it is 8:00 a.m. at pinterest headquarters in san francisco, 8:00 a.m. at zoom headquarters in san jose. it's 11:00 a.m. on wall street and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ ♪ ♪ good thursdays morning. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan, david faber at the new york stock exchange. you got pinterest set to debut shortly. jon fortt live at the nasdaq as we await zoom's opening trade there, awfully big show ahead this hour. we'll talk to pinterest ben silverman immediately after that stock opens and zoom's eric yuan

will be with us live from the nasdaq after that debut. we'll start with zoom and jon with the latest. >> reporter: as you can see we got about two and a half million shares, indicative price is 60 bucks a share, pretty remarkable considering they're priced at 36 and we just heard less than ten minutes ago here that morgan stanley is in no rush. i'm told trying to be diligent putting this together. morgan stanley also involved with lyft about three weeks ago and so we wait here, the crowd from zoom is here -- >> jon, we'll try to work on your mic in a moment. it's obviously it's loud here and loud there. in the meantime we'll turn to pinterest. >> we are going to turn to pinterest. as you can see right behind us, indicated 23 to 25, 23 to 75 so that range does seem to be narrowing, what we heard from

bob pisani just in the last final moments of the last hour is that this is poised to open in the coming minutes. we'll go back over there and get an update from bob, hey. >> reporter: i think the important thing here is we are waiting for it to open and it has been around the 23 price, 23 to 23.50 for more than 45 minutes now. that's a good indication that most of the time it'll settle some where around there. it doesn't always happen. with pagerduty, 29 price, all of a sudden a wave of orders came in because people said i'll sell it at that price, i'll sell a lot of it and the price had to drop. the demand seems to be fairly steady. let's see if i can get an update. we heard about the potential for 15 minutes a little while ago. glenn kurell, you've been doing this a long time, what's going

to happen? >> we're still in a good range. now we're just waiting on a couple more players to get in the game of the we're happy with the way things good look right now. the book is lining up great. we're fully transparent as to where we look. now we're just waiting on one or two players to make a couple adjustments and we're good to go. >> reporter: what are they trying to decide to do are they trying to bid for more or offer more? >> they don't want to miss the print at the same time. if someone is bidding 23.25, maybe they want to come up to 23.50. those are the things we're looking at right now. >> reporter: the fact that we've been at 23 for the last 45 minutes or so, is this a pretty good bet that's where we're going to open. >> like i said, we have the volume there. everything's lined up on our end. our technology is ready to go. we're just waiting. >> reporter: what do you like to see in an open in terms of

volume. is there a percentage generally that you like to see, 10% of the float of the amount of shares that are being sold? what's a good number >> it's not a rule of thumb, we like to get 10%. i think we'll be closer to 9 to 10 million shares which is really healthy. we'll be ready to go. >> reporter: glenn, thanks very much. i asked about the percentage because the volume is a very good indication of overall investor interest. if they float 9 million or 10 million that's more than 10% of the amount of shares sold. if you close at the end of the day with close to 100%, that's generally an indication of a very successful ipo that there's active trading that's involved. these are just rough rules of thumb. people are using, 23 to 23.50, hold on one minute. it's looking closer to around 23 to 23.50 level.

getting close. ten to 15 minutes looks like. we'll be here. back to you. >> we're going to watch and watch the mueller report which is now on the justice website. jon fortt's back at the nasdaq watching zoom. jon, hello once again. >> reporter: let's try this again. 62, it's gone up two bucks since the last time you saw me, 2.5 million shares paired. this would be more than 70% above the initial pricing. so that is significant. also we heard about ten minutes ago morgan stanley's in no rush to get this out, trying to be diligent, of course. you'll recall morgan stanley was involved in lyft about three weeks ago and the folks at zoom throughout here just eagerly awaiting the opening of the stock. i was talking to the ceo just a few minutes ago, maybe about an hour ago, talking about the culture of the company, how important it is to keep those employees happy as they continue on their journey of growth. i'm looking forward to talking to him more once this stock

opens. let me toss it over to bertha coombs across the room. >> reporter: what we've heard so far is we're about 15 minutes away but if you listen to jay heller here the head of capital markets at nasdaq, it looks like we're in the range of 62 to 63. they would like to pair off 3 million shares or so. they're trying to coax more sellers to sell so the buying interests will have something to pick up. this could take a while. he said maybe about 15 minutes or so, but we heard that about a half hour ago, so they are not going to rush this process at the moment, folks here very interested in watching the situation as you can see. zoom, again, is one of those companies that is profitable. it does video conferencing but it also works as a number of silicon valley companies which

is among the bidders here and among the companies getting an allocation of $100 million at that $36 per share price, carl. >> thank you. joining us on the phone this morning, cofounder and early facebook investor, of course, author of "zucked" waking up to the facebook catastrophe. thanks for the time. >> isn't it fun to have a bland market. >> i got to ask you, which of these two boiling pots is more interesting to you i would imagine it's pinterest given your interest in social but maybe not. >> to be clear, zoom is that most nearby feat which is a profitable ipo coming out of the tech sector and you can see that the appetite for the urn certainty of profits is making people pay any price necessary to own a piece of it so from a

