Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 2: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
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.
Speaker 1: That Chair J. Powell dominates our first hour thanks to
Speaker 1: an exclusive conversation with Carlisle's David Rubinstein this past week,
Speaker 1: and also because of another Bloomberg Business Week exclusive and
Speaker 1: cover story with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was
Speaker 1: asked about keeping Chair Powell should Trump find himself back
Speaker 1: in the White House. All of that to come in
Speaker 1: just a moment.
Speaker 3: We also leaned on one individual to tie up the
Speaker 3: Bloomberg world of markets, business, and yes, lots of politics.
Speaker 3: Stefan Sielig, under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade at
Speaker 3: the US Department of Commerce during the Obama administration, stop
Speaker 3: by to help us make sense of it all he did.
Speaker 1: Indeed, all that to come, we begin with former President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It was one week ago that an assassination
Speaker 1: ATTEP was made on his life. This past week, the
Speaker 1: former president announced Jade Vance as his vice president and
Speaker 1: running mate, and officially became the Republican Party's candidate for president,
Speaker 1: all happening at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Speaker 4: There is no victory in winning for a half of em,
Speaker 4: So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your
Speaker 4: nomination for President of the United States.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is also the cover story for the August
Speaker 3: issue of Bloomberg Business Week, just out on newstands, online
Speaker 3: and on the Bloomberg Business we Go. Editor Brad Stone,
Speaker 3: alongside Bloomberg White House correspondence Nancy Cook, Joshua Green and
Speaker 3: Mario Parker, sat down with the former president at mar
Speaker 3: A Lago for an exclusive interview to learn more about
Speaker 3: the policies that may come should he be elected to
Speaker 3: a second term, everything from Texas to Tara s Fedjow, Jpowell,
Speaker 3: Taiwan and more.
Speaker 1: Here's Bradstone, editor of Bloomberg Business Week, on how the
Speaker 1: interview with Donald Trump all came together.
Speaker 5: You know, earlier this year we knew that we would
Speaker 5: be covering a momentous campaign Business Week. Obviously it's our
Speaker 5: lane is business and the global economy, and so we
Speaker 5: reached out to both campaigns and we told each candidate
Speaker 5: that we wanted we asked for an interview focusing on
Speaker 5: business and the economy, and the Trump campaign responded first
Speaker 5: and they were willing to do it. We went down
Speaker 5: to mar A Lago on June twenty fifth. I went
Speaker 5: with our White House colleagues, Mario Parker, Josh Green, Nancy Cook.
Speaker 5: We visited mar A Lago early, I guess late in
Speaker 5: the morning on a Tuesday. It's off season, so it's
Speaker 5: very quiet there and Palm Beach and up mar A Lago.
Speaker 6: You know what can I do? It was you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's.
Speaker 5: A little bit of what you imagine, a little bit
Speaker 5: of that, uh, you know, that Trump style luxury that
Speaker 5: one might be familiar with from his buildings and and
Speaker 5: the and the former casinos. Lots of monuments to Trump
Speaker 5: in the in the clubhouse where we were, like birthday gifts,
Speaker 5: balloon towers in the bathrooms, like lots of momento Trump
Speaker 5: focused mementos.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 6: And then the candidate himself came in and.
Speaker 5: As I wrote, you know, was was was personable, you know,
Speaker 5: tries to be charming. I mean, it's interesting because you
Speaker 5: put him in front of a camera or a crowd,
Speaker 5: and you know he's not the biggest fan of the media,
Speaker 5: but he was.
Speaker 6: You know, he wanted to do this.
Speaker 5: I think the cover of a magazine and the cover
Speaker 5: of BusinessWeek means something to him, and he wanted, you know,
Speaker 5: he wanted to get his message across.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting too, Brad, I think about the
Speaker 1: interview in Trump's policies taking greater urgency are becoming even
Speaker 1: more important to know in detail if you consider the
Speaker 1: events of the last couple of weeks. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: President Biden's debate performance not so great as we know,
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt over the weekend and subsequent supercharge momentum
Speaker 1: that has come to the Trump campaign as a result.
Speaker 1: We really want to understand these policies and some of
Speaker 1: the kind of cues he has given. Maybe over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, you guys wanted to dig deeper.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there are two things, you know.
Speaker 5: One is it's a pretty vague set of policy proposals
Speaker 5: you talk about. He talks about higher tariffs, lower taxes,
Speaker 5: stopping immigration at the border, but at the same time
Speaker 5: he's targeting inflation. So you know, one, I think because
Speaker 5: these are vague, broad brushstrokes, it has allowed proxies to
Speaker 5: come in with things like Project twenty twenty five or
Speaker 5: this independent white paper that suggested he could curtail the
Speaker 5: independence of the Federal Reserve, and there's been some confusion there,
Speaker 5: and in our interview he kind of tried to try
Speaker 5: to walk that back and disavow some of these other projects.
Speaker 5: The other thing is that there are some contradictions in
Speaker 5: his plan. I mean, if you're attacking inflation, then increasing
Speaker 5: tariffs or shrinking the labor pool through harsher restrictions on
Speaker 5: immigration is not conventionally the way to do it. And
Speaker 5: so you know, we talked to a lot of independent
Speaker 5: economists in the story that point that out.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 5: As for pushing and pressing Trump on that, it was
Speaker 5: interesting he kept bringing up William McKinley, the twenty fifth president,
Speaker 5: a fellow Ohio, and I might add who's probably most
Speaker 5: known for he was assassinated early in a second term.
Speaker 5: But he thinks that people are discounting the wisdom of
Speaker 5: tariffs that you could drive not just revenue, but tougher
Speaker 5: negotiations with your partners and in a sense that he
Speaker 5: thinks it will all pencil out.
Speaker 6: In the end, even though the campaign does.
Speaker 5: Not really talk about how they would you account for
Speaker 5: the increase of the deficit that would come from things
Speaker 5: like permanently reducing the corporate time Brad.
Speaker 3: Everything ties back to economics and business, no question, and
Speaker 3: even foreign policy. And I'm curious about what you learn
Speaker 3: about his views regarding Taiwan, what he said about Ukraine,
Speaker 3: and sort of what surprised you about those.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean his riff on Taiwan was shocking in
Speaker 5: the moment and shocking as I reflect on it. I mean,
Speaker 5: he basically said that Taiwan is a you know, a
Speaker 5: US ally. He said that Taiwan has stolen our chip business,
Speaker 5: that they should be paying us for protection, that it's
Speaker 5: thousands of miles away and very close to China, and
Speaker 5: he called it the apple of She's I so probably
Speaker 5: unsettling for Taiwan partisans as it relates to Ukraine, things
Speaker 5: like Iran and Israel. I mean, he spins, you know,
Speaker 5: a scenario where he doesn't think that the conflicts that
Speaker 5: are happening now would be occurring if he were still president.
Speaker 5: And of course you can argue with that, but he
Speaker 5: traces it back to Iran and you know some of
Speaker 5: the sanctions there that were then lifted, you know, in
Speaker 5: the nuclear agreement, and he just believes that America's enemies
Speaker 5: have been empowered after he left office.
Speaker 1: I am curious as you guys were talking to Donald Trump, Brad,
Speaker 1: at any point did he did you get a feeling
Speaker 1: he didn't want to go to certain areas or was
Speaker 1: he pretty much an open book when it comes to
Speaker 1: maybe his policies, his economic policies during a second term.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't recall anything any topic being off limits.
Speaker 5: I would say that, you know that there were certain
Speaker 5: areas where we pressed, you know, the economic impact of tariffs,
Speaker 5: who he would bring into his administration, where you know,
Speaker 5: I think we probably ended up hitting the limit of
Speaker 5: his current thinking. At the time, he hadn't picked a
Speaker 5: vice presidential candidate. Obviously we pressed him on that. He
Speaker 5: wasn't willing to go there yet. Now, of course we
Speaker 5: know it's JdE Evans, but I mean, look, this was
Speaker 5: supposed to be a forty five minute interview, and Jason Miller,
Speaker 5: the campaign chair, he tried to end it a couple
Speaker 5: of times, and President Trump kept talking to us, so
Speaker 5: there was a lot in his mind and nothing that
Speaker 5: was really off limits.
Speaker 1: One thing I am curious. I feel like Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is somebody that you know, we've seen a lot in
Speaker 1: the media. You know, you think about The Apprentice, I
Speaker 1: think about when he used to go on David Letterman
Speaker 1: and he was fixing the ice skating rink here in
Speaker 1: New York City. Like, there's just kind of a bigger
Speaker 1: than life kind of individual, larger than life individual. What
Speaker 1: was he like face to face? And you know, we
Speaker 1: know we've seen him in sometimes debate or other you know,
Speaker 1: he's very combative, he's very you know, going talking to
Speaker 1: a crowd. What was he like face to face?
Speaker 5: As I said before, I mean, I think you get
Speaker 5: a different Trump in a crowd or in front of
Speaker 5: a camera, and in the smaller and the smaller setting,
Speaker 5: he's a little bit more solicitous. And it really struck
Speaker 5: me that he's quite absorbed with who likes him and
Speaker 5: who doesn't, and who's on his team and who isn't.
Speaker 5: So as an example, Carol I showed him a copy
Speaker 5: of last month's Bloomberg Business Week with Bernard Arnault all
Speaker 5: the time and he's and and he you know, he
Speaker 5: sat with us for a little bit and then and
Speaker 5: this was before the interview, and then during the interview,
Speaker 5: maybe like fifteen minutes in, he kind of stopped and said,
Speaker 5: by the way, you know your previous cover candidate did.
Speaker 6: I'm I'm friends with him.
Speaker 5: I'm curious if he's friends with if he said he
Speaker 5: was friends with me. So he wanted to know whether
Speaker 5: one of the wealthiest people in the world, mister Arnaut,
Speaker 5: was a Trump supporter.
Speaker 6: Essentially, That's how I interpreted it.
Speaker 5: And you know, we published a transcript and you can
Speaker 5: see the whole conversation.
Speaker 6: But I think that was what surprised me.
Speaker 5: You know that he's quite interested in in who's his
Speaker 5: supporter and who is right.
Speaker 3: You were in Paris for that interview with Bernard Arnaut,
Speaker 3: so remind everyone, did he say anything about the former president?
Speaker 6: Did not come up?
Speaker 2: Come up.
Speaker 5: But but you know, when when up with President Darnau
Speaker 5: did open some a factory I think it was in
Speaker 5: Texas and appeared with President Trump.
Speaker 3: Hey to that end, I'm wondering about how the thinking
Speaker 3: around this piece changed over the last few weeks and
Speaker 3: really over the last few days, as it was going
Speaker 3: to print because you mentioned you did this in late June.
Speaker 3: That was before the disastrous debate for President Biden. It
Speaker 3: was also before he had picked a running mate, and
Speaker 3: it was also, of course before what happened on Saturday
Speaker 3: with the assassination attempt. So talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: how you're thinking around the piece changed before publication and
Speaker 3: since you did the interview.
Speaker 6: Yeah, tim not much changed.
Speaker 5: You know, this was a cover story about the candidate
Speaker 5: and his plan for the economy and for American business.
Speaker 6: That didn't change. You know.
Speaker 5: What we did have to reconsider was the timing, just
Speaker 5: because you know, this is a little bit right off
Speaker 5: the current events of last weekend, and we didn't we
Speaker 5: didn't want it to get lost in the you know,
Speaker 5: well deserved attention that was coming to you know, the
Speaker 5: incident in Pennsylvania. I mean, yeah, obviously it could have
Speaker 5: affected it a whole lot more, and thank heavens, it didn't.
