Speaker 1: YEA broadcasting live to New York, Bloomberg eleven, Rio to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C, Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg dwell Under to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine to the country suis Exam General one nine team,
Speaker 1: and around the globe the Bloomberg Radio Plus app and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com. This is taking stock. I'm Kafeene Hayes.
Speaker 1: Along with pim Fox. Japan has an aging population, a
Speaker 1: gigantic budget deficit, deflation and negative interest rates. Why would
Speaker 1: a former ambassador Japan then be starting a fund to
Speaker 1: help American entrepreneurs girl their businesses in Japan? PM, We're
Speaker 1: gonna find out. Yes, we're gonna be speaking with John
Speaker 1: Rousey is the founding partner of the venture capital firm
Speaker 1: Geodesic Capital, and as you mentioned, a former US ambassador
Speaker 1: to Japan. Right now, let's go to Charlie Pellam in
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg news room for a Bloomberg Business flatman. I
Speaker 1: thank you, pim Fox, Thank you, Kathleen Hayes. The Dow Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm be Nazdak. All declining with stocks have paired a
Speaker 1: decline banks and energy producers trimming losses. SMP five hundred index,
Speaker 1: slipping from a ten month high amid speculation equities may
Speaker 1: have run too far, too fast given the lackluster prospects
Speaker 1: for global growth. On top of that, there is the
Speaker 1: Brexit vote, the US political conventions, and the looming of
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve meeting. Josh Shapiro is chief US economist at
Speaker 1: Maria Fiorini Ramarans. I think that it's a it's a
Speaker 1: dangerous thing that's been going on with central banks have
Speaker 1: been doing there. They're they're they're causing distortions and financial
Speaker 1: markets distortions and behavior. They've done everything they pretty much
Speaker 1: can do at this stage with the size of the
Speaker 1: deficits that we have in the amount of debt that's out,
Speaker 1: their fiscal policies kind of handstrung and and and I
Speaker 1: think we're limping along. And when you're in that with
Speaker 1: that type of backdrop, you're downside risks far out where
Speaker 1: you're upside risks. Bill Gross, Bill Gross, manager of the
Speaker 1: one point four billion dollar Janus Global Unconstrain Bond Fund,
Speaker 1: warning central bank policies that pushed trillions of dollars into
Speaker 1: bonds with negative interest rates will eventually backfire violently grows.
Speaker 1: Compares it to a super nova, which is a star
Speaker 1: at the end of its life, and a person familiar
Speaker 1: with the matter, says billionaire investor George Soros has become
Speaker 1: more involved in trading at his family office, concerned about
Speaker 1: the outlook for the global economy and the risk that
Speaker 1: large market ships maybe at hand SMP five hundred index
Speaker 1: down five, a drop of three tenths of one percent,
Speaker 1: Gold up ten to twelve seventy two, eight tenths of
Speaker 1: one percent ten, You're up seven thirty seconds. Zeal there
Speaker 1: one point six seven percent to thirty two on Wall Street. Now,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at other news from around the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Charlie from the Bloomberg newsroom. I'm Scarlet Foom.
Speaker 1: President Obama has formally endorsed Hillary Clinton to succeed him
Speaker 1: as next to US president. Today, for more than a
Speaker 1: year now, across thousands of miles in all fifty states,
Speaker 1: tens of millions of Americans have made their boys has
Speaker 1: heard today. I just want to add mine. I want
Speaker 1: to congratulate Hillary Clinton on making history as the presumptive
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee for president of the United States. The President
Speaker 1: offered his endorsement in an online video after meeting at
Speaker 1: the White House earlier today with Clinton's Democratic primary rival,
Speaker 1: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Israel is deploying additional battalions to
Speaker 1: the West Bank and restricting travel for Palestinians during Ramadon
Speaker 1: in the wake of yesterday's shooting in Tel Aviv, two
Speaker 1: Palestinians gunned down four Israeli's and wounded at least five others.
Speaker 1: Here's Prime Minister Benjamin net Yahoo murder. The shooters cousins
Speaker 1: from the West Bank are in custody. A coalition of
Speaker 1: twenty one states is suing Delaware over policies involving unclaimed
Speaker 1: official checks. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says, it's a
Speaker 1: clear case Arkansas and Texas are co leading this coalition
Speaker 1: of states to get our money back, and we are
Speaker 1: urging the Supreme Court to enforce federal pax and alleges
Speaker 1: Delaware has been taking the money for unclaimed checks written
Speaker 1: by financial institutions based in Delaware even if those checks
Speaker 1: weren't ordered. Their workers in Times Square are laying down
Speaker 1: paint to mark new boundaries for pedestrians and street performers.
Speaker 1: The new color coded system will regulate where characters can
Speaker 1: interact with tourists. The zones started at West forty seven
Speaker 1: Street and run down to West forty two Street. Global
Speaker 1: News twenty four hours a day, powered by our journalists
Speaker 1: and more than one news burreaus around the world. From
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg News Room, I'm Scarlet Fou and we thank
Speaker 1: you and again recapping stocks lower SMP down five a
Speaker 1: drop of three tenths of one percent. I'm Charlie Peloton.
Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg Business flash. You're listening to Taking Stock
Speaker 1: with Kathleen Hayes and Pimp Box on Bloomberg Radio. If
Speaker 1: there's a country you're worried about when it comes to
Speaker 1: the economy, at least if you're looking at the direction
Speaker 1: of bondfield, you'd have to say Japan is on that list.
