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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.

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Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Bramowitz. Each day we

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Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for

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Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store

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Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L

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Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. Cryptocurrency

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Speaker 1: investors seem to think that the asset class is looking

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Speaker 1: bubblicious and bitcoin itself is in a bubble, but they

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Speaker 1: don't see it popping anytime soon. Here to talk about

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Speaker 1: this with us is a cryptocurrency investor himself, Chris Berniski,

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Speaker 1: partner of Placeholder. He also is an advisor to our

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Speaker 1: investment management, which does invest in bitcoin, and he joins

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Speaker 1: us here in our eleven three oh studios. So, Chris,

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Speaker 1: would you agree that bitcoin is in a double and

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Speaker 1: yet it won't pop anytime soon so it doesn't matter?

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Speaker 1: There are any number of ways we could approach this question.

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Speaker 1: On one hand, we could say money is the bubble

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Speaker 1: that never pops and uh as a store of value

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Speaker 1: or or that being one of its use cases for bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of demand within the traditional capital

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Speaker 1: markets for a risk off store value, a disaster hedge,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, just as people use gold. So that's

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Speaker 1: one side of it. Um. Now bitcoin is is off

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Speaker 1: over from its all time highs. Now, there are over

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Speaker 1: a thousand other crypto assets right and many of those

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Speaker 1: um are near all time highs. They're not off um

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Speaker 1: although today we've had a correction and many of those,

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Speaker 1: I would argue are much more in a bubble um

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Speaker 1: in terms of where their prices relative to where their

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Speaker 1: actual utility is. Chris, maybe just step back for just

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Speaker 1: a second, because I always like to find out, you know,

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Speaker 1: the definition of these things, like a definition of bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: and I was trying to put it into a context

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Speaker 1: that appeals to my analog brain, and I was thinking

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Speaker 1: of stamps, actual physical paper stamps is a limited number

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Speaker 1: that are issued, and if you go back in time,

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Speaker 1: stamps or even revenue script was something that could be

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Speaker 1: traded and could be used for multiple transactions, and at

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Speaker 1: each point you could even place a little snip or

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Speaker 1: you could cut away a little piece of paper that

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Speaker 1: would sort of detail who actually used that stamp. Is

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Speaker 1: that a good way to look at what a bitcoin

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Speaker 1: is or what a cryptocurrency, what role it plays. I

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Speaker 1: think that stamps have some properties which relate closely to

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Speaker 1: to a cryptocurrency, but um, a cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Bitcoin

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Speaker 1: is more broad in its use cases, and so I

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Speaker 1: really would think of it um per the economic definition

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Speaker 1: of a currency being a means of exchange, a store value,

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Speaker 1: and a unit of account. Right now, bitcoin serves as

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Speaker 1: a great store of value, a medio to to to

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Speaker 1: to low value mean medium of exchange, and not a

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Speaker 1: great unit of account outside of the crypto space because

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Speaker 1: it's so volatile. One aspect that has definitely been present

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Speaker 1: on people's minds is this idea of regulation. And the

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Speaker 1: SEC came out last week and said that initial coin

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Speaker 1: offerings in particular look a lot like securities. In fact,

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Speaker 1: they are securities, but they're not they're not sticking with

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Speaker 1: they're not following securities laws. How much does the sec

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Speaker 1: is apparent interest in cryptocurrencies, Uh, basically cap the potential

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Speaker 1: gains just because this has been a really largely unregulated space,

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Speaker 1: and that will change. I think, um, it doesn't. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't cap the opportunity to actually expands the opportunity in

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Speaker 1: that we need this space to be better regulated. We

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Speaker 1: need more clarity. The entrepreneurs, the investors, all of the

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Speaker 1: all of us are craving more more clarity, and so

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Speaker 1: regulation is just part of the maturation of this asset class.

