a start up, fieldglass, and sap has spent more than $12 billion as it tries to become a bigger player in the cloud market. amazon is cutting prices for its cloud services. prices will fall as much as 61%. this comes after google cut prices on its cloud products yesterday, and amazon introduced amazon workspaces. and filing for an ipo, a company that helps measure spending, tubemogul. they posted a loss of nearly $7 million, but they expect to raise $75 million. and to the lead story of the day, candy crush maker king with their biggest decline for a newly listed u.s. company in more than four months. 15this drop comes despite the 15%. fact that king was actually priced at a discount to some of its competitors, like zynga. we spoke with the king ceo riccardo zacconi earlier this morning about whether the shares were just priced too high. >> my focus is not on the prize at this second. our synergy is long-term synergy. by focusing on the long-term, we create shareholder value. i think we are in an incredibly strong position. >> the king ceo on the floor there with one of the characters from one of their games. chris is joining us on the floor. what did you think about his buddy on the floor? >> one of the problems i think they had is essentially that they were sort of caught in the middle. we just do not know enough about this company. the short-term guys said, we are getting out. >> is it that big of a deal on the first day, that it dropped so much? >> what they really need to do is prove themselves. what we are hearing from the analysts, essentially, they do not want a zynga situation. these are the saga games, basically the same type of play, and candy crush is in decline, it looks like, so people want to see what is happening. >> we did talk to the ceo. take a look at what he had to say about the next candy crush. >> our focus is not on finding another candy crush. candy crush has been a great success. there are millions playing candy crush every day. we are looking for portfolio games, high-quality games where we, number one, retain the user through the portfolio, and number two, monetize them. >> why would they not want another candy crush? i thought that was an interesting way to word that. >> they have more in the pipeline. they do not want to be equated with farmville. but they are not being visible about what those things are in the pipeline. >> all right, king, we will continue to follow, and, cliff, thanks so much. and recently, we learned that dish's ergen contacted the directv ceo about a possible merger. joining us is our bloomberg media reporter, so exactly where does this stand? it sounds like the directv ceo is not really interested. >> if this tie up happens by any means, the u.s. is going to scrutinize this. they compete directly against each other, and this is unlike the other big merger news in tv land, which is comcast-time warner cable. there is less of a consumer concern, at least on the face of it with that merger, whereas with directv, if you're in the market to buy television, and you are thinking about another service, you no longer have a choice if those two guys team up, and that is why the directv folks are more cautious about it. >> how much does this have to do with comcast trying to buy time warner cable? >> i think that is a huge part of it. the satellite guys, unlike the cable guys, cannot sell broadband. i think charlie ergen at dish, they are thinking if he can team up, they can create something like a wireless broadband service that they can sell, then they can compete. >> there is some reporting that it might actually be easier to pass when the obama administration leaves. is that the case? >> this administration is not so friendly to these pro-business mergers, and the other party gets into the white house the next time around, they might be more open to it, and i think that is the strategy in terms of when they should wait or if they should wait for a big merger like this. >> all right, a big scoop from you guys on the media team. take so much, edmund lee. coming up, buying oculus, facebook. how do they plan to leverage that and so much more when "bloomberg west" returns. >> welcome back to "bloomberg west." i am emily chang. i am with cory johnson, and we are talking about facebook's massive deal, buying oculus for $2 billion. >> it is a company not just without revenue, it is a company without a product yet. >> yes, we, as consumers, cannot buy it yet, and mark zuckerberg was saying that if mobile is the platform of today, virtual reality is the platform of tomorrow. they do not want to miss a virtual reality if that is, indeed, next, and one person who is joining us now, santo politi, a founder of spark capital, investing about $19 million, so, santo, can we check our math here? you made this kind of a return here? >> yes. >> why not a bigger position? you really screwed up here. when you make that kind of an investment, do you think that in this environment, quick exits are out there to be had? >> i do not think so. we are early-stage investors, and on average, it takes like five to seven years for a company to mature, and we did not expect this to be this quick, but, yes, it happens with amazing pace, like this company had an amazing young team and executed one incredible feat after another very, very quickly, and they had a cult following and built a brand in a short time, and i think it will be a very valuable investment. this is like the acquisition of android. >> if there is so much potential in virtual reality, isn't it too early? >> the answer is probably yes and no. it is a huge undertaking, so a lot of people have to understand it and give it a try. once you give it a try, you fall in love. many do not know what to expect out of virtual reality. nobody has put a goggle on yet, and the technology, the computing technology that we are using today has to improve quite a bit for everybody to be able to use it, so there are a lot of hurdles. it probably would have taken a lot more money to take it to market in a meaningful way, and with a company like facebook, where they have a huge audience already, convincing their audience to try this on and fall in love with it is going to be a lot easier than just a start up, so it is an interesting situation right now. >> comparing it to google and android, what do you know about what facebook plans to do with it? >> i do not know what their plans are, but i know what the team's plans are, and what it can mean in the future. most people think