kayla here on sidewalk alley. andrew ross sorkin. thank you again. >> it's been a fun week with you. hasn't been all week, but a couple of days. >> couple of days. >> also joining us this morning is dan rosen's wife, president and ceo of -- former coo of yahoo. dan, good day to you as well. >> good morning, everybody. how are you? andrew, how are you doing? >> hey, buddy. how are you? >> two scarsdale guys on at the same time. >> that's true. >> dangerous. >> you should know that. we went to high school together. not at the same time, but we've done a couple of things together in that -- >> kindred spirits. >> let's get to apple news. italian authorities say apple

will pay $350 million in back taxes and sign an accord on future liabilities. it comes amid allegations the company failed to pay taxes over several years. according to reports, apple is "close to signing a deal with samsung and l.g. to make screens for the next generation of iphones. shares of apple are down for the year. they're down around 9% in just the past month. they're down about 1% today amid concerns over the iphone supply chain and what the holiday season will look like. dan, we heard tim cook tell "60 minutes" that apple pays every tax dollar it owes despite the fact that this inquiry had been ongoing. what do you make of it? >> well, i think apple probably does pay every penny that it owes, and i think governments are looking for ways to tap into revenue sources that they haven't tapped into before because their economies aren't growing. apple is a very big target. they have billions and millions and billions of dollars. there's really no harm in governments going after large

corporations right now, so why wouldn't they? >> sir, here's a question for you, dan. you saw tim could be on "60 minutes" i imagine a week ago. tim cook coming out against the tax system saying it needs to be fixed, yumted for what he called the digital age. what does that actually mean, do you think? what does that look like? and to the extent it does get fixed or if it were to get fixed, would it actually grow the economy and create jobs here in the united states or not? >> well, look, it's easy to say fix it when people are going after you, so i don't think he would like the way that they would fix it for the digital economy, which would mean that companies like his would be taxed more. i mean, one of the brilliant things that steve jobs did when they original will you invented the iphone was have it labelled as a software company rather than a hardware company so they actually can account for it differently, which allows them to have extraordinarily high margins. i think the tax -- look, the tax system is definitely antiquated. what does that mean? it means the wrong things are

innocented versus the way the economies are being built today. my guess is what he needs and others need out here is incent more technology and reward the companies that make investments that grow the technology, and that's not the way the tax system works right now. >> i don't think anyone expects to get tax reform here in the united states. at least until 2017 at the earliest. i'm wondering apple is in the middle of this very harsh e.u. investigation into its own taxes because it does funnel some of its earnings through this irish subsidiary. this investigation is supposed to conclude next year. i'm wondering for a company that has 50 plus billion dollars in net income, what's material to a company like that? >> well, the truth is almost nothing, right? i mean, you just start $350 million. who cares?

apple is probably nothing significant and nothing you'll probably see in 2017 in the united states? the real question is can apple continue to grow. it doesn't need that cash to grow. it's buying back its shares. it's giving dividends. it's -- you know, it doesn't need all that capital to expand what it wants to do in terms of growing the business. i don't think it's material in terms of their earnings at all. >> and we're now already talking about the iphone 7 cycle, which is where a lot of that growth will come from. we will see how that pans out. moving on, a federal judge has certified two shareholder class action lawsuits against facebook. those suits accuse the social network of hiding concerns about its growth forecast ahead of its ipo in 2012. facebook says it will appeal and believes the certification is what it says is without merit. dan, this company has grown gang busters since its ipo, but it's ease where i to forget priced at $38 a share, and it was below

that price for about a year after it traded. >> yeah, but i don't think that matters, meaning, you know, facebook was very clear on its road show. it changed its forecast on its road show. it articulated that one of the areas that it was of concern was desk top po to mobile. nobody could know when that transition happens. i think you would ask -- if you ask any investor that invested from the ipo on and stayed with the company, are they happy it's gone from 38 to 107, i would say yes. i think facebook has handled every one of its challenges quite magnificently. has one of the most extraordinary honest management teams and has a ceo who gave away $45 billion in his wealth in order to invest in things

that could help the world. not exactly sure why this is the company to go after. >> facebook did, as you mention, dan, disclose that it hadn't really figured out mobile when it was on the road meeting investors, but it did it -- what was it -- a week before it traded. what's best practice when you are out on the road meeting investors? should they have disclosed it a month before then in its initial s-1? is this just about doing the right thing, but doing it too late? >> i think you disclose it when you know it. who knows what was known? who knows what the transition to mobile is going to be? it's not like they missed their numbers, and it's not like they didn't come out zoo are never -- know it's risky to do that.

>> it's a bogus lawsuit. show me a spoking gun. it says one thing, and they told the public something else, and then they got a problem. otherwise, this is all bunk. it's a great lawsuit. unfortunately, they may end up settling because that's what most companies do to avoid the annoyance. as dan said, it's another cost to going public. >> hindsight being 2020, mobile is now three-quarters of their revenue. they certainly. >> i wish they somehow knew that in advance. i don't think they knew the numbers were going to be as good as they ended up being at the time. >> i agree with you on that. >> nobody does, right? how would you possibly know? >> dan, let's move on to yahoo. >> i was just going to say, let's do that. >> let's move on to yahoo. not the best year for your former company. shares are down about 33% in 2015 amid questions over the future of the company and ceo marissa myer. dan, obviously yahoo has a bunch

of options on the table right now. where do you think it goes from here. i think we need to remember a couple of things. i've been gone nine years. in that nine years the company has had six ceos, two activist investors, three turns of the board, and a hostile takeover offer and so an unfavorable tax ruling. it's been a very complicated ten years for this company to be able to get focused and execute. the thing that's confusing to me about the core business, first of all, why hasn't it grown? that's a very legitimate question because it's not as if the industry hasn't grown. if you look at even your parent company that invested in -- invested in buzz feed and invested in fox media, those two companies combined probably have

around $250 million in revenue and combine their valuations to $2.5 billion. yahoo has $4 billion in revenue makes $900 million in ebida and has a valuation of nothing. i think the split will help people really understand what is and what isn't in core yahoo and then it's incumbent upon the board and ceo to grow that business. either grow the cash flow or grow the top line and hopefully both. >> i have been beating the drum. i have wanted marissa to succeed. the question is has she operated this company properly, and ultimately, is there just a misvaluation? is it possible this company could be -- which i think is not possible. it doesn't even make sense. it's core yahoo and has some wackadoo value associated with it. is she the right ceo to be leading this company? >> that's a question for the board, and separating the assets

is the right thing to do so that we can all focus on the core business. we're all rooting for her success. and for the success of the company. 10,000 people work there. it's a very powerful asset. it's got a billion users and $4 billion in revenue. of course, it's not worthless. they've just announced it might take it another year. that is going to be difficult for this company to attract talent. >> well, dan, i was going to ask you, do you think there is another executive that could run this company better? do you think that there would be

another company that would be a better stewart of it as an owner? >> look, i think it's an incredibly valuable asset. to make necessary. >> dan, i want to know what that means, and you know as well as anybody, your name has been bandied about over the years as somebody who might be a good candidate to run the company. if you were given -- let's give you two or three years just on this show for the moment. what would you do? what would you actually do to the company?

>> it makes it with brand advertise and search advertising. i think you need to focus on building asset spz building a sales team that is fantastic and the best in the world at that. we had that at your hue under greg coleman and mallard and lee brown and a lot of really talented people who are no longer there and go on to do great things. if you are not going to focus on where the revenue comes from, which is building an environment that is constructive for brand advertising and building a team that is focused on getting brand advertising wronk the company will be able to grow its revenues. i also think it's risky to be in one bucket of revenue in today's internet. i do think there are trends that are much more powerful that are much benefit a lot more from mobility like e-commerce, like subscription revenue, and i think with their assets and their scale, they have the ability to make that transition

over a period of time to a more predictable revenue stream and a much more profitable revenue stream. brand advertising is a very difficult space to make 100% of your bed in right now. >> dan, of course, you already have a day job that keeps you pretty busy, so before we go, tell us what to expect from your second semester, chegg. >> this is the fun time. this is where books come in and books go out in a four-hour time period. look, you know, we look at the education space. we think it's one of the areas that people should focus on more. when you just think about it, ask yourself in five years, will there be more people learning on-line or less people? will there be more people directing what they want to learn, versus what they have to learn? will students and educators and employees spend more of their time using big data to make more relevant connections to content, jobs, internships, and chegg has put itself in the middle of all of that? we've made the transition from

print to digital. by the end of 2016 we'll be 100% digital, and we'll be high growth, high margin business. you know, we think that not enough people are focused on what's going on in the transition of education. too many people don't graduate. 50% don't get a degree that go into colleges. $1 trillion in debt. the industry needs to be changed. it is being changed. it's being driven by employers and it's being driven by the students themselves, and we think having a company that helps students get into college, save money on the required materials, get tutoring, get homework help, get an internship and get a job is the most powerful place to be and we're really looking forward to the next several years. >> well, hopefully many of your customers are watching you on "squawk alley" during your winter break and we wish you a happy new year. >> thank you, guys. happy new year to you. >> go, raiders. >> he knows what i mean. >> exactly. >> scarsdale reference. >> we have a check on the market right now. things are trading -- look at that -- they're trading down.

dow looks like it's off about 35 points right about now. the s&p 500 off about five points. shares of pep boys falling after icon enterprises agreed buy it for $1 billion. that's expected to close in the first quarter of 2015. shares of weight watchers, i don't know if you saw the oprah ad, they are soaring after the first ads featuring oprah winfrey premiered this week. they sook a 10% stake in the company back in october, and when you talk about putting your money where your mouth is, she has done that, and she is beginning the process of her own weight watchers diet. we will see -- >> perhaps she will continue to endorse them and continue to watch that stock go up. >> she has to do both. >> a strong year for venture capital. with investments the second highest on record in the past 20 years. the top early alibaba investor will join us with more. google and amazon both hitting new all-time highs. a look at the year that was for both companies and what to expect in 2016. and a massive storm in missouri triggering what's being called historic flooding.

the worst the state has seen in two decades. we're live on the ground there with the latest. squawk alley will be right back. sure, tv has evolved over the years.

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according to national venture capital association, vc investments will be the second highest on record in the past 20 years. yet, venture backed company exits by post-ipo's and big acquisitions down dramatically. of course, the question, could we see an ipo turnaround. joining us right now live from

palo alto is founder and managing director of ggv capital. let me ask you this, 2016 you think we're back in 1997 or do you think we're in 2001? >> sort of binary. >> tough question. i think 2015 started off really strong lots of investments and capital. the trend towards the end of the year was a lot of fear in the marketplace. people pulled back. the big checks pulled back probably the most. i think early investments still continued strong, and i would expect early stage investments will continue strongly in 2016. i think you'll see a lot of unicorns try to get public or liquid in 2016. i think some will succeed, and many will fail. i think -- i'm not sure what year it is, but it does feel like there is a change in the wind. >> when you think about -- when you think about the unicorns, are they really? i know a unicorn isn't real, but

that may be the point. so many of these valuations don't seem real between all the rachets and other provisions that are in some of these deals, they may never really be worth even $1 billion, let alone higher numbers. if and when they do go public, will we effectively be having public down rounds? >> i hate the term unicorn, by the way, but i think the valuati valuations are really high. there's many that were built on fluff and hype. you'll see many of those fall away, i think, and we've seen some of that happen here at the end of 2015. >> there's a big reason about employees having paid more in

taxes on their shares than their shares ended up being worth at the end of the day. i'm wonder whatting lessons we should take away from that situation. whatsoever protections employees at many of these companies should be thinking about as they're negotiating or attempting to negotiate some of their compensation? >> that's a great point, kayla. i think a lot of these so-called unicorns have a ton of preferences, a ton of structured equity on top of that, meaning that the pay-outs, even if these companies do sell at $1 billion or more, the pay-outs to the common stockholder will be pretty low. that's something we always care about when we're looking at investments as a venture capitalist. i want to make sure my bees are motivated continue to work and work hard.

>> if you are an employee of one of the start-ups, you want to be as invested as every. in every other industry, if you want to get stock, oftentimes everybody will tell you diversify. the second those options vest, the second that restricted stock becomes unrestricted, sell. it's almost -- to the valley sort of thesis, right? >> this is the valley, right? everybody puts all their eggs in one basket and works that as hard as they ask, and oftentimes they win big, and oftentimes they do not. it's hard to diversify private stock, auz guys know. it's really also difficult as an individual employee to sell shares in the company that you work for. i mean, i think psychologically it's really, really hard to do. when you are a large public company, yes, it's ease where i to sell your stock and diversify your shares, but as an employee of a private company, it's really hard to do. >> we got to run. is uber going to go public? >> 2016 late, maybe, yes.

>> we'll see that whether we can take that to the bank. thank you. >> thank you for joining us. appreciate it very, very much. >> amazon and google hitting record highs this week, but can the good times continue in 2016? and according to eric schmidt, one country is far hfd the u.s. when it comes to e-commerce. we'll explain when "squawk alley" comes right back.

shares of both amazon and google trading to the down side today. google down by about one-third of 1%. amazon by about half of 1%. still close to record highs that each of those companies hit this week. kate rogers is live at the nasdaq with a closer look. hey, kate. >> hey, kayla. that's right. kicking off amazon closing at $693.97 tuesday. for the year it's up an eye-popping more than 120%. the second biggest gainer in the nasdaq 100. it's a big reversal from its more than 22% downturn last year. it's also its biggest yearly

gain since 2009 when it added more than 162%, but if you can believe it, it's only amazon's fifth best year in history. its most recent rally, of course, hanks in part to the three million prime subscribers starting a new membership over the holiday season. this past year we also saw reports of its building out its delivery service from drones to jets. now on to google's alphabet. also hitting a new all-time high. voting class a shares closing at $793.96. up near 50% year-to-date. this is a big news from its more than -- >> not voting lass c shares at $770. -- year-to-date. it's first. google also had a big year announcing a reorganization in august with alphabet operating

as its new parent company. cfo also joined the company in march and in the past few days there have even been reports in auto week of the tech giant teaming up with ford for a car. back over to you, andrew. >> okay. thank you for that. we should say, talking about google and alphabet, which country is leading the way in e-commerce. according to eric schmidt, it's not the united states. an interview with the bbc radio schmidt said "britain is the leader in e-commerce in the world, far ahead of the united states. he also said there is no reason why billion dollar start-ups couldn't come from birth, but did say u.k. entrepreneurs tend to sell. they also advise start-ups to market products on facebook, instagram, and twitter if they want to grow their businesses. the irony being that all those companies are u.s.-based companies. i don't know what he is talking about. i sort of -- >> not u.s.-based companies, but not google or alphabet competitors. >> if you read through some of the transcript, i'm not sure he is truly believes that the u.k. is the place, so much as he says you have the right regulatory environment. you got the right role within the continent. just look at e-commerce plays

and service plays that are happening, and that somehow there are no barriers to launching a wrurp even scale corporation that is larger than a u.s. -- maybe he is talking about the potential as opposed to the -- >> and the infrastructure is very different. facebook wanted to enable messenger to send money. they went and got a mobile money license in ireland of all places. it would seem that it's more fruitful over there. hard to say if they'll end up being the winner in e-commerce. we will see. let's bring in simon hobbs. europe is about to close in just about a minute's time. hey, simon. >> there's quite a bit of red on the screen as can you see. low volumes. clearly for everybody concerned before the new year. negative territory. what's interesting is it's a lot to to with the basic resource stocks and the rally in oil has fizzled out, and we slump lower. these guys throughout the session have moved to the down side. it's an odd mixture of the big miner glencore, tullow oil and actually one of the stand-out

losers today is an on-line supermarket based in the u.k., ocado. amazon has basically been indicating that it's going to expand its pantry service in the u.k. to 4,000 household lines. acado has already been hit over the last six months losing one-third of its value, and you can see it's down relatively heavily in a flattish to negative market overall. top gainer today, maybe we'll hear about this stock as we move through next year. it's fingerprint cards, which is actually a biometric company from sweden that a lot of people are now talking about. they're saying they're going to have 45% of the fingerprint sensor market around the world during the course of next year. that excludz apple which makes its own sensors for the iphone, but nonetheless, clearly a growth stock, and getting a lot of attention because it's going to be added to the swedish national index, but also because people are writing up their year-had end commentaries, and it's popping up everywhere as

one of the greatest gainers during the course of the year. up over 1,500%, as you can see, and, therefore, moving higher really on the basis of that. finally, one of the major business and political stories for europe this year continues without resolution. this is a news conference from the prime minister of spain last night in which he basically suggested that he is quite happy to sit there as the head of a caretaker government having lost his majority in parliament, the recent general election, and effectively that the socialists need to get their act together and join him in a grand coalition. meanwhile, as he speaks and effectively procrastinates the business lobby is anxious there will be a three-way day less spain drifts politically and, of course, economically gin the problems they have with unemployment and as you know, the huge debt pile. back to you. >> simon hobbs, thanks so much. >> up next, shares of apple will probably finish 2015 in the red. stock is down more than 2% this year. what should you expect in 2016?

it's just around the corner. we'll take a closer look when "squawk alley" returns. come on in pop pop.

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don't stop taking brilinta without talking to doctor. since stopping it too soon increases your risk of clots in your stent, heart attack, stroke, and even death. brilinta may cause bruising or bleeding more easily or serious, sometimes fatal bleeding. don't take brilinta if you have bleeding, like stomach ulcers. a history of bleeding in the brain, or severe liver problems. tell your doctor about bleeding, new or unexpected shortness of breath, any planned surgery and all medicines you take. i will take brilinta today. tomorrow. and every day for as long as my doctor tells me. don't miss a day of brilinta. good morning, everyone. i'm sue herrera. here is your cnbc news update at this hour. bill cosby is being charged with aggravated indecent assault in a case from 12 years ago. if found guilty, the entertainer could face ten years in prison and would have to register as a sex offender. in the wake of several terror

attacks, police across the world are ramping up security ahead of new year's eve. in paris dozens of soldiers patrolled. while in new york official saz 6,000 officers will be at times square. the scared affluenza teen is not on his way back to texas after all. u.s. marshalls tell nbc news lawyers for ethan couch filed paperwork that could keep him and his mother in mexico for up to two months. his stiff probation and he was in the u.s. with his mother. a biotech company linked to martin shkrelli filing for bankruptcy. it fired its former ceo earlier this month after he was charged with securities fraud. shkrelli had been widely criticized by hiking a drug price by 5,000% at another company that he ran. and that is the cnbc news update this hour. back to "squawk alley." kayla, down to you. >> thanks so. , sue herrera. a big question for 2016 is will it still be the we're we see iphone growth, or will that growth fall off? a number of analysts now

trimming their forecasts for sales next year. let's bring in dan ives from fbr capital markets on the cnbc news line. dan, what say you for 2016? growth or no growth? >> it definitely looks like a choppy period ahead. especially as the margin. there's not going to be growth in the near term on 6s, which has been, i think, choppy out of the gate. i think it all comes down to iphone 7. that's the anticipation. this is really a major break for apple to really show that the peak iphone is not in the rear view mirror.

>> now it comes down to iphone 7. there is more and more pressure for them to show that it grows on the horizon in terms of working to come out with out of cupertino. right now the street is the glass half full to glass half empty. it all comes down to those growth numbers for iphone, and i think the street is bracing for a tougher holiday and a tougher march and june, but i think when you get into the latter part of the year, that's where i think some of the end of the rainbow comes in terms of iphone 7. >> dan, when you put your prediction out there on iphone 7, which basically is sort of current consensus in terms of analyst estimates, if they actually match that number, does the stock go higher or does it just not go lower? >> i think -- that's the big question in terms of what the multiple is. as they match that number we're

slightly exceeded, then it starts to get rerated higher. they need to show success outside iphone, which is why the wearable is so key. why ipad in the enterprise is so important. that's really key to seeing a stock breaking high. it's not just iphone 7. it's showing that in cook's back pocket there's something else there, which is why we $1 200 billion plus cash. there's more pressure to go away from the playbook and make a large acquisition. i think they're going into unchartered territory here, and that's really the question the street goes in 2016. >> dan, when you look at the chart of the stock this year, it was $132 stock at the end of july, and it hasn't really been able to recover from this slowdown, the upending that happened when we got some bad numbers out of china, some really shaky news out of its stock market, slowdown in growth over there, and even though we

are beginning a new year and even though apple was able to put up some impressive china growth numbers, do you ultimately think that the street is giving it enough credit for how big a market china is and saying that some of these concerns are over? >> yeah. i think the bark is worse than the bite in terms of the worries about china. it's $100 billion market opportunity for apple the next three years. 15% penetrated. it's going to be the largest geography by the end of 2017. i think china is the growth story for apple. that's the fuel in the tank, and it's really the one-two punch with china, with iphone 7, and then everyone is waiting to see what's going to be the next product cycle? can wearables recover? is it the enterprise? what else does cook have up his sleeve in 2016?

>> there's a serious of violation of discipline. the ceo had originally brokered that deal with tim cook to bring the iphone to china back when he headed china unicom. it comes as the chinese government has been pushing a crackdown on corruption cases there. >> earlier this week he was one of the executives that was reported to be missing. that stock fell on that news. then we got news of this anti-graft as they call it over there. >> missing i think that he was being interviewed. to put it politely. >> perhaps. >> perhaps. coming up next, historic floods sweeping across missouri. the worst the state has seen in 20 years. we're live on the ground. we have an update for you. first, before we do that, rick santelli, what are you watching today, rick? >> hi, andrew. well, you know, 2015 is definitely the year of the fed. now, whether people think, wow,

it's all we talk about is the fed. deservedly so. what am i going to talk about after the break? the fed. and n what context? remember that dance in the 1960s, the lum bow. we're going to talk about the fed in the limbo and how low can they stay?

coming up on the halftime report, health care were this your are year's top performing sectors. will they lead again in 2016?

wee debate that. media stocks heading to the first annual loss in 2008. will cord cutting keep cutting into profits next year as well. amazon and microsoft are all on a tear this year. our desk will tell you which tech is the better bet for your portfolio. that and more ahead on "halftime report." make sure you join us at the top of the hour. over to you. >> thank you, mandy. now let's get to the cme group. rick santelli with the santelli exchange. rick. >> thanks, andrew. listen, when it comes to the fed, the hypothesis is that they can't go too fast, they have to go gradual. this year gdp annualized is going to be less than last year. you know, i crunched the numbers in yesterday's santelli exchange. even if we come up with close to 2.5% in the fourth quarter, which is, like, one full percent higher than anybody is looking for, so i don't buy into the notion that it's the economy or it's the unemployment rate because i really don't believe the unemployment rate is pegged

to where it is, and i don't think the fed does either based on those metrics, of course, but, you know, we're going to have jim bianco on after the new year, and he is going to give us an unemployment rate with the participation rate held in that constant form, and that's very enlightening. back to the point, it's all about how the markets may be disrupted, but my hype thooesz thesz is different. now, whether it's correct or not, time will tell. i hope it is. the fact of the matter and quite simple language is they're too low. period. end of story. and if we don't recalibrate to something higher, we're never going to be able to do it. we're recalibrated for a rate that's a crisis rate, and even if that crisis rate, they're not getting any type of significant cost benefit to the damage side of the equation, which are bubbles, which are a lot of issues. you know, in their own words, i believe it was two or three days after the statement, you had a lot of federal agencies. you know, you had the fed.

you had the fdic. all very nervous about the bubble that may be forming in commercial real estate. there's a lot of areas like that. in my world normalization is not only important. it's absolutely necessary. when the rates normalize, you're going to see other things normalize, like the business cycle. how many people have been on cnbc talking about how this business cycle is really long in the tooth when you measure it against history? absolutely. why is it that way? we know why it's that way. because of the test tube aspect. when we normalize there, there is going to be a race. let's be honest. there's going to be a bit of a race for what maybe even less glide path than we currently have. listen, 25 to 50, too low. it needs to be at the minimum. 125 to 150. if it's painful getting there, it's going to be even more painful to stay there, but the counter factuals make the world go around nowadays, and maybe

that's the biggest problem i saw in 2015. back to you. >> all right. rick santelli in chicago. rick, thanks. coming up, if you still haven't booked a hotel for new year's eve, you're in luck. our next guest can help you book a last minute room just about anywhere in the country. the ceo will tell says how it works up next. it's hard to find time to keep up on my shows.

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>> last minute hotel stays. it's a big night for booking. sam shank, a ceo. i would think for something like new year's, which you know is coming that people are buying the hotel reservation hopefully a lot more in advance than on the day of. how many people are that spontaneous? >> you know, we've seen that as people get more comfortable with booking at the last minute, as people have the access to great deals and great hotels that more and more people like to keep their options open, sort of see where the night takes them, and then book a hotel in the moment, as we call it. >> what kind of numbers are you expecting? >> you know, we don't release numbers, but it's our biggest night of the year. we're expecting to grow about 100%, 125% year-over-year, and there's a lot of great deals to be had. we're going to see a little bit lower pricing than we've seen in past few years, which is going to spur the demand. >> that's a function of what? >> you know, it's interesting.

it's a lot of factors contribute to what is the -- what creates the deals out there. i think that it might be the higher temperatures that are keeping people at home. it might be also the affect of a stronger dollar. less europeans traveling to the u.s. either way prices are 5% to 10% lower than last year. great deals to be had. especially at the last minute when hotels have room to move, and they turn the hotel tonight to help them fill those. >> sam, i'm looking at the app right now, and i'm looking at the availability for tomorrow. there are about a dozen hotels being listed for new york, but what's the likelihood that even those sell out? >> yeah. we probably will see those sell out, but the good news is the way hotel tonight works is we pick the very best deals. it's about 12 to 15 deals at a time, and when those sell out, the next best deals come in. hotels are always competing for that limited inventory. we are going to have a lot of great deals tomorrow all day. we're going to see the best deals will typically go early in the day, but we'll see a lot of

great deals come in throughout the day if you want to keep your plans open. >> sam, this starwood marriott merger, good for you? bad for you? squeeze you? you aren't going to get the offers you used to get because of the consolidation? >> most of our business is through independent and boutique hotels. that's one thing that people really like about hotel tonight is we help them find these great independent properties that provide this authentic experience of a really personalized stay. we do some business with those brands, but the real bulk of our business is through independents, and so this consolidation doesn't impact us as much. i think that we'll see probably more consolidation especially among the big brands as they look to compete with these independent hotel wrshz. >> if i made you a regulator, though, what would you do? would you let these things happen? are you a fan? >> you know, that's -- unfortunately, that's not my line of business, but yeah, i don't see it as being too big of

an issue given the competition in the market. especially now as you are seeing independent -- or from other new companies like that are doing home away and air bnb that are doing home stays and alternative lodging. i think there's just a wonderful industry. it's very dynamic. there's a lot of competition in it, and i have loved being in the industry and providing a great service to people through booking at the last minute for us. >> a great job with that question. >> i want to know how often you use hotel tonight. do you just hop from place to place. do you have an apartment? do you have a roof over your head? >> yeah. i do live with my wonderful family, and we're actually going to use hotel tonight tonight. i'm waiting and seeing what the deals look like. we're going to stay in san francisco. i love using hotel tonight and having a staycation up in san francisco, and so i use it all the time. >> sam, cancellations, got to ask. one of the new things -- you see these fees get tacked on. i'm cheap. used to be you book the hotel and literally you could cancel virtually up to 24, 48 hours in

advance. now they're actually almost like an airline putting real fee on. is this a trend we're going to see more of? what does it do to your business? >> yeah. it's one of the reasons people are turning to last minute booking is that they like the flexibility of not having to worry about cancellation fees. for example, with my business travel, i don't book until the day of because often i might have to change my plans. i might have to say, hey, i'm not going to go to new york this day or i'm going to have to cut my trip short. i don't want to be locked into plans. i don't want to be locked into particular hotel. i don't want to be locked into a cancellation policy. you know, having the flexibility and freedom of booking on demand, people are really finding a lot of value in and especially as these fees come into play. >> always finding a nice way to bring it back. try the superior hold...

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car service side car will be shutting down tomorrow after scaling back on ride sharing and refocussing on deliveries. ceo sunil paul cites significant capital disadvantages in the face of competitors. lift and uber is the reason for the decision. back in may the company forged a partnership with marijuana delivery start-up meadow in a bid to grow as more of a delivery service over ride sharing and transportation notably, but with all the capital, andrew, that lyft and uber have perhaps they're just trying to pivot at this point and see if they can do something else. >> you would have thought that would be the high sign. once you go in the pot business. they also named it the high sign, but they named it side car. the main car. it was never destined for greatness. what about lyft? do you think they have a future? >> i'm not sure. they're certainly raising capital, putting roots down here in new york city. their advertisements are all over the place. subways, billboards, some of the

priceiest advertising outdoor real estate could you imagine. they are digging their heels in trying to compete against uber and taxis. we'll see if they can do it. >> via. we like via. >> i'm want quite sure how to pronounce it. >> i've actually never taken it. i have an account, and i am waiting for the right opportunity, i would say. meantime, let's take a quick look at the markets. >> could you see that that is exactly what our s&p. noble energy down more than 4%. there are some -- at noble that downgrade on the credit side. perhaps they're moving in. chesapeake down more than 4%. williams and company -- -- that's the big leaders. there are a couple energy leaders there as well. marathon is up 1.5%. valero, tesoro and malencrot.

so far this year for 2015, it is nike. up 33%. home depot and mcdonald's as well. we will keep watching the markets. just a couple of trading sessions left. andrew, thanks for having us. andrew ross sorkin. thanks for joining us. for now let's send it over to mandy and the halftime report. >> we're on a road to nowhere. i don't know what that says about the show. i'm mandy drury sitting in for scott today. let's meet today's starlgt line-up. we have steve weiss, jim leventhal along with john and pete. feels like groundhog day. the game plan looks like this. hail mary playbook.