This week, we look at five years since Covid-19...what has changed? What did we expect would change? And, how did different governments' pandemic restrictions affect their economies? Plus, did you ever wonder what CEOs do after they retire? We sit down with former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on his new ski town.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston bringing you
stories of capitalism. This week Tales of Second Acts. Netflix
founder Read hastings from the top of his Powder Mountain,
where he is building a private ski resort for those
looking for a little less traffic on the slopes. But
we start with the story of reflection, reflecting back on
(00:41):
a time only five short years ago when the coronavirus
caused one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. But
with the world back to normal, we can now reflect
on what has changed, what has not, and how the
world can better prepare itself for the next time.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions
to protect the health and well being of all Americans.
We have issued guidance on school closures, social distancing, and
reducing large gatherings.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Most of us remember where we were in mid March
of twenty twenty, a time of empty streets, lockdowns, and
economic turmoil. The S and P five hundred slumped close
to twenty percent in one month. The US economy simply
came to a stop almost overnight, and initial jobless claims
surged to more than six million in a matter of weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
This blows away even the forecasts, almost six point seven
million this week. It just goes to point out how
bad this is for the overall US economy.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Well, the global economy, of course, including the US and Europe,
got a huge shock.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Torsten Slock is Apollo's chief economist.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
The shock created quite some significant changes for different sectors
because when you sut me hat in twenty nineteen that
the way the economy was working with services playing a
certain role, goods playing a certain role, and from one
day to the other, goods played a much much bigger
role because we were sitting at home ordering things online
and services. We couldn't go out to restaurants, we couldn't
(02:16):
go to theme parks, we couldn't travel suddenly got a
huge decline. That change, of course, played a significant role
in how the economy responded.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You can sanitizer two of the sectors affected were travel.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
Pretty much every aspect of travel change. I mean, it
went off a cliff for quite a while.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And healthcare.
Speaker 7 (02:37):
You know, I always say trust is the currency of
public health, and right now it's bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Healthcare was where we all were focused in the spring
of twenty twenty. Doctor Charity Dean is now CEO and
co founder of the Public Health Company, but in twenty
twenty she was the assistant director of the California Department
of Public Health. She was one of the very first
to see COVID nineteen for what it was and could become,
(03:02):
and became a major figure in the Michael Lewis book
The Premonition, a Pandemic Story.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
The COVID response was a massive systems failure on every level,
across national security, across civilian public health, across the great
American companies that hold up our economy. We did not
actually have the capabilities to respond to it. And my
view of that gets clearer and clearer five years later,
(03:28):
as I understand just how deep that devastation was. I
still believe that the gift of COVID is it exposed
the problems so that we Americans could do what we
do best, and that is innovate solutions. I think Americans
learned a tough lesson that is, no one's coming to
save you.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A twenty twenty three Gallup poll found that Americans trust
in the medical system fell in the years following COVID
from forty four percent in twenty twenty one to thirty
four percent two years later.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
The tension between civil liberties and providing for the common
defense of Americans is the oldest tension in public health,
as old as our country. For since there were vaccines,
there's been the argument over vaccine mandates. I am not
afraid of that debate because it's the right debate to have,
(04:20):
protecting individual's right to choose versus protecting the whole. I
massively support vaccine requirements for kiddos entering public schools. Why
because the kids that are vulnerable, they have a right
to an education that is safe. They have a right
to attend school and not worry they're going to get
infected by measles because someone else wasn't vaccinated. Having said that,
(04:42):
Americans questioning a vaccine mandate during COVID, I think that's
just very American. It's who we are at our core.
We're rebels fighting for our freedom, fighting for our individual
Liberty's it founded this country. So I'm not afraid of
that discussion. And I understand American parents who are hesitant
lost faith in public health. All of my kids are vaccinated,
(05:04):
and so am I. You know, the question of employer
vaccine mandates or military vacks. I will leave that to
those more qualified to answer those questions, Secretary Hegseth than
others who are running those departments. But I'm not surprised
that that became a question in Americans' minds, because it's
the right debate to have.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Ultimately, we were relieved to some extent from the pandemic
by the development of a new vaccine and a new
platform for a vaccine. Science really stepped up in the
private sector stepped up in the end. Where are we
today though on vaccines? That became a political issue in
and of itself, and even as today we even new
Secretary of Health right is really skeptical of vaccines. We
(05:42):
have a measles problem right now because of small children
not getting evaculated. Where are we with our confidence in vaccinations?
Speaker 8 (05:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (05:51):
I love this topic because it's the juicy one, and
most people are afraid to talk about it. The Americans
developed a distrust of what they were to from public
health officials about the safety of the COVID vaccine, and
I understand they want to protect their children and they
want to make the best decisions. And for parents, it's
hard to do that when you don't know who to trust.
(06:14):
But make no mistake, the COVID vaccine saved millions and
millions of lives, not because it prevented all infections, but
because it prevented people from dying. Instead of dying they
got really sick, or instead of getting really sick, they
had a minor cough, and so it saved millions of lives.
Operation Warp Speed that was led by the first Trump
(06:35):
administration is one of the greatest successes of public private
collaboration in American history. What they pulled off, that's phenomenal,
and I think we can replicate that across a number
of areas.
Speaker 8 (06:47):
How do we restore.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Americans trust in what public health officials tell them about vaccines? Transparency,
sharing the science, answering the questions.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
If Americans have struggled to regain their trust in the
health health care system, They've shown little trouble rediscovering their
zest for travel. TSA checkpoint volume has rebounded to higher
levels than before the pandemic. Brian Kelly is the founder
of The Points Guy and author of the book How
to Win at Travel.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
There were multiple days in twenty twenty four where there
were over three million passengers going through the tsa record
setting numbers. I think the biggest thing is business travel.
There was such a huge block of Monday to Thursday
consultants and salespeople and traveling for every meeting via plane,
and that has not returned. Now business travel has returned
(07:38):
in different ways and more conferences, but that has impacted
pricing because the consumer. Throughout the pandemic, there were amazing
deals to get premium economy and get a taste of
business class at a fraction of the cost. And I
think what happened is consumers got used to sitting up
front at those discounted rates, and now that those rates
have come up, they're still not as high is what
(08:00):
they used to charge business travelers. So consumers are taking
fewer trips but spending a lot more. That's one of
the biggest trends. We've seen the re emergence of multi
generational family trips where people are spending a lot. Even
though there has been a call back to office, so
many people still have those flexible work environments and are
working from abroad. So while traditional business travel has not
(08:24):
bounced back at the same levels, it just looks different
these days.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
While the pandemic changed the way the consumer traveled. It
also changed the way companies operate, such as hotels.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Many mid tier hotels have gotten rid of daily housekeeping
and gotten rid of room service and stocking mini bars.
