Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg business Week inside from the reporters and
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Speaker 2: global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 2: Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast. Well,
Speaker 1: earning season got into full swing, so too has the
Speaker 1: final stretch of the election. As we are a little
Speaker 1: over two weeks to go until US voters head to
Speaker 1: the polls. Keep in mind many of some states have
Speaker 1: already casted their ballots. Early voting is underway. We have
Speaker 1: several takes on the elections this week, from free speech
Speaker 1: and fearless speech to how the men who governed America
Speaker 1: governed their own money. Yes, we mean the US presidents
Speaker 1: that coming up in our next hour.
Speaker 3: This hour, the company that invented blue jeans more than
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty years ago. On today's crowded marketplace,
Speaker 3: the Levi's CFO stops by, Plus the CEO of Gusto
Speaker 3: has his pulse on small and medium sized businesses. He
Speaker 3: shares what he's seeing is he builds out his rapidly
Speaker 3: growing business.
Speaker 1: First up, we begin with geopolitics and the US election,
Speaker 1: from the Middle East and the Russia Ukraine War to
Speaker 1: the US campaign trail and beyond. One name at the
Speaker 1: top of our list when we want to cover.
Speaker 3: It all is Ed Price. He's a former British trade official,
Speaker 3: now non resident senior Fellow at NYU, also principal for
Speaker 3: geopolitical Forecasting at the global intelligence and consulting firm ERGO.
Speaker 3: He's advised members of the European and British parliaments. And
Speaker 3: we started by talking about his summer road trip.
Speaker 4: So I drove from New York to San Francisco via
Speaker 4: the northerly route, and then I drove back via the
Speaker 4: south via Dallas, New Orleans, and really just tried to
Speaker 4: stop as much as possible and just make conversation, right,
Speaker 4: just stop someone and say, hey, how are you, by
Speaker 4: the way, what do you think about the election? What
Speaker 4: do you think about the economy?
Speaker 3: And they everyone greeted you with open arms, right, I mean.
Speaker 4: Right, So this is the interesting thing. We've heard this
Speaker 4: so many times, Jimmy Carvill. It's the economy stupid, It
Speaker 4: kind of is, and it kind of isn't. And one
Speaker 4: of the things that I noticed most was that in
Speaker 4: any given generic conversation with anyone really, after they'd said, oh,
Speaker 4: you know what, I really hate.
Speaker 5: The other guy, right, the other candidate, they.
Speaker 4: Would then basically come up with a list of things
Speaker 4: that they wanted whoever it is that's president to do.
Speaker 5: At home that were very similar.
Speaker 4: And so there's you know, we always talk about polarization
Speaker 4: in this country.
Speaker 5: That is the case, but there's.
Speaker 4: Also this sort of bipartisan feeling that somehow, some way
Speaker 4: the economy could be better. Now that might mean that,
Speaker 4: you know, Harris is in trouble because it's it's in
Speaker 4: some ways her economy, but it's interesting to me that
Speaker 4: so many Americans said exactly.
Speaker 5: The same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that that's what you came away with.
Speaker 3: It's also dark contrast to so much data out there,
Speaker 3: data point after data point, Carol, showing that for a
Speaker 3: lot of people, the economy is really good.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and yet Americans, there's a lot of Americans, as
Speaker 1: you know, ed that don't feel so good. I mean,
Speaker 1: based on your conversations, did you get a feel of
Speaker 1: who might ultimately win come November we know it's a
Speaker 1: very close race. We see the polls, we are reminded
Speaker 1: of it daily or hourly. But did you get a
Speaker 1: good feel of which way it could go? And is
Speaker 1: it just based on the signs that were on people's lawns?
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness. Okay, listen.
Speaker 4: If presidents were elected to be a signage, Donald Trump
Speaker 4: would be the Roman emprop because I can tell you, guys,
Speaker 4: and you know hand on hot I didn't see a
Speaker 4: single Harris sign in the rust Belt. I didn't see
Speaker 4: a single sign.
Speaker 5: No, seriously, I know, I get it.
Speaker 3: I went around the country a lot in the last
Speaker 3: couple of months. One question I'll ask, though, is when
Speaker 3: were you doing this?
Speaker 5: What month?
Speaker 3: Because remember July twenty first is when Biden dropped out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and this signs weren't around. The signs weren't around for.
Speaker 5: A while, so August, the whole month of August. It's
Speaker 5: a really good point about data.
Speaker 4: And of course it might be that the missing signs
Speaker 4: just aren't there because either they haven't been printed or
Speaker 4: because people don't want to put them up, in which
Speaker 4: case you might say that Richard Nixon's silent majority is
Speaker 4: going to go blue this year. I've got to tell you,
Speaker 4: you know, I'll declare my bias. I'm voting this time,
Speaker 4: I'm voting against Donald Trump. So there's my bias, me
Speaker 4: not seeing a single Harris sign and seeing ginormous Trump signs.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't help but think, Okay, this guy's
Speaker 4: going to win.
Speaker 3: It's a good point. I think I've talked about this before,
Speaker 3: but I was in Colorado a few weeks ago. It
Speaker 3: seemed like there were there were two things that I'll share.
Speaker 3: One is that there were a lot of local signs
Speaker 3: that were clearly proclaiming the way one person felt like
Speaker 3: who the candidates were that they were voting for that
Speaker 3: didn't necessarily add have a presidential sign with them. So
Speaker 3: it was like county commissioner, Congress, and local state legislature signs,
Speaker 3: but not necessarily signs proclaiming president, which I thought really interesting,
Speaker 3: showing the way people are thinking downballot.
Speaker 5: That's super interesting too.
Speaker 4: And where I live, I'm in a red county, but
Speaker 4: I'm getting leaflets from both sides, both parties, and they've
Speaker 4: stopped putting their political party on them, just the name
Speaker 4: of the candidate, which I think is maybe another.
Speaker 5: Interesting data point.
Speaker 1: I do also wonder, you know so much. There was
Speaker 1: an interesting time story actually the New York Times, and
Speaker 1: it said the Trump voters who don't believe Trump, when
Speaker 1: the former president endorses violence and proposes using the government
Speaker 1: to attack his enemies, many of the supporters assumes it's
Speaker 1: just an act. I actually had a conversation with an
Speaker 1: individual over the past week when we were out on
Speaker 1: the West coast. Same thing said. You know, I just
Speaker 1: think when when the former president Donald Trump says things,
Speaker 1: he's just trying to, like, you know, kind of put
Speaker 1: people off, if you will, whether it's allies, whether it's
Speaker 1: political opponents, just kind of shake things up, but not
Speaker 1: that he's necessarily going to follow through with all these things.
Speaker 1: We know from his first administration he does follow through
Speaker 1: with some things. But I wonder what you make of
Speaker 1: that argument or that thinking.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't want to take the risk. Frankly, as I say,
Speaker 5: I have a bias.
Speaker 4: I think he's a clear and present danger to borrow
Speaker 4: from Tom Clancy to the United States Constitution.
Speaker 5: That's my view.
Speaker 4: But the interesting thing I think about sort of, you know,
Speaker 4: me turning up in hunting stores and seven to eleven's
Speaker 4: and not being a polster and not really being a journalist,
Speaker 4: is that very often I would speak to people who
Speaker 4: do support Trump, but then they would sort of they'd
Speaker 4: give me like the second and third layer too. And
Speaker 4: one guy that comes to mind, he's running a hunting
Speaker 4: store in Oregon, but he's sort of said to me,
Speaker 4: I'm voting Trump, but there are things I don't like
Speaker 4: about the guy. And I wouldn't talk like that in
Speaker 4: front of my kids. So you know, that's still there,
Speaker 4: and maybe I got to hear a bit more of
Speaker 4: that because you know, who am I nobody?
Speaker 5: I'm not a polster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the question is to what extent these
Speaker 3: folks show up? And also based on where you were at,
Speaker 3: you know, Oregon, a state like Oregon not exactly a
Speaker 3: swing state right now. I mean the Pennsylvania observation that
Speaker 3: you made were really we're really interesting, and you did
Speaker 3: drive through a lot of swing states certainly, but it's
Speaker 3: you know, as you know, we live in a world
Speaker 3: where the electoral college, and I think Mark Gongloffer, a
Speaker 3: columnist at Bloomberg Opinion who covers climate change, described as
Speaker 3: basically a football stadium full of people deciding the election.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, that's probably true. So look, I'm back in
Speaker 5: New York State.
Speaker 4: Now, probably some of those people aren't too far away
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: This was non.
Speaker 4: Scientific, as I say, but if you just based it
Speaker 4: on visual evidence, conversational evidence, it feels like on the
Speaker 4: surface of things, Trump has this in the bag. Now,
Speaker 4: that said, there's always that chance that, as we know,
Speaker 4: in an election this close, you know that the other
Speaker 4: side pips through for some reason or other.
Speaker 5: But my feeling is that Trump could really get to
Speaker 5: the end here.
Speaker 3: So why did you write about this in the context
Speaker 3: of the silent majority in the Richard Nixon area? Why
Speaker 3: go back?
Speaker 4: Well, I think in part it's because I also have
Speaker 4: this side hustle teaching students, right, and yeah, I've been
Speaker 4: doing that for like five or six years now, really
Speaker 4: enjoy it. But I've seen a change in the body politic,
Speaker 4: so to speak, of the student body, and it seems
Speaker 4: to me that there's at least one parallel with the
Speaker 4: Vietnam War, which is that there are moralistic imperatives in
Speaker 4: the minds of protesters to oppose US foreign policy. Now,
Speaker 4: for me, that's false, that's not an equivalence that works
Speaker 4: because Vietnam as things turned out an error and the
Speaker 4: war that Israel's fighting was imposed on it. But you know,
Speaker 4: Richard Nixon was really trying to say in that speech
Speaker 4: that look, you may not hear the people out there.
Speaker 4: For Richard Nixon, he liked to speak about himself and
Speaker 4: the third person, but they're out there, they're just not protesting.
Speaker 5: And so the question was.
Speaker 4: Are the people that aren't really out on the streets,
Speaker 4: are the people that aren't display big Trump signs thinking
Speaker 4: about voting for Harris?
Speaker 5: And I'm afraid to say, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like there's a fair amount of questions
Speaker 1: about you know that, and just kind of then what
Speaker 1: it means for the outcome. I am also curious ed
Speaker 1: you're back from overseas. We talk a lot about whether
Speaker 1: it's us allies their concerns about the outcome of the election.
Speaker 1: What insight can you give us on that front.
Speaker 4: I think from my perspective, from you know, European eyes,
Speaker 4: that I have foreigners in the UK and Europe think
Speaker 4: this is probably an existential election. I'm heading over to
Speaker 4: Japan in a couple of months, I imagine they think
Speaker 4: the same thing. And a lot of this comes down
Speaker 4: to NATO, right, and whether or not if Trump is
Speaker 4: re elected he goes and does to your point, Carol,
Speaker 4: about whether he actually does the things he says, actually
Speaker 4: does go ahead and pull the US out of NATO
Speaker 4: in a meaningful way, And that's probably a segue at
Speaker 4: some point into the Ukrainian behavior on the battlefield. But
Speaker 4: foreigners right now, I think are really scratching their heads
Speaker 4: about how exactly there could be such a bifurcated choice
Speaker 4: in the world of foreign policy between what we presume
Speaker 4: Harris will do and what Trump might.
Speaker 5: There's one caveat. They do seem to be joined at
Speaker 5: the hip in agreeing that Beijing.
Speaker 4: Is a problem, and it does seem whoever wins, as
Speaker 4: we know, trade policy will continue down a confrontational path.
Speaker 1: It is amazing to me ed are not surprising that
Speaker 1: there was a period where every day one of the
Speaker 1: top stories on the Bloomberg had to do with the
Speaker 1: war between those two countries. Obviously, now we have the
Speaker 1: Middle East we're following, and that is a top the
Speaker 1: list of concerns geo politically, though, Let's talk about Russia
Speaker 1: Ukraine and where you think this might go and how
Speaker 1: the US election outcome might impact that.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, Carl.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's astonishing and sad that we've been talking
Speaker 4: now for years about this war and it's entering its
Speaker 4: third winter. So I think where it's gone is more
Speaker 4: or less where the broad analytical community expected it to go,
Speaker 4: which was stalemate. There are, of course, two caveats to that.
Speaker 4: One is time, which is that the Russians are fighting
Speaker 4: a war of attrition, and the other is, for want
Speaker 4: of a better phrase, bravery, in that the Ukrainians have
Speaker 4: now thrust into the Cursk.
Speaker 5: Region with their own offensive.
Speaker 4: My interpretation of that offensive is that it is designed
Speaker 4: as a message, a plea to the United States saying, look,
Speaker 4: we can do the job.
Speaker 5: We have the will give us the means.
Speaker 4: And of course we are still sitting on decisions such
Speaker 4: as whether or not long range weaponry should be used,
Speaker 4: should be allowed to be used on Russian soil, So
Speaker 4: a lot will come down to who's sitting in the
Speaker 4: White House.
Speaker 1: I think, what do you say to US citizens who
Speaker 1: might be like, well, it's the Europeans problem, Say it's
Speaker 1: for the Europeans to figure out to support, to provide
Speaker 1: funding and weapons. What do you say to that.
Speaker 4: Well, I would say that Munich in nineteen thirty eight
Speaker 4: it was the Europeans problem, and then after that Poland
Speaker 4: in nineteen thirty nine was the Europeans problem, and then
Speaker 4: after that it wasn't it was ours.
