May 23, 2025 • 34 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
President Donald Trump said that the tariffs he threatened against Apple Inc. earlier Friday would also be aimed at a wider range of device makers including Samsung Electronics Co. to spur them into moving manufacturing of their products to the US.
“It would be more,” Trump said when asked at the White House whether his tariff threat would only apply to Apple. “It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.” Trump indicated that the import levies would be “appropriately done” and ready for implementation by the end of June but provided no other details.
The president’s remarks clarified his social media post from earlier in the day warning that Apple would face tariffs of 25% if the Cupertino, California-based company failed to shift production of its iconic iPhone to the US from overseas. The warning came days after a Tuesday meeting between Trump and Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook at the White House, a US official said.
“He said he’s going to India to build plants. I said, that’s okay to go to India, but you’re not going to sell into here without tariffs, and that’s the way it is,” Trump said. Apple’s stock fell as much as 3.9% in New York trading. Separately Friday, Trump also threatened a 50% tariff on the European Union that would go into effect June 1, which weighed on the broader market.
Today's show features:
- Bloomberg News White House Editor Jordan Fabian on Trump's 25% Tariff Threat on Apple
- CFO Briefing: Jill Woodworth, Chief Financial Officer of Prenuvo and Bloomberg News Senior Editor Nina Trentmann
- Rod Baltzer, Chief Executive Officer of Deep Isolation and Bloomberg News Energy Reporter Will Wade
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
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):
All Right, you know our big story. There's a couple
of them, but this is real. The big one is
certainly when it comes to investors, President Trump threatening a
sweeping fifty percent tariff on the European Union, a twenty
five percent levy on Apple. Of course, Charlie digging into
this as well throughout the day, if the tech giant
failed to move iPhone manufacturing to the United States. We're
talking about Apple here, reigniting investor fears about his trade agenda.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Speaking earlier with Bloomberg Wall Street Week host David Weston,
they talked about the overall tariff strategy, but they also
talked about what already he is seeing as a result
of these tariffs.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Check it out.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
We have substantial revenue coming in now, and there is
at some point there's an equilibrium rate, let's call it
a Laffer curve for tariffs. So and I think we
will reach that rate. The other thing that's happening is
a lot of their tariff barriers or non tariff trade barriers.
(01:31):
A lot of these non tariff trade barriers are coming down,
so friction is decreasing there. And again, because we don't
know where these tariff negotiations are going to end up,
they won't end up being scored, but it's several hundred
million dollars a year, several hundred billion dollars a year
of revenue that will be used.
Speaker 6 (01:53):
For every one.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Hundred billion, that's one hundred billion less of bonds that
Treasury has to issue.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
When you talk about uncertainty and getting more certainly because
the tax bill, some of the uncertainty, a lot of
it is because of tariffs right now, because we're not
exactly sure we're going to end up. Do you have
a sense when the economic community, the business community will
get better certainty on tariffs.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Well, we've done the ninety day pause. As I've mentioned
several times, we have eighteen important trading partners. So what
everyone should really focus on. Are those we've done a
deal with the UK. My sense is over the next
couple of weeks we're going to have several large deals announced.
We have put a pause and a ninety day pause
(02:37):
with China. I expect that we will be negotiating in
person with them again. And then the President today when
we initiated the pause, the pause and the ten percent
are moving down from the April second rate to the
(02:57):
ten percent level was contingent on countries or trading blocks
coming and negotiating in good faith. And I think the
President was getting frustrated with the EU. You know the
problem with EU. I've said several times they have a
collective action problem. They're twenty seven countries. They all have
different needs. The Germans they are interested in cars of
(03:19):
French and agriculture, so and then you have Brussels negotiating
with them.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
All right, That, of course, was US Treasury Secretary Scott
bess And earlier today on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio across
our platforms with Bloomberg Wall Street Week host David Weston, Hey,
before we get a little bit more into what we
are getting out of the White House, we do want
to mention crossing the Bloomberg terminal a red headline. Oracle
to buy forty billion dollars of Nvidia chips for an
(03:46):
open AIUS data center. This is according to the Ft
the Financial Times, so Oracle tim it looks like buying
around four hundred thousand of NVIDIAs GB two hundred chips.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
This is then with I guess.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Some plans for Oracle to lease the computing power to
open AI So a little bit of a deal flow there.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
Yeah, I'm just looking at shares of Oracle spiked a
little bit higher on this news, down about one tenth
of one percent, and video shares also off their lows
of the day, but Carol's still down three tenths of
one percent.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
All right, folks, and again according to the Ft.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
All right, let's get back to certainly Tariff's trade chips.
That is definitely a connection there right now that we're
focused on the trade relationship when it comes to the
European Union. With more on the latest tariff talk and
why it's happening now, we head to the Bloomberg News
Washington DC Bureau and White House editor Jordan Fabian Jordan,
why the escalation?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Why is it happening now. I mean part of me.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Almost wonders, is this to divert attention from the concerns
over the ballooning deficit as the Trump spending and tax
bill makes its way through Congress.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I mean, help me out here.
Speaker 8 (04:49):
Yeah, Carol, why now?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Is an interesting question. For the past couple of weeks,
you had the President seemingly indicating that he was looking
for an off ramp on these terraffs, saying last week
when he was in the Middle East, that he was
essentially going to send a bunch of letters out to
countries setting teriff rates and then moving on. But there
are still a number of people who are negotiating with
the US, namely the EU. There is a call happening
(05:13):
today between US and EU train negotiations. New negotiators and
some U officials believe that this could be a negotiating
tactic by the President essentially throwing out a maximalist number
out there before this phone call to try and gain leverage.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
On the EU. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (05:31):
A big question I have is whether or not this
is part of the the so called art of the deal.
As Carol mentioned, I think one thing that's pretty striking
to me about this is the June first deadline here,
we're just days away from that, Jordan. That doesn't give
much time for the EU to come back with a solution.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
No, and in fact him there is a large package
of retaliatory terrafs that the EU is tied up if
these negotiations go sideways. So if the President actually means
what he says and follows on that fifty percent tariff
threat by June first, EU hasn't said what they're going
to do, but I would imagine there would put those
(06:08):
retaliatory tariffs in motions. So duty is going on popular
American products like whiskey and motorcycles and some of our
most iconic products that are exported to the EU.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What is going on inside the White House right now?
