taylor: i'm taylor riggs, in for emily chang, and this is "the best of bloomberg technology," where we bring you all the top interviews from this week in tech. coming up, tech sector reports. netflix, ibm, and texas instruments all out with earnings. streaming, semis, and some surprises in the mix -- we've got you covered. plus, the united nations links the saudi crown prince to the 2018 hacking of amazon's jeff bezos' phone. we have details. and cloud and ai.

we talk big themes shaping the big tech. when we will hear from microsoft and alphabet in davos. and we begin with tech earnings that began this week. netflix, ibm, and texas instruments all reported. tuesday brought us netflix's fourth-quarter results, which showed subscribers passed a 100 million milestone outside of the u.s., a boon for its international footprint. the company also cautioned on subscribers this quarter, saying growth would not be as robust. we covered it all with emarketer forecasting analyst eric haggstrom and ceo of tru optik, andre swanstone. eric: they are pretty strong in the developed markets already. there's not a lot of growth for them specifically in the u.s. looking abroad, they have a lot of room to grow, but that growth will be difficult. when you talk about that 7 million subscriber guidance, it is actually pretty strong

compared to q one in 2019. when you look at the year-over-year comparisons, they are very weak compared to last year's. taylor: andre, let me get your thoughts on this. typically, they are conservative when they forecast some of their guidance. do you feel netflix is being conservative, or is there a real potential slowdown on the way? andre: i have long said that the real competition for netflix really starts in 2020. and i still believe that to be so. if i were them, i would also be conservative. i do think it will be difficult to tell what the full impact of all these other solutions will be on netflix in the first quarter. and second quarter probably more so than q1. taylor: eric, i want to come quickly -- i am doing this in real time -- i want to quickly take a look at a chart inside my terminal. you mentioned how the u.s. domestic market is a very mature market. you could see in the fourth quarter with the u.s. market that has struggled. is that normal, like you said, given that it is a mature market? or would you like to see more u.s. subscribers coming online?

eric: again, subscriber growth in the u.s. will be lumpy moving forward. that's largely because they are reaching well over 50% of all u.s. households. now, there is more growth for them, but when you consider that more people watch netflix than actually subscribe, because of, obviously, household sharing, but also password sharing outside of the household, there's not a lot of room for them to grow anymore within the u.s., in terms of subscribers. but they still offer a great value to consumers and can continue to raise prices moving forward. taylor: andre, i want to get your thoughts a little more about that competition you are talking about. i so often hear that the domestic user is a much more valuable customer, because they are more profitable. i know that the growth is international, because it is less of a mature market. the customer over there is not as profitable or valuable. how do you view the mix between both domestic subscribers and the international subscribers as well? andre: i think the domestic subscriber is actually much more important, especially in terms over the next year.

and i would disagree with the common thought from a lot that netflix can increase revenue by just increasing the price. netflix is now priced at a premium compared to their competitors. with comcast announcing peacock having a free tier. with disney+ coming in at a cheaper price. there is pluto tv and others that are now free streaming online. so the real challenge for netflix is going to be -- i do not even think it is going to be client growth. i think retention of clients is going to be much more of a difficult thing domestically that i think people are giving it credit for, because there is so much more free solutions coming on and cheaper price solutions. more content is being pulled from netflix. i just do not think they can spend their way out of it, like they have had in the past. taylor: that was emarketer's eric haggstrom and tru optik's andre swanston. ibm pleased wall street by beating five consecutive quarters of declines.

the company's push into the hybrid cloud market appears to be paying off. i got perspective from cfra market research firm analyst david holt. david: with the fx impacts, those were slightly smaller than expected. 60 basis points vs 100. domestic businesses were in line with expectations around 200 basis points. but when you dig a little deeper, the cloud economy was towards the higher end of expectations, of around 9%. high single-digit growth was expected. but surprisingly, transaction process platforms actually grew, even bumping up against tough comps from the year prior. on top of that, you did have the z 15 mainframe ramp, which grew 60% as a whole itself and ibmz,

which grew about, 60% too. taylor: i want to dive down into the different sectors. first, as you look forward to 2020, do you believe the promises of a sustained return to revenue growth and margin expansion? david: so i think a lot of it comes down to a stronger dollar. and when kind of look at this on a cost and currency basis, if those currency headwinds do abate in the second half, especially with the contribution you are getting from red hat, which, on a normalized basis, is growing mid-20's as of this quarter, and it is exhilarating and kind ofng, scaling through some of their own services segments, which is about 60% of the revenue. that's on a constant currency and continual basis through 2020. taylor: i want to talk more about the cloud revenue growth. where do they stand relative to competitors?

