Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg business Week Inside from the reporters and
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Speaker 1: Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast.
Speaker 2: A FED decision and Jay Powell saying a rate cut
Speaker 2: could come as soon as September, earnings from four of
Speaker 2: the Magnificent Seven, a renewed round of Mid East tensions,
Speaker 2: new polling around the US presidential race from the crucial
Speaker 2: swing states, and as we put our show to bed,
Speaker 2: the news broke that rush is releasing Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: reporter Evan Gershkevich and former US Marine Paul Wheelan as
Speaker 2: part of a major prisoner swap with the United States.
Speaker 2: I can even get my head around it. It's exploding, Tim,
Speaker 2: There's so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, things are moving so quickly that by
Speaker 3: the time people hear this, there will be additional news.
Speaker 3: So just keep that in mind. Everyone. It's a busy
Speaker 3: summer week to wrap up the month of July, certainly
Speaker 3: on many fronts, including on the US elections because we're
Speaker 3: going to tell you about the billionaire financier who's spending
Speaker 3: millions on upcoming Republican races. And we're going to hear
Speaker 3: how Blackpack, a Democratic political action committee, is mobilizing and
Speaker 3: engaging African American voters.
Speaker 2: Also in the new August issue of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 2: how the internet's biggest recreation zone for kids is fighting
Speaker 2: to keep predators away and it's not always winning.
Speaker 3: All of that to come. We have to start though,
Speaker 3: with earnings from several of the so called mag seven,
Speaker 3: all with trillion dollar plus valuations, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and
Speaker 3: Amazon all out with results and for a roundup as
Speaker 3: some were crossing the Bloomberg we leaned on the co
Speaker 3: host of Bloomberg Technology on Bloomberg TV, Ed Ludlow, and
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News chief technology correspondent in our in house Apple
Speaker 3: guru Mark German.
Speaker 4: Great beat for iPhone revenue in the quarter, which is
Speaker 4: interesting because we're pre sixteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, why are people buying phones right now? They
Speaker 3: should be waiting, right.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of wait in markets like China
Speaker 4: that they were buying the fifteen generation with the intention
Speaker 4: of holding onto it. And then I go to the
Speaker 4: grater China revenue, missing estimates, and the third party data.
Speaker 4: Third party data is not always right, but he did
Speaker 4: tell us that Apple was slipping in Greater China.
Speaker 3: Is the IDC data, the IDC data.
Speaker 4: There's counterpoint research, there's loads, But my point is that
Speaker 4: there was worried they would They did really face domestic
Speaker 4: pressure on the handset market there, and you always look
Speaker 4: to China as a point of focus. So you have
Speaker 4: to read between the lines because on the earnings call,
Speaker 4: CFO look of my Street often addresses that issue head
Speaker 4: on how they did in the market in China, specifically.
Speaker 3: Ernie's per share coming in one dollars and forty cents
Speaker 3: per share, that beat estimates of one dollar and thirty
Speaker 3: five cents, So a beat there as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, you know, I'm looking at kind
Speaker 2: of our ride through bier marker men, you know, marking
Speaker 2: a return to revenue growth last quarter, he says, topping
Speaker 2: analyst estimates, indicating that upgraded iPads and a strong services
Speaker 2: business helped make up for some of those headwinds in China.
Speaker 2: So sales were up five percent to eighty five point
Speaker 2: eight billion in that fiscal third quarter the iPhone maker, saying,
Speaker 2: putting out that statement, analyst had predicted eighty four five.
Speaker 2: So that's a beat. Three months ago, the CFO had
Speaker 2: said the company would grow by a percentage in the
Speaker 2: low single digits during the period.
Speaker 3: Okay, overall revenue beat, iPhone revenue beat, MAC revenue beat,
Speaker 3: iPad revenue beat. Wearables, homes and accessories also beat.
Speaker 2: We've been talking with you throughout the week about the
Speaker 2: tech reporting season and the big megacap tech companies that
Speaker 2: have reported. How are you thinking about them? I don't
Speaker 2: know that there's one trend line to.
Speaker 4: There is a trend line excluding Apple, which is capital expenditures.
Speaker 4: And what's so interesting is, like I was talking a
Speaker 4: bit about this in the blog earlier, Apple's capex is
Speaker 4: always low. A lot of investors always bemoaned its cash balance.
Speaker 4: You know, it's so ginormous, right. I look at the
Speaker 4: release and I see Apple's board of directors declares the
Speaker 4: cash dividends of twenty five cents per share. There's one
Speaker 4: really important thing when you cover a stock like this,
Speaker 4: you need to remind yourself how widely held is the
Speaker 4: stock around the world. Yes, there are many institutional investors
Speaker 4: that hold it in volume. One of them was on
Speaker 4: my show today, Denny Fisher of Janis think all the
Speaker 4: individuals that Apple stock because they think it's prestigious. I
Speaker 4: always find that fascinating. So little divvy goes a long way.
Speaker 2: It does go a long way. Hey, listen, we've been
Speaker 2: reading his comments along with Ed's on the blog. We
Speaker 2: read a story on Apple. Let's bring him in. Mark
Speaker 2: German is Bloomberg News chief technology correspondent. We call him
Speaker 2: our Apple Guru. Joining us right now, coming off of earnings, Mark,
Speaker 2: walk us through what you think the Bloomberg audience needs
Speaker 2: to know about this release.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The through line here is that Apple beat across the
Speaker 6: board in every product category iPhone, iPad, wearables, home and accessories,
Speaker 6: mac and services. So nice beats across the board. There
Speaker 6: still the iPhone one percent year of a year decline,
Speaker 6: not terrible, especially given that we are going into the
Speaker 6: new iPhone season. The other thing to note, though, is
Speaker 6: Greater China. Greater China's down about six percent. This came
Speaker 6: in both below expectations and obviously it's an annual decline.
Speaker 6: That's something that I think a lot of analysts and
Speaker 6: investors are going to want to take a look at
Speaker 6: why is China's performance continuing to decline. Apple does say
Speaker 6: though that they still see this as an improvement over
Speaker 6: the China situation in the first half of the year,
Speaker 6: but still this is not great. Looking ahead, we're going
Speaker 6: to want to know any color about how they're thinking
Speaker 6: they're going to do in the current quarter of the
Speaker 6: fourth quarter. The new iPhone line, the sixteen, will go
Speaker 6: on sale towards the very end of Q four, towards
Speaker 6: the end of September, so that's going to be a
Speaker 6: significant moment obviously contribute quite significantly to the bottom line
Speaker 6: in the current period, which obviously we're looking ahead at that.
Speaker 6: Another thing I want to call out is the iPad.
Speaker 6: iPad grew twenty four percent, not entirely a surprise. I'm
Speaker 6: surprised that Wall Street estimated so low on the iPad.
Speaker 6: Let's not forget that Apple hadn't released a new version
Speaker 6: of the iPad for about a year and a half
Speaker 6: and then released two major versions of the new iPad
Speaker 6: in May along with major updates to their accessories. So
Speaker 6: no surprise there.
Speaker 4: Hey, Mark, One thing I'd love to do with you,
Speaker 4: and I know it's hard, is the math on China.
Speaker 4: You know, you get that three Q iPhone B and
Speaker 4: then the weakness in Greater China. Is it likely to
Speaker 4: be products specific in terms of iPhone or where does
Speaker 4: Apple tend to point to us when they have a
Speaker 4: specific geographic weakness.
Speaker 6: Well, the thing is Apple never really gets into geographic
Speaker 6: weakness on a product ed product basis. What they have
Speaker 6: said over the past several quarters as people have asked
Speaker 6: about the declines in China, is that these declines are
Speaker 6: not due to the iPhone. Now they're not saying what
Speaker 6: those other products are that are contributing to the declines.
Speaker 6: Whether it's the iPad, whether it's the math, whether it's wearables,
Speaker 6: they're not sharing that information. So I believe personally that
Speaker 6: it does have to do with the iPhone and some
Speaker 6: of the softness we're seeing there. A lot of people
Speaker 6: are buying Huawei Vivo Opah the local phonemakers instead of
Speaker 6: the iPhone at this point. So I would say this
Speaker 6: has to do with the iPhone. This quarter, we're.
Speaker 2: Talking with Mark German, We're talking with Ed Ludlow. Apple
Speaker 2: third quarter iPhone revenue that's a B. Third quarter Greater
Speaker 2: China revenue that was miss third quarter revenue. Overall, that
Speaker 2: was a beat mark in terms of AI and Apple Intelligence,
Speaker 2: which they showed off a lot at the Developers conference
Speaker 2: in June. What would be a question that you'd want
Speaker 2: to know about that? I know they're still developing, they're
Speaker 2: working on it, but what do you want to know?
Speaker 6: I want to know if they think it's going to
Speaker 6: drive sales, because I can tell you after using it
Speaker 6: for the past few days or so, I don't think
Speaker 6: there's any reason why anyone should buy a new iPhone
Speaker 6: based solely on the new features that are currently available
Speaker 6: or will be available from Apple Intelligence at the get go.
Speaker 6: I happen to think that Apple Intelligence is really a
Speaker 6: late twenty twenty five story, and maybe next year is
Speaker 6: one of that's going to drive sales, But the current
Speaker 6: incarnation it shouldn't be a sales driver. Quite frankly, based
Speaker 6: on their marketing and some ridiculous comments I've seen from
Speaker 6: Wall Street analysts and others who cover Apple. Maybe they'll
Speaker 6: still grow based on it. Some people will be disappointed
Speaker 6: if they buy the iPhone based on Apple Intelligence, at
Speaker 6: least from the beginning.
Speaker 3: ED come on back in here to remind us about
Speaker 3: Capex and why CAPEX should be looked at differently with Apple,
Speaker 3: with that Microsoft alphabet, Amazon and Meta.
Speaker 4: Just because historically capital expenditures for Apple are just kind
Speaker 4: of a non event. They're not at the ten percentage
Speaker 4: point to twenty percentage point range that the hyperscalers have,
Speaker 4: particularly in the current environment. Right, It's just not a
Speaker 4: part of their story. And Mark always correct me if
Speaker 4: I'm wrong. But what I find so interesting about Apple
Speaker 4: strategy is the cost of where they're trying to get to,
Speaker 4: which is Apple intelligence. Think about the partnerships, right, you know,
Speaker 4: Apple is not as hyper focused on the building of
Speaker 4: its own large language model. It has some activity there,
Speaker 4: but it partners with open ai, so open ai takes
Speaker 4: the R and D cost. How does Apple facilitate its
Speaker 4: cloud It relies on GCP Google Cloud platform, you know,
Speaker 4: and Google does its own R and D investment on
Speaker 4: the silicon side. And I find that so interesting, And
Speaker 4: you know, that's why I'm a tongue in you know,
Speaker 4: you guys know what I'm like, tongue in cheek. But
Speaker 4: it's why I post in the blog about the divvy
Speaker 4: and about cash generation and the growing balance sheet. Because
Speaker 4: investors always say, I wonder what they'll do with that
Speaker 4: one day?
