June 26, 2025 • 28 mins
With Stacey Vanek Smith off at the World Economic Forum in China, Max Chafkin is joined by Brad Stone, the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, and Bloomberg reporter Laura Nahmias. Together, they discuss how significant democratic socialist Zoran Mamdani’s surprising New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary victory could be for Wall Street and the city of New York.
A parallel to Mamdani’s triumph in an increasingly unaffordable city is taking place this week in Venice, where multibillionaire Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos and former broadcast journalist Lauren Sánchez are to be married. With fierce opposition raging in the Italian city, already made crushingly expensive by over-tourism, does this mean disdain for billionaires is at a boiling point? Chafkin and Stone talk it over. Also, the crew sent out a producer to the streets of New York to ask people the question on everyone’s mind: what wedding gift can you possibly get for the man behind the everything store?
Chafkin and Stone then turn their gaze to the movie industry. Technology has been haunting Hollywood for a while now. The internet, file sharing, streaming—the big studios have been playing defense against Silicon Valley since the turn of the century. But now they’re facing a potentially bigger threat: artificial intelligence. Entertainment reporter Lucas Shaw walks us through how the industry is fighting with, and adapting to, this seemingly unstoppable new force.
And to end things, Chafkin brings what he considers the most underrated story of the week: the accidental support of a planned coup in South Sudan by a co-funder of Jane Street.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Max Chafkins
and I'm Brad Stone. This week, Brad, it's all about changes.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
A new marriage for a very well known billionaire, a new.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Mayor probably for New York City, and a new approach
as Hollywood looks to protect its intellectual property from AI. Yeah,
Lucas Shaw, our friend and entertainment correspondent, will be joining
us for that. Plus how a Wall Street tycoon accidentally
funded an alleged coup plot in a small African country
happens to the best of us. Bratt, you are here
(00:46):
for Stacy Vanixsmith, who's in China at the World Economic Forum.
You are straight back from Kahn and I wanted to
start the show by talking about the event of the season,
the wedding between Jeff Bezos and Laura in Sanchez. It's
in Venice. It is starting today, I believe, or the
events of the wedding are starting as we record this
(01:07):
on Thursday. The twenty six huge guest list also, lots
of the locals are very unhappy about this wedding. Their
protests plan some very funny quotes from the locals. They're like,
we're not gonna let them get to the venue. Brad,
You've covered Jeff Bezos for many, many years. You've written
two books about Amazon. You've been called the Edward Gibbon
(01:30):
of this company, I believe, And I just got to
ask you, like, what are your sources telling you? What
is this wedding going to be?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Are the protesters gonna stop it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, first of all, my invite was somehow lost in
the mail. Okay, let's start there. But you know, maybe
it's because I've written two critical books about Bezos and
feel like I've established my bona fides as a Bezos critic.
I don't feel the need to dunk on him. Is
it over the top?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Is it, you know, a gratuitous misreading of the room
at a time of gross inequality and injustice?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It is.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I don't think Bezos cares at all what people think,
and we should say that unlike Elon Musk, he is
not out there siring children with multiple women. Unlike Malania Trump,
Lauren Sanchez does appear to really like her fiance. It
is an age appropriate marriage. They've been together since twenty eighteen,
and whethered all sorts of scandal and withering public scrutiny,
(02:27):
So I say, all power to him.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I have to just say. My reaction to this story
was like, is Jeff Bezos really the worst guy who's
ever gotten married in Venice? Like these protesters, like, there've
got to be some really questionable weddings in Venice, and
I just cannot imagine to your point that this even
ranks in the top five of the most annoying Venice weddings.
And that raises the question, what do you get the
man who sells everything? And of course every week we
(02:52):
go out in the streets and ask people questions, get
them to weigh in on the news this week, what
are you getting Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos for their wedding?
I don't think I would. I think that's my answer.
A Prime membership, something to do from Amazon.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I don't know, Oh, a canoe because Venice floods.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Demotally a story night, because they know those dard nights
worth like three million dollars.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Okay, I think I would make them a meme coin
in their honor, and I would post about it on
social media to maximize attention, so that on the morning
of the wedding when it goes live, the value immediately, Skyrock.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
I think I would probably give him a twenty five
dollars Amazon gift card and a handwritten card that says, Bay,
your love lasts longers than an Amazon warehouse workers bathroom
break mine declined RSVP.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I do love the twenty five dollars Amazon gift card
just because, like that is probably the most common gift
given in the entire world and also the least personal.
I love the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The Starry Night might be the best one of the bunch.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He probably is getting that, Like, we should make sure
that that hasn't already been purchased and loaded up into
the yacht that is parked outside of Venice to take
them away after the honeymoon. Brad, you've heard the big
political news by now. New York City financial capital of
the world. It's the home of financiers, advertising executives, media executives.
(04:28):
A lot of people who really, really really like capitalism
just voted in a primary for mayor and there was
a huge upset the socialist one. This is Zoron Mamdani,
who beat Andrew Cuomo. The crazy thing about this, Brad,
is that Cuomo was backed by this kind of very
long list of very rich guys. He raised a huge
(04:48):
amount of money from a group that includes Mike Bloomberg,
who owns a company that produces this show. But right
now many of those backers are very surprised and they
are very unhappy.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And one of those backers, Dan Loeb from Third Point,
he just called it officially hot commy Summer. A Wall
Street headhunter said, this will be the end of New
York City as we know it.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What they're worried about is Mamdani has proposed a bunch
of policies that are basically redistributive. He's a democratic socialist,
a sort of Bernie Sanders acolyte. He's talked about raising
the corporate tax. He's talked about a new income tax
for the one percent. He's also talked about sort of
things that I think are just kind of triggering for capitalists,
including like state run grocery stores. He's a big critic
(05:36):
of Israel, and all this, you know, swirl together add
up to kind of a sense of panic. If you
were listening or talking to anyone who's connected to like
Wall Street or Money yesterday, here's a quick prediction that
I heard on CNBC.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
If you've seen what Batman is up against in Gotham
and what is the guy running for mayor is up
That's what it.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're taking Wall streeters and make him walk out onto
the ice in the East River as and hope and
then they fall through Joe Kernan never change. So obviously
huge political story, but also a huge business story. And
we have the perfect person to guide us through this.