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Speaker 1: And and for me, there may be uh temporary jitters

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Speaker 1: um around the sec coming in and enforcement action, but

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Speaker 1: longer term, I think this is a healthy development. What's

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Speaker 1: the ultimate goal? Is it for a bitcoin to act

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Speaker 1: as basically a gold substitute, a store of value, especially

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Speaker 1: for people in countries where the currency is incredibly volatile?

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Speaker 1: Is it to replace paper currencies and replace national currencies?

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Speaker 1: Where are we heading with this? Well, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: pull it back to the idea of crypto assets, which

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Speaker 1: is what I wrote the book on UM. I think

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Speaker 1: of crypto assets as a new asset class that organizes

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Speaker 1: human activity. And so the goal, I would argue, more

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Speaker 1: than replacing fiat currencies is replacing equities um as again

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Speaker 1: as a means to to organize and incentivize human activity.

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Speaker 1: UM around information networks. Bitcoin is an information network that

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Speaker 1: transmits currency ETHEREUM is an information network that coordinates compute

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Speaker 1: logic and developers file coins and formation network that stores files.

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Speaker 1: So we go far beyond the idea of cryptocurrencies, which

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Speaker 1: is why I call them crypto assets into cryptocurrencies, crypto commodities,

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Speaker 1: crypto tokens, and the information networks that they support. Chris,

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Speaker 1: Cryptocurrencies and financial technology fintech seemed to come together, at

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Speaker 1: least in various news reports, particularly when it comes to

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Speaker 1: markets in Asia. And I'm wondering if you could just

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Speaker 1: give us a little insight into what you believe the

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Speaker 1: future will look like in a place that is readily

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Speaker 1: accepting of cryptocurrencies. I mean, could we have a cryptocurrency,

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Speaker 1: let's say that's even back partly by gold, for example.

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Speaker 1: I think the possibilities are unless I think, um, you

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Speaker 1: brought up Asia. Asia has certainly been um, one of

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Speaker 1: the hard hottest areas for this space. UM. Something that

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Speaker 1: I've been trying to get to the bottom of is

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Speaker 1: how much of this is entrepreneurs and people building real

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Speaker 1: utility versus how much of this is speculators Because we know,

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Speaker 1: um that some of the Asian nations have a tendency

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Speaker 1: UM or an appetite for speculation. UM. But certainly in

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Speaker 1: countries like Korea or China where digital payments mobile payments

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Speaker 1: are prolific. I think that there's a high likelihood that

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Speaker 1: they adopt cryptocurrencies on a on a mass scale earlier

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Speaker 1: than we do in the US. Just going back to

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Speaker 1: what you were saying about crypto assets, I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: envision what this means. Does it mean that there could

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Speaker 1: be some kind of crypto tender that could be used

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Speaker 1: within an industry, like a retail cryptocurrency specific or you know,

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Speaker 1: specific to automobiles or something like that, and then you

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Speaker 1: could invest in a sector based uh type of tender?

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Speaker 1: Is that? Is that what you'r is that where you're

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Speaker 1: going with this? I think that's one way to look

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Speaker 1: at it. That that would be say sector specific currencies UM,

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Speaker 1: and you could design properties of that currency UM to

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Speaker 1: fit that sector. And there could even be loyalty points

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Speaker 1: baked into it. There's all kinds of things right These

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Speaker 1: UM these protocols are really just software that replaced middlemen,

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Speaker 1: that commoditized middlemen and the functions of middlemen in different areas.

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Speaker 1: But I just wonder how much a barrier is of

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Speaker 1: having regular consumers wrap their heads around a different form

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Speaker 1: of tender for different types. It's a complicated issue. How

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Speaker 1: do you get enough people on board. Well, that's the

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Speaker 1: currency aspect, right, and I don't necessarily know that we

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Speaker 1: end up having sector specific currencies or more these universal currencies,

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Speaker 1: some like Bitcoin that are really good at storing value,

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Speaker 1: others like z cash which are anonymous, others like light

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Speaker 1: coin which are a little faster or whatever it may be. UM.

