♪ emily: qualcomm's products touch the lives of billions around the world. it's the biggest maker of chips and smart phones, expanding to cars and at the forefront of 5g networks of the future. but ask an everyday person what qualcomm does and you will likely get a blank look and yet, qualcomm has been in business headlines almost constantly over the last couple of years because of a dispute with apple, qualcomm's biggest customer. then the white house killed a hostile takeover of qualcomm by broadcom, which would've been the largest takeover in history. in the midst of a trade war, china effectively killed the

takeover of another chipmaker, nxp. all setting up challenges or perhaps new opportunities for qualcomm readership. joining me today is qualcomm ceo, steve mollenkopf. steve thanks for being here. , steve: happy to be here. emily: you have a few things going on. you are in bitter lawsuits with apple around the world. you fended off a hostile takeover of your company, you had a failed deal this past year. what'd i miss? steve: well, you haven't missed anything. it has been interesting. i would say we are at the center of a lot of key technology which tends to make us interesting from a partner point of view. we don't tend to do anything small. when i look at it, if anything proved the importance of the technologies that we work on. emily: so, would you have taken the job if you had known of all the complex situations you would be dealing with?

steve: i have been at the company for a little over 24 years. when i became ceo it was clear we knew what we wanted to do next and so a lot of these things were issues that we know about and we have to deal with. we're knocking them off the list. emily: you had an inkling it would be a hard for years? steve i think anytime you're a : technology company, you have to be prepared for ups and downs. what you tend to do as the ceo, i think live your life further out in the future from where you are living. you're betting on technology moves. you're always an optimist. otherwise you wouldn't remain in the industry. emily: or could not. steve: correct. you have to work through near-term issues to get to the emily:rm big changes in how have you evolved as a leader the last two years? you are very tolerant of and certainty. steve: i'm very tolerant of it. i think i have to be. i think it's been interesting to have the ability to lead the

company through these periods of time. if you look at the public, what people think about what goes on in the company, the majority of the company is focused on products, focused on driving 5g and that tends to be the job of the senior group, and certainly the job of the ceo, is to remove the other things so that the majority of the company can work on things that really drive the long-term values. emily: you certainly know what that's like. you've been working at qualcomm for 24 years. you started off as an engineer. bring me back to the early days and just how different the world was technology wise then. steve: when i started, this was before digital cellular. people would prefer to calling people. you were calling it place you , are calling a home. we had this belief that not only would you eventually call people, the concept of having your own personal number, but we said we are going to put a computer in your pocket and that will have a tremendous ramification.

not just for cellular, but also industry. it would be a big step not only for cellular but also for the technologies small enough and have low enough power so you can put a computer in your pocket. and on top of it, the great thing, the part that 5g represents is the ability for these same technologies, the cellular roadmap the low-power , processing, the ai at the edge of the internet, the connectivity that's now going to , disrupt almost every other industry. so for us it's probably the widest funnel in the history of the company. emily: you think people don't appreciate the technology that goes into their phone? steve: i think the average consumer doesn't realize how much technology investment is required to make these ecosystems. when i say ecosystem, i'm saying what qualcomm tends to do is we want to make sure that we are creating the technologies for

businesses, let's say eight years from now. we are trying to create the technology for a company that hasn't even been born yet. i think people don't realize how early it you have to work on it. for example, the big investments that we did in 5g were about two or three years ago. because we said this is going to be significant. we want to be the leader and we invested in that. emily: when will i be able to make a 5g call from iphone? when will my phone be 100 times faster? steve: you'll get that next year. the first half of next year you will see that rollout. actually worldwide. the second half, it will be very prevalent, and of course going into 2020. emily: how big of qualcomm's business will that be? steve: i think it's a tremendous part of it. if you look in the future but we are really about is how do we take the roadmap of cellular, how do we deliver it at scale on a global basis?