You know, originally those were cut in the name of safety,
but I think a lot of that is actually out
of cost cutting. A lot of the industry saw an
opportunity to cut back on their services that they offer
and get consumers used to it. You know, at the
highest end of luxury there has been pushed back and
(08:58):
you know from my experience staying at ultra five star hotels,
things are even better pre pandemic, But in that three
and four star hotel, they have gotten consumers use to
not getting daily housekeeping or at least having to request
it in the name of safety. And it has shown
that hotel companies are doing incredible They're all growing at
rapid rates.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Kelly says the growing push to require workers to return
to the office will only help business travel, but Slock
warns there's still a long way to go. If we
go back five years, almost all of us were working
from home, something that I don't know we'd thought about before.
How much to change the working patterns and the uses
of offices and getting together in the office place.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
And this is really important today in particular for commercial
estate an office, including here in Manhattan, because there are
studies by Nick Bloom, who's a professor at Stanford, who
shows that today, if you look at the data, we
still only have fifty percent of the work week, meaning
and the office relative to what we had in twenty nineteen.
So that's another way of saying that when you measure
(10:00):
how many people swipe their cards going into office buildings,
not only in Manhattan but across the country, you have
that we are still only an occupant to rate on
a weekly basis, that is fifty percent of what it
was in twenty nineteen. And that has had indications for
if we don't come as much into the office, of course,
then we don't go and eat lunch in the middle
of the day. We don't at the same time commute.
(10:21):
Therefore we don't use public transportation. So measures of public transportation,
including in New York City, are still only for example,
subway usage, it's only around two thirds of where it
was in twenty nineteen. So working from home has definitely
changed in a lot of different ways, and there's also
a huge blossoming academic literature about does that mean that
productivity is lower or does it actually mean that productivity is.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Higher, Whether working from home is more productive or less productive,
it does affect employment in all the business's ancillary to
the office buildings, So there are employment ratifications of working from.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Home absolutely, and that's also why you have seen a
shift also on a sixer bases there that there's still
some challenges exactly in everything. If you use to buy
something when you're to work, then people just now at
home all day long and they're not having lunch, they're
maybe not shopping the same patterns that day before, maybe
they buy things more online, which is exactly what all
the trends are showing. It is the case also that
now it's more possible for people to get a job remotely.
(11:14):
So that's why if you look at some of the
job openings, they have been putting more in the postings
that there is much more significant now number of job
posting that's asked for. Job can also be done remotely.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
But it wasn't just different sectors that were affected in
different ways. It was different countries too.
Speaker 9 (11:34):
I would say there was just a good old fashioned
policy mistake.
Speaker 10 (11:39):
Sweden was the odd man out during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And that is where we turn next, from New Zealand
to Sweden. Countries pursued very different strategies in responding to
the pandemic. Where has that left them five years later?
That's next on Wall Street Week. When COVID nineteen hit
(12:16):
five years ago, cities and states and entire countries simply
shut down schools, businesses, public events. But not every government
took the same approach. Some what a very different way.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I will soon be taken emergency action which is unprecedented
to provide financial relief.
Speaker 9 (12:46):
We will close our border to any non residents and
citizens attempting to travel here.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
You're not telling people to stay indoors.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Tourist and slock is Apollo's chief economist. Looking back on it,
can we see that one worked better than the other?
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Well, I do think we can conclude now. Of course,
we all had to make sure that the health was
the number one priority, But there were certainly also different countries,
including New Zealand and Sweden, that also took different approaches
and therefore ended up having also different outcomes. And it
has generally been the case today now that we know
that the pandemic quote unquote only lasted for somewhat limited time,
(13:24):
that it did turn out to be a better situation
to have allowed more flexibility and not be so rigid
in terms of what the health restrictions were.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Sweden is one that took that less restrictive approach, avoiding
lockdown measures and letting people decide for themselves, an approach
that was ridiculed around the world.
Speaker 10 (13:44):
As a Swede, I felt quite attacked and harassed during
the pandemic, and both foreign friends and media constantly got
in touch asking me, are you all crazy over there
in Sweden? And we got it from I mean from
all sides of the political spectrum as well, people saying
(14:07):
that Sweden's a cautionary tale. I read that in the
New York Times, and President Donald Trump at the time
said that, look, Sweden is suffering tremendously. Hundreds of thousands
of Americans would die if we do what the Swedes do.
So we were basically not very popular at that time,
and it felt like we had to defend ourselves. I
(14:29):
think many people had invested interest in explaining the Swedish
model a failure before we saw the.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Results, and the results, as it turned out, were better
than expected. Johann Norberg is a senior fellow at the
Cato Institute. His report on Sweden's pandemic response found that
we're models forecast a death toll of more than eighty
thousand by July twenty twenty. Sweden had suffered fewer than
six thousand by that point.
Speaker 10 (15:00):
Other aspect is what is what the Swedish Public Health
Agency said, Yes, we might have more cases and deaths
early on in Sweden, but this will even out in
the long run, because no country can completely shut itself
off unless they're a tiny island far away from everything.
And this is exactly what happened. If you look at
(15:22):
total cumulative excess deaths during the whole pandemic period, Sweden
came out with one of the lowest excess death rates
all over Europe and less than half of the excess
death rate of Britain and the United States. So I
think in the end, when we look at the numbers,
(15:44):
when we look at the data, I think even some
of the opponents of the Swedish model would say that, yeah,
we didn't risk people's lives. In fact, it worked out
better than in most other rich countries.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Half a world away. New Zealand took yet a third approach.
It locked down its borders and implemented strict lockdown measures
to avoid community transmission. Suffering just twenty five deaths from
COVID in twenty twenty, but it meant the country was
effectively shut off from the rest of the world. Sharon
Zohlner is the chief economist for New Zealand at ANZ Bank.
Speaker 9 (16:22):
It was chaos when COVID first had, of course, like
it was everywhere, massive uncertainty about what was going to happen.
We saw a crash in business confidence, We saw monetary
policy ease dramatically, and of course we had the.
Speaker 11 (16:36):
Wage subsidies rolled out very quickly.
Speaker 9 (16:39):
Of course, inevitably it was a bit slap dash, but
I think probably the single biggest forecasting mistake we all made,
the government, the Reserve Bank, private sector was underestimating just
how effective.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
Those wage subsidies were going to be. Essentially, we were thinking.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Of COVID as primarily a big negative shock to demand,
that it was going to destroy confidence, that we were
at risk of a depression.
Speaker 11 (17:06):
God of course, the GDP numbers were all over the place.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
You hit pause on an economy and you get crazy
things like a GDP falling twenty percent in a quarter.
But what we learned ultimately was that those numbers didn't
mean anything. All our models saying if GDP does this,
then house prices will do that, or GDP does that employment,
this will happen to employment, they all broke immediately, of course,
(17:29):
because this wasn't a normal slowdown in GDP. It was
an artificial stop and then a restart, and then a
stop and then a restart. The data, of course, was pandemonium,
and it was easy with hindsight to spot the mistakes
that were made. But essentially it boils down to diagnosing
COVID as primarily a demand shock.
Speaker 11 (17:50):
It was not.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
It was primarily a supply shock once you take into
account the wage subsidy.
Speaker 11 (17:55):
So essentially people were sitting at home.