Speaker 7: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like, well, listen, they say, during the quarter, our record
Speaker 2: business performance generated EPs growth of eleven percent, nearly twenty
Speaker 2: nine billion in operating cash flow, allowing us to return
Speaker 2: over thirty two billion to shareholders. I mean, I always
Speaker 2: think about this mark whenever we talk with you, and
Speaker 2: whenever we talk with that. I mean, just the law
Speaker 2: of large numbers when it comes to Apple, specifically, as
Speaker 2: you continue to look at this this report and release,
Speaker 2: I don't know what should we leave our investors with.
Speaker 2: What do you think that they should be thinking at
Speaker 2: top of mind when it comes to Apple.
Speaker 6: I'll simplify it for you. From a financial standpoint, everything
Speaker 6: is just fine, right, a little bit of concern in China.
Speaker 6: But my concerns about Apple aren't the financials today. It's
Speaker 6: that this company is not pushing out products at the
Speaker 6: pace that they used to. I'm simply not seeing that
Speaker 6: game changing innovation that we used to see. I'm simply
Speaker 6: not seeing them leap frog ahead of the competition. I'm
Speaker 6: seeing a lot of response the competition. Like with Apple Intelligence,
Speaker 6: I'm seeing something that's not as good as the competition
Speaker 6: with Apple Intelligence. I'm seeing them add features to iOS
Speaker 6: that Android has had for a number of years. I'm
Speaker 6: seeing really impressive new technology like the vision Pro that's
Speaker 6: not a product, it's more of a prototype or developer kit.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 6: So I'm concerned about Apple products right now, and obviously
Speaker 6: products hardware surprives this company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so long term, Mark, because you have such a
Speaker 3: good view into the pipeline, much to the chagrin of Apple,
Speaker 3: I imagine no car coming Vision Pro, as you mentioned
Speaker 3: the live blog, not even mentioned in this report. Is
Speaker 3: that right?
Speaker 6: That's right?
Speaker 3: So what is the big picture for the pipeline over
Speaker 3: the next five years.
Speaker 6: I think we're probably two or three years away from
Speaker 6: a bigger new product push, whether that's augmented reality, glasses,
Speaker 6: foldable phones, new types of touchscreen devices, new home devices,
Speaker 6: new max. But I'm not seeing anything in the next
Speaker 6: two to three years that you know it's gonna be
Speaker 6: a game changer.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 6: The vision Pro technology is a game changer. Nobody wants it.
Speaker 6: It's too heavy, it's too expensive, there's no contact and you.
Speaker 2: Know, we lean on you like we lean on Mark.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've been going through a lot of
Speaker 2: the Tech news.
Speaker 3: That's why we flew him out to New York this.
Speaker 2: Week on the on the Bloomberg Jet, the good and
Speaker 2: the bad of the big tech that have been reporting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a really really smart question. So there's one
Speaker 4: thing that I learned very quickly, which was Microsoft, do
Speaker 4: not miss Wall Street estimates that won't go well for you.
Speaker 4: And I think that it's because we've joked about the
Speaker 4: money machine, but now the investors are really starting to
Speaker 4: do the math on it. You know, the Capex number
Speaker 4: was everything. I think I even Heardy and King on
Speaker 4: the phone to you just say couples of expenditures and
Speaker 4: then hang up. It's because with that you can basically
Speaker 4: do the math on the timing of sales growth from
Speaker 4: bottom line growth from artificial intelligence, and then you can
Speaker 4: sort of extraplay out further field.
Speaker 3: The goats on Apple and more. Bloomberg News Chief Technology
Speaker 3: correspondent Mark German, also the co host of Bloomberg Technology
Speaker 3: on Bloomberg TV.
Speaker 2: Ed Ludlow coming up roadblocks geared toward kids. It's got
Speaker 2: a problem, a pedophile problem.
Speaker 3: That story up next. You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, This
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Speaker 2: Roadblocks you're all familiar with the twenty six billion dollar
Speaker 2: market cap gaming company. It was launched in the early
Speaker 2: two thousands under the premise that games were the next
Speaker 2: frontier for education software. Kids could design multiplayer online enclaves
Speaker 2: using a set of building blocks and a simple coding language.
Speaker 2: The platform's weird, whimsical etho attracted thousands and millions of kids,
Speaker 2: who moved through its worlds as Lego like avatars with
Speaker 2: frozen smiles and beadiys, spending roebucks to spruce themselves up
Speaker 2: with virtual wigs, clothes, dragontails, or wings.
Speaker 3: This wasn't around when we were kids. It's a different universes.
Speaker 3: It's a completely different.
Speaker 2: Universe, not the barbies and doll houses stuff I played with.
Speaker 3: That said, Roadblocks has a dark side. Since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: police in the US have arrested at least two dozen
Speaker 3: people accused of abducting or abusing victims they'd met or
Speaker 3: groomed using Roadblocks. That's according to data compiled by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 3: Some were already on sex offender registries or had been
Speaker 3: accused of abusing miners. There were also a SHARE's deputy,
Speaker 3: a third grade teacher, and a nurse.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News investigative reporter Olivia Carvill and Bloomberg News video
Speaker 2: game reporter Cecilia Donastasio write about Roadblocks in the current
Speaker 2: issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. You can read it now
Speaker 2: on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com Slash BusinessWeek.
Speaker 3: We began by talking about someone who used to be
Speaker 3: on the platform, who went by Doctor Opatnik, known as Doc.
Speaker 9: So Doc was a really popular developer and side Roadblocks,
Speaker 9: and he designed a game called Sonic Eclipse Online. So
Speaker 9: it was based on Sonic the Hedgehog, and what children,
Speaker 9: you know, don't love Sonics. So he created this game
Speaker 9: on Roadblocks and thousands of children playing Doc's game and
Speaker 9: looking up to him as a developer that they, you know,
Speaker 9: want to be friends with, that they want to talk with,
Speaker 9: that they want to, you know, understand what are the
Speaker 9: next developments that are coming with his game. So he
Speaker 9: actually had a cult like following of children across Roadblocks
Speaker 9: and other platforms that he would talk to kids on
Speaker 9: like Discord, Twitter, now x, Instagram, Snapchat. He was across
Speaker 9: the mall.
Speaker 2: He's not a good guy.
Speaker 9: He is not a good guy.
Speaker 10: It turns out to say the least.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about what he ultimately was doing.
Speaker 9: So doctor o Fetnik grew this following through twenty twenty
Speaker 9: in the height of the pandemic when children are really
Speaker 9: attracted to roadblocks and we're wanting to play in the
Speaker 9: online spaces because they're trapped at home. And in that year,
Speaker 9: he was exposed as being predatory towards some of the
Speaker 9: young kids who were working for him on Roadblocks. So
Speaker 9: a lot of gamers tried to tried to shut them down,
Speaker 9: get them off the platform. And in the end, it's
Speaker 9: kind of a long story.
Speaker 10: You have to read it to get all the details, but.
Speaker 9: It wasn't They weren't successful, And fast forward eighteen months later,
Speaker 9: he was actually arrested by the FBI.
Speaker 3: We'll get to that in a minute, because I want
Speaker 3: to bring in Cecilia to talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: what makes Roadblocks unique, because we talk a lot about
Speaker 3: social media platforms and the restrictions on age with social
Speaker 3: media platforms. But seciily you cover gaming, and the whole
Speaker 3: idea with Roadblocks is that this is a place that
Speaker 3: caters specific two kids. It's four kids. Talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about the intricacies and sort of what makes Roadblocks
Speaker 3: unique in terms of what is available online four kids.
Speaker 11: It's a great question. So most social media platforms don't
Speaker 11: allow people under the age of thirteen to sign up
Speaker 11: for them. That includes Discord, that includes Instagram. But Roadblocks
Speaker 11: actually welcomes people who are under thirteen. About forty percent
Speaker 11: of its seventy eight million daily active users are under
Speaker 11: the age of thirteen. And you know, parents have the
Speaker 11: ability to toggle on certain safety features on Roadblocks, but
Speaker 11: by default, you can make an account if you're you know, six, seven,
Speaker 11: eight years old and talk to strangers in a variety
Speaker 11: of games. A lot of the video games that are
Speaker 11: designed for children. A lot of video games appeal to children,
Speaker 11: of course, but games that are designed for children don't
Speaker 11: actually allow children to communicate with strangers openly. You can't
Speaker 11: type to them on your phone or on your keyboard
Speaker 11: or through your video game console. A lot of them
Speaker 11: have these sort of like canned messages you can send
Speaker 11: like hello, how are you do? You want to play
Speaker 11: a game together? But on Roadblocks you can have really
Speaker 11: robust conversations and develop relationships cecil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I kind of jumped the gun there,
Speaker 2: kind of cutting to the chase. But I want to
Speaker 2: ask about you actually created an account that said you
Speaker 2: are a four year old? Tell us about that?
Speaker 11: Sure, So to test for Blocks's features and what was
Speaker 11: available to us, you know, Olivia and I will create
Speaker 11: accounts just to understand exactly what would the experience be
Speaker 11: for someone who was of this demographic. So I did
Speaker 11: create an accounts if I was four years old on Roadblocks,
Speaker 11: and I entered a game, and somebody who was in
Speaker 11: that game who understood that I was four years old,
Speaker 11: attempted to groom me over a direct message. He asked
Speaker 11: if I was single. This person asked if I was single,
Speaker 11: and when I told them that the account was four,
Speaker 11: they said age is just a number with a winkie face,
Speaker 11: after trying to get me to share my snapchat. It
Speaker 11: was an alarming experience. It was unplanned, and we you know,
Speaker 11: we were very very surprised.
Speaker 3: To see there are supposed to be tools in place,
Speaker 3: whether they're AI, are actually human moderators to monitor this
Speaker 3: sort of thing so it doesn't happen. At least that's
Speaker 3: what Roadblock says, tell us about the moderation features and
Speaker 3: why something like that wasn't caught and it did get
Speaker 3: to you even though you had registered an account saying
Speaker 3: you were a four year old.
Speaker 11: Sure so, Roblock says that safety is foundational to its platform.
Speaker 11: The platforms two decades old at this point, and it
Speaker 11: does have chat filters and artificial intelligence designed to catch
Speaker 11: bad words grooming. It also attempts to bring users off platforms,
Speaker 11: which Olivia and I learned predators really like to do.
