Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - July 25th, 2025 - Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine
that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies,
and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business finance
and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week
Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast.
This past week it was largely about the newsflow from
Washington to Wall Street, and that included shifts on US
trade policy with global allies, and renewed pressure on the
FED to the White House fast tracking its AI infrastructure
build out, and oh right, a busy and big earnings week.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
On that this first hour, what you need to know
about results from two members of the mag seven, We
talk Alphabet and Tesla. One traded on earnings, the other
initially sold off only to Rally.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
And speaking of Tesla, we get into the relationship between
Elon and the President, recently feuding and yet this past
week President Trump perhaps offering an olive branch, as he
put out on social that he wanted Elon to thrive
Elon's Universe is the cover story of the upcoming new
issue of Bloomberg Business Week.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Plus one real estate investor finding opportunities in Solar. We'll
explain all that to come. We begin with two of
the big earnings this week. First up, Alphabet, which said
demand for AI products boosted quarterly sales and now requires
an extreme increase in capital spending, heightening pressure on the
company to justify the cost of keeping up in the
AI race.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
To help break down Alphabet's quarter reelaned on Laura Martin,
senior analyst at Needeman Company, who has a buy rating
on Alphabet, the.

Speaker 5 (01:48):
Single most important number to offset the bears is the
search number. So search revenue up twelve percent, was well
above the whisper A number of ten percent growth and
above the Wall Street census number of nine percent growth.
And they also had four percent click volume, which basically
is the same as last year, and that's up from

(02:08):
two percent you know, click through rate in the first quarter,
which is positive because people of the bare case here
is that generative of AI answers lower than the economics
of Google Search, which is the big money engine here.
So the single most important number was that search grew
AD revenue twelve percent, which was three hundred basis points
above consensus view.

Speaker 6 (02:29):
The second most important number is cloud.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
Right, there's still out of capacity with Cloud, but their
cloud business grew thirty two percent and a twenty percent margin,
So that's fantastic, So they're really pricing up now that
they have capacity constraints. And the third most important numbers
YouTube YouTube grew thirteen percent of revenue, and we think
it's worth seventy three dollars a share here if it
was separately tradable and not confined within the alphabet conglomerate.

(02:56):
So but I would say those are the three most
important segments that people are talking about. But the barecase
really is highly focused on the search revenue.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Ground, and that's exactly where I want to go right now.
Going into this print, there was so much concern about
the cannibalization of traditional Google search. Why aren't we seeing that?

Speaker 5 (03:15):
So what they're saying is that what happens when you
have those answers, when you put in a Google search
and then you get an answer, is that people are
spending ten times more time, ten percent more time asking
the next question, asking the next question, and that the
shortfalling clicks per query is made up by the fact

(03:35):
that people spend ten percent longer, which then lets Google
serve more queries or more ads. So that's what they're saying,
is that the demometization is about equal. That's their words,
about equal. But I think part of it is the
extra time people spend using the answer format is offsetting

(03:55):
the actual you know, the downdraft in the economics per query.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Hey, the extra spend the up again CAPEX. Initially everyone
was saying, well, that's why the stock traded down in
the aftermarket. It made some folks, or at least some
investors it felt like initially nervous. What is your take
on that. I think our own man Deep Singh was saying, well, listen,
it sounds like they're getting the demand and they're spending
to meet that demand.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
Yeah, I mean I would say that.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
I would say the other thing that's going on is
that I think one of the reasons the stock was
a little volatile is the operating income grew fourteen percent,
The top line grew fourteen percent, thirteen fourteen percent, and
it sort of looked like there was minimal operating leverage.
But what they told us on the call that was
buried in the financial statements is those costs included one
four point four billion dollar fine legislative fine, regulatory fine.

(04:47):
So if you subtract that just to look at costs,
the most important point we would make that I think
largely is being missed. It doesn't have to do with revenue,
has to do with the fact that by integrating generative
AI into every aspect of their business, they've got really
accelerating revenue, which everyone's focused on. But their costs are

(05:07):
going down.

Speaker 6 (05:08):
Okay, that's not fair.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
Their costs are just not going up as fast. There's
a lot more operating leverage here if you exclude the fine.
So I think that's why I think once they said
there was this big fine and the costs, people realize
that jenerator of AA is really lowering or increasing the
productivity here, and so the operating leverage is at margin
expansion is faster than people think at a time when

(05:30):
revenue is also accelerating. Over consensus view.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
One thing I loved in your research, and you put
this right up top, Laura, as you said, we like
Google's strong strategic position as number one in search, number
one in streaming YouTube number two in mobile, Android, number
three in claud, number one in autonomous driving. Weimo, which
Tim and I are both in love with. And you
say lms make data more valuable and Google's data is
best in class. Again, your view is alphabet in many

(05:57):
ways the one to beat. And why hasn't the stock
been I don't know, doing more this year?

Speaker 5 (06:04):
You know, I think I think Google, So I would
say their execution has been very haphazard.

Speaker 6 (06:11):
It's not.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
And Wall Street really prefers leaders that lead from the front,
like Meta, like Mark Zuckerberg. We like, you know, visible, clear,
visionary leaders, and that's not what's going on here at Google.
But you know, Google just sort of despite itself, really
does have the human capital and culture and financial resources

(06:35):
to fund what will be a retooling of American business,
which is the generative AI backbone infrastructure that they're building.
And they're leading by executing within their own They're showing
what's possible by executing implementing generative AI and everything they do,
every product they have, and every cost center they have.

(06:58):
So this is what's about to happen to America over
the next decade is companies that follow Google's lead will
have increasing margins and accelerating revenue. And if you don't,
which requires a cloud. By the way, you can't do
this without cloud. If you don't, you will go out
of business. Because, in my opinion, because the guys, the

(07:19):
companies that use generative AI to increase productivity and margins
and increase revenue will get higher multiples from Wall Street.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
I know you said search, search, streaming, search, cloud, and
YouTube are the three most important numbers, but we'd be
remiss if we didn't ask you about weimo and the
expansion that the company said is coming in the quote
near future. Here's what they said. Alphabet hopes to expand
weimo to all cities in the near future. How do
you look at this as an analyst on this company stock,

(07:50):
as an analyst for the company and material contribution.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
So you guys love the service you just said, so,
so I don't like it in this sense that right now,
I think the most strategy is what you say no to.
And what Google should be saying no to is anything
that isn't generative AI related. Because this is a race
and a war, and they are spending a fortune on
jenerative AI. Good for them, But Weimo is another huge

(08:20):
sunk cost or financial commitment, and I would like them
figure out a way to do Wei moh. They are ahead,
they are number one in autonomous driving. I would like
them to keep the data because I think data in
the real world plus the virtual world, is worth more
than either world standalone. So I like the data aspect
of WEIMO, but I do not like the capital commitments,

(08:42):
which compete right now with the generative AI capital.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
What are the capital commitments? They haven't been totally clear
about that. What do you to view them?

Speaker 7 (08:50):
Ass?

Speaker 5 (08:51):
Well, they sit in other bets, and I think other
bets I'm forgetting, but it like it loses typically three
to five billion dollars a quarter, so it's like twenty
billion a year, and a lot of that is WAYMO
and it's their healthcare initiatives, and so I just think
that that money. You know, they just upped CAPEX by
ten billion. I would like to see him take it
out of other bets.

Speaker 6 (09:10):
But the primary other bet is WEYMO.

Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I think they're unwilling to relinquish their pole position
because now.

Speaker 6 (09:16):
Tesla's coming after them.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
So I think I think, Look, they are number one
in all of these strategic segments. Because they get there early,
and so they're early to Weimo. I just wish it
wasn't as capital intensive, the losses weren't as big at
a time when Google should be spending all of its
focus and resources on Jenerator ai Ura.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
We really, really, really like Weymo. I'm just gonna tell you. Really,
I even close my eyes in a Weymo. That's uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
I know.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Hey, listen, we've got about three minutes left. There's so
many different places we would love to go with you,
but you pick because you've got Apple reporting next week,
Meta reporting next week, Amazon reporting next week, uh, Disney
in early August, Netflix already out, and then there's the
Late Night Wars. What's interesting to you right now that
you think the Bloomberg audience and investors really need to

(10:06):
be paying attention and it could be something else beyond that.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
Let's do Apple because it used to be the biggest
company in the world now. I guess the videos, But
what I would say about Apple, we have a hold
here on Apple, whereas we have a buy on on
Alphabet Google. You know, I think I think Apple isn't
really a box because when you listen, for sure, when
we hear Meta who's spending hundreds of millions of dollars

(10:32):
per person to create a super intelligence generative AI group.
And yesterday there was no sentence on the Google earnings
called it didn't have AI in it.

Speaker 6 (10:42):
So you know, these companies are really talking.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
Amazon will also because that's being run Amazon now is
being run by the AWS you know founder. Essentially, he's
talks a lot generative AI a lot. So the you know,
the one that's not the same is Apple, and people
really want to see what's happening with their generative AI
strategy and how is it. How is Apple either sixteen iOS,

(11:10):
sixteen iOS, seventeen iOS going to keep up with Android,
which is Google, who last night told us they're integrating
jenerave I tools into everything including androids. So I do
think there's a bigger threat to Apple's only business, which
is this iPhone business. We think it's a single product
company with upsells to other devices. We think the anchor
ten that there is the iPhone. So we really want

(11:32):
to hear how they think they can compete when they
are saying nothing about jenerative AI and they're spending twelve
billion dollars on Capex, which is the same number at
Apple for the last three years, when we just every
single quarter we show up on the Amazon call, the
meta call that Google called they're raising capex by ten
billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
At a time or with order thirty seconds on Apples,
Tim Cook the right leader to guide them through the
AI era.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
Ough, so harsh. I'm gonna go with no, but so harsh. No,
I don't think so. I think we need a wartime CEO.
And I think Tim Cook is great at a lot
of things, but I don't think he's been He's not
proven great at this this technological disruption called generator.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
They I got someone else in mind that you think
she'd lead it ten seconds?