you mentioned they purchased the red hat acquisition around 2018. they spent $34 billion on it. where does that now position them among the other competitors in this hybrid cloud strategy? david: i think this puts them in more a middle layer opportunity, especially when you are thinking considering linking toward some of their consulting divisions. it definitely does not put them face-to-face with some of the other, bigger competitors in the space, when you mention google or amazon. but more so that niche play and some of the workflows that can actually be scaled through to their services, which hopefully drives growth and margin expansion for 2020. taylor: that was david holt of cfra. chip industry bellwether texas instruments was able to beat analyst estimates when it reported wednesday -- but not by much. shares fell after trading near record highs wednesday. for insight, i caught up with bloomberg's ian king after the company's call. ian: things are not getting worse is the key take away.

if you look at the percentage in declines in revenue over the last five or six quarters, the rate at which it is getting worse has abated, shall we say. so that was the key take away. and the reason that the stock kind of popped initially and then ended up in slightly negative territory was people were expecting a little bit more. taylor: you also were talking with the cfo. what were they saying? ian: right. the key thing sort of underneath here is that the overall forecast would have actually been a little bit better if it were not for one market, and that was the communications equipment market, selling into things like cell phones. -- base stations for cell phones. that market he said is going down hard, not getting better, and, therefore, that dragged down the overall forecast. more important to texas instruments, markets like automotive, like industrial, are close to turning positive, which, again, is very good for the overall economy and the company. taylor: i want to dive down into these numbers.

you are jumping off the analyst call. you are here, like you said -- revenue topline growing, but slowing less than we thought it would. what is going on? because we had so much optimism coming into this about the chipmakers. ian: right. what texas instruments said is normally when you get into a normal industry cycle, you have about five quarters of decline. we are past that point. taylor: we are there. ian: and they have said that things are extended because people remain cautious because of the china trade dispute. china is the largest market for chips and a big market for texas instruments. that is starting to show signs of improvement. so things are not growing yet, but the rate at which they are getting worse has abated. taylor: talk to me about the exposure to china. if they are talking about macro headwinds, china trade tensions, we got the signing of phase one -- how much of that headwind could now become a tailwind? ian: again, it is complicated. what made communications

equipment a year ago really good was huawei went out there, nervous that they would get blacklisted, and about the consequences, and they bought a lot of chips. this quarter, they are not doing that. so the comparisons are negative. so the comparisons are negative. overall, i think texas instruments was trying to say that this was a macro sentiment kind of thing. a lot of people are less concerned that we are in this kind of deathmatch sort of trade dispute with china. and there is hope there will be a return to normalcy. taylor: that was bloomberg technology's ian king. coming up, the cloud and ai, two fronts tech is pushing into big time. we will hear from microsoft's ceo, satya nadella, and alphabet's ceo, sundar pichai. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. listen on the bloomberg app, bloomberg.com, and, in the u.s., on sirius xm. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: microsoft's ceo, satya nadella, sat down with bloobmerg news' editor-in-chief john micklethwait at the world economic forum on tuesday. among other things, they discussed microsoft's cloud endeavors and competition with amazon and google. satya: it came down to saying, look, what is microsoft's responsibility? we are increasingly becoming a big consumer of energy because of what we are doing with the cloud. it was sort of really clear to us that, given the signs that climate change requires immediate action, this is the decade. and so we wanted to start by saying let's make some good commitments. and the commitment to being carbon negative by 2030 means we will now have to make sure that all of our data center operations are, first, consuming renewable energy.

and then come also, we take all the carbon that we have put out and ensure that, through either new technology or natural means, we can take it out. john: that is all the historical carbon, you think. satya: that will be by 2050. we want to go back to 1975, when we were founded, and take out the historical carbon as well. that is the other commitment. when it comes to the billion dollar fund, we do need real breakthroughs. no one company is going to do this. so we are committed to putting our own balance sheet money on it. and then looking to seed the ecosystem. john: microsoft this one of the companies that has pushed quite hard against the current flavors of immigrant-bashing. do you think that is being changed in america? satya: i think, first of all, america is a country of immigrants. it is a nation formed by immigrants. to me, when i look at the contribution that immigrants,

even going forward, can make, it is something united states should be absolutely tapping into. it is something i speak to. microsoft has benefited from it. i personally have benefited from it. we are clear in terms of why immigration policy continuing in the united states is perhaps one of the most important thing for -- things for its own competitive advantage. john: do you worry it is getting slightly unenlightened? satya: not really. america still is the place people want to come to. one of the things happening is every country is rethinking what is it that is in their national interests. borders are real. people think about immigration policies that help. but i think, in there, they have to maintain that modicum of enlightenment and not think about it very narrowly. and i think that is what made it possible for those values that have helped people come. be the attractor. it is not only that -- people will only come when people know you are in immigrant-friendly country.