And you know, we obviously are. David Weston had a
big conversation with Treasury Secretary Scott Best and who seems
to be the voice that the world is continually turning
to to kind of say, help me make sense out
of all of this, and maybe it's not so bad,
but you know, just trying to understand the President's strategy,
and you know, is it just Jordan, this idea that
(06:41):
you know, keeping everybody a little bit on edge.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There's suddenly certainly something to that. And frankly, Carol, I
don't see a whole grand strategy behind what the President
is doing. A lot of it to me smacks as
retaliation revenge. You know, the EU is block and entity
that he's long had an issue with and this is
his way of getting back at them. And so you know,
(07:06):
when you hear Scott Besson try to impose some sort
of logic and reason on that, and then you listen
to what the president says, there is a disconnect. You know,
he's talking about this Laugher curve for tariffs. It doesn't
seem to me that the President is thinking in that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Way at all.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, if anything, it's more of a Goldilocks approach,
where you know, each day the number is different, you know,
depending on whether it's too hot or too cold for
his liking.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
You know.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Speaking of what the President wants in a separate post,
he also mentioned and we're talking Apple here, but he
also mentioned that he wants to see Apple make iPhones
that are bound for the US here in the US,
not in India, as Apple has been moving production to
different parts of the world for US bound iPhones. We've
reported a lot on this with our own Mark German,
(07:52):
who's also mentioned that it is a far cry and difficult,
a tall task, I should say, for Apple to actually
do that here in the US. Why do you think
he's making these comments right now, Jordan.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Well, again, you know, I keep going back to that
retaliation revenge aspect. You know, the Big Tech is an
entity that he's really again had an issue with over
the past few years, and he's taken aim at big
Tech CEOs, from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Tim Cook,
and he had a meeting this week with Tim Cook.
You heard the President last week when he was in
(08:25):
the Middle East complain about Apple's plan to move production
to India away from China for the Apple's iPhone exports
to the US. And you know, as much as he
wants that production to be here, you know there's a
few problems. It'll take years getting all those factories over here.
There's not a trained workforce in the United States to
(08:46):
produce those iPhones, not to mention what the costs would
be selling those iPhones into the US market from US factories,
So not necessarily something you snap your fingers and it
happens overnight.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Well, there's something to be said that you go after
one of the world's largest market cap companies, I mean
Apple and in video is kind of trading back and
forth their places. It gets everybody's attention. Same thing with
when it comes to academia. Go after Harvard, right, like
it's a massive giant. Like you get everybody's attention in
terms of maybe what the White House is.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Trying to achieve.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
Hey, listen, so appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Jordan.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Jordan Fabian, White House editor at Bloomberg News. There in
our DC bureau.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
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 8 (09:38):
Well you know this if you've been watching or listening
to us over the last ninety minutes. President trump Friday
signing order is meant to accelerate the construction of nuclear
power plants, including small, untested designs that offer the promise
of rapid deployment but have yet to be built in
the US. It certainly makes sense given the increase in
demand we are set to see for energy. The question
(09:59):
that a lot of peop people have though, is what
are we going to do with all that nuclear waste? Well,
dep Isolation says we bury it deep underground, and they're
working on it. We got Rodney Boltzer with US, CEO
of Deep Isolation. He joins us from Plano, Texas. Also
with us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio is
Bloomberg News energy reporter Will Wade. Will I want to
(10:19):
start with you because when you think about waste, what
are the things we need to be thinking about.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
We need to think about something that is long term,
like really long term. This stuff is dangerous for centuries,
for longer.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
Than any vest will be around.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
So you need to look for a permanent solution, and
that's something that we've all been working a lot.
Speaker 11 (10:41):
Really.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
Finland is the only country I know of that's got
something they've worked on, a deep underground.
Speaker 9 (10:47):
Repository for the waste.
Speaker 10 (10:49):
Everywhere else in the US that pretty much just sits
out behind the reactors where they you know, where they
used it.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah, Happy Friday, everybody. You are a pretty dwn Hey, ron, let's.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
Still go to the reactors.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
It's pretty simple.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
I mean, it's not like it's radioactive. They're in these
like gigantic concrete canisters.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
I've been there, but.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
There's no crack or anything. Right.
Speaker 10 (11:07):
They're designed to last for a really long time, but
they just sit out there and take up space. There's
some power plants where they built the power plant, use
the power plant, finish the power plant, took it apart,
cleaned it up. The only thing left is there is
a couple dozen or more of these giant concrete storage
canisters just to sit there.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
All right.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
That's what deep isolation is working on. Rod, come on
in on the conversation. Tell us a little bit about
what you guys are doing specifically when it comes to
nuclear waste, because we know kind of, as Will so
well spelled out, what's being done now, what are how
are you guys approaching it and what can you do differently?
Speaker 6 (11:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me on. So deep isolation is
different what the world is typically done. Like Will said,
in Finland, giant mind repositories, they take decades, they're very expensive,
administrations changed, they get bogged down and politics and they're
just really hard to implement, really costly, and so deep
isolation looked around and said, man, you know, directional drilling
(12:08):
has really come a long way in the last twenty years.
What if we marry that with nuclear waste handling that
we've been doing for decades as well. Make sure we
don't drop anything, make sure we integrate those two really
mature technologies, and then we can go deeper, which is
safer and extends for those really long periods of time.
Speaker 9 (12:28):
This is basically the same technology we use for fracking, right.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
It's the same kind of technology, but we don't frack,
so we want that formation to be pristine. We don't
want to break that rock open like you do with fracking.
Speaker 8 (12:41):
So you still have to find somebody's backyard to put
it in. And even if it's deep underground, I get
the sense that states, cities, countries still won't want it.
Where do you put it?
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Yeah, And so that's where it's kind of fascinating. You know,
for a mind repository be centralized, and you pretty much
had to take all of the waste from the entire nation.
So we were going to put it at Yucka Mountain Nevada,
and Nevada did not want it. But now it's stuck
at all these reactors across the US, so there's communities
that already have it in their backyard. The question is
do you want to keep it up there and just
(13:16):
look at it, or do you want to put it
safe underground where it would be better disposed of. Well,
we're also seeing as internationally there's a lot of interest
from smaller countries that don't have a lot of nuclear
of co locating this with the reactors so you don't
have to transport it through nuclear neighborhoods or communities.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
I still didn't hear though, where exactly you put it.
I know that it's not Yucka Mountain has not worked
out for the last what almost forty years at this point,
it's pretty remarkable that.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
It goes back that far.
Speaker 8 (13:42):
But where in the US can you put it?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Right now? You can't put it anywhere except Yucka Mountain.
There's a legislative, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, says thou
shalt only dispose of spin fuel at Yucka Mountain, Nevada.
So in the US we're stuck. And so I think,
you know, as you see like these executive orders come out,
it'd be great to see some of those with nuclear
for the waistside and make some progress on it to
allow us to look for another site. We can't even
(14:08):
look for one yet.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Listen, years ago, twenty five thirty years I'm dating myself,
but doing a whole thing about yucka mountain and because
people were upset and trying to figure out what do
we do with all the waste that's already there?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And here we are? You know how many years later?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Will why is from your reporting? And then I want
to bring Rod back underground? Deep deep underground? Why is
that a good solution?
Speaker 9 (14:30):
It's pretty safe down there, is it?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So even like earthquakes, tremors, like none of that stuff
is felt there.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
You know, that's actually a better question for Rod. And
my question for Roud is give us a sense like
how deep are we talking here?
