Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 28th, 2025 - Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hi, everyone, welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week.
This past week our backdrop on again off again Middle
East tensions commentary from fedcher J Powell, a NATO ally summit.
All the details can be found on the Bloomberg and
of course at Bloomberg dot com.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
And so all of this shaping our approach this week,
a lot of people's moods this week, and really shaping
our conversations this week, including a conversation that we had
with Bloomberg's own Joe Wisenthal. You know him, he's the
co host of the Odd Lots podcast. He stopped by
to weigh in on the democratic socialist who could be
the next mayor of New York City.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Also gene editing Anyone just one of the innovations in
life science trends capturing the attention of venture capitalist Jenny
Rook of Genoa Ventures. All of that to come. We
begin though with that macro view and really all that's
coming at today's c suite and CEOs, especially when it
comes to the tensions around the globe.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
From Iran to Ukraine and even in New York City,
geopolitics is definitely in focus for investors. Kevin Kadjawara is
managing director and co president at Teneo Intelligence. He joined
us to break down how Wall Street is dealing with
what's happening around the world. He also talked about what
he sees as some of the biggest risks for executives.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, I think you highlighted just the variety of issues
that are out there, right, and the fact that they
are all happening at the same time. What's more typical historically,
right is to have a number of sort of discrete
events and you can respond to each of them. But
these now happening with greater frequency. They are happening simultaneously,

(02:01):
and they are therefore compounding on one another in ways
that you know, you look at any individual issue and
you might question why the market reacts in that way,
but there's really, you know, there's a lot of different
inputs coming in. So I think that the you know,
the challenge for say a CEO or frankly an institutional
investor for that matter, But for a CEO is, you know,

(02:24):
how do I triage everything that's going on and what
is actually kind of signal for the business that I'm
in versus trying to cut through all that noise.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, that's where I want to go, Kevin. Because companies
are going public, right, IPOs are happening, Companies are doing deals,
companies are making decisions, they're spending cap X so lo
what are you hearing from the community about, Like, what
are the lines to say, all right, I'm ready to
pull the trigger on spending money or hiring people or
expanding versus it's just too unclear. I'm out.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Well, I think the way that they look at it
is that uncertainty is essentially a tax, or it is
effectively tested in the sense that it perverts what would
be otherwise normal economic behavior. Right, So in other words,
you know, if you were trying to anticipate tariffs, you
probably tied up capital building inventory that you wouldn't otherwise do,

(03:15):
or because you have no visibility on what the runway
is looking like. You're going to hold off on that
potential m and a transaction or opening that new factory,
or rejiggering the supply chain in some way, shape or form.
So I think though, that while there's this realization that
there's a lot going on, there's a lot of uncertainty. CEOs,
just like the President himself, always making decisions based on

(03:36):
imperfect information, and now it's perhaps more imperfect than usual.
But any moment that you get that clarity and there's
an opportunity, you know, you and your CFO had better
be ready to act and be able to commit that capital.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
On the uncertainty tax on the uncertainty side of this,
there's certainly geopolitical uncertainty, but there's also the uncertainty about
policies that are coming out of Washington, that are coming
out of the White House. I seen this sort of
changing way that companies are speaking or communicating with the President,
especially companies outside of the United States announcing investments, companies

(04:10):
in the United States announcing investments in the US. How
would you say that your clients or you're advising your
clients to communicate with Washington, to communicate with the president.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Well, look, I think that there's a The issue is
that it gets really bespoke or really quickly depending on
the sensitivity of the industry you're in, depending the country
that you're you're from, and what the trade relationship is
or the overall nature of the relationship is. So you
have to take all of those things, into all of
those things into consideration. I think that there is a focus,

(04:41):
you know, perhaps a greater indexation, if you will, on
things that you know are going to resonate well and
via avenues that you know will resonate well with this,
you know, with this administration and with this with this president.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
Right.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
So for some people that means we've got to go
to mar A Lago. For some people that means appearing
on certain news organ news outlets, and and in others
it means executives.

Speaker 6 (05:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Sure, we saw Jamie Diamond. I think it's fair to
say Carol communicate that morning on Fox with Maria Bartiromo. Yeah,
and it seemed like he made his message known to
Washington through that interview.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
So was an audience of one so understanding that going
on there that President Trump is listening, yes and watching
absolutely Huh. You know, we've had a lot of conversations here, Like,
it's just amazing the fear of executives to speak out
in the United States of America. Tell me, give me

(05:43):
what what intel? And I understand you can't tell us
specifics and stuff, but I'm just curious, like, what is
kind of the psyche of the corporate clients that you're
dealing with and why there is that fear. Well, I
think I understand if you example want to be a target,
But aren't you surprised. I mean, these are leaders that
are supposed to speak out when things are maybe they

(06:05):
don't agree with things.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Well, I think that there are There's again, there's a
hierarchy of leaders, right. You just mentioned Jamie Diamond, who's
probably the closest thing we've got to sort of a
head of state level chief executive in this country and
perhaps further empower. But that also plays into his own personality.
He is comfortable in that role in the way that
not every executive is, I think. But secondly, I think

(06:29):
this is this has forced executives not necessarily to shrink,
but to refocus on what's important to them, their industry,
their company, the stakeholders they have, and to focus in
on those things rather than feeling like they need to
you know, they need to weigh in and open on
every single issue that is out there.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
So do you think that's a good thing.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Well, I think it's I think it's just the new reality.
I don't think any of these things are good things
or bad things.

Speaker 7 (06:52):
It's just the thing.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
This is the this is the environment that we are
currently in. That environment will change four years from now,
and they'll shift again.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Because such a swing. If you think, you go from
the murder of George Floyd and COVID and executives are
out talking about everything, and we thought that there was
this real opening and then it just feels like I
understand pendulum swing, but it swung another.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Well, of course, the other thing is is action, right,
and I think being on the other side of this
now right where we're looking at, for instance, de E
and I initiatives right being rolled back in terms of
how they're promoted and so on and so forth. But
a lot of executives have bought with their stakeholders and
their employees and their customer bases. They bought a lot

(07:34):
of goodwill because of the actions that they have taken
over the years. And now even if you change the
website a little bit or something of that nature. But
you remain committed because you can see the bottom line
positive impact of these types of policies. You've got a
lot of good will already built in with your stakeholders.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
So you consider the stakeholders the ones who work for you,
the employees as a group of stakeholders. You don't necessarily
talk about out the DEI policies outside of the company
in the same way, or maybe you don't even talk
to them about them internally in the same way. But
perhaps you did see a return on the investment, so
you keep doing those things and you call them something
else like what.

Speaker 8 (08:12):
There's elles with it?

Speaker 4 (08:13):
And you know, and and today it was a perfect
example of the type of company that has a lot
of people who are devoted towards helping executives, you know,
kind of thread this needle, so to speak. And some
need more help than others. And also you know, it's
it's it's an awareness of who your audience is, who
your customer base is. Some are going to respond, you know,
and we all know the companies right where you know, uh,

(08:36):
we're taking certain taking certain stands has stood them in
good stead with their audiences, uh and and others who
have had a more challenging time. So it's you know,
it's about being smart and surgical about this.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
But you've seen cycles like I think about, you know,
in this world, and I think about the Great Financial Crisis,
there's COVID, there's just so much stuff, war overseas, different
presidents and so on and so forth. How do you
describe the cycle? And how do you think a lot
of CEOs And I had to dump everybody in a
bucket because it's just not the way the world works.
But I am just curious, you know, historically, business wise, economically,

(09:11):
the role of the United States in the world, Like, how.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
Do you see that there is something changing right now?
And this is not just a cycle, This is a
secular change, right and this is something that can no
longer be punted.

Speaker 8 (09:25):
Down the road.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
In other words, the decisions that CEOs are making today
are existential decisions for their companies and whether they are
going to be you know, nimble enough to be some
of the you know, some of the winners on the
other side. Think about it in the context of like
climate change as an example, right, Remember a few years ago,
companies managements were you know, making zero carbon commitments in

(09:47):
the light, but the reality of it was it was
like a generation or two down the road of management
that would actually have to implement that was an easy
commitment to make in a sense, right exactly, but right now,
like you say, the playing field is actually fundament changing.
And it is not hyperbolic to say that it's a
para paradigmatic shift right now. But it is this generation
of leadership that's having to have the situational awareness and

(10:10):
kind of realize that even though you've got all these
balls in the air right now with the just in time,
you know, just what's happening right now, with trade, with
the geopolitics, with the fiscal bills, all of that presidential administration.

Speaker 8 (10:21):
Though not at all.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
So you're talking about supply chains, you're talking about what
a like what is.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
Say we think of as the international rules based order,
right which is a system that has that that laid
the groundwork for the multinational corporation to be the single
most important economic actor. If that is evolving, if the
role of the US is evolving, is it axiomatic that
those same economic actors are going to be the big
winners in the next or do you have to be

(10:48):
nimble enough to be thinking ahead of how this is,
how this might change. I mean, we're this interim period.
I don't know if it's going to be.

