Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. This is the conversation of the
Speaker 1: day for me, as a analyst on Wall Street covering
Speaker 1: the media industry for thirty years, cross paths with this
Speaker 1: gentleman and his companies many times. Jeffre Katzenberg. He's a
Speaker 1: co founder of DreamWorks Animation, former chairman of the Walt
Speaker 1: Disney Studi. He's now also a member of the board
Speaker 1: of ARA. He joins us via Zoom that zoom thing
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us here. I'd love to get your talk to you
Speaker 1: a little bit about this new move for you Ara.
Speaker 1: What are the folks that are doing and why did
Speaker 1: you join the board?
Speaker 2: Sure? So, about five years ago, my partners and I
Speaker 2: and the founder of Aura sort of saw this explosion
Speaker 2: of online crime, in particular it's on a global basis,
Speaker 2: but in particular focused on American families. One in four
Speaker 2: Americans today have actually fallen victim to some kind of
Speaker 2: online crime. It exceeded ten billion dollars in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: So this is a trend that is bad and only
Speaker 2: getting worse. As all of our lives get more and
Speaker 2: more you know, built into our online activities. And it's
Speaker 2: interesting because it's not that there are no solutions to it,
Speaker 2: it's that there are hundreds of them, and they're complicated
Speaker 2: and they're expensive, and it was hard to know, well,
Speaker 2: what do I actually need what would protect me and
Speaker 2: my family? And so that's the what we went out
Speaker 2: to sort of build a company to address that, to
Speaker 2: solve that and have built AURA, I think into what
Speaker 2: today is quickly becoming really the top of the line
Speaker 2: U all in one protection for families, both your children
Speaker 2: and your parents, many of which are the you know,
Speaker 2: have been the victims of scams and robots and all
Speaker 2: of these things that are you know beyond they you know,
Speaker 2: they started annoying and then they get to actually damaging.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the products or what are
Speaker 1: some of the markets in the products that are brings
Speaker 1: that you think can be Well, here are.
Speaker 2: The I just give you some of the features and
Speaker 2: functions that that we have. So we have identity and
Speaker 2: H credit protection, anti virus UH, we have AI UH
Speaker 2: powered call and message protection, so that we actually can
Speaker 2: sort of build this protective UH dome around round you
Speaker 2: in which we can filter anybody penetrating into you, your children,
Speaker 2: lots of things for parents to be able to put
Speaker 2: various controls and monitoring what our kids are doing, what,
Speaker 2: what where they are, what sites they're on, and we
Speaker 2: can go on to a very long list of features
Speaker 2: and functions. Uh here. Our objective is actually to be
Speaker 2: able to offer the widest uh uh uh you know,
Speaker 2: set of features and functions and knowing that different people
Speaker 2: have different needs. You know, I don't know each of you,
Speaker 2: but I promise you your profiles, your needs, your parents,
Speaker 2: whether we have kids or not. And what we want
Speaker 2: to do is just be a one stop shopping for everybody.
Speaker 2: And I would tell you when I look at today
Speaker 2: in the trends, you know, we don't none of us
Speaker 2: will get in a car today and not put a
Speaker 2: seat belt on. Ye five years from now, I don't
Speaker 2: believe any of us will be online without having AURA
Speaker 2: or some some version of that. It's just it's our
Speaker 2: vulnerabilities are extreme and only getting greater, and the liability
Speaker 2: is just not worth it anymore. And so I'm quite excited,
Speaker 2: quite as proud of the company that's been built in
Speaker 2: the work that are and my partner souj have done
Speaker 2: in building this company out. Robert Downey just recently came
Speaker 2: on board as a board member, as an investor, and
Speaker 2: you know, as a spokesperson for the company. So we're
Speaker 2: we're on a great path to build something that does
Speaker 2: good while doing good.
Speaker 3: Jeffrey, I wanted to switch gears and get your thoughts
Speaker 3: about the writers actors strike in Hollywood and obviously when
Speaker 3: you're thinking about the proliferation when it.
Speaker 2: Comes to it, I do want to say, I'm surprised
Speaker 2: it only took you the second question to get to that,
Speaker 2: But okay.
