Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business finance and tech news as it happened. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hiom, Carol Masser, and I'm Tim Stanovik.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Tim
Speaker 1: week forty nine working from home still for many we
Speaker 1: were mostly in the office of those snow kind of
Speaker 1: set me home and you home a little bit as well.
Speaker 1: It's a week though, where we saw stocks hitting records
Speaker 1: and then backing off, Bitcoin taking out one record after another.
Speaker 1: We did get some upbeat news and COVID cases, but
Speaker 1: that was a little bit overshadowed by reports about inequities
Speaker 1: of the vaccine rollout. That was just some of our
Speaker 1: backdrop this week as we talked with all of our guests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a busy week and it included the president
Speaker 1: of Impossible Foods. The company is cutting prices on quote
Speaker 1: unquote me you know, put that in quotes because it's
Speaker 1: not actually mean by as much as twenty percent Also
Speaker 1: we caught up at the former editor in chief of
Speaker 1: The Financial Times. He's got a new book out. It's
Speaker 1: called The Powerful and the Damn Private Diaries Into Turbulent Times.
Speaker 1: He has seen so much and he's written about it.
Speaker 1: Plus Mackenzie Scott, the former Mrs Jeff Bezos and how
Speaker 1: her big giveaway is transforming the family. Fortune's really changing
Speaker 1: so much. They're all of that to come to him, though.
Speaker 1: We begin with Dr Alaja Day Williams, Chief of Staff
Speaker 1: of Neurology over at Columbia University. He's an NIH funded researcher,
Speaker 1: a leaning health disparities expert with research focused on community
Speaker 1: based behavioral interventions. He's also the founder, president in board
Speaker 1: share of Hip Hop Public Health. By the way, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Philanthropies provided a granted Hip Hop Public Health. We began
Speaker 1: by talking about what he's seeing in terms of cases
Speaker 1: and getting the vaccine out to the people who need it.
Speaker 1: The good news is that you know, we all seeing
Speaker 1: um we're all seeing you know, the rates of COVID
Speaker 1: in patients trickled down. Um our admission rate called down,
Speaker 1: and we've been seeing that slowly but steadily. It's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a welcome relief given uh you know,
Speaker 1: my experience on the front lines at the height of
Speaker 1: the pandemic when it took uh New York City by surprise. UM.
Speaker 1: But on on on another front, UM, I'm actually very
Speaker 1: very concerned about about the vaccine coverage UM situation. UM
Speaker 1: as you as you lead with in in this segment,
Speaker 1: there are striking disparities, um again afflicting those who are
Speaker 1: suffer suffer the most community of color, poor neighborhoods, uh,
Speaker 1: disenfranchised Americans. They're the ones, really who have born the
Speaker 1: brunt of the COVID death and morbidity rates. And and
Speaker 1: they're the ones now UM really UM really, you know,
Speaker 1: really not being engaged sufficiently uh in off and and
Speaker 1: you know, sadily enough um too, you know in a
Speaker 1: way that they would enable increased uptake of the vaccine.
Speaker 1: You know, we we have to earn back trust, Kim
Speaker 1: and Carol. UM. You know, trust was broken over hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of years of you know, of quite frankly
Speaker 1: systemic inequities and structural racism and um and great mistrust
Speaker 1: with the medical community. And we're seeing those effects now.
Speaker 1: So we have to be more creative, and we have
Speaker 1: to be more purposeful uh to earn back the trust
Speaker 1: of these communities so that we can get back to
Speaker 1: the nation coverage rate stuff. Because the bottom line is
Speaker 1: we're all in this together and and we we are
Speaker 1: all connected, and if one link in this chain UH
Speaker 1: is not strong, then um, we won't be able to,
Speaker 1: you know, climb our way out of this pandemic. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about your website and and this organization that you've created,
Speaker 1: hip Hop Public Health. It's very cool. I was watching
Speaker 1: video US last night about HIV and eating healthy and
Speaker 1: you guys do it in a fun way. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hip hop, it's a song, it's got lyrics, but
Speaker 1: it's also got really strong messages that I think and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming really stay with people. Tell me about this
Speaker 1: organization and the impact that you that you find that
Speaker 1: it's having and really reaching people. Sure, thank you. So,
Speaker 1: you know, hip Hop Public Health was really borne out
Speaker 1: of my frustration with the traditional public health messages in
Speaker 1: the black community. I felt that the penetration of the
Speaker 1: public health communication campaigns wasn't really sufficient and a lot
Speaker 1: of the work we did working directly with community with
Speaker 1: community members confirmed uh, this really poor translation of public
Speaker 1: health into the community. And they really came up with
Speaker 1: the suggestions for us to use a new model, and
Speaker 1: hip hop really made a lot of sense, and it
Speaker 1: was really pushed and promoted by the youth that we
Speaker 1: were engaging around how best to do this. You know,
Speaker 1: as a neurologist, Kim and Carol, I'm also um really
Speaker 1: interested in music and it's roll in the brains. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize that that music actually
Speaker 1: occupies more real estate, more neural real estate in our
Speaker 1: brains than language itself. You know, music, music augments learning,
Speaker 1: it's it's it augments our memories. Music, it creates positive associations.
Speaker 1: You know, music increases our attention to Music has such
Speaker 1: powerful neurological uh strength and attributes that you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why if you think about how
Speaker 1: we learned our abcs, we learned it to through song.
Speaker 1: If you think about movies that we watch, right, if
Speaker 1: the thing about Dark Vada, right, you know, he's imminent.
Speaker 1: You know he's about to approach those emotions start rousing
Speaker 1: as soon as you hear that that music. If you
Speaker 1: think about Rocky the Rocky the Rocky series. You think
Speaker 1: about that music that's played and how it connects with
Speaker 1: your emotion and want it motivates you to go that
Speaker 1: extra mile when you're on the treadmill. You know, music
Speaker 1: has such powerful, powerful features. And even as a neurologist
Speaker 1: looking at the stroke patients, we use a form of
Speaker 1: musical music information therapy to help patients speak again, use
Speaker 1: it in our nursing home to deal with agitation amongst dementia.
Speaker 1: So our our position and hip hop public health is
Speaker 1: that music has an incredibly transformative power right needs to
Speaker 1: be better better leverage within public health. That was Dr
Speaker 1: Alaga Day Williams, Chief of Staff of Neurology at Columbia
Speaker 1: University talking about so much in that interview. For the
Speaker 1: entire interview, check out the podcast and you loved and
Speaker 1: we both love where he talked about the importance of
Speaker 1: music therapy. I've I've read about this and the impact
Speaker 1: that that can have on people with some severe injury,
Speaker 1: especially neurological ones. Yeah, that was just fascinating me. This
Speaker 1: is a medical doctor, somebody who studies neurology talking about
Speaker 1: the importance of music in recovery and association as well.
Speaker 1: A really important interview coming up. From getting vaccines to minorities,
Speaker 1: something Dr Williams also talked about, to providing funding to
Speaker 1: black and brown entrepreneurs. The founder and CEO of Black
Speaker 1: Girl Ventures, she's coming up next. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Well, this story that Bloomberg reported last year, Tim,
Speaker 1: I gotta say it stayed with me. It's about how
Speaker 1: the u S population it's black, and yet just four
Speaker 1: per of the VC industry is African American. That data
Speaker 1: came out on the year of from the National Venture
Speaker 1: Capital Association. That's compared with three percent two years earlier.
Speaker 1: It's not changing much, but one of the guests we
Speaker 1: caught up this week is trying to change it, as
Speaker 1: is Nike, who partnered with Black Girl Ventures to provide
Speaker 1: half a million dollars to fund black and brown women
Speaker 1: identifying founders of companies. Here with more on that and
Speaker 1: the work that Black Girl Ventures has been doing since
Speaker 1: it was founded back in ten is Shelley Bell, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO at Black Girl Ventures. So with blackgirold Ventures,
Speaker 1: we worked to create access to capital, capacity, and community
Speaker 1: in order to help black and brown founders sustain and
Speaker 1: grow their businesses. One of the ways we do this
Speaker 1: is we have a unique way of providing capital through
Speaker 1: our pitch competition. And that competition is like Kickstarter and
Speaker 1: Sharp Pink put together. So women pitched their businesses and
Speaker 1: it is crowdfunded, and so the audience actually votes with
Speaker 1: their dollars for the pitch that they favor most, and
Speaker 1: then we grant that capital through those winners. We've also
Speaker 1: stretched across the city, so we're I'm across the country.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait wait, explain it. So so okay, so
Speaker 1: I love it. Wait, I want you to break it
Speaker 1: down for me. So you're telling me that entrepreneurs they
Speaker 1: pitched to an audience and then the audience actually votes
Speaker 1: with money. Yes, and Black Girl Ventures we we created
Speaker 1: a crowd funded pitch competition. So you know, while you
Speaker 1: know the status you just mentioned four percent of VC
Speaker 1: industry being black, and you know, less than one percent
Speaker 1: of black women or black black women receive access to
Speaker 1: VC capital. You know, I'm just I was thinking to
Speaker 1: myself or what can we do? And so I created
Speaker 1: this unique way of engaging people democratizing assets to capital.
