tv Squawk Alley CNBC June 1, 2016 11:00am-12:01pm EDT
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conference, and kayla tausche is live at the new york stock exchange and here out west is with me is jon fortt and erinn lee and alex goodman. and now, the content is making headlines last night with jeff bezos, and here is what he said. >> i think of them as seeds being planted, and will ta turn into trees. and amazon studios could turn into a fourth pillar, and it is possible. what we are doing with alexa and echo and the natural language understanding evolves into an artificial agent, and by the way, i think that there are going to be a bunch of artificial agents in the world and just like apps and web sites this they are going to be specialties, and maybe not ask the same a/i is going to be bet at some thing, and a certain
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household better at some of these, and they seem promising to me. >> just a sliver of what bezos covered with walt mossberg. they called it an iconic appearance by bezos, and what are people saying about it today? >> first of all, that it was a fantastic intervush and second of all, they have never seen jeff bezos be so candid before, but it is interesting, because i found it to be a jobsian interview, because he didn't give details, and he said he would not talk about the private decisions or the amazon road map, but still giving enough information to the audience to the public to say, hey, this is what we are interested in and what we are working on. >> and it is close to the vest does not describe what he did last night. >> very forth coming, and this is different bezos than we have seen in a long time, and there a transformation just in his attitude and the expansiveness and the sense of things. talking to a lot of people in the audience afterwards, they
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said, he is very grounded and a cool guy and nice guy, and that sort of thing, and especially when you are not that much in the public eye and not doing these public interviews people don't have a sense of who you are and what you are thinking about things. >> well, he was not defensive and very clear philosophically about certain thing, and how he is looking at space exploration, and the reasons why he is going into the brick and mortar retail, and about some of the thi things that as it involves press freedom with the mission of the washington post, and some of the executives are here, i am here to talk about this and not that, and he had all encompassing philosophy of certain things and how they are guiding him on certain projects. >> yes, when he initially started to answer the question of walt mossberg asking about the peter theil ga theil/gawker he started to quote confucius, but he came to the conclusion that you may not like what
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people say, but they should be allowed to say it. >> and so he took a stance. >> and he owns the "washington post" which is an important institution, and the free speech thing is pretty important. >> for those who missed it on twitter or elsewhere last night, this is bezos weighing in on theil-gawker. >> and the saying that it is attributed to confucius, and who knows if it is really confucius or not, and seek revenge, and you shall dig two graves, once for yourself. as a public figure, the best defense and again, i will not try to get into any particular story, and this is not about peter or gawker or any particular thing, but the best defense to speech that you don't like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin. it is the really only effective defense, because you can't stop it. you know, you are going to be
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misunderstood. if you are doing anything interesting in the world, you will have critics. the absolutely can't tolerate the critics then don't do anything new or interesting. >> so here we are at the conference where entrepreneurs are meeting with the media, and are we going the witness some kind of showdown? have we already witnessed it? where are we in that narrative? >> well, we have nick stanchion coming thursday and we have invited peter theil, and he put out the open debate letter saying, hey, come on and debate me. we have not heard back from p e peter theil, but there are a lot of the vcs and others in the crowd who were in attendance, and they are taking theil's side or understand his point of view, come to help to us debate either on the stage or asking questions. it is an interesting moment between silicon valley and the media and encapsulated with
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gawker and theil, and it is a sentiment running through the valley for a long time for sure. >> and lauren, i would write it even larger. this is a moment maybe where billionaires and their freedom to do whatever they want is being questioned. we have the case in california where martin's beach, and the public access being blocked because someone's bought a piece of land that affords access, and the apple versus the fbi, and the facebook and versus the fbi, and people of power and smarts having the ability to create certain tools that might go against what publicly elected officials or the agencies think is best. to me, this is all coming down to the question of with great power comes what -- is it great responsibility or just -- >> absolutely. >> -- or the ability to influence? >> well, i would say that a lot of people in the argument are boiling it down to money, and
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how do to billionaires feel, and the vcs feel, and it is less about money than power. and power struggles are playing out on a bigger level in the country, rand encapsulated in stories like this and people say, are we going to start to lose our freedom of speech, and power in this area, and that is what it comes down to, and interestingly, anecdotally the people i have spoken to here, whose side are you on peter theil or gawker's? and it is less about money, but it is whether or not people have been targeted by gawker at any point, because there are people that i am surprised by that maybe are on the media side that say, actually i don't think that what they are doing is right either. >> and personal experience goes a long way on this one. and finally, the take on a/i, because it is mentioned in the prior are conference, and thinking back to io, and are we going to be looking at this one, and say, this is where we got the first e real examples of how is it going to enter our lives.