Speaker 5 (12:20):
It's an impossible job. So no, I have no idea
in mine for who could replace him.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
You you rock come back soon, and I think you
are coming back soon, which we're looking forward to already.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
Laura be well.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Laura Martin, senior alys at Niedem and Company, knows this
space like no other. So glad we could get some time.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us
live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen
on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
All right, let's stay with earnings and from another mag
seven we're talking about Tesla, which it shares fell after
Elon Musk warned of difficult times ahead for the company
following one of its work stretches since it first started
producing electric sedans over a dozen years ago. Tesla will
be in a transition period for the next year or more,
losing electric vehicle incentives in the United States and needing

(13:12):
time to roll out autonomous vehicles. That according to the
chief executive Elon Musk.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Ross Gerber is a longtime investor in Tesla and owner
of Tesla cars, including the cyber truck. He's the CEO
of gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Well. He's been a longtime
Tesla advocate. More recently, he's been a vocal critic of
Elon Musk. He joined us to reflect on his cautious optimism.

Speaker 8 (13:34):
I think probably my biggest issue is that what I
believe is best for Tesla isn't actually the strategy being
employed by Elon, And what I think is best for
Tesla is to be focused on selling great evs that
can drive themselves versus completely pivoting into this robot and
robotaxi business because they're struggling to sell cars. Because what

(13:57):
we're seeing now, which I suspected to be true earlier,
is that the deterioration of the EV business is really
really bad for Tesla, and it essentially is an EV business,
and so hoping that robotaxi robotics is going to be
a revenue stream or let alone profitable anytime soon is

(14:18):
really just not going to happen. And so, as Elon said,
Tesla's in for some pretty tough quarters ahead, and with
the ending of the tax credits and all this kind
of stuff, I mean, this is all bad news.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
When you say it's not gonna happen anytime soon. What
do you mean by that? Give us your own timeline here.

Speaker 8 (14:34):
Well, you know, we follow WEIMO very closely, and we
think that Tesla is two years behind Weimo as far
as the development of their robotaxi and now Weaimo is
scaling and being quite successful at charging you know, the
right amount for rides and generating enough revenue that it's meaningful.

Speaker 9 (14:52):
So I think it's at least two years right.

Speaker 8 (14:55):
So where Tesla's at for them to generate any revenue
at all, all of meaningful ability will take a couple
of years. And then from a profitability standpoint, we don't
even know if that business is going to be profitable
with all of the competition that's coming into the robo
taxi business.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
So you said you've been selling shares of Tesla. I
think there are reports to in June that you sold
about sixty million dollars worth of Tesla's shares and you
cited the waiting confidence as you're laying out here in
the company's future. Are you selling more? What's your exposure
at this point?

Speaker 8 (15:26):
Yeah, you know, we still have you know, on my
last thirteen haf we had over two hundred thousand shares.
You know, right now we're we're holding a little less
than two hundred thousand shares. So we continue to sell
the stock. We have a lot of diehard Tesla clients
that you have huge gains because we bought the stock
at you know, like two dollars and so, you know,
people aren't that excited to pay taxes. And there's still

(15:49):
this possibility that Elon could change course and really do
the things necessary to fix Tesla because fundamentally, Tesla is
a great company. Most if not all, of Tesla's problems
are self created because of the CEO Elon Musk. It's
not that Tesla's core business has some big problem. It's
actually the opposite, that CEO is the problem, which is

(16:12):
super unique. So so that's what why I'm loath to
just be like completely out of Tesla. But on the
other side of the coin, with the valuation where it's at,
and basically we think they're not going to be profitable
next year. You know, the stock needs to move meaningful
the lower in my mind before I would buy it.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
Hello, what's meaningful?

Speaker 8 (16:32):
Well, you know, I don't know if any of the
analyst estimates for next year are right. I think they're
all vastly overstated. But even if you did three dollars
of earnings next year at fifty times earnings, which is
in Nvidia's multiple, you'd be at one hundred and fifty dollars.
And then you put some premium on the Elon Musk
robot premium, maybe you put on fifty one hundred dollars,

(16:53):
so you're at you know, two hundred to two hundred
and fifty dollars.

Speaker 9 (16:56):
A shares where I think Tesla should be.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
Hey, Ross, in the past when we've spoken to you,
really critical of Tesla's board, even critical of it on
social media as well. The board does include folks such
as Kimball Musk, It includes James Murdoch. Most recently, it
added Chipotle's Jack Hartung to the board. Are you any
less critical of the board now? Do you think the
board is doing its job?

Speaker 9 (17:18):
No? I mean I think there is no board.

Speaker 8 (17:20):
I think the board is Elon Musk, and so the
board is just, you know, it's like a weekend at Bernie's.
You know, it's like a bunch of bodies that they
put at a desk and Elon tells them what to do,
and they do it. This Jack guy they just put
on probably had no idea what it's getting himself into.

Speaker 9 (17:35):
And he's in deep now, you know.

Speaker 8 (17:38):
So I don't actually think the board of directors cares
about anybody but Elon Musk, and I think investors in
Tesla know that at this point, and that's why we're
ultimately sellers is nobody actually represents retail investors, which own
you know, still own eighty seven percent of Tesla. So
it's really a unique situation, and I expect Tesla to

(17:59):
buy Xai at some point for probably two hundred billion
dollars some outrageous price, and I think that's the next
thing that will happen. So there's no question that the
merging of these businesses seems to be on the horizon.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Hey, before you go, definitely want you to get Have
you weigh in ross on what President Trump put out
on social that he denied he was seeking to ruin
Elon Musk's business empire as retribution for the dispute over
the President's signature tax law. What's your reading, Arnest? Might
this be helpful to Elon and tell us that we
just got about a minute ten?

Speaker 8 (18:36):
No, you know, Trump, Trump's just being the bigger man
here and trying to, you know, act like he doesn't
have a tiff with Elon, you know, because he's so
mature or something. But the truth of the matter is
he's already done what needs to be done to destroy
Tesla by taking away all the subsidies and making evs
much more expensive, and so you know, he doesn't have

(18:56):
to say anything anymore. It's Elon's dug his own grave
and he's going to have to figure out a way
out of it.

Speaker 9 (19:02):
So so you know, Trump, Trump doesn't have any reason.

Speaker 8 (19:05):
To look bad or grind an axe, you know, and
he's playing Trump's playing Elon like he has the whole time.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Thirty seconds. We have talked with you about your cyber truck.
We talked about others you know that you have owned.
Would you buy another Tesla? Do you still like the cars?
Just quickly, I do?

Speaker 8 (19:23):
You know, this is the whole issue, you know, I've
looked at so many other cars to buy, and I
want an electric car, and I want a great electric car.

Speaker 9 (19:31):
And I still think Tesla makes the best cars, and Rivian.

Speaker 8 (19:34):
I have a Rivian too, so I think they're a
close second, and they make a great vehicle as well.
But I just haven't been compelled by any of the
other vehicles EV vehicles out there, and and so you know,
I still kind of like my cyber truck, and I know.

Speaker 9 (19:50):
You know, I can't sell it anyways.

Speaker 8 (19:51):
But Tesla makes great vehicles and it's a great time
to buy an EV before the discounts go away.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Bus Gerbert, You're incredible of Gerbert Kawasaki. Well, we're so
appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
This is the Bloomberg business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern up on Applecarplay
and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You
can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship
New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Safe to Say So Many called it that the romance
would last between the world's richest person and the US President.
The breakup happening after disruptions to the US government under
what some say was the guise of efficiency and data foraging.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
We are talking, of course, about Elon Musk and how
his companies, specifically Tesla, SpaceX, and Xai, are struggling in
the wake of his feud with President Trump. This past week,
Bloomberg reported that a risk factor statement was sent to
SpaceX investors, including Elon's desire to get back into politics.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Certainly a whirlwin for those invested in Elon's empire. Writing
all about it as the cover story for the upcoming
issue of Bloomberg Business Week is Bloomberg's Max Chafkin and
Ed Ludlow.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Max is Bloomberg BusinessWeek Senior reporter, also the co host
of The Everybody's business and Elon Inc. Podcasts. He joined
us to break down how Elon's empire may be creaking
under the strain of his antics.

Speaker 7 (21:20):
He's the wealthiest guy in the world, and investors to
date have essentially allowed him to do whatever he wants
and to do things that most CEOs, most entrepreneurs would
would never be able to essentially get away.

Speaker 9 (21:37):
With that said, there are i'd.