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Speaker 1: But again, to pull us back with this opportunity, it's

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Speaker 1: not only currencies, right, Many of these are commodities UM,

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Speaker 1: creating markets for digital commodities, just as we have markets

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Speaker 1: for physical commodities. So why can't I trade cloud storage

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Speaker 1: futures or bandwidth future um or GPU flop futures, and

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Speaker 1: really what crypto commodities things like file coin or gollum

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Speaker 1: or these things. A lot of those are creating digital

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Speaker 1: markets for these digital commodities. And in terms of getting

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Speaker 1: the retail or that the average investor, average user on board, UM,

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Speaker 1: I think we're very similar to you know, late eighties,

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Speaker 1: early nineties trying to get people on board with the Internet.

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Speaker 1: Most people had no clue what it was going to

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Speaker 1: be used for, how to be relevant to their lives,

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Speaker 1: And it is built to be relevant into their lives

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Speaker 1: by entrepreneurs and Investors. Thanks very much for being with us.

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Speaker 1: Chris Berniski is a partner for a Placeholder and advisor

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Speaker 1: to our investment management and he is the author of

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Speaker 1: the book Crypto Assets, The Innovative Investors Guide to Bitcoin

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Speaker 1: and Beyond. We turned our attention now to Joshua Green,

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Speaker 1: our national correspondent for Bloomberg Business. We can be followed

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at Joshua Green. He is also the author

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Speaker 1: of Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming

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Speaker 1: of the Presidency. Josh Green, maybe you want to give

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Speaker 1: us an update, is if there anything that we need

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Speaker 1: to know about the ongoing feud between the Trump White House,

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, the Republican Party, all because of this book

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Speaker 1: Fire and Fury by Michael Wolfe. Well, it doesn't seem

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Speaker 1: like it's going to be resold anytime soon. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: Bannon put out a statement apologizing to Donald Trump Jr.

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Speaker 1: Who we described as treason as for holding a meeting

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Speaker 1: with Russian officials in um. Doesn't seem to be much

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Speaker 1: indications in the White House that's doing anything to smooth

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Speaker 1: the waters. But I've been talking to people in Bannon

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Speaker 1: orbits who say you know, he is determined to get

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Speaker 1: himself back into Trump's good graces, and you know the

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Speaker 1: only way to do that is to keep on a pole,

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Speaker 1: lologizing and trying to ingratiate yourself to Trump, who actually

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Speaker 1: does have a long history of continuing to talk to

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Speaker 1: people he's fired and eventually bringing them back into the fall.

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Speaker 1: So it's unlikely, but not impossible to think that Bannon

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Speaker 1: could somehow worm his way back into the president's good graces. Josh.

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Speaker 1: One thing that I have struggled to understand is this

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Speaker 1: all unfolds, is what Bannon's political clout really is. Because

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Speaker 1: a lot of people associated him with President Trump's base

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Speaker 1: of supporters. Bright Bart certainly was under his thumb. Bright

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Speaker 1: Bart seems to be distancing themselves from Bannon. So does

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Speaker 1: Bannon really represent at this point the base as so

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Speaker 1: many people initially believed. Well, that's unclear. But it's also

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Speaker 1: what I think drove the split between Trump and Bannon.

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Speaker 1: You know, Trump obviously thinks that nobody but Trump himself

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Speaker 1: deserves credit for his presidential victory um and Bannon, on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, thought that Trump was a bit on

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Speaker 1: a set of ideas that Trump turned out not really

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Speaker 1: to believe in that much this idea of a kind

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Speaker 1: of a right wing populist nationalism. So Bennon's project, ever

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Speaker 1: since he left the White House last August, was trying

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Speaker 1: to advance this national movement beyond Trump and he had

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Speaker 1: he had uh spent a lot of time recruiting candidates