of it as a gaming device, that it is much more than that. it can transport you to a world of your choosing, wherever you are. it can make distances disappear. you can be with a friend of yours in 10 minutes, strolling through the avenues, or something like that, a distant world, in space. it is an immersive virtual world, and distances do not matter, location does not matter, and it is a brand-new platform, a brand-new way of thinking about entertainment, and a brand-new way of experiencing the world, you know, where it was not available before. >> i think this is a statement that really jumped out at me last night in the press release and then later in the conference call, mark zuckerberg really talking about this about a platform, but it is difficult for you as an advisor to the company to say, "hey, let's focus on one market first before we go after other markets." >> i think the team has a laser sharp focus on providing the best vr experience, and that is their key goal, which is a very difficult task, and it has not been accomplished so far, and they are very close to actually making it happen. what they were thinking is their first market was going to be gamers, and that is a very specific market. they are all early adopters. 3d gaming is already popular, and it would be easy for them to penetrate, as their first goal. i think there never was an issue on whether the company had the right focus. focus number one, right experience. if you do not do these things right, it can be pretty overwhelming for the user, and you have to make sure that they deliver the best consumer product possible so that when anyone puts these goggles on, they really feel transformed, and it is a comfortable environment. that was their first and foremost goal, and we already have a market we are going after with the background of most of the people in the company, most of them from the gaming companies and, you know, all great gaming companies that we know of. >> santo, someone we know who follows these closely, some were talking about facebook trying to one-up google, with google glass. what about other bidders? >> i am not at liberty to tell you exactly what happened, but there were other very large companies, and what was very appealing to the oculus is that they all saw eye to why on what this thing could be, and it was a lot more important for the team to be in a place where they are going to not only benefit from the resources, like to pull off this audacious project, but at the same time, you know, have their vision understood and well shared on what the future could be, so i think that facebook in many ways is great, regardless of the price they paid for the company -- i think they have the same vision that the founders are dreaming of, and that is very important. >> well, just another company on your list of big exits recently, twitter -- another bought by zynga. >> really on top of the oculus jokes. >> ok, coming up, can social media unlocking the mysteries of deep space? we will be talking to the neil armstrong of canada, next. ♪ >> ♪ this is ground control to major tom ♪ welcome back to "bloomberg west." i am emily chang. that is the most viral video ever shot in outer space. it was the canadian space commander, chris hadfield, the former commander of the international space station. he is joining us from canada. you are called the neil armstrong of canada, commander, as i understand it. how many times have you been in space? >> i flew in space three times, twice going to the russian space station, and building the international space station, and then i flew on a soyuz space ship, and i lived up on the space station for the better part of half a year, and as you say, he eventually commanded it, so i flew in space three times -- as you say, and eventually commanded it, so i flew in space three times. i am a lucky man. >> why do you do all of this? >> i was an astronaut for over 20 years. i have spoken everywhere, from elementary school to the united nations. i have spoken thousands of times, and i resolved if i ever got to space for a long enough time, i would try to explain some of the common questions. how do you go to the bathroom? how do you brush your teeth? what do you do if there is a fire? with the canadian space agency, we have basically one big event per week, all sorts of things, and we made almost 100 videos, science, entertainment, education, all of them. hopefully, it is kind of a lasting legacy of my particular five months on the station that teachers will be able to use for years to come. >> i would imagine the trade off to do these things to get people excited about space and thinking about space take away from the work you can only do in space and the reason you are there. >> we set records for the number of hours of science done and other records, and not only that, but four days before we came home, the station had a serious leak, with ammonia, and we had to do an emergency spacewalk with almost no warning, just one day's planning, and not myself, but two of the crewmembers went out to fix that leak, so we were working with what the space station is for but also to share it with people, to show people what they paid for, show them all of the capabilities of the station and how it is kind of the -- a cultural extension. it is an amazing thing we have built up there, and we have worked night and day to let people know what we are doing. >> richard branson has his whole virgin galactic thing going on to, this year, take passengers into space for the very first time. everyday people, like me and cory. space travel -- what about doing it on a broader basis? >> i have actually been talking to sir richard branson about that some. he is a really brave man to do it. it is a technically difficult thing to do, to try to make it safe enough that you can take paying passengers up, and to go up and get that first taste of the bottom edges of space, hoping it is going to work, hoping they have got all of the problems worked out. he has got a privatized spaceflight that will eventually get there, but he is a brave man, and he is putting a lot of his own wealth and name into it. i wish them all of the success in the world. from government investment to eventual private investment, that is what we have always done, and i hope he is successful with it. >> we know you have got some musical background. you have got a guitar with you right now? >> i do. it is a lovely new guitar. sure. >> play something for us. >> i will play a song that