before pulling back, and you heard janet yellen's concerns and joining us is cory johnson and parker conradthe ceo of one of the companies i just mentioned, and that is zenefits. parker, thank you. first of all, congratulations on your $4.5 billion valuation. parker: thank you. emily: why do you need that kind of money? parker: they are going after some of the largest companies to sell them software. zenefits are going after the 5 million, and there are so many companies out there that there are just a lot of people out there that we need to have conversations with that we need to give pitches to and field questions from, and then there are a lot of folks we need to hire. long-term, a lot of the costs are frontloaded, so when you want to go very fast and very far, you are going to burn a lot of gasoline, and so in this car we are driving at high speed and want to get a lot of customers we have got to make like the mother of all pitstops to fill up on gasoline and beef jerky. emily: i appreciate the metaphor. you and i have been speaking over the last year. how do you as these eeo make the d

i'll speak with parker conrad a c.e.o.hat just raised $500 million. ♪ emily: this is "bloomberg west." i'm emily chang. the money keeps flowing for tech startups and shows no signs of slowing down. last week a firm raised $275 million. a drone maker pocketted $75 million. and zen fitz scored $500 million. are things getting a bit too bubblely here? cory johnson and i spoke with parker conrad, the c.e.o. of benefits. cory: basically a lot of businesses -- there are so many of these companies out there that there are a lot of people we need to have conversations with and get pitches to and field questions from. there are a lot of folks we need to hire. long-term the business looks very profitable but a lot of those costs are front-loaded so when you want to go very fast and very far you're going to burn a lot of gasoline. this car that we're driving at high speed and we want to get a lot of customers we have to make the mother of all pit stops to fill up on gasoline and beef jerky. emily: i appreciate the metaphor. we have b

emily: we just heard from zenefits parker conrad there.ut the company raising $500 million in its latest round. in light of the messaging app secret shutting down after it raised more than $35 million are these investments secure? how do they make sure investments will be spent responsibly? after one of them bought a ferrari. parker: i think it is very risky all around. emily: risky or irresponsible? parker: it certainly can be an irresponsible thing. -- mike: it certainly can be an irresponsible thing. i think the worry is that it changes incentives. emily: once you give these guys money, how much follow-through is there? how much are you looking at how are they spending it? did they buy a red ferrari? mike: the important thing is how are they thinking about spending it before they raise it? ideally investors will spend time with the management team. emily: do you think investors knew they were going to take that much money off the table for themselves? mike: they agreed to it. whether they knew it was going to be spent on red ferraris. e

cory johnson and i spoke with parker conrad, the ceo of zenefits.ker: basically a lot of businesses out there are going after a couple thousand of the largest companies in america to sell them business software. there are so many of these companies out there that there are a lot of people we need to have conversations with, that we need to give pitches to, and that we need to field questions from. there are a lot of folks we need to hire. long-term the business looks very profitable, but a lot of those costs are front-loaded, so when you want to go very fast and very far, you're going to burn a lot of gasoline. this car that we're driving at high speed and we want to get a lot of customers, we have to make the mother of all pit stops to fill up on gasoline and beef jerky. [laughter] emily: i appreciate the metaphor. we have been speaking a few time over the last year or so. a year ago it was a $100 million -- a $500 million valuation. is it scary to take on this responsibility? parker: definitely, you know there is a little bit of celebration. i thi

benefits and the ceo parker conrad is the luckiest guy on the planet. what he plans to do with the new $500 million cash infusion. >>> did the pilot of the doomed germanwings plane which crashed in the french alps make a few practice attempts before he carried out the real thing? crashing to kill. >>> think the bird flu won't affect your turkey craving? november, thanksgiving is so far away. you are wrong. millions of you could be buying year old turkeys or forced to occur tofurkey. as the dow goes negative for the year. let's start the "countdown." but we begin with stunning breaking news. how it apparently was. that's the cover of the "new york post" right after the super bowl indicating that tom brady of the new york patriots must have known that the balls that he used were deflated to give him an advantage. the nfl released this, a 243-page report of the investigation, the nfl commissioned on this issue, and the report concludes that new england patriots employees intentionally deflated footballs in the afc championship game. nfl officials started i

parker conrad joining us this morning.e or anything. can you walk us through the business model and talk about why there's such potential for growth. >> well basically, any business in america with less than a thousand employees has this problem they have 20 different systems related to hr. things like payroll, medical insurance, 401ks. because all the systems are disconnected, any time you hire or terminate someone you have to add or remove them from 20 different places. that creates all the administrative work and what zenefits does is take the different systems and connects them up and we give companies and employees a single place to do everything. that saves everybody a ton of time. kind of the wrinkle in the business models we give the core system away for free and we make money. >> we mentioned dan. prior rounds have included founders, coast at that ashton kutcher. are you worried at all about becoming a poster child for sorts sorts? >> i don't know too much about the broader markets for this stuff but what i can te

emily: ok parker conrad, ceo of zenefits. thank you for joining us. coming up, what happens next after a company goes through a major funding round, like zenefits just did, how do you make sure the money is spent wisely? we will look at current valuations and burn rates at tech startups. ♪ emily: welcome back at still to come, the home shopping network is still a booming business even as people turn to online retail. the ceo shares secrets to success. top headlines -- shares in the canadian energy committees is selling off after election results and albert appeared the new democratic party swept from power. they will boost corporate taxes, phase out coal power, scale back support of oil pipelines. a national election in great britain tomorrow. it appears prime minister david cameron may be making last-minute inroads. polls a deadlock, and the biggest you can put maker now gives cameron and miliband the same office to be prime minister and miliband was the favorite last month. we just heard from the zenefits ceo about his start up fundraising round. se

benefits and the ceo parker conrad is the luckiest guy on the planet. cash infusion. >>> did the pilot of the doomed germanwings plane which crashed in the french alps make a few practice attempts before he carried out the real thing? crashing to kill. >>> think the bird flu won't affect your turkey craving? november thanksgiving is so far away. you are wrong. millions of you could be buying year old turkeys or forced to occur tofurkey. as the dow goes negative for the