Speaker 11: They like to maybe meet a child on roadblocks, then
Speaker 11: move them to somewhere the's less moderated, like Snapchat, like Discord,
Speaker 11: like Instagram. But what was really surprising to me was
Speaker 11: that the person who was trying to groom the four
Speaker 11: year old account, they didn't say, what's your Snapchat? They
Speaker 11: used this is pretty clever. They used the ghost emoji,
Speaker 11: which is stab Chat's icon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's a way to sort of get them
Speaker 3: offline and somewhere else. And the idea was it would
Speaker 3: get around the AI exactly.
Speaker 11: And when they asked you to leave the game, they
Speaker 11: spelled at l eeve. So one of the big challenges
Speaker 11: for Roadblocks's three thousand moderators is what we reported in
Speaker 11: the story is that predators and bad people on the
Speaker 11: internet in general will misspell words, will find ways around
Speaker 11: the chat filters, and that's just something that's so hard
Speaker 11: to keep up with.
Speaker 2: All right, But when you have a platform like this,
Speaker 2: the company's got to be on it, or police have
Speaker 2: to be on it, or somebody has to be on it.
Speaker 2: Turns out there were some vigilantes actually Olivia who were
Speaker 2: on it and kind of doing their own police work
Speaker 2: on the platform.
Speaker 10: Yep.
Speaker 9: I mean, part of the reporting for the story that
Speaker 9: Cecelia and I was trying to attend is if Roadblocks
Speaker 9: isn't able to police its platform, who out there really is?
Speaker 9: And we did find this group of young gamers vigilantes
Speaker 9: who feel like Roadblocks is moderation is doing a good
Speaker 9: enough job to protect kids online. So they've actually criticized
Speaker 9: the platform on YouTube and on Twitter and highlight predatory
Speaker 9: behavior and ask the company to take it down in
Speaker 9: a public space. So we spent quite a lot of
Speaker 9: time trying to understand how they operate, what they're looking for,
Speaker 9: and you know what their process is to try and
Speaker 9: find grooming or predatory behavior on roadblocks.
Speaker 3: Tell us about Ben Simon.
Speaker 9: Well, Ben Simon is he describes himself as an anti hero.
Speaker 9: He's a very controversial figure. The company has sued him
Speaker 9: for one point six million, and the allegations against him
Speaker 9: aren't nice. You know, things like uploading photographs of Adolf
Speaker 9: Hitler onto the platform, which he denies, but also harassing
Speaker 9: the company employees, which he admits that he has done
Speaker 9: in the past, using homophobic slurs on roadblocks. So he's
Speaker 9: actually a he's relatively young now, but he created a
Speaker 9: huge YouTube tube following by highlighting predatory behavior on roadblocks
Speaker 9: and being kind of this rebellious vigilante moderator in a sense.
Speaker 9: So he's got over one point two million followers on
Speaker 9: YouTube who really tune into him, specifically because he knows
Speaker 9: so much about roadblocks and the platform, and a lot
Speaker 9: of children now who play the game will actually go
Speaker 9: to Ben Simon or Rubensim as he's known on YouTube
Speaker 9: and file reports to him because they think they have
Speaker 9: a better chance of getting that content removed if he
Speaker 9: posts about it, rather than through Roadblocks's normal moderation report system.
Speaker 2: As part of the problem, just roblocks rate kind of
Speaker 2: protects the kids in terms of their actual identities, and
Speaker 2: so as a result, if you're a predator, you're also
Speaker 2: your identity is protected.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's right, Carol. That's one of the hardest things
Speaker 9: for Roadblocks is when you create a user account, you're
Speaker 9: encouraged to be anonymous. So when you sign up for
Speaker 9: the platform, it actually says do not use your real name,
Speaker 9: and so Cecilia and I for this story, we spoke
Speaker 9: to a lot of people who work at the company,
Speaker 9: a lot of child safety advocates, and they raised concerns
Speaker 9: over the fact that for Roadblocks itself, identifying who is
Speaker 9: behind their avatar is really hard. You know, it's just
Speaker 9: kind of a group of pixels playing in a game.
Speaker 9: You don't know their name, their age, their location, and
Speaker 9: what their intentions are.
Speaker 11: Are.
Speaker 2: Any of these concerns kind of cecily slowing down the
Speaker 2: growth of this platform and this company.
Speaker 11: There have been scattered concerns around safety on real Blocks
Speaker 11: for a couple of years now. There are a couple
Speaker 11: of lawsuits against the company that are alleging that it's
Speaker 11: start as safe as it's advertised, but Rodblocks does continue
Speaker 11: to grow on one of the goals chief executive officer
Speaker 11: de Puzuki Hous is to reach one billion daily users,
Speaker 11: which is just it's over ten times more than what
Speaker 11: it has today. Real Blocks is growing. It's free on
Speaker 11: basically every platform you can think of, and kids love it.
Speaker 11: It's not just a video game, such as a platform
Speaker 11: for people to make video games. It's really social media
Speaker 11: for the younger generation, and I don't see it becoming
Speaker 11: less popular anytime.
Speaker 3: Soon, Olivia. You've done a lot of reporting on sex
Speaker 3: stortion predators online. What is unique about Roadblocks's platform that
Speaker 3: makes it so difficult for authorities to catch up with
Speaker 3: these folks but also such a fertile ground for them,
Speaker 3: because those are the things that need to change to
Speaker 3: prevent this from happening further.
Speaker 9: The protagonist in this story is doctor Ofetnik we've talked
Speaker 9: about in His real name is Arnold Castillo. He was
Speaker 9: arrested by the FBI in early twenty twenty two and
Speaker 9: I went to see him in federal prison up in Otisville,
Speaker 9: and I asked him that question you know what about
Speaker 9: Roadblocks draws predators into the platform, And his response was accessibility,
Speaker 9: that it is just very easy to create an account
Speaker 9: and just jump from game to game and have access
Speaker 9: to thousands, tens of thousands, you know, if not millions
Speaker 9: of children on a daily basis. So I think that's
Speaker 9: what makes Roadblocks unique. And not only is it easy
Speaker 9: to make an account, but you don't have to give
Speaker 9: any identifying information RASA.
Speaker 3: That was Bloomberg News investigative reporter Olivia Carville and Bloomberg
Speaker 3: News video game reporter Cecilia Denistasio their story in the
Speaker 3: August issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, now out on newstands, online
Speaker 3: and on the Bloomberg Terminal. Roadblocks, by the way, reported
Speaker 3: the results for the latest quarter on Thursday morning. The
Speaker 3: company did boost its bookings guidance for the full year,
Speaker 3: and the guidance beat the average analyst estimate. Check out
Speaker 3: all the details on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg
Speaker 3: dot Com.
Speaker 2: Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The US presidential race is
Speaker 2: in full swing and with a bit of a twist this.
Speaker 3: Week, as new polling finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump
Speaker 3: any dead heat when it comes to the key swing states,
Speaker 3: and the.
Speaker 2: Big billionaire Democratic donor and well known financial figure puts
Speaker 2: his stamp on the GOP. The story among our most
Speaker 2: read this past week.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live
Speaker 1: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecar Play
Speaker 1: and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can
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Speaker 1: York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: According to the latest Bloomberg News Morning Consul poll out
Speaker 2: this past week, Vice President and the presumptive Democratic presidential
Speaker 2: nominee Kamala Harris has wiped out former President Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: lead across seven battleground states as the vice president rides
Speaker 2: a wave of enthusiasm among young, black and Hispanic voters.
Speaker 3: Harris was backed by forty eight percent of voters to
Speaker 3: forty seven percent for Trump, a statistical dead heat in
Speaker 3: the swing states that will likely decide November's election. It's
Speaker 3: a stronger showing than the two point deficit for President
Speaker 3: Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race.
Speaker 2: Now many swingst to have significant black populations. An NPR,
Speaker 2: PBS News Marist poll conducted July twenty second found Harris
Speaker 2: with a support of fifty seven percent of black voters,
Speaker 2: compared to thirty four percent for Trump.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, Republican nominee Donald Trump questioned the vice president's
Speaker 2: racial identity at a contentious roundtable with black journalists, fumbling
Speaker 2: an attempt to reach out to voters of color.
Speaker 3: For some thoughts on the upcoming vote in November, we
Speaker 3: reached out to Adrian Shropshire, executive director of Black Pack.
Speaker 3: It's a Democratic political action committee focused on mobilizing and
Speaker 3: engaging with African American voters. Bloomberg's Emily Graffeo and I
Speaker 3: talked with her about one week ago. That was before
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's most recent comments.
Speaker 13: The good news, right is that Vice President Heroris is
Speaker 13: not unknown. I mean, I think part of the challenge
Speaker 13: with what we were hearing, you know, from inside circles
Speaker 13: and the Democratic Party about, you know, the potential of
Speaker 13: going to an open primary into you know, sort of
Speaker 13: extending the internal debate and frankly chaos, that would have
Speaker 13: been more challenging. Right, The vice president is not unknown.
Speaker 13: She's been vetted not only from her own presidential campaign,
Speaker 13: but through the twenty twenty election, through the last four
Speaker 13: years of the administration. So she's not unknown. And in fact,
Speaker 13: you know, we've seen in our polling and even in
Speaker 13: the door knocking that we've been doing over the last
Speaker 13: few days, we made the sort of pivot. Folks are
Speaker 13: are you know, very much aware of who she is
Speaker 13: and we're seeing lots of excitement. I don't think that
Speaker 13: the challenges, you know, are very different than the challenges
Speaker 13: that we were facing three weeks ago, which is, you know, voters,
Speaker 13: a lot of voters, particularly black voters that we're talking to,
Speaker 13: need to know because they don't have a real sense
Speaker 13: of the accomplishments of the administration. They need to understand
Speaker 13: the accomplishments that the Biden Harris administration have that the
Speaker 13: Vice President was directly involved with. We hear from folks
Speaker 13: that they don't know a lot about what she's done
Speaker 13: over the last four years. So she will need to
Speaker 13: tell that story. The campaign will need to tell that story.
Speaker 13: We will need to tell that story. But I think
Speaker 13: that that is is, you know, not different right from
Speaker 13: what we're facing before getting the information out there. Telling
Speaker 13: her story. I think a lot of voters still don't
Speaker 13: know about her biography and want to know about her
Speaker 13: her backstory, So I think that they need to tell
Speaker 13: that story. They also just need to continue with the
Speaker 13: contrast that they've been doing and making the stakes of
Speaker 13: the election very clear about where where we have the
Speaker 13: potential to go as as America as a democracy that is,
Speaker 13: you know, toward that more perfect union or toward you know,
Speaker 13: an America that you know is continues to sort of
Speaker 13: push you know, divisiveness and uh and and rhetoric that is,
Speaker 13: you know, not taking us to the future, but taking
Speaker 13: us back.
Speaker 7: Adrian.
