♪ selina: i am selina wang. this is the "best of bloomberg technology," where we bring all of our top interviews this week in tech. is planning to file an ipo. will it attract investors? samsungghlights from unpacked. the smartphone maker debuted its most expensive lineup. taking aim on apple and rising competition from china. plus, the global race for 5g.

the president says he wants to embrace new technology. but what will give the u.s. an edge? we will talk to the commissioner. lyft could file its ipo. it will target a valuation of $20 billion to $25 billion. uber and lyft have been planning ipos for the first half of the year. it appears the latter is on track to go first. friday.ssed the plan >> because of the market shutdown, the government shutdown, there has not been an ipo in over 15 weeks. there is a lot of pent-up demand to see a really big lyft -- a tech company ipo. i think it's going to be well received. i think the company, lyft, is doing very well. >> to after that, i think they really want to go. yesterday, they wanted to come out.

uber is waiting in the wings. they don't want to have a situation where uber is coming all the air out of the room. there are some bigger fish here. they are trying to get this done quickly. they want uber to define what ride-hailing looks like. they do not want them to define the story. they want to be the ones to come out and say this is our company, let's focus on this -- we are a domestic company. we are not trying to be this global giant. we do things well in the u.s. it is important for them to get out ahead. selina: they can explain why it's a great investment. what have we heard from potential shareholders? is there a lot of interest in this stock? >> yeah, people i spoke with really excited. they are eager to see lyft go first. they want them to be ahead, set the stage. they do not want uber coming in and dominating the story. but certainly on their roadshow, you can expect a lot of questions on uber on lyft's ipo

roadshow. and vice versa. shareholders are interested. you have fidelity, who is already an investor in lyft. it will be interesting to see what they end up continuing with. selina: you are an investor. oceanic was an early investor. what did you see in the company back then? jaclyn: when we invested in the company, we have guys that look at the numbers. i look for relationships. hands-down, lyft has -- people like lyft. people want to see lyft be successful. i took a lyft here, to get here. everybody can't say great things about -- cannot say enough great things about how they treat women and all of their employees and the people they ride with. i'm excited to see where the company goes. the people i worked with, the

upper management, everybody deserves a good ipo. it's going to be really exciting. selina: both uber and lyft are losing money. how do you see investors stomach in that? of techi think a lot companies are not profitable. but lyft is working toward increasing their margins. they are trying to make their market share within the u.s. they are more streamlined strategy. they do not spend as much money as uber. and they are really trying to and consciously. i think they are going to get there. but i think they have to tell their story, but they are slowly getting there by expanding in all cities around the u.s. selina: and how concerned are you -- and potentially you are hearing this from your sources -- about the risk of regulation and minimum pay requirements in important cities like new york city? jaclyn: that's a good question. you are going to see regulation

and all sorts of different companies, whether it is ridesharing or the airbnb's of the world. they are all going to work together. at the end the day, what they want to do is make transport more efficient in cities. they want to make it efficient. they want to make it easier for the end user. i think they are going to work with cities to make it the most efficient and pay what they need to pay. selina: i want to touch on pinterest. they just confidentially filed for an ipo. what was their thinking about that, the timing? olivia: i know, they just keep coming. as i knew i feel reporter, i feel like everyday there is a new one. pinterest confidentially filed. i think they are going to be one of many who will go around the summertime. a lot of interest in them and examine about them as well. selina: briefly on lyft, what about picking the nasdaq over the u.s. stock exchange?

