WEBVTT - Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 18th, 2021 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:05.400 This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:09.200 editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:13.200 global business, finance and tech news as it happened. Sloomberg 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.759 Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:21.319 Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, welcome to the weekend 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.280 edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We are not yet out 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.560 of the global pandemic, and yet parts of our world 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.720 continue to find their way back, reopening on, covering and 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:34.560 tackling problems, finding solutions, looking forward, in sometimes even looking 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:36.640 back for some guidance, as one of our guests this 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.159 week did specifically to four. We'll have more on the 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.239 glory days later on Coming up though this hour, we 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.520 are going to blow your mind truly with a device 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.760 that's looking to read your mind. Also, the Bitcoin Slayer 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:51.960 is back about a planned stock sale of up to 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.600 one billion dollars. We're talking about Michael Sailor. He's founder 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.160 and CEO of micro Strategy. Will hear from him shortly. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.480 And we're also going to talk to the individual who 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.360 brought up the club scene back in the nineteen seventies. 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.360 He changed the hotel industry. He is now rebooting his 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.360 own creation, Ian Schrager, he will be with us to 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.759 talk about hospitality coming back. All of that to come. 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.880 We begin with this week's cover story, Airbnb spends millions 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.679 of dollars to make nightmares go away. This story revealing 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.120 little known details on a company that's become revered for 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.600 disrupting the established hospitality industry and is now a more 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.520 than ninety billion dollar market cap company. Bloomberg Quick Takes, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.960 Tim Stanovic and I got the story on Airbnb Safety 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.600 Team from Bloomberg News technology reporter Olivia Carvil, who is 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.200 joined by Business Week editor Jill Weber. The real bedrock 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.120 of Airbnb's business model is trust. You check into someone 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:54.760 else's apartment sometimes or house, sometimes that person maybe occupying 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.120 that same space or in a different room. Um and 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.680 the whole thing that makes the business work is is 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.720 that you have trusted in this system. And what Olivia's 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:10.519 reporting revealed was that oftentimes stays don't go well, and 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.520 that could be uh more run of the mill things 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.680 of like just a trash department, or it could go 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.000 very very very bad. And there have been cases a 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.560 rape that was previously unreported that Olivia found out about 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.919 UM murders, violent crimes and when that happens. There is 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.400 a safety team that ARABIANBU has assembled around the world, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.240 UM one agents that basically the worst of the worst 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.400 situations end up going to that group of people. And 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.960 Olivia UM basically was the one that has revealed that 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.720 this team exists, that they're under mental dress for all 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.200 the different types of cases that they have to deal with, 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.200 and that you know, this is the thing that for 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.240 investors this company is now publicly traded, people haven't known 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.040 that this is a dark side of this company in 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.280 quite this way. UM. So, so Olivia, how about you 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.240 bring us up to speed on on you know, how 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.120 how you went about reporting such a remarkable story. The 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.360 story really the crux of it was to understand, you know, 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.359 to get inside the safety team and to really get 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.040 to the bottom of what happens inside air BMB when 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.560 things go wrong. So initially when I started reporting this 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.959 piece is about trying to find insiders at the company 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.040 who would be willing to talk to me about the 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.840 stress of the job and just the process of when 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.280 something happens inside a listing like a violent crime and 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.400 a call comes through to the Airbnb Customer service rep. 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.680 What actually happens, how does the company handle it, who 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.400 does it get transferred through to, and what do they 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.760 do about handling you know, public image, reputational risk, brand risk. 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.520 Given that Airbnb's entire business model really risks on that 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.040 idea of trust between strangers to them, public image is 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.600 just so crucially important to you know, gross and revenue. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.120 So Olivia, how does it work when things go wrong 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:15.040 and often, as Joel mentioned, horribly wrong? Right, Well, it's 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.000 the call is to come through to ear B and 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.520 B related to anything concerning safety. So when I say that, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.920 I mean anything involving a child, cases of human trafficking, 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:32.880 drug trafficking, kidnappings, hostage scenarios, sexual assaults, rape cases, murder, 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.080 anything that enters that kind of like significance of a 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.120 real safety crisis, it will immediately be transferred through to 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.600 an internal safety team of agents. And as Joel mentioned, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.719 the BnB has about a hundred of these agents based 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.880 all around the world who are trained in trauma. You know, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:58.159 they specify and specialize in how to handle cases of trauma. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.200 Bere taught how to deal with recital ideation being taught 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.160 to you know how to how to help talk with 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.679 a sexual assault survivor and the best way to support 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.880 her in that moment. And UM, for these safety agents, 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.240 it's all about doing what they can to protect the 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.560 individual in crisis. And also they do have a dual 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.679 role to protect the company's public image. At the same time, 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:28.039 Joel referred to the darrest that these safety agents experience. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.520 What is the toll that takes on them and how 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.000 do they deal with it? A lot of the safety 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:38.240 agents I talked to UM expressed vicarious trauma. They say 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.120 that they suffer from PTSD from the job. I mean 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.880 they willingly walk into it. They want to do this 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:45.800 kind of trauma work, and I think it takes a 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.520 certain person who's attracted to this particular role. A lot 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.920 of them comes from that grounds of emergency services work 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.520 or even from the military. They've you know, as I see, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.920 had gone through a lot of trauma based care training. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.880 They have count bills on site to help this team. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.800 They have specialized call down rooms with dimmed lighting to 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.600 help them answer those really tough calls. And for these agents, 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.920 you know, when you handle a case of an individual 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.440 who has been assaulted, raped, who has lost a loved one, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.560 maybe lost a child in a listing. You form a 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.280 bond with the individual over the phone, and a lot 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.680 of these safety agents talked about cases where they're still 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.599 in touch with those families years after the crime has happened. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.479 You know, it stays with them. One safety agent I 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.520 talked to handled a case of a missing person who 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.560 just disappeared from a listing, and three years after that occurred, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.760 he was still googling that individual's name to see if 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.479 there was you know, if they were either found. That 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.279 was this week's cover story with Bloomberg News technology reporter 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.480 Olivia Carvil, who was joined by Business Week editor Joel Weber. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.359 Coming up the bitcoin slayer who is selling shares to 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.719 maybe just maybe by more bitcoin. You're sting to Bloomberg 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:11.960 Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.880 with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovik from 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:20.559 Bloomberg Radio. So this week, US regulators have once again 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.800 punted their decision on whether to approve a bitcoin et F, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.480 the SEC saying that it will seek more public comment. 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.320 It's not the first time this year that the SEC 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.480 has delayed giving an answer to the legions of crypto 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.880 advocates who are pushing for a way to trade the 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:39.560 largest cryptocurrency in an exchange traded fund format and possibly 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.120 catapult the world's most valuable digital token into the mainstream 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:47.200 among institutional investors. Well, micro Strategy is definitely keeping an 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.160 eye on this. It's the software developer that's turning into 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.520 a corporate shell for bitcoin purchases. That said just this 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.800 week that it plans to sell up to one billion 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.600 dollars of new equity, proceeds of which can be used 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.880 to buy bitcoin. Michael Sailor's chairman, CEO, and founder of 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.080 micro Strategy. He's sometimes referred to as the Bitcoin slayer 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.880 and his company as the face of institutional crypto adoption. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.480 And we were joined by Mike mcleouan Commodity Alice for 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.320 Bloomberg Intelligence. I think this is like the year when 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.720 they invented electricity, and every company and every government on 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.360 Earth needs to figure out what does electricity mean to 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.080 my country? And I figured it'll take a decade of education. 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.040 I mean, the facts are right now. If you buy 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.080 the modern bitcoin minor, uh, you can generate about thirty 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.120 five to forty cents to kill a law our off 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.280 of any intermittent energy source or stranded energy source, I mean, 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.840 no matter where it is on Earth. And that's four 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.720 times better than than uh, you know, the developed world 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.760 high in commercial energy rate. So as people figure that out, 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.840 I think anybody that's got a volcano or a waterfall 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.840 or a wind farm away from a big city is thinking, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.079 this is the solution to my energy problem. It's in 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.080 The key fact I find very positive forward looking is 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.760 the ability to kind of solve the problem of gas flaring. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.200 I the quote I heard up in Canada might be 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.079 ten thousand wells that are just leaking methane gas or 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.679 methane as they say in London, and this is a 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.560 way to help solve that. And it seems to me 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.120 that's a lot of stranded resources that can be put 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.800 to use. Yeah. I mean, I think people to understand bitcoin. 