Speaker 1: It is while we wait for everyone to become more equitable,
Speaker 1: we still as underrepresented groups have to stay in business.
Speaker 1: And so my thought was what could we do And
Speaker 1: this is what we can do. We can activate people
Speaker 1: to actually engage in people with people to vote with
Speaker 1: their dollars to provide access to capital. Well and tell
Speaker 1: me about this, because you've been doing it for a
Speaker 1: few years now, what's been the payoff of this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean when we're doing just purely you know, access
Speaker 1: to capital you can from in terms of like without
Speaker 1: any sponsors, in the beginning, we were still able to
Speaker 1: provide anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars or a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand dollars. I mean now with with our
Speaker 1: efforts becoming more visible at Black proventres and having awesome
Speaker 1: partners like Nike, Visa, Warby Parker, Equilibria, Cool House like this,
Speaker 1: amazing partners that we're able to work with an how
Speaker 1: rare beauty burn and we're actually able to get our
Speaker 1: our community more capital through the partnerships and connecting them
Speaker 1: to bigger partners for example, with a very Beauty branch competition.
Speaker 1: It was a clean beauty competition, the first one in
Speaker 1: the country, and we partnered up with Ultra Beauty and
Speaker 1: so the winner of that competition, not only did they
Speaker 1: receive ten thousand dollars plus their crowdfunder capital, they got
Speaker 1: an opportunity to sell their products on ultra beauty dot com. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it is really a combination of Shark Tank, American Idol,
Speaker 1: like all these things in terms of doing it. But
Speaker 1: you know, it speaks to though, what is a very
Speaker 1: significant problem and that there's not equal access to capital
Speaker 1: or fundraising you know rounds for all individuals. No, there's not,
Speaker 1: and I mean there's not equal access. There's not equity
Speaker 1: when when it comes to loans, there's not equity when
Speaker 1: it comes to UH capital for black role ventures. We
Speaker 1: try to combat that with this out funding competition. On
Speaker 1: top of that, we're all we also have a fellowship.
Speaker 1: So with this Nike partnership we will be launching in Chicago.
Speaker 1: It is a nine month fellowship not only focus on
Speaker 1: business owners, but focus on business them becoming business leaders.
Speaker 1: We need more voices at the table and that's what
Speaker 1: I've learned throughout ever as a black revengures is that
Speaker 1: having more voices at the table, voices in the community,
Speaker 1: that I amplified visibility. We feel like people will be
Speaker 1: able to engage in supporting these groups. Right, it's UM.
Speaker 1: So it's been an amazing journey. Yeah, it's creating role
Speaker 1: models for people to follow, but it's also creating a
Speaker 1: network absolutely. So you know, each one teach ones a
Speaker 1: fund one. It's a great way of saying it. Shelly,
Speaker 1: you guys have funded um I think roughly dred and
Speaker 1: thirty women and I'm just curious talk to me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about what happens to these women where
Speaker 1: by providing them with a little bit of funding, what
Speaker 1: happens to them as an entrepreneur, what happens to them
Speaker 1: as a business you know owner, what happens to them
Speaker 1: maybe as someone who is able to kind of pass
Speaker 1: it along in my men to somebody else. He had
Speaker 1: a great question. We at Black Girl Ventures, we also
Speaker 1: provide them with more resources after they pitch, and so
Speaker 1: they get an opportunity to go through an accelerated program
Speaker 1: to be a part of a larger community. They get
Speaker 1: an opportunity to get access to Google cloud credits, Amazon
Speaker 1: credits UM. Also we have different tech partners sales Force website.
Speaker 1: We also connect them to people. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that I would say that they can do with
Speaker 1: the capital, especially in today's society where everything gets um
Speaker 1: so connected to tech, is they can market you know,
Speaker 1: they give put the money and to add um, they
Speaker 1: can actually hire or keep on a freelancer for another
Speaker 1: month or two um And those kinds of things extend
Speaker 1: their capacity and you know, and also so capital capacity
Speaker 1: and community and Black girl vengers well, and I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that there is also a sensitivity and maybe a um,
Speaker 1: a deliberate net you know, being deliberate in terms of
Speaker 1: their supply chains. Because one of the conversations Shelley, that
Speaker 1: we've had, uh certainly here at Bloomberg, especially in light
Speaker 1: of what happened to George Floyd and just trying to
Speaker 1: understand the racism within you know, the society at large,
Speaker 1: is the importance of companies, big companies that when they're
Speaker 1: thinking about their supply chain to make sure it's diverse.
Speaker 1: Like you know that money talks, essentially, and that's how
Speaker 1: we're going to move the needle here. I mean access
Speaker 1: the capital can look like a few things and black overstors.
Speaker 1: We believe that acts the capital could be a larger customer, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you talk about diversifying the supply chain,
Speaker 1: that's what we're looking at. People being able to get
Speaker 1: into supply diversity efforts that allow them to get access
Speaker 1: to a larger customer. And this is why the government,
Speaker 1: the US government's efforts around um supplier and around like
Speaker 1: contract is so important because they're being able to get
Speaker 1: access to the government even as a customer is super
Speaker 1: important to diversifying and being able to level up your company.
Speaker 1: I mean, prior to me operating Black Girl Ventures, I
Speaker 1: owned the print shop and I was able to level
Speaker 1: up by doing uh swag and merch orders for Amazon
Speaker 1: and Google. And I mean, you know, considering that journey
Speaker 1: took that invested in what is Black Girl Ventures today.
Speaker 1: The growth is as a nonprofit really focused on creating
Speaker 1: more access more women. So if you look at that
Speaker 1: thread right now, me learning how to do that through
Speaker 1: like working with Google and work with Amazon, and also
Speaker 1: getting a bigger customer through Google and Amazon, right and
Speaker 1: then moving into creating this which now has created as
Speaker 1: as the capital for a hundred thirty and counting women
Speaker 1: across the country. And that was Shelley Bell, founder and
Speaker 1: CEO Black Girl Ventures. And listen, one of the things
Speaker 1: we got into the conversation, Tim, it's just that whole
Speaker 1: idea of that a lot of minorities don't have the
Speaker 1: same access to capital that white investors and entrepreneurs do,
Speaker 1: and so she's really trying to change that. Move the needle,
Speaker 1: all right, still ahead. What's troubling workers? A survey ranks
Speaker 1: their concerns. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So, Tim,
Speaker 1: the American worker, you know, you've talked about a lot.
Speaker 1: I've talked about a lot. It's something that Bloomberg has
Speaker 1: really kept close tabs on, and long before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: we know that US workers productivity in their medium pay,
Speaker 1: which once rose in tant and went through an acrimonious
Speaker 1: divorce compensation, especially in some of the country's fastest growing
Speaker 1: industry as well, it's stagnated while the cost of housing, healthcare,
Speaker 1: and education TI we know this decidedly have not. And
Speaker 1: one thing that we talk a lot about is is
Speaker 1: workers goals of financial security. Here with insight on that
Speaker 1: is Rob Thousand, vice chair at Prudential Financial and a
Speaker 1: member of Prudential's Board of directors, with the company's latest
Speaker 1: survey of the workforce. Yeah. So this is actually the
Speaker 1: eleventh in our series that both free dates and then
Speaker 1: subsequent to the to the pandemic. UM. Some interesting things
Speaker 1: coming out of this most recent survey. Where I found
Speaker 1: most interesting, not necessarily surprising to me at least, but
Speaker 1: interesting is, um, how you know you think about how
Speaker 1: stress reveals cracks and foundations. Um, this stress, the economic
Speaker 1: stress and the pandemic stress that we've been going through
Speaker 1: is actually, you know, I think revealed conditions that existed
Speaker 1: well before the pandemic in terms of the lack of
Speaker 1: financial resiliency that exists with you know, amongst American workers
Speaker 1: in the In the survey, over half of the individual
Speaker 1: survey indicated that they recognize that since the pandemic they
Speaker 1: actually were not well prepared going into the pandemic from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of sort of their their own financial sort
Speaker 1: of well being. Uh. And I think that was quite interesting.
