♪ good mondays morning. i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan here at post nine of the new york exchange. jon fortt has the morning off h. we'll begin with the blackout of several social media sites in sri lanka following the terrorist attacks over the weekend. facebook, what's app, youtube, instagram and snapchat were all blocked in the country over fears that misinformation in the wake of those attacks would be more easily spread. kara swisher joins us this morning. she'll address this in her column coming out later today. all of this has "the washington post" reports facebook's mark zuckerberg is under, quote, close scrutiny in a federal

privacy probe and kara joins this morning to talk about that and a lot more. good morning. >> hi, how you doing >> good. i guess i'm interested to get your take on what appears to be governments around the world no longer trusting social media companies. >> and shutting them down and taking this drastic step and it is absolutely a drastic step to have to do that. this is a country that's been moving more towards democracy and less autocratic because you've seen it happen in more autocratic countries. they're seizing control of it because before something happens, because of the worries of the misinformation would spread in the wake of these terrible attacks so they didn't want more violence on top of violence that's already occurred. so it's an enormously drastic step and one being considered by a lot of countries when they have incidents like this so that it doesn't spin up more violence. i think that's the worry that these social media sites, they sometimes cause the violence or are very important part of the violence or else they in the aftermath they spin up the

violence. the -- it's a real drastic step to be taking. my column in the "new york times" appearing right about now is talking about how i felt that this was a good idea and i cannot believe that i'm saying that because i'm not one to want to shut these services down, but they just don't have a handle on what to do when these things happen. >> that's a wow kara, strong comment to make. especially given the fact that this sets a press dent. this would have been considered outrageous or even unthinkable to see a country flip the off switch on major internet names. you think this is the best thing to do at this point in time? >> i don't know what else to do. how do you control these things is the issue how do you keep it from being used by ma leavient forces. look what happened in new zealand right after the attack. endless loops of videos of the violence itself that these companies, as much as they tried were unable to shut down. precisely because of the way

they've been built to be viral. when you have -- there's been so many incidents around the globe, if you're running a country and you see this happening, even if you're not an autocratic country, you have to wonder what you can do to stop it from happening. these social media sites didn't cause the violence, they've been blamed in other cases by the u.n. and other things for doing that, what do you do when these -- these are not journalistic institutions. they're just wide-open platforms and so is it the same as shutting down a newspaper or television station or is it just a platform that refuses to monitor what's on it, what's running over its platform. it's a thorny question. >> it's going into the looking glass here, kara. >> uh-hum. >> if we are now at a stage where we're choosing harm reduction over free speech, how do you think these companies respond? >> i don't know. the question is, these are private companies. the free speech has to do with the government in this country

at least. the "new york times" doesn't have to publish what you want, carl. it publishes what it wants. you don't get free speech on lots of things. the question is, is this a free speech issue is it a platform harm issue? it's a very complicated topic. the fact of the matter is, these have become public de facto public squares and what i wrote in "the times" is what they've done is knocked the leads off every possible thing that was involved in safety and the question is, can safety turn into hick tock contrasy. even in this country you have politicians using it and spewing lies and is that okay? is that not okay should it be allowed to happen should it not be allowed to happen it's a big and thorny issue not just for this company but the world. it's really complicated. >> to that point, kara, i mean, again, i realize we've had this conversation over and over again

on our air. it again sounds like the implied argument here is that there needs to be some sort of regulation that sets the grounds work whether it's comparing them more to traditional media company in terms of content management or something else >> that's the big question. it's really interesting. my very first column for the "new york times" discussed this, the weaponization of these social media platforms by ma neff lent actors. i think it's not for lack of trying. i visited a lot of these companies last week and they are beside themselves on what to do about this. they were built this way and the way they're behaving is the way they're built. the question is, do you rearchitect it what do you do as it's moving? i think shut it down was the option that sri lanka took, forget it, we're not going to figure it out right now while people have died and there's a possibility of more violence, we'll shut it down temporarily. it's a bad precedent and at the same time i see their point and i kind of support it in that

regard, in these worries of hundreds of people being killed. it's a really thorny question. >> we look forward to reading the column in a little bit here, kara. we'll turn to ipos, pinterest and zoom surged on their debut. leslie picker is back at hq watching all of that after an eventful week. >> it will only continue. the aftermarket performance of zoom and pinterest should bode well for the either ipos on deck that's because investors made about $1 billion between those two deals just based on thursday's performance alone. the better investors feel about recent ipos, the more likely they are to buy into the next one and the one after that. uber is waiting in the rings with a road show to pitch the deal to investors expected to begin in a week or so. it's almost difficult to compare uber to the recent ipos, even lyft because of the size and scale of it. uber is expected to sell