Speaker 5: It was America's problem.
Speaker 4: And America has a fundamental or national interest in containing,
Speaker 4: if not defeating, aggressive military powers in the world. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is almost one of the top three American things, right,
Speaker 4: It's like apple pie, the aforementioned freedom and beating dictators.
Speaker 4: So you know, I'm surprised when I hear that narrative.
Speaker 4: I think it's tied in a strange way to this
Speaker 4: Trump wing of the Republican Party. If there's another wing
Speaker 4: left in which Russia is held up as an example,
Speaker 4: Hungary is held up as an example of how to
Speaker 4: do business, how to run a country. It's very strange,
Speaker 4: but of course it's patently false and should putin defeat
Speaker 4: Ukraine in the field.
Speaker 5: We're in a world of trouble.
Speaker 1: Meanan what there'll be Poland or something else next.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, dictatorships everywhere will be emboldened. I
Speaker 4: think that there's an obvious link between the relationship between
Speaker 4: Russia and Iran, and Iran was obviously emboldened to embolden
Speaker 4: others such as hes Balar and Hamas to attack Israel.
Speaker 4: So this is not one war. This war is an ecosystem.
Speaker 4: But meaning as well that the revanchist nationalist Russia that
Speaker 4: Putin has unleashed in the last decade or so and
Speaker 4: that we have failed to confront, does have its eyes
Speaker 4: on the restoration of a former Tsarist empire. It's not
Speaker 4: the Soviet model. This is a red herring. It's the
Speaker 4: Sarist imperial model of Russia, in which there are these vassals,
Speaker 4: these occupied vassals around its borders as a form of
Speaker 4: self defense. You can perfectly well imagine why the Russians
Speaker 4: are paranoid. They've been invaded several times, believe it or not.
Speaker 4: British and Japanese troops have been on Russian soil in
Speaker 4: the twentieth century, and so on. But unless we the
Speaker 4: West properly confront this aggression, forecast that it will only
Speaker 4: get worse.
Speaker 3: Okay, So make the case then if members of the
Speaker 3: US House and Senate are listening or watching right now,
Speaker 3: make the case as to why you believe it's essential
Speaker 3: to support Ukraine.
Speaker 4: So there's an idealistic case and there is a practical case.
Speaker 4: The idealistic case is the one that I just gave you.
Speaker 4: I would appeal to any elected official in the United States,
Speaker 4: I would appeal to their heart, and I would say, look,
Speaker 4: America has a unique role in the world. Jefferson, let
Speaker 4: the genie out of the bottle. It's a good genie.
Speaker 4: It's about human freedom, and it should be universal. That's
Speaker 4: the idealistic case.
Speaker 5: There's also.
Speaker 4: A monetary case, right, there's a fiscal case, which is
Speaker 4: how much money do you want to spend putting Putin
Speaker 4: back in his box? And as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 4: this is cynical. You could say, well, who really cares
Speaker 4: about Ukraine? What we really want is to defeat and
Speaker 4: degrade Russian power, and by the way, I think we've
Speaker 4: been doing that. So I think that Putin has made
Speaker 4: tactical games measured in years, but has probably set himself
Speaker 4: back strategically as measured in decades. Right, So he's not invincible.
Speaker 4: The curse offensive for shownness. And if we just want
Speaker 4: to send a rounding era of our national budget and
Speaker 4: inventory that we otherwise would have mothbolled to brave people
Speaker 4: fighting for freedom. That's an idealistic thing, but it's also
Speaker 4: very practical because again, otherwise.
Speaker 5: You think about Ukraine going down.
Speaker 4: I mean, then you know Poland the Baltics are in trouble,
Speaker 4: or Putin says that's enough for now and sends all
Speaker 4: of his expertise and or material soldiers say to Iran
Speaker 4: in a war with Israel.
Speaker 5: So this we really have to think about this practically
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 1: Hey, ed, one thing I wanted to ask you also,
Speaker 1: coming back from being in the UK and overseas, are
Speaker 1: people getting frustrated with the US support of Israel?
Speaker 4: Yes, but they shouldn't be. This is a very sensitive topic.
Speaker 4: I recently wrote an op ed about this. I thought
Speaker 4: very carefully about writing it, but I did. And it
Speaker 4: asked three questions. One, is Israel fighting a war of
Speaker 4: self defense?
Speaker 5: The answers yes.
Speaker 4: The second question was is Israel conducting a genocide?
Speaker 5: And the answer is no.
Speaker 4: And then the third question was is Israel bringing us
Speaker 4: all to the brink of World War three? And the
Speaker 4: answer was, I don't know. If you spend more time
Speaker 4: thinking about security in terms of appeasement and nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 4: As I mentioned, then Israel was attacked and is doing
Speaker 4: the absolute right thing in defending itself. If you think
Speaker 4: this is more like a nineteen sixty two Cuban missile
Speaker 4: scenario globally, then perhaps we should be getting to the
Speaker 4: time that we wrap this thing up. I'm in the
Speaker 4: former camp, A lot of people are in the latter.
Speaker 4: But I would say that every single time Putin has said, look,
Speaker 4: I'm going to use terrible weapons.
Speaker 5: He doesn't always use or whatever, use.
Speaker 4: The words nuclear weapons, and we've said, well, actually we
Speaker 4: will cross that red line, he's done nothing.
Speaker 5: So I think we are acting.
Speaker 4: With a week attitude.
Speaker 5: And a strong hand. We should get on and finish
Speaker 5: the job.
Speaker 1: I'm going to hate myself for asking you this, but
Speaker 1: forty seconds quickly, what do you think is the number
Speaker 1: one threat to the world, be it an individual, a dictator,
Speaker 1: or a country.
Speaker 4: I think the number one threat to the world is
Speaker 4: a all out conflict between China and the United States
Speaker 4: that turns nuclear.
Speaker 5: The good news is I think that's unlikely right now.
Speaker 4: The Chinese do not want to attack Taiwan before they
Speaker 4: see how these other two conflicts play out, and so
Speaker 4: there's another maybe third reason for your senators and your
Speaker 4: congressmen and congresswomen avoiding World War three.
Speaker 3: We did it.
Speaker 1: It took us around the world, as you always do.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much. Glad we can reach
Speaker 1: out to you and that you are ours coincide a
Speaker 1: little bit better with us right now, the.
Speaker 3: US, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, more of the Middle East, China.
Speaker 3: We did it all with that price.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as we often say, it's all complicated him
Speaker 1: laying it out though so clearly at price. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, senior fellow at NYU, former British trade official,
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 1: Fashion has been all about genes since the pandemic, well
Speaker 1: and also yoga pants to be fair, but there are
Speaker 1: signs that that might be changing. I mean retailers and
Speaker 1: data makers. They will need to move fast to catch
Speaker 1: the next trend.
Speaker 3: Earlier this month, Levi released earnings and after seeing challenges
Speaker 3: abroad in declines across its home market, the company cut
Speaker 3: its full your guidance.
Speaker 1: Levi also said it's reviewing options for underperforming dockers, including
Speaker 1: US sale as it focuses on its namesake and beyond
Speaker 1: yoga brands.
Speaker 3: For some insight into the company's plans, Molly Smith and
Speaker 3: I caught up with Levi Strauss cfo her Meat Singh.
Speaker 6: We are the market leader and the as the market
Speaker 6: leader market Leader market leaders now and Women's as the
Speaker 6: market Leader are response coonssibility is to lead trends and
Speaker 6: drive people towards our products. You know, we're focused on
Speaker 6: what we call Denim lifestyle, which is more head to
Speaker 6: toe across both men's and women's.
Speaker 7: You're wrapping it and how yeah.
Speaker 6: And I'm wrapping it. You can see, you know, the
Speaker 6: other folks. But Denim is having a moment, as you
Speaker 6: call it. The last cycle started with the skinny way
Speaker 6: back into in the late late two thousand and seven,
Speaker 6: two thousand and eight. That lasted for about eight nine years.
Speaker 6: We were the first to introduce the loser fit just
Speaker 6: before COVID, and it took off post COVID. And you know,
Speaker 6: the other thing that we really focused on is because
Speaker 6: the words become a lot more casual after COVID. You
Speaker 6: see it in a hybrid work culture, you see it
Speaker 6: in other social occasions. And so we are making a
Speaker 6: stronger pivot to the non denim piece of our apparel.
Speaker 6: For men, we've got something called performance Tech. It's like
Speaker 6: the ABC Lulupan, and that's really gaining traction. And so
Speaker 6: as we think about, you know, growing the business, it's
Speaker 6: about owning allows the share of the closet without taking
Speaker 6: the eye off the ball on what we're really known for,
Speaker 6: which is denim. And so it's all about denim lifestyle.
Speaker 8: I would think a lot of it right now too,
Speaker 8: is about wide legged denimo. I mean that is just
Speaker 8: like we had a great story about this recently about
Speaker 8: you know, women in particular who are buying you know,
Speaker 8: roughly one hundred dollars wide legged jeans and then the
Speaker 8: seven hundred dollars wardrobe to go along with it.
Speaker 7: Jim's eyes just bulged.
Speaker 8: So yeah, all the rest of maybe like the crop
Speaker 8: sweaters and jackets, because if you've got like a waist
Speaker 8: that's coming up kind of high, then you want the
Speaker 8: shirt to kind of hit roughly around there. I'm learning this.
Speaker 8: I have a style of she's telling me all about it.
Speaker 8: So yeah, I mean, obviously, Hermie, you could tell us
Speaker 8: more about this zeal.
Speaker 6: It's actually you hit the nail of the head. I
Speaker 6: was going to talk to you about it. But it's
Speaker 6: not only about bottoms, and as the as the fits
Speaker 6: for the bottom to change, so do the tops, and
Speaker 6: so as we think about denim lifestyle, we're also focused
Speaker 6: on growing our tops business, which was up nicely in
Speaker 6: quarter three. You know, it's up to eight percent. But overall,
Speaker 6: what you saw in quarter three largely was that Levi's
Speaker 6: as a brand grew five percent, and that's the strongest
Speaker 6: good we have had in Levi's over two years. Sequentially
Speaker 6: is getting better, and that's why, as we talked about
Speaker 6: quarter four, while we took our overall guidance for the
Speaker 6: year down, you know, our belief is sequentially quarter four
Speaker 6: is you know, slightly better than quarter three.
Speaker 3: Well, if if Dunham is having this moment, then why
Speaker 3: don't you think investors are buying into this? Levi Strauss
Speaker 3: shares up about twelve percent so far this year, underperforming
Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred. Why aren't investors buying into.
Speaker 6: This, Yeah, I think. You know, what we've done this
Speaker 6: year is we have narrowed focused into Levi's and beyond yoga.
Speaker 6: You know, we announced the exitive Dockers. The Dockers was underperforming.
Speaker 6: We had a small footwear business really based out of Europe.
Speaker 6: We are exiting that. And we were present in Target
Speaker 6: through our Denisen brand. We introduced Levi's Red Tab in
Speaker 6: Target that had a good run. So you know, we
Speaker 6: thought it was better to focus on Levi's than Red Tab.
Speaker 6: And so as you think about it, I think the
Speaker 6: fact that we are transforming in the year, while are
Speaker 6: we trying to perform and performing really well on Levi's,
Speaker 6: is I think why people are just saying, Okay, let
Speaker 6: the transformation you know, get complete and we'll buy in.
Speaker 6: But overall, you know, Levi's as a stock over the
Speaker 6: last twelve months has had a decent run. We're long
Speaker 6: on the stock, We're long on you know, trends of
Speaker 6: the business. Our longer term goal is to take the
Speaker 6: six billion dollar business and make it more like a
Speaker 6: ten dollars ten billion dollar business, improving our operating margins
Speaker 6: by a couple of percentage points. The other thing that
Speaker 6: is happening in the business. Is this transformation to more
Speaker 6: of a DDC first business. It doesn't mean d DC only.
Speaker 6: It does mean, you know, we lead with DDC, which
Speaker 6: is our stores, r E commas and wholesale compliments are
Speaker 6: a direct to consumer business, and that transformation is taking
Speaker 6: ship today. DDC is about half our business when I
Speaker 6: joined us, about a fifth of our business.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get more on direct to consumer in just
Speaker 3: a minute. But you mentioned doctors, so I wanted to
Speaker 3: talk to you a little bit about the options for doctors.
Speaker 3: You did announce that you're looking to sell the business.
Speaker 3: When when I heard that, I think to myself, this
Speaker 3: is like a perfect fit for authentic Brands group. Jamie
Speaker 3: Stalter is like, you know, Jamie Salter's group. He's got Airwalk,
Speaker 3: air Apostle, Billibong, DC, Greg Norman, Eddie Bauer, Champion Fry.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm only down to F at that point
Speaker 3: in the alphabet. He's got everything over there down to Volcom.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 6: You know? I won't comment about prospective bias. I would
Speaker 6: say that the reason we announced the exit of Docers
Speaker 6: we created Dockers. Okay, so it's a homegrown brand that
Speaker 6: had a wonderful run for a long period of time.
Speaker 6: We launched Dockers just to you know, take advantage of
Speaker 6: the casual friday of a sudden in the in the
Speaker 6: mid to late eighties. The what has happened is it's
Speaker 6: in a lower growth category. And I'm a you know,
Speaker 6: we're a firm believer that what this does is unlocked
Speaker 6: Dockers with somebody who can take it to the next
Speaker 6: level while we concentrated on taking Levis to the next level.
