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Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. Hi,

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Speaker 1: this is Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters in Business

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I have a guest this week that

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Speaker 1: I'm really especially thrilled to have on because he's been

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Speaker 1: very influential um to me personally in my career. You'll

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Speaker 1: hear us talk about this, uh in great detail during

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Speaker 1: the podcast part. But Jim McCann as a person I

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Speaker 1: saw give a speech at a conference in the I

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Speaker 1: want to say mid to late nineties that was really

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Speaker 1: fascinating and informative. And he's just a great public speaker. Literally,

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Speaker 1: Public speaker of the Year might have been the year

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Speaker 1: I saw him UH terrific rock on tour, and I

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Speaker 1: remember seeing him speak and saying to a friend, that

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Speaker 1: looks like fun, I'd like to learn how to do that,

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Speaker 1: and O and behold. Some years later, I'm actually giving

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Speaker 1: a speech in Las Vegas about the book Bailout Nation,

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Speaker 1: and and lo and Behold. Later that day, I'm online

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Speaker 1: to get some food somewhere and they're standing right behind

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Speaker 1: me is Jim mccannon. It turned out he's a reader

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Speaker 1: of mine. He reads the blog for many years and

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Speaker 1: was kind of a little bit of a fan, and

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Speaker 1: we started chatting. It turns out we live a town

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Speaker 1: or two apart. We ended up going out to dinner

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Speaker 1: a couple of times. He's just a really, really interesting guy,

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Speaker 1: and he is extremely insightful in how to run a

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Speaker 1: small innovative business, how to motivate employees, how to just

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Speaker 1: keep some really interesting things happening with your business. And

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Speaker 1: you'll hear his approach to building a company was not

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Speaker 1: typical and very very successful. I find him to be

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Speaker 1: a fascinating guy. Find him to be a person who

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Speaker 1: I would hope to emulate eight some of his abilities

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Speaker 1: and successes both as a business person and a communicator.

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Speaker 1: But really interesting guy who does some fascinating things. That's

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Speaker 1: the bottom line. So, without further ado, here is my

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Speaker 1: interview with the founder and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers,

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Speaker 1: Jim McCann. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I am thrilled to have my special

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Speaker 1: guest here today. He is Jim McCann. He is the founder,

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Speaker 1: former CEO and current chairman. Is that correct, Flowers? I

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Speaker 1: didn't get the notice yet about the dismissal, but I'm

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Speaker 1: still the CEO. You are Apparently you and the board

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Speaker 1: of come to some of the brothers were talking to

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Speaker 1: me about this and he said, no, no, Jim, is

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Speaker 1: just the chance. I know you guys are up there.

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Speaker 1: Actually at the holiday party at your home, I think

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Speaker 1: we briefly discussed whether or not you're gonna become chairman

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Speaker 1: and give up the CEO. So that was sticking in

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Speaker 1: my head anyway. Jim is the founder and CEO of

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Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers, which is a company that has

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of first it's the first company to

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Speaker 1: have its name being eight hundred dial up number. You

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Speaker 1: were the first company, first retail company really that cut

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Speaker 1: a big deal with A O L. Back when they

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Speaker 1: were one of the biggest internet providers. They were the

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Speaker 1: comer at that time. I think the big internet provider

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Speaker 1: was Prodigy exactly. And it was a big decision for

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Speaker 1: Chris and I way back when Barry to decide do

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Speaker 1: we go with Prodigy? And Prodigy they had an office building,

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Speaker 1: they wore suits, they were owned by IBM and c

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Speaker 1: S and they were established. Where do we go with

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Speaker 1: this upstart UH called A O L. And the decision.

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Speaker 1: In your book you describe having a meal with them

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Speaker 1: where they couldn't even afford That's right, but there was

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Speaker 1: a decision based on people and and in that case

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Speaker 1: it was Steve Case and Leonsis. We knew to Chris

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Speaker 1: and I knew ted from other careers that he had had,

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Speaker 1: so after we met with them, even though I didn't

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Speaker 1: understand what Lloyd's name they were talking about, I just

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Speaker 1: made a bet on people, and so we went with

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Speaker 1: this startup A O L. And it was a very

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Speaker 1: fortuitous decision that that, by the way, is a theme

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Speaker 1: that I picked up throughout your book about making a

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Speaker 1: bet on people. Whether it's technology or what have you.

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Speaker 1: It's the people behind it that sell you on that process,

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Speaker 1: which I think we do that every day and all

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Speaker 1: our decisions. You've got to visit a doctor. You don't

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Speaker 1: know really how good they are, but if you feel

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Speaker 1: like they care and they have a nice manner about them,

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Speaker 1: you feel very good about them. I'd like to review

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Speaker 1: the board scores. You've got seventy questions seventy two wrong?

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Speaker 1: How did you miss that? I'm not surprised at your response. Well,

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Speaker 1: but it's you are a data driven fellow, I am,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes you have no choice but to rely a

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Speaker 1: little bit on your own instinct and you read of people.

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Speaker 1: The problem them that some of us run into is

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Speaker 1: that we're gullible and we believe what people listen. The

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Speaker 1: only reason I became kind of a data wank is

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Speaker 1: that I'm an idiot, and anytime somebody says something to me,

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Speaker 1: I believe it, and then I would go to the data.

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Speaker 1: Wait a second, that's not what the data. Now you

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Speaker 1: say global warming isn't happening. You look at the data.

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Speaker 1: You see global warming. It's lower left, upper right. That

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Speaker 1: was amazing when you pointed that out back a couple

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Speaker 1: of months ago, and you're on your blog. I said, wow,

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Speaker 1: that it's irrefutable data. It's only if you believe that

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Speaker 1: the n O A A, you know, or NASA. Right,

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Speaker 1: they're not they're not faking in. And and look, the

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Speaker 1: bottom line is what's gonna be is gonna be this this.

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Speaker 1: You know you and I were talking earlier. I have

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Speaker 1: a boat, I have too many cars. I'm the last

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Speaker 1: person in the world to lecture anybody about being green, right,

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Speaker 1: I'm not telling people, Oh, you shouldn't do this but

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Speaker 1: I am telling people, if we're going to discuss this,

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Speaker 1: at least let's be honest about the data to and

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Speaker 1: not pretend you may come to a decision that there's

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Speaker 1: nothing we could do anyway, it's too expensive, or we

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Speaker 1: can let technology figure out a way to fix it.

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Speaker 1: But it's amazing how few times data is the grounding

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Speaker 1: principle of our argument, our conversation. But and how many

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Speaker 1: times will say I don't care what the data says.

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Speaker 1: But now I noticed one of the things that I

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Speaker 1: read in your book is how significant data becomes to

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Speaker 1: running a large company that has a lot of far

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Speaker 1: flung locations, places, retail outlets. Tell us a little bit

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Speaker 1: about how you guys use data. Well, I would say

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Speaker 1: data is frankly more important to a smaller business. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We were chatting the difference between entrepreneurs and small business

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Speaker 1: people and how lots of times people confuse those things

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Speaker 1: in the multiple roles that small business people have to play. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But data, data is harder to get when you're a

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Speaker 1: small business. But I think much more important because the

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Speaker 1: consequence is your decisions are much more leveraged. Right it

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Speaker 1: does you can a big company can absorbs and they

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Speaker 1: have people who were gathering data for them. It may

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Speaker 1: not be the right data, but at least as data

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Speaker 1: are available. So now let's let's step back and take

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Speaker 1: a look a little bit about your background. I recall

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Speaker 1: reading you were in social services, You're working at the

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Speaker 1: St John's Home for Boys and moonlighting as a bartender,

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Speaker 1: and decided that one day a customer had come in

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Speaker 1: was selling his Flora's shop, and you said, yeah, I'd

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Speaker 1: like to try that. That's uh, that's pretty much the case.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you a little more around the angles there.

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Speaker 1: I've been very fortunate. I really only had two careers.

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Speaker 1: The first was in the Social services and that was

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Speaker 1: an accident that I got into that and h and

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Speaker 1: an accident in the sense that being an Irish Catholic

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Speaker 1: kid from South Queens, I had a genetic requirement to

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Speaker 1: be a bartender, but I don't count that as a career.

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Speaker 1: And working in neighborhood place. I had a guy who's

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Speaker 1: a friend who worked at this home for boys, and

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Speaker 1: I'd asked him about it all the time when he

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Speaker 1: came into the bar, and I just thought it was

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Speaker 1: really interesting work. And one night he said to me, cheez,

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Speaker 1: you ought to come visit us. He had a group

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Speaker 1: home with ten young men in it and said, you

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Speaker 1: ought to come visit us, have dinner with us one night.