olivia: i think nasdaq is a hot place to go for tech companies. it is interesting lyft ended up getting nasdaq. it begs the question where uber will and up. nasdaq is popular for tech openings for a number of reasons. right now, i think they are about 13%. you get a big splashy presentation when you go there. i think it makes sense when they go there. we will see what happens with uber. selina: that was bloomberg's strifezaleski and jaclyn from oceanic partners. coming up, samsung unveils a smart phone with a price point the tops $2000. will the foldable phone frenzy the the next big trend for consumers? check us out on the radio. you can listen on the bloomberg gap and bloomberg.com. this is bloomberg. ♪

selina: wait is over. at the samsung unpacked event,

the company unveiled the biggest redesign of its smartphones. the south korean tech giant introduced new phones. fourthey are taking on apple with 3-d cameras and fingerprint scanners and 5g conductivity. part of the revamp is a foldable phone. the samsung phone has a 4.6 inch screen and can unfold into a tablet with a 7.3 inch screen. allowing users to use up to three applications at once. "bloomberg technology's" mark gurman attended the event and spoke with emily chang. mark: this is going to be the first mass-market folding phone we have seen. and the price is about $2000. which would make it the absolute most expensive namebrand phone on the market. about what,lk to us specifically, you see will be a competitor to apple here? mark: i think on the hardware

side, what samsung is coming out with is quite impressive. for the flagship models, aside from the foldable, there are devices. fourthere is one 5g device. which means samsung will have about a year and a half advantage over apple on 5g. the s10e can take on the iphone xr. it actually looks similar to xr. an some of the advancements look impressive as well. i've been able to use the phones. the hardware seems ahead of apple, at least one to two years in terms of the camera technology, the 3-d sensing, the 5g. i still think apple is ahead on these software side and services integration. emily: and you have reported that apple is not working on 5g. at least this year. but maybe it will come next year. we do not know. do you think that 5g capability will really be a draw for consumers this year? mark: i think so, in terms of the marketing prowess in pushes

we are seeing from companies like verizon at&t. ,will there be enough people this year in the u.s. to take advantage of 5g? it's not clear. but at least for the of 2020, 5g first half will be in a lot of markets across the u.s. the problem for apple is the company usually releases its new phones in october or november of each calendar year, so unless apple pushes their release up in 2020 or comes out with a specialized 5g version earlier in the year, they are going to be at least six months or so behind on 5g. selina: that was bloomberg's mark gurman. we also weighed in on how the device will fit into the smartphone landscape. john: i was really surprised at the quality of the screens, the fingerprint technology, all that makes samsung very competitive. i think the one thing to keep in mind here, though, is they are really not competing with apple with these phones, in my view,

as much as they are competing with short -- sort of these rising chinese vendors that have very, very good devices at really low price points. emily: what do you think will convince consumers to upgrade? we know in general that the smartphone market is flowing. what do these products offer that prior phones don't? phones are lasting longer. people don't need to upgrade. so why do it? john: i think that is a problem we are going to live with for a while in this industry. you can see it reflected in the shipment decline we saw this year. with roughly a 4% to 5% decline in the market in 2018. i think the next big push to upgrade is likely going to be 5g. i think the foldable phone introduced by samsung today is a move in the right direction. but i'm not sure it quite gets them there in terms of sparking upgrade activity. emily: so how does this position samsung to compete with the

chinese handset makers, which offering cheaper, half-price, or even less, phones that work just as well? john: samsung has been pushed out of the chinese market by these vendors. xiaomi is on that list. they have great devices. as you look more broadly across the world, there is a lot of buying behavior aimed at buying good quality devices with really good displays. i think the display is becoming more and more important as video traffic grows as a percent of the total mobile traffic out there. people really are migrating to video. i think samsung has an edge there with its displays. emily: so how might you ask the market share chart to look -- how might you expect the

market share chart to look different at the end of this year? john: that's a great question. samsung share has been roughly flat for the past couple of years. on the strength of this upgrade cycle, the introduction of the 10e, which is the lower priced galaxy, the foldable phone, i imagine you will see them trend up a little bit. i suspect apple is going to be stable or down a little bit, depending on what we see in september. and with the chinese vendors, steady as she goes. selina: chinese search giant baidu gave an upbeat forecast. they said revenue will rise 18% in march. that is as new products help energize their advertising business. baidu is spending billions on ai and its news feed as it fights off alibaba in the flowing economy. joining us to discuss is bloomberg's stephen engle in

