Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio Jason Kelly
Speaker 1: and I'm Carol Master. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Extra.
Speaker 1: It's a weekly podcast we bring you an in depth
Speaker 1: interview you will not hear anywhere else. And indeed, this
Speaker 1: week we had an exclusive with the chairman and CEO
Speaker 1: of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, a well listen to voice
Speaker 1: on Wall Street, and it was a wide ranging conversation.
Speaker 1: It was cool to catch him at this moment, in
Speaker 1: part because of everything going on in the world, but
Speaker 1: we were also catching him candidly coming off chatting with
Speaker 1: students at his alma mater, and he was thinking back
Speaker 1: to his time, you know, living in the International House,
Speaker 1: borrowing a ton of money at high interest rates to
Speaker 1: get into Columbia, and it was a game changer for him, right,
Speaker 1: And I really think it was a gut check because
Speaker 1: we talked so much about some major macro issues, whether
Speaker 1: it's interest rates or U S. China trade or the
Speaker 1: I P. O market. Uh, And he really had some thoughtful,
Speaker 1: insightful things to say. Here's that conversation and you're with
Speaker 1: some students just a few minutes ago to take you
Speaker 1: back to your early days. Yeah, maybe jealous, I mean
Speaker 1: apart from the sirens, right, but uh yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like Columbia in the mid eighties and U it was
Speaker 1: you know, it was a great experience. So it was
Speaker 1: it was fun. I just did a lunch and learned
Speaker 1: class for about a hundred and fifty kids. And they
Speaker 1: are kids there, they went born when I was a
Speaker 1: business school here. What do you want to know from
Speaker 1: them when you're talking with them, because I feel like
Speaker 1: the world that so many different industries, your industry also
Speaker 1: going through lots of changes. What do you want to
Speaker 1: hear from that? Well, it's what kind of cultural what
Speaker 1: kind of company they're really looking to work out? I mean,
Speaker 1: what what what matters to this generation different from my generation.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up at a time when Solomon
Speaker 1: Brothers and Drexel and you know that was all the
Speaker 1: rage on Wall Street. Is a very sort of hyper
Speaker 1: intense environment. I mean, these uh young folks, they are
Speaker 1: much more interested in social impact, um, in the values
Speaker 1: of the organization and and just trying to share in exchange.
Speaker 1: How we think about our role in society as as
Speaker 1: an obviously global bank. Well, let's go all the way
Speaker 1: back to your arrived well here on campus. This was
Speaker 1: after this so long ago, but it was a big move.
Speaker 1: I mean there, it was defining in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: What do you remember most about arriving? And then what
Speaker 1: did you take? Because you came from Australia and you
Speaker 1: were a lawyer already, right, yeah, I came. I came
Speaker 1: here to sort of change careers. What I remember most
Speaker 1: is the interest rate on my student loan, which I
Speaker 1: think is a world of record, right, And I thought
Speaker 1: I'd died and gone to have them because America welcomed
Speaker 1: me to come here to learn, to grow, and and
Speaker 1: I just it was unbelievable. I arrived on a very
Speaker 1: hot August day. August was that classic New York's sweltering heat,
Speaker 1: and it just it was on you. It was just
Speaker 1: it was so exciting on the campus this university, which
Speaker 1: is you know, extraordinary. Um, I couldn't I couldn't have
Speaker 1: been happier, honestly to be given that chance. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think, you know, immigration, welcoming foreigners, giving them
Speaker 1: an oportune to contribute. And I'm still here, right, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty past years later, because you had an experience living
Speaker 1: in international house, I believe, and so many people are
Speaker 1: exposed to many different cultures. I mean, you were living
Speaker 1: in it in a lot of ways. How did that
Speaker 1: affect sort of your world view? I used to play
Speaker 1: chess every Sunday night with UM, a Danish guy who
Speaker 1: listened to Frank Sinatra with candles on, you know, in
Speaker 1: the dark, and it was so you know, and one
Speaker 1: of my closest friends, uh, I was a guy from
Speaker 1: Leon in France and another guy from Morocco. Uh. So
Speaker 1: you you you learned to experience the cultures and the
Speaker 1: diversity that this world has. And one of the great
Speaker 1: things about a university like this is it brings people
Speaker 1: like that together who all motivated, they've all they're obviously uh,
Speaker 1: they're talented, uh, and they want to move forward. So
Speaker 1: I thought it was a tremendous experience. Well, having said that, James,
Speaker 1: I do wonder what you think about kind of the
Speaker 1: pushback that we're getting, UM from the current administration when
Speaker 1: it comes to folks coming in from other countries to
Speaker 1: study here, maybe start companies here. But it's not that
Speaker 1: happy an environment or hospitable environment for them right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think UM this country has always been
Speaker 1: a country of immigrants, and uh celebrating and welcoming those
Speaker 1: immigrants and seeing how they've contributed to this society here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's been one of the great elixas
Speaker 1: of what's made America different is most countries people are
Speaker 1: trying to move out of to get a better life.