Laura Namias, Bloomberg reporter is here in the studio. She's
(06:25):
been covering the race. Laura, thanks for coming.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, so just to like set this scene, can you
help talk us through exactly how this happened. Cuomo, the
former governor of New York who resigned, I think it's
fair to say in disgrace, raised, nonetheless a huge amount
of money from all these rich people. Mom, Donnie got
a fraction of that. How did he win?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
So the former governor entered the race in March and
all of the polls showed him winning. He had the
highest name ID in the race, and so we're on
Mom Donnie back in March was pulling out like zero percent.
He is a thirty three year old assembly member who
was first elected in twenty twenty. He has passed three
bills in Albany. But he has this incredibly charismatic social
(07:14):
media presence, and when his campaign really got going, he
was able to amass thousands and thousands of individual donors
and quickly became the first candidate to get the maximum
amount of public matching funds under the city's very generous
campaign finance system. And so he just had this infrastructure
in place to get all these donations from thousands and
(07:38):
thousands of people who actually vote in the primary. I
think that might be the simplest explanation for what happened here.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I want to come back to that social media campaign
because I think it says a lot about our current politics.
But first we should say the reason why Mom Donnie's
campaign is so triggering to some on Wall Street. It's
because of his agenda, right, Yeah, it's quite radical. He's
a democratic socialist. I'm just curious, if he does win,
and of course he needs to win a general election,
what is the practicality of this agenda? How much power
(08:05):
does the New York City mayor have and can he
really institute what could be a fairly dramatic redistribution of
wealth in New York City, so.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
People often don't realize this. The mayor of New York
City has virtually no power to raise taxes except for
the property tax levy, so the power to raise taxes
or lower them resides within Albany. Kathy Hokkel would have
to sign off on any tax increases. She's already said
definitively in response to questions about this that she will
not support any tax increases. The cities and the states
(08:36):
offers in revenue is dependent in a really big way
on personal income tax revenue, and so the movement of
even a handful of billionaires out of the state can
have a significant effect on things like Medicaid funding and
money for schools and stuff. So the state tax department
and the governor are very sensitive to anything that might
(08:57):
lead to even a few very wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You talked about the way he built support, and part
of it were these kind of slogans that really remind me,
honestly of Trump. Right, he said, freeze the rent over
and over again, and kind of in the same way,
I think Donald Trump us build the wall both as
a policy prescription but also as a way to signal,
and I think this was super important, Like I care
about affordability. That was a part of the campaign. I
(09:21):
think voters really reacted to the affordability part. What about
that stuff like can he freeze the rent? Is he
going to build state owned grocery stores?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
So what he's actually talking about when he says freeze
the rent, which yes, is a very catchy and easy
to understand slogan, and that helps explain some of his
success and ability to catch fire with voters is the
city stock of rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments. I
think there's more than a million rent stabilized apartments.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Those are the.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Ones over which the city has the authority to control
how much the rent can increase. And how that actually
happens is the mayor gets to appoint members of the
Rent Guidelines Board and every year they do this study
with data submitted by landlords showing how much gas costs them,
how much materials cost them, what inflation has been and
(10:10):
the board votes on a percent increase or decides not
to increase at all. So that's what Mam Donnie can
actually do is pick the members of the Rent Guidelines Board.
Market rate apartments which a lot of people live in.
He has no power over that.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So I feel like I should get Hazard PAYD for this,
But I spent I don't know, ten minutes this morning
reading a long message from Bill Ackman sort of describing
his strategy for a write in campaign. There is this
frantic effort among some members of the base of support
of Andrew Cuomol, though it doesn't seem like all of
(10:45):
them to either, you know, coalesce behind some other non
Mam Donnie candidate or draft a new one or a
secret candidate. That's what Acman's talking about. And I have
to say, Lauren, and I'm curious to get your take,
Like part of me thinks the lesson here and the
lesson we need to start learning, is that billionaire donations
are not as important as they used to be, and
that these billionaires they look pretty inept. And you look
(11:07):
at prediction markets, and prediction markets overwhelmingly believe that Mam
Donnie is going to be the mayor. Now, it's not
going to be Adams, it's not going to be some
secret candidate. Do you think that these efforts could go
anywhere that like Acman and so on, can get together
and pull their money and put it in a different
place and actually shake things up.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So I don't know what the exact track record is,
but in the years since Citizens United, I think there
have been multiple instances where it was shown that it
was really hard to buy an election, especially when you're
coming up against a candidate who has a genuine enthusiastic base,
which is what Mam Donni has here. If the candidate
of the quote unquote left had more tepid support, then
(11:48):
maybe the effort would have succeeded on a greater level.
But ultimately what happened here is that young people supporting
Mom Donnie turned out, and the people motivated to whatever
extent by the campaign for a CUOMO and funded by
this independent expenditure and billionaire money didn't turn out, not
at a level high enough to overtake Mom Donnie's enthusiastic support. Also,
(12:09):
you're talking numerically about the number of billionaires. Their money
is so big, but the total number of them is small.
It ultimately just comes down to turnout.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And Laura, let me just.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Ask you, Mam Donnie has had to answer a lot
of questions about his support for Palestine, about his tweets,
after the October seventh attacks blaming Netanyahu and the state
of Israel. He seems to me has been kind of
dogged by those questions and has had a hard time
winning support from the Jewish community in New York City.
(12:41):
Do you feel like he's beyond those questions or have
they really only started now that we're into the general election.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I think that those questions have only just started, certainly,
as our focus in larger matters is still on the
Middle East and or with Iran, his stances on that
are are going to be looked to. He's would be
the mayor of the largest city in America. What he
says matters. It also was for many, many years sort
(13:09):
of this article of faith or the third rail of
New York City politics that you supported Israel almost unquestioningly.
