotels and airlines took up a lot more. >> it has never before been in a managed category. the has never really been an opportunity to put together a corporate program on a national level. >> they are creating new use cases you would not imagine before. they are working with a medicare provider through and film, ticking people up and taking them to doctors appointments. there are interesting ways you can use lyft, schedule rides and create modes of transportation you wouldn't have before. cory: there are a few products that are specific for the enterprise clientele. we are taking all the hassle out of their expense reimbursement process. >> the second thing is concierge, we have made it easy to request a ride on the half of a third party who does not have the lyft

app. third, our corporate clients told us loud and clear, i do not ever want to have to worry about missing that all-important airport trip. they are asking for and we have given them scheduled rides. cory: that was the lift to hang -- lyft chief executive officer. oming up, fox took a pounding, more than in four months. sales look strong so what were he problems? facebook goes to the ends of the earth and beyond to promote live video. the details of mark zuckerberg's broadcast with the international space station. ♪

cory: box shares today beating this week, dropping the most in four months after they reported

decelerating billings. we caught up with the ceo and asked what happened. >> when analyst miss numbers, you think the analysts miss, not the company. but you delivered what they expected at least in terms of sales and earnings per share, loss per share and everything. the billings numbers wasn't what they thought. you introduced this idea of seasonality in the call. is that fair to say? >> yes. there were probably two major factors that drove. the billings number being different from what analysts expected. e don't guide to billings. the first, we are seeing more seasonality in our bigger deals so more of our customers are doing their larger deployments, which tends to follow the seasonality of software. 5000 new logos coming on board, but in terms of the big deals that swing the billings numbers, that was really about building pipelines. cory: have you seen it before with these big companies, or how you just have you seen seasonality before? >> as we are moving upmarket more and more we are seeing more ronounced seasonality.

q4 just before our q1 a couple months ago, we closed a record number of deals including a few multimillion dollar transactions. we are seeing the back half of the year is where we are seeing he largest growth in number of new transactions, and the other factor that drove billing is we are changing our payment structure with customers. instead of getting multi-years paid up front we are getting annual payment terms. that has the effect of the year ver year comparison. in many cases a large customer pay us for several years in advance. we are trying to smooth that out

by only billing for customers annually so not doing multitier transactions as much. they year over year comparison compared to q1 last year shows lower growth but that is because we are doing a change in how we are billing our customers. cory: does that mean less cash flow initially? >> over the long-run it means that cash flow will be much smoother and will follow our revenue a lot more closely. in previous years, you might have a big delta between billings and cash flow and the revenue you recognize. cory: you have got other companies that have this giant pile of deferred revenue where they always beat the corner -- quarter. >> we are trying to smooth it out so the story is a lot more predictable. we did beat on revenue guidance and grew 37% year over year.

we raised the full-year guidance from $391 million to $395 million. you are seeing more operational efficiency in the business as well. cory: i am disturbed to hear you sound like a public company. in the class of great companies that was started when you guys were coming together, there is this class of emerging companies that are staying private and do not have to have stupid conversations like i am making you have about talking to analysts, and meeting their estimates, and just grow the business as fast as you can. do you feel that sometimes? >> a lot of the things that wall street does drive are healthy. make sure that you are driving a sustainable business, that has all been positive to our execution is a company. i think you have to do a good job and be crystal clear with wall street around, what kind of numbers they will be seeing that change over time.

growth margin might go up or down by a percentage point so that volatility ends up being exacerbating in terms of how wall street reacts. for us, we are enjoying being public. the benefits we get in terms of employee liquidity or being able to go to customers and have more transparency, they are able to see the balance sheets and see that we are building a robust business. cory: i would agree that a quarterly checkup is good. when i was on the buy side, the hardest thing to determine was to figure out what was signal and what was noise. company management -- you have to depend on company management to tell the truth. also identify the difference etween signal and noise. >> one of those great examples s our gross margin went down

about one point but that was way more to do it areas changes in things like our consulting services or infrastructure investments that we have made for the long run as opposed to any underlying change in the health and economics of the business. we still put up a 72% gross margin and we expect that to rend up over time. cory: one customer that you think tells your story the best in the last quarter of last year. >> we certainly talk about customers like general electric where you have a very large organization, multiple hundreds of thousands of people. what they need is an incredibly secure way to manage all of their documents and files and collaborate across their supply chain with everyone they work with. when it came to deciding on what product could actually deploy at that scale, work with the diverse lines of business they are in and being simple for users, they chose box.