Speaker 1: This is one of the few countries in the world
Speaker 1: in Australia was like that where a lot of people
Speaker 1: are trying to get into and I think welcoming those
Speaker 1: immigrants providing opportunities for them. Obviously having sensible border control,
Speaker 1: which I support. People shouldn't come here illegally, right, I
Speaker 1: didn't you come through passport control. You earn your way
Speaker 1: into this country. You set the tests you I became
Speaker 1: a citizen. I mean, you do it the right way.
Speaker 1: But having as many people as you can bring in
Speaker 1: talent into the US, I think has been one of
Speaker 1: the great hallmarks of the success of last century. When
Speaker 1: you think about talent as well, you know, it used
Speaker 1: to be a much more prescribed path. That feels like
Speaker 1: at a business school you went to of the consulting company,
Speaker 1: you went to Wall Street. You know, you talked about
Speaker 1: hearing from the students. When to have a social impact,
Speaker 1: what do you draw in terms of student and talent
Speaker 1: from a business school like Columbia, And what's the case
Speaker 1: you make to them for working on Wall Street right now? Well,
Speaker 1: there there are. There are great careersm Wall Street. There
Speaker 1: always have been. I mean, things have and flow. I
Speaker 1: think the largest recruiter I don't know for sure, but
Speaker 1: I think Amazon might be the largest or one of
Speaker 1: the largest at the business school now. So at different points,
Speaker 1: the sort of cadence and flow and focus changes as
Speaker 1: society is changing and as business opportunities are changing. Listen,
Speaker 1: Wall Street is highly sophisticated, very intellectually interesting, very dynamic
Speaker 1: because you're in the markets. As you guys know, this
Speaker 1: is what you do. Um so for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: not everybody, for a lot of people, who remains an
Speaker 1: extremely attractive career option. So let's talk about the market
Speaker 1: you're in it. We obviously watch a day in and
Speaker 1: day out. There's so many big macro stories that are
Speaker 1: out there, whether it's Brexit, whether it's US China trade.
Speaker 1: How do you see the market, the global market environment
Speaker 1: right now? You know, it's it's a conundrum at one level,
Speaker 1: we've got record low unemployment. We do still have global growth.
Speaker 1: The U S economy, the most important economy in the world,
Speaker 1: is performing strongly. China is still performing strongly. Um Europe.
Speaker 1: Europe is obviously mixed, but it's been mixed for two
Speaker 1: decades now. UM So one level, the fundamentals are actually
Speaker 1: quite strong. Uh. At the other level, the sense of
Speaker 1: confidence there isn't the confidence and there's a sense of
Speaker 1: inevitability where at the end of a cycle, you know
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be you don't. I mean, statistically
Speaker 1: there is a recession every seven years, right, each year
Speaker 1: you begin with the fift chance of recession, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be. You know, in Australia they haven't
Speaker 1: had a recession for twenty eight years in a row.