Speaker 7 (21:41):
Say bigger challenges facing these companies today than he's experienced
in a very long time. You know, of course, Elon
Musk has a history of sort of flirting with disaster,
and you look at the history of Tesla. There were
some very dicey moments in the two thousand, same thing
with SpaceX, but you haven't had this situation that we

(22:02):
have today where you have essentially three companies SpaceX, Tesla,
and Xai. I'm going to leave off this sort of
small smaller ones, but those are there too. And then
in the foreground you have this potential fight with Donald Trump,
and so you know, everyone's focused on the fight. But
those three companies, each in their own way, have very

(22:22):
significant challenges.

Speaker 6 (22:23):
So let's get to it.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Because you do, right, there are many more weapons President
Trump could deploy against Elon Musk's business interests where he's
so motivated so so much as like does he or
doesn't ty, let's start. I love the way you guys
do this. You do basically like these case studies of
each of these three businesses. So let's talk about Tesla.
He makes promises sometimes it takes longer we have all
gone along from the ride that we eventually get this stuff.

(22:46):
And to be fair, when it comes to EV, certainly
in the United States, he moved the needle.

Speaker 7 (22:50):
Yeah, absolutely, And that's what's made I'd say the events
of the last couple of years so surprising because Elon
Musk is attempting this very dramatic pivot away from it
and towards robotaxis, which kind of strange because the EV
market is still growing very quickly. Tesla, on the other hand,
is not growing. I mean, their deliveries have been falling

(23:11):
for the last two quarters, had a down year in
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
We'll see what this latest quarter looks like.

Speaker 7 (23:18):
When they report earnings. But they are selling fewer cars
each quarter than they than they did a year ago,
and that is kind of surprising for a company that
is trading at just this insane multiple, trading at a
value that is way, way, way richer than you know,
a normal car company. Now, of course, the reason investors
are going for this, the reason they're you know, continuing

(23:40):
to buy the stock at a relatively high price, is
because of robotaxis, this belief that Elon Musk is gonna
revolutionize transportation. The issue is that's been this kind of
thing that Musk was able to point ahead in the
future and say, look, this is going to be great.
Don't focus on the now, focus on the future. And
we're now we have the now. Now, now we have
some robotaxis on roads, and it's really a very small number.

(24:03):
It's something like ten to twenty robotaxis in a very
small part of Austin. Meanwhile, you got Weimo, and we've
talked about this before, but there is this obvious competitor, Weimo,
which has way way more robotaxis and more markets and
is not getting valued the way that Elon Musk, the
way that Tesla is getting valued. So you do wonder,

(24:23):
you know, how long is it before investors start to
look at that, and you know, how many quarters of
sort of declining deliveries, declining car sales are they really
going to tolerate.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
These companies have sort of always Elon Musk's companies have
always kind of used one another and shared engineers at
certain points. Now we're getting to appoint max where Elon
wants more investment from one company to another company, specifically Tesla,
to invest in Xai, which is a challenging thing to
do because Tesla's a public company, Xai is not. Shareholders

(24:54):
might not love this idea. Explain the sort of borders
or lack thereof when it comes to this counting.

Speaker 7 (25:00):
I mean, the thing is from the point of view
of Tesla investors, and I think this is true of
most of the investors in most of Elon musk companies,
They're not investing in a particular product. They're just investing
in Elon Musk. And that's one of the reasons why,
you know, even when Musk does something that seems on
its face a little bit foolish or crazy, for instance,
the the on again, off again purchase of x at

(25:22):
a ridiculous you know, overvalued at the time, investors go
along with because they just think, Okay, Elon Musk wants this,
he's a he's a brilliant guy, and so you have
this thing where the companies, although they are nominally independent,
are sharing resources, sharing management of course, not just Elon Musk,
but other folks, you know, sort of bouncing between them
or doing work on the side. And now even you

(25:43):
have Xai, which is desperately trying to raise money, raising
money from Elon Musk's other companies, SpaceX, according to Elon Musk,
putting two billion dollars into Xai. And then Musk has
said he's going to ask Tesla for money for a
year ago he suggests the number will be five billion,
So you're talking about significant amount of money. Tesla of

(26:04):
course has a lot of cash at the moment, so
it's not like it can't afford it. But you got
to ask yourself what is the rationale, Like, what's the
business rationale if you're a Tesla investor to you know,
move money from from Tesla to x especially when X
and Tesla are sort of in competition, you know, they're
both AI companies, and so so that's an issue. I mean,
what I think it shows is that as much as

(26:26):
these companies you know, add up to this big empire,
they're interlocking and if one struggles, the others are going
to struggle. If Tesla's value were to decline dramatically, that
would hurt Elon Musk's empire in a big way because
Tesla shares are a big source of his wealth, the
way he finances things, and beyond that, there's this aura
of success that he has used to sort of promote

(26:49):
himself and promote these companies, and as that has i'd say,
come into some question, you know, I think that hurts
some of these other companies.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
So he did post on x that he's back to
working seven days a week and sleeping in his office
if my little kids are away.

Speaker 9 (27:04):
Yay. But I'm just.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Wondering which part of his empire is the most interested.
You guys talk about Xai that that's what he seems
to be super interested.

Speaker 7 (27:15):
In, right, Yeah, And you get different answers depending on
who you talk to within the empire, because, of course
Tesla also feels like Tesla h employees board members also
feel like they are in the middle of this really
unique opportunity with Robotaxis. But yeah, I mean, Musk has
spent it seems, at least over the last couple of weeks,
a lot of time on with Xai and Grock. Now,

(27:39):
of course AI chatbots, that's that's an area that a
lot of investors are excited about. On the other hand,
this is a very expensive company to finance. We've Bloomberg
has reported that they're losing a billion dollars a month.
So like that, you know, five billion dollars from Tesla,
that's gonna they're gonna burn through that, you know, pretty quickly.
And and you know, I think I think from the

(28:00):
sort of bull cases, Hey, these large language models are
really expensive to finance, so we need to you know,
put as much into them now catch up to open AI.
But of course the other side of the coin is
like why, you know, why does this very successful car
company that's worth a trillion dollars by market cap, you know,
what does it have to do with AI chatbots? I
don't think that the answer is a whole lot.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Elon Musk claimed without evidence that President Trump wasn't accomplice
in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and alleged that the
president had covered them up. This was sort of the
nadir in their relationship. I think if we look back
over the last six weeks, is there any recovering from that? Like,
do they get back together, do they become allies again?

Speaker 9 (28:43):
I think it is very hard to see.

Speaker 7 (28:46):
I mean, obviously those are very serious charges, I mean
sort of like the most serious charges in Republican politics.
And it's led to a news cycle right that that
happened at you know, as their feud was kicking off
at the beginning of June. Now we're in you know,
mid late July, and Republicans are still talking about Epstein

(29:07):
quite a lot. So so yeah, I mean it's it's
been a bad that's a thing that's going to really
throw a wrench in any kind of you know, potential makeup. Now,
I will say Trump and Musk are both this is
going to sound weird, but they're both kind of forgiving.
They both although they like to cultivate this, both of them,
you know, Alpha image or whatever they have. You know,

(29:28):
Trump has done this where people have been on the
outside and then they find their way in. Steve Bannon,
of course, famously was very much on the outs. Now
he's no longer on the outs.

Speaker 9 (29:36):
Musk is the same. Musk.

Speaker 7 (29:38):
You know, we we'll get very mad at people and
and you know, find a way to get them back in.

Speaker 9 (29:42):
So I wouldn't.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Discount it entirely just because, and I've said this on
your show before, there are reasons each of them has
an interest in being on good terms with the other.
That said, I mean it is it has seemed very difficult.
And you're seeing now, and we get into this in
the story, there are lots of sign if you're looking
closely for ways in which this relationship is hurting Elon

(30:04):
Musk today. Now I'm not just talking about Jared Isaacman,
the you know, the person that Trump originally nominated to
head NASA, the Space Agency, who is close to Elon Musk,
who's out now. But there are lots of little regulatory moves,
policy moves, and just to give you one example, the
guy who's going to run NITSA, you know, at his
confirmation hearing suggested that we need to have more oversight

(30:26):
of autonomous vehicles.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
So if you're Elon Musk, you don't want to hear
that when robotax trying to get on the roads.

Speaker 7 (30:32):
Yeah, you absolutely don't. And and so or you know
Sean Duffy running NASA now, who's he.

Speaker 6 (30:38):
Was, according at least some reporting from inside the.

Speaker 7 (30:40):
White House, was one of the people who was really
upset about Doge. So you're seeing these little things that
are potentially troubling if you're Elon Musk and certainly cut
against the sort of bull thesis around the time of
the election, which was like, these guys are perfectly aligned.
This is going to be amazing. I mean, that's what
sent stock up to its you know, crazy heights in

(31:02):
mid December, and it's fallen. I think last I looked
around thirty three percent since then, as that that argument
has sort of fallen apart.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
It's, you know, as you guys say, you know, you
can't count out Elon ever, but it is curious to
see how this ultimately plays out and whether or not
he becomes a target of the administration potentially. Hey Max,
thank you so much, really appreciate it. Bloomberg Business Week
Senior reporter Max Chafkin, Max and Ed Ludlow writing this story.
It's an upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business weeket is the

(31:32):
cover story already on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch us
live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen
on Applecarplay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 10 (31:50):
Who would also unleash you just by lowering the interest rates.

Speaker 9 (31:54):
If the Fed would lower the rates, we wouldn't even
have to do that. But we are thinking about no
tax on capital games on.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
That was President Trump this past week with a statement
that caught our attention. The President taking questions in the
Oval Office during a prece event that he is considering
a proposal to end capital gains taxes on home sales,
and I got to say, caught my attention and sign
me up.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Are you planning to sell your home anytime soon?