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Speaker 1: Sounds to me like you have an interest in this work.

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Speaker 1: Well I did, and we had a great dinner together.

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Speaker 1: And after dinner he said to me, Geez, would you

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Speaker 1: like to give this work or try? I was going

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Speaker 1: to school part time, tending Bob part time, and I said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to give it a try. Bob, you flip

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Speaker 1: into keys and said, okay, you're on duty tonight, and

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Speaker 1: he left. And how you started literally how he started,

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Speaker 1: It's literally how I started. And it was a great

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Speaker 1: for a young man. I was just turning twenty one.

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Speaker 1: It was a great opportunity for me because look, I

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Speaker 1: learned so much more about myself living in a group

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Speaker 1: home with ten ten fellas ages fifteen to twenty years old. Uh,

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Speaker 1: then I could learn a hundred years of psychotherapy. It

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Speaker 1: was I mean, if if you were inconsistent in any way,

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Speaker 1: it would be pointed out to you. If you if

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Speaker 1: your left bicep was a quarter of bins smaller than

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Speaker 1: your right by sap, it would be pointed out to

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Speaker 1: you and there was nothing. This mirror was very unforgiven

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Speaker 1: and get away with anything with these kids could not.

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Speaker 1: We were talking about your experience essentially running a small

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Speaker 1: home for boys. How did that impact your subsequent management

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Speaker 1: style when you were running a substantially larger company. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's people. People think it's two completely different careers,

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Speaker 1: and I overlapped for ten years doing both, you know.

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Speaker 1: So I started my flower shop crew, as you mentioned, uh,

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Speaker 1: four years into my social service career. So for ten

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Speaker 1: years I did both. And it was I found after

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Speaker 1: a while that when I got better at my work

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Speaker 1: at St. John's, the tools I learned, the the method

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Speaker 1: methodologies I employed, those were the same things I was

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Speaker 1: doing in the group home as I was doing in

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Speaker 1: the office, dealing with people the way you deal with

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Speaker 1: in the group home. It was getting people who were

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Speaker 1: tough kids from tough backgrounds to realize that we had rules,

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Speaker 1: and we had rules because I cared about them, and

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Speaker 1: I was going to treat them all well, that I

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Speaker 1: really did care about them and uh, and that if

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Speaker 1: we worked to a common goal, that they'd be We'd

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Speaker 1: measure ourselves along the way. We'd set up some benchmarks

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Speaker 1: and some rewards. We try and make it fun, try

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Speaker 1: and make it interesting. We'd keep score and there'll be

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Speaker 1: a celebration if we hit our goal. That's the same

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Speaker 1: things we all do in the workplace every day. Here's

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Speaker 1: our goals. Let's let's measure ourselves, let's make it public,

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Speaker 1: let's keep track. Let's uh, let's set up rewards that

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Speaker 1: are intermittent along the way, and let's have a celebration

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Speaker 1: when we get to our victories. So the same things

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Speaker 1: I learned working in that group home with ten young

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Speaker 1: men are the same things I do in a workplace

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Speaker 1: every day, trying to get people to work together to

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Speaker 1: achieve more than they thought they could on their own.

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Speaker 1: Did you have any early mentors in either venue? Well,

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Speaker 1: certainly at St John's the isn't run by an order

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Speaker 1: of religious priests and brothers and rockaway beach and queens.

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Speaker 1: And the brother who ran the home as a mentor

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Speaker 1: of mine and was for many years, even beyond when

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Speaker 1: I stopped working in St. John's. But yeah, he was

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Speaker 1: a Mentor's name is Brother Tom. He's still he's still

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Speaker 1: in that work and a terrific guy. And he told

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Speaker 1: me a lot about organization and uh, I just quoted

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Speaker 1: him when someone said to me, we had We were

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Speaker 1: just talking about a time about a year or two ago.

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Speaker 1: My brother Chris and I were looking around. We had

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Speaker 1: about four or five projects and we had to pick

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Speaker 1: leaders for them, and I had to be sort of

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Speaker 1: a quick kind of thing, and we got done. Someone said,

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Speaker 1: did you realize that you just picked four young mothers? Oh? Really?

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Speaker 1: And we hadn't. And people here remembering this, and I

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Speaker 1: hadn't realized it, and he hadn't realized it. And so

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Speaker 1: one of them, name was Leslie, turned to his and said, well,

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Speaker 1: of course you did, because we don't have time for

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Speaker 1: the bs. We don't have time for stuff, you know.

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Speaker 1: We just gotta get it done. We gotta we gotta

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Speaker 1: get the kids out, we gotta get in the car.

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Speaker 1: We gotta make use of that time in the car

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Speaker 1: to get all work done. We don't have time for

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Speaker 1: nan to be organized. They have to be structured, and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of balls in the are at once.

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Speaker 1: And his quote was, if you want to get something done,

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Speaker 1: give it to a busy person, and if they're not busy,

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Speaker 1: it is a reason. So now let's talk about one

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Speaker 1: other aspect of your backgrounds how I first came to

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Speaker 1: know you, which was through public speaking. I was telling

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Speaker 1: the story not too long ago about a conference I attended,

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Speaker 1: and I want to say this was at Silicon Alley Insider.

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Speaker 1: It was all the way downtown and I saw you

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Speaker 1: speak to a room full of young tech entrepreneurs and

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Speaker 1: I remember thinking to myself, what the heck does anybody

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Speaker 1: who runs a floral shop know about young tech entrepreneurs

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Speaker 1: and venture investing? And you realize nothing, But but you

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Speaker 1: managed to craft a compelling story that you know, the

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Speaker 1: whole crowd was hanging on your every word. How did

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Speaker 1: that come about? So many of us of fear of

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Speaker 1: public speaking? And uh? And I you know it was

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Speaker 1: for me. It was a part of my ongoing recovery

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Speaker 1: from being a shy person. So as a kid, I

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Speaker 1: was a shy kid, but I grew out of it

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Speaker 1: and and trying to grow out of it. It was

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Speaker 1: confronting your fears. And when I got involved with the

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Speaker 1: Entrepreneury Year program back in, all of a sudden, you

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Speaker 1: had to be on stage a lot and be in

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Speaker 1: front of the public a lot, and I realized, Ay,

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge of it, and

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Speaker 1: I realized that I could be I could be pretty

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Speaker 1: good at it if I just didn't try to be

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Speaker 1: a public speaker, if I just told my story or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Stories make the point because people, hey, when you when

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Speaker 1: you're asked to give a talk, you really has to

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Speaker 1: entertain people. And if you come from genetic background, I

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Speaker 1: do humor as a part of our lives. And you know,

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Speaker 1: look at all the comedians who come from Long Island

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Speaker 1: barrier in front of mine just doing a a a

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Speaker 1: story on that for a newsday and now just doing

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Speaker 1: a little feature film on that. But when you come

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Speaker 1: from that background, you learn to use humor and your

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Speaker 1: real stories. You found out while this isn't very hard

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Speaker 1: because I would tell this around the dinner table. Now

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Speaker 1: I'm just telling it on stage. But they had to

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Speaker 1: entertain to make a point. And uh, and you don't

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Speaker 1: have to remember very much if you just tell a

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Speaker 1: story of what actually happened. Right, That's the old joke.

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Speaker 1: It's I tell the truth because it's so much easier

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Speaker 1: to keep track trying to keep the lie straight. And

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Speaker 1: what a wonderful thing here I am. Anytime I spoke

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Speaker 1: to an audience or anytime I do speak to an audience,

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Speaker 1: I'm speaking to customers or potential customers. You especially because

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Speaker 1: of the nature to business we're in, right you. You actually,

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Speaker 1: again back to your book, you say, every person I

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Speaker 1: meet is a potential who isn't going to buy flowers

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Speaker 1: over the next thing, some flowers or any kind of

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Speaker 1: a gift that we sell. So so for us, I

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Speaker 1: would say, wait a minute, people are gonna pay me

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Speaker 1: to come and get to know potential customers. This is

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Speaker 1: a pretty good idea. So that's how it came about.

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Speaker 1: So from doing the Entrepreneur of the Year group in

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Speaker 1: nine seven becoming Toastmaster of the Year. How does that

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Speaker 1: progression happen? Well, it went kind of quickly. I didn't

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Speaker 1: even know that had been nominated, and it continues today.