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Speaker 1: to run against Republican incumbents Canadas who would work to

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Speaker 1: out sent a majority leader Mitch McConnell, who Bannon's thought

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Speaker 1: was impeding his nationalist project. Um. I think the problem

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Speaker 1: is that that Bannon, Bannon's ego kind of got out

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Speaker 1: ahead of where maybe it belonged. And what we what

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Speaker 1: we're gonna find out from this latest episode is now

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Speaker 1: that Trump has split with him so publicly and so decisively,

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Speaker 1: is there really a populist movement that's loyal to these

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Speaker 1: ideas that will split off and go with Bennon or

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Speaker 1: is it really more a cult of personality that's likely

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Speaker 1: to stay loyal to the president. Josh Green, what does

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Speaker 1: this do for a potential legislation regarding infrastructure, welfare reform,

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Speaker 1: more men, even funding for the US Mexico border wall.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it does a whole lot I mean,

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Speaker 1: on the margins, it might make that a little bit

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Speaker 1: easier to pass. Um. It's going to be necessary to

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Speaker 1: do that in a bipartisan manner. And one of the

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Speaker 1: things that Bannon did it Bryite Barton News, was put

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Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the right wing of the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party not to come together, not to make deals

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Speaker 1: with Democrats. With that voice silenced or diminished, it ought,

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Speaker 1: in theory be easier for for the President and Republicans

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Speaker 1: and Democrats in Congress to agree on something and move

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Speaker 1: it forward. Josh, what about Bannon's allies in the White

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Speaker 1: House or former allies. I'm thinking in particular of Steve Miller,

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Speaker 1: does this potentially threaten their fate in the White House?

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Speaker 1: Or as Steve Miller effectively got against Bannon and edified

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Speaker 1: his standing with President Trump. No, Trump made clear you're

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Speaker 1: either with Bannon or you're with me, and Miller is

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Speaker 1: very much with Trump. You know, went on CNN interview

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Speaker 1: Jake Tapper yesterday, Uh basically was abasing himself to Trump, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, behaving like a factotum. In fact, the interview

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Speaker 1: was cut short in Miller. Miller was apparently marched out

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Speaker 1: of CNN by security, so he's left absolutely no doubt

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Speaker 1: as to where his loyalties lie. They lie with Trump,

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Speaker 1: not Bannon. I think that Jack Tapper at the end

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Speaker 1: of the interview said there's one viewer you're catering to

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Speaker 1: right now, and he was talking, of course, to regarding

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Speaker 1: a president of Trump. Thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 1: It's wonderful to hear your perspective as the expert frankly

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Speaker 1: on Ban and Steve Bannon and giving some color of

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Speaker 1: what we can expect going forward and why this is significant.

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Speaker 1: Josh Green, national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week. Press one

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Speaker 1: for information about your account, press to to make a payment.

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Speaker 1: Robert Locacio he joins US now. He is founder and

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Speaker 1: chief executive officer of Live person, which is based in

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Speaker 1: New York and seeks to make that your experience when

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Speaker 1: you call companies, that customer service should be automated with

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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence rather than have a real person on the

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Speaker 1: other line. Robert, your business has sound tremendously well in

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Speaker 1: the past year. Your share prices have surged. Is that

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Speaker 1: the future? Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been in

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Speaker 1: the business for twenty years and working contact centers and

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Speaker 1: I invented chat and and seeing the change in consumers.

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Speaker 1: But um, the future is really about consumers be able

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Speaker 1: to have a conversation with a human or or a

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Speaker 1: bot or something that's automated. And I think ultimately about

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Speaker 1: conversations will become automated because we want it. We don't

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Speaker 1: want to be on hold, we don't want to make

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Speaker 1: phone calls and these and so our behavior is driving

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Speaker 1: us to do things differently. What's the price point comparison

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Speaker 1: between having a human being answer the phone call and

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Speaker 1: read off of a computer screen as opposed to having

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Speaker 1: a machine listened to your voice and follow various prompts.