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Not anytime soon, but you know, when you've been in
a home for a long time and it was a
market that was pretty dead, there's been a fair amount of appreciation.

Speaker 4 (32:26):
So yeah, but then, but can't you also have you
been keeping track of all the improvements that you've made
over the years.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, I don't know how good the files are, but yes.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
I'm sure they're on your desk somewhere.

Speaker 9 (32:36):
Carrol I.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Actually, you know it's so funny that you say, because
I'm always liketed my husband or give me like the receipt,
give me the like. So yeah, yeah, just some bank statements.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
Just keep track of that and then it becomes your
accountants problem.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
Hey, it's still a developing story, so nothing official yet.
But under current laws, single filers are exempt from paying
taxes on capital gains of two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars or less for the sale of their primary residence.
Well married couples filing jointly are exempt on up to
five hundred thousand dollars. This new proposal would eliminate that cap.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
To white cut our attention, legislation that, if passed, could
impact millions of homeowners. For the latest on this and
the latest on housing, head to Bloomberg dot com or
check out the Bloomberg terminal.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
You know, I've been thinking about this, and it's one
of those things first you'd have to find where you'd
offset that revenue loss when it comes to capital gains.
But it's also one of those things, Carol, that I
think would again disproportionately affect the wealthier people in this
country because it's homeowners who own their homes for a
very long time, so they would see the benefit, not
necessarily the folks who the President has talked about wanting

(33:37):
to be able to afford homes. Those first time home
buyers that he's talked about not being able to get
into those homes the way they were like their parents
were able to. I mean, we even talked to a
real estate agent this week who talked about first time
home buyers being in their forties now as a result
of high prices and high rates.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Also, she talked about multi generational home buying, so older folks,
you know, either passing on their homes or helping out
their kids and then living with them. With the understanding,
I agree, it doesn't necessarily get to the housing affordability
problem that has persisted, to be fair, not just this year,
not just last year, but has been around for many,

(34:14):
many years. We have a great voice though on housing
that we like to talk to plays into the multi
family very much in the South of the United States.
We're talking about Thomas Carroll. He's founder and chief executive
officer ballast Rock Asset Management. The firm has about six
hundred million dollars in assets under management, and as we said,
focuses on multi family real estate and private equity.

Speaker 10 (34:35):
The industry as a whole has been white knuckling. I
would say with an expectation of rates coming down, they've
been white knuckling the sale of assets. We're primarily in
the secondary market rather than developing specifically in multi family.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
But you still have to do a lot of work
to those multi family.

Speaker 10 (34:53):
Absolutely, we're doing massive renovations and so inflationary costs around
that material, et cetera. But yes, the rates environment has
had a tremendous effect on the multifamily market, and until
rates come significantly lower or sellers reprice in a material way,
then it's tough for the market to get started again.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
That's what I want to ask you. If we just know,
all right, the Fed's on hold because this is what's
the policy that makes sense for the next six to
twelve months, then folks are going to do deals.

Speaker 6 (35:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's like having some clarity because historically we're still at
a lower rate environment. We've had much higher rates. And
I guess my point is, are people just looking for
clarity on what the policy is and there's just between
the back and forth between the White House and pressure
on Fetcher J. Powell and maybe folks thinking that that

(35:45):
could ultimately lead to high lower rates. I mean that
uncertainty essentially, and at the same time tariffs, which are
putting another layer of uncertainty. So we just the FED
doesn't know exactly what the environment's going to be, so
they're on hold. So if at some point we have
more clarity in the FED says nope, economy growing, we're
doing good, Thomas that, then people say, well, this is

(36:07):
the environment, so we'll reprice and we can do stuff
one move ahead. I sorry, there's a long way of
saying clarity.

Speaker 10 (36:14):
Yes, indeed, clarity would be extremely helpful, and perhaps you
would have some owners be willing to transact again. However,
a lot of owners still you know, asset holders still
have twenty twenty one and peak pricing in mind, and
so it's hard to let go. It's hard to reprice
an asset lower, especially an income generating asset. So because

(36:38):
they're income generating, you can hold on to them far, far,
far longer than you would be able to otherwise, even
if pricing theoretically should be lower if you were to sell,
but you don't sell, you just hold onto it for
years longer. But yes, hopefully greater clarity would be useful,
But I would not say we're in a particularly clear environment.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
Right now.

Speaker 10 (37:00):
Is not there, and so volumes in terms of secondary
market volume four commercial real estate in general is substantially
lower than it was at the peak.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
So what are you doing? Are you not buying anything
right now?

Speaker 10 (37:13):
So we are not buying a lot right now. No,
the only deals that we're doing are situations where the
seller is genuinely in distress. So if there's not outright distress,
it's very very hard to make the numbers pencil. And
what we're focusing on instead is actually where the big
beautiful bill has created a short term window of opportunity,
which is solar development.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Interestingly enough, this is what I'm glad we were talking
about this. It was in the notes and our producer
already said this on the phone, and I was thinking
ABOUTLF solar because the concern, and we saw this play
out in the public markets, was that solar companies would
get hit hard as a result of this bill, and
they've been under a lot of pressure. Where are you

(37:54):
seeing opportunity?

Speaker 10 (37:55):
They have been hit hard, and there is really very
limited window for opportunity. So it's not great if you're
full time in that business. But for us, we're a
private credit lender to solar developers that might have a
twenty or thirty development pipeline of projects, and it enables
us as a lender to step in on a senior

(38:16):
secured basis and identify and cherry pick really the best,
most actionable, immediately actionable projects where we can get shovel
in the ground right now and and bring these projects
to fruition because very shortly any investment tax credits are
going to disappear. So it is about a short term
window and for us the opportunity is as a lender.

(38:38):
Absolutely this bill has been extremely problematic for the development
industry and for generation of solar power in the United States.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
How short term and what are the terms looking like?

Speaker 10 (38:50):
So we need shovels in the ground this year or
by the middle of next year if there is no
foreign content, and we need completion of the project by
the end of twenty twenty seven. Some of the rules
are still to be finalized. Actually, the Big Beautiful Bill
obviously passed on the fourth of July, but a week later,

(39:10):
the Trump administration issued in executive order that the IRS
has forty five days to clarify the rules. So, interestingly enough,
we're playing by a rule book that we don't fully
have the details for.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
You talked about lack of clarity, correctly, it hits a
lot of different areas, that's right.

Speaker 10 (39:25):
But there is opportunity there in the short to medium
term for us to help those small to medium size
developers bring those rapidly deployable projects where we can get
energy to the grid before the end of twenty twenty
seven online immediately. But they need capital and they're very
profitable when you do it, and that's where we see
the short term opportunity in development.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
Then do these product projects go poof?

Speaker 10 (39:50):
Well, no, the project will last for twenty that's it.
If you have a thirty project pipeline, you might have
five that you can bring to fruition. You might have
twenty five go.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Poof all because of tax credits.

Speaker 10 (40:02):
Correct Now, there will be major changes that are going
to occur. The cost of construction for solar projects. The
EPC construction costs are highly likely over time to come
down because if there's less development going on, those construction
companies will reduce their costs. So there'll be opportunities there.
There will also be opportunities for states that want to

(40:25):
continue to incentivize solar to step in and provide credits
where the federal government steps out. And then finally the
utilities themselves, which at the moment use the interconnection fee
and other aspects of solar development to make money, they
will probably compress their margins as well. So there are
a number of different moving levers, and then ultimately the

(40:45):
cost of electricity is going to go up. Well that's
and that's going to be a huge driver of value.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
This is what I wanted to ask you. What are
the projects that you are investigat.

Speaker 10 (40:54):
So the projects that we're lending money to are lending
to forgive me exactly for clarity, we're a private credit
and the lens money rather than investing equity. But those
projects are below utility grade. They're what are called community solar,
so they're usually in the five to fifty megawatt project size,
whereas community solar really kicks excuse me, utility grade kicks

(41:18):
in above about one hundred megawatts. Those projects, because they
are much more challenging and time consuming to execute. A
lot of those who have gone to use your words,
who because they can't be delivered in that timeframe. So
there is a massive change in the demand. As we
know for solar as a result of AI for electricity

(41:41):
in general, but now there's a material change in supply
for the negative.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Before we let you go back to your focus on
multifamily in the past, you've been on with us and
you've spoken excitedly about the Sun Belt. Where geographically are
you thinking for opportunity now?

Speaker 10 (42:00):
We continue to see a lot of opportunity in small
to medium sized cities across the southeast, the Carolinas, Georgia,
where these right to work states where we're seeing a
lot of new battery factories and and other new factories
being built. It's those small to medium sized markets where
we continue to see a growth in demand, an increase

(42:22):
in wages, an increase in job opportunities, and we're there
to do our best to support that with housing.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
How would you describe the economy just real quickly, kind.