$10 billion worth of stock, five times the stock of lyft, uber and pinterest combined. it does not seem like unicorn ipos taking up all the attention and just this morning, beyond meet set a price range. that company makes plant based meat alternatives and seeking valuation upwards of a billion dollars in its ipo. slack is expected to do its direct listing, an alternative to an ipo without an underwritten deal in the next few months or so. there's no doubt the ipo window is opened but that could all change if a few of these recent ipos start massively underperforming or if the market slumps or volatility spikes. if any, one of these variables changes, investors will have far less appetite for these unprofitable, untested businesses at lofty valuations, guys. >> interesting, leslie, thank

you very much. back to kara on this one. i think that beyond meat valuation is double the prior round. you can snicker at what they do but we'll talk about them when they come to market. >> i don't snicker at them. that's a really interesting question -- i don't snicker at all. that's a really interesting area. no, it is. these are products that people are becoming interested in, the idea of what meat -- not just that, not from a personal point of view, but from a personal point of view. any product like this is interrogatory me. how different these ipos are and lump them all together i think the question is if people can stomach the losses at uber. i spent time with the ceo, you think they're very confident that the people will differentiate it from lyft which has also a money losing business

and what they can do around uber eats and uber freight and some other businesses that are attached to that company. >> to that point, lyft stocks down 20%, 25% since it's ipo. it's really been sort of seen as casting shadow over all of these other names in the pipelines to go public but given the day buz we saw from pinterest, pagerduty, zoom, just to name a few in the last couple of weeks, do you think that narrative has shifted? >> i think they're different companies. zoom makes money and it's in a very different area. it has nothing do with what lyft does. i don't think investors are quite that stupid. sometimes they can be and pinterest is losing less money. i think you have to evaluate each of these based alone on their own. airbnb is a very different situation with very different problems and very different opportunities, i guess. that hasn't obviously come out yet but slack is another one, a really interesting area in business software. and so i think the big one will

obviously be uber because it's so big and complicated and so global that you have to look and see if you really do believe that these companies cannot lose money, especially when they've got challenges like having to pay drivers more which is a big issue. i think it's a big issue with competition and when prices go up, will the demand be there for their services it's an enormously complex company to be looking at as an investor. >> kara, what is the sense in silicon valley right now in terms of all these companies going public, employees, and early investors who may be cashing out in the coming months >> that's been an old story in silicon valley. every time there's some story about house and values go up. i feel great. i have a house in san francisco. it's a question of how many of them go out and i think this is just a round of those unicorns now finally making it to market. the worry i think a lot of people have, including myself,

where are the next ones? where's the next wave of innovation and you can't point to new companies the way you could have pointed to uber and pinterest and slack and airbnb. where's the wave of the next innovation and where does that come from? these ipos are a natural event and again, they'll rise real estate prices and have the typical impact on the bay area which is suffering because of housing affordability. i think that -- i think the question is where's the next level of innovation coming from and will it be in silicon valley or some where else like china or elsewhere. >> that's definitely the worry among some especially given huawei's results in the last couple of days. kara, we'll save that for next time. good to see you. thanks so much. >> thanks a lot. when we return, tech on a tear with the nasdaq looking for its if i have straight positive week although it's right around the flat line right now. we'll look at what's driving the rally next. facebook, microsoft, tesla, amazon only a few set to report

earnings this week. we'll break down what to expect after the break. dow's down 50 points. stay with us. target date fund? 529 plan? a 10-k? what's an etf? an ipo? 401(k)? where do i start? empower yourself with the free tools and resources on investor.gov. before you invest, investor.gov. on investor.gov. we segetting to patientscines in record time. at emerson, when issues become inspiration, creating a better world isn't just a result,