john: do you think the number coming from the outside is going to continue to grow as a proportion? satya: yeah. if you think about it, 5% of the world's gdp is tech. and it's going to to double by 2030 to 10%. if you think about being in the cloud business, and especially being in the cloud business across all these layers, means you get to participate in it. it's not about the 10% of the tax spent. but what about the other 90% of the g.d.p.? to me, what is of deep interest is to see the broad sectoral productivity grow, really shape up because of digital technology and the contributions we make. john: and one thing on that -- you are still behind amazon on that. how do you close that gap? and are you worried at all about google? satya: look. we had competition in the past. in the previous era and this era. we have new competitors. and we feel very, very good about opposition.

we feel very, very good about our position. if you think about five years ago is when we started talking about hybrid cloud and cloud and the edge. now, it is conventional wisdom. if anything, we even have an architectural advantage in terms of what the next version of the cloud is. that is what you see play out in the marketplace. john: an architectural advantage particularly over the two companies, amazon and google? satya: yes. because we built a fabric , distribute it computing fabric recognizing that competition is , going to be more distributed. it's not just the cloud. it is the cloud plus edge. something like 5g, you see that play out in a big way. taylor: that was microsoft's ceo satya nadella. now, the ceo of google has left no doubt about how important he thinks artificial intelligence will be. sundar pichai says ai will be more profound than fire or electricity. in davos, pichai said current frameworks to regulate ai is at -in the u.s. and europe, are a great start. sundar: ai is one of the most

profound things we are working on, as humanity. it is more profound than fire, or electricity, or anything else we have worked on. it has tremendous positive sides to it, but it has real negative consequences. when you think about technologies like facial recognition, it can be used to benefit. it can be used find missing people. but it can be used for mass surveillance. and as democratic countries with a shared set of values, we need to build on those values and make sure, when we approach ai, we are doing it in a way that serves society. that means making sure ai doesn't have bias, that we build and test it for safety. we make sure that it is human agency ultimately , accountable to people. about 18 months ago, we published a set of principles under which we would develop ai at google. but it has been very encouraging to see the european commissioners identify ai and sustainability as their top

priorities. the u.s. put out a set of principles last week, and be at the oecd or g20, they are talking about this, which i think is very, very encouraging. i think we need a common framework by which we approach ai. >> are you satisfied with those frameworks which have been developed until now? i mean, you refer to the oecd framework, the g20 framework. sundar: it is an early start. but i am very encouraged. they have a lot of commonality. that is because they are rooted in common human values. it is a great start, but we need to get more specific and evolve it significantly. i think the european commission is working on a white paper around ai, and i think that is an important first step. and we all need to engage. as a company, we are committed to engaging in the process. but it is going to need everyone from around the world. ai is no different from climate. you know, you can't get safety

by having just one country or a set of countries working on it. you need a global framework to make ai a safer world. taylor: that was alphabet's ceo sundar pichai. coming up, what facebook is doing to avoid the same mistakes of the 2016 election. we will hear from the company's emea vice president, next. and the coronavirus wreaks havoc on global health and travel ahead of one of the most heavily trafficked periods of the year, chinese new year. more on its impact, just ahead. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: facebook remains under fire after the cambridge analytica scandal, which came to light in 2018. then, it was revealed the firm had harvested the personal data of millions of people's facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes. as you can imagine, it remains a sensitive topic going into the

2020 election. but facebook's emea vice president nicola mendelsohn assured leaders the scandal was a thing of the past. she spoke to bloomberg's francine lacqua in davos. nicola: i think the mood is different this year. i think the reason it is different is because there is a much more thoughtful conversation going around now about how globally, business, governments can be working together with the tech companies. i also think there is an acknowledgment of the investment that facebook has been making across so many different areas, that we have had a lot of scrutiny. sometimes, in the past, that scrutiny has been deserved. so i think it has been good. there has also been a lot around the economic impact. what is the economic impact of the tech companies? actually, there has been a lot of welcome, positive reception to that. there was a research survey that just came out, a report by copenhagen economics, specifically looking at facebook, something we commissioned.