Speaker 1: So we talk about the pandemic, it's made it much worse.
Speaker 1: So now seven intent are not well prepared, but but
Speaker 1: fully half those were not in great shape heading into
Speaker 1: the pandemic, which I think speaks to some of the
Speaker 1: foundational and fundamental things that need to be addressed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so we rob we talk a lot about this
Speaker 1: idea of the case shaped recovery, that so many Americans
Speaker 1: are out of work right now and they're having a
Speaker 1: really tough time getting back to work. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we're seeing the stock market flirt with record highs and
Speaker 1: people who are at the top end of the income
Speaker 1: spectrum are doing pretty well. And I'm wondering what you
Speaker 1: saw in your research that actually confirms and and confirms
Speaker 1: to conforms to that. Well, what it showed is that
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a high level of anxiety
Speaker 1: amongst American workers. And you know, if you sort of
Speaker 1: think about it's the broad based American workers you're talking
Speaker 1: about Middle America, uh, in this kind of a survey.
Speaker 1: So there, you know, the people who may have some
Speaker 1: level of savings but obviously insufficient based on what the
Speaker 1: survey has said. And so the benefit that they've received
Speaker 1: by virtue of the uplift in financial markets has been
Speaker 1: dwarfed by the insecurity they're feeling because of around job
Speaker 1: security and benefit security and the reality of UM. Whatever
Speaker 1: they were making and saving before the pandemic hasn't been
Speaker 1: enough UM. And I thought was it was interesting kim
Speaker 1: is um in the survey had showed that, you know,
Speaker 1: one in four had actually exhausted UM or substantially depleted
Speaker 1: their emergency savings, and now one in five were behind
Speaker 1: on their bills and two thirds said they couldn't they
Speaker 1: could not finance a or pay for any kind of
Speaker 1: an emergency repair or you know, need for cash that
Speaker 1: might come up. So I think there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: very much this dichotomy of of individuals who are who
Speaker 1: who have not participated in the financial markets are are
Speaker 1: actually quite vulnerable. Hey, I do under Rob too. Were
Speaker 1: there any differences in terms of ages millennials versus older workers? Yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting question, Carol. We did look at that, particularly in
Speaker 1: this survey, we looked at millennials and it was actually worse,
Speaker 1: which was kind of interesting when I thought about it,
Speaker 1: perhaps not surprising. I mean, let's remember millennials now we're
Speaker 1: the biggest component of the workforce. So whatever we're seeing
Speaker 1: in the data, it's gonna reflect how millennials are are
Speaker 1: are also experiencing the current environment. But also when you
Speaker 1: think about where they the millennial is, UM from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of sort of the life cycle. You know, they're
Speaker 1: heading into household formation, UM, you know, buying homes, getting mortgages, UM,
Speaker 1: raising children. Uh. And so there are points in their
Speaker 1: career when actually, UM, there are probably the most stressful
Speaker 1: points in their career in terms of their need for resiliency.
Speaker 1: Yet are faced with an environment where it's you know,
Speaker 1: not not particularly available, and I think it has them
Speaker 1: more stressed over the current circumstances than the general population.
Speaker 1: And forgive me for your bringing this on YouTube, but
Speaker 1: I am curious in terms of pulling the research and
Speaker 1: pulling it together. UM, any differences when they dig a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper into UM backgrounds and demographics blacks versus whites, Like,
Speaker 1: any differences there? Yeah, our our survey didn't. We haven't
Speaker 1: parced the data out from the survey that way. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say, um, Carol that you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at both the first order effects of
Speaker 1: the pandemic from a health standpoint and then the second
Speaker 1: order effects from an economic standpoint. It's been a very
Speaker 1: unequal experience in our society. Uh, and you know, from
Speaker 1: a socioeconomic demographic standpoint, so for both a racial standpoint
Speaker 1: and frankly from a gender standpoint to One of the
Speaker 1: things we do see is um in other surveys that
Speaker 1: we've done related to this, is that you know, women
Speaker 1: are experiencing this from a stress standpoint more extremely than
Speaker 1: men are as a result of you know, what the
Speaker 1: pandemic has done to the personal demands in the household
Speaker 1: and you know, all the benefits of remote work. And
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before with some of the burdens
Speaker 1: of being at home and that has to do with
Speaker 1: you know, the child care and home and home schooling
Speaker 1: and uh and you know, associated activities. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to hear you know, what Rob had to say, Tim,
Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes workers are concerned about just keeping
Speaker 1: their jobs. Sometimes they're worried about getting you know, pay increases.
Speaker 1: This time it really was largely about financial security, So
Speaker 1: good to get uh some thoughts on that. And that
Speaker 1: of course was Rob Fouls and he's vice chair at
Speaker 1: Prudential Financial. He's also a member of Prudential's board of Directors.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, someone who's
Speaker 1: had a front seat to so much, the former editor
Speaker 1: in chief of The Financial Times, all about the biggest
Speaker 1: business stories of his career. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: He spent fifteen years as the editor of the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: front row seat to the big business, economic and political
Speaker 1: stories of our times and the power players behind them all.
Speaker 1: I love talking to people like this, to him and
Speaker 1: his observations, his access, it's all detailed in a new book.
Speaker 1: It's a diary, if you will, of what he saw.
Speaker 1: The book is entitled The Powerful and the Damned Private
Speaker 1: Diaries in Turbulent Times, and the author Lionel Barber, former
Speaker 1: FT editor in Chief. Check it out well. Great to
Speaker 1: be with you, Carol. I wanted to have a book
Speaker 1: about power, people in power, how they made decisions, what
Speaker 1: were they like up close and personal, like Mohammed bin
Speaker 1: Sulman in Riad or Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, or
Speaker 1: are the president Trump and Obama sort of snapshots of
Speaker 1: the personalities and on Wall Street obviously some of the
Speaker 1: big bankers who are in the middle of the global
Speaker 1: financial crisis. And I had a privileged seat, as you say,
Speaker 1: as editor of the Financial Time, so up close and
Speaker 1: personal in diary form in terms of we got about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, then we'll come back. Everybody who has power
Speaker 1: not the same though in terms of how they use
Speaker 1: it or how they I don't know how they are
Speaker 1: frees to face well. I I think that the big
Speaker 1: change that happened in the under my aditorship was obviously
Speaker 1: the digital revolution, and that really changed the power balance
Speaker 1: between readers and and producers of news. The news industry fragmented.
Speaker 1: There were new ways of reaching readers. You saw that
Speaker 1: with Twitter and politicians, and and also the rise of China.
Speaker 1: That was the other huge phenomenon. There was a change,
Speaker 1: frankly in the economic balance about between East and West.
Speaker 1: So one thing I want to ask you, Littel, especially
Speaker 1: on a day where we were kind of glued to
Speaker 1: the hearings in Washington, the game stop meme stock trading,
Speaker 1: the Reddit rise. Um, is it a story that you
Speaker 1: missed reporting on? Oh? Yeah, I mean this was one
Speaker 1: of the best market stories. Was better than the Taper
Speaker 1: trand tantrum. Maybe not quite as dramatic as when we
Speaker 1: were watching the world's financial system almost melt down in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, But it had everything, didn't it.
Speaker 1: The small time trader, the hedge funds making millions, and
Speaker 1: and one or two companies that you and I thought
Speaker 1: were not much better than Penny Stock suddenly going through
Speaker 1: the roof. I'd love to have been in the newsroom.
Speaker 1: Who is the powerful and who's the damned in that story?
Speaker 1: In in the game stop, Well, there were one or
Speaker 1: two people who are going to caught short, who are
Speaker 1: definitely going to be damned. But I think there's some
Speaker 1: questions about the integrity of the trading platform. I think
Speaker 1: there's uh, the powerful maybe at least in the short term.
