Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg business Week Inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news as it happened. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovik on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Carol Master is off the
Speaker 1: head on the program will examine the state of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Trucking business with carriers in the midst of the holiday deluge.
Speaker 1: We'll talk restaurants with the CEO of Open Table, and
Speaker 1: we'll hear from a newly minted Bloomberg fifty honoree who's
Speaker 1: rewriting the labor story at Starbucks. All that to come.
Speaker 1: We begin, though, with a story that everyone keeps talking about.
Speaker 1: A No, we are not talking about the Fed's latest
Speaker 1: interest rate hike, but f t X. Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: columnist Max Chafkin has a story online and on the
Speaker 1: terminal that focuses on the relationship between Sam Bateman, Freed
Speaker 1: and Finances. Chang Peng Jao, better known as c z
Speaker 1: c Z, as you may recall, helped last month to
Speaker 1: blow the whistle on his longtime rivals failures. Carolin I
Speaker 1: asked Max about the implications of that with Bankman Freed,
Speaker 1: who's now in custody in the Bahamas. Congress continues to
Speaker 1: probe what happened. I think it's pretty clear, you know,
Speaker 1: he's got some tough legal sledding ahead. It's who else
Speaker 1: gets roped into this? So there are other figures um
Speaker 1: connected obviously to f t x uh Carolyn Ellison of course,
Speaker 1: um uh, from a girlfriend, Yeah, ex girlfriend's CEO of
Speaker 1: of Alameda um. And and also kind of the person
Speaker 1: that Sam Bankman Fried was sort of it kind of
Speaker 1: felt like was trying to pin this all on um uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps unfairly um to talk about a messy breakup, No,
Speaker 1: just kidding, Yeah, and UM And then you have the
Speaker 1: other crypto exchanges, and you know, we've seen this play
Speaker 1: out before over the last uh a few months, where
Speaker 1: we're off one exchange go down, one major player in
Speaker 1: crypto go down, and it's starting to suck everybody else down.
Speaker 1: We people have been talking about, you know, this this
Speaker 1: sort of unfolding credit crisis, and I think it remains
Speaker 1: to be seen, you know, kind of who else does
Speaker 1: Sam Banquin freed, uh, you know bring down with him?
Speaker 1: And and I think it's it's very possible because as
Speaker 1: we've seen in sort of the details of this case,
Speaker 1: these guys were all pretty tightly you know and meshed.
Speaker 1: And UM. One of the interesting things, uh that in
Speaker 1: the testimony that that Sam Bankman freed, which you know
Speaker 1: we and others have been talking about. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's got these text messages from other CEOs of exchanges. Um.
Speaker 1: The the the title of this text message group is
Speaker 1: Exchange Coordination. UM. There you know, it's it's it's all
Speaker 1: very weird and and and it makes you wonder, um
Speaker 1: whether ever anybody else is potentially vulnerable either to like
Speaker 1: legal um issues or potentially just asset price it's falling
Speaker 1: and then hurting other companies. Right, makes me wonder like
Speaker 1: how systemic all of this is and who else comes
Speaker 1: down beyond the f t X kind of universe. At
Speaker 1: the same time, it also makes me wonder about collusion
Speaker 1: and I'm not maybe using it in a legal way. Um.
Speaker 1: And and also kind of you know, HARKing back to
Speaker 1: like Robert Barons, where you know, anything could happen and
Speaker 1: people would get rid of their other competitors or smaller competitors,
Speaker 1: because they wanted to own the marketplace. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that's where potentially yeah, and well, and you look
Speaker 1: at like why was Gary Gainsler, Why were people in
Speaker 1: the US resistant to this, to to these companies, And
Speaker 1: one reason was potential manipulation. You have all of these
Speaker 1: very small number of players, um lightly changed like traded currencies,
Speaker 1: and they're going around trying to pull in money from
Speaker 1: from normal people. Um, which of course raises questions. Um,
Speaker 1: you bring up Jao c z so Chang Peng Jao
Speaker 1: uh CEO of Finance, which is the other major exchange
Speaker 1: basically Sam Bankman Fried's main competitor. And over the years
Speaker 1: these two had a serious rivalry where it's kind of happening,
Speaker 1: as I write in the column today, this is all
Speaker 1: kind of happening behind the scenes. But they were both
Speaker 1: and in binance this case, are both operating in regulatory
Speaker 1: gray areas. So as we know, Sam Bankman Freed based
Speaker 1: on the Bahamas was operating this kind of quote unquote
Speaker 1: offshoring exchange Finance kind of same situation operating. UM. No
Speaker 1: one really knows where that's that's the main difference there
Speaker 1: as far as we're concerned. We don't know where where
Speaker 1: Binances headquarters is, but it's the same thing where um
Speaker 1: they're trading these alt coins um s coins are sometimes
Speaker 1: called as well as crypto derivatives. Much of that is
Speaker 1: not allowed in the US, and as a result, they're
Speaker 1: in this kind of regulatory gray area and and that
Speaker 1: has left them kind of vulnerable to you know, potential
Speaker 1: sec sanction, CFTC, potentially even criminal investigation. What we saw
Speaker 1: behind the scenes is that Jao and Sam bankmun freed,
Speaker 1: we're kind of vying to find a way to sort
Speaker 1: of legalize their business, to take this business from the
Speaker 1: gray area and bring it into the light. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of what led to the conflict and
Speaker 1: maybe even part of what led to the to the
Speaker 1: run on withdrawals that ultimately, um, you know, exposed the
Speaker 1: f t X, the alleged fraud at f t X.
Speaker 1: Well go back to this idea of fud if you're
Speaker 1: uncertainty and doubt, because a big portion of your column
Speaker 1: today is about that, And I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: you know, found yourself at the center of this at all, Max,
Speaker 1: But if you talk about crypto online, and you you
Speaker 1: express any skepticism about it, you are accused of spreading fud,
Speaker 1: as you write in column. So where does fud come
Speaker 1: into this conflict? So everybody who's anybody in crypto has
Speaker 1: like thrown around the suggestion of fud um Uh Chang
Speaker 1: Pang Jao has a huge Twitter following. He's got like
Speaker 1: eight million or seven million followers. I haven't I'm not
Speaker 1: exactly which um, but he's he's constantly anytime anyone writes
Speaker 1: anything negative, you know, he's he's calling fud um. We
Speaker 1: saw about a month ago, it was kind of his
Speaker 1: tweet in response to these coin desk reports. The coin
Speaker 1: desk reports were about you know, this shaky balance sheet
Speaker 1: um Sam Bankman Freed and his colleagues are denying it.
Speaker 1: Jaw comes in and says, hey, this looks really concerned.
Speaker 1: We're gonna sell our you know FTX tokens called f
Speaker 1: t T And that sets off this run and and
Speaker 1: in you know, in some sense, right, Jao is spreading
Speaker 1: what a crypto person would call fud. On another sense,
Speaker 1: he's acting as a whistleblower. He's exposing a actual flaw
Speaker 1: now and and and so I think it's important, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to make that distinction. But since then, Jao
Speaker 1: has kind of seemed to do the same thing to
Speaker 1: a couple of other exchanges, which is interesting and and
Speaker 1: and perhaps telling. Um, you know, he a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago he sort of went after coin Base, suggesting
Speaker 1: the coin base was shaky. Um coin based courses based
Speaker 1: in the US has audited financial statements. Um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: s serious charge. He deleted the tweet. Same thing with Cracking,
Speaker 1: another um reputable exchange, and he also deleted that tweet.
Speaker 1: And I think what's going on is you have the
Speaker 1: ft X collapse, and that's creating a sense of panic
Speaker 1: in the market, potential legal vulnerability. It's also it's also
Speaker 1: shrinking the market, and it's creating an opportunity for somebody
Speaker 1: like Finance or coin based or Cracking or any of
Speaker 1: these people to can solidate and to and to get
Speaker 1: customers in that sense, an opportunity, but it's also shrinking
Speaker 1: the market dramatically. So you kind of a sense the
Speaker 1: lights just came on and there aren't enough chairs. They're
Speaker 1: all trying to find a chair. That was Bloomberg business,
Speaker 1: We call him this Max Chafkin will continue to monitor
Speaker 1: all of the latest developments with FTX and bringing the
Speaker 1: news as it breaks. Now, we want to also bring
Speaker 1: your attention to a great piece from Business Week National
Speaker 1: correspondent Josh Green, writing for Bloomberg Opinion. This week, Josh
Speaker 1: says that Elon Musk is ruining former President Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: latest presidential bid. Bloomberg News senior market supporter Katie Greifeld
Speaker 1: and I spoke with Josh a about the irony of
Speaker 1: Musk inviting the former president back to Twitter, which would,
Speaker 1: of course detract from Trump's current social media home truth
Speaker 1: Social The whole rationale for having an alternative right wing
Speaker 1: social media platform was to get kind of people to
Speaker 1: go over there and be able to turn that into
Speaker 1: a business that makes a lot of money. And chunk
Speaker 1: has Trump has a chunk of that? Uh, the minute
Speaker 1: everybody starts gravitating back to Twitter, and certainly if the
Speaker 1: if the biggest power user of the mall and Donald
Speaker 1: Trump or to go back, it would really obviate any
Speaker 1: sort of a need for a right wing social platforms.
