Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. It is week thirty one, working from home
Speaker 1: for so many Still, the presidential election got closer, more
Speaker 1: coronavirus relief stimulus got farther away, and we had a
Speaker 1: lot of conversations about working from home versus getting back
Speaker 1: to the office. Not everyone agrees on that. Well. Coming
Speaker 1: up this week, dis Eruption is an opportunity for innovation
Speaker 1: and new thought. Former Mayor of Kansas City Slide James
Speaker 1: on the impact of the virus on education and getting
Speaker 1: out the vote. Plus, there will be a lot of
Speaker 1: changes as we move forward, bringing back Broadway with the
Speaker 1: president of the Broadway League. We begin, though, first with
Speaker 1: the presidential election now just a little more than two
Speaker 1: weeks out. Florida has become a battleground when it comes
Speaker 1: to the November elections, and as Josh greenwrights, Florida seniors
Speaker 1: could seal President Trump's fate. On election night, bloombergs Paul
Speaker 1: Sweeney and I caught up with John National correspondent at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Jille Webber,
Speaker 1: as Josh writes, Uh, in this dispatch, Um, we're really
Speaker 1: looking at an outcome here that for Trump to have
Speaker 1: any real certainty of getting back and retaining the Oval office,
Speaker 1: he really needs Florida, and so the Democrat strategy is
Speaker 1: obviously to try and take Florida out of his hands.
Speaker 1: But what Josh actually gets into here is the there
Speaker 1: are some early numbers that we're seeing from Florida, and
Speaker 1: the swing among seniors UM, which is a demographic that
Speaker 1: Trump had had locked down last election, is just one
Speaker 1: eight and is already in early numbers, is veering towards Biden. Josh,
Speaker 1: what does that mean in the grand scheme of things, Well, basically,
Speaker 1: what it means that the current trends continue, Uh, Trump
Speaker 1: isn't gonna win Florida, and Crump doesn't win Florida, He's
Speaker 1: not going to win the election. But what's really interesting
Speaker 1: about this is we've all been reading about these nightmare
Speaker 1: scenarios where states don't count their vote and from the
Speaker 1: weeks and the election is consisted. What's great about Florida
Speaker 1: is that it counts its votes early as they come in.
Speaker 1: So about of the votes early votes already cast in
Speaker 1: the twenty general elections have been cast Florida and have
Speaker 1: already been counted, and Florida updates those numbers. So what
Speaker 1: we did was we took a look at who was
Speaker 1: voting early, and the thing that really jumped out was
Speaker 1: that seniors, voters age sixty five and vote or older,
Speaker 1: we're voting at the ten then later clip in than
Speaker 1: they were at this point four years ago. If you
Speaker 1: look at the poll numbers. We wrote about this in
Speaker 1: our election issue in Business Week in September, a group
Speaker 1: that I called swinging seniors senior supported Trump, not necessarily
Speaker 1: what you think it might mean, So I better explained
Speaker 1: senior supported Trump at a seventy point in origin. Uh.
Speaker 1: The latest polls in Florida have Biden win seniors by
Speaker 1: fifteen points. So if you add those two things together,
Speaker 1: a huge swing to Biding among seniors and a huge
Speaker 1: outpouring of support, it isn't surprising that this is good
Speaker 1: news for Biding. And if it keeps up at this pace,
Speaker 1: what I say is we will know on election night
Speaker 1: whether or not Biding his one Florida, and if he has,
Speaker 1: I think he's a very good chance that he's going
Speaker 1: to be president. So, Josh, what has the president quote
Speaker 1: unquote done wrong? It's certainly not for lack of effort
Speaker 1: down there. He was just down there again campaigning. What's
Speaker 1: really been the change? Well, there have been two things.
Speaker 1: I mean, number one in the easy answer is COVID.
Speaker 1: He was down there to a gigantic, maskless rally in Orlando. Um,
Speaker 1: which you might imagine, Uh, spooks it awful lot of seniors.
Speaker 1: If you look at the main drive or the senior vote.
Speaker 1: It's been Trump's handling of the COVID pandemic. Uh, doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have a lot of inspired a lot of
Speaker 1: commerce among older voters. Not necessarily surprising, but you know,
Speaker 1: as I saying, the piece of the big question about
Speaker 1: early voting is are these new voters? Is this is
Speaker 1: this genuine enthusiasm or have older voters simply moved up
Speaker 1: when they cast their ballot? Are these just people who
Speaker 1: vote anywhere on election day deciding to vote early through
Speaker 1: the mail because it seems safer. Um, that's certainly some
Speaker 1: of it. But the other interesting factor here is that
Speaker 1: it appears to be much broader than that, and much
Speaker 1: broader than COVID, because if you go back and look
Speaker 1: at the results of mid term elections, there was once
Speaker 1: again a huge spike in senior voters, and of course
Speaker 1: that predated COVID. So what we can conclude from that
Speaker 1: is its seniors are much more eager to vote and
Speaker 1: seem to be much more willing to vote for Democrats
Speaker 1: now than they were in And if those trends continuous Florida,
Speaker 1: where they're especially pronounced because there are so many old
Speaker 1: people there, uh, it really spells bad news with them. Well,
Speaker 1: and what's interesting is you have to think Josh at
Speaker 1: the Trump camp is a little bit worried because you
Speaker 1: think about the video and he did you know, after
Speaker 1: coming out of the hospital. It was aimed directly at seniors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when Trump was was cooped up in the White House,
Speaker 1: when he was still contagious with coronavirus, he shot a
Speaker 1: kind of an awkward cheerleading video on the on the
Speaker 1: lawn of the West Wing. Um there was aimed at
Speaker 1: reassuring seniors, you know, I love you, I care about you,
Speaker 1: you know, so on and so forth. I think that
Speaker 1: was a clear reflection that his campaign staff was looking
Speaker 1: at the same numbers I am and seeing themselves. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, unless we change the mind to the senior
Speaker 1: voters pouring out to the polls and into the post
Speaker 1: office to mail their ballot, we're gonna be in real
Speaker 1: big trouble. Let's try and turn this around now. I
Speaker 1: think the problem is, you know, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: change public impression of how you handle the pandemic if
Speaker 1: you come out of the hospital, stick with COVID and
Speaker 1: then turn ondis letter and have a maskless rally like
Speaker 1: Trump in Florida. That's Bloomberg business Week national correspondent Josh Green,
Speaker 1: who's also author of Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and then Nationalist Uprising, along with Bloomberg business Week editor
Speaker 1: Joel Weber. We know it was a busy week when
Speaker 1: it came to politics. The presidents certainly out there on
Speaker 1: the campaign trail, so too was the Biden campaign. And
Speaker 1: an interesting development because we heard that Democratic vice presidential
Speaker 1: nominee Kamala Harris she canceled her travel until Monday after
Speaker 1: her communications director and a member of her flight crew
Speaker 1: tested positive for COVID nineteen. So some developments along the
Speaker 1: campaign trail. Speaking of the election, he's been working on
Speaker 1: getting out the vote and also writing the world when
Speaker 1: it comes to injustices. We're gonna check in with former
Speaker 1: Kansas City mayor Sly James. That's coming up next. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with GARYL. Masser
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. So common themes through many of our
Speaker 1: interviews throughout the week on our daily show had to
Speaker 1: do with the two pandemics facing our country. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the virus and racial injustice. Bloomberg Paul Sweeney and
Speaker 1: I got into that with our next guest, known for
Speaker 1: his bow ties when he was mayor of Kansas City,
Speaker 1: Slide James is now focusing on building cities for our children,
Speaker 1: prioritizing education. You had a book that came out over
Speaker 1: the summer, the Opportunity Agenda, a bold democratic plan to
Speaker 1: grow the middle class. We talked to education, we talked
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and of course getting out the vote. This
Speaker 1: pandemic and the economic upheaval that's caused along with the
Speaker 1: social upheaval. It's kind of like the perfect storm. Every
Speaker 1: fissure and crack in our society is being opened and
Speaker 1: laid there. People are able to see it. And one
Speaker 1: thing about these, uh, these disruptive times is disruption is
Speaker 1: an opportunity for innovation and new thoughts. And if we
Speaker 1: look at it like that and recognize that we've got
Speaker 1: problems and work on them, we may be able to
Speaker 1: bring some new ideas to the forefront solve some of
Speaker 1: these problems. Sly, how about in terms of education kids
Speaker 1: around the country or back at school, some virtually, some physically,
Speaker 1: some hybrid model. But what we've seen from last spring
Speaker 1: and now in the fall here is minority students are
Speaker 1: really at risk here of I guess falling through the cracks,
Speaker 1: are certainly at a disadvantage in this new virtual learning environment.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts there, Um, Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think minority students, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to broaden it out to say children who
Speaker 1: live in poverty are are all at an extreme disadvantage.