Speaker 1: The the the the small time retail investor clubbing together was
Speaker 1: a bit more powerful than we ever imagined. So I
Speaker 1: want to go through I have. I could talk to
Speaker 1: you for hours, Um, the tech boom. What comes to mind?
Speaker 1: Who was the power player? That just epitomizes that that
Speaker 1: that time you have to say that it's the Big four,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I think jeff bees are some amazing transformation
Speaker 1: of Amazon facebooks and questions about their model, the way
Speaker 1: they they they they contribution to the sort of civic
Speaker 1: discourse and role in elections being their platforms being abused.
Speaker 1: Google massive amount of influence over the news business. I mean,
Speaker 1: for for the Ft, it was critical because we built
Speaker 1: a subscription model. I see if you have followed that
Speaker 1: over across the bond um for the you know, having
Speaker 1: a reasonable relationship and making the tech giants understand and
Speaker 1: that included Apple that you know, we couldn't just hand
Speaker 1: over our data on our customers. We needed to sort
Speaker 1: of establish our brand and not be discriminated against, and
Speaker 1: that that was a big story. But the powerful was
Speaker 1: certainly and still are the big tech four in America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting the way in China. Yeah. Well absolutely.
Speaker 1: We talked earlier about Facebook and what's going on in
Speaker 1: Australia right now. Um, I do wonder, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the survival of mainstream media when you've got social
Speaker 1: media and it's where increasingly everyone goes for their news. Well,
Speaker 1: true Carol and in the period I was editor, there's
Speaker 1: no question that the media landscape fragmented in a dramatic way,
Speaker 1: and social media became terribly important. But as long as
Speaker 1: you're not caught in the muddled middle, and you've got
Speaker 1: a strong brand, and I would consider Bloomberg, the New
Speaker 1: York Times, the Worlcester Journal, and the Financial Times. We
Speaker 1: were known when I was in Washington twenty five years
Speaker 1: ago as the Financial Times in London no more it
Speaker 1: was the ft Pink brand. If you've got a strong
Speaker 1: brand and a good business model, which is a subscription business,
Speaker 1: you know you can thrive. And we the FT did
Speaker 1: get more than a million paying readers. We double our
Speaker 1: audience and readership in the fifteen years I was editor.
Speaker 1: It was a must read for all of us when
Speaker 1: it came to anything going on in the world of
Speaker 1: business and beyond and the market. Let me let me
Speaker 1: go through a couple of other big stories, um, the
Speaker 1: global financial crisis. Who's one power player that you were
Speaker 1: in their office or on the phone with that just
Speaker 1: when you think of that time, that's who you think of.
Speaker 1: I think that Jamie Diamond, because he was tactically very
Speaker 1: so astute, and look they got bigger and more and
Speaker 1: they managed their risk very well. I think of Steve Schwartzman,
Speaker 1: who epitomizes the role of rise of private equity. His
Speaker 1: market timing going public was impeccable, and they manage risk well.
Speaker 1: And also I think of Larry think that quiet but
Speaker 1: immense power in asset management. Those are the three. Maybe
Speaker 1: Goldman Lloyd Blank find he was always great fun to
Speaker 1: talk to, very astute lionel. If you put out a
Speaker 1: phone call to anybody, did everyone always call you back? Uh,
Speaker 1: well they called me back. Maybe not in five minutes,
Speaker 1: but at the end of half an hour. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: return my calls. Was there any call that you were
Speaker 1: ever nervous talking to someone because it was a delicate
Speaker 1: story or I don't know, I'm curious. Oh you always
Speaker 1: worry a bit that um when when that heavy breathing
Speaker 1: comes on the line and you think, well, you know
Speaker 1: what we you don't know, what have you messed up
Speaker 1: or something? You're a bit wary. But then you've got
Speaker 1: to be able to bounce, you know, uh, strike back
Speaker 1: politely of course. But now I wasn't really nervous. Um
Speaker 1: obviously in our country we've got libel risk are things
Speaker 1: like that, and look, frankly, there were occasions when things
Speaker 1: got a bit heated on the phone, but this is
Speaker 1: a family broadcast, so I don't want to go into it. Well,
Speaker 1: there's great details in the book The Rise of China.
Speaker 1: It's something we tease before the break. Um. I feel
Speaker 1: like this is a story. We've certainly been covering it,
Speaker 1: but I think we don't realize how big China has
Speaker 1: become and how significant they become in our global economy.
Speaker 1: It's it's above and beyond the numbers. You're so right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think this was really belongs to
Speaker 1: the one or two biggest stories of my time as editor.
Speaker 1: And the difference, of course was the change in power
Speaker 1: when Cheesing Ping came to power and decided to go
Speaker 1: beyond the natural two terms. And you know that old
Speaker 1: phrase that Dung Sholping said that China should bide its
Speaker 1: time and hide its power. Well, under Shijing thing that
Speaker 1: they're not biding their time and they're certainly not hiding
Speaker 1: their power. And I think the other thing that I
Speaker 1: noticed than I remember right going spending three days in
Speaker 1: Washington just to get a sense of what the establishment,
Speaker 1: political stagiment across democrats and Republicans, and the intelligence and
Speaker 1: security establishment felt And it was clear to me at
Speaker 1: that point in two thousand and seventeen eighteen that the
Speaker 1: whole atmosphere had changed and this was going to be
Speaker 1: an age of confrontation across the board, and it is.
Speaker 1: You're you're back to sort of almost nineteenth century great
Speaker 1: our rivalry, favorite person that you had a conversation with
Speaker 1: in your in your tenure and just got about a
Speaker 1: minute left. Well, I do remember sitting in opposite Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin in the Kremlin, and there's a picture of that
Speaker 1: in the book. Ye. Well, he's a very icy character
Speaker 1: and he's a little scary character, and interviewing him with
Speaker 1: us is the master of destabilization. He's always trying to
Speaker 1: put you off balance. So that was memorable. And you know,
Speaker 1: actually the probably the most memorable was sitting for three
Speaker 1: and a half thousand I have to say my backside
Speaker 1: was getting a bit sore in Rwanda talking to Paul Kagami,
Speaker 1: who's transformed that country. That was memorable. And forgive me,
Speaker 1: I said a picture in the book, but it was
Speaker 1: actually a picture in some of the coverage of your
Speaker 1: book that I came across with you sitting down with
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin. Um. I hope you will come back. I'd
Speaker 1: love to talk more about what's in the book and
Speaker 1: your observations of of some of the big stories that
Speaker 1: continue in our time. Thank you so much and good
Speaker 1: luck with it. Lionel Barber. That's Lionel Barber, the former
Speaker 1: editor in chief of The Financial Times. A lot has
Speaker 1: happened to him in the last decade or so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really has. And you know, having a front row
Speaker 1: seat to all of these stories, it really reminds me
Speaker 1: of why I wanted to become a journalist. I mean,
Speaker 1: we get to witness history in the making. It's just
Speaker 1: it's so cool. Yeah, I agree. And that wraps up
Speaker 1: the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanivic.
Speaker 1: More ahead in our next hour, including a conversation with
Speaker 1: the president of Impossible Foods and the food innovation to come,
Speaker 1: A lot is Changing, and the founder of Adam and
Speaker 1: Matter on radically sustainable jewelry, plus the individual transforming the
Speaker 1: fortune created by billionaire and founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: We're talking about his ex wife Mackenzie Scott. Love this story.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi am
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stenovik. Plenty ahead in our
Speaker 1: second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: including the president of Impossible Foods on price cuts and
Speaker 1: food innovation. There's more to come, Blass. We're going to
Speaker 1: hear about an influencer who turned her passion into a
Speaker 1: business and Booze delivery. We were all drinking a lot
Speaker 1: during the pandemic and getting it delivered to our home.
Speaker 1: It's definitely one of the booms during the health crisis.
Speaker 1: First though, in the magazine this week, a story that
Speaker 1: was among the most read on the Bloomberg when it
Speaker 1: crossed about the individual transforming the fortune created by billionaire
Speaker 1: and founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos, or of course, talking
Speaker 1: about his ex wife Mackenzie Scott. We got more from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Wealth Team reporter Sophie Alexander and Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week editor Jill Weber what we've seen since their divorce
Speaker 1: and really um uh most recently um, largely because of Mackenzie,
Speaker 1: has been um this real uh change. And you know
Speaker 1: the six billion figure that so uh and and been
Speaker 1: right about um that's attributed to her, we think is
Speaker 1: the largest single, uh, single amount that anyone's ever given
Speaker 1: to philanthropies in in a in a calendar year, um.