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the journalist this morning reporting that samsung will delay the release of its galaxy fold smartphone originally slated for this friday after several reviewers reported screen issues with the $2,000 devices foldable display. this follows the company's cancelation of the phone's

launch see vent in china. it just wasn't one review, multiple reviewers had trouble with this thing breaking or cracking literally out of the box. >> including our own cnbc team. >> yes, indeed. so we'll see if this delay means bad news in the longer term for the galaxy phone. >> it's definitely one to watch especially since this phone and this whole foldable notion was hotly anticipated and cast that debate between apple and samsung and this idea of innovating and who's on the cusp of that next generation of phones and what will trigger sales in an already saturated market. >> keep our eye on that. that's journal reporting. some breaking news this morning out of treasury and for that we'll go to ylan mui. >> the funds will only be able to pay out a portion of the benefits the seniors are supposed to receive. still the report said that 2020

will be the first year since 1982 that the cost of social security's expected to exceed the program's income, including total income interests. the report also projected that the medicare hospital insurance fund will be zee pleated in 2026. that covers medicare part a and pays for things like hospital stay and hospice. medicare parts b and d will remain adequately finance. the cost is expected to grow from 1.2% over the next 75 years. back over to you. >> ylan mui some startling numbers there. fang stocks building on their double digit gains. nasdaq on a four week winning streak. facebook, microsoft, tesla, amazon all on deck this week. gentlemen, good morning. mark, i'm going to start with you, broad question here, given

the really dramatic rally since the start of the year we've seen in many of these internet stocks, what do you of valuations and where do you see the opportunities going into earnings >> you're right. there has been a big move. all four of the fang names have outperformed year-to-date, partly that's just due to a an egregious selloff in december that left valuations pretty attractively and fundamentals intact. the takeaway you get from netflix earnings is if the fundamental thesis for the year holds then the stock holds. the bar's are high but not super high. we like facebook going into the print. that's going to be wednesday -- tuesday afternoon and then you've got -- wednesday afternoon and amazon on thursday. we continue to like all the names. our top names remain facebook first, netflix second. >> i'll put the same exact question to you, what's your take for valuation for your coverage universe and what are

you bullish on going into the earnings numbers >> valuations are still pretty reasonable on internet. if you look relative to software in technology you still at material discount. we can get $10 of earnings power from facebook two years out and you put a 20 or 25 multiple you still have material upside. so to back-up mark's point, we still like facebook. it has had a big run, up over 25% year-to-date. valuation support still exists. it's a little bit higher across the other tech sectors we cover, so i think there's a little bit better expectation going into software versus internet this q1. >> mark, looking at both you, your universe and brent's universe, a lot of outperforms but not neither one of you for twitter. what's the problem >> twitter is an asset that surprised me with how well it

fundamentally recovered and how well, the stock it over the last two years. i think they have a challenge this year in terms of just tough comps and margins need to come down. they had a couple of really nice events last year including the world cup which generated nice 30 to 40 million in inkreeltal revenue. all of that spend -- you remember that facebook kind of amped up on last year in order for platform security. i think twitter needs to do some of the same things and they're sort of warning people, that's our interpretations that margins need to come down a little bit. if we were going to get constructive on the stock, it would be a timing thing. we'd be looking for this as more of a 2020 stock not a '19 stock. >> i want to dig into facebook a little bit more. you've got this report that the ftc maybe has the ceo in its cross hairs. there could be a multi-billion dollars settlement there, for example. obviously it seems like every day, every week we have another privacy or data issue with that

company. yet the stock continues to go higher right now and the earnings continue to be strong based on what we've seen in recent quarters. what do you see as the biggest downside risks here? >> regulatories the number one question we get, but it's hard to understand what's going to happen. remember, microsoft back in the day when regulatory overhang when baumer was the ceo when the stock went from 30 to over 100. there's been regulatory concerns in the past that we've covered in tech where we're paying attention but we think a lot of that is in the stock given some of these negative headlines. we think fundamentally advertisers are still getting the best roi on the facebook platform. pant line that i love i'm wearing them right now, sweat taylor great pants. you effectively are discovering these brands you would never get to any other way and these brands continue to pay out for that so as mark zuckerberg called out shopping remains one

of the biggest opportunities. we think advertisers are continuing to come to the platform, given the strength of their reach. and so we think regulatory is a big constraint but every one of these platforms is under regulatory control and we think if there is more regulation, the big platforms win and the little guys will lose and that is consistent with a lot of the work we're doing. >> mark, in terms of some of the ipos we've seen, last week we had some pretty strong -- pretty strong smarts from the likes of zoom, pinterest, et cetera. how do you think that reflects back on the broader tech and communication sectors and how does it, i guess, tee us up for the rest of the year and where investors will be putting their money? >> so i think you're teeing up one really key questions for investors, if there is appetite for these new ipos, where will the funds come from and will they sell some of these fang names in order to put -- have