Speaker 1: They do not have access to the resources. They do
Speaker 1: not have access to broadband, they do not have access
Speaker 1: to the hardware, they do not have access to the
Speaker 1: innovative ideas that money and higher resource levels are able
Speaker 1: to bring that their more world heeled counterparts to do. Um,
Speaker 1: the problem that we have, of course, is that it
Speaker 1: would be one thing if we were at the top
Speaker 1: of the heat that we were talking about an incremental
Speaker 1: fall that puts us someplace in the middle of the pack.
Speaker 1: But we're not at the top of the heap. As
Speaker 1: a society and education we're falling faster and fast or
Speaker 1: behind other countries. So every kid in this country is
Speaker 1: falling behind our competitors around the world, and our kids
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ladder are about to slip
Speaker 1: off and fall into the abyss. These problems have been there,
Speaker 1: uh they are now just being laid there and open
Speaker 1: because of this pandemic has forced us to look at
Speaker 1: them in a different way. It's not The good news
Speaker 1: is is that people are looking at them in a
Speaker 1: different way and maybe some incremental change that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: But without a systemic approach to it, without an intentional
Speaker 1: approach to it, we're going to continue to have the
Speaker 1: same education gaps that we've always had. They may shrink
Speaker 1: a little, but it's now time to look at it
Speaker 1: for what it really is, a disaster for the long
Speaker 1: term economy of this country and fix it. Well, what
Speaker 1: you just said, a systemic approach. It's a systemic problem,
Speaker 1: so it needs a systemic approach. So if if you
Speaker 1: could list I don't know a couple of things that
Speaker 1: we need to do already, because I'm so tired of
Speaker 1: the convert state. I'm not tired of the conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: tired of people talking about it but not doing something.
Speaker 1: What would you say we need to slide? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I think we need to find political leadership
Speaker 1: that's not afraid to lose um. And by that I
Speaker 1: mean we can't have leaders who will do anything to
Speaker 1: stay in office, even if it means giving up ideas
Speaker 1: and ideals that they know are valuable. We've got to
Speaker 1: have people that are willing to say I'm going to
Speaker 1: fight for this, and if I lose, I lose, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to fight for it. We need sustained leadership
Speaker 1: to focus on this and this and and it can't
Speaker 1: be subject to the normal O uh democratic republican rebound
Speaker 1: philosophy that we see so often, where one party gets
Speaker 1: in does some droubles the ball for a bit, the
Speaker 1: other ball comes in and steals. Other team comes in
Speaker 1: and steals the ball and dribbles in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: So that at the end of the day, neither side
Speaker 1: is doing much of anything you said, dribbling away from
Speaker 1: each other. We need people who are in charge who
Speaker 1: recognizes number two. We have to recognize that people. People
Speaker 1: need to find a way. We need to find a
Speaker 1: way to bring people together in such a way that
Speaker 1: they actually influence an impact the leadership. Not talking about lobbyists,
Speaker 1: not talking about business. I'm talking about people who say
Speaker 1: this is important to us. And frankly, I wish I
Speaker 1: had a magic wand for it, but I don't. But
Speaker 1: I do think that we have to start educating, little
Speaker 1: by little the importance of early childhood education as a
Speaker 1: precursor and a foundation eliminating the thirty million word gap.
Speaker 1: We need to focus. We need to force more resources
Speaker 1: into the zero to five states, which is going to
Speaker 1: help on the long term solution and on the short
Speaker 1: term solution. We really need to tackle the third grade
Speaker 1: reading deficits that we have because up the third grade
Speaker 1: you're learning to read. The third grade on you're reading
Speaker 1: to learn, So obviously, if you haven't learned to read
Speaker 1: very well, you're not gonna learn very well. But all
Speaker 1: of this starts with conversations like this Carol and Paul
Speaker 1: and and mobilizing people to understand how valuable what we're
Speaker 1: talking about really is. So I'm just thinking, um, sly,
Speaker 1: all the things that we've talked about, and you know,
Speaker 1: the children who are living in poverty and the disadvantages,
Speaker 1: and the importance of making sure that everybody gets a
Speaker 1: good education, because it really makes a difference, you know,
Speaker 1: in your lives or in their lives. And I do
Speaker 1: wonder how you think about the vote in November and
Speaker 1: the outcome of that vote, and how that could possibly
Speaker 1: change those things. Well, I think that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of sentiment that the vote is being driven by
Speaker 1: whether or not you like Donald Trump. Um And frankly,
Speaker 1: whether or not you like Donald Trump may be good
Speaker 1: for the vote in this particular instance, may affect change,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, that's gonna wear
Speaker 1: off pretty quick and people are gonna have to stand
Speaker 1: on their own merits. So the question then becomes, what
Speaker 1: are you doing for me? Okay? Uh? Winston Fisher and
Speaker 1: I when we wrote the agenda, we deliberately wanted to
Speaker 1: point out that people should add that people in leadership
Speaker 1: should say, here's what we are doing for you. Uh,
Speaker 1: and maybe if they can internalize that, they will stop
Speaker 1: doing so much for themselves and do more for you.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, Uh, what we
Speaker 1: need is a new approach to leadership. We need a
Speaker 1: better and different coalition between business and government. We need
Speaker 1: more P three's. Here's an example of a P three possibility.
Speaker 1: One P three possibility to address the childcare situation would
Speaker 1: probably be more on the local level, but with businesses,
Speaker 1: where government and local businesses would enter into a P
Speaker 1: three arrangement with businesses so that those businesses engaged would
Speaker 1: have access to high quality pre K with some government helps, subsidies,
Speaker 1: tax credits, whatever the case may be, so that then
Speaker 1: there could be some quality control. Another opportunity for P
Speaker 1: three's would be to have something like what Anthony Fox
Speaker 1: did with his transportation grant lenge grant. It was about
Speaker 1: access to broadband and transportation, et cetera. But have challenge
Speaker 1: brands so that you could have some incubators of some
Speaker 1: ideas incubators. For example, on the issue of early childhood education,
Speaker 1: how's business and government combined their efforts and resources to
Speaker 1: improve our quality pre case system. That's former Kansas City
Speaker 1: Mayor Slide James his book The Opportunity Agenda, Bold Democratic
Speaker 1: plan to grow the middle class. Do you want to
Speaker 1: point out he's graduate of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership
Speaker 1: Initiative education program sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. Still to come. She's got an agenda too,
Speaker 1: and that's to get Broadway reopened in New York City safely.