Speaker 1: And so Sophie like, can you walk us through you know,
Speaker 1: the significance of what that means for the Amazon fortune
Speaker 1: going forward? The six billion dollars is just such an
Speaker 1: immense figure. And when we're talking about philanthropy historically, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the main criticisms of billionaire philanthropists, or one
Speaker 1: of their reasons rather of not giving away enough money faster,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, it takes time to be thoughtful
Speaker 1: and it takes time to give away this these huge
Speaker 1: amounts of money, you know, billions of dollars. But Mackenzie
Speaker 1: sort of disproving that and what this could mean for
Speaker 1: the future is you know, Mackenzie is only just getting started.
Speaker 1: She's playing the giving pledge. She's pledged to give away
Speaker 1: the majority of her fortune UM, which at this point
Speaker 1: is nearing sixty billion dollars and so UM that that's
Speaker 1: just a huge amount of money that could be given away.
Speaker 1: And then when we're talking about Jeff who recently stepped
Speaker 1: down or enough that he would be stepping down from
Speaker 1: Amazon as CEO, UM, that's sort of a sign that
Speaker 1: he's probably going to focus more on his giving and
Speaker 1: that we could be seeing more from him in the
Speaker 1: Philo philosophical space coming forward. And to be fair, I mean,
Speaker 1: he did give away money before, right, but it's not
Speaker 1: as quickly as his former wife has. Definitely, UM, I
Speaker 1: think that the to be fair to Jeff UM. When
Speaker 1: we talk about Bill Gates, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: most impressive philanthropists in history, he didn't start giving away
Speaker 1: very much until he stepped down from Microsoft. UM. And
Speaker 1: so Jeff has been giving money. But you know, when
Speaker 1: you put it in the context of how much wealth
Speaker 1: he really have, it's it's a very small amount. We're
Speaker 1: talking about uh, single digit millions, UM, tens of millions
Speaker 1: sometimes and more recently sure hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: But where he's really had the biggest figures are in
Speaker 1: his commitment. You know, he's made the two billion dollar
Speaker 1: commitment for the Day One Fund and then the ten
Speaker 1: billion dollar commitments for the Earth's Times, So those are
Speaker 1: huge numbers, but we're not actually seeing that money deployed yet.
Speaker 1: Bill Gates didn't start giving significantly until he left Microsoft
Speaker 1: as CEO, which which I thought was a really important
Speaker 1: point and not something that I had considered. Um, I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's what we're going to start seeing from
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos now that he has stepped down, or he
Speaker 1: said he would step down and that will happen later
Speaker 1: this year and hand off the reins to to somebody
Speaker 1: else at Amazon. Are we going to start seeing Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos give away more money? That is sort of the
Speaker 1: big question, you know. In his letter announcing that he
Speaker 1: would be stepping down, he mentioned the Day One Fund
Speaker 1: and he mentioned the Earth Fund as two of the
Speaker 1: things that he plans to focus on more. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a few years now since he made those
Speaker 1: announcements that he started would start the Day one Fund,
Speaker 1: and he announced the Earth Fund last year, but really
Speaker 1: has only given about a billion dollars of the twelve
Speaker 1: billion dollars that he's committed to giving and he's set
Speaker 1: no timeline for himself, so you know, he's not really
Speaker 1: going to be held to anything um, but we could
Speaker 1: see more from him coming soon. Well, I think you
Speaker 1: know that's it's an interesting point here because they're the
Speaker 1: Chronicle of Philanthropy came out with some big numbers from
Speaker 1: from Bezos and Scott and others, and and one of
Speaker 1: the things that is interesting there is that, you know,
Speaker 1: Bezos his name was that at the top of that
Speaker 1: list because of what he's pledged, but not actually what
Speaker 1: he's given. And that I think is that one of
Speaker 1: the things that is really important to keep in mind
Speaker 1: what what Sophie and Ben did a great job of
Speaker 1: underscoring in this is like one thing to pledge and
Speaker 1: it's another thing to actually do. And what she you know,
Speaker 1: really showed here is is uh that you can do
Speaker 1: something big and dramatic and do it actually fast. And
Speaker 1: that that I think is the thing that everyone in
Speaker 1: the flanthropy world has looked at her and said, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is something. So my last question for you is
Speaker 1: how competitive does it get when your ex life give
Speaker 1: it away six billion? Like you, that's something you have
Speaker 1: to kind of like the sort of kindle a fire
Speaker 1: in your belly to be like, did you really do that?
Speaker 1: You know, it just it happens. It's like you can
Speaker 1: hear an echo in here. That's a real laugh from Joel.
Speaker 1: I like, all right, you guys just be quiet. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: Sophie answer. I was just gonna say. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: impossible to say what the relationship is now and how
Speaker 1: her giving impact his giving. You know, she's been a
Speaker 1: giving pledge, she hasn't, and he's been sort of knocked
Speaker 1: for that. Um But and it's also impossible to say
Speaker 1: what their philanthropic giving, you know, who did what while
Speaker 1: they were together? Was I talked to an expert about such?
Speaker 1: So it's really hard to say. You know, it's very
Speaker 1: from couple to couple. Um So, we just don't really
Speaker 1: know enough about their individual personalities to be able to
Speaker 1: say much more on that. But you've got to think that,
Speaker 1: you know, when people are talking about the Amazon fortune
Speaker 1: and seeing these things that, you know, he might feel
Speaker 1: a certain responsibility to sort of step it up. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a prime topic that comes up. We're a
Speaker 1: great team. I'm just gonna say it. That's Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Wealth Team reporters Sophie Alexander and Bloomberg Business Week editor
Speaker 1: Joel Webber. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, coming out
Speaker 1: the social media influencer who is now using her influence
Speaker 1: to help others and creating a sustainable jewelry company along
Speaker 1: the way. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So to remember,
Speaker 1: last week we highlighted an interview we did with journalist
Speaker 1: Nick Milton. It was about his new HBO Max documentary
Speaker 1: and that was all about creating Instagram and social media influencers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I loved being able to interview Nick. The documentary left
Speaker 1: me sort of feeling like, oh, this is the world
Speaker 1: we live in. We have to accept it. It It was
Speaker 1: a little scary, yeah, no doubt about it. And and
Speaker 1: this week we actually caught up with one of those
Speaker 1: influencers who is nearly five million Twitter followers, she's got
Speaker 1: four point six million followers on Instagram. She has someone, though, Tim,
Speaker 1: who has stepped away from social media, at least for
Speaker 1: a while. She was named the most influential person on
Speaker 1: the Internet by Time two years in a row and
Speaker 1: Forbes thirty Under thirty. Her latest venture creating a direct
Speaker 1: consumer jewelry company that uses recycled sterling silver sustainably and
Speaker 1: ethically crafted in Thailand, which went online last November. Bethany
Speaker 1: moda founder of Adam and Matter. So my company we
Speaker 1: launched in November. It's called Adam and Matter, so it
Speaker 1: is a jewelry brand. And I had done some stuff
Speaker 1: in like the fashion space before, when I had a
Speaker 1: clothing line with air Postal that was a few years ago, um,
Speaker 1: and we did get a little jewelry in that collection.
Speaker 1: But I always really wanted to offer something in the
Speaker 1: jewelry space that, you know, maybe was a little bit
Speaker 1: more expensive than what I've done in the past, but
Speaker 1: for good reason. And that's why designing all of these products.
Speaker 1: I was also able to work with former Tiffany and
Speaker 1: co designer you and Jolie, and she helped kind of
Speaker 1: guide me in making you know, sustainable products that are
Speaker 1: going to last a really long time, so you don't
Speaker 1: buy it because it's trendy and then you throw it
Speaker 1: away a few months later. I really wanted to make
Speaker 1: products that can actually become a part of your life
Speaker 1: because I know, for me, some of my favorite jewelry
Speaker 1: pieces even growing up, it's like I would keep them
Speaker 1: for years and they are kind of like I compare
Speaker 1: it to tattoos a lot. I feel like when you
Speaker 1: really love a specific piece of jewelry, whether someone special,
Speaker 1: gay to you, or just means something, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it has a personality and it and it kind of
Speaker 1: defines you in a way whenever you put it on
Speaker 1: and acts as like a reminder for something significant. So
Speaker 1: that was kind of my overall sool with this collection. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I do think this year two, we've thought
Speaker 1: a lot a lot more about our impact on the environment.