we >> i will play a song that we did with 700,000 students. we did this live at the space station, and it is from bare naked ladies. ♪ turn the key and light the fires ♪ >> and an author, chris hadfield. ♪ >> you are watching "bloomberg west," where we focus on technology and the future of business. i am emily chang. aol is hoping to get a bigger slice of the online advertising market. they are automating the process of buying and selling online ads, and the aol ceo will be joining us tomorrow on how this technology works and what it could mean. well, from the online ad race to the space race, companies like elon musk's spacex and richard branson's virgin galactic are trying to capture that frontier. i talked to richard branson about a documentary on the war on drugs by his son and how technology is helping to get the war on drugs off the street. >> things like social media play an important role. the war on drugs, we debated it with millions of people around the world, and i think people have been educated through that. we have done big debates on the war on drugs. should drugs be a criminal problem? something like 93% believe it should be treated as a whole problem and not a criminal problem, so i think social media can play a critical role. >> your son's documentary has it gotten a different response than if it had been released in theaters? >> making it free on youtube, about one million people have seen it, and generally, a documentary is only seen by 50,000 people. >> if somebody wants to sell drugs, they can use social networks to find people who want to buy them, things like the silk road. >> if some of the wants to buy drugs, and they will be able to find drugs -- they just have to walk down the street. i do not think this makes it any easier than it was already. drugs are very, very readily available. if you can make, say, marijuana available and regulate it, you can then make sure that the marijuana that is sold is clean marijuana. it is not very strong where it can damage your head. it can be marijuana that is as near harmless as possible. >> what about bitcoin, the currency that some people say that people can hide behind? >> people can use ordinary currency to buy drugs, and nobody need know that they have used a pound or a dollar, so it is no different. i think bitcoin is just another currency. >> this has changed the landscape so quickly. i wonder, cross-border, what are you dealing with, as head on the global commission on drug policy? >> i think they need to be educated and need to read the reports of the global drug commission. the reports are very clear that there needs to be a shift in policy. by making heroin illegal and not treating it as a health problem, you are creating thousands of people with hiv and aids, particularly in places like russia, where they are giving out clean needles and clean methadone, they are getting on top of the problem. >> what is the timeline? you said this would be the year. >> it will be the year. i am terrified of giving specific months, because things can get delayed, but i would be bitterly disappointed and -- if we are not up in space in not too many months. >> what about 5, 10, 20 years from now, what does it look like? >> because private companies are running space travel, we want to enable you, me, as many people as possible to have a chance to marvel back at our earth, to go from one country to another in a fraction of the time it currently takes, having hotels in space, to do wonderful things, create massive arrays of satellites that can transform things for the better back here on earth. >> what is next? >> we are putting the spaceships, the rockets all together now. they have been tested, and there will be a couple more test flights, and then we will be up and running. >> sir richard branson, the virgin group chairman and founder, and we have some video of their recent test earlier this year, and they are putting it toward a final application to the faa for a license. they have an experimental license, but they do not have the license yet to take averages paasengers into space, so that license is underway. they now have 700 people who have bought tickets to go on virgin galactic, each of these tickets $250,000, people from 58 countries, people like leonardo dicaprio, so a lot of people very excited about this, but still no timeline on exactly when the first passenger flight is going to take off. to news corp. now, rupert murdoch has named his eldest son as nonexecutive cochairman of news corp. and fox, and his younger son, james murdoch, was with them throughout the phone hacking probe, and i want to bring in our correspondent, jon erlichman, and what does this mean about rupert's thinking, putting his son back into a major position of power? >> rupert murdoch is one of the most energetic people on the planet. he does want to make sure that people inside the company, investors, the board of directors, anyone is well aware that he likes this to be a business that has a big family component to it, and so on the one side, use the the older son, -- you see his one son coming back in, and james overseeing the tv operations, and it allows us to ask these questions about who will ultimately be the successor of rupert murdoch. >> does this mean that james has essentially emerged unscathed from the phone hacking issue, and how are these two brothers different? >> they are definitely different. the older may be more from the gut, like his dad. he has got tattoos, and james may be more analytical, but they are both good. you are right, that the phone hacking situation was not the best for james, but overseeing the tv operations, that is the big profit generator for fox. it is well over 50% of the operating profit, so i think that if you look at the things he is trying to do with building their satellite network around the world, he has a big opportunity in this expanded role to really show what he can do on top of what he has already shown, and i think you have got lachlan, who from a 30,000 foot view is able to weigh in on a lot of stuff, so the board can make some good decisions about who it thinks would be a good successor. >> with murdoch putting his sons in big positions, how does that compare with another big media company, like disney, where they have some strong internal candidates, but they are not >> they are not family members, but there are a lot of similarities. bob iger has definitely done that, and ultimately, it will be the board who makes the final call. >> coming