Speaker 1: I think that's about the only thing that's kept him
Speaker 1: from going back. But in his absence, a new Twitter
Speaker 1: overlord has emerged, and that is Elon Musk And as
Speaker 1: I say in the columns, he's essentially overshadowing and eclipsing uh,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who's whose political superpower always has been to
Speaker 1: be able to dominate the political conversation, largely through the
Speaker 1: use of Twitter. So I'm hearing you talk, I'm reading
Speaker 1: your column, and it brings me to a natural question,
Speaker 1: which is, how does this end? Are we gonna be
Speaker 1: watching Musk's campaign in however many years? I don't think that.
Speaker 1: I don't think that Elon Musk is has any real
Speaker 1: interest in politics besides just kind of weighing in with
Speaker 1: his takes, which he seems to be doing about every
Speaker 1: every thirty minutes on Twitter from what I can tell, um,
Speaker 1: and I would I would never hazard a guest to predict,
Speaker 1: you know, how Trump's campaign is going to go. But
Speaker 1: I will say this, you know, tru Umps. What first
Speaker 1: elevated Trump, um, you know, in national politics was his
Speaker 1: ability to draw all the attention to himself, to just
Speaker 1: be this constant, churning story that you couldn't look away from,
Speaker 1: that eclipsed everybody else, and that drove the news cycle
Speaker 1: on Twitter on cable media on newspaper headlines. And the
Speaker 1: one thing that Trump has really lost since January six,
Speaker 1: since he was the platform, was his ability to do that.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't have the outlet he once did. Uh
Speaker 1: And as we can see him, he launched his presidential
Speaker 1: campaign three weeks ago and it's pretty much been crickets
Speaker 1: ever since then. He really the only real topic of
Speaker 1: conversation was his dining with with white nationalists, and that's
Speaker 1: sorta of not the kind of press that you want
Speaker 1: when you're trying to launch a white house bit. But
Speaker 1: what has replaced that the guy who was driving the
Speaker 1: news cycle all day and all night is now Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: And if that lane is occupied by Musk, it's gonna
Speaker 1: make it awfully difficult for Trump to to become what
Speaker 1: he it was. Well, what if that lane is occupied
Speaker 1: by Elon Musk and then Elon Musk then goes and
Speaker 1: decides to get behind someone like Rhonda Santis for example. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's problematic for Trump. And you can see
Speaker 1: this in all sorts of ways. I mean in the column.
Speaker 1: You know, I looked at Twitter followers, Musk has fifty
Speaker 1: million more. I looked at Google search mentions. Uh, Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is easily eclipsing Donald Trump. But I think what's
Speaker 1: even more important from political standpoint is if you go
Speaker 1: to a place like bright Barton News, the hard right
Speaker 1: news site to help launch Donald Trump. Uh, they now
Speaker 1: have a vertical on Elon Musk and they're writing about
Speaker 1: his Twitter stuff every day, and Trump is almost an afterthought.
Speaker 1: You know, it's buried at the bottom of the page.
Speaker 1: That was Business Week National correspondent Josh Green with Katie
Speaker 1: Gradfeld and me. Check out Josh's full piece online or
Speaker 1: on the terminal by typing O P I N go.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up next, the
Speaker 1: president of shipping payments platform Triumph Pay breaks down the
Speaker 1: massive volume of packages on the move this holiday season.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovan from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: American ship more than fifty million packages last holiday season
Speaker 1: with the US Postal Service, and with package volumes continuing
Speaker 1: to increase, thanks in large part to the rise of
Speaker 1: online shopping, the agency is preparing for an even higher
Speaker 1: volume of parcels this year. The trucking industry helps move
Speaker 1: many of those around the country, but driver shortages are
Speaker 1: creating doubts that everything can get to its intended destination
Speaker 1: and on time. Melissa Foreman is the president at Triumph Pay.
Speaker 1: This is a payment platform and what it does is
Speaker 1: it connects brokers, shippers and carriers. It's a division of
Speaker 1: t b K Bank, member of the f d i C,
Speaker 1: and part of the publicly traded Triumph Financial. It's got
Speaker 1: about a one point three billion dollar market cap. We
Speaker 1: asked Melissa for her assessment. Were uniquely positioned, given where
Speaker 1: we sit within the transaction flow of payments, to really
Speaker 1: have a good understanding of what drivers and carriers and
Speaker 1: carriers are experiencing in the industry. And so Try and
Speaker 1: Pay makes about twenty four billion dollars annalyzed payments um
Speaker 1: two carriers per year, and that's the most of anybody
Speaker 1: in the industry. And so in doing that, it gives
Speaker 1: us that unique view. And we recently did a survey
Speaker 1: of our drivers that we're paying, and what's happening right
Speaker 1: now is is truly unprecedented. You know, when you look
Speaker 1: at the full truckload market, consumer spending and shifting from
Speaker 1: products to services, and so what does that mean on
Speaker 1: the transportation industry. It means that the trucks you know
Speaker 1: aren't aren't getting full, the inventories are high, and in
Speaker 1: all of the retail chains that are out there, and
Speaker 1: so they're just not re stalking all of that. Um.
Speaker 1: When we talked to our drivers out there, they said
Speaker 1: of them indicated that their revenues in twenty two were
Speaker 1: down from one And while twenty two started strong in
Speaker 1: the freight market, we've seen, you know, on the spot
Speaker 1: side of that in the last you know, two quarters,
Speaker 1: a significant cliff where it's where it's fallen off. UM.
Speaker 1: And those guys out there are saying, guys and gales
Speaker 1: that spot rates are their number one concern, and you
Speaker 1: have to ask yourself, why why does that matter? You know,
Speaker 1: spot rates aren't lower than they were a few years ago.
Speaker 1: There still would seem healthy in comparison to previous years.
Speaker 1: But what's changed over the pandemic and COVID in the
Speaker 1: supply chain issues that we've had over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years is that the you know, inflation has increased
Speaker 1: the cost of their equipment. Fuel prices are at record
Speaker 1: highs for diesel, and so when you compound that with
Speaker 1: the rising interest rates, their cost to operate has skyrocketed.
Speaker 1: And so what would have been a healthy level a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago is now in many cases where
Speaker 1: carriers are taking on freight where they're they're hauling that
Speaker 1: load at a loss. What's even more pressing about that
Speaker 1: is that they have to do that in front all
Speaker 1: the expenses to be able to pay for the fuel,
Speaker 1: pay for the drivers, you know, settlements, pay for the equipment, insurance,
Speaker 1: and they're doing that up front, but yet they have
Speaker 1: to wait thirty to sixty days to get paid, and
Speaker 1: so it just further compresses them and puts in a
Speaker 1: position where they're just being squeezed out of the market.
Speaker 1: It's really hard for them to operate. Right now, we listen,
Speaker 1: help me understand what goes on in the trucking market.
Speaker 1: I know people who have owned their own cabs, right,
Speaker 1: and they, I guess, do their own thing. But is
Speaker 1: it largely kind of like individual owners of trucks or
Speaker 1: is it a lot a lot of larger companies that
Speaker 1: have their trucker base. Yeah, if you could explain some
Speaker 1: of the dynamics of the industry, sure, care. That's that's
Speaker 1: a great question. And if you look at the truckload
Speaker 1: over the road market for higher about eight five cent
Speaker 1: to of trucking companies are five trucks are less. So
Speaker 1: they are small businesses live in the American dream, trying
Speaker 1: to build you know, their their businesses, and you they
Speaker 1: have all this this upfront expense and and these pressures
Speaker 1: that are that are squeezing out their margins. Well, is
Speaker 1: it any different though, from anyone else who either has
Speaker 1: to get in a car to head to work or
Speaker 1: has to buy clothes to go to work? Like, tell me,
Speaker 1: is it not just kind of the same that everybody's
Speaker 1: facing right now? And it's companies are trying to figure
Speaker 1: out the balance between raising wages right to meet what's
Speaker 1: going on with the inflation pressures. And we talk a
Speaker 1: lot about wage in flash and flash and wages have
Speaker 1: gotten up a lot, but you know what's the balance
Speaker 1: Because if you raise the costs the wages too much
Speaker 1: and everything gets too expensive, you do wonder if people
Speaker 1: are going to slow down on demand. For those in
Speaker 1: the trucking industry, it is quite similar. However, it trails
Speaker 1: um what what consumers do a little bit longer. And
Speaker 1: so because of the cost to acquire that equipment, you
Speaker 1: have these assets, and you know, these carriers are fighting
Speaker 1: hard to keep them on the road and to keep
Speaker 1: them profitable. You can't just say one day, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take a different job where i make more money.
Speaker 1: You've got an expense that you have to handle UM
Speaker 1: and either offload or take a loss. And and so
Speaker 1: they are working as hard as they can to be
Speaker 1: able to stay in the business, stay on the road,
Speaker 1: keep their trucks moving, but but doing so in a
Speaker 1: profitable way. Because you can only take a loss for
Speaker 1: so long before you either get bought right you sell
Speaker 1: out your company UM or you've lost everything that you've built.