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:35.960 They realize that bitcoin is recycling wasted energy, it's rescuing 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:41.280 stranded energy, and it's avoiding capital destruction. I actually have 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.080 a friend that owns a bunch of natural gas fields, 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.719 and if you've got a situation where you can't immediately 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.840 monetize the natural gas, it's an awful, awful choice you 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.480 have to make a Hobson's choice. You're either flaring it, 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.560 which is awful for the environment, or you shut the 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.640 well in and its destruction of the capital. It's it's 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.240 horrifically bad. And bitcoin, what do you need to solve it? 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.040 You need to be able to monetize the energy wherever 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:10.920 it is, and you need to do it with like 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:16.160 low bandwidth at any scale. And bitcoin mining is Bitcoin 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.120 mining is probably twenty times more energy efficient than a 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:24.520 Google data center or a Netflix data center for monetizing energy. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.520 So it's a gift just sitting out there for people 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.520 that have a problem with regard to stranded energy or 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.160 intimate and energy where they they just waste it and 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.640 they don't know what to do about. Why is the 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.720 narrative so different though? Then? And maybe I'm just a 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.800 little naive and a little stupid when it comes to this, 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.280 But why is the narrative so differently when it comes 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.520 to the impact of UH mining crypto on the environment? 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:53.160 You're saying, why is there sometimes a negative environmental narrative around? Correct? Well, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.920 I think it's because it's the first year in the 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:01.240 decade when bitcoin is emerging as an issue. It's the 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.520 most disruptive technology in the world for money, and it's 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.000 the most disruptive technology in the world for energy. And 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.880 if you imagine the first year we invented electricity. And 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.000 if you went and put a microphone in front of 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.280 every mayor, every governor, every politician, every senator, every CEO, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.680 and every journalist and said what do you think about this? 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.400 And you gave them like five minutes to respond, and 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.040 they could do an hour of research, you would get 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.920 a wide variety of answers. You know what I say 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.040 about bitcoin is it takes you ten hours to scratch 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.920 the surface, a hundred hours to have an informed opinion, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.200 a thousand hours to have an intelligent opinion, and ten 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.440 thousand hours to understand it. And everybody when you asked 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.760 the CEO of General Motors, okay, what do you think 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.960 about bitcoin? And they've studied it for an hour? Or 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.520 you asked the governor, the mayor or whomember it is, 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.640 or a journalist, everybody has to have an opinion because 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.320 they're being forced. It's in their face, right, Like I 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.880 watched these four ceo is going television and they asked them, 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:05.640 all are you what do you do we think about bitcoin? 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.120 What do you think about bitcoin? Bitcoin? Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin, 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.480 And they have to answer, but the truth is they 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.800 don't have a thousand hours to figure out what the 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.600 answer is. So the knee jerk reaction is either hey, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.360 it seems so good it's too good to be true, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.040 or the other answer is all I know is that 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.720 uses a lot of energy. Michael, talk to me about 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.680 the plan to sell as much as a billion dollars 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.079 in shares. You also did uh close the sale of 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.120 junk bond? Is it all about buying bitcoin? Is that 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.000 what the proceeds are for? You know, it's a standing 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.240 program that's good over the course of several years, and 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.200 it gives us the option, if the market conditions are correct, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.679 to sell equity from time to time. We have a 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.200 standing share buy back program too, that gives us the 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.280 option to buy the shares back. So generally our policy 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.680 is do a creative financings. If we see an opportunity 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.520 to sell dead or equity, it's a created to the 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.040 rest of the security holders, we would do that. So 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:08.160 that's a yes. Yeah, you know, I can't really say 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.280 when it gets to that specific the question. All right, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.720 I'm just gonna make a general assumption. All right, Mike McGlenn, 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.200 you take it well. Michael, I want to ask you 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.319 a key thing about how do you think history is 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.360 going to look at you? Because I view you as 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.000 a good example of the of a bastion of free 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:28.640 market capitalism adopting this new digitalized internet money or digital 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 currency versus China. It's cracking down in China. Is that 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.199 repressive um society that doesn't even allow we need a pool? 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.640 I mean, where do you think this is going to end? 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.440 Because I have a sense you you're making a place 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.960 in history here. I think that bigcoin is uh, it's America. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.280 It's American dream in cyberspace. People came to America for 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.040 property and for freedom hundreds of years ago because they 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.800 couldn't get those in Europe. And I think there's a 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.000 general sentiment around the world of frustration and that people 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:04.000 are frustrated with regard to their property rights and their freedoms. 