Speaker 1: Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League, is coming
Speaker 1: up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some
Speaker 1: of the highlights of our daily radio broadcast and podcast,
Speaker 1: and that included someone we've checked in with several times
Speaker 1: during the shutdown in New York City. This time around,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and I caught up with her on
Speaker 1: the heels of news that there would be no Broadway
Speaker 1: theater until at least June. Here's Charlotte St. Martin. She's
Speaker 1: President of the Broadway League. Many things to bring everyone
Speaker 1: back when it comes to the theater industry, and to
Speaker 1: do it safely, and that included figuring out testing the
Speaker 1: fact that there hasn't been uh, a verified rapid test
Speaker 1: that is secure, which we have to have for the
Speaker 1: cast and crew until the virus is gone. And that
Speaker 1: doesn't even address the audience, which we also have to
Speaker 1: give the right products for the audience. And with no
Speaker 1: news about that now, we just felt that we had
Speaker 1: to be as open and transparent as possible with the
Speaker 1: people that worked for Broadway, work on Broadway and our
Speaker 1: theater goers. So many of those nine thousand employees that
Speaker 1: depend on Broadway to work need to have as much
Speaker 1: advanced notice now as possible so that they can try
Speaker 1: to find other work. Since the extension is so far out, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: what do we know about the economic impact to date
Speaker 1: on those employees on the theater owners? I think about
Speaker 1: these beautiful theaters in Midtown Manhattan on the West Side,
Speaker 1: just sitting idle. Talk to us about some of the
Speaker 1: economic impacts you're hearing about. Well, for our last full season,
Speaker 1: the loss in ticket sales was almost two billion dollars
Speaker 1: and the loss to the City of New York was
Speaker 1: almost fifteen billion dollars. It's uh, everyone loses with this,
Speaker 1: and it's hard when you're talking billions to put a
Speaker 1: face to it, but in fact, you know, the face
Speaker 1: has ninety seven thousand faces that are unable to collect
Speaker 1: a paycheck. And you know, most of the organizations I
Speaker 1: know have reduced their half as much as they can
Speaker 1: so that they can reopen when we have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to reopen. So it's it's not good news anyway you
Speaker 1: look at it. I know I was thinking about and
Speaker 1: I guess I was reading something to you know, just
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about people who go to theater,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all ages, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: older theater goers, you know, lack of tours that are
Speaker 1: coming into the country now, and then you've got old
Speaker 1: theaters where the idea of trying to do social distancing
Speaker 1: it's just you can't do it, you guys have It's
Speaker 1: just really difficult on so many different angles. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: And while you know the average age of our audience
Speaker 1: is forty two point three, I think there's still certainly
Speaker 1: a large percentage over that age and a large percentage
Speaker 1: under that age. And these are hundred year old grandams
Speaker 1: in many cases our theaters. And you know, as someone
Speaker 1: said to me, have you ever watched a one minute
Speaker 1: costume change with three people making that change in the
Speaker 1: in the space the size of a phone booth. So
Speaker 1: you know that social distancing justice at work, Charlotte. Are
Speaker 1: there any parts of the world where live theater has
Speaker 1: come back. I'm thinking about you know, London or other
Speaker 1: Paris or other major markets where it's come back. Or
Speaker 1: is this kind of a universal thing? Now? This is universal?
Speaker 1: You have Korea is the only location that I'm aware
Speaker 1: of that has reopened without social distancing. And it's a
Speaker 1: brand new theater with giant lobbies and giant stages and
Speaker 1: big spaces. And uh, they have a culture of wearing
Speaker 1: masks and and behave much better than a lot of
Speaker 1: our lovely Americans who can't seem to put those masks on.
Speaker 1: So um, for the most part, you have a few
Speaker 1: venues that are trying social distancing, and it's just you
Speaker 1: can't financially make it work. In New York City, we
Speaker 1: have seventeen union contracts that UM require our theaters to
Speaker 1: be over full just to return on investment for the
Speaker 1: people who make theater. And if we don't return, we
Speaker 1: don't get theater. So uh, it's it's still we have
Speaker 1: not found a solution to socially distanced in a safe way.
Speaker 1: Did you say they have to be nine full No,
Speaker 1: I said ninety. Okay, yeah, no, because I remember us
Speaker 1: talking in the past and it was this whole idea
Speaker 1: of you know, could you do something virtual or could
Speaker 1: you do something partial? But it's just the mathematics just
Speaker 1: don't exist, Charlotte, They don't, and we wish it did.
Speaker 1: But you know, everybody, the besides the people working, I
Speaker 1: mean the creatives, the theater owners, the producers, everything, the
Speaker 1: model would have to change, and I think we're not
Speaker 1: ready to do that just yet, because we certainly haven't.
Speaker 1: And when you talk to you know, when you talk
Speaker 1: to theatergoers, part of what the joy of going to
Speaker 1: theater is the shared emotion that people have. There will
Speaker 1: be a lot of changes as we move forward. That's
Speaker 1: Charlotte St. Martin, who is president of the Broadway League.
Speaker 1: And yet lots of change, is no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: And listen, the way back is not going to be easy.
Speaker 1: And of course she's not going to be able to
Speaker 1: get all of the shows that were on Broadway back
Speaker 1: up really quickly. It's going to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of time. But listen, employees who depend on work in Broadway.
Speaker 1: We know this is an important industry, certainly to New
Speaker 1: York City. All right, still to come. Theater is still shut,
Speaker 1: but retail shopping certainly not up next Amazon's domination. I
Speaker 1: see lots of opportunity for Amazon, certainly to grow in
Speaker 1: this country. Everything they've done in this country with regards
Speaker 1: to shopping, they're replicating all over the world. We'll hear
Speaker 1: from a former Amazon insider. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Massier from Bloomberg Radio. We'll
Speaker 1: not sure if you know ist or more likely you
Speaker 1: did and probably actually did some shopping on Amazon Prime Day,
Speaker 1: which was two days this week. The event expected to
Speaker 1: give the world's largest e commerce company an early advantage
Speaker 1: of our brick and mortar rivals ahead of Black Friday.
Speaker 1: James Thompson, he's partnered by Box Experts as a managed
Speaker 1: services agency supporting brands selling online. He's also former business
Speaker 1: head of Amazon Services. He shared some thoughts with Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Paul Sweene and me and Amazon's growing dominant. But we
Speaker 1: started with a question, are we already holiday shopping? I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated with this whole preconceived notion that somehow this is
Speaker 1: the beginning of the holiday shopping season. And the reason,
Speaker 1: the reason a little confounded by this is typically when
Speaker 1: people buy things on Amazon, if they're going to buy
Speaker 1: them for gifts, they send it directly to whoever they're
Speaker 1: gifting it too. And so I ask you, would you
Speaker 1: be buying Christmas presents right now in the middle of
Speaker 1: October and sending it to people two and a half
Speaker 1: months early. No, you know, the the application here is
Speaker 1: people are spending money on themselves. They're not spending money
Speaker 1: on other people. At least that's my hypothesis. And it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see what happens when we get to
Speaker 1: end in November, when the normal start of the holiday
Speaker 1: season kicks in. But right now we're seeing people buying
Speaker 1: stuff that they're they're they're enjoying themselves. So I guess
Speaker 1: there's a lot of disposal income out there because the
Speaker 1: sales are absolutely through the roof, even more than we
Speaker 1: expected for Prime Day. So, James, as we think about
Speaker 1: this pandemic, it's impact is so many facets of so
Speaker 1: many people's lives, daily lives, and one of that is retail.
Speaker 1: One of those is retail give us your sense of
Speaker 1: to kind of how this this move towards e commerce
Speaker 1: is accelerating here during this pandemic. If so, and then
Speaker 1: how permanent you think that might be. So. Obviously, when
Speaker 1: everyone started quarantining at home, that there were a few
Speaker 1: few other options for buying other than going online. And
Speaker 1: one of the interesting aspects of what happened in March
Speaker 1: and a prill is that a lot of people not
Speaker 1: only moved more dollars online, but they started buying products
Speaker 1: that they had never before gone searching for online. So
Speaker 1: many of us were buying grocery products that you know,
Speaker 1: we were used to win the grocery store and now
Speaker 1: we're stuck having to look online. And if you if
Speaker 1: you did a curbside pickup or you had groceries delivered
Speaker 1: to you, you know, for some people that was a
Speaker 1: very good, good experience, and they're saying, gosh, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize my life could be so easy. I should have
Speaker 1: been doing this a long time ago. Likewise, there are
Speaker 1: companies that obviously we're well positioned to sell online, and
Speaker 1: there were lots of retailers that were not well positioned
Speaker 1: at all, and so trying to play catch up and
Speaker 1: build yourself a website, figure out how to get logistics
Speaker 1: in place to deliver packages. That's really hard. And as
Speaker 1: I think about what's going to happen here later in
Speaker 1: Q four, some of the retailers who still won't have
Speaker 1: enough stores open to generate meaningful foot traffic, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to rely on their their websites as to drive traffic.
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, it's one thing to sell your volume
Speaker 1: through an online site, but what if your volume now
Speaker 1: has to go online and you don't have good inventory software,
Speaker 1: and customers are saying, do you or don't you have
Speaker 1: this product? Can you get me this product quickly? One
Speaker 1: of the things that we're gonna see I suspect in
Speaker 1: the next six or seven weeks as we move into
Speaker 1: mid December, everybody except for Amazon is relying on UPS
Speaker 1: and FedEx and the postal service to get packages delivered.