Speaker 7 (10:55):
Long or short.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
We don't know exactly what it's going to look like
on the other side. But you know, those who are aware,
it's like Eisenhower said, right, the plan is worthless one
of the first bullet flies.

Speaker 8 (11:05):
But planning is everything, right.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
So interesting putting you on the spot. Is this a
positive development in the work that you do well?

Speaker 4 (11:16):
I mean, I think so in the sense that it
is inevitable that you know, over time, strategic decisions have
been made predicated on a certain perspective on what the
global operating environment is going to look like, and then
all your other decisions stem from that, the.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Global operating environment being a world of liberal democracies.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
But not just that, this ability to have to take
advantage of the free flow of labor, free flow of capital,
you know, a just in time global supply chain system,
opening of markets, all all of that, right, the sort
of the key variables of globalization. Right, that's shifting. Right,
If that's shifting, you've got to start scenario planning for

(11:57):
how that might impact your business.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Twenty five second. It's a question, Tim and I like
to ask a lot of folks who come on here,
because in January we thought about American exceptionalism. A lot
is that going away? And forgive me only about twenty
five seconds.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Look, the United States has certain built in advantages scale
the English language, the doll or a a A an
economic ecosystem and financing ecosystem that finds phenomenal ideas and
can bring them to market, and so on and so forth.
Nobody else has got that still, even with all the
challenges we've got.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
That was Kevin Kajawara, Managing director and co president at
to Neo Intelligence.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Coming up on Bloomberg Business Week, Joe Wisenthal of Odd
Lots on how some on Wall Street are decrying a
hot commy summer.

Speaker 9 (12:39):
That's next. This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and
Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
So Roun Mom. Donnie is poised to become the Democratic
nominee for mayor of New York City after the thirty
three year old Democrats socialist forced his opponent Andrew Cuomo,
the former governor of New York State to concede within
hours after polls closed. Mam Donnie spoke to supporters after
Cuomo's concession.

Speaker 6 (13:12):
We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for
a city they can afford, a city where they can
do more than just struggle, one where those who toil
in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor
in the day.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Mam Donnie exceeded more than sixty percent of the vote
in vast swaths of the city, building a multi ethnic
coalition across Brownstone, Brooklyn, working class queens, and Upper Manhattan.
We got with us Joe Wisenthal. He's the co host
of the Adlats podcast. He had zorroon Mamdami on the
show just pretty much exactly a month ago. Before we
get going, I do want to point out that Michael Bloomberg,

(13:52):
the founder of a Bloomberg LP, the parent company of
Bloomberg Radio, did endorse Governor Cuomo in the election. It
was a forty five minute conversation that you and Tracy
had yeah with Momdanie on odd Lots. He gave you
a socialist vision for New York. What did you take
away as his vision?

Speaker 7 (14:12):
I would say two things.

Speaker 10 (14:13):
Obviously probably the most provocative of his ideas that's causing
a lot of anxiety even in the stock market. Like
if you look at real estate, some of the rent
freeze stuff, which for obvious like economists hate that kind
of thing. They think it's you know, various forms of
rent control is a terrible idea. We understand why investors
in real estate don't like it either. On the other hand,

(14:35):
and so we talked about that. But on the other hand,
my main takeaway from that interview is like, yes, like
if you're a young democratic socialist, of course you're going
to be really excited about the Mamdannie candidacy. But he
comes off in a way that if you're sort of
like a I would say, like normy center left democratic
liberal or something, and you're sort of the typical person

(14:57):
who works in an office in New York City, like
he is really good and really talented at not seeming
like someone who will be a threat to And I
think that when you look at the results, that's like,
to my mind, like the really striking part is that
how broad that coalition was, et cetera. Because we know
that there are parts of the city that have trended
that way for a while. Obviously, aoc IS victory in

(15:20):
twenty eighteen that was a stunner, but that was Niche.
You know, this was the entire city, right, this was
this was kind of everyone across, you know, huge swats,
much bigger numbers. He did well in sort of the
you know, white educated areas, but also he did well
in more non white areas that had trended more towards
Trump and the most recent election. So he clearly did

(15:40):
a really good job of sort of overcoming the fact
that many people would say he is pretty radical politics,
and he's like, well, actually he can sort of like
talk very fluently about policy. He comes off as a
very thoughtful guy, and he really I think ended up
like disarming a lot of the critics.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, he's also tacked off a lot of billionaires and
is a great story that's among the most red on
the blue that talks about Wall Street to crying the
hot commy summer. Yeah, Dan Low, hedge fund billionaire. It's
officially a hot coming summer and there's a.

Speaker 7 (16:08):
Short but you know what I mean.

Speaker 10 (16:11):
On the other hand, if I were running for mayor
and the thing is like, oh, he's upset a lot
of billionaires.

Speaker 7 (16:16):
It's like, bring it on.

Speaker 10 (16:17):
Right, like, you know, seriously, like if if you're gonna say, oh,
he's really ticked off a lot of billionaires, that's like
about as good of And that's one of the probably
the best things you could say.

Speaker 7 (16:26):
Most people aren't billionaires.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
So is he?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
You know, there's another one, a New York power broker,
Kathy Wild and she's connected business titans across all different
industries in New York City and saying that he terrifies
tax payers and employers. I mean, are employers going to
be running from Florida? The rest of the final is
the rest of Wall Street can to Florida.

Speaker 10 (16:43):
Here's my thoughts on this, And maybe I'm like a
little biased, but this is my take, and maybe I'll
end up being totally wrong. New York City is the
best city in the world. We all everybody noticed that,
even during COVID or aftermath of people like New York
City is dead.

Speaker 7 (16:58):
They're like, Oh, We're going to go to Miami. Want
to really moved to Miami.

Speaker 10 (17:01):
They like went there for like the minimum amount of
time they could to maybe change tax satus and a
bunch of people.

Speaker 7 (17:06):
Came back, you know, going to Miami now.

Speaker 10 (17:09):
On the other so it's like, if you're good, like,
there are really gonna be that many people like, Oh,
I'm upset about the mayor, i'mset about taxes.

Speaker 7 (17:14):
I mean move.

Speaker 10 (17:15):
But if the quality of life in the city degrades,
if people perceive, oh, the public transit is not running
as well, it's not as clean, it's there's more crime
in the city, the schools aren't as good, then of
course you're gonna have people leaving. So my gut would
be and again maybe this is just my sort of
pro New York bias, My gut is that very few

(17:35):
people are gonna leave because they're upset about the mayor.
Per se, this is where all the action is. If
you want to talk to someone interesting probing.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
At the first mayor that people have been upset about
it either.

Speaker 10 (17:45):
Was upset about the they're gonna be upset about so like,
I don't think that is. On the other hand, if
he can't implement a vision of a you know, he
says it's gonna make this city more affordable, people expect
the quality of services to be good. People expect transit
to be good. If you can't deliver on that right,
then I would expect that, yeah, at the margins, more
people leave because the city is less appealing. But if
the quality of life in New York City is roughly

(18:07):
sustained or maybe hopefully improves, then I don't think you're
going to have like some mess exitus.

Speaker 7 (18:12):
Just like on principle, it's still New York City.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Well, just a couple of weeks before he was on
Odd Lots, he was on Surveillance, I was filling in
for Paul Sweeney. Then with Tom Keene, I asked Juan
Mundani about the label of democratic socialist. Check out what
he had to say.

Speaker 11 (18:29):
I embraced the label because ultimately I do identify myself
as a democratic socialist, and I think, you know, I
think that the thing that New Yorkers hate more than
a politician they disagree with is one that they cannot trust.
And I think it's important to be honest about how
we're coming to this politics and also what that label
means to me, which is ultimately that each and every
New Yorker has what they need to live a dignified

(18:51):
life and that it's city government's responsibility to provide that.
And I think we have a general consensus on many
of those building blocks in our society, whether it's public
like education or libraries or sanitation. But then there are
certain places where we tend to believe that these are
necessary parts of living a dignified life, and yet we
allow people to be priced out of it. And I

(19:11):
think housing is one of the most obvious examples of that.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Okay, So that was our interview with Zoron Mundani back
on May sixth. The is on Bloomberg Surveillance. The housing
part is something I wanted to hit with you because
there's this idea of rent freezes, which he ran on
and talked a lot about. But if you think about
this from a supply and demand perspective, how do you
get people to build more housing, which is what the
city needs if you don't provide the incentive that people

(19:36):
are going to pay for it. And if you say, okay, well,
if we're going to build affordable housing, we can't raise
the rent on.

Speaker 7 (19:40):
It, well I would say a few things.

Speaker 10 (19:42):
So one is he's not completely doctor naire about how
it all has to be rent regulated housing, and in
various interviews he has talked about there is a role
for market rate development. He's talked about up zoning all
of the things that wonks like the abundance.