this is a kind of customers you are going to see box continue to acquire. ge as a couple thousand active users on the product so that is where the business model is going. we want to power large enterprises and small businesses o collaborate. cory: that was box c.e.o. aaron levie. this is version 2016. tune in this thursday when i catch up with the founder of khosla founder. ♪

cory: the most anticipated slide deck in silicon valley.

mary meeker. she co-authored her first internet report in 1995 when she was an analyst at morgan stanley. >> one of the reasons people love this report so much is that she gets up out of the every day and goes back 20, 30, 40, 50 years. one of the things she points to is china had been on this massive building boom, $21 trillion of capital growth during the last six years invested and that is more than was done in the past 30. there was a massive run-up in china that is starting to taper off. cory: qe says developed markets are developed. >> absolutely. cory: cory: what did she say about india? >> there is still room for growth. they are still growing. we have seen positive

growth. now it is the second largest arket just behind china, passing the united states. cory: a big part of that is mobile consumption and the notions from this report about what is happening with smart phones and mobile, most of these users will never see a desk top, particularly users that are set to be added. without china the growth rate would be pretty much flat. >> one thing to keep in mind on india is the fact that indians love their cheap phones. if you look at the average smartphone price in india, it is down around $120. it is up around 280 dollars in china so in terms of the revenue value for vendors like apple and

samsung, china was a much richer market. you were referring to the slowdown in china. five plus years ago in 2010, that was a market growing well over 100%. this year the unit growth in china -- i'm sorry, in 2015 the unit growth in china was about 100%. -- 1.5%. we have seen a rapid slowdown due to saturation. all eyes have shifted to india where the unit growth opportunity as high but the revenue growth i think will be lower because we are talking about the popularity of those lower-priced phones. cory: that was the prediction of china when that market had yet to take off a few years ago and apple belied that. >> one thing we are looking for in india is they do not have a lot of 4g networks. as those 4g lte networks that we

love so much in the u.s. began to get felt out nationwide, in india they will need 4g phones to access and leverage the power of those networks. that means paying for a higher-priced phone. cory: speaking of phones, i got mad at my siri today and my echo as my best friend. this voice recognition stuff, spend some time talking about that. >> that was a highlight and area of growth that she pointed out, that voice recognition is getting better as accuracy improves and laintsy decreases. people's excitement just builds. cory: she talks about how those numbers have grown. >> it is up pretty significantly. cory: 65%.

>> you are seeing components improve and as the software voice recognition also gets better, you see more people using them in the home and car, and not just because it is fun. 20% of people or so that were surveyed found that. but because it is more convenient, more accurate, and it is safer. cory: that was lizette chapman and john butler. coming up, we will hear from the u.s. energy secretary about the future path of clean energy technology. if you are digging bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. bloomberg.com. across the u.s., sirius xm. the best of bloomberg west continues after the break. ♪

cory: welcome back to the best of bloomberg west. i am cory johnson. energy ministers from 26 countries met in san francisco this week to try to achieve the goals from the paris climate conference. opec will stick to its policy of unfettered production. we caught up with the u.s. energy secretary right after thursday's opec meeting to discuss the future of growth in renewables. >> so far in the united states and globally, even as oil prices have come down we still see the substantial growth of renewables and also very importantly, the growth of efficiency so that demand growth has been tapped somewhat. we just had a presentation by bloomberg new energy finance that enforced those points. in the united states as well, besides oil prices we very low natural gas prices. those have impacted principally coal and nuclear while we see for example, our solar eployment is up by a factor of

more than 20 in the last six years. we see robust growth continuing with the renewables and with efficiency as lead drivers in ur clean energy evolution. >> thank you for the shout out to our bloomberg new energy finance. given all of that, you also have governments making agreements such as the paris climate accord. what is the status of that being ratified before the presidential elections in november? >> the accord had a big step forward on earth day one 170 countries signed the accord. now the various countries have to go through filing a set of articles to join. we have committed, president obama has committed that we will join along with many other

countries this year. we may not reach the full ratification threshold this year which requires 55 countries and 55% of emissions. i think we will be close if not there, and probably next year we will see the accord come into force. it is a big driver, a big deal. frankly i think the paris agreement and response by 170 countries means the clean energy direction is really nevitable. that is why we have to emphasize innovation so that we can stay at the head of the train, and take advantage of what is going to be a multitrillion dollar market of clean energy technology deployment. >> you are targeting early next year. we have the presidential election and donald trump has said a lot of things, including canceling the paris climate agreement.