Speaker 5: But if anything, I think maybe the importance of the
Speaker 5: story went up.
Speaker 6: Just because you know, Trump was already.
Speaker 5: To my mind, feeling a lot of momentum on June
Speaker 5: twenty fifth. It seemed to me that he had a
Speaker 5: bounce in his step and as Carol, as you said,
Speaker 5: you know, recent events over the past few weeks have
Speaker 5: transpired to at least make it appear that he has
Speaker 5: the momentum.
Speaker 6: Right now coming into the GOP convention.
Speaker 5: As I say in the editor's note, a lot can change.
Speaker 5: It's July, but this is why we think that the
Speaker 5: time is right for more attention on his economic agenda.
Speaker 1: Hey, you talk about momentum behind Trump, a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: He is getting momentum around from folks in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: You understand the tech community so well, having spent so
Speaker 1: many years covering it and writing about it. Having said that,
Speaker 1: whether it's Elon Musk and some other entrepreneurs out of
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, seems like he's getting a fair amount of love,
Speaker 1: but not from corporate America. And that is something we've
Speaker 1: been talking about, certainly among the publicly held companies. You
Speaker 1: guys talked a little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and let me say two things.
Speaker 5: One, I do think we're hearing some loud voices from
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley that are in Trump's camp, but there's no
Speaker 5: real telling whether that's.
Speaker 6: Some minority or a majority.
Speaker 5: I think that there's a risk calculation that investors and
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs engage in in tech. And you know, and the
Speaker 5: risk calculation here is if you support Trump any wins,
Speaker 5: you know, you're on the right side of a president
Speaker 5: who remembers his friends and enemies. And if if Biden wins,
Speaker 5: that support, you know, doesn't necessarily make a difference. And
Speaker 5: so I think that and what you're seeing in the
Speaker 5: business community now is and I I quote some folks
Speaker 5: saying this is, you know, there's a lot of fear.
Speaker 5: You might not think that Donald Trump deserves the second term,
Speaker 5: but being overt about it and getting on his enemies lists,
Speaker 5: you know, might end up hurting you. So if you're
Speaker 5: a big public CEO, you know, you might have a
Speaker 5: fiduciary duty dear shareholders to kind of keep your nose
Speaker 5: down right now.
Speaker 6: And I think that's a little bit of what we're
Speaker 6: seeing in the business community.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Hey, Brad, One thing that we've been talking a
Speaker 3: lot about, and it's also getting a lot of attention
Speaker 3: outside the newsroom, is the transcript of the interview with
Speaker 3: the former president and the Republican nominee. Because you and
Speaker 3: the team over at Bloomberg business Week fact checked the
Speaker 3: transcript and I encourage everybody to check it out online
Speaker 3: because it has sort of hyperlinks to footnotes that include
Speaker 3: context and information and a lot of numbers based on
Speaker 3: what the the former president said. Talk a little bit
Speaker 3: about that process, because that's not something that we see
Speaker 3: with every interview.
Speaker 6: No, it's not.
Speaker 5: And by the way, I think we would do that
Speaker 5: for other interviews with other presidential candidates too, So it's
Speaker 5: not anything special or unique for Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: But look, I mean this was a ninety minute conversation.
Speaker 5: You know, there were parts of his answers and also frankly,
Speaker 5: parts of our questions that we thought deserved either more
Speaker 5: context or correcting the public record. This is also something
Speaker 5: that we've seen other news organizations do. I think it's
Speaker 5: a great way to add just extra context for our readers,
Speaker 5: but along the way offering the candidate's remarks in a
Speaker 5: totally transparent form. So in my mind, it was sort
Speaker 5: of the best of both worlds. It was not an
Speaker 5: easy task. It's a ninety minute conversation that covered a
Speaker 5: lot of ground, and so kudos to my colleagues.
Speaker 6: In the Washington DC Bureau who did the hard work.
Speaker 1: I just want to confirm you did not go home
Speaker 1: with a maga hat.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So at the end of the he had his aide
Speaker 5: Steven Miller, go out of the room during the interview
Speaker 5: to come back with the ha that said Trump was
Speaker 5: right about everything, and he was crowing about the hat.
Speaker 5: And as I said, he was bragging about a bunch
Speaker 5: of things, and he tried to give it to us.
Speaker 6: At the end.
Speaker 5: Then we politely declined and cocher diet coke coke. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he did go on his ref about thin people not
Speaker 5: drinking diet coke.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Bradstone, incredible your second monthly issue and
Speaker 1: an incredible cover story that is, of course the editor
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week, Bradstone. Check out the new issue
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week on newsstands, catch it online and
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg So appreciated so many different aspects. Our
Speaker 1: team has been all over the different pieces of it.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 1: We have leaned on our next guest many times throughout
Speaker 1: the global pandemic, in the days following the murder of
Speaker 1: George Floyd, throughout the twists and turns of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty presidential rate, and so much more. He's someone who's
Speaker 1: worked in leadership roles in both the private and public sectors,
Speaker 1: including a nearly thirty year career on Wall Street, which
Speaker 1: is why we love talking about about so much of
Speaker 1: what is the Bloomberg world. His former Undersecretary of Commerce
Speaker 1: for International Trade at the used Department of Commerce that
Speaker 1: was during the Obama administration, headed up the International Trade Administration.
Speaker 1: I could go on, but then we would be done.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. Stefan Sielig is back with us,
Speaker 1: managing partner and founder of Bridge Park Advisors, the financing
Speaker 1: advisory firm here in our Bloomberg studio.
Speaker 9: This environment, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Quite sure where to start, but it does feel like
Speaker 1: politics is the right place to start in terms of
Speaker 1: what might happen in November. Does it matter who ultimately
Speaker 1: is in the White House come November?
Speaker 10: You know, Look, I think it depends on what the
Speaker 10: issue is, right and so some of the things we've
Speaker 10: talked about in the past, like China, this is one
Speaker 10: topic where maybe the only topic where Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 10: seem quite aligned, which is getting tougher on China. I'm
Speaker 10: not sure policies will be radically different between a Trump
Speaker 10: and a potentially Abiden iministration. I think the deficit ain't
Speaker 10: gone down with either president. I think defense spending is
Speaker 10: going up with either president. I think as a result
Speaker 10: of that, from an economic perspective, I'm not sure there's
Speaker 10: going to be a ton of difference. I think from
Speaker 10: a political perspective, clearly President Trump is going to be
Speaker 10: much more isolationist. He is going to have much stricter
Speaker 10: immigration policies, and he is going to spend a lot
Speaker 10: of money. And so I think what all that does,
Speaker 10: which is why you're seeing the steepening of the yield curve,
Speaker 10: the so called Trump trade that you've talked about in
Speaker 10: the strengthening of the dollar, is you know, those are
Speaker 10: all going to be quite inflationary, especially if he adopts
Speaker 10: some of these more aggressive tarror proposals that he's talked
Speaker 10: about both with China and in imports, which could be
Speaker 10: Trumpian hyperbole, right, but if it does happen, that inflation
Speaker 10: is going to go up dramatically and.
Speaker 1: Can you play that out for us because I don't
Speaker 1: think I think there's times in terms of I think
Speaker 1: of voters who are just trying to pay their bills
Speaker 1: at this point. But how would that potentially play out
Speaker 1: and impact the US economy and US citizens.
Speaker 10: Well, tariffs are nothing else other than taxes, right, They're
Speaker 10: taxes on goods, and unfortunately they're quite regressive because the
Speaker 10: people that are impacted most are you know, the folks
Speaker 10: that are paying their bills every month in groceries and
Speaker 10: car payments and everything else, and so prices will go up.
Speaker 10: There was not a very significant impact in the Trump
Speaker 10: original set of tariffs because they were not that significant,
Speaker 10: and President Biden obviously kept them largely in place. So
Speaker 10: the real question is he going to be much more
Speaker 10: aggressive in the next term and if that is going
Speaker 10: to happen. You know, some economists are talking about one
Speaker 10: hundred basis point two hundred basis point increases in inflation,
Speaker 10: let alone about the impact and the slowing of the
Speaker 10: economy overall.
Speaker 3: You talk to CEOs all the time in your position
Speaker 3: at Bridge Park Advisors. What are they telling you?
Speaker 10: Well, look, before we talk about the CEO perspective. In
Speaker 10: a moment, I almost have a counterintuitive point of view,
Speaker 10: which is the strengthening of Trump from this horrific assassination
Speaker 10: attempt could in fact have an opposite of the Trump trade,
Speaker 10: which is this could be maybe an accelerant to having
Speaker 10: a change Democratic ticket. Really and if that were to
Speaker 10: be the case, just based on the poll numbers, you'd
Speaker 10: actually argue for taking the opposite side of that trade,
Speaker 10: because now Biden looks so much weaker than even he
Speaker 10: did after the debate that that may force Democratic leadership
Speaker 10: and the President himself to really re evaluate whether or
Speaker 10: not he wants to stay in And I have no
Speaker 10: perspective on whether that is going to be the case
Speaker 10: or not, but it is interesting that the strengthening of
Speaker 10: Trump could have that potential outcome.
Speaker 3: Do you realistically see a scenario in the next few
Speaker 3: weeks where there is a change at the top of
Speaker 3: the ticket. I mean, the President did reiterate he's in
Speaker 3: it to win it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we've all heard the same thing. On the one hand.
Speaker 10: On the other hand, despite which you may think about
Speaker 10: the President some of his policies, I believe he is
Speaker 10: a true patriot and he wants to do the right
Speaker 10: thing for the country, and if he becomes convinced that
Speaker 10: he is not going to be able to beat Donald Trump,
Speaker 10: he may change his mind, because at the end of
Speaker 10: the day, this is not just a narcissistic decision. It
Speaker 10: is a decision that many people believe is going to
Speaker 10: fundamentally affect and I'm sure he does the direction of
Speaker 10: this country. Going back to your question about CEOs, what
Speaker 10: I would say is, first of all, most fortune five
Speaker 10: hundred CEOs are Republicans, So I don't know poles have
Speaker 10: been taking seventy five percent are Republicans. You're starting with
Speaker 10: a base that most CEOs of big companies would vote
Speaker 10: for Trump kind of along party lines on the one hand.
Speaker 10: On the other hand, for this particular candidate, in the
Speaker 10: conversations I've had, I don't see much enthusiasm. For one,
Speaker 10: I don't think they appreciate his style. Two is some
Speaker 10: of these policies. CEOs are not isolationists, they are not xenophobic,
Speaker 10: they are not protectionists. They don't like tariffs, and so
Speaker 10: they don't like all of the social policies that are
Speaker 10: being talked about, for example, LGBTQ rights, and so while
Speaker 10: I think on the one hand, you know, many of
Speaker 10: them are seeing the writing on the wall and as
Speaker 10: a result not standing up and lining behind President Biden.
Speaker 10: On the other hand, I don't think there's a lot
Speaker 10: of enthusiasm for this particular president as much as there
Speaker 10: is enthusiasm for traditionally central centrist Republican policies as a
Speaker 10: way to drive corporate profits in corporate prosperity.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we've been talking a lot
Speaker 1: about is kind of the establishment. Folks in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: are really in kind of the venture startup world, and
Speaker 1: they're backing of Donald Trump and JD. Vance. It seems
Speaker 1: like at this point, why do you think that they
Speaker 1: appeal to them? Is it tax like? What is it?
Speaker 10: Well, part of it is JD. Vance. You had a
Speaker 10: job in Silicon Valley for a while, and so I
Speaker 10: think there is a little bit of a connection that
Speaker 10: he has personally with some of those folks.