Speaker 7 (19:57):
Yeah, and he's like talking so he's not.

Speaker 10 (20:00):
So it's not like a particularly start radical vision on housing.

Speaker 7 (20:04):
He's talked about market rate housing. The other thing.

Speaker 10 (20:06):
I know this in that video, you know, he's wearing
a suit, he's smiling, he's really and then you say
they saying he's like dignified life, et cetera. Like that
you just see in that clip. Watching it just now,
why someone want to see that, It's like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah,
I think that makes sense. I mean, look, there's a
lot of people in the here, like socialists, et cetera.
And I get, like, you know, people find that to
be very provocative or scary or radical or whatever. But

(20:27):
it did not come off as a radical in that clip, right,
he grew up comes off as like a pretty serious,
likable politician. And I think what he said too about
like sort of being genuine. It's like the fact that
he didn't run away from his past. That he didn't
run I do think that is a pretty big deal
these days, and that in an ear of social media,
et cetera, people could sort of sniff out of fraud

(20:50):
or sniff out of phony or whatever. And he certainly
doesn't come off as one. And you probably made trade
offs and he probably said, you know, there are certain
things that maybe aren't just appealing to somebody, didn't run
away from them. And I think it helped put together
a package of like okay, like maybe I don't agree
with him on X or Y, but he seems like
a legitimate, serious guy.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I mean, how much can he you know, actually change.
And we've had some conversations about you know, really everything's
decided out of Albany in many ways in that what
a mayor in New York City amazing, this you know,
massive city, and how important it is really to kind
of the overall US economy. Right, it's a big one
that there's just so much that they can actually get done.

Speaker 10 (21:28):
So this is where I think a lot of the
success I mean, look, the general hasn't happened, but he
is the favorite in the general election. So if he
becomes the mayor, I think a lot of the success
or failure is just going to come down to the
sort of nuts and bolts management side of it. And
so you know, it's like what happens to the trash,
what happens to the war on rats which the current

(21:51):
mayor mayor was just like really taken seriously the war
on rats and you talked about that rats are yeah,
and he's like made this a big deal And my
understanding is actually progress the wonder Yeah, and so like
setting us a lot of the questions of this administration again,
assume if he wins, are going to be like, okay,
setting aside his sort of loyalty to d you say

(22:15):
people and so far, like, is this an administration of
competent managers who could do the day to day basis?
And I think one of the things he said when
we interviewed him is like that he would make a
point of that and a sort of diversity of viewpoints
within the administration that might be the test even more
than some.

Speaker 7 (22:30):
Of the housing company.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Does he hate rich people?

Speaker 7 (22:33):
I should have I didn't ask him that. I don't know.
I mean, I don't like it doesn't come off like that.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
He doesn't. That was a nice suit.

Speaker 7 (22:41):
I think he's rich.

Speaker 10 (22:43):
His mother is like a massively successful filmmaker, and he
went to Bowden, so I'm sure he's doing fine.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
As a Colby college graduate. You know Boden's a big rival,
so I let that one slide before.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Like a private school, that's what we're at, right.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
I do want to get your take ry briefly thirty
seconds on the grocery stores. You asked him about this
because you guys did a whole episode about how York
gets his groceries thin margins. When it comes to grocery stores,
how do they get any more efficient?

Speaker 6 (23:10):
You know what?

Speaker 10 (23:10):
I will say, Of all the different things he's talking about,
I get the impression this is the one he's least
attached to.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
And you actually said, like, look, we're talking about city
run grocery.

Speaker 10 (23:19):
So he is this idea of three or four pilot
publicly run grocery stores and food deserts area. I don't
get the impression that he's really attached to this idea.

Speaker 7 (23:29):
If it doesn't move the dial.

Speaker 10 (23:31):
I don't think he wants some sort of like city
wide you know, Bolshevik breadline type thing. I think he
wants to do a trial that are sort of like
they see if there's some way to move the dial
on costs or just availability in certain neighborhoods. But I
also got the impression if it doesn't work. I don't
he doesn't seem to ada.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
I can't imagine what Brownstone Brooklyn would have thought of
closing Union Market and replacing it with a.

Speaker 10 (23:54):
Jose and Oldies, which everyone likes are pretty close to
those Soviet grocery stores.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Anyway, Oh.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Joe, that was Joe Wisenthal, co host of the Odd
Lots podcast. He's not a shoe in by any means.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
No, He's not right. This is a process, right, And
there's also it feels like the field of independence could
grow too, so there might be more folks on the
ballot ultimately to vote on.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
I think one part of the conversation also that we've
talked about over the last couple of weeks and really
this week has been how much power does this next
mayor actually have? This mayor will have to work with
Albany and work with the city Council in order to
implement whatever he or she would like to put into practice.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
I think that's a huge point. I think it's something
that when you and I first heard it, we were like, what,
I had no idea. You just think of New York
City as being so independent, the mayor of being kind
of having a lot of power to determine you know,
a lot of initiatives in a really big city in
the United States. So it's fascinating to see that a
mayor can come in have some plans, have some goals,
have a mission, and yet it's ultimately up to what's

(25:04):
going on in upstate Alwinny about what gets done.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
And just remember the campaign season is just starting now
in earnest because the general election is still coming up.
So expect more campaigning from candidates.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
You expect more calls and knocks on the.

Speaker 9 (25:17):
Door, big round game.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Look, you've been complaining about it all week. Next message
showing me from the doorbell camera. Look who's at the door.

Speaker 9 (25:27):
The door knockers in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Let's just say that I live in New Jersey. I
feel blaster at this monk.

Speaker 9 (25:31):
Well, let's talk about New Jersey politics.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, maybe in a week or so. Still ahead on
Bloomberg Business Week, where one venture capitalist is finding opportunity
at the intersection of biology and technology.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
The founder of Geno Adventures.

Speaker 9 (25:44):
Jenny Rook, is up next. This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Big news earlier this month. In the world of cardiology,
millions more Americans should be taking weight loss drugs to
prevent heart disease. That's according to the American College of Cardiology.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Exercise in a clean dyah and aren't always enough for
heart health, the nation's top cardiology organization said in new
recommendations released in June, weight loss drugs should be used earlier,
the group said, making them part of the first line
of defense for obese patients.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Jenny Rook looks at a lot of this stuff things
like this too, but kind of under a bigger lens.
She's the founder managing director of Genoa Ventures. It's a
VC firm that invests in, as she says, quote, the
next generation of companies at the convergence of technology and biology.
It does feel like we're on the cusp of something.
She is invested in such companies as Interven, Bright, Speck,

(26:44):
and many many more. Some notable exits include It's emergen
cymergen zeimergen Enjoy, didn't say it right at Heriboo, and topazm.

Speaker 6 (26:53):
More.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
She joins us here in our Bloomberg Interrector Broker studio,
I'm never good at getting some of the names. Why
do they make it so difficult, well to keep out
the RIFRAF.

Speaker 7 (27:01):
No, there's a.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Process right of how they named some of these things.

Speaker 12 (27:05):
There is, but often it comes from the inspiration of
the technical founders and they might not be thinking about
the breast of the world and how to communicate that science.
So that's also something we help them with.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
You come by periodically and we talk about kind of
big broad macro. But we are curious too about some
of the things. I think when we last left off,
we didn't get a chance to really talk about some
of the things that you are excited about right now
that you think are just interesting in your space, that
you're investing in.

Speaker 12 (27:29):
Take us there, Oh, I'd love to. It seems like
a great way to end the week too. I know
it's been a long one and let's have our eye
on the horizon. Have some exciting things. So you mentioned Caribou.
You know that was a Nobel Prize winner, Jennifer Downa's
first gene editing company based on her Crisper Cass innovation.
It's a new world post Crisper, and an evidence of

(27:51):
that is just last month we had our first in
vivo editing of a human to fix a genetic disease,
and that is incredible, the first time that's ever happened
where the treatment can go into the living body and
address a problem with a gene and that infant in
this case is now cured of that genetic disease.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Is it help me understand? Is it just what's involved
in that identifying the gene and then surgically going in
and removing the.

Speaker 12 (28:21):
Gene surgically but with molecular So it's like the crisp
or scissors go in at the molecul level. But you're
right to ask about the process because the whole process
and end took six months, which is extraordinary for this
one person.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
It's molecular base.

Speaker 12 (28:37):
Because it's molecular and so they sequence the person's entire genome,
They identified what the error was that was the basis
of the disease, and then they were able to design
DNA to go in and replace that basically cut and
paste and replace it with a function in gene.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
One thing that came up during our conversation with Jennifer
Dudna is the decline and excite meant for this technology
that we're seeing from venture capitalists right now. So VC
money raised for gene therapy companies peaked in twenty twenty
that was three point three billion dollars. Then it's been
moving lower since just a few hundred million dollars last year.
This is according to data from deal FORMA.

Speaker 9 (29:15):
What's going on?