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Speaker 1: So it's six dollars is the average UH cost of

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Speaker 1: a phone call? UM There are about two hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty billion phone calls that take place every year to

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Speaker 1: contact center, so about one point two trillion dollars is

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Speaker 1: spent on phone calls. An automated message or or bought

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Speaker 1: UM or even an agent answering through messaging or something

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Speaker 1: like chat is about a dollar fifty, So a dollar

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Speaker 1: fifty versus six dollars, dollar fifty versus six dollars and

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Speaker 1: this and when I go back to this number, It's

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Speaker 1: one point two trillion dollars is spent on phone calls

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Speaker 1: that we as consumers have to make that we don't like,

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Speaker 1: and the agents who answer those calls don't like it,

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Speaker 1: and the company's imagined nobody likes it. It's just hold

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Speaker 1: on a second. But I think the part of the

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Speaker 1: criticism of automated responders to these phone calls is their efficacy.

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Speaker 1: And you know, is this is this a problem? You know,

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Speaker 1: at what point do you end up on hold at

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Speaker 1: the end of a long automated intro anyway, because your

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Speaker 1: request is so nuanced that you do require a live

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Speaker 1: human being. So in the analog world of voice, when

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Speaker 1: you try those automated systems, they're horrible. I mean you

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Speaker 1: think about people screaming into the phone no, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then it's noisy, right, So this was just another bad

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Speaker 1: This is like bad analog with bad analog, like an

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Speaker 1: automated analog system like voice. But when you go to

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Speaker 1: something like we do messaging, where let's say with T Mobile,

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Speaker 1: you can message to a T Mobile rep. We can

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Speaker 1: see the text, so we we can automate a response back.

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Speaker 1: We can bring a human in when it's appropriate. But

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Speaker 1: when you have text, and you have that over a

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Speaker 1: digital framework like like messaging. Um, you can you can

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Speaker 1: do AI, but you're right, voice analog voice. This just

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Speaker 1: needs to go away. I think it's evil. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've said it for me. Voice calls are evil? Wow? Okay,

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Speaker 1: are are evil? Can can we just I'm totally is

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Speaker 1: it's it's the greatest waste of our time is being

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Speaker 1: on hold. We lose years of our life sitting on hold.

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Speaker 1: We all know it. It's horrible. Okay, it's horrible. Having

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Speaker 1: said that, I want to go back to sitting on

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Speaker 1: a couch and I key a couch specifically. And I'm

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Speaker 1: wondering if you could tell a story about how you

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Speaker 1: launched your first business and what failure has taught you. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So I started a company out of college in and

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Speaker 1: it was interactive kiosks like touch screens for college campuses

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Speaker 1: and funded on credit cards. But it went under and

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Speaker 1: in I sort of picked myself up, and uh, I

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Speaker 1: was in Baltimore at the time, moved to New York

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Speaker 1: City and I sub let a loft from a guy

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Speaker 1: who made t shirts. A little space and a loft,

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Speaker 1: and I had only a couch and a computer and

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Speaker 1: I ended up sleeping on that couch for two years

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Speaker 1: and showering at a health club, uh, down the block,

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Speaker 1: down in Tribeca. And that's how I got started with

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Speaker 1: with Live Person. So I mean, what was the lightbulb

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Speaker 1: moment for you for Live Person? The light bulb moment

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Speaker 1: for me was I remember going onto the internet. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is and uh And I remember obviously there was

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Speaker 1: stuff being said about at that time although it was

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Speaker 1: just coming especially commerce was just starting. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: see anybody on. There was nobody there. It felt like

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Speaker 1: a very lonely experience to me, and that when I

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Speaker 1: showed up, but like Dell's website at the time, like

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Speaker 1: there's nobody here. And that drove me to think about

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Speaker 1: how do you bring the human element two the digital element,

