Get things done. Alisa global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. Im alisa parenti. This is bloomberg. Bloomberg technology is next. Johnson, in for emily chang. This is bloomberg technology. More problems for over including for uber, including a criminal investigation. Plus, amazon and microsoft taking the lead. We will hear from top executives at each firm. And a japanese billionaire and the founder of softbank, his first break and how he closed the investment of a lifetime with jack ma. First, our lede, the continuing saga of ubers legal troubles. The Company Facing two additional criminal investigations. Eric newcomer uncovered the scope. He joins us now. When i saw the notes this morning, im like, really, havent we done this already . Ive got to think the Legal Department at uber is feeling the same way. Eric it takes a long time for things to wind their way through. We knew about three criminal probes before. We are recording two new ones. We are now up to five. Cory these are all federal . Eric yes. Cory why are there five . Why isnt there one big one . Eric there are five different areas of focus. But, quickly, we have bribery, fcpa cory foreign corrupt practices act. Eric we have one rooted in the waymo fight and how they obtained whether they obtained trade secrets there. We have pricing. Cory thats the pricing the hell Software Program . Eric pricing is the one we know the least about specifically. Uber separated what it charges consumers and what it pays drivers, and there are a lot of questions around how it does it and how it calculates price. Cory they might be charging you and me different prices to go to the same place at the same time because you are loaded and im not. Eric there are lots of questions about pricing. Those are under investigation. Hell and greyball are the areining two, and they software. Hell was learning about competitors. Lyfts api, their public data, seeing where drivers were, learning about them. You are not allowed to violate a competitors terms of service when you agree to scrape the data. The general understanding is you will follow the rules they give you about it, and uber might not have. Cory which pieces are new . Waymo going criminal and the fact that pricing is under a criminal suit as well. Cory the suit between waymo and uber is imminent. There was a delay when some new information came out. When their internal investigation at uber became part of the record and that paused the trial. Whats the effect on the trial thats about to happen . Eric theres a risk that it could slow down. If people start getting subpoenaed or are worried they are going to have to plead the fifth, its possible that it slows it down. It depends on ubers desire to do so. So far, they wanted to move along and get this resolved. Cory its interesting. Having a new ceo and perhaps a new philosophy from many new Board Members might change the way they want to fight against these things. Its not just the sins of the past. The old uber might be very different from the new uber. Eric there is a question of how much they are trying to defend past behavior versus saying we have reformed, separated from their old ceo, changing the general counsel, firing a number of people after holders investigation. That question, whether they are positioning themselves as a new company or the same old company defending themselves, is an open question on some of these probes. Cory eric newcomer, thank you very much. More coverage from the geek wire summit in seattle. The biggest players in the area, amazon and microsoft, reviewing their efforts to improve diversity within their ranks. Joinsder Singh Cassidy us for a company that connects boards and qualified female candidates. She was a former executive at amazon. Good to see you. Tell me what you are doing at geekwire in seattle. Sukhinder im here talking about my favorite topic these days, diversity in tech and Corporate Governance, and, boy, are they intersecting right now. Cory whats the audience in terms of that message . Whats new in that conversation . Sukhinder in terms of whats new in the board of directors conversation, i think we need to look back to the last nine months, even here in the valley. Of course, we can look to hollywood right now for much of the same unfortunate news, which is, boards of directors being surprised by allegations against the ceo, which brings sexualharassment or Sexual Misconduct allegations. I think what we are really learning is that Corporate Governance is behind in the valley and particularly behind when it comes to matters of gender. Cory it doesnt seem like there are a lot of surprises that relate to hollywood. As it relates to Silicon Valley, this horrible behavior by some individuals is kind of an amazing thing. When i think of it from an investment standpoint, we know the companies that have diverse boards, diverse leadership outperform as investments. What message i would think that is a very convincing message to give to boards, because they want their stocks to do better, because investors want them to do better. But for you, when you are meeting with these executives, meeting with these boards, what message wins the discussion . Because no one is against this. Sukhinder no one is against it, so we all wonder why doesnt it happen faster. I spend the vast majority of my time talking to private company ceos, far more than public. Because i think the opportunity ity to changeers the direction of their companies. Most are driven by venture capitalists which brings one perspective, but it lacks the operating perspective. It lacks having a peer in the room. It lacks having the expertise you need