But the first thing that Cuomo advisor said to me
Tuesday night after the results came in was that they
think they may be looking at a fundamental realignment of
the Democratic Party's position on Israel. If someone who is
(13:31):
not only a Muslim but has been outspokenly critical of
Israel can win the Democratic primary in New York City,
that says something about where Democratic voters are on the
question of Israel. He's been very critical of Israel, and
the advisors were scratching their heads. They have a lot
of questions and they're wondering if this represents some sort
(13:53):
of fundamental change in the party and its relationship with Israel.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Does this tell us anything about what's going to happen
in twenty twenty eight, like who the Democrats might nominate,
and also what the relationship I guess between money and
the Democratic Party or money and whoever is the next
president might look like.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Well, I think there's been after the twenty twenty four
presidential election, there's all this soul searching within the Democratic Party.
Who is the next generation of leadership. There's this question
of the quote unquote gerontocracy see Alexandria Cossio Kurtez going
around criticizing the party as like a bunch of very
old people reluctant to relinquish their power, and the generational
split in this race. The youngest candidate who would be
(14:35):
one of the youngest mayors in New York City history,
the youngest mayor in a century, versus the oldest candidate,
Andrew Cuomo, who if he'd been elected, would have been
one of the oldest mayors on inauguration really sort of
encapsulates this divide within the party. And then also there's
been this question since twenty twenty four the presidential election
of whether or not the problem was that the party
(14:59):
was too far left or not left enough, and whether
or not they need to swing, especially on economic issues,
toward a more populist and maybe an agenda that looks
a little bit more like what zoron Mom Donnie is espousing.
So all of those questions are roiling, and there's a
lot of soul searching going on, but this could certainly
(15:21):
be a bellweather for where the party is actually going.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Max, We've both covered this. Hollywood has been absolutely abused
over the last thirty years by technology at the internet,
file sharing, streaming. The major studios were late, they were unprepared,
They played legal defense instead of inventing new things and
lost ground to Silicon Valley giants like YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Okay, yeah, Brad, And now you know, with artificial intelligence,
you have companies like open ai Andthropic, Facebook others. They're
training chatbots and they're doing it in part by taking
allegedly I guess content from old line media companies feeding
it into these large language models and potentially producing competition.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So how does Hollywood avoid the mistakes of the past.
To break it down for us, of course, we have Lucashaw,
friend of Everybody's Business, author of the screen Time newsletter,
the cameo that the seth Rogan showed the studio desperately
needs to book for season two. Lucas, welcome, great to
be back. You wrote this week that everybody in Hollywood
(16:32):
has learned they need to embrace the technology instead of
fighting it, and yet we have Disney and comcasts suing
mid Journey.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So what is going on here?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're seeing Hollywood studios take sort of a two track approach.
On the one hand, they are experimenting with different types
of artificial intelligence, whether they talk about it or not. Right,
we had a Indiana Jones movie where Harrison.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Ford was deaged.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
We've got this Darth Vader Avatar or in Fortnite or
using the voice I should say. You have studios that
have done partnerships with companies like Runway, and at the
same time they are trying to defend sort of this
notion that the large language models cannot just train on
their video or their music right, And this is one
(17:20):
of the big unsettled legal questions in it because you're
starting to see open Ai has Sora, Google has Veo,
Meta is working on video. Everyone wants to have a
kind of video generator. And text was sort of the
first frontier the fight, then audio, then video. That's always
the progression. And so they are trying to establish this
legal precedent that says you can't just train your LM
(17:44):
on Marvel and Darth Vader.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Why is it this lawsuit? Like why did Disney choose
to go after mid Journey, which is not one of
the best known of these companies, Like why is it?
Why is this the one that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I think part of it is that some of the
bigger players have been a little more willing to play
by the rules, right. I think, you know, if you
look at Google and Facebook, they want certain guardrails because
restrictions on the industry help them protect their moat that
they have. And I think mid Journey is an example
of a company that doesn't care that much about what
(18:21):
the establishment thinks. They are taking advantage of this idea
of fair use and believe that they can do whatever
they want. We've seen similar with the music companies or
the audio companies Udio and Suno, where their position has
been we can train like sue us if you want,
will win. And so I think Disney saw this as
an opportunity to go after also a somewhat smaller company
(18:41):
that they may have an advantage on fighting, as opposed
to a company like Googler Meta that has kind of
inexhaustible resources.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And we should say mid Journey has not responded to
this lawsuit, but I think we can expect that they're
going to, you know, dispute the allegations. They're probably going
to fight it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So Disney wants to set a favorable precedent here. You're
speaking in a week when both Anthropic and Meta seem
to have won favorable rulings from California judges who found
that their use of coperated books might qualify as fair
You so, tell me, has the ARC started to favor
the AI companies in these lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I think it's too soon to know. There have been
lawsuits happening about this issue, and there have been wins
on both sides, and that's something that everyone is aware of.
And why, Like, if you talk to Disney and Comcast
about the mid journey suit. Their suit can be the
one that ultimately goes to the Supreme Court and established
as precedent, and they plan, I think, to sign on
(19:38):
as sort of friends of the court in suits that
they believe are favorable. You know that there are certain
suits going through that they don't think are strong cases
and don't we didn't. They didn't want to go into
specifics and malign sort of their peers or authors or celebrities.
But there are definitely some people who have brought suits
against AI companies that the AI companies are in a
position to win, and I think they feel like vice.
(20:00):
And there's probably gonna be two three, four years of
this where you have cases that cut both ways, because
if you remember, there have been cases in the past
that were sort of strikes against AI companies. We're not
at a point where there's any settled law on how
this works.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Lucas. One thing I've struggled to understand a little bit
is what exactly are they worried about, because, like, if
you look at how these generative AI tools are being
used today, they're mostly being used to like make memes
and to do things that like I think in the
past we would talk about as like fan art or whatever.