Speaker 1: Amazon owns last mile delivery for two thirds of its
Speaker 1: own packages, so their ability to say to customers, we're
Speaker 1: comfortable that these products are actually gonna arrive on time
Speaker 1: when you order them on December twenty, You're gonna get
Speaker 1: them by nine o'clock at night on decem What about
Speaker 1: everybody else who relies on you ups and FedEx. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting to see how the big carriers are
Speaker 1: able to support this crushing level of demand for online
Speaker 1: order fulfillment. So it's interesting one of the things that
Speaker 1: James is just talking about, You know, can people coming
Speaker 1: onto the Amazon platform or every it's so crowded, there's
Speaker 1: so much availability, there's so many different brands competing against
Speaker 1: in effect Amazon, some of some of their brands. How
Speaker 1: do you talk how do you consultant and explain to
Speaker 1: your clients what's the best way to compete there? At
Speaker 1: the end of the day that there are some formulaic
Speaker 1: things that every company selling on Amazon needs to do.
Speaker 1: You need to have the very best listings, meaning you've
Speaker 1: got to have the right images, you've got to have video,
Speaker 1: you've got to have high quality content that helps answer
Speaker 1: customers questions. But that's basic black walking and tackling. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: lots of companies selling on Amazon don't do a particularly
Speaker 1: good job there. There are questions around how do you
Speaker 1: make sure you stay in stock? Amazon penalizes products that
Speaker 1: are in stock out of stock, in stock out of stock,
Speaker 1: so you've got to remain in stock and be in
Speaker 1: a position where customers can consistently find your product. And
Speaker 1: then the big catch all here is Amazon says, if
Speaker 1: your products are Prime eligible, we're gonna reward you with
Speaker 1: better visibility for customers. And so, uh, you know Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: Some people know that as FBA, some people know that
Speaker 1: as buying your Prime membership. But those are the products
Speaker 1: that are presented to consumers first and foremost on Amazon
Speaker 1: when you go looking for products. If I go searching
Speaker 1: for men's running shoes, I'm going to see all the
Speaker 1: Prime eligible products first because I'm a Prime customer and
Speaker 1: I'm playing in and Amazon says I want to show
Speaker 1: you Prime eligible offers. There are too many companies on
Speaker 1: Amazon today who have said, let me dip my toe
Speaker 1: into selling on Amazon. I'm just gonna fulfill a few
Speaker 1: orders as they come in. Well, it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: You're irrelevant unless you're Prime ilig. It's like unbelievable. I've
Speaker 1: done it myself. I think I've even paid a little
Speaker 1: bit more because I know it's Prime and I'm going
Speaker 1: to get it quickly and it's gonna be easy. It's
Speaker 1: just pretty fascinating. I gotta tell you, I'm listening to
Speaker 1: you James talk and I'm just thinking, where does Amazon
Speaker 1: go from here? You know, where's Amazon in your view?
Speaker 1: You know, you know this company so well, you see
Speaker 1: their domination. And I think that's a fair word to
Speaker 1: say when it comes to retail, where do they go
Speaker 1: in the next two years, in the next five years?
Speaker 1: The reality is Amazon starts by saying, how do we
Speaker 1: do more for customers? How do we focus on what
Speaker 1: customers want? And for twenty years they've been looking at
Speaker 1: how do we deliver as much selection as quickly as
Speaker 1: possible at low prices. And the reality is, as you
Speaker 1: grow your business and it becomes five times bigger, fifty
Speaker 1: times bigger, five hundred times bigger, it gets harder and
Speaker 1: harder for Amazon to do that. And yet they continue
Speaker 1: to step up and do that. And this year they've
Speaker 1: demonstrated that they're not just a marketplace, they're a massive
Speaker 1: logistics powerhouse. I mean they hired a hundred seventy five
Speaker 1: people in order to do last mile delivery of your packages.
Speaker 1: That they are now at a place where they are
Speaker 1: competing with FedEx and ups day to day for all
Speaker 1: the most profitable routes. And that's that's pretty staring when
Speaker 1: you think of Amazon as being a shopping destination, but
Speaker 1: yet they support all these other things behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that consumers don't necessarily see, but are critical to keeping
Speaker 1: the core business of a shopping site to keep that running.
Speaker 1: So it's expensive to do that. It's really expensive to
Speaker 1: do that. It's expensive to do that, but it's actually
Speaker 1: cheaper to do it yourself if you do it at
Speaker 1: a scalable level than it is to wait around for
Speaker 1: UPS and FedEx to figure out how to grow fast
Speaker 1: enough to keep up with Amazon. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: we saw when Covid kicked in in March is the
Speaker 1: UPS is and FedEx is they can't keep up with
Speaker 1: the increase in demand that Amazon's experiencing. And quite frankly,
Speaker 1: Amazon doesn't have to make any money with their fulfillment capabilities.
Speaker 1: They just have to be able to make sure the
Speaker 1: pipe is there and they can push packages through the pipe.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the beautiful things about Amazon. You know,
Speaker 1: the same thing happened when they built out their AWS capability.
Speaker 1: That wasn't meant to be a profitable business. It was
Speaker 1: meant to be back end services that would support huge
Speaker 1: numbers of customers flow flocking to the site. You know,
Speaker 1: on Black Friday, we to have essentially infinite capacity. Amazon said,
Speaker 1: we'll build it ourselves, and then he discovered, oh, we
Speaker 1: can now sell excess capacity to someone else. They're gonna
Speaker 1: do the same thing with logistics. Eventually they're gonna be
Speaker 1: in a place here in the next year or two
Speaker 1: to start offering more shipping services to retailers who sell
Speaker 1: packages to people, not just on the Amazon site. That
Speaker 1: that's a nice tidy business. We know Amazon has gotten
Speaker 1: into the healthcare business starting with how do you build
Speaker 1: out better, better options for Amazon employees. But the reality
Speaker 1: is if Amazon gets this figured out, that's another trillion
Speaker 1: dollar business where Amazon would say I'd like a slice
Speaker 1: of the bi please. So I see lots of opportunity
Speaker 1: for Amazon, certainly to grow in this country. But everything
Speaker 1: they've done in this country with regards to shopping, they're
Speaker 1: replicating all over the world. They've got over fifteen marketplaces
Speaker 1: now different countries they're moving into where they're saying, we
Speaker 1: can do the same thing and help local consumers in
Speaker 1: these other countries get huge, huge amounts of election at
Speaker 1: low prices, delivered quickly. I did say, don't say domination,
Speaker 1: and the legal scholars, you know, the anti wrestlers gears
Speaker 1: perked up. So it's interesting you want to think, and
Speaker 1: you point out that it's expensive, but I'll also point
Speaker 1: out they've got seventy billion dollars of cash on the
Speaker 1: balance sheet, forty billion dollars of free cash flow, so
Speaker 1: I guess they can afford it, um James. One business
Speaker 1: where they haven't been so successful is the grocery business.
Speaker 1: Is that just a sideshow for them? Or do you
Speaker 1: think that they want to get bigger, better, stronger in
Speaker 1: that retail space. They need to get better. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why. If you look at your wallet, the
Speaker 1: share of your wallet that goes towards grocery is a
Speaker 1: sizeable chunk of your spend. And it's also one of
Speaker 1: those purchases you make at least once or twice a week.
Speaker 1: You're having to think about where do I go to
Speaker 1: buy my groceries. Amazon wants to be in a position
Speaker 1: where consumers say, I need to buy something, let me
Speaker 1: pick Amazon first is my channel, and let's see what
Speaker 1: they have. If Amazon can get enough grocery selection in
Speaker 1: place available for fast delivery. Then Amazon will be able
Speaker 1: to get consumers to spend that part of their wallet
Speaker 1: on Amazon. And that's too, maybe two or three times
Speaker 1: a week, the consumers again are reminded, hey, Amazon is
Speaker 1: the place I need to go to buy everything else
Speaker 1: as well. So at the end of the day, grocery
Speaker 1: may not be a very profitable business for Amazon in
Speaker 1: and of itself, but it's a constant reminder, and there's
Speaker 1: a constant ad for consumers to come back to buy
Speaker 1: everything else that may make Amazon more money. And we
Speaker 1: certainly are heading to Amazon for just about everything else
Speaker 1: certainly feels that way. Or that's James Thompson, partner at
Speaker 1: Buy Box Experts and former business head of Amazon Services.
Speaker 1: That wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser
Speaker 1: morehead in our next hour, including the one billion dollar
Speaker 1: idea behind this year's Nobel Prize in Economics. Plus we'll
Speaker 1: wrap up with some lighter fair millennials shaping the beverage
Speaker 1: industry and a professional poker player on making better choices.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business week with Garrol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, i am Carol Masser. Along
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney, plenty ahead for you in this
Speaker 1: hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Our
Speaker 1: second hour here and we talked a lot about working
Speaker 1: from home, working remotely this week on our daily radio show,
Speaker 1: including catching out with Stoke Talent CEO Shahar Rez. We
Speaker 1: talked about shadow hr and properly managing freelancers working remotely.