in the room around Customer Engagement or acquisition or in culture or who your customer is. These are perspectives missing from the boardroom that could significantly change the probability of success for a founder. Those are the arguments that hold the most weight, which is an independent board and a board that brings extra expertise that, quite frankly, you dont have in the company, gives you a better chance of winning the day. At the end of the day, thats what founders care about. Cory amazon, an infamously difficult place to work, you worked there for a while how is amazon doing in terms of diversity . Sukhinder i think its a great question. Its no surprise if you survey all the tech companies, the large ones, whether you are talking about the big four or five, all of them have diversity challenges, and they have been transparent ensuring that data. What i think is more encouraging than not is that they are all actually sharing that data, which we dont see in private Company Dynamics and thats part of the problem. There is a lack of transparency in smaller companies. At the larger ones, i think this is going to be a multiyear battle, at amazon included, in order to get a gender equal and a diverse set of talent to the table on every job and in every role and at every level. I think amazon is not fearing any better or worse than google not faring any better or worse than google or facebook, but recognizes this is a multiyear challenge. Cory do the headlines of weinstein and the Weinstein Company and Harvey Weinstein does that help the cause . Sukhinder for sure. Look, i mean, you know, as much as we look at theboardlist as a positive force in the industry and very solutionoriented, i dont think anyone can take away from the power of repercussion in the negative sense, and i think the Harvey Weinstein case in some ways just reinforces much of the same bad behavior weve seen at Certain Companies and the repercussions for the ceo or for the investors or the Board Members for not being aware. So, although its a negative case and its unfortunate that thats what it takes to bring attention to the issue, i think whenever there is real loss of power or status or money, you know, people finally take action. So, to answer your question, yeah, whats happening with Harvey Weinstein does help the cause, even if its an unfortunate case. Cory sickened her Singh Cassidy, thanks a lot sukhinder Singh Cassidy, thanks a lot. Tells the story of his most profitable investment. And we are Live Streaming right now on twitter. Check us out on weekdays, 5 00 on the east coast, 2 00 on the west coast. This is bloomberg. Cory a story we have been watching, qualcomm fined a record amount by taiwans Fair Trade Commission for violating antitrust rules for at least seven years, collecting licensing fees from local companies during that time. Qualcomm disagrees with the decision and intends to appeal. Softbanks founder invested in more than 1000 companies, but one investment looms above all, an early that on alibaba. Nvestment. About the i it is considered to be the most successful investment in the history of mankind. Q invested roughly 20 million in alibaba you invested roughly 20 million in alibaba. 20 million to 90 billion is a return of about 4500 . Jack ma is a very distinct wish individual, now one of the most very distinguished individual, now one of the most what made you put in 20 million . He had no business plan. Maybe 35, 40 employees. But his eyes was very strong, strong eyes, strong, shining eyes. I could tell from the way he looked,the way he he had charisma, he had leadership. His Business Model was wrong. Its the way he talked, the way he can bring Young Chinese people following him. Before you who was so famous, you made an early investment in it which was before yahoo was so famous, you made an early investment in it which was profitable. How did you hear about it . I convinced them to take 100 million of our investment. At the time, we negotiated we agreed, they grew from 15 to 35 people, and we invested 100 million to own 35 , and actually t ipo and made a 1. 2 million into yahoo japan, 2 million startup capital. We owned 60 . Lets talk about one big mistake. You are making a lot of internet investments around 2000, 1999, 2001. The market went down and the tech crashed. It is said that you personally lost 70 billion of net worth. The greatest loss that any human being has ever suffered financially. How did you feel losing 70 billion of net worth . One year before that, actually, my net worth, personal net worth was increasing 10 billion per week. [laughter] so, for three days i became richer than bill gates. Did that upset him . No, before i told to anybody crashing. Tock started ok. So, in sixmonth after that, our share price went down 99 . Bankrupt. Ost went and somehow, i survived. Cory great stuff. Watch more of the interview with the softbank ceo on the David Rubenstein show peertopeer conversations on bloomberg. Com. Coming up, we are talking startups, cats, dogs. Next. This is bloomberg. Cory the seattle tech scene isnt all about amazon, microsoft, and vmware. Seattle is also home to a startup scene. Greg, how would you characterize this . I want to get to lots of cots cats and dogs questions. How would you characterize the startup scene in seattle . What drives it . Greg first of all, great to be with you. The start of seen in seattle i think is really driven by engineers. One of the things that seattle, thanks to the university of washington, amazon, microsoft, has is an incredible engineering backbone, incredible engineering talent, mojo which most of which has been imported here, so we really