And so is it a concern about sort of degrading,
(20:38):
like they're gonna like use Mickey Mouse or Darth Vader
or one of their characters in a way that's like
offensive or that somehow undermines Disney's credibility. Are they worried
about actual like competitive entertainment. Is it a little bit
of all those Like what are they actually like concerned
about or most concerned about the entertainment companies?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I think it's all of the above. It's they don't
don't want to see Iron Man or Darth Vader or
Mickey Mouse like suddenly smoking a joint or doing opium,
all sorts of things that would tarnish the image of
those characters.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Iron Man, Yes, I how would that work?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Behind the mask?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
By the way, I think their desire is to be
able to control the outputs, right, And one of the
big debates in this is over inputs versus outputs right.
The training is the thing that I think a lot
of these companies believe that they should just be able
to do, while perhaps acknowledging that there should be some
control over you know, how people show up and that's
(21:35):
where this idea is it like transformative comes up in
fair use? Are you taking something and doing something very
different or are you just copying? They don't want to
see Mickey Mouse doing horrible things, and they also don't
want a bunch of amateurs to just be able to
use their characters and make their own Marvel movie and
declare it's fair use.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Lucas, I was, as you know, at ken Lyons last week,
and I was speaking to Brady court Bay, the director
of The Bruces, on stage, and you know, he got
dinged for using AI to modify the Hungarian accents and
the brutals, but his wholeheartedly embracing the technology in his
next film. It says, you know, Hollywood cannot be in
denial about it. And it just made me think and
(22:16):
wonder whether the artists are a little bit farther ahead
than the studios and the big companies here, and whether
this is really going to empower small filmmakers with tiny
budgets and small crews to really compete against.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
The big guys.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think it is certainly the case that the at
least certain artists are ahead of the big companies. Most
great directors are at the forefront of technology in one
way or another. Right, you think about someone like James
Cameron and all the different kind of interesting ways that
he has come up with shooting movies, or the CGI,
the use of three D and the first Avatar was
(22:51):
sort of mind blowing at the time.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I know that there are directors like the Russo brothers
or Ben Affleck who are very interested in and toying
around with the ways of using artificial intelligence. It is
most likely that you will see filmmakers lead the way
in which Hollyood uses this technology as opposed to the studios,
and to your point, you'll certainly see amateurs. I mean,
(23:14):
that's to me, the real chance for revolution is if
you can use AI to make a movie that looks
like a cost one hundred million dollars, but it only
cost five or ten.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
All right, Brad. At the end of every show, we
talk about an underrated story, and I've got one for
both you and Lucas. Are you ready for it?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Okay, this is a This is one of those relatable,
I think we've all been there kind of stories. Here's
the headline from Bloomberg News. Jane street Boss says he
was duped into funding AK forty seven's for coup. Now,
this is who among us hasn't done that, Who among
us hasn't accidentally written a seven million dollar check that
went a core or was a tend to go According
(24:00):
to the story, to AK forty seven's Stinger missiles and
grenades as part of a coup attempt in South Sudan.
The guy who did this the co founder of Jane Street,
Robert Grenieri. He basically says he was defrauded. He did
not know his money was going to an attempted coup. Weirdly,
Gary Kasparov, the chess champion, is involved in this as well.
(24:24):
It kind of seems like they thought they were funding,
as I suppose sometimes happens in these cases, some sort
of humanitarian effort. Now, what's funny about this, guys, is
that Jane Street is like one of the most respected,
like the smartest guy firms on Wall Street. It is
like it's like one of these places where they ask you, like,
(24:44):
you know, how many quarters can you fit on the table,
and if you don't answer in the right way, then
they throw you out. They did employ Sam Makminfried prior
to his going to prison, for orchestrating a massive fraud.
So I don't know, kind of another point against Jane Street.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Well here that's my question. Can you write that off?
You know, can you write off a coup donation? Do
coup on your taxes? Wow?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I admit I didn't see that story, so I'm glad
that you brought it to my attention.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean, I think, you know, do some research, Robert
in your donations. Maybe maybe dig a little bit under
the surface.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, who transfers seven million dollars without knowing where it's going?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It does raise a lot of questions, and interestingly, we're
probably going too deep in here. But the defense of
these guys who are being charged with orchestrating the coup
is they were under the impression that the US government
was telling them to do this. So we're quickly getting
into kind of weird spy territory. I definitely think, yeah, movie,
(25:43):
this is gonna be good as a as a film.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
This is a Coen Brothers movie.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Who are we casting in each role?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's the Lucas, that's your department.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I think Brad Pitt might have aged out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We can use AI to age him down, No problem.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
That is true, and we could stick Darth Vader in us.
Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again soon.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Thanks guys, Brad.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Before we go, Stacy and I have been writing haikus
for the people who are kind enough to leave reviews
in the Apple podcast app or in Spotify, and we've
got a new one here. It's from a user called
Mario Kart twenty two. Mario Kart, thank you so much
five stars. We really appreciate Mario Kart twenty two writes
(26:26):
good stuff. All the different people are cool. Nice to
hear from real people. I guess he appreciates or she
appreciates the voices that they're hearing in the show. Brad,
let's give Mario Kart twenty two something nice in exchange
for this wonderful review.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Thank you Max. First of all, who are we without
our listeners? So this haiku is devoted to one of them.
Here we go. Good stuff is high praise from Mario
Kart twenty two. Our sinceres, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Wow, Mario Kart twenty two. Those are the poetic stylings
of Bradstone. Keep writing review use everyone. They help us
figure out what we should be doing. They also help
people find the show and send us an email. Everybody's
at Bloomberg dot net. Let us know if you have
ever funded, accidentally funded a coup or accidentally bought something
that you should not have bought, and we will talk
(27:15):
about it and maybe even write a poem.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And for the purposes of haiku writing, if you could
choose a user name with fewer syllables than Mario Kart
twenty two, that.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Would be preferable, although that is a fun user name.