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Speaker 1: I mean the opportunities I have, you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: have time to do it as much as i'd like

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Speaker 1: to anymore, but the opportunity to be in front of

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Speaker 1: really interesting audience is now. I do it as favors.

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Speaker 1: I do it as a favor for a company of

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Speaker 1: trying to build a relationship with some good potential partner.

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Speaker 1: For us, I just did one for a big technology

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Speaker 1: partner of ours. I did their did their conference in

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Speaker 1: South Florida because it's a it's my currency that I

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Speaker 1: can invest to help build a relationship between our companies

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Speaker 1: that I think will be good for us and for them.

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Speaker 1: That's quite fascinating. So let's get back to the original

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Speaker 1: concept of conversation. And I'm pulling another quote of yours.

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Speaker 1: Conversation is the unsung supertool of human interaction. Explain that, Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it sounds so obvious that it's a toss away,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think it is. In a sense that

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Speaker 1: when we do what you do every day, and what

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Speaker 1: you do with this program is you get to know

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Speaker 1: some about it. You get to learn about them, you

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Speaker 1: get to learn about how they think, and you're imparting

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Speaker 1: that information to your audience in a way that's interesting,

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Speaker 1: that's informative, that's entertainment. But by the way, it's conversational.

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Speaker 1: And uh, and I think that too often we don't

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Speaker 1: realize that the conversational activities that we have every day, uh,

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Speaker 1: off a little nuggets of learning, off you research. We

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Speaker 1: were chatting recently about how long in an interview do

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Speaker 1: you have before you realize, Hey, this isn't gonna work out?

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Speaker 1: And how much is it? Before you had polite time.

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Speaker 1: You guys went public some years ago, and since that

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Speaker 1: time we've heard a lot of complaints from venture investors,

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Speaker 1: from some entrepreneurs, from some people running companies about the

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Speaker 1: burdens of running a public company. How how has running

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Speaker 1: a public firm treated you? Well, I can understand, you know,

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Speaker 1: lots of times people are going to see the burdens

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Speaker 1: of it, and it's like anything else's two edges to

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Speaker 1: the sword. We went public, as you say, very a

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Speaker 1: long time ago, gust. We were a floral and gift company.

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Speaker 1: We embraced the online world early, you know, first we

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Speaker 1: were first we went with a telephone when eight hundred

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Speaker 1: flowers is our primary access modality. And then just a

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Speaker 1: couple of years later, when my brother came into the business,

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Speaker 1: we went online and then then barely and it was

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Speaker 1: when Netscape came along, created the browser, organized the internet

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Speaker 1: and started to really matter to us then and by

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Speaker 1: nine we had one finance competitors from zero. Uh So

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Speaker 1: we were advised and we took the advice to get

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Speaker 1: public because we didn't know how long the fight was

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Speaker 1: going to be and whether or not we'd have enough

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Speaker 1: powder to do it on our own. So we in

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Speaker 1: public in August of ninety nine, just as the window

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Speaker 1: was closing on all of the dot com companies. So

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Speaker 1: we didn't realize it then, but it was. Yahoo missed

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Speaker 1: their earnings that morning for the first time, and the

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Speaker 1: market created We limped out. We did well. But the

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Speaker 1: good news is, although many banks advisers to dribble out

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Speaker 1: the I P O H. Just raise a little bit more,

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Speaker 1: now walk it up the ladder, we take everything we

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Speaker 1: needed to build out our business at one shot. So

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Speaker 1: that was very good advice. Goldman took us public. Lawrence

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Speaker 1: scout Cantall, a partner there still a friend, still a

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Speaker 1: board member, gave us that good advice. So while the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world was going crazy, we had all

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Speaker 1: the cash we needed. We built out our business. Those

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Speaker 1: twenty of those twenty one competitors disappeared and we were

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Speaker 1: in good shape. Uh from a business point of view.

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Speaker 1: So being public, well, there are days I'd rather I wasn't,

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Speaker 1: But net net the chance for us to share equity

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Speaker 1: with our employees. The credibility gives you the public relations

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Speaker 1: opportunities that gives you you also have access to capital UH,

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Speaker 1: and if you get to be a little bit larger,

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Speaker 1: you can use your currency. So for those reasons, but

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Speaker 1: mostly for the discipline that it imposes on us, it's

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Speaker 1: been a net good thing. That's a very interesting thing.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of currency. You recently did the largest acquisition UM

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Speaker 1: in company's history. Harry and David, that was your biggest

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Speaker 1: acquisitions so far. It's been our largest acquisition ever. It

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Speaker 1: was a four million dollar company. We acquired it on

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Speaker 1: September two thousand and fourteen. We just went through the

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Speaker 1: holiday season. It's a company, Verry, we've looked at four

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Speaker 1: times over the last twelve years. The stars finally aligned

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Speaker 1: for us. It was a good acquisition for us from

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Speaker 1: a timing point of view. We're in the same business.

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Speaker 1: We looked longingly at their capabilities and areas that we

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Speaker 1: weren't in. We were building our way towards categories that

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Speaker 1: they that they were in that we wanted to be in.

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Speaker 1: And so when they came available for sale and we

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Speaker 1: entered the process and it worked out that we were

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Speaker 1: able to acquire to what we hope was a good price.

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Speaker 1: UH twelve year twelve year ago, finally accomplished and they're

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Speaker 1: a great name brand. People know who they are and

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Speaker 1: that should should work nicely together. We've been in a

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Speaker 1: flower gifting business now for almost forty years and we've

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Speaker 1: been adding different food lines throughout the years. We have

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Speaker 1: a company called the Popcorn Factory. We have several of

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Speaker 1: different chocolate brands and the most well known Fannie Mae

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Speaker 1: and Fanny Farmer, Harry London. We have a bakery company

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Speaker 1: called Cheryls which does those great cookies. So we've been

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Speaker 1: adding to our food offering as our customers say we'd

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Speaker 1: like more food type gifts, and we had a big

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Speaker 1: overlapping customers between our one Flowers customers and Harry and

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Speaker 1: David customer base, so when it came available to it

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Speaker 1: was just a natural and they have so much untapped

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Speaker 1: potential for an eighty year old company. They have a

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Speaker 1: wonderful brand called wolf Aman's, which are the best English

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Speaker 1: style muffins you've ever had in your life. They're just fantastic.

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Speaker 1: I know, the the chocolate covered popcorn, Harmel chocolate popcorn,

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Speaker 1: the Moose Moose Munch, what a great product. I was

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Speaker 1: just doing research on it yesterday afternoon with my wife.

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Speaker 1: So let's let's bring it back to while we were

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Speaker 1: watching the uh the Grammy's Last Night the So, how

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Speaker 1: often does the stock price get in the way of

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Speaker 1: your long term planning? You know, a lot of people

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Speaker 1: use Amazon as an example. Hey, they don't care about profits.

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Speaker 1: They just keep building for the future, and Wall Street

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Speaker 1: has been really tolerant of it. Do you do you

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Speaker 1: have that same luxury? No, we don't. Very few companies

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Speaker 1: achieved that luxury. They frankly have earned it so far.

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Speaker 1: I think I heard Bill Gurley, who's a great venture capitalist,

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Speaker 1: baumer analyst, being interviewed on this network over a weekend

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Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago. Betty Lou was interviewing him,

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Speaker 1: and she I think she asked him about Amazon, and

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Speaker 1: he said, it's not a problem as long as it's

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Speaker 1: not a problem. In other words, as long as Wall

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Speaker 1: streets buying that there's a that they got the secret

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Speaker 1: sauce there, there's not an issue. But the moment they

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Speaker 1: start to doubt Amazon, they'll be an issue. I think

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Speaker 1: that's probably accurate. He knows a lot more about the

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Speaker 1: world than I do, but I think they've earned the currency.

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Speaker 1: With Wall Street, we aren't in the same position. We're

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Speaker 1: much more judge now by our earnings now. And uh,

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Speaker 1: but I'll tell you what, when it's going well. Our

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00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: stock has really performed well since the acquisition, people say, oh,

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Speaker 1: my lord, look at the synergies here. Uh, it feels good.