Speaker 6 (14:44):
So we're talking about a mile deep. This is about
twice as deep as a mind repository. And so Deep
Isolation has done a lot of safety calculations and looked
at you know, when you put the waist that deep
and you know, in a generic kind of formation to
sale as shale formation, you know, how long does it
take for that to migrate somewhere? Eventually that canister corrodes,
(15:04):
and that waste goes somewhere, and our calculations show that
the peak dose to somebody on the surface would be
one point six million years into the future and be
a thousand times less than a regulatory limit of ten
milli realm ten millirems about a chesticks ray. So a
thousand times less than that is very very minimal. And
it just shows you that much depth, that much rock
(15:27):
provides so much safety and a buffer for such a
long period of time.
Speaker 10 (15:31):
So when we have it in the storage canisters on
the surface, the safety comes from the couple of feet
of concrete and steel that are protecting it.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
Sounds like your safety.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Play is we're going to put it so far away
that it's not going to bother anyone.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Yeah, Ours is the billion tons of rock that's on
top of our formation instead of the seed of concrete,
and it's nuclear waste is stored safely. It doesn't smell,
thank goodness, or people would really be that botty feed
to tind it out there. But it's stored safely, and
so you know, ours is we can we can make
it permanent. Let's stop spending two point two billion dollars
(16:10):
a year in the US on storage and new something
on the disposal aspect.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
You know, here in New York City, when it gets
to the environmental review process, if they want to turn
some sort of area that perhaps used to be a
factory or a gas station into apartments, there's this remediation
process that has to take place because some of what
was there over the last one hundred or so years
has seeped into the ground and it's become an issue.
It's certainly an issue in a large part of Brooklyn
(16:37):
right now. For example, how do you ensure that one
hundred years from now your solution will still hold because
really it's untested over that length of time and the
nuclear waste will not have seeped into the area around
it or contaminated the groundwater. For example.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
I mean, we have nuclear facilities that have been opened
from more more than seventy years, storage for more than
sixty years, and so we've got some experience with you know,
how do you create the engineering barriers around that. Our
is trying to take that plus the drilling technology and
just move it all super deep underground solid. It is
(17:17):
nowhere near the surface. So when you're doing that surface testing,
this is a mile deeper than that, it's well below
any kind of drinking water, aquifers or anything else. Just
get it out of the biosphere.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So how much tell us how much work you guys
are already doing? And I'm just what because if it's
so good, like, are people queuing up to say, listen,
we're going to need you to do this for us,
So give us an idea of the business that you're seeing.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
Yeah, So what we've done is we've designed a universal
canniser system and so this canister will take a script
fuel assembly, whether it's a legacy reactor or some of
the new advanced reactors and the new fuel types, and
it'll close that waste and that allows us to put
it either in a storage or a transport container for
a surface if we need to move that around or
(18:06):
store it temporarily, or dispose it of a mind repository
or a borehole deep underground. And so we've actually produced
those both in the US and the UK, and we've
tested those near surface to make sure that they work,
they fit inside the drilling cases, they get handled with
toil and gas equipment. We've done corrosion testing and things
on these, and so we know they're robust and ready
(18:27):
to go. Our customers have told us we need to
do a full size, full scale at depth demonstration. We've
done a small scale at depth and full size at
the surface, but go deep and so that's our next
step is finding the funding to go do that next
step and make progress on this issue.
Speaker 10 (18:44):
What's the main barrier you see to actually getting this used?
Is it still developing the technology, is it finding a
customer willing to try it or I suspect one of
the biggest one is getting regulatory approval to let anyone
use it.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
Yeah, you know, we've we've got a lot of interest
from customers. We see the technology as being pretty mature.
We do think it's the you know, first mover and
the regulatory aspect alongside that. So, like we said in
the US, there's some complications. We do think our technology
is probably exported and done internationally first, but we do
(19:21):
see that there's openings for that and that there can
be progress made in the next three or four years.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
What does it cost to do this? How expensive is it?
Speaker 6 (19:32):
So this is less than half the cost of a
mind repository, so it's you know, general rule of thumb
is probably about a billion dollars per reactor for spent
nuclear fuel disposal as you look at kind of reactor
sites and we're less than half that cost. And so
when you're a small country or you're looking at new
nuclear or anything and you want to have an economic
(19:53):
solution that this is one that you could afford to implement.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
One last question I'm also curious, rod, is how do
you keep it safe?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Like what's is there?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
What's the procedure for checking on it, making sure that
once it's built it continues to be safe. And if
there's a problem, is it easy to fix it?
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Yeah, So we do build retrievability into our product. So
if you found out after the fact that for whatever
reason you missed something that it wasn't safe, you could
retrieve it and pull it back to the surface. So
it is retrievable, it's reversible. Likewise, if new technology came
along and you really wanted to reprocess this, you can
do that as well. But for us, we also have
(20:37):
a lot of monitoring. We've got a lot of patents
in IP around monitoring both during operations and post closure.
So what is that temperature pressure, the radiation like at
depth over a long.
Speaker 9 (20:48):
Period cool stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Thank you so much, Rod Baltter, He's CEO of Depolation
and our Thanks to Will Wide also weighing in there,
Bloomberg News Energy Reporter.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Thanks to you.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
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station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
We want to get.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Into one of the themes that has definitely been front
and center. It came out at Milkin, but Tim and
I have had a lot of guests on this, and
it was just about one year ago that our Bloomberg
Pursuits team did a deep dive into the business of longevity,
reporting on a host of startups that promise a longer,
better life at a price. And they also asked about
(21:39):
this health span movement, ask him whether it was just
more than just a money grab or something much more
instrumental for individuals and a better way of living.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Celebrities are certainly into it. We know wealthy folks are
into it. I mean, who doesn't want to live longer.
Keiita living longer, many would argue, is preventative care, catching
illness and disease early. And Carol, it's safe to say
our next guest certainly falls into that category.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
All right, with us as Jill Woodworth, she's former CFO
of Peloton. She recently joined Pernuvo as chief financial officer.
The company makes MRI scanning for early detection of health problems,
think body scans and more.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Also with us, of course, as our own. Nina Trupman.
She's senior editor at Bloomberg News.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
She's the author of the CFO Briefing newsletter, which comes
out every Sunday. You can find it at Bloomberg dot
com slash CFO Briefing. Hey guys, thank you so much.
Jill of course, Nina, thank you, hey, Jill. We want
to get into what you guys are doing at Pernuvo.
We're kind of obsessed with what you are doing and
want to know more about the.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Business and where it goes. I got to go look
back there, just for one moment.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
You're a Peloton from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two,
so the company at its heights. You saw that in
under pressure, a lot of buying during the pandemic. I've
got one full transparency, bought it before the pandemic.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Tell us about that ride though.
Speaker 12 (22:53):
Well, thank you for having me, and very pleased to
be here and to talk about what pernuvos doing, and
absolutely happy to talk about Peloton. I think very similarly,
both are changing people's lives. With Peloton it was introducing
physical and mental well being, and obviously with Pernuvo extending
(23:15):
my passion for health and wellness into early detection of disease.