Speaker 1: So what is there so much pressure though then on
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve to continue cutting race? Does that make sense? Well,
Speaker 1: because the economy is slowing. The economy is slowing, and
Speaker 1: you know the job of the Fed is to sort
Speaker 1: of balance monetary policy with economic outlook and fiscal policy,
Speaker 1: and you know they should feather rates obviously when the
Speaker 1: economy is getting hot, their job is to raise raids
Speaker 1: slow it down and the reverse. So you know, I've
Speaker 1: supported the latest FED rate cut, and I suspect they'll
Speaker 1: do one or two more. But then it's time for
Speaker 1: pose and really absorb this because the problem with cutting
Speaker 1: is it's one of the few tools you've got. So
Speaker 1: if you give it away too easily, what do you
Speaker 1: have if we have a real problem. I want to
Speaker 1: go back to something you said a minute ago. It's
Speaker 1: sort of squaring some of the different elements out there,
Speaker 1: and especially businesses that certainly seem more cautious with a
Speaker 1: consumer that isn't showing much signs of caution at all.
Speaker 1: How do you square those things as you talk to
Speaker 1: your customers? And what do you see out there that
Speaker 1: that could help explain that dichotomy as it were, Well,
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're we're in a bit of an
Speaker 1: echo chamber. If you're a business leader, you go to
Speaker 1: business leadership meetings, we all talk to each other, We
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, we bounce off each other. So
Speaker 1: a little bit of it is, Gee, we must be
Speaker 1: at the end of the cycle the FEDS cutting rates.
Speaker 1: We must be about to have a recession. By the way,
Speaker 1: we've had an inverted YOL curve, which has been highly
Speaker 1: predictive of a recession. So there's some hard evidence that
Speaker 1: things are more likely to slow down than accelerat at
Speaker 1: this point, I don't think there's any doubt about that.
Speaker 1: So as executives, his job is to think about capital
Speaker 1: investment over multi years, you would be prudent and being
Speaker 1: cautious at this point. There's nothing wrong with that. Consumers
Speaker 1: aren't yet experiencing that they've got very cheap debt. Housing
Speaker 1: is starting to recover their consumer consumer credit apart from
Speaker 1: student loan sadly, is in very strong shape. So the
Speaker 1: consumer balance sheet is still very strong, and that's why
Speaker 1: it's lagging where the corporate balance sheet and corporate attitudes are.
Speaker 1: There implications though, from having rates at such a low
Speaker 1: level for such a protracted time. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: about finding equilibrium between economic growth and the cost of money.
Speaker 1: So I mean there are only implications if it creates
Speaker 1: a bubble, right, that's a cheap money eventually will create
Speaker 1: a bubble. We're a long way from that now. See
Speaker 1: any of that. I'm seeing no bubbles. And how do
Speaker 1: you manage your business given all of those different inputs
Speaker 1: and and outputs? Then where do you hire, where do
Speaker 1: you maybe stay steady? Where do you invest? Across the
Speaker 1: Empire of Morgan Stanley Empire. Never thought about it. We're
Speaker 1: just a simple business. Um. You know, firstly, you were
Speaker 1: very long the US A wealth management business is I
Speaker 1: think ercent us um and at least half a securities
Speaker 1: business here. So that's a good thing, right. This is
Speaker 1: an eighteen treeion dollar economy, strongest economy in the world,
Speaker 1: most important economy in the world. I'm happy to be
Speaker 1: along in the US UM where obviously, you know, we've
Speaker 1: been aggressively building our Asia business, which is now I
Speaker 1: think fourteen percent or sell of the company. With the
Speaker 1: trade talks, things have slowed clearly across parts of Asia,
Speaker 1: so let's be played out. But but our job is
Speaker 1: to try and look past one three six months hiccups
Speaker 1: or slowdowns. Our job, certainly, my job is to think
Speaker 1: out five plus years, and you know, traders are thinking
Speaker 1: every five minutes. I'm trying to think five years and
Speaker 1: can do that in this environment though, because it does
Speaker 1: feel like we've been going back and forth on let's
Speaker 1: say you've got to we've been around three d five years.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're managing uh, two point six three into
Speaker 1: people's money. They're not all selling into the market on
Speaker 1: one day and all buying on the next day. No, things,
Speaker 1: things actually move in in small increments. It's it's more
Speaker 1: things like the public markets and companies going public that
Speaker 1: you know, or M and A transactions happening or not.