Speaker 3: One thing that we've seen in polls in recent months,
Speaker 3: and this is before Kamala Harris was at the top
Speaker 3: of the ticket it became becoming the presumptive nominee, is
Speaker 3: that although we can't really say that former President Trump
Speaker 3: is popular with black voters, he has picked up black
Speaker 3: voters since at least according to some polls, since leaving office,
Speaker 3: becoming more popular with them. I'm wondering what your polling
Speaker 3: shows in terms of how that could shift now that
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris is in the race.
Speaker 13: So I mean, I'd say a couple of things about
Speaker 13: about those those polls. I mean, one is it really
Speaker 13: is unfortunate that when we see national polls that really
Speaker 13: capture the headlines, particularly about black voters, it's unfortunate that
Speaker 13: the sample size of those polls are so small, and
Speaker 13: I think that that does a disservice not only to
Speaker 13: people's understanding of the race, but the electorate and how
Speaker 13: it is moving. When in our research and in our polling,
Speaker 13: which are much larger, much more robust bus sample sizes,
Speaker 13: we do not see that kind of shift and support
Speaker 13: among black voters. And that is across demographic when the
Speaker 13: Black electorate, I mean, you know, regardless of gender, regardless
Speaker 13: of age, we see the same level of support for
Speaker 13: Trump that we saw on the election day in twenty twenty,
Speaker 13: and on election day into twent he's sixteen, which is
Speaker 13: under ten percent. So we have not seen those kinds
Speaker 13: of shifts. We haven't seen them in our polling, we
Speaker 13: haven't seen them in our focus groups, and we definitely
Speaker 13: haven't seen them in the conversations that we've had on
Speaker 13: the doors. I don't think that that means though that
Speaker 13: you know, this is sort of an easy, you know,
Speaker 13: sort of chewing in terms of mobilizing and exciting the
Speaker 13: black electorate for the vice president, I think that there's
Speaker 13: a lot of work to be done, that there's a
Speaker 13: lot of conversations that they need to have with Black voters,
Speaker 13: both to help Black voters understand her vision for the future.
Speaker 13: House problems, that sort of intractable problems that people are
Speaker 13: feeling very deeply, whether it's the cost of living or
Speaker 13: it's crime, those sorts of issues that are really burdening people.
Speaker 13: They need to tell the story about how they're going
Speaker 13: to address those issues. But I don't see any I
Speaker 13: have not seen in any of our research the kinds
Speaker 13: of dramatic shifts that I know that we've seen headlines
Speaker 13: and papers over the last few months.
Speaker 3: Our thanks to Adrian Shropshire, executive director of Blackpack, do we.
Speaker 2: Know that most of the time in politics, money talks.
Speaker 2: Vice President Kamala Harris raised a record three hundred ten
Speaker 2: million dollars in July, according to her campaign, more than
Speaker 2: doubles the nearly one hundred and thirty nine million dollars
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump raised in July. Harris started August with
Speaker 2: three hundred seventy seven million dollars cash on hand, the
Speaker 2: largest war chest at this point in an election cycle,
Speaker 2: and more than the three hundred twenty seven million dollars
Speaker 2: Trump reported having in the bank.
Speaker 3: One boost for the GOP coming from Hedge fund billionaire
Speaker 3: Ken Griffin, who's spending tens of millions of dollars to
Speaker 3: back Republican primary candidates across the US. This story, a
Speaker 3: Bloomberg exclusive, was reported by Bloomberg News national reporter Mike
Speaker 3: Smith and Bill Allison, Bloomberg News campaign finance reporter Mike
Speaker 3: kicking it off for us with what Ken Griffin is
Speaker 3: up to, there.
Speaker 14: Is a lot of nuance and it's not entirely clear
Speaker 14: exactly what he's looking for, but in general, it's sort
Speaker 14: of old school, pro business, conservative values that he is back,
Speaker 14: for example, national defense, and one of the main things
Speaker 14: his promoting is sort of helping the American dream, which
Speaker 14: is obviously a very broad description, but that's how he
Speaker 14: describes him.
Speaker 2: Does that backing might include Donald Trump at this point.
Speaker 14: Well, so far, No, As far as we can see
Speaker 14: in the most recent filings in terms of money, he's
Speaker 14: yet to give money to Donald Trump. He hasn't ever
Speaker 14: given money to Donald Trump that we know of, and
Speaker 14: he's quite guarded in saying whether he's going to back
Speaker 14: Trump or not. He's certainly a Republican. He gives to
Speaker 14: Republican causes and candidates, but Trump is yet to be seen.
Speaker 2: So Bill, let's go through the money. What do we
Speaker 2: know about Ken Griffin and his donations to the GOP
Speaker 2: going back the last decade or so, what has he
Speaker 2: typically supported, how much has he given up, and where
Speaker 2: does it go? And what is he doing today?
Speaker 12: Really, since since twenty sixteen, he's focused on Congress, of
Speaker 12: both the Senate and the House. He's given I think
Speaker 12: two hundred and forty eight million dollars since twenty fifteen,
Speaker 12: which is an office a lot of money, about a
Speaker 12: quarter billion dollars. And he's focused largely on super packs
Speaker 12: that again elect members of Congress. And in the last
Speaker 12: couple of cycles, he's really looked at early money having
Speaker 12: an influence on primaries, like who gets chosen to be
Speaker 12: to get elected to Congress, you know, like you'll look
Speaker 12: at safe Republican districts, will put a lot of money
Speaker 12: in behind what he views as a superior candidate and
Speaker 12: try to get that person into Congress. And so far
Speaker 12: this cycle he's spent more than seventy five million dollars
Speaker 12: into political committees at the federal level.
Speaker 3: Mike, how successful has he been over the last decade,
Speaker 3: because it seems like he hasn't always bet on the
Speaker 3: right horse, so to speak. He supported the opponent to JD.
Speaker 3: Vance and is a Ohio Senate race who Jdvans ended
Speaker 3: up beating. He's thinking about supporting somebody who could challenge
Speaker 3: Matt Gates. He has supported Nicki Haley in the past,
Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy in the past as well. How successful has
Speaker 3: he been?
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean, that's an elusive thing to answer, but
Speaker 14: we can say that this year or this this cycle,
Speaker 14: he's gotten behind sixty different candidates in congressional races. They've
Speaker 14: won about two thirds of those or a little bit more.
Speaker 14: So it's not a bad record. He has won a lot,
Speaker 14: but he's also lost some and a lot of his
Speaker 14: money has gone into losing races, and a lot has
Speaker 14: gone into winning races.
Speaker 2: You know, And I do wonder too, Bill, You know,
Speaker 2: we often could, but it's very true. Money talks, right,
Speaker 2: and money gets attention. How influential has he been really
Speaker 2: in kind of shaping what's going on in the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: We talk so much about it being, you know, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's party right now, but how much has he really
Speaker 2: been influential over the GOP overall?
Speaker 12: Well, the Republican of operatives that we talk to, the
Speaker 12: people who run super packs, the people who recruit candidates,
Speaker 12: the people who really kind of do that nuts Bolt's
Speaker 12: work of running the party say that, you know, he's
Speaker 12: fundamental to their success. He's very influential. He's very important
Speaker 12: if you have an idea for a super pack, you
Speaker 12: want to elect veterans, you want to elect women with
Speaker 12: business experience. There's a whole broad range of folks who
Speaker 12: do different kinds of super packs. He's somebody who's definitely
Speaker 12: going to be on your list to try to get,
Speaker 12: you know, at least to his advisors, to make your
Speaker 12: pitch to say this is what my plan is, this
Speaker 12: is what I'd like to do, and you know, if
Speaker 12: he decides to fund you, you have a good chance
Speaker 12: of you know, also drawing money from other donors.
Speaker 3: Bill somebody might read a story like this and come
Speaker 3: away with a really cynical view that politicians can be
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say they can be bought, but
Speaker 3: certainly people with power are able to donate a lot
Speaker 3: of money to super packs that go around traditional campaign finance.
Speaker 3: Just give us some context as to how something like
Speaker 3: this is is legal and how super PACs are able
Speaker 3: to operate in this world when certain individuals are only
Speaker 3: allowed to give a small, relatively small amount of money
Speaker 3: to individual candidates.
Speaker 12: Boy, there's you know, there's a famous saying in politics
Speaker 12: that you know, there are three important things politics, money,
Speaker 12: and I forget what the other two are. And this
Speaker 12: is this has been kind of consistent throughout history. Super
Speaker 12: packs are legal because of basically the First Amendment. The
Speaker 12: Supreme Court held that you know, if you're if you're
Speaker 12: speaking independently, ie not donating to donating to a politician,
Speaker 12: but donating to a group that tries to elect politicians
Speaker 12: at that's First Amendment protected activity. And that something called
Speaker 12: the Citizens United Case gave us these these creatures or
Speaker 12: these super packs, And it is fairly important in US
Speaker 12: politics that you know, you be able to have you know,
Speaker 12: there's there's three different kinds of donors. There's small dollar
Speaker 12: donors which are very important, but you need millions and
Speaker 12: millions of them to add up to you know, a
Speaker 12: lot of money, and then you have a handful of people,
Speaker 12: there's the folks in the middle, and you have the
Speaker 12: handful of people at the top who can with one check,
Speaker 12: you know, fund, you know, a huge, huge advise. You know,
Speaker 12: we've seen already in this campaign an investor named Timothy
Speaker 12: Mellon who put fifty million dollars into a super pack
Speaker 12: backing Donald Trump. I mean it, We've had, we've done
Speaker 12: stories that Elon Muskus thinking of putting forty five million
Speaker 12: dollars into a super pack each month to help Donald
Speaker 12: Trump with this ground game. So obviously it's hugely important
Speaker 12: and it's perfectly legal.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News National reporter Mike Smith and Bill Allison, Bloomberg
Speaker 3: News Campaign Finance reporter.
Speaker 2: That wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead in our
Speaker 2: next hour, controversial podcaster Joe Rogan invades Austin, Texas and
Speaker 2: becomes comedy's new kingmaker.
Speaker 3: Plus everyone is googling what it means to be brat
Speaker 3: after UK singer songwriter Charlie XCX labeled a VP Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris as such.
Speaker 2: All right, and folks just stop right there, don't say it,
Speaker 2: don't even suggest it. August may be here, and yet
Speaker 2: summer is not over. Our Bloomberg Pursuits team and all
Speaker 2: the things to still obsess over, to do and to
Speaker 2: see to cap off summer twenty twenty four, we still
Speaker 2: have what a month?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, six weeks? We still got a month?
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots more. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 3: I'm Carol Massa and I'm Tim Stenavic's day with us.