stock market point of view that's the one i find compelling. that said, i think pinterest's strategy for going public is brilliant. we talked about this the last time i was on, the notion of pricing well under the last private round brought a lot of people into the market. so they'll have a very successful ipo and it would surprise no one if the thing finished the day well above its last private round having lured people in with the possibility of a real bargain. >> roger, i realize that pinterest has been distancing itself from this label of social media company, are first to consider it self a visual platform. it should be lumped in with that category just from the valuation perspective, but how do you see it >> you know the label isn't -- i think -- the label of social media used to be a huge positive

now all of a sudden it's a problem that people are running from it. what's going to matter on pinterest is how the community that uses it used the product and how -- and how bad actors use the product. they've been able to maintain a place where in general the behavior is really positive and so in my mind we need a new generation of social product that are not overrun by trolls, not overrun by bad actors and if pinterest can play a role in that then they can give social media a good name again. >> jon fortt here at the nasdaq awaiting this zoom ipo open. we talked a bit about val education in the past, profitability, right now zoom if it opens as it looks like it's going to be above 62 bucks a share, just really a sky high

valuation, but it's profitable, how do you balance those two things you think >> jon, i don't know how this is going to turn out with the fed going to a much more conciliatory tone. just because, you know, we're late in the market cycle, valuations are already incredibly high, there's a lot of cash still in the market and now you have this ipos that we just see really looney behavior going on in the best of those deals as part of a speculative blowoff. that would honestly be a fantastic thing while it lasts, but, you know, i have no idea if that's what's going on or not but looked at zoom, it certainly looks like we're getting, shall we say, unrestrained enthusiasm. >> roger, it's david faber. those that must have lived through the dotcom boom, you have a today like today to these

ipos, it brings it to mind as somebody who also lived through that, give me some of your take in terms of the similarities and the discrepancies between the current period and that one. >> we both know -- where they were spending $2 to generate a $1 of revenue and obviously have situations like that. if the market is willing to pay $100 million valuation or $10 billion, given the unproven nature of that business model, then i think we can comfortably say -- the behavior of the day is certainly reminiscent of '99 except there were very few things in '99 that had profit. you could make the case that -- people chasing performance --

>> roger, we've been talking a lot about this idea that it's favorable market conditions for companies to go public that you have less volatility than we saw at the end of last year, stocks and major averages near or at highs for the year or all-time highs, i wonder if we should be talking more about the dovish fed and the lid that's put on interest rates especially when you're talking about some of these high growth tech unicorns that are now coming to market? >> i'm with you completely. i think the fed is -- i think the fed set up the condition for, you know, a speculative bubble here and investors should look -- while it lasts it's going to be just really, really fun, but you won't be the last one looking for a chair when the music stops. >> roger, thank you. >> no guarantee that's what's

going to happen but it sure feels that way. thank you. >> always great to get your thoughts as we do await pinterest's opening trade here just moments away. the president of the new york stock exchange joins us here at post nine. stacey, quite a busy day. >> it's a great day. it's really excite to go welcome pinterest to the new york stock exchange. a lot of interest in this deal and so we're waiting for it to open but we're excited it's a great morning. >> going back to the question i just asked roger, how would you assess the market situation? >> certainly investors are continuing to express interests in these deals, a lot of them are pricing above the range and opening even stronger. we aren't seeing investors pull back at all. there's a lot of excitement for what's in the pipeline. >> in terms of the so-called tech unicorns that are coming to market right now and really in the last couple of years, the nasdaq had always sort of historically been seen as the more tech heavy area, but the stock exchange has been

gathering or winning many more of these high profile ipos, how have you been able to do that and what's your outlook? >> one thing that's important to recognize is today's company look very different than some of the companies we welcomed to the markets years ago. the new york stock exchange used to require companies to be profitable before they could list and that's not what we're seeing as you know with some of the companies coming out to market. we modernized our listing rules to reflect more what we're seeing in the public companies today. if you look back over the past five years, over 10% of tech proceeds have been raised on the nyse. so we're excited about that. >> what's the pinch? in other words, you go up for an uber against nasdaq and others, what do you think is actually working in your favor in terms of your ability to market to these companies to say come here >> first of all, this is the pitch, we price discovery is our forte. we take our time and find the right price. we're not just looking for where

there's an equill lib rum. when a stock opens it's trade at a stable level. the market model is number one when it comes to what differentiates us and what we can offer companies and that's not just on ipo day. when their ipo is executed flawlessly, sure, the market model shines there but for the life of the company we trade with less volatility which saves their investors mon and their own company money. beyond that, the s&p 500 is listed on the new york stock exchange and the brand visibility that we can give them to share along with the suite of services that we provide. so that's the pitch. >> so you openly use examples like lyft as cautionary tales? >> we try to avoid talking about specific deals. we talk about what we can do to deliver value to our listing companies, how we can assist them through their process and we talk a lot about what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