Speaker 1: But most of our core businesses are relatively immune to
Speaker 1: what's going on right now. You wouldn't see the impact
Speaker 1: on our wealth management business greatly at all. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the public markets, because it's been quite a
Speaker 1: year for you really did just like up there. I mean,
Speaker 1: the public markets have really done something to watch, to
Speaker 1: say the least, and especially talk about cognitive dissonance. You
Speaker 1: know between sort of private market valuations and public market valuations.
Speaker 1: What do you see going on there? Why is that happening? Well,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, the public markets are record highs, right,
Speaker 1: so where is the dissonances the dissonances in the I
Speaker 1: P O markets? And in some ways, you know, some
Speaker 1: of these unicorn mega unicorn companies going public. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean listen, there's there's rounds of fundraising. Companies have tended
Speaker 1: to go public later and don you know, four or
Speaker 1: five six rounds. Um. With that comes some risk obviously,
Speaker 1: because you've got a lot of investors have come in
Speaker 1: relatively late before you go to full public. Uh, Mike,
Speaker 1: And I think we've seen that in some of you know,
Speaker 1: some of these companies that look like they're going to
Speaker 1: go public now lower than what the last couple of
Speaker 1: rounds were raising. Um, that's unusual. We haven't seen that
Speaker 1: for a long time. Um. It's also a function. There
Speaker 1: was some very frothy money floating around in the early rounds.
Speaker 1: Has that changed? Do you think do you think the
Speaker 1: private money is get getting smarter at the market's pretty efficient? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, these people aren't stupid. Who are who are
Speaker 1: making these investments? These are very savvy people. And and
Speaker 1: listen that this is this is sort of the corrective
Speaker 1: mechanisms that occur. They see a couple of companies go
Speaker 1: public at lower than whatever their last valuation was. That's
Speaker 1: a good corrective mechanism. That's okay. Back to the bubble
Speaker 1: question that starts that pin pricks the bubbles that are
Speaker 1: out there. But some of those that have come public
Speaker 1: this year, whether it's an uber, whether it's a lift,
Speaker 1: you know, came out with a bang, but then it
Speaker 1: pulled back. So it's the market telling you will, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you weren't worth that much or or what
Speaker 1: is it? Does? It take some time. With these companies
Speaker 1: that have been around for a while, they are still
Speaker 1: not profitable. But I've been around for a long time.
Speaker 1: How do you make sense of that? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: the market can be very stupid in the short run. Um,
Speaker 1: in the medium term, it occasionally gets things wrong, and
Speaker 1: the long term you're the one who is stupid, right,
Speaker 1: So uh you know when yeah, totally when Facebook when public, Um,
Speaker 1: I went on TV. I can't remember if it was
Speaker 1: with you guys or not. Let's just say what it
Speaker 1: was obviously was you know, I said, this is a great,
Speaker 1: great new company that has been formed by incredibly innovative
Speaker 1: people who have created something that didn't exist before. That
Speaker 1: should be celebrated. The fact that traded at a value
Speaker 1: in the weeks and months after went public below what
Speaker 1: people wanted on the day of the issue. Okay, that happens,
Speaker 1: but look at it. Give it time, give it a year,
Speaker 1: and now it's it's something like six times the valuation,
Speaker 1: you know, in a relatively short credit of time. So
Speaker 1: we should all wish to have Facebook's problem. So I
Speaker 1: give this, I give this a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: I'm not I wouldn't be too too wound up about it.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing more issues that your team? Are you
Speaker 1: talking to more people who want to bring more companies
Speaker 1: to public? How active is it right now? Are they?
Speaker 1: Are they not bringing them public? Because of this? I
Speaker 1: think it's making people more realistic about valuations. You know,
Speaker 1: for some of these unicorns, I think there's a little
Speaker 1: reality checkers gone into the system, and that's that's okay.
Speaker 1: This is what the market does, you know. Fact, to
Speaker 1: my point, the market in the long run gets it right.