among the initiatives the department of energy has taken, what would be at risk in a trump presidency? >> i am not going to comment specifically on the campaign statements by any candidate. at the appropriate time i would be happy to do so but not at the moment. let me just say i think there is a misunderstanding and many ways. the department of energy, we set efficiency standards for appliances and various kinds of equipment. those standards are not something we just think of in the morning and issue in the afternoon. these take years of a process and any changes to those would have to take a similar, long-term process. i think it would be foolish to do so since the impact of these fficiency standards is

estimated to save consumers more than half $1 trillion in energy up to 2030, not to mention avoiding almost 3 billion tons of co2. secondly, the innovation agenda that we are talking about, that has received very strong bipartisan support on capitol hill. look at the senate bills that have passed in the last few months. both the energy policy bill and appropriations, the budget act for our department, they both explicitly called out the innovation agenda as something that is very important, and that happened with bipartisan support. cory: that was the energy secretary with scarlet fu. we will continue our coverage of the clean energy ministerial. first, let's look at where we are today, what exactly was agreed to in paris and how tough those goals are. >> the paris climate agreement is six months old. now, 160 countries need to implement new policies to meet

ambitious goals. things like keeping temperatures below 1.5 degrees from preindustrial levels and reaching net zero emissions before the end of this century. the u.s. says by 2025, they will cut greenhouse gases more than a quarter from the 2005 level. compare that to five gigawatts the country has today. the world is far from achieving these lofty goals. o make them, some of the world's biggest initiatives would need to install their clean-air commitment by 2030. on this list, china, the u.s., eu, india, indonesia, brazil, japan, and mexico. making these targets achievable well involve big changes across many sectors.

can we get there? the race to a greener future is on. cory: i am joined by the california find clean energy manager danny kennedy and thers. there is an overall notion that the answers that exist when we made these commitments in paris may not be out there yet. is that a fair way to look at this? >> last year, 90% of all the nergy additions to our grids were clean energy, mostly wind and solar. we are doing a lot. more than twice as much money, $260 billion went into clean nergy then dirty energy. cory: in this country as well? >> globally. it is happening around the world. last year, more money was spent in the emerging markets.

cory: tell us about your company and what you guys do. >> we are generation zero admissions. people of all ages can join this generation. the reason climate change is a threat, that we all need to work on. what we are saying is that everybody needs to join the generation. what we do is tackle the problem of urban mobility. 30 million americans travel less than 20 miles a day. one of the things we want to get them to his elecic mobility. even if they geto cars, they will be driving around with three empty seats. cory: we are showing pictures right now of this motorcycle you guys are making. i do not know who the model is driving the car. she looks dangerous. that is emily chang. >> she just loves the ride. she has never driven a scooter. that is the world's first lectric connected scooter.

it is made here in the united states in ann arbor, michigan. it gets to 30 miles with one charge. week -- it can be completely owered by solar. cory: is the idea to present these and say, look, the solutions are already here? >> exactly, and a lot of people in the united states and around the world care about climate change but they do not how they can participate. this is the way you participate. this is the here and now. cory: we can participate by driving a humvee and smoking igarettes. >> this is a way to participate positively and cost-effectively. cory: what has been the reaction to your wares as you show them to people? >> i would say the majority of the interest has been in larger scale systems. our systems are much smaller, designed for an individual household.

i think the response has been very positive. it has been simply waiting for the first point of this small, off grid household to afford a product like ours and to see the scale and the impact before the ministers would be interested in the scale we are working on. cory: is our conversation -- that was our conversation. coming up, the u.s. ambassador with extensive experience in africa joins us with a big disruption taking place there. thomas greenfield is next. ♪

cory: some of the biggest names n tech will descend on silicon

valley for the global entrepreneurship summit. president obama is hosting it at stanford. last year's summit was held in kenya. linda thomas greenfield joined emily chang last week with david kirkpatrick. >> it is fascinating. i had nerd -- not heard the term silicon savanna -- savanna until today. how would you describe the tech scene in africa? hey skip a lot of steps to get where they are today. >> i would describe technology in africa as thriving. there is a huge interest in improving access to technology. one of the areas africans skip over technology is in the telephone technology.

they never had land lines in an expansive way. the use of cell phones became immediately popular. africa really took the lead in banking via telephone and ommunications via cell phones, in a way that did not happen in the united dates for a number of reasons. >> you are saying some of the poorest people have a cell phone and are connected. >> you could go into the deepest village in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road, and you will see a market woman or village woman, a chief with a working cell phone. >> what makes africa right for tech disruption? >> africa in 2014 had six of the 10 fastest growing economies. there are opportunities on the continent of africa that were not recognized in previous years.