Speaker 6: I've been part of spinoffs and I've seen that happen.
Speaker 6: To your question about you know, prospective buyers, we announced
Speaker 6: it so that we would probably hear from perspective bias
Speaker 6: is early days. Our intent is to sell it, uh,
Speaker 6: and intended to sell it to bias that can not
Speaker 6: only take the brand to the next level, protect as
Speaker 6: many employees of Dockers as they can and UH and
Speaker 6: we'll see where this goes.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: Phones are ringing, which is a good new These transactions
Speaker 6: take time and you know, when we have something to
Speaker 6: talk about us, So who's the perspective of acquire, we'll
Speaker 6: definitely you know, talk about that.
Speaker 3: You just call us, Yeah, let us know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, just pass their phone calls maybe onto us when
Speaker 8: those phones are ringing. I mean, what kind of timeline
Speaker 8: do you think is reasonable to look at something like
Speaker 8: that to really complete that kind of a space.
Speaker 6: No, it's a strong brand, and in our view is
Speaker 6: something like this can take six to nine months. You know,
Speaker 6: what we're really interested is is ensure that it's the
Speaker 6: right buyer who does the right thing for the brand.
Speaker 6: And so you know, we're going to do it in
Speaker 6: a fast way, but we'll do it the right way.
Speaker 8: Right Well, I mean, I think this is the time
Speaker 8: where we pivot to Beyonce. I mean, tell us more
Speaker 8: about this partnership. I think a lot of people want
Speaker 8: to know about it when what exactly like her role
Speaker 8: is with the brand here, Like, is Beyonce like straight
Speaker 8: up designing Levi's clothes? Now, Like, can I at a
Speaker 8: Beyonce designed pair of Levi's jeens.
Speaker 6: No, It's it's not about a product collaboration. It's about
Speaker 6: a partnership with someone. You know, she's an icon, She's
Speaker 6: been in the center of culture. You know, you know
Speaker 6: she her values and our values resonate. You know, she'd
Speaker 6: been a supporter of the brand for years, for decades
Speaker 6: and when she named a song after Roy Carter Cowboy
Speaker 6: Carter and the song Levi's that was organic she you know,
Speaker 6: in nineteen I remember she she was at Coachella and
Speaker 6: was wearing US shots again a very organic you know
Speaker 6: uh thing that she did, and you know, product sales
Speaker 6: went up on the shots. So you know, we kind
Speaker 6: of sat back and said, you know, it's a it's
Speaker 6: a it's been a great partnership. Could we take it
Speaker 6: to the next level and having somebody like her support
Speaker 6: our brand, support the iconic apparel that we have, the
Speaker 6: five or ones for example, the teacher. Actually actually, you know,
Speaker 6: I think we think it's a win win for both
Speaker 6: Beyonce as well as US. Plus, you know, we're leaning
Speaker 6: heavily into driving our women's business about a third of
Speaker 6: our business. We see no reason why it shouldn't be
Speaker 6: half our business, right and I think you know, she
Speaker 6: has you know, many fans around the world, and I
Speaker 6: think the combination of the two brands would make a difference.
Speaker 3: Just about fifty seconds and then we're going to come
Speaker 3: back for more with you. Have you already noticed a
Speaker 3: higher sales figure or more loyalty on the back of
Speaker 3: this campaign.
Speaker 6: You know, it's early days with a campaign. This is
Speaker 6: the it's a twelve month partnership. We just launched the
Speaker 6: first chapter. You know, we'll have three other chapters. But
Speaker 6: what I can say is, you know, difficult to link
Speaker 6: you know, brand advertising with direct sales. But what I
Speaker 6: could say right now is as we close quarter three,
Speaker 6: which is reported, women's sales were up, you know, close
Speaker 6: to eleven percent. I Iconic five oh one was up
Speaker 6: double digit and I you know, so that's what we
Speaker 6: believe continues over time.
Speaker 3: You guys went public about five years ago again on
Speaker 3: the New York Stock Exchange. I was at that IPO
Speaker 3: because I was working on the floor of the exchange
Speaker 3: back then, and you guys were able to do something
Speaker 3: that I think in the you know, more than one
Speaker 3: hundred year history of the New York Stock Exchange has
Speaker 3: not ever been done before, which is allowed genes on
Speaker 3: the floor on the trading floor.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of rules of the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 3: One of them is no genes allowed. I came in
Speaker 3: that day, everybody was decked out in genes and wasn't.
Speaker 6: Everybody looking great?
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, Levis, Yeah, it was Lewis Jeans, and you
Speaker 9: know that was you know, part of the deal we
Speaker 9: did with n y I see, you know, as we
Speaker 9: were debating Nico and Nasdaq, you know, we said, hey,
Speaker 9: if you can change the floor on the day of
Speaker 9: the listing and make it a denim flow, you know,
Speaker 9: we are in.
Speaker 6: And they were able to do that and into the wonderful,
Speaker 6: you know, wonderful morning, and you know, I think beginning
Speaker 6: of a new chapter for.
Speaker 3: The company understanding how things work between the New York
Speaker 3: Stock Exchange and the NASDAC. I think that they probably
Speaker 3: didn't even have to check with anyone. They probably just
Speaker 3: said yes at that moment, Harmid, I promise we get
Speaker 3: back to the idea of going direct to consumer and
Speaker 3: building that relationship one on one with the consumer. Nike
Speaker 3: tried to do this over the last few years and
Speaker 3: they really alienated the foot lockers of the world who
Speaker 3: were such a big part of their business. And now
Speaker 3: there's a new CEO Nike, they're trying to turn that
Speaker 3: ship around, repair that relationship. How do you do this
Speaker 3: but not alienate alienate the brick and mortar stores who
Speaker 3: for so long have sold your products.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know, we love our wholesale customers. And the
Speaker 6: second pillow of a strategy is DDC first, but it's
Speaker 6: not DDC only.
Speaker 3: The whole CTC direct to consumer.
Speaker 6: Drake to consumer wholesale is in a big compliment to
Speaker 6: how we're going to grow the business. The reason DDC
Speaker 6: is important is allows us to provide more of a
Speaker 6: head to two assortment. We can drive the consumer experience
Speaker 6: and it's actually a proof point for wholesale retailers to
Speaker 6: see how the product is taking ship. So our new
Speaker 6: product introductions and we have a wonderful product pipeline hits
Speaker 6: the DDC flow first, the wholesale customers see how it's performing,
Speaker 6: and then they buy into it. We need wholesale customers
Speaker 6: largely because you know, to be the market leader, we
Speaker 6: have to reach out to consumers in a far and
Speaker 6: beyond and the only way to do that is having
Speaker 6: a combination of a successful DDC business and a successful
Speaker 6: wholesale business.
Speaker 8: So I imagine ideally like you would love to see
Speaker 8: the DTC base be new customers, adding like net new
Speaker 8: customers to the business. But is there a risk that
Speaker 8: this cannibalizes the wholesale customer and that they shift over.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's a very good question. I've been
Speaker 6: asked that a couple of times and not seeing any
Speaker 6: evidence of cannibalization the other pieces in the US. Our
Speaker 6: d d C offer is what we call tier one
Speaker 6: and tier two, so's is the best and the better
Speaker 6: the offer for wholesale customers more tier three. We are
Speaker 6: talking to a few wholesale customers to introduce our tier
Speaker 6: two offer because in the top fifty sixty dollars, you know,
Speaker 6: there is the consumer that wants the higher tier product.
Speaker 6: So we're not seeing cannibalization. We also don't see cannibalization
Speaker 6: between the different two channels within d d C, which
Speaker 6: is e commerce and our stores and in fact consumers
Speaker 6: now as you know, you know, like a seamless you know,
Speaker 6: shopping experience. So our view is that both channels can grow.
Speaker 6: DDC grows probably faster because we control the channel. We're
Speaker 6: able to drive the experience and have a head to
Speaker 6: tour assortment.
Speaker 3: We're talking a lot about the US election. It's top
Speaker 3: of mind here for us. Question is not about the
Speaker 3: politics of this, but about how you're potentially preparing for
Speaker 3: another Trump administration given the tariffs that you experienced during
Speaker 3: the first Trump administration when Trump put European still in
Speaker 3: aluminum ex sports tariffs on those, and then you guys
Speaker 3: were hit with tariffs on jeans. So there's that part
Speaker 3: of it, and then a potential more tariffs between the
Speaker 3: US and China. How do you plan for that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, we've been around for one hundred and
Speaker 6: seventy years, you know, and we've seen different administrations. The
Speaker 6: business in the brand has grown through different administrations, and
Speaker 6: so from our perspective, you know, we believe that. And
Speaker 6: you know when we guided quote a fold and we
Speaker 6: talked about a sequential progression, you know, our belief is
Speaker 6: the brand continues to grow. To your question about tariffs.
Speaker 6: A couple of years ago, we were importing from China
Speaker 6: into the US about fifteen sixteen percent of the product.
Speaker 6: Over the years, we've scaled that down, so the imports
Speaker 6: into the US from China about a percentage going instead.
Speaker 6: And because we have a supply chain, we're able to
Speaker 6: cross source it across different geographies. So you know, we've
Speaker 6: been able to cross source it from other countries in
Speaker 6: Asia and think Vietnam, think Bangladesh, think Pakistan, and that's
Speaker 6: really what's really helped us the cross sourcing strategy. Besides
Speaker 6: the fact that we're not concentrated significantly in anyone country
Speaker 6: makes a difference. And so our view is that you know,
Speaker 6: any administration, you know, we'll be able to continue to grow.
Speaker 3: What about resaliatory tariffs from the European Union or other
Speaker 3: countries on your own products?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you know, we have a strong business
Speaker 6: in Europe. If you have to cross source, we can,
Speaker 6: I think the end of the day Israeli. How does
Speaker 6: it impact the consum You know, tariffs could mean higher
Speaker 6: prices for the consumer, and that is something that we will,
Speaker 6: you know, tackle as the time comes along. Our products
Speaker 6: provide good value, okay, and if they are in fashion
Speaker 6: and they're you know, we bring in innovation, the consumer
Speaker 6: is going to gravitate and open the checkbook to buy
Speaker 6: our products. So, you know, as we think through it,
Speaker 6: we have contingency plans in place in case, you know,
Speaker 6: different scenarios play out, and well we'll be able to
Speaker 6: tackle through them.
Speaker 8: Is it tempting to think about a fifteen percent corporate tax,
Speaker 8: right and what you might do with all that money
Speaker 8: that's not paid in taxes?
Speaker 6: You know, I have a wonderful tax group that you know,
Speaker 6: plan different tax opportunities all the time. But you know,
Speaker 6: our view is as good corporate citizens. You know, we
Speaker 6: have to pay the taxes. We'll pay the taxes.
Speaker 8: And is that noble thing to say?
Speaker 6: Yeah? They and you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: it's very important for us to provide great value to
Speaker 6: our consumers and build the oil fans, and that's what
Speaker 6: we focus on.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, not many of our guests can pull
Speaker 3: off head to toe denim. And it's not just that,
Speaker 3: it's also the shirt as well. Harmy, You're one of
Speaker 3: those folks who can do that. Har meet sing CFO
Speaker 3: at Levi Strauss joining us here in the Bloomberg.
Speaker 6: Thanks Tom, Thanks studio.
Speaker 3: Good Harmy. It's going to be featured in the forthcoming
Speaker 3: issue of Bloomberg's CFO Briefing newsletter. You can sign up
Speaker 3: for it now at Bloomberg dot com, slash account, slash newsletters,
Speaker 3: slash CFO Briefing.
Speaker 8: CFO hyphen Briefing.
Speaker 3: Oh don't us. That is not going to work. It
Speaker 3: will not check out that newsletter though. You also just Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Just google Bloomberg Newsletters.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I'm sure to come up.
Speaker 8: We got a whole bunch of them out there.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 2: New York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 1: Josh Reeves co founded and runs a company that's been
Speaker 1: valued at nearly ten billion dollars. The company handles all
Speaker 1: the stuff it seems a lot of founders don't really
Speaker 1: want to handle, you know, things like HR payroll benefits,
Speaker 1: and other stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Gusto has raised more than seven hundred million dollars and
Speaker 3: does payroll processing for more than three hundred thousand small
Speaker 3: and medium sized businesses. To put that in perspective, they
Speaker 3: do the payroll processing for more than six percent of
Speaker 3: employers in the US.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. Josh is also the CEO of Gusto.
Speaker 1: He's stopped by our studio to talk about his business
Speaker 1: and the kind of keen vantage point he has on
Speaker 1: the US economy.
Speaker 10: Yes, we do love serving small medium sized business I
Speaker 10: just love to remind folks there are the foundation for
Speaker 10: a lot of society. When you think of people and
Speaker 10: the businesses they can remember, it's often the communities that
Speaker 10: are near them. One thing we can see in our data,
Speaker 10: and it's also in the census data, there's a lot
Speaker 10: of new businesses being formed across the country. Over five
Speaker 10: hundred and fifty thou new employers in the US in
Speaker 10: this past year. That's something that got kickstarted and became
Speaker 10: stronger with COVID, and that's a tailwind to our business
Speaker 10: because we focus a lot on serving new employers when
Speaker 10: they hire their first employee.
Speaker 3: We're the areas of strength, at least in your data geographically.