Speaker 12 (29:16):
Yeah, well, I think VC money in just about every
category has gone down twenty twenty except AI. Right, So
we never learned hype cycles, right, So there is there
has been a correction and a really retraction for I
would say risk capital and long term capital, and some
of that is I think it's important to take stock
of the moment that this big milestone happened. So twenty
twenty five, that's twenty five years after the human genome

(29:39):
was sequenced. So if you think about the hype cycle,
then there was oh, perhaps all genetic diseases will be cured.
Well maybe one day, but it does take time.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
And so I think that was the hype cycle in
two thousand, two thousands. Okay, So then now in twenty
twenty five, what's the hype cycle related to this? Now
that we saw this baby experience this gene editing.

Speaker 12 (29:58):
Well, what I say, I would say is now delivering
on that propose, but it is a reminder that investors
need to inform themselves about the challenges between the promise
and the potential and the actual reality of delivering.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
On Well, like, what did it cost?

Speaker 12 (30:16):
It was expensive, It's expensive.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
I read some I read some commentary on it that
we shouldn't extrapolate too much from this because this was
There was a few there were a few unique elements here.
One is that the alternative if this didn't work, was
a really bad shortened life for the baby. So the

(30:39):
downside potential downside. So the risks of this outweigh the
benefits risk because the risk the downside was basically death.

Speaker 11 (30:52):
Correct.

Speaker 12 (30:53):
Yeah, And so it's a It's a doesn't apply necessarily
immediately to all things that we might want to do
for our genomes right and health overall. But it's a start, right.
It's a great place to start in terms of that
risk reward. And just like any innovation in these technologically
driven spaces, the cost comes down over time, so starts

(31:13):
expensive and then we keep moving. What's interesting about this
time though, it is an end of one, but the
approach was quite modular. It's the whole genome. Find the
error designed a sequence that goes in deliver and all
of those modules can be reused.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
So is this already being done to other babies?

Speaker 8 (31:29):
Do we know?

Speaker 12 (31:30):
I know that there are some in research.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
And what about two adults.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
I think that's.

Speaker 12 (31:35):
Probably a slightly longer timeline. And this is gene therapy
is not my particular expertise, although I have a geneticist
by training, so I think the timeline for that is
really going to depend on some of these other questions
you're asking how much does it cost and how does
the risk reward play out?

Speaker 2 (31:51):
I do think about though, like for the application of
something like cancer, Alzheimer's, so many things like it just depends, right,
and this is not something that's going to happen overnight.
I'm excited about it, that whole idea of genetics, because
I do feel like as much as we know about
the body, there's so much we and the use of
using the body, yes to fix things?

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Is that something that excites you?

Speaker 12 (32:15):
Can I give you a new example?

Speaker 7 (32:17):
Yes?

Speaker 12 (32:17):
Have you heard of exosomes?

Speaker 6 (32:19):
No?

Speaker 12 (32:19):
Okay, exosm So you know about.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Cells, right?

Speaker 12 (32:22):
Cells are kind of like bubbles. They're the components of
the body that can they contain our DNA and the proteins,
everything THATLSE.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Is going on.

Speaker 12 (32:29):
Exosomes are little tiny bubbles that bubble off of the bubbles,
little blebs, right, and best we know, they are a
communication mechanism between all those cells. So they come off
of a cell and they have little packets of information.
They have some of the proteins, they have some of
the RNA. There are thirty trillion cells in a human body.

(32:50):
There are three thousand trillion cells exosomes in a body,
so there's one hundred times two orders of magnitude more
of these little vesicles moving around. Kind of information, so
much information, and we're just now figuring out what they
are and what they're talking about.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
We've spoken to you twice this year, and I think
both times was after major cuts were announced to American
universities into research.

Speaker 7 (33:14):
You were to bring us back to earth here, that's
what I want to.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Do, because at the time you were very concerned about
what this would do to the pipeline of innovation.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Feeling optimistic, I know, but.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Because what we're seeing, well, we are seeing our anecdotal stories.
I've seen some headlines of people's therapies like stuck in
the freezer in some cases and they can't access that
because of cuts that we've seen. Are you any more
optimistic now?

Speaker 12 (33:42):
I think we talked last time. I'm long term optimistic, right.
These are long term plays that we will continue to
have innovation, we will continue to have an impact, but
we are still on a trajectory where significant retraction and
funding for these kinds of innovations will mean the pace
thereof and they're to have impact on people's lives will

(34:02):
be delayed.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Because so much of initial ideas comes out of academia,
so and so forth.

Speaker 12 (34:09):
That's right, that's where where the basic research happens, where
someone like doctor Danna, who's curious, says, well, what if
we try and you don't know whether it's going to work?

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Are you looking increasingly at or potentially thinking that you're
going to be looking at firms that are started in
other countries because that's where the researchers have gone. Is
that starting to happen?

Speaker 12 (34:29):
We have always looked over globally and because we're always
looking for the best idea, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
What I mean, like is it going to be less
us or no? Do you think that? Which is so
part of I feel like the US innovation or innovative fabric.

Speaker 12 (34:43):
Yeah, what I am seeing immediately is a shift of
early stage risk capital to focus more on startups outside
of the US, which we've never seen before. We've actually
seen some of the firms kind of in our network
say we were looking at that company in the US,
but there's so much uncertainty now we think we'll perhaps

(35:04):
focus closer to home.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
What is close Look, it depends on who you're talking to,
but there's no startup ecosystem like the US startup ecosystem.
I think that's fair to say. If you think regionally
or geographically, what should investors be looking at outside of
the US.

Speaker 12 (35:22):
Well, there's extraordinary innovation happening all over the world, but
a lot of interesting work in the UK and Europe broadly,
where there's wonderful basic research happening, and because there's better
information transfer and tool transfer now globally, those same startups
can kind of get things going.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
What about China?

Speaker 12 (35:44):
China is a little more opaque to us, right, but
there's certainly again extraordinary innovation happening there and a lot
of I would say government support for translating it.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Do people think of the shifts at R and D
as just an administration one administration thing?

Speaker 12 (36:00):
Is it just an administration thing? It's certainly is heavily
weighted by Yeah, that some of those choices in funding availability,
in the certainty thereof, and also the regulatory landscape.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Okay, so I guess my question is are they thinking
that after President Trump finishes up his second term, could
it possibly the pendulum swing back to the way it
was and just got about thirty seconds.

Speaker 12 (36:21):
Sure, hopefully we will see over time, you know, increased
support for this kind of innovation because it is so important.
But some pruning is irreversible. If you're a gardener and
you overprune a tree, it just never quite recovers, will
never be the same.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
That's general adventures. Jenny Rook Carol. One thing that we
talked about with Jenny, not just this time, but the
last time she was on with us was the promise
of gene editing technology, so called crisper technology. And then
after our conversation with her, we saw a story about
super Baby.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, I kind of love it. It's a story specifically
about Bootstrap Bio. It's a California startup. It's working on
technology to genetically edit human embryos, and the goal, I
think it's safe to say initially and mainly is to
eliminate inherited diseases, but it's also about enhancing desirable traits.
And this is against a backdrop of a lot of

(37:16):
concerns out there from scientists and ethicists about the technology,
safety and potential consequences. We've talked about these designer babies,
like do you know, kind of figure out what you
want your kid to be and edit out things you
don't like, and so that is terrifying to a lot
of folks.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Even though the promise of removing some of these inherited
diseases that sounds pretty great. Experts do warn that germline
editing is unproven and potentially dangerous, and it could have
consequences if a flaw is introduced to an embryo, with
some calling for a ten year moratorium on the practice.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
What I would point out is that even laboratory work
on germline editing highly highly regulated in the United States.
So researchers continue to make progress, but it's not ready
for prime time according to those who are in the field,
and so I would assume regulators are going to get
pretty involved in this they have to. And that wraps
up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Coming up in the next
sixty minutes, Tesla, Uber Weymot. Driverless cars are seemingly everywhere

(38:12):
and I can't wait.

Speaker 9 (38:15):
You sure, I've.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Read some stories in my opinion only this is not
anybody else.

Speaker 6 (38:20):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
I've gotten a little bit of pushback in recent days, Okay,
and been I've seen some lawsuits that have been fouled. Anyway,
Plus the next Reality TV President and Forage Brewing. Yes,
it is a thing our pursuits team taps into making
beer with ingredients found in the wild.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yep. Everything from roots, fruits, vines, and even tree bark yep,
it can go in a beer. This is Bloomberg Business Week.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stinavek.