space in the portfolio for some of the new ipos. our call is, that's probably unlikely to happen. there's two pockets of real growth in the economy now, one's consumer internet and one is software. people are going to be take proceeds or funds out of other sectors and looking for growth and you'll find it maybe with some of these ipos. so i think the trend will continue. just one quick point on valuation since it was the first question you asked. you look at facebook, it's at 20 times gap earnings for what is probably 20%, 30% sustain earnings growth. that's still highly attractive even with a recent run-up with the stocks. i don't think it's going to take away from these fang names. the source of funds is going to come from other sectors. >> gentlemen, thanks for joining us today. tesla facing some new controversy ahead of the company's quarterly report on wednesday. our phil lebeau joins us with all the latest and there's a lot of news.

hey, phil. >> we got four stories for you today on tesla all with fresh angles in terms of what things have happened over the last 24 to 72 hours. the video coming to us this morning out of china. now this is in shanghai. this is a security camera. that's a parked tesla model s. you see the explosion there. it appears to catch on fire. tesla says it is going to investigate this fire to get to what actually happened here but already on social media people are saying, wait a second, did the battery pack catch on fire we have no indication exactly what happened with this incident here. meanwhile, take a look at tesla deliveries because this is at the heart of what's going on with tesla in terms of ever core. for the first quarter, the deliveries drop down relative to where they were in the fourth quarter and third quarter. that's why tesla has cut down it's downgraded tesla and cut its price target from 240 to

$330. this is out in northern california, starts a little later on today at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. we should be able to see exactly what elon musk tells analysts and investors. he's expected to outline his plans for a number of issues or possibilities including autonomous ride sharing with tesla and as you take a look at shares of tesla, they report earnings after the bell on wednesday. so a lot of news this week with tesla and it's going to get a lot of attention early this afternoon with the autonomous day. >> yeah. we know you'll be bringing us all of those headlines, phil. we appreciate it. as we head to break, take a look at shares of pinterest and zoom in the first full day of trading after thursday's debut. mixed picture right now with pinterest down slightly and zoom up 2%. but first, take a look at the worst performing stocks in the dow so far in today's session. travelers, nike and pfizer. we g motuch more "squawk alley"

still ahead.

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quick programming note. normally around this time we would bring you the european close but with markets there closed for the holiday that will move to the tomorrow. you could always catch that right here on "squawk alley" at 11:30 a.m. eastern time h. let's get over to courtney reagan for a news update. >> tehran have agreed to form a joint new team for fighting terrorism. carlos ghosn is indicted for the fourth time this over misappropriation of corporate funds. ghosn has denied any wrongdoing, maintaining he's innocent of all charges and the latest charge he allegedly had $5 million channeled to a company he virtually owns. tourists flocked to see notre dame ca teed dral today.

the metro station on the line has also reopened. for fallout over allegation that's kate smith sang racist songs in the 1950s. a philadelphia flier has removed a statue of her. the team also announced it will no longer use smith's rendition of "god bless america" before games. let's get back over to "squawk alley." when we come back, zoom insider and one of its earliest investors joins us after the break on the company's ipo. a look at the major averages. that 100 point loss at the open now a 19 point loss on the dow and the s&p's going green. back in a minute. announcer: the trend tracker live data board is brought to you by the cme group. cme group where the world comes to manage risk.

welcome back. lyft, pinterest, zoom, with some tech biggest names already in the public market and many more still to come. deidre >> so far it's telling us that public market investors don't value start-ups the same way that private markets do. take the latest day buz you just mentioned some of them, zoom valued at $1 billion.