Shout out to Warrio. This show is produced by Stacey Wong.
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer, Amy keenar editor, and
Brennan Francis Newnham is our executive producer. We get engineering
(27:46):
help from Blake Maples and Dave Purcell, fact checks, Sage
Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts, and Jeff Muscus is the best.
If you have a minute, please rate and review the show.
It means a lot to us, and like I said,
we'll write you a poem and if you have a
story that should be our business, send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody with an US
(28:06):
at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks for listening. And we'll see
you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Max Chafkins
and I'm Brad Stone. This week, Brad, it's all about changes.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
A new marriage for a very well known billionaire, a new.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Mayor probably for New York City, and a new approach
as Hollywood looks to protect its intellectual property from AI. Yeah,
Lucas Shaw, our friend and entertainment correspondent, will be joining
us for that. Plus how a Wall Street tycoon accidentally
funded an alleged coup plot in a small African country
happens to the best of us. Bratt, you are here
(00:46):
for Stacy Vanixsmith, who's in China at the World Economic Forum.
You are straight back from Kahn and I wanted to
start the show by talking about the event of the season,
the wedding between Jeff Bezos and Laura in Sanchez. It's
in Venice. It is starting today, I believe, or the
events of the wedding are starting as we record this
(01:07):
on Thursday. The twenty six huge guest list also, lots
of the locals are very unhappy about this wedding. Their
protests plan some very funny quotes from the locals. They're like,
we're not gonna let them get to the venue. Brad,
You've covered Jeff Bezos for many, many years. You've written
two books about Amazon. You've been called the Edward Gibbon
(01:30):
of this company, I believe, And I just got to
ask you, like, what are your sources telling you? What
is this wedding going to be?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Are the protesters gonna stop it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, first of all, my invite was somehow lost in
the mail. Okay, let's start there. But you know, maybe
it's because I've written two critical books about Bezos and
feel like I've established my bona fides as a Bezos critic.
I don't feel the need to dunk on him. Is
it over the top?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Is it, you know, a gratuitous misreading of the room
at a time of gross inequality and injustice?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It is.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I don't think Bezos cares at all what people think,
and we should say that unlike Elon Musk, he is
not out there siring children with multiple women. Unlike Malania Trump,
Lauren Sanchez does appear to really like her fiance. It
is an age appropriate marriage. They've been together since twenty eighteen,
and whethered all sorts of scandal and withering public scrutiny,
(02:27):
So I say, all power to him.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I have to just say. My reaction to this story
was like, is Jeff Bezos really the worst guy who's
ever gotten married in Venice? Like these protesters, like, there've
got to be some really questionable weddings in Venice, and
I just cannot imagine to your point that this even
ranks in the top five of the most annoying Venice weddings.
And that raises the question, what do you get the
man who sells everything? And of course every week we
(02:52):
go out in the streets and ask people questions, get
them to weigh in on the news this week, what
are you getting Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos for their wedding?
I don't think I would. I think that's my answer.
A Prime membership, something to do from Amazon.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
I don't know, Oh, a canoe because Venice floods.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Demotally a story night, because they know those dard nights
worth like three million dollars.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
Okay, I think I would make them a meme coin
in their honor, and I would post about it on
social media to maximize attention, so that on the morning
of the wedding when it goes live, the value immediately, Skyrock.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
I think I would probably give him a twenty five
dollars Amazon gift card and a handwritten card that says, Bay,
your love lasts longers than an Amazon warehouse workers bathroom
break mine declined RSVP.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I do love the twenty five dollars Amazon gift card
just because, like that is probably the most common gift
given in the entire world and also the least personal.
I love the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The Starry Night might be the best one of the bunch.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
He probably is getting that, Like, we should make sure
that that hasn't already been purchased and loaded up into
the yacht that is parked outside of Venice to take
them away after the honeymoon. Brad, you've heard the big
political news by now. New York City financial capital of
the world. It's the home of financiers, advertising executives, media executives.
(04:28):
A lot of people who really, really really like capitalism
just voted in a primary for mayor and there was
a huge upset the socialist one. This is Zoron Mamdani,
who beat Andrew Cuomo. The crazy thing about this, Brad,
is that Cuomo was backed by this kind of very
long list of very rich guys. He raised a huge
(04:48):
amount of money from a group that includes Mike Bloomberg,
who owns a company that produces this show. But right
now many of those backers are very surprised and they
are very unhappy.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And one of those backers, Dan Loeb from Third Point,
he just called it officially hot commy Summer. A Wall
Street headhunter said, this will be the end of New
York City as we know it.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What they're worried about is Mamdani has proposed a bunch
of policies that are basically redistributive. He's a democratic socialist,
a sort of Bernie Sanders acolyte. He's talked about raising
the corporate tax. He's talked about a new income tax
for the one percent. He's also talked about sort of
things that I think are just kind of triggering for capitalists,
including like state run grocery stores. He's a big critic
(05:36):
of Israel, and all this, you know, swirl together add
up to kind of a sense of panic. If you
were listening or talking to anyone who's connected to like
Wall Street or Money yesterday, here's a quick prediction that
I heard on CNBC.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
If you've seen what Batman is up against in Gotham
and what is the guy running for mayor is up
That's what it.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're taking Wall streeters and make him walk out onto
the ice in the East River as and hope and
then they fall through Joe Kernan never change. So obviously
huge political story, but also a huge business story. And
we have the perfect person to guide us through this.
Laura Namias, Bloomberg reporter is here in the studio. She's
(06:25):
been covering the race. Laura, thanks for coming.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, so just to like set this scene, can you
help talk us through exactly how this happened. Cuomo, the
former governor of New York who resigned, I think it's
fair to say in disgrace, raised, nonetheless a huge amount
of money from all these rich people. Mom, Donnie got
a fraction of that. How did he win?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
So the former governor entered the race in March and
all of the polls showed him winning. He had the
highest name ID in the race, and so we're on
Mom Donnie back in March was pulling out like zero percent.