Speaker 1: But Peter til and Elon, we're backing Trump.
Speaker 9: For a long time.
Speaker 10: Yeah, And I would say, frankly, Carrol, those are not
Speaker 10: really representative of the Fortune five hundred establishment traditionally. Now
Speaker 10: it may be the New World Order, but it certainly
Speaker 10: wasn't the world order of the last you know generation.
Speaker 1: Well, is it important to make that distinction because it's interesting.
Speaker 1: They're in the headlines a lot, sure, but they're.
Speaker 10: In the headlines a lot because of you know, the
Speaker 10: huge you know, wealth and success of Elon Musk and
Speaker 10: a number of other folks that like to you know,
Speaker 10: comment on this. But traditionally, corporate CEOs are going to
Speaker 10: be much more reticent for making public political, you know, statements,
Speaker 10: because it's kind of not their lane and not their job.
Speaker 10: So as a result of that, you kind of have
Speaker 10: the squeaky reel sort of phenomenon where you have folks
Speaker 10: like Bill Ackman that like to comment on these things,
Speaker 10: and Elon Musk because of X and other things, that
Speaker 10: likes to comment on these things. We're traditional corporate executives,
Speaker 10: I think, because you know, their customers and their clients
Speaker 10: are both Republicans and Democrats, are quite chary about being
Speaker 10: as vocal.
Speaker 3: Hey, we well, speaking of that, we did just speak
Speaker 3: to Kara Murphy over at Kestra Investment Management, and she
Speaker 3: encouraged our listeners and our viewers to look beyond the
Speaker 3: election and argued that who's in the White House really
Speaker 3: doesn't matter when it comes to financial markets. That said,
Speaker 3: we spoke to Read Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder and billionaire,
Speaker 3: about six weeks ago over in at our San Francisco conference,
Speaker 3: and he said it absolutely does matter because he's concerned
Speaker 3: about a lack of stability as a result of a
Speaker 3: Trump presidency. What side are you on? Does it matter
Speaker 3: who's in the White House?
Speaker 10: You know, I think, of course it matters, But you
Speaker 10: also have to have to ask that question in conjunction
Speaker 10: with what happens to the Congress, and is it going
Speaker 10: to be a divided government or not a divide of government,
Speaker 10: because that is a natural check in balance UH that
Speaker 10: I think will cause some of them more extreme outcomes
Speaker 10: from UH taking place. But what I would say is,
Speaker 10: you know, the United States position in the world will
Speaker 10: clearly be different between these two governments. And you know
Speaker 10: President ex president former President Trump and President Biden have
Speaker 10: a different worldview in terms of cooperation internationalism versus isolationism,
Speaker 10: and that is going to impact not only the citizenry,
Speaker 10: but impact businesses in many respects. And so I don't
Speaker 10: think it can be ignored. I am not quite as
Speaker 10: alarmist as some folks in terms of the end of
Speaker 10: democracy and civil war and some of the other things
Speaker 10: that you know, some people are talking about. On the
Speaker 10: one hand, I do think, you know, this is an
Speaker 10: important election and we need to be rightly talking about
Speaker 10: the issues.
Speaker 1: Someone do you feel like you worked than the government
Speaker 1: the Obama administration? Do we still have checks and balances?
Speaker 10: Obviously our system hasn't changed. What has changed, Carol is
Speaker 10: we used to govern from the middle, and now we're
Speaker 10: governing from the extremes in both parties, and that is
Speaker 10: what creates a lot of I think these tensions and
Speaker 10: a lot of our ineffectiveness in terms of our ability
Speaker 10: to implement any policies. And I think, frankly, and this
Speaker 10: is my personal point of view, until we get back
Speaker 10: to the middle, we're going to have a lot of
Speaker 10: We're going to have some real issues because that's what
Speaker 10: creates the animosity and the ability to collaborate. And you know,
Speaker 10: when President Biden was in the Senate, he was you know,
Speaker 10: notoriously well known and rightly so for actually being being
Speaker 10: able to collaborate across the aisle. And you don't see
Speaker 10: that from either party at the moment. And I don't
Speaker 10: see that changing with this election in either direction.
Speaker 3: You did say until we get back to the middle,
Speaker 3: which strikes me as really optimistic. Do you see within
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not an.
Speaker 1: I think he said he was an optimist within our lifetime.
Speaker 10: Do you get back to the you know, you know,
Speaker 10: I don't know, Tim, You may as well be hopeful
Speaker 10: because it's better than the other choice.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Your clients, what do they ask you most about?
Speaker 10: Well, you know, I think at the moment, as you
Speaker 10: as you rightly said, there was a whole conversation around
Speaker 10: what was going to happen on the top of the
Speaker 10: Democratic ticket than the implications of the assassination attempt, clearly,
Speaker 10: But I think there's still a lot of uncertainty in
Speaker 10: the economy. And you know, you guys spend a lot
Speaker 10: of time, understandably talking about the markets, but the markets
Speaker 10: and the real economy are divergent. And the fact is
Speaker 10: is that despite being at all time highs in the
Speaker 10: equity markets, you know, consumer sentiment is not high. Savings
Speaker 10: are being depleted, Inflation is going up, Costs to consumers
Speaker 10: are going up. Car payments, mortgage payments are are higher
Speaker 10: because of interest rates, and that's creating a real sense
Speaker 10: of a you know, lack of prosperity with most American
Speaker 10: households and households, Carol, you know this, households don't own
Speaker 10: a lot of stock, right, so that all of that
Speaker 10: good stuff that we talk about in the equity markets
Speaker 10: really doesn't impact households traditionally, and even that high equity
Speaker 10: market guys talk about this all the time. It's really technology.
Speaker 10: And it's not just technology. It's a handful of companies
Speaker 10: in the technology sector.
Speaker 3: Why do you think that so much America is struggling
Speaker 3: at a time when the economy is so good for
Speaker 3: so many people.
Speaker 10: Well, I don't know, Tim, is it's so good for
Speaker 10: so many people's there's a real wealth gap, and it's
Speaker 10: good for a lot of I think your listeners who
Speaker 10: occupy a certain economic position in this country, and I'm
Speaker 10: not so sure it's so good for so many people.
Speaker 10: A lot of people are struggling, and that is why
Speaker 10: this populism that President Trump and jd. Vance espouse has becoming,
Speaker 10: has become so popular. And I think, you know, we
Speaker 10: can't ignore that, and you know, we can all have
Speaker 10: stylistic concerns and concerns about some of their policies, but
Speaker 10: the people, the Americans that they are talking to, really
Speaker 10: feel what they are they are trying to address.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it explains very much the political environment
Speaker 1: that we are, not just in the United States, but
Speaker 1: really globally right in terms of people not feeling that
Speaker 1: they're doing better.
Speaker 10: For sure, and you know, Brexit, the elections in France,
Speaker 10: et cetera, et cetera. I mean this is a global phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as Oweys Stefan Seelik, his magic partner at
Speaker 1: Bridge Park Advisors.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
Speaker 2: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play
Speaker 2: and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can
Speaker 2: also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New
Speaker 2: York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 12: On inflation, we in the first quarter, we didn't make
Speaker 12: any more progress. The second quarter, actually we did make
Speaker 12: some more progress. We've had now three better readings, and
Speaker 12: if you average them, it's that's a pretty good pace.
Speaker 1: That's Federal Reserve Chair J Powell talking with David Rubinstein
Speaker 1: this past Monday at an Economic Club of Washington luncheon event.
Speaker 1: It was just about a week and a half ago
Speaker 1: that Chair Powell was up on Capitol Hill for two
Speaker 1: days of congressional testimony that was followed by cooling inflation data.
Speaker 1: It all comes ahead of another FOMC meeting at the
Speaker 1: end of this month.
Speaker 3: In David's conversation fed Share, Powell declined to give any
Speaker 3: guidance on the timing of interest rate moves. That kind
Speaker 3: of makes sense, right, Carol, that's not surprising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 3: He did though, say that the most recent CPI data
Speaker 3: quote do add somewhat end quote to confidence that inflation
Speaker 3: is heading down to the central banks two percent goal
Speaker 3: and that labor markets are now in a quote better place.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: We got another kind of confirmation of that as jobless
Speaker 1: claims were ticking up, So again some softening in the
Speaker 1: labor market, not coming undone, but nonetheless some softening.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 1: The conversation, though on Monday, also touched on the assassination
Speaker 1: attempt on Donald Trump and whether J. Powell would serve
Speaker 1: another term as Federal Reserve chairman if Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: back in the White House. All of this, we do
Speaker 1: want to point out happening before the Bloomberg headlines and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business recover story on Donald Trump saying he wouldn't
Speaker 1: seek to remove Powell before his term ends in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six.
Speaker 3: Now, let's get to our conversation with David Rubinstein, who
Speaker 3: is a co founder of the private equity firm Carlisle,
Speaker 3: also a Bloomberg host. For more on his talk with
Speaker 3: FED chair j Powell.
Speaker 14: Well, I am the chairman of the Economic Club of Washington,
Speaker 14: and in that capacity I often interview government leaders and
Speaker 14: business leaders. And Jay Powell and had been somebody i'd
Speaker 14: interviewed before. He had worked at my firm a number
Speaker 14: of years ago, while before he was at the FED.
Speaker 14: And so we worked out a date that I would
Speaker 14: do this interview today, and we had about seven hundred
Speaker 14: people there and obviously a live TV audience.
Speaker 3: David, we were chuckling the whole time. I mean, this
Speaker 3: was like a really a Powell that you don't see
Speaker 3: at press conference, as a Powell that you don't see
Speaker 3: every day. It's clear that you too are familiar with
Speaker 3: one another. What did you want to get out of
Speaker 3: the interview? Because we know that he's not going to
Speaker 3: give us any indication about a rate path he established
Speaker 3: that at the top of the interview. What did you
Speaker 3: want to get out of it?
Speaker 14: Well, I think it's always good to humanize well known
Speaker 14: people and people can understand them better and the way
Speaker 14: they make decisions and the way they kind of handle
Speaker 14: their job. And I thought humanizing him would be always good. Clearly,
Speaker 14: when you're a chairman of the FED, you talk in
Speaker 14: what I've often called Fed speak, which is to say,
Speaker 14: it's very difficult for the average person to understand it.
Speaker 14: But Jay does a better job than some of his
Speaker 14: predecessors and speaking in common English because he's not a
Speaker 14: trained economist, and I just thought giving people an update
Speaker 14: on his perspectives on the economy would be a good thing.
Speaker 14: I mean, obviously, as you point out, he's not going
Speaker 14: to announce at an interview with me that he's lowering
Speaker 14: interest rates.
Speaker 2: You can't expect that.
Speaker 14: But I think he gave a pretty good description of
Speaker 14: how they decide to lower interest rates or increase interest rates,
Speaker 14: and I thought it was informative, and therefore I thought,
Speaker 14: you know, he accomplishes his goal, which is the kind
Speaker 14: of you know, show people how he makes decisions. And
Speaker 14: I accomplished my goal, which is kind of humanized the
Speaker 14: Chairman of the FED a little bit more than maybe
Speaker 14: he otherwise would be.
Speaker 3: Well, David, help us understand your relationship. You mentioned that
Speaker 3: you guys do go back years. Of course, he was
Speaker 3: a partner at the Carlisle Group before he went into
Speaker 3: public service. I'm wondering if you're in touch with him
Speaker 3: regularly now, if you consider him a friend, Just give
Speaker 3: us an idea of your relationship with him.