But at Peloton, you know, prior to COVID, it was
actually a fairly predictable but high growth business and as
you probably know, we scaled from you know, two hundred
million revenue to over four billion during COVID, and it
(23:35):
was a black Swan event, and you know, Peloton seemed
to be at the center of the storm, and we
had to make a lot of investments to serve the
backlog of customers. Just to give you a sense of scale,
we on an overnight it felt like when COVID hit,
our sales increased ninefold.
Speaker 9 (23:57):
Literally air, and.
Speaker 12 (24:00):
We had a decision to make it was serve those
those customers who wanted some outlet during those very dark
days for physical and mental well being, and so we
scaled every part of the organization. It was a highly
vertically integrated model. We delivered our bikes, we made our
(24:22):
bikes and treads, and every part of the organization had
to change. We even had to move cameras into our instructors'
homes for a couple of months so that we could
continue to make fresh content, which our members loved. So
it was certainly, you know, looking back, an incredible time
and I feel like we just tried to serve our
(24:43):
members as best as we could, and of course it
did with all of those fixed costs getting implemented, you know,
for those eighteen months where we had very very high
sustained demand, it did take some time to unwind that.
But I think as we look back, we did it
for the members.
Speaker 11 (25:02):
Yeh, Jill, thanks for joining us, and maybe I can
jump in here talk to us a little bit about
your new role Perneuv if I'm understanding it correctly. Is
it's privately owned at this point, Like what are your
plans as a CFO for the company and could you
at some point look towards an IPO.
Speaker 12 (25:20):
So I think everybody knows what Cernubo does it, you know,
I think just very basically, I'd like to say, what
we're trying to do is reimagine the annual physical and
bringing MRI to the mainstream. And you know, part of
the reason why I joined was actually going through the
diligence process. I had my own scan. It was incredibly
(25:42):
eye opening, thankfully, nothing serious, but a lot of things
that I need to keep an eye on and things
that I can proactively do, not necessarily to increase my longevity,
but really increase my quality of life. And so what
I think the company is doing is important and right
now today the company you know, is still small, it's private.
(26:05):
We have twenty clinics across the US, and what I'm
excited to partner with the management team on is the
various vectors for growth. So we are going to continue
rolling out clinics across the United States. We're looking at
some international locations as well. We see demand from people
coming overseas to visit our clinics as well, So that
(26:29):
is one vector, you know, that I think we can
responsibly grow and scale pretty efficiently. I think the other
interesting aspect is we have more products that we can offer.
We started rolling out blood biomarkers in California and New York,
and our plan is to include blood work along with MRI,
(26:51):
and if you do both, you have a ninety five
percent picture of your health. And so for us, we
will be rolling that out nationally and over the course
of the next few months. So new products and different
ways to serve our customers is also in focus, and
(27:11):
so as a CFO, I want to make sure that
the company is well capitalized and that we're analyzing these
different ways to grow in a responsible way so that
we can operationalize them. And also just make sure that
we continue to make a great experience for the customers
that walk in our door and that our insights are helpful.
Speaker 8 (27:34):
Jill, I want to talk about some of those insights
in a minute, but I'm going to go through some
pricing here, just because i know everybody listening or watching
is wondering. Prices range for a TORSO scan about twenty
five minutes, from about one thousand dollars up to enhance
screening for full body if you're in the New York area,
it's about forty five hundred dollars. That's about a sixty
minute scan. According to your website. Right now, insurance does
(27:54):
not cover in my understanding, this type of preventative scan.
If in your view it is in deed, something that
you want to make part of an annual physical and
you see a benefit, why in your view does insurance
not cover this stuff.
Speaker 12 (28:08):
Well, the healthcare system, unfortunately is waited for something to
go wrong historically, and we're trying to change that model
where customers can take health into their own hands. And
so we are hopeful but not reliant on health insurance
seeing the validity of a whole body MRI. But there's
(28:29):
two points all make one. We are continuing to build
out an enterprise sales motion, so going to companies who
may offer this as a benefit to their employees, either
subsidizing or paying for the service. And I think most
large employers are self insured and offering pernuvo as a
benefit can actually bring down their costs through early detection
(28:53):
in terms of what they might have to pay out
in the future if some of these early detection of
diseases aren't caught early, and then I would say, we're also,
you know, trying to bring down our cost of our
service over time. We're a vertically integrated model, right we
have specialized MRI machines. We have one hundred radiologists on
(29:16):
staff who are trained in whole body MRI reading. And
when you get your results, we have a doctor or
a nurse practitioner go through those results in detail to
make sure that you understand them, and we send them
on to their physicians as needed. So it's a very
very comprehensive, high touch service.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
All right, So I have to go back.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It's kind of one of those things in journalism, like
wait a minute, the elephant in the living room, Like
when you said that you found a couple of things
and thank god, nothing serious in your testing. But I'm
just curious, like what was found?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I'm just in.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Terms of the findings generally yourself, but also more broadly.
Does it tend to catch things kind of early on
that really do make a difference in a health outcome?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But for you, what was found? I'm curious?
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Can we ask it?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (30:07):
I mean, I'm happy to share. Hopefully it's not too
much information. But I would venture to say most of
us have a lot of degeneration in our spine that's
well ahead of our age. We sit behind desks, we
don't stand up, We don't exercise enough, and so there
were a lot of issues pointed out with respect to
(30:28):
the health of my spine. And ever since I got
my scan, I now take physical therapy seriously. I take
mobility seriously. I used to just hop on the peloton, tread,
do a boot camp and call it a day. I'm
stretching more. I'm now focused on pilates and yoga. But
(30:50):
that could seriously impact living out your fifties, sixties, and
seventies in a very healthy way if you don't address
some of those issues. Now we look at every organ
we can detect small aneurysms. I found out I have
some mild arthritis in my shoulders, which probably isn't abnormal
(31:10):
for my age, but I'm learning different ways to compensate
for that now with respect to my fitness training. So again,
nothing alarming, but it was really helpful to know. I
think most of us would probably be surprised to get
the scan and realize how much you can actually slow
(31:33):
down that degeneration.
Speaker 11 (31:38):
Jill talk to us a little bit about the journey
for the company. You said you have twenty clinics right now,
You're looking to open new clinics across the US and
potentially also outside of the US, Like, and how far
is preparing this company for public listing one of the
goals that you have as a CFO.
Speaker 12 (31:54):
Yeah, that's not on the roadmap now, but I think
what we'd like to do was prepare for every optionality,
and so I want to make sure the company is
capitalized today, whether that be debt or equity in the
private markets, so that we have every option to be
(32:15):
available to us over time. But right now IPO is
not necessarily on the table, but again, it's all about
keeping options open.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Hey, Joe, last question.
Speaker 8 (32:25):
We got to run only thirty seconds here. You mentioned
one hundred radiologists on staff. At this point, I think
of radiology, I think that's prime for disruption by AI.
When do those radiologists get replaced by AI?
Speaker 12 (32:39):
Well, we disrupt ourselves, right. We already have AI embedded
into a lot of the reports that we're generating, and
we think of it right now as an efficiency tool.