benefit from engineering talent. Its a the heart of most Great Technology startups. Cory so, really sort of focused on the geeked out part of it, whats technologically possible, as opposed to a marketing focus a la steve jobs or a product focus . Greg i definitely think we have one of the things we are looking to have this just really Strong Technology folks. So, we are compared to, say, Silicon Valley. We have a lot of strength in engineering and the hard science around big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing. Those are really areas of strength for seattle vs. Anywhere else in the world. So, you will see a lot of Great Companies in those areas from here, as well as other Companies Like ecommerce. Mobile grows well here. We have certain areas of strength, but engineering in particular. Facebook and google and a lot of the Large Technology companies have opened their second largest, other than Silicon Valley, engineering hubs here in seattle, so we really benefit from that in the startup world as well. Some of those people eventually fall in love with the city. Those of us in the venture area can take advantage of some of the great folks who come from the amazons, microsofts, facebooks, googles, that ultimately want to go and start a company. Cory my friends make sure they dont do recruiting in february. They make sure it is when it is sunny and wonderful. Tell me about rover. Rover is the Worlds Largest dog sitting, dog walking, overnight care company in the world. We have hundreds of thousands of customers. Of incrediblends sitters. It was an idea that really stemmed from an issue i had at a kennel where we took our dog. My parents were out of town. I couldnt find someone to watch our dog. I took the dog to a kennel, and it was one of the worst experiences ive ever had. I thought someone could do this better, maybe someone down the street who wanted to make a little extra money, who would love our god as much as we would. That was the birth our dog as much as we would. That was the birth of rover. It is something special. Cory the over uber of dog sitters. Feel free to correct me. How has the business grown . How big is it . Why is it important that it started in seattle, if at all . Greg so, its across the united states. Every city of any size has rover sitters and dog walkers. Its in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Its a real business. One of the nice things about this business is, if youre going out of town, its not a nice to have to have someone watch her dog. Someone needs to watch your dog. Rover is a superior, less expensive, and better all solution for people that really love their pets. So, thats why i think it has really caught on. The other reason it has grown so well is it has an Incredible Team of people that are passionate about dogs and theyve really done on incredible job of executing on this vision of every dgog every person should be able to have an experience the love of a dog. For those of us who have dogs, i have older kids now. They are not the ones greeting me at the door anymore. Its the dog who comes running up and is looking me on my face. Everyone should have that experience if they can. Cory not every startup provides the added benefit of getting licked on the face. Thats great stuff. Ruin the lastto of my excuses of why i dont get a dog, so im hoping my kids are not watching bloomberg tv right now. Greg your kids should definitely get on that. Cory you are not helping the argument. Thank you, greg got us in greg gottesman. Thanks a lot. We appreciate it. Coming up, microsoft is taking on Amazon Web Services head on. We will look at their latest moves and the ways they are going after the big cloud business. And if you like Bloomberg News, check us out on the radio. Check out Bloomberg Markets with me and carol massar on the radio every day. We watch new york, boston, and the bay area. We are on bloomberg. Com, also in the u. S. On serious siriusxm. This is bloomberg. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Mark im mark crumpton, and you are watching bloomberg technology. Lets check first word news go President Trump will try to sell his tax plan in pennsylvania this hour. Is expected to say that the typical American Household would get a 4000 pay raise. Bloomberg television will carry the president s remarks beginning at 5 45 p. M. New york time. The president welcomes canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau to the white house. The meeting came at the start of a new round of nafta talks. Afterward, trudeau spoke to reporters at the canadian embassy. Thee minister trudeau president and i agree that the goal of the nafta negotiation, the goal of any trade negotiation needs to give opportunities to our citizens to succeed in an increasingly globalized world, to benefit from the opportunities that trade can give in a fair way. Thats the president s focus, and its certainly my focus. Cory 20 people are confirmed dead in what authorities call some of the most destructive wildfires in. Californias history about 8000 firefighters in californias history. About 8000 firefighters are battling the flames. Four deaths from hurricane marias aftermath are being investigated as possible cases of a urinespread disease that is raising concerns about exposure to contaminated water. Much of the island is still without power. The death toll is at 45. The u. S. Led Coalition FightingIslamic State says it wont accept a negotiated withdrawal from hundreds of militants in raqqa. Anies are scrabbling to save estimated 4000 civilians trapped in the city. Im mark crumpton. This is bloomberg. Its just after 8 30 thursday morning in syd