Speaker 14: I wouldn't say I'm in touch with him regularly when
Speaker 14: you're a chairman of the FED. You know, I think
Speaker 14: it's somebody like me doesn't want to be calling him
Speaker 14: up all the time, and you know, I don't want
Speaker 14: to look like I'm trying to get information from him.
Speaker 14: And he worked at Karloff for years. Well, I wouldn't
Speaker 14: say I was his closest friend or vice versa. So
Speaker 14: I know him reasonably well. I've interviewed him I think
Speaker 14: three times or four times at the Economic Club in Washington,
Speaker 14: and I have a good relationship with him. But I
Speaker 14: wouldn't say we're, you know, close as a friends. But
Speaker 14: I certainly like him and admire what he's done for
Speaker 14: the country and the job that he's had.
Speaker 1: You know, what's interesting too, and something we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about David is you know, the neutral rate and
Speaker 1: what he thinks about that two percent goal that the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve has. He said, the neutral rate is probably
Speaker 1: higher today. Monetary policy is restrictive, but not severely restrictive.
Speaker 1: I am curious how you see things. Do you think
Speaker 1: the neutral rate doesn't make sense anymore, that it does
Speaker 1: need to be higher? And what is your expectation or
Speaker 1: what you think the Fed should be doing when it
Speaker 1: comes to interest rates right now?
Speaker 14: Well, I think the country will do much better off
Speaker 14: listening to j Pal's hues on where the interest rate
Speaker 14: should go than probably my views on interest rates. But
Speaker 14: I think that's a general sense that the market is
Speaker 14: believing that there will be a cut, and I think
Speaker 14: Jay made it clear that he doesn't listen to a
Speaker 14: political situation. So I have said in speeches that I
Speaker 14: thought it would be unlikely that the Fed would want
Speaker 14: to cut during a presidential election period of time. But
Speaker 14: I think he's made it clear that that's not his
Speaker 14: view or the view of the FOMC, that if they
Speaker 14: think the data warrants a cut, they will have a cut,
Speaker 14: and therefore the FED could do something at the end
Speaker 14: of July when they meet, or they could do something
Speaker 14: again when they meet in September. And my guess is
Speaker 14: that some time before the FED meets after the election,
Speaker 14: they will do something that'd be my current thinking. The
Speaker 14: economy could change, and obviously data is everything, but right
Speaker 14: now the markets are anticipating, and I think the FED
Speaker 14: is not shutting down the idea that something could happen
Speaker 14: before the election.
Speaker 1: Before the election, okay, do you think that the election
Speaker 1: in any way sways I mean, we're all human, right,
Speaker 1: and we can say we're very objective, but we're human
Speaker 1: and impacted by lots of things that are going on
Speaker 1: in this world. Do you think that j Powell and
Speaker 1: policymakers at the FED might be swayed a little bit
Speaker 1: of small influence when it comes to the November election
Speaker 1: presidential election.
Speaker 13: I think the.
Speaker 14: FED, everything Jay says, is that they don't really pay
Speaker 14: attention to the election dates. And I think right now,
Speaker 14: since so many people pay attention to the markets and
Speaker 14: the interest rates where they are, that I think that
Speaker 14: the will do what the data suggests is appropriate. And
Speaker 14: when the data gets to the point where they see
Speaker 14: inflation more or less getting the two percent and the
Speaker 14: economy softening a bit.
Speaker 6: I suspect they.
Speaker 14: Will not wait until after the election because they don't
Speaker 14: want to be seen as political and therefore, while they
Speaker 14: might be criticized by some for lowering interest rates before
Speaker 14: the end of the before the election's over, I just
Speaker 14: think the Fed has given enough signals, including today, that
Speaker 14: they're not going to worry about the election. They'll do
Speaker 14: what the data suggests is appropriate.
Speaker 1: I do wonder, David, as you said, you've talked with
Speaker 1: Jay Powell several times, certainly in this format. So monetary
Speaker 1: policy obviously in the economy first and foremost, and there
Speaker 1: are certain things that Jay Powell will go you guys
Speaker 1: laugh about some of the things he will obviously not reveal.
Speaker 1: But having said that, at the end of the conversation,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the things the Bloomberg audience cares
Speaker 1: so much about in terms of monetary policy and the economy,
Speaker 1: what was your key takeaway from j Powell?
Speaker 14: My key takeaway from the interview and with my discussion
Speaker 14: with him, is that he's a man who's very much
Speaker 14: on top of the data. He enjoys the job, not
Speaker 14: worn out by it, doesn't say, well is to me,
Speaker 14: I have got all this pressure on my shoulder. I
Speaker 14: think he can deal with it quite well.
Speaker 6: He's used to it.
Speaker 14: He's been in the chair for quite some time. I
Speaker 14: think he's reasonably happy now with where the economy is. Remember,
Speaker 14: we didn't go into the hard landing that everybody was predicting.
Speaker 14: People thought there would be a recession that last year
Speaker 14: or this year. That didn't happen. So whoever gets credit
Speaker 14: for it, the FED deserves some share of that credit
Speaker 14: because they manage the economy into a really nice soft
Speaker 14: landing so called and so right now, while unemployment is
Speaker 14: going up, I don't think it's going up by such
Speaker 14: on a level that's scaring people. I think the markets
Speaker 14: are in pretty good shape and the economy is in
Speaker 14: pretty good shape.
Speaker 3: He didn't want to comment on the market, the idea
Speaker 3: of the so called Trump trade returning after this horrific event.
Speaker 3: He was clear about that up on top and I'm
Speaker 3: at the top of the interview. But I'm curious about
Speaker 3: your view and what you think is being priced into
Speaker 3: markets right now, David, the Fed chair not weighing in,
Speaker 3: but politically, what is being priced in right now?
Speaker 14: Well, clearly the events, no doubt scared a lot of
Speaker 14: people about the violence that is still prevalent in this
Speaker 14: country in many areas. Unfortunately, and so fortunately, we did
Speaker 14: not have an assassination, though one person did die tragically
Speaker 14: and another person still in the hospital for the wounds
Speaker 14: that that person suffered as well. Sad situation. Obviously, the
Speaker 14: investigations will figure out what the federal what the Secret
Speaker 14: Service could have done differently or better. I'm not an
Speaker 14: expert in that area, so I just can't say what
Speaker 14: they will find. But clearly, you know, we have an
Speaker 14: eliminated violence from our political situation.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, David, you've served in the federal government. You were
Speaker 1: chief counsel to the US Senate Judiciari's Committee sub committee
Speaker 1: back in the seventies, Deputy Assistant to the President for
Speaker 1: Domestic Policy during the Carter administration. The democracy has faced
Speaker 1: other heavy periods before. It feels rather heavy today. Is
Speaker 1: there something different this time around?
Speaker 2: You are?
Speaker 1: I feel like it's safe to say, a student of history,
Speaker 1: you respect past leaders and what they've done. How do
Speaker 1: you make sense of this particular political and historical period.
Speaker 14: Well, it's difficult to really put it in context right now.
Speaker 14: Because you can't really tell what the historical impact it
Speaker 14: is till many years afterwards. But right now the country
Speaker 14: seems to be fairly bitterly divided between the Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 14: And it wasn't the case fifty years ago or so.
Speaker 14: When John Kennedy ran for president against Richard Nixon in
Speaker 14: nineteen sixty, they campaigned in most of the states because
Speaker 14: they didn't know how the states would go. Now the
Speaker 14: country's fairly divided, so we know how almost all the
Speaker 14: states are going to go. They're only five or six,
Speaker 14: maybe seven states where it's a kind of a swing state.
Speaker 14: So it's much different than it used to be. The
Speaker 14: tensions between both sides seem to be much greater than
Speaker 14: they used to be. Bipartisanship is something that is not
Speaker 14: as common as it used to be in Washington, d C.
Speaker 14: So I don't know whether the events of this weekend
Speaker 14: will scare people into saying we should try to be
Speaker 14: less i'd say violent in our rhetoric and less condemning
Speaker 14: of other sides. President Trump has suggested that he would
Speaker 14: make a more unifying speech than otherwise was going to make,
Speaker 14: and I think President Biden's speech last night was designed
Speaker 14: to also have a unifying impact. Whether we can unify
Speaker 14: our country in a way like this that way I
Speaker 14: think we should, I don't know, but it will probably
Speaker 14: have some beneficial impact, though obviously the events were tragic.
Speaker 3: David, are you optimistic given the heated political environment right now?
Speaker 14: I'm optimistic that the country is in reasonable shape economically
Speaker 14: politically we can do more than we should than we
Speaker 14: have been doing to kind of bring the country together,
Speaker 14: and that part the jury is still out, but I'm
Speaker 14: hopeful that that while the events were tragic over the weekend,
Speaker 14: that they'll have some beneficial impact in getting both sides,
Speaker 14: Democrats and Republicans to try to work together more cooperatively.
Speaker 1: J Powell said to you, predictions are very difficult, especially
Speaker 1: about the future. When you think about the future for
Speaker 1: the United States politically, economically, what's top of mind and
Speaker 1: curious if you have any plans to maybe want to
Speaker 1: be at the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 9: You guys talked about if it's a good job.
Speaker 14: Well, I think it's really hard to kind of say
Speaker 14: that all of a sudden, we're going to eliminate all
Speaker 14: the schisms that we've had in the last couple of years.
Speaker 14: Clearly there are a lot of tensions between the two
Speaker 14: side political sides. J Powell has been appointed by a
Speaker 14: Republican president and reappointed by democratic president, and he's done
Speaker 14: a really good job of kind of walking a fine
Speaker 14: line of not trying to be seen as political or
Speaker 14: democratic or Republican. I think he deserves a lot of
Speaker 14: credit for that.
Speaker 15: Well.
Speaker 14: I think he's done a good job. I remember, this
Speaker 14: is not a job that anybody really thinks it is
Speaker 14: an easy job. Many people who have emerged from the job,
Speaker 14: you know, are generally applauded after they've served, but when
Speaker 14: they're serving, very often they get criticized by both sides.
Speaker 14: And it's hard to be chairman of the FED. And
Speaker 14: in fact, as one chairman of the FED once said,
Speaker 14: William mc chesney Martin, my job is to take away
Speaker 14: the punch bowl at the party, which is to say,
Speaker 14: take away all the fun that you would you would
Speaker 14: want to get. And so that's the job of the
Speaker 14: chairman of the Fed, is to take away the punch bowl.
Speaker 14: And people don't like that.
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: David Rubinstein, thank you so much. Busy day for you
Speaker 1: and so appreciate checking in with you. Bloomberg host and
Speaker 1: Carlile co founder and co chair David Rubinstein. You can
Speaker 1: catch his show and conversation with Jay Powell July twenty
Speaker 1: fourth at nine pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV.
Speaker 9: This is Bloomberg.
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 car Play and ed Broight Auto with a
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube plenty.
Speaker 1: Hen our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, including a retired NASA astronaut on sharing space
Speaker 1: and the privatization of space travel.
Speaker 3: Plus the Porsche's first nine to eleven hybrid that comes
Speaker 3: with more power, speed and a start button and a
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars price tag.
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you something. Hannah Elliott, who
Speaker 1: reviews cars for Our World, she loved it all right.
Speaker 1: First up this hour the Great Space Race, which when
Speaker 1: it comes up, a lot of people probably think of
Speaker 1: the billionaires, you know, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson.
Speaker 1: There is a different kind of space race though, happening,
Speaker 1: and that is the race to fill low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: We're talking about satellites.
Speaker 3: Originally, launching satellites was the role of governments, but with
Speaker 3: the number of satellites orbiting the Earth commercial or otherwise
Speaker 3: expected to quadruple in the coming years, it's become an
Speaker 3: increasingly commercialized venture.