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you think this will impact those
Speaker 3: jobs when it comes to the AI hype in the
Speaker 3: future of it.
Speaker 2: Well, I again, I'm not going to try and parse
Speaker 2: out what are I think very challenging issues, but I
Speaker 2: will say there are a few things that I think
Speaker 2: all strikes have in common with one another. One they
Speaker 2: begin and two they end. Also, interestingly, if you look
Speaker 2: at strikes, whether they are lockouts or walkouts, the length
Speaker 2: of a strike does not correlate to a better out.
Speaker 2: And so you know, in this particular one, you actually
Speaker 2: have both parties are facing very very challenging problematic, and
Speaker 2: some would go as far as to say existential issues
Speaker 2: for them. So they're particularly difficult and particularly complex. In
Speaker 2: the case of the writers, the industry structurally has changed
Speaker 2: so significantly the ability to have the type of employment
Speaker 2: that they have had now for seventy five one hundred
Speaker 2: years is diminished, and you can see that it's on
Speaker 2: a path to continue to so that's really problematic. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the introduction of AI is a creative tool. It's both
Speaker 2: an asset but also I think could be a liability.
Speaker 2: From the producer studio standpoint, you have, you know, an
Speaker 2: equally challenging and complex set of structural changes that they
Speaker 2: are wrestling with. And so you know, I've tried to
Speaker 2: be objective and understanding that both parties here are looking
Speaker 2: at very very challenging circumstances, which is why it's seemingly
Speaker 2: become very difficult to get them aligned. But here's the
Speaker 2: thing I would say to you, as certain as we
Speaker 2: are in a conversation about this, in this moment, this
Speaker 2: strike will.
Speaker 1: End, right and.
Speaker 2: It will end. And whether it's going to end in
Speaker 2: a day or a week, or a month or four months,
Speaker 2: a year, it will end. And so the damage that
Speaker 2: is being felt on both sides of this isn't actually
Speaker 2: ultimately going to determine the outcome. So for me, I
Speaker 2: just desperately want to see both sides get back to
Speaker 2: the table and actually wrestle these things through.
Speaker 1: And Jeffer you mentioned the big existential issue for the
Speaker 1: media in industry, and as a Wall Street analyst covering
Speaker 1: the space for thirty years, I've never seen anything like
Speaker 1: it where this industry has to pivot from the traditional
Speaker 1: model where cable companies and salite companies aggregated a big
Speaker 1: bunch of audience and then the content creators leveraged that
Speaker 1: and that's everybody kind of had a nice economic return
Speaker 1: to now one it's streaming.
Speaker 2: But it's even more complicated than that, because what you
Speaker 2: have is is seventy five years of an ecosystem that
Speaker 2: was built on a waterfall of rights from window to
Speaker 2: window to window of various distribution platforms, both domestically and globally,
Speaker 2: and as those have consolidated, there is less opportunity to
Speaker 2: exploit the content and therefore less opportunity for talent to
Speaker 2: participate in the rewards of that yep. And so it's
Speaker 2: challenged on both sides of the equation, both for the
Speaker 2: production and studios who are making the content. They don't
Speaker 2: have as many outlets to exploit their content. And for
Speaker 2: the creators, you know, who were rewarded for their success,
Speaker 2: and they were rewarded through a very long pipeline of
Speaker 2: you know, whether it was from free TV to pay
Speaker 2: to cable, to syndication and international. There were all of
Speaker 2: these different places of exploitation of which they actually got
Speaker 2: rewards for great work.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know it's been It's an incredibly difficult time, but
Speaker 1: one could argue maybe it's a good time for strikeing
Speaker 1: get all these issues out on the table. Jeffreykatzenberg, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Jeffrey Katzenberg is a
Speaker 1: co founder of dream Works Animation, former chairman of the
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Studios, and member of the board of aur.