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.679 And and bitcoin is the highest form of property right. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.600 And if you don't have property in the third world 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.800 of developing nation, the bitcoin's your only hope. And if 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.640 you have property in the first world, and then US 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.000 and Europe and you're watching it get debased as the 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.880 currency weekends, then bitcoin, you know, is your way to 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.160 get some control over your property rights. And so I 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.480 think we're the first public company that took a serious position. Uh. 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.880 It's a paradigm shift, and I think everybody else is 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.160 gradually coming to realize that it's a pretty good idea. 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.760 It'll take a decade, I think before the entire world 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.640 comes to accommodation to understand what this really means for civilization. 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.200 That's Michael Sailor, CEO and founder micro Strategy, along with 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.120 our own Michael Clane of Bloomberg Intelligence. Still ahead on 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.280 Bloomberg Business Week. Get ready to blow your mind thanks 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:03.560 to the Colonel Helmet. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.480 financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.000 York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.200 O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.400 the country Sirius xm Chado one nine team and around 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.520 the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot com. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:27.360 This is Bloomberg Business Week Trending on social media this week, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.720 you might have noticed a Bloomberg tweet about a Business 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.680 Week story on a company called Colonel that will begin 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.640 sending dozens of customers across the United States a fifty 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:41.200 thousand dollar helmet that can kind of crudely speaking, read 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.920 their mind. That helmet weighs a couple of pounds. It 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.760 contains nests of sensors and other electronics that measure and 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.080 analyze the brain's electrical impulses and blood flow at the 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.320 speed of thought, providing a window into have the organ 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.400 responds to the world. Bloomberg Business Week feature writer in 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.720 New York Times bestselling author Ashley Vance. He's been tracking 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.880 this company for a few years. Actually is also a 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:07.000 host of Hello World. He's also author of Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.520 and The Quest for a Fantastic Future. We caught up 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.160 with Ashley along with Bloomberg Business We getutor Joel Weber 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.040 to talk about this story in this week's magazine. So, Ashley, 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.960 who are we talking about and what does this brain 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.800 scanning helmet that he's developed too. There's a guy named 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.920 Brian Johnson who's who's kind of the main character of 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.360 the story. He's not super well known, but he is 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:34.080 very rich. He sold a company called Braintree to PayPal 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.720 for several hundred million dollars a few years ago, and 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.360 then he took all that money and started this new 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.280 company called Colonel, which is, like you said, they've built 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:47.520 these helmets that compear through your skulls, see all the 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.360 electric electrical activities, see all the blood flow, and basically 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.560 watch your neurons fire in real time. And and you know, 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.680 the big breakthrough really is, um we have machines that 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.520 do some of the stuff like F M R I 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:02.360 machines and M E g s and things that you 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.359 would find at a hospital or a research center. And 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.720 you know, he's found a way to boil all this 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.760 down into a helmet that anybody could wear. I'm gonna 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.160 put this on, and what's it gonna do for me? Exactly? Yeah, 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.760 I mean there's a few things going on. His basic 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.800 his kind of driving thesis is this idea that for 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.080 mental health, if you went to the doctor and you 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.280 had you were worried about your heart, they would run 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.560 all these tests on you, you know, obviously do some 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.720 blood work, and we just don't have anything like that 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.800 for the brain. And so he wants, uh, you know, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.720 partly because these things have been expensive and hard to use. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:38.879 We just don't have much data on the brain, and 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.040 so he wants to make these affordable enough that thousands, 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.119 tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people would be 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.280 using these machines to see their brain activity as they 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.679 go through their day, as they try to recover from 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.520 an illness like a stroke or Parkinson's disease, and that 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.240 we would just learn a lot more about how the 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.399 mind works. Well. And that's the point, actually, right, I 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.600 mean we oh, so we do know a lot about 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.520 the body, we do know a fair amount about the brain, 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.200 but there's so much that is unknown. And he thinks 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.639 about it kind of juxtaposed against artificial intelligence to you know, 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.399 he started this company. I've been following him for a 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.240 few years. He really started when he thought that AI 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.119 was getting so powerful that that humans would not stand 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.000 a chance against it, and that our only hope was 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.560 to kind of, you know, merge with machines and create 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.040 this brain machine interface. It's a way that that really 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.320 you could add computing horsepower to your own brain and 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.359 vice versa, so that that's kind of the root of 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.320 all this over time. Brian, he's an interesting character. He's 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.440 really into kind of the quantified self movement. He has 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.200 all these tests done on his body, and he's very 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.679 particular about how much he sleeps and what he eats 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.000 and how he exercises and all this stuff and so um. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.080 You know. The other part of this is like for 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.000 him on this personal journey, is that he wants to 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.480 know everything about himself in the brain was like this 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.879 last bit that he couldn't measure or understand. Can we 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:13.720 talk about his apps? When I when I started this story, 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:15.919 I mean, so Brian and I are almost exactly at 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.560 the same age. We're both with the calendars as we're 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.320 both forty three, about to turn forty four, and and 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.560 you know, we probably looked like somewhat similar three years 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.240 ago when I first started talking to him. And I've gone, 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.720 you know, one way, or I'm stayed sort of the same, 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.680 And this guy has gotten totally repped. I mean, he 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.560 he eats one meal a day at very early in 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.520 the morning. He eats like twenty three hundred calories and 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.359 this one go and picks out all the food and 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.199 he does his work out in the morning. And you know, 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.040 to the extent you believe in all this stuff. He 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.919 he there's different ways you can kind of measure your 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.440 your biological age. And you know, so he's gone from 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.520 forty three to the doctors saying he's got like body 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.240 basically like a twenty five year old. Yeah, okay, okay, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.639 go for that. Forget the helmet, I want that right. So, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.720 how he he has snorted stem cells? Does that help? 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.359 I've seen him snorts snorts stem cells before. Yeah. I 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.359 mean he goes to this wellness clinic in Colorado, this 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.679 Grossman Wellness Center, and they like, take out some of 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:27.919 your blood and they spin it in a centrifuge and 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.480 get the plasma and then some kind of magic happens 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.480 to the plasma that turns it into these stem cells. 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.080 And the doctor I saw him do it, he snorted 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.199 them right up his nose. It's supposed to improve your memory, 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.399 your kind of attitude, your your general disposition and towards life. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.880 And uh, he said it worked. He did it quite 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.520 a few times, although he stopped doing it. Now. That 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.000 was feature writer Ashley Vance, along with the editor of 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.160 the magazine, Joel Webber. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.840 Up next, he brought us Studio fifty four and the 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.240 boutique Hotel. What does Ian Schrager have to say about 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:13.600 the hospitality industry? Now, this is Bloomberg. You're listening to 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.600 Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.159 Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. We'll check it out everyone. 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:23.960 If you walk around New York City, you can tell 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.880 it has reopened. We see it more and more each day. 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.720 The broader us is increasingly moving toward a post pandemic life. 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.440 The rest of the world also moving forward, but at 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.000 an uneven pace, with COVID still taking a heavy toll. 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:38.600 One area that took an incredibly hard hit during the 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.320 health crisis hotels and hospitality. And we've leaned on the 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.320 next guest to tell us how things were going and 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.640 what happens next. He's been involved in the hospitality industry 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:51.320 for five decades, from Studio fifty four and Palladium nightclubs 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.320 back in the nineties seventies to challenging and upending the 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:56.920 hotel industry with the introduction and creation of the boutique 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.679 hotel in the nineteen eighties. He created the Public brand, 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.879 and he did a reboot before reopening from the coronavirus 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.439 just recently. Let's get more from Ian Schrager, hotelier and 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.200 founder and chairman of the Ian Schrager Company. I think 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.359 people who live live in New York City, uh, around 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.240 the world are ready to go mad, and they're looking 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.960 for a place, a platform going to do that. I think, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.800 uh in New York in particular, or a very funny situation. 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.040 But I think that all the signs arrived, the demands 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.240 are definitely there. Will take a little while to ramp up. 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.359 I can't kill exactly how fast, but I am confidence 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.840 it will ramp up. Labor has been an issue. I 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.560 think that, uh, there's a scaphony of the lay too. 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.280 And I think until the benefits stop, until the support 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:51.080 that the government has really been giving everybody, uh, people 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:52.680 will have to go back to work and they will 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:54.800 so well. It's interesting that you say that because when 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.080 we look at the labor statistics, you know, at those 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.439 monthly jobs reports and job numbers, it is to be 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.280 the hospitality industry where you are seeing the big moves 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.320