Speaker 1: We also talked a lot about the growth in the
Speaker 1: gig economy. Plus pro poker player Annie duke Man Poker
Speaker 1: is definitely in the family there. She's got a new
Speaker 1: book out, How to Decide Simple Tools for making Better Choices.
Speaker 1: We begin this hour, though, with a walk around the
Speaker 1: block with our own Peter Coy and a trifecta of
Speaker 1: his stories, as only Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor Peter
Speaker 1: Koy can do. We talked about the President and economics,
Speaker 1: We talked about the said, and we also talked about
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize in Economics. Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and I
Speaker 1: got more from Peter and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber.
Speaker 1: The story that he just had a quick take on
Speaker 1: was actually Trump speaking to the country's economic club for
Speaker 1: that I thought was actually kind of interesting. And Peter,
Speaker 1: what what was your takeaway from from getting to watch that. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not his typical audience. It's a bunch of rich people,
Speaker 1: some of them richer than he is, um generally prosperous
Speaker 1: business people who belonged to the economic clubs in Washington,
Speaker 1: New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Florida, and so on. And he
Speaker 1: didn't seem as comfortable with that audience as one might
Speaker 1: expect since they're mostly one per centers who generally agree
Speaker 1: with the Republican agenda of tax cuts and the regulation.
Speaker 1: There were times when he sounded even a bit defensive
Speaker 1: and worried that he didn't have their support. He called
Speaker 1: out internationalists, lobbyists, a drug company executives, all of them
Speaker 1: we presume were part of his audience. Peter, what do
Speaker 1: we know about the president's current standing um with big business,
Speaker 1: with Wall Street, with folks who benefit from the Trump
Speaker 1: tax cut. Well, we they liked the tax cut, Like
Speaker 1: we've we've seen some critical, pretty critical comes coming up
Speaker 1: from organizations like the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of
Speaker 1: some of America's biggest companies, and very often CEOs don't
Speaker 1: want to be on the line themselves criticizing any administration,
Speaker 1: Republican or Democratic. They will sometimes hide behind the voice
Speaker 1: of a round table like that so they can't be
Speaker 1: sort of safety and numbers kind of thing. And some
Speaker 1: of the statements from the business round table have been
Speaker 1: fairly critical of the president and things like why can't
Speaker 1: we get another round of stimulus done? So this was
Speaker 1: this was interesting. It continued that thing, and like one
Speaker 1: of the things he said was, Hey, I know some
Speaker 1: of you out there Democrats, and I don't understand what
Speaker 1: you're thinking. You know, some really bad things are going
Speaker 1: to happen if Joe Biden gets elected. So, Peter, the
Speaker 1: other story that you have in the current issue of
Speaker 1: the magazine is is not about the president at all,
Speaker 1: but sort of another elephant in the room, which is
Speaker 1: the FED. And and I thought you had a sort
Speaker 1: of a big idea. You spent some time thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and it's ultimately about the FED being basically the most
Speaker 1: dovish Fed in the history of the Fed. Can you
Speaker 1: can you tell us more about how why why that matters?
Speaker 1: So much right now. Just reminder, dovish means that you're
Speaker 1: soft on inflation and more worried about unemployment, or the
Speaker 1: hawk would be the opposite, And the FED traditionally was hawkish.
Speaker 1: It was probably more hawkish than the President whoever was
Speaker 1: in office of the time, or Congress, and it was
Speaker 1: almost designed to be that way because you wanted to
Speaker 1: have the central banker be the tough guy, you know,
Speaker 1: the enforcer, the cop who would try to make sure
Speaker 1: that the economy did not overheat and causing UH runaway inflation.
Speaker 1: But now we're in the opposite circumstance where we're actually
Speaker 1: worried about inflation being too low and the economy being
Speaker 1: chronically weak, and the FED has moved around to being UH.
Speaker 1: And it's not just because J. Powell is the chair
Speaker 1: of the FED now. It was starting to happen under
Speaker 1: Bernankey and yelling as well. But I think with the
Speaker 1: actions of this past spring and response to the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and then now with J. Paul jaw boning Congress to
Speaker 1: do new stimulus and the interspace being at zero and
Speaker 1: the new dovish language coming out of the FED in August,
Speaker 1: it does seem as though it's the most dobbish FED
Speaker 1: in a century, namely forever for the Fed. Well, and
Speaker 1: it could work out, right you you kind of play
Speaker 1: out the dream scenario, Peter. You know, if all this
Speaker 1: messaging from the FED works, I mean, right, the economy improves,
Speaker 1: workers get more money, consumers open up their wallets, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and we all live happy life if it
Speaker 1: all works out. Obviously, the optimistic scenario that the stimulus
Speaker 1: works and inflation moves up to two which is the
Speaker 1: Fed's goal, and maybe even goes a little above it.
Speaker 1: That's the new thing that the FED is doing now.
Speaker 1: It's saying you can actually even welcome inflation overshooting the
Speaker 1: two percent target to make up for periods of undershooting.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be very interesting to see, assuming
Speaker 1: inflation does eventually get over above two percent, whether the
Speaker 1: FED will be so willing to tolerate that after all? Well,
Speaker 1: you do wonder, Peter, Right, is that potentially than the
Speaker 1: Fed being irresponsible? Because right, thinkable is a funny word here,
Speaker 1: because Paul Kirkman said that, you know, the FED almost
Speaker 1: has to or any center bank almost has to commit
Speaker 1: to being irresponsible, And by irresponsible he means, you know,
Speaker 1: more willing to target inflation than a traditional center banker
Speaker 1: would have been. Okay, Peter, We're gonna change gears yet
Speaker 1: again because um Sunday night, we have some new economics
Speaker 1: professors win the Nobel Prize. And you also, uh, I
Speaker 1: thought scared up an interesting angle about that and and
Speaker 1: sort of the work around auctions. How central uh of
Speaker 1: a contribution have they made to sort of what has
Speaker 1: unfolded in in auctions that we some we see in
Speaker 1: our daily lives and others that we we may not
Speaker 1: get to see as much. We don't necessarily see the
Speaker 1: auctions that are happening for for example, radio spectrum, but
Speaker 1: they affect our data lives in a big way. Some
Speaker 1: interesting thoughts about the Nobel Prize winner in economics, That
Speaker 1: of course was Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor Peter Coy
Speaker 1: along with Bloomberg Business we editor Joel Weber. Check out
Speaker 1: Peter's full stories. You can find them on the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: terminal and of course at Bloomberg dot com. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week while on the subject of economics
Speaker 1: that may increasingly include a world where workers are not
Speaker 1: at the office and keeping track of them more on
Speaker 1: that with the CEO of Stoke Talent. That's coming up next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Well. Bloomberg City Lab recently reported
Speaker 1: the pandemic has been a grand global experiment and the
Speaker 1: costs and benefits of a remote workforce. But long before
Speaker 1: the coronavirus hit, many people worked from outside offices. We're
Speaker 1: talking a lot about remote working and remote workers because
Speaker 1: of COVID nine team. Shahara Rez is co founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Stoke Talent and on demand management platform for
Speaker 1: companies to manage their on demand and non payroll workforce.
Speaker 1: Do you joined Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and me from Israel
Speaker 1: about the workforce trend that was truth be told already
Speaker 1: here wait before the panemic, were started saying this way
Speaker 1: towards for no work even in already there in the
Speaker 1: US without offices, which which sounds like a big number,
Speaker 1: and we saw the grand heading that way, um, and
Speaker 1: we're starting this is heading towards a place where most
Speaker 1: company will have remote workforce and a significant portion of
Speaker 1: the workers as independent contractors within six to ten years.
Speaker 1: In fact, you're a labor statistics forecast by of U
Speaker 1: S workforce will be free lancers in independent contact UM.
Speaker 1: And then came the pandemic and kind of accelerated that
Speaker 1: what we talked to take five years into five months.