Speaker 1: And so UM they tend to stay in a little
Speaker 1: bit longer, and those that make it through survive because
Speaker 1: we know that transportation is cyclical. And what happens is,
Speaker 1: you know, you you have this pressure and and this
Speaker 1: happens you know every few years where you start seeing
Speaker 1: your capacities start to come out of the market, which
Speaker 1: will rebalance UM. But again it's lagging, and so to
Speaker 1: get that capacity back in the market is also lagging.
Speaker 1: And so as you know, we look forward to probably
Speaker 1: end up twenty three or even beyond, when things start
Speaker 1: to stabilize a little bit and consumer um spending shifts
Speaker 1: back to products. We've got to make sure that those
Speaker 1: carriers are there and that the drivers are there and
Speaker 1: able to haul that freight for us, or will be
Speaker 1: in a similar situation that we ran into at the
Speaker 1: beginning of COVID where there just was no capacity UM
Speaker 1: and back in in a significant driver shortage situation. For
Speaker 1: a decade, we've been hearing about automation in the context
Speaker 1: of driverless trucks. Good question, you're laughing, you're laughing, and
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. I mean, I remember being at a
Speaker 1: dinner with a Silicon Valley friend who was early at
Speaker 1: one of the Silicon Valley firms, and he said, we
Speaker 1: are going to see a revolution in trucking and and
Speaker 1: this was more than five years ago because of driverless trucks.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen them yet. Are we going to see
Speaker 1: them on a large scale anytime soon? There is certainly
Speaker 1: some some efficiencies you can gain, and there's some applications
Speaker 1: for it. Um. But you know, if we haven't mastered
Speaker 1: how to get a car to to be driverless on
Speaker 1: the road, UM, it's really hard to to do that
Speaker 1: with with a long haul truck, right Amy, Lissa, What
Speaker 1: do truckers get paid? Oh, it depends so so right now,
Speaker 1: if you look at spot rates, Um, it's around a
Speaker 1: dollar eighty six per mile, and that is you know,
Speaker 1: that's all in there, two dollars a mile, that's all in.
Speaker 1: They have to pay for their their truck, their fuel. Um.
Speaker 1: Most trucks are are running around you know, five to
Speaker 1: eight maybe nine if they're if they're brand new, miles
Speaker 1: per gallon and so they're not the most efficient vehicles
Speaker 1: out there. So um, they it's it's their margins are
Speaker 1: are you know, anywhere from eight to twelve maybe fift
Speaker 1: on the high end in a good market. Um, and
Speaker 1: that's without the you know, the higher inflation and costs
Speaker 1: of their equipment and their financing to get that equipment
Speaker 1: that has gone up recently. What are the rules in
Speaker 1: place to prevent drivers from driving long hours so they
Speaker 1: don't get too tired if if this incentive system is
Speaker 1: in place that actually you know pays people per Miley, Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely so. FMCSA has hours of service regulations that are
Speaker 1: in place all drivers, certainly those that at that cross
Speaker 1: border and run outside of a hunter mile radius, adhere
Speaker 1: to standards, and they have electronic logs that keep track
Speaker 1: of every minute of their day. So they have to
Speaker 1: log when they're resting, they have to log when they're sleeping,
Speaker 1: they have to log when they're on duty, off duty,
Speaker 1: not driving. Every part of their day is tracked and
Speaker 1: the formulas will tell them how much they can drive today.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about, you know, the driver shortage,
Speaker 1: a big part of that came from, you know, implementing
Speaker 1: the electronic log you know, those which which held drivers
Speaker 1: accountable to not being able to go over their hours.
Speaker 1: That was Melissa Foreman, she's the president at Triumph Bay.
Speaker 1: Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, we go from the
Speaker 1: shipping economy to the local economy for an in depth
Speaker 1: conversation with the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, GT Bind them.
Speaker 1: The big concern is inflation UH and the challenges that
Speaker 1: presents with keeping up with cost UH costs as a
Speaker 1: city government where we have to have a balanced budget
Speaker 1: every year and providing the level of service that people
Speaker 1: expect when the cost of doing everything, whether that's fixing
Speaker 1: a street or hiring a police officer is dramatically more
Speaker 1: expensive than it was just two years ago. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Eleve in Rio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one, O six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine to the Country Sirius XM Chamber one nine
Speaker 1: and around the globe the Bloomberg Business and Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovan on Bloomberg Radio. From
Speaker 1: time to time, we like to check in with mayors
Speaker 1: from some of America's great cities. It really helps us
Speaker 1: get a feel for life on the ground and gain
Speaker 1: insight into growth, labor markets, investment, innovation and more. Today
Speaker 1: we're focusing on Tulsa, Oklahoma. Back in the fall, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News reported that a consortium including Devon Energy, Williams Companies,
Speaker 1: and more is partnering with a Tulsa nonprofit founded by
Speaker 1: the George Kaiser Family Foundation. The hope here is to
Speaker 1: bring as many as two thousand energy tech jobs to
Speaker 1: Oklahoma over the next five to ten years. Carol and
Speaker 1: I recently had the opportunity to welcome Tulsa Mayo GT
Speaker 1: bin Um into our studios and despite a rather gloomy
Speaker 1: economic outlook for the US heading into mayor, Bynum is
Speaker 1: not buying in. Everything in in Tulsa right now is
Speaker 1: very strong. I mean, we're seeing probably the greatest moment
Speaker 1: of investment in the history of the city is occurring
Speaker 1: right now, both across the public and private sectors. Um
Speaker 1: Our core industries in Tulsa course are energy, aeros and aerospace,
Speaker 1: but we're also seeing a tremendous level of interest and
Speaker 1: investment around advanced mobility. That's something that we just secured.
Speaker 1: We're one of twenty one cities out of six hundred
Speaker 1: that applied that secured a Build Back Better Regional Challenge
Speaker 1: grant from U S Department of Commerce, and we're using
Speaker 1: that to build the advanced mobility industry and Tulsa. That's
Speaker 1: expected to develop thirty to forty thousand new jobs over
Speaker 1: the next few years with a projected economic impact between
Speaker 1: three and a half and five billion dollars. So right now,
Speaker 1: I mean, the economy is very strong for US, I think,
Speaker 1: and as a mayor, the big concern is inflation UH
Speaker 1: and the challenges that presents with keeping up with costs
Speaker 1: as a city government where we have to have a
Speaker 1: balanced budget every year and providing the level of service
Speaker 1: that people expect when the cost of doing everything, whether
Speaker 1: that's fixing a street or hiring a police officer, is
Speaker 1: dramatically more expensive than it was just two years ago.
Speaker 1: We also want to mention that Mr Mayor has participated
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and also the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Philanthropist City Data Alliance. Of course, these have been
Speaker 1: founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Philanthropies. Um herepinum, What would you like your economy
Speaker 1: to be? Energy has been a blessing right, but it
Speaker 1: can be a curse in terms of overexposure. Where do
Speaker 1: you want your economy to be? And let's say five
Speaker 1: years Well, I think the key for us is that
Speaker 1: we want our economy to be diversified and be one
Speaker 1: where it's creating equality of opportunity in our city. We
Speaker 1: have consolidated all of our economic development efforts in Tulsa
Speaker 1: behind that goal of using economic development to drive equality
Speaker 1: of opportunity in our city. We think that the advanced
Speaker 1: mobility industry presents a really great opportunity right now in
Speaker 1: the history of that industry, we see advanced mobility. You
Speaker 1: mean specifically for us what I'm talking about there would
Speaker 1: be drones, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles. The funding that we
Speaker 1: received from US to prominent commerce, we're using to build
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten mile drone testing corridor through the
Speaker 1: O s Age Nation. UH that that they are going
Speaker 1: to build. We're building an autonomous benefit correct, the O
Speaker 1: s Age Nation. We Tulsa is at the intersection of
Speaker 1: three tribal nations their Sage, Cherokee, and Muskogee Creek. We
Speaker 1: work with all three of them on our economic development efforts,
Speaker 1: but we think that that one is a big one.
Speaker 1: The other key one for us UH Tulsa. Actually we
Speaker 1: get no attention for this, but it's kind of by design.
Speaker 1: The University of Tulsa is probably the leading university in
Speaker 1: the nation when it comes to graduating cybersecurity graduates. And
Speaker 1: it's not going to go away. It's not a fad.
Speaker 1: Something's growing in. So the great challenge for US is
Speaker 1: to have that intellectual capital at our university and how
Speaker 1: do we translate that into new companies and job creation.