>> how long do you think it goes, the wave of ipos >> it's hard to say. >> back half of the year, next year >> a lot of the bigger companies are coming to market right now. where we'd like to focus attention is making sure some of the smaller companies are also looking to come to the public market sooner. we need to right size some of the regulation that's exist and we need to focus on making sure that they're encouraged to come, removing barriers that might keep them private for longer and if we want to keep that pipeline going. >> barriers like -- are they a reason some of these companies have been private for so long? >> absolutely. there are a number of different things. some of the topics that we talk a lot about like dual class structures, like certain esg initiatives or guidelines you might want to put on public companies, those are all things that go into the calculus as to whether or not they want to stay private or public. we want to make sure we're encouraging them to access the public market because investors get to share once they're public

and the everyday investor doesn't have access to private markets the way large investors do. >> to that point, one of the conversations we've been having and certainly this restoked after the lyft ipo a couple weeks ago is the fact that retail investors don't have access to the same amount of information about a company that's coming public as the institutional investors. do you think that needs to change >> i think there are some people asking that question. i thought it was really interesting to see when spotify came to the market, that was one of the things they wanted to address. they made all the information available to all investors at the same time, publicly available on their website and retail investors have the same access to institutional investors. i don't know that we'll see a number of companies going down that path but that was one of their goals and it worked for them. >> to your point, we have seen companies stay private longer in part because there's a much deeper private market than there was 15, 20 years ago. do you really think even with some reg changes that that is going to change? there is an argument that says a lot of the growth curve occurs

while these are private companies and therefore your public investors are not able to participate in it. >> the growth curve is happening earlier in the life cycle. that's where it is steepest. we do want to see companies coming public earlier. i could look at building out a private market platform at the new york stock exchange but i think it's the wrong answer for investors and i think that contributes to a bifurcation of wealth that we see here when the most dynamic fastest growing companies are left for large investors that have access. to answer your question whether or not it makes a change if we change some of those regulations, it's part of the process and i think that conveying that message to companies that by providing opportunities for investors to share in the success, they're actually contributing to wealth formation in this nation more broadly is part of the equation. i think that will resonate with some people. >> stacey, thanks. >> thanks. >> good to see you. >> we're get to go that time. it is the hour where we say

we're close and i think we're on that front we'll go to jon fortt as we continue to watch zoom, jon. >> reporter: i just got a three minute warning on zoom as you can see the price now $63 a share. this priced at 36 last night. that would be well over a 70% pop from where it priced and paired shares, 3.5 million at this point. let me toss it over to bertha in the crowd with the zoom folks and what's going on, how far we are from opening, bertha >> we're getting very close. there is still interest coming in and generally they want the book to stabilize before they go ahead and open. they've had a lot of interest that has continued to build all morning. we've already paired over 3.5 million shares. it looks like they'll probably get to 4 million before they open here but it does appear to be imminent here. we are within the two-minute warning at the moment.

we're watching the situation. jay heller, the head of market operations here is communicating with all of the folks here as well as the different trading desks about where we are at the moment and we're very, very close. the company priced at $36 a share which gave them a valuation of $9 billion or so and they are looking to open here well above that valuation north of $16 billion right now it looks like perhaps 70% pop or more but again this is one of those things that is more art than science as they try to pair things off so that you don't have an unstable opening. back over to you guys. >> jon, i think you're still with us. bertha just said it. you do the math on 268 million fully diluted shares and that price is 63 you're getting close to $17 billion market cap on a company that did 330 million in

revenues in last year. those multiples are getting awfully steep, aren't they >> quite a multiple of revenue as you mentioned, david. here's a company to put this in context that is competing in business and enterprise communication with microsoft, with cisco, with google, with adobe and has been doing it well, growing at more than 100% a year, also doing -- manage to go make a profit in recent quarters as well. so that combination of really fast growth, managing profitability at the same time and at the same time on glass do glassdoor managed to be the most popular ceo on glass dodoor in 2018. so quite a mix there. carl >> jon, thank you. we are similarly get to go a pretty close point on pins. bob pisani back at post eight, bob? >> reporter: getting a lot closer here guys when we get a lot of people here in the booth.

i'm back over here. we're getting tense negotiations. still 23.25, 23.75. remember how far we have come here, 15 to 17 pricing at $19 and now looking some where in the $23 range. stacey had a very good point, what they're really interested in is a lot of smaller companies coming in. we had one today. didn't get a lot of attention. a big mineral company. they priced at $18. they opened at $20 and here's another successful ipo. while lyft is the exception, most of the big ipos that have come since levi strauss have been successful. ju mia had a huge ipo. pagerduty, levi strauss also up about 40%. so so far the early indications the ipo flood with the exception of lyft tremendously successful, bringham today.