Speaker 1: And because everyone's now every more employee, everyone's working from home.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if you're sitting in an office in California,
Speaker 1: are sitting you know, in your home in Iowa. You
Speaker 1: can do the same work. And so it opened a
Speaker 1: world of opportunities and we're seeing now an acceleration of
Speaker 1: what was bound to happen. We will turn an employment arrangement. Alright,
Speaker 1: So Shahar, with more and more company's employees working remotely,
Speaker 1: whether their employees or freelancers, my guess is that's kind
Speaker 1: of creating new management challenges. From an HR perspective, What
Speaker 1: are some of the issues that you your giants are
Speaker 1: seeing and what are some of your solutions, UM, So
Speaker 1: I'll kind of distinguish between remote work, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: an employee that just doesn't come every day to the office.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge that we're saying is really
Speaker 1: with this the transition that organizations are having too a
Speaker 1: flexible employment arrangement where you have the workforce that's not
Speaker 1: really formal company employees, independent contractors, freelancers, gig workers, service providers.
Speaker 1: In fact, that is becoming the norm within organization and
Speaker 1: again remote work has accelerated. The biggest challenge that we're
Speaker 1: seeing there is what we now call UM shadow way
Speaker 1: job UM, and we took the term shadowy jar kind
Speaker 1: of borrowed it from the term that was created in
Speaker 1: the mid two thousand in the world of what was
Speaker 1: called shadow I T and shadow I was calling during
Speaker 1: that time UM as a result of departments, teams and
Speaker 1: individuals with incorporates bypassed in formal I ke uh processes
Speaker 1: and policies and instructions if you will, and start buying
Speaker 1: services and application outside I because they wanted to move faster.
Speaker 1: No results. It significant challenges as data leakage, performance issues,
Speaker 1: UM overspending inefficiencies in the organization, and we're saying something
Speaker 1: very similar happening now with what we call the shadowing jaw.
Speaker 1: Shadowy jar means that there are people that are doing
Speaker 1: work for the company but are not governed by any
Speaker 1: process in the company. Most AGR organizations are UM governing
Speaker 1: if you will, M w two employees formal company employees,
Speaker 1: but with twenty of the workforce not really company employees,
Speaker 1: not really on the payroll. These freelancers, independent contractors, they
Speaker 1: like the government, these non employees, they don't have a
Speaker 1: single owner in the company. It's kind of falls between
Speaker 1: the HR team, the prosurement team, the finance team, the
Speaker 1: legal team. There's a lot of different people that need
Speaker 1: to come into play, and none of them really own it,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of things are going wrong or
Speaker 1: potentially going wrong when when that is the case. But
Speaker 1: this is where you guys come in, right, because this
Speaker 1: is I mean, this is essentially what you do right.
Speaker 1: You're able to kind of track these remote workers correct.
Speaker 1: So what we've built its stoke is really the ability
Speaker 1: for companies to have a single source of truth to
Speaker 1: extremeline the entire process from on boarding UM freelancers, independent
Speaker 1: contract or service providers, making sure they're signed the right
Speaker 1: legal docs, making sure that the right budgets are allocated,
Speaker 1: making sure payments are done correctly, and then off boarding
Speaker 1: them when the time is right. We'll keeping all the
Speaker 1: back office UM breaks and balances, checks and balancers in place,
Speaker 1: because if that's not the case, what we're seeing happening
Speaker 1: more and more in companies. Why the way when we
Speaker 1: talk to companies, talk to the CFO or CEO is
Speaker 1: the most common responses. We don't really have contractors or freelancers.
Speaker 1: And the reality is there's three U five X what
Speaker 1: do they think they have because it's not managed anywhere
Speaker 1: and the results are um A either over spin budget
Speaker 1: overspin um or which is a much more severe case,
Speaker 1: plenty of compliance issues. There's really three levels of compliance
Speaker 1: with independent contractors. One is legal compliance and they signed
Speaker 1: the right legal docs ind A no compete IP ownership.
Speaker 1: We are seeing cases when no one signing the papers
Speaker 1: and then guess what he catches up to you later
Speaker 1: on when the company goes to a financing ground or
Speaker 1: an i P O, all of a sudden a freelancer
Speaker 1: stand up until they I never signed over I P
Speaker 1: should and you know I have a part in the
Speaker 1: in this company. UM. Data protection is a big one. UM. Sorry.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to ask you. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: held steen your positions at vm Ware, Hewlett Packard, You've
Speaker 1: been in the software in I related space for a
Speaker 1: long time. What do you make of what we're hearing
Speaker 1: about Silicon Valley and you know you are hearing a
Speaker 1: lot of those big tech companies say you want to
Speaker 1: work from home for the rest of you know, your life.
Speaker 1: That's fine, you can do it forever. UM. It's a
Speaker 1: trend that you you know, what are you hearing from
Speaker 1: your colleagues in Silicon Valley about that this will really
Speaker 1: ultimately stick. UM. So, as I mentioned, I don't think
Speaker 1: this is new. I just think we're seeing an acceleration.
Speaker 1: This trend started. I don't know if it's started in
Speaker 1: Silicon valid, but obviously it was popular in Silicon Value
Speaker 1: where people are working once or twice a week from home. UM.
Speaker 1: And we started seeing more and more super successful companies
Speaker 1: that are were built in the distributed manner. Companies like
Speaker 1: Hashi Corp, Elastic, WordPress and again weren't built that way,
Speaker 1: and over time more companies moved to that that operating
Speaker 1: mall UM. I don't think it's going back to the
Speaker 1: way it plus, I think that companies need to realize
Speaker 1: this is the new normal full we disputed organizations and
Speaker 1: to put in the right processes to support that organization
Speaker 1: because it isn't the mental change. UM. A lot of
Speaker 1: us we're used to seeing people in the office, white boarding,
Speaker 1: brainstorming in person. A lot of that is not going
Speaker 1: to come back. It's gonna be once a quarter, once
Speaker 1: a month. Maybe this means won't be together, but most
Speaker 1: of the time it is going to be a fully
Speaker 1: distributed organization. And I think it has dramatic implications, not
Speaker 1: on the workforce. I think the work will still get done.
Speaker 1: I think there's two areas that's going to be can
Speaker 1: change A how do companies for the first time in
Speaker 1: a while, we'll start measuring output. You know, in the
Speaker 1: software industry for years, companies that we're trying to measure
Speaker 1: how do you measure engineering output? And there's no real
Speaker 1: answers for that, and so right now and people or
Speaker 1: you know what, how do you measure their productivity? That's
Speaker 1: a horror Rest co founder and CEO of Stoke Talent,
Speaker 1: he's talking about productivity. We've heard a lot about that
Speaker 1: from various leaders, including JP Morgan's Jamie Diamond. Some say
Speaker 1: it's taking a hit, others say it's doing just fine
Speaker 1: as workers work from home. Well coming up. One trend
Speaker 1: we've noticed with all of us working from home, started
Speaker 1: drinking more. Some trends from millennials who are out to
Speaker 1: change the beverage world. That's next. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with GARYL. Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the weekend. Time to kick back, maybe with a tall,
Speaker 1: cool one, and maybe even a cool game. We've got
Speaker 1: two interviews on this in the next thirty minutes. First up,
Speaker 1: a collection of millennials thinking about the next generation of
Speaker 1: drinkers and the brands that will be in demand. Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Paul Sweeney and I checked in with Amy Steadman, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO at future Proof Beatbox Beverages and heard about
Speaker 1: their strategy. But first up, we had to know how
Speaker 1: this relatively new brand got through the pandemic. When all
Speaker 1: this started, we were nervous, just as everybody was. That
Speaker 1: our primary distribution is in channels such as grocery, liquor
Speaker 1: store and convenience stores. And what you did toe was
Speaker 1: all of the dollars being spends on alcohol shifting from
Speaker 1: restaurants and bars into those channels. And so we've actually
Speaker 1: been experience anything record sales months every month of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and that's been able to, you know, fortunately turn it
Speaker 1: around and raise money for Small Business Relief Fund and
Speaker 1: a c l U and other groups as well. So
Speaker 1: it's been the silver lining of all that so amy.
Speaker 1: When I walk into a liquor store these days, I'm
Speaker 1: just overwhelmed by the number of products, you know, really
Speaker 1: competing for shelf space. It's just so many new products.
Speaker 1: It's not just beer, wine and spirits. There's everything hard seltzer,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's kind of the u some of
Speaker 1: the newer products. How do you get mind share market
Speaker 1: share in such a crowded market. What's your marketing strategy?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, I mean, what you're seeing is the results
Speaker 1: of huge trans and consumer drinking. Right, Millennials are shifting
Speaker 1: away from traditional beer to wine and flavored items like Beatbox,
Speaker 1: and the bigger brands are scrambling trying to find things
Speaker 1: that are gonna work. But what they're missing is that
Speaker 1: key authenticity that millennials and gen z are also looking for.