Speaker 3: Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen
Speaker 1: on Apple car Play and and Broud Auto with a
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg Business Week, including what having a brat summer
Speaker 2: means for Kamala Harris and the.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty four election, plus the good, the bad and
Speaker 3: the cute about Italy's electrified subcompact Icon, which is back
Speaker 3: on sale in the US after a five year break,
Speaker 3: and then a little later on Summer's not over, at
Speaker 3: least according to our Bloomberg Pursuits team. They're going to
Speaker 3: tell us the best things to do in New York
Speaker 3: City this summer, the coolest Broadway shows and movies to
Speaker 3: watch for, and from a Lego set to a new
Speaker 3: Land Rover, a checklist of products and experiences that cut
Speaker 3: their eye.
Speaker 2: First up this hour, we're talking Joe Rogan. You probably
Speaker 2: know him, I mean, come on, He's widely believed to
Speaker 2: be the most popular pud caster on earth. He's got
Speaker 2: a huge Spotify contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars,
Speaker 2: and on message boards people sometimes describe him as the
Speaker 2: Oprah Winfrey for men.
Speaker 3: About four years ago, during the pandemic, he relocated his
Speaker 3: family from la to Austin, Texas, and since then he's
Speaker 3: cultivated a lifestyle Taylor made for a new age of
Speaker 3: the comedy profession. It's one ruled by podcasts rather than
Speaker 3: Hollywood movies and sitcoms. He's got a new podcast studio
Speaker 3: Asana Cold Plunge, a bow hunting range, and most important,
Speaker 3: a new dystopian alike club for doing stand up called
Speaker 3: the Comedy Mothership, all of it engineered to share with
Speaker 3: his friends.
Speaker 2: Over the past two years, a growing group of comedians
Speaker 2: and podcasters have followed Joe Rogan to set up shop
Speaker 2: at Austin, with names such as Shane Gillis, Matt McCusker,
Speaker 2: and Tony Hinchcliffe to name a few. And let's not
Speaker 2: forget Joe Rogan's pal Elon Musk, moving Tesla's headquarters to
Speaker 2: Austin back in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Okay, so why are we talking so much about Joe Rogan?
Speaker 3: Why are we because Felix, Jellette and Ashley Carmen wrote
Speaker 3: all about Joe Rogan for Bloomberg business Week. Check out
Speaker 3: their story on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot Com.
Speaker 3: Slash A BusinessWeek Felix's Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Entertainment and Telecom
Speaker 3: editor and the author of It's Not TV, The Spectacular Rise,
Speaker 3: Revolution in Future of HBO, who joined Bloomberg's Emily Graffeo
Speaker 3: and me recently. Felix, So, how much Joe Rogan did
Speaker 3: you listen to when writing this story?
Speaker 7: A lot, a lot of Joe Rogans months of joy
Speaker 7: really months. Yeah, because he wouldn't talk to us. He
Speaker 7: doesn't really do interviews, and he loves to talk about
Speaker 7: the comedy stuff. The comedy club on his show. So
Speaker 7: it's mixed in with you know, moon landing conspiracies and
Speaker 7: a lot of mma, you know, minutia that I don't
Speaker 7: really need to know, but it was interesting. You get
Speaker 7: his whole perspective on the comedy world.
Speaker 3: So just not just recent podcast episodes, but episodes going
Speaker 3: back a few years.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for years he's been talking about this. I mean
Speaker 7: he moved from La to Austin about four years ago,
Speaker 7: and yeah, he got down there and he just like
Speaker 7: everyone who moves to Austin, they just can't shut up
Speaker 7: about it. Yeah, it's the greatest down ever. You know,
Speaker 7: we got the best barbecue, you know, like it's incredible,
Speaker 7: the hill cum Yeah, it is hot in the summer.
Speaker 7: But the one thing he didn't have is he missed
Speaker 7: having a place to perform because he was a regular
Speaker 7: at the Comedy Store in La. Austin had a stand
Speaker 7: up comedy scene over the years, but it was always
Speaker 7: pretty minor, especially compared to the you know, live music
Speaker 7: scene there. And so he was like, you know what,
Speaker 7: like I'm just gonna build a comedy club for myself
Speaker 7: and my friends, and I'm gonna spare no expense. He said,
Speaker 7: on his show that you know, it's not to make money,
Speaker 7: he just doesn't want to lose money on it. But
Speaker 7: he basically just puts all the money back into the comedians.
Speaker 7: And it's a really nice club. And because Joe Rogan
Speaker 7: is Joe Rogan and he has, you know, this huge
Speaker 7: platform that anybody who goes on Joe Rogan show is
Speaker 7: going to get a bus, you know, bump for their
Speaker 7: their comedy show, their podcast, their book, whatever it is.
Speaker 7: So his ability to recruit people is amazing. And every
Speaker 7: time he has someone on the show, he gives them
Speaker 7: the sales pitch. Come to Austin, you know, come hang
Speaker 7: out with me. You can perform at the club, you
Speaker 7: can come on my show, you can have your show.
Speaker 7: You don't have to be you know, tethered to the
Speaker 7: studios of LA and New York anymore. Just move here.
Speaker 7: And you know, some people resist, but a lot of
Speaker 7: people have heard that pitch been like yeah, okay. And
Speaker 7: you know, Shane Gillis, Brian Simpson, Tony Hinchcliff, some pretty
Speaker 7: big name comics have moved down there, and you know
Speaker 7: they all are headliners at the club and hang out
Speaker 7: with Rogan outside the club. There's like this whole scene
Speaker 7: around the bar at the Comedy Mothership. It's kind of
Speaker 7: fascinating when you're there because you have this feeling that
Speaker 7: anyone that's kind of in that world, Elon Musk, Johnny Manzell,
Speaker 7: anyone that's been on Rogan's podcast recently could pop in
Speaker 7: at any time. That's kind of like their clubhouse. And
Speaker 7: it's been this very and then that's at the top end.
Speaker 7: And then there's been this whole down effect in Austin
Speaker 7: where since Rogan opened the Comedy Mothership, there's now maybe
Speaker 7: a dozen other comedy clubs that have also opened up
Speaker 7: in the Vicinity in downtown Austin. And now if you
Speaker 7: talk to like young aspiring stand up comedians, which we
Speaker 7: did for the article, you know, instead of moving to
Speaker 7: New York or LA to try and make it, a
Speaker 7: lot of them are now like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 7: going to Austin. So there's all these group houses popping
Speaker 7: up in Austin where you have you know, ten, you know,
Speaker 7: up and coming stand up comedians all packed into a
Speaker 7: house doing the open mic nights around town and desperately
Speaker 7: trying to get a spot in the Comedy Mothership.
Speaker 5: So Joe Rogan embraced Austin. But in your reporting and
Speaker 5: Ashley's reporting, did Austin embrace Joe Rogan?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I think they have to a certain degree.
Speaker 7: I mean, Austin has been such a boom town. You know,
Speaker 7: it's been like the fastest growing city, you know, every
Speaker 7: year for like twelve years. I think they lost the
Speaker 7: title this year. But there's been a ton of people
Speaker 7: moving there, including a lot of people from California. And
Speaker 7: you know, there's this expression in Austin politics now, which is,
Speaker 7: you know, don't California my Texas, which initially people thought, oh,
Speaker 7: all these you know, California immigrants are going to make
Speaker 7: our you know, the state bluer. And actually, in the
Speaker 7: end what's happened is it hasn't been like the liberals
Speaker 7: who've moved out of California. It's the more libertarians, tech
Speaker 7: folks that want low taxes that move to Austin, Elon Musk,
Speaker 7: all these tech companies. So actually Austin has gotten a
Speaker 7: little bit less liberal over time. And you know, I
Speaker 7: was talking to Evan Smith, who's the co founder of
Speaker 7: the Texas Tribune. He's a longtime Austin journalist, and he
Speaker 7: was saying, you know, there was a time where if
Speaker 7: Joe Rogan had moved to Austin, there would have been
Speaker 7: like an outcry, you know, but those days are basically over.
Speaker 7: Like there was a little resistance at the beginning, but
Speaker 7: then they're like, well, he's putting all this money into
Speaker 7: downtown Austin, he's revamping this part of town that really
Speaker 7: suffered during the COVID and yeah, the town has embraced them.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about how podcasting has
Speaker 3: disrupted the traditional comedy route, because back in the day,
Speaker 3: the whole idea of becoming a successful comedian, you know,
Speaker 3: you go and do some really good sets, you get
Speaker 3: on one of the late shows, right, you do really
Speaker 3: well on the late shows, and then you're given a
Speaker 3: sitcom and that's that was like gold. Yeah, that was
Speaker 3: that was the way to get to the top. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not like that at all anymore.
Speaker 7: No, I mean, the whole profession has really shifted, and
Speaker 7: it's fascinating to think. I mean, in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 7: you know, the big upheaval and comedy was when Johnny
Speaker 7: Carson moved the Tonight Show from New York to LA
Speaker 7: and you know, that was the biggest thing, like getting
Speaker 7: in to do your show, you know, your act on
Speaker 7: Tonight Show, and that could just catapult you. You get a sitcom,
Speaker 7: you get a you know, movie, whatever. And all the
Speaker 7: producers on Tonight's Show would recruit and they used to
Speaker 7: recruit at you know, the comedy clubs in New York.
Speaker 7: When the show moved to LA that all moved to
Speaker 7: the Comedy Store, and so the comedy Store was like
Speaker 7: the place to be back in the day, and that was,
Speaker 7: you know, eventually, decades later, that's where Rogan hung out.
Speaker 7: A lot of his friends are like comedy store cup medians,
Speaker 7: and I think they also saw that connection that existed
Speaker 7: back in the day between the Tonight Show and the
Speaker 7: Comedy Store. You know. Yeah, late night television no longer
Speaker 7: what it once was, but it is fascinating that now
Speaker 7: like the big thing is Rogan's podcast, and similarly, the
Speaker 7: comedy club that he runs is now kind of like
Speaker 7: a gateway, and that's where talent is like, you know,
Speaker 7: pulled to with the hopes of like, well maybe if
Speaker 7: I kill it, maybe if I just absolutely make a
Speaker 7: name for myself at Rogan's Club, maybe then I get
Speaker 7: on his podcast, and that scene is like, you know,
Speaker 7: the big place to be, and even people that are
Speaker 7: out there, you know, promoting whatever it is they want
Speaker 7: to promote, especially to the demographic that listens to Joe Rogan,
Speaker 7: which is like young men presume, you know primarily, like
Speaker 7: you know, if you're selling something to that demographic, yeah,
Speaker 7: like you want to get on his podcast, you want
Speaker 7: to get on the podcasts of all of his friends
Speaker 7: who were also in Austin this whole little universe, the
Speaker 7: Rogan Verse as we like to call it, you know.
Speaker 7: And we talked to like Tucker Carlson who's trying to
Speaker 7: launch his own streaming network, independent streaming network. Yeah, he
Speaker 7: goes down there, has dinner with Joe Rogan, does the podcast,
Speaker 7: goes to the club, does another podcast in the club,
Speaker 7: you know, and just goes hang out in the mid sies,
Speaker 7: Like that's the new place to be and it is
Speaker 7: a huge shift for the industry.