Speaker 1: The short run is how you find opportunities. When you
Speaker 1: think about this, uh, maybe overstate a little bit, this
Speaker 1: negative yield world that that we're living in. How does
Speaker 1: that change your view of the market. How does it
Speaker 1: change the way you may deploy some assets and may
Speaker 1: deploy some of your teams around the world. Well, I firstly,
Speaker 1: I've been very surprised at where rates are. I'll just
Speaker 1: say that up front, I felt the tenure at this point.
Speaker 1: I'd expected by the end of this year the tenure
Speaker 1: would be around three percent. I was dead wrong. Okay. Um, So,
Speaker 1: you know, a negative yield curve has been historically highly
Speaker 1: predictive of recession, but as Janet Yellen former Chure Yelling said, uh,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily so it doesn't necessarily lead to a recission.
Speaker 1: Uh So, how does it change our business? It doesn't.
Speaker 1: You know, We're we run our business based upon what
Speaker 1: we see going on in the broader economy rather than
Speaker 1: where rates are trading on any particular day. And I
Speaker 1: think in the last week you've seen the tenure recover
Speaker 1: about ten fifteen basis points, so you know, we'll see
Speaker 1: you know, I'm curious too about the role of technology finance.
Speaker 1: We see it increasingly, so talked us a little bit about,
Speaker 1: you know, the incorporation of it at Morgan Stanley and
Speaker 1: where you see it kind of all going, because it's
Speaker 1: certainly a big part of what they're being you know,
Speaker 1: taught at the Columbia Business School and more and more so,
Speaker 1: whether it's algorithms, whether it's engineers coming in and coding,
Speaker 1: where do you see it all playing out? It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I just came from our monthly Risk committee meeting to
Speaker 1: our meeting this morning, and we had a whole section
Speaker 1: on electronic trading and um, what we're doing in that
Speaker 1: space and how it's bleeding from equities into the fixed
Speaker 1: income space. Um. You know, the technology has been driving
Speaker 1: Wall Street dirty little secret for a very long time.
Speaker 1: You know. We set up our first electronic trading businesses
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, and it's like everybody suddenly discovered
Speaker 1: technology because of fintech. Um, there's a lot of innovation
Speaker 1: going on in the fintech sector for sure, and we're
Speaker 1: partnering with a lot of those companies. But we are
Speaker 1: you know, we spend upwards of four b and all
Speaker 1: of some technology. We have centers of competence in machine learning, robotics,
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the data management. Obviously, our cyberspace
Speaker 1: is huge, so we have the resources and I think
Speaker 1: the intellectual horsepower to be at the forefront of a
Speaker 1: lot of the new technology development, but not all of
Speaker 1: it we want to do in house. So we're actively
Speaker 1: looking to partner with larger and small companies, whether it's
Speaker 1: in software development, in data management in particular, and you know,
Speaker 1: embrace it. So it's it's very much a part of
Speaker 1: everything we do. Digital currencies as well. Uh, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: helping clients hedge and manage their exposures to digital currencies.
Speaker 1: We haven't been, um, you know, we haven't set up
Speaker 1: a digital business unit focused on you know, the various
Speaker 1: forms of cryptos. Per see much more interested in the
Speaker 1: blockchain technology. I don't know what. It's just another form
Speaker 1: of stored value to me, and I'm you know, people
Speaker 1: maybe I'm dead wrong about this. Have been quite conservative
Speaker 1: on this for a long time. UM, I see much
Speaker 1: more value around the blockchain technology supporting the currency in
Speaker 1: the currency itself. You mentioned sort of various partnerships, especially
Speaker 1: on the fintech side. From a competitive standpoint, where do
Speaker 1: you see the most competition across your line of business
Speaker 1: at this point? Um? Well, in wealth management clearly, you
Speaker 1: know the online space, but but that's not new. I
Speaker 1: mean schwab and E Trade and Merrige Trade being around
Speaker 1: an awfully long time. They have been doing online you know,
Speaker 1: digital business. It was just called something different, which was
Speaker 1: direct brokerage, right, had a different name. Uh So that's
Speaker 1: always been competitive, I think. UM. In the asset management space,
Speaker 1: obviously the challenge of a lot of the package e
Speaker 1: T F indexing versus the traditional long earning active managed,
Speaker 1: but a lot of our businesses are very complex, required
Speaker 1: global capability, you know, hedging, uh, you know a currency
Speaker 1: exposure in Japan, being long, certain rate securities in Australia.