And could there be a day where AI could read
an MRI report one hundred percent But from our perspective,
(33:01):
that's a long way off. But for us, it's about
just improving their efficiency so that we can bring down
the cost over time, and those are things that we're
already implementing and we'll continue to implement.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Listen so cool. We hope you will come back. We
know you're getting settled in and we really appreciate you
giving us some time, but do come back and let
us know how the business is going and growing.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Look forward to it.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Jill Woodworth, she is Prnuvo Chief Financial Officer, joining us
on this Friday from New York And of course, thanks
to our own Nina Treptman, Senior editor at Bloomberg News,
author of the CFO Briefing newsletter. You can find it
at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Briefing, a new one
coming out this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
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You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(34:04):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
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):
All Right, you know our big story. There's a couple
of them, but this is real. The big one is
certainly when it comes to investors, President Trump threatening a
sweeping fifty percent tariff on the European Union, a twenty
five percent levy on Apple. Of course, Charlie digging into
this as well throughout the day, if the tech giant
failed to move iPhone manufacturing to the United States. We're
talking about Apple here, reigniting investor fears about his trade agenda.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Speaking earlier with Bloomberg Wall Street Week host David Weston,
they talked about the overall tariff strategy, but they also
talked about what already he is seeing as a result
of these tariffs.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Check it out.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
We have substantial revenue coming in now, and there is
at some point there's an equilibrium rate, let's call it
a Laffer curve for tariffs. So and I think we
will reach that rate. The other thing that's happening is
a lot of their tariff barriers or non tariff trade barriers.
(01:31):
A lot of these non tariff trade barriers are coming down,
so friction is decreasing there. And again, because we don't
know where these tariff negotiations are going to end up,
they won't end up being scored, but it's several hundred
million dollars a year, several hundred billion dollars a year
of revenue that will be used.
Speaker 6 (01:53):
For every one.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Hundred billion, that's one hundred billion less of bonds that
Treasury has to issue.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
When you talk about uncertainty and getting more certainly because
the tax bill, some of the uncertainty, a lot of
it is because of tariffs right now, because we're not
exactly sure we're going to end up. Do you have
a sense when the economic community, the business community will
get better certainty on tariffs.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Well, we've done the ninety day pause. As I've mentioned
several times, we have eighteen important trading partners. So what
everyone should really focus on. Are those we've done a
deal with the UK. My sense is over the next
couple of weeks we're going to have several large deals announced.
We have put a pause and a ninety day pause
(02:37):
with China. I expect that we will be negotiating in
person with them again. And then the President today when
we initiated the pause, the pause and the ten percent
are moving down from the April second rate to the
(02:57):
ten percent level was contingent on countries or trading blocks
coming and negotiating in good faith. And I think the
President was getting frustrated with the EU. You know the
problem with EU. I've said several times they have a
collective action problem. They're twenty seven countries. They all have
different needs. The Germans they are interested in cars of
(03:19):
French and agriculture, so and then you have Brussels negotiating
with them.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
All right, That, of course, was US Treasury Secretary Scott
bess And earlier today on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio across
our platforms with Bloomberg Wall Street Week host David Weston, Hey,
before we get a little bit more into what we
are getting out of the White House, we do want
to mention crossing the Bloomberg terminal a red headline. Oracle
to buy forty billion dollars of Nvidia chips for an
(03:46):
open AIUS data center. This is according to the Ft
the Financial Times, so Oracle tim it looks like buying
around four hundred thousand of NVIDIAs GB two hundred chips.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
This is then with I guess.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Some plans for Oracle to lease the computing power to
open AI So a little bit of a deal flow there.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
Yeah, I'm just looking at shares of Oracle spiked a
little bit higher on this news, down about one tenth
of one percent, and video shares also off their lows
of the day, but Carol's still down three tenths of
one percent.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
All right, folks, and again according to the Ft.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
All right, let's get back to certainly Tariff's trade chips.
That is definitely a connection there right now that we're
focused on the trade relationship when it comes to the
European Union. With more on the latest tariff talk and
why it's happening now, we head to the Bloomberg News
Washington DC Bureau and White House editor Jordan Fabian Jordan,
why the escalation?
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Why is it happening now. I mean part of me.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Almost wonders, is this to divert attention from the concerns
over the ballooning deficit as the Trump spending and tax
bill makes its way through Congress.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
I mean, help me out here.
Speaker 8 (04:49):
Yeah, Carol, why now?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Is an interesting question. For the past couple of weeks,
you had the President seemingly indicating that he was looking
for an off ramp on these terraffs, saying last week
when he was in the Middle East, that he was
essentially going to send a bunch of letters out to
countries setting teriff rates and then moving on. But there
are still a number of people who are negotiating with
the US, namely the EU. There is a call happening
(05:13):
today between US and EU train negotiations. New negotiators and
some U officials believe that this could be a negotiating
tactic by the President essentially throwing out a maximalist number
out there before this phone call to try and gain leverage.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
On the EU. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (05:31):
A big question I have is whether or not this
is part of the the so called art of the deal.
As Carol mentioned, I think one thing that's pretty striking
to me about this is the June first deadline here,
we're just days away from that, Jordan. That doesn't give
much time for the EU to come back with a solution.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
No, and in fact him there is a large package
of retaliatory terrafs that the EU is tied up if
these negotiations go sideways. So if the President actually means
what he says and follows on that fifty percent tariff
threat by June first, EU hasn't said what they're going
to do, but I would imagine there would put those
(06:08):
retaliatory tariffs in motions. So duty is going on popular
American products like whiskey and motorcycles and some of our
most iconic products that are exported to the EU.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
What is going on inside the White House right now?
And you know, we obviously are. David Weston had a
big conversation with Treasury Secretary Scott Best and who seems
to be the voice that the world is continually turning
to to kind of say, help me make sense out
of all of this, and maybe it's not so bad,
but you know, just trying to understand the President's strategy,
and you know, is it just Jordan, this idea that
(06:41):
you know, keeping everybody a little bit on edge.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There's suddenly certainly something to that. And frankly, Carol, I
don't see a whole grand strategy behind what the President
is doing. A lot of it to me smacks as
retaliation revenge. You know, the EU is block and entity
that he's long had an issue with and this is
his way of getting back at them. And so you know,
(07:06):
when you hear Scott Besson try to impose some sort
of logic and reason on that, and then you listen
to what the president says, there is a disconnect. You know,
he's talking about this Laugher curve for tariffs. It doesn't
seem to me that the President is thinking in that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Way at all.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, if anything, it's more of a Goldilocks approach,
where you know, each day the number is different, you know,
depending on whether it's too hot or too cold for
his liking.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
You know.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Speaking of what the President wants in a separate post,
he also mentioned and we're talking Apple here, but he
also mentioned that he wants to see Apple make iPhones
that are bound for the US here in the US,
not in India, as Apple has been moving production to
different parts of the world for US bound iPhones. We've
reported a lot on this with our own Mark German,
(07:52):
who's also mentioned that it is a far cry and difficult,
a tall task, I should say, for Apple to actually
do that here in the US. Why do you think
he's making these comments right now, Jordan.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Well, again, you know, I keep going back to that
retaliation revenge aspect. You know, the Big Tech is an
entity that he's really again had an issue with over
the past few years, and he's taken aim at big
Tech CEOs, from Mark Zuckerberg to Jeff Bezos to Tim Cook,
and he had a meeting this week with Tim Cook.