Speaker 1: Right we saw as the world shut down, skies were clear,
Speaker 1: you could see mountain ranges. It was pretty remarkable. But
Speaker 1: I do think about we've become such a society where
Speaker 1: we were something a couple of times throw it away,
Speaker 1: we like, you know, so disposable. So it's interesting to
Speaker 1: hear you say about that sustainability, though I feel like
Speaker 1: the metrics around it can be kind of fuzzy. What
Speaker 1: does sustainability mean to your company? So I mean we
Speaker 1: were a new brand and we're still learning and we're
Speaker 1: always open to new ways that we can improve. Um
Speaker 1: some of the ways I'm mean we use recycled and hypoallergenic,
Speaker 1: lead free materials, so like recycled metals and all of
Speaker 1: that for our products. And then also for me, it
Speaker 1: came down to even just the packaging that it comes
Speaker 1: in was really important for me because I know sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll get jewelry and it comes on like a little
Speaker 1: card or something that you just tossed in the trash.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to make sure that each box that
Speaker 1: our pieces come in is sturdy enough, and again using
Speaker 1: like all sustainable materials and making sure it's something that
Speaker 1: you don't want to just toss but you could actually
Speaker 1: use as a jewelry box for the item that you bought.
Speaker 1: So all of our past is meant. It's also kind
Speaker 1: of like a collectible sort of thing, Like I have
Speaker 1: all of my box for all the jewelry, and it
Speaker 1: looked really pretty on your vanity. So that was my thing,
Speaker 1: is like, let's make this look really nice and make
Speaker 1: it sturdy and reliable so that people get this they realize,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I can keep this and I can
Speaker 1: store all of my jewelry or even other things outside
Speaker 1: of it. And what I understand they're also part of it.
Speaker 1: Is it called the Response Little Jewelry Council. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to manufacturers, we obviously want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we trust the manufacturer that we're
Speaker 1: working with and you know, it's good working conditions and
Speaker 1: that you know, we are supplying the best products for
Speaker 1: our customers, but also that behind the scenes everything else
Speaker 1: is also very you know, ethical and and great behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. So that is basically what that means is
Speaker 1: that we've done our research in making sure that the
Speaker 1: manufacturer that we're in business with is up to our standards,
Speaker 1: um and vice versa. And and it also is a
Speaker 1: give back program, right because everything that is sold there's
Speaker 1: a donation made to an organization dedicated to female empowerment.
Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about that, because that's
Speaker 1: part of it, right. Yeah, So I knew that was
Speaker 1: something that I definitely wanted to incorporate as well. UM,
Speaker 1: giving back to something that I feel like if we all,
Speaker 1: any of us ever have the opportunity to do so,
Speaker 1: I think it's incredible to do so. And so I
Speaker 1: wanted to incorporate that into the brand. So we are
Speaker 1: working with Step Up and Cross them. So both of
Speaker 1: these organizations, they're just very dedicated to help propel girls
Speaker 1: from under resource communities to fulfill their full potential UM
Speaker 1: whether it's like different programs, educational programs, and just helping
Speaker 1: them reach their dreams and their overall goals. UM So
Speaker 1: I'm really happy to be in partnership with them and
Speaker 1: um finding different ways to work together. Yeah, it's really great.
Speaker 1: I love it when we find an entrepreneur who then
Speaker 1: ultimately who has done well, figured it out and then
Speaker 1: is helping others to do the same, and that's really
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Yeah, and that's definitely it kind of
Speaker 1: is a full circle and goes back to what the
Speaker 1: brand stands for is we want us to be, you know,
Speaker 1: an empowering brand, and we wanted to inspire other people.
Speaker 1: And you know, at the end of the day, this
Speaker 1: is something that I genuinely never thought would be possible
Speaker 1: for me, especially like as a thirteen year old girl
Speaker 1: when I started YouTube like so many years ago, I
Speaker 1: never would have thought that I'd be able to launch
Speaker 1: a brand like this. Um So it also itself is
Speaker 1: a repers tentation, especially now in the social media world,
Speaker 1: is so accessible for anybody to have that dream and
Speaker 1: for it to actually be accomplished. UM. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like goes back to the whole deeper meaning
Speaker 1: of empowering everybody to go after what they want because
Speaker 1: it is possible. You were and you are an influencer.
Speaker 1: You have a lot of followers on social media, but
Speaker 1: you stepped away from it. Tell me why, I mean?
Speaker 1: And I am curious because you're back on social media.
Speaker 1: How do you How do you see social media? Is
Speaker 1: it good? Is it bad? Is it not so black
Speaker 1: and white? Um? I think social media can be as
Speaker 1: good or as bad as you wanted to be. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's something that I had to learn and is
Speaker 1: also what contributed to me deciding to take a break.
Speaker 1: I took a break, um, kind of when social media
Speaker 1: burnout wasn't being talked about as much, so I thought
Speaker 1: I was the only one experiencing it. Um. I think
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, to be an influencer,
Speaker 1: you have to have somewhat of an ego, and I
Speaker 1: think that my ego at a point got a little
Speaker 1: out of control. Role in ways that I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't know why I was doing what I was
Speaker 1: doing anymore. I think when you start out, especially for me,
Speaker 1: you know, so many years ago, when social media wasn't
Speaker 1: looked at as a career, I did it fully out
Speaker 1: of passion and so um, Somewhere along the lines when
Speaker 1: it becomes a career, it can get a little confusing
Speaker 1: of like, wait, am I doing this because I love it?
Speaker 1: Or is it just for money? And like that's why
Speaker 1: I had to kind of step away to find the
Speaker 1: balance again of my passion for it um, so that
Speaker 1: I could feel like, Okay, I am giving my most
Speaker 1: authentic spells to my audience, and I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I am being inauthentic for the sake of my career.
Speaker 1: That's Adam and Matter founder Bethany Moda still the comma.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week, the boom and Booze delivery in the
Speaker 1: world of covid. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Bloomberg Quick takes Him's genov on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So Tim I tweeted up this tour when it came
Speaker 1: at It's about how Covid brought booze to your door,
Speaker 1: my door, everyone's doors, making the online liquor sales and
Speaker 1: delivery business worth billions of dollars. Yeah, it's grown so
Speaker 1: much in the United States over the last year. The
Speaker 1: story and the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine
Speaker 1: now on news stands, online, and on the Bloomberg Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News consumer reporter Tiffany Cary, Yeah, that's right. I mean
Speaker 1: some of the alcohol companies they've obviously had a hard
Speaker 1: time with all the bars and restaurants being closed. But
Speaker 1: you know, necessity is the mother of inventions. So here,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them are investing in e
Speaker 1: commerce more and and we're seeing these platforms that can
Speaker 1: deliver booze really take off. Okay, but what about the
Speaker 1: regulatory framework here, because your story goes into some history
Speaker 1: that I really didn't know about the delivery of alcohol
Speaker 1: that goes all the way back to prohibition. Yes, crazy, right.
Speaker 1: They had to break up the bootleggers, so they created
Speaker 1: this sort of three tier system where they weren't going
Speaker 1: to have anyone own all three parts of of the
Speaker 1: you know, distributor, retailer, wholesale or chain. And so there's
Speaker 1: this legacy where no one could own all these three parts.
Speaker 1: So it's really hard to do this sort of direct
Speaker 1: to commerce, direct to consumer that we've seen in all
Speaker 1: these other industries. It's really held online sales of alcohol back.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about because we saw you know, Drizzly
Speaker 1: and uber like. So how does this maybe change the
Speaker 1: dynamics of the players in the industry and how much
Speaker 1: this business maybe grows going forward. Well, I mean these
Speaker 1: are big names, right, everyone knows Uber if they don't
Speaker 1: know Drizzly. So I think it's helped bring a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to this, which is important because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people haven't even realized that they can
Speaker 1: order alcohol online. I think there was a statistic, you
Speaker 1: know that only of people before the pandemic even realized
Speaker 1: they could order beer online. So now you know, consumers
Speaker 1: are more aware. I think it's going to take off
Speaker 1: because really, who wants to go all the way to
Speaker 1: the store just to get a six pack or a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine or liquor. So there's a there's a
Speaker 1: host of companies apart from Jerusale, speakeasy Thirsty bev Shop,
Speaker 1: Casking Barrel Club, and Passion Spirits. And some of them
Speaker 1: are similar to one another, some have a minor differences.