Speaker 9 (17:57):
They figured out that their jobs were safe, they worked
out that they were very bored, and the interest rates
were the lowest we've ever seen. The housing markets started
to take off and everyone went internet shopping, and we
saw as well as just a surgeon demand, we saw
a big substitution from services to goods, so you couldn't
(18:18):
go on holiday to Fiji, so you got a SPA instead.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
New Zealand spent close to twenty billion dollars between twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one in a wage subsidy program
that supported forty seven percent of its jobs.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
The first lockdowns were incredibly expensive, of course, the fiscal policy,
but they were hugely successful. They bought us a year
of normality that other economies didn't have. But I would
say there was just a good old fashioned policy mistake
from Firstcoo policy and Mountrey policy.
Speaker 11 (18:52):
If you look at First School policy.
Speaker 9 (18:54):
Other countries also went all out with the wage subsidies
and a big surgeon spending, but then they wound it
back very quick.
Speaker 11 (19:01):
We didn't.
Speaker 9 (19:02):
We didn't have to because our government debt was very
low to start with in an international comparison. We also
had a left leaning government. They had pre funded using
that long long large scale asset programs. They had money
sitting there saying what shall I do with this? And
(19:22):
they had a very very ambitious reform program and a
whole lot of areas nothing to do with COVID. So
the fiscal policy remained extremely expansionary four years. So at
the same time that the private sector demand was very
very strong because of the super low interest rates, and
so we had pro cyclical fiscal policy. We had Mountree
(19:44):
and fiscal policy ultimately working against each other. Once you know,
Montree policy is a lot quicker to turn, and so
the reserve banks like oops, okay, Inflation is an awful
lot higher than we thought. The economy is actually a
lot more overheated than we thought. We need to change direction.
Fiscal policies are much much slower ship to turn, even
if all your weight's on the wheel, and it wasn't.
Speaker 11 (20:04):
So essentially, for quite a long period.
Speaker 9 (20:07):
You had monte and fiscal policy working against each other.
Of course, we've had a doozy of a recession. We've
had a very large recession last year, so fiscal policy
has also started to turn, but we're still forecasting.
Speaker 11 (20:21):
Deficits on all the metrics for years to come. So essentially,
the main.
Speaker 9 (20:25):
Difference between the economy before COVID and now is that
our government debt is broadly doubled. So it still looks
quite reasonable in an international comparison, but our entire country
is built on a fault line. There's nowhere in New
Zealand that is really safe from that risk, and then
(20:46):
we've got more extreme weather happening as well, and we've
got an infrastructure deficit, we've got an aging population like everywhere,
so we've got some significant medium term fiscal challenges.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
COVID eventually did break through New Zealand's borders in early
twenty twenty two, and the death toll spiked just as
other countries like Sweden were emerging from the worst of it.
Speaker 10 (21:10):
Sweden is a small and very trade dependent country, so
when the rest of the world suffers and locks down,
the Swedish economy suffers two But the decline in Sweden
was much more shallow than in other places, and the
recovery was much quicker. Interestingly, when we looked at the
(21:30):
end of twenty twenty one where economies were compared to
the forecasts before the pandemic, then we could see that
by the end of twenty twenty one, the world economy
was three percent smaller than forecasts that expected. The UR
economy was bit more than two percent smaller, the US
economy was one point two percent smaller. The Swedish economy
(21:54):
was actually zero point four percent bigger than the forecasts
from the oezed the IMF expected before the pandemic, So
it tells you that my staying open, by not shutting
down society, we save the economy.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
In the end, it may be hard to be sure
which of the range of approaches worked better than others.
We'd all rather forget about the pain and uncertainty of
five years ago, which may make it hard to anticipate
the next one and know which way to go.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
During the pandemic era, we had more attention paid to
Sweden than ever before, I think, and I was constantly
asked about what was going on in Sweden, But afterwards
not a sound Very few got in touch to see
what actually happened, and you're actually one of the few
(22:54):
media companies who get in touch to think about. Okay,
we all thought that Swedenes were crazy and that everything
was going to the dogs. Now five years later, what
really happened. You would think that that would be of
interest to people, but seems like we just want to
forget and move on.
Speaker 7 (23:14):
More bad, spooky stuff as possible today than ever before.
But so is the tooling. I am surrounded by a
tribe of people, public servants, some of whom are in government,
some of whom are out of government, who are working
on building those solutions today, for defense, for health, security,
for intelligence, and I am ever full of hope.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Coming up, we tell the stories of two very different
second acts from highly successful CEOs, starting with Netflix founder
Read Hastings and how his quest for smaller crowds on
the ski slopes led him to buy an entire mountain.
(24:05):
This is a story about second acts, something f Scott
Fitzgerald said didn't exist in American lives, but something successful
CEOs are pursuing with gusto. Every year, tens of millions
of people flocked to hundreds of slopes across the country
to satisfy the leg workout they crave all summer long.
(24:28):
In the twenty twenty three to twenty four ski season,
over sixty million people went skiing and snowboarding across the country,
a growth of seven percent over ten years. And as
the sport has become more accessible through multi mountain passes
and climate change shortens the length of the ski season,
more experienced skiers and snowboarders are craving exclusivity.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
And there's five thousand acres through.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Here, something real. Hastings decided to do something about.
Speaker 8 (24:58):
We're at Powder Mountain. It's ten thousand acres of skiing,
one of the largest resorts in the world. Half of
it roughly is public and half of it is Powver
Haven or a private skiing resort. And it's been tremendously
exciting these last two years to be putting this together.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
You might recognize Hastings from his twenty five year tenure
as CEO of Netflix. He joined the board of Bloomberg
LP in October of twenty twenty three. Hastings started Netflix
back in nineteen ninety seven, growing it from a DVD
rental service with two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in
annual revenue its first year into a global streaming giant,
(25:39):
bringing in thirty three point seven billion dollars. When he
stepped down in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
David, we're one of the areas that is a new
neighborhood coming. So it's beautiful, aspens, incredible views. There'll be
thirty seven lots here. That's our land.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
But through it all, Hastings maintained his passion for skiing.
When did you first ski? Where did you find your
love of skiing?
Speaker 8 (26:04):
Well, I was fortunate that my mom was a skier
and so we skied most years as a Christmas vacation.
But I wasn't a hardcore I wasn't a ski racer,
wasn't all of that. And that was up until I
was twenty or so, and then my twenties that didn't ski,
and then forties and fifties we had kids and we
had a place in Park City, so that was tremendous.
(26:25):
But again I was, you know, full time in Netflix,
so it was maybe ten days a year of skiing.
What had happened in Park City is long lines, big crowds,
no powder. So we moved here, which is about an
hour away.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Do you remember the first time you came to Powder?
Speaker 8 (26:39):
Yeah? Absolutely, It was Christmas in twenty sixteen. Super crowded
in Park City, drove over here and then it was
just wide open, incredible powder. We fell in love with uncrowded,
the high altitude which keeps the snow very good, in
the community, very warm and generous. Retired from Netflix and
(27:01):
then invested in Powder and eventually started running it.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
You heard that right, Reed love the mountains so much
he bought it. The Netflix tycoon is now taking on
a new challenge, building and partially privatizing a ski resort
community after identifying a part of the market he thought
wasn't being served.
Speaker 8 (27:22):
You're only really making a difference when you're changing the rules.