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Speaker 1: It's like a vote of confidence from Wall Street that

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Speaker 1: you've done something good. My guest today is the founder

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Speaker 1: and CEO of one eight hundred Flowers, Jim McCann. We

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Speaker 1: were talking about the acquisition you had done um with

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Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers taking over Barrian David. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about what you described as the four

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Speaker 1: waves that your company has gone through, and that was retail,

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Speaker 1: the eight hundred, eight hundred number Internet, and the fourth

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Speaker 1: one being what, well, the fourth one is one we're

429
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: going through right now, Marry. That is you know, we

430
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:47,520
Speaker 1: started with stores. We changed the name of our company

431
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:49,280
Speaker 1: to one eight hundred Flowers, changed the name of our

432
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,520
Speaker 1: stars to one eight hundred Flowers, which people thought was

433
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 1: really nuts. And then uh, and then having changed the

434
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,440
Speaker 1: industry by embracing this new eight hundred number concept, we uh.

435
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: As Andy Grove wrote, only the Paranoid survive. We were

436
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: paranoid about what the next emerging technology would be that

437
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,480
Speaker 1: might disrupt us. So that's why we were early to

438
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: the internet. Right now, I think the most exciting of

439
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: the four waves, uh, is the way that's crashing on

440
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 1: a beach now. And just like those beautiful waves out

441
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: on Jones Beach on Long Island are oftentimes three headed waves,

442
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: this one is too, and it's what we call it

443
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: is social, local, and mobile, and that three headed wave

444
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: is crashing on our beaches big time now. It's probably

445
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: the biggest of all those waves, and socially and certainly

446
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 1: having the most impact on us. And mobile is exaggerating everything. Uh.

447
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: You know, clearly, the smartphones we all carry now are

448
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: changing all of our lives. They no longer phones. There

449
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: their remote controls for the rest of our life, and

450
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: it's changing how we connect with one another, how we

451
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 1: express ourselves, and how we purchase anything. So it's we're

452
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 1: fortunate that we've been investing in mobile uh for a

453
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: lot of years now, and so that's why we're a

454
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: leader in the mobile space. We're a leader in the

455
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: social space because we sort of have it just part

456
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: of our culture now. And not accidentally, Barry that that

457
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 1: being early two things to new technologies as a part

458
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: of our d NA. Let's let's talk about social a minute,

459
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: because again, back to your book, there's a charming story

460
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,959
Speaker 1: about you writing an email to a number of people

461
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,880
Speaker 1: about what's going on in social or it wasn't even

462
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: cold social then, and you get a scathing response from

463
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 1: a new employee who essentially marked up your email and

464
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: corrected it and said, I completely disagree with you. You

465
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about. His name is Steve

466
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: lou and he wrote me this note back and I

467
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 1: went out, I knew where he sat and left my office.

468
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: He was a new employee, right, it was only there

469
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,879
Speaker 1: a couple of months, I think. So I go over

470
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: to him and I put it down on his desk.

471
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: I say, how dare you disagree with the CEO around here?

472
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,640
Speaker 1: And he's like, what the heck is going on here?

473
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: And he was like almost trembling, and I pad him

474
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: on the back. I said, Steve, I'm only again, And

475
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: I said, this is terrific. But I saw that more

476
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: is emblematic not just of social and the tools, but

477
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: of the new millennial generation in terms of how they

478
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: view their place, their ability to say things, their ability

479
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: to participate, and I saw that as a very good

480
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: sign for our culture, the kinds of people we were

481
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: hiring and the freedom of expression that they had. By

482
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: the way, he was right on everything. He corrected me

483
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: on so that. But he got you very involved in Facebook,

484
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: fairly or early for a commercial entity, very early, and

485
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: frankly so early. It was still uh it was still

486
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: only available to you if you had any du address.

487
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: And we I do these dinners all the time around

488
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: the shop, call what have you learned lately? Dinners? And

489
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: we invite you know, a dozen people to sit around

490
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: a table in a restaurant mostly uh I. Half the

491
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: people are going to be very new to the company.

492
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: Half are going to be from different different parts of

493
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 1: the company. And the idea is you're gonna come to dinner,

494
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to sing for us, up us,

495
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: what have you learned? Different? What's new? And one of

496
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,719
Speaker 1: those dinners early on, probably eight years nine years ago, UH,

497
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: young lady who just graduated from Hofster University on Long

498
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: Island was talking about how she spends her time on Facebook,

499
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:03,719
Speaker 1: and as the first I've ever heard of Facebook, so

500
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:05,239
Speaker 1: I asked her about it. The next day, I went

501
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: side of the desk, and because I didn't have an

502
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: E d U address, she showed me what she was

503
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: doing on Facebook, and I said, this is going to

504
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: be a big deal. And so that's how we got early,

505
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: early to Facebook. And that's I still do those dinners

506
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 1: and its still where I get to hear early things.

507
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: And now we've we've formalized that we have a We

508
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 1: took a group of people who are creative department, a

509
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: lot of young people, interesting piercings and tats and things,

510
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: and great talent, but eager for new knowledge. So I

511
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: asked them to officially be our trends team. And what

512
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: they do is are looking all the time what's new,

513
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: and they put it up on We use Google Plus

514
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: and our shop to gather all those trends and they

515
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: post them with their commentary on why this will be interesting,

516
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 1: how it's going to affect a lot of conversation over

517
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: this past weekend about Microsoft's new advisors, the focus UH

518
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 1: and about the new Oculus devices. Yes, yeah, so I

519
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: was reading all weekend long about all these people people

520
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: in our shop. So finally I said, I said to

521
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: the fellow who runs that department, about three months ago,

522
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 1: I said, who else is reading this? This is great

523
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: stuff coming from your team. And he said, well, you know,

524
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: just you and your brother and to or three other people.

525
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 1: I said, well, why do I share it with everybody?

526
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: We have ten thousand people work in a company. Why

527
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: don't we share it with Well, I'm telling you, it's

528
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,360
Speaker 1: so rich in content. Now it's almost like sipping out

529
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: of a fire hose. You can't keep up with all

530
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 1: the commentary. But and and now some of our employees

531
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: kids are commenting because they're at home. They're talking about

532
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: it at dinner. And the kid goes on and as

533
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: a post and says, why he thinks that the Rift

534
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: device is going to be way different than that just

535
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: six months from now. And you realize it's a fourteen

536
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: and a half year old kid from from Medford, Oregon

537
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: who's opening here and has some unbelievably insightful thoughts. That

538
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 1: that was my criticism of Steve Balmer, who used to

539
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: run Microsoft, who wouldn't let his kids use an Apple,

540
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:00,159
Speaker 1: iPod or Google Search. Hey, you're just cut off the

541
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: greatest research team in the world, your kids. Why would

542
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: you stop them from that? And that's the power of conversation.

543
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: Let's let's just get it going and you don't have

544
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: to have a research department. Your research department can be

545
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: your fourteen in fourteen and a half year old driver's

546
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: son who's opening on the conversation because he wants to

547
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: be a part of it. So, so we know what

548
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: you think about emerging technologies and how important they are

549
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: to entrepreneurs. Let's talk a little bit about competition. Now

550
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: you've outlasted a lot of your competition, but how do

551
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: you deal with someone fresh that comes into your space

552
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: and its potentially a threat to the company's bottom line. Well,

553
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: I think first and foremost is we were that person

554
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: one time. So we did disrupt FTD, who was you know,

555
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: had a market share, and now we're quite a bit

556
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: larger than they are. Uh So we have it in

557
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: our nature to understand that that can happen again. So

558
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: we take seriously all the competition and we use that

559
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: whole team of people. Is what are they doing? It's good,

560
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: Let's really look at it. Let's not just dismiss them

561
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: and well, wait a minute, we're already doing that. Maybe

562
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: we're not putting enough publicity on what we're doing that

563
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: people think it's so novel that that's the only thing

564
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: they do when it's one of so you have to

565
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: look at it as as good UH as they're all

566
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: going to be successful or going to get funded, And

567
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: you say, is there a lesson there for us? Or

568
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: should we be doing something we're doing differently, should we

569
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: be offering another alternative? And I think that's what keeps

570
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: us whole shop is that anyone can enter any of

571
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: our businesses. But if we're not, if we're not paying attention,

572
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: then someone can get a start. What about one of

573
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: the giants in the space suddenly deciding we want to

574
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: do flowers, like hypothetically Amazon, They have a huge footprints.

575
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: They could sell whatever they want if they decide they

576
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,959
Speaker 1: want that space they do. Amazon's a company we respect,

577
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: a great deal. We work with, We compete with and

578
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: UH and they've been in and out of our category

579
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: five or six times now and we work very closely

580
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: with them. We work a lot with the logistics people

581
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: in terms of delivery. We've been doing same day and

582
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: last mile for a long time, so we're collaborating all

583
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: the time. And if they're going to compete with us,

584
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: we have to be better than they are at what

585
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: we do, and so working with them is a good

586
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: way to keep them close. So your experts in in social,

587
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: your experts in local, what do you do with mobile?