Speaker 5: So what's the comedy like at the club? Is it
Speaker 5: all branded with the Joe Rogan you know, carnivore diet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you think, like and when it first opened,
Speaker 7: people were like, oh, it's an anti woke club, you know,
Speaker 7: it's all going to be Rogan style humor. In truth,
Speaker 7: it's not really like that. It's much more just like
Speaker 7: a anything goes comedy club. I mean, it's like whatever
Speaker 7: people are doing that's funny. You can get up there.
Speaker 7: Some of the humor is you know, political, but most
Speaker 7: of it's not.
Speaker 3: So is it. How's the club different than other comedy
Speaker 3: clubs that people would go to.
Speaker 7: I mean, first of all, it's very hard to get
Speaker 7: into these days. I mean that's part of why you know,
Speaker 7: another dozen clubs have opened up in Austin, because it's
Speaker 7: just really hard to get a ticket just to get
Speaker 7: in there. Additionally, you know, it's kind of like Rogan's
Speaker 7: guys who are the headliners. There's a smaller room, and
Speaker 7: there's a whole system, a hierarchy in the club. You know,
Speaker 7: you get a job as a door guy, then you
Speaker 7: work at the club, then you can do the staff
Speaker 7: shows in the smaller room. If you really are successful there,
Speaker 7: maybe you'll get up to the top room. But it's
Speaker 7: kind of like, you know, there are definitely, like plenty
Speaker 7: of big performers comedians around the country that will never
Speaker 7: go to the Comedy Mothership. It really is kind of
Speaker 7: like a place for Rogan, the people that are already
Speaker 7: in his inner circle and the people that are desperate
Speaker 7: to get into his in orse.
Speaker 3: Just very briefly, you're not allowed to bring a phone
Speaker 3: or cameras or anything in, but they have cameras set
Speaker 3: up for a very spell reason.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because they you know it's gonna you're gonna start
Speaker 7: seeing more and more live shows on Netflix. Netflix. Just
Speaker 7: at their first live show, Brian Simpson did a live
Speaker 7: from the mother Ship. You'll see more of that. The
Speaker 7: whole place is wired so that they can do specials.
Speaker 3: Our thanks to Felix Gillette, Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Entertainment and
Speaker 3: Telecom editor, also the author of It's Not TV, The
Speaker 3: Spectacular Rise Revolution in Future of HBO.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up, we'll having
Speaker 2: a brat Summer. Turned to votes in November for Vice
Speaker 2: President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: Plus the electric Fiat five hundred, reasonably priced, quick charging
Speaker 3: and cute, super cute. Our Auto View, Hanna Elliott breaks
Speaker 3: down the good, the bad, and the noisy of this
Speaker 3: Italian icon. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg business Week Podcast. Listen live
Speaker 1: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play
Speaker 1: and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can
Speaker 1: also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New
Speaker 1: York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: If you're spending your summer dancing to pop music and
Speaker 2: wearing neon lime green, you, along with hordes of TikTok
Speaker 2: young adults, and now even Kamala Harris, maybe having a
Speaker 2: brat summer.
Speaker 3: The phrase became a viral meme that originates from brat.
Speaker 3: It's the sixth studio album from British songwriter and pop
Speaker 3: artist Charlie XCS on your playlist right, yes, okay, now
Speaker 3: it is. Bloomberg's Amanda Mole writes that the album and
Speaker 3: it's the lime Green motif have become a near immediate
Speaker 3: fodder for memes, mostly in an effort to mark things
Speaker 3: as a particular type of edgy Zoomer approved cool, and
Speaker 3: now Vice President Kamala Harris is getting in on the
Speaker 3: trend with a tweet last month that simply said, Kamala
Speaker 3: is bratt Yes indeed.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 2: The strategy is simple, lean into online memes and hope
Speaker 2: that energizes young voters to head to the polls come November.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Business Speak Senior reporter Amanda Mull joined Tim and
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News cross asset reporter Emily Graffeo to explain what
Speaker 2: exactly is a brat summer.
Speaker 15: A brat summer is something that the definition of it
Speaker 15: has sort of developed as brat summer has worn on.
Speaker 15: It started as just sort of like something of a
Speaker 15: nonsense phrase, which is how a lot of memes start.
Speaker 15: Charlie's album is really fun. It is a lot of
Speaker 15: very danceable beats. It's a lot about partying, about having
Speaker 15: a good time. It is a super fun album. So
Speaker 15: I think that a lot of young people especially have
Speaker 15: dubbed their summer brat summer because they want to have fun.
Speaker 15: They want to go out with their friends, they want
Speaker 15: to go out to a club, they want to dance,
Speaker 15: things like that. We're seeing a lot of that. Like culturally,
Speaker 15: I think we've gotten far enough away from the pandemic
Speaker 15: where a lot of young people who were maybe in
Speaker 15: school during during school closures have grown up a little
Speaker 15: bit and really just want to like get out there.
Speaker 15: So this was sort of like the Perfect Part album
Speaker 15: to pair with that, and it came out in early June.
Speaker 15: So this this phrase has been around for a little while,
Speaker 15: long before Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. And
Speaker 15: I think that, like the meme itself had gained some
Speaker 15: momentum in the past, like you know, six weeks since
Speaker 15: the album had come out, and then when this happened,
Speaker 15: and it seemed to like ignite some interest in the
Speaker 15: campaign among young people who were already having a Brat Summer.
Speaker 15: So a lot of times new memes just come from
Speaker 15: two things being in proximity to each other. So Brat
Speaker 15: Summer was already in progress, and Kamala has joined the party.
Speaker 3: I suppose, well, now that I know about it, I
Speaker 3: think it's over because that's typically how this stuff works.
Speaker 16: That's probably true.
Speaker 3: That's probably true. So I apologize to everybody who was
Speaker 3: hoping to have a brad Summer. Why do you think
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris it was so quick to embrace and be
Speaker 3: embraced by this culture, but was why was Joe Biden
Speaker 3: not brat?
Speaker 15: I mean, the Biden campaign had had problems for quite
Speaker 15: a while in igniting interest and support among young people.
Speaker 15: His polling in that demographic was really bad for the
Speaker 15: entirety of the campaign basically, and I think that in
Speaker 15: a lot of sectors of democratic politics, people were worried
Speaker 15: about that. It wasn't clear that Joe himself was worried
Speaker 15: about that. You know, he has probably other fish to fry,
Speaker 15: maybe not bigger, but other. And so when the campaign
Speaker 15: changed hands, I think that it seems like people who
Speaker 15: understood that the Democrats were having issues with young voters
Speaker 15: quickly took the reins, and you know, sensing this uptick
Speaker 15: in interest and in conversation among young people, just sort
Speaker 15: of went like, Okay, if they want to talk about us,
Speaker 15: even if it's sort of ironic, even if it's sort
Speaker 15: of detached, there's some enthusiasm under there somewhere, and we
Speaker 15: should just go directly at it and embrace it.
Speaker 5: What have we seen so far about whether this is
Speaker 5: actually resonating with the younger voters. I mean, we know
Speaker 5: we have that anecdotal evidence that people are wearing Kamala
Speaker 5: T shirts, But have you seen any kind of rise
Speaker 5: in donations to the campaign or just more evidence that
Speaker 5: people are more interested in the campaign specifically.
Speaker 15: There's been a lot of social media chatter. There's a
Speaker 15: lot of anecdotal evidence, but also you can start to
Speaker 15: see in some sort of circumstantial numbers that have started
Speaker 15: to come out since the campaign changed hands, vote dot
Speaker 15: org has experienced a real uptick in interest and in visits,
Speaker 15: you know, the largest uptick in like quite a while.
Speaker 15: And you've also the Harris campaign has said that they've
Speaker 15: received donations through I believe It's Act Blue from nearly
Speaker 15: a million people who had not donated previously in this cycle.
Speaker 5: So you've got some.
Speaker 15: Evidence that people who were not previously engaged on a
Speaker 15: couple of different levels, both in voting overall, who are
Speaker 15: looking for information on how to do it, and people
Speaker 15: who had not been previously financially engaged to are then
Speaker 15: like stepping up their level of involvement. So I think
Speaker 15: that you know, obviously a lot of that is just
Speaker 15: from the change in hands, but young voters are generally
Speaker 15: disengaged at a rate much higher than other cohorts of
Speaker 15: the population. So if you're seeing the sort of like
Speaker 15: basic uptick in you know, just figuring out how to vote,
Speaker 15: I think it's safe to say that like a probably
Speaker 15: a sizeable portion of the interest is coming from that
Speaker 15: most disengaged cohort.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the proof will be in the
Speaker 3: pudding and we'll see who actually does turn out. But
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, obviously, you observe this stuff. You're not giving
Speaker 3: strategy advice. But I'm wondering how the campaign is able
Speaker 3: to keep the momentum going and stay in the cultural
Speaker 3: zeitgeist for the next hundred days.
Speaker 15: Well, I think that the best way to do that
Speaker 15: is to you know, this is a lot of fluff.
Speaker 15: This is fun. People are having fun. But I think
Speaker 15: that in order to keep young voters engaged, Kamala Harris
Speaker 15: is going to have to put some real policy proposals
Speaker 15: forward that engage them on the things that interested in.
Speaker 15: Without doing that, I think this will peter out very
Speaker 15: very quickly.
Speaker 3: That was Amanda Mole, Bloomberg BusinessWeek senior reporter.
Speaker 9: So bummed.
Speaker 2: I miss that, man. It's like it's become such a
Speaker 2: big part of like the conversation right now. Carol is Brett,
Speaker 2: tim Is Brett from the casual yet edgy aesthetic a
Speaker 2: bratt to something that is small, practical, and adorable. That's
Speaker 2: how our Bloomberg pursuites. Auto columnist Hannah Elliott described the
Speaker 2: new electric Fiat five hundred.
Speaker 3: We talk about it all the time. Hannah has such
Speaker 3: a cool job. She drives then writes about supercars and
Speaker 3: luxury vehicles. Sometimes these things cost millions of dollars. This time, though,
Speaker 3: Hannah shares her experience driving the more reasonably priced and
Speaker 3: cute Italian icon.
Speaker 17: It was so fun. I have to say, I did
Speaker 17: not know what to expect. Like you said, this is
Speaker 17: a little bit below sort of our normal price range
Speaker 17: that will typically review. But of course Fiat and especially
Speaker 17: the five hundred comes from a really long heritage, you know,
Speaker 17: a debut and Night teen fifty seven in Italy. Of
Speaker 17: course we've seen all the beautiful Italian movies with the
Speaker 17: five hundred driving through the streets of.