Speaker 1: How do you get those students who graduate to stay
Speaker 1: in Tulsa and work for companies that are there, right,
Speaker 1: you know, educate them, but you want that younger generation
Speaker 1: to stick around. Oh no, I mean that's the challenges
Speaker 1: federal agencies. Historically, I've just vacuumed up all these graduates
Speaker 1: and they've gone all over the world rather than staying
Speaker 1: in Tulsa. You mentioned that George splies you said that,
Speaker 1: not me go on that. You mentioned that George Kaiser
Speaker 1: Family Foundation. They're actually working with the University of Tulsa
Speaker 1: to lead an initiative that that spurs the growth of
Speaker 1: companies by graduates coming out of the University of tulsas
Speaker 1: cybersecurity programs. So that it has two arms, has one
Speaker 1: where it's preparing graduates for public service and then it
Speaker 1: has spying you can say, for public service, which might
Speaker 1: be a public service, and then uh an arm that's
Speaker 1: there for business growth and entrepreneurship. What's the trickiest part
Speaker 1: of your job right now in terms of as you
Speaker 1: look at the economy, there's a lot of uncertainty. Tim
Speaker 1: kicked it off the conversation about we're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what next year holds for us, even in a
Speaker 1: downturn because of the energy pad and the energy crunch
Speaker 1: that we've seen. Does that give you guys a lot
Speaker 1: of room? I mean, the trickiest part of my job
Speaker 1: right now is that there is so much growth UH
Speaker 1: that we don't want to get out too far over
Speaker 1: our skis where we find ourselves in a position. I
Speaker 1: started as a city councilor UH two months before the
Speaker 1: Great Recession began, and I saw what happens to a
Speaker 1: local government that builds in costs that all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you wake up one day and realize you can't
Speaker 1: cover anymore and you have to start looking at laying
Speaker 1: up police officers and firefighters. And no, no mayor, and
Speaker 1: no city ever wants to be in that position. So
Speaker 1: how do you maximize the growth of our city and
Speaker 1: move with the opportunities we have before us right now?
Speaker 1: But to the point you're raising earlier about what these
Speaker 1: CEOs are saying, we don't know what's waiting for us
Speaker 1: in three or twenty four, and the economy always comes
Speaker 1: down at some point, and so when will that be?
Speaker 1: And how are we being very secure and being prepared
Speaker 1: for that while trying to maximize growth. We had Mayor
Speaker 1: Mattie Parker from Dallas Fort Worth here it Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago. Um. I asked for this
Speaker 1: question too, because both of you are young, politically moderate Republicans,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if it's tough to be a moderate
Speaker 1: Republican when you see what's happening in the Republican Party
Speaker 1: on a national level, Like, how does that make your
Speaker 1: job more difficult? Oh, I think it's tough to be
Speaker 1: a moderate anybody right now. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: the greatest threat to our country right now is the
Speaker 1: political polarization that occurs. It's one of the reasons I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful that I work in local government where Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats and independence still do work together to solve
Speaker 1: practical problems. I mean, you mentioned the Bloomberg City Data Alliance.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I love about as a
Speaker 1: mayor being able to utilize data. It's a tool where
Speaker 1: you can bring people of different political philosophies together and
Speaker 1: solve problems that they don't have to be philosophical debates.
Speaker 1: They can be practical problems that you solve how do
Speaker 1: we build a better street, how do we hire more
Speaker 1: police officers? Does it make a difference, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're very data, you know, centric, and I feel like
Speaker 1: data tells our numbers or information tells a certain story
Speaker 1: or tells the truth, but doesn't resonate no matter what
Speaker 1: the political leanings might be of a party that you're
Speaker 1: talking to. One does And I say, this is somebody
Speaker 1: who worked as an aid in Congress for six years
Speaker 1: before I moved home and reigned for the city council.
Speaker 1: Uh are all of our street projects are selected based
Speaker 1: on analytics. The numbers that we determine on how many
Speaker 1: police officers we need, that's based on analytics. We're trying
Speaker 1: to build out more and more utilizations of data into
Speaker 1: the work we do as a city, so that we're
Speaker 1: taking that that partisan polarization that you see so much
Speaker 1: at the federal level and boil it down in a
Speaker 1: more practical problem solving that people can get around. And
Speaker 1: by the way, my mayoral administration it's equally divided between Republicans, Democrats,
Speaker 1: and independence. Our city council is the same way. At
Speaker 1: the local level, you still see that collaboration that is
Speaker 1: non existent at the federal level, we'd be mass We've
Speaker 1: only got about thirty seconds. But the legacy of Black
Speaker 1: Wall Street. Um, how does that factor in? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's driving so much of what we do right now.
Speaker 1: I ran for mayor Uh. I decided to run from
Speaker 1: mayor the day that I realized that there was an
Speaker 1: eleven year life expectancy gap between kids growing up in
Speaker 1: the predominantly African American part of tuls and the rest
Speaker 1: of the city. As a dad of two kids, I
Speaker 1: wanted the kids growing up in that part of the
Speaker 1: city have the same opportunities that my kids do. And
Speaker 1: so everything that we're doing is a city right now
Speaker 1: around economic development and city services, is around creating that
Speaker 1: quality of opportunity so that Tulsa really can be a
Speaker 1: city where every kids an equal opportunity for a great life,
Speaker 1: regardless of the part of town they're growing up in.
Speaker 1: That was Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mayor. GT. Binum. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, and coming up next, we're gonna check
Speaker 1: in with one of the honorees from this year's Bloomberg fifty.
Speaker 1: How Michelle Eisen went head to head with coffee Giant
Speaker 1: Starbucks and helped galvanize a pro labor movement among its
Speaker 1: hourly workers. Billions of dollars are made off of the
Speaker 1: backs of the labor of that is in the floor
Speaker 1: of these cafes every single day, and yet you've got
Speaker 1: workers who can't pay their rent and put groceries in
Speaker 1: their fridge. There's just there's an imbalance there and something
Speaker 1: needs to be done about it. This is Bloomberg. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. This past week,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week released its sixth annual Bloomberg Fifty list.
Speaker 1: It pays homage to those in business, politics, science and technology, finance,
Speaker 1: and entertainment whose accomplishments over the past year deserve recognition
Speaker 1: and well. World leaders, celebrities, and top executives are included.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a household name to make
Speaker 1: the cut. One example of that is Michelle Eisen, the
Speaker 1: lead organizer of Starbucks Workers United. Her efforts to create
Speaker 1: better conditions for hourly workers have brought unionization to more
Speaker 1: than two seventy Starbucks stores and seven thousand people across
Speaker 1: the country. Just over a year earlier, the company had none.
Speaker 1: Carol and I asked Michelle about what's next when it
Speaker 1: comes to her fight for workers rights, and I do
Speaker 1: expect it to continue, because the momentum really hasn't slowed.
Speaker 1: What we've seen as an increased interests from Starbucks workers
Speaker 1: to unionize their stores because things are hard. Things are
Speaker 1: even harder now than they were, you know, a few
Speaker 1: years ago, to be a service worker, to be anyone
Speaker 1: of the working class, and the reality of the situation
Speaker 1: is that the billionaires are not looking out for the
Speaker 1: working man, and so we need to join together and
Speaker 1: raise our voices and fight for what we believe is
Speaker 1: fair in our workplaces. Starbucks, i think, to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: has always preded itself on providing a at least publicly
Speaker 1: a good place for people to work. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: you know what your experience has been and also what
Speaker 1: specifically you and other union organizers and people who join
Speaker 1: the union are looking for from the company right now.
Speaker 1: I think that you're correct, I think, and that's what
Speaker 1: has become so apparently disappointing to me in the last
Speaker 1: year is that I came to this company back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten because of who they prided themselves
Speaker 1: to be, because they were this progressive company that you know,
Speaker 1: claimed to care about the environment and the community and
Speaker 1: most of all their workers. And I think that that
Speaker 1: was true when I started. But we've seen a very
Speaker 1: clear decline in how workers are treated within the company
Speaker 1: in the last few years, and the pandemic really shined
Speaker 1: a spotlight on just how how they actually feel about us.
Speaker 1: We were called essential. Starbucks stayed open through the entirety
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Um These are not remote jobs. We
Speaker 1: have to go in in person and customer phasing positions
Speaker 1: to perform these job duties. And they kept saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you're essential, You're essential to keep the world running. But
Speaker 1: we were continually treated like we were disposable, and we'd
Speaker 1: had enough. It was time to, you know, hold the
Speaker 1: company accountable. These are billion dollar corporations. Billions of dollars
Speaker 1: are made off of the backs of the labor that
Speaker 1: is in the floor of these cafes every single day,
Speaker 1: and yet you've got workers who can't pay their rent.
Speaker 1: There's an imbalance there and something needs to be done
Speaker 1: about it. What do you make of the wider unionization
Speaker 1: drive that's taking place across the United States right now,
Speaker 1: and I should know it is a far cry from
Speaker 1: what we saw, you know, at the peak of labor
Speaker 1: unions decades ago. But today we are seeing drives at
Speaker 1: places like app full are E, I and more. What
Speaker 1: do you make of that, well, I think you're seeing.
Speaker 1: I mean, the wealth gap is significantly higher than it
Speaker 1: was even at the peak of the labor movement decades ago.
Speaker 1: So I think that's part of the catalyst, certainly, the
Speaker 1: pandemic and the fact that the working class was put
Speaker 1: in a position where their health and their family's health
Speaker 1: was at risk daily. If you were a service worker,
Speaker 1: if you were a worker, and you know, one of
Speaker 1: these shops that continue to stay open and provide what
Speaker 1: they were calling these essential services, and you had, you know,
Speaker 1: ceo s on these financial shows boasting not only about
Speaker 1: profits but record breaking profits in the middle of this pandemic,
Speaker 1: and workers are starting to question what they're worth actually is.