hong kong. things were a little better than expected. things down for us. stephen: they were better than expected. we even heard from the chairman, robin lee, earlier, saying it's going to be a chilly time in 2019 for chinese companies. he was alluding to the fact of the trade war. that could affect the slowing economy, which would have a knocked down effect on advertising. baidu relies heavily, or more so, then its bigger rivals, tencent and alibaba, on advertising. so that is what we were really looking at, advertising spending and topline growth. fourth-quarter adjusted profits beat estimates. $.192 per adr. we are expecting $1.74. also, fourth-quarter revenue beat even the highest estimates. the consensus was $3.89 billion. 6 billion. at $3.9

basically, new content and products have been energizing the ad business better than probably even robin lee expected. selina: going beyond baidu, how has the broader chinese advertising industry held itself up against the macro economic concerns and trade tensions? stephen: yeah, so what they were trying to do is come of course bolster their advertising , business. at the same time, they need to build out their new services that can complement that. and become less reliant on advertising. the want the kind of take wechat model from tencent and build a super app, an app that can provide so many different services. you mentioned some of those other services. it includes ai-driven content throughout the platform. they are also separately building another division, the apollo economist driving. they have their news feed. and another big one, too, that they are seeing some attraction on is there netflix-like video service.

-- their netflix-like video service. it's going to be a work in progress through this year with tough economic conditions. but baidu, given these numbers, i am sure robin lee is fairly pleased that this gives a little momentum into what he already says is going to be a chilly year in 2019. selina: in addition to those macro factors, there is a crop of new startups, including valued billions and billions of one dollars. are we seeing those companies impact baidu's advertising revenue? stephen: absolutely. the economy is slowing, and advertising rates are coming down as upstarts like bitedance are slicing some of that and spin. alibaba has done much better of late in the advertising section. -- space. they had been more on the laggard side of advertising as they focus on e-commerce. but there advertising business has also picked up. sure, baidu has picked up its

game on advertising, and that is why they are trying to mix in all of these other services. and that brought down operating profit, i might add, in the fourth quarter. it was half what it was a year ago, simply because they are spending so much on other services and new content. selina: coming up, walmart posted strong sales growth over the holiday quarter as it continues to push e-commerce. where it now stands in competition with amazon, up next. plus, we speak to the ftc commissioner about the global race for 5g and how the u.s. can gain an edge in the competition. this is bloomberg. ♪

selina: some good news for retail. walmart washed off disappointing retail sales with its best holiday quarter in a decade. the retail giant's fourth quarter u.s. comparable sales

beat expectations while e-commerce rose 43%. while the company continues to push -- take on amazon, they are into the market's is weighing on the markets. andrew in chicago and sara joined emily to weigh in. sara: walmart showed key strength in a couple categories. one area was toys. they expanded by 40%. they knew it was the first christmas without toys "r" us, and they badly wanted that market share. the other area is grocery. walmart is investing a lot in grocery and quick and collect grocery. this is an area where they have an advantage because their fleet of stores is so large. emily: walmart has a redesigned website. they went after toys "r" us buyers. what in particular do you think helps them close the deal? andrew: they are firing on all

cylinders and every channel. brick-and-mortar has been strong. online obviously -- they've invested in their store experience. online, there is a headline there with 43% growth. and click and collect has been a huge driver. especially where a lot of other retailers faltered late in the season, walmart -- amazon as well, but walmart was able to get a lot of those last-minute sales because of their strong click andel and collect. emily: let's talk about the competitive landscape. i've got a chart right here. it shows comparison market caps of amazon and walmart. amazon in the blue. obviously, much higher market cap than walmart. but when you look at revenue, walmart brings in far more revenue than amazon. now, when you look at amazon, amazon's profits dwarf walmart. but it certainly shows a lot of interesting conflicting trends , at play. how do investors see this story? sarah: i think that they see