it talked about the fact that, in europe, we can see through the 25 million small businesses out there that are utilizing our platforms, that it has been responsible for generating over 200 billion sales in the last year. which, when the economics look at that and calculate that out, that is over 3 million jobs being created. francine: but when you speak to ministers here, do they ask you about regulation? do they ask you how you use the data? do they ask you what your purpose is? if you are a force for good. nicola: yeah, we have a lot of conversations about regulation. if you remember, that is something mark zuckerberg has been calling for for a long time now, about how we can work with governments around the world, as we have been doing with a number of different governments around the world, looking at the areas of regulation. let's be clear. we already have regulation. gdpr. francine: right, gdpr. how has that changed facebook? nicola: it has changed us a lot. we put in a whole new process in terms of making sure that people were aware of the information that was being collected from them, who they were sharing it

with. giving them options as to what they wanted to do. that is something we are continuing to evolve with. and we didn't just do it in europe, where it was regulated. we thought it was a useful way of thinking about things, so we rolled it around the world as well. francine: we are in a political election year, really around the world but mainly in the u.s. has facebook changed the way that some of these things get pushed around? nicola: definitely. i would say we have changed fundamentally in the way we approach elections. you know, thinking back to the 2016 election, the threats then were different to what we understand and could have imagined even back then. it was not just us that missed it. governments around the world missed it. intelligence agencies around the world missed it. what we have done is the investments we have made -- we have had units, probably over 100 different elections around the world. every time, we are increasing the scrutiny we place on safety. so come this 2020 election, it will feel different.

the reason being is the thing that we have introduced. we have introduced the fact that political parties have to be checked with us, authorized with us. the fact that when ads run for rom political parties, it actually says it is paid for by that party. those ads go sit on an ads library, and you can go and have a look, anybody can look, and you can see the different messages that the different parties are putting out. francine: how can we be so sure that actually there is no manipulation, interference from another site that we have not figured out yet? nicola: one of the other things we're looking at -- we are not just waiting for elections anymore to look at this. we are looking at patterns of inauthentic behavior coming from big networks. in 2016, we took down none. in the last year, we took down 50. we report all the time. when we see these different networks out there. we stay ever vigilant. we know it is a race to make sure that when we feel we have got better control, that there are other things that could happen. so we are very alert to the risks that could be there. francine: what is the potential

for ads on whatsapp? nicola: that is not something we are progressing at the moment. it is very still early days. we are very still making sure that the way people are using the platform -- that is the most important thing. and it has grown very nicely from that side. francine: what will make you decide? do you worry that people will be put off it? what are you trying to figure out and what timeframe? nicola: we are just looking at the moment in a different way. we do test all the time. one of the things you will see, as a tech company, across all of our different platforms, we are always looking at different ways to evolve. but we always do it very carefully and in a way that works for the businesses and the people who used to the platforms as well. taylor: that was facebook emea vice president nicola mendelsohn. coming up, now hiring. chinese internet giant baidu bytedance wants a new ceo for its tiktok business. among the requirements, "must love ads." we will have the details next. we are livestreaming on twitter.

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♪ taylor: welcome back to "the best of bloomberg technology." i'm taylor riggs. this week and brought new concerns about global health as officials in china announced more deaths related to the coronavirus. so far more than 600 people have been confirmed with the virus. halted in all but wuhan, china, where the virus was first detected. airports all around the world including some in the u.s. began screening passengers and world health officials scrambled to respond. >> we will take strict measures to contain the disease in wuhan. we have asked wuhan city and

hubei province to take the strictest possible prevention and control measures. taylor: as for what is at stake, we can look at china's gdp. as compared to the rest of the world. economy is a lot more integrated today than during the sars outbreak, but as for industry, some companies with heavy exposure to chinese travel weighed in from davos. >> i think the hospitals and communities are much better well prepared compared to the sars stage. so we are working very hard with doctors and industry. it was announced that if our customers are diagnosed to have the virus we will cover the cost , for cancellations and delays. francine: when you talk about travel, the fear is always there it could happen to me. you take a look at how tourism