588
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: I think the whole world is mobile. I think it

589
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: changes everything. Uh, and it's changed so fast it's incredible.

590
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: But it also exaggerates social. I remember back in two

591
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, you might have

592
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,239
Speaker 1: read about it. There's this little recession thing went on.

593
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: Um it was much younger than but you did predict it. Well.

594
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: There was that. There was a time when we had

595
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: to cut back. We got hit by the recession too,

596
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: and we found out, wow, we are a little bit

597
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: more ephemeral than we thought. And we had a first

598
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 1: time in thirty something years and we actually went backwards

599
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: a year. Did you have to let people off? We

600
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 1: did one time and it was painful and we didn't

601
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: want to do it again. And we also had but

602
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: we never were unprofitable, and we had to cut back

603
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 1: from eighteen different development projects to four. But when the

604
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: four was mobile, because we knew social and mobile, and

605
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: then some internal development projects for for technology, how to

606
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: go on because we were going to survive this, we

607
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: couldn't do all the development projects we want, but those

608
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: are the four that we had to continue. So we

609
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: invested in mobile right throughout that. And our job is

610
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: to be convenient. When a customer wants to express themselves

611
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: and connect to somebody important to them in their lives,

612
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: we have to be convenient. And what's more convenient than

613
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: a device it's on your on your belt or in

614
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: your pocket, whether you can access anytime seven to send

615
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,959
Speaker 1: anything anywhere around the world. So mobile is now the

616
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: primary driver of all of our business. So you say,

617
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: on your belt, that's how I know you're from Long

618
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: Island Because you walk through home depot. They're like hulsters.

619
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: You see people walking out right, So I wanna I

620
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: want to throw a quote back at you that I

621
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: found really interesting about entrepreneurs and small business owners. You

622
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: function as three people at once, an entrepreneur, a manager,

623
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: and a technician, all vying for time in the owner's

624
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: stress field day. The inevitable conflict is the primary reason

625
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: why most startups fail. And then you go on to

626
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: add entrepreneurs need to learn to fire themselves from some

627
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: of these duties. Explain that if you would, well, I'm

628
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: just thinking of all the mistakes I've made and continue

629
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: to make. But in the early days, the biggest mistake

630
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: I made was when I had my first flower shop.

631
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: I was the best designer. Can you imagine, I was

632
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: the best floral designer. I was the best sweeper. I

633
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: was the best uh window tremor. I was the best

634
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: delivery person. I was the best well first because I

635
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: was the only one. And then you know, but I

636
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: wanted to be good at all those things. It wasn't

637
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: until I broke the mold and said, I don't need

638
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: to be the first one in the morning the last

639
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: one every night, which I still do. Uh, but I

640
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: don't need to do that because I was just being

641
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: the best flower shop manager. And that was a waste

642
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: because I could hire someone who is actually better than

643
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: me at those things. And once I realized that I

644
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:56,959
Speaker 1: could hire people better than I could focus on the

645
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: things that only I could do. And the time I

646
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: look away from doing the things that only I could

647
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: do retarded my business. So for me, learning to get

648
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: out of the way and let other people do what

649
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: they can do well freed me up to do things

650
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: that only I could do, which are about growing the

651
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,719
Speaker 1: business and expanding the business. I've been speaking with Jim McCann,

652
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of One Flowers. We continue the conversation.

653
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: You can listen to the rest of it on either

654
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com or iTunes. You can check it out

655
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com or at

656
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 1: The Big Picture at Dholts dot com, or follow me

657
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Dhults. I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to

658
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast

659
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: portion of the show where we get to throw the

660
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: script away and just shoot the breeze a little bit.

661
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: That one actually went in the garbage. Um, So a

662
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: little background for people. Interesting where you hit that shot

663
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: into the garbage without even looking, without my Tumbo coming

664
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: and batting it away on you. So when I when

665
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: I picked up Jim on the sixth floor, a Kembe

666
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: Matumbo walks by. He's all of seven foot something by here.

667
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: A few times he's you can I don't know how

668
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: you recognize. We can't see his face over the So

669
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: a little background I mentioned I alluded to in our

670
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: earlier conversation. The first time I saw you speak was

671
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: at Silicon Alley inside and do you remember who the

672
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: big star that day was all right. So I remember

673
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: Deb Solomon, who was a woman I knew who was

674
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: doing um pipes and working with a lot of small companies,

675
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: is the one who said you should come to this event.

676
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,359
Speaker 1: So she dragged me there. She may have been the

677
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: only woman in the whole room. That's right. It was

678
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: all the way downtown and it was um. It was

679
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: like you know, flies to honey. It was incredible. I'm like,

680
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: you go through this every time you go to an event,

681
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: just like swatting these guys away. It was crazy. And

682
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: then we saw you speak and I turned to her

683
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: afterwards and said that looks like fun. I'd like to

684
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: do that. She's like, go ahead, No, no, I'm not

685
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: asking your permission. I'm just saying, that's really cool to

686
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: step up, stand up in front of a room of

687
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand people, and over the course of thirty minutes,

688
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: regale them with a story that entertains, elucidates, provide some information,

689
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: and then sends them off to either forget about it

690
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: or or act on it. It was really intriguing. And

691
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: then I don't know if you recall the next time

692
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: we bumped into each other. Was that the Scarbridge event.

693
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: That's Salt conference, which our mutual friend Anthony Scaramucci puts on.

694
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: I'm online that So it was at the Bellaggio, which

695
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: is huge. The pool, the whole area around the pool

696
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: is the mass. Right. They rope it off. You needed

697
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: your your ID tag to get in, and they had

698
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: this massive barbecue. And I'm standing online afterwards. I'll tell

699
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: you a story about Tim Seymour that's hilarious, but I

700
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: won't tell it on the air. But um, I'm on

701
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: the I'm online to get some food and I hear

702
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,800
Speaker 1: a voice behind me, and I go, I know that voice,

703
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,280
Speaker 1: And I turned around and I had done a panel

704
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: actually on Bailout Nation with Austin Goulsby, the gentleman who

705
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: was a congressman whose name I couldn't remember. I just

706
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 1: remember he went on way too long, and Asby who

707
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: worked for President Obama in his back at the University

708
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Right he was the chairman of the Council

709
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: of Economic Advisors. There was a congressman who I recall

710
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: took a breath in the middle of a long diet

711
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: tribe and I requested with the congressman from Oklahoma yield

712
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: the floor and the filibus board was it No, No,

713
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: that was the other one. He was from Tennessee. There

714
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: was the older gentleman with the shock of white hair,

715
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: hefty guy who who was on I think the Financial

716
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,919
Speaker 1: Crisis Investigation Committee. By the way, I love being the

717
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: lightest weight person. Meaning in terms of resume on a panel,

718
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: it means I fooled somebody that I ended up on

719
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: a panel. I'm like, I don't belong here. I wrote

720
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: a book, I I have not. These guys are real

721
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: serious guys. The fact that I got here is is

722
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,919
Speaker 1: either good fortune or or I fooled somebody. But that's

723
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 1: where I um. That's where we bumped into each other.

724
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: And we started chatting at that event, and I couldn't

725
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,399
Speaker 1: believe that I didn't connect that I was reading your

726
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: blog all the time at that time, and then I

727
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: knew you. I didn't connect the name of the blog

728
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: with you. And it was like a huge revelation for

729
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: us when we're sitting there, choweling down in a on

730
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: a cluster of some couches there right in what seemed

731
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 1: like decadent world. Well, anytime you go to Vegas, it

732
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: is decadent world. There was no respect for money out there.

733
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: There's no respect for what a great conference has become.

734
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: It's monstrous, it's huge. What I remember about the Blaggio

735
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: this is a true story. So I spend a lot

736
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: of time doing research into behavioral issues and psychology of investing.

737
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: And the Blaggio was famous for having a pair of

738
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: monies in the lobby. And these now go for thirty

739
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: million dollars each and I, you know, there's like a

740
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 1: lot receiving line to go see them is actually paid

741
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 1: to go. Look. Oh no, you you go, You just

742
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: walk up. All you have to do is lose enough

743
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: money that so I'm admission. So I'm behind these two

744
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: big tourists that have a little bit of an accent,

745
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: and I'm watching the two of them look at this,

746
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: and the husband says to the wife, come on, honey,

747
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: let's let's go in the casino and win ourselves the

748
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: mone and um, I remember thinking myself, no, you have

749
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: it backwards. They have the money because you're not gonna win.