Speaker 10: So we see some strength more in the south East,
Speaker 10: so it's sort of the sun belt, a little bit
Speaker 10: more sun Belt. But then we also and I would
Speaker 10: point to, published quite a bit of content here. We
Speaker 10: call it gustinomics. If anyone is ever interested.
Speaker 3: In exploring, Yeah, we're interested in that stuff.
Speaker 10: Economists on staff where we try to make that visible
Speaker 10: to anyone.
Speaker 7: No, we don't like data at all.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, that's like our thing. So you're seeing sun
Speaker 3: belt areas of weakness, areas of strength. What areas of
Speaker 3: weakness are you seeing areas.
Speaker 10: Of weakness can tend to be more in the major cities. Still,
Speaker 10: that's gotten a little bit better in the last couple
Speaker 10: of years, but that's still hanging on. But it is
Speaker 10: also industry by industry, and I need to look back
Speaker 10: at the data myself. I left our mind, folks, there's
Speaker 10: more dentist offices in the US than tech startups. So
Speaker 10: even though I live and based in Silicon Valley, we
Speaker 10: obviously care a lot about that mainstream SMB audience.
Speaker 1: Well, so then you have a great window into where
Speaker 1: communities are developing and moving towards. And I just think
Speaker 1: about the conversation we had last hour with our Brett
Speaker 1: Pulley taking us to a place where you know, you're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of migration happening and something you hadn't seen.
Speaker 1: The pandemic did that too, So tell us about that shift.
Speaker 1: What you're seeing where communities where we maybe didn't have them,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you see them really growing up.
Speaker 10: Well, specifically, it shows up in our business in what
Speaker 10: we would call multi state employment. So just the ability
Speaker 10: for a five to ten person company now to have
Speaker 10: employees be in multiple states. Well, there's a lot of
Speaker 10: positive to that you can access new talent pools. One
Speaker 10: of the biggest negatives is because of how the US
Speaker 10: was formed, local, state, and federal rules are quite different
Speaker 10: by region, and so that's where we also can try
Speaker 10: to be helpful is make it easier to kind of
Speaker 10: abstract that complexity. But we do talk about this compliance
Speaker 10: inflation concept that is still happening across the country.
Speaker 1: Because that means different payroll rules and regulations depending on
Speaker 1: the state that they live in.
Speaker 10: And the county and the town, and a lot of
Speaker 10: times it's basically highly variable. It ties to what that
Speaker 10: specific jurisdiction chose to do. And it's not just payroll.
Speaker 10: It could also be employment filings, it could be compliance requirements.
Speaker 10: Think about just all the different government rules that get created,
Speaker 10: really agnostic administration. Generally, it's just been more, not less,
Speaker 10: and a business owner, especially a small business owner, has
Speaker 10: to do it all on their own.
Speaker 3: How quickly do you get insight into what's going on
Speaker 3: in the economy? For example, when we see a job's
Speaker 3: number for September, a payroll's number that's just a blowout number.
Speaker 3: Is that not a surprise to you because you're seeing
Speaker 3: the same thing at your level.
Speaker 10: So it increasingly is getting to interesting scale, as you mentioned,
Speaker 10: where over three hundred thousand businesses.
Speaker 3: Like, when will we start talking not about the ADP
Speaker 3: numbers that we get, but about the GUSTO numbers.
Speaker 10: Well, maybe gustinomics becomes that next alternative.
Speaker 3: But seriously, I mean, you're six percent of employers in
Speaker 3: the country, Like, that's a real window. That's a huge
Speaker 3: sample size.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and we see all the data related to benefits, enrollment,
Speaker 10: salary distributions, wage increases or decreases, hiring, off boarding, all
Speaker 10: that shows up inside or.
Speaker 1: Or the basebook calls you up, or the FED officials
Speaker 1: call you up, or do they already?
Speaker 10: I mean, we have work we try to do on
Speaker 10: policy side to bring the voice of small business to
Speaker 10: policy makers. There's a whole host of folks that you know,
Speaker 10: would like access to this type of data more in
Speaker 10: the hedge fund world that we avoid and do not
Speaker 10: engage with obviously.
Speaker 1: So, Josh, if there's a net net in terms of
Speaker 1: what you're seeing your window into the US economy, what
Speaker 1: are the words you would use to describe the economy
Speaker 1: based on that data.
Speaker 10: Never been a better time to start a small business.
Speaker 10: And part of that is not just because of the
Speaker 10: trend we see concretely, but also companies like us trying
Speaker 10: to help make their life easier.
Speaker 3: So is it sort of puzzling to you to see
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump out there on the campaign
Speaker 3: trail trying to make it even more attractive to small
Speaker 3: business owners.
Speaker 10: I don't think it's logical to me that folks are
Speaker 10: going to evangelize small medium sized business.
Speaker 3: You said there's never been a better time, But the key.
Speaker 10: Is what are you doing about it?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 10: I mean, small medium sized business leads to employment. Employment
Speaker 10: is a good thing in any kind of politicians career.
Speaker 10: So you know, we're agnostic politically, but I'm not surprised
Speaker 10: that politicians talk a lot about SMBs. There is even
Speaker 10: lots of good policy, tax credit policy that have been
Speaker 10: created for SMBs. Again, them actually being able to access
Speaker 10: these different government programs has been the complexity historically.
Speaker 3: Okay, you say it's never been a better time to
Speaker 3: be running a smaller, medium sized business. What about a
Speaker 3: tech company based in Silicon Valley that's been valued at
Speaker 3: nearly ten billion dollars that's raised seven hundred million dollars,
Speaker 3: sounds in financing, sounds like you're coming.
Speaker 10: It sounds like well, I view all of those as byproducts. Right,
Speaker 10: If we can serve hundreds of thousands of businesses solve
Speaker 10: real pain in their life, we will grow and have
Speaker 10: higher evaluation. But that's not what we obsess over. But
Speaker 10: thirteen years in, I am really excited. I feel like
Speaker 10: we're still early in the journey. You know, we only
Speaker 10: serve seven percent of these companies. There's so much more
Speaker 10: to do.
Speaker 1: Well do you stay them with small and medium sized
Speaker 1: or do you go all the way.
Speaker 10: So we do have our foundation in small medium size.
Speaker 10: And I love to remind folks there's more dentist offices
Speaker 10: than tech startups. Right, I said that earlier. And so
Speaker 10: you know, we're only at six seven percent market share
Speaker 10: and a lot of tech companies historically just jump to
Speaker 10: mid market enterprise. We've built a great business serving small
Speaker 10: medium size. We're excited to reinforce that for many years
Speaker 10: to come.
Speaker 1: So you don't need to tap into you know, I
Speaker 1: think of you know, there's you guys, or there's something
Speaker 1: like an ADP. Right, you don't need to service the
Speaker 1: big publicly held companies or do you want to at
Speaker 1: some point.
Speaker 10: I mean, we want to solve pain wherever it is.
Speaker 10: But there's a lot of work to do for small
Speaker 10: medium size business. One thing I'll share, I mean ADP
Speaker 10: is one hundred billion dollars plus company into it as
Speaker 10: a company. We respect that also cares a lot about SMB.
Speaker 10: But you have close to twenty five percent of companies
Speaker 10: in the US today still doing payroll by hand on
Speaker 10: pen and paper, So there's a lot of real So
Speaker 10: there's a lot of fragmentation in a lot of greenfield.
Speaker 3: Have you you're based in Silicon Valley. Have you spent
Speaker 3: much time in New York in recent months? And my
Speaker 3: question is going somewhere we have an office here.
Speaker 1: Careful how you are?
Speaker 10: Yeah, we love New York. I love New York.
Speaker 3: So have you ridden the subway much?
Speaker 10: I've rode the subway to this office.
Speaker 3: Did you see lots of ads for competitors to your company?
Speaker 3: Because sometimes I get in a subway car and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I've never heard of this competitor too. Gusto would be like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not rippling, it's not deal, it's not
Speaker 3: just work. So I mean, these are all startups that
Speaker 3: are trying to do what you're trying to do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're everywhere.
Speaker 10: I mean, there's a huge opportunity here. So we are
Speaker 10: excited to compete, press our advantage, launch the best possible product,
Speaker 10: keep winning market share, keep winning wa wallet share. But yeah,
Speaker 10: I would be a shock if there wasn't competition when
Speaker 10: you have a big market opportunity. I think it is
Speaker 10: hard to build what we've built from scratch, so I
Speaker 10: think people take different approaches to it. But you know,
Speaker 10: we feel like we have a leading position and we
Speaker 10: want to maintain that.
Speaker 1: So do you go public?
Speaker 10: At some point we'll be a public company eventually, it's
Speaker 10: a milestone in the journey. But we're going to be
Speaker 10: building Gusta for many decades. And the thing I anchor
Speaker 10: on more is we'll be an independent company for many,
Speaker 10: many decades to come. It goes to why we started
Speaker 10: the business in the first place.
Speaker 1: So, but no pressure to do so. Right, you're finding
Speaker 1: the funding that you need and it provides you a
Speaker 1: certain luxury right in terms of building it out.
Speaker 10: Well, Gusto at this scale, you know, we're free cushilal
Speaker 10: positive have been for several quarters. We can sell fun,
Speaker 10: be aggressive, on R and D. Launch new products in
Speaker 10: the time tracking space, launch new products in the international
Speaker 10: hiring space, launch new products in the Gusto embedded payroll space.
Speaker 10: We can talk about that too. But I you know,
Speaker 10: again just there's a huge, huge market opportunity here, and
Speaker 10: you know the beauty of a private company, there's some
Speaker 10: positives as well.
Speaker 1: We work for a private company in case you didn't notice,
Speaker 1: and we understand the benefits.
Speaker 3: I wonder about different opportunities that are sort of adjacent
Speaker 3: to the core business here, the idea of catering to
Speaker 3: specific types of businesses and what you've done in recent
Speaker 3: years to make it easier for a small gym, for example,
Speaker 3: or for some sort of hair salon or appointment bookings
Speaker 3: like getting into the space that isn't necessarily what you're
Speaker 3: known for, but are sort of add ons for the
Speaker 3: core business.
Speaker 10: So first it comes with customer you know, pull right,
Speaker 10: they're asking for us to help with these additional product areas.
Speaker 10: And it could be health benefits, it could be tax credits,
Speaker 10: it could be you know, business insurance, workers comp These
Speaker 10: are all adjacent pain points and again, you know, this
Speaker 10: is where we can be a conduit for big companies
Speaker 10: I've had access to what a specialists and resources, whether
Speaker 10: it's cloud, paperless, mobile, or AI as kind of a
Speaker 10: more recent technology tailwind, we are going to be the
Speaker 10: ones to bring those benefits to small medium sized business.
Speaker 10: So yeah, we have a big roadmap of product apps
Speaker 10: to kind of go launch, bring live, lots of work ahead.
Speaker 1: What exactly does embedding payroll mean?
Speaker 10: So think of this as if you're familiar with Stripe
Speaker 10: and embedded payments basically analogous but for payroll. So one
Speaker 10: of our partners is Chase. They have a product called
Speaker 10: Chase Payroll, but it is powered by Gusto. So if
Speaker 10: you're a Chase customer, a business customer, you will have
Speaker 10: the chance to go add payroll to your experience inside Chase.
Speaker 10: But then Chase didn't have to build it all from scratch.
Speaker 10: So it's another avenue for us to reach SMBs where
Speaker 10: they are already versus what we're doing already on the
Speaker 10: Gusto dot.
Speaker 1: Com sid Can you do that with multiple banks?
Speaker 10: Yes, we have dozens of partners. Yeah, not just Chase,
Speaker 10: and we're excited about this big trend. Embedded payroll didn't
Speaker 10: exist till a couple of years ago, and again we
Speaker 10: think it's just a very logical product for any SMB
Speaker 10: platform out there to launch live.
Speaker 1: What's the hard part? You said pretty optimistic, which is great,
Speaker 1: But what's the thing that you still feel like you
Speaker 1: have a nut to crack?
Speaker 10: Oh, broadly speaking, I mean how to keep improving, running
Speaker 10: a great company, attracting great talent. You know, thirteen years in,
Speaker 10: I feel like we're early. Everything has to keep changing,
Speaker 10: evolving and getting better. We're doing a lot of work
Speaker 10: to kind of revamp our products, suite our underlying data model.
Speaker 10: I could go on and.
Speaker 3: On thirty seconds. International opportunity. You mentioned international, How tough
Speaker 3: is that?
Speaker 10: So on the employer side, you know, the US is
Speaker 10: like fifty countries. We are US focused today, but we
Speaker 10: feel like we did a fair bit of work to
Speaker 10: expand across the country. It's not if, but when we
Speaker 10: would serve international employers, but right now our focus is
Speaker 10: on US pace.
Speaker 3: So so if you are a small business owner who
Speaker 3: has employees outside of the US, you can't be so you.
Speaker 10: Can use guessto. So I'm talking about employer. On the
Speaker 10: employee side, you can now hire in over one hundred countries.
Speaker 10: On the contractor front and on the EO R side
Speaker 10: you can also hire in over ten countries.
Speaker 5: More to come.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool stuff. Great, well, stay in touch. Listen how
Speaker 1: things are going. Really appreciate John Josh Reeves, excuse me,
Speaker 1: co founder and chief executive Officer. I said, gusto, but
Speaker 1: it's gusta. It's giving it a little jenning us Here
Speaker 1: in our Bloemberger studio.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 2: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Easter Listen
Speaker 2: on Apple card Play and then brought auto with a
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Speaker 1: YouTube Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including free speech, is it really?