Speaker 1: He joins us on the phone on the Zoom actually
Speaker 1: from the City of Angels, Los Angeles. Bringing our next
Speaker 1: guest here, Marcus Shaw. He's the chief executive officer for
Speaker 1: a company called Alt Finance. He joined us live here
Speaker 1: in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Marcus just set us
Speaker 1: the stage here. What is all Finance. What are you
Speaker 1: trying to do at All Finance?
Speaker 4: So All Finance is an organization that's dedicated to helping
Speaker 4: encourage more students from historically black colleges and universities understand
Speaker 4: careers in finance, specifically alternative investments, and providing them with
Speaker 4: the education, experience, and exposure to help pursue careers in
Speaker 4: alternative investments, private equity, private credit, in real estate.
Speaker 3: And you also have a fellowship program. Talk to us
Speaker 3: about that, correct.
Speaker 4: We have an amazing fellowship program. We now have one
Speaker 4: hundred and nineteen fellows. They're currently in our program. We
Speaker 4: graduated our first fourteen fellows in May of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: and those fellows that are going on to work in
Speaker 4: investment banks and alternative investment firms and management consulting firms
Speaker 4: focusing on private equity. We're so excited about the success
Speaker 4: that we had with that first class, but our fellows
Speaker 4: are growing and so we expect even more success than
Speaker 4: years to go.
Speaker 1: How is what is wall Street's view on hiring from
Speaker 1: HBCUs just in generally or minority hiring in general? You know,
Speaker 1: what are they trying to exist so competitive?
Speaker 4: Well, it's a very competitive industry, and I think the perspective,
Speaker 4: particularly around HBCUs are that the companies really didn't know
Speaker 4: where these schools were. HBCUs have a rich history and
Speaker 4: are a big part of the fabric of this country. Obviously,
Speaker 4: our current Vice President, Kamala Harris is an HBCU alum,
Speaker 4: along with many other you know, luminaries and politics and
Speaker 4: entertainment and business and so forth. So it's been a
Speaker 4: contributing factor to the American fabric for several hundred years
Speaker 4: now a couple of hundred years, but has not been
Speaker 4: a big part of the recruiting process for finance and
Speaker 4: for Wall Street. And so what we're trying to do
Speaker 4: is create those relationships, those pathways so that the best
Speaker 4: and brightest students at places like Howard University, of Morehouse College,
Speaker 4: Spellman College, clark Atlanda University are aware of the career
Speaker 4: opportunities that exist outside of sales and trading and investment.
Speaker 3: Bank How are the resources when it comes to things
Speaker 3: like endowments.
Speaker 4: So one place where historically black collegees the universities have
Speaker 4: certainly struggled is having the financial resources to keep up
Speaker 4: with the infrastructure battle that is happening in higher education.
Speaker 4: The students are brilliant, the professors are incredibly resourceful, but
Speaker 4: building the endowments has been a place of a place
Speaker 4: of challenge. There is not a single HBCU today that
Speaker 4: has an end over a billion dollars. When you look
Speaker 4: at other schools right that are non HBCUs schools, even
Speaker 4: of the same size, many of them will have larger endowments.
Speaker 4: And that allows students to have a lower cost of attendance,
Speaker 4: That allows you to build scholarships, It allows you to
Speaker 4: endow professorships, which allows you to also retain professors for
Speaker 4: a longer period of time. So HBCUs are doing all
Speaker 4: of this great work without all of the resources that
Speaker 4: some of the other schools have.
Speaker 3: So why is that so?
Speaker 4: I think there's a couple of key issues. Number One,
Speaker 4: you're dealing with a population of student an alum that
Speaker 4: historically have served a higher population of low income students.