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Speaker 1: which was which was the web. But on the failure side, UM,

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Speaker 1: failure for me has always been I've been twenty years,

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Speaker 1: sixteen years of public company CEO. UM. You know you

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Speaker 1: only learned through your failures. So it's it's for me

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Speaker 1: and you just can't quit. I always tell other CEOs

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Speaker 1: or entrepreneurs when you hit the bottom, you just gotta

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Speaker 1: work through it and there's another day. But you can't

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Speaker 1: quit at the bottom. You've gotta keep going. What's the

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Speaker 1: next iteration of automated response. The first thing we have

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Speaker 1: to do is we are working on right now on

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Speaker 1: what we're creating conversational design that feels very um natural.

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Speaker 1: So we as humans need conversations. We know this now.

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Speaker 1: We need conversations to transact, We need to ask questions

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Speaker 1: and on the other side, to automate them. We need

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Speaker 1: a way to too create. I call it like a

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Speaker 1: poetic experience that a consumer can ask questioning and something

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Speaker 1: comes back that's empathetic, that seems human um, that doesn't

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Speaker 1: try to fake them out because it isn't human. And

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Speaker 1: so the way we design those conversations are very much

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Speaker 1: I say, it's like because I was English literature major, Like,

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Speaker 1: it's like designing poetry. You know, you want to look

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Speaker 1: at the best conversations from the live agents who had conversations.

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Speaker 1: You want to look at the brand, the brand expression

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Speaker 1: in the market and bring that into our conversation. But

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Speaker 1: I I can. I I'm gonna make a prediction which

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Speaker 1: people are gonna think I'm a little a little crazy,

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Speaker 1: but I I actually think conversational commerce and messaging and

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Speaker 1: having conversations will replace great parts of the Internet will

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Speaker 1: replace the web. Websites have failed um Outside of Amazon,

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Speaker 1: most businesses don't transact through their websites. Thanks not, there's

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Speaker 1: an opportunity here. We've got to leave it there, but

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Speaker 1: look forward to having you in the future. Robert low Castio.

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Speaker 1: He is the founder and the chief executive of Live

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Speaker 1: Person and he is indeed live not a robot. Well,

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Speaker 1: there was a rousing speech from oprah Winfree at the

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Speaker 1: Golden Globes, this having to do with the really first

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Speaker 1: major awards ceremony and bringing to the four the me

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Speaker 1: to moment. And here to help us understand the financial

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Speaker 1: implications is Deborah Cat's founding partner employee rights attorney for Cats,

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Speaker 1: Marshall and Banks, joining us from Washington, d C. Home

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Speaker 1: to Bloomberg ninety nine one and one oh five point

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Speaker 1: seven fm h D two. Debra, thank you very much

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Speaker 1: for being with us. Can you connect the topic of

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Speaker 1: sexual harassment in the workplace with discrimination when it comes

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Speaker 1: to equal pay for equal work? Sure? First of all,

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me. And this is a topic

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Speaker 1: that is very important and it all too often we

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Speaker 1: siloed the topics of sexual harassment and sex based wage inequities,

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Speaker 1: and yet they're very connected. Sexual harassment is about abuse

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Speaker 1: of power, and often power is abused because you do

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Speaker 1: not have women in the c suite. Only five percent

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Speaker 1: of fortune companies have CEOs in those positions, and because

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Speaker 1: of the great power disparity, you have an environment that's

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Speaker 1: more likely to allow sexual harassment to continue. Women who

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Speaker 1: face sexual harassment are six and a half times more

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Speaker 1: likely to leave their jobs. And when they leave their jobs,

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Speaker 1: they're not typically trading up. They're usually trying to get

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Speaker 1: out of a very bad situation, and they often have

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Speaker 1: to go to lesser paying jobs and start all over again.