Speaker 10 (42:32):
Of strong jobs market, but a lot of lack of
clarity around issues such as tariffs and rates that have
that make it challenging for long term deployment of capital.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
All right, interesting, So it sounds like potentially a lot
of stuff sitting on the sidelines just waiting we see clarity. Certainly,
all right, good to check in with you. Thank you
for coming in. Thank you, Yeah, appreciate it. Thomas Carrol,
He's founder and chief executive officer of ballast Rock Asset Management,
joining us right here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broke Studio.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and
the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can
also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New
York station, Just Say Alexa. Played Bloomberg eleven.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Thirty plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend
edition at Bloomberg Business Week, including the luxury brand facing
questions about how far is too far when it comes
to exclusivity.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
Plus really excited for this one because we get to
speak to our Bloomberg Food editor, Kate Crator. She's stopping by.
She's talking about the boom in YouTube chefs. New York
influence also pervades the food and drink scene in London.
Apparently you can get a pretty good burger there these
days if you want it. Pizza too, pizza yeah. Kate's
also going to share how CEOs optimize their sleep routine.

(43:55):
I was surprised to see some of these CEOs are
not doing a very good job. And I was too.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
I was amazed how many I expected, like all these
great like lie about it.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
If you're not doing a good job, CEOs, come on
you a good example.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
This part of your brand, all right. And while on
the subject of food in chefs in nineteen sixties, diner
is one of the scenes in a new high tech
immersive show on Elvis Presley that unfortunately failed to impress.
Elvis has left the building, and it sounds like maybe
our reviewer wanted to do so as well. We'll explain
it's all in Bloomberg Pursuits.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
First up this hour, the Starbucks Pumpkins spice latte is
set to return to stores in just about a month. Nuts,
that's nuts. Come on, Togs twenty.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Six, get over.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
I think it's a little cheating to think about you.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
I'll have listen a pumpkin spice latte.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
I stay away from it. Okay, I do too, no
matter what time of year it is. Speaking of the
Pumpkins spice lattes, one of the most read stories over
the last week is about the CEO who turned around
Taco Bell and then turned around Chipotle, can he now
do the same for Starbucks? For Bloomberg Business Week, Danielle
Story interviewed investors, baristas, and Brian Nicol Well, the Newish

(45:00):
CEO who has lured to Starbucks with the pay package
valued at about one hundred million dollars. He's been on
the job for a few months since September, so it's
almost been a year. Actually. The ceramic cups, a handful
of madeover stores, and condiment bars are some of the
changes he's betting on. Oh, and protein too. Doniella sr.
Torri is Bloomberg News restaurant reporter. She joins us from

(45:22):
our Chicago bureau. She spent a lot of time with
Brian Nichol. She did a lot of traveling for this story.
Doniella tell us a little bit about how Brian Nichol
is doing and turning this company around.

Speaker 11 (45:33):
So there's definitely been some progress, you know. The Starbucks
has already made some changes, like bringing back the Continent
bar so people don't have to, you know, complain to
baristas about their drink being.

Speaker 12 (45:42):
Too sweet or too dark or too light.

Speaker 11 (45:44):
They've also started renovating some stores, you know, they started
redesigning the menu, So definitely things that are going to
make a difference. And you know, they do say that
people are hanging out in stores more because they want
to bring back that feeling of you know, it being
like a coffee house and that they're ording a more
coffee centric drain. But some of the big things, you know,
in terms of operations, which is such a boring word

(46:05):
but it matters so much when it comes to getting
your drink quickly, are still being developed. Like, for example,
the company is in the process of putting more workers
in stores, which they are hoping will you know, speed
up service. And then also you know, give Braces a
little time to you know, have a chat with you.
But some of these big changes are still are still
in the works and so you know, it's definitely working progress.

Speaker 12 (46:27):
And Brian himself has said.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
That, well, let's we'll get to Brian. More on Brian
in a second. But one thing that I really liked
about your piece was it did a good job of
laying out the challenges that Starbucks has faced in recent years.
Can you talk a little bit about how it lost
its way?

Speaker 11 (46:42):
Absolutely, so you know, we can look back at a
sort of the pandemic, one of the things that happened
was the company moved a lot to sort of that convenienced,
convenience focused model, right, a lot of us wearing go
into the store stores weren't even open, and so Starbucks
actually started removing seats from stores. At the same time,
you know, there was this unionization movement ignited by several things,

(47:03):
you know, like very says, feeling that there was understaffing.
All of that led to slower service at the company.
Lines just have gone very long. At the same time,
people are like, well, this doesn't feel like a cafe anymore.
And then you know, we also have some issues outside
of the US, right, So, for example, China has been
very slow to recover because of the companies sorry, because

(47:26):
of the country's economic situation, and also just competitors that
have undercut Starbucks. And so there are challenges on multiple
fronts that the company has to confront right now.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
You know, it's interesting I try to think about what
it is that Starbucks has to deal with. They really
kicked off, right kind of the coffee craze, right, and
you know, not just getting a cup of coffee from
a deli, but made it so much more. But the
market that they really created is now a really crowded market,

(47:58):
So is it just that? But it can't be just
about coffee anymore, and that Starbucks has to mean something
beyond that, like food, a cafe you hang around and
you bring the family, Like what is it that it
may be? What do industry folks say it needs to be?
Is it or is it just painting the cafes and
making them cozier?

Speaker 7 (48:18):
What is it?

Speaker 11 (48:19):
No, that's absolutely right. I mean in Starbucks created this
idea of sort of the third place right beyond you know,
your work and your home, where you could hang out,
and also making coffee a little bit premium here in
the US, but there's been a lot of competition that
has undercut the company in terms of price, in terms
of speed, and also in terms of new products. You know,
if you look at places like Dutch Bros.

Speaker 12 (48:41):
They just have these.

Speaker 11 (48:42):
Drinks like protein coffee, drinks that really appeal to demographics
like gen Z and at the same time, you know,
they've kind of pioneered a model of convenience. So it
is almost like all of the above, right, Like one
of the things that when you talk to Brian Nicol,
he wants to make sure Starbucks stands out is by
having the space, you know, having the coffee shop where

(49:03):
you can hang out. That is something that you know,
those drive through concepts like Dutch Bros. Don't really have
because by definition they are drive through. But at the
same time, they also need to make sure that they
have stuff that actually gets people in the door. And
so that's why they've been also redesigning the menu. They
are trying to focus on coffee because that's their heritage,
and so they think that they can sort of distinguish

(49:25):
themselves that way. But at the same time they are
adding those twists like that vanilla latte with the protein
cult foam.

Speaker 12 (49:32):
I actually got to try it in Vegas. It's quite
it's quite interesting.

Speaker 11 (49:37):
But you know, it's like they can't they can't go
super focused on like purest coffee. They also recognize they
need to have stuff that actually like catches people's eye,
if that makes.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Sense, Daniella. I'm curious too about Brian Nicol. He has
been so quiet. I mean, Tim and I have talked
to him a lot. When he was at Chipotle, he
was very accessible. I've done some deep dives too with
him for BusinessWeek magazine and for Bloomberg. I'm just curious,

(50:09):
why is he kind of laying low.

Speaker 11 (50:12):
It's interesting the perception that he's laying low. I mean,
I guess from my perspective. You know, since Brian joined,
he's been pretty clear about his vision and his plan.
So I remember he joined September nine, September ten, he
actually came out with like the broad outlines of his plan,
and by October, you know, they were putting him on
the phone, you know, to talk to reporters about what

(50:33):
was happening at the company. I do think that part
of what's happening is that while his vision is clear
in terms of what he wants to accomplish, I mean,
he knows he wants to bring back the coffee house,
he wants to focus on coffee, he wants to speed
up service, sometimes the underlying tactics are changing a little bit,
and so you know, the.

Speaker 12 (50:53):
Sort of direction of travel is clear.

Speaker 11 (50:55):
But just to give you an example, earlier this year,
Starbucks said that they were going to bring more staffing
to about a third of US company operated stores. So
that excludes stuff like airports, it excludes targets. Then later
they were like, no, actually it's coming to all stores.
Probably part of it was a little bit of pressure from
investors being like, all right, man, when are we going

(51:17):
to start seeing your results? But the tactics and sort
of like the speed are changing a little bit, even
though everyone knows like the direction of travel.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
If that makes sense, yeah, it does. You mentioned the
changing menu and to get people into the door. What
I learned from your story is that's a big part
of Tressie Lieberman's job. Tell us about her.

Speaker 11 (51:40):
So Tresie worked with Brian at Chipotle and a Tacko Bill. Actually,
she told us that she's been working with Brianston. She
was in like her twenties, so she knows Brian quite
a bit, and so she came over right before Starbucks.
She was actually a chief marketing officer at Yahoo, so
she has brought experience and so her rema is marketing.

(52:02):
So how the company presents itself to customers, including the
sort of rebranding as Starbucks Coffee Company, but also the
menu because I think they recognize that. Yes, the company
has had some hits like for example, cold foam, things
like shake and espresso. One of the thing ways to
know if something's been ahead is if competitors have copied
it and if you go to any coffee shop, any

(52:24):
coffee shop has those things. But at the same time,
there were things they launched, like for example, energy drinks
last year that they've discontinued because they just didn't think
we're apt to par and so that's kind of what
Tressie's doing, and she's described wanting to make the menus
sort of modern and premium, and so one of some
of the things they're looking at is like the protein
latte and also bringing fresh baking to Starbucks because I

(52:48):
don't know if this is common knowledge, but pastries of
Starbucks coming up plastic bag that then gets reheated in
an oven. So that doesn't really fit a definition of premium,
which is, you know, they're trying to justify the prices
that they are that they are charging, and they're trying
to justify the experience.