Speaker 4: All right, that's number one. Number two, and this is
Speaker 4: part of what we're solving for through all finance, is
Speaker 4: that there hasn't been as much awareness of some of
Speaker 4: the higher compensated career paths, like alternative investments that can
Speaker 4: lead to you know, very well rewarded and highly compensated
Speaker 4: alum that can then pour back into the school and
Speaker 4: use their networks to pour back into the school. So
Speaker 4: one of the things that we're doing is trying to
Speaker 4: show highly talented students where high paying, high rewarding career
Speaker 4: paths are and encouraging them to continue to give back
Speaker 4: to their schools in a higher level. And so I
Speaker 4: think that's part of it. I think that there's also
Speaker 4: you know, what we see naturally is the reason why
Speaker 4: HBCUs needed to exist is because we were in a
Speaker 4: segregated education system. The vestiges of that continue to exist
Speaker 4: in some ways that show up in terms of funding
Speaker 4: for the schools. And so we need more corporate funding,
Speaker 4: we need more alumni giving, we need greater fundraising so
Speaker 4: that we can continue to give the students at hpc
Speaker 4: US all the best and brightest infrastructure and opportunities that
Speaker 4: they deserve.
Speaker 1: HBC used this is ignorance on my part. Are they private,
Speaker 1: are they public? Or are there some of each?
Speaker 4: There's a mix. There is a mix of both. And
Speaker 4: actually it was through the Civil Rights Act of nineteen
Speaker 4: sixty four that the government designated historically black colleges and universities,
Speaker 4: and there are one hundred and four roughly one hundred
Speaker 4: and four HBCUs in the country. There's a portion of
Speaker 4: them that are public, there's a portion of them that
Speaker 4: are private, and the funding model for those can be
Speaker 4: very different, much like a non HBCU school. But generally
Speaker 4: across the board, we still see that HBCUs are underfunded,
Speaker 4: whether they're public or private.
Speaker 3: So, as a CEO, and you started your career at IBM,
Speaker 3: you obviously got your MBA from Duke at you and
Speaker 3: Paul were talking about that earlier. What's your view and
Speaker 3: your vision when it comes to students that are in
Speaker 3: your programs and as far as what that could mean
Speaker 3: for other potential future CEOs.
Speaker 4: I think and I'd like to also give a shout
Speaker 4: out more House College. So I was a more House
Speaker 4: alum as well, and I think that as I look
Speaker 4: at students that they are graduating from HBCUs today, I
Speaker 4: see them as having an incredible network of young men
Speaker 4: and young women that they're going to school with. And
Speaker 4: the same way that IVY leagues have an incredible network,
Speaker 4: in the same way that large state schools have an
Speaker 4: incredible network, many of these students will go on to
Speaker 4: great graduate schools, law school, medical school, business school, and
Speaker 4: they will build even broader networks that are more powerful.
Speaker 4: There's real value because we believe that there is power
Speaker 4: and diversity of networks, diversity of thought, diversity of experience.
Speaker 4: These students, ultimately in the workplace will have some of
Speaker 4: the most diverse experiences of any person in this country,
Speaker 4: and that's valuable to companies and corporations that are looking
Speaker 4: for people that are bringing new ideas, new experiences to
Speaker 4: the table so that they can develop and innovate, so
Speaker 4: that they can invest, so that they can lead.
Speaker 1: Marcus, what's the biggest challenge that you faced just day
Speaker 1: to day here?
Speaker 4: I think the biggest challenge that we see is getting students,
Speaker 4: number one, to understand what the opportunity set looks like
Speaker 4: for a career and alternative investments. For many of our
Speaker 4: student although they are incredibly bright and always will be
Speaker 4: destined for a great career, they don't have a lot
Speaker 4: of transparency or a lot of clarity around what a
Speaker 4: career and alternative investments will look like. And so creating
Speaker 4: that exposure and some of that co education around how
Speaker 4: to manage a career moving from banking to private equity
Speaker 4: is something that's very new to students that don't have
Speaker 4: a network of people that are already in that business
Speaker 4: or not highly exposed to that even before college. So
Speaker 4: that's one of the challenges that we face.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating stuff. I'm glad we got to get
Speaker 1: a few minutes of your time. It's Marca Shaw. He's
Speaker 1: a chief executive officer for al Finance, joining us here
Speaker 1: in a Bloomberg and Active Broker studio. We appreciate that
Speaker 1: doing some important work increasing diversity on Wall Street, which
Speaker 1: continues to be a challenge, but a lot of good
Speaker 1: folks are doing some good work there, so we appreciate
Speaker 1: getting a few minutes of Marcus's time.