At Powder were the first one to be fusing private
club skiing and public skiing together. In golf, about twenty
five percent of US golf courses four and sixteen thousand
are private, and that's because you get better tea times,
you get a clubhouse, social interaction. Sometimes they're residential, sometimes not.
(27:44):
But in skiing it's really just been Yellowstone Club and
Wasuchpeaks Ranch. So we're only the third out of five hundred,
so as tremendous demand as people moved to the subscription
club orientation. So changing the ski industry is something that's
the next big challenge.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
There was an attempt here on Powder Mount before, which
I think brought you here originally. Why did that one
fail and why is this one different?
Speaker 8 (28:07):
You know, that was all public skiing and it's very
difficult to compete with Epic and Icon. Those are really
the transformative forces for high crowded, low cost resorts, and
Powder tried to differentiate but did not have the private skiing.
So I was here just as a member or as
a homeowner and then post Netflix, I had the time
(28:29):
and I had the capital fortunately to really do this transformation.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
How do you grow this business?
Speaker 8 (28:34):
You know, if I was younger, I might be tempted
to try to replicate this and do in every city
of the Union. But for me, we're just going to
build a one incredible boutique. It's a real estate business.
And the difference here is when the owner operator lives
in the community, it's really driven from the community. So
that's true of Yellowstone, it's true of Powder. We're building
(28:57):
up the clubhouse and the club restaurant and building a
lodge and doing other things to make it so you
can spend a long.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Time Hastings as a real estate team devoted to the mountain.
The first phase of a five to ten year project.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
We're really upgrading everything. We expanded land to be able
to fit both a fantastic private skiing experience. And private
skiing is six hundred families get to enjoy five thousand acres.
I mean, it's fantastic. You know, all the people on
the lift because of the clebbiness, there's untracked powdered days
after the last storm. It's fantastic. And then also to
(29:34):
have a really vibrant public resort and we're building that
up over the next five ten years and really to
make powder a sense of curated beauty where art plays
a major role, and so it's the crossover of people
who are enhanced and inspired by art as well as
love the adrenaline of skiing.
Speaker 12 (29:55):
So the powder Haven development phasing is at its early infancy.
Although Powder Mountain has been around for over fifty years,
this private portion of the development is really quite new
and we are just starting releasing those units and those
lots right now.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Brooke Hunts is the chief Development and construction officer at
Powder Haven. The exclusive private ski in ski out community
at Powder Mountain.
Speaker 12 (30:22):
Powdered Mountain caters to all types of skiers and snowboarders,
from first time skiers through expert who have a passion
and an enjoyment of really the sport in its kind
of more natural forms because currently on the mountain we
have not a lot of amenities and it's more of
a natural what skiing used to be and what people
(30:43):
a lot of people, particularly those with megapasses, say that's
what I love about skiing.
Speaker 11 (30:48):
So people that.
Speaker 12 (30:49):
Buy into Powder Mountain as a part of the club
will be able to share their homes with others through
an internal rental program. So if you're a guest or
an owner at Powder Mountain, you would be able to
rent sort of take part in a lease program with
other owners, but otherwise know that the membership is closed.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Taking Powder private, even in part, has not been without controversy,
with one snowboarder who's used the public resort for years
telling the Hollywood Reporter that quote, what is happening at
Powder Mountain is awful because of the partial exclusivity. Are
you losing any skiers who really miss the pure public
(31:33):
part of it?
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Probably? You know, it's inevitable that as we change and
add private is going to lose some. But we've made
a big effort to really embrace, to increase compensation for
all the employees. Open up inexpensive nineteen it's nineteen dollars
to ski from four to nine pm. Super popular, you
know in the local high school, that kind of thing.
So you know, we're making big investments in staying accessible
(31:56):
and open for.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
People, and other longtime Powder skis like Larry Wolf say
it's worth it.
Speaker 13 (32:03):
I think it's a win win. He's made a lot
of improvements that I'm very pleased with. For example, he
said he was going to put in four new lifts
in a year, and he put in four new lifts
in a year. So we now have access to terrain
that was only typically available through a cat skiing or skinning.
You al turnative being owned by large corporations or owned
(32:27):
by people who don't get it. I would ruin the place,
and I think he gets it, and it keeps the
flavor and the spirit of Powder Mountain alive.
Speaker 12 (32:36):
The opportunity here is so different and unique. Not only
are we at a slightly different price point than other
private skiing, our skiing is more massive in terms of
sheer magnitude of acreage, but we also have a wide
variety of ability levels. And you're at the top of
the mountain almost all of the day, versus continuing to
(32:58):
return to the bottom every time you finish your day
or start your day. You're doing that at the top
to see sunrise and sunset. I think the inclusion of
the art installation and how unique that is in the
world of skiing and resort, makes us more creative and
hopefully interesting to people.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
That type of creativity ultimately reflects Hastings from media mogul
to ski resort oracle. He has drawn from his past
life to pursue his second act, this time without the
same pressure to maximize the bottom line.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
But we don't want to be cookie cutter.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
And you are investing a lot capital investment into lifts,
facilities here and things like that. How does the money flow?
How do you cover that cost? Well?
Speaker 8 (33:42):
When I think about it, I think of sports teams,
and I think of Steve Cohen and the Mets, or
Ryan Smith with a jazz or my friends Steve Bomber
with the Clippers, and that's big money. In comparison, it's
not so much, not as big an investment, but I
think it's similar for them. It's an expression of joy
and passion and winning and making a contribution to the public.
(34:04):
And for me it's the same kind of thing, but
it's more against skiing instead of those teams. And then
we make money by selling season passes and we make
money by selling real estate. Those are the two big
revenue generators. The value in the long term is unclear
because other ski mountains haven't had that same track record,
But I would say we're investing, you know, to really
(34:24):
make it a spectacular community experience.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So obviously when you built Netflix, it must have been
all consuming. Does this engage you to the same level?
Are you as consumers to this as you were with Netflix?
Speaker 8 (34:36):
You know, it's different muscles. Netflix was super analytics, super
internet scale strategy. This is more about caring and intimacy
and making people feel good and boutique. So it's a
different skill set. Let's kind of think what makes it fun.
I wouldn't want to go back and try to do
another high scale internet company. How am I ever going
to do better than Netflix? So this is in a
(34:58):
completely different realm.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Do you have the same sense of purpose about Powder
Mountain as you did about something like Netflix.
Speaker 8 (35:04):
It's a very strong sense of purpose to create a
place of incredible beauty that sparks wonder and that people
are talking about for one hundred years. So think of
it as a physical legacy rather than a brand like
Netflix legacy. Part of Netflix success was a very unique
culture that really focused on the high talent people and
giving them freedom to operate. And I have brought that
(35:27):
culture here to Powder Mountain and so for the employees,
it's an incredible opportunity to thrive and to get freedom
and to have responsibility. A difference is it's much more
emphasizing love and emotion and connection, back to the intimacy.