He is a thirty three year old assembly member who
was first elected in twenty twenty. He has passed three
bills in Albany. But he has this incredibly charismatic social
(07:14):
media presence, and when his campaign really got going, he
was able to amass thousands and thousands of individual donors
and quickly became the first candidate to get the maximum
amount of public matching funds under the city's very generous
campaign finance system. And so he just had this infrastructure
in place to get all these donations from thousands and
(07:38):
thousands of people who actually vote in the primary. I
think that might be the simplest explanation for what happened here.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I want to come back to that social media campaign
because I think it says a lot about our current politics.
But first we should say the reason why Mom Donnie's
campaign is so triggering to some on Wall Street. It's
because of his agenda, right, Yeah, it's quite radical. He's
a democratic socialist. I'm just curious, if he does win,
and of course he needs to win a general election,
what is the practicality of this agenda? How much power
(08:05):
does the New York City mayor have and can he
really institute what could be a fairly dramatic redistribution of
wealth in New York City, so.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
People often don't realize this. The mayor of New York
City has virtually no power to raise taxes except for
the property tax levy, so the power to raise taxes
or lower them resides within Albany. Kathy Hokkel would have
to sign off on any tax increases. She's already said
definitively in response to questions about this that she will
not support any tax increases. The cities and the states
(08:36):
offers in revenue is dependent in a really big way
on personal income tax revenue, and so the movement of
even a handful of billionaires out of the state can
have a significant effect on things like Medicaid funding and
money for schools and stuff. So the state tax department
and the governor are very sensitive to anything that might
(08:57):
lead to even a few very wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
You talked about the way he built support, and part
of it were these kind of slogans that really remind me,
honestly of Trump. Right, he said, freeze the rent over
and over again, and kind of in the same way,
I think Donald Trump us build the wall both as
a policy prescription but also as a way to signal,
and I think this was super important, Like I care
about affordability. That was a part of the campaign. I
(09:21):
think voters really reacted to the affordability part. What about
that stuff like can he freeze the rent? Is he
going to build state owned grocery stores?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
So what he's actually talking about when he says freeze
the rent, which yes, is a very catchy and easy
to understand slogan, and that helps explain some of his
success and ability to catch fire with voters is the
city stock of rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments. I
think there's more than a million rent stabilized apartments.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Those are the.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Ones over which the city has the authority to control
how much the rent can increase. And how that actually
happens is the mayor gets to appoint members of the
Rent Guidelines Board and every year they do this study
with data submitted by landlords showing how much gas costs them,
how much materials cost them, what inflation has been and
(10:10):
the board votes on a percent increase or decides not
to increase at all. So that's what Mam Donnie can
actually do is pick the members of the Rent Guidelines Board.
Market rate apartments which a lot of people live in.
He has no power over that.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So I feel like I should get Hazard PAYD for this,
But I spent I don't know, ten minutes this morning
reading a long message from Bill Ackman sort of describing
his strategy for a write in campaign. There is this
frantic effort among some members of the base of support
of Andrew Cuomol, though it doesn't seem like all of
(10:45):
them to either, you know, coalesce behind some other non
Mam Donnie candidate or draft a new one or a
secret candidate. That's what Acman's talking about. And I have
to say, Lauren, and I'm curious to get your take,
Like part of me thinks the lesson here and the
lesson we need to start learning, is that billionaire donations
are not as important as they used to be, and
that these billionaires they look pretty inept. And you look
(11:07):
at prediction markets, and prediction markets overwhelmingly believe that Mam
Donnie is going to be the mayor. Now, it's not
going to be Adams, it's not going to be some
secret candidate. Do you think that these efforts could go
anywhere that like Acman and so on, can get together
and pull their money and put it in a different
place and actually shake things up.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So I don't know what the exact track record is,
but in the years since Citizens United, I think there
have been multiple instances where it was shown that it
was really hard to buy an election, especially when you're
coming up against a candidate who has a genuine enthusiastic base,
which is what Mam Donni has here. If the candidate
of the quote unquote left had more tepid support, then
(11:48):
maybe the effort would have succeeded on a greater level.
But ultimately what happened here is that young people supporting
Mom Donnie turned out, and the people motivated to whatever
extent by the campaign for a CUOMO and funded by
this independent expenditure and billionaire money didn't turn out, not
at a level high enough to overtake Mom Donnie's enthusiastic support. Also,
(12:09):
you're talking numerically about the number of billionaires. Their money
is so big, but the total number of them is small.
It ultimately just comes down to turnout.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
And Laura, let me just.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Ask you, Mam Donnie has had to answer a lot
of questions about his support for Palestine, about his tweets,
after the October seventh attacks blaming Netanyahu and the state
of Israel. He seems to me has been kind of
dogged by those questions and has had a hard time
winning support from the Jewish community in New York City.
(12:41):
Do you feel like he's beyond those questions or have
they really only started now that we're into the general election.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I think that those questions have only just started, certainly,
as our focus in larger matters is still on the
Middle East and or with Iran, his stances on that
are are going to be looked to. He's would be
the mayor of the largest city in America. What he
says matters. It also was for many, many years sort
(13:09):
of this article of faith or the third rail of
New York City politics that you supported Israel almost unquestioningly.
But the first thing that Cuomo advisor said to me
Tuesday night after the results came in was that they
think they may be looking at a fundamental realignment of
the Democratic Party's position on Israel. If someone who is
(13:31):
not only a Muslim but has been outspokenly critical of
Israel can win the Democratic primary in New York City,
that says something about where Democratic voters are on the
question of Israel. He's been very critical of Israel, and
the advisors were scratching their heads. They have a lot
of questions and they're wondering if this represents some sort
(13:53):
of fundamental change in the party and its relationship with Israel.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Does this tell us anything about what's going to happen
in twenty twenty eight, like who the Democrats might nominate,
and also what the relationship I guess between money and
the Democratic Party or money and whoever is the next
president might look like.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Well, I think there's been after the twenty twenty four
presidential election, there's all this soul searching within the Democratic Party.