Speaker 12 (53:04):
So that's sort of the direction that they're moving.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
We'll say, their littlegg bites I think are something my
daughter really like.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
People love these popular I know, right, yeah, they're kind
of nice.

Speaker 11 (53:15):
And if you see that, it's another example of Starbucks
setting a trends that has caught on, like even Costco
seales X bite egg bites.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
So can I ask you something?

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Wait, because I would say that we're a couple of different,
three different generations. Do you go to Starbucks?

Speaker 11 (53:28):
I do, but I also cover it, so sometimes I
just go to see how things are okay?

Speaker 3 (53:33):
So okay, Tim, Tim doesn't go.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
I will not go unless I don't falling asleep at
the wheel. And it's the only place, right.

Speaker 12 (53:40):
So I think, why you do go?

Speaker 4 (53:42):
You do?

Speaker 3 (53:42):
No, I don't go.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
I don't like the coffee.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
And would you go if you didn't? I mean, this
might be uncomfortable, but would you go just between the
three of us if you didn't cover it?

Speaker 11 (53:50):
Just between the three of us in front of everyone.
I think I'm gonna refrain from answering that question.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
You're the smartest one getting yourself in trouble.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
There's lots of choices.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
But I will say I I it's why I only
have one cup of coffee a day. I know, and
I have to have it at home because I can't
do anything.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
It's a little bit of a prima.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
Well, the thing is, I don't know. I mean I
used to drink. I used to drink the coffee, but
then you move to New York, and you're like the
options for coffee here it's nuts or unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
So many Yeah, I like to press at home.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
But don't you know people go Charlie Pelleck goes every day.
I know Katie Greifeld goes every day.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
I think you now like that.

Speaker 12 (54:28):
I think that's that's a question.

Speaker 6 (54:29):
Right.

Speaker 11 (54:30):
There is a loyal base of customers and some of
the moves that Starbucks has made, you know in recent months,
you know they changed their rewards program, they've did they
just changed a lot about the experience. Does that keep
the loyal customers or not? And then at the same time,
does it bring new people?

Speaker 12 (54:44):
Like you know, maybe Brian will do something that will
actually get Tim to come in the door. He's just
not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
If it's like a Chipotle or if it's like a
Chipotle Bowl or Dorito's Locos talker, then maybe.

Speaker 11 (54:58):
Maybe, I don't know, what, what if he improves the food,
that is also part of life.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
I know I was trying to do in Zac right,
like you go in and right you increase that like
individual purchase. Hey, twenty five seconds China.

Speaker 11 (55:09):
They are looking at us selling a stake there. That
is the latest information that we have because recovery has
been tough and they want a local partner there to
help them figure out what to do.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Because that's an important part of growth, right for.

Speaker 11 (55:19):
Them, second largest market after North America, and they say
they believe in it.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
So see final question Pumpkin spice latte too early. August
twenty six, too early, right.

Speaker 11 (55:31):
I don't know if it's earlier than other years, but
it's not fall. It's definitely not fall. But I think
it's earlier and earlier because it does give them a
big sales pump.

Speaker 12 (55:37):
So maybe that's why definitely not fall.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Danielle Sitory joining us Bloomberg News Restaurant Reporter. A great
story on the Starbucks CEO. It's a BusinessWeek story. Check
it out.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us
live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen
on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Tiffany's salespeople call them the watch monsters. Oh my god.
Salespeople always have words for the customers, the obsessives of
the ultra wealthy shoppers who were sure they would be
among the chosen few to get their hands on the rare,
limited edition Protect Philippe timepiece.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
But what began is a celebration of the iconic jeweler
and watchmaker has evolved into a cautionary tale, a lesson
in how exclusivity, if mishandled, can dim the glow of luxury.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Jeanette Newman is Bloomberg News consumer reporter. She wrote all
about how Tiffany turned their best customers into their loudest critics.
She joined Tim and Bloomberg News equities reporter Noura Melnda.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
This watch was particularly coveted and particularly special, So if
let's say you wanted to just go in and buy
the watch, you couldn't just walk in off the street
and say, you know, I love Protect philip I want
this very special watch. There were only one hundred and
seventy of them made. You would express interest in the watch,

(57:00):
and then you would be told, okay, we'll, we'll Tiffany.
Tiffany salespeople would tell you we'll, we'll get back to you.
And that's because this watch was very highly, very highly desired,
and so there were many people who were who were
trying to get it and it was ultimately, as we report,
at the discretion of Tiffany executives who ended up getting

(57:21):
the one hundred and seventy watches.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
And that discretion is really where things got complicated for
some of the folks who were argue, at least in lawsuits,
that they were longtime customers of Tiffany and spent quite
a bit of money at Tiffany. What did you find
in your reporting?

Speaker 1 (57:38):
So in the reporting, what I found is that and
I think it would it would also be helpful of
you if you find it helpful to just to kind
of situate, you know, this moment. So we have to
go back in time a little bit just to understand
why this watch was the watch at the time and
why now even a couple of years later, we're talking

(57:58):
about it. I'm I'm reporting on it because it's the
sale of the watch is still having repercussions today. So
this this watch that was made by Ptec Philip was started,
was went on sale in December twenty twenty one. And
if you'll remember that at that time, we many people
were feeling, you know flush, we had you know, extra

(58:19):
pandemic savings. Some people still had some money left over
from the stimulus checks, a lot of people were buying
luxury goods. Demand for luxury goods was going through the roof.
That included luxury watches. Some said at the time there
was actually a bit of a watch bubble. People who
you know, maybe hadn't been interested in watches before, all
of a sudden got very interested in spending their pandemic

(58:39):
savings on these luxury watches, like Pateech philip So at
this time, Pateech Philippe says, okay, actually we're going to
discontinue one of the most beloved watches in the world,
their fifty seven eleven model, which is the Nautilus fifty
seven eleven model. They said, we're going to discontinue it.
At that time, the watch world freaked out. It was

(59:00):
it was a huge deal that amid this kind of
watch bubble, one of the biggest, one of the most
important watchmakers in the world says we're no longer going
to sell the watch that everybody, that everybody loves. And
then they said, okay, So that caught everybody off guard.
And then they caught people off guard again by saying, actually,
there's going to be one final swan Swan song for
the fifty seven eleven line. We're going to make one

(59:22):
hundred and seventy of these very special edition watches to
honor the one hundred and seventy years that patech Philly
and Tiffany had been working together, So an incredibly long
standing relationship in the luxury world. So Patek made one
hundred and seventy of these watches. And what was different was,
as you said, the dial was in that kind of

(59:44):
in that signature Tiffany Tiffany Blue, which is actually a
patented color. If you go to the stores, everyone knows
that the Tiffany boxes are in are in that color. Now,
PTech doesn't have that many retail stores, so it relies
on Tiffany and other jewelers to sell its watches. So
in the case of this blue dial watch, it was
Tiffany that was tasked with with selling with selling the watches,

(01:00:07):
and as you said, that's where that's where things got
a little bit complicated. So there was basically Tiffany. Tiffany
executives realized that there was so much demand for these
watches that they could encourage clients to spend between two
to three million dollars on jewelry in order to even

(01:00:28):
get a shot at buying watch.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
And this is called as you as I learned reading
your piece, this is called bundling, and it's something that
is typically done, but there are no it's they're not
real rules around it. It's kind of like understood, but
not always in writing. It's typically done in high end
stores with with luxury items. Explain that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Exactly, it's not, it's all. It's all very informal. I think,
you know, talk talking to some people for this story,
people would often mention, oh, right, that's kind of what
you have to do if you want to get simply,
you can't walk off the street and just buy a
burken bag. Often what customers will say is you have
to You're encouraged to buy other other goods in order
to then get access to that, to that, to that

(01:01:14):
burken bag. And that's again what some people in the
industry called bundling, other people other people call it call
it tying. I would say one one potential difference with
that is, you know, if you walk into an air
med store and they're telling you to you know, potentially
telling you to consider buying some other goods in order
to be considered be considered for a burke, And that's

(01:01:35):
kind of all within the confines of one store, right
one and one brand. I think the difference here is
that you had Tiffany, which was selling Protect Protect watches,
encouraging its clients to buy Tiffany jewelry in order to
get access to the to the Protect watch.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
So explain the alienation of some customers, these wealthy customers
who expected to be able to buy this watch after
spending money at Tiffany, but according to your reporting, ultimately
weren't able to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
And there was definitely some frustration based on our reporting,
based on sources that we talked to with the sale,
with the sale of this watch, and I think I
mean one kind of specific element that might be interesting
to listeners is so there was a charity auction of
the watch in December twenty twenty one, and the watch

(01:02:29):
went for a staggering six point five million dollars, which
is about one hundred times its retail value. The watch
itself will need obviously a lot for so many of us,
but the watch itself only cost around fifty three thousand
dollars and it sold for six point five million dollars.
That initial sale fell through. The watch ultimately exchange hands
for six point two million dollars, still a lot of money.