india ites to gdp, in is 90%, in china it is 11%. what kind of impact could we see? >> it could be really devastating. this is, you know, early days yet and let's see how things develop. we know from our experience this could have a tremendous impact. people coming in from outside. you know so much tourism happens , through word-of-mouth. and when you are seeing every day newspapers and outbreak or some incident happening, you have so many alternatives to go. why the hell should i go to this then you think one? ,where there is a problem? so we should contain this and communicate that it has been tamed. the communication is almost as important as controlling the problem itself. francine: but timing could not be worse for china or hong kong. we are leading up the lunar new year holiday. in terms of the bookings are you , seeing any signs at all that

it is impacted? >> for the impacted areas, people are very careful not to travel out. if not necessary to go inside that zone, we do not encourage people to go there. however if there is no signs of the infected or being contacted by patients, it's probably ok. francine: what is the psychology in india? what is the psychology of the indian traveler? you said it is early days. are they likely to take those precautions? >> indians are a little more adventurous, i would think. you know are not as quickly , impacted as many travelers around the world. but indians go to hong kong often. we have flights to hong kong. those flights don't seem to be impacted by this particular problem yet. of course the problems in hong kong themselves have impacted traffic to a significant extent, but we have not seen the impact of this particular outbreak at

this time, so i say it's early days. taylor: that was the trip.com ceo and spice jet founder from davos. chinese internet giant by dance is seeking a new taker for its take -- tiktok. tiktok is this hugely popular chinese company targeted by american politicians as a security threat. for more i talked to bloomberg technology's kurt wagner wednesday. >> there is two reasons. one is that tiktok is under a lot of regulatory pressure in the united states. its ties to china have led to some believing is a security risk. some think having a larger presence on the ground might help appease regulators. >> what does that mean for the company? they talked about the technical product, the engineering still being based in china. this non-technical ceo being in the u.s. could help the

regulation part of all this. kurt: the way it was described beus, this role would not sincerely everything you think of your usual ceo. this person would be more of the business and operations side. that would include policy, probably pr, but also advertising. that is the big reason i was told they want someone on the ground. is that when you are in asia, it is hard to build a big business in the west from asia. and so they want people on the ground who are going to be able to help shepherd this potential advertising business through. taylor: what do we know about the advertising business so far? kurt: it is still growing, of course but when you look at , tiktok, hundreds of millions of users. it has exploded in the u.s. over the last 18 months or so. a lot of people believe it has a ton of potential. i don't think it is necessarily facebook potential or google potential, but snap potential, twitter, that kind of thing. again the u.s. is the most valuable market for advertisers.

facebook has proven this quarter after quarter. there are a lot of people who believe a service like tiktok could make a big splash here. they want someone who can lead that. taylor: we have been talking in the last two months about by dance, the owner of tiktok potentially spinning off or selling off a portion of tiktok to help to improve relations with the u.s. how are those conversations going? kurt: we don't have an update from what we reported weeks back, which is that these discussions have happened internally. there is some, you know, it is interesting with the ceo conversation, could they put someone here that might oversee tiktok? were that ever to actually happen? bytedance has said this is not something they are discussing, but obviously bloomberg has reported differently. it does seem like a realistic possibility that if regulators were to say, if you want to operate here, you have to totally disconnect from your chinese kind of bosses, maybe this new

person would then take the reins. taylor: that was bloomberg technology's kurt wagner. coming up, the united nations linked the saudi crown prince to the 2018 hacking of jeff bezos' phone. we will have details next. and later tesla hits another milestone trailing only toyota. we will tell you why. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: the united nations called for an investigation into allegations that the saudi crown prince was involved in the hacking of the cell phone of jeff bezos. officials suggest it was hacked following an exchange with the crown prince.

saudi arabia's finance minister spoke with bloomberg on the sidelines of the world economic forum in davos. >> i think the saudi embassy in washington issued a statement last night saying this is absurd. they called for an investigation so they will know what happened. taylor: a report by u.n. experts says the alleged attack may have been an effort to influence or even silence the reporting of the washington post, which bezos owns. for more, i spoke to bloomberg's alyza sebenius. alyza: speaking to sources today, what i have been hearing this call for understanding what actually went on, even as these reports have been coming out about a digital forensic analysis and the u.n. released a report detailing how the hack occurred. there still seems to be some ambiguity. for example, many think certain