Speaker 1: Some would argue no. Others would argue that what matters
Speaker 1: is fearless speech. It's all in a new book.
Speaker 3: Speaking of books, how about one that takes a look
Speaker 3: at what the leader of the free world does with
Speaker 3: his own money. We're going to hear from the author
Speaker 3: of all the President's Money. Shortly, it's his money, because
Speaker 3: you know, there hasn't been anything all the President's men,
Speaker 3: all the President's money.
Speaker 1: I love how that works, but there's no female president,
Speaker 1: so of course you can just use his Yeah, good points.
Speaker 1: We shall see see. Plus, we wrap up the hour
Speaker 1: with the Regenerative Kitchen and some thoughts on how plant
Speaker 1: based recipes and sustainable practices to nourish ourselves and the planet.
Speaker 1: Yum yum. Yeah, yeah, good recipes.
Speaker 3: I love it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's food.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 3: Freedom of speech may be protected in the US by
Speaker 3: the First Amendment, but it's still something that's the focus
Speaker 3: of much attention thanks to the proliferation of misinformation on
Speaker 3: digital platforms. What's been happening on college campuses in the
Speaker 3: wake of the Israel Hamas war and what we regularly
Speaker 3: hear from politicians.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. State and federal officials, for example, already
Speaker 1: grappling with back to back hurricanes that have killed hundreds
Speaker 1: across the Southeast, have been dealing with another disaster related threat.
Speaker 1: Disinformation over their relief efforts and the cause of the storm.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable the world we are living in. Conspiracy theories and
Speaker 1: hate speech targeting the government's storm response erupted across social media,
Speaker 1: especially on X after Hurricane Helene devastated the region, with
Speaker 1: former President Donald Trump and ex owner Elon mush Us
Speaker 1: amplifying unverified allegations.
Speaker 3: It's a world. Our next guest understands well. Mary Anne
Speaker 3: Franks is an author and a professor at George Washington University.
Speaker 3: She's got a new book out. It's called Fearless Speech,
Speaker 3: Breaking Free from the First Amendment.
Speaker 11: We have this incredibly narrow, very legalistic, really reductionist, largely
Speaker 11: incoherent idea about what freedom of speech is. That's based
Speaker 11: on perceptions and misperceptions of a legal doctrine, of course,
Speaker 11: the First Amendment, And when we really think about what
Speaker 11: is important in a democracy, the kinds of hard questions
Speaker 11: we have to ask about what kinds of speech should
Speaker 11: be promoted and what kinds of speech should be punished.
Speaker 12: We need a much.
Speaker 11: Richer and more nuanced understanding of speech than you can
Speaker 11: get from that legal doctrine.
Speaker 1: All right, So what is your definition of freedom of speech?
Speaker 11: The definition I would use is to say the most
Speaker 11: important thing for democracy, that is the most vital kinds
Speaker 11: of speech that you would want to protect in a
Speaker 11: democracy are going to be those kinds of speech that
Speaker 11: the ancient Greeks referred to as parasia. Fearless speech, and
Speaker 11: the way that they described that really essential form of
Speaker 11: speech was that you had to be someone who was
Speaker 11: speaking truly as their own identity, so not trying to
Speaker 11: cover themselves in some kind of performance or try to
Speaker 11: disavow some distance between them and their speech. And you
Speaker 11: had to speak courageously in a critical way about something
Speaker 11: or someone who was more powerful than you. And the
Speaker 11: risk that you would be taking and speaking that kind
Speaker 11: of truth would be to yourself as opposed to trying
Speaker 11: to cause harm to others.
Speaker 3: You know, you say this, and what actually comes to
Speaker 3: mind is the way that Senator jd Vance has answered
Speaker 3: the question about whether or not Donald Trump won the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election. He's done it over and over again,
Speaker 3: and his answer was always the same. I'm focused on
Speaker 3: the future, not necessarily answering the question. He's focused on
Speaker 3: censorship and what tech platforms did when it comes to censorship.
Speaker 3: Is he doing fearless speech there.
Speaker 11: He's definitely not doing fearless speech there. And he's also
Speaker 11: misstating what censorship is. And this is one of the
Speaker 11: reasons why I wrote the book, is that for all
Speaker 11: the problems and I do highlight a lot of the
Speaker 11: problems with the First Amendment doctrine, we still want to
Speaker 11: be accurate about what it actually says. And what it's
Speaker 11: very clear about is that censorship means when the government
Speaker 11: is trying to make private individuals say something they don't
Speaker 11: want to say, or is punishing them for something that
Speaker 11: they've said. Social media platforms making decisions about what they
Speaker 11: want on their platform or not is not censorship.
Speaker 12: It does not violate the First Amendment.
Speaker 11: I think he does know that, and he's trying deliberately
Speaker 11: to create misinformation about the First Amendment itself.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to policing platforms, then what is
Speaker 1: your thoughts on social media? Is it media? Is it playful?
Speaker 1: We know it's dangerous, but it's also a place where
Speaker 1: a lot of folks get their news, something that we
Speaker 1: are involved in on a daily basis. Does it need
Speaker 1: to be policed? And I'm just curious how you think
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 11: Well, it depends a lot on what the outcomes are
Speaker 11: that we want from those platform When we say we
Speaker 11: go there for entertainment, we go there for news. If
Speaker 11: we care about those spaces in that way, then we
Speaker 11: need to have the kinds of rules or the kinds
Speaker 11: of standards or the kinds of design to make those
Speaker 11: outcomes happen, because that kind of speech doesn't just happen
Speaker 11: by itself. You don't get to good conversations, entertaining conversations,
Speaker 11: high value conversations, by just letting everybody do whatever they
Speaker 11: might want to do, because that isn't actually a free
Speaker 11: speech protective position.
Speaker 12: What you'll get is a bunch of chaos. You'll get
Speaker 12: a lot of people.
Speaker 11: Who are saying really provocative, stupid, uninformed, really outrageous things,
Speaker 11: and they will drown out everybody else. So if you
Speaker 11: want quality speech, if you want accurate speech, you have
Speaker 11: to have some kinds of standards in play. And every
Speaker 11: platform knows this because they all have standards in play.
Speaker 11: There are standards against spam, there are standards against all
Speaker 11: kinds of rules, of privacy, regulations, any number of things
Speaker 11: that every platform is already engaged in. The question is
Speaker 11: are you going to wield that power wisely and are
Speaker 11: you going to do it in a transparent way? And
Speaker 11: are you going to take responsibility for the things you
Speaker 11: leave up as well as for the things that you
Speaker 11: take down.
Speaker 3: I mean, we know how some platforms treat this stuff
Speaker 3: because of what's happened on X in the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. But I also think about incentives and the
Speaker 3: way that incentives could be misaligned. Right now, you can
Speaker 3: get paid on platforms by views, So your incentive is
Speaker 3: to create something that people will see. People see stuff.
Speaker 3: When the algorithm sees that people are interacting with it,
Speaker 3: leaving comments on it, reposting it, then it surfaces it
Speaker 3: in other people's feeds. Whether that's true or not, it
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like the system is designed to reward what
Speaker 3: you refer to as fearless speech.
Speaker 11: Definitely not, and that shouldn't be surprising because what we
Speaker 11: often forget, and partly because the tech industry and major
Speaker 11: players in the tech industry try to make us forget this,
Speaker 11: is that this isn't the public square, This isn't some
Speaker 11: sort of democracy experiment. This is a corporation that has
Speaker 11: a product and it's trying to sell you that product,
Speaker 11: and it's trying to tell you that what you're doing
Speaker 11: by speaking or posting or whatever it is, is freedom
Speaker 11: of speech. But all it is from the corporation's perspective
Speaker 11: is profit. And so the only real standard that is
Speaker 11: being used in those cases is what's going to make
Speaker 11: that company profit, And so, of course it's not going
Speaker 11: to align with democracy. Of course, it's not going to
Speaker 11: align with high quality content.
Speaker 12: It's not even going to have.
Speaker 11: The regular guardrails as you mentioned, of newspapers, radio stations,
Speaker 11: TV stations, all of whom have to take responsibility when
Speaker 11: there is false information on them. When you know that
Speaker 11: The New York Times can get sued, we know that
Speaker 11: Fox News can get sued if there's outright false statements
Speaker 11: being broadcast. So why is it that the tech industry
Speaker 11: gets this pass where they're allowed to do whatever they
Speaker 11: would like or do nothing, and allow disinformation, misinformation, truly
Speaker 11: harmful content to simply proliferate simply because it lines their pockets.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm curious about what you think about the
Speaker 1: protests that we've seen on universities and campuses over the
Speaker 1: last year or so as a result.
Speaker 3: Of you're at George Washington University School of Law.
Speaker 1: You are the Hamas attack on Israel and then obviously
Speaker 1: Israel's response, and so it felt like freedom of speech
Speaker 1: was certainly being questioned or maybe not allowed equally. So
Speaker 1: help us with that one, because that was certainly problematic.
Speaker 1: As we know, a lot of university heads are no
Speaker 1: longer there as a result. Walk us through your thinking
Speaker 1: about that and how it might apply.
Speaker 11: I think the first thing to note about that conflict,
Speaker 11: and I say conflict because it's ongoing right that this
Speaker 11: is some of the campuses are struggling with right now,
Speaker 11: is to say that this should be proof in the
Speaker 11: first instance, that the First Amendment doesn't.
Speaker 12: Help us here. It doesn't resolve these questions.
Speaker 11: You can invote free speech all you want, you can
Speaker 11: invoke the First Amendment, but it's not actually going to
Speaker 11: answer the question of what kind of community do you
Speaker 11: want to have at any given university and what are
Speaker 11: the kinds of threats to that kind of community that
Speaker 11: you should be focused on. And what I think was
Speaker 11: really tragic about so much of the demonstration activity that
Speaker 11: happened in the last few months and the responses by
Speaker 11: universities is that they in some ways looked over their
Speaker 11: own communities and were speaking to I think audiences that
Speaker 11: were more like members of Congress, or maybe the donors,
Speaker 11: or maybe the media, but they weren't speaking to their students.
Speaker 12: They weren't speaking to their own communities.
Speaker 11: And hearing what people were trying to communicate, and of
Speaker 11: course the things they're trying to communicate are controversial, they
Speaker 11: are complex, they can be misinterpreted, they can be rightly
Speaker 11: interpreted in ways that are maybe concerning. But what you
Speaker 11: really should have seen from these universities is some leadership
Speaker 11: about their own community and some grace and some generosity
Speaker 11: for the students as they struggle through incredibly complex, fraught issues.
Speaker 11: That's the kind of leadership that I really wish we had,
Speaker 11: as opposed to grandstanding for donors, members of Congress, and
Speaker 11: others who were trying to weaponize those demonstrations to make
Speaker 11: their own political points.
Speaker 3: The theme of burning is a big part of your book,
Speaker 3: Fearless Speech, Professor, burning crosses, burning women, burning books, burning
Speaker 3: down the public square, and then finally you conclude with
Speaker 3: choosing your own way to burn. Why is that omnipresent
Speaker 3: in your book For.
Speaker 11: Multiple reasons, But one of the main ones is the
Speaker 11: scene that I opened the introduction of the book with,
Speaker 11: which is the burning of the press. The newspaper, a
Speaker 11: newspaper called the Memphis Free Speech, and it was Ida
Speaker 11: Wells's newspaper, and it was burned at the ground after
Speaker 11: she published an editorial that she had written about the
Speaker 11: truth about lynching, and it was a moment where I thought,
Speaker 11: this is really a repeating theme throughout American history. We
Speaker 11: have this belief, this mythology about the First Amendment that
Speaker 11: wet radical speech and we protect dissidents. And then you
Speaker 11: look back to the people who have spoken out against slavery,
Speaker 11: You look back at the people who were speaking out
Speaker 11: against lynching, You.
Speaker 12: Look at the women who are fighting for the right
Speaker 12: to vote.
Speaker 11: You look at the moments now in terms of Black
Speaker 11: Lives Matter protests and the Me Too movements, and you
Speaker 11: see that time and time again, the mob has come
Speaker 11: for those individuals.
Speaker 12: They have suppressed that speech. It's been violently.
Speaker 11: Suppressed in a way that sometimes took the form of
Speaker 11: literal burning of newspapers, but sometimes took the form of
Speaker 11: incredibly onerous lawsuits or persecutions in other ways. So time
Speaker 11: and again, those who are trying to be most fearless
Speaker 11: in their speech have been suppressed. They have been violated,
Speaker 11: they've been assaulted. And that's really a theme that I
Speaker 11: wanted to emphasize in the book.
Speaker 1: You know, just in your intro to you know, you say,
Speaker 1: on fettered, free speeches does indeed exist, but only for
Speaker 1: some Americans today. In America, delusional stalkers have a First
Speaker 1: Amendment right now to terrorize their victims. Pornographers have a
Speaker 1: First Amendment right to glorify sexual violence. For profit businesses
Speaker 1: have a First Amendment right to deny services to gay
Speaker 1: people and to advertise this fact. Anti abortion ze let's
Speaker 1: have a First Amendment right to mislead pregnant women with
Speaker 1: fake pregnancy and clinics. It goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1: So it is interesting. So what's the answer. What's the
Speaker 1: way forward?