Netflix was around super performance, and Powder is around connection
(35:47):
and sparking wonder we call it.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That does it for us. Here on Wall Street Week,
I'm David Weston. See you next week for more stories
of capitalism
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston bringing you
stories of capitalism. This week Tales of Second Acts. Netflix
founder Read hastings from the top of his Powder Mountain,
where he is building a private ski resort for those
looking for a little less traffic on the slopes. But
we start with the story of reflection, reflecting back on
(00:41):
a time only five short years ago when the coronavirus
caused one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. But
with the world back to normal, we can now reflect
on what has changed, what has not, and how the
world can better prepare itself for the next time.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions
to protect the health and well being of all Americans.
We have issued guidance on school closures, social distancing, and
reducing large gatherings.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Most of us remember where we were in mid March
of twenty twenty, a time of empty streets, lockdowns, and
economic turmoil. The S and P five hundred slumped close
to twenty percent in one month. The US economy simply
came to a stop almost overnight, and initial jobless claims
surged to more than six million in a matter of weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
This blows away even the forecasts, almost six point seven
million this week. It just goes to point out how
bad this is for the overall US economy.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Well, the global economy, of course, including the US and Europe,
got a huge shock.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Torsten Slock is Apollo's chief economist.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
The shock created quite some significant changes for different sectors
because when you sut me hat in twenty nineteen that
the way the economy was working with services playing a
certain role, goods playing a certain role, and from one
day to the other, goods played a much much bigger
role because we were sitting at home ordering things online
and services. We couldn't go out to restaurants, we couldn't
(02:16):
go to theme parks, we couldn't travel suddenly got a
huge decline. That change, of course, played a significant role
in how the economy responded.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You can sanitizer two of the sectors affected were travel.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
Pretty much every aspect of travel change. I mean, it
went off a cliff for quite a while.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And healthcare.
Speaker 7 (02:37):
You know, I always say trust is the currency of
public health, and right now it's bankrupt.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Healthcare was where we all were focused in the spring
of twenty twenty. Doctor Charity Dean is now CEO and
co founder of the Public Health Company, but in twenty
twenty she was the assistant director of the California Department
of Public Health. She was one of the very first
to see COVID nineteen for what it was and could become,
(03:02):
and became a major figure in the Michael Lewis book
The Premonition, a Pandemic Story.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
The COVID response was a massive systems failure on every level,
across national security, across civilian public health, across the great
American companies that hold up our economy. We did not
actually have the capabilities to respond to it. And my
view of that gets clearer and clearer five years later,
(03:28):
as I understand just how deep that devastation was. I
still believe that the gift of COVID is it exposed
the problems so that we Americans could do what we
do best, and that is innovate solutions. I think Americans
learned a tough lesson that is, no one's coming to
save you.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A twenty twenty three Gallup poll found that Americans trust
in the medical system fell in the years following COVID
from forty four percent in twenty twenty one to thirty
four percent two years later.
Speaker 7 (04:00):
The tension between civil liberties and providing for the common
defense of Americans is the oldest tension in public health,
as old as our country. For since there were vaccines,
there's been the argument over vaccine mandates. I am not
afraid of that debate because it's the right debate to have,
(04:20):
protecting individual's right to choose versus protecting the whole. I
massively support vaccine requirements for kiddos entering public schools. Why
because the kids that are vulnerable, they have a right
to an education that is safe. They have a right
to attend school and not worry they're going to get
infected by measles because someone else wasn't vaccinated. Having said that,
(04:42):
Americans questioning a vaccine mandate during COVID, I think that's
just very American. It's who we are at our core.
We're rebels fighting for our freedom, fighting for our individual
Liberty's it founded this country. So I'm not afraid of
that discussion. And I understand American parents who are hesitant
lost faith in public health. All of my kids are vaccinated,
(05:04):
and so am I. You know, the question of employer
vaccine mandates or military vacks. I will leave that to
those more qualified to answer those questions, Secretary Hegseth than
others who are running those departments. But I'm not surprised
that that became a question in Americans' minds, because it's
the right debate to have.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Ultimately, we were relieved to some extent from the pandemic
by the development of a new vaccine and a new
platform for a vaccine. Science really stepped up in the
private sector stepped up in the end. Where are we
today though on vaccines? That became a political issue in
and of itself, and even as today we even new
Secretary of Health right is really skeptical of vaccines. We
(05:42):
have a measles problem right now because of small children
not getting evaculated. Where are we with our confidence in vaccinations?
Speaker 8 (05:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (05:51):
I love this topic because it's the juicy one, and
most people are afraid to talk about it. The Americans
developed a distrust of what they were to from public
health officials about the safety of the COVID vaccine, and
I understand they want to protect their children and they
want to make the best decisions. And for parents, it's
hard to do that when you don't know who to trust.
(06:14):
But make no mistake, the COVID vaccine saved millions and
millions of lives, not because it prevented all infections, but
because it prevented people from dying. Instead of dying they
got really sick, or instead of getting really sick, they
had a minor cough, and so it saved millions of lives.
Operation Warp Speed that was led by the first Trump
(06:35):
administration is one of the greatest successes of public private
collaboration in American history. What they pulled off, that's phenomenal,
and I think we can replicate that across a number
of areas.
Speaker 8 (06:47):
How do we restore.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Americans trust in what public health officials tell them about vaccines? Transparency,
sharing the science, answering the questions.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
If Americans have struggled to regain their trust in the
health health care system, They've shown little trouble rediscovering their
zest for travel. TSA checkpoint volume has rebounded to higher
levels than before the pandemic. Brian Kelly is the founder
of The Points Guy and author of the book How
to Win at Travel.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
There were multiple days in twenty twenty four where there
were over three million passengers going through the tsa record
setting numbers. I think the biggest thing is business travel.
There was such a huge block of Monday to Thursday
consultants and salespeople and traveling for every meeting via plane,
and that has not returned. Now business travel has returned
(07:38):
in different ways and more conferences, but that has impacted
pricing because the consumer. Throughout the pandemic, there were amazing
deals to get premium economy and get a taste of
business class at a fraction of the cost. And I
think what happened is consumers got used to sitting up
front at those discounted rates, and now that those rates
have come up, they're still not as high is what
(08:00):
they used to charge business travelers. So consumers are taking
fewer trips but spending a lot more. That's one of
the biggest trends. We've seen the re emergence of multi
generational family trips where people are spending a lot. Even
though there has been a call back to office, so
many people still have those flexible work environments and are
working from abroad. So while traditional business travel has not
(08:24):
bounced back at the same levels, it just looks different
these days.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
While the pandemic changed the way the consumer traveled. It
also changed the way companies operate, such as hotels.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Many mid tier hotels have gotten rid of daily housekeeping
and gotten rid of room service and stocking mini bars.
You know, originally those were cut in the name of safety,
but I think a lot of that is actually out
of cost cutting. A lot of the industry saw an
opportunity to cut back on their services that they offer
and get consumers used to it. You know, at the
highest end of luxury there has been pushed back and
(08:58):
you know from my experience staying at ultra five star hotels,
things are even better pre pandemic, But in that three
and four star hotel, they have gotten consumers use to
not getting daily housekeeping or at least having to request
it in the name of safety. And it has shown
that hotel companies are doing incredible They're all growing at
rapid rates.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Kelly says the growing push to require workers to return
to the office will only help business travel, but Slock
warns there's still a long way to go. If we
go back five years, almost all of us were working
from home, something that I don't know we'd thought about before.