Speaker 1: That is the focus of the new HBO documentary Wild
Speaker 1: Wild Space. Take a listen.
Speaker 16: You've heard about the billionaire space race. This isn't that movie.
Speaker 16: We're in the midst of a revolution in space. It's
Speaker 16: like the Wild West.
Speaker 17: The era of governments controlling this stuff is over.
Speaker 18: At Disastrospace, I run a secret rocket company.
Speaker 17: Chris is living embodiment of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 11: I'm a scientist and he is a capitalist.
Speaker 18: We're trying to build Tanasa at one one million to
Speaker 18: the budget.
Speaker 11: And people take it really seriously.
Speaker 18: Right if you're declaring to the world the have a
Speaker 18: product that works, a bit of bloody work. Now, I
Speaker 18: started rocket Lab in two thousand and six.
Speaker 17: You could not have a more online background for starting
Speaker 17: Arriger company.
Speaker 18: No university education, no airspace background.
Speaker 6: It's a company.
Speaker 18: Peter's rocket is a very high performance machine, but it's
Speaker 18: expensive to build. We often get accused of building priorities
Speaker 18: or more like a Ford, how much more an high
Speaker 18: volume product.
Speaker 11: If Peter's not right, Peter loses.
Speaker 18: If I'm not right, I adapt we hit something.
Speaker 6: I'm not built.
Speaker 10: I'm going to crucify head.
Speaker 5: The fabric of our civilization runs on the satellite.
Speaker 11: There is a lot of money.
Speaker 13: To be made up.
Speaker 6: There is now open to the business.
Speaker 11: Nothing's writing on this set of things, like our right
Speaker 11: to privacy.
Speaker 19: There are commercial companies that have nothing to do with governments,
Speaker 19: snapping pictures day after day in the power of.
Speaker 11: The world falling into the wrong hands.
Speaker 2: So now you have thousands of satellites which themselves are
Speaker 2: potentially weapons.
Speaker 16: And whoever controls space may very well control the future
Speaker 16: of humanity.
Speaker 3: That's the new HBO documentary Wild Wild Space, which premiered
Speaker 3: last Wednesday on the streaming service Max. The documentary is
Speaker 3: inspired by Bloomberg BusinessWeek feature writer Ashley Vance's book When
Speaker 3: the Heavens Went On Sale, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing
Speaker 3: to put Space within Reach. Ashley is also the author
Speaker 3: of the first Elon Musk biography ever written. It's called
Speaker 3: Elon Musk Tesla SpaceX and The Quest for a Fantastic Future.
Speaker 3: He joined us alongside Oscar winning director Ross Kaufman, who
Speaker 3: directed Wild, Wild Space, among other films.
Speaker 17: Well, I'd done the Elon Musk biography, which came out
Speaker 17: around twenty fifteen, and was not a space nerd going
Speaker 17: into that, but SpaceX was my favorite stuff to report on.
Speaker 17: And then right when I finished the book, pretty much
Speaker 17: because I think SpaceX had proven some things out and
Speaker 17: commercial space felt real, there were these rocket and satellite
Speaker 17: companies that suddenly were popping up, not just in the
Speaker 17: United States but all over the world, and everyone thought, oh,
Speaker 17: be the next deal on Musk and whatever.
Speaker 13: You know, people thought, maybe you.
Speaker 17: Can actually make a go of this, and so I
Speaker 17: just kind of caught the bug, and I spent a
Speaker 17: couple of years going literally all over the world trying
Speaker 17: to find the most interesting stories, and so, you know,
Speaker 17: a bunch of those went into the book, and then
Speaker 17: and then started filming a bit along the way.
Speaker 13: Just because I had this access to these rooms.
Speaker 17: You don't usually get to have a camera, and we
Speaker 17: kind of caught the companies young enough where you were
Speaker 17: able to like be in the Michigan control and film
Speaker 17: these things that you never ever get to see when
Speaker 17: a rocket blows up.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was amazing about. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how the heck did they like? I
Speaker 1: was like, where there was the footage with somebody else,
Speaker 1: but you were filming it all along?
Speaker 17: Yeah, I mean some of this, you know, I credit
Speaker 17: companies were giving us this access and seeing this risk.
Speaker 17: Astra Space is one of the main companies in the film.
Speaker 17: The CEO Chris Camp we had this arrangement early on
Speaker 17: when the cup, when it was really five people in
Speaker 17: a garage. He said, look, if you want to go
Speaker 17: on this, you can tell the truth whatever happens, good
Speaker 17: or bad, and come with us all the way to
Speaker 17: orbit for the first time. And that ended up being
Speaker 17: this very winding road. And to Chris's credit, he did
Speaker 17: let me do what he said, and.
Speaker 1: You feel it, Ross, come on in. So how did
Speaker 1: you come into the picture. And when you also were
Speaker 1: able to finally like see some of this stuff that
Speaker 1: Ashley had you know, filmed, were you like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: a gift?
Speaker 16: Well it was really I mean, first of all, I
Speaker 16: got a call from HBO and they said, hey, Ross,
Speaker 16: we have this documentary footage. It wasn't a documentary.
Speaker 11: Yet it's footage that this author.
Speaker 16: From Bloomberg filmed, and it's kind of all over the place,
Speaker 16: be honest with you, And they said, we'd love for
Speaker 16: you to come in, take a look at some of
Speaker 16: the footage, and then see if you feel like you
Speaker 16: can make a movie out of it in some way,
Speaker 16: shape or form. And so I went in and I
Speaker 16: didn't realize no one had told me there was about
Speaker 16: three hundred.
Speaker 13: Hours of it.
Speaker 16: So it was a little I was like, Okay, well
Speaker 16: this is a bit more of a job than I thought.
Speaker 16: And so but I screened the footage with my editor,
Speaker 16: and some of.
Speaker 11: The footage was incredible. I mean being in those.
Speaker 16: Rooms where rockets crash and it was really it was.
Speaker 11: It was incredible.
Speaker 16: And then some of the footage was really not it
Speaker 16: was it was funny. We really had to really gut
Speaker 16: through it all and.
Speaker 11: Try to figure out what I love.
Speaker 16: And I said this before, is that when you first
Speaker 16: started shooting Ashley, the footage is not very good because
Speaker 16: you didn't really know how to film the people. But
Speaker 16: as you progress, as the years went by, the footage
Speaker 16: got better because you and so and it mirrored how
Speaker 16: the companies functioned right, and it really like stylistically it
Speaker 16: was perfect.
Speaker 11: But who could have ever thought that anyway? So that's
Speaker 11: kind of how I got involved.
Speaker 3: At what point, Ross, did you did you sort of
Speaker 3: have the story come into place.
Speaker 11: About five minutes before we finished editor.
Speaker 3: Because because it is it really is. It's it's not
Speaker 3: you're not telling it. You're sort of telling a story
Speaker 3: in real time. I mean, you know this stuff is.
Speaker 3: You can check the stock prices of some of these
Speaker 3: companies today. Still you might not want to exactly for
Speaker 3: some of them, but you follow the process from essentially
Speaker 3: from birth all the way to going public during this
Speaker 3: this crazy run up during like with SPACs and COVID,
Speaker 3: Like when when did you figure out the story?
Speaker 16: Well, we were literally shooting until maybe a month before
Speaker 16: we finished editing.
Speaker 13: Wow.
Speaker 16: Yeah, things are happening. And that's the beauty of verite documentaries.
Speaker 16: You're following things as they're progressing, right. I mean this
Speaker 16: kind of film kind of stops. It doesn't end, you
Speaker 16: know what I mean, I mean the film itse OpenDS.
Speaker 16: But the problem like, all right, we have to stop
Speaker 16: filming at some point, and this is the film. So
Speaker 16: it's that's kind of what I love about this kind
Speaker 16: of filmmaking is fly on the wall filmmaking. You don't
Speaker 16: really you get in that edit room and that's where
Speaker 16: you craft the story.
Speaker 1: Well, Ashley is an incredible storyteller, and we've been very
Speaker 1: lucky to have him here at Bloomberg and be able
Speaker 1: to talk to him about all of his stories on
Speaker 1: space and whatever you're working on. Having said that, how
Speaker 1: was it to see kind of the book come to
Speaker 1: life and what was important to you in telling these stories?
Speaker 17: It was really cool, as ross was saying, you know,
Speaker 17: I had never made a film before. I just had
Speaker 17: this idea, this would be a cool thing to try
Speaker 17: to do a movie in a book. At the same time,
Speaker 17: it turns out I bit off more than I could chew.
Speaker 17: And look, I mean, ross has won an Academy Award.
Speaker 17: It was amazing to have him come on. And so
Speaker 17: you know, he came on with fresh eyes. I'd spent
Speaker 17: years reporting on these subjects. You start to lose a
Speaker 17: little bit of perspective of what the wider world knows,
Speaker 17: what they don't know, what's what's going to appeal And
Speaker 17: so Rossie got through the book, he'd gone through the
Speaker 17: footage and as you as you guys saw a lot
Speaker 17: of this stories. This group of friends who were at
Speaker 17: NASA Ames which is the NASA Silicon Valley Center in
Speaker 17: their twenties. They had this guy, Pete Warden, who was
Speaker 17: the head. He's this iconoclastic brigadier general who wanted.
Speaker 9: There's a dad and the grandfather and the uncle all
Speaker 9: rolled right.
Speaker 17: He brought it all these young kids and wanted them
Speaker 17: to do weird stuff in space like go show that
Speaker 17: NASA can be better, was basically it. And so I
Speaker 17: think Russ got into a lot of that part of
Speaker 17: the story and that sort of ends up becoming the
Speaker 17: heart and so no, it was really gratifying.
Speaker 13: To see it come out of the book and to see.
Speaker 17: How another storyteller what they were interested in and how
Speaker 17: they told it well.
Speaker 3: Actually certainly a prominent part of the film, but it
Speaker 3: also focuses on three founders.
Speaker 13: We've mentioned some of them.
Speaker 3: Peter Beck of Rocket Lab, Chris Camp of Astra, and
Speaker 3: Will Marshall of Planet Labs. Coming in from a perspective
Speaker 3: of somebody outside of the industry as a filmmaker, I mean,
Speaker 3: are there three more perfect characters who you could put
Speaker 3: on the screen and follow I mean, these guys are
Speaker 3: truly well it was for.
Speaker 16: Different reasons, absolutely, but there's this unifying principle that we
Speaker 16: kind of came up with at a certain point very
Speaker 16: early on, and it kind of everything kind of fell
Speaker 16: into place. The principle was, like, I love found families,
Speaker 16: and all my films they end up being these crazy
Speaker 16: families that are and in this case, this this Brigadier
Speaker 16: General Pete Warden brought in these young people and they
Speaker 16: became this little found family and I was like, that's
Speaker 16: kind of what I love like And there was love there,
Speaker 16: their friendship. There's love and that's kind of a big
Speaker 16: part of this film, and people just have a great time,
Speaker 16: like it's this is a really funny film.
Speaker 11: It's a bit of a romp.
Speaker 16: And but so bringing these people together, figuring out the
Speaker 16: characters because the Ashley's book is it's got more than
Speaker 16: three or four characters, right, you know, like multiple multiple
Speaker 16: characters and companies. So that was, you know, just trying
Speaker 16: to figure out who do we follow. Well, that was
Speaker 16: the principle that we went with and I think it worked.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do feel like the three main characters are kind
Speaker 1: of you know, Friday and Id Ego.
Speaker 9: And Super Ego.