Speaker 11: I think we can, and I think it starts with
Speaker 11: acknowledging that we've never done it. I think it starts
Speaker 11: with acknowledging that this is our whole mythology about the
Speaker 11: First Amendment. The mythology about our country generally has always
Speaker 11: been at best and aspirational idea. It's never been a
Speaker 11: completed project. So for the First Amendment, specifically for the
Speaker 11: question of free speech, we really have to be confrontational
Speaker 11: about how throughout our history the First Amendment has not
Speaker 11: stood up for free expression, at least not for those
Speaker 11: who were speaking out against the most powerful parts of society.
Speaker 11: It has shown up for the people who are the
Speaker 11: enemies ways of democracy and of those who are trying
Speaker 11: to be egalitarian and progressive. So what we have to
Speaker 11: do first is we have to admit that we have
Speaker 11: to stop telling ourselves this bedtime story about the First
Speaker 11: Amendment that we've always protected free speech and acknowledge and
Speaker 11: really grapple with the fact that we haven't. We have
Speaker 11: chosen winners and losers for the First Amendment. The moment
Speaker 11: we admit that, then we can have an honest discussion
Speaker 11: about what belongs in that part of the First Amendment
Speaker 11: that says this should be most protected, and what belongs
Speaker 11: in that part that most of us would agree should
Speaker 11: be something that we're allowed to regulate. Fraud, if we
Speaker 11: think about defamation to some extent, if we think about
Speaker 11: the kind of food and drug labeling misinformation that you
Speaker 11: might work about, if there weren't any kinds of protocols
Speaker 11: for those kinds of issues. We need to think about
Speaker 11: and be honest about the fact that we've always made
Speaker 11: assessments about harm and speech and injury, and let's talk
Speaker 11: about how we can do that in the fairest, most
Speaker 11: transparent way and really think about the context that we're
Speaker 11: speaking in and care about the harm, not just abstract harms,
Speaker 11: but actual harms. Are the one we've been talking about
Speaker 11: all this time. That is, there are people who are
Speaker 11: going to die because.
Speaker 7: Of her Ria information.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, so, then, is it the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court who figures that out?
Speaker 11: I wish I could say that we should have any
Speaker 11: confidence in the Supreme Court to do that. I don't
Speaker 11: think they're going to figure that out anytime soon, But
Speaker 11: that doesn't mean that the people can't figure these things out.
Speaker 11: The one takeaway here about the First Amendment being neither
Speaker 11: necessary nor sufficient for freedom of speech is that we
Speaker 11: can do free speech. We can do fearless speech without
Speaker 11: waiting on the Supreme Court, without waiting for the law
Speaker 11: to change. We can actually lift up, amplify, highlight those
Speaker 11: people who have taken those risks even though they had
Speaker 11: no protections, and we can make those people at the
Speaker 11: center of our discourse and we can model ourselves after them.
Speaker 3: Professor, what's the link between Americans trust in media or
Speaker 3: a lack thereof, and the misunderstanding of the First Amendment
Speaker 3: in your view? Thinking of a report from Gallup that
Speaker 3: came out just yesterday that says that trust in media
Speaker 3: remains at a low, with only thirty one percent of
Speaker 3: Americans expressing a quote great deal or fair amount of
Speaker 3: confidence that the media will report the news fully, accurately
Speaker 3: and fairly.
Speaker 11: I think it is a sign that we have at
Speaker 11: least two competing problems, or at least two problems that
Speaker 11: are contributing to this, and one is just a general
Speaker 11: lack of First Amendment literacy in our public right. We
Speaker 11: don't have really good education about what the First Amendment
Speaker 11: actually does and what it's supposed to protect because we're
Speaker 11: losing out on that clarity. The few parts of the
Speaker 11: First Moment that really are clear say that you've got
Speaker 11: to make sure that the government isn't trying to throttle
Speaker 11: the media. You've got to make sure that that members
Speaker 11: of Congress aren't trying to intimidate researchers. Those are the
Speaker 11: things that actually are quite clear and quite good about
Speaker 11: the First Amendment, And if we could get clarity on those,
Speaker 11: then we could understand why it's so frightening that the
Speaker 11: government is trying to take hold of media and social
Speaker 11: media in all the different ways. But that's partly lesson
Speaker 11: for the media real large too. Which is help educate
Speaker 11: the public about what the First Amendment does and doesn't do.
Speaker 1: What hope do you have that things change?
Speaker 11: I have hope that things can change because we are
Speaker 11: at a very dangerous moment in history. But we have
Speaker 11: had these kinds of moments before, and there have been
Speaker 11: people who have been willing to stand up to say
Speaker 11: the things that are really hard, to act in a
Speaker 11: way that is against their own self interest, and to
Speaker 11: try to rescue democracy and to make that promise of
Speaker 11: equality become a reality rather than just an empty promise.
Speaker 11: And so I do still have hope for that, because
Speaker 11: I still have hope in people.
Speaker 10: I know.
Speaker 3: No, you don't seem optimistic, Carol.
Speaker 1: Speaking of speech, I feel a little speechless because I
Speaker 1: think it's such a big discussion of our time right
Speaker 1: in terms of we talk so much about free speech,
Speaker 1: and that means people can say things that you don't
Speaker 1: agree with or can be uncomfortable. I don't know, though,
Speaker 1: if there's a line that I think you can cross
Speaker 1: obviously when it creates harm, is it should it still
Speaker 1: be protected? I guess I would say no.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think the way that just the speed
Speaker 3: at which speech travels now m m is so fast
Speaker 3: because of the technology and velocity. Exactly Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Well, Marian gave us a lot to think about timely, certainly,
Speaker 1: as we you know, we're thinking in the middle, like
Speaker 1: in the thick of it, and try to be so
Speaker 1: careful about the information certainly that we talk about, right
Speaker 1: and so careful. But that's not the case everywhere in
Speaker 1: the world. Marion Frank's professor of an intellectual property technology
Speaker 1: civil rights law at George Washington University. Her new book
Speaker 1: Check it out, Feel a Speech Breaking Free from the
Speaker 1: First Amendment.
Speaker 6: This is FO.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 1: Who is in the White House sitting in the Oval
Speaker 1: Office will determine policies that potentially impact the money businesses
Speaker 1: have to invest or to hire workers. Those policies, too,
Speaker 1: will impact the money we all as citizens have in
Speaker 1: our own pockets, which kind of got us thinking about
Speaker 1: the experiences of past presidents and how they were managing
Speaker 1: their own money. Turns out there's a new book on
Speaker 1: just that.
Speaker 3: Megan Gorman wrote it. She's founding partner of the independent
Speaker 3: wealth advisory firm Checkers Financial Management. She's also a tax attorney.
Speaker 3: Her book All the President's Money, How the Men who
Speaker 3: governed America Governed their Money.
Speaker 1: She joined Bloomberg Daybreak Europe co host Stephen Carroll and
Speaker 1: me while we were at the Bloomberg Earthshot Prize Innovation
Speaker 1: Summit last month in New York City. We started by
Speaker 1: asking I write the book.
Speaker 13: So first of all, I've always loved history, like a
Speaker 13: lot of Americans, and I think it's always interesting to
Speaker 13: understand where the president's a lot like us, where they
Speaker 13: have their humanity and money is emotion, and this is
Speaker 13: a great way to look at presidents across American history
Speaker 13: in terms of how they feel about money, how they
Speaker 13: interact with money, and what were their money values. Now
Speaker 13: we are in an election year, so obviously you know
Speaker 13: the spotlight goes to both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
Speaker 13: to figure out do their personal finances impact their policies?
Speaker 13: And I'd have to tell you it's not that it
Speaker 13: impacts their policies directly, right, Fiscal policy is thousands of
Speaker 13: people working on it. But what I would tell you
Speaker 13: is it's a lot about sometimes a reflection of things
Speaker 13: that are important to them. So for instance, with Trump
Speaker 13: and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, you know, he
Speaker 13: increased the unified credit, the amount we can pass free
Speaker 13: of tax at our death to now in this year,
Speaker 13: it's thirteen point six million, very much a reflection of
Speaker 13: his values of generational wealth transfer. In contrast, when we
Speaker 13: carve into the current tax proposals by Kamala Harris, very
Speaker 13: much a focus on the middle class, and she's been
Speaker 13: very clear to all of us that she comes from
Speaker 13: a middle class background. So there's some correlation there that
Speaker 13: we can definitely see.
Speaker 1: What surprised you in doing this process? And I'm curious,
Speaker 1: did you get through all the presidents or how did
Speaker 1: you pick and choose?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I tried to.
Speaker 13: I got about thirty four in the book because the
Speaker 13: book sort of looks at the traits I saw my
Speaker 13: high net worth clients, right, and then tell you stories.
Speaker 13: So what I found really surprising is how quirky some
Speaker 13: of the presidents were.
Speaker 7: So I found letters that.
Speaker 13: LBJ wrote that basically said I was up at two
Speaker 13: am in the morning worried about money. And then in
Speaker 13: the next sentence he starts talking about buying a suit
Speaker 13: that would be like somebody today buying a four.
Speaker 7: Thousand dollars suit.
Speaker 13: Things like, you know, FDR forgetting to file his income
Speaker 13: tax returns because he lost the paperwork somewhere between Warm
Speaker 13: Springs and his house in New York.
Speaker 7: So really fun.
Speaker 13: Little things that made the presidents feel much more like
Speaker 13: like we are today.
Speaker 14: I love that you point out in the book that
Speaker 14: two questions that everyone asked you when you tell them
Speaker 14: that you were writing it. Who was the best with money?
Speaker 14: And who was the worst?
Speaker 6: Exactly?
Speaker 14: Let's start with who was the best?
Speaker 13: Okay, so you know the best people always means is
Speaker 13: that the richest, right, And I think the thing is
Speaker 13: wealth has a lot of connotations, so don't laugh. But
Speaker 13: I would tell you the best with money was probably
Speaker 13: Herbert Hoover, you know, grew up an orphan in Iowa,
Speaker 13: makes his way, you know, and learns how to budget
Speaker 13: as a child in order to get access to funds
Speaker 13: to have clothing and food and medicine, gets to Stanford
Speaker 13: goes to Stanford basically tuition free because he was in
Speaker 13: the first class at Stanford University, and then he takes
Speaker 13: his geology degree and through the use of grit and
Speaker 13: his budgeting, he ends up discovering gold mines in Australia.
Speaker 13: And so it's really important to note that as incredibly
Speaker 13: wealthy as he became, he.
Speaker 7: Was very, very charitable over the course of his life.
Speaker 13: I think the other president that we would call sort
Speaker 13: of the best with money is George Way Washington. And
Speaker 13: you know, over the course of his life he built
Speaker 13: immense wealth through you know, acquiring land and by doing
Speaker 13: something that a lot of other presidents did.
Speaker 7: To make money by marrying up Martha.
Speaker 13: Washington had a lot more money than George and so
Speaker 13: it helped him with his net worth by marrying her.
Speaker 13: So I think the thing about both of them is
Speaker 13: they both worked really hard, really utilized the skills that
Speaker 13: they had to build wealth. The one caveat is, and
Speaker 13: we always have to keep this in mind, is Washington
Speaker 13: was a slaveholder. When it comes to the worst, I'll
Speaker 13: tell you, Thomas Jefferson, do not take money advice from him.
Speaker 13: He was incredibly illiquid, not good at budgeting. Really just
Speaker 13: focused on living a fabulous life. I mean, you wanted
Speaker 13: to go to his dinner parties, but you did not
Speaker 13: want to be there when the bills came. And so
Speaker 13: he lived this very big life, didn't have the money.
Speaker 7: And I'll tell you at the end of.
Speaker 13: His life, the last letter he writes is this beautiful
Speaker 13: treatise and democracy. The second last to last life he
Speaker 13: writes in his life is to try to buy wine
Speaker 13: on credit because he just didn't have the money to
Speaker 13: pay for it. And so that's why Thomas Jeffernerson just
Speaker 13: struggled so much with managing his money.
Speaker 7: So be a Washington, not a Jefferson.
Speaker 1: I think people might be surprised to that. Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: was one of the wealthiest presidents of his era. Walk
Speaker 1: us through that.
Speaker 13: Yeah, So Lincoln grew up poor, made a ton of
Speaker 13: mistakes growing up right, would start businesses, they fail, But
Speaker 13: he finally gets to the point where he studies, he
Speaker 13: becomes a lawyer, and he does what Washington did. He
Speaker 13: married up. So Mary Todd was a wealthier woman than.
Speaker 7: He he was.
Speaker 13: So between his law career and Mary Todd's family, he
Speaker 13: does incredibly well.
Speaker 7: And when you go to Springfield, Illinois. What's striking is
Speaker 7: he has the best house in town.
Speaker 13: But Lincoln really made money when he became president because
Speaker 13: he rented out his house in Springfield, and every paycheck
Speaker 13: he would save half of it and put it into
Speaker 13: treasury bonds and try to three notes that were paying
Speaker 13: six and seven percent to finance the war. And so
Speaker 13: by the time he passed away, he had a net
Speaker 13: worth of eighty five thousand. Doesn't sound like much to
Speaker 13: us today, but really it's about two million dollars in
Speaker 13: today's money. But again, Lincoln's one of those ones. He
Speaker 13: did make some mistakes, died without an estate plan, and
Speaker 13: the family had to have the Chief Justice of the
Speaker 13: United States come in and administer the estate. So did
Speaker 13: some good stuff, but struggled with some other issues.