investors decide that it's worth more than 16 times that last private value session. the reverse happening at lyft. it priced its ipo above its last private round and public markets have not agreed. you are starting to see this trend emerging. public market investors are flocking toward the more practical unicorns placing a higher value on less buzzy but more sturdy businesses in software enterprise. venture capital typically puts more money into the promise of highly disrupted industry up ending start-ups. enterprise focused companies like twilio have multiple pliesed value in public markets and far outperformed public companies. the question is, guys, what might that trend tell us about the upcoming pipeline of ipos, uber, slack and the other names that leslie ran through a few

minutes ago? uber the most disruptive name of the year promising to change everything we know about transportation, but losing a ton of money and there's slack, the enterprise success story that has a much clearer path to profitability, carl? >> def ops, i like that. zoom made its debut on thursday. take a listen to that. >> you can talk with the customers, there's so many companies. when we started business several years ago, we did not have any physical office any more. they live on zoom platform. it's much better employee engagement, save the cost. i think -- i do not think there's any issues to the zoom platform. you can live anywhere and work together today. >> let's bring in zoom board member capital general partner

thanks for joining us. >> you're welcome, carl. >> a video conferencing ipo, that will be interesting and then they got everyone's attention, how do you describe the edge that zoom has that might validate that valuation on thursday >> we've been working with zoom now for many years and we've seen how the company delivers, how eric and the team are focused on delivering value to customers. so that's the -- their obsession with customers and making customers happy. they focus on delivering that value and the recurring revenue models that we've been investing in for the last 15 years prove once again that they have value in the market. >> sante, 16 times last private market valuation for zoom now and given the fact that the stock closed up more than 70% on thursday, were you surprised to see that >> i was surprised a little bit, but having worked with eric and

the team there for five years, i have full confidence in the team and i know that they'll continue to focus on bringing happiness and value to their customers. >> you worked with him for a long time and you've written about how in the early days you tried to convince him to come in and get some capital from emergence partners and he wasn't interested. why? >> he didn't need any capital. the company has been profitable for a few years now as you can see in the financials that we've disclosed, and back then as he is today, eric is focused on customers, so the way we were able to bring him in to talk to our team was so that he could sell us on the zoom value proposition. he made us download the zoom client right there and we were able to get started on a video call and it just worked. >> santi, i realize we're still

in very early innings here, but in terms of what's, you know, really standing out and outperforming versus what isn't, enterprise focused companies, more software/cloud focused software have been holding up a lot better than the consumer facing ones. why do you think that is >> we've been investing in enterprise and cloud for the last 15 years. we've seen this over and over again. the recurring revenue nature of these businesses gives them a lot of stronger foundation to build on and as long as you keep your customers happy, you're going to keep renewing and you're going to keep compounding those revenues and the market is starting to notice that. >> so more broadly, santi, as we await other names in this ipo pipe, smaller names in some cases, what do you think is going to characterize this next wave aside from unicorns, as they come to market, what names are

you going to be most interested in >> if i think about what's going to happen next as we've shown with zoom, people are focused not only on growth but they're also focused on profitability and that's in contrast with what we've seen with other companies so i believe in the next ipos, people are going to be focused not just growth at any cost but they'll also be focused on the fundamentals of the business on how profitable they are and can be. >> just to dig into the comments you just made about emergence capital and the types of companies you've been investing in, workforce, coaching networks, in terms of where you think the workforce or maybe i should say the workplace of the future is and what that looks like, how do you envision that >> so the way we work is changing and it's going to change at a rapid pace over the next few years. i keep on finding companies and when i ask them about how they

run their business, where they are headquartered, a lot of companies are headquartered on zoom and that's a new phenomenon even for us. half of our investments last year have been outside of the bay area and that's possible because of zoom, so that's going to demock contraties access to capital for entrepreneurs wherever they are and we're pretty excited that zoom is enabling that. >> you think that's going to result in a wider geographic disburse of capital especially venture capital? >> i think two things. entrepreneurs are going to be able to work from wherever they are and they'll be able to recruit the best people regardless of where those people are. and that's because of zoom. so i believe that zoom is going to be that transformation engine. we're seeing it with the

companies that we invest in that live on zoom. >> santdi, lastly, will you hang on to your shares of zoom specifically i'm not sure if you're subject to a lock-up, but whether you are or aren't when the time comes? >> i have full conviction with eric and the team. we're excited to be part of the early journey and we're excited to see what eric and the team are up to. >> well, obviously watching the stock once again today up another 4%. santi, please come back. good to talk to you. >> thank you, morgan and carl. still to come this morning, uber plans to go public but first, dow's down 15. rick santelli what are you watching >> i'm watching the dollar index. i pay a lot of attention to how the dollar trades. it's been firm lately but it may be telling us more. what tunen tethbrk. iafr e ea sfx: [phone ringing]