then, how do we scale into new industries? things like self driving cars. the ability for a car to be connected and to be connected to every other car allows it to see around corners. and that's a big, big change in the way logistics flow and work and how cities work. same thing with health care. emily: how will my life be different? how will the world be different? steve: near-term, much more access to more bandwidth at a much cheaper cost. and the number of companies that can provide you service at a very, very high rate, meaning the equivalent to what you get on your wired internet at home will be available in your home and outside of your home. they will go up by a lot. you'll see some competition between the cable companies who provide you wired internet service and the wireless companies and they will really change the landscape of it. emily: we've reported that china is considering merging the second and third largest telecom companies. there is great concern this will

give china an advantage with 5g. are you concerned? steve: not much. i'm not sure i see an east/west competition where i don't think there will be a lot of winners. emily: what if it's south korea or japan? you don't see a risk two u.s. competitiveness in this arena question mark steve: we are partners of choice for all of those launches. don't forget europe. europe is quite aggressive as well. if you're the technology leader, your problem is not are my markets big enough? your problem is, and this is what qualcomm is dealing with is how do i scale this because there is so much demand for it. that is the issue we are in right now. that the good problem to have with your company. steve: there's probably no better opportunity and partner for qualcomm than to work with apple. ♪

emily: qualcomm is a company that touches the lives of billions of people. you've been in most iphones up to this point. and a lot of people don't know what qualcomm is. does that bother you? steve: no. i think it's part of our success. our job is to make the technology available to people . we purposefully stay behind their brand. what we want to do is be a great partner to enable them to be successful and we don't pick favorites. emily: let's talk about apple. for long time, this is your biggest customer and now they're your biggest nemesis. how would you describe your relationship status with apple today? steve: we have a dispute over the price of ip. we think that's moving to a period of time where our strategy is unfolding in the environment is such i think you're in a position where it'll get done. at the same time, i think there is probably no better opportunity and partner for qualcomm than to work with apple. it makes sense that the technology leader in mobile

with the department for the product leader in mobile. and those things tend to work out. the way we think about the business is eventually you get the disputes figured out. then you move on to a different period. emily: so, you believe apple will remain a customer? steve: i think so. look, if you have leadership technology, figure roadmap will eventually dominate the business relationship between companies. i think there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case. emily: you're taking on the world's most valuable company. they've stopped putting your chips in their phones, they say the patents they are paying you for are invalid. how does something so bitter get resolved favorably for qualcomm? steve: well, i think 'bitter' may be the wrong term. we've had disputes with licensees in the past as well over the price of ip. it is really no different than that here. it's just bigger companies. we are both big companies. they're obviously a very large

company, but we're not a small company really in terms of being able to execute the strategy we have. those things will get resolved. i think they get resolved on the courtroom steps, sometimes they don't. we don't know which way it's going to go here, but the strategy is playing forward the way we thought it would. emily: there are critics that say qualcomm is not articulating its side of the ip story enough -- ip licensing business could be dead in the water. what's your response? steve: the data is pretty different. we have hundreds of agreements, many of them signed in the last three or four years when we've had a number of new agreements signed in china. the outlier, the people who are not paying as opposed to those who are. we think the licensing is moving toward a period of stability. our job is to prove that and i think we are pretty confident in our ability to do that. emily: have there been any talks? steve: there are always talks between the companies but really nothing to report on. emily: so when could we expect some progress?

steve: i think we've always laid out the schedule. that the second half of this year, a number of legal milestones hit. legal milestones create an apartment for both parties to change their perspective. we don't know that will be the case here. if it is, i'm sure there will be lots of news for you. emily: how about this? what does a win look like for qualcomm? steve: the normal scenario is that you resolve the ip side and then go back to working on the technology side. don't know if that's going to be the case here, but that's sort of a typical resolution. as you know, we have planned our business assuming that is not the case. for us, it looks like upside and i think we are confident in our ability to execute either way. emily: you've certainly shied away from letting this get too ugly in public. is that just part of who you are as ceo, part strategy? not wanting this to be in the spotlight. steve: first of all, it is very

much what is going on. remember big companies have , disputes all the time. they don't make it personal. they have very complicated relationships. we are in that category with a number of different companies. kind of what you see is what you get in terms of how we think about it. emily: that said, you were recently involved in a very public situation with a ceo who does not enjoy being in the spotlight and that is the ceo of broadcom. they tried to take over qualcomm the hostile bid. the white house blocked it. how did you navigate that? steve: we spent a lot of time with shareholders quite frankly and working through with how we , could resolve what they wanted us to resolve. one of the big issues that comes up when you're talking about a hostile takeover is deal certainty. i think in this case, it was proven that our board were pretty smart and i think circumspect to take a cautious view on that. ultimately ended up in