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>> yes, a/i is the frontier they are all trying to own, and not simply because it is cooler gadget or aspect of the technology to whicht is going to happen, because it is the ecosystem of how it operates. just like apple with the ecosystem of the iphone, and the a/i of how it takes shape will create another ecosystem of how it takes place, and right now, amazon is the leader of that with the echo device. >> and to hear him say 1,000 employees four years in, and it is not a white paper. >> yes, a lot of the companies are saying it is the future of the computing, and not input devices or smartphones burk it is -- but which tech will allow you the is out out what you need into the atmosphere, and it will, something will happen. google is getting into this, and you know, apple has been doing this, and it is going to be interesting to see the a/i play out. >> and not to mention today and
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tomorrow, and it will be interesting, and we will see you inside, thank you for joining us today. when we come back, tons of interview at code with some of the biggest names in venture capital bill gurley and also, the new piece in vanity fair taking a look at twitter and break it down. nick will join us on "squawk alley" when we return in a moment.
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it is first trading day of june, and the nasdaq is aiming for the sixth positive session in a row, and the index outperforming the dow and the s&p last month and after a rough start to the year, tech is in full rebound mode, and the best p performing sector in may. joining us now here at post 9 with his own insight into the recovery, roger mcnemme. >> always good to beer hee, kayla. >> and let us know, because it feels like we are playing catchup with the stocks that have lost so p much. >> yes, and the market is playing a shift from the adoption of the smartphones to the big enterprises realizing that all of the customers have a smartphone, and so adaptation to the economy to the prevalence of the smartphones is very different from the tech
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companies of what we have been doing for the last ten years of when people are buying the second and the third smartphones around and the market outlook is not particularly exciting, but it is not as bad as people thought january 11st, so as a consequence, it makes sense that we will see recoveries when people get into the panic mode. >> and as we have smart phones, and we are adjusting to that, what will eventually benefit on the corporate side, it is what will be built. >> and think about starbucks now, because there is a app to are preorder the beverage before you get there, and there is a special line before you pick it up, and that is good. the fact that every starbucks' customer has a smartphone with apple pay, and they are walking in and clicking the thing and leaving so suddenly, there is a benefit of starbucks from the efficiency point of view, and the consumer from the efficiency point of view, and that a huge deal, and you can imagine it taking place throughout the economy. it produces a different company
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than we saw over the last ten years burk it is still attractive. >> and starbucks has been moving in that direction for years at that point, and i look at the s&p software sector, and it is fis, if i dell ti information services, and fpfizer and globa and tech companies that are doing the best. so where to you find who is going to be the winners? >> there is a perfect example now, because now that you can assume that everybody has a smartphone and they have apple pay for the google pay, and the folks doing the credit card processing loves it, because it lowers the cost, and the transaction volume, so you want to look around the economy, and recognize that starbucks was an early adopter, but almost every company has the opportunity, and everybody who deals with consumers at least has the opportunity to build products that make the transactions go smoother, and have them cost less, and in effect, cause people to have incentive to spend more money. >> tech is described as getting
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a growth premium from investors because there is so little growth anywhere else, and it is causing a stampede in the s sector, and albeit a broad one these days, but what happens when the gdpp is going up, and the data starts to turnaround? >> well, in fact, tech's advantage in the growth terms on average is lower now that it has been at any time in the last five years. you will still find the best growth stories in tech in companies like facebook who have the very, very high multiples reflecting the scarcity out there, and at the same time, the average tech company looks like the s&p 500, and they are struggling to put up the numbers that they did in the past, and investors are some days feeling good about, that and some days obviously more desperate. >> we had mark bennioff on to talk about the deal that he did,