Speaker 14: Megan, talk us through. I really enjoyed the story that
Speaker 14: you said you told in the book about Joe Biden
Speaker 14: and house hunting, and that's about Joe Biden's relationship with property.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Well, first of all, we have to remember with Joe Biden,
Speaker 13: this is a guy who grew up with not a
Speaker 13: lot of money and early in his life had a
Speaker 13: very traumatic moment with his wife passing away, and so
Speaker 13: as a result, when you deal with trauma, you want
Speaker 13: to be sort of slowing down your thinking.
Speaker 7: But Joe Biden loves real estate.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 13: We all know he has the house in Rehoboth, but
Speaker 13: he fell in love with this very big house in Wilmington, Delaware,
Speaker 13: and it was a house that he should never have
Speaker 13: bought on a senator salary, and it was an old
Speaker 13: DuPont estate was falling apart and he was able to
Speaker 13: buy the house, but he didn't have the cash flow
Speaker 13: to keep it up, so he would do crazy things
Speaker 13: like sell off pieces of the land or only fix
Speaker 13: up certain parts. And so this house was sort of
Speaker 13: it was sort of like an episode of the Money Pit,
Speaker 13: and it was something he really really loved because he
Speaker 13: loved this idea of what the house represented, but he
Speaker 13: really just didn't have the liquidity. And I think this
Speaker 13: is something that's relatable to all Americans, right. We all
Speaker 13: struggle at times to have assets that we might not
Speaker 13: have the liquidity to manage.
Speaker 7: So Biden is not someone you really want to emulate.
Speaker 13: You want to look at him and go gush, really
Speaker 13: think through how you make financial decisions and what will
Speaker 13: happen five, ten, fifteen years from now based on that decision.
Speaker 1: All right, well we're staying with kind of current presidents
Speaker 1: or recent presidents. How about the Clinton's. Take us to
Speaker 1: Bill and Hillary.
Speaker 13: Yeah, Bill and Hillary Clinton, you know, incredibly smart people,
Speaker 13: but early on in their lives, they had an opportunity
Speaker 13: to invest in something called Whitewater. And anybody over the
Speaker 13: age of forty remembers Whitewater, right, So, but Whitewater started
Speaker 13: out pretty innocently. If I showed you a picture of Whitewater.
Speaker 13: It was pitched to them to be a retirement community
Speaker 13: that people would be able to build houses on, and
Speaker 13: it was beautiful. And when they were pitched this investment,
Speaker 13: they made a mistake that most people do because they're
Speaker 13: afraid of looking foolish. They didn't do due diligence, they
Speaker 13: didn't ask a lot of questions, and they basically got
Speaker 13: themselves into an investment where really, if you had dig
Speaker 13: dug into it, you would have realized this was also
Speaker 13: going to be a bit of a money pit and
Speaker 13: you were going to have to keep adding money in
Speaker 13: because there was no septic there was no electricity on
Speaker 13: this land, and so the Clintons made a series of
Speaker 13: mistakes with this.
Speaker 7: Now what's nice is we still get there.
Speaker 13: Up till twenty sixteen, we could still see their f
Speaker 13: financial disclosures. I think one of the nice things to
Speaker 13: say about them today is they've really become quite organized
Speaker 13: with their finances. You definitely see a state planning in place.
Speaker 13: There's an irrevocable life insurance trust on Bill Clinton. They
Speaker 13: tend to invest in index funds, so they eventually learn
Speaker 13: their lesson. But the takeaway with the Clintons is, you know,
Speaker 13: really do due diligence, ask a lot of questions about
Speaker 13: your investments before you put your money to work.
Speaker 14: What did you learn from researching Donald Trump's finances?
Speaker 7: That could be a whole book all itself.
Speaker 13: You know, Look, I think the thing about Donald Trump
Speaker 13: is you're dealing with generational wealth transfer.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 13: He's generation two. He inherited four hundred million from generation one.
Speaker 13: His goal is really to get the money down to
Speaker 13: generation four and five. So when you have someone with
Speaker 13: that mindset, and you have someone who is willing to
Speaker 13: take risk and really push the envelope, you know, what
Speaker 13: you get is a lot of estate planning techniques that
Speaker 13: are technically correct that the technique itself is a lot
Speaker 13: at something a lot of high net worth American use,
Speaker 13: but he takes it to such an extreme level that
Speaker 13: that's where you start to have challenges. I would also
Speaker 13: say with Donald Trump, he also reminds me of another
Speaker 13: New Yorker who was incredibly aggressive with real estate, and
Speaker 13: that was Martin Van Buren. And so Martin van Buren
Speaker 13: was also someone who became an attorney, very poor background,
Speaker 13: becomes an attorney and starts to learn how to navigate
Speaker 13: the real estate market so he can aggressively buy land
Speaker 13: from people. So I would tell you Trump is someone
Speaker 13: you just have to watch because of their risk and
Speaker 13: the fact that they're willing to push the envelope.
Speaker 1: I still have thinking about the role of women and
Speaker 1: the dowries and the importance in helping out some of
Speaker 1: the presidents are thanks to Megan Gorman, she's founding partner
Speaker 1: of the independent wealth advisory firm in San Francisco, Techer's
Speaker 1: Financial Management. Her book All the President's Money, How the
Speaker 1: Men who governed America governed their Moneyting.
Speaker 2: To the Bloomberg Business Week podcast, catch us live weekday
Speaker 2: afternoons from two to five pm. Easter listen on Apple
Speaker 2: car Play and and Brout Auto with a Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: act or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Earlier this year, Carol and I spoke to Rebecca and
Speaker 3: Josh Tickle, the filmmakers behind the documentary Common Ground. It's
Speaker 3: all about the regenerative movement in farming. It's the idea, Carol,
Speaker 3: that soil health is everything, and food production and industrial
Speaker 3: farming wreak havoc on the environment. Regenerative farming instead undoes
Speaker 3: the damage that's been done for generations.
Speaker 1: Regenerative farming is something Camilla Marcus has focused on for years.
Speaker 1: She is a chef and founder of Westbourne. It was
Speaker 1: the first certified zero waste restaurant in New York City.
Speaker 1: It's now an online foods business that has the goal
Speaker 1: to quote send nothing to the landfill.
Speaker 3: Camilla also has a new cookbook out. It's called My
Speaker 3: Regenerative Kitchen, Plant based recipes and sustainable Practices to nourish
Speaker 3: ourselves and the planet. We started by asking her to
Speaker 3: explain the regenerative movement.
Speaker 15: I really found the regena movement through my work in restaurants.
Speaker 15: I mean, I'm a professionally trained chef. I've worked for
Speaker 15: a bunch of different chefs and restaurant tours here in
Speaker 15: New York City. I had my own restaurant in Soho,
Speaker 15: And I think when you really dig into the supply chain,
Speaker 15: you're nothing without your farmers, Right, everything starts at the source.
Speaker 15: I would say, sustainability and food quality and flavor start
Speaker 15: with our ground. And I really think it was sort
Speaker 15: of starting in that world about fifteen years ago, meeting
Speaker 15: farmers and realizing the disconnect from who's shopping at a
Speaker 15: grocery store to what's happening at the earth, and how
Speaker 15: vitally important that system is. It's the only system that
Speaker 15: can pull down carbon in time for my generation that's
Speaker 15: obsessed with climate change. It sort of was this light
Speaker 15: bulb of why isn't every dollar and every effort that
Speaker 15: we have pouring into this system and into this massive
Speaker 15: land transition, and that's really our only hope to solve it, And.
Speaker 1: Yet industrialized farming still exists.
Speaker 15: We do a lot of things that aren't logical here
Speaker 15: in the States.
Speaker 1: Well, I am curious, like in your process of building
Speaker 1: your restaurant and just learning more about this that how
Speaker 1: entrenched it is and how difficult it is to shift
Speaker 1: to more regenerative farming. Can we do it? Like we
Speaker 1: talk about organic? I don't know, you know, it's still
Speaker 1: probably smaller, right like in.
Speaker 3: Terms of versus conventional Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, so I'm just like, how do we get there?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like Chipotle was somebody who talked a
Speaker 1: lot about trying to do food production in a much
Speaker 1: much better way, in a regenerative way, years ago. So
Speaker 1: I'm just like, how do we get there? Can we
Speaker 1: get there?
Speaker 15: I think that's really the ethos of the book is
Speaker 15: if every single one of us made one decision today
Speaker 15: to do a regenerative practice in their home, whether that's
Speaker 15: buying a regenerative food at the grocery store, getting in
Speaker 15: touch with the regenerative farm. So many, especially now the internet,
Speaker 15: you can buy these products online direct, right, you know,
Speaker 15: direct from the source, cooking in a way that's a
Speaker 15: little bit more mindful of climate. If every single one
Speaker 15: of us did just one thing, Yeah, we could turn
Speaker 15: the system on its head.
Speaker 3: Am I moving the needle by composting?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 7: Really drastically.
Speaker 15: I do read the book. I share the data carbon
Speaker 15: but the data is there. You look at the carbon capture,
Speaker 15: it turns your entire kitchen into being carbon negative from
Speaker 15: carbon positive just by composting. And now there's so many
Speaker 15: home systems, there's no excuse.
Speaker 3: Here's why I ask. In a city like New York,
Speaker 3: we now have composting citywide, But at that time, I
Speaker 3: can't imagine us doing this without having a weekly collection
Speaker 3: for compost. People live in multifamily, people live in apartments.
Speaker 3: It's not something they can definitely necessarily just go throw
Speaker 3: in their backyard and a composter.
Speaker 15: Except now there's companies like Lomi and Mill where you
Speaker 15: can absolutely do it anywhere. If you own a trashman,
Speaker 15: you can own one of these systems, and you absolutely
Speaker 15: can do it anywhere. It wasn't like it was even
Speaker 15: three years ago. Again, I think the technology, the startups,
Speaker 15: the support, the financial systems absolutely have made composting accessible.
Speaker 1: Am I understanding that more and more products are getting
Speaker 1: marked with regenerative like they're noting it to see that
Speaker 1: if you are looking to do the right thing, as
Speaker 1: you said, each of us can do it by buying
Speaker 1: a product starting there you can find the markings. Is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 15: That's absolutely the genes I'm wearing our regenerative cotton. We're
Speaker 15: partnering on this cookbook tour with Citizens of Humanity. They
Speaker 15: have the same mission in the same aha moment that
Speaker 15: I had, which is from the clothes you wear, to
Speaker 15: the beauty products you use to what you're buying in
Speaker 15: a grocery store. We make more decisions about food and
Speaker 15: beverage in our daily lives than anything else.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you costs though, and I think about.
Speaker 15: Sub get it a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell us a little bit about what the
Speaker 1: cost is for things and whether this is just a
Speaker 1: small sliver of the economy that can actually partake in
Speaker 1: this regenerative cycle.
Speaker 15: I really don't agree that it's just down to cost.
Speaker 15: And I will say because I think if you pair
Speaker 15: it with a more waste oriented practice in your home,
Speaker 15: which is what the book again holistically is trying and
Speaker 15: explain if you're thinking about quality over everything and less
Speaker 15: is more upcycling things in your home kitchen, not throwing
Speaker 15: out food. I mean, we all know the stats. We
Speaker 15: throw out a lot of food in America. It's not
Speaker 15: that we don't grow enough to feed our communities, it's
Speaker 15: that we waste too much. If you really think about
Speaker 15: quality of ingredients, supporting these farms, supporting these products, but
Speaker 15: buying less and being more creative and how you cook.
Speaker 15: I think net net you'd have more of the masses.
Speaker 1: But we talk about this like, I know in my household,
Speaker 1: like we're trying to shop more often. My daughter spend
Speaker 1: some time overseas and she's like, everybody shops daily.
Speaker 15: It's a very dig don't go in the refrigerator right.
Speaker 1: Right exact, you know. But this quantity of that, we
Speaker 1: have to have so much stuff food or otherwise. It's
Speaker 1: I don't know how we as a society, certainly here
Speaker 1: in the United States, get away from that.
Speaker 7: I think the truth is we have to.
Speaker 15: I mean, I think that's what the book is trying
Speaker 15: to also siren a little bit, is in a very
Speaker 15: beautiful and lovely way, sound the alarm of we kind
Speaker 15: of don't have a choice of continuing down the path.
Speaker 15: That's really the truth. So how do we change our hands?
Speaker 15: Kind of being forced already? Right, but climate crisis is looming.
Speaker 15: Traditional industrial farming is not working, both from a health
Speaker 15: and a sustainability standpoint.
Speaker 3: So let's zoom out a little bit and talk.
Speaker 1: About change is reducing some of the land we've got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk about some of the issues with modern farming
Speaker 3: because I think when people go to the store, they
Speaker 3: don't necessarily realize that what they're buying may have been
Speaker 3: grown in a way that isn't necessarily good for the environment,
Speaker 3: and in fact is bad for the environment. I don't
Speaker 3: think people I think regenerative. The concept of regenerative is
Speaker 3: still very new to a lot of people and unfamiliar
Speaker 3: to a lot of people.