Speaker 1: Hope we can talk about that just a moment to
Speaker 1: think archetypes. Did you guys agree though? These were the
Speaker 1: three characters, these were the three companies you had to
Speaker 1: tell the story about.
Speaker 17: I think there were a lot of discussions along the way,
Speaker 17: but we never had really I don't ever remember any
Speaker 17: fights or disputes or anything.
Speaker 16: I think, yeah, well, I'm just to say very clearly
Speaker 16: like I had a couple of things going. I mean,
Speaker 16: one and nothing is about space, and two Ashley is
Speaker 16: an incredible person to work with. The book was amazing,
Speaker 16: So it was it was kind of scenes.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
Speaker 2: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car
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Speaker 2: can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship
Speaker 2: New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: We're back talking with a couple of the folks behind
Speaker 3: Wild Wild Space. It's a new HBO documentary. As we mentioned,
Speaker 3: the film follows entrepreneurs of three companies. One of those
Speaker 3: is Astra Space. And here's the co founder of Astra
Speaker 3: Chris Kemp counting down to a launch.
Speaker 18: This is our last day in our launch window. We're
Speaker 18: going to get it this time. Hey, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 18: It's gonna happen.
Speaker 7: So too, County County down ten ban Hey seven six,
Speaker 7: five four three two one.
Speaker 1: Go well that one obviously, I'm go say for those
Speaker 1: listening on radio, the launch finally went off. In case
Speaker 1: you were wondering.
Speaker 3: That's from Wild Wild Space, the new documentary premiering at
Speaker 3: nine pm tonight, Wall Street Time on HBO.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to Ashley Vance, features writer
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg business Week, author of the first Elon Musk biography,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and The Quest for a Fantastic Future,
Speaker 1: and a producer of the film and with US Academy
Speaker 1: Award winner Russ Kaufman. He is the director of Wild
Speaker 1: Wild Space and earlier film of his Born Into Brothels,
Speaker 1: won the Oscar for Best Documentary two thousand and five
Speaker 1: as well as the Emmy for Best Documentary two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. And he's been taking pictures in the studio
Speaker 1: and we're assuming they're going to be killer pictures. We
Speaker 1: all want copies of them. We're just going to put
Speaker 1: it out there, maybe get us an academy.
Speaker 11: It's a lot of pressure, pressure, all right.
Speaker 1: So actually tell us, I keep saying the id ego
Speaker 1: and super ego. You do have three main characters and
Speaker 1: companies that are profiled.
Speaker 9: Tell us about tell us about them.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 17: Well, Chris camp who we got to see in the clip.
Speaker 17: I always thought of him as this archetype of Silicon
Speaker 17: Valley almost. He's this unbridled ambition, this person who will
Speaker 17: stop it and nothing to achieve his goals. He's, as
Speaker 17: we mentioned in the film, he's a capitalist and quite driven.
Speaker 17: We have this guy, Will Marshall, who is the founder
Speaker 17: and CEO of Planet Labs. I've known him forever. We
Speaker 17: describe him as a space hippie in the film. I
Speaker 17: think that's fair. He's always tried. He kind of came
Speaker 17: from this university background where he was trying to do
Speaker 17: good in space. They've created all these imaging satellites that
Speaker 17: track rainforest and the movement of refugees and things like that.
Speaker 17: And then we've got Peter Beck who comes from New Zealand.
Speaker 17: It's probably one of the most incredible stories you'll ever hear.
Speaker 17: College education. He's self taught in aerospace, which does not happen,
Speaker 17: you know, just so people know a PhD at the
Speaker 17: least to do this. And you know, these days, rocket
Speaker 17: Lab is the really after SpaceX is really the most
Speaker 17: legit rocket company there is. And Peter is just that
Speaker 17: archetypal engineer. I mean he is he is rockets called
Speaker 17: to him. He has to build things with his hands.
Speaker 17: This is what he was put on Earth to do.
Speaker 17: And he's possessed and all that. And then some of
Speaker 17: these characters, we see them, these things get challenged over
Speaker 17: over time.
Speaker 13: You know, well, Marshall.
Speaker 17: Starts as a space hippie, still still is one, but
Speaker 17: planet goes public during all this.
Speaker 13: It does a lot of deals with governments.
Speaker 17: It's it's satellites sit in this weird place between nonprofit
Speaker 17: and and not spying but kind of watching everything that
Speaker 17: happens for governments. And so, you know, I think the
Speaker 17: film gets into some of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk a little bit about that tension Ross, because
Speaker 3: that's that's something that is certainly notable. Is this idea
Speaker 3: of optimism an opportunity among the characters. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, this idea of democratizing imaging of every single thing,
Speaker 3: every single day on Earth is something that if not
Speaker 3: used correctly and in the hands of somebody with ulterior motives,
Speaker 3: isn't necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 11: Absolutely.
Speaker 16: I mean it's like anything. I mean, look at the Internet, right,
Speaker 16: people went in with the best intentions and doesn't always
Speaker 16: work out. Individuals are flawed. It's gray area. These companies
Speaker 16: have to make money. It's a slippery slope, and you know,
Speaker 16: we're kind of dependent on these individuals hoping that they
Speaker 16: will do the right thing. But when it comes to
Speaker 16: the bottom line, you know, even the best intentions can
Speaker 16: sometimes go awry. So it's a I feel like this
Speaker 16: film also sheds light on a lot of the issues
Speaker 16: that we are not only facing, but we will face.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, one of the things that
Speaker 1: kind of blew my mind is just how crowded it's getting.
Speaker 1: I know, Bloomberg has done some reporting on this, and
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, all of these satellites that
Speaker 1: are you know, floating around and I do wonder kind
Speaker 1: of how you were thinking about that, and do we
Speaker 1: need to be worried? Do we need to clean it up?
Speaker 1: It's something you guys bring up in the film.
Speaker 17: I thought about it a lot, and part of the
Speaker 17: reason I went into this book and the film was
Speaker 17: I'm a nerd, so I'm interested in the stuff. But
Speaker 17: I thought like the rest of the world wasn't paying
Speaker 17: a lot of attention to what's going on. Again, I
Speaker 17: think the film is funny. I tend to be pretty
Speaker 17: optimistic about things, but we do raise these these questions.
Speaker 17: Most people have not paid attention as we've gone from
Speaker 17: two thousand satellites in orbit to very quickly ten thousand,
Speaker 17: and we're heading to one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: There is because they're going up every day.
Speaker 13: They're going up, you know, are often.
Speaker 17: It used to be a rocket went up once a
Speaker 17: month and that was pretty good, and SpaceX is going
Speaker 17: almost every two days now, and we really are on
Speaker 17: this exponential curve with the number of satellites that are
Speaker 17: going up. So the question is, you know, are humans
Speaker 17: every time humans find some new place that's interesting, they
Speaker 17: want to go. Usually some bad things start to happen
Speaker 17: pretty quickly.
Speaker 13: And this is our last.
Speaker 17: Not even pristine anymore, but our last bit of new
Speaker 17: territory to barge into, and so, you know, are we
Speaker 17: going to repeat all the mistakes we've made here on Earth?
Speaker 17: Are we going to do something different? All these companies
Speaker 17: and governments and actors are incentive to make this work
Speaker 17: because the second something blows up and creates a bunch
Speaker 17: of debris, none of this stuff can operate.
Speaker 8: It.
Speaker 13: It's bad for everybody.
Speaker 9: But we have to be worried about that right now.
Speaker 1: If you think about defense, right people.
Speaker 17: Make mistakes, and we show in the movie you know Russia,
Speaker 17: So Russia's the wild Guard and all this. Their space
Speaker 17: programs in the decline, but they're very proud and nation
Speaker 17: and they have this great space history. They shot a
Speaker 17: missile a couple of years ago at one of their
Speaker 17: own satellites just to remind everybody that they can do that.
Speaker 17: And so so yeah, so people can have the best intentions,
Speaker 17: but that doesn't always mean it's gonna work out.
Speaker 3: Well, what after you coming in? Ros says sort of
Speaker 3: a newbie when it comes to space. What what was
Speaker 3: the thing that you took away that kind of keeps
Speaker 3: you up at night?
Speaker 11: Oh, there's so much.
Speaker 16: Yeah, and this idea of private individuals kind of pulling
Speaker 16: the strings listen to space debris. Just the idea that
Speaker 16: I mean, I read the other day that if America
Speaker 16: for some reason, our internet goes out, we lose GPS,
Speaker 16: we lose satellites, there's no real backup plan. It's one
Speaker 16: of those things where who knows what could go down
Speaker 16: if you know, one of these worst case scenarios happened.
Speaker 16: The fact that there's no real backup plan, that's kind
Speaker 16: of one of the most frightening.
Speaker 11: Things to me.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Leave the World Behind with Jillia.
Speaker 11: Roberts, Oh my god, Yes, it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of when things go astray and all the tesla's
Speaker 1: it's not a document.
Speaker 9: Are on the highway, all coming to one space.
Speaker 11: Yes, definitely see that movie.
Speaker 1: It just reminds us how dependent we are on all
Speaker 1: those satellites and all this connectivity.
Speaker 3: Hey, Ashulely, I wanted to ask about Elon Musk because
Speaker 3: the film is not about Elon, but there are some
Speaker 3: references to him, and you see him a little bit.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, you know, with SpaceX being so successful
Speaker 3: at what these companies want to do, is there any
Speaker 3: chance that there's room for more than just SpaceX, Because
Speaker 3: make no mistake, they're the best at it.
Speaker 17: Yeah, it's an open question. I mean, they're the world's
Speaker 17: biggest rocket maker. And the world's biggest satellite maker. So
Speaker 17: that's a problem for some of these other companies. Lots
Speaker 17: of people try look, rocket Lab and Peter Beck in
Speaker 17: this film are very legit. They they just had their
Speaker 17: fiftieth launch. They did that faster than SpaceX. They got
Speaker 17: they got to fifty fist.
Speaker 9: Did they become a tesla?
Speaker 1: I mean, no, SpaceX, excuse.
Speaker 13: Me, people, way to go.
Speaker 17: The next rocket they're trying to make is a very
Speaker 17: direct competitor to the Falcon nine.
Speaker 13: I have a ton of faith.
Speaker 17: That Peter Beck will figure out whatever he puts his
Speaker 17: mind to, but SpaceX is clear they're the dominant force.
Speaker 17: I would say rocket Lab, I would imagine that those
Speaker 17: two companies are the ones to stay for a long time.
Speaker 1: I am curious when you guys do a documentary film
Speaker 1: like this, is there is it a three or four
Speaker 1: hour film when it gets cut down or right from
Speaker 1: the get go, Ross you're keeping it kind of lean
Speaker 1: and mean.
Speaker 16: Well, I always like to kind of make a film
Speaker 16: whatever length it kind of needs to be. It sort
Speaker 16: of speaks to us in a way throughout the edit,
Speaker 16: but we knew very clearly this was a feature documentary.
Speaker 16: Hover around ninety minutes. I always like to make it
Speaker 16: as short and effective and efficiently as possible.
Speaker 9: So there wasn't severe editing at the end.
Speaker 16: There is always severe editing every moment. But yeah, like
Speaker 16: but we're like surgeons by the end. We're cutting out
Speaker 16: every frame, like every frame that makes sense to cut out.
Speaker 16: It's really I love the process. With an incredible editor,
Speaker 16: patient porter on this film. I producer Jay Callen. It
Speaker 16: was just a great team.
Speaker 1: So all right, just got about a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: I am curious, we are curious. What do you want
Speaker 1: people or why do you want them to watch it?