preparation for 5g, the u.s. government did what it did. i think today it would be very difficult to be in in any type of big merger that requires approval in the united states or china. just the political environment is quite difficult. one of the things we were able to do is navigate that environment as a company and sort of remove that uncertainty away from our shareholder base and we are pleased with how the stock has been performing. of course we've done all the things we have said we are going to do and we're going to continue to do those things. emily: for you as ceo, what was the range of emotions you went through when you found out that was not going to happen? was there victory? relief? steve: i don't you know how to react. it's unprecedented. there's no playbook when something like that happens, but luckily the law tells you what you need to do here. so we did that and move forward. --hink our whole mentality

that is behind us. the real focus is the 5g ramp in resolving the apple dispute. emily: part of the reason it was blocked was because the administration and the president saw a national security threat. do you think that threat is real? steve: if you look worldwide, qualcomm is a leader in 5g and i think they wanted to make sure that was maintained. but quite frankly, i'm not sure anyone really understands what happened there. emily: then there was the flipside and qualcomm chided by nxp. -- buy you waited two years. the chinese government never said no or if they just let the deadline last in the deal was effectively dead. how big a blow was that? steve: it was -- we moved beyond it. we were clear. i was very clear in terms of what we were to do and it played out not the way we wanted to. i think we have moved beyond it and did the right thing as a company. there's really no dramatic change, at least our evaluation

, anybody's evaluation of the m&a actionability in china between now and probably the end of the midterm elections. so november timeframe. what we decided to do was remove the uncertainty for shareholders, remove the uncertainty for both companies and move on and it's proved to be the right decision for us. emily: the chinese government has left the door open and doesn't seem to want to take responsibility for ending the possibility of this deal happening. do you think it still could happen? steve: the merger agreement has been terminated by both sides and so it's not happening. i'll just remind you, i think it was handled pretty skillfully by all parties. we feel that our relationship with china is as strong as it ever was. it never became about qualcomm versus china. pour the other way around. what it really was was we had bad timing in terms of showing up in terms of large political issues.

sometimes those things happen and you have to decide to move on and that is what we did. emily: given the business that qualcomm does around the world do you think at trade war is , good or bad for the united states and is it good or bad for qualcomm? steve: any time to visit issue like this, -- there is an issue like this i think any industry , would tell you they prefer to have it resolved. we don't have as much impact of tariffs that other companies have. but that being said, we like to have a stable environment and we think we'll get to that point. our business will be strong either way. emily: could the move the president is making lead to chinese handset manufacturers making their own chips? steve: that's not what we're seeing. what we're seeing is that the big trend in china is that the chinese manufacturers want to be global players. anytime there's a technology transition, people try to exploit that and go internationally. that brings them closer to qualcomm versus farther away. emily: there has been some turnover on the board since he

brought, -- since broadcom. what is the mandate? steve: drive 5g and resolve the few remaining license disputes. and to really take advantage of this opportunity that's come along with everything being connected. we've had a lot of turnover and i think moving in a direction that is quite healthy and looking forward to driving that mandate. ♪ steve: you're going to see a tremendous amount of excitement in the mobile space just from the launch of 5g. ♪

emily: the takeover drama is still not over because you've got paul jacobs, former ceo and son of the founders trying to take the company private. what's the status of that? this is someone that you worked with for years and that you know very well. steve: we haven't heard anything actually. it has been pretty quiet. if anybody came up with an offer, paul or someone else, we would listen to it but we

haven't heard anything. emily: do you talk with him on a regular basis or are you still engaged with him? steve: no, he's left the company so we really don't have those types of conversations. but if there were in need for one, of course we would. we know each other well. emily: part of the argument behind going private is the licensing is complex. perhaps it would be better outside of public scrutiny. you're making these long-term investments that will take time to pay off and investors need to be patient. what you think about that? steve: i think it's an interesting argument. by and large, in practice, how have we run the company? even with a lot of scrutiny, we've done those things. it's not clear to me there is an advantage one way or another. you are kind of comparing against something we haven't seen, so it's hard for me to say. emily: do you think it could be advantageous to be private? steve: it always depends on what the details are. if you look, we're a pretty large company. in order to do that type of