(01:02:52):
People who were interested in the watch saw that sale
and said, well, this is a no brainer investment. If
I can get access to something that costs fifty three
thousand dollars and then potentially sell it for the market
is showing that there's demand of up to six million dollars, well,
that seems like a no brainer investment. So what some

(01:03:12):
of our sources said is that some people again saw
that as a no brainer investment and said, okay, well,
if I'm being encouraged to spend two to three million
dollars on jewelry, that might be worth it, because I
think that I can resell I can resell watch. Now,
the thing about that auction is, in general charity auctions,

(01:03:37):
longtime collectors will look at charity auctions with a bit
of a skeptical eye because sometimes, for example, the watchmakers
themselves are involved in the bidding. So seeing that six
point five million dollar price as kind of a market
price versus a price that's you know, maybe more marketing oriented,
I think was part of the issue. According to our

(01:03:59):
According to our sources and according to our reporting, and
then what happened to answer to answer your question, is
people thinking the watch was worth this much, some of
them did get the watch, and then over time, over
the over twenty twenty twenty twenty two and into twenty
twenty three, the value of the watch really fell. And

(01:04:20):
now the watch sells in the secondary market for around
one point two million dollars. So obviously a very a
very big drop. Still a very expensive, a very expensive,
very valuable watch, but not what people who were encouraged
to you know, spend spend money on jewelry, were expecting
for this, for this investment, and also to be to

(01:04:42):
be fair. And I'm sure if you have, you know,
friends who buy watches, there's there's all kinds, right, I mean,
some people buy watches, you know, it's it's buy and
hold or and there's some people who want to buy
and sell. Other people bought the watch and never even
intend didn't see it as a no brainer investment or
or otherwise because they didn't see it as an investment, right,
They saw it as I want to buy and hold
this because I love this watch and I want to

(01:05:03):
have it. Others, the ones who were disappointed by the
decline in the price. We're seeing it as more of
an investment that they could potentially flip at least have
the option to flip Janette. Based on your experience covering
the luxury space, is this normal? Are mishaps, mishandlings like
this common? I think you know in in this story.

(01:05:24):
At the end of this story, we mentioned I spoke
to an anesthesiologist who what he what he told us.
He told a story of how he was trying to
buy some Ferraris. He had one Ferrari that he really wanted,
and he bought several Ferraris in order to try to
get that Ferrari and he never he never got that Ferrari.

(01:05:45):
To kind of decline to comment on his kind of specific,
specific experience and said, you know it, it doesn't encourage
that kind of behavior. This anesthesiologist said that he's come
across that game in the luxury world, and honestly, he's
the way he said it is, he's kind of he's
kind of sick of it. So I think that is

(01:06:06):
a potential risk in the in the luxury world that
some people, some people like to engage in this game,
and I think others find it tiring. I would say,
speaking to some people who sell watches on the on
the secondary market, one of the things that they say
is they find that some of their clients come to
them because they just want to be able to like,

(01:06:29):
what's tell me the price and then I'll buy it,
or I won't. I don't want to get involved in
trying to spend money on X, Y and Z that
I might not even want in order to get what
I actually what I actually do want. So I do
think it definitely happens in the luxury world, and you know,
people can choose to continue to engage with it or
or say, you know, that's that's not for me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
Janett a great story. I learned a ton including maybe
I should have considered a career in anesthesiology. Sounds like
it considering that this anesthesiologist has bought what five ferraris
or something hie er really really good stuff. Check out
this story. It is the most read story on the
Bloomberg terminal. The headline you really can't beat it Tiffany

(01:07:11):
Anger's rich clients who wanted to buy a rare the
tech watch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and
the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can
also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New
York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
Julia Child, Gordon Ramsay, and Rolla Gassi, Rachel Ray. These
are just some of the many celebrity chefs that make
a living cooking on television. Well now, the next generation
of chefs are turning to YouTube even TikTok to learn
new skills and establish their culinary reputations.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Plus New York vibes and London restaurants. That and a
lot more from the Bloomberg Pursuits team with us right now.
The editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, Chris Rouds, are also Bloomberg
Pursuits Food editor Kate Crater. She is not in London.
She's here in New York City in the studio with us.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Carol, I can't even tell you how much we've been
talking about this all week.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
We're like, we've all done, We've all donegy we group
hugs already, like we spent a bunch of time catching
up and supposed to.

Speaker 6 (01:08:27):
Work.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
We do all right, We're going to talk a lot
of food in a moment because there's so many stories
that we want to get to. But first of Chris,
we just want to talk a little bit about green watches.

Speaker 13 (01:08:36):
The most important news. There's a new color on watches.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
You guys, how does this happen? How does like the
watch industry levels then go green?

Speaker 13 (01:08:46):
That's you know, it's funny watches. There are not that
many trends that can take over watches. There's like different
styles of watches, different metals, sometimes different colors. And then
every once in a while there's like a big blue
year or big green year, and there's lots of stories
and and sort of collects these certain things. And this
year there is a wave of pistachio colored watches. And

(01:09:08):
this is interesting only because or it's interesting because there's
it's not that bold of a color. It's kind of
a subtle color. It doesn't pop off your wrists, and
it's not traditionally a color that people like in watches.
But we've seen everything from Rolex to Hugh Blow to
Parmesiani to Oris all have watches this year in this color.
And it's like they talk to each other, but they didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
That's what That's what I find crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Kate.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Would you hear a green watch?

Speaker 14 (01:09:31):
I absolutely would, especially if Chris told me which one
to wear. And I want to know which of those
Pistasia watches you have.

Speaker 9 (01:09:36):
Christ Well, I have.

Speaker 4 (01:09:37):
Good news for you, Kate. They is a price range
and it ranges from about six thousand dollars per watch
all the way up to two point three million dollars
per watch.

Speaker 14 (01:09:45):
Just help me make night, You help me make night decision?

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
Could you have a twenty four thousand dollars watch with
a rubber strap? I'm just asking, Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
Some people we hold on rub What about a two
point three million dollar watch with a rubber strap?

Speaker 7 (01:09:58):
Exactly?

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
There is one of those.

Speaker 13 (01:10:01):
Yeah, So that's a Reshard Meal watch, and that's kind
of a that's sort of what these things caught that.
These resharp Meal watches are the billionaire's handshake, they call them.
And this one is a flying Turbion Sapphire. It's a
big chunky thing. It's a kind of watch that Kendall
Roy watches on succession wears on succession. The most popular
one will be the Rolex Oyster Perpetual, which everyone's killing

(01:10:22):
themselves to get this pistachio green color. My favorite is
a Parmegiani watch, which is a skeleton and a beautiful
slate green color. It is not affordable. I will not
derying it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
It's affordable to some people.

Speaker 13 (01:10:36):
It's seventy thousand dollars, but it's extremely beautiful and you
should look at the story online to check it out.
But there's there's more inexpensive ones like Orris has a
cool one for four thousand dollars, and nor Caine, which
is a very cool, sporty new company that we've covered,
has one for six thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
All right, all right, when I think of green and
when you said pistacio, I thought of ice cream and
other things. So let's go to food now YouTube. Yay,
I have to say there are I can't tell you
how many times we are when we're looking to cook something,
we go to YouTuber or social to figure out. Sounds
like there's a whole new generation of chefs.

Speaker 14 (01:11:06):
I was going to say, you could be a professional
chef right now, Carol, the way you're talking, I could not. Well,
let's see you know what you never know? Just watch
a couple more videos. No, it's kind of. It's like
this seismic shift. A couple decades ago. You know, people
would would professional chefs or want to be professional chefs,
would want to train in a kitchen like a Thomas

(01:11:27):
Keller kitchen or a Bobby Flay kitchen, And now they
don't even need to do that. They just turn on
their computer and watch some videos and sooner or later
they can actually open up their own place. It's been
to me it's a seismic shift.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
You have this great anecdote about James Low and wanting
to I don't even know what the right term is,
but like filet a tuna, is.

Speaker 9 (01:11:51):
That what it is?

Speaker 14 (01:11:52):
Butcher, I think you would say Butcher sit home, Tim. Yeah, Butcher,
I think I think he would be.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
Butcher Easier said than done.

Speaker 7 (01:12:01):
Truth, total truth.

Speaker 14 (01:12:02):
Yeah, No, he's a He's a very British chef and
there hadn't been tuna in his neck of the woods
since he'd started cooking, had like a thirty year career,
and then all of a sudden or whatever, because of
because of the way that the government was able to
manage the waters, tune it became available in Cornwall, and
all of a sudden, it became a sort of local

(01:12:23):
ingredient for him, and so he bought one and then realized,
now what, because he'd never ever butchered one before. And
so he and his team sat there and watched YouTube
and then carried a four hundred pound piece of fish
or a whole fish into their kitchen. Like it took
over their dining room. They'd watched hours and hours, and

(01:12:44):
he said it was a process that took He said,
it was a process that took hours. But there is
a picture if you look at this story, there's this
crazy like that literally took over five tables of their
dining room. Like that's how big the fish is. They
didn't have the knives to do it. You know, it's
an amazing story.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
Maybe because it's the fiftieth anniversary of Jaws. But I
saw this and it looked like a shark. Like all
I could think about was the shark and Jaws. It's massive.

Speaker 4 (01:13:10):
So thirty years ago, he would have had to fly
to Japan or buy cookbooks or make a lot of mistakes.

Speaker 14 (01:13:18):
Yeah no, exactly, expensive mistakes. Precisely. Yeah no, I think
you or he would have just brought somebody in who
knew how to do it. But yeah, no, just think
about like, even if you're looking at the most detailed
manual of a cookbook, it only takes you so far
when you're presented with his fish.

Speaker 9 (01:13:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
I do this all the time, not for cooking, for
anything that I have to build that comes with an
instruction booklet. I'm not good with the diagrams the instruction booklets.
I gotta watch YouTube video. Unfortunately those exist for everything.