750
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: You gotta understand. There's a reason why it's on the wall.

751
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: It's talking about data that's pretty firm evidence. Hey, forty

752
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: million dollars hanging on the wall behind glass. They have

753
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: to be doing something, and that includes not paying you

754
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: a lot of money in the in the casino. But

755
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: I found that that conference was a boatload of fun.

756
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: It's um filled with hedge fund managers and others. Um

757
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 1: the letter. That year was the year I actually saw

758
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:21,919
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, after his bypass surgery, walk into a very

759
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: hostile room of three thousand hedge fund managers who were

760
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,280
Speaker 1: all not fans of his. It was like the golf applause.

761
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: He walked out to a like the definition of a smattering.

762
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: Later he walked out to a standing ovation, and if

763
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: he would have asked for money, they would have broken out.

764
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 1: I remember saying to myself, Oh, that's how that guy

765
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: became president. If he said I need ten thousand mills

766
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: from each of you, he would have walked out of

767
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: there with andrew million dollars like that. He no notes,

768
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: He's completely extemporaneously had a conversation and then the Q

769
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: and A whatever was asked. He knew this stuff dead

770
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: to right. So much details. He's amazing, And we're gonna

771
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: see a lot more on them again pretty soon, anythink,

772
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: probably in the next in the next election. Although um

773
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 1: our mutual friend Scaramucci. I think he at one point

774
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: in time was a fan. I don't think so anymore. Well,

775
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: he was a big order from last time. I think

776
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: he was an Obama supporter, lost faith and then became

777
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: a Ronnie Sport. Will be interesting to see what what

778
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: happens with this. So aside from the SULT conference, what

779
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: other events like that do you end up going to?

780
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: Not A lot is one that I'm going to coming

781
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: up soon that Allen and Company puts on out in Arizona.

782
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 1: That is uh. It started as a small and MidCap conference,

783
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:45,439
Speaker 1: but it's now been taken over by the technology folks. Uh.

784
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: So it's a big Silicon Valley crowd, but I find

785
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: it to be very stimulating. They run an amazing event

786
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: and it's not a lot of people, but you get

787
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 1: to hang out for a few days in the desert

788
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 1: down the north of Tucson, uh, down a Dove Mountain,

789
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: a rich Calton on that and the conversations are all

790
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: unbelievably stimulating. I remember sitting, uh i'd say two years

791
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: ago at lunch with Alex Rampel, who created trial pay

792
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:15,320
Speaker 1: and Max Levchin, who's the prince of payments in Silicon Valley.

793
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: UH Max created a company called Slides, sold it to

794
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: uh Facebook and other company sold to Google. He became

795
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: Google CTO for about six months and said I don't

796
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: belong in corporate. I start companies. And he left there

797
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 1: and then the launched Yelp and uh and now he's

798
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: got a new company. So I'm sitting there at lunch

799
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: and then we we had it just came from a

800
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: great presentation on everything mobile and he said to me,

801
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: how importantly think mobile would be for you? So I

802
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: told them and and he said it's massive, massive, and

803
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: uh he said what's the big return? And I said, well, geez,

804
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: I'd like there's a whole audience of teenagers who were

805
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: carrying mobile devices and if they don't have a credit card,

806
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: they can't be a customer of mine. So he started

807
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: sketching on an envelope assume me on the back of

808
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: a place. Matt an idea for a business plan. Now

809
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: we which he launched about a year and a half ago.

810
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: But I watched him created on this on this so

811
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: you got, we got, we invested. We did, and it's

812
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: company called The Firm and it uses social media to

813
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,359
Speaker 1: make a credit decision. So he said, So, if someone

814
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: presses a button on a mobile device that they want

815
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: to buy from you, how do you confirm with the

816
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: credit that put it in? Now you don't have to

817
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: do that. They just said, you want to you want

818
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: to pay through a firm, and an algorithm doesn't computing.

819
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: What they look at is what's your behavior in social media,

820
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:35,919
Speaker 1: what are your friends behavior in social media? What kinds

821
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 1: of interactions, what's the qualitating interactions? And this algorithm that

822
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:43,359
Speaker 1: he wrote can make that determination sub second and then

823
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: take care of the building information later on. So it's

824
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 1: opening a whole new world of customers. And they're not

825
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,760
Speaker 1: using traditional scoring data at all. They only using social

826
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 1: profile bare. So the thought process of who's going to

827
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 1: go through the process of faking cre in an entire

828
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: social profile and behaving and having people interact with them.

829
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 1: That sounds really difficult to ford to save a bouquet, right,

830
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 1: do you think about You could create that with bots,

831
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 1: but you should be able to tell what's real and

832
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: what's fake. That's amazing. But but to see we were

833
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: sitting in the same conference, listening to the same speakers

834
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: and just to see how their minds work. It's an

835
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: example of why I locked like that event because you're

836
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: with people who think differently and think openly and open systems,

837
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 1: and it's just a stimulating to ask you a question.

838
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: You run a business, why can't you sell to teenagers? What?

839
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: What do you need? That that's really tremendously in The

840
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 1: question is really insightful, as is the answer. You know,

841
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: I go to this conference every other year in San Diego,

842
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: just because it's overwhelming to go every year. And it's

843
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,359
Speaker 1: a bunch of literally kids in college and all their

844
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: new projects that they want to have funded and they

845
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:59,240
Speaker 1: want to and you cannot go to one of these events.

846
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:01,880
Speaker 1: And I remmember being there, right, And you mentioned the

847
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 1: Great Recession, right in the middle of the Great Recession,

848
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 1: and you come out of that thinking, I don't care

849
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: how bad the economy is, There's no way we have

850
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 1: a bleak future. What's coming out of these kids. Look,

851
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm a churmudgeon, I'm a skeptic. I'm not you're not.

852
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to confuse me for a happy, go lucky cheerleader.

853
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: But you go to one of these events and you

854
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: look at the new technologies coming along, you can't walk

855
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: out saying, well, you know, we might have screwed it up.

856
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: They got a better shot at running the country than

857
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,439
Speaker 1: we did. It's it's that sort of optimism. And all

858
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: you want to say is, let's make sure we don't

859
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:40,840
Speaker 1: screw up that flow, that creativity. Let's not narrow the

860
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 1: broadband availability, let's not put any rules up. The only

861
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,400
Speaker 1: way that the Internet has had such a big impact

862
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: on the lives. And we'll continue too because we know rules. Well.

863
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: The last bit of administrative announcements about the Internet very

864
00:44:57,080 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: much was pretty much what the big tech companies were

865
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: looking for, which is you can selectively um retard broadband.

866
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: That's right, and I think that's gonna be huge. You know,

867
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: you don't realize how so many of the companies that

868
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 1: exist today, think YouTube and Facebook and go down the list,

869
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:19,919
Speaker 1: how they built on what came before. And the only

870
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: reason they were capable of doing that is there was

871
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 1: zero restrictions and never ending increases in bandwidth. Well, you know,

872
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: the first time at this conference that I go do

873
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: I heard it was less than six months old, Airbnb present.

874
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,280
Speaker 1: And you hear that, and then you see also probably

875
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: within its first three or four months of birth, I

876
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: saw them present was Uber so you see companies like that,

877
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 1: and you say to yourself, you could never have been there,

878
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: you Barry Ridholts, who never could been there at the

879
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: start of those companies because you have a law degree,

880
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: and those companies could not have been born if there

881
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: was someone in the room who was a lawyer, because

882
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: they would have tell you, oh, that's not impossible. The

883
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: insurance exposure to risk, and they went ahead and plowed ahead.

884
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: And now these companies are reshaping how we think about

885
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: stuff and about transportation. Well, let me tell you something

886
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: that a very wise man one said to me, which is,

887
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: whenever anybody says never, say why never, why not, let's

888
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: let's let's try it. Let's see what happens never. And

889
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 1: from a stock and investing perspective, I can't tell you

890
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: how many times I've had a conversation with someone about

891
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: a given stock or a sector and when the response is, oh,

892
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 1: why would anyone want to own that? Piece of that? Terrible?