Speaker 1: You know, the big brands will try and slap a
Speaker 1: new label on an outdated idea, trying to make it
Speaker 1: cool to these demographics. But you know, with our brand,
Speaker 1: we sought to create the most authentic experience possible with
Speaker 1: you know, we use social media, brand ambassadors and other
Speaker 1: listening tools to stay extremely connected to our consumers, and
Speaker 1: I think that's really what's made us stand out and
Speaker 1: on all of those different new entrants like you've mentioned. Okay,
Speaker 1: one thing I want to ask you because your background
Speaker 1: is really fascinating to me. Um. First of all, it's
Speaker 1: a woman who's got two male business partners and you know,
Speaker 1: creating a company, and I'm curious about that experience. I'm
Speaker 1: also experienced. You're a first generation US citizen that you know,
Speaker 1: you moved here from Syria when you were about ten
Speaker 1: years old, So I'm just curious about, you know, being
Speaker 1: an immigrant in this country creating a company and what
Speaker 1: the experience has been for you. Yeah. So my parents
Speaker 1: had corporate jobs when we lived in the Middle Eave.
Speaker 1: My dad's from the UK and my mom's from Syria,
Speaker 1: and they actually quit their jobs when I was ten
Speaker 1: years old to pursue entrepreneurship in this country. And so
Speaker 1: we came over and I watched them grow their businesses
Speaker 1: through high school and college. It was a vending machine
Speaker 1: business with those you know, bubbles and stuffed animals and
Speaker 1: things like that, So that was their business and then
Speaker 1: when it came time for me to go to business
Speaker 1: school and start my company, I was incredibly flattered that,
Speaker 1: you know, my business partners decided they were not going
Speaker 1: to start a next generation alcohol beverage company without including
Speaker 1: a female founder and having diversity on their ownership. So
Speaker 1: I really appreciated them recruiting to me to join the team.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, certainly being a female founder in
Speaker 1: that alcohol beverage industry is had its rocky moments. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm often mistaken for, you know, a promotional model
Speaker 1: when I'm saying no, I'm actually the owner of the company. Um,
Speaker 1: people you know have a reaction. But my reaction to
Speaker 1: that is, you know, the more that I can be
Speaker 1: on things like this and show up the panels and
Speaker 1: be mentors to other female entrepreneurs that you know, we
Speaker 1: could make a change in our generation and you know,
Speaker 1: the next group of female founders. And there have been
Speaker 1: many many new women's founders of alcohol beverages and alcohol
Speaker 1: beverage companies recently. Um, you know, if I see that
Speaker 1: as a great change, and I hope that we can
Speaker 1: continue to be the change that we want to see
Speaker 1: in this industry and encourage more diversity of ownership as well. Well,
Speaker 1: it's super grateful to be an American citizen. Is a
Speaker 1: wonderful place to be. I know, we have our issues,
Speaker 1: but this isn't an incredible country. Beatbox Beverages is a
Speaker 1: product that we launched the first time back in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. We really found that it was resonating with
Speaker 1: millennials in terms of the eco friendly, portable, great flavors,
Speaker 1: and so we've been really growing with that brand. Uh
Speaker 1: this past year, our company is actually transitioned from Beatbox
Speaker 1: Beverages to future Proof brands, and we're piloting to new
Speaker 1: brands and fast growing categories and alcohol as well, corkless
Speaker 1: and alternative packaging, wines and brizzy in the Seltzer space.
Speaker 1: All Right, wait, bait, Okay, we're going way too fast.
Speaker 1: You gotta go back to Shark Tank because I mean,
Speaker 1: we all know that brand. We well, I you know,
Speaker 1: every once in a while, I go down a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole and I watched a ball out, you know, one
Speaker 1: after another, because it's just fascinating to see to me,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs you know, pitching their business to you know, this
Speaker 1: panel of individuals who've got money to spend and who
Speaker 1: understand what it takes to make a good business. What
Speaker 1: was that experience like because you actually got Mark Cuban
Speaker 1: two I think pitching about a million dollars or so, absolutely,
Speaker 1: which was one of the biggest deals on the show
Speaker 1: of all time back then. But um, you know, we
Speaker 1: we started the company very bare bones. You know, we
Speaker 1: made it ourselves, distributed ourselves. We were doing you know,
Speaker 1: probably six to nine hours of in store samplings a weekend,
Speaker 1: and we would always get that common is you should
Speaker 1: be on Shark Tank. You should be on Shark Think
Speaker 1: when people saw the product, Yes, Shark Tank definitely a
Speaker 1: good idea. That's Amy Steadman, founder in chief operating officer
Speaker 1: at future Proof Beatbox Beverages, with some advice for entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: And I gotta say not too shabby too to have
Speaker 1: Mark Cuban backing you, all right, Still to come safe
Speaker 1: to say, Amy and her team had lots of decisions
Speaker 1: to make while building their business. Coming up former pro
Speaker 1: poker player Annie Duke on how to stack the deck
Speaker 1: and make better choices. That's straight ahead on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol
Speaker 1: Masser from Bloomberg Radio. So let's wrap up this week
Speaker 1: with Annie Duke. She holds a World Series of poker
Speaker 1: gold bracelet. She played the game for years, retired into
Speaker 1: after making over four million in tournament winnings. She's down
Speaker 1: inspirational speaker, author and putting her efforts to good causes,
Speaker 1: including the Alliance for Decision Education. She's got a new
Speaker 1: book out this week, How to Decide, Simple Tools for
Speaker 1: making Better Choices. Bloombergs Paul Sweeney and I talked with
Speaker 1: her about making decisions, education and of course, of course
Speaker 1: the game. I was a graduate student at the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania doing my page d work actually in cognitive science,
Speaker 1: and UM I was full. I was like contending a professor.
Speaker 1: And right at the end of my five years there,
Speaker 1: as I was about to finish um and actually as
Speaker 1: I was going out for job interviews, I it got
Speaker 1: sick and I needed to take some time off, and
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't quite know what to do with
Speaker 1: my as I was taking a year off and I
Speaker 1: really needed money. Um And and my brother Howard Letter
Speaker 1: had had already been playing poker for about ten years
Speaker 1: before then and was the one who actually suggested to
Speaker 1: me that maybe I play. It wasn't totally out of
Speaker 1: the blue, because when I was in graduate school he
Speaker 1: would a chase and would bring me out to like
Speaker 1: Las Vegas on a vacation um and give me money
Speaker 1: to go play poker in some pointers. So I did
Speaker 1: know something about the game. But he's the one who
Speaker 1: got me into playing professionally. So all right, so you
Speaker 1: have that experience as a poker player, uh, success as
Speaker 1: a poker player. When you retired from the poker game,
Speaker 1: What did you do next? Why did you retire and
Speaker 1: what were you looking to do? Yeah? So, actually it's
Speaker 1: not quite what did I do next, because it was
Speaker 1: what was I doing in parallel of myer? So I
Speaker 1: retired in two thousand twelve. Yeah to um uh it.
Speaker 1: The founder asked me to come speaks traders about how
Speaker 1: poker might inform their decision making. And that was about
Speaker 1: eight years into my poker career, and it was the
Speaker 1: first time that I started thinking pretty explicitly about how
Speaker 1: my work in cognitive psychology could inform um poker thinking
Speaker 1: and vice versa, that that might help to really understand
Speaker 1: both the things that frustrate human decision making and the
Speaker 1: things that might get might make it better. So that
Speaker 1: was in two thousands two really thinking about that conversation,
Speaker 1: and for the next ten years and I was doing
Speaker 1: talks and out um consulting and starting to help people
Speaker 1: think through how to become better decision makers, to improve
Speaker 1: their strategy around decision making. In two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: I retired from poker to do this full time and
Speaker 1: now I consult full time, I speak full time, and
Speaker 1: I write full time. So let me just tell you
Speaker 1: this book is like the perfect timing because we could
Speaker 1: need some help. I think a lot of people could
Speaker 1: use some help in terms of making better decisions. Talk
Speaker 1: to us a little bit about the work you doing
Speaker 1: for the Alliance for Decision Education. Tell us about it
Speaker 1: and what it's it's setting out to. We just had
Speaker 1: a really smart conversation with Sly James, the former mayor
Speaker 1: of Kansas City, about what we need to do in
Speaker 1: terms of education. But I love your your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, thank you so much for highlighting the alliance.