Speaker 1: And what do you want them to take away? Let
Speaker 1: me go to you first ross.
Speaker 16: You know, I like to go into these movies without
Speaker 16: any really preconceived notions going in, and I even don't
Speaker 16: even like to think about what people will take away
Speaker 16: from it at the end. I just want people to
Speaker 16: go in see this movie, try to just understand. One
Speaker 16: of the things I like to do is just trick
Speaker 16: people into caring, so in a way through great characters,
Speaker 16: great stories. That's kind of what I love to do.
Speaker 16: And then the information and you know, all the different
Speaker 16: all the different issues and problems Hopefully through these characters,
Speaker 16: they will come to a place where they care about
Speaker 16: the issues that these characters care about.
Speaker 1: You told stories, and you gave us a lot to
Speaker 1: care about. How about for you, Ashley, what do you
Speaker 1: want people to come away with?
Speaker 17: Well, look, for sixty years, space was dominated by a
Speaker 17: handful of governments. Almost any story you've ever seen about
Speaker 17: space revolves around that. It's some courageous pilot, it's some
Speaker 17: genius in a room solving a problem.
Speaker 13: Pr film, I think is the.
Speaker 17: First ever look at the reality of what space is
Speaker 17: like now, which is this is a business.
Speaker 13: It's full of real humans.
Speaker 17: There's struggle, there's comedy, there's tragedy, there's pride, there's ego,
Speaker 17: all of that, and so you know, I really, honestly
Speaker 17: I cover this stuff all the time for many years.
Speaker 17: I think this is the first true look at what
Speaker 17: modern space looks like, and it's amazing.
Speaker 9: Modern space also means there's going to be a lot
Speaker 9: more companies. I mean already there were a lot.
Speaker 17: Right that is absolutely we're kind of in this weird
Speaker 17: period where the first wave there's a few going bankrupt,
Speaker 17: but there's already many many rocket startups coming to replace
Speaker 17: them and so yeah, I mean we're in the very
Speaker 17: first innings of where all this is going as far
Speaker 17: as commercial space is disconcerned.
Speaker 9: Well, congratulations guys, thank you so much. We enjoyed watching it.
Speaker 1: And good luck and it's making its debut. Wild Wild
Speaker 1: Space a new HBO documentary, premiering nine pm tonight, Wall
Speaker 1: Street Time on HBO.
Speaker 9: So check it out, everybody.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The film based on Ashley Vance's book When the Heavens
Speaker 3: Went On Sale, The Misfits and Geniuses racing to put.
Speaker 13: Space within reach.
Speaker 3: He's also features at a Bloomberg BusinessWeek also with us
Speaker 3: Ross Kaufman Academy Award winner, the director of Wild Wild Space.
Speaker 3: Check out the film tonight at nine pm.
Speaker 1: We watched, We loved.
Speaker 9: It's very, very incredible.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 2: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen
Speaker 2: on Applecarplay and then brout Auto with a Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: app or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Sticking on the topic of space, this hour, our next
Speaker 1: guest sure knows a lot about it. She has spent
Speaker 1: more than four thousand hours in space and been part
Speaker 1: of three NASA missions, including a six month mission to
Speaker 1: the International Space Station that launched one day after her
Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 3: Now retired Catherine Coleman breaks down the insights she found
Speaker 3: essential to her success. It's all in her book Sharing Space,
Speaker 3: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission Wonder and Making Change. She
Speaker 3: joined me along with Bloomberg's Katie Graefeld in.
Speaker 15: Some ways now by being a retired astronaut, I get
Speaker 15: to go out and talk a lot and talk about
Speaker 15: my experiences, and I am somebody that actually kind of
Speaker 15: processes their life through talking, you know, with others, and
Speaker 15: makes decisions that way. And it's I think what needed
Speaker 15: to be in the book, you know, sort of got
Speaker 15: brought together by going out and doing these talks and
Speaker 15: looking out into audiences in realizing what was essential. Like
Speaker 15: I remember one one group of women, they were all
Speaker 15: like seniors in college, being courted at the very big
Speaker 15: computer conference basically being their speaker and realizing this was
Speaker 15: an audience of about one hundred young women, all in
Speaker 15: computer science and engineering, and realizing that this is them,
Speaker 15: they are the future. And I have only like twenty
Speaker 15: minutes to impart to them things. I think they really
Speaker 15: need to know so little moments like that I think
Speaker 15: really led to the book.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to talk a little bit about your
Speaker 3: career because it's been it's been so interesting. I mean,
Speaker 3: a PhD from UMass Amhurst, you went to MIT Ratzi
Speaker 3: was sort of your introduction into service. It sounds like,
Speaker 3: can you start, like, give us the abridge version of
Speaker 3: how you found yourself, how you were able to become
Speaker 3: an astronaut.
Speaker 6: What was it like.
Speaker 15: It's one of the two main reasons that I wrote
Speaker 15: the book was that you're up there. And it's not
Speaker 15: just about the floating. You know, you see my hair
Speaker 15: be big and we're floating around. It's about the fact
Speaker 15: that you fly from place to place. It's the only
Speaker 15: way to get around, and it kind of reminds you
Speaker 15: that you're in a place that almost nobody else is in.
Speaker 15: All the rules are different, which is extremely important for
Speaker 15: science and all the stuff we can learn up there.
Speaker 15: And at the same time, it's also a human thing
Speaker 15: to realize that you are one of In this case,
Speaker 15: right now, there's thirteen let's see twelve people up in
Speaker 15: space on different space stations as we speak, and they're
Speaker 15: at the very edge.
Speaker 19: I literally cannot imagine it. And I always wonder how
Speaker 19: people prepare themselves for things. How do you even prepare
Speaker 19: for an experience that you know you've never had before?
Speaker 19: I mean, what is the physical reality of training look
Speaker 19: like to get ready to be in space?
Speaker 15: I think there's that all that practicing. It's the reality
Speaker 15: of needing to be as safe as you can be.
Speaker 15: Spaceflight will never be safe, but we need to be
Speaker 15: as safe as we can. And that means you, as
Speaker 15: a crew member, being able to do your part. You know,
Speaker 15: if this happens, we need to do this. If there's
Speaker 15: a fire alarm, you need to you know, don your
Speaker 15: mask and get to the main computer and you know,
Speaker 15: and take the certain steps. And so we practice those things,
Speaker 15: we drill them, and we're also of course graded and
Speaker 15: watched and observed, and that adds that extra tension that
Speaker 15: helps you make the mistakes that you might make on
Speaker 15: the real day when that stress comes from seeing actual
Speaker 15: smoke or realizing you might need to lose leave the
Speaker 15: space station really quickly. So we do practice all those things.
Speaker 15: We've got great smart instructors. But then it is really
Speaker 15: just amazing to then be up there and be able
Speaker 15: to operate, and I think also to be able to
Speaker 15: be sort of mentally present as a human. That's a
Speaker 15: really another big important part to think about before you go.
Speaker 19: Yeah, and I'm again so many things that I can't
Speaker 19: imagine about what you just said. Seeing smoke in space
Speaker 19: and being able to control oneself is pretty remarkable. And
Speaker 19: I'm curious what it's like coming back because you see
Speaker 19: clips on YouTube sometimes with astronauts coming back from space
Speaker 19: and they forget that they're in zero there. Now there's
Speaker 19: gravity on Earth and they you know, they drop whatever
Speaker 19: they're holding because they expected to just you know, float
Speaker 19: by them. I mean, have you had any experiences like that?
Speaker 19: What does the return trip actually look like?
Speaker 15: Well, it's but I would say the words sad, wild,
Speaker 15: and then just nice to be home. I really didn't
Speaker 15: want to leave, you know, it was it takes a
Speaker 15: couple of months to get good at the work up
Speaker 15: there about not just understanding how to keep everything in
Speaker 15: its place and do all the experiments and get more done.
Speaker 15: It really has about a month long learning curse. You
Speaker 15: just want to stay and get more done. And I
Speaker 15: felt like my family would be there when I got home,
Speaker 15: and so I wanted to stay, so it was a
Speaker 15: little sad. It is as Scott Kelly, who was I
Speaker 15: was on a crew with Scott, and he talked to
Speaker 15: us before we came home and talk to us about
Speaker 15: what landing was like. You said, it's the best e
Speaker 15: ticket ride you will ever go. Where I mean you're
Speaker 15: coming down and I mean spacecraft are built this way
Speaker 15: where we haven't a blative shield under the spacecraft. That
Speaker 15: means it's supposed to actually burn up, and pieces of
Speaker 15: burning spacecraft are supposed to go buy the windows.
Speaker 13: Wow.
Speaker 15: And so knowing that is very comforting, I mean actually
Speaker 15: having it narrated and understanding what's happening. And he's like,
Speaker 15: and then parachute opening and he looks at me. He
Speaker 15: goes Coleman, set a timer. Parachute opening because you need
Speaker 15: to make sure that you are not talking because it
Speaker 15: is so abrupt, And then that capsule is spinning and
Speaker 15: swinging and it is really wild, and then it settles
Speaker 15: down and then you're just watching the watching the sort
Speaker 15: of the feet clocked down and realizing you're just going
Speaker 15: to hit the ground with a really big, solid funk,
Speaker 15: and you just hope you're not going to get dragged
Speaker 15: around by that parachute.
Speaker 3: Hey, Katie, I'm wondering if you can talk to us
Speaker 3: a little bit about the way that borders kind of
Speaker 3: melt in space. And the reason I'm bringing this up
Speaker 3: is because you know the ISS, for example, US Space Agency,
Speaker 3: ros Cosmos, Russian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japan, Canada.
Speaker 3: Oftentimes you're with people from all over the world as
Speaker 3: an astronaut, and although countries might not get along on
Speaker 3: the ground, sometimes you're getting along in space. And I'm
Speaker 3: wondering what your experience was seeing the world kind of
Speaker 3: come together in space.
Speaker 15: Being part of you know, not just the mission up there,
Speaker 15: but the getting ready. It's been my experience that, you know,
Speaker 15: the governments say this is what we're going to do together,
Speaker 15: and there's formal agreements, but it is the people that
Speaker 15: really bring the mission together and make it happen, because
Speaker 15: it happens by having dinner with each other, by going
Speaker 15: for walks, by saying, what's your family like? Can I
Speaker 15: meet your family? And that's really what brought our crew together.
Speaker 15: And so being up there, especially in times like these,
Speaker 15: all I can say is from what I understand, everyone
Speaker 15: is doing their job and not and that means on
Speaker 15: the ground. That means the crew up in space and
Speaker 15: not even thinking about not doing their job, because the
Speaker 15: mission itself is really really clear. Up there. You are
Speaker 15: together as a crew keeping each other safe. And you know,
Speaker 15: down here on the ground, we don't always agree with
Speaker 15: each other. Hear all about it on your show. I mean,
Speaker 15: it's and it's not easy, and sometimes you just have
Speaker 15: to like put the things you can't agree about they're
Speaker 15: they're not part of the mission right now, which is
Speaker 15: in our case down here figuring out how are we
Speaker 15: going to make sure everybody can live safely down here
Speaker 15: on Earth.
Speaker 3: What do you make of the rise of private enterprise
Speaker 3: companies like SpaceX and certainly Boeing to a lesser extent,
Speaker 3: supplanning a lot of what NASA has historically done.
Speaker 15: The more the more the merrier, not to trivialize it,
Speaker 15: but more people in the game, bringing their ideas, their
Speaker 15: new ways to do things and doing them in concert.