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and we have that from him right now. >> the m&a season right now is the most intense and exciting that i have ever seen. i have never seen more deals and things happening, and we are not wing every deal, but this is a deal that we got done. we were excited to get to demandware, and it is tough to get the deals done in the environment, because everybody is positioning for growth next year. >> you see, i love marc bennioff and one of my favorite people in silicon valley. >> you will be getting calls from people in silicon valley saying that ti thought that i was your favorite person? >> well, take a number. and he is saying that organic growth is the growth for the company, and he is right, and this should be a strong period for m&a, because they have multiples of growth rates that they are going to be having a hard time to do, and as you
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know, the m&a does not work out for the buyer, so you will be seeing some people succeeding on the model and most people not. >> and he gave us a glimpse saying that we have not won every deal, but happy about this one, and sounds like a feeding frenzy. >> and i suspect that he is going to be happy about the ones that he didn't win, because they won't work out anyway. >> and moon alice playing in the area? >> well, the dewey decimal has a few place, and we will be at the acoustics friday and stillwaters on monday, so come out to check it out. >> have fun, and safe travels. and now, we will talk about how multimedia is making a contribution to the success. and also, according to reports, you can see that wti is move ing
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moving to the front line. "squawk alley" continues right after this. you won't see these folks at the post office. they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. get a 4 week trial, plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again.
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welcome back the "squawk alley." i'm phil lebeau with breaking news on toyota. sales are down in line with e edmonds which is a decline of 9.8%, and the decline of all of the auto sales is the dropoff of car sales and for toyota down 16% last month, and the cars are clearly out of favor with consumers in america. back to you, carl. >> thank you. >> and hamilton is one of the most successful plays in broadway history and making history with a record 16 tony nominations this yearb and i spoke to some of the hamilton cast on facebook live yesterday and i asked them how social media is helping the show. take a listen. >> it is the only difference of like a "rent" and a "hamilton." and you know, "rent" was hugely successful in the day, but i think that the difference between that, that that show
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would have looked even more like this show had they had facebook and twitter. it is so easy, and easier to start a fire all over the world. >> and yet another industry disrupted by technology, and in this case social. i was struck by a couple of things, a, how great the cast is, and also, facebook's commitment to make this live element of their platform a real staying power by bringing in the high profile guests like this. >> carl, i'm curious how you found the cast, themselves, because they are doing this performance again and again and day after day to these rave reviews, and what is the state of mind about the fame and the popularity and the popularity of the craft? >> well, i mean, they are obviously very young, and it is physically draining to do eight shows a day, especially with a show like this, where it is a physical show. it is hard not the let it go to your head. i can see that the star is on
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the cover of "rolling stone" and the admiration is nonstop and you nknow, that kayla? >> yes. and i have to say that spotify, youtube and music streaming is another part of this that is fueling the fire for the either people who can't get to new york city or can't pay $1,000 per ticket to be able to live vicariously through the music and through some of the performances that you can find on youtube is a great consolation prize. any talk, carl, of a film? doing a movie version of this? >> well, we did ask whether they were interested in the movie version, and pretty much everybody said yes. i don't think that you would say no to that for sure. >> yes. the current version is so analog, and it is like you have to be there and see it when it happens or forget it. anyway, great stuff. >> yes. >> and so up next, according nick billton, twitter is in a
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the death rate rose up from 723 in 2014, and one of the few times in the last 25 years that the rate has increased. four people were kill and ten others were injured after a explosion at a subway site in seoul. workers were 50 feet underground when the explosion occurred. investigation is under way. and prime minister angela merkel and others were on way to open up the world's biggest tunnel. it took 17 year, and $12 billion to build. in northern california a sinkhole opened up on a busy interstate in california. the hole was discovered by road crews in the san joaquin kocoun, and they believe it was caused by a leaking irrigation pipe. that is the cnbc news update at this hour. back downtown to kayla tausche