Speaker 10: Italy, So how could I resist?
Speaker 17: Right?
Speaker 10: Also, this car has been not.
Speaker 17: Been in the US since twenty nineteen, and they just
Speaker 17: brought it back this year as an electric vehicle. They're
Speaker 17: doing special drops, kind of like with shoes or with records.
Speaker 17: I drove the Inspired by Music version, which was the
Speaker 17: latest drop, and it was so fun, you guys, I
Speaker 17: it was like everything you need and nothing you don't,
Speaker 17: and I think every electric vehicle should be one of these.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me, like, what is it? Because you listen,
Speaker 2: you've been in so many different evs, and some that
Speaker 2: are super super expensive. What was it specifically, like you said,
Speaker 2: everything that you need, Like, just walk us through it
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 17: I liked it because it's kind of like a no
Speaker 17: mustno fuss type of vehicle. It has a range of
Speaker 17: about one hundred and forty nine miles. That's kind of
Speaker 17: half where a lot of other evs are. But you
Speaker 17: start to realize you don't really necessary, brely need that
Speaker 17: many miles if you're just popping out to the store
Speaker 17: to get coffee or just for your daily commute. So
Speaker 17: I really liked how easy it was, and like you said, Tim,
Speaker 17: how quickly it recharges. I actually did find that it
Speaker 17: recharges extremely fast.
Speaker 10: And also it's just zippy. Now, on paper, the five hundred.
Speaker 17: Eight it says it gets to sixteen about a little
Speaker 17: over eight seconds, which is not very much, but it
Speaker 17: feels really fast when you're darting in and out of traffic.
Speaker 17: And you know, this car is half the length of
Speaker 17: a lot of other cars, including some of my longer
Speaker 17: ones that I own, So you kind of just zip around,
Speaker 17: and I swear I probably shaved off ten to fifteen
Speaker 17: minutes for my commute just because I was zipping in
Speaker 17: and out of traffic, and I had a really fun
Speaker 17: time doing it.
Speaker 3: Such an la thing to do, right, completely, that's that's
Speaker 3: so la, hey. Can you One thing I really liked
Speaker 3: about your story was sort of the history of why
Speaker 3: Fiat has been on and off in the US and
Speaker 3: Canada in recent years, but over the last I was
Speaker 3: going to say thirty years, but like over the last
Speaker 3: fifty years, what happened Take us into a little history there.
Speaker 10: Well, it's a really good question.
Speaker 17: You know, these were started to be made in Earnest
Speaker 17: in the sixties, and they were just really focused on economy,
Speaker 17: you know, very fuel efficient and kind of bare bones,
Speaker 17: and they started to get a reputation for not being
Speaker 17: very well made. I mean, these were sort of economy cars,
Speaker 17: which were great for doing economy type things. But by
Speaker 17: the time that the seventies and eighties came around and
Speaker 17: America was building these huge metal, very cool cars, think
Speaker 17: like Lincoln and big Fords and big Cheves Camaros, this Fiat,
Speaker 17: it just seemed like, why would you want to drive
Speaker 17: something that has hardly any power? And it was really
Speaker 17: small and diminutive. It just kind of fell out of fashion,
Speaker 17: to be honest, and so Fiat has tried. They tried
Speaker 17: bringing it back in. You might remember in twenty twelve,
Speaker 17: you might remember the Fiat A Barth versions, which was
Speaker 17: another attempt to get Americans excited about again about it again.
Speaker 17: The A Barth was like this very sporty manual version
Speaker 17: that actually is doing pretty well on the secondary market
Speaker 17: right now. But again it just didn't really hit and
Speaker 17: by twenty nineteen, in order to make it legal again
Speaker 17: for the next generation, they would have had to spend
Speaker 17: a lot of money to redo safety testing, and it
Speaker 17: was just decided the sales aren't.
Speaker 10: Proving worth it. But now we're gonna try it again
Speaker 10: with the electric version. I kind of like it. I'm
Speaker 10: rooting for it, I have.
Speaker 2: To say, all right, But because you are so balanced
Speaker 2: and you always talk about the stuff you love and
Speaker 2: the stuff you don't like, tell us about that jingle
Speaker 2: every time you turn it on and off.
Speaker 17: Oh man, Okay, there were a couple things that I
Speaker 17: did not like. Now this was it was it felt
Speaker 17: like you're in a child's toy appliance. The jingle is
Speaker 17: when you push the button to turn the car on,
Speaker 17: and when you turned it off, there's this whole like
Speaker 17: electronic melody that plays, and it makes me feel deranged.
Speaker 17: It just feels too cloying, too sweet. It's like, we
Speaker 17: don't need this, it's too much. Another little gripe I
Speaker 17: had was this, you know, the single cup holder is
Speaker 17: kind of out of sight, out of mind in the
Speaker 17: cabin of the car.
Speaker 10: So that wasn't great. And I did end up getting
Speaker 10: towed in the.
Speaker 17: Car through a course of multiple events that involved a
Speaker 17: broken electric charger and then a parking lot that apparently
Speaker 17: was private, and.
Speaker 10: The car was cold when I went to go charge it.
Speaker 17: But I have to say I did get the car
Speaker 17: back four hundred and sixty six dollars later, and it
Speaker 17: was fully charged.
Speaker 3: That was Bloomberg Pursuit's auto columnist Hannah Elliott.
Speaker 2: Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, feeling like summer is over. Well, stop,
Speaker 2: it's not, and there is still so much to do
Speaker 2: and time.
Speaker 3: To do it, including grabbing a table at one of
Speaker 3: the city's hot dining spots or grabbing one of the
Speaker 3: seven products are Pursuits team is obsessing over. That's all ahead,
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebek.
Speaker 10: Watches out most of the time.
Speaker 16: Perceived as a time capsule, it's very chic and posh.
Speaker 10: The most powerful car made in the US. You get
Speaker 10: the beautiful interior or the iconic design.
Speaker 1: It's time to take a look at luxury with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Pursuits on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: A land Rover defender that can weigh through more than
Speaker 2: three feet of water. A coffee machine that can make
Speaker 2: a cold brew in less than four minutes. Tim, are
Speaker 2: you listening, I'm listening. And dun Jaws is back in
Speaker 2: the form of a two foot long lego set.
Speaker 3: That's actually the most exciting one.
Speaker 2: We've got the seven products arriving in August that our
Speaker 2: Pursuits team is obsessing over.
Speaker 3: Plus the best movies, books and TV shows to check out,
Speaker 3: and the best things to do in New York City
Speaker 3: this summer. Because, hey, folks, although Labor Day is around
Speaker 3: the corner, summer is not over. Don't even suggest that
Speaker 3: to the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits Chris Rouser, who I
Speaker 3: don't want to hear it in the studio.
Speaker 16: I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 3: It's only the beginning of August. It is the last
Speaker 3: month of summer. Four weeks, it's.
Speaker 16: The whole month. How many months of summer do we have?
Speaker 3: It's a third In New York City, summer summer is short.
Speaker 2: You don't go there, do not go Yeah.
Speaker 16: Sure, no, it is.
Speaker 9: It is.
Speaker 8: It's school goes really late in New York City. People
Speaker 8: don't really slow down until July. Suddenly it's the name
Speaker 8: of July and you're saying, summer's already over.
Speaker 3: So what are we supposed to do?
Speaker 2: You did a smart thing, and I have said to myself,
Speaker 2: I need to do this, What did you do in June?
Speaker 8: So for our news our, for our weekly Pursuits newsletter,
Speaker 8: my big pitch this week was go for a city summer, like,
Speaker 8: spend time in the city, luxury in it. If you
Speaker 8: live in New York City, it's quite hot, obviously, but
Speaker 8: so people flee the city. But a lot of times
Speaker 8: the best time in the city actually is the summer
Speaker 8: because you can get into restaurants and all, you can
Speaker 8: see shows and stuff that are harder to see other
Speaker 8: times a year. But my secret is you do get
Speaker 8: out of the out of the city in the summer,
Speaker 8: but you get out in the month of June and
Speaker 8: you go somewhere chill. So we rented a cottage on
Speaker 8: a lake, nothing nowhere fancy and just like hung out
Speaker 8: and it was quiet and.
Speaker 16: We got a break.
Speaker 8: And then you get back and it's the beginning of
Speaker 8: July and instead of feeling like summer's already over, you're like, wow,
Speaker 8: I had a whole other summer and shift, now there's
Speaker 8: the rest of it.
Speaker 3: Hold on, did you take vacation or did you work
Speaker 3: the whole time?
Speaker 8: I took one week off, so I was there for like,
Speaker 8: you know, sort of nine ten days off and then
Speaker 8: the rest was just the week.
Speaker 3: Did it still feel like you were getting relaxation time
Speaker 3: in even while you were working from there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, because there was no one around that we really knew.
Speaker 8: So it was just hanging out, going to the lake
Speaker 8: with my daughter, you know, exploring restaurants, just hiking stuff
Speaker 8: like that.
Speaker 2: But I love that idea of June because it feels like, right,
Speaker 2: you come back and you're like, I've still got July
Speaker 2: and August to get through having said that, what are
Speaker 2: some of the smart things to do in the summer,
Speaker 2: because there's still a lot of things, Like you said
Speaker 2: about restaurants, right, there's a lot of times people are away.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so we talked to Rezian open Table because you know,
Speaker 8: getting reservations in the city is this whole thing. Now
Speaker 8: there's bots and you're competing against everybody who has a computer,
Speaker 8: but actually, reservations on open Table and Rezi slow down
Speaker 8: in the summer, and particularly they slow down on Saturday
Speaker 8: nights because a lot of people leave on the weekends,
Speaker 8: so prime tables, as you can't normally get, you might
Speaker 8: actually be able to.
Speaker 16: Get on a Saturday.
Speaker 8: And open Table actually has a new program where they
Speaker 8: they pick out like the top restaurants in eleven different cities,
Speaker 8: and you can just kind of go to that list
Speaker 8: and be like, all right, what are the top hot restaurants.
Speaker 8: I'm just going to look right now on this page
Speaker 8: and see when they become a when they're next available,
Speaker 8: so you don't have to search, like for one particular
Speaker 8: night or something like that.
Speaker 3: One thing that's also fun to do in the summer here,
Speaker 3: at least according to you, is go check out some
Speaker 3: of the stuff that's happening during the day. For example,
Speaker 3: in Fort Green Park. Oh yeah, Soul Summit in July. Yes,
Speaker 3: what is that?
Speaker 16: Have you ever been to Salsal Soul Summit is.
Speaker 8: It's a crazy, big party where they get disco DJs
Speaker 8: to play from the top in the monument in the
Speaker 8: park and people come from all over the city and outside,
Speaker 8: and they bring food and they barbecue and they drink
Speaker 8: and they party. And I brought my daughter and she
Speaker 8: kept trying to go up to people and saying like, Oh,
Speaker 8: I want one of those frozen drinks, and the people.