Speaker 1: And there's a realization that, you know, we are the
Speaker 1: people who bring in these billions of dollars. If the
Speaker 1: working class just walked out of all of these businesses.
Speaker 1: Right now, these businesses would essentially cease to exist. And
Speaker 1: so I think you're starting to see people stand up
Speaker 1: and demand, you know, fair wages and at the very
Speaker 1: least safe working conditions, because these companies don't exist without us.
Speaker 1: That's Michelle Eyes and she's the lead organizer of Starbucks
Speaker 1: Workers United, and she's part of this year's Bloomberg fifty.
Speaker 1: Check out the full list online or on the Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 1: It'll be the cover story of next week's issue of
Speaker 1: the magazine. That wraps up the first hour of the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio, I'm
Speaker 1: Tim Stanovic. Coming up in our next hour, we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear from the CEO of Open Table on the restaurant
Speaker 1: industry's big comeback, and the CEO of Impossible Foods explains
Speaker 1: why reports of the death of the faux meat industry
Speaker 1: are greatly exaggerated. Plus, a new book goes inside the
Speaker 1: lucrative criminal enterprise of ransomware and details the band of
Speaker 1: so called misfits out to stop it. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week, inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business finance in tech News as it Happened, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovik on Bloomberg Radio. Planning ahead in our second hour
Speaker 1: of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including a
Speaker 1: report from the magazine about how American Express got its
Speaker 1: mojo back. We'll also look at one of cyber criminals
Speaker 1: favorite weapons, ransomware, and the loose network of tech nerds
Speaker 1: out to put a dent in a billion dollar enterprise.
Speaker 1: Plus a conversation with the Open Table CEO Debbie Sue
Speaker 1: on a long awaited resurgence for the restaurant business. First
Speaker 1: up this hour, we're talking food with another industry executive,
Speaker 1: Impossible Food CEO Peter McGinnis. He recently joined my co
Speaker 1: host Carol Masser from the Bloomberg Life Sustainable Business Summit,
Speaker 1: and they kicked off the conversation talking about what some
Speaker 1: see as a plateau in the plant based food industry.
Speaker 1: It's a very dynamic category industry um with huge potential
Speaker 1: um and it's in its infancy and I think people say, oh,
Speaker 1: the plant based category is a declining Is the demise
Speaker 1: of it. It makes a great headline, it's a sensational story.
Speaker 1: And I would just say that it hasn't been established
Speaker 1: and created yet, so a big part of what I
Speaker 1: want to do it in part been established. No, it's
Speaker 1: been around in earnest for you know, probably less than
Speaker 1: five years. There's been vegan burgers and things out for
Speaker 1: ten or twelve years. But in terms of all protein
Speaker 1: that's going, you know, trying to displace the animal product,
Speaker 1: that's a three to five year phenomenon. And um we
Speaker 1: just launched in retail two years ago in the middle
Speaker 1: of COVID, so if you discount, we've probably been available
Speaker 1: retail for a year. And uh So I think it's
Speaker 1: in its infancy and I think it's yet to be created,
Speaker 1: yet to be established, and uh I think it's our
Speaker 1: job to really create this category. It's three billion dollar
Speaker 1: category and at one point for trillion dollar addressable market,
Speaker 1: so it is very very small, right, and it's our
Speaker 1: job to mold it and shape it and grow it.
Speaker 1: And that that work hasn't done yet. Here, someone who
Speaker 1: knows the food industry really well, you're reminding me you're
Speaker 1: ten years of Chabani and you're doing this, you understand
Speaker 1: kind of reaching consumers and what they want. I want
Speaker 1: to go to a recent Bloomberg opinion piece that talked
Speaker 1: about plant based product sales in the US and they
Speaker 1: said they've been flagging the categories meteoric growth in flattening,
Speaker 1: and since less September, a key portion of its retail
Speaker 1: sales has dropped more than ten pc. It's reputation has
Speaker 1: also been badly bruised by the stock performance of Beyond Meat,
Speaker 1: which is down with from a peak back in tween.
Speaker 1: The column does go on to say still it's a
Speaker 1: mistake for investors to write off the value and potential
Speaker 1: of the sector as a whole, which will be a
Speaker 1: keystone among climate solutions going forward. So first up, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to the climate solutions in a moment.
Speaker 1: The first part, though, unpack it for me, what is
Speaker 1: though wrong with plant based industry today and the sales
Speaker 1: and and then we get into kind of So the
Speaker 1: category is down and that is a fact, right, you
Speaker 1: can redire our data Nielsen data. It was plus now
Speaker 1: it's hovering it minus five to minus seven depending on
Speaker 1: the week. And there's a lot of reasons for that.
Speaker 1: There was a COVID bump probably in there somewhere along
Speaker 1: the lines, there was a novelty bump when it really
Speaker 1: you know, first became available. So some of it's a correction,
Speaker 1: some of it's um some noise in the data, and
Speaker 1: then some of it are there are players in the
Speaker 1: category who will remain nameless because I'm a proponent of
Speaker 1: the category that are not doing well. And so you know,
Speaker 1: the category is a composition of companies, and so if
Speaker 1: there's some companies in a category that don't do well,
Speaker 1: they can bring the whole category down. And so, um,
Speaker 1: we're doing well. I mean we're growing six at retail. Um,
Speaker 1: we're in top line sales and m and so we
Speaker 1: have our own playbook and we have our own you
Speaker 1: know approach here. I think it's lazy to look at
Speaker 1: comparables and try to project that on a category. Each
Speaker 1: company has their own own issues and challenges and playbook
Speaker 1: and some work, some don't work. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you should cloud the whole category, right, And I
Speaker 1: think the category also is confusing because some of the
Speaker 1: players in the category are old vegan burgers that are
Speaker 1: veggie burgers, and some of them are all meat, which
Speaker 1: I don't like the name of that, but those are
Speaker 1: those products that are displacing it. Never good, never good. UM.
Speaker 1: And then look, I think the animal industry has done
Speaker 1: quite a good job. They're highly coordinated and pretty loud
Speaker 1: in trying to confuse this plant based meat category with
Speaker 1: calling it processed or foe or and they have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and they're highly coordinated, like I said,
Speaker 1: and I think where the mistake of the plant based
Speaker 1: meat is it's young, it's restless, it's very fragmented with
Speaker 1: a lot of different players, and we have not been
Speaker 1: coordinated in our messaging, and we have not been loud
Speaker 1: in support of our products. And so combination of big
Speaker 1: meat kind of being loud and coordinated and plant based
Speaker 1: meat being shy and uncoordinated has not helped the situation.
Speaker 1: So let's talk messaging, um, And let's get to the
Speaker 1: second part of the Bloomberg opinion column, which said, it's
Speaker 1: a mistake for investors to write off the value and
Speaker 1: potential of the sector as a whole, which will be
Speaker 1: a keystone among climate solutions going forward. So why is
Speaker 1: plant based food a keystone among future climate solutions? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. The scale of food because this would be
Speaker 1: great for the narrative. Yes, it would be great for
Speaker 1: the narrative. And it's it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: complicated message to get out there from a consumer perspective,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of the issue around um, Look,
Speaker 1: the food is now come a long way. So the
Speaker 1: food now stands up against the animal products, and most
Speaker 1: people that try it say it's much better than I
Speaker 1: thought and taste, texture, flavor, and especially when you build
Speaker 1: a burger and you have cheese and you know, put
Speaker 1: let us in tomato on it. It's very difficult, right,
Speaker 1: And we hear that with whoppers, and we hear that
Speaker 1: whether our impossible Sauce's sandwich of Starbucks. So the food
Speaker 1: is in a really good place. We have not got
Speaker 1: the health credentials across. Right, it's zero cholesterol meat, right,
Speaker 1: that has less saturated fat and less calories. That has
Speaker 1: not been communicated. And then the climate piece of it,
Speaker 1: There is no other alternative to reverse climate change other
Speaker 1: than food. Food systems account for third of emissions. Third
Speaker 1: of emissions. Also, if you think about of the usable
Speaker 1: Earth's land mass is animal agriculture related, and all of
Speaker 1: that land has been cleared fifty three percent or towns
Speaker 1: and cities of the entire Earth's so the so the
Speaker 1: scale is huge. And as a result, six of all
Speaker 1: wild animals have been killed and animal products. And I
Speaker 1: want to sit here and go on and on about
Speaker 1: how bad the animal industry is. We'll talk about your
Speaker 1: climate imprit when you guys do so our plant based meat.
Speaker 1: If you look at fifty million pounds of our plant
Speaker 1: based meat versus fifty million pounds of animal meat, right
Speaker 1: direct comparison, we'll use four point five billion less gallons
Speaker 1: of water, we would save thirty seven million trees, and
Speaker 1: we would avoid one point five billion pounds of c
Speaker 1: O two. That's fifty million pounds. That's a small amount, right,
Speaker 1: That's a fraction of what we will make um this year.
Speaker 1: So the scale is massive. Right when it comes to food, So,
Speaker 1: food choice and climate change is a very very powerful thing.