How much to change the working patterns and the uses
of offices and getting together in the office place.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
And this is really important today in particular for commercial
estate an office, including here in Manhattan, because there are
studies by Nick Bloom, who's a professor at Stanford, who
shows that today, if you look at the data, we
still only have fifty percent of the work week, meaning
and the office relative to what we had in twenty nineteen.
So that's another way of saying that when you measure
(10:00):
how many people swipe their cards going into office buildings,
not only in Manhattan but across the country, you have
that we are still only an occupant to rate on
a weekly basis, that is fifty percent of what it
was in twenty nineteen. And that has had indications for
if we don't come as much into the office, of course,
then we don't go and eat lunch in the middle
of the day. We don't at the same time commute.
(10:21):
Therefore we don't use public transportation. So measures of public transportation,
including in New York City, are still only for example,
subway usage, it's only around two thirds of where it
was in twenty nineteen. So working from home has definitely
changed in a lot of different ways, and there's also
a huge blossoming academic literature about does that mean that
productivity is lower or does it actually mean that productivity is.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Higher, Whether working from home is more productive or less productive,
it does affect employment in all the business's ancillary to
the office buildings, So there are employment ratifications of working from.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Home absolutely, and that's also why you have seen a
shift also on a sixer bases there that there's still
some challenges exactly in everything. If you use to buy
something when you're to work, then people just now at
home all day long and they're not having lunch, they're
maybe not shopping the same patterns that day before, maybe
they buy things more online, which is exactly what all
the trends are showing. It is the case also that
now it's more possible for people to get a job remotely.
(11:14):
So that's why if you look at some of the
job openings, they have been putting more in the postings
that there is much more significant now number of job
posting that's asked for. Job can also be done remotely.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
But it wasn't just different sectors that were affected in
different ways. It was different countries too.
Speaker 9 (11:34):
I would say there was just a good old fashioned
policy mistake.
Speaker 10 (11:39):
Sweden was the odd man out during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And that is where we turn next, from New Zealand
to Sweden. Countries pursued very different strategies in responding to
the pandemic. Where has that left them five years later?
That's next on Wall Street Week. When COVID nineteen hit
(12:16):
five years ago, cities and states and entire countries simply
shut down schools, businesses, public events. But not every government
took the same approach. Some what a very different way.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I will soon be taken emergency action which is unprecedented
to provide financial relief.
Speaker 9 (12:46):
We will close our border to any non residents and
citizens attempting to travel here.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
You're not telling people to stay indoors.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Tourist and slock is Apollo's chief economist. Looking back on it,
can we see that one worked better than the other?
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Well, I do think we can conclude now. Of course,
we all had to make sure that the health was
the number one priority, But there were certainly also different countries,
including New Zealand and Sweden, that also took different approaches
and therefore ended up having also different outcomes. And it
has generally been the case today now that we know
that the pandemic quote unquote only lasted for somewhat limited time,
(13:24):
that it did turn out to be a better situation
to have allowed more flexibility and not be so rigid
in terms of what the health restrictions were.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Sweden is one that took that less restrictive approach, avoiding
lockdown measures and letting people decide for themselves, an approach
that was ridiculed around the world.
Speaker 10 (13:44):
As a Swede, I felt quite attacked and harassed during
the pandemic, and both foreign friends and media constantly got
in touch asking me, are you all crazy over there
in Sweden? And we got it from I mean from
all sides of the political spectrum as well, people saying
(14:07):
that Sweden's a cautionary tale. I read that in the
New York Times, and President Donald Trump at the time
said that, look, Sweden is suffering tremendously. Hundreds of thousands
of Americans would die if we do what the Swedes do.
So we were basically not very popular at that time,
and it felt like we had to defend ourselves. I
(14:29):
think many people had invested interest in explaining the Swedish
model a failure before we saw the.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Results, and the results, as it turned out, were better
than expected. Johann Norberg is a senior fellow at the
Cato Institute. His report on Sweden's pandemic response found that
we're models forecast a death toll of more than eighty
thousand by July twenty twenty. Sweden had suffered fewer than
six thousand by that point.
Speaker 10 (15:00):
Other aspect is what is what the Swedish Public Health
Agency said, Yes, we might have more cases and deaths
early on in Sweden, but this will even out in
the long run, because no country can completely shut itself
off unless they're a tiny island far away from everything.
And this is exactly what happened. If you look at
(15:22):
total cumulative excess deaths during the whole pandemic period, Sweden
came out with one of the lowest excess death rates
all over Europe and less than half of the excess
death rate of Britain and the United States. So I
think in the end, when we look at the numbers,
(15:44):
when we look at the data, I think even some
of the opponents of the Swedish model would say that, yeah,
we didn't risk people's lives. In fact, it worked out
better than in most other rich countries.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Half a world away. New Zealand took yet a third approach.
It locked down its borders and implemented strict lockdown measures
to avoid community transmission. Suffering just twenty five deaths from
COVID in twenty twenty, but it meant the country was
effectively shut off from the rest of the world. Sharon
Zohlner is the chief economist for New Zealand at ANZ Bank.
Speaker 9 (16:22):
It was chaos when COVID first had, of course, like
it was everywhere, massive uncertainty about what was going to happen.
We saw a crash in business confidence, We saw monetary
policy ease dramatically, and of course we had the.
Speaker 11 (16:36):
Wage subsidies rolled out very quickly.
Speaker 9 (16:39):
Of course, inevitably it was a bit slap dash, but
I think probably the single biggest forecasting mistake we all made,
the government, the Reserve Bank, private sector was underestimating just
how effective.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
Those wage subsidies were going to be. Essentially, we were thinking.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Of COVID as primarily a big negative shock to demand,
that it was going to destroy confidence, that we were
at risk of a depression.
Speaker 11 (17:06):
God of course, the GDP numbers were all over the place.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
You hit pause on an economy and you get crazy
things like a GDP falling twenty percent in a quarter.
But what we learned ultimately was that those numbers didn't
mean anything. All our models saying if GDP does this,
then house prices will do that, or GDP does that employment,
this will happen to employment, they all broke immediately, of course,
(17:29):
because this wasn't a normal slowdown in GDP. It was
an artificial stop and then a restart, and then a
stop and then a restart. The data, of course, was pandemonium,
and it was easy with hindsight to spot the mistakes
that were made. But essentially it boils down to diagnosing
COVID as primarily a demand shock.
Speaker 11 (17:50):
It was not.
Speaker 9 (17:51):
It was primarily a supply shock once you take into
account the wage subsidy.
Speaker 11 (17:55):
So essentially people were sitting at home.
Speaker 9 (17:57):
They figured out that their jobs were safe, they worked
out that they were very bored, and the interest rates
were the lowest we've ever seen. The housing markets started
to take off and everyone went internet shopping, and we
saw as well as just a surgeon demand, we saw
a big substitution from services to goods, so you couldn't
(18:18):
go on holiday to Fiji, so you got a SPA instead.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
New Zealand spent close to twenty billion dollars between twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one in a wage subsidy program
that supported forty seven percent of its jobs.