spyware was put onto the phone of jeff bezos via a whatsapp message that contained an mp4 video. however, until we further understand if this was spyware, it remains to be seen whether there will be calls to regulate the sales of those tools, whether there will be calls to make sure this kind of thing can't happen by sending a video over whatsapp. taylor: how sophisticated is saudi arabia in their hacking efforts, in their cyber warfare? alyza: i think this is an example of the way nationstates can use cyber tools to exert influence, where maybe they are not going to use a conventional tool to try to silence washington post coverage of saudi arabia. that's not the kind of thing a conventional tool of statecraft can accomplish. so this shows the way cyber has been increasingly used by states in recent years to try to exert

influence in ways that were not previously possible. taylor: if we try to analyze security measures taken on by some of these technologies as well, reporting cybersecurity at companies like an amazon, whatsapp try to protect themselves from this type of attack, for lack of a better word? alyza: i think really understanding what is in this digital forensic analysis, doing follow-up, seeing what needed to happen in order for this video to be sent to bezos by the account of the saudi crown prince and then result in the hacking and surveillance, which is looking likely, of his phone. so really understanding how this came about and then implementing security measures that will prevent it from happening in the future will be key in the coming weeks and months. ♪ taylor: that was bloomberg's alyza sebenius. bloomberg also learned this week that apple suppliers will start

assembling a low-cost iphone month. the company is expected to unveil the device next march. it will look similar to the iphone 8 from 2017. apple wants to address a larger portion of the smartphone market before it rolls out 5g phones this year. i spoke to bloomberg technology's mark gurman. ♪ mark: apple is continuing their strategy of retraining older iphone designs and bringing the cost down over time. so like you said, they are going to be using a design from the iphone 8 from 2017, which you know, originated in 2014 with the iphone 6. now they are going to bring the cost down to about $400, but put new technologies like some of the cameras and processors from more recent years. basically, you are going to get an older iphone that is faster than before. it is going to work longer. but i don't think it is going to do exactly what apple thinks it is going to do. i don't think this is going to be their savior in the emerging markets. i think your going to need sort

of an iphone x type design much cheaper than the current model in order to do that. taylor: right. who would buy it? mark: i think it is people that have older iphones, something like the iphone 3gs from 11 years ago now that is still somehow working, to an iphone 6 or 7 or 8 that does not want to out $600 to $1000 for an iphone 11. they want something that is basically going to allow their current version to keep working. so if you have an iphone 8 today and you don't want to pay more than $400, you can get a new iphone 8 with a faster processor, the new software, and tons of features they have added the past couple of years for a much lower price. i think it is going to be a hot seller in the u.s., more affluent parts of europe and china, but not some of those developing markets in eastern europe and india. taylor: one of the biggest risks, is it starts to

cannibalize sales from the higher end? do you see that also as a risk? mark: yeah i don't think there , is any chance of that. history has shown us that iphone users are going to tend to go to those higher end models regardless. part of the reason they are using the iphone 8 design, to make them cheaper to manufacture. obviously as you know the longer , you produce a certain design or a certain technology, the better and cheaper it is going to get. this is a tried and true design they have been using since 2014. it is going to be extremely low cost to build these things, so the risk of cannibalization is extremely low. taylor: if we are waiting for 5g phones to come out in september, why come out with this now? mark: the people that are going to be buying this phone don't care about 5g. 5g is still in its infancy and is going to remain in its infancy for two or three years or so, particularly in the u.s. for the next few years. i know it's hotter in china, but for this particular phone it is really not going to matter.

taylor: thanks to bloomberg technology's mark gurman. still ahead, elon musk has plenty to dance about. more on the electric carmaker's new milestone. this is bloomberg. ♪

taylor: jumping on the self-driving car bandwagon is general motors crews, but there's a catch. the vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals with the all electric cruise origin. the ceo wants to completely replace the conventional car. l spoke to bloomberg's ed ulow. dan: the goal is to make transportation safer for everybody and the best way to do that is to remove the human out of the loop and get it to a superhuman level of capability.

>> you have talked about how it would be a more cost-effective solution for the consumer, if they are the car owner or not. but it is capital intensive, building all these cars. >> the thing as i mentioned this , vehicle will run 24 by seven, all day and all night. it has a life of well over one million miles, so the utilization of that capital, that asset if you like is going to be extraordinarily high. that allows us to deliver a low cost proposition to the consumer. >> some of your competitors here in california are testing outside of the u.s., in china or other parts of the world. will we see cruise origin in china? what is your strategy for china? dan: our strategy is for it to scale in the united states and to scale globally. it is too soon to speculate on which markets, but our goal is to take this to a large-scale. >> how convinced are you that there is a near-term opportunity in california for this to be commercially viable?

dan: well, we know exactly what consumers have today. we know what your experience is today, we know what the cost of transportation is. our goal is very very simple, , deliver a better experience at a lower cost than your other alternatives. >> when i talk to different market participants and analysts, they basically say the hardware is there. you demoed some quite impressive hardware today. what they say is lacking is the software, the computing power to make this convincing. how do you assess your software relative to what else is out there? dan: you saw in the presentation tonight, title talked about the performance of our software. we are now driving thousands of miles between any incident through san francisco, so one of the most complex driving environments in the country if not the world. we are driving thousands of miles. >> let's go back to consumer experience. you discussed the app as

potentially a ride-hailing service without a driver. you talked about cost savings. what is the average fare you expect to charge the customer using cost origin? dan: our objective is to deliver a better experience at a lower cost. it is hard to average or generalize, but if you think about what you pay today, our goal is to deliver something better than that. taylor: that was cruise ceo dan ammann. and finally, elon musk had a good week. tesla's market value surpassed more than $100 billion, surging past volkswagen to become the world's second most valuable lawmaker. the tesla ceo can look forward to a huge payout if the stock sustains its rally. for more on the remarkable run, i spoke to bloomberg's ddana hull. dana: it is remarkable how fast this happened. two weeks ago, the market value was like $88 million. we were assuming his payout no longer looked crazy. and then two weeks later he is totally -- it has been amazing. taylor: explain the payout for me.

this isn't just a one time. it has to be sustained on a average or a rolling basis. dana: six months trailing average, 30 days, which i should know more about. it is not just a one-time thing. now that they've hit it, if they can sustain at, he will get that payout. taylor: how do the shorts feel? dana: the shorts are being crushed right now. they've lost over $2 billion in 2019, and they have already lost that same amount in january of 2020. remarkably, they are not like folding. tesla is still one of the biggest shorts out there. if anything, a lot of them are doubling down. taylor: when we look at the earnings on the 29th, the big surge in the stock has been fueled by the big growth in china. they have managed to roll out that shanghai factory with limited -- what am i what is , that word? really good production, limited hiccups, so to speak. how much of all of this is really based on china?

dana: well, i think the run-up in the stock is due to three things. one, they reported a profit in the third quarter. their deliveries for the fourth quarter were very strong. and then this china plant is up and running faster than anyone expected. going forward, there is still a lot of potential catalysts. the model y is the next car. you are seeing like pictures of the model y all over the bay area, like spy shots. there is this feeling that tesla could pop the model y sooner than expected. taylor: talk to me about that. elon musk, i believe on a video, said the model y could eclipse all of the demand of the other vehicles combined. we were speaking with analysts and they say maybe he likes to say that, but they are not sure that that model y, that kind of demand is really there. what are you hearing? dana: the truth is the whole auto market is shifting from sedans to suv's. and tesla made the model s and then they model y. the model y was a little bit of a disaster. there were a lot of issues with the falcon wing doors. people who bought it seemed to

like it, but it never sold at super high volumes. i mean the model x never sold at super high volumes, but the model y could be tesla's opportunity to fix and remedy that. taylor: any downside to the stock is all surrounded by that demand question. is demand truly there in the coming years to come globally? dana: that is a big question. musk in the july call warned the first quarter would be pretty rough. there are seasonal issues in that a lot of people do not buy cars in the winter. so i mean he sort of said he does not expect the first quarter to be strong. but is it going to fall off a cliff? that sort of happened in the beginning of 2019, which is why this year started with the stock so underwater. taylor: who do you see as the biggest competitor? you know, is it an old gm, ford ev or a new startup we have not heard about? dana: i don't think so. tesla has such brand awareness. people don't say they want to buy an electric vehicle. they say i want to buy a tesla. even though we have heard about

all the competition coming, no other brand has kind of solidified its place in the market the way tesla has. so i don't -- i am hard-pressed to say that there is like a strong competitor at the moment. taylor: thanks to bloomberg's dana hull. and that does it for this edition of "best of bloomberg technology." we will bring you the latest in tech throughout the week. tune in each day, 5:00 new york, 2:00 in san francisco. bloomberg technology is livestreaming on twitter. check us out @technology and follow our global breaking news network @quicktake on twitter. this is bloomberg. ♪

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