Speaker 1: So essentially, what what our mission is that the Alliance
Speaker 1: is to bring decision education into case of twelve education.
Speaker 1: So the way that we think about it is that
Speaker 1: you know, better decisions lead to better lives, which ultimately
Speaker 1: lead to a better society. And as you were asking,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of what's going on with decision
Speaker 1: making recently, I think that we can see that we
Speaker 1: lack decision education in K through twelve UM in our
Speaker 1: case through twelve system. So so I think sort of
Speaker 1: the way that I would put it is, we have
Speaker 1: this requirement for kids to learn trigonometry, which, like, if
Speaker 1: you're going to become an engineer, I suppose might be important,
Speaker 1: and but you could take that in college. And yet
Speaker 1: we're not teaching people to simple things like statistics and
Speaker 1: probability or what's a habit or what would a good
Speaker 1: decision process look like, all things which we think would
Speaker 1: have a much deeper impact on their decisions they make. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd like to get more condom in there,
Speaker 1: you know, and less trigonometry in there. I would be
Speaker 1: thinking back to my high school days. That would be
Speaker 1: a welcome change. I love trick, I really did h
Speaker 1: any So I'm thinking about your book again, how to
Speaker 1: decide simple tools from making better choices when I'm faced
Speaker 1: with the decision. UM, I think my probably my fallback positions.
Speaker 1: Just go with your gut, Like I don't even take
Speaker 1: out a piece of paper new pros and cons. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that's not the optimal strategy. Um what should I
Speaker 1: be thinking about? Yeah, so I think that this is
Speaker 1: exactly why we need decision education because this idea of
Speaker 1: going with your gut seems the whole kind of a
Speaker 1: special place like people think gut decision makers or somehow
Speaker 1: uh special decision makers, but it's actually much more that
Speaker 1: they're random decision makers. So um, so that the issue
Speaker 1: is I'm not saying that your gut can't get you
Speaker 1: to a good place, it's that the requirements of a
Speaker 1: good decision process or that you actually think about what's
Speaker 1: the information that I need to know in order to
Speaker 1: inform this decision? What can I find out? What are
Speaker 1: the different options I'm thinking about? And then you need
Speaker 1: to do some food future predicting that's somewhat explicit, which
Speaker 1: is you know, what are the ways I think this
Speaker 1: could turn out and how likely are those things to occur?
Speaker 1: And having gone through that, particularly if you can keep
Speaker 1: a record of it, it's really helpful because then after
Speaker 1: you sort of get the results of the decision that
Speaker 1: you make, you can actually look back and say, you know,
Speaker 1: did I have the right information? Was I thinking about
Speaker 1: the future in the right way? And that allows you
Speaker 1: then to become a better decision maker going forward. You
Speaker 1: get to learn. But when your gut, you can't do
Speaker 1: that because it's essentially a black box by definition. It's
Speaker 1: not something I can look at. The other probelem with
Speaker 1: that decision making is I can't teach it to somebody else,
Speaker 1: And particularly if you're in a business with a team,
Speaker 1: it's not very helpful as leadership to say I go
Speaker 1: with my gut, because that doesn't improve the quality of
Speaker 1: your team's decision making since they don't have your gut.
Speaker 1: You'd rather have a really good decision process that's going
Speaker 1: to improve the quality of the decisions throughout your organization.
Speaker 1: So is it like a pro and calm list on steroids? Basically, well,
Speaker 1: it's got a little bit of an element of a
Speaker 1: pro and calm list, But I actually wish that people
Speaker 1: would kind of throw their pros and consists away because
Speaker 1: we're all very aware now of the influence of cognitive bias, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, Thinking Fast and Slow is not a bestseller
Speaker 1: for nothing. Um And the problem with the pros and
Speaker 1: cons list is it's actually a decision tool that would
Speaker 1: amplify the cognitive bias because you're just kind of making
Speaker 1: this list of like what do I like about the decision?
Speaker 1: What don't I like about the decision? And there's there's
Speaker 1: no explicit sense of like how bad or the pros
Speaker 1: or the cons or which cons am I supposed to
Speaker 1: put on there, or which pros am I supposed to
Speaker 1: put on there? Or how likely are any of those
Speaker 1: things to occur? And all of those things are things
Speaker 1: that you need in order to make a good decision.
Speaker 1: So basically what happens with pros and cons list is
Speaker 1: that you sort of already got an inkling of whether
Speaker 1: you'd like to make the decision or not, and then
Speaker 1: the pros and cons list just is a way for
Speaker 1: you to express that preference that you have. So instead
Speaker 1: of doing pros and conslists, it would be better if
Speaker 1: you actually thought about what are the different outcomes that
Speaker 1: I think could occur, like the reasonable set of possibilities,
Speaker 1: and yet some of those will be good and some
Speaker 1: of those will be bad, But then you can think
Speaker 1: about how good are those things? How bad are those
Speaker 1: things and how likely are those to occur? And that's
Speaker 1: information that doesn't exist in a pros and cons list,
Speaker 1: And then you can just compare the upside and the downside.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is that you can start to
Speaker 1: see the risk because with the pros and conslist, like what,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've got more cons? Am I
Speaker 1: supposed to just say yes to it? What if the
Speaker 1: cons are like a hangnail, you know? But the pros?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, Like I don't know how
Speaker 1: to compare that stuff unless I actually think about magnitude
Speaker 1: and probability. Hey, any how about the variable of time?
Speaker 1: Sometimes I have to make a snap decision and sometimes
Speaker 1: I can take your time, and sometimes you can maybe
Speaker 1: even make a decision in advance. How do you account
Speaker 1: for that? Uh? Yeah? So time is actually really important,
Speaker 1: and it's a very important piece because when we think
Speaker 1: about gut decision making, often we're using our gut for
Speaker 1: decisions that we should actually be taking quite a bit
Speaker 1: of time on, and we'll use like a big analytic
Speaker 1: process for decisions that we should be taking no time on,
Speaker 1: like what should we order up the menu? We've all
Speaker 1: been around those people, right, you might be one that
Speaker 1: takes like fifteen minutes order off the menu. So um.
Speaker 1: So there's a couple of things that tell us how
Speaker 1: much time we should take on a decision. One is
Speaker 1: that sometimes we just have a deadline. Right if you
Speaker 1: don't decide within the next week, the option is going
Speaker 1: to go away and you're not gonna have the opportunity anymore.
Speaker 1: And then obviously you just need to you need to
Speaker 1: make the decision with a time period. But the other
Speaker 1: way that we can think about like how much time
Speaker 1: we should take is just with two frameworks. One is
Speaker 1: how quitable is the decision? That would be like the
Speaker 1: two way door type of decision that Jeff Bezos would
Speaker 1: talk about, Um can we reverse it? Um? And we
Speaker 1: really care about that because the more that you can
Speaker 1: reverse the decision if you don't like the outcome, the
Speaker 1: faster you can go because then you can just mitigate
Speaker 1: the downside. Um. The other thing is just what's the
Speaker 1: impact of the decision. So if I'm thinking about what
Speaker 1: to order off a menu, and I'm sitting with someone
Speaker 1: who's taking fifteen minutes to do so, I can just
Speaker 1: say to them, hey, let's just say your meal was
Speaker 1: really terrible. Are you going to care in a month
Speaker 1: and their answer is going to be no, And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be able to Can you just pick that and
Speaker 1: that will actually speed the decisions. So think about impact
Speaker 1: reality and that will get you to the right amount
Speaker 1: of time. That's professional poker player, Annie. Do check out
Speaker 1: our book How to Decide Simple Tools for making better choices.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Master along with Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney. Be sure
Speaker 1: to tune into our daily radio show Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: starting at two pm Wall Street Time. You can also
Speaker 1: check out our conversations. They're on our daily podcast feed.
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Speaker 1: News and be sure to check out our Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Extra podcast. This week. Someone who understands a fast
Speaker 1: food space. It's Cliff Hudson, former chairman and CEO of
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Basonic Drive In. He spent several decades at the company.
Speaker 1: He's got a new book out, Master of None, how
Speaker 1: a jack of All trades can still reach the top
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week of course, available on news stands now,
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg Terminal, and online at bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, everyone, have a great weekend, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you next week. This is Bloomberg.