we're trying to get around to the corner there, they're engaged in fairly tense negotiations so i won't go over there and bother them. i think we're getting much, much closer. when you get close and they say we're five minutes away and a rush of either buyers or sellers will come in who are decided, okay, it doesn't look like it's going to move any more i'm putting my final bid or offer in. it is a dynamic auction and when people think things are in finally, that's when they show their hand. it's still a fluid situation. back soon. >> bob, it's obviously early with these things have not even opened yet, are we starting in your mind to a race that nasty taste of lyft's decline after its opening day? >> pinterest is going to be the test here. remember, lyft was 50% above the last valuation. pinterest initially looked like it was about 25% below -- >> let me stop you and let's get to bertha coombs.

>> opened. [ applause ] >> reporter: guys, zoom is now open here at $65 even as they have tremendous interest still coming in at the end over all this stock price $36 a share that was well above the upward range also an upward offering as well, tremendous interest in this ipo this morning. pinterest not quite yet open but zoom having a strong debut. jon fortt is over on the other side and has a little more here, jon. >> yes. i can see the ceo from where i am, he want standing over there in the throng watching the book build, he was over having

conversation interestingly with a small group of people. he has been focused on the culture of this company as well as on the growth. it'll be interesting to see how he puts into context this huge opening that they've had, of course, they've priced above the range and that price, 36 have been blown out from where it's opened. trading at $64 a share just above there and it's interesting, we're waiting for pinterest to open at the same time. zoom wasn't seen in the same context because it's not a consumer facing company. it's dealing with small business and enterprise, it's communications platform. it's a company competing with the likes of microsoft, cisco, adobe, google, doing well at it under the radar for a while but not any more as you can see, this stock is up 78% from it's where it priced, guys? >> we mention it had last hour as well, but their last funding

round back in 2017, a billion dollars and then you look at this debut right now, up 76%. ticker z ticker symbol, zm, my gosh, what a difference a year has made. >> reporter: it looked like it was going to be under that at $10 billion. here's one. last private valuation, 1 bld. you've got to do the math. it's probably around 17 times it's last private valuation, not to mention the revenue most recent, 12 months, four quarters worth of revenue, had it around 335 million in revenue, quite a multiple where it is trading right now. it shows what investors feel about not only growth but also profitability, carl? >> all right, jon, thank you very much. let's take stock of what we know so far of leslie picker

with this at post nine. clearly, investors hungry for secular growth. >> i was speaking with sources yesterday who were kind of -- they said they had enough demand that they could price this thing at 40. wanted to be conservative, priced it at 36 and now you see this 75% pop as of right now on its first day of trading. i want to hone in on how rare this is. they're not doubling shares on the first day of trading. we see maybe one ipo a year double their stock on the first day of trading. this is pretty remarkable in terms of first day performance. now, it is worth noting that studies have found that often times when ipos come in super hot on the first day of trading it can -- it can be detrimental for their longer run performance. i'm not saying that's going to happen here but in the past -- >> there's pinterest. bob pisani, can you hear me? >> reporter: 23.75.

23.75. pinterest goes public at 10.6 million shares. that's a very good number. 75 million shares is what is being sold to the public. you saw it more in 10% the amount being offered right on the top here. there's the post over there and, of course, a lot of hand clapping and cheering here. remember the 15 to 17 was the initial pricing. price talk went to $19 and opened at $23.75. you saw what happened with zoom opening at 65, initial talk there was 28 to 32 just a week ago. three successful ipos joining the parade that we've had in the last few weeks including jumia, all strayeding up 30 or 40 or 50% the sole exception lyft down

about 20%. back to you. successful morning. >> certainly, bob. leslie, whether you're looking -- when you look at a name like pinterest which ticker symbol is pins, still losing money? i'm going to interrupt myself and midthought here and let you know who we're staring at right now. that's ben silverman, ceo and cofounder of pinterest, going to join us here at post nine in just a few moments as this company begins trading publicly. leslie, it would seem looking at either one of these ipos today, pinterest is still losing money but those losses are narrowing. it's a one-two in terms of what investors are, i guess, appreciating is and that's strong revenue growth and either profit in the case of zoom or moving closer to profit in the case of pinterest. >> exactly. they have to see that trend toward profitability. they have to see it in site.