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on "squawk alley." a lot of focus on the pound and the brexit poll with the european stock market close. >> yes, don't forget that the european central bank is meeting in vienna for a policy statement, and the data was not good. we have confirmation on the manufacturing pmi at a rate that indicates that we are stuck in the near stagnation according to the people who compiled that at market, but as kayla points out, it is really the brexit vote on june 23rd that is again coming front and center. if you are in this country, and you are worried about the risks for june, yesterday, we had a poll that indicated that the leave campaign is ahead which reversed where we thought that we were going, but today, another poll in the "times" that is suggesting neck and neck, and the pound on the weekly chart continues to fall, and perhaps the shorts are coming back in. and we have figures from the mortgage market to indicate that lending month per month is down 96%. that is a lot to do with the
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bite to let the mortgage tax relief situation, but you can see the builders who are being hit. and through the rerecession, assortment of the uk stocks that people may know abroad which have also fallen so it means that people are waking up to the brexit situation, and since it is not news to tie it together. the oec dshd cut the forecast, cumulative forecast, and if there is a brexit to leave, gdp is going to be suffering by 3% through 2020. the biggest movers are the italian banks, and another heavily discounted ipo within the italian banking sector to be absorbed by the state fund recently, recently, and to help with the nonperforming loans around and the concern is that if this is continuing to go forward for the heavily discounted mop-ups, we will have more funds left, and not that we have high hopes, but that you can see that banco
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popolare is coming through with its own discounts. and we have seen the travel stock stocks full, but yesterdays, as you are aware, the state department issued a warning to americans traveling in europe of nonspecific terrorist threats in the course of the summer, and specifically, telling the people to be weary of the european soccer championships in france, and the meeting of the catholic youth in july in poland, and as a result, some the travel stocks have begun to fall. >> thank you, simon. and now, twitter having a rough go of it since jack dorsey returned as the ceo, and in a blistering story in "vanity fair" nick billton is wondering if they can overcome what is nearing a state of chaos. he is here in person. >> thank you for having me.
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>> and you have been the initial chronicler on twitter here for some time. >> sadly. >> but this is a novello of all of the company's problems. >> yes, i feel like george r. martin writing about westerose, because it is a company that is in constant turmoil, and one of the things that i wrote in the article is that i found f fascinating is that jack dorsey who i sat down admitted that one of the reasons that the company has been up and down and had a part time with the monthly views and so forth is because it is in a state of constant turmoil. the average life of a public ceo is ten years, but at twitter, a couple of years, an five ceos since the company began. and so, you know, it is on and on and on. >> and you describe some nuggets of the strategy are ns that the the company tried to throw against the wall, and the board, and ed williams' one of the company's founders suggested that twitter by his company
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medium, and are you getting a sense of a clear strategy or the constellation of things that they are thinking of? >> well, there is a clear strategy, but i don't know if it is goi is going to work. you know, the strategy right now that jack dorsey has said repeatedly on the earnings calls and interviews and so forth is the word live. so everything that is going on twitter in the world is being chronicled on twitter at the same time, but the problem is that there is a little company a few miles south of twitter called a facebook where mark k zuckerberg likes to destroy everything in his path is using the word live now, and that is where he is pointing the cannons at, and so twitter is nervous about that as i would be. >> and nick, i remember you coming on this show probably a year ago and saying that one of the biggest existential threat s to the platform as you call it is vicious ruthless character, when it comes to trolls. do they have a solution to that, and is it as big of a problem as you thought it was a year ago?