deal, you would take on a lot of leverage. that doesn't open up strategic flexibility. it probably constraints it. emily: so, when will we see qualcomm returning to the double-digit quarterly growth that made this company so popular with investors? steve: well, i think near-term we are focused on the stabilization of the apple relationship and the growth of 5g. both of them we think provide great output. emily: what if apple doesn't go your way? i mean, is that something that keeps you up at night? steve: of course that's something we worry about, but worldwide, we have hundreds of agreements that establish the value. we feel once we have an opportunity, we'll be able to prevail. emily: let's talk about new markets and where you see qualcomm progressing.

intel struggled to get it mobile for years and never figured it out. you can work for a long time on some of the's technologies and then realize it's not going to be something that you dominate in. qualcomm already gave up on servers, for example. what about your efforts in pcs, cars, drones? steve: i look at all of them and think they're all pretty interesting. when i think of the business, i think of two things. i think are we developing technologies that has international demand and can we scale them into the markets that one of them? today, our real focus is on the scaling. the demand is there. we are seeing early examples of new customers taking new products. give you a sense, i think we have 9,000 new customers today that we did not have before and i think that is up 20x in the last four years. emily: so what does qualcomm look like in 2020? steve: i think you will see a lot of 5g and focus on areas outside of mobile.

i'll be honest with you, i think you will see a tremendous amount of excitement in the mobile space just from the launch of 5g. is very disruptive in terms of the business models of carriers, how much bandwidth they get, and the ability to move forward. it's going to be an exciting time, we think. emily: will qualcomm still be an independent company? steve: i think it's too far in the future. i think what's clear is that any way we can drive value, we will look at it, but we have a preposition to be in from a technology perspective for sure. emily: when do you think business will return to normal for qualcomm, for you? steve: i don't think it ever returns to normal. i look back at the last 24 years and we've never had a really stable spot. there were always at times when people said qualcomm was going to disappear tomorrow. you will never be good at this technology are that technology. i had the fortunate opportunity to work on a lot of projects that proved those things wrong, do the were able to

things that people said we couldn't. so, i don't know if we are ever going to be in a super stable position, but we'll certainly be in a more stable position from the last several years. emily: what's something you know now today as a ceo in 2018 that you didn't know when you took the job four years ago. what is something you have learned? steve: you have to figure out what you want to do make sure , you spend the time on it because if you don't spend the time on it, it's not going to get done. which is a very basic thing but , it's hard to do in practice. emily: don't you have your people to do those things? steve: what happens is, if you grew up in the organization, it is very easy to do things that -- the organization will let you do whatever you want to work on. you just have to make sure you are working on those things you can work on. i have learned that over the last four years. it is certainly true when you go through a period of tremendous scrutiny or big changes. there are certain things just by the nature of the work structure the ceo has to make that call. , or have conviction on this particular topic. i have learned that you've got

to set time aside to make sure you know where you are on it. emily: what is your game plan as a ceo and manager knowing you have more uncertainty coming your way? and that you have to be nimble as a ceo? steve: i think the first thing we just acknowledge there's always going to be uncertainty in the business. for us, the way we mitigate that is to have technology that people want and if you have that, you can solve everything else. first and foremost, that's what we do. by the way, we've had to make those calls. for example, the big calls for 5g we made several years ago in the middle of all this uncertainty. this will not be the last call that we have to make. the technology roadmap will continue. we've got to make sure that were the leaders moving forward and we'll continue to do that. that's actually the fun part of the business and we are looking forward to it. emily: steve, thank you so much for joining us. it's been great to have you here

on the show in the middle of all you have going on. i appreciate it. steve: thank you. ♪

haslinda: currency questions in turkey and argentina have seen the threat of contagions spreading. it has been a pretty rough ride. currencies down, inflation on the rise. so, how do policymakers correct? welcome to the world economic forum in hanoy. i'm haslinda amin. ♪ haslinda: joining me to discuss the outlook for asean, the