You heard the President last week when he was in
(08:25):
the Middle East complain about Apple's plan to move production
to India away from China for the Apple's iPhone exports
to the US. And you know, as much as he
wants that production to be here, you know there's a
few problems. It'll take years getting all those factories over here.
There's not a trained workforce in the United States to
(08:46):
produce those iPhones, not to mention what the costs would
be selling those iPhones into the US market from US factories,
So not necessarily something you snap your fingers and it
happens overnight.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Well, there's something to be said that you go after
one of the world's largest market cap companies, I mean
Apple and in video is kind of trading back and
forth their places. It gets everybody's attention. Same thing with
when it comes to academia. Go after Harvard, right, like
it's a massive giant. Like you get everybody's attention in
terms of maybe what the White House is.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Trying to achieve.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
Hey, listen, so appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Jordan.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Jordan Fabian, White House editor at Bloomberg News. There in
our DC bureau.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
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 8 (09:38):
Well you know this if you've been watching or listening
to us over the last ninety minutes. President trump Friday
signing order is meant to accelerate the construction of nuclear
power plants, including small, untested designs that offer the promise
of rapid deployment but have yet to be built in
the US. It certainly makes sense given the increase in
demand we are set to see for energy. The question
(09:59):
that a lot of peop people have though, is what
are we going to do with all that nuclear waste? Well,
dep Isolation says we bury it deep underground, and they're
working on it. We got Rodney Boltzer with US, CEO
of Deep Isolation. He joins us from Plano, Texas. Also
with us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio is
Bloomberg News energy reporter Will Wade. Will I want to
(10:19):
start with you because when you think about waste, what
are the things we need to be thinking about.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
We need to think about something that is long term,
like really long term. This stuff is dangerous for centuries,
for longer.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
Than any vest will be around.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
So you need to look for a permanent solution, and
that's something that we've all been working a lot.
Speaker 11 (10:41):
Really.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
Finland is the only country I know of that's got
something they've worked on, a deep underground.
Speaker 9 (10:47):
Repository for the waste.
Speaker 10 (10:49):
Everywhere else in the US that pretty much just sits
out behind the reactors where they you know, where they
used it.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah, Happy Friday, everybody. You are a pretty dwn Hey, ron, let's.
Speaker 9 (10:58):
Still go to the reactors.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
It's pretty simple.
Speaker 10 (11:01):
I mean, it's not like it's radioactive. They're in these
like gigantic concrete canisters.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
I've been there, but.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
There's no crack or anything. Right.
Speaker 10 (11:07):
They're designed to last for a really long time, but
they just sit out there and take up space. There's
some power plants where they built the power plant, use
the power plant, finish the power plant, took it apart,
cleaned it up. The only thing left is there is
a couple dozen or more of these giant concrete storage
canisters just to sit there.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
All right.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
That's what deep isolation is working on. Rod, come on
in on the conversation. Tell us a little bit about
what you guys are doing specifically when it comes to
nuclear waste, because we know kind of, as Will so
well spelled out, what's being done now, what are how
are you guys approaching it and what can you do differently?
Speaker 6 (11:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me on. So deep isolation is
different what the world is typically done. Like Will said,
in Finland, giant mind repositories, they take decades, they're very expensive,
administrations changed, they get bogged down and politics and they're
just really hard to implement, really costly, and so deep
isolation looked around and said, man, you know, directional drilling
(12:08):
has really come a long way in the last twenty years.
What if we marry that with nuclear waste handling that
we've been doing for decades as well. Make sure we
don't drop anything, make sure we integrate those two really
mature technologies, and then we can go deeper, which is
safer and extends for those really long periods of time.
Speaker 9 (12:28):
This is basically the same technology we use for fracking, right.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
It's the same kind of technology, but we don't frack,
so we want that formation to be pristine. We don't
want to break that rock open like you do with fracking.
Speaker 8 (12:41):
So you still have to find somebody's backyard to put
it in. And even if it's deep underground, I get
the sense that states, cities, countries still won't want it.
Where do you put it?
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Yeah, And so that's where it's kind of fascinating. You know,
for a mind repository be centralized, and you pretty much
had to take all of the waste from the entire nation.
So we were going to put it at Yucka Mountain Nevada,
and Nevada did not want it. But now it's stuck
at all these reactors across the US, so there's communities
that already have it in their backyard. The question is
do you want to keep it up there and just
(13:16):
look at it, or do you want to put it
safe underground where it would be better disposed of. Well,
we're also seeing as internationally there's a lot of interest
from smaller countries that don't have a lot of nuclear
of co locating this with the reactors so you don't
have to transport it through nuclear neighborhoods or communities.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
I still didn't hear though, where exactly you put it.
I know that it's not Yucka Mountain has not worked
out for the last what almost forty years at this point,
it's pretty remarkable that.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
It goes back that far.
Speaker 8 (13:42):
But where in the US can you put it?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Right now? You can't put it anywhere except Yucka Mountain.
There's a legislative, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, says thou
shalt only dispose of spin fuel at Yucka Mountain, Nevada.
So in the US we're stuck. And so I think,
you know, as you see like these executive orders come out,
it'd be great to see some of those with nuclear
for the waistside and make some progress on it to
allow us to look for another site. We can't even
(14:08):
look for one yet.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Listen, years ago, twenty five thirty years I'm dating myself,
but doing a whole thing about yucka mountain and because
people were upset and trying to figure out what do
we do with all the waste that's already there?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And here we are? You know how many years later?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Will why is from your reporting? And then I want
to bring Rod back underground? Deep deep underground? Why is
that a good solution?
Speaker 9 (14:30):
It's pretty safe down there, is it?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So even like earthquakes, tremors, like none of that stuff
is felt there.
Speaker 10 (14:36):
You know, that's actually a better question for Rod. And
my question for Roud is give us a sense like
how deep are we talking here?
Speaker 6 (14:44):
So we're talking about a mile deep. This is about
twice as deep as a mind repository. And so Deep
Isolation has done a lot of safety calculations and looked
at you know, when you put the waist that deep
and you know, in a generic kind of formation to
sale as shale formation, you know, how long does it
take for that to migrate somewhere? Eventually that canister corrodes,
(15:04):
and that waste goes somewhere, and our calculations show that
the peak dose to somebody on the surface would be
one point six million years into the future and be
a thousand times less than a regulatory limit of ten
milli realm ten millirems about a chesticks ray. So a
thousand times less than that is very very minimal. And
it just shows you that much depth, that much rock
(15:27):
provides so much safety and a buffer for such a
long period of time.
Speaker 10 (15:31):
So when we have it in the storage canisters on
the surface, the safety comes from the couple of feet
of concrete and steel that are protecting it.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
Sounds like your safety.