Speaker 1: After all, the j GB, the benchmark tenure Japanese government
Speaker 1: bond is now trade at a minus zero point one
Speaker 1: four percent. That's not stopping John Ruth He's a founding
Speaker 1: partner at Geodesic Capital, former US Ambassador Japan from two
Speaker 1: thousand nine to two two thousand thirteen. He has launched
Speaker 1: a fund more than three hundred million dollars to help
Speaker 1: American growth stage companies entrepreneurs expand into Japan and other
Speaker 1: countries in the region. He's here to tell us all
Speaker 1: about it. John, Welcome to the show. Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me delied to be here. So first tell us about
Speaker 1: the fund. What are you doing, what kind of companies
Speaker 1: you're funding? Well, geodes A Capital, as you said, we've
Speaker 1: raised over three hundred million dollars. Were investing in later stage,
Speaker 1: growth stage companies here in the Silicon Valley and helping
Speaker 1: them go to Japan. Now, what we have found is
Speaker 1: that companies here are going private, staying private for a
Speaker 1: longer period of time, and in the later stages of
Speaker 1: of their growth, they begin to think about going global.
Speaker 1: And obviously the Asia market is incredibly important, and we
Speaker 1: believe um and here and from the companies here that
Speaker 1: Japan is a very important gateway into the Asia economy. Ambassador,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could just give people a
Speaker 1: little bit of your background, because I know that you
Speaker 1: in many of your legal capacities before your ambassadorship that
Speaker 1: you helped to represent companies at the time may have
Speaker 1: been unknown to many Americans, such as Google and Pixar.
Speaker 1: With your work with Wilson san Cini good Rich in
Speaker 1: Rosani prior to go into Japan twenty five years here
Speaker 1: in the Silicon Valley where I'm back um and as
Speaker 1: you said, we represented at Wilson Sancini, which is a
Speaker 1: leading tech UH law firm in the country. We represented
Speaker 1: companies all the way from their infancy like Apple and
Speaker 1: Google until many of them obviously became multi billion dollar corporations.
Speaker 1: And then when I went to Japan from two thousand
Speaker 1: nine to two thousand thirteen and the honor of being
Speaker 1: the US ambassador there, I heard an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: interest in UH in Silicon Valley by the Japanese and
Speaker 1: so Prime Minister Abe, for example, came here a year
Speaker 1: ago when he talked about building a bridge between the
Speaker 1: valley and Japan, and Geodesic Capital is helping to build
Speaker 1: that bridge between between Silicon Valley and Japan. Certainly helps
Speaker 1: to have a heavyweight partner in this inaugural fund. You're
Speaker 1: backed by anchor investor and co founder Mitsubishi. Gensic Capitals
Speaker 1: already made successful investments. Of course, one everybody would recognize.
Speaker 1: I think it's Snapchat that was a good one to
Speaker 1: have gotten in on are there particular kinds of technology
Speaker 1: that you're going to be looking for these late stage
Speaker 1: companies is and how do the Japanese field don't they
Speaker 1: have their own startups or do they feel this is
Speaker 1: gonna seed activity and their own sort of homegrown startups
Speaker 1: by having Silicon Valley come to them. We're looking at
Speaker 1: both enterprise companies and consumer companies. So for example, you
Speaker 1: mentioned Snapchat in a social media area, but we're looking
Speaker 1: at areas like security. Taneum as a company that we've
Speaker 1: invested in that the Japanese have a significant interest in
Speaker 1: cybersecurity as an example, are investors there. I've already talked
Speaker 1: about some of the benefits of going into the third
Speaker 1: biggest economy in the world. But for our investors, they
Speaker 1: see the opportunity to have this window into the Valley,
Speaker 1: into the disruptive businesses that are going on here, and
Speaker 1: they also obviously are looking for returns, but also kind
Speaker 1: of a window into the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and the
Speaker 1: benefit to them is not only returns, but potential investment opportunities,
Speaker 1: potential mergers and acquisitions, uh potential partner ships. A good
Speaker 1: example that which is just recently announced is the Toyota
Speaker 1: Uber deal. On the Silicon Valley side, you have this
Speaker 1: cutting edge shared economy technology, and on the Japanese side,
Speaker 1: Toyota you have the biggest car manufacturer in the world.
Speaker 1: So you have these traditional enterprises partnering up with new
Speaker 1: cutting edge technologies and both sides of the equation will benefit.
Speaker 1: And we see more and more of that happening. Ambassador US,
Speaker 1: If an executive or an investor in a startup growth
Speaker 1: company is listening to you and wants to learn more
Speaker 1: about expanding into the Japanese market, what do they do?
Speaker 1: They should give me a call. That's a capital We
Speaker 1: have a team that's on the ground. We have as
Speaker 1: our senior advisor, the person who built Twitter in Japan,
Speaker 1: as are japan lead. We have a person who built
Speaker 1: an enterprise company in Japan as well as was a
Speaker 1: senior executive that Apple. Obviously, I've had tremendous experience with
Speaker 1: the senior leadership on both the public and private side,
Speaker 1: and the important lesson to be learned is it's not
Speaker 1: one size fits all. Many of these incredibly disruptive, successful
Speaker 1: companies here in the Valley have been in the US market,
Speaker 1: but when they begin to go global. They have to
Speaker 1: understand that different cultures at different business practices, and that's
Speaker 1: where companies such as ours can really be a benefit.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for spending time with this. Ambassador
Speaker 1: John Roucy is the former US Ambassador to Japan. He
Speaker 1: is now the founding partner of Geodesic Capital. They are
Speaker 1: based in San Francisco. You're listening to taking Stock. I'm
Speaker 1: pim Fox, My Coast, Kathleen Hayes, and this is Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Bloombertaking Stock is brought to you by Commonwealth Financial Network.
Speaker 1: When it's time to change the conversation, talk with a
Speaker 1: broker dealer r I A that's ready to listen Call
Speaker 1: eight six six four six two three sixth thre eight
Speaker 1: or visit Commonwealth dot com to learn more