Speaker 1: They've done pretty well throughout the pandemic. But what does
Speaker 1: it look like on the other side of the pandemic
Speaker 1: when people are saying, okay, wait a second, I'm okay
Speaker 1: with actually, you know, going to restaurants and going to
Speaker 1: bars again, I'm not drinking at home as much. Well.
Speaker 1: I think people have always, you know, had alcohol at home.
Speaker 1: I think people will continue to buy it online. And
Speaker 1: there's actually some interesting talk about, you know, what will
Speaker 1: happen to liquor stores here if people don't need to
Speaker 1: go to the liquor store to buy the alcohol, if
Speaker 1: they can buy it online like they buy their groceries.
Speaker 1: Did these become like tasting rooms or something very different?
Speaker 1: But do some of these services do they get fulfilled
Speaker 1: by your neighborhood liquor store. They do. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: so interesting about this because of this legacy of the
Speaker 1: three tier models, it's been around since prohibitions. They can't
Speaker 1: deliver it themselves, so they end up going through the
Speaker 1: liquor stores. So there's definitely an important role here for
Speaker 1: the small retailers. It's so interesting. We talked yesterday about
Speaker 1: ghost kitchens Carol and the idea of the way that
Speaker 1: that restaurants have changed and not having actual you know,
Speaker 1: people sit in them right now because of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I wonder ghost liquor stores. That's what I'm wondering from.
Speaker 1: People are like, oh, wait, you're in New Jersey. I
Speaker 1: can't you get so I got to go to your
Speaker 1: local liquor store to have them actually delivered to you.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a really good question. What do you
Speaker 1: think is that what happens? Well, a lot of these
Speaker 1: delivery services will not cross state lines just because of
Speaker 1: the law. They do have to comply with the three
Speaker 1: tier system, even though they're sort of disrupting it in
Speaker 1: a way. Well, that's what I thought was interesting that
Speaker 1: even though it sounds like it should be like direct
Speaker 1: to consumer, it's not Tiffany right. Like I wrote in
Speaker 1: my notes after reading your store, I'm like, there's still
Speaker 1: layers to get that bottle of booze. You hit the button,
Speaker 1: you know, excuse me on the website, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean automatically that's who's going to give you the Booze.
Speaker 1: That's right. There's a super complicated back end, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these companies, you know, they don't consider themselves
Speaker 1: delivery companies or you know, logistics companies. They talk about
Speaker 1: themselves as software companies. They've really used technology just to
Speaker 1: sort of solve this problem. So you go to a website,
Speaker 1: you think you're buying it from the brand. You have
Speaker 1: this sort of fluid experience as a consumer, but on
Speaker 1: the back end, the software is taking you, you know,
Speaker 1: to a different site and having me buy it somewhere
Speaker 1: else and have it fulfilled by the liquor store. Really okay,
Speaker 1: so how does Thirsty come into this. It's a little
Speaker 1: different than Drizzly because Thirsty works with with major brands
Speaker 1: and those owned by Constellation brands, and it's sort of,
Speaker 1: as you describe this, this shopify for Booze. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little different because it Drizzly. It's like the experience
Speaker 1: of going to a liquor store where you're seeing all
Speaker 1: the brands next to each other. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly amongst some brands that really want to stand out,
Speaker 1: they don't want the consumer to be reminded of who
Speaker 1: their competitors are, so this service really lets the consumer
Speaker 1: go to you know, that website of the brand they
Speaker 1: already know they want to buy, and just have that
Speaker 1: sort of seamless experience and really mimic what what d
Speaker 1: C does in other industries. So, Tim, certainly one of
Speaker 1: the questions is what happens on the other side of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I mean, I feel like that's the case
Speaker 1: for a lot of companies and trends that have happened
Speaker 1: during the health crisis and the shutdown. It's curious if
Speaker 1: we're all going to continue, you know, ordering booze online.
Speaker 1: I don't know if time will hell yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe we'll be at bars and will be ordering ubers,
Speaker 1: you know, the company that owns that will own Grizzly
Speaker 1: soon and to get home right, Yeah, exactly. That's interesting
Speaker 1: way of tying it all together. All right, that's Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Consumer reporter Tivity Kerry. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: Innovation and how we buy our booze. We just covered
Speaker 1: that up next, So innovation and food. It's just getting
Speaker 1: started protecting with the president of Impossible Foods. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So this week, Impossible Foods
Speaker 1: kind of suggested retail prices by a US grocery stores.
Speaker 1: Tim and the mood definitely seen as key by the
Speaker 1: company's president. It's all about getting people to try the
Speaker 1: brand him and keep on coming back. Well, we wanted
Speaker 1: to know more, so we caught up with Impossible Foods
Speaker 1: president Dennis Woodside. Dennis, by the way, former CEO of Dropbox.
Speaker 1: He was also CEO of Motorola Mobility when Google owned it. Look,
Speaker 1: you know, our mission is to completely replace animals in
Speaker 1: your diet, and for us to do that, we have
Speaker 1: to produce the product that tastes great. We have that,
Speaker 1: but it has to be priced right and people consumers
Speaker 1: are very price sensitive when it comes to their meat
Speaker 1: and the meats that they purchased in grocery stores. We've
Speaker 1: scaled so quickly over the last year, We've done from
Speaker 1: two hundred grocery stores over seventeen thousand that we've been
Speaker 1: able to get a lot of efficiencies in our supply
Speaker 1: chain and UH drive our costs down, so we've we've
Speaker 1: passed those costs onto our consumers in the form of
Speaker 1: price decrease. We don't think this will be our last.
Speaker 1: We have to compete with animal animal products that we're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. So when will it be as cheap
Speaker 1: as ground beef? Well, if you think about what we
Speaker 1: what we do, We take plants and we turn them
Speaker 1: directly into meat. And what the animal does, it's the
Speaker 1: animals kind of an intermediary that uh that that requires
Speaker 1: a lot more land, a lot of water, a lot
Speaker 1: of labor, a lot of transportation oil gas to move
Speaker 1: cows around, that sort of thing. So in theory our
Speaker 1: products should be much lower priced than than cows over time,
Speaker 1: but it just takes time for us to optimize the
Speaker 1: supply chain to scale up. Uh. You know, animal based
Speaker 1: meat today is less than one percent of total meat
Speaker 1: consumed in the US. But that's gonna change pretty rapidly.
Speaker 1: And as that does, the cost for the whole industry,
Speaker 1: including US, will come down and we'll be able to
Speaker 1: compete much more aggressively on price. But timeline wise, though,
Speaker 1: is there are you thinking you know in years that
Speaker 1: you can count on one hand or or is this
Speaker 1: like a decades long progressively as absolutely years that you
Speaker 1: can count on one hand. There are portions of our
Speaker 1: product now or elements of our product now that are
Speaker 1: are at the cost of the cow. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of uh. There's a lot of processing costs and
Speaker 1: transportation costs, packaging, all those things that we have not
Speaker 1: yet fully optimized and that take that just take time
Speaker 1: and scale to get right. So the packaging, what what
Speaker 1: the actual product shows up in on shelf. That's expensive.
Speaker 1: But as you get bigger that those costs come down.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was gonna ask you. Is it
Speaker 1: just a case of when you're selling more Dennis, the
Speaker 1: math just changes. When you're selling more product, the cost
Speaker 1: go down. Is that what it comes down to? Or
Speaker 1: is it is it a case of being able to
Speaker 1: squeeze even more costs out of the current systems. It's
Speaker 1: a little of both. So what we do, what we've
Speaker 1: been able to do over the last year is go
Speaker 1: back to our suppliers UH and negotiate better prices because
Speaker 1: we're we're driving a big part of their growth. We've
Speaker 1: also been able to get better utilization out of our factory,
Speaker 1: so we're running three shifts to day instead of two. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you advertize that fixed cost of the factory over
Speaker 1: more products, and that allows you to take your take
Speaker 1: your price down over time. Hey, I'm c'll see that stopping.