Speaker 1: It's misunderstood. It's many people are not aware of it, right,
Speaker 1: They just don't equate food choice with climate change. So
Speaker 1: the more we can educate people, I think it can
Speaker 1: be quite powerful. And there is no other tool out
Speaker 1: there that has the power to reverse climate change like
Speaker 1: food choice, right, which is interesting because we focused so
Speaker 1: much on E V S. And I get the importance
Speaker 1: of it, which is, by the way, the good thing, right,
Speaker 1: But if all cars went to electric, it would not
Speaker 1: have the impact of food choice. So good business. And
Speaker 1: you and I talked about on the phone. I care,
Speaker 1: I turn over, I look at my food. I want
Speaker 1: to know what it is. My ninete daughter does the
Speaker 1: same thing. Help me out because part of the reason
Speaker 1: I'm not your customer, and I probably should be because
Speaker 1: I care about my health. And I even brought it
Speaker 1: up in the newsroom and in our makeup room. I'm like,
Speaker 1: who's eating this stuff? And like sodium sodium? Like you
Speaker 1: talk about the healthy part of it. I mean, have
Speaker 1: we can it be better? It can be better. So
Speaker 1: one of the big things we want to do it impossible.
Speaker 1: I think we have a really good product. And I
Speaker 1: know you've done some formula. Sure you know we're on
Speaker 1: beef two point five. We're not going to go iPhone.
Speaker 1: How far do we go? But we're gonna go probably
Speaker 1: beef four point oh. I can see probably a three
Speaker 1: point three point five and a four point to perfect
Speaker 1: it taste, texture, flavor, nutrition, And every time we reformulate
Speaker 1: that food, and I think this is a big part
Speaker 1: of it. Right, we have to continue saying prove those products,
Speaker 1: and these products have only been around three or four years,
Speaker 1: so it's not unusual to continue through technology and new
Speaker 1: ingredients to try to perfect the product. And in doing that,
Speaker 1: I think will chip away more Etceterated fat, sodium, will
Speaker 1: simplify the ingredient list. The ingredient list is long. It's
Speaker 1: all plant based, but it's long because you're trying to
Speaker 1: mimic the texture of animal meat. It's very hard to
Speaker 1: be complicated, very complicated. So people say it's processed. I
Speaker 1: think Twinkies are processed, right, it's artificial. It's not processed
Speaker 1: because the process but but our food is not processed
Speaker 1: because the ingredient list is long. We're using a lot
Speaker 1: of different things to mimic the texture to get people
Speaker 1: to have it instead of the animal product. But it's
Speaker 1: all plant based, so much rather ingest that than something
Speaker 1: highly artificial. Look processed is food that doesn't con pain
Speaker 1: a lot of minerals and vitamins and protein. Right, our
Speaker 1: food contains vitamins, minerals and has more protein than the
Speaker 1: animal product, so it's nutrient dense. It's nutrient rich. And yes,
Speaker 1: the ingredient list is long, and we'll work on simplifying that.
Speaker 1: But these are all the misconceptions and myths out there
Speaker 1: that have been and affected people like you. That's Impossible
Speaker 1: Food CEO Peter McGinnis with Carol Master from the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Live Sustainable Business Summit earlier this month. To here and
Speaker 1: watch the entire conversation. Head on over to Bloomberg Live
Speaker 1: dot com. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we stay in the food space and get some good
Speaker 1: news on the restaurant business at an all important time
Speaker 1: of year. We are continuing to see that that dining
Speaker 1: deman remains really strong. If you look at the year
Speaker 1: end for this entire year, we are approaching nationwide pre
Speaker 1: pandemic levels. Open Table CEO Debbie su joins us on
Speaker 1: the other side. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovin
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. In our last segment, we heard from
Speaker 1: the CEO of Impossible Foods on the health of the
Speaker 1: still nascent fake meat industry. Now let's zoom out for
Speaker 1: a look at America's restaurant business. This past week, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: New Senior Markets reporter Katie Greifeld and I had a
Speaker 1: chance to reconnect with Debbie Sue. She's the CEO of
Speaker 1: the online restaurant reservation service Open Table, and while she's
Speaker 1: based in San Francisco, Debbie says things are looking up
Speaker 1: for the entire sector from coast to coast. We are
Speaker 1: continuing to see that that dining demand remains really strong.
Speaker 1: If you look at the year end, so for this
Speaker 1: entire year, we are approaching on nationwide UM pre pandemic levels.
Speaker 1: We're up versus last year, so we can say that
Speaker 1: dining is back UM or that dining has held strong.
Speaker 1: The holiday season is looking great. Thanksgiving UM is usually good,
Speaker 1: you know, a sign of what things are to come
Speaker 1: during the holiday season, and demand was really strong then.
Speaker 1: So people were just seeing that. People are continuing to
Speaker 1: prioritize that dining out at at a restaurant experience. Despite
Speaker 1: all the news we're hearing, and we're feeling it as well,
Speaker 1: right about inflation, rising costs, um, all that economic turbulence,
Speaker 1: people are continuing to you know, allocate pieces of their
Speaker 1: household Piano to the dining out experience. How do you
Speaker 1: explain that because those things are at odds. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, um, we're we're still seeing
Speaker 1: some pent up revenge dining. I think as a result
Speaker 1: of the pandemic when many of us were cooped up
Speaker 1: in our houses or apartments for um a long time.
Speaker 1: So I think that is still playing here. Um. I
Speaker 1: also think it's because from many of us, the nature
Speaker 1: of work has changed. Um. Many people work remotely, some
Speaker 1: people are in a hybrid situation where they go into
Speaker 1: the office you know, twice a week as opposed to
Speaker 1: five times a week. And I think people are really
Speaker 1: craving that in person, you know, experience that they're not
Speaker 1: getting when they're just working from home. Um. And so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, dining out at a restaurant is
Speaker 1: one of those ways they can get that. And we're
Speaker 1: seeing that in the data too. We're seeing, for example, uh,
Speaker 1: pre pandemic days, bar seating was the least favorable type
Speaker 1: of the seat that one could book, and right now
Speaker 1: we're seeing people are actually requesting those seats and wanting
Speaker 1: to be in the thick of it all. So I
Speaker 1: think because work is changing for many of us that
Speaker 1: that has trickled down effects, you know, into dining and
Speaker 1: our behavior as consumers. Um, you know what what it
Speaker 1: means now to to go out to a restaurant, Deffy.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack some of those trends. If if the shifting
Speaker 1: nature of work is changing how people are dining out,
Speaker 1: what does that mean in terms of what days that
Speaker 1: people are coming to restaurants, what times? Thinks of those natures? Yes,
Speaker 1: so we're seeing that Monday's, UM, to your point, are
Speaker 1: so historically Mondays were very slow time for restaurants pre pandemic.
Speaker 1: Right now, what we're seeing Monday's are the weekend after party.
Speaker 1: It's kind of an extension of the weekend. So we're
Speaker 1: seeing really big increases in dining compared to last year
Speaker 1: up on Monday's. UM. The time is also different in
Speaker 1: terms of the time that people are going to reservations.
Speaker 1: You had said forty five or ten, we're actually seeing
Speaker 1: um a lot of people dining between four and five.
Speaker 1: UM that that time period increased a very large increase
Speaker 1: uh compared to pre pandemic time. So happy hour is
Speaker 1: the new dinner. I think it's because oftentimes, like if
Speaker 1: you are working remotely or hybrid um, you're commute, you
Speaker 1: don't have a commute time, right, so you could be
Speaker 1: done with work and you can shut down, you know,
Speaker 1: your computer and just literally, you know, leave your home
Speaker 1: and go to a restaurant. Debbie, does that change? So
Speaker 1: I've talked about this a bit. I don't have any
Speaker 1: data on this, and I'm hoping you can help with
Speaker 1: this because it's all anecdotal for me. But in my
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Brooklyn, you know, I come into work every
Speaker 1: day because I can't work remotely. But if I'm off
Speaker 1: a day and I'm at at home and I'm walking
Speaker 1: around the neighborhood, it is like packed, you know, Sandwich
Speaker 1: shops that are usually packed on a week day on
Speaker 1: a weekend only are packed during the week because people
Speaker 1: are working from home. Do you have any data that
Speaker 1: shows sort of the the epicenter of of these areas
Speaker 1: is kind of shifting a little bit because of people's
Speaker 1: work patterns. Yes, so we in that the Brooklyn story
Speaker 1: or your experience is very similar to what we're seeing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, during the pandemic, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people moved out of the city proper. Uh and and
Speaker 1: in areas around a big city. UM, Brooklyn here could
Speaker 1: be an example of that, and UM a lot of
Speaker 1: so we're seeing a lot of dining activity happening, you
Speaker 1: know in Brooklyn versus you know in the middle of
Speaker 1: midtown or Manhattan. UM. We're seeing that in the Bay
Speaker 1: Area here in San Francisco. UM. So we're seeing like
Speaker 1: emergence of kind of these UM areas outside of cities
Speaker 1: really gained and prominence. And I think Brooklyn also, like
Speaker 1: it's a trends, tends to have a younger demographic, if
Speaker 1: I were to guess, like a very cool demographics. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm either of those things. But thank you, Debby.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not surprising. It's not surprising to
Speaker 1: hear that we have. You know, there's a big remote
Speaker 1: workforce out there that you know, during lunchtime can go
Speaker 1: to the sandwich shop down the street. So I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about what you said about people actually in some
Speaker 1: cases requesting to sit at the bar, because I've never
Speaker 1: done that in my life. But I don't want to
Speaker 1: sit at the bar. I don't want to sit next
Speaker 1: to people. Okay, that's what I mean. But in any case,
Speaker 1: are you seeing that in that sort of drive to
Speaker 1: be in the thick of it in the action. Are
Speaker 1: you seeing that in the dining choices that people are
Speaker 1: making in terms of the types of restaurants that they're booking. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: so we're seeing diners really crave that connectivity. So cuisines
Speaker 1: like Korean barbecue, hibachi grill, Brazilian steakhouse, um, those types
Speaker 1: of food venues are doing very very well because again,
Speaker 1: unlike you, a lot of people want to be in
Speaker 1: the thick of it. They want to be sharing a
Speaker 1: table with folks they don't know and and being in
Speaker 1: that kind of communal environment that's so interesting. Does this
Speaker 1: hold we're seeing it hold? Um? It's it started up
Speaker 1: last year and it's continued to persist um this year.