that walmart is finding its niche and finding it strength. amazon, its growth is slowing down. it remains the undisputed leader, with $.50 of every dollar spent online going to amazon, and that is tough to compete with. but walmart is trying to find its niche. not only with programs like click and collect, but by building this sort of galaxy of other businesses that can court a different type of customer than through the main walmart brand. this is why they bought bear necessities. this is trying to help steer the jet.com brand it owns. they are trying to focus on an affluent urban millennial customer, customer that perhaps would not shop at walmart under other circumstances. so walmart is trying to build a stable of brands that meets customers in different places. that is sort of unique compared to what amazon is doing. emily: but is walmart, even online, ever going to be able to

squeeze the amount of profit that amazon is squeezing from its customers? andrew: well, big part of amazon's growth is their profitability, which comes from adjacent businesses with their fast-growing advertising businesses and aws. those businesses have a totally different margin profile. the big question is while walmart's core retail business is moving in the right direction, are they going to be able to layer on more profitable businesses? they talk about the advertising business. it is still small, but i think they wheeled a ton of potential there. amazon has a really big head start, but that is something to watch for the next couple of years. if they can layer on a more profitable businesses, leveraging the enormity of customer data they have. emily: how is a grocery battle shaping up? walmart is the leader. but of course, amazon in the territory, and other grocery chains doing delivery as well.

sarah: walmart has strong geographic coverage. i think they said something like 70% of the u.s. population by -- is covered by their pickup services. and for the delivery services, somewhere in the 30% range. that is pretty strong coverage. when you compare what amazon is working with, whole foods only odd stores. that's a real advantage for walmart. but there is no question the dynamics are changing. kroger, which is a major competitive force, has struck a deal with cotto. the innovative british grocery giant is going to be bringing its technology over to the states, its automated warehouse technology, to help kroger collect,ts click and its delivery game. it is so little penetrated. where certain categories are 40% online grocery is only 2% , online. it is really anybody's game.

emily: meantime, the ceo of walmart is saying that the online strength is actually weighing on gross margin. how do they intend to combat that? andrew: the online sales strength? i think that right now a lot of that is coming from flipcart. they know in the near term that flipcart is going to be a drag on the margins. but really that is a long-term way. india is potentially this massive, massive market. i think everybody is hoping it becomes the next china as an e-commerce market. that may be a little ambitious. nevertheless, it is about how that plays out over the next 10 years. near term, they are going to have to incur some of that hit. but i think it is smart strategically. they seem to be guiding the street to understand what that will mean for the market. emily: of course, that flipcart acquisition was hotly contested. what do we know about how well the acquisition is going? sarah: we do not know that much yet.

what i think of one was watching for today was we just learned about these new e-commerce regulations going into effect in india, which creates challenges for walmart and amazon as foreign participants in that market. we heard ceo doug mcmillon on the call today that walmart is disappointed with those regulations and will have to figure out how to work within them, but it is note worthy that they did not adjust the guidance. they had issued guidance in october, and they did not revise that today. that is a clue to us that while they do have to work to adapt to these relations and the talent they present they don't perceive , them to be catastrophic for their progress. flipkart, that is a long-term play. selina: that was the marketer analyst andrew lipsman and bloomberg's sarah halzack. coming up, donald trump argues

u.s. companies must take the lead in the wireless networks. but what does that entail? we will hear from fcc commissioner brandon carr. we are live on twitter. follow our global breaking news network at tick-tock on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪ this isn't just any moving day.

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like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. emily: this is "bloomberg technology." for years the world has been looking forward to 5g. now president trump is weighing in on the issue. 5g and 60 i went technology as soon as possible. it is far more powerful than the standard. there is no reason we should be lagging behind on something that is so obviously the future. we must always be the leader in every thing we do, especially

when it comes to the exciting world of technology. we caught up with brendan carr on thursday and asked him about the 5g deployment in the u.s.. >> at the federal communications commission we have been focused on 5g for two years now and getting the less ready for this transformative from a technology and economic perspective as well. is a u.s. delegation going to barcelona at the end of this week or we are talking more about 5g. >> how should we understand the meaning of his tweets? it seems to conflict with reports that the white house may be doing an executive order to block telecommunication companies. >> there are a couple of issues going on here. we live in this global race to 5g and he will be first to deploy this technology. china has a different system in

terms of command and control. we have been focused on trying to get the government out of the way and let our private sector invest and compete in the sec has been updated regulations to spur investment into the deployment of 5g. >> is there anything that suggests a softer stance towards wall lake --. we have an active whether it is in congress through legislation. the fcc is taking action to try .o see more deployment 40are expecting to see 30 or cities with the new 5g technology this year alone. >> what are the risks to cutting ties with these companies.