Speaker 1: I mean we're twenty four hours. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: it is UM. It's it's not that it's not challenge competitively,
Speaker 1: but most of our challenge comes from our traditional competitors,
Speaker 1: the big banks. James, I'm always curious, you know, we
Speaker 1: spend our time so much talking about FED policy, yield curves.
Speaker 1: He was trying to tread policy. What is it that
Speaker 1: you folks that Morgan are spending so much time having
Speaker 1: conversations about? What is it that we're not talking about
Speaker 1: that really deserve a little bit more attention. Leadership culture
Speaker 1: UM creating an organization where diverse employees don't feel included,
Speaker 1: but feel not just included, but feel they belong. That's
Speaker 1: something I've felt very strongly about the whole diversity inclusion
Speaker 1: discussion in place. Somebody invited you into the room, Now
Speaker 1: I want you to belong. It's your room. So we
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of the qualities that get at
Speaker 1: h Do employees respect your institution, want to be part
Speaker 1: of your institution want to make their careers and lives
Speaker 1: there that the macro stuff it blows right, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: rates for two and a half percent. Now the one
Speaker 1: a half percent is Morgan's any fundamentally engine strategy because
Speaker 1: of that, of course not. But if we can't attract
Speaker 1: really talented, committed people who do things the right way
Speaker 1: you have the right vegas, then then we're going nowhere.
Speaker 1: So I'm very Once your strategy is in place, and
Speaker 1: I think we have a really sound strategy, it's all
Speaker 1: about reaffirming the cultural values and putting the leadership in
Speaker 1: place for the next ten and fifteen years who can
Speaker 1: drive those dues. Are we're making in roads. I want
Speaker 1: to ask about diversity because I feel like we've been
Speaker 1: talking about diversity parody women, you know, issues on Wall
Speaker 1: Street for a long long time, and we're still struggling
Speaker 1: and we will be talking about it for a long
Speaker 1: long time. I share one fact with you, uh this year,
Speaker 1: and this wasn't by design. That was an outcome this year,
Speaker 1: For the first time ever, more than fifty of our
Speaker 1: intern class, which is a thousand interns globally, we're women
Speaker 1: first time ever, ahead of China, as a woman, Head
Speaker 1: of Europe, Middle East Africa as a woman, co head
Speaker 1: of Investment banking as a woman, the head of our
Speaker 1: bank as a woman. I mean, we have senior leadership
Speaker 1: women in multiple roles, but are they representative of the
Speaker 1: role of women in society? No, they're not. Right. So
Speaker 1: we've we've we've we've made steps, but it starts with
Speaker 1: the pipeline at the beginning, and then finding ways in
Speaker 1: which you can keep those folks through all the transitions
Speaker 1: we make in life. Have uh terrific careers of Morgan Stanleys.
Speaker 1: Are those discussions and those efforts becoming easier or harder?
Speaker 1: Given the political climate we're in. We live in a
Speaker 1: pretty I think it's fair to say divisive time, hyper
Speaker 1: political time in a lot of ways. How do you
Speaker 1: cut through all that to make these sorts of decisions?
Speaker 1: I think from a diversity perspective, No, I think from
Speaker 1: what is the role of the corporation society? Yes, I
Speaker 1: think we have been called as CEOs into the public
Speaker 1: debate much more. We're our our employees want us to
Speaker 1: express opinions on a wide range of issues, and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult because you've got to you you know, we
Speaker 1: all have personally. I mean, I'm I'm a voter, right,
Speaker 1: I'm a citizen. I have opinions on all these issues.