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Speaker 1: They lose equity, they lose title, and ultimately they have

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Speaker 1: a much bigger loss in economics over their entire career

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Speaker 1: as a result of the sexual harassment experience. So they're

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Speaker 1: very much tied together, Debrah. Can you give us a

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Speaker 1: sense of how prevalent the trend that you're describing really

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Speaker 1: is with people with women leaving their jobs as a

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Speaker 1: result of sexual harassment and thus not able to sort

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Speaker 1: of fulfill their uh their potential in their careers. Sure well,

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Speaker 1: low income workers to be stuck staying in their jobs

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Speaker 1: UM and do not have the luxury and to get

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Speaker 1: out of some very egregiously harassing situations. But I represent

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Speaker 1: women UH in financial services, doctors, lawyers, who are highly educated,

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Speaker 1: who are being subjected to sexual harassment, who try to

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Speaker 1: navigate the situation, who try to avoid the harass er

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Speaker 1: and maintain and at a certain point they may just

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Speaker 1: decide that they cannot live with that situation. And sexual

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Speaker 1: harassment UH effects women in law firms, medical practices, financial services,

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Speaker 1: and it's extremely prevalent, and it's underreported, and many women

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Speaker 1: reasonably feel that if they come forward and report their concerns,

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Speaker 1: they're going to be persona non grata, not only at

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Speaker 1: their particular company, but within an industry. So many women

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Speaker 1: choose to just vote with their feet and they leave,

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Speaker 1: and they try to get out of a bad situation

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Speaker 1: and get somewhere else. And I can't give you a

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Speaker 1: percentage of of women who actually UH go to lesser jobs,

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Speaker 1: but in my experience that's that's not uncommon, and that

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Speaker 1: they wind up landing in less lucrative fields or positions,

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Speaker 1: or they exit their chosen careers altogether. And we're losing

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Speaker 1: tremendous talent as a result of it. How much of

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Speaker 1: the blame lies with HR departments that could potentially respond

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Speaker 1: to this in a way that would keep them, keep

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Speaker 1: people there, keep women there. The spotlight is clearly on

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Speaker 1: HR departments now, But for I've done this work for

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Speaker 1: over thirty years, and typically HR partner departments carry out

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Speaker 1: the will of management. They're very complicit, and historically we

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Speaker 1: have seen people who harass get away with it because

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Speaker 1: they're perceived as star performers, are the big revenue generators,

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Speaker 1: and HR is there to help them remain in place

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Speaker 1: and manage the people out, manage the women at who

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Speaker 1: have asserted claims. Now we're in a moment where that

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Speaker 1: type of behavior is less is less tolerable, and we're

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Speaker 1: seeing some very famous and high profile people UH being

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Speaker 1: terminated in very public ways. But HR departments have been

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Speaker 1: complicit in allowing this kind of behavior to go forward

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Speaker 1: for decades and decades, and HRR officials often do not

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Speaker 1: have reporting relationships that allow them to elevate the issues

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Speaker 1: without themselves having a target on their backs. So we

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Speaker 1: often represent HR people who have tried to do the

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Speaker 1: right thing but have not been given to power, or

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Speaker 1: when they made recommendations to exit real star harassers. Uh

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Speaker 1: they themselves found their careers in jeopardy. So it's a

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Speaker 1: complicated issue. But um, I think we know that without

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Speaker 1: really a tone, it's top It says sexual harassment is

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Speaker 1: not acceptable and will not be tolerated in this company.

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Speaker 1: Uh h R officials are really not given the power

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Speaker 1: that they need to do what they need to eradicate

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Speaker 1: sexual brassment within their companies. Debor Cats, thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for joining us. We'll have to have you back.

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Speaker 1: Debor Cats founding partner and employee rights attorney with Cats,

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Speaker 1: Marshall and Banks, which is based in Washington, d C.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Pim Fox. I'm

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa

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Speaker 1: abramowits one before the podcast. You can always catch us

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Speaker 1: worldwide on Bloomberg Radio.