up, he developed the facebook like button, and we will an effect on the new company, next. ♪ >> welcome back. i am emily chang, and this is "bloomberg west," and we are talking about the role of design in technology. you use the like button, don't you? does anybody use the poke button anymore? our next guest worked on the development of the like button, and he focuses on enterprise and enterprise design, joining us in the studio. we are curious about how your work at facebook has informed your other work? >> that like button took something that we saw people doing all of the time and making it simpler, and this is what we are doing here. we are enabling teamwork without e-mail, because e-mail is this thing that takes up a huge amount of our time. the way we say it, when e-mail came out, you might have said, voicemails are good enough, but this was radical that did not just slightly speed us up but changed the nature of what teams and companies could accomplish together, and now people have that same reaction. they got e-mail we would be stuck with forever, that voicemails we would be stuck with forever. >> i know what is going on in my day, and i communicate with people that i need to. >> so with asana, we marry the conversations with the work itself, so with asana, you can log in and see all of the things you need to work on or who is responsible for what, and with e-mail, there is no way you could ask your e-mail or ask gmail, hey, what are the things i need to work on today in priority order? you would have to sit there and read through painstakingly, every e-mail. the conversations happen around lists you have to work on or lists you have to discuss, so tons of that really painful work about work, that soul stuff is gone. >> it is like a to do list, but there is an accountability that you are talking about. it puts your work and your progress on that work front and center. >> yes, it is very transparent. there are ways to hide, if you want, but we definitely default into this world where everybody can see, and these are the things that need to be done in order for us to accomplish our goal and the status of everything, and the net effect of that is teams want to do great things, and they suddenly have this massive ability to do that. some of our customers include dropbox, companies doing huge things in the world, and they often say, no, there is no way be could be doing the things we are doing with e-mail alone. that would be impossible. it would be hard to imagine running bloomberg without e-mail, and this is next, after e-mail. >> for so long, enterprise products have not been design focused or design friendly. >> in the future, everything is going to be beautiful and simple. and work is no exception. >> sure, it is. >> optimistic. >> it is in the future. it may take a while to get there. work is a place we spend -- it is the majority of time we spend interacting with the computer, so it is shocking to me how little time has been spent in taking beauty and simplicity and design, and the effect is, like, when was the last time you were using a piece of software at work, and you were thinking, i love this piece of software and am having an amazing emotional experience with it -- wining and dining some ceo, and it is the end-user, the people using the software at work who are determining what they use. they are not just using the clunky thing that has the biggest sales and marketing department that is trying to convince their cio. it has a design and allows them to connect with their work and with their teammates. >> all right, justin rosenstein, thank you so much for joining us, cofounder of asana. ticketing down under. opening an office in australia, of all places, eventbrite. i think they speak english there. that is coming up. ♪ >> welcome back. i am emily chang, and this is "bloomberg west." eventbrite is ramping up. they are allowing event organizers to create events with reserved seating, taking on companies like ticketmaster. we are joined now in the studio. julia hartz. you and kevin, it was awesome. >> it was great to see you. >> why australia? >> australia is a huge market for us. it was really about timing, resources, as well as our traction in the market. >> a lot of tech talent there. google shut down, leaving hundreds of well-trained engineers looking for work. what are you finding in terms of talent there? >> we are finding a wealth of talent. i think as we start to expand outside of sanis a i have to say, we opened an office in melbourne, which is teeming not only in tech talent but culture. >> this does put you into closer competition with ticketmaster and stub hub. >> we are bringing the world together through life experiences, and to date, we have never had this. this is a huge market for us and something i think we are going to see a big growth in. we sold $1 billion worth of tickets, and we are excited about what that means around the world. >> does that change your revenue model? the places where you are getting sales? >> it does not. we have put this in. we do not think it is fair to have a fee for live experiences. >> this comes up in the companies who go public. king digital went today. how much attention are you paying to what goes on out there? eleven 9-figure raises in the last year. >> it is a special team, i must say, and i am excited about what our team has done to get us to where we are today. our investors recently just doubled down in our company, so for us, it is about optionality. being an independent, stand-alone company, we have always been open about that. the timing is right. we will be out there, but for us, it is not imminently on the horizon. we are focused on building our company and expanding internationally, which is a huge opportunity. >> in this era of funding, what are you finding? >> we are fighting a fierce, fierce battle for talent, so it makes us eager to expand, not only outside of san francisco but also pertaining to our recruiting practices. >> cofounder of eventbrite, julia hartz, thank you. it has been fun seeing them, taking on things like ticketmaster. thank you for watching "bloomberg west." we will see you next time. ♪ >> the following is a paid presentation for the nutribullet. >> special tv offer. stay tuned so you can find an amazing life-changing bonus. that is right. special free bonus and free shipping just ahead. >> my muscle aches started to decrease immediately. >> i slept really well. that was phena

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