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top of the hour today, is this a make or break it week for the rally? dozens of big names reporting their earnings. plus an upgrade now for a tech stock that's already up 40% in three months. our call of the day hits the red hot chip space for a big debate. john najarian joins us. all coming up at noon on the

half, we're about 15 away. see you then. let's get over to rick santelli in the meantime and get the santelli exchange. hey, rick. >> good morning, carl. earnings seasons is always important, obviously, for obvious reasons. there are more subtle reasons that i find it fascinating. especially when we hear from the big multi-nationals because we all know that hedgings expensively and one of the biggest areas where hedging is required, especially when interest rates aren't wild and they haven't been wild, they may be a bit extreme sometimes but they're not wild and that would be foreign exchange. now when it comes to foreign exchange, really the enemy of multi-nationals is indeed those that need the calibration of foreign exchange in their business, whether it's importing, exporting, production, of course, is the volatility ultimately that it isn't the level so much but the

path that causes headaches and expensive hedging. let's think about the dollar index for a minute. look at a five year chart of the dollar index. it's had some volatility and we've had some improvement, but look at the right side it really has been well behaved at lofty levels. let's tighten that picture to early november of 2018. granted there are some range there, when i look at that chart, i see a form of stability that a bit abnormal for foreign exchange. now granted, foreign exchange has a tradition as a technician of long-term trending but this seems more than that. finally, let's go to the board to see part of the reasons, quickly. here's the dollar index and here's the break down in the percentages. i've talked about it many times. there's your answer. if you look at europe as a whole, 57.6, almost 58 of the europo currency affects the dollar index. europe's dynamics are set in

stone and i wouldn't tell you that i'm impressed by them, but then as you include the yen, also locked in, the pounds maybe questioned with brexit. you see the percentages make it daunting to actually change the value of the dollar index especially if you don't have an active euro partner t. having said that, it's not only the dollar index. let's look at the next chart. this is the dollar versus the yuan. you talk about this stability. it's a positive thing. many traders and i have discussed this and what it boils down to is ultimately whether it's the dollar index to some extent or for sure the dollar versus the chinese currency, trade is a big deal right now and manipulating currencies with the new regime and the administration very cognizant of that fact especially with how it plays with trade numbers that ultimately the stability in that trade is most likely the chinese thinking about how rules are going to be enforced.

dollar index might not be crashing to the upside above 97 but it's holding and there's a lot of information in a holding strong dollar. morgan, back to you. >> it is a key discussion, rick santelli, thank you. especially this week which is going to be the busiest for this earning season. up next, the ceo of via is with us. we'll discuss whether an ipo is ahead for via. oue dow's down 13 points right arnd the flat line. more after the break.

welcome back to "squawk alley." the ride sharing competition is heating up. uber ipo heating up uber ipo to come soon with lyft entering the market. what should investors are watching for joining us is daniel remote here at post 9. thanks for joining us today. >> thanks for having me. it's a pleasure. >> there's a lot of increased attention on rideshare with uber, lyft, given the growth we've seen, a lot of questions about the path to profitability. how does via compete >> via takes a very different approach from lyft and uber to the entire market. uber and lyft have come at this from trying to create a better taxi, better ride-hailing situation. how do we create a better public transportation solution and a better bus if you will

it's fundamentally shared between multiple passengers booking on their phones. but we're aggregating all those passengers into a single vehicle, finding the most efficient route and reducing congestion, emission and creating a much more accessible solution because the cost is so much lower >> how would you gauge the lyft and soon to be uber ipos are those a tide that lifts all boats, and if so, how would you assess public market investor reaction so far? >> i think from via's perspective, we certainly hope it's a tide that lifts all boats. it's very good to see companies in the space in the ridehailing, ridesharing space to create value and liquidity for investors. we're certainly rooting for them it would be great to have a strong comp from our perspective. >> once they are done going public, they'll be free to raise their rates. right? and it would be easy to do in a duopoly, no offense to via

do you think they will, and what would that do to you guys? >> the science suggests that may happen there's been a lot of discounting. we see that in the market as well >> every other day it's a 30% off your next ten rides. >> if you are an uber or lyft rider, you're probably seeing it one has tosuspect that that ma change once the ipo is behind them i do think we'll start to see this is a very large market, and there is one solution which is really providing a single passenger not shared ride that has the potential to capture a percentage of the market it's not a particularly large percentage in our view all the rest everybody who is driving themselves, taking the bus or subway someone needs to provide a solution to them or utilize technology to improve experience for those folks. and that's really where we see via coming in. >> in terms of regulatory risks, these other two companies, what's been cited as some of the headwinds around things like congestion pricing here in new york caps on the number of drivers.