Speaker 9 (18:33):
The first lockdowns were incredibly expensive, of course, the fiscal policy,
but they were hugely successful. They bought us a year
of normality that other economies didn't have. But I would
say there was just a good old fashioned policy mistake
from Firstcoo policy and Mountrey policy.
Speaker 11 (18:52):
If you look at First School policy.
Speaker 9 (18:54):
Other countries also went all out with the wage subsidies
and a big surgeon spending, but then they wound it
back very quick.
Speaker 11 (19:01):
We didn't.
Speaker 9 (19:02):
We didn't have to because our government debt was very
low to start with in an international comparison. We also
had a left leaning government. They had pre funded using
that long long large scale asset programs. They had money
sitting there saying what shall I do with this? And
(19:22):
they had a very very ambitious reform program and a
whole lot of areas nothing to do with COVID. So
the fiscal policy remained extremely expansionary four years. So at
the same time that the private sector demand was very
very strong because of the super low interest rates, and
so we had pro cyclical fiscal policy. We had Mountree
(19:44):
and fiscal policy ultimately working against each other. Once you know,
Montree policy is a lot quicker to turn, and so
the reserve banks like oops, okay, Inflation is an awful
lot higher than we thought. The economy is actually a
lot more overheated than we thought. We need to change direction.
Fiscal policies are much much slower ship to turn, even
if all your weight's on the wheel, and it wasn't.
Speaker 11 (20:04):
So essentially, for quite a long period.
Speaker 9 (20:07):
You had monte and fiscal policy working against each other.
Of course, we've had a doozy of a recession. We've
had a very large recession last year, so fiscal policy
has also started to turn, but we're still forecasting.
Speaker 11 (20:21):
Deficits on all the metrics for years to come. So essentially,
the main.
Speaker 9 (20:25):
Difference between the economy before COVID and now is that
our government debt is broadly doubled. So it still looks
quite reasonable in an international comparison, but our entire country
is built on a fault line. There's nowhere in New
Zealand that is really safe from that risk, and then
(20:46):
we've got more extreme weather happening as well, and we've
got an infrastructure deficit, we've got an aging population like everywhere,
so we've got some significant medium term fiscal challenges.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
COVID eventually did break through New Zealand's borders in early
twenty twenty two, and the death toll spiked just as
other countries like Sweden were emerging from the worst of it.
Speaker 10 (21:10):
Sweden is a small and very trade dependent country, so
when the rest of the world suffers and locks down,
the Swedish economy suffers two But the decline in Sweden
was much more shallow than in other places, and the
recovery was much quicker. Interestingly, when we looked at the
(21:30):
end of twenty twenty one where economies were compared to
the forecasts before the pandemic, then we could see that
by the end of twenty twenty one, the world economy
was three percent smaller than forecasts that expected. The UR
economy was bit more than two percent smaller, the US
economy was one point two percent smaller. The Swedish economy
(21:54):
was actually zero point four percent bigger than the forecasts
from the oezed the IMF expected before the pandemic, So
it tells you that my staying open, by not shutting
down society, we save the economy.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
In the end, it may be hard to be sure
which of the range of approaches worked better than others.
We'd all rather forget about the pain and uncertainty of
five years ago, which may make it hard to anticipate
the next one and know which way to go.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
During the pandemic era, we had more attention paid to
Sweden than ever before, I think, and I was constantly
asked about what was going on in Sweden, But afterwards
not a sound Very few got in touch to see
what actually happened, and you're actually one of the few
(22:54):
media companies who get in touch to think about. Okay,
we all thought that Swedenes were crazy and that everything
was going to the dogs. Now five years later, what
really happened. You would think that that would be of
interest to people, but seems like we just want to
forget and move on.
Speaker 7 (23:14):
More bad, spooky stuff as possible today than ever before.
But so is the tooling. I am surrounded by a
tribe of people, public servants, some of whom are in government,
some of whom are out of government, who are working
on building those solutions today, for defense, for health, security,
for intelligence, and I am ever full of hope.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Coming up, we tell the stories of two very different
second acts from highly successful CEOs, starting with Netflix founder
Read Hastings and how his quest for smaller crowds on
the ski slopes led him to buy an entire mountain.
(24:05):
This is a story about second acts, something f Scott
Fitzgerald said didn't exist in American lives, but something successful
CEOs are pursuing with gusto. Every year, tens of millions
of people flocked to hundreds of slopes across the country
to satisfy the leg workout they crave all summer long.
(24:28):
In the twenty twenty three to twenty four ski season,
over sixty million people went skiing and snowboarding across the country,
a growth of seven percent over ten years. And as
the sport has become more accessible through multi mountain passes
and climate change shortens the length of the ski season,
more experienced skiers and snowboarders are craving exclusivity.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
And there's five thousand acres through.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Here, something real. Hastings decided to do something about.
Speaker 8 (24:58):
We're at Powder Mountain. It's ten thousand acres of skiing,
one of the largest resorts in the world. Half of
it roughly is public and half of it is Powver
Haven or a private skiing resort. And it's been tremendously
exciting these last two years to be putting this together.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
You might recognize Hastings from his twenty five year tenure
as CEO of Netflix. He joined the board of Bloomberg
LP in October of twenty twenty three. Hastings started Netflix
back in nineteen ninety seven, growing it from a DVD
rental service with two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in
annual revenue its first year into a global streaming giant,
(25:39):
bringing in thirty three point seven billion dollars. When he
stepped down in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
David, we're one of the areas that is a new
neighborhood coming. So it's beautiful, aspens, incredible views. There'll be
thirty seven lots here. That's our land.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
But through it all, Hastings maintained his passion for skiing.
When did you first ski? Where did you find your
love of skiing?
Speaker 8 (26:04):
Well, I was fortunate that my mom was a skier
and so we skied most years as a Christmas vacation.
But I wasn't a hardcore I wasn't a ski racer,
wasn't all of that. And that was up until I
was twenty or so, and then my twenties that didn't ski,
and then forties and fifties we had kids and we
had a place in Park City, so that was tremendous.
(26:25):
But again I was, you know, full time in Netflix,
so it was maybe ten days a year of skiing.
What had happened in Park City is long lines, big crowds,
no powder. So we moved here, which is about an
hour away.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Do you remember the first time you came to Powder?
Speaker 8 (26:39):
Yeah? Absolutely, It was Christmas in twenty sixteen. Super crowded
in Park City, drove over here and then it was
just wide open, incredible powder. We fell in love with uncrowded,
the high altitude which keeps the snow very good, in
the community, very warm and generous. Retired from Netflix and
(27:01):
then invested in Powder and eventually started running it.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
You heard that right, Reed love the mountains so much
he bought it. The Netflix tycoon is now taking on
a new challenge, building and partially privatizing a ski resort
community after identifying a part of the market he thought
wasn't being served.
Speaker 8 (27:22):
You're only really making a difference when you're changing the rules.