Speaker 9 (38:44):
Stay with us.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
right now.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
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. Bloomberg Business Week Daily
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Plenty Ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition
of Bloomberg Business Week, including investors have revd up shares
of Uber in part because of its partnerships with Weimo.
We're going to take a deep dive into the world
of driverless cars.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Plus, do not compare him to that other reality star
who made his way to the White House. I mean,
is he even interested in going to DC? Our Business
Week team talks to Mark Cuban.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
And the top shelf special everything from beer in our
backyards to American sake. Having a moment that's from our
Bloomberg Pursuits team.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
First up this hour, we got news this week that
Uber will begin offering its customers driverless Weimo rides in Atlanta,
making it the second market after Austin where the two
companies are teaming up instead of competing against each other.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
We've got the perfect duo to talk about all this.
Max Chaptain is Bloomberg Business be Communist co host of
the elon Ing podcast. Craig Trudell is Bloomberg News Global
Autos Editor and the editor of the Hyperdrive newsletter. Max
right here in our Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio, Craig out
there in London, Craig, let's start with you, all right,
So there's a lot going on in this sector. What

(40:20):
do we know about how things have been going down
in Atlanta in Austin, like, how it's all progressing and
full disclosure, Tim and I both have done waimos on
the West Coast. I've also done them in Arizona and
we kind of love them. So how's it all going down?
Because all of a sudden it feels like everybody's all
in on these driverless cars.

Speaker 13 (40:39):
Yeah, I have to say, I mean, just to start,
you know, your experience of Waymo's, you know, being sort
of surprised and delighted from the sounds of it, is
consistent with it. You know, basically everything I hear at
this point. You occasionally do hear people sort of to
the extent that they denigrate you know, Waymos at all.
It's just oh gosh, you know, I would be too
scared to get into one of those. But you know,

(41:01):
almost universally when you talk with people who experience it,
you know, they get a kick out of it. You
don't see you know, a ton of of sort of
negative takes on sort of how they performed.

Speaker 7 (41:15):
They've held up quite well.

Speaker 13 (41:16):
The company has been forthcoming about its safety record and
is pretty transparent about if and when it does have issues.
I think things are sort of night and day in
terms of how, you know, the company has approached things
with with you know, in comparison to Tesla where you
have Musk you know, for years sort of hyping up

(41:38):
what is driver assistance you know, software that that he
offers as something more than that and calling it full
self driving, you know, not delivering it and until you know,
this past weekend and once he has taken people out
from behind the wheel, you know, on day one, we
see these incidents that are that are pretty troubling and

(41:58):
getting the attention of of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay, we're going to talk more about those in a second.
I want to bring in Max Chafkin, who's been following
the industry closely. In Max, you've been when we've spoken
to you in the past about the driver list car
technology specifically weimo you've been you've been a little skeptical
about it.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
I think everything Craig is saying everything you're saying is true.
The questions around Weaimo are business questions. Essentially, is this
more than a very very expensive, money losing attraction for
tourists in a handful of cities, which it definitely is
compelling in that sense, there are questions and these are

(42:37):
questions that you know, even Weimo has acknowledged like they
need to figure out they need to turn this into
a money making business. They feel like they've gotten the
technology to a point that's pretty pretty good, and now
they're working on the business stuff and this Uber deal,
of course, is part of that. That's part of why
you're seeing the stock go up, and then you know,
when you compare it to Tesla, the Uber stock go

(42:59):
up compared to Tesla, Tesla is I think technically like
a good way to think about this is they are
years behind where Weimo is. Like Weaimo was doing some
of the stuff that Tesla is doing, you know, years ago,
like five years ago. There are ways in which Tesla, yes,
is is impressive and ahead. There are a lot of
Tesla is a lot of miles logged using its driver

(43:22):
assistance technology, which it also confusingly calls full self driving.
But Tesla is really at the beginning of this and
like when we're like they have not even even this
pilot program we're talking about very modest, it doesn't include
members of the public, just a handful of influencers in
a very small in a very small part of Austin.
So just just very early. And everything that WEIMO is doing,

(43:46):
both in terms of customers and then in terms of
on the business side kind of makes that point just
shows you how wide the gap is and how far
Tesla is, at least at this moment from actually operating,
you know, a money making robotech.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
All right, So this came up with the newsmorre. We
show that there's no so some folks in some emerging
market country that aren't sitting with a joystot joystick like
actually driving the way.

Speaker 7 (44:07):
Most there are monitors. There are people monitoring the windows.

Speaker 5 (44:11):
I think the question they're not using joysticks, cording little
steering wheels, they're not using little steering wheels, but they
are there watching the waymo on that that's like part
of the that's like part of the business problem for
both of these companies. Like you potentially have like this
very expensive piece of hardware, and then a bunch of
expensive engineers, engineers who cost more money than Uber drivers,

(44:34):
who are having to oversee these autonomous systems. So that's
still a question with Waymo. It's a bigger question with Tesla.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Hey, Greg, come on back in here, because you've covered
the you cover more than just these two companies and
also more than just the sort of driverless element here.
But a question that I have is where does where
does this technology leave the traditional automakers Because there was
this promise from Elon Musk years ago. I mean I've
lost count of how many years ago this was, but
he basically said, you our Tesla will become more valuable

(45:03):
because you will be able to essentially set this thing
free as a robotaxi when you're not riding around in it,
and you'll be able to charge for that. Where where
does all of this lead to more traditional automakers?

Speaker 13 (45:18):
I mean, I think to your point, you know, there
was a real sort of freak out in Detroit and
Volfsburg and in uh, you know, Toyota City almost a
decade ago now, because Musk started making these you know,
pronouncements along along the lines of what you're describing, and
everyone kind of panicked, right, and we saw you know,

(45:38):
sort of everybody uh, you know, come put together plans
to sort of answer what Tesla was up to. You
saw GM acquire Cruise. You saw Ford you know invest
in this company called Argo, uh and Volkswagen invested in
them as well. You saw Toyota stand up its own
uh sort of self driving you know, outfit and you know,

(46:01):
higher sort of top notch talent for it. And you know,
here we are, you know, roughly a decade later, you know,
our goes gone bust. Cruise has has been sort of
put out of its put out of business by GM.
I think a lot of the established manufacturers are saying,
you know what, we're going to try and make money
off of these driver assistance systems that you know, kind

(46:25):
of make the human driving safer or at least we hope,
you know, can offer that benefit and this sort of
safety and convenience.

Speaker 8 (46:33):
But you know, this is just not.

Speaker 13 (46:34):
Going to happen in sort of a major way for
quite some time, and we can't we may not be
able to afford to invest in it to the extent
that a company like Google can.

Speaker 5 (46:45):
Yeah, and weimo Google, you know, even there, we're talking.
I don't think we know the exact numbers because of
the way that they report, report revenue and so on.
But they they've they've dumped tens of billions of dollars
into this. This has been an incredibly expensive endeavor, the
kind of endeavor that really only a company like Google,
a really handful of other companies can do. We even

(47:05):
saw Apple Craig Craig didn't mention Apple, but they also
got to try to get into this business and got
out of it for for some of the same.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Reasons, right, having super deep pockets.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
And the challenge here for Tesla is that a lot
of the investors who are betting on this thing, and
even to some extent Elon Musk, have sort of decided
that this is the future that that you know, Musk
has said this over and over. You shouldn't think of
Tesla as a as a regular car maker. You should
think of it as an AI company. And now here
it is we're seeing the AI and and you know,

(47:36):
it's just a long way from being you know, a
fully fleshed out uh, you know, robotaxi service, and and
that's and whether or not they can somehow get there
in the in this, Like in the crazy timelines that
Elon has offered, he said they're going to have something
like one hundred thousand cars on the roadby end of
this year. You know, just huge numbers, numbers that would
blow Weymo out of the water if they delivered. Uh,

(47:58):
I mean it's he's he's created a huge challenge himself.

Speaker 12 (48:01):
Well.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
I do also wonder about the value and Craig come
on back in here, in terms of having whether it's
Weimo for Alphabet and obviously the self driving for Tesla,
the amount of data that they get and what they
learn in terms of technologically creating these We've talked with
our Steve Mann of Bloomberg Intelligence who's talked about the
robotics and the manufacturing that has been going on in

(48:23):
China and what technological capabilities that has given them. So
I do wonder by these companies doing these kinds of things,
what they ultimately get out of it. Is it's still
a plus?

Speaker 7 (48:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 13 (48:35):
I mean I think that's been the sort of go
to messaging on Musk's part, right, is that you know
my approach, you know, my being Ela Musk is you know,
to put this hardware on every vehicle.

Speaker 7 (48:47):
I sell.