companies are beginning to see the possibilities, the opportunities, the resources that are available in africa that they can invest in. they know these opportunities can be very, very profitable. > it is interesting, we talk a lot about tech in china, europe, india. we almost never talk about technology in africa. as someone who has covered technology for such a long time, why do you think it has been so absent from the narrative? >> we don't talk about africa enough in general in the united states, although there has been changing. what is interesting is there is enthusiasm in cities all over the world, especially big cities like cairo, johannesburg, nairobi, ghana. what is interesting to me, i was curious to hear the secretary talk about this. cairo and lego's were becoming serious tech hubs.

meanwhile, nigeria is in an economic decline. do you think that is a problem that is going to slow down the opportunity for these people that we are starting to effect enthusiasm? > africa is suffering from the same economic downturns we are seeing occur elsewhere in the world. there is also enthusiasm among african youth from african countries to really connect to technology. i see this as an opportunity. i think most african leaders see it as an opportunity. that is one of the reasons the global entrepreneurship summit was hosted in kenya last ear. we have 100 plus african countries who will be participating here in silicon

valley in june. >> you mentioned mobile banking. what other kind of companies or startups do you see taking off in africa? >> the mobile banking is the biggest. we see market women using technology to get their products to market. we see huge banking operations that use technology beyond the cell phone technology. we see african entrepreneurs who are tech savvy, who come up with new ideas they want to bring into the technology scene, who are looking for opportunities. >> the chinese government and chinese investors are interested in investing in africa for a longe,o a much greater extent than the united states. how does that play out? >> i think there are opportunities for all. there are opportunities for chinese companies, but amazing

opportunities for american companies. american companies are desired on the continent of africa. our challenge is to encourage more american countries to look at the opportunities that are available to them in africa, and take a chance and invest. cory: that was the interview with linda greenfield. coming up, houston, we have a mark zuckerberg problem. facebook's first ever streaming live with the international space station. we will take a look at nasa and there out of this world social media strategy. ♪

cory: this week facebook hosted its first live event from space. it is the latest in what has been an effort by nasa to ramp up its social media utreach. we heard from nasa's deputy social media manager, jason townsend. >> we are sharing what is going on. we have these incredible images and an incredible story to tell about exploring. we are looking at other planets and what is going on in the universe and earth.

being able to share that is an ncredible story to tell. we are able to connect in a way using social media that is successful. cory: the numbers are through the roof. your instagram stuff, your facebook stuff. does it reflect nasa's mission from small to large, to try to discover what is going on in the niverse? >> i think that right now, social media has given a voice to missions that were overshadowed by some of our larger programs. we are in this renaissance now where everyone is able to share the story with their followers. people are able to be embedded with the science team analyzing data from the hubble space telescope or engineers building the next great telescope. cory: it is also kind of amazing. it is neat to me, when i think about when i was a kid and the

impolitic missions -- apollo missions and watching them on tv. this is the way media is consumed. nasa has captivated imagination. your twitter account has more followers than beyoncé or leonardo dicaprio. >> we are studying stars of a different kind here. i think everyone wants to see that. cory: really? you're really going there? >> when everyone is a kid, they have that wonderment. what do they want to be when they grow up? they want to be an astronaut. there is quite a few folks who have that as an answer as a kid. being able to spark that in people who are adults now, and having them follow us, inspiring the next generation of kids to go and explore, that is really what i think social media connects with on a very visceral level. we have this amazing, stunning, compelling imagery. why would we not want to connect? crowds have responded

accordingly. cory: the last question, a serious one. i would imagine there are lessons every social media manager, every company could take from your approach. do you think there is one that could be boiled down and applied to every business out there? >> definitely. not every business has a rocket ship or astronaut. you have fans out there forming a community around your product. if you don't tap into that, they re going to talk about you regardless. if we are able to go and connect in a way that really lets the community come together and realize they are not alone out there, and the fact that we can bring them together, it enables the conversation to happen and everyone to go and be part of it. it might be a product or something that is going on at your company. bringing people together is how you can use social media for maximum effect. cory: that was nasa's social media deputy manager jason townsend. that does it for us.

tune in wednesday. we will catch up with hewlett-packard ceo meg whitman on bloomberg west. we will see you then. ♪

♪ transparency, the u.s. says china has made progress, but more can be done. sailing into storming waters, beijing repeats his claim to the south china sea. the philippines steps up cyber security, targeting money launderers and digital criminals. welcome to "first up". i am angie lau in hong kong, stringing on