Speaker 14 (01:13:46):
Tim you can open up a restaurant with Carol.

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
I was more thinking about assembling children's toys, which is
why I was looking at Chris because I know he
does the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
You know what's crazy. I don't cook. I'm not a
great cook. It's a joke in my complete family. But
I'll be on Instagram and like people making things and
I just find it really relaxing.

Speaker 14 (01:14:01):
And transfix thing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):
Yeah, I was just.

Speaker 14 (01:14:05):
Gonna say it's actually cool because in London, where I'm
based right now, these pizza chefs, there was this whole
thing during the pandemic. A couple people who weren't so
happy with their jobs started watching pizza videos because there
were all those US style pizza all of a sudden available,
or like it became there were all these videos from
like Dave Portnoy barstool and stuff like that. And now

(01:14:26):
there's a couple newly minted pizza makers in London thanks to.

Speaker 13 (01:14:30):
YouTube, and they're very hot, very popular people.

Speaker 14 (01:14:33):
Very popular.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Pizza perfect against pizza.

Speaker 4 (01:14:35):
Perfect segway to talk about pizza in London, Usually we
talk about pizza in New York City, But Kate, You've
got a story out that's talking about a kind of
vibe of New York City taking over London restaurants. When
I think of food in London, I think of really
good Indian food, and then of course the classics fish
and chips and the like. But apparently you can get
a good pizza there now.

Speaker 14 (01:14:54):
Yeah, no, you are, You're absolutely right, And it's it's
it feels a bit ironic because you know, the US
brand isn't so so hot over over in the UK
and Europe, and tourism is way down here. I think
it's down, and it's going to be down by two
point five million people they estimate in New York City
by the end of the year. And yet New York

(01:15:14):
vibes are super hot in London, and it's got to
do with state. Like you, if you go somewhere now
you'll see a cheeseberg on an ambitious menu which you
never would have seen before, and steaks and oysters.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
But it's also an energy.

Speaker 14 (01:15:27):
Which is the part that I think is really fascinating.
The Brits aren't used to being spontaneous. If you know
any Brits like you will probably co.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
Sign on that we love all of you who watch it.

Speaker 14 (01:15:37):
We love yes, yay you, yeah, you guys. But now
so they traditionally haven't had walkins at restaurants, and now
now a lot of these cool, super cool London restaurants
have places for walkins.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
But it's also an energy.

Speaker 14 (01:15:51):
It's the way they arrange their tables, so instead of
there being like rows and rows of tables and chairs,
they turn the chairs in different directions and that literally
changes the energy in the room.

Speaker 13 (01:16:01):
Okay, many people, multiple two people forwarded me this story
and asked me, does that mean that the martinis are
bigger or are they still? Are they still thimble sized?

Speaker 14 (01:16:13):
You know, they're they're pretty modest. I think if your
friends who are like doing a measurement, they will they
will say that, but there's a big I think the
most The thing that this story inspired the most debate
on is where the martinis from because technically and historically
or not technically, but the history is a bit fuzzy.
But it's supposedly from the Nickerbocker Hotel in New York

(01:16:33):
City and that makes Brits very very mad.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
You can get a Cosmo in London now, yes you can. Wow,
I'm just saying true story. Hu to thunk? Who to thunk?

Speaker 7 (01:16:42):
Just?

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
Uh, where do we want to go?

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
Where do we want to go?

Speaker 6 (01:16:47):
This story?

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Both Tim and I talked about this were like, okay,
there were some good strategies, but there are a lot
of CEOs who don't seem like they've got this under control.

Speaker 13 (01:16:54):
So we do this feature every month in Business Week
where we call it the Ceo Diet. We talked to
a bunch of CEOs. Hate is in charge of it,
thankless task, and she talks a bunch of CEOs about
their habits and what they do, what they eat, what
they drink, what they do in the morning. And so
this month we did how to optimize your Sleep, which
CEOs are everyone wants to know and they have a
lot of thoughts.

Speaker 14 (01:17:14):
About Yeah, they do know, it's it is. It's kind
of amazing. The CEO of Dogfish says he takes a
bath underneath a picture of Andre.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
Three thousand playing a flute, playing a flute.

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
Sorry, yeah, thanks for that.

Speaker 14 (01:17:30):
Wi Fi scree breaks is white out and that's why
they have separate bathrooms. The CEO of Uber, which is
a very famously data oriented company, says he used to
be obsessed with data and like compete against himself every night,
and now he just puts away all of his screens
and goes to sleep. And that to me is super ironic.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
That is so telling. My husband is obsessed with data too,
and he'd be like, I got a sixty seven, had
a seventy five. I'm like, well, how do you feel?
It's like, I don't know, I got a seventy five.
But what was amazing? There were so many folks that
I thought, who was it?

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
Peter McGinnis, No, Shabonni Well formerly of Tabonni Carol and
I have spoken to him quite a bit. Now he's
that impossible foods. Yeah, he's basically says, maybe I should
get more sleep. He's not good at it.

Speaker 13 (01:18:16):
Yeah, that doesn't surprise you though, right like CEOs you
think of like never sleeping and not maybe just.

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):
Like but that was like ten or fifteen years ago.
Now now sleeping is cool, like like now sleeping is cool.
Being healthy is like in right now, that's what it
feels like.

Speaker 14 (01:18:31):
That's exactly right. I think you used to brag about
the minimal amount of sleep you needed, and now you're like,
look at me sixty seven, seventy five or now. If
you don't get a good night's sleep, if you're changing
time zones too many times, it's something you know that
you sort of agonize over and say, like, I need
to get better at it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
Yeah, I love the guy was at the head of
Vito Coco. I think he talked about napping a lot.

Speaker 13 (01:18:52):
Yeah, yeah, forty minutes nap, a forty minute nap every
single day.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Hey, Tim, before we start our show, we'll just tell everybody, Hey,
we're going to take a.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Nap that I don't know, Chris, when was the last
time you got to take a bath for thirty minutes?

Speaker 13 (01:19:04):
No, I haven't taken a bath in years. I mean,
I think about it makes me want to cry thinking
about it. The Rainy Williams from Beverly Hills estates of
the CEO. I thought had good advice. It was like,
usable a lot of it. Yeah, I take magnesium, zinc
and ATP along with a cortisol bouncer to help regulate

(01:19:24):
stress levels, which I would really like.

Speaker 9 (01:19:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 13 (01:19:27):
I have to find out what that is. And that's
just the start, she says, And.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
Then she takes a relaxing shower, full skin care and
self care regimen.

Speaker 13 (01:19:35):
She's doing it right, and a red light mask.

Speaker 3 (01:19:37):
Right to be.

Speaker 14 (01:19:38):
Kind's like her answer was twice as long as this.
This is an edited version of what she does, Like,
she's doing it right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Can I just tell you I went down a rabbit
hole on those red lights.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Here's my return before I go to bed, clean up
everything that my kids have taken out that day. Yeah,
clean up all, do all the dishes, start making lunches
for them for the next day.

Speaker 7 (01:20:00):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:20:00):
And then look at my phone.

Speaker 13 (01:20:02):
Yeah that's about what mine is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
Yeah, all right? Or maybe no sound bath, you know,
Or maybe what you should do is go see this
new Elvis show in London and only got about a
minute or so. Here Sarah Rapperport, she did a review,

(01:20:23):
didn't seem like she liked it.

Speaker 13 (01:20:24):
Chris, there's a show called Elvis Evolution in London right
now which everybody is loving to hate. Only fools rush in.
Audiences are not all show up. Sorry, So Sarah went,
and we have been excited about this show because it
was supposed to be AI. It was supposed to be
like the abb of Voyage, so like there you were

(01:20:45):
going to see Elvis, you know, like a new incarnation
of Elvis interacting with the audience. And that's not what
it is. It's like you walk in. It's an immersive experience.
It's a tour. So you start in a diner and
then there's actors and then you go to a like
a bar, and then at the end you see a
video of Elves on stage and people are Sarah says,
it's quite disappointing. People are asking for their money back.

(01:21:06):
It's three hundred pounds for VIP tickets. One old older
guy got really mad during the show and started complaining loudly,
and then security tackled him and took him out and
he canceled the rest of the shows from the evening.
It is, yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Not how can you make Elvis bad?

Speaker 9 (01:21:24):
Well?

Speaker 13 (01:21:24):
I guess there's probably the reason they started.

Speaker 4 (01:21:27):
Carol, and I know you can, Kate, you got it.

Speaker 13 (01:21:31):
You're gonna have to go see it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:32):
Really just for work.

Speaker 9 (01:21:38):
We'll take that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:38):
We'll take that as a Now, this has been such
a treat. You guys made our week. Thank you so much,
so appreciate it.

Speaker 14 (01:21:44):
Thank you, guys, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:21:45):
Oh thanks to Chris Rouser, the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits,
and to Bloomberg Pursuits Food editor Kate Creator.

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
I'm Tim Stunbeck and I'm Carol Mass. Have a good
and safe weekend. Be sure to check out Pursuits. Just
to see the big VI was it is tuna? It
was it tuner, It was a tuna. Just to see
that picture a little pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube

(01:22:26):
and always on the Bloomberg Terminal

All Episodes

Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - July 25th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Tim Stenovec

Carol Massar

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Breakfast Club

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - July 25th, 2025