Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Best Of Bloomberg Technology 20170

BLOOMBERG Best Of Bloomberg Technology March 4, 2017

First to our lead. Snap wrapped up its first day of trading thursday. Shares closed up 44 from its listing price. It reached a high of just over 24. 28. Fore closing at the maker of the disappearing photo app ended a long tech ipo drought. We caught up with our Bloomberg Technology reporter alex barinka and sarah frier, who covers snap. If you think about the range, typical ipo, 20 to 30 . This one will have more buzz baked in. If you look at twitter, it was, what . 70plus percent on day one . Facebook less than 1 . When i look at trading and how the stock was around that 25 mark all day, it was stable. We saw it selloff towards the end of the day, but it seemed like a decent way to go out. No one is complaining about the ipo for investors. It has almost tripled its ipo value, facebook down 31 after one year. Twitter, down 10 , now down 65 . Talk us through the managing of expectation. The roadshow was not all smooth. Many questioning the user growth. Absolutely. This is a company trying as hard as it can to not set up those comparisons to facebook and twitter. This is a company that does not want to be judged on its user growth, but it will be judged on its user growth, a metric that slowed in the Fourth Quarter, and if you dont have the users, you cant make the money off the ads, but the argument is the User Engagement on its app is so immersive and so frequent, it matter as much quantity as the quality. That is a Pretty Amazing statistic. Goldman sachs had their role cut out for them. They were stabilization for the entire trade, and they took their time. They did. They did take their time. What i can tell you now is you saw bobby and evan ring the bell. I disappeared, chasing them down because they went to Goldman Sachs to watch the first trade happen. They had to work through that, and the shares finally started trading at 11 19, so you can see the gap between the 9 30 open, and it was so important to find that sweet spot to get this pop. You saw them price at 17 a share, even though the deal was 10 times oversubscribed, so maybe they could have priced a little higher, that if you think about the companys impetus for pricing it at 17 instead of making 200 million more at 18 a share, doing that kind of reward for shareholders willing to take a bet on them on listing day, saying we will give you more for your return we can ease our way through that trading going forward. You were out there in Silicon Valley. So much hope was riding on the success of this ipo and how it trades because there are other companies waiting to enter the Public Market. How do you think it has been digested in Silicon Valley among the Investor Base . This is a highstakes ipo because there are so Many Private Companies that have ballooned into the billions and tens of billions like uber, and people have been waiting for these companies to go public, but it has not been necessary because there is so much capital available to them on the private market. Also, the markets were volatile. They are looking at this snap ipo, the biggest social media ipo since twitter and saying if they can do it, there is an appetite on the market for these kinds of deals and for highly valued stocks. You are talking to sources already. What are they saying . Snap is younger. They would go public when they were less mature. That hasnt been the case these days. Snap is going against the grain by going out as early as it was, and there has been these arguments in the past year where the buy side in equity markets has been risk off. They want to see more stability, but snap is coming out with an Unprofitable Company whose Business Model is probably about six quarters old, and the deal itself did well. There are still questions about the longterm returns, where the stock goes, how the company fares, but this is a proof point saying maybe staying private forever is not necessarily the best thing. Maybe having your judgment day in the Public Market is just as good as doing it privately with basically the same investors, big crossover names. Uber, airbnb sarah, you also cover facebook. One of the questions is they can copy what they do and do it better with a bigger user base. Absolutely, they can and they have. Instagram copied the stories feature, where people can create daily reality tv shows of their lives. This is a product people are now using on instagram as much as snapchat or more by this point, and this will continue to happen. Whatsapp is a popular chat app. They had a similar feature earlier this year. Facebook is considering doing it too, so this is a constant drumbeat of copying snap. Yes, it harms the potential. We never know how much faster they could have grown if it werent for that. The company does not attribute their loss of growth to instagram, but it is interesting. One positive side, i want to point out that advertisers say it is counter intuitive, advertisers say they can justify buying snap ads because the format is now the same as ads they can buy on instagram. Caroline bloombergs alex barinka and sarah frier. Still ahead, the story of the week, and we catch up with one of the First Investors in snap, jeremy liew of Lightspeed Venture partners. The New York Stock Exchange president discusses snaps trading debut. Take a listen. This is bloomberg. I take great comfort the stock opened at 24 and is trading smoothly around that number. That is what you want on a first day. Especially of a large ipo. Caroline now back to the tech story of the week. A number of Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms will make a small fortune from their investment, like Lightspeed Venture partners. It began as a 485,000 investment. We caught up with jeremy liew and asked what made snap such an attractive investment. Take a listen. When we met evan and bobby and heard about their business, they talked about how there was something missing from social media, how it had almost become a highlight reel for your life, that was creating performance anxiety for people. Unless they looked pretty or perfect, they were not putting themselves on social media. We were just getting this tiny little sliver. And what snapchat did was to bring back the spontaneity, authenticity of communication. You then committed to two subsequent rounds, 8 million. What did you see in terms of the growth, what potential, that now the market is questioning and do still see in terms of Growth Potential . When we first met the company, they had less than 100,000 daily active users. Most recently it is 158 million daily active users, so it has grown a great deal. What we saw at the time was amazing engagement. Many people using the apps many times a week, many times a day. People are now opening the app 18 times a day. When you see that become a habit for people, and when you become a habit, you can build interesting companies. Many feel the growth has fallen below 60 in the last quarter of last year. Is that something you think will accelerate . When you become part of culture and see that user base aging up so it started off with mostly young women, mostly teenage women, teenage girls i suppose, but today, you see that has been spreading to people in their 20s and 30s and beyond. And as you see that broadening, you gain a lot of confidence. What about geographically speaking . They have committed to the developed world only. They said you need highspeed, powerful phones. We are almost hitting saturation point when it comes to the u. S. Is there more room to grow in the united states, where else geographic . If you think about the place with highspeed Internet Connections today, the u. S. , north america, which has 70 million daily active users. Europe is also big, and the rest of the world encompasses more developed telecoms, the middle east as well. Do you need to extend past gen x, millennials . If you look at norway, back in the fall of 2012, snapchat hit the top three in the app store, and that was the one place it got big faster than the u. S. , and there you see it being used by people all across the spectrum, age, gender, and it has become embedded in society, so it gives you confidence that this is something that can become broadly used by everybody. What about hardware . How does that become an important factor . The spectacles are fine. I went skiing with my kids. It was the perfect way to be in the moment and capture some of those memories without it being intermediated with the phone, so it has been a terrific experience. There has been a lot of reporting about your own relationship with evan spiegel. How is your relationship with the business . Was it in part because of some arduous, onerous point of view you put on as seed investors . Over the course of five years, there will be friction and every relationship. What is more important is whether you can work through it amicably and find a decision you feel good about or work towards a common goal, and we did that with snap. The ipo is not an end goal, but an important milestone for the company. Do you think the restrictions you put in place were onerous . Or is that part of being an investor in these companies . We were clear that we were interested in what they were doing and would love to invest in the company in the future, and that is what we have been able to do. Caroline that was jeremy liew. Uber fighting battles on many fronts. We start off with the Senior Vice President of engineering resigning after Sexual Harassment allegations from his previous job at google. He has denied the allegations. Bloomberg obtained a video of Travis Kalanick berating and uber driver. You know what . What . Some people dont like to take responsibility good luck. Caroline Travis Kalanick in an apology an enemy mail to staff it is clear this video is reflection of me and the criticism we have received is a stark reminder. I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up, and this is the first time i have been willing to admit that i need leadership help, and i intend to get it. It is the latest in a series of embarrassing incidents for the ride hailing giant. We caught up with one person to discuss. Ubers Corporate Culture has been in the news ever since susan fowler wrote a pretty scathing blog post about the company. We received basically a video from a long time uber driver who is unhappy with the direction the pay for drivers has been going. Have a listen. In this conversation, travis is talking to some friends about the culture and how the company is doing. Have a listen. When youre coming up [indiscernible] so ryan, you have had to counsel many a ceo and founder through these unflattering moments. What do you tell them when they are in the vortex of bad news . How do you get to the root of what is going on, and know that most of the infrastructure and the company around you is there to hold that information away from you, so you have to be aggressively looking for that. So we been trying to figure it out as quickly as possible. I cant say we thought a lot about whether to write this story, but it seemed to me that traviss personality is central to all these questions. This is a company that has changed the way cities work. He is showing some of his pugnacious personality. Have a listen to the second clip where the driver challenges him about issues around driver pay, and he responsds to it forcefully. You know what . What . Some people dont like to take responsibility good luck. Brad, that was some pretty surprising stuff. What do you think this reflects in terms of ubers culture . Is there a trickle down effect . When you have a ceo who says pugnacious things like that, what does it mean for the Overall Company . This is why the company has been successful. Travis doesnt suffer fools. He has rolled over every regulatory and competitive challenge in his way. He has to be a politician now. He has to deal with these sensitive constituencies. Ryan, im curious to hear what you think. You have known travis for a long time. Do these ceos and founders have a responsibility to be less pugnacious and more politically astute . There is a point. You are fighting as an outsider for a long time. Some make it and some dont, and they are going to that transition now. Im curious to see, you guys get Something Like this dropped on your doorstep. How do you think about the process of assessing that and whether you publish it or not . Uber is a utility. It has changed the way cities operate, and traviss personality and ubers culture is so very much in the news right now, so it seemed to me that we did not have any choice. It is very much topical, and it is another one of these unscripted glitches about the man in the company. Caroline still ahead, we head to barcelona and bring you our interview with the fcc commissioner ajit pai. This is bloomberg. Caroline now to barcelona, where we reported live this week from the annual mobile congress. It was not just tech leaders. Regulators were there too. Including ajit pai. We caught up with him and asked for an update on the at t time warner deal. It is limited to these particular facts, and as i understand it, the parties have structured the transaction so it will not come before us. Give us what that is. The market is already expecting it. Are we going to see more m a in 2017 . Will you allow that to go through . This is a decision for the private sector to make. My job is to review the papers put before me and take a look at the facts and make a decision bassed on the law and precedents longestablished. We spoke with tom wheeler, your predecessor at the fcc, and he was of the view that four players is what is need for the market. I wonder if three would be enough. I cant say what the structure is. It is extremely competitive. After the fcc started its investigation of free data offerings, all four now have unlimited data plans. That is a good thing for consumers. If it is in the public interest, then we would be more favorably inclined to approve the deal. If you see tmobile was sprint, would that still allow for a competitive space . I cant find any papers that present the facts before me. You move to roll back some of the privacy rules surrounding broadband at the moment. This being where customers would have to opt in into certain Internet Service providers to use their data. The question is if this going to be bigger . Will we see a rollback of Net Neutrality and that type of protection no longer in force . This is one of the rules that was going to come into effect on march 2. The only question is what Regulatory Framework can we adopt that preserves a massive incentive to invest in infrastructure across the united states. Caroline europes top tech execs were making the case for less regulation on the continent. The ceo of europes Biggest Phone Company by market value, deutsche telekom, he called to transition to a fifth generation of Wireless Services that would spur growth. For me, it is more important across the globe, for these Global Connected industries. We are connected to people across the globe. We need the same standards in all markets where we operate. It cant be we have 28 regulations in europe. I want to have a harmonized market, a liberal market, so it is better to operate there. It is easier for the networks, so i think the u. S. Model is a good one for the world. What about m a in europe . There has been push back against some m a across some continents. How much is that a frustration . Do you feel consolidation is needed in europe . Consumer prices, which are significantly lower than other markets, there is this huge competition we have. In most markets, we have four mobile operators, and if youre trying to build another network and build synergies, we are not allowed to do so, so it is a quite difficult ecosystem, and if we could cooperate more in the european market, there would be a reconditioning of investment. Caroline coming up, snaps shares soared during its trading debut, but the Company Still has to address slowing user growth. We will dive into the metrics next. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. You can listen to us on the Bloomberg Radio app, bloomberg. Com, and in the u. S. On sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Caroline welcome back to the best of Bloomberg Technology. Im caroline hyde. Now back into the top story, snap shares closing up 44 from its listing price, yet the Company Still has some things to prove. One big concern is slowing user growth. On the roadshow, the company told investors it was due to an issue with its android product, but some were skeptical. We dove into it all with cory johnson and Bloomberg Intelligence. Cory fundamentally for this company come of this process, to grow, it will have to be a better business. It is priced as if a lot of things will work. When i looked through the filings, statements, one of the biggest issues was this rapid decline in user growth. We discussed it a little bit. They have acquired a lot of users, rabid users. The size of the user base isnt actually huge yet. It is half of twitter, fraction of facebook, but may be more importantly, the growth has slowed down dramatically. They had only 5 million users in the Fourth Quarter of last year. Even the quarter before, the user growth was quite slow compared with historical numbers. The few quarters before, there was an acceleration, then the growth rate fellow dramatically, and it coincides exactly with the launch of instagram stories, and that is the most disconcerting thing. Despite the cool filters and other things that snapchat has, instagram is eating their lunch when it comes

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