Speaker 1: I really think a lot of it is related to
Speaker 1: the pandemic um and kind of a new post pandemic
Speaker 1: life with again work changing for so many of us
Speaker 1: um that right like it, it impacts other other facets
Speaker 1: of our life. And so I mean, if theoretically we're
Speaker 1: here a year from now talking about the trends that
Speaker 1: we saw in what do you think what what kind
Speaker 1: of conversation we're gonna be having well, I hope we're
Speaker 1: going to have a similar one in terms of dining
Speaker 1: demand remaining very strong. Um, you know. And we watched
Speaker 1: the data very carefully across the board, just because there
Speaker 1: is so much noise regarding the economy, and we hear
Speaker 1: from restaurant partners how hard it is to be running
Speaker 1: their restaurants. But the hero of the day and the
Speaker 1: story is that consumers continue to prioritize going out and
Speaker 1: dining at restaurants. I really hope does that change though
Speaker 1: in a softening economy. I mean, everyone we've spoken to
Speaker 1: today is planning on session. Yes, um. And we're we
Speaker 1: remain bullish about mining. We think that maybe the check
Speaker 1: size will change, but we think that people will continue
Speaker 1: to prioritize connecting with others, whether that be family or
Speaker 1: friends at a meal at a restaurant. That's Debbi Sue.
Speaker 1: She's the CEO of the restaurant booking platform Open Table.
Speaker 1: She spoke with me in Bloomberg New Senior Markets reporter
Speaker 1: Katie Greifeld still to come on Bloomberg Business Week. The
Speaker 1: magazine team explores how credit card giant American Express was
Speaker 1: staring into the abyss at the onset of the COVID
Speaker 1: pandemic and has since come back stronger than ever. Consumers
Speaker 1: haven't stopped spending, and if anything, am X was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we have this really good thing going,
Speaker 1: let's double down instead of killing it. UM. The pandemic
Speaker 1: actually gave it a glimpse into how irrelevant it's brand
Speaker 1: could become if it didn't start spoiling cardholders who could
Speaker 1: no longer use a lot of the benefits that made
Speaker 1: it so famous. You know, it's travel, it's dining perks um.
Speaker 1: So you know, in that process it revamped its platinum
Speaker 1: card um. As you said, it upped the price, which
Speaker 1: was kind of a surprising thing to This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg eleven
Speaker 1: Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine
Speaker 1: to the country Sirius XM M one nine and around
Speaker 1: the globe the Bloomberg Business and Bloomberg Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovan on Bloomberg Radio. You'll find our
Speaker 1: next story in the Finance section of the latest edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's out now on news stands, online,
Speaker 1: and on the terminal. Just over two years ago, American
Speaker 1: Express faced an existential crisis, losing customers and staring into
Speaker 1: a pandemic that heard it more than others because of
Speaker 1: its focus on traveling and dining out. What Amex did next,
Speaker 1: according to our colleague Jenny Seraine, quote, maybe the marketing
Speaker 1: coup of the century. We get more from Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Finance team leader Sally bake Well and the editor of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, Joel Weber. It wasn't looking so great
Speaker 1: for a second. UM. And that is sort of what
Speaker 1: got me initially interested in the story, was because it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, is there an existential moment here that Amex, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, might not come out of the pandemic looking
Speaker 1: as good as as it went in. UM. People were
Speaker 1: suddenly not in in the early days of the of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, we weren't spending quite as much. UM. They
Speaker 1: ended up doubling down and spending a lot more and
Speaker 1: have continued to spend. And you know, the economy keeps
Speaker 1: jugging because of it, and that actually is part of
Speaker 1: what became this Amex story, because consumers haven't stopped spending,
Speaker 1: and if anything, Amex was like, you know what, we
Speaker 1: have this really good thing going, let's double down and
Speaker 1: make it even more interesting. And that's basically what they did.
Speaker 1: They have an amazing loyalty program, they made it a
Speaker 1: little bit more expensive, and people just kept doing it.
Speaker 1: And what so it's incredible to me is like, there
Speaker 1: are very few business models that can look like this
Speaker 1: when other people come for it. You know, JP Morgan
Speaker 1: Sapphire Card once a Business Week cover story. They did
Speaker 1: a really amazing job of creating a business out of nothing,
Speaker 1: and yet Amex's mode seems like it keeps getting deeper
Speaker 1: and wider. So Jenny and Thomas Buckley did a great
Speaker 1: job telling this story. Sally Bakewell leads the finance team. Sally,
Speaker 1: what stands out to you about how amex has has
Speaker 1: doubled down and yet UM found uh new potential? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the really surprising thing here is that instead
Speaker 1: of killing it, UM, the pandemic actually gave it a
Speaker 1: glimpse into how irrelevant it's brand could become if it
Speaker 1: didn't start spoiling cardholders who could no longer use a
Speaker 1: lot of the benefits that made it so famous. You know,
Speaker 1: it's travel, it's dining perks UM so you know, in
Speaker 1: that process it revamped its Platinum card. UM as you said,
Speaker 1: it up the price, which was kind of a surprising
Speaker 1: thing to UM. It's now more expensive than the Chase
Speaker 1: Sapphire card at six dollars a year. Add all these
Speaker 1: new suggest to carry the super basically ahead, we'll think
Speaker 1: of the Centurion card, which is five thousand, and of
Speaker 1: course we all have one of those. About my ga garade,
Speaker 1: I think that maybe I'm the only one who doesn't
Speaker 1: have You have to be invited to that. Even even
Speaker 1: the CEO didn't initially get but sally this I'm thinking about,
Speaker 1: like Amex going after like they certainly had the establishment,
Speaker 1: I feel like, but going after younger folks, whether it's
Speaker 1: jen z x Y whatever, millennials like that to me
Speaker 1: seems to be a big part of this strategy. And
Speaker 1: it worked, It really did. It was a huge part
Speaker 1: of the strategy um. Amex said that it signed up
Speaker 1: more Platinum card holders this year than ever, and gen
Speaker 1: Z and UM millennial customers made up about sixty of
Speaker 1: all of that consumer card holder growth. But of course
Speaker 1: with that maybe brings an added challenge because this is
Speaker 1: an untested cohort of the population in an economic downturn.
Speaker 1: Now AMEX says they're not too worried about it because
Speaker 1: these people are keeping up with their bills. Um. But
Speaker 1: they have already set aside hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: for potential SURD loans. In fact, they they did that
Speaker 1: in in October and actually set aside more than analysts
Speaker 1: and expected. So they're very bullish, but at the same
Speaker 1: time they're definitely shoring up for some kind of crisis. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Tago was about the CEO, Steve Squerry, because for
Speaker 1: a long time there was going to be a succession
Speaker 1: challenge at m X and a boy they found their guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, he kind of came to the
Speaker 1: job and he jokes that he was someone who never
Speaker 1: was expected to be CEO. Whether that's absolutely the case,
Speaker 1: we don't know, but he story though. Yeah, yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: perhaps he just wasn't earmarked quite so um clearly as
Speaker 1: um as the person who unfortunately passed away on a
Speaker 1: in a plane accident and so it was Squary who
Speaker 1: took over at that time. UM, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: he's credited with a lot of keeping AMEX going through
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Um. He sort of hold himself up. Um
Speaker 1: he you know, he says he took him he took
Speaker 1: his daughters to lunch um on you know, a day
Speaker 1: in early March and the pandemic saw how the city
Speaker 1: had emptied out, he just he sent all his employees home. Um,
Speaker 1: he holding himself up and his and his key deputies
Speaker 1: up in his office and they kind of figured out
Speaker 1: this plan, this strategy um to revamp the card. And
Speaker 1: you know, again, they might not quite have done it
Speaker 1: in the same way had the pandemic nod had happened,
Speaker 1: and they might therefore not have been able to regain
Speaker 1: the sort of cool that they did. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: as you noted, they were kind of this credit card storewart.