they don't have to be profitable per se. they have to know the company can get there if it wants to get there. worth noting with pinterest that if you look at its enterprise value which is what i'm told is apples to apples with its latest private salation, this trading right here brings pinterest to parody with its latest private valuation. we've been talking a lot about how it's initial range was below its latest private valuation and about $12 billion back in 2017 with a 20% or higher pop today, you're going to see it much more in line with where it was last valued in the private markets. >> bob pisani, let's head back over to you at post eight? >> reporter: i think the important thing here is, yes, they have losses, but fairly small numbers in terms of losses, $50 million or $60 million compared to their actual revenue base is not that bad. remember, we're talking about

with lyft we're talking about $2 billion in revenues and a $1 billion in losses. with uber we're talking $11 billion in revenue and $3 billion in losses. so the amount of losses for pinterest is fairly small and there's a very, very clear road to profitability for that company. this is one of the two metrics in addition to the price that everybody seems most concerned about and i think this was part of the reason we saw such a positive reaction to pinterest, which, by the way, is sitting at $23.24 right here behind me. essentially where we opened at $23.75 is actually where we opened at. so we're going to have a number of smaller companies in the next week. we've got six, seven, eight next week. there's 230 companies as of two weeks ago that are on the roster to go public and i'm really more interested in some of the midlevel technology companies like pagerduty, like software that under very hot spaces like

cybersecurity. we're seeing immew know therapy bio techs coming in the next three, four or five months that are literally going to cure cancer. it's one of the most exciting things out there and unlike the biotech wave of the 1990s where had a wave of ipo that were frankly a bust to a large extent, these have tremendous potential to cure all sorts of diseases that are out there. this is a very, very exciting time to cover the ipo business. it's much bigger than uber and pinterest and you want to pay attention to those smaller companies here. 75 million shares is what the company actually sold. that's around 12% or 13% around the actual float that's out there. already 21 million shares have changed hands. if you want -- the first indication of a successful ipo is the price. what you want here is you want a pop at the open, 21% is a lot,

but 6%, 7%, 8% is always desirable, then closing, carl, a little bit higher. when you have that, a pop at the open and close higher, bottom line is everybody makes money. carl, back to you. >> bob, thank you very much. pinterest opens for trade a few moments ago. opens at 23.75. currently just shy -- 23.18. cofounder and ceo of pinterest ben silverman is with us at post nine. good to see you. >> thank you. >> give investors a peak at what the road show sounded like when you made your pitch? what were the key points >> we really focused on how people use the products every day. we explained to folks that people use pinterest to get inspiration from everything to the recipes they cook and the things they put in their home. it's not a social network. it's about yourself and your dreams and aspirations.

>> does that mean that high impact users don't matter in ways they do for platforms like twitter, for example >> we care a ton about our users, but we really think about it utility. we want people to use it to get things done in their life. we're less focused on making it a place where you talk to your friends or follow celebrities. >> a number of analysts ahead of this ipo today have come out and said despite the fact that i know pinterest has been distancing itself from that social media category have come out and made the argument that, being categorized alongside some of the social media names could be a useful bench mark for valuation. what do you say to that? >> we're just really focused on making it clear how people actually use the product. the reason we focus on things like inspiration and planning in the future is it's the best representation of how people are using it every day. >> you have a new constituency today amongst the various ones that you service and that would be public shareholders. do you -- have you thought about how you're going to go about changing the way you do your job

if at all giving you're now a public company >> our goal is just to continue focusing on making the product great over the long-term and we want to have a good relationship with our investors and make sure that they understand where we're headed and that way i think we'll both be on the same side and it'll be a win-win for everyone. >> we'll be following the company from here on as well. what would you tell us should be our focus in terms of the progress that you're making towards your goals when we look at various metrics at pinterest? >> you know, when i run the company as the ceo, i always focus on how people use the product first. so we're going to focus on continuing to grow globally. we also want pinterest to be a great place for businesses to inspire the people that are on the platform. those are the two key players and i would focus on those. >> which means what? weekly users, length of engage >> we shared with investors that we often look at maus as an

indication of how many people are using the product and we look at the average revenue per user. >> in terms of being able to monetize the users' you currently have on the site right now and i realize from an advertising standpoint the folks that do come and use pinterest tend to be ready to make a purchase. you rolled out catalogs, more shopping features, but longer term what does that -- i guess what does that producing opportunity look like on the platform >> the really cool thing about advertising on pinterest is that people are there to get inspiration and do things and that often means buying. so over the last couple years and for the foreseeable future we'll work on bridging that gap between seeing something inspirational and finding a product from a retailer that you trust at a price point that makes sense for you. >> you guys had viable pins not long ago buying the ability to

buy was more integrated in pinterest and interestingly you guys stepped back from that. tell me what was the thinking behind that. what is it that say about your strategy, what's important and what's not important >> we think the most important thing from a users' perspective, they can go from inspiration to action. we're focused on matching those inspirational images with products that are inside those images and doing it from a bunch of different retailers and that's our focus right now. i think transactions, those may come out in the future but we don't have any plans to release that right now. >> huge debate swirling about different classes of stock on new issues and the differences in voting rights. why do that this time? why the difference between b & a? >> we want to make sure we're running the company for a long-term and -- >> are you worried that the