Speaker 13 (48:48):
It's a much cheaper and less robust you know, hardware
set than WEIMO puts on its car. Sure, but people
can afford to actually buy it. I can ingest all
of this data, and you know, I can put more
cars out on the road, bring in more data. Therefore
I will eventually win. I think that stood to to

(49:09):
reason to a lot of people. And yet we we've
it is all sort of theoretical, right, We don't know
whether you know, that data advantage will mean anything in
the long run. And we've also sort of you know,
heard from Musk, you know, sort of conflicting messaging in
the years since he was you know, making that argument

(49:30):
of well, we're we're you know, not going to sort
of hardcode our cars. Uh, you know, based on all
of the data that we bring in, We're going to
just you know, sort of build a robust system that
can sort of make decisions on the fly, and we're
not going to try and you know, code into our
cars what they should or shouldn't do. And so you know,

(49:51):
there's sort of speaking out of both sides of his
mouth and a lot of you know, sort of theoretical
messaging on his part that that makes you sort of
question whether or not, you know, he actually has the
advantage that was sort of believed, you know, half a
decade ago.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Max, just want to bring you in for the last
thirty seconds. Given Elon Musk's recently tumultuous relationship with President Trump,
does that put the regulatory elements around self driving technology
for his company? Does that put it at risk?

Speaker 5 (50:22):
I mean, I think they're real regulatory questions, also some
maybe some securities questions, like people have made claims about
Musks sort of seeming to exaggerate at times that said,
I don't think the challenge here is a regulatory challenge.
It's a technical challenge. It's on one hand Elon Musk
saying these cars can operate totally autonomously, and you watch

(50:42):
in the videos and they have somebody in the passenger
seat with an emergency breake, probably somebody sitting in a
control center and they're still struggling, you know, And so
so that's the question how to make the tech work.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Our thanks to Max Chafkin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek columnist and co
host of the Elon Inc. Podcast, and Craig Drudell, Bloomberg
News Global Autos Editor and the editor of the Hyperdrive Newsletter.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Well, Max is going to stick around for our next
segment as we go from driverless cars to the next
reality star and billionaire that may be on the road
to the White House.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
That's next on Bloomberg Business Week.

Speaker 9 (51:16):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Well, he's a billionaire with decades of experience playing a
rich guy in the press. He took a stick to
a TV network. He starred in a primetime reality show.
He's a fan of Ain RAN's The fountain Head. He's
a fixture on the Manaverse podcast circuit.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Is this Donald Trump?

Speaker 3 (51:45):
He likes crypto sounds like Donald Trump?

Speaker 12 (51:47):
Right.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Yes, he's been mocked for being less accomplished and than
his networth would suggest. And no, Carol, I'm not talking
about Donald Trump.

Speaker 9 (51:55):
I'm talking about Mark Cuban.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
He's a sports mogul, a small business influencer, media personality,
a healthcare disruptor, and perhaps the ultimate Trump foil. Max
Chafkin and John Tazzi profile Mark Cuban and the forthcoming
new issue of Bloomberg Business Week. It's the July issue.
It's out on newsstands soon, but you can read the
story now on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com.
Max is Bloomberg Business we call him this. He's also

(52:19):
the co host of the Eliningk podcast. John is Bloomberg
News healthcare reporter. Both join us here in the Bloomberg
Interactive Brokers Studio. Max, I want to start with you.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Wait, I want to know. Is it up in the
food car court and you guys were grabbing some coffee
and you're like that Mark Cuban guy and you're like, yeah,
we gotta do a story.

Speaker 13 (52:36):
No.

Speaker 5 (52:36):
I mean the way the genesis of this is that John,
who's been following the healthcare industry. You know, Cuban got
on his radar because Cuban has been doing some really
interesting things there. And where I got interested in it
is all this buzz around Cuban as a political figure,
and it seemed, you know, it seemed like an interesting
thing because on one hand, he is this kind of

(52:59):
somewhat googoi, somewhat unseerious reality TV personality. On the other hand,
he's doing something serious in healthcare. And we've just learned
that being a little goofy, being a little unseerious. Sometimes
it can work politically. It obviously works politically really well
for Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Well, let's talk about the serious stuff that he's doing
in healthcare, cost plus drugs. John Tazzi, Yeah, there's a
good portion of the piece that's dedicated to explaining the
intricacies of buying certain drugs in the US, and I
was shocked to find the price differences.

Speaker 7 (53:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (53:31):
I mean, Mark Cuban lacked to this company that launed
to the public, you know, several years ago, started working
on it with an entrepreneur in twenty eighteen. Initially as
kind of just an investment, just another kind of portfolio
company put some money into, but he got really involved
and became a co founder. And now this is sort

(53:54):
of what he's spending a lot of his time on.
He's going to conferences. He's going to like small wonky
health conferences that you don't expect, you know, a lot
of boldface names.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
At But there's something that really resonates with Americans about healthcare.
You've written a lot about United Healthcare and the aftermath
of the murder of a healthcare executive here in New
York in December and the frustration that Americans had. There's
something that's sort of visceral when it comes to tackling

(54:26):
this problem. Yeah, and having someone like Mark Cuban do it.

Speaker 14 (54:29):
Yeah, And what he marked, what he did is he
came in and looked at this market prescription drugs where
there are just vast inefficiencies. There are things that make
no sense, and we've written about.

Speaker 7 (54:43):
Them, we've talked about them here.

Speaker 14 (54:44):
You know, drugs that cost you know, thousands or tens
of thousands of dollars in one place that you know
are cost a tiny fraction of that for the person
acquiring them, and you know, huge markups being taken in
the middle And what he's trying to do is kind
of go into those transactions and uh, sort of take
out the middleman and make these medications available for people

(55:08):
paying cash without their insurance at a more affordable price
than they sometimes get when they go through the traditional channels.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
I got to say, you wade into something like drug
costs and healthcare and all of a sudden, you're you know,
you're tackling what has been, as we've been talking, one
of the biggest problems that are around. And there are
other billionaires who've been like tackling, you know, trying to
trying to look for some solutions, whether it's Jeff Bezos,
Warren Buffett, Jamie Diamond who teamed up. I remember, you know,
we were all reporting and thinking, Okay, they're going to

(55:38):
be able to fix all of this. Having said that,
you wait into an area like drug costs, and all
of a sudden, it's a real political kind of field, right,
and you wonder, Okay, what else does he want to
do because it's a it's a big beast of a problem.

Speaker 5 (55:52):
Well, yeah, I mean there's something inherently politically political about
talking about this stuff, just because it's a thing that
that makes people angry. Also, you know, a lot of
the solutions here are going to require some form of
regulation or government spending. And also Cuban is just politically involved.
I mean he was during the Harris campaign during the

(56:15):
twenty twenty four election. He was like a really important
surrogate for Kamala Harris. He was on the campaign trail.
He was kind of crafting or attempting to essentially sell
Harris to the business community and sell Harris as a
moderate on economic issues. And that is sort of you know,
if you think about different directions the Democratic Party could

(56:37):
go in twenty twenty eight, you know, one of them
would be some sort of moderate approach. And Cuban is
very attractive. And there are a lot of like Democratic
political consultant types who are excited about this, a lot
of Republican political consultant types who are thinking about this already,
because not only does he have this kind of identity

(56:57):
as a as a moderate, as a business guy, solutions oriented,
but he's really good on camera and he's also good
at sort of sounding like a real person. And that's
the thing that kept coming up in my reporting how
important that is. And when you look at when we
talked to Cuban about like what went wrong with Harris,

(57:18):
that's kind of what he Keety Cayden on you know,
she didn't know how to sell, That's what he said,
and that she you know, she wasn't herself. It's this,
it's this kind of like incredibly difficult thing for a
lot of politicians, and I think especially for the type
person Mark Cuban is a business guy, somebody who hasn't
been in that spotlight to be able to thread that
needle to sound like a normal person while also being moderate,

(57:40):
like it makes him politically potent.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
You know, I want to go back to this comparison
that I was talking about earlier. Then you guys laid
that out perfectly. I read right from your story. You
actually suggested Max to Mark Cuban that he's had a
similar career trajectory to President Trump.

Speaker 5 (57:58):
What happened, he did not, He didn't reactor. Well he
can called it the meanest thing anybody's ever said to me.
And John and I were sitting there with him, and
I really did think for a second, dude, he was
gonna throw us out, I know. And the thing is
he was kidding to some extent anyway. But but he
and Trump have been kind of publicly feuding for almost

(58:22):
twenty years. It goes all the way back to The Apprentice,
when shortly after Trump launched The Apprentice, Cuban launched his
own show. They sort of traded punches back then, they
traded verbal punches during the Obama administration. I think Cuban
is sort of an effective critic of Donald Trump, partly
because they are kind of similar, because they are both

(58:43):
sort of professional billionaires, guys who play billionaires on TV,
and Cuban is able to sort of effectively point to
some of the ways that Trump's you know, personality, you know,
sort of like the character he plays doesn't really live
up to the reality.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
However, he didn't care his own reality show. He didn't
do as well as Donald Trump.

Speaker 14 (59:02):
And the other point that Cuban makes in terms of
their differences is that he is a self made billionaire
and you know, kind of worked his way up, started companies, uh,
you know, started selling trash bags door to door, you know,
and that he has that background that that the president doesn't.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
I love the Highlight quote. The difference Mark Cuban says
is he never had to start from broke.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
You know.

Speaker 5 (59:25):
You brought up the difference between Apprentice and Shark Tank,
and I do think that's an interesting It's an interesting contrast,
and again it shows you why Cuban could be politically potent.