Speaker 16: Were like, that's not for children.
Speaker 8: But it's just so fun and joyful, and like every
Speaker 8: different kind of person is there, And things like that
Speaker 8: happen all over the city, like the Philharmonic as out
Speaker 8: our concerts and the Shakespeare in the Park this summer
Speaker 8: actually is not performing at the Delacorte Theater in Central
Speaker 8: Park so because it's getting renovated, so they're doing pop
Speaker 8: up performances all through the city.
Speaker 16: There's just a lot to see.
Speaker 2: You have me at the Word Disco.
Speaker 16: Oh yeah, love Love Love.
Speaker 2: Let's switch gears a little bit. You also have a story,
Speaker 2: the best movies, books, TV shows and events coming in August.
Speaker 2: There's still a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, of course, you know. So in the new
Speaker 8: Monthly business Week we always have an entertainment page, which
Speaker 8: we didn't always have before in the Weekly Business Week,
Speaker 8: And so for every issue we have our recommendations for
Speaker 8: TV and movies and stuff coming in the next month
Speaker 8: that pursuits picks. And so there's a bunch of stuff
Speaker 8: that we're particularly excited about this month. Speaking of things
Speaker 8: to see in the city, Oh Mary on Broadway. You
Speaker 8: guys have to see it. It's so funny.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's extended through November tenth, so that's doable.
Speaker 16: Yes, do it.
Speaker 8: And you know I want you to see cats. Also,
Speaker 8: the TV show Bad Monkey, which is based on a
Speaker 8: Karl Hyson book, is supposed.
Speaker 16: To be really great.
Speaker 1: Pact.
Speaker 8: The producers of ted Lasso are behind it. It's on
Speaker 8: Apple TV. Plus, there's a great book by Ian Fraser
Speaker 8: from The New Yorker called Paradise Bronx, The Life and
Speaker 8: Times of New York's Greatest Borough.
Speaker 2: We want to get them on. We need to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, join us anyway.
Speaker 8: That's really good and there's this great film Sing Sing,
Speaker 8: which was actually at a bunch of festivals, so some
Speaker 8: people have seen it already, which is actually set in
Speaker 8: the prison upstate, and it stars Coleman Domingo like as
Speaker 8: as an inmate learning to express themselves through art. With
Speaker 8: a cast that is professional is mixed in with formally
Speaker 8: incarcerated people. Just looks like it's gonna be really.
Speaker 3: Good, very cool. A lot to choose from over the summer. Okay,
Speaker 3: so that's sort of arts and culture. What you can do,
Speaker 3: what you can eat. What about a vehicle that can
Speaker 3: have some muscle, the land Rover Defender a special version. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so this is like if you're going to Nantucket or what.
Speaker 16: Yeah, yeah, you want to driving, just drive right to Nantucket.
Speaker 16: See how it goes. Also in the New Monthly business Week,
Speaker 16: we have.
Speaker 3: Making fun of me. Put on the ferry, go to Nantucking,
Speaker 3: you drive on the beach, Chris, come on.
Speaker 8: In the New Monthly business Week, we have a feature
Speaker 8: every every month in the front of the magazine and
Speaker 8: the in context section that's called the Right Stuff, And
Speaker 8: the editors let the let the pursuits team take over
Speaker 8: one page of the front of book and we just put.
Speaker 8: All the coolest stuff that's coming out this month usually
Speaker 8: arranged around themes, and so this month are Our favorite
Speaker 8: thing that's come is the land Rover Defender Octa, which
Speaker 8: is the most powerful Defender yet that has six one
Speaker 8: hundred and twenty six horse power and it's not cheap.
Speaker 8: It's one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars. But it
Speaker 8: can go to from zero to sixteen to three point
Speaker 8: eight seconds, which is really fast for a big, heavy car.
Speaker 3: This likely will be used to get to the grocery
Speaker 3: store and not do off roading.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of Defenders in the Hampton and Tucket.
Speaker 8: They didn't swim there.
Speaker 2: But you got to talk about this new coffee thing.
Speaker 3: It's a good way to describe it, the Oracle Jet.
Speaker 2: The Oracles And I'm like, Tim's got to be do
Speaker 2: you have this one?
Speaker 3: I do not have this one. No, No, Mine is
Speaker 3: an old fashioned machine. But Chris, what is this thing?
Speaker 8: So this is so their flagship model, which is the
Speaker 8: Oracle Jet automatic coffee machine now can make cold brew
Speaker 8: and cold espresso in less than four minutes instead of
Speaker 8: having to seep.
Speaker 16: It overnight in your fridge. Blah blah, blah.
Speaker 8: There are a few new products that come coming out
Speaker 8: that can make cold brew very quickly. This is one
Speaker 8: of the best. It's two thousand dollars and has forty
Speaker 8: five grind settings.
Speaker 16: Are you a coldbrew person.
Speaker 3: Tillage, Yeah, I like coldbrew. Usually I have a warm
Speaker 3: espresso hot espresso in the morning, but I'll do coldbrew
Speaker 3: in the summer too.
Speaker 2: Coffee.
Speaker 3: I am a coffee snob. I'm also a Lego snob. Yes,
Speaker 3: this was my favorite thing. Same my favorite thing as well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: why did you include? Like Legos is not Legos not
Speaker 3: typically something you include in pursuits.
Speaker 8: You know, Actually that's not true. We do occasionally talk
Speaker 8: about how Lego sets get made and how they take
Speaker 8: an actual item, you know, something that's out in the
Speaker 8: real world, said Eiffel Tower, which they probably have made
Speaker 8: for decades. But and then they do cam models and
Speaker 8: they figure out how to make it best with the pieces.
Speaker 3: I stand corrected, Thank you, Chris.
Speaker 16: Well.
Speaker 8: What I did not know is that they have like
Speaker 8: a fan idea site that you can submit ideas for
Speaker 8: them to do this exact treatment with and then if
Speaker 8: they get ten thousand likes on their website on this
Speaker 8: like public forum. Right then they'll consider it and they
Speaker 8: make a lot of them. And so this guy Annie
Speaker 8: Campbell posted it to the Ideas platform and ten more
Speaker 8: than ten thousand people said they wanted it to let
Speaker 8: go to make it, and Lego made it.
Speaker 16: It's this Hugel.
Speaker 2: I think you need to do this with your son.
Speaker 3: I would absolutely.
Speaker 16: We said it's Jaws. It's the shark from Jaws and
Speaker 16: the Boats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he would be a little scared of this. He's
Speaker 3: like in a scared of animals phase. But yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: maybe when he's a little older, it is. Maybe I'll
Speaker 3: do it without him.
Speaker 16: It's really cool.
Speaker 2: It is so cool. We have a few more minutes.
Speaker 10: Where would you like to go?
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 8: One of the things that I liked reporting out during
Speaker 8: this week's during this month's issue, actually is this story
Speaker 8: we did about TV shows on CBS. Because CBS is
Speaker 8: the network that everybody watches, that TV snobs never talk about,
Speaker 8: and they always have the number one shows.
Speaker 16: Tracker is the number one show.
Speaker 8: Which they which debuted after the Super Bowl. It had
Speaker 8: like eleven million viewers, And they always have a number
Speaker 8: of comedy, which is usually one of the Big Bang
Speaker 8: Theory spin off so first there's the Big Bang Theory.
Speaker 8: Then there was Young Sheldon. Now Young Sheldon has ended,
Speaker 8: and a spinoff of that, Georgie and Mandy's first marriage
Speaker 8: is coming out, so.
Speaker 3: True, I know, a spin off of a spinoff.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well there was a prequel. This is a spin
Speaker 8: off of the prequel to the original. Okay, and it's
Speaker 8: going to be the number one comedy on TV. And
Speaker 8: you know, people maybe aren't going to talk about it
Speaker 8: zero bond, Like, it's just the CBS really knows how
Speaker 8: to make these hits, and so they haven't a spin
Speaker 8: off of NCIS Origins, which is the which is about
Speaker 8: Mark Harmon.
Speaker 16: But like before the.
Speaker 8: Original n CIS happened, they're doing a Mattlock reboot. They're
Speaker 8: doing a Sherlock Holmes reboot called Watson, which is just
Speaker 8: about medical mysteries. And they just Chuck Lorie, who does
Speaker 8: all their big comedies, is sort of a mastermind of this.
Speaker 8: But they just are making stuff that people want to watch,
Speaker 8: and they put it out on streaming, not just on
Speaker 8: Paramount plus Paramount Plus anymore. And because it's on other platforms,
Speaker 8: people discover it on like Netflix, like young people discover
Speaker 8: it and then they bounce back and watch the live shows,
Speaker 8: So it actually is bringing in younger audiences, even though
Speaker 8: you may think it's like an old model.
Speaker 2: Quote Sunday Morning and all those shows and you make.
Speaker 8: Fun of Sunday Morning is the greatest television show except
Speaker 8: for the one that you two are on.
Speaker 3: Oh Chris, Chris, Yeah, Well, I was going to ask
Speaker 3: about Chuck Lori because he's has this magic touch and
Speaker 3: he creates so many successful shows for CBS. We spoke
Speaker 3: to him actually not a year ago. Yeah, we did
Speaker 3: philanthropic work that he's done in the Los.
Speaker 2: Angeles character by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's great.
Speaker 8: And they're filming Georgie and Manny's first marriage in front
Speaker 8: of a live studio. Audiences think about such a young
Speaker 8: people who grew up from single cam parks and rec
Speaker 8: like kind of.
Speaker 16: Stuff the office.
Speaker 3: They have no idea what they're like.
Speaker 16: What is people are laughing at soho show.
Speaker 3: Him Home Improvement? Remember Home Improvement? That was y Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's going to be like that.
Speaker 2: I was thrown blown away by it, said The network
Speaker 2: air thirteen of the top twenty broadcast series in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three.
Speaker 16: Everyone is watching the show.
Speaker 2: It's like It's just really really wild.
Speaker 3: See Tim, Yeah, Carols, Carol's on the van. Just see
Speaker 3: what Chris is Ie everyone, Carol is everyone Our Thanks
Speaker 3: to Chris Arouser, the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits it does
Speaker 3: wrap up the weekend edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: Week Monday through Friday, starting at tpm Wall Street Time
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and of course Serious XM
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Speaker 3: Also catch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg
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Speaker 2: Find out Bloomberg Business Week podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcast. The latest edition of
Speaker 2: the magazine check it out. The monthly edition available on
Speaker 2: newstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and always on the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 3: I'm Tim Stanebeck and I'm Carol Master.
Speaker 2: Great and safe weekend, everybody. Stay with us today's top
Speaker 2: stories in global business. Headlines coming up right now.
Speaker 17: M