public might have or institutions coming in to the issue would have different ideas about how to run it than you would? >> i think for the most part there should be great alignment but i definitely trust -- know where we want to take it in the future. >> when you first helped found the company, what was your idea? what was your intent what need did you think you were going to fill? >> at the very beginning what we noticed there was a lot of people that collect things and collections say a lot about who you are. i used to collect bugs as a kid which i didn't think would follow me into adulthood, but it did. >> bugs? >> bugs. it's an amazing way to discover things that you might not have ever seen before. >> was there -- in terms of the companies, the brand names that play on it now, right, and have interest in working with people with followers, was there a

patient zero, one that put you on the map as far as you were concerned? >> it's been a little bit more of a slow and steady progress. where we started was with businesses that were really aligned with what people were doing. a lot of folks in retail, a lot of folks in consumer products goods. over the last year or so we started to expand that both to new different types of advertisers and also internationally where about two-thirds of our users are today. >> talk about the international opportunity in terms of the revenue growth that you expect there. is there a cultural difference in the way people use it what's your approach there given international is an important part of the growth opportunity that certainly investors see for the company? >> the funny thing is people are a lot more the same than they are different. here in the u.s., people love to use pinterest for the food they eat, for decorating, forgetting inspiration. we see the same thing internationally. now the content is different. folks in france, they want french respies. they don't want american casseroles, so there's work we

do to make sure the content feels relevant. >> when we got together a few weeks ago you indicated i think that you make visits to peoples' homes. is that right? are you still doing that do you still anticipate doing that and why do you do that >> the most important thing for a consumer company is to make sure they really understand the needs of the people that are using it and maybe the needs of the people that haven't started using it yet. me and my cofounder, evan, we make a habit of going to a few cities, it's not a press tour and we just sit down with people in their homes to find out how pinterest is fitting in their lives. >> this is just a brewing debate lawmakers, advertisers, society at large in terms of misinformation and how tech companies and platforms like yours are addressing it. how do you think about that and

i guess how do you stay proactive about that when something like antivaccination information just seems to be whack-a-mole >> providing inspiration high quality content is incredibly important. on antivaccination, we're not the best place to get medical information so it's not our responsibility to be serving things up so we put a pause on that. we don't claim to be a free speech platform or a place where anyone can publish anything. it's always ongoing. it's not a one and done thing. >> we are in a chapter where we're on heightened alert for things like tech regulation in this country, certainly in europe and countries like australia for things like offensive content and privacy breaches and so forth, does pinterest see themselves as immuned to whatever regulation may come down the line >> i don't really know what

regulations is coming down the line. >> we'd all like to know. >> there are a lot of changes happening and in general, a lot of changes are happening for the better. people like pinterest -- like we touched literally hundreds of millions of people and so we want to make sure that our platform is acting responsibly and in the broader industry that feeling in general is shared. >> have you had to add staff or guard rails that manage content or keep content in a certain lane >> we've always had folks that focus on content safe and we plan to continue doing that. it's just part of the territory. it's not a one and done thing. it's an ongoing investment that's always going to matter. >> we're watching your stock hit i think new highs, up 29%. what do you think in terms of where it was priced and where it's trading right now >> you know, i really am just focused on where it goes long-term. we're dlieded that the opening's happening and it's a fun milestone. we're not overly fixated on the day-to-day movements. >> as you shouldn't be. to be fair while people have

certainly looked at you and say you're a founder, today on paper you're worth an enormous amount of money, does it change the way you think about thermz at all and your approach day-to-day >> i don't think so. pinterest from the start was a product that many of my cofounders wanted to make first for oufrz and then for all the people that use it and that's always been the driving motivation behind t. we're really just excited that now that we're a publicly traded company we have more resources that will enable douse that and we're excited about the future. >> was there ever a debate about whether you would go public one day if you could were you a proponent of that from the beginning >> i don't think we ever contemplated that in the beginning. it's surreal to be here at the new york stock exchange. we're just appreciative of the opportunity and excited about the future. >> last thing i have to ask you, past or profitability, expectations or targets investors should be watching for the next couple of years

>> over the last couple years, i'm excited the business has made a ton of progress. we've built out the ad business. we plan to continue operating it that way. >> we mentioned earlier that we saw you on code conference two summers ago maybe. >> maybe three. >> time flies, but you have not been, i would argue, widely public in your appearances. are we going to see more of you? are you prepared for that component of leading the company? >> i don't know. i'll have to find out. >> are you going to come back here, for example? >> i'll probably come back. i am pretty focused on our users and the product. i think that's appropriate for the company. >> we hope you'll come back. >> thank you. i really appreciate it. thank you. >> congratulations. >> thanks. >> ben silverman of pinterest. i think we're going to switch our focus to zoom, am i right about that which, of course, opened at the nasdaq today.