Speaker 1: That's just going to continue. I'm curious to Dennis, have
Speaker 1: you guys done some focus groups with customers are just like,
Speaker 1: it's too expensive right now. It just I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I want to do, but I can't. So people. So
Speaker 1: first of all, over people who are trying impossible for
Speaker 1: the first time, they're coming their meat eaters, so so
Speaker 1: they are they are substituting impossible for for all kinds
Speaker 1: of meat products, not just ground beef. But and when
Speaker 1: we when they try it, the number one thing that
Speaker 1: they say they love about the product is the taste.
Speaker 1: It tastes just like beef's Deftain nutritional profiles. The one
Speaker 1: thing that they say that they don't like as much
Speaker 1: as the price, and that is absolutely a barrier to
Speaker 1: to repeat and repeat purchase and frequency of purchase. But
Speaker 1: we can get the price right, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty pretty obvious lever to pull to to grow our
Speaker 1: our volume and continue to scale. How do the habits
Speaker 1: of how people are eating this type of product, How
Speaker 1: did they change or have they changed during the pandemic. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, so a year ago we weren't even available
Speaker 1: in retail, and when the pandemic hit, we realized that
Speaker 1: the retailer, we were available in two stores. We realized
Speaker 1: that we needed to scale up really quickly. And what
Speaker 1: we noticed was that consumers we were uh flocking to
Speaker 1: plant based products. They were cooking more at home, and
Speaker 1: they were willing to try something different. They had a
Speaker 1: little maybe a little bit more time to cook or
Speaker 1: they were cooking and in the past they were would
Speaker 1: have been eating out. Uh, So they were open to
Speaker 1: trying new products, and that's why our sales have really
Speaker 1: taken off at retail. And what we're also noticing obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot more delivery activity, consumers buying impossible and
Speaker 1: digital platforms, whether it's direct delivery from grocery through instatcart
Speaker 1: or they're buying uh finished uh entrees through door to ask.
Speaker 1: So so we're seeing growth across all of those areas.
Speaker 1: The one area that's obviously been impacted quite a bit
Speaker 1: are the smaller restaurants, which was really suffered. They talked
Speaker 1: us to Dennis about collaborate rations. I'm curious what lasting
Speaker 1: traction you are finding from some of the collaborations and
Speaker 1: partnerships that you have been doing. We know, all the
Speaker 1: folks in kind of the alt food space have been
Speaker 1: linking up with the likes of whether it's a Taco Bell,
Speaker 1: McDonald's and you guys, I know had teamed up last year. No,
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, I think it was with Burger King
Speaker 1: for Impossible Whoppers. So I'm just curious how those are
Speaker 1: helping you in your mission. Yeah, so we we have
Speaker 1: apostles now available pretty broadly in the U s b K.
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned Burger King, White Castle, reb Rob
Speaker 1: and Kidoga are just a handful. We added Starbucks Starbucks
Speaker 1: Breakfast Sandwich in the middle of the pandemic in June
Speaker 1: of last year, and we've we've seen that product do
Speaker 1: incredibly well, exceeding both of our expectations. So these these
Speaker 1: partnerships are very important, and every restaurant operator is realizing
Speaker 1: they need to have a plant based meat option on
Speaker 1: the menu. Consumers are are asking for for for choices
Speaker 1: and asking for alternatives, and so it's at the top
Speaker 1: of the top of agenda of every executive in the UH,
Speaker 1: in the in the QO SR space that I that
Speaker 1: I talked to for sure, UH and those who don't
Speaker 1: have a plant based meat option now are absolutely considering one.
Speaker 1: And Dennis, what is the difference between beyond meat and
Speaker 1: impossible foods? Yeah. The two things that consumers tell us is,
Speaker 1: first of all, taste our product taste just like me.
Speaker 1: And survey after survey shows that the the liking scores
Speaker 1: of preference scores for our product versus animal based meat
Speaker 1: are relatively even, so people have a hard time telling
Speaker 1: the too apart. The second thing that that steps tell
Speaker 1: us is the product handles just like ground beef. The
Speaker 1: color when it comes in raw, the way it transitions
Speaker 1: from a pink or a reddish raw state to a
Speaker 1: cooked state, the way it sizzles, the way it smokes,
Speaker 1: all those things, and and and that's UH mostly due
Speaker 1: to the intellectual property we have around an ingredient called
Speaker 1: hem which is found in every animal, but we've been
Speaker 1: able to to to ferment it from plants and use
Speaker 1: that as the key ingredient that aids in the transition
Speaker 1: of of the product and the color of the products
Speaker 1: just so it's meteor like, it's more like me. It's
Speaker 1: much meteor That's what we're trying to do. We're we're
Speaker 1: we are simply trying to replicate the animal in every sense,
Speaker 1: the nutritional profile over time better the animal. We need
Speaker 1: to beat the beat the cows. What we say, well,
Speaker 1: and I have to say that in our lunch offerings
Speaker 1: here at Bloomberg, like often comes up some alternatives, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm not quite sure who who they are, um so,
Speaker 1: so I can't speak to that. What I am curious though,
Speaker 1: to Dennis is you guys have been spending a lot
Speaker 1: on R and D and you plan to double the
Speaker 1: size of your R and D team. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: what's the R and D focusing on? And does it
Speaker 1: include anything like three D meat, which is something we've
Speaker 1: started to talk about you hear the Bloomberg Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so so so what we're trying to do is rough
Speaker 1: loocade every animal protein that you consume. Uh. There's well
Speaker 1: over a trillion pounds of animal protein consumed every year.
Speaker 1: So this market is absolutely massive. It's one of the
Speaker 1: largest technology markets if you call it the technology uh,
Speaker 1: in the world, and there hasn't been a whole lot
Speaker 1: of innovation. We're eating kind of the same products our
Speaker 1: grandparents date prepared kind of the same way with the
Speaker 1: same nutritional profile. So we're we're one of the first
Speaker 1: companies that's focused at the molecular level on re engineering
Speaker 1: uh meat all from plats and so that's starting with
Speaker 1: ground beef because it's such an iconic product for most Americans.
Speaker 1: But focusing on pork. We have a pork product that
Speaker 1: we shared at ce Yes last year. UH we sausages.
Speaker 1: We have lab prototypes of basically every meat imaginable, including steak.
Speaker 1: Uh and we see a day when we'll be able
Speaker 1: to offer any protein on the menu in a plant
Speaker 1: based form. It might take it will take a while
Speaker 1: for us to get there, but that's what we're why
Speaker 1: we're investing so heavily in R and D. Are you
Speaker 1: going to go into also fish? And I know we've
Speaker 1: got somebody we've been planning to get on the show
Speaker 1: that's got plant based shrimp. So I'm just curious. Is
Speaker 1: it just you can't go anywhere and do and will you? Yeah? Well, well,
Speaker 1: we believe that the technology, we have, the intellectual property
Speaker 1: around him, which is in every single type of meat
Speaker 1: in the world as well as all we've learned in
Speaker 1: building Impossible Burger gives us the opportunity to compete in
Speaker 1: all those spaces. For now, it's our primary product is
Speaker 1: ground beef, but that's going to change very rapidly. What's
Speaker 1: the what's the exit plan here for for investors? You
Speaker 1: and I were both thinking about this. Well, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you're you know beyond me. The the I would argue
Speaker 1: the the chief rival UM is a publicly traded company. UM.
Speaker 1: You've raised a lot of money from a lot of
Speaker 1: significant investors. What's the I p O plan? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: Pat Brown, our our founder and CEO, he has said
Speaker 1: that eventually you know that we will we will need
Speaker 1: to go public. We will want access to the public
Speaker 1: market financings, will want to access to credit markets as well,
Speaker 1: but we'll do that on our own timeline. We're well funded,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, We've got plenty of cash in the bank.
Speaker 1: We have a number of big investments that we're gonna
Speaker 1: be making over the next year in capacity, so in
Speaker 1: manufacturing facilities UH and UH, and in new products that
Speaker 1: we'll be launching. UM. At some point in time, it
Speaker 1: will be the right time to make that kind of
Speaker 1: public decision. But but for now, we're we're we're pressing
Speaker 1: ahead as a private company and continuing to scale our
Speaker 1: scale the business. That's Dennis Woodside, the president of Impossible Food,
Speaker 1: and that reps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovk. Be sure to
Speaker 1: tune into our Bloomberg Business Week daily show Monday through Friday,
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