Speaker 10 (15:42):
Play is we're going to put it so far away
that it's not going to bother anyone.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Yeah, Ours is the billion tons of rock that's on
top of our formation instead of the seed of concrete,
and it's nuclear waste is stored safely. It doesn't smell,
thank goodness, or people would really be that botty feed
to tind it out there. But it's stored safely, and
so you know, ours is we can we can make
it permanent. Let's stop spending two point two billion dollars
(16:10):
a year in the US on storage and new something
on the disposal aspect.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
You know, here in New York City, when it gets
to the environmental review process, if they want to turn
some sort of area that perhaps used to be a
factory or a gas station into apartments, there's this remediation
process that has to take place because some of what
was there over the last one hundred or so years
has seeped into the ground and it's become an issue.
It's certainly an issue in a large part of Brooklyn
(16:37):
right now. For example, how do you ensure that one
hundred years from now your solution will still hold because
really it's untested over that length of time and the
nuclear waste will not have seeped into the area around
it or contaminated the groundwater. For example.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
I mean, we have nuclear facilities that have been opened
from more more than seventy years, storage for more than
sixty years, and so we've got some experience with you know,
how do you create the engineering barriers around that. Our
is trying to take that plus the drilling technology and
just move it all super deep underground solid. It is
(17:17):
nowhere near the surface. So when you're doing that surface testing,
this is a mile deeper than that, it's well below
any kind of drinking water, aquifers or anything else. Just
get it out of the biosphere.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
So how much tell us how much work you guys
are already doing? And I'm just what because if it's
so good, like, are people queuing up to say, listen,
we're going to need you to do this for us,
So give us an idea of the business that you're seeing.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
Yeah, So what we've done is we've designed a universal
canniser system and so this canister will take a script
fuel assembly, whether it's a legacy reactor or some of
the new advanced reactors and the new fuel types, and
it'll close that waste and that allows us to put
it either in a storage or a transport container for
a surface if we need to move that around or
(18:06):
store it temporarily, or dispose it of a mind repository
or a borehole deep underground. And so we've actually produced
those both in the US and the UK, and we've
tested those near surface to make sure that they work,
they fit inside the drilling cases, they get handled with
toil and gas equipment. We've done corrosion testing and things
on these, and so we know they're robust and ready
(18:27):
to go. Our customers have told us we need to
do a full size, full scale at depth demonstration. We've
done a small scale at depth and full size at
the surface, but go deep and so that's our next
step is finding the funding to go do that next
step and make progress on this issue.
Speaker 10 (18:44):
What's the main barrier you see to actually getting this used?
Is it still developing the technology, is it finding a
customer willing to try it or I suspect one of
the biggest one is getting regulatory approval to let anyone
use it.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
Yeah, you know, we've we've got a lot of interest
from customers. We see the technology as being pretty mature.
We do think it's the you know, first mover and
the regulatory aspect alongside that. So, like we said in
the US, there's some complications. We do think our technology
is probably exported and done internationally first, but we do
(19:21):
see that there's openings for that and that there can
be progress made in the next three or four years.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
What does it cost to do this? How expensive is it?
Speaker 6 (19:32):
So this is less than half the cost of a
mind repository, so it's you know, general rule of thumb
is probably about a billion dollars per reactor for spent
nuclear fuel disposal as you look at kind of reactor
sites and we're less than half that cost. And so
when you're a small country or you're looking at new
nuclear or anything and you want to have an economic
(19:53):
solution that this is one that you could afford to implement.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
One last question I'm also curious, rod, is how do
you keep it safe?
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Like what's is there?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
What's the procedure for checking on it, making sure that
once it's built it continues to be safe. And if
there's a problem, is it easy to fix it?
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Yeah, So we do build retrievability into our product. So
if you found out after the fact that for whatever
reason you missed something that it wasn't safe, you could
retrieve it and pull it back to the surface. So
it is retrievable, it's reversible. Likewise, if new technology came
along and you really wanted to reprocess this, you can
do that as well. But for us, we also have
(20:37):
a lot of monitoring. We've got a lot of patents
in IP around monitoring both during operations and post closure.
So what is that temperature pressure, the radiation like at
depth over a long.
Speaker 9 (20:48):
Period cool stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Thank you so much, Rod Baltter, He's CEO of Depolation
and our Thanks to Will Wide also weighing in there,
Bloomberg News Energy Reporter.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Thanks to you.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and
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 4 (21:18):
We want to get.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Into one of the themes that has definitely been front
and center. It came out at Milkin, but Tim and
I have had a lot of guests on this, and
it was just about one year ago that our Bloomberg
Pursuits team did a deep dive into the business of longevity,
reporting on a host of startups that promise a longer,
better life at a price. And they also asked about
(21:39):
this health span movement, ask him whether it was just
more than just a money grab or something much more
instrumental for individuals and a better way of living.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Celebrities are certainly into it. We know wealthy folks are
into it. I mean, who doesn't want to live longer.
Keiita living longer, many would argue, is preventative care, catching
illness and disease early. And Carol, it's safe to say
our next guest certainly falls into that category.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
All right, with us as Jill Woodworth, she's former CFO
of Peloton. She recently joined Pernuvo as chief financial officer.
The company makes MRI scanning for early detection of health problems,
think body scans and more.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Also with us, of course, as our own. Nina Trupman.
She's senior editor at Bloomberg News.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
She's the author of the CFO Briefing newsletter, which comes
out every Sunday. You can find it at Bloomberg dot
com slash CFO Briefing. Hey guys, thank you so much.
Jill of course, Nina, thank you, hey, Jill. We want
to get into what you guys are doing at Pernuvo.
We're kind of obsessed with what you are doing and
want to know more about the.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Business and where it goes. I got to go look
back there, just for one moment.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
You're a Peloton from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two,
so the company at its heights. You saw that in
under pressure, a lot of buying during the pandemic. I've
got one full transparency, bought it before the pandemic.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Tell us about that ride though.
Speaker 12 (22:53):
Well, thank you for having me, and very pleased to
be here and to talk about what pernuvos doing, and
absolutely happy to talk about Peloton. I think very similarly,
both are changing people's lives. With Peloton it was introducing
physical and mental well being, and obviously with Pernuvo extending
(23:15):
my passion for health and wellness into early detection of disease.
But at Peloton, you know, prior to COVID, it was
actually a fairly predictable but high growth business and as
you probably know, we scaled from you know, two hundred
million revenue to over four billion during COVID, and it
(23:35):
was a black Swan event, and you know, Peloton seemed
to be at the center of the storm, and we
had to make a lot of investments to serve the
backlog of customers. Just to give you a sense of scale,
we on an overnight it felt like when COVID hit,
our sales increased ninefold.
Speaker 9 (23:57):
Literally air, and.