opening trade of 65. jon fortt's got that. >> i am here at the nasdaq where zoom opened for trade just minutes ago, quite a pop. right now it is up about 75% from where it priced and i'm with founder and ceo eric yuan, congratulations. >> thank you. >> a couple years ago pinterest was valued right around where it is now around $12 billion. you were less than a billion dollars. today the public markets have given you a valuation higher nan theirs, are you surprised? >> yes, i'm very surprised. our hard work -- we never thought about this as a price but, again, we are price is out of our control. >> you said that you could have made grown faster, certainly grown your workforce faster but you've been careful of the culture, you've also managed to be profitable. right now investors clearly

expect a break neck pace of growth from you, what does this ipo do to the way you look at growth >> i think, first of all, we started from s&p customers. we really want to have our -- really help our company brand. with that, our enterprise will take off from here. >> how determined are you to remain independent >> i think really boils down to our employees. i always told our employees, if you're very happy and do all you being, i think we'll be okay. >> enterprises use to chart how

successful they are, you guys scored pretty high but you're up against the likes of cisco. >> yep. >> microsoft, adobe, et cetera. how do you look at big company competition, what's going to continue to give you an edge now that you're publicly traded? >> those companies are all great companies. i admire them a lot. most of time we do not spend, you know, looking at competitors. we spend time to care about our customers. we want to understand what's the pinpoint from a customer side. we want to be the first company to understand the customer's pinpoint. to come up with a solution to take care of the customer. if we keep doing, that the customers will trust us.

we do all we can to make sure our customer happy. >> i believe about 18% of your business is international at this point, is that right? >> that's right. >> if you're going to grow, a lot that have growth is going to have to come internationally. does the premium model you've had work as well outside the u.s. as it has inside? >> absolutely. anywhere from japan, europe, just go to our website and for the big enterprise customers, our reps can talk with them. there's no limitation in terms of where we should offer our service. anywhere you can subscribe to zoom service. >> i believe about 55% of the 334 customers you have that are paying last year more than $100,000 for zoom services, they came in first through some free account. is that number going to stay that high or do you have to hire more sales people to fuel growth >> i think it'll be higher.

to be a public company, more brand awareness, working harder. i think that number will be much higher down the road. >> why it sales force toss in $100 million >> we really wanted to embed zoom in our business applications. that's why we -- all the reps live on platform to have much better integration between zoom. i think that's a new brand for us to work them all closely. >> what happens when the economy turns down when they're making money, when there's money to go after, spare no expense to coordinate to understand what regions to go. when the economy turns down and it's been hot for a decade, what

happens? >> if a economy turns down, guess what nobody's going to travel any more. everybody's going to use zoom. i think it's better for us. >> i want to ask you about your own journey to this point. i'm not sure you expected a few months ago necessarily to be months ago to be a paper billionaire, but you are today with the stock doing what it's doing. and certainly a few years ago when you were looking to get into the u.s., your visa was denied several times >> eight times. >> what is your message on the day your company is going public to people who are crafting policy on immigration? >> i would say, you know, the united states is a great country, american dream. i think all of the paths is an open culture on immigration can come here. i think it's always good, an open culture to embrace all of the people from all over the

world, diversity is always good. i think it is such a short-term problem. i think i have a high confidence i'm very optimistic. this american culture i think will last forever. >> you have a video conferencing product which you said will allow people not to necessarily have to travel, yet you're based in san jose. a city i know well i lived there about 14 years it's expensive there do you stay in silicon valley? is it important to be there when technologies like yours allow you to live anywhere >> i think with zoom, video conferencing you can live anywhere with any device, talk with customers and partners. there are so many different companies -- when we started many years ago, we did not have physical office. we lived on zoot platform. i think much better employee engagement, the cost, employees have more flexible time. i don't think there are any issues to living in a zoom

platform can you live anywhere and work together today. >> what's your take on the american economy, not only powering your growth right now but helping this company become what it is >> i'm very optimistic i think america's economy will do better and better in the future it's a great culture, open culture. everybody's working very hard. i think bright future ahead of us. >> eric yuan, founder and ceo of zoom i will make the is long reach and shake your hand. big day for you and ipos in general. congratulations. back to you. >> john, to that point the other big debut has been pinterest that's a nice split screen of the two big issues today both continuing to surge in early trading. pinterest's ceo did skploin us a few moments ago and explain what that means for all investors. >> our goal is focus on making the product great in the long term and have a good relationship with our investors and make sure they understand

where we're headed and i think we will both be on the same side and win-win for everyone. >> interesting to hear him responding about anti-vax, saying we're not a free speech forum. >> we go back to the argument and point pinterest is making they're not a social media company and they're much more focused on engagement and pins and basically driving advertising revenue tied to a user base that comes with a very high intent to actually make purchases. looking at shares of pinterest up 27% incredible day at both exchanges on the heels of this i thought it was interesting in our conversation with silbermann when he said he goes and he visits with consumers at their houses to get a feel what they're interested in. >> yes, zeroed in on maus as metric to watch, talked about