some of the other issues we've seen along the way it sounds like because you're working with governments that maybe those aren't as risky for you? how do you think about it? >> absolutely right. what we've seen is these regulations have tended to benefit us in new york city, both new york state and new york city have passed laws recently that have affected how much companies in the space need to pay drivers. congestion fees soon in about a year or two. congestion taxes on all vehicles and trucks those tend to push people more toward public transportation and more affordable modes. that's what we're trying to do having these rules that aim to reduce congestion and via slots sbrit that usually these rules or these laws tend to be very beneficial and also represent in our view good policy, good public policy. >> have you given an update on plans to go public, if you have them >> we are absolutely looking at that as well i think we're probably looking at a two-year horizon, but

absolutely a very interesting -- >> when you look at the lyft financials or the uber s1, are there elements in it that you think that looks like us and other ways where, that looks nothing like us? >> the key is what's -- what kind of segment of the market are these companies attacking versus which segment are we targeting? i think if you think of the market as a triangle, the taxis, ride-hailing companies are tackling the tip of the triangle people who can afford to pay $10, $15 a ride. the bulk of the market at the bottom who can't afford to pay $15 a ride regularly when they need to get some place to work, to the hospital, to visit their grandmother, whatever happens to be those folks are looking to pay $2, $3, maybe up to $5 and finding a way to solve problems for those folks without overwhelming our infrastructure, which is what's happening due to the private car, that's where i think there's a lot of room in the market >> to dig into that, that's part of the reason you're joining us here today

you've launched this earth day initiative making the case for via as well. >> most of our business is shared rides in new york about 5% of our business, people are booking private rides. other cities may be up to 20% or 30%. what we've decided to do for earth day, which is today, obviously, to say we're going to block all private rides. so you cannot book a private ride with via today for earth day and that's what we see a way to make a statement. share a ride make the world a better place. >> interesting >> and speaking of world a lot of attention on the key markets for ridesharing. the new yorks, sao paulos. is there one area, ex-u.s. that you think is just showing incredible growth? >> i think we're seeing tremendous growth in southeast asia that's a really interesting area what we're doing, in addition to running our own services in bigger cities you mentioned, we're also licensing our technology to cities, public transit agencies, at the moment to about 60 of those around the world including in some parts of southeast asia we see a lot of opportunity there. >> elon musk and tesla expected

to announce all this detail around self-driving cars is that the future of transportation is that how you're thinking about it >> to some extent, absolutely. what we've seen in the last 6, 12 months, it's a lot harder than people think to run a fully automated, autonomous service, whether robotaxi or roboshuttle or what have you that's probably going to take longer than people thought where there's room if you can modify the infrastructure, put in road signs friendly to autonomous vehicles and create protective lanes so they have an easier problem to solve, at least my feeling is that's a really big opportunity to try to get at >> dan ramot, ceo of via, thank you for joining us >> happy earth day "squawk alley" is back in just a moment.

welcome back to "squawk alley. big broad range of energy stocks moving to the up side with crude oil trading near six-month highs. let's drill down on some of the refiners marathon, also valero. exxon chevron, all moving to the upside as the trump administration moves to end waivers for the eight countries importing iranian oil. marathon pacing for its best day of trading since mid-february up

more than 5% carl, energy certainly a focus back over to you >> both for the producers and the airlines on the opposite side, dom, thank you obviously, not much tonight. whi whirlpool, but tomorrow coke, proctor, lockheed, utx and others it's going to be crazy let's get to the judge >> carl, thanks. i'm scott wapner make it or break it. is that what's at stake this week with the rally? it's 12 noon this is the "halftime report." >> a huge week for earnings. nine dow components. big tech names like facebook, microsoft and intel. big industrials, boeing and caterpillar. then there's amazon. will the market break the notion we could see the first negative quarter for earnings since 2016, propelling stocks higher plus, the big name