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>> well, know, they say that there are solutions to that, and that, you know, they are are going to work on trying to get a story out yesterday where tw twitter and facebook are going to try the come up with the ways to eradicate trolls from the network, and so they are going to delete thing 24 hours after the fact, and so that is like a year in real life. and nobody remembers, and they remember the thing, and they don't go back to see it, and it is a problem that goes back to the dna of the company. and the companies take on the dna of the founders and the founding of twitter has been chaos. that is a good thing. we have seen it used for revolutions, and all of the things that we have seen it used for, and black lives matter and so on, but then a bad thing for the internals of the company writ has been in-fighting, and you know, from day one until today. >> nick, sometimes it seems like an episode of maury that we are not sure who is the father of twitter, but one thing, the piece doesn't answer is can
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dorsey heal this company culture that he helped to create? does the express lack of regret over some of that stuff more suggest that he can't or does the acknowledgment of the turmoil's effect on the product suggest to you that he can? which way are you leaning on that? >> well, it is interesting that when i do the interviews, one of the last questions i ask the person is do you have any questions to me? and jack said to me when i spoke to him in san francisco before this article, what have you learned that has been surprising, and when i wrote the book on twitter, "hatching twitter" a lot of the people who worked at the company did not like jack. 90% of the people thought that he was a concrete hero who came back on the white house lir he owned the place, and now when i talk to the people, 90% of the people are big jack dorsey fans, and they believe that he could turn the company around, but some people wonder if it is too late. >> and is it too late? because you are right, the board
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was enamored with his success at square, but they also thought that he was the only person who could actually refresh the products and make it cool. how long do you give someone to do that? >> twitter has a lot of money in the bank to keep going for quite a while, and you know, so when it comes to that, that is not a problem, but where they are having problems, and this is a huge exodus of employees, and especially the executive level employees, and they are having a hard time attracting new and a-talent, and as you can see from the stock chart wall street is not enamored with it. it is highest rates of the shorts right now on the company. you know, stock has fallen every single week it falls another few percent, and the question is how low can it go? >> nick, and that leads to my last question, history is written by the victors, and when you see a piece like this at a point like this where the stock is where it is, and there a certain gloom about it, and if
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the stock were trading to closer to $50 would the narrative be different and even if everything were about to same? >> would the narrative be different? yes, but it is not trading at $50, but it is trading at five times are less than that. the company at the high, you know, there was a belief that the when the company went public, there was a believe it was fixed and solved and fallen since then like a ski slope. i think it has a way to goes to be quite frank. to be adding 2 million to 3 m l million new users a quarter is not going to be solving the problem, because they have to e rethink and reimagine what twitter is, and i have not seen it. >> but one thing, he is putting himself out there to tell the story to try to turn the story around. >> and yes, one of the things that i think that jack dorsey is amazing at is telling the story. and you know, when i sat down and looked at it and looked at
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all of the people that the board looked to be ceo, jack was the best candidate, and we have not seen yet if he can pull it off,b but time will definitely tell. >> well, you tell a fascinating story yourself in the sul mer issue of "vanity fair" nick billiton, and speaking of jack dorsey, he is going to speak to us tomorrow from the code conference. make sure you join us. and joining us up next is bill gurley to talk the valuations to the ipo market as well as a lot more coming up next. you may think you can put off checking out your medicare options until you're sixty-five, but now is a good time to get the ball rolling. keep in mind, medicare only covers about eighty percent of part b medical costs. the rest is up to you. that's where aarp medicare supplement insurance plans
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>> welcome back to the coverage from the code conference. are money troubles ahead for the si silicon valley? our guest are from the post takes a look at the overfunded companies and the sharks circling waiting for an opportunity. bill gurley is a partner with benchmark capital, and good to have you here. >> thank you, good to be here, carl. >> and starting with bezos, brilliant and amazing? what are your thoughts? >> well, the most respected entrepreneur and ceo in silicon valley lives in elsewhere. and so still with the scale of what he is able to do and launch