defending quite plainly the dual class structure and these special billing rights for class b, which the public is not buying today let's get back to the nasdaq john ford, as we pay attention to what happened over there today. >> thank you, carl i'm here now with nasdaq ceo dina friedman. thank you for having us here. >> thank you very much for being here it's been a big morning. >> it's been a big morning for ipos i think zoom turned out bigger than a lot of people expected. clearly up 75% right now what does the process look like from where you're sitting? >> i think, first, it comes down to the company and zoom as an enterprise software business demonstrated they can grow, they have resiliency and loyalty among their clients. their solution is quite sticky once it's integrated into your office and work flows, it's a very sticky business i think they've been able to demonstrate that on the road and done a great job of bringing in

investors. >> i have to ask about processes again because you had lyft about three weeks ago. the nasdaq's job is make sure things open smoothly it did that. but then the price has just tanked, price discovery wise it's been the talk of a number of companies looking to go public what happened there? >> first of all, we're very proud to have lyft as part of our list of companies, and they are great business in and of themselves i think they have a long-term vision it's very important investors evaluate these companies over the long term and their ability to execute on what they do discuss while they're on the road it's very early days for lyft. they have a long road, no pun intended, to go down to make sure they're executing on what their plans are. but they have big plans, and i think they've done a great job of execution across their business so far. i believe it'sreally important to look at them over the long term and not just the last few weeks. >> has there been any change in the way you communicate or that companies looking to ipo have

communicated with you based on how that price discovery process has gone on with a company like that what are you telling them? what are they asking you >> yes, first of all i do believe most companies understand every ipo is its own story. they look at their own business model, they look at their own access to investors and capital, the conversations they had with investors and advisers and they do recognize that their story will be its own making so they have to demonstrate that they have a long-term view they have a long-term plan i don't believe, qualifications with clients have not changed on the basis of one ipo they're looking at this over the long term to know there's a healthy market, healthy demand overall for companies. >> how healthy is the ipo market right now? and do you expect the conversation about that health to shift based on what happened here today >> i think, first of all, it's been healthy for a while so we had 118 ooicipos last yead

50 so far this year. it's a healthy marketplace there's a lot of pent-up demand still, given the companies that want to come out this year so i would say it's been pretty steady we had that one time during the fourth quarter that people got a littlenervous about how things would look going into '19 and it just recovered so it's been a strong environment for ipos and obviously today is a great day for the markets in general but i think it's also reflective, again, of the story of zoom and the strength of their business. >> some years ago not too long ago there was talk about regulation and logging down the ipo market, that companies were not going to want to go public what happened to that? >> i actually still think there are some real impediments to companies wanting to tap the public markets earlier in their life cycle the companies coming out now are multi billion dollar companies that waits years to go public. what we want is companies early in their life cycle to give more

of the average investors access to their growth as they're younger companies and not waiting necessarily until they become great 10 billion companies to tap the market. we continue to see impediments for companies wanting to tap the markets early in their life cycle. >> after a day like this, how is your call volume going to change to exactly that point, sizes of companies interested in going public >> we are seeing more and more, particularly in the enterprise software space and cloud space there are a lot of great companies out there that are in obviously i would say $1 billion to $2 billion range that are recognizing the market is wide-open for them if they can demonstrate consistent growth and show the resiliency of the business model in terms of stickiness to their clients and show scaleability like zoom has done to have a path to profitability, i think they will find their market is very receptive. >> zoom was $1 billion to $2 billion a few months ago probably some of those companies have a photo of eric yuan on their mirror now. >> the ability to grow in such a

short period of time and get to profitability is what distinguished them >> adena friedman, thank you very much. john, don't go too far dow up 100 points, s&p back to 2902 it's worth taking a moment to frame what a morning we've had two very successful issues at least at this point both here for both exchanges the political media continues to dissect the mueller report as headlines are popping every few seconds here and then if you think that's not enough, next week the earnings are truly -- it's the week, it's microsoft, coke, cat, boeing, twitter, amazon, tesla and a lot more. >> it is and there's quite a number of earnings this morning and you can see that in the s&p as well. it's leading everything higher the industrial names like that are all better than expected but quite the hour what is the take from the nasdaq

right now? >> morgan, this is just the first few minutes. not even an hour remember how people were talking about that other ipo three weeks ago just minutes in, it's a long journey. the companies seem to know that. they say the outlook is for investors and we try to keep them educated. guys >> john, great work. fascinating day as we continue to watch the session we will see what happens this afternoon. let's get over to "the half" at hg. >> carl, thanks. i'm scott wapner welcome to "the halftime report." our breaking news, two surging ipos, mueller report released in the past hour. and big well-known market watcher say stocks could be prime for a short-lived pullback because of weakness in a sector that could cause a lot of money to rotate out of it. welcome, we will discuss all of that with our investment committee today, many josh brown, steve white, our chief equity strategist, and courtney gibson, the president of luke