Speaker 15: Yeah, you know, my philosophy is always I don't know
Speaker 15: that I care whether someone can define it. I don't
Speaker 15: think most people can define organic. It means pesticide and
Speaker 15: chemical free. But I don't think the average person is
Speaker 15: going to say that doesn't roll off the tongue. Same
Speaker 15: with regenerative. It's really all about the soil. Best way
Speaker 15: to remember it, soil is a four letter word. It's
Speaker 15: the thing we need to care the most about, and
Speaker 15: it's the most tied to our health. What's better for
Speaker 15: the earth is always better for our health. When we
Speaker 15: have farming practices that care about carbon in the soil
Speaker 15: and health of the soil, we get better for you
Speaker 15: foods that are higher in nutrient and density.
Speaker 3: Do you think the government needs to get involved and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: these things are allowed. These things are not allowed.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 15: Look, I always say follow the money, right. We are
Speaker 15: in an industrial stranglehold in agriculture because of the Industrial
Speaker 15: Revolution following World War Toooh.
Speaker 1: I would say that about fossil fuels in many ways,
Speaker 1: right exactly, But anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 15: No, the context has changed, but the policies are still
Speaker 15: sort of stuck back in time. We say we need
Speaker 15: to be more progressive. Go back in time before that
Speaker 15: industrialization and the difference. You asked about regenerative The best
Speaker 15: way to think about it is in one hand, you're
Speaker 15: holding that soil that you get when you're planting something
Speaker 15: in your home. It's black, it has organisms, it's wet,
Speaker 15: it's moist, versus picking up dirt around a tree right
Speaker 15: on the side of the road or here in Manhattan.
Speaker 15: One is chalky dry, it's sort of a dull brown color.
Speaker 15: That's the difference between traditional farming and regenerative farming. I'm
Speaker 15: a visual person, so I like to think of it
Speaker 15: in that way.
Speaker 1: But don't hate me for going back to this, But
Speaker 1: I mean, in terms of the cost of a regenerative farm,
Speaker 1: is it more expensive to do right now?
Speaker 15: Again, I think it depends on how you look at it.
Speaker 15: Is it a shift in practices that require capital investment, yes,
Speaker 15: does it pay back and reset the farm? Absolutely? And
Speaker 15: the biggest long term shift in that and whether it
Speaker 15: costs more to me, is those yields are going down.
Speaker 15: They are not these existing farms that have industrial practices
Speaker 15: and traditional modern farming. They're not able to grow the
Speaker 15: same that they were last year or the year before
Speaker 15: and the year before oil.
Speaker 10: So at some.
Speaker 15: Point that cost structure is going to surpass. So maybe
Speaker 15: today there's an argument to say that, but I would
Speaker 15: argue that's the fallacy that the incumbents want you to believe.
Speaker 15: It's not actually true when you look at the next
Speaker 15: seven years.
Speaker 3: So where should we be getting our food?
Speaker 15: A couple places. First, as locally as possible. Most communities
Speaker 15: have some form of a farmer's market, I think. Second,
Speaker 15: thinking about again buying directly from farms, their CSA boxes,
Speaker 15: dried products from all these incredible sources from around the country.
Speaker 15: And then third, go into your grocery store asking for
Speaker 15: regenerative brands, talking to the manager, going on shelf and
Speaker 15: looking for that word regenerative. It's what I talk about
Speaker 15: in the book from Rice to pasta, the sauces to
Speaker 15: our west Warren, avocado oil, all your basic staples now,
Speaker 15: so a lot of brands out there doing the good work.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it is no different than when
Speaker 1: we kind of shifted towards organic right and looking for it.
Speaker 1: And I think we all have figured out how to
Speaker 1: do that. What you look like you wanted to ask something.
Speaker 3: I think the Tickles told us the same thing, to
Speaker 3: go to the grocery store and ask about this stuff.
Speaker 3: Because we're kind of the front line of this right.
Speaker 15: Always look at regenerative cotton right when Patagonia was one
Speaker 15: of the first to do, you know, organic cotton. Now
Speaker 15: it's table stakes to have organic cotton in your wardrobe.
Speaker 1: How often do you find that organic cotton? I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think, like when I go shopping aganic.
Speaker 15: Cotton now is really sort of the baseline.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean even at you know, again accessible mass
Speaker 15: market companies and brands organic cottons everywhere. It wasn't ten
Speaker 15: years ago. Now, Regenerative textiles is the next wave, Like
Speaker 15: I said, from jeans to you know, upcycled products for
Speaker 15: your sunglasses, your glasses that you're wearing. I think you're
Speaker 15: seeing it actually more trailblazing in fashion and beauty, and
Speaker 15: I think foods behind, which is what we're trying to
Speaker 15: catch up.
Speaker 1: Your story though you started a restaurant take us back
Speaker 1: there twenty eighteen. I believe, Yeah, not an easy thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 15: If they were easy, everyone would do it. That's what
Speaker 15: my dad always said.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that process.
Speaker 7: Oh god, what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 15: Look, opening a restaurant business period in this country is
Speaker 15: very hard. You know. Unfortunately the country is not so
Speaker 15: supportive of small businesses. And it's interesting, right, restaurants are
Speaker 15: the second largest employer next to healthcare, and yet you
Speaker 15: know they hire more people per square footage. And yet
Speaker 15: again we talked earlier about following the money, very little incentives.
Speaker 15: You know, most restaurants pay thirty percent corporate taxes when
Speaker 15: you tally it all up, I kind of brutal when
Speaker 15: you compare it to other businesses and employ a lot
Speaker 15: less Americans. So it's tough. The cards are stacked against you.
Speaker 15: But you know, I think we're all crazy and for
Speaker 15: the love of the game and the impact that it
Speaker 15: can make. I think on connecting the food system to
Speaker 15: all of us in the public, it's powerful.
Speaker 3: What do you think is the long term effect or
Speaker 3: long term consequence of what restaurants went through during the pandemic?
Speaker 15: Oh, big question.
Speaker 3: Look, I think be very involved in trying to save restaurants.
Speaker 3: You were out there lobbying for these small businesses to
Speaker 3: save your own. That was a big part of it.
Speaker 10: I was.
Speaker 15: I helped start Roar here in New York where we
Speaker 15: did cash assistance along with the Robin Hood Foundation, as
Speaker 15: well as the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which is still in existence,
Speaker 15: working tirelessly. The team is still activated. So I would
Speaker 15: say the overhang and sort of the pain of it
Speaker 15: all is still there. I mean, look at what's happening now.
Speaker 15: You know in the southern part of this country with
Speaker 15: the hurricane, it's hard enough to operate these businesses. You know,
Speaker 15: it really got crushed during the pandemic, and I don't
Speaker 15: think anyone's really come out of it. And then you
Speaker 15: continue to get just really heavy regulation every time. When
Speaker 15: we even talked about penalty, right, you look at the
Speaker 15: straw ban. You know, Amazon doesn't get a plastic ban,
Speaker 15: but restaurants somehow, you know, have to constantly go through
Speaker 15: hoops of oh you you know, have to accept cash,
Speaker 15: you can't do straw. There's all these regulations that come
Speaker 15: down so that it's a nice headline, but where's really
Speaker 15: the support for an industry that's always been a big
Speaker 15: game changer when it comes to agriculture, Right, Everything we
Speaker 15: learn about biodiversity often comes from restaurants. You learn about
Speaker 15: new ingredients, new farming techniques. We talked about organics, so
Speaker 15: much of that language comes from when you die now
Speaker 15: and you learn from chefs around the country who are
Speaker 15: usually the first adopters. And yet we don't really have
Speaker 15: large government support for making these strong, viable businesses that
Speaker 15: are critically important to our farming system, important to feed
Speaker 15: people and massive employers.
Speaker 1: Camilla, Why doesn't that happen here? We are in an
Speaker 1: election year?
Speaker 6: Is it the.
Speaker 1: Lobby group isn't strong enough donating enough? Like I'm just
Speaker 1: curious because, as you say, follow the money in politics,
Speaker 1: that's true in terms often of who gets heard.
Speaker 15: I think it's that, But I also think it's the
Speaker 15: nature of the business. You know, during the pandemic, one
Speaker 15: of our big taglines was, you know, we're we are
Speaker 15: collectively as small We are each a small business technically,
Speaker 15: but collectively we're obviously a massive industry. I think that's
Speaker 15: part of the problem, is right, you look at aerospace,
Speaker 15: there's a handful. You can count on your hands how
Speaker 15: many players that the government has to negotiate. I think
Speaker 15: we get written off because it's, oh, everyone's so different.
Speaker 15: It's a bunch of small businesses. Who knows what the
Speaker 15: owners want. But there are very similar through lines through
Speaker 15: all of them. And I think it's really just the
Speaker 15: being very daunted that there's so many players involved, versus
Speaker 15: seeing it as a bigger industry like a healthcare which
Speaker 15: it is.
Speaker 1: Is there also local rules and laws versus federal, Like
Speaker 1: I'm just.
Speaker 15: Curious, local, state, federal. I mean, you name it right,
Speaker 15: rests it's great headlines. You guys know you're in the
Speaker 15: news business. Everything's about clickbait and splashiness. And when you
Speaker 15: regulate a restaurant or you come down hard on things
Speaker 15: related to labor, real estate again food, it all makes
Speaker 15: for really good headlines when you pass a regulation, but
Speaker 15: they don't really think about the ripple effects.
Speaker 3: Kind of on that. You know, you said nothing's off limits,
Speaker 3: So I have some of really important questions. We have
Speaker 3: kids that are like the same age. My five year
Speaker 3: old is a very picky eater.
Speaker 6: I love these guys.
Speaker 3: What are you cooking for your kids and how do
Speaker 3: you get them to eat it?
Speaker 15: So I'm going to go back, which is one grows
Speaker 15: something in your house. It's a big ten ind of
Speaker 15: the book. I find that children look at food totally differently.
Speaker 15: Even if you do windowsill herbs and you have them
Speaker 15: putting herbs in their own dish quote unquote cook My
Speaker 15: son can literally cook his own meal at a stove
Speaker 15: with a knife. They understand cutting boards, they know knife safety.
Speaker 15: My three and a half year old fully kin chop
Speaker 15: things for me. Have them participate in meals, but it
Speaker 15: really starts at the source. Grow something. Have them watch
Speaker 15: watching My children understand that a strawberry takes a certain
Speaker 15: amount of time, that a squash is something that they
Speaker 15: took care of every single day for months. There's a
Speaker 15: very different most kids I would be. I would be
Speaker 15: shocked if a child wouldn't eat something that they actually grew.
Speaker 15: It's like the part of being human and having an ego.
Speaker 15: Play into that with your own children. Give them authorship.
Speaker 15: It's very hard not to get into it when you're
Speaker 15: part of it. So grow something include them and cooking,
Speaker 15: and then give them a lot of agency and choice,
Speaker 15: put out different sauces, have them decide. My kids also
Speaker 15: do our grocery shopping. They go to the grocery store,
Speaker 15: they go to our farmer's market, and they have to
Speaker 15: live up to what we call top chef challenges. They
Speaker 15: have to pick a new fruit or vegetable every single month.
Speaker 15: They have to try something new. Our rule in our
Speaker 15: houses you don't have to like it, but you have
Speaker 15: to try it. You can't just refuse. And then we
Speaker 15: talk about what are we going to have this week,
Speaker 15: what are we going to try, what are you into?
Speaker 6: What do you like?
Speaker 15: What did you not like? But I think also making
Speaker 15: it very interactive and giving them a form of agency
Speaker 15: of okay, you can have broccoli, but right there's twenty.
Speaker 15: First of all, there's many kinds of broccoli out there,
Speaker 15: and let's talk to the farmer. My kids have to pay,
Speaker 15: they have to actually procure their own produce. And then
Speaker 15: when we cook, let's talk about grilling, Let's talk about
Speaker 15: you know, roasting, let's talk about steaming, let's talk about
Speaker 15: raw and we talk about all those different things and
Speaker 15: how they can make it different ways again, giving them agency.
Speaker 15: And then I'd say, lastly, educate kids love information. Talk
Speaker 15: about what each fruit and vegetable is doing in their body.
Speaker 15: I mean my kids will use the word vitamin see.
Speaker 15: I mean my three year old knows what that means.
Speaker 15: Talk about does it help your eyes, does it help
Speaker 15: your bones, does it help your muscles? And then how
Speaker 15: does that relate to their day and being higher performance
Speaker 15: and fuller.
Speaker 1: I just want to make the honeynuts squash with fried
Speaker 1: squash seeds thirty secs over the weekend thirty seconds. Who
Speaker 1: is this book for everyone?
Speaker 15: It really is? If again, it doesn't mean you have
Speaker 15: to adopt it all, but I get a lot of
Speaker 15: questions about kids and families and who's it for the cost?
Speaker 15: Every single one of us could pick one thing out
Speaker 15: of that book and do it and adopt it and
Speaker 15: feel really excited and fulfilled after, I promise, you will
Speaker 15: feel better and you'll realize that it's actually not that
Speaker 15: hard to make that change. You'll tell a friend, they'll
Speaker 15: tell a friend, and we spread it like wild fire.
Speaker 1: And I feel like the world is increasingly, at least
Speaker 1: in my circle, moving towards those plant based diets increasingly Camilla,
Speaker 1: thank you so much.
Speaker 10: This is fun.
Speaker 1: Good luck, good luck Camilla Marcus my regenerative kitchen, plant
Speaker 1: based recipes and sustainable practices to nourish ourselves in the planet.
Speaker 3: I know what you're doing to It's squash season, heis.
Speaker 3: I spent all weekend cooking squash.
Speaker 15: You're twenty all different titles and go make it different ways.
Speaker 15: Get them involved.
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