Speaker 12 (24:00):
We had a decision to make it was serve those
those customers who wanted some outlet during those very dark
days for physical and mental well being, and so we
scaled every part of the organization. It was a highly
vertically integrated model. We delivered our bikes, we made our
(24:22):
bikes and treads, and every part of the organization had
to change. We even had to move cameras into our instructors'
homes for a couple of months so that we could
continue to make fresh content, which our members loved. So
it was certainly, you know, looking back, an incredible time
and I feel like we just tried to serve our
(24:43):
members as best as we could, and of course it
did with all of those fixed costs getting implemented, you know,
for those eighteen months where we had very very high
sustained demand, it did take some time to unwind that.
But I think as we look back, we did it
for the members.
Speaker 11 (25:02):
Yeh, Jill, thanks for joining us, and maybe I can
jump in here talk to us a little bit about
your new role Perneuv if I'm understanding it correctly. Is
it's privately owned at this point, Like what are your
plans as a CFO for the company and could you
at some point look towards an IPO.
Speaker 12 (25:20):
So I think everybody knows what Cernubo does it, you know,
I think just very basically, I'd like to say, what
we're trying to do is reimagine the annual physical and
bringing MRI to the mainstream. And you know, part of
the reason why I joined was actually going through the
diligence process. I had my own scan. It was incredibly
(25:42):
eye opening, thankfully, nothing serious, but a lot of things
that I need to keep an eye on and things
that I can proactively do, not necessarily to increase my longevity,
but really increase my quality of life. And so what
I think the company is doing is important and right
now today the company you know, is still small, it's private.
(26:05):
We have twenty clinics across the US, and what I'm
excited to partner with the management team on is the
various vectors for growth. So we are going to continue
rolling out clinics across the United States. We're looking at
some international locations as well. We see demand from people
coming overseas to visit our clinics as well, So that
(26:29):
is one vector, you know, that I think we can
responsibly grow and scale pretty efficiently. I think the other
interesting aspect is we have more products that we can offer.
We started rolling out blood biomarkers in California and New York,
and our plan is to include blood work along with MRI,
(26:51):
and if you do both, you have a ninety five
percent picture of your health. And so for us, we
will be rolling that out nationally and over the course
of the next few months. So new products and different
ways to serve our customers is also in focus, and
(27:11):
so as a CFO, I want to make sure that
the company is well capitalized and that we're analyzing these
different ways to grow in a responsible way so that
we can operationalize them. And also just make sure that
we continue to make a great experience for the customers
that walk in our door and that our insights are helpful.
Speaker 8 (27:34):
Jill, I want to talk about some of those insights
in a minute, but I'm going to go through some
pricing here, just because i know everybody listening or watching
is wondering. Prices range for a TORSO scan about twenty
five minutes, from about one thousand dollars up to enhance
screening for full body if you're in the New York area,
it's about forty five hundred dollars. That's about a sixty
minute scan. According to your website. Right now, insurance does
(27:54):
not cover in my understanding, this type of preventative scan.
If in your view it is in deed, something that
you want to make part of an annual physical and
you see a benefit, why in your view does insurance
not cover this stuff.
Speaker 12 (28:08):
Well, the healthcare system, unfortunately is waited for something to
go wrong historically, and we're trying to change that model
where customers can take health into their own hands. And
so we are hopeful but not reliant on health insurance
seeing the validity of a whole body MRI. But there's
(28:29):
two points all make one. We are continuing to build
out an enterprise sales motion, so going to companies who
may offer this as a benefit to their employees, either
subsidizing or paying for the service. And I think most
large employers are self insured and offering pernuvo as a
benefit can actually bring down their costs through early detection
(28:53):
in terms of what they might have to pay out
in the future if some of these early detection of
diseases aren't caught early, and then I would say, we're also,
you know, trying to bring down our cost of our
service over time. We're a vertically integrated model, right we
have specialized MRI machines. We have one hundred radiologists on
(29:16):
staff who are trained in whole body MRI reading. And
when you get your results, we have a doctor or
a nurse practitioner go through those results in detail to
make sure that you understand them, and we send them
on to their physicians as needed. So it's a very
very comprehensive, high touch service.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
All right, So I have to go back.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It's kind of one of those things in journalism, like
wait a minute, the elephant in the living room, Like
when you said that you found a couple of things
and thank god, nothing serious in your testing. But I'm
just curious, like what was found?
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I'm just in.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Terms of the findings generally yourself, but also more broadly.
Does it tend to catch things kind of early on
that really do make a difference in a health outcome?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But for you, what was found? I'm curious?
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Can we ask it?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (30:07):
I mean, I'm happy to share. Hopefully it's not too
much information. But I would venture to say most of
us have a lot of degeneration in our spine that's
well ahead of our age. We sit behind desks, we
don't stand up, We don't exercise enough, and so there
were a lot of issues pointed out with respect to
(30:28):
the health of my spine. And ever since I got
my scan, I now take physical therapy seriously. I take
mobility seriously. I used to just hop on the peloton, tread,
do a boot camp and call it a day. I'm
stretching more. I'm now focused on pilates and yoga. But
(30:50):
that could seriously impact living out your fifties, sixties, and
seventies in a very healthy way if you don't address
some of those issues. Now we look at every organ
we can detect small aneurysms. I found out I have
some mild arthritis in my shoulders, which probably isn't abnormal
(31:10):
for my age, but I'm learning different ways to compensate
for that now with respect to my fitness training. So again,
nothing alarming, but it was really helpful to know. I
think most of us would probably be surprised to get
the scan and realize how much you can actually slow
(31:33):
down that degeneration.
Speaker 11 (31:38):
Jill talk to us a little bit about the journey
for the company. You said you have twenty clinics right now,
You're looking to open new clinics across the US and
potentially also outside of the US, Like, and how far
is preparing this company for public listing one of the
goals that you have as a CFO.
Speaker 12 (31:54):
Yeah, that's not on the roadmap now, but I think
what we'd like to do was prepare for every optionality,
and so I want to make sure the company is
capitalized today, whether that be debt or equity in the
private markets, so that we have every option to be
(32:15):
available to us over time. But right now IPO is
not necessarily on the table, but again, it's all about
keeping options open.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Hey, Joe, last question.
Speaker 8 (32:25):
We got to run only thirty seconds here. You mentioned
one hundred radiologists on staff. At this point, I think
of radiology, I think that's prime for disruption by AI.
When do those radiologists get replaced by AI?
Speaker 12 (32:39):
Well, we disrupt ourselves, right. We already have AI embedded
into a lot of the reports that we're generating, and
we think of it right now as an efficiency tool.
And could there be a day where AI could read
an MRI report one hundred percent But from our perspective,
(33:01):
that's a long way off. But for us, it's about
just improving their efficiency so that we can bring down
the cost over time, and those are things that we're
already implementing and we'll continue to implement.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Listen so cool. We hope you will come back. We
know you're getting settled in and we really appreciate you
giving us some time, but do come back and let
us know how the business is going and growing.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Look forward to it.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Jill Woodworth, she is Prnuvo Chief Financial Officer, joining us
on this Friday from New York And of course, thanks
to our own Nina Treptman, Senior editor at Bloomberg News,
author of the CFO Briefing newsletter. You can find it
at Bloomberg dot com slash CFO Briefing, a new one
coming out this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
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
(34:04):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
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