Who is the next generation of leadership. There's this question
of the quote unquote gerontocracy see Alexandria Cossio Kurtez going
around criticizing the party as like a bunch of very
old people reluctant to relinquish their power, and the generational
split in this race. The youngest candidate who would be
(14:35):
one of the youngest mayors in New York City history,
the youngest mayor in a century, versus the oldest candidate,
Andrew Cuomo, who if he'd been elected, would have been
one of the oldest mayors on inauguration really sort of
encapsulates this divide within the party. And then also there's
been this question since twenty twenty four the presidential election
of whether or not the problem was that the party
(14:59):
was too far left or not left enough, and whether
or not they need to swing, especially on economic issues,
toward a more populist and maybe an agenda that looks
a little bit more like what zoron Mom Donnie is espousing.
So all of those questions are roiling, and there's a
lot of soul searching going on, but this could certainly
(15:21):
be a bellweather for where the party is actually going.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Max, We've both covered this. Hollywood has been absolutely abused
over the last thirty years by technology at the internet,
file sharing, streaming. The major studios were late, they were unprepared,
They played legal defense instead of inventing new things and
lost ground to Silicon Valley giants like YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Okay, yeah, Brad, And now you know, with artificial intelligence,
you have companies like open ai Andthropic, Facebook others. They're
training chatbots and they're doing it in part by taking
allegedly I guess content from old line media companies feeding
it into these large language models and potentially producing competition.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So how does Hollywood avoid the mistakes of the past.
To break it down for us, of course, we have Lucashaw,
friend of Everybody's Business, author of the screen Time newsletter,
the cameo that the seth Rogan showed the studio desperately
needs to book for season two. Lucas, welcome, great to
be back. You wrote this week that everybody in Hollywood
(16:32):
has learned they need to embrace the technology instead of
fighting it, and yet we have Disney and comcasts suing
mid Journey.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So what is going on here?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're seeing Hollywood studios take sort of a two track approach.
On the one hand, they are experimenting with different types
of artificial intelligence, whether they talk about it or not. Right,
we had a Indiana Jones movie where Harrison.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Ford was deaged.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
We've got this Darth Vader Avatar or in Fortnite or
using the voice I should say. You have studios that
have done partnerships with companies like Runway, and at the
same time they are trying to defend sort of this
notion that the large language models cannot just train on
their video or their music right, And this is one
(17:20):
of the big unsettled legal questions in it because you're
starting to see open Ai has Sora, Google has Veo,
Meta is working on video. Everyone wants to have a
kind of video generator. And text was sort of the
first frontier the fight, then audio, then video. That's always
the progression. And so they are trying to establish this
legal precedent that says you can't just train your LM
(17:44):
on Marvel and Darth Vader.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Why is it this lawsuit? Like why did Disney choose
to go after mid Journey, which is not one of
the best known of these companies, Like why is it?
Why is this the one that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I think part of it is that some of the
bigger players have been a little more willing to play
by the rules, right. I think, you know, if you
look at Google and Facebook, they want certain guardrails because
restrictions on the industry help them protect their moat that
they have. And I think mid Journey is an example
of a company that doesn't care that much about what
(18:21):
the establishment thinks. They are taking advantage of this idea
of fair use and believe that they can do whatever
they want. We've seen similar with the music companies or
the audio companies Udio and Suno, where their position has
been we can train like sue us if you want,
will win. And so I think Disney saw this as
an opportunity to go after also a somewhat smaller company
(18:41):
that they may have an advantage on fighting, as opposed
to a company like Googler Meta that has kind of
inexhaustible resources.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And we should say mid Journey has not responded to
this lawsuit, but I think we can expect that they're
going to, you know, dispute the allegations. They're probably going
to fight it.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So Disney wants to set a favorable precedent here. You're
speaking in a week when both Anthropic and Meta seem
to have won favorable rulings from California judges who found
that their use of coperated books might qualify as fair
You so, tell me, has the ARC started to favor
the AI companies in these lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I think it's too soon to know. There have been
lawsuits happening about this issue, and there have been wins
on both sides, and that's something that everyone is aware of.
And why, Like, if you talk to Disney and Comcast
about the mid journey suit. Their suit can be the
one that ultimately goes to the Supreme Court and established
as precedent, and they plan, I think, to sign on
(19:38):
as sort of friends of the court in suits that
they believe are favorable. You know that there are certain
suits going through that they don't think are strong cases
and don't we didn't. They didn't want to go into
specifics and malign sort of their peers or authors or celebrities.
But there are definitely some people who have brought suits
against AI companies that the AI companies are in a
position to win, and I think they feel like vice.
(20:00):
And there's probably gonna be two three, four years of
this where you have cases that cut both ways, because
if you remember, there have been cases in the past
that were sort of strikes against AI companies. We're not
at a point where there's any settled law on how
this works.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Lucas. One thing I've struggled to understand a little bit
is what exactly are they worried about, because, like, if
you look at how these generative AI tools are being
used today, they're mostly being used to like make memes
and to do things that like I think in the
past we would talk about as like fan art or whatever.
And so is it a concern about sort of degrading,
(20:38):
like they're gonna like use Mickey Mouse or Darth Vader
or one of their characters in a way that's like
offensive or that somehow undermines Disney's credibility. Are they worried
about actual like competitive entertainment. Is it a little bit
of all those Like what are they actually like concerned
about or most concerned about the entertainment companies?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I think it's all of the above. It's they don't
don't want to see Iron Man or Darth Vader or
Mickey Mouse like suddenly smoking a joint or doing opium,
all sorts of things that would tarnish the image of
those characters.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Iron Man, Yes, I how would that work?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Behind the mask?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
By the way, I think their desire is to be
able to control the outputs, right, And one of the
big debates in this is over inputs versus outputs right.