>> we have a proceeding going on where we are looking at these issues. is there a security threat from a particular company? what steps do we need to take? we haven't reached a final decision yet. apart from that, it's going to connect more than phone calls. it's going to be about the internet of things, smart cities, telehealth applications. part of the question is about 5g values. you want companies that will respect the rule of law, that will protect ip protection, that will respect first amendment rights. that's why we want to make sure the u.s. sees 5g first and we are deploying these new networks. selena: the tweets we talked about earlier talked about pushing ahead to 6g. that doesn't even exist at the most basic level. what is your take on that?

commissioner: we're trying to get the regulatory playing field right. we will at the private sector take it from there. 5g is a big piece of the future. but next-generation broadband will take on different forms. there is a new generation of low earth orbit satellites, we just want more broadband for more americans. 5g will be a piece of that there is other technologies on the horizon we are excited about. selena: how would you rate our administration's ability and thinking to secure those networks from cyber threats? commissioner: we are in good shape with respect to the deployment of the infrastructure. we have agencies across the administration very focused on this cybersecurity issue. i think we've got the right people focused on these issues. we are looking at it before we see 5g fully deployed.

selena: what type of changes have you seen from internet service providers? commissioner: it's been a great result for consumers across the country. there is a report that came out that showed internet fees are up -- speeds are up 40%. the fcc just released a draft report that shows the digital divide. investment is up, speeds are up. prices are down. i spent a lot of time with the infrastructure crew. they are doing the hard work. deploying the physical infrastructure of the networks. from florida to iowa, they said they have never been busier. i think we are really headed in the right direction now. selena: one of the main arguments to scrap net neutrality was that capital expenditures showed they have been decreasing the amount of

investment. commissioner: we look at the end of the last administration, 2015, 2016 when they imposed these regulations. investment took a pretty significant downturn for the first time out of the recession. when you step back and look at the numbers for broadband investment across all providers those numbers of turned around. ,that's a great thing. when you look at the infrastructure side, when the sec -- fcc started in 2017, china was deployment new cell sites at 12 times our case. we updated our infrastructure rules. private sectors are closing the gap. we are clearing more cell structures at six times what was was done before. the numbers are turning around. cisco put out a report this week

that said when you look at 5g because of regulatory changes, the u.s. will see twice as many 5g connections as asia. on a percentage basis. the new policy we've put in place are working that will pay . that will pay off for a lot of americans. there is certainly more work ahead. selena: coming up, flexport , we will hear from the company's ceo next. 's record holding one from $14 billion in debt to a serious challenge for alibaba and amazon. this is bloomberg. ♪

selena: freight forwarder flex

port has secured $1 billion in funding. the company now valued at $3.2 , billion, plans to use the capital to deepen its technology and data capabilities and grow its global infrastructure footprint. aniline chained -- emily chang caught up with the ceo. >> it's an international freight forwarding company in global trade and international freight forwarding are some of the biggest markets in the world, scale driven. the bigger your company is, the more advantages you can provide your customer base. we need to go after that scale. emily: why take a $1 billion investment rather than other options to get to the next phase? >> we had a lot of different options. i was attracted by the ability to really go and aggressively expand our business globally. we need to be in every single country in the world. our customers are global. the entire premise is we can

help you expand and go global. emily: did you weigh the effects of taking softbank's money given the connection to the saudi government? ryan: we spent a lot of time thinking about it. i really felt like there was an alignment in our mission of making global trade easy for everyone on the planet, connecting humanity and a seamless web of commerce. we have seen over the last 50 years -- i do not think anybody has lifted people out of poverty like a shipping container and and trade. we are lucky to work at the intersection with ai and lucky to have an investment partner like softbank that sees that. emily: this is a government connected to the murder of a u.s. journalist. did you ask softbank about this? ryan i spent a lot of time with : softbank's people and built a lot of comfort. we really understand them as people, what their vision is

and where they're going. we had a lot of great conversations and felt aligned in our values. emily: did you personally talk to them and what were the interactions like? ryan he even invited me to his : house. i would know what to disclose too much but addicted to put on slippers and negotiate a deal. emily: what was your impression of him and why you felt this could work? ryan i was always attracted to : his worldview the have a great pdf of their 30 and 300 year vision document explaining. i have never saw dust seen a company with a 300 year vision before and that was inspiring to me. one of our core values is to play the long game. everything he has achieved and to be in the presence of a visionary and hear the stories about his advice to alibaba in the early days about their pricing strategy to win in that market. he had similar advice for us, to

be aggressive and go for scale and growth. emily: what trends in freight should we be watching for in the next one to five years? how is this industry going to change? change ahink it will lot to where the consumer expectation is to day delivery and to do that, you cannot manage that by the phone. you need smart analytics to tell you where to ship cargo, when it will get there, whether it will ship by the air or ocean. what the brand cares about is their cost, transit time come and predictability of the system. the freight industry is only focused on cost historically. we are saying let's look at these other factors and see how they affect growth. selena: that was ryan pearson. -- peterson. imagine an internet company that owned services comparable to linkedin, yelp, eharmony, zillow, and more? chances are if it was an american company, you would know the name. but if you have never heard of

recruit holdings, you are not alone. the japanese tech company owns a constellation of and portals. they have a valuation of $46 billion another site set on attracting the most consumers in the world by 2030. on sandra suture, professor at tuesday, harvard business school joined bloomberg's emily chang to discuss. >> the story about recruit starts with the scandal. this is a scandal of massive proportions. the company was founded in 1960 and around the mid-1980's its ceo gave shares of a stock that was about to go public in a subsidiary to about 70 government officials and high-ranking officials. news of the scandal broke in 1988 and it was a sensation. it caused the resignation of the

japanese prime minister and his entire cabinet, and brought down about another 150 people with them. it is in the schoolbooks in japan and the first thing you say when you say recruit is the scandal. that is how the company had a coming-of-age moment unlike that of most other companies. the first thing you should know about recruit is that it has been trusted. it has lost trust and learn how to regain it. >> and 2019, you continue to hear about these governance issues, transparency issues in japan. i am wondering how they managed to stage that turnaround and get past and existential crisis for the company. >> what happened was the employees thought the company had about six months of life

after the scandal broke, but they decided if anyone was going to save the company it would be them. they went to all of their customers and told their customers, look, our founder did this. we were not involved. we will continue to serve you the way we have in the past. they were very convincing and they were very convinced they could still run a good business, and they lost very few customers. that was the beginning of the sense of belief in themselves. they went through a period of enormous debt when the japanese asset bubble broke and they also managed to pay that off as recently as 2006. this is a company that has learned that on the one hand, it can really do bad things but it can really be humble and curious an extremely confident in its ability to handle typical situations. that is the spirit they bring to everything they do now.

emily: what is the strategy today? they also own a real estate portal providing direct loans to businesses based on daily traffic. how does this fit together? sandra: they have three segments in their business. one is all of their i.t. businesses that are very involved with artificial intelligence and matching platforms for jobs. they have got one in the middle where those businesses would be. they call that their ribbon model. it says they want to create value for the consumer and for the client who is paying the money to be matched with the consumer. the third business is the staffing business for permanent and temporary staff. they have always had this mix in the company of being interested in trying to help people largely around education, finding jobs, and growing out from there.