Speaker 15: We talk about these companies as if they're alone, but
Speaker 15: are often doing things with NASA for NASA, and I
Speaker 15: think you know each of these we talk about the billionaires,
Speaker 15: but each of them has a vision, and they have resources,
Speaker 15: and they have, you know, a vision of how to
Speaker 15: pave the way to space for more people, And each
Speaker 15: of those visions I find to be valuable. And I
Speaker 15: like to look more at the substance than at the
Speaker 15: people there, and just to see what they're accomplishing, and
Speaker 15: I like what each of them are doing. The more
Speaker 15: people you bring up on orbit, the more people get
Speaker 15: that view and understand actually the magnitude of what we
Speaker 15: can do.
Speaker 3: One thing we wanted to talk about is Mars, and
Speaker 3: we mentioned Elon Musk's lifelong dream is to colonize Mars.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on colonizing Mars or actually putting
Speaker 3: humans on that planet.
Speaker 15: Eventually, absolutely, we will be doing that, and I think
Speaker 15: it's a good time for everybody to be thinking about
Speaker 15: it and how to do it and even thinking, you know,
Speaker 15: I like to think about settling Mars. Swich to me
Speaker 15: and pop implies more like having a plan and going
Speaker 15: there together. And you know, for one country to be
Speaker 15: the only country there doesn't seem like the right thing
Speaker 15: to me. And I think that comes from that view
Speaker 15: from the space station of looking back at the Earth,
Speaker 15: and you talked about dissolving borders. When I look back
Speaker 15: there I see. First of all, I feel very close
Speaker 15: to home. But second I see that everyone could be
Speaker 15: and actually is so connected if only they knew how
Speaker 15: much we could accomplish more together. And that includes doing
Speaker 15: the most important thing I think we'll do, which is
Speaker 15: colonizing and going off and settling on Mars.
Speaker 3: Very very cool. Thank you so much for sharing some
Speaker 3: of your journey with us. You can read more about
Speaker 3: Katie Coleman's journey in her new book out today. It's
Speaker 3: called Sharing Space, An Astronaut's Guide to Mission Wonder and
Speaker 3: Making Change.
Speaker 2: This in this Business Week, you're listening to the Bloomberg
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Speaker 2: Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 1: From Space Exploration to exploring the first Porscha nine to
Speaker 1: eleven hybrid.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah you heard that right, Yeah, I would you.
Speaker 1: Both, Yeah, exactly right. Back in May, Porscha unveiled the
Speaker 1: first hybrid version of its most famous sports car, the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. It is the Carrera GTS with a
Speaker 1: newly developed three point six leader six cylinder engine with
Speaker 1: a single electrically driven turbocharger say that five times fast,
Speaker 1: and an in transmission electric motor that reduces lag times
Speaker 1: to nil as the car sprints forward. I sound like
Speaker 1: I'm Hannah Elliot.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, reading her words, we know
Speaker 3: all that thanks to Hannah Elliott. It also comes with
Speaker 3: a whopping price tag of just about one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty five thousand dollars, so not cheap, but it's a Porsche,
Speaker 3: so you wouldn't expect it to kind of be, you know,
Speaker 3: affordable to many people. And for those Porsche files worried
Speaker 3: about the electrification that could spell the end of the
Speaker 3: nine to eleven, don't worry about it, so says Bloomberg
Speaker 3: News auto columnist Hannah Elliott, who recently took the car
Speaker 3: out for a spin.
Speaker 8: There were a lot of nine to eleven lovers and
Speaker 8: porshapurists who were a very reticent about the idea of
Speaker 8: electrifying their beloved six cylinder engine. You know, Porsche made
Speaker 8: that engine famous in nineteen sixty three, and I myself
Speaker 8: was hesitant. You know, you don't know what to expect.
Speaker 8: Porsche actually removed a turbo charger from this engine, and
Speaker 8: then it made the existing turbocharger larger and then added
Speaker 8: an electric motor. So there's a lot going on under
Speaker 8: the hood, and you know, we kind of didn't know
Speaker 8: what to expect. But I'm happy to report to you
Speaker 8: that the Carrera nine to eleven GTS hybrid is really,
Speaker 8: and honestly it was in a good way, very unremarkable.
Speaker 8: It's got about sixty horse power more than the previous version,
Speaker 8: and it's a little bit faster. But you know what,
Speaker 8: at the end of the day, you'd be hard pressed
Speaker 8: as I was, to even tell any difference between a
Speaker 8: hybrid nine to eleven and the standard nine to eleven
Speaker 8: that we love.
Speaker 3: Hey, Carol's fighting me because she wants she wants to
Speaker 3: ask another question. You know what, Carol, go ahead, No,
Speaker 3: oh god, we just.
Speaker 1: This is what happens your voices a little.
Speaker 3: This is what happens when Hanna Elliott comes on. It's
Speaker 3: like we just we fight each other. We get to
Speaker 3: talk to but go ahead.
Speaker 1: And ask another the pedal to the metal and how
Speaker 1: did it feel? And where did you ride it?
Speaker 6: Drive it?
Speaker 8: Okay, So I drove it on a track in Spain, which, yes,
Speaker 8: it does sound very glamorous, and of course it was great.
Speaker 8: But Spain is also a really great place to drive
Speaker 8: cars right now because the weather's fabulous and you can
Speaker 8: these automakers can get the tracks there for pretty cheap,
Speaker 8: so they just have journalists come out to these Spanish
Speaker 8: tracks and you spend the day driving around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Hannah, watch out for the olive trees. Okay,
Speaker 3: well this.
Speaker 8: It's interesting that you say that, because this was a
Speaker 8: really interesting track. It's it had some sort of inclines,
Speaker 8: it had banking, it was over three miles long, so
Speaker 8: it was a really tricky track, and the car handles
Speaker 8: it's so fabulous.
Speaker 14: You know.
Speaker 8: This is why we no one loved the nine to eleven,
Speaker 8: and it's also why Porsche was so hesitant to do anything.
Speaker 6: To this car.
Speaker 8: This is the crown jewel of the brand and it
Speaker 8: engenders such a fervid fan base that anything that would
Speaker 8: change the amazing handling, the amazing breaking, just the amazing
Speaker 8: power delivery, it would It's kind of dangerous, you know.
Speaker 8: You think you don't want to change something if it's working,
Speaker 8: But I have to say, truly that from a driving perspective,
Speaker 8: this hybrid, new hybrid variant, it's great. It's you know,
Speaker 8: Porsche didn't want I want to tell me how many
Speaker 8: more miles per gallon we're going to get out of
Speaker 8: the car. I think it's pretty negligible. Really, Yeah, this
Speaker 8: is an interesting thing. You know, you make a hybrid
Speaker 8: in order to help meet CO two in emission standards,
Speaker 8: which is for sure true, but Porsche is also saying, look,
Speaker 8: we're actually getting a little bit more horsepower, a little
Speaker 8: bit more speed out of combining the electric motor and
Speaker 8: the turbocharger. So it's kind of a win win.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I will say though, the biggest change for me, we're
Speaker 8: changes in the cabin and I don't know if you
Speaker 8: guys want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Ye're not, but go there right, like it's so iconic,
Speaker 1: right you get inside a Porsche, right, the dios and
Speaker 1: so and so forth, tell us what the experience was like,
Speaker 1: because it sounds like that's where you were a little disappointed.
Speaker 8: So this is where I was really surprised. The car
Speaker 8: itself in terms of driving, it's very well within the
Speaker 8: Portue nine to eleven lineup. It's not the fastest but
Speaker 8: it's in the middle. It's in the middle inside though,
Speaker 8: this is really the first nine to eleven to have
Speaker 8: a button to start the car, rather than the sort
Speaker 8: of faux key fob that you go to turn on
Speaker 8: the left side, which is a really signature touch for
Speaker 8: a nine to eleven. Now they've put a button there,
Speaker 8: and Porsche has also removed all of the analog gauges.
Speaker 8: You know, Porsia has this signature five gauge set up
Speaker 8: behind the steering wheel with the techometer right in the middle.
Speaker 8: They've done away with that. Now it's screens, you've got
Speaker 8: a push button start, and they also remove the back seat.
Speaker 8: Now that's now available as a no cost option. But
Speaker 8: people who really love the nine to eleven and spend
Speaker 8: a lot of time in that cabin, whether they're commuting
Speaker 8: to work or driving it on the weekends, you're going
Speaker 8: to notice. I think the biggest change that you will
Speaker 8: notice is inside the cabin.
Speaker 3: Does it feel like when you drive it that you're
Speaker 3: driving a hybrid?
Speaker 14: No?
Speaker 6: And you know why.
Speaker 8: I First of all, there's no electric only range. You
Speaker 8: know how some plug in hybrids you can I've an
Speaker 8: electric only mode for a few miles. This Caarra GTS
Speaker 8: doesn't have that. You don't even plug it into charge.
Speaker 8: This is a mild hybrid, so all of the energy
Speaker 8: is being transferred under the hood. You're not input you're
Speaker 8: not plugging in, and you're not driving in electric only mode.
Speaker 8: So honestly, you will be pretty hard pressed to feel
Speaker 8: any difference in terms of ooh am, I driving a hybrid,
Speaker 8: other than maybe you could feel that it's a little
Speaker 8: bit faster if you're doing like if you're burning rubber
Speaker 8: from zero to sixty miles an hour, it is about
Speaker 8: point three seconds faster, so you'll feel it in that way.
Speaker 8: But just from a regular driving perspective, honestly, you're not
Speaker 8: going to feel any difference.
Speaker 9: Scale of one to ten, what do you give it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: I give it eight eight.
Speaker 8: I like hybrids, Yeah, I think you know what I
Speaker 8: think hybrids. We used to think they were a bit
Speaker 8: of just a bridge technology while we all accelerated toward
Speaker 8: electric vehicles. But I have to say now, the idea
Speaker 8: of some of these sports cars becoming hybridized where you
Speaker 8: kind of get the best of both worlds, it does
Speaker 8: make sense. And you know, as we're seeing EV sales
Speaker 8: sort of slow down a little bit. Obviously they're still growing,
Speaker 8: but just not as such at such a quick rate.
Speaker 8: The hybrids, to me are looking really interesting because, like
Speaker 8: I said, it does kind of combine the best of
Speaker 8: both worlds. You get the pure power and really quick
Speaker 8: acceleration of a electric battery, but you also get that tangible,
Speaker 8: really fun driving feeling of internal combustion.
Speaker 3: You contrast it with the actid Martins dvantage that you
Speaker 3: recently had on track as well. Why was this so different?
Speaker 6: Three words?
Speaker 3: Four wheel drive?
Speaker 6: That's why.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's just so much more predictable, and I'm
Speaker 8: the first to admit it makes me think I'm a
Speaker 8: better driver than I really am. The car is a
Speaker 8: lot more controlled.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: What I also love is you called it exuberant, go
Speaker 1: out of the gate. It sounds like you just had
Speaker 1: a blast driving it around, and it sounds like more
Speaker 1: to come. So good, so good, so good.
Speaker 9: It's a great way for us to wrap up on
Speaker 9: our Friday.
Speaker 3: Hey, if you ever want us to come on one
Speaker 3: of these trips to Spain or like around the track, Yeah,
Speaker 3: just just let us know.
Speaker 8: Okay, I Hey, if you want to go on the
Speaker 8: next one, beat my guest I'll sit in the corner
Speaker 8: and drink some quart or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, deal, done, done, Hanna Elliott, You well have a
Speaker 1: great weekend.
Speaker 9: She is auto column at the Bloomberg Pursuits.
Speaker 1: Check her out on Twitter, on x, on Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: and of course, at the Bloomberg Tournaino.
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