The training is the thing that I think a lot
of these companies believe that they should just be able
to do, while perhaps acknowledging that there should be some
control over you know, how people show up and that's
(21:35):
where this idea is it like transformative comes up in
fair use? Are you taking something and doing something very
different or are you just copying? They don't want to
see Mickey Mouse doing horrible things, and they also don't
want a bunch of amateurs to just be able to
use their characters and make their own Marvel movie and
declare it's fair use.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Lucas, I was, as you know, at ken Lyons last week,
and I was speaking to Brady court Bay, the director
of The Bruces, on stage, and you know, he got
dinged for using AI to modify the Hungarian accents and
the brutals, but his wholeheartedly embracing the technology in his
next film. It says, you know, Hollywood cannot be in
denial about it. And it just made me think and
(22:16):
wonder whether the artists are a little bit farther ahead
than the studios and the big companies here, and whether
this is really going to empower small filmmakers with tiny
budgets and small crews to really compete against.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
The big guys.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think it is certainly the case that the at
least certain artists are ahead of the big companies. Most
great directors are at the forefront of technology in one
way or another. Right, you think about someone like James
Cameron and all the different kind of interesting ways that
he has come up with shooting movies, or the CGI,
the use of three D and the first Avatar was
(22:51):
sort of mind blowing at the time.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I know that there are directors like the Russo brothers
or Ben Affleck who are very interested in and toying
around with the ways of using artificial intelligence. It is
most likely that you will see filmmakers lead the way
in which Hollyood uses this technology as opposed to the studios,
and to your point, you'll certainly see amateurs. I mean,
(23:14):
that's to me, the real chance for revolution is if
you can use AI to make a movie that looks
like a cost one hundred million dollars, but it only
cost five or ten.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
All right, Brad. At the end of every show, we
talk about an underrated story, and I've got one for
both you and Lucas. Are you ready for it?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Okay, this is a This is one of those relatable,
I think we've all been there kind of stories. Here's
the headline from Bloomberg News. Jane street Boss says he
was duped into funding AK forty seven's for coup. Now,
this is who among us hasn't done that, Who among
us hasn't accidentally written a seven million dollar check that
went a core or was a tend to go According
(24:00):
to the story, to AK forty seven's Stinger missiles and
grenades as part of a coup attempt in South Sudan.
The guy who did this the co founder of Jane Street,
Robert Grenieri. He basically says he was defrauded. He did
not know his money was going to an attempted coup. Weirdly,
Gary Kasparov, the chess champion, is involved in this as well.
(24:24):
It kind of seems like they thought they were funding,
as I suppose sometimes happens in these cases, some sort
of humanitarian effort. Now, what's funny about this, guys, is
that Jane Street is like one of the most respected,
like the smartest guy firms on Wall Street. It is
like it's like one of these places where they ask you, like,
(24:44):
you know, how many quarters can you fit on the table,
and if you don't answer in the right way, then
they throw you out. They did employ Sam Makminfried prior
to his going to prison, for orchestrating a massive fraud.
So I don't know, kind of another point against Jane Street.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Well here that's my question. Can you write that off?
You know, can you write off a coup donation? Do
coup on your taxes? Wow?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I admit I didn't see that story, so I'm glad
that you brought it to my attention.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I mean, I think, you know, do some research, Robert
in your donations. Maybe maybe dig a little bit under
the surface.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, who transfers seven million dollars without knowing where it's going?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It does raise a lot of questions, and interestingly, we're
probably going too deep in here. But the defense of
these guys who are being charged with orchestrating the coup
is they were under the impression that the US government
was telling them to do this. So we're quickly getting
into kind of weird spy territory. I definitely think, yeah, movie,
(25:43):
this is gonna be good as a as a film.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
This is a Coen Brothers movie.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Who are we casting in each role?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's the Lucas, that's your department.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I think Brad Pitt might have aged out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We can use AI to age him down, No problem.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
That is true, and we could stick Darth Vader in us.
Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again soon.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Thanks guys, Brad.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Before we go, Stacy and I have been writing haikus
for the people who are kind enough to leave reviews
in the Apple podcast app or in Spotify, and we've
got a new one here. It's from a user called
Mario Kart twenty two. Mario Kart, thank you so much
five stars. We really appreciate Mario Kart twenty two writes
(26:26):
good stuff. All the different people are cool. Nice to
hear from real people. I guess he appreciates or she
appreciates the voices that they're hearing in the show. Brad,
let's give Mario Kart twenty two something nice in exchange
for this wonderful review.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Thank you Max. First of all, who are we without
our listeners? So this haiku is devoted to one of them.
Here we go. Good stuff is high praise from Mario
Kart twenty two. Our sinceres, Thanks.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Wow, Mario Kart twenty two. Those are the poetic stylings
of Bradstone. Keep writing review use everyone. They help us
figure out what we should be doing. They also help
people find the show and send us an email. Everybody's
at Bloomberg dot net. Let us know if you have
ever funded, accidentally funded a coup or accidentally bought something
that you should not have bought, and we will talk
(27:15):
about it and maybe even write a poem.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
And for the purposes of haiku writing, if you could
choose a user name with fewer syllables than Mario Kart
twenty two, that.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Would be preferable, although that is a fun user name.
Shout out to Warrio. This show is produced by Stacey Wong.
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer, Amy keenar editor, and
Brennan Francis Newnham is our executive producer. We get engineering
(27:46):
help from Blake Maples and Dave Purcell, fact checks, Sage
Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts, and Jeff Muscus is the best.
If you have a minute, please rate and review the show.
It means a lot to us, and like I said,
we'll write you a poem and if you have a
story that should be our business, send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody with an US
(28:06):
at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks for listening. And we'll see
you next week.
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