Speaker 6 (59:35):
You know.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
On The Apprentice, it ends with this kind of ritual
humiliation Donald Trump's firing someone, which course is very entertaining.
And I think one of the reasons cuban show, which
was called The Benefactor, didn't work is that Cuban was
too nice.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
He you know, nice Shark I'm gonna I'm a huge
fan of that show, and he's always the nice shark.

Speaker 5 (59:54):
So Cuban playing this kind of nice guy on this
as a supporting role that was really effective.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
The the other thing I think made.

Speaker 5 (01:00:01):
Him sort of beloved both on Shark Tank, well initially
on Shark Tank, was just the fact that he's the
richest and most successful person there. He's the only billionaire
of those judges, and he is the one who's kind
of backing the goofy companies.

Speaker 7 (01:00:16):
He's taking it not.

Speaker 5 (01:00:17):
Quite as seriously in the same way that cubans as
a sports owner, as the owner of the Mavericks. Part
of what made him fun as an owner is that
he's the billionaire, but he's also acting like a fan.
He's running up and down the court, he's acting like,
you know, goofy, he's booing, he's doing all this stuff
that a billionaire would not normally do, and that, of
course can be attractive.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
So that's the perfect segue to talk about the genesis
of costplus drugs because as a shark on Shark Tank,
he had this inbox where you would get all these
emails you Max and John Wright in the piece John
and back in twenty twelve or a few years I
should say perhaps a few years after that, because it
was around the Martin Screelly time. Yeah, twenty eighteen is

(01:00:58):
when this guy, Allen Oshmyansky got in touch with him.

Speaker 9 (01:01:03):
Yep, what happened?

Speaker 7 (01:01:04):
Yep.

Speaker 14 (01:01:04):
So Alex Oshmayansky is a radiologist entrepreneur who is following
the drama around drug prices and Martin Screelly raising prices
of some older off patent drugs that attracted uh, you know,
a lot of attention, a lot of criticism, and he said,
why don't we start a company where we can make

(01:01:27):
some of these drugs that are in short supply and
kind of solve some of these problems in the market
and kind of eliminate the window for people to take
advantage of shortages by raising prices. So he came to
you know, he cold pitched Mark Cuban through an email
with this idea. The I think the company was originally

(01:01:48):
called something like Osh's Affordable Pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Doesn't have the same ring to it, doesn't have the
same rings.

Speaker 14 (01:01:55):
But and you know, Cuban bit and he invests and
kind of took an interest in the business, and it
became what's now known as.

Speaker 7 (01:02:06):
As cost Plus.

Speaker 14 (01:02:08):
A lot of people who know Costplus know kind of
the mail order website primarily for generic drugs, some brand
drugs available, and mostly lower cost generics. But there are
other elements they're trying to build out too, And you know,
what they articulate is really they're trying to kind of
build an alternative to the existing pharmacy benefit managers the

(01:02:31):
way most people get prescription drugs. They're trying to build
something outside of that system to compete with it. It's
not really there yet as a full service solution. You know,
there are a number of drugs you can't get. You
often can't use your insurance through the site. It's not
it's it sometimes can be much less expensive than going
through your insurance, but it's.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Not always our Thanks to Max Chafkin and John Tazzi,
check out their profile of Mark Cuban in the forthcoming
new issue of Bloomberg Business Week.

Speaker 9 (01:03:00):
It's out soon.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
You can read the story now though, on the Bloomberg
terminal and at Bloomberg dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Breweries that forage for ingredients
are blossoming across the United States.

Speaker 15 (01:03:12):
They don't really have a plan in the morning when
they decide to brew beer, they might have like a
rough idea of a style and then they just go
out in the woods and see what they find and
fill a bucket up. And you know, it could be
like perilla herbs or bee bomb or fennel or you know,
wild dandelions, even like nuts bark.

Speaker 8 (01:03:29):
And the funny thing is, which I always laugh about,
is I don't know. I thought when it was like
you taste like a blueberry ipa or something from Sam Adams,
I think there's like a lot of science to it.
Maybe they make like a tincture or it's no, they
just throw blueberries in like they're brewing the beer, and
they just host in a bunch of.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Blueberries and a balanced investment portfolio in wine. Bloomberg Pursuits
is coming up. This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 14 (01:04:04):
Watches most of your time perceived as a time cupsude.

Speaker 8 (01:04:06):
It's very chic and posh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
The most powerful car made in the US.

Speaker 8 (01:04:10):
The beautiful interior, the iconic design.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Now it's time to take a look at luxury with
Bloomberg Pursuits.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Searching for beer in the backyard. American sake I believe
is how you say it is having a moment. We
talked about this in the newsroom.

Speaker 9 (01:04:26):
Who cares how you say it?

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
Just drink it, Carol.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Oh, yeah, from the guy who like drinks tons of alcohol.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Yeah, I have had sake before. I don't drink it currently. Anyway,
maybe after reading this I will, especially a certain American
sake that is now being exported to Japan, which is
a very big deal.

Speaker 9 (01:04:41):
Yes. Also, do you want to invest in wine?

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
I just want to drink it?

Speaker 9 (01:04:45):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
It is time for Pursuits. You can tell by what
we're talking about with us is the editor of Pursuits,
Chris Rouser, along with Bloomberg Pursuits Deputy editor Justin Osan.
Justin runs our award winning top shelf newsletter. Chris, I
want to start with you. You ever see the whole section?

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Does that mean you had to drink a lot to
do this?

Speaker 9 (01:05:03):
Chris doesn't drink.

Speaker 8 (01:05:05):
Drink. Justin had to drink, had to do a lot
of sampling for this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
How did that go?

Speaker 9 (01:05:10):
It was fun? Yeah, it's a tough job. But somebody's
got to do it. I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Well, let's start in just envision some beautiful fields where
maybe perhaps somebody would forage for ingredients not necessarily found
in beer, because apparently that's happening right now.

Speaker 8 (01:05:31):
Yes, Foraging for ingredients to flavor beer and change beer
and make new beer is a new trend across the US,
and it's been something that we've written about here and there.
Our beer writer Tony Rehagen is always telling us about it,
and Justin wanted to do a big feature on all
the different farms where you can go maybe you can
help forage for the ingredients their flowers, their herbs, or

(01:05:54):
you can just try new beers every season, And so
we sent Tony off across the country to look at
these different How did that go?

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
What's that like? Is it literally taking a bucket and
just like picking up things from the ground.

Speaker 15 (01:06:04):
Justin Uh, yeah, Yeah, they don't really have a plan
in the morning when they decide to brew beer. They
they might have like a rough idea of a style
and then they just go out in the woods and
see what they find and fill a bucket up. And
you know, it could be like perilla herbs or bee
bomb or fennel or you know, wild dandelions even like
nuts bark.

Speaker 8 (01:06:24):
And the funny thing is, which I always laugh about,
is I don't know. I thought when it was like
you taste like a blueberry ipa or something from Sam Adams,
I think there's like a lot of science to it.
Maybe they make like a tincture or it's no, they
just throw blueberries in like they're brewing the beer and
they just tossing a bunch of blueberries. And that's how
this is with all this stuff is very easy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
I love how they call it a ground to glass. Right,
we talk about farm to table, right, ground to glass?
How big is this? I mean, I feel like, you know,
for so long we talked about all the craft breweries, right,
and I know they're kind of having it their own
moment and maybe not so great, but it just sounds
like how much of this is going on.

Speaker 15 (01:06:59):
So it's not it's not huge. It's you know, a
select number of breweries across the country, but you know
they're in you know, all the kind of major regions.
You know, we have a wonder camera up in Main
Scratch Brewing is one of the main ones that we
profiled there in Illinois, like about two hours in Saint Louis, Portland.

(01:07:19):
Organ of course, of course, yes, but they fucking but
it's increasing and growing because as craft beer as an
industry declines, people need novelty and what consumers are craving
now is an experience. And what these breweries are really
doing is they're not selling the beers in stores as much.

(01:07:40):
They're trying to entice people to come to the brewery
and really like drink it in nature and feel nature
and feel this moment in time and think of beer
in a in a more special way.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
So how do you do this in a single day,
because the beer brewing process, from my understanding, is a
relatively long process. So you're actually be able to infuse
the beer with these in greens and drink it that
same day.

Speaker 15 (01:08:02):
No, No, they would be brewing the beer and then
you know, letting it mature.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
So it would still take a long time. Yeah, okay, yeah,
but some of the ingredients are ready made and they
can just add like they have the malt and the
water ready made, and they can add whatever they forage to.

Speaker 9 (01:08:16):
That exactly, and that's how it works. But they're still
doing this every day.

Speaker 15 (01:08:19):
They're doing it, Yeah, whenever they have a brewdet because
it's all this is pretty small quantity, so you know,
they might you know, have one consistent thing that they
make over and over, like a dandelion I p a.
Or there's this one beer font to floor called pine Zips,
which is you know, made with like white pine and
it's kind of needles.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
And would have gathered white pine trees. That sounds amazing.

Speaker 8 (01:08:43):
Sounds like a joke, though, is that funny? Like this
tastes like piney, you know, and they're like because there's
pine needles in it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
You guys ever have your like beer brewing moment where
like the bathtub in your apartment turned into sort of
like a little brewery.

Speaker 8 (01:08:56):
That would absolutely no no, no gates.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
I walked in about ten years ago. About ten years ago,
I walked in in my roommate. My roommate. I was like,
it's weird in here. And my roommate at the time
is like, I'm brewing beer, And I was like, how
long is this going to take? And I went into
the bathroom and you know, it's like your twenties and
like you're sharing a department with somebody. The whole bathtub's
like full of beer making stuff. I'm like, what are

(01:09:24):
we supposed to do here?

Speaker 8 (01:09:24):
And you were like, did you even clean the bathtime?

Speaker 9 (01:09:27):
No, it definitely definitely didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
What's really interesting though, do you guys write that scratch?
I mean, they've had some James Beard nominations, right, which
is really notable, and so this trend is definitely getting noticed.
But there's some beers that have no hops, like so
it makes me wonder can you even call it beer technically.

Speaker 15 (01:09:46):
Not it's called a gruet.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Never even heard of a grud until reading this.

Speaker 8 (01:09:49):
Yeah, neither.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
That's why you read this stuff. We learn We learned,
and it's.

Speaker 15 (01:09:54):
Like one of the oldest styles of beer, you know,
before hops became like the primary like hopps in beer
is for bittering and but you can get the same
effect using different rbs.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Bottom line, before we move on to some other stuff,
is it good because the stuff did you? You sampled?
So did you like it?

Speaker 9 (01:10:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:10:10):
I mean they're they're different. So if you if you're
looking for your tradition that they are good. But I
think for you know, depending on how adventurous your taste go,
you know, it could be not as expected at first,
but then like anything, you keep trying and it grows,
it grows on you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Justin I think you should stop right classes glass is
half full? All right, So let's go to what's having
a moment that you ask? And I say suck because
I said sak in the newsroom and everybody's like, no,
not everybody, certain select people. So is it suck?

Speaker 11 (01:10:45):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
It is? See what Why are you looking at me? Like?

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
Oh, this is radio? Everything I do is with my
voice or the record.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
He's staring at me like the daggers. All right, take
it away. What's going on with sake?

Speaker 6 (01:11:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:11:01):
So American sake? You, I mean might just be surprised
that sake is even made in America. I mean there
are Japanese companies that have done it here, like Gege
Khan out of the West Coast and then Desai. It's
a premium sake. They just opened up a huge new
facility up in Hyde Park, New York, near the Culinary School,
and they're trying to make their premium sake using American

(01:11:24):
water and rice. Is a huge deal. But there's there's
all these places all over you know, Medford, Massachusetts or sorry, Midfield, Massachusetts.
You have Arizona, they're using like nava hotee in flavorings.
And you know Arkansas, so yeah, Arkansas is interesting. So
the reason the whole industry has been able to grow

(01:11:47):
is this farm called Isabel Farms and they grow premium
sake rice that before they did it, nobody thought it
could be grown outside of Japan, and so that because
they've invested so much in this, they've become the main supply.
And now they have a mill because milling the rice
down is the first step in sake production, and they
make it easy for these startups to do it. Also,

(01:12:10):
the water is really good. In Arkansas. There's a one
of the largest independences or Agami Sake, and they have
a whole sake fest.

Speaker 9 (01:12:16):
And you know, it's still it's.

Speaker 15 (01:12:18):
Tiny compared to Japan. There's only like about you know,
two dozen brewers, but then you know Japan has over
a thousand. But it is growing again as like people
want to try a local product. It has a good story, and.

Speaker 8 (01:12:32):
You know that it's growing in the US and shrinking
in Japan.

Speaker 15 (01:12:36):
Right, Yes, yeah, that's actually the kind of coolest thing
is as production or as consumption goes down in Japan,
the US is now the number one consumer by volume
of sake, imported sake, but then getting the bottle. There's
a company called Brooklyn Kura which is now exported for
the first time to Japan, and it's a premium product there.

(01:12:56):
It's in a bunch of like fancy department stores. It's
at the Peter Luger.

Speaker 8 (01:13:00):
Going to Brooklyn soake.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Brooklyn is everywhere, and Brooklyn is popular.

Speaker 15 (01:13:06):
And the hope is that they've seen it before. We
say fashion. If you bring something you know that was Japanese,
it got popular abroad, you bring it back to Japan,
then people think it's cool again and hopefully can like
stoke consumption.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
Is there a sort of a corollary between sakke and
wine and the way people think about where it's from,
Different varieties, different processes of fermentation.

Speaker 15 (01:13:26):
Not as much so sak is interesting. It's more it's
more like a beer than it is wine. It's it's made.
There are different types of rice. There's different grades of
polishing the rice down that make it, you know, different
purities and flavors. There's some sparkling ones, there's unfiltered and
cold and hot, cold and cold and hot. Most people
drink it cold I think hot is for lower grades.

Speaker 9 (01:13:46):
So oh interesting, hot.

Speaker 8 (01:13:48):
Is for college. Hot is for when you're brewing beer
in your bathtub.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
All right, So you want to invest in wine, you
just have to have good taste, right, maybe a lot
of money and just be a little patient. It's like
Chris tasting lots of money? Do you sound like my mother?

Speaker 5 (01:14:06):
Chris? Is that all it is?

Speaker 6 (01:14:07):
No?

Speaker 8 (01:14:08):
It is much more complicated than that. And you know,
it's funny things like wine or things like watches that
you wear, like stuff that you participate in a on
a regular basis sort of may suddenly seem appealing to
invest in when it's a weird economic time, or just
if you become like really a fan. And so you know,
we've done these guides and pursuits how to invest in jewelry,
how to invest in watches, how to invest in handbags,

(01:14:29):
and we in are amazing wine Colonnists columnist Alan I
was like, we got to do how to invest in
wine because you know, totally a lot of people know,
and it's a big industry that people participate in, but
we haven't done a beginner's guide in a while, and
so she really went into it, and it's very helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
Is there a couple of things that we should can't
top of mind real quickly.

Speaker 15 (01:14:47):
I think the main one is, just like one, check
your expectations. You're probably not going to make money, so
you might as well buy stuff that you like. It's
a long term game. You're going to want to age
it and then hire an advisor and like really research
the fund. Mendels, I'm out, Yeah, you're gonna drink it, Carol.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Sounds pretty good to be an advisors, just because then
you can make the money regardless of you know, what
happens with the.

Speaker 5 (01:15:11):
Value of that wine.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Can I ask you though, in terms of wine, is
it normally French wines that are gonna if you're gonna
get something that's gonna go up in value, or is
California good? Is there anything like in terms of regional stuff?

Speaker 15 (01:15:22):
Yeah, I mean traditionally it's a Bordeaux and Burgundy. They're
like kind of slipping a bit right now. Italy is
the one of the hottest places to invest in terms
of return in California is getting more and more as well.
Champagne region as well, But it's mostly like France is
still you know, the heart of that it's the.

Speaker 8 (01:15:38):
Big guns and old wineries because the young independence and
even wines that are really amazing, there's just not a
lot of it to trade, Like, there isn't the volume
that you need to trade to make any like. Liquidity
is a big thing in that. Liquidity, which is hilarious, Yeah,
is a big issue in this.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
You get a pond without even knowing, Hey, there's something
else you hear about drinking your weedies. We'll just say
that it's all about locally grown whiskey. We don't time
to get to it, but I encourage everybody to check
out the new issue of Pursuits.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
Yeah, and I got to say the investing in wine,
you guys really just like lay it out of the
things that you need to do. Bottoms up, everybody. Thanks guys,
Chris Rouser of course, the editor Pursuits and Bloomberg Pursuits
Deputy editor Justin Ocean.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek
from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week daily Monday through Friday,
starting at two pm Wall Street Time, on Bloomberg TV,
Bloomberg Radio, and on Serious XM Channel one twenty one.
You can listen to us on Applecarplay and Android Auto.
It's free in the Apple app Store or on Google Play.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just
search Bloomberg Podcasts, and we're simulcast on Bloomberg Originals, available
at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Originals, and streaming platforms like Roku, Amazon, fireTV,
Samsung TV Plus and more.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Find our Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
The latest edition of the magazine is available on newstands
now at Bloomberg dot com and always on the Bloomberg terminal.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
I'm Tim Stenebek and I'm Carol Master. A good and
safe weekend. Everyone choice, some wine.

Speaker 5 (01:17:02):
Or some sake.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines
are coming up right now.

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Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 28th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Tim Stenovec

Carol Massar

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