893
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: So what's so of the iPod? Is the new Sony

894
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: Walkman Apple is toast? They're done. Whenever you get that response,

895
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: that never response, he usually means that there's a lot

896
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: of negative stuff already worked into the stock price. Something

897
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 1: I've heard you say before, though, is the best ideas

898
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 1: that you've heard of the first time you heard of them,

899
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 1: you thought were a joke. Oh yeah, absolutely, So stop

900
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: and think about Uber right as an example. So not

901
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 1: I just actually had a debate with someone about this

902
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: and it's it's a whole long conversation. But what Uber

903
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,879
Speaker 1: did that was fascinating was identify a market where there

904
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: was a limit of competition, almost a monopoly limit, posed

905
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,919
Speaker 1: by some regulatory scheme. So here in New York City

906
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: we have the Taxi Limousine Commission and they get to

907
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: set a limit on how many medallion cabs there were,

908
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: which at one point in time we're worth a million

909
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: plus dollars. Since Uber and Lift came to town, oh

910
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: they've dropped and every city they go to they end

911
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: up impacting whatever the restriction is. So I like to

912
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 1: use the New York City cabs because they're so awful

913
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: as an example. But stop and think about it. There's

914
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: there's rarely a cab when you really want one. The

915
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: second it starts to reign, the supply is immediately gone.

916
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: You can't you can't get one. And because there's not

917
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: true competition, the cab industry has decided, you know what,

918
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 1: even though it's rush hour, we're gonna turn the shifts

919
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,919
Speaker 1: over at five o'clock, seven, five o'clock. Sorry, I gotta

920
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: go back to Queens or the Bronx to swap drivers. No,

921
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: it's rush hour, pick people up and take them places.

922
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: You could. You could do it at four o'clock. You

923
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 1: could do it at eight o'clock. Five o'clock is right out.

924
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: Make it midnight to noon. Pick some rational five. You

925
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: couldn't pick a worse time. And the only reason they

926
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:34,800
Speaker 1: get away with that is there wasn't true competition. Uber

927
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: has forced that competition. So let me ask you a question.

928
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: Since you're always looking at technology and always looking forward,

929
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: what other industries might be ripe for that sort of

930
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: artificial restriction of supply being broken? Well, I I think

931
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 1: I think when you look at Uber, it's clearly not

932
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: going to stay in the transportation space. The technology to

933
00:48:57,600 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 1: concept works in all different kinds of spaces. Read in

934
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: all article over the weekend UH by fellow uh Reid

935
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 1: Hoffman sent out a list of things here from from

936
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:07,760
Speaker 1: LinkedIn sent out a list of things he'd read recently

937
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: over the weekend. UH and one of the articles I

938
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: read that he pointed out was about the uh not

939
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: the blue collar workforce, not the white collar workforce, but

940
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 1: the collar is workforce, and that is using Uber like technology,

941
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,399
Speaker 1: that you're gonna have a world of independent producers all

942
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: carrying their own badge, which is their rating and their

943
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 1: list of capabilities and its transparency and UH and and

944
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: customer comment their own ratings, and you can have all

945
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: these people task grabbing kind of people. They're driving Uber

946
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: four hours, they're doing errands this other hour, they're a repairment,

947
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:42,799
Speaker 1: and so they're selling their skills in a very efficient,

948
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: frictionless kind of marketplace. So I think if you look

949
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: at that, that's going to happen to a lot of industries. Uh.

950
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: You know why can't And you're starting to see it

951
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: now in pet care. You know, if why do I

952
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: have to take my dog to a kennel that I'm

953
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: a little concerned about with with a message board, I

954
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: can find out who in the community does it in

955
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: their home with maybe only two dogs and has a

956
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 1: great rating from their customers because they really do care

957
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:09,839
Speaker 1: for the dogs and they take great care of them,

958
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: and it's in a home setting. Isn't that something? So

959
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: I would say, if I'm a kennel operate, I'm gonna

960
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 1: have a little bit more concerned as this could start

961
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: to erode my business where I'm competing with everybody else

962
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood as they should. We haven't put a

963
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: dog in the kennel and since the first time he

964
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,759
Speaker 1: came back with cannel cough, that was it. There you go.

965
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: So you're you're you know, no, you're gonna get thirty

966
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,319
Speaker 1: or forty dogs and you know everybody's had their shots. Um.

967
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 1: We also, and I don't know if you do this,

968
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: we also find someone from the vets office who wants

969
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: the house hits. So this way the dogs are where

970
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: they are. It's but I love the idea that technology

971
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 1: is enabling just a disruption of industries that aren't really

972
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,800
Speaker 1: servicing their clients. All well, what might and we didn't

973
00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: know that, we weren't a shrug it. Look, I'm waiting

974
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 1: for the airlines to get disrupted. You we tolerate so

975
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: much nonsense when we flot you fly a decent amount.

976
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 1: I fly all over the country. You kind of just

977
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: grit your teeth and bear with it. Or you could

978
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,720
Speaker 1: pay ten thousand dollars and and do a net jets

979
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:18,280
Speaker 1: or one of those and fly a couple of times.

980
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: But unless you're gonna pay, and why barely steep dollar amounts.

981
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 1: I guess it's not something popular to talk about, but

982
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 1: that the whole private jet industry is not quite been

983
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: uberized yet, but it will be. It will be. There's

984
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: a company called Blade Yes, that's trying to uberize helicopter

985
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 1: travel from New York City to the Hamptons or New

986
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 1: York City to the airport. So not quite a full

987
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: on uber it's it's aiming at a real narrow slice.

988
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: So in your business, are you worried about being uberized?

989
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: Are you concerned that someone could come along and disrupt

990
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: floral delivery the way you did? I'd say yes and no.

991
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 1: The yes is yes, we watch for everything that we

992
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: think can be disruptive. The no is I think what

993
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,720
Speaker 1: we see is this more opportunity. So we've been crowdsourcing

994
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 1: deliveries for forty years. That is, Uncle Joe, if he

995
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: wants to be invited for Thanksgiving dinner, is going to

996
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: be at our shop and take a personal day from

997
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: IBM on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, to help us do

998
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: our deliveries. Well that's sort of crowdsourcing our deliveries. But

999
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: now the ability to use that technology. What I get

1000
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: excited about is we have these floorists all over the

1001
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 1: country who are part of our network. You know what

1002
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: a shame on us, But grub hub gets busy about

1003
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: six o'clock at night, When do all our trucks come

1004
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: back and get put down for the night? Put away

1005
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: from the evening six o'clock. We have this fleet, what

1006
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: else can we do with it to serve our customers,

1007
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: to serve our florists, to leverage assets. We already have

1008
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: it and paid for, so we spend more time thinking

1009
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: about what can we do to disrupt ourselves? What can

1010
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: we do to serve our customers? Differently, what can we

1011
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: do to serve So if we're in if we have

1012
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 1: the end cap in a shopping center in uh in

1013
00:52:56,040 --> 00:53:00,439
Speaker 1: Sioux City, Iowa, and we'en cap being the in cap

1014
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: of retail store, so you're the last. So we have

1015
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: a franchise e in the last beautiful two thousand square

1016
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 1: foot flower shop there and he's got three trucks. And

1017
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: then there's a dry cleaner who has a truck that

1018
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: he uses once or twice a day, and then the

1019
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: food shop doesn't have a truck because it doesn't really deliver.

1020
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: So my conversation with that franchise he recently was what

1021
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: if we look differently about having those trucks on the road,

1022
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 1: what do we do service the whole center and became

1023
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: the delivery operation. Same number trucks, same number drivers. We're

1024
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: just gonna be much more efficient now, and that rolling

1025
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: inventory of media, of inventory of those trucks, that will

1026
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 1: be much more president in those communities now. And there's

1027
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: a new revenue source for us. So we're starting how

1028
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: do we disrupt ourselves? That's really quite fascinating. Let me

1029
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: shift gears on you and let's talk a little bit

1030
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: of baseball. So you are a is that right? I'm

1031
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 1: a small owner, a small investor in the New York Mets, right,

1032
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: So let me do we want to start talking about

1033
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: the pitching the hitting? Where do we want to begin

1034
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: our list of complaints? Well, not complaints, Let's look about

1035
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: how exciting this is now. Next week is pitches and catches,

1036
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 1: but who's counting? And we're going to have a fellow

1037
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: by the name A Wheeler, a fellow by the name

1038
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 1: of Harvey to Grum the Rookie of the year. Returning

1039
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:22,880
Speaker 1: veterans like nice and uh uh g, what an exciting

1040
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 1: spring this is going to be for us. How did

1041
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: you ever find your way into the Mets ownership? Well, uh,

1042
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 1: been friends for a long time. My wife Marilyn and

1043
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: I have been friends for a long time with Fred

1044
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: and Judy. Will pond this on Jeff and when they

1045
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: went through their challenges, obviously post Bernie made off that

1046
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: persona made off problems that they confronted. There, you know,

1047
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 1: obviously we're close, so we're gonna be talking about it.