At Powder were the first one to be fusing private
club skiing and public skiing together. In golf, about twenty
five percent of US golf courses four and sixteen thousand
are private, and that's because you get better tea times,
you get a clubhouse, social interaction. Sometimes they're residential, sometimes not.
(27:44):
But in skiing it's really just been Yellowstone Club and
Wasuchpeaks Ranch. So we're only the third out of five hundred,
so as tremendous demand as people moved to the subscription
club orientation. So changing the ski industry is something that's
the next big challenge.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
There was an attempt here on Powder Mount before, which
I think brought you here originally. Why did that one
fail and why is this one different?
Speaker 8 (28:07):
You know, that was all public skiing and it's very
difficult to compete with Epic and Icon. Those are really
the transformative forces for high crowded, low cost resorts, and
Powder tried to differentiate but did not have the private skiing.
So I was here just as a member or as
a homeowner and then post Netflix, I had the time
(28:29):
and I had the capital fortunately to really do this transformation.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
How do you grow this business?
Speaker 8 (28:34):
You know, if I was younger, I might be tempted
to try to replicate this and do in every city
of the Union. But for me, we're just going to
build a one incredible boutique. It's a real estate business.
And the difference here is when the owner operator lives
in the community, it's really driven from the community. So
that's true of Yellowstone, it's true of Powder. We're building
(28:57):
up the clubhouse and the club restaurant and building a
lodge and doing other things to make it so you
can spend a long.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Time Hastings as a real estate team devoted to the mountain.
The first phase of a five to ten year project.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
We're really upgrading everything. We expanded land to be able
to fit both a fantastic private skiing experience. And private
skiing is six hundred families get to enjoy five thousand acres.
I mean, it's fantastic. You know, all the people on
the lift because of the clebbiness, there's untracked powdered days
after the last storm. It's fantastic. And then also to
(29:34):
have a really vibrant public resort and we're building that
up over the next five ten years and really to
make powder a sense of curated beauty where art plays
a major role, and so it's the crossover of people
who are enhanced and inspired by art as well as
love the adrenaline of skiing.
Speaker 12 (29:55):
So the powder Haven development phasing is at its early infancy.
Although Powder Mountain has been around for over fifty years,
this private portion of the development is really quite new
and we are just starting releasing those units and those
lots right now.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Brooke Hunts is the chief Development and construction officer at
Powder Haven. The exclusive private ski in ski out community
at Powder Mountain.
Speaker 12 (30:22):
Powdered Mountain caters to all types of skiers and snowboarders,
from first time skiers through expert who have a passion
and an enjoyment of really the sport in its kind
of more natural forms because currently on the mountain we
have not a lot of amenities and it's more of
a natural what skiing used to be and what people
(30:43):
a lot of people, particularly those with megapasses, say that's
what I love about skiing.
Speaker 11 (30:48):
So people that.
Speaker 12 (30:49):
Buy into Powder Mountain as a part of the club
will be able to share their homes with others through
an internal rental program. So if you're a guest or
an owner at Powder Mountain, you would be able to
rent sort of take part in a lease program with
other owners, but otherwise know that the membership is closed.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Taking Powder private, even in part, has not been without controversy,
with one snowboarder who's used the public resort for years
telling the Hollywood Reporter that quote, what is happening at
Powder Mountain is awful because of the partial exclusivity. Are
you losing any skiers who really miss the pure public
(31:33):
part of it?
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Probably? You know, it's inevitable that as we change and
add private is going to lose some. But we've made
a big effort to really embrace, to increase compensation for
all the employees. Open up inexpensive nineteen it's nineteen dollars
to ski from four to nine pm. Super popular, you
know in the local high school, that kind of thing.
So you know, we're making big investments in staying accessible
(31:56):
and open for.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
People, and other longtime Powder skis like Larry Wolf say
it's worth it.
Speaker 13 (32:03):
I think it's a win win. He's made a lot
of improvements that I'm very pleased with. For example, he
said he was going to put in four new lifts
in a year, and he put in four new lifts
in a year. So we now have access to terrain
that was only typically available through a cat skiing or skinning.
You al turnative being owned by large corporations or owned
(32:27):
by people who don't get it. I would ruin the place,
and I think he gets it, and it keeps the
flavor and the spirit of Powder Mountain alive.
Speaker 12 (32:36):
The opportunity here is so different and unique. Not only
are we at a slightly different price point than other
private skiing, our skiing is more massive in terms of
sheer magnitude of acreage, but we also have a wide
variety of ability levels. And you're at the top of
the mountain almost all of the day, versus continuing to
(32:58):
return to the bottom every time you finish your day
or start your day. You're doing that at the top
to see sunrise and sunset. I think the inclusion of
the art installation and how unique that is in the
world of skiing and resort, makes us more creative and
hopefully interesting to people.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
That type of creativity ultimately reflects Hastings from media mogul
to ski resort oracle. He has drawn from his past
life to pursue his second act, this time without the
same pressure to maximize the bottom line.
Speaker 8 (33:32):
But we don't want to be cookie cutter.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
And you are investing a lot capital investment into lifts,
facilities here and things like that. How does the money flow?
How do you cover that cost? Well?
Speaker 8 (33:42):
When I think about it, I think of sports teams,
and I think of Steve Cohen and the Mets, or
Ryan Smith with a jazz or my friends Steve Bomber
with the Clippers, and that's big money. In comparison, it's
not so much, not as big an investment, but I
think it's similar for them. It's an expression of joy
and passion and winning and making a contribution to the public.
(34:04):
And for me it's the same kind of thing, but
it's more against skiing instead of those teams. And then
we make money by selling season passes and we make
money by selling real estate. Those are the two big
revenue generators. The value in the long term is unclear
because other ski mountains haven't had that same track record,
But I would say we're investing, you know, to really
(34:24):
make it a spectacular community experience.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
So obviously when you built Netflix, it must have been
all consuming. Does this engage you to the same level?
Are you as consumers to this as you were with Netflix?
Speaker 8 (34:36):
You know, it's different muscles. Netflix was super analytics, super
internet scale strategy. This is more about caring and intimacy
and making people feel good and boutique. So it's a
different skill set. Let's kind of think what makes it fun.
I wouldn't want to go back and try to do
another high scale internet company. How am I ever going
to do better than Netflix? So this is in a
(34:58):
completely different realm.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Do you have the same sense of purpose about Powder
Mountain as you did about something like Netflix.
Speaker 8 (35:04):
It's a very strong sense of purpose to create a
place of incredible beauty that sparks wonder and that people
are talking about for one hundred years. So think of
it as a physical legacy rather than a brand like
Netflix legacy. Part of Netflix success was a very unique
culture that really focused on the high talent people and
giving them freedom to operate. And I have brought that
(35:27):
culture here to Powder Mountain and so for the employees,
it's an incredible opportunity to thrive and to get freedom
and to have responsibility. A difference is it's much more
emphasizing love and emotion and connection, back to the intimacy.
Netflix was around super performance, and Powder is around connection
(35:47):
and sparking wonder we call it.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That does it for us. Here on Wall Street Week,
I'm David Weston. See you next week for more stories
of capitalism
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