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the new project, and he said that there were 1,000 people on alexa last night, and i don't believe ta any ceo other than steve jobs, innovated at this level and scale. >> and the second reference that we have heard to jobs. vis-a-vis bezos today. >> but it is the clarity of thought is just shocking almost. >> and you have also talked about the state of silicon valley, and perhaps how some entrepreneur's mindsets are not in the place where jeff bezos' is, and not willing to graph the valuations to be where they once were, and is your valuation in the six weeks where they were, and the detailed blog post, are we headed for the orderly decline, and are people embracing reality, and a healthy calling of the herd or -- >> i u think it is certainly l healthy. some of the business practices that we are celebratinging if silicon valley in 2014, 2015 were undisundiscipline and
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uncelebrated. and it is warren buffett who says we won't know who is naked until the tide goes out. but you are starting to see the separation of the unicorns being exposed as not great business models or the solid uniomics and being able to build out what they said they could achieve. and every moment in silicon valley, great companies that come out of it, and people will emerge from this one, but it is culling, and it is rational. >> and is that washout driven by the macro or the natural part of the life cycle? >> well, macro is hard. but i think that macro has played a part here, because of the low global interest rates, and money everywhere and believe it or not even after stuff has blown up there, are money on the sideline s peeking in, and anybody who wants to get in the
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late stage, you are the lender of last resort, and they are coming after you, and caveat emme emptor. >> and you say that you should not be a ceo that can't handle the down valuation, because it is coming. >> yes, one of the things that makes the entrepreneurs cavalier is that they don't have a lot of experience with the data points to block their naivete, and there were a lot of people in silicon who weren't around for 2000, and they did not live through it, so they have only been there when it is healthy. you are seeing the cutbacks of the entitlement ares and people smarter of how the run the business. >> and last week we heard fomo, fear of missing out to the foji,
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fear of jumping in. are you sensing the danger? >> no, long, long way of that. q1 is the record amount of money going into the new venture fund s. >> and one thing that jeff bezos talked about is the infrastructure built to allow amazon success to including roads and delivery mechanisms like u.p.s. and deliveries in the united states, and what are the key pieces for the next innovation which is next post smartphone era? >> i think that the smartphone platform has a long way to go, and the part that people miss about the smartphone or don't think about is that it is an embedded compute er thr that is basically distributed into every single person's hands. and if you are look at the way to navigate a hospital or a hotel, and you say to yourself, is this really the best it can be? and the answer is clearly, no.
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right? you should be able to minute you get on the prim, you should get a pop-up that tells you the phone number, and the phone should unlock the door, and we are not there, and there sis a lot to do with the smartphone. >> and why are people running out of ideas of what more this can do for them? a lackf of imagination on their part? >> perhaps. perhaps. they want to run on to the other things like vr and a/i. >> are you not as excited about those? >> there are technologies that take a long time to play out, and when the hype builds before the actual play, then you are setting yourselves up for this thing known as the trough of disillusionment, and a lot of those markets will have that. >> and we will worry about the sheer volume of money that uber is investing in trying to win in china? >> yeah, look, one of the difficult parts of executing in today's environment is that a large number of companies are given lots and lots of money, and that is part of what i wrote about, you don't get to choose, if your competitor raises $500
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million, or a $1 billion, you can't choose not to play, because you have to play on the field, and when there is money everywhere, the play is slop pitch the good news for uber is that we started to understand what it means to compete against somebody who is buying or renting market share with the heavy subsidies, and we have started to study it at a level that gives us the ability to kind of react in a way that is disciplined and where we understand what is going on, and in the long run, we will get through it. >> and tim cook's money makes it harder? >> well, i don't know that anybody would like a competitor be given billions and billions of dollars. >> ingagreed. >> bill, you always bring it. good to see you. thanks for getting up early. >> and another guest to join us is yuri milner, so don't go a wway away.
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asn investor in spotify and facebook, yuri milner is ahead of the curve in identifying the big names of tech. he has rekrecently been named t the most influential people, and with advanced degrees, he is lead leading the charge to find life on other planets, but down here on earth, he is joining julia boorstin here at the code conference.
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>> thank you, yuri, for being here today and you have backed facebook, snapchat, alibaba, and what is the next facebook? >> well, it is a very interesting question. if history is of any lesson, then in the last 20 years, on average every three years, something on the scale of facebook or google have been emerging, so we believe that the innovations are going to stop, so we should be expecting some in the next years to come >> so any areas that we have talked in the past about e commerce or any companies where you are focused to find the next game-changing companies? >> well, e commerce around the world is about 10% after all of these years, and we believe that in the next 20 to 30 year, it would get to something like 30%. possibly. so some of that value will
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obviously go to the existing players, but it is very possible that significant value will accrue to the new player, and again, historically, if you are looking at the last ten years, 40% of the value of the internet companies accrue to the new players and 60% to the existing players, and so in terms of the scale of that, you know, on average every five years there is another trillion worth of value added and we believe that the trend will continue. >> and where are you placing the big bets right now? >> well, we will have historically been looking around the world. 40% of the investments have been in the u.s., and 40% in china and 20% in the rest of the world. and that is sort of remains our focus. >> i want to ask you about india
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as an investor in the flip cart, and they have had trouble, and we had comments from jeff bezos how india is different from china, and apple is having trouble getting the refurbished phones into the market, and what is the core challenge in india as far as how that market is different from some others, and what do you see the big opportunity, the unique opportunity being there? >> well, india is similar to ch china in the one significant and decisive way which is the scale. and because of the scale, the game is not over. there is enough tall. >> anthony: and capital in india to fight the battle. when you have a billion people, you would likely have a few entrepreneur entrepreneurs who are committed to win the market.
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so i think that it is an exciting market to watch for the next few years. >> and two of the investments in china have been making headlines. we have alibaba share trading off dramatically and selling $8 million of share, and then xiapei slowing down? >> well, it is true that in the last few years, china has slowed down, and it is true that china is a big place that calls for big companies to be built. so, again, we have few companies that are $15 billion or so scale, and so i don't believe that if we roll the clock 10 to 20 years forward s pit same big
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company, but it is going to be those with the continued to do well, but there is going to be more that will emerge. again, the market will always adjust, but, you know, be fair to alibaba, it is a very s significant business, and and there are many people who believe it will continue to do well. >> and finally on the space, and john mentioned your interest, and bezos talked about moving heavy industry, and musk will be tonigh tonight, and what should people be thinking about tonight even if the time horizon is extremely long? >> well, both elon musk and jeff bezos, they focus on the space which is definitely insooide of the solar system. where i am coming from and we made the announcement together
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with stephen hawking is that the universe is much bilger, and we announced a project called star shot which is to send a robotic probe to the nearby star which is called alpha centare in our generation. so it is to emphasize that the space is way, way bigger than our nearby vicinity. >> and bigger than the time that we have unfortunately. yuri, always great to get your insights on such a broad range of things. thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. >> and yuri milner and julia boorstin. and coming up more headlines from amazon's jeff bezos, and how much is melissa hole mz worth? that answer might surprise you.
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valuation, her stake is essentially worthless. of course, nobody knows forbes' methodology, but if the that were the case, what a story that would be. >> and despite, that bill gurley himself talked about theranos being the case study in all of this thing blowing up. >> and right here on squawk alley, and more great action from code, and we will have sheryl sandberg on closing bell, and at noon now on the east coast, it is time for "halftime report" with wapner. ♪ all right. guys, thank you so much, and welcome to the "halftime report" i'm scott wapner, and the trading of the sporting blues. nike and under armour are under pressur pressure, and so are some of the pillars starting to crack. and with us are pete and jon
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