Speaker 1: They were sort of more known for capturing the middle
Speaker 1: aged customer. And they've gone really hard after the gen
Speaker 1: Z and they've been pretty successful. And they have a
Speaker 1: signature sent um the card is dropped in you know
Speaker 1: Jay z Ariana Grande songs that sort of cool. You
Speaker 1: can't that's like real cred Also, if you're the CEO.
Speaker 1: We talked about the Centurion card earlier, what what is
Speaker 1: the Centurion card? And it turns out if you have
Speaker 1: to ask, you can't afford it. Well, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, wait, you have to pay for credit card?
Speaker 1: How does his work? Right? Um? So five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year. You can only get it by being invited
Speaker 1: to get it. And that's the kind of big joke
Speaker 1: from Square is that, Um, he hadn't been asked to
Speaker 1: apply for the card when he took over. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know it's extremely selective and he has to he
Speaker 1: had to Beck, he said, I think like he could
Speaker 1: knows that knows the right person to call to say,
Speaker 1: get me that card. I also will just say that
Speaker 1: that Warren Buffett has a little came in with the
Speaker 1: story talking about you know you could he has obviously
Speaker 1: an impressive portfolio businesses. He could build any of them
Speaker 1: from scratch, except for am X, right, Like, you can't
Speaker 1: build AMEX from from scratch. That was Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joe Weber and Bloomberg News Finance team leader Sally
Speaker 1: Bake while on a resurgent American Express. Now, let's turn
Speaker 1: to a kind of payment that you don't want to
Speaker 1: be making, that is ransomware. According to a Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: story back in October, a senior White House official said
Speaker 1: the pace and sophistication of ransomware attacks is increasing faster
Speaker 1: than the nation's ability to keep up with disruption and
Speaker 1: recovery efforts. Thankfully, the US government is not alone in
Speaker 1: trying to slow this pervasive form of cyber crime. Dan
Speaker 1: Golden is a senior editor at pro public and a
Speaker 1: former Bloomberg colleague. His new book, The Ransomware Hunting Team,
Speaker 1: A Band of misfits and probable Crusade to save the
Speaker 1: World from cybercrime, shines a light on a ragtag group
Speaker 1: of computer experts trying to slow down the bad guys.
Speaker 1: Carol and I began by asking Dan about the impetus
Speaker 1: for writing the book. What happened was we had done
Speaker 1: a piece Renee, my co author, and I had done
Speaker 1: a piece uh in Pro PUBLICA about a guy named
Speaker 1: Michael Gillespie who was unknown to the world. He was
Speaker 1: a headhead, a tough life, poverty, cancer, never didn't go
Speaker 1: to college, and yet he was the world's greatest breaker
Speaker 1: of ransomware. Codes, saving many many people, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: at least, from paying hundreds of millions of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars in ransom. And then when we realized he was
Speaker 1: one member of this elite society, this group called the
Speaker 1: ransomware Hunting Team, that was essentially the world's most effective
Speaker 1: force against ransomware, UH, finding keys for victims they didn't
Speaker 1: have to pay, and yet not charging them a penny,
Speaker 1: we realized we had a great saga to tell. All right,
Speaker 1: So tell us a bit more, dig a little bit deeper,
Speaker 1: and tell us about this group of individuals, who they are,
Speaker 1: and you know what they are typically working on, because
Speaker 1: it sounds like we know we often report on ransomware
Speaker 1: cases kind of non stuff, and this has become a
Speaker 1: growing concern, growing problem, as TOI mentioned earlier. So take
Speaker 1: us a little deeper into the story. Well, this is
Speaker 1: a group of about a dozen uh brilliant, largely elf
Speaker 1: taught tech and coding experts across seven countries in the
Speaker 1: US and and and several European countries. And what they
Speaker 1: do is, UH, they crack ransomware code. So when ransomware
Speaker 1: is done properly, UH, it can't be broken and the
Speaker 1: victim either has to pay the ransom or have their
Speaker 1: systems disabled while they try and recover. But often the
Speaker 1: hackers make mistakes that they cut corners, they leave vulnerabilities,
Speaker 1: and the team is expert at finding these vulnerabilities, and
Speaker 1: when they do that, they can then uncover the key
Speaker 1: to unlock the files without paying the ransom. As you know,
Speaker 1: normally the hacker will demand millions or tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars and say without that, you won't get the key,
Speaker 1: but the hunting team provides it for free. More from
Speaker 1: our interview with Pro public A senior editor Dan Golden.
Speaker 1: Is straight ahead. He's gonna explain the motivation for a
Speaker 1: tech savvy volunteer group known as the Ransomware Hunters. When
Speaker 1: we come back. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. More now from our conversation with
Speaker 1: Dan Golden, the Pro public A senior editor and one
Speaker 1: time Bloomberg journalist has co authored a new book called
Speaker 1: The Ransomware Hunting Team, A Band of misfits and probable
Speaker 1: crusade to save the world from cybercrime. It centers on
Speaker 1: a group of volunteer computer experts trying to slow down
Speaker 1: what the Treasury Department says has evolved into a billion
Speaker 1: dollar Internet racket. Carol and I were curious why they're
Speaker 1: so dedicated to a cause without a direct financial incentive.
Speaker 1: They're very skilled at what they do. Their lives are
Speaker 1: on computer. They many of them have not met each other.
Speaker 1: They're very shy, retiring ilities, but they're they're brilliant, selfless people.
Speaker 1: What motivates them. I think that they regard the Internet
Speaker 1: as their world and computers as their world, and they
Speaker 1: want to protect and protect people. Gillespie, our main character,
Speaker 1: the fellow in Illinois that I described, he has come
Speaker 1: from a law enforcement background, and when he was a kid,
Speaker 1: his parents used to take him to the Superman statue
Speaker 1: there in Metropolis, Illinois, and he grew up with this
Speaker 1: just desire to protect people, protect the Internet. And uh
Speaker 1: and I think then also it's kind of an intellectual challenge.
Speaker 1: The bantering back and forth, the tactical interplay with the hackers.
Speaker 1: They love that kind of you know, cryptographic challenge. How
Speaker 1: did they all kind of get together, if you will,
Speaker 1: how did they become this band of individuals pursuing cybersecurity
Speaker 1: and fighting against ransomware. Well that one of them is
Speaker 1: named Lawrence Abrahams. He lives on Long Island, and he's
Speaker 1: the founder and main spirit behind a site called Bleeping Computer,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like the salon of the ransomware movement,
Speaker 1: you know, the ransomware world when everybody goes there, victims, hackers,
Speaker 1: law enforcement, insurance companies, and his his site predated ransomware,
Speaker 1: and when it started to become big, Lawrence recognized that
Speaker 1: it was a potential threat, and he had a lot
Speaker 1: of contacts in a lot of places, and he began
Speaker 1: organizing some of his friends and contacts to help fight it.
Speaker 1: And then now they take new members, you know, they
Speaker 1: had they have to have a unanimous vote, and if
Speaker 1: there's somebody they consider worthy, they'll bring that person in.
Speaker 1: But Lawrence was really the motivating spirit behind it. But
Speaker 1: so interesting to me is that this team is not
Speaker 1: law enforcement. Are the criminals two steps ahead of us?
Speaker 1: One step ahead of us? I mean, this has got
Speaker 1: to be something that concerns you. Yeah, the criminals are
Speaker 1: always one step ahead. It's a bit of a whack
Speaker 1: a mole situation, and in fact, in a strange way,
Speaker 1: the hunting team, who as you say, are just volunteers
Speaker 1: doing the best they can in a in an odd way,
Speaker 1: they kind of contribute to ransomware getting better because what
Speaker 1: happens is this, Let's say a victim is attacked, they
Speaker 1: upload the files that have been disabled to the hunting team.
Speaker 1: It looks at them, it discovers a mistake in the coding,
Speaker 1: It finds the key, it gives it to the victim.
Speaker 1: That victim and other victims then don't pay the ransom.
Speaker 1: So the hackers then discover, oh, you know, we're no
Speaker 1: money is coming in. Somebody must have cracked our code.
Speaker 1: There must be a flaw, and they go through and
Speaker 1: they fix that vulnerability, and the ransomware gets even better. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the hunting team has had all these wonderful
Speaker 1: short term successes, but in the long term they're they're
Speaker 1: almost like a product tester for the for the hackers,
Speaker 1: and so the ransomware gangs, the quality of their ransomware
Speaker 1: keeps getting better and better, and also their tactics keep
Speaker 1: getting more and more ominous. They're attacking bigger targets, they're
Speaker 1: demanding more money, and they're getting increasingly dangerous. That was
Speaker 1: Dan Golden. He's a senior editor at pro Public and
Speaker 1: the co author of a new book, The Ransomware Hunting Team,
Speaker 1: A band of misfits and probable you say, to save
Speaker 1: the world from cybercrime. It's out now, And that wraps
Speaker 1: up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. For Carol Master and
Speaker 1: Katie Greifeld, I'm Tim Stanovic. Be sure to tune into
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday. It starts at two
Speaker 1: pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also
Speaker 1: watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global
Speaker 1: News and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Business Week available on newsstands
Speaker 1: now at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Speaker 1: You can also see us on Bloomberg Quick Take available
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Speaker 1: Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have a great weekend everyone.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg