The news comes as the currency fell to a fiveyear low but then recovered. Chairman of China Telecom has quit after an official investigation. He will be replaced temporarily by the chief operating officer. Authorities say chong was questioned about severe violations of discipline. That is code for corruption. Shanghai are being warned to stay indoors. The air is heavily polluted today. The particularys its were 10 times above the internationally safe level. Here is a quick check of the asian markets. Im cory johnson in for emily chang. You are watching bloomberg west. Failure which companies are best prepared for the digital future. How hollywood smashed the sales record for all time. Apple is paying 348 million to settle an italian tax bill. Apple had been accused of evading taxes over the span of five years by booking italian sales through its irish subsidiary. More favorable Corporate Tax rates. Each country where they do business. Explain this tax practice that that these yahoos at apple have followed. Mark they structure some of their sales through the irish subsidiary which is not an insignificant operation for apple. So they pay on irelands Corporate Tax rate which is lower than italy or some of the other european countries. Cory and they got caught. Mark they got caught decades ago. This is an issue they have been under pressure for not just in italy but england and many other countries. It has finally come to a head, where they have made a settlement at least within italy. Cory so they were just trying to reduce their taxes, but you could argue they also have a role in helping to structure tax code in a certain way. These are Companies Whose job it is to make money and profits. Every opportunity you get to structure something to your advantage, youre going to do it. This is 350 million which may be a lot for italys economy. But for apple it is really not a significant use of capital at this time. Also they may end up getting their money back from ireland if italy is claiming these are cory it might not be 350 million after all. Its an issue for a lot of people. Why would you bring it back just to pay taxes on it if you didnt have to . Thats not the role of a corporation. It might be the right thing to do for someone who loves america and who is thinking about what is best for the american economy, but at the end of the day their job is to maximize value for shareholders. There have been a lot of stories about the way they structure their tax deal to try to avoid paying taxes here in the United States where they do most of their business. You made a good point about what type of impact it has to apple. 350 million is not even one days worth of iphone sales. Italy in particular, this is not going to break the bank for apple, but they disclosed earlier this year to investors that other countries could step up and force their hand in the same kind of way, and that would add up to a Material Impact for the company. Cory lets talk about what is going on at yahoo in terms of what the business looks like. You are responsible for the alibaba acquisition. They have done a number of stakes, they have a lot of nice little businesses. Are there really nice assets sitting there at yahoo that are being ignored because of the value of alibaba . People are claiming it is worthless, whereas you have new Media Companies like Business Insider or buzzfeed who are doing phenomenally well, but collectively the revenue is less than 400 million. They are being valued collectively at over 3 million. There is clearly a mismatch between what yahoo is worth and what investors are saying its worth. Most of that has to do with the fact that you have current investors in the company that are paying attention to the return of capital from the Alibaba Investment and they are not focusing on and wont be around when it comes time to think about investing in the core business. Cory i wonder if part of the concern is that let me speak english. They make money on the stuff theyve got, but so much is on the desktop and not on mobile, that with the collapse of desktop pricing that they are withering assets. Its true that if you are investing money in the desktop, five or 10 years from now that is not a good investment. Even though Facebook Says only 25 or 30 of their revenue comes from the desktop, that is still a large amount of revenue. My point is, yahoo has reached a value and a brand. It still has a billion users which makes it the third or fourth largest site on the internet. There is a lot of value inherent in what they build and what can be done with it. The question is, can they make the transition successfully to mobile . It is not like they cannot make it. Cory is there a certain point where you can reasonably say, i have not proven i can make one of those reverse flips, but because i havent done it yet, you cannot assume i will not do it in a year or so. I would like to see you try it. [laughter] i do think, first of all, and ive said this before, but its worth repeating. In the last nine years since i left the company, youve had six ceos, three board turnovers, and an unfavorable tax ruling. Three flips to the board. Its been very difficult to focus on getting the core business executed the way i still believe it is possible and i believe they believe it is possible. I think it is fair to question whether or not is going to get done. This is a company that could benefit from fewer distractions, maybe be a private company, and choose to make big, bold bets on the future. If you look at Silicon Valley, the only companies that last are the ones that constantly invest and reinvest and make multiple bets and have some of them fall. It is difficult under the circumstances to do that. Cory you would expect bidders to emerge as thats what they are looking at doing with this company. We did a story on how tumblr has become a symbol for yahoos struggles. About the same price that was paid for instagram. Instagram has been a phenomenal investment for facebook. Compare that with tumblr, theyve done very little with it. They havent even turned it into this sort of advertising business they promised when they bought it. There are so many stories like that within yahoo and now they are getting ready to sell some physical property to try to generate some cash. Cory everyone in Silicon Valley seems to be rooting for yahoo , i cannot say you have many people i meet with who say you had your obligatory nine months with yahoo . We took the company from 200 million users to 500 million and from 700 million revenue to 4. 5 billion. I am still a huge fan of the company. It is an iconic property that represents a lot of the good that came out of Silicon Valley, a lot of the original innovation and people taking risk. Two very lovable founders. Plus there are 10,000 people who work there. We want people to have jobs. I do think that if they can get focused, get rid of the asian assets, distribute the capital and keep enough to invest in the company, its not like the internet is over. You saw the Successful Transition of adobe, a turnaround of a stock that went from 47 to 19 to 95. Then focusing on two significant assets and splitting them. So we know this is possible, and i think we should continue to root for its success. Cory thank you as well for your time. Dan will stay with us a little longer. The number of users of mobile phones topping one billion in india. The only other across that market is china. Its also the only other country that has a billion people. More than a dozen phone operators are fighting for customers and driving down prices. Its been a tough year for media stocks. Everyone starting to raise the white flag. And star wars, pushing this years Box Office Record to a massive number we have never seen before. That story next on bloomberg west. Cory a record year at the Box Office Thanks to blockbusters. Beating the record set in 2013. Walt disney and comcast and Universal Pictures were the big winners, sharing almost half of the years spoils. Universal had 2. 55 billion according to box office mojo. Real consequences of cord cutting. Were joined by Bloomberg Media reporter jerry smith. A terrific story today at bloomberg. Com. Talk to me about what we found in this year of fear of the cord being cut. A lot of the fear started around early august. Disney had an Earnings Call where ceo bob iger talked about how hes seen some subscriber losses at espn, and investors got really concerned about his comments, because the thinking is that if there are problems at espn, if they are losing subscribers, what does that say about the Television Industry as a whole . In early august there was sort of a media stock meltdown and some of the companies recovered some of those losses. Disney actually ended up at the end of the year up a little bit. It really started in august and a lot of the Companies Never fully recovered. Cory theres some irony with that, disney was the only company that was up despite that hiccup they took. I dont think it will be overblown. My company focuses on the college market. 50 of all college students, we survey them all the time. The fact of the matter is they dont think they need to get cable television. The generation after that and after that are not accustomed to buying cable. When cable started, we all did it for a clear visual of being able to watch a show without fuzz on it. Then it became about programming, and we were demanding programming. A lot of people made a lot of money. Then what ended up happening was they ended up packaging things you dont want and requiring you to pay for it in order to get the things you do want. Cory in other words, time warner said if you want cnn you have to carry all this other stuff weve got. And for the consumer, if you want to buy the sports bundle, you have to get cnn and 17 other things. That stuff does not work with people who dont care about the time of day or specific programming. The internet is broken down to two categories, im busy, or im bored. Remember what it started with. We are in a situation where this generation will not be thinking they need to be paying this high a price for content. Cory let me explain why jerry is wrong. If you want to watch a football game, youre going to get espn. Youre going to want to have the things that live tv still does. Thats why we saw looking back at media stocks, disney ended up doing ok whereas a company like viacom was the worst performing stock of the s p media stocks. Viacom does not have live sports. In an age where we are in an ondemand world, people want to watch what they want to watch whenever. Having live sports is critical to getting the audience and the advertisers that a lot of these companies want. Cory i think you just explained why i was wrong. Live sports may decide they want to sell it directly and could make more money. Cory we have seen a lot of those networks fail. Things are changing pretty dramatically, though. The cost structure has to come down on these things. Im not saying its the end of cable. The issue is, if you dont have high Quality Content that people are willing to pay for directly, you could be in trouble. I dont think people are going to continue to pay for things they dont want just to get the things they do want. Live sports may be the exception. Cory most old people start off as younger people, i think about 100 . We know what they are doing in music, education, music, and politics. It is a generation that is not changing. They have always grown up with it. They only know the iphone, netflix, hulu, and youtube. That is their world. I have a 22yearold daughter, rachel, who now has a job in new york city and is about to move into her first apartment. Im like, youve got to get a home phone and cable. She is like why, and no. Im saying to you that this generation does not see the world the way we do. We need to really be aware of that. Content will always be king and highQuality Content will always be paid for. Cory my eightyearold and 10yearold daughters dont know how to use the cable guide, but they know how to find everything they want. Coming up, a new king is crowned, the worlds richest larry, and its not the cable guy. Cory elon musk is hoping to make space travel cheaper. Russias deputy Prime Minister said the main goal is to make space cheap. Competitors are stepping on our toes like elon musk is doing with his projects. That spacex state and his position in tesla makes him one of the richest men in the world. 400 billionaires make up the bloomberg billionaires index. The first annual decline since we launched the index in 2012. Hightech entrepreneurs are well represented in the index. Bill gates saw his net worth take a 2 billion hit this year. Joining me now is tom metcalf and dan, my guest host for the hour. Tech is seen as a place where great wealth is represented. Does that represent the change in the index or the members of the index . Tech stands out from all the other industries. You mentioned the index as a whole was down near 19 billion. Startups by valuation can push a few guys on to the list but the top tech billionaires, as you said are bezos, gates, and zuckerberg. There are two larrys in the list. I would like to be adopted by either one of them right now. Cory do people in Silicon Valley care about this . Dan i care. Do they care . Im very fortunate to know many of these people and work with many of these people. The fact of the matter is these people look at wealth not as a scorecard but as an asset. I think larry, probably yes. Youre talking about the more recent ones like Mark Zuckerberg and those people. They would say wealth is an asset to be used toward something they believe in. Cory thank you very much. Youre watching bloomberg west. Stay with me, we have a lot more to come. We live in a pick and choose world. Choose, choose, choose. But at bedtime . Why settle for this . Enter sleep number, and the lowest prices of the season. Sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. You like the bed soft. Hes more hardcore. So your sleep goes from good to great to wow only at a sleep number store, find the lowest prices of the season. Save 600 on the 1 rated i8 bed, plus no interest until january 2018. Know better sleep with sleep number. Cory were looking back at highlights from the show from last year. Emily chang traveled to dell world just after it announced its merger with emc. Here for your viewing pleasure is our bloomberg west stocking stuffer. I wanted to understand what they were doing and why they were doing it. When we understood that the intent is basically to drive the platform, as i call it the icebreaker strategy, and push into new territory, and then we come in with a product that is more affordable and we can sell 100 times more, that works. Emily so we are seeing dell make the biggest tech deal in history. Microsoft, on the other hand, has done a lot of smaller deals. Why not a bigger deal . Is it too risky . This is the stuff she lives for. I dont start by thinking, michael did a deal last week, i should do a big deal tomorrow. Thats not the way i think. Emily is it something you would consider, and under what circumstances . We have a clear vision of what were trying to get done. I want to stay true to that. The biggest that we have is organic, always. On top of that, we will look at any opportunity that fits with wherever you want to get to. If there is anything i ask myself each day, it is, i dont want to be every part of the tech industry. Microsoft has a unique contribution to make. That sense of purpose and identity is what makes a company successful, not just doing everything. To me, that is what will drive whatever we do organically and in organically. Emily weve been talking a lot in Silicon Valley about the unicorn and these valuations which are going up and up and up. What do you see there . There are some Different Things going on. Clearly when i. T. Moves just from the realm of making companies more efficient at doing the old things, into this visual transformation, it is a game changer or new industries. They see these new companies being created. Are all the valuations making sense . Are they all going to work out . Probably not. But there are some fabulous new companies that are being created, so i would not overlook that. Emily say there are 150 unicorns that are overvaluation. How many of them are real . Both sides of this argument have their points. There is a book that i read. The author has written a fantastic book around the natural financial cycles that fund technology. It has been true from the Industrial Revolution to today. You have these booms and busts. During the boom, because nobody wants to be left out, there is over funding. The beauty of over funding is lots of ideas get to flourish. Out of that, there will have to eventually be a correction, but out of 150, there will be 10 or 15, who knows, very successful companies. That is what is great about the american entrepreneurial system and the competitiveness of this country. I think we should celebrate that. Investors have to have caution, because you have to really make sure that you know there is a boom and there is a bust in these cycles. Thats always going to be true in our economy. Emily and where are we now . If i could time that, i would not be sitting here now. Cory the tech world is fired up about virtual reality, but there is a problem. Few people own the hardware needed to support these systems. There are 13 million personal computers that have the Graphic Capabilities to run them, less than 1 of all the pcs out there. One stock we are watching, gamestop. Bad times are ahead, 46 of the shares are shorted as they try to adapt to a digital era. The stock has slumped 38 so the short has paid off. The highlight of my day has been watching seals out the window next to my desk. There is a giant seal out in front of our office right now. Its a cool thing to watch. I will take one for a walk later, maybe. Cory tomorrow, michael holland, one of our favorite investors, will join us at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time. Actually that is 6 00 a. M. Eastern time. W