Speaker 1: And it can't be just what James Gorman thinks. I'm
Speaker 1: not the company, It's what what is for the greater
Speaker 1: good of the whole organization. And I think what a
Speaker 1: lot of companies are now struggling with is what is
Speaker 1: our role in society? And this is why the statement
Speaker 1: came out recently from the CEOs at the roundtable, which
Speaker 1: was basically, too embrace the broadest stakeholders that we have.
Speaker 1: You can listen, you can be a bank and runner
Speaker 1: only for shareholder value. But if society turns against you
Speaker 1: and nationalize as your bank, that didn't work out so well. Right.
Speaker 1: So I've always believed you have to operate in the
Speaker 1: ecosystem with respect for everybody in that ecosystem. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting is, and we had a very smart conversation with
Speaker 1: um like we're having right now, but with another individual
Speaker 1: in the financial community, but talking about no, not everybody
Speaker 1: has the same access to education, you know, and I
Speaker 1: do wonder you know what that has done in terms
Speaker 1: of creating the gaps within our society. So how do
Speaker 1: we deal with that? Well? There, I mean, there are
Speaker 1: gaps in in in every society and not everybody starts
Speaker 1: off with the same axis. I mean it's you know,
Speaker 1: you're like I was lucky. I was born in Melbourne
Speaker 1: to the family I was born with and given the
Speaker 1: education I was given. That's why I'm here. UM. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's no all of us know, there's no
Speaker 1: magic one. There are inequalities, UM, but they feel deeper
Speaker 1: than ever before. I think the gap between the most
Speaker 1: successful uh and the least is wider. And I think
Speaker 1: the minimum wage pressure for the last thirty years has
Speaker 1: been devastating for a lot of people. I think there
Speaker 1: are a hell of a lot of people in this
Speaker 1: country and around the world who have not participated in
Speaker 1: the economic expansion of the last three decades, which is
Speaker 1: why the rise of populism has happened. On the other end,
Speaker 1: nationalism has happened, anti globalization has happened, anti immigration has happened.
Speaker 1: It must be somebody's fault if I didn't get ahead.
Speaker 1: Who's that somebody? And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have decided that somebody is
Speaker 1: the politicians, which is why Brexit has happened and so on.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that was a pretty good
Speaker 1: warning shot to the power elite so called in the
Speaker 1: world that you can't leave behind large parts of society
Speaker 1: and expect that to not have ramifications. Do you expect
Speaker 1: that that's going to change anytime soon or the power
Speaker 1: elite listening? I think this, I think that, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's a pendulum swinging. Um, and I think I
Speaker 1: think there is. I think there's some pretty healthy discussions.
Speaker 1: And back to the CEO round table. You know, two
Speaker 1: hundred or so of the top CEOs in the country
Speaker 1: all signed us and it was you know, this wasn't controversial.
Speaker 1: This is something we feel and we wanted to express
Speaker 1: to everybody out there working for our companies or or
Speaker 1: participating with them. Last words, Yeah, I'm just thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: the next batch of nbas and students, what would be
Speaker 1: your advice, Uh, focus on the job you're paid to do.
Speaker 1: A lot of young folks coming to companies like ours,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to focus on the next job all
Speaker 1: the time, trying to figure out how to get ahead.
Speaker 1: You get ahead by doing what you paid to do
Speaker 1: really well. Right. You do that, you succeed. That was
Speaker 1: James Gorman, Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO, and of course
Speaker 1: Columbia Business School alumnus, because we spent a day up
Speaker 1: at the Business School, and it is funny you get
Speaker 1: somebody in that situation. You know, it's a different conversation
Speaker 1: that I think we would have if we trooped on
Speaker 1: over to his office. We had him here in our studio.
Speaker 1: You know, we're sitting outside. We've got college walk behind us,
Speaker 1: all around us. He's literally just had a brown bag
Speaker 1: lunch with a bunch of students, so he was in
Speaker 1: a different mindset, but clearly a very thoughtful guy across
Speaker 1: the global markets. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra,
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason mckellis and I'm Charle Masser. This
Speaker 1: bloom