selena: that with sandra suture. professor at harvard business school. coming up, is elon musk too fast to tweet? another twitter snafu, this time on production rates. we discuss next. this is bloomberg. ♪

selena: the tesla turnover continues. ofashington trial represented elon musk last fall in his battle to securities exchange commission. the legal battle was in regard to elon musk's infamous tweet. since then the sec has kept a , close watch on his twitter and they might have more motive. it turns out he tweeted too soon. the electric carmaker

would make about 500,000 vehicles, and the revised that by at the unit 2019 probably around 10,000 cars per week. delivery estimated to be about 400,000. greg joined emily to discuss. greg musk was supposed to really : have a system of preapproval for tweets that would be considered preapproval to the company. a 500,000 unit production forecast for this year was inconsistent with what the company said previously. interestingly enough, musk was inconsistent even the day of earnings on january 30 or he gave a figure of as much as 400,000 deliveries this year. saidple of hours later he the navy could deliver as many as 500,000. musk has been a little alone to the place with the outlook for

this year from a production and delivery standpoint. this was sort of a continuation of that. clearly the settlement was supposed to guard against the sorts of things happening and clearly there was an issue in this particular case. emily does this concern you? asha: in the past referred him say things like this before. rate or in this case an annualized rate. i think whether or not -- i think in general this focus on production, traditional analyst and institutional investors put way too much focus on it. our point of view on tesla is it is some autonomous electric vehicle company. this is a long-term story we care about. in talking about production and hitting these specific targets

they are off by a month or two, , that will not change the long-term thesis. emily: the general counsel leaving after just two months. jonathan chang is taking over after musk surprised investors saying the cfo will be leaving. what exactly happened here? greg we do not know much besides : this vague reference to it being a poor cultural fit. at this that is reminiscent of point something we heard from some of the many executives that departed last year. one executive who comes to mind is just and back in here -- caneer, who joined the company from seagate and was supposed to be the chief accounting officer and left a couple months into his tenure. bud was moving to the west

coast and focusing on this company on a full-time basis and decided against this. it is unclear whether last night's tweets had anything to do with this. it does not appear to be the case. generally, another indication that elon musk may be a bit of a difficult person to work for. emily: tasha, turnover is nothing new at tesla. we are talking about key roles, the cfo, the general counsel, previously the head of hr. does it concern you he cannot keep these roles filled? tasha: i would agree that musk is a particular person to work for and you have to drive with -- jive with that to be happy. let's talk about the cfo. in could be that as he came during a difficult time at tesla and he fell that the company was

ready to fly on its own. that is why he was ok leaving again. when bud was brought on, people were worried and said they will get a lot of litigation. now that he is leaving, there is again more worry. case as youicular , said, it could be a sign that he did not get that litigation he expected. he will stay on in an outside with tesla. counsel role you would think if there is relationship damage you might want to do that. emily: on a podcast earlier this week, musk made some interesting comments. it might speak to both of these issues. he said people think i am like a businessperson or finance person. i am an engineer. i do engineering, always have. the reason tesla is making rapid progress is because we have vastly more data and this is increasing exponentially. tasha, talk just a little bit about what he said in this podcast.

tasha: the podcast focused on autonomous driving. again we did that with the , purpose, because we are long-term investors. that is the picture we see ahead of tesla. our target price is $4000 on five years because of autonomous. it is something we focused on for a long time. they are the only automaker collecting data from their cars on the road. incrediblethem this long tail of events that no one else has. waymo just published reports in california along with other companies testing there on this intervention rate. waymo has about 10 million miles as of october last year. tesla has roughly 8 billion miles with hardware one and hardware two cars. that will get them across the finish line to autonomous driving. in that case it is important to have an engineer at the helm of the company that understands it.

emily: this was on a podcast with you. were you satisfied with the answers he gave you? tasha: we were happy to highlight the autonomous driving piece. it is great to have a company like tesla where the ceo actually understands technology. tec he spends a lot of time with the autopilot team to be able to answer these questions. that is not the case with traditional auto companies. i think there is a lot of education that needs to be done at the executive level at other firms. we were happy with the outcome and certainly happy we got to spend time with him. happy to talk about the story of bit more that we have been focusing on. selena: that was tasha keeney and craig trudell. that does it for the best of "bloomberg technology." we will bring you the latest in tech every week, 5:00 p.m. new york, 2:00 p.m. san francisco.

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