1048
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:51,000
Speaker 1: And uh, we were helping him. I was helping him

1049
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: think through his alternatives to whatever extent I could. And then, uh,

1050
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: finally when they decided to syndicate the team, Fred invited

1051
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:01,279
Speaker 1: me to think about says, I know how much you

1052
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 1: love the team and how how close you and I

1053
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 1: r B. I'd be thrilled to heavies to partner. So

1054
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful phone call to get one. That's

1055
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:10,719
Speaker 1: been great fun for my family that I can imagine.

1056
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: I know a number of people, including David Iinhorn was

1057
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: hoping to pick up some or all of the Mets

1058
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 1: and the Wilpons managed to um. Some people said they

1059
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 1: pulled a rabbit of the hat. It looked like they

1060
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: just did some pretty basic blocking and tackling, not to

1061
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: mix sports metaphors, to basically unwind that that mess that

1062
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:34,720
Speaker 1: and now they're good for them. They're a good family

1063
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: and they're back on top and UH, and they're very

1064
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: excited about spring. We're just chatting UH on Friday about

1065
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 1: the dates we're gonna be together down at spring training,

1066
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 1: you know. And I can bring my two grown sons

1067
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: down and we can spend the weekend just talk baseball

1068
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:53,120
Speaker 1: and watch the players train and sitne stands and watch

1069
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:55,760
Speaker 1: a game. It's such good clean fund for a family.

1070
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,400
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have grown sons who have

1071
00:55:57,440 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: their own families now, or one of the two have

1072
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 1: started his own family, when you can get time away

1073
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 1: like that, it's just sort of like a whole renewal

1074
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: ritual and the whole rebonding. When you get back and

1075
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 1: you're at the airport and you're go in three different

1076
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:11,320
Speaker 1: ways and you say that, how is a good weekend?

1077
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 1: They give you a hug and say, no, Dad, this

1078
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: was a great weekend. You say, baseball has been verty

1079
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:18,839
Speaker 1: verty good to me. So the Mets have always been

1080
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: in the shadows of the famous New York Yankees. That's right,

1081
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: and we played one another twice this year. Serious, but

1082
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 1: it looks when you look at the prospects of the team.

1083
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 1: We have Jeta retiring, we have a number of very

1084
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: well known people on the Yankees a little past their

1085
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: sell by date. Are we actually looking at a possibility

1086
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:45,720
Speaker 1: of the Mets significantly outperforming what the New York Yankees

1087
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: can do? I think what the Mets are gonna do

1088
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: is they're going to outperform what they've done in the past. Well,

1089
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: but now you're setting the bar very love. And I

1090
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: say this, by the way, I say this as a

1091
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:56,360
Speaker 1: long suffering New York Mets I know, I know. So

1092
00:56:56,640 --> 00:57:00,280
Speaker 1: it's we improved our win record last year by five games.

1093
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 1: We had the gold Glover of the Year in center

1094
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,800
Speaker 1: field who came out of the system, and one La Garris.

1095
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 1: You had the rookie of the year out of your

1096
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: farm system, and you're pitching, which you've got in a trade,

1097
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 1: by the way, a thoughtful trade and trading away are

1098
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: a Dickey. So you had good things to come there.

1099
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 1: So you had Rookie of the Year, you had the

1100
00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: center Fielder of the Year, you had development of other

1101
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 1: kids coming up, Like hitting is gonna be weird challenge.

1102
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: But I think I think David Wright is going to

1103
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:30,280
Speaker 1: have a better year. He's going to be healthy this year.

1104
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 1: Grandison had a pretty okay year last year, not as

1105
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: bad as people said. But I think it's gonna be

1106
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 1: a very good year this year. The dimensions are now

1107
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 1: back to Shay Stadium dimensions now in the new City Field.

1108
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:43,880
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something, and I know everybody always

1109
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: raves about Yankee Stadium. I've been to both stadiums, both nice,

1110
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: both different, more comfortable. City Field is much more comfortable.

1111
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 1: The food is the Yankee Stadium is a stadium that concrete.

1112
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. No, listen, it's Yankee Stadium. Don't get

1113
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:04,640
Speaker 1: me wrong. Shay Stadium, the Mets Stadium was always the

1114
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 1: weaker system. Now it's as nice. If it's nice, wholate

1115
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: They're both nice, very different. You're very diplomatic, you know.

1116
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:16,440
Speaker 1: I That's how I feel. I I feel I really

1117
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 1: like City Field. I think very Can I tell you

1118
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 1: they did a burgers are very good. Well, they just

1119
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,120
Speaker 1: won public and the food is as far as fast

1120
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: food goes, that's gonna be your best burger. I saw

1121
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: the it was it might have been the first concert.

1122
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: Um I think it was the first concert after it opened,

1123
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 1: because he had said on stage that they were the

1124
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 1: last concert ever at Shay. It was Paul McCartin and um.

1125
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: So beforehand we were hanging out and one of the

1126
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: lounges I forgot which one it was. They all have

1127
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 1: different names. The space was fantastic and it was a

1128
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:54,480
Speaker 1: great place to see a show. It was just a

1129
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,040
Speaker 1: I came away saying, I gotta go see a ball

1130
00:58:57,080 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: game here because this was really so much fun and

1131
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 1: used to by the way the old Schase Stadium if

1132
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:07,440
Speaker 1: you were unless you were behind first play home plate,

1133
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 1: the way the stadium was shaped, and how long and

1134
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 1: flat the bleachers were off of from your a long

1135
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 1: way from the field. You were thousands of miles away.

1136
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 1: The feld there is there's almost like there's no bad

1137
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: seats in the stadium, and there's a lot fewer seats

1138
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 1: on really that explains why there were no so you

1139
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:30,959
Speaker 1: got rid of the sixteenth that well back then half

1140
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 1: the seats were terrible, but but this is just look,

1141
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium is a cathedral. That's right. This is just

1142
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: a fast once a stadium. Win's a field, I think

1143
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: it says at all, and that's that's exactly right. But

1144
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fun time in that field this year.

1145
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 1: Uh to say the least that any blockbuster trades coming up,

1146
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: any thoughts of I don't you know, to see the

1147
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 1: nature of the team away has been built and I

1148
00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 1: think Sandy Oldison's and his team have done a remarkable

1149
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: job of saying, look, we have a game plan, we're

1150
01:00:02,400 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 1: gonna stick to it. And they have and all these

1151
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:06,560
Speaker 1: young people coming up are coming up through the system.

1152
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 1: And by the way, the system is the healthiest it's

1153
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 1: ever been. Uh if the minor league performance best of

1154
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 1: any team in baseball. Uh number of wins, strikeout ratios,

1155
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 1: every way you measure. They've really stepped up in a

1156
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:20,919
Speaker 1: money bowl? Guy, do you like very much? Very much,

1157
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 1: very much? And uh? Because Sandy introduced that out in

1158
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:27,240
Speaker 1: Oakland many years ago and taken to other levels by

1159
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 1: other people. But Sandy his team to say, as an example, yeah,

1160
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: well Boston they moved away from it a little bit,

1161
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,840
Speaker 1: but certainly every team now has embraced every team. So

1162
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 1: Sandy has had a huge impact on the game, and

1163
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: we think a huge impact on the Mets. So why

1164
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 1: don't we um, I know you have places to go.

1165
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep you too much longer. Why

1166
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:48,240
Speaker 1: don't we um leave it at that that we're gonna

1167
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 1: actually theoretically have a plus five hundred winning season for

1168
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: the Mets this year. I think so, all right, and

1169
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 1: I'll see you at City Fields, at and at some

1170
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: other places around town. Uh, go forward. My guest today

1171
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 1: has been Jim McCann. He's the founder and CEO of

1172
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:07,800
Speaker 1: one eight hundred Flowers and a minority owner of the

1173
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:09,880
Speaker 1: New York Mets. Jim, this was great. Thank you for

1174
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: spending so much times. Always fun to be with you. Berry. Well,

1175
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:15,120
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and be sure and check out

1176
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:18,960
Speaker 1: all of our other interviews that will be If you're

1177
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:21,440
Speaker 1: listening to this part of the show, you're listening to

1178
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 1: the podcast, so look like a half inch up or

1179
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 1: half inch down on Apple iTunes and you'll see all

1180
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 1: the rest of these. I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening

1181
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to

1182
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: Masters in business with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio.