Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business finance and tech news as it happened. It's
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes.
Speaker 1: Tim Stinevin on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. It's week fifty six. Still
Speaker 1: working from home for many in our world. Tim I,
Speaker 1: as you know, was home this week because of COVID concerns.
Speaker 1: All clear though, and looking forward to being back in
Speaker 1: the office. I think it's fair to say, Carrol, we've
Speaker 1: all been there. That's that's the reality in this day age,
Speaker 1: right If somebody has a fever like happened with my
Speaker 1: son a few weeks ago, you know, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a concern, and you want to stay home from work,
Speaker 1: you want to get everyone tested. And that's just the
Speaker 1: world we're living in, all right. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have the latest on COVID this week. Also,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have an in depth profile of Bill Wong,
Speaker 1: who's Archigos Capital Management family office was hit with one
Speaker 1: of the biggest margin calls ever. It's this week's cover story.
Speaker 1: We just can't stop talking about it. We're also going
Speaker 1: to hear about how the cruise industry is rebounding from
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Will do that with Arnold Donald, the president
Speaker 1: CEO of Carnival. That was a fantastic interview. Carol, Plus,
Speaker 1: the Mayor of Miami is looking to entice Mr. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and some other techis to Florida. He sinking, Come on,
Speaker 1: enjoy the sun. We begin to with the check on
Speaker 1: the virus and vaccine rollout. President Biden announcing this week
Speaker 1: he wants all American adults to be eligible for a
Speaker 1: coronavirus vaccine by April ninete. That's two weeks earlier than
Speaker 1: his previous goal. Still cases and hospitalizations rising in some
Speaker 1: parts of the country. New variants of the virus are
Speaker 1: spreading and they're moving quickly. Cases are going back up,
Speaker 1: hospitalizations are no longer declining. While deaths are still down
Speaker 1: way down from January, they're going up in some places.
Speaker 1: I go to voice on COVID. Dr William has Altine
Speaker 1: his chairman and president of Access Health International, and has
Speaker 1: found in more than a dozen biotech companies, including Human
Speaker 1: Genome Sciences, And he's also out with a new book
Speaker 1: that's very topical. It's called Variance, The Shape Shifting Challenge
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen lots to talk about. We began by
Speaker 1: asking about the vaccine rollout here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Some places are doing extremely well. Other police places are
Speaker 1: doing badly. Some places the variants are surging, in other
Speaker 1: places they're almost not the tectable. Uh. And it's complicated
Speaker 1: with the vaccines because some places where the vaccine that
Speaker 1: the disease is surging, for example in Michigan, have a
Speaker 1: pretty good vaccine record. So it's a very complicated picture.
Speaker 1: And I think there's, uh, there's a lot of hope,
Speaker 1: but there's some cause for concerns. So why do you
Speaker 1: think that's happening in places like Michigan right now that
Speaker 1: are actually doing relatively well when it comes to the
Speaker 1: rollout of the vaccine, but still seeing surges. I think
Speaker 1: that it's still pretty cold up there, not like it is,
Speaker 1: and people are going staying inside and they're not following
Speaker 1: the same careful behavior they did before. One thing we
Speaker 1: now know is that restaurants and bars are really dangerous
Speaker 1: because you're with a lot of people and you don't
Speaker 1: have your mask on. If you're drinking, you can't drink
Speaker 1: through your mask, you can't eat through your mask. And
Speaker 1: so it's not so much being outside and crowds, it's
Speaker 1: being inside. And I think that's what could be driving
Speaker 1: in now. That isn't the only thing that drives it,
Speaker 1: because we're all surprised last summer when we saw this
Speaker 1: enormous bump in the summer which came from people missing.
Speaker 1: But then when it gets too hot, people stay inside
Speaker 1: to stay cool. So it's really our gregarious nature trying
Speaker 1: to get together, loving to be together, sharing food, sharing conversation,
Speaker 1: which is a big problem for this disease. We know
Speaker 1: a lot more about transmission than we did before. It
Speaker 1: really gets transmitted by aerosol, small particles, uh that hang
Speaker 1: in the air sometimes for quite a while, and these
Speaker 1: new variants, some of them are much more infectious. So um,
Speaker 1: a lot more particles are in the air and each
Speaker 1: one of those particles is more likely to cause containing.
Speaker 1: So those are all factors. But the vaccines in the
Speaker 1: positive side, and uh, it's, as I say, quite a
Speaker 1: mixed picture right now. Listen, we love talking to you.
Speaker 1: You know, you founded Human Genome Sciences, you were founder
Speaker 1: of Harvard Medical Schools HIV and AIDS research departments. You
Speaker 1: understand this world better than most, and so do you foresee,
Speaker 1: doctor hasseltine, that we get to a point where it's
Speaker 1: just like the flu, and we take a vaccine and
Speaker 1: we go on our merry way, or is this something different?
Speaker 1: In one sense, it's going to be I think like
Speaker 1: the flu, where every year or every year and a
Speaker 1: half and take another shot, account for variants that are
Speaker 1: coming from somewhere, either our country or elsewhere. But in
Speaker 1: another sense, it's not like the flu, because from the
Speaker 1: get go it's been pretty dangerous. Uh. One and two
Speaker 1: hundred people have died. Some of these variants do a
Speaker 1: couple of things that are disturbing. They kill maybe twice
Speaker 1: as many people as they did before, to kill younger
Speaker 1: people than they did before. Uh, and that's pretty worrisome. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're also, as I pointed out, more transmissible and invade
Speaker 1: our vaccines. So I think we may reach a steady state,
Speaker 1: but I hope that the steady state lower than it
Speaker 1: is a flu that in a good year kills twenty
Speaker 1: thousand of us. A bad year kills sixty thou of us.
Speaker 1: It could be a lot worse, so we need to
Speaker 1: do better. There is hope though, because there are drugs
Speaker 1: coming along now that if you think you've been exposed,
Speaker 1: you'll be able I think in the future, maybe within
Speaker 1: a year or shorter, to take a pill and prevent
Speaker 1: yourself from getting infected. People should know that there's now
Speaker 1: a pill like that for flu, that if you've been
Speaker 1: exposed to the flu, there's a pill called a Flusa
Speaker 1: that you can take and dramatically reduce your chance. So
Speaker 1: if you're in school or your kid comes home with
Speaker 1: the flu, the real fluid uh that you can reduce
Speaker 1: your chance of getting it. And I hope that within
Speaker 1: the relatively in your future will have drugs like that
Speaker 1: for COVID. To doctor haselten, we continue to get news
Speaker 1: about the durability of this vaccine and also how it
Speaker 1: does in the face of variance. So far as have
Speaker 1: you seen anything that raises any red flags about the
Speaker 1: mutations of the virus being able to get past these
Speaker 1: vaccines that are available for emergency use authorization. Now, if
Speaker 1: the initial response is very strong, it will last longer
Speaker 1: and protect against more variants. Over time, it will decrease
Speaker 1: both in its protection against the original variant and increase
Speaker 1: decrease a little bit faster against the other variants. Now,
Speaker 1: not all variants are created equally. Some are more resistant
Speaker 1: in musicalization or protection than or others. That's right. It's
Speaker 1: all about upping that antibody protection to make sure that
Speaker 1: we are protected from the virus. That, of course, Dr
Speaker 1: William Hazeltine, Chairman and President of Access Health International. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up, containment of the
Speaker 1: virus key to the cruise industry setting sale in the US.
Speaker 1: We hear from the President CEO of Carnival Corporation, Arnold Donald.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So this week, Carnival, the largest cruise line operator, reported
Speaker 1: that bookings are accelerating, reflecting pent up demand for cruising
Speaker 1: tim even as the industry remains well essentially un hold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. The CDC also came out this week and
Speaker 1: said that U S cruises could resume by Midsummer with restrictions.
Speaker 1: That news coming after Carnival had threatened to relocate U
Speaker 1: S ships to other markets outside of the United States.
Speaker 1: So Carol, it was perfect timing for your conversation with
Speaker 1: President and CEO Arnold Donald. This was for a business
Speaker 1: week talks. Tell me about the CDC now possibly offering
Speaker 1: to or allowing ships to be out and running by midsummer.
Speaker 1: What's changed with the CDC and what are the restrictions
Speaker 1: that are going to have to happen in order for
Speaker 1: that to actually come to fruition. Well, as you might recall, Carol,
Speaker 1: the CDC, I think last October issued a conditional sale
Speaker 1: order and they came out in phases. The first phase
Speaker 1: was bringing ships back in the US waters, primarily with
Speaker 1: minimal crew on board. We've finished that phase of it
Speaker 1: in terms of Heaven and ourselves thirty ships that are
Speaker 1: currently in green status. They issued UM on April two,
Speaker 1: the next phase, and frankly, what has been issued UM
Speaker 1: doesn't give us a specific time and to be able
Speaker 1: to return UM and also was really not workable in
Speaker 1: the current form. But again it just came out and
Speaker 1: we have an opportunity to discuss with the CDC any
Speaker 1: administration um to make certain that we do have something
Speaker 1: that's workable and hopefully that would allow us to be
Speaker 1: able to sale in July. And we're hoping it will
Speaker 1: be something that's more in line with the advancements of
Speaker 1: vaccines that's occurred in the rapid advancement of the vaccines
Speaker 1: that deministration has been so successful with, as well as
Speaker 1: the advancement and treatments and the investments of rapid testing,
Speaker 1: none of which existed when the original conditional sale order
Speaker 1: which written. So we're hopeful that we'll be able to
Speaker 1: meet with the administration and CDC and and come up
Speaker 1: with something as practical and will allow people to return
Speaker 1: to their choice of vacation travel and get a whole
Speaker 1: lot of Americans back to work. As you know, Carol,
Speaker 1: but half million people are impacted in the US in
Speaker 1: terms of jobs associated with the cruise industry outside of
Speaker 1: the cruise companies themselves. Hey, one thing I gotta ask you, Arnold,
Speaker 1: is how much of Carnival threatening to relocate their ships
Speaker 1: to other markets outside the United States. Do you think
Speaker 1: was the reason for the CDC change, Because it was
Speaker 1: just a few days ago that they came out, you know,
Speaker 1: and we're still kind of holding firm what happened. What
Speaker 1: were the conversations that maybe you, you and other members
Speaker 1: of the cruise line industry had with the CDC. There
Speaker 1: was no threat or anything. It's just a practical reality
Speaker 1: that if we're not able to sailed from the US
Speaker 1: and some months soon we would have to sail from elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And so some of the ships what homeport and a
Speaker 1: number of companies have already announced home boarding, ships that
Speaker 1: normally would have been sailing out of the U S
Speaker 1: homeporting from different places in the Caribbean. But it's not
Speaker 1: a threat or anything. It's just a natural outcome of
Speaker 1: not being able to sail from the U S. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure anything has changed, and perhaps it has. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard directly from the CDC or the administration anything
Speaker 1: has changed. I think that they genuinely believe the information
Speaker 1: they put out might allow some limited sailing as early
Speaker 1: as July uh and so we'll have to discuss that
Speaker 1: with them. Our timeline son't quite match up with that,
Speaker 1: but maybe we don't understand everything. So the CDC has
Speaker 1: a job to do. They're trying to do their job.
Speaker 1: I think as long as we work together with the
Speaker 1: CDC and the administration, we can all get crews you know,
Speaker 1: back soon, and we can get it back and safe
Speaker 1: with the interests of public health, and we can have
Speaker 1: all those half a million workers no longer suffer from
Speaker 1: not being able to earn a wage and and and
Speaker 1: do their jobs in the ports and the various travel
Speaker 1: agents and all the other things that are connected to
Speaker 1: two crews well, or does it feel like that there's
Speaker 1: a more constructive conversation with the CDC right now? And
Speaker 1: I asked that because I do also wonder is there
Speaker 1: kind of a last straw for you that if the
Speaker 1: CDC in a couple of months isn't clear about what
Speaker 1: it will take to get ships uh US home boarded ships,
Speaker 1: you know, up and running, is there a point where
Speaker 1: you're going to say, okay, I'm done and we're going
Speaker 1: to move ships abroad. We have nine brands carrel, so
Speaker 1: about fifty nine of our nineties ships are not under
Speaker 1: the conditional sail or that they don't you know, sail
Speaker 1: in the US anyway, And so there we are already
Speaker 1: active and sailing, and we've announced sailings and um in
Speaker 1: the UK, we've announce sailings in Greece, um I Eida
Speaker 1: our German brands already sailing from the Canary Islands, all
Speaker 1: on a limited basis at this point, but it is
Speaker 1: movement in the right direction. And UM we're optimistic that
Speaker 1: we'll be able to do the same here and continue
Speaker 1: to dialogue in the CDs. I think we're the big
Speaker 1: issues here is UM the relative mentality around risk. So
Speaker 1: today you could border plane, fly to a country, get
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship, and sale fly back from that
Speaker 1: country and come back to the United States. You have
Speaker 1: to do certain testing excerta, but you can do that.
Speaker 1: And today, even if vaccinated, you can't get on a
Speaker 1: cruise ship in the US. And that's whether you've vaccinated
Speaker 1: or not in terms of what you could do from
Speaker 1: the US going somewhere else to get on a cruise ship. So,
Speaker 1: and if you look at other travel and entertainment sectors
Speaker 1: you talked about spring breakdown in Miami, UM, or you
Speaker 1: look at arenas where people are starting to be able
Speaker 1: to attend sporting events, restaurants, hotels, resourts, air travel. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a level of risk management and mitigation,
Speaker 1: and so we would like to just be treated similarly
Speaker 1: to the rest of the travel and tourism sector. Um.
Speaker 1: And we also obviously have enhanced protocols already in place
Speaker 1: versus many of the sectors. Well, does it not make extraining,
Speaker 1: medical center on board, etcetera. Forgive me for interrupting, but
Speaker 1: does it not make sense to you, Arnold, um that
Speaker 1: on for planes. You know, people get on a plane
Speaker 1: and they're sitting right next to each other. Um. There
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of different requirements for people in
Speaker 1: different parts of the tourism industry. And yet you folks
Speaker 1: are still waiting, you know, to be able to get
Speaker 1: up and running. Does it seem is this disparate treatment
Speaker 1: fair in your view? I think everyone is trying to
Speaker 1: do what they think is best for public health, and
Speaker 1: I think, um, together we can work and find a
Speaker 1: way forward. I'm It's true you get on a plane.
Speaker 1: Some people say, well, you only a plane for a
Speaker 1: few hours, but you are sitting right next to someone.
Speaker 1: Before you got on the plane, you're an airport terminal.
Speaker 1: Before you're on an airport terminal, you're in some kind
Speaker 1: of transportation. Before that, you came from somewhere. When you land,
Speaker 1: you go to another airport, terminal, and then you get
Speaker 1: in an automobile or bus or whatever, you get onto transport,
Speaker 1: and then you go places. You might go to a restaurant,
Speaker 1: you might stay in a hotel, you may go to
Speaker 1: a sart and and all of that activity, and the
Speaker 1: cruises a city, s c. And so to compare us
Speaker 1: just to an airplane ride is inappropriate, and to compare
Speaker 1: us um just to a hotel stay is inappropriate. And
Speaker 1: so I think the reality is look at the evidence.
Speaker 1: There's over four hundred thousand people that have sailed UM
Speaker 1: to date in Europe for a fewer than fifty cases
Speaker 1: of COVID, all handles seamlessly without disruption. Tim we are
Speaker 1: watching what's going on in Europe, especially as passengers get
Speaker 1: back on those big cruise ships. Yeah, as we do
Speaker 1: try to make our way out of this pandemic. That's
Speaker 1: something that we keep doing, right, looking to other countries,
Speaker 1: out of areas of the world to see how things
Speaker 1: have worked out as sort of evidence is to potentially
Speaker 1: how they'll work out here right exactly how we find
Speaker 1: our way back. That's Arnold Donald, the Presidency of Carnival
Speaker 1: catch the entire extended interview in an upcoming podcast along
Speaker 1: with a Business Week talks in the magazine you're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week Still to come a conversation with
Speaker 1: PayPal co founder and a firm CEO, Max Levchin on
Speaker 1: how stimulus payments are in acting consumer spending. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they're spending on cruises maybe, or stocks are stocks exactly?
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one
Speaker 1: nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: when it comes to understanding the startup world and how
Speaker 1: online and technology are reinventing so much of what we
Speaker 1: do and how we do it. Tim one voice we
Speaker 1: like to check in with is a co founder of
Speaker 1: PayPal and who was also chairman of Yelp for eleven
Speaker 1: years from its founding days, as well as founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Slide that one was sold to Google. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Max Levchin who today is founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of a firm. It's a company that offers installment plans
Speaker 1: to online shoppers and a great window into how consumers
Speaker 1: may be spending some of those stimulus dollars. From my
Speaker 1: point of view, the most important thing I care about
Speaker 1: is the health of the consumer. On the financial side
Speaker 1: of things, and we've seen, and you know, much thanks
Speaker 1: to being actually by Federal Reserve and government in various places,
Speaker 1: there's just a tremendous amount of where would consider to
Speaker 1: be good consumer behavior. There's a lot of savings and
Speaker 1: this is to me that means people are saving up
Speaker 1: to really go out and have a wonderful vacation that
Speaker 1: they've held back on. And you know, we're seeing conversations
Speaker 1: with our partners places like Verba and Pacasa, you know,
Speaker 1: et cetera, UM on the sort of overall health from
Speaker 1: the death main conversation side of things. Americans have paid
Speaker 1: off almost eight three billion dollars in R debts during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, so you know, they put some of those
Speaker 1: similist checks to again, from my point of view, the
Speaker 1: right um, the right thing to do U. And then
Speaker 1: just the overall consumer confidence is really high and jumped
Speaker 1: to one year high, which is maybe maybe from a
Speaker 1: low point of a year ago. We weren't really taking
Speaker 1: these log downs seriously, and at this point I think
Speaker 1: people have they've suffered, and they're really looking forward to
Speaker 1: real Well, let me ask you something. Is your company,
Speaker 1: you know, offers installment plans right to online shoppers um
Speaker 1: and lets people kind of pay over time. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing less of that because people are using more of
Speaker 1: whether it's stimulus dollars or just you know, savings in
Speaker 1: general to pay down their debt. Can you make any
Speaker 1: kind of conclusions along those lines. You know, we have
Speaker 1: seen exceptional growth in the last year, and so I
Speaker 1: would not characterize it as seeing less. I do think
Speaker 1: that people are using their similar dollars. Sensibly, we have
Speaker 1: a saving feature that we offered to our customers, and
Speaker 1: we've seen influx of saving increases as the government sent
Speaker 1: checks to consumers, and so I think that there's a
Speaker 1: sort of visible correlation there. Uh. I think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting about the effect of the pandemic and a long
Speaker 1: term state of e commerce and shopping in general, is
Speaker 1: we've trained a whole generation of people that we're just
Speaker 1: not going to go online folks like my mom Cruise
Speaker 1: in her seventies, who enjoys her offline shopping. You know,
Speaker 1: she's now very well first in the idea of box
Speaker 1: coming to her door. And so we brought in a
Speaker 1: bunch of commerce shoppers and I think they're here to stay.
Speaker 1: And I think what's really going to be required of
Speaker 1: us in the bye oclator industry and broadly SECRUD providers
Speaker 1: and payments. We have to meet this new consumer behavior
Speaker 1: with by online and pick up and store or return
Speaker 1: in store exchange and started all the mixed omni channel
Speaker 1: modalities that are suddenly going to be much more prominent,
Speaker 1: much more important. Yeah, I have to say too. In retail,
Speaker 1: I mean I look for places where there's lots of
Speaker 1: ease I can if I buy online, can I easily
Speaker 1: return it either through their taking care of it or
Speaker 1: they're taking care of shipping, or I can drop it
Speaker 1: off at one of their storefronts. And you know, we've
Speaker 1: talked about omni channel for a long time, but I
Speaker 1: think now I totally get it of what it really
Speaker 1: needs to be. In order for it to be incredibly productive.
Speaker 1: You have to be met where you want to be met,
Speaker 1: especially as we're still for coming back to it's safe. Yes,
Speaker 1: maybe I have my hafix scene or how safe am I?
Speaker 1: I don't really want to go hang around in big showroom.
Speaker 1: But if I buy online and I need to get
Speaker 1: rid of it, it has to be very quick. I
Speaker 1: don't want to repackage it and to get to the
Speaker 1: post office, I need to bring it back to the door.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I think that's that's that's a big
Speaker 1: important change. I have to say. I think I know
Speaker 1: three or four people in my orbit who you know,
Speaker 1: had tried to schedule a wedding several times um over
Speaker 1: the last year and I had to keep you postponing it,
Speaker 1: or people who got married but said, listen, we're going
Speaker 1: to do a party as soon as things open up.
Speaker 1: So a lot of that's going on. Tell me about
Speaker 1: your company. Here, you are nine years in three months
Speaker 1: roughly since you I p oed. You know, how is
Speaker 1: your company change and evolved along with what consumers need
Speaker 1: or what the market needs. So it's actually a very
Speaker 1: wording moment. It just literally happened. It was on Piday
Speaker 1: a March is our birthday. And you know, on one hand,
Speaker 1: everything has changed. You nine years ago idea of by
Speaker 1: affiliator just wasn't the thing. People didn't really believe that.
Speaker 1: They thought cared cards are just fine, and I had
Speaker 1: this sort of very strongly worded point of view that
Speaker 1: the credits is broken. We need to provide for the
Speaker 1: more flexible, our transparent alternatives because do not want to
Speaker 1: be confused by their interest graded. They want to know
Speaker 1: exactly when and how they will get out of pain.
Speaker 1: You know, their their their their, their payments, and so
Speaker 1: we made this mission to create financial products that improve
Speaker 1: lives and that a state exactly the same. And it's
Speaker 1: really awesome to just be able to look back and
Speaker 1: get we've been doing the same exact thing while evolving
Speaker 1: and changing everything for nine years straight, and it feels
Speaker 1: like we're probably five percentage, maybe repercentage, but we were
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. So it's it's fun of the things
Speaker 1: where but it's the longest project I've ever done in
Speaker 1: my entire life. And I started companies since college and
Speaker 1: I have no interest in slowing down or got for
Speaker 1: both pausing. So it's really fun. That's paper co founder
Speaker 1: and a firm CEO, Max Levchin, so tim as consumers
Speaker 1: get ready to spend some spacks. A few already putting
Speaker 1: money to work. We're going to hear from the chairman
Speaker 1: of Rotor Acquisition on its deal this week. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a really fun conversation. That's next on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Someone we'd like to turn to on everything from trade
Speaker 1: and politics to Wall Street dealmaking and more is Stephen Selig.
Speaker 1: He's managing partner Bridge Park Advisors, also the former Undersecretary
Speaker 1: of Commerce for International Trade at the U. S Department
Speaker 1: of Commerce. That was during the Obama administration. Well, this
Speaker 1: time around, we wanted to talk to him all about
Speaker 1: a story recorded by Bloomberg News. It's about Sarcos Robotics
Speaker 1: planning to go public through a reverse merger with the
Speaker 1: blank Check company Rotor Acquisition. Stephan is also the chairman
Speaker 1: of Rotor and told us all about Rotor and why Sarcos.
Speaker 1: Rotor Acquisition is a company that we formed at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year. I have two partners, Brian Finn,
Speaker 1: who's the former president of credit suite in the US,
Speaker 1: who I've known since nine four and John Howard, who's
Speaker 1: a storied private equity investor, was the CEO and founder
Speaker 1: of the merchant banking business at bear Stearns. And we
Speaker 1: raised two hundred and seventy six million dollars to do
Speaker 1: a deal, um where for a company that was going
Speaker 1: to be positively impacted by innovation and technology to transform
Speaker 1: what historically had been an old economy business. And we
Speaker 1: identified Sarcos Robotics, which is a leader in highly dexterous
Speaker 1: mobile industrial robotics systems that enables the workforce of the
Speaker 1: future with solutions that enhance productivity and reduce operational injuries
Speaker 1: and equalize employment opportunities for jobs around the world that
Speaker 1: did not otherwise lend themselves automation. So we are extraordinarily
Speaker 1: excited about this opportunity, um uh, and to present it
Speaker 1: to our share old I mean, I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: picture of the Sarcos Robotics Guardian Exo Exo skeleton and
Speaker 1: it looks like an exo skeleton, like something out of
Speaker 1: a superhero movie Aliens. Yeah, it does. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is something that is designed to to help people lift
Speaker 1: heavy objects. Right, Yes, UM. What's important to him is
Speaker 1: it's not designed to replace humans like a number of
Speaker 1: the robots you see and in automotive factories and in
Speaker 1: other applications, but rather to augment humans. And as a
Speaker 1: result of that, UM the technology has been UM extraordinarily
Speaker 1: well received by commercial and military customers alike. For some
Speaker 1: of the reasons, I suggested, what is the process of
Speaker 1: identifying a company like Sarcos Robotics when you have this
Speaker 1: criteria that you use for identifying the type of company
Speaker 1: that you want to acquire respect Well, you know, UM.
Speaker 1: We came together the three of us UM with a
Speaker 1: hundred years of Wall Street experience and UM broad and
Speaker 1: deep relationships and UM. One of those relationships UM with
Speaker 1: two of my partners was with Sarkos and frankly, we
Speaker 1: think that's what differentiates some of the SPAC sponsors from others.
Speaker 1: As this capital markets tool has continued to evolve, UM
Speaker 1: and frankly UM, what we think differentiates us UM is
Speaker 1: not only our ability to UM negotiate attractive acquisitions UM,
Speaker 1: but to identify proprietary opportunities based on that network. Well,
Speaker 1: and I guess you know the question is because and
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more broadly about SPACs. UM Stephen,
Speaker 1: but did you guys think about a lot of other
Speaker 1: companies or look at a lot of other companies or
Speaker 1: I'm just curious about the process. Yeah. Well, UM, Sarcos
Speaker 1: had engaged to financial advisors to run a pro sets,
Speaker 1: which roughly coincide would when our spack was raised. So
Speaker 1: we were kind of thrown into the suit, so to speak.
Speaker 1: UM early UM uh in UM in our time frame
Speaker 1: for identifying a target. So UM, we had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to look at UM a number of opportunities. UM. But
Speaker 1: once the Sarco opportunity became actionable because of their own
Speaker 1: deliberations and process that they're board decided on, we frankly
Speaker 1: jumped on this is I'm just looking at pictures of
Speaker 1: what's available on the market for this. UM. Just talk
Speaker 1: briefly about the go to market strategy with with how
Speaker 1: you're thinking about getting this to companies. It seems like
Speaker 1: right now the cost is really high. You're going to
Speaker 1: lease it or the company I should say, Sarcos Robotics
Speaker 1: will lease it food dollars a year. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: eventually the cost is going is expected to get lower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the cost to manufacturer will go down to
Speaker 1: mat eckily as we start to get the scale. The
Speaker 1: cost that you're referring to ten an hour high only
Speaker 1: because we're in the kind of alpha and data UM
Speaker 1: production stages. So we're doing that ourselves as opposed to
Speaker 1: the global contract manufacturers that we will utilize UM once
Speaker 1: we get the scale. But um UH, your intuition is
Speaker 1: actually the opposite of what we believe to be the case,
Speaker 1: which is this will make um UH production and manufacturing
Speaker 1: and UM decreased costs for our for our customers because
Speaker 1: it will allow one worker to do what to three
Speaker 1: or four workers can do without this UM without this technology.
Speaker 1: So just think about it. UM. A normal worker guidelines
Speaker 1: are you shouldn't be listening lifting stuff that's more than
Speaker 1: thirty pounds, and when you have to lift something that's
Speaker 1: more than more than thirty pounds, that means you need
Speaker 1: to three or four workers. Where here UM you can
Speaker 1: use the exoskeleton can lift up to two hundred pounds
Speaker 1: and frankly feel like you're lifting just five pounds UM.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that, UM, the cost benefits
Speaker 1: to um UH, the cost benefits to our potential customers
Speaker 1: are significant. Let alone the benefits around worker safety, UM.
Speaker 1: The amount of productivity that is lost in the global
Speaker 1: economy because of workplace injuries are just extraordinary. I do
Speaker 1: also wonder to UM stuff and if it allows older
Speaker 1: workers to, you know, maybe take a job that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't normally be able to because they're able to tap
Speaker 1: into this kind of equipment. So that's exactly right, Carol.
Speaker 1: And it's not older workers taking these jobs as much
Speaker 1: as workers being able to stay on their jobs and
Speaker 1: not actually age out because of the wear and tear
Speaker 1: that their bodies will take in some of these more
Speaker 1: demanding jobs, let alone having younger people who are going
Speaker 1: to be attracted to these jobs because frankly, they're less
Speaker 1: dangerous and more interesting and more fun UM, rather than
Speaker 1: just sitting in front of a screen. Hey, just one
Speaker 1: more question on sarcos Um, Stefan. I do wonder how
Speaker 1: much of the business going forward will be reliant on
Speaker 1: government contracts. It's a great question, Um, Carol. We have
Speaker 1: very strong relationships with the U. S. Military. However, all
Speaker 1: of our projections that we have shared with investors are
Speaker 1: one percent dependent on UH commercial relationships UM and not
Speaker 1: dependent on government contracts because frankly, government contracts are are
Speaker 1: far less certain, um uh and subject to much more variability.
Speaker 1: And so we really built a business plan around commercial applications,
Speaker 1: although we think there's going to be tons of military
Speaker 1: and other government uses for the products. Hey, Stephen, I
Speaker 1: want to talk trade with you because of course you
Speaker 1: were former under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade or
Speaker 1: are former undersecret e Commerce for International Trade at the
Speaker 1: US Department of Commerce during the Obama administration. We are
Speaker 1: still in a trade war with China right now. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people forget that. Um, how do
Speaker 1: we get past this and into the what is the
Speaker 1: sort of next relationship or phase of the relationship with China?
Speaker 1: Look like? You know, I'm not sure Kim, we do
Speaker 1: get past it. Um. I remember telling Carol, Um, you
Speaker 1: know a few months ago that you know, it's almost
Speaker 1: kind of like we're in a challenged marriage with China
Speaker 1: and we're kind of forced to live together because of
Speaker 1: the kids. And I think, frankly that continues to be
Speaker 1: the analogy and our relations you know, I think are
Speaker 1: going to continue to remain fraught. Um. The tone may
Speaker 1: change or will change under the Biden administration and clearly
Speaker 1: will be less belligerent. I think clearly, as a tactical matter,
Speaker 1: we're likely to coordinate much more of our friends and allies.
Speaker 1: But I don't think the fundamental underpinning of these tensions
Speaker 1: is going to go away anytime soon. So let me
Speaker 1: ask you. I love that, I do remember that. I
Speaker 1: think it made us chuckle when you said it. But
Speaker 1: this whole idea of being forced to live live together
Speaker 1: because of the kids, who's going to have the at
Speaker 1: our house? China or the United States? I asked that
Speaker 1: because of the infrastructure spend that President Biden is now
Speaker 1: trying to do. Stephane, we had a great conversation with
Speaker 1: our Andy Brown of Bloomberg New Economy that the whole
Speaker 1: idea of you can't fight, you know, the way we
Speaker 1: used to fight with our with maybe our foes, that
Speaker 1: modern weapon weaponry now is really about um improving, you know,
Speaker 1: your economy. That's how you fight kind of in the
Speaker 1: in the strongest way, and doing that is by building
Speaker 1: up your infrastructure. So I wonder your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: So I guess Caroline made there was two points to
Speaker 1: that interesting question. The first is which side do you
Speaker 1: want to take and frankly, I don't want to um
Speaker 1: uh sound polly Anish, but you know you have to
Speaker 1: bet on the US. We have the strongest economy, the
Speaker 1: most innovative economy. We have rule of law, We have
Speaker 1: the broadest and deepest capital markets, We are energy self sufficient,
Speaker 1: we have um an extraordinary workforce. We have the best
Speaker 1: set and dairy education, university education system in the world.
Speaker 1: And you know, those are all things that are the
Speaker 1: envy of the world. As I went around, not just
Speaker 1: as under under secretary, but as a banker for many years.
Speaker 1: People want to do business with American companies that want
Speaker 1: to do business in America, and that's not going to change.
Speaker 1: Um uh, that's not going to change anytime soon. Great
Speaker 1: perspective from Stephan selg Tim because listen, this is a
Speaker 1: guy who's been at the table when he was working
Speaker 1: for the Obama administration, understood the dynamics the trade, the
Speaker 1: commerce between the United States and China, yeh. And he
Speaker 1: knows what it takes to get something done in Washington
Speaker 1: or when something won't get done exactly. Stephan Seelig, he's
Speaker 1: managing partner at Bridge Park Advisors, And that wraps up
Speaker 1: the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio from Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovak.
Speaker 1: Much more ahead in the next hour, including a profile
Speaker 1: of Bill Wong, who's Archigo's Capital Management family office was
Speaker 1: hit with one of the biggest margin calls ever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big one. Well. Also hear from the Mayor of Miami
Speaker 1: he is looking to create Silicon val the Miami version,
Speaker 1: Plus the CEO of Jackson Family Wines describes the pandemic's
Speaker 1: impact on the wine industry. Yeah, you all know I
Speaker 1: love get a little wine into our So all of
Speaker 1: that to come in the next hour of Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from
Speaker 1: the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted
Speaker 1: business magazine. Plus global business, finance and tech news as
Speaker 1: it happened. S Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stovik. Plenty ahead in our
Speaker 1: second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: including how the Mayor of Miami is trying to lord
Speaker 1: Elon Musk to the Magic City. Plus, after a year
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, we check in with the CEO of
Speaker 1: Jackson Family Wines on the impact and on what feels
Speaker 1: like the job offer of a lifetime. I kind of
Speaker 1: want to apply for this. Hey, you should do it
Speaker 1: and leave you no way, all right? First up the
Speaker 1: cover story this week, which already feels like the biggest
Speaker 1: Wall Street story of the year. It's about the greatest
Speaker 1: trader you've never heard of, who then went on to
Speaker 1: lose twenty billion dollars. Yeah, it's a profile of Bill Wong,
Speaker 1: who's Archigo's Capital Management family office was hit with one
Speaker 1: of the biggest margin calls ever. We spoke with Business
Speaker 1: Week editor Joe Weber and finance reporter Shrinadarajan. The incredible
Speaker 1: aspect of this story is, forget the second leg of
Speaker 1: his career, forget what happened with the blow up of
Speaker 1: this investment firm. Just the fact that he was able
Speaker 1: to parlay more than two million of initial funds in
Speaker 1: his family office Chagos and translated to translated to over
Speaker 1: twenty billion in just seven or eight years. That is
Speaker 1: a remarkable story By itself. That is near hundred times returns.
Speaker 1: That is not usual, and that is why we call
Speaker 1: him the greatest trader you've never heard of. But then
Speaker 1: what follows is even more astonishing. You you've had a
Speaker 1: suation where in a matter of this, all that wealth
Speaker 1: goes up and smoke. Because these were big wages he's
Speaker 1: made in companies he believed in, with increasing amount of
Speaker 1: borrowed money from banks, and when those bets went against him,
Speaker 1: the banks moved to make sure that they didn't lose
Speaker 1: their skin, and the process is capital went up in
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest surprises that came out
Speaker 1: of all of this is his commitment to God and
Speaker 1: the role of that in his life. So we talked
Speaker 1: to us about that and some of the things you
Speaker 1: found out. That's just the other aspect of it that
Speaker 1: makes it such a remarkable tale to tell. When you
Speaker 1: think of a successful hedge fund trader, someone who runs
Speaker 1: a big from you can put all sorts of stereotypes
Speaker 1: on them and almost everyone will fit one of the buckets.
Speaker 1: Very Wong cannot be confined to any one of those.
Speaker 1: He's aren't your standard hedge fund flash lifestyle person. He's
Speaker 1: not one that is playing a big role in on
Speaker 1: like setting the national political agenda. This is someone who
Speaker 1: came from really humble means. His father was a pastor
Speaker 1: in Korea. They moved to Las Vegas. Father died within
Speaker 1: a few months of being posted to Vegas church, but
Speaker 1: his widowed mother took caramel after that put him through
Speaker 1: college and NBA. But she went on to become a
Speaker 1: missionary in Mexico. His brother went on to become a
Speaker 1: missionary in Tijuana, Mexico. And Bill, who really saw himself
Speaker 1: as a missionary with means, He was on Wall Street,
Speaker 1: he had the money, but he believed that all of
Speaker 1: that was to be put to use to spread the
Speaker 1: world of the gospel. And you know, some people would say, wait,
Speaker 1: is that just a cover to uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't quite understand how is that possible. But in in
Speaker 1: in the last two weeks, a number of people who
Speaker 1: have spoken to who have known him well, who worked
Speaker 1: with him, who worked with him even now, they insist
Speaker 1: this this is who he is, that's his life. And
Speaker 1: as much as all of us are animated by what
Speaker 1: has happened, the equally astonishing thing for me has been
Speaker 1: everyone who knows them tells us, you know, despite everything
Speaker 1: that's going on, he has not changed one bit. He's
Speaker 1: the same bill home today as he was yesterday. And
Speaker 1: I just find even that aspect to be quiet muscle. Okay,
Speaker 1: we um as fascinating as the god aspect and the
Speaker 1: religion aspect and everything is. Like I ultimately told you,
Speaker 1: it's the thing that people are going to care about.
Speaker 1: Here is the money. Uh? And how do you lose
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars in two days? Exactly? Well, let's let's
Speaker 1: start with saying by saying that it's not easy to
Speaker 1: do that. You could try where however, most people will
Speaker 1: not be able to pull it off. But when you
Speaker 1: when you peel back the portfolio and you and you said, again,
Speaker 1: we still don't have the complete picture. We're piecing this
Speaker 1: together from multiple conversations we've had with bankers and other
Speaker 1: people in the industry and people who knew and know
Speaker 1: how our kegos operated to understand what might have happened.
Speaker 1: But just a simple way to look at it is,
Speaker 1: if he had twenty dollars, he would go borrow another
Speaker 1: eighty dollars from a bank, which in this case many
Speaker 1: banks across Wall Street and elsewhere were eager to give
Speaker 1: him that kind of leverage. You suddenly a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: of capital to bet on a share like bya Coom
Speaker 1: while the shares are going up Viacom share that goes
Speaker 1: up from say hundred dollars to hundred and fifties. Suddenly
Speaker 1: your own personal wealth if you just look at the
Speaker 1: math behind it goes from twenty dollars to seventy dollars
Speaker 1: because everything else is born money. But that's, you know,
Speaker 1: more than tripling of your assets, even though the underlying
Speaker 1: stock is up only. But that's what happened. He was
Speaker 1: he was making White Patris. Capital was growing, he was
Speaker 1: plowing it back to the same bed because that was
Speaker 1: his level of conviction in the stocks that he picked out,
Speaker 1: his belief that those were valuable investments, and he said,
Speaker 1: stick with it. Come what may then move the other way.
Speaker 1: That's the risk of leverage. That's Bloomberg's finance reporter Shri
Speaker 1: not A Ragin and Business Week editor Joel Webber. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week from a trader leveraging too
Speaker 1: much to door dash drivers, leveraging their ability to say
Speaker 1: no to increase their pay it's called the hashtag decline
Speaker 1: now movement. That's next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim
Speaker 1: Stinoby from Bloomberg Radio. So, Tim, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've noticed what we have become a world of algorithms.
Speaker 1: I've noticed. I've noticed too, And in the world of
Speaker 1: delivery drivers, those algorithms now are being used to increase pay.
Speaker 1: And you talked about this on Quick Take. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did so. Over at door Dash, there's a forty thou
Speaker 1: driver movement to use the company software against it. So
Speaker 1: the online forum is known as hashtag decline now. It
Speaker 1: was co created by Dave Levy. We caught up with
Speaker 1: Dave on Quick Take. Listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 1: We started this movement with six to eight drivers in
Speaker 1: our local zone on conference call, bouncing offers around to
Speaker 1: each other, okay, watching them go up, and then grabbing
Speaker 1: them when feasible, effectively turning low ball offers at the
Speaker 1: higher offers. We we basically give door dash two choices, okay,
Speaker 1: either add base pay to the low offers or canceled them,
Speaker 1: because frankly, we're concerned about the driver, and we honestly
Speaker 1: don't care if the offer is not feasible to begin with.
Speaker 1: We're out there on the street trying to feed families
Speaker 1: and pay bills here. So that was Dave Levy. He's
Speaker 1: the co founder of the four um that's called hashtag
Speaker 1: decline now for door dash drivers. Joshua Breusteen is a
Speaker 1: technology writer at Bloomberg business Week. Joins me on the
Speaker 1: phone from here in New York joints Carol and me
Speaker 1: right now to talk all about this story. It's in
Speaker 1: the latest edition of Bloomberg business Week. Door Dash drivers
Speaker 1: game the algorithm to increase pay Joshua, how are these
Speaker 1: drivers able to do this? Essentially beat door dash at
Speaker 1: its own game. Yeah, it's an interesting model. Door Dash
Speaker 1: is algorithm. Like most of the delivery or gig economy,
Speaker 1: algorithms are based on the idea that the individual actions
Speaker 1: of people will eventually find the right price for a
Speaker 1: particular service. So if a bunch of drivers are turning
Speaker 1: down um delivery at a certain price, the algorithm will
Speaker 1: naturally adjust by offering other drivers a little bit more.
Speaker 1: And so if you have a coordinated effort to say
Speaker 1: we won't take anything that pays us only three dollars,
Speaker 1: then in theory, the algorithm will just stop offering those
Speaker 1: and start pushing the price up naturally. Does it work?
Speaker 1: So it's hard to tell if it works in the aggregate. Um.
Speaker 1: The the the guys who founded the Decline Now group
Speaker 1: that is trying to do this, Uh, they operate in
Speaker 1: a relatively small market in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: so you can actually get it's easier to have a workers,
Speaker 1: like a large proportion of the workers coordinate in a
Speaker 1: market like that. It might be harder in a place
Speaker 1: like New York, where you just have so many people
Speaker 1: making individual decisions. Um. So maybe smaller markets would be
Speaker 1: a better play for this strategy. So what's so interesting
Speaker 1: about this is is that it works until it doesn't work. Right,
Speaker 1: It works until somebody else claims that for a lower price.
Speaker 1: And if somebody does that, then then obviously they can
Speaker 1: make that work financially, right the driver actually sees that
Speaker 1: as as a worthwhile delivery, right right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: can someone make it work financially is really you know,
Speaker 1: their own decision. Like someone might be willing to take
Speaker 1: a low a lower price ride for whatever reason, UM,
Speaker 1: and you know the um. That's why this group has
Speaker 1: a challenge in trying to keep everyone from taking these
Speaker 1: low rides UM, which creates an interesting dynamic within the group.
Speaker 1: You have people complaining of a bullying of you know,
Speaker 1: not listening to the reasons that someone might want to
Speaker 1: take a lower a lower fare um and it creates
Speaker 1: some tension amongst the drivers. One other thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind is that DoorDash, the Doortosh algorithm, is not
Speaker 1: like a force of nature. It's it's a piece of
Speaker 1: software that's controlled by the company itself. So presumably if
Speaker 1: the drivers were really moving the needle in a way
Speaker 1: that DoorDash didn't like, it could recode the way that
Speaker 1: drives that rides are are assigned. And we might not
Speaker 1: know that. The drivers might not know that because doorg
Speaker 1: as just doesn't have to show you exactly how it works.
Speaker 1: So does this mean does the story mean that that
Speaker 1: door Dash there's there's enough demand for door dash to
Speaker 1: to raise the rates that it's paying drivers, or is
Speaker 1: the fact that they are getting people to deliver around
Speaker 1: the country based on where the fees start, they don't
Speaker 1: actually need to do that. Yeah, I think that what
Speaker 1: we've seen up until this point is that there are
Speaker 1: enough people willing to take UM jobs for a low
Speaker 1: enough rate of pay that many drivers feel like they
Speaker 1: can't make a living because that is what door dash
Speaker 1: can get away with paying. And we should say with
Speaker 1: what DoorDash can get away with paying, what Uber can
Speaker 1: get away and paying what all these companies can get
Speaker 1: away with paying. And you'd really have to have a
Speaker 1: like a really coordinated effort to get everyone refusing, to
Speaker 1: really force the company needs to change what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a bigger issue here too. And
Speaker 1: I think we we talk about this a lot. We
Speaker 1: know regulators are looking at it. Just this whole idea
Speaker 1: of the gig economy and what people are paid. I mean,
Speaker 1: can they really make a living um? And And because
Speaker 1: like earlier on Uber drivers, I remember having conversations they
Speaker 1: were making a lot of money, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: all changed is more people have gotten involved. But I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a bigger overarching part of this story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that one UM thing that's sort of floating
Speaker 1: in the background in this story is that door dash
Speaker 1: can decide what it pays UM and there's an increasing
Speaker 1: push for maybe some wage floors that aren't imposed by
Speaker 1: trying to game an algorithm, but by putting laws in place,
Speaker 1: by putting rules in place to govern this new UM,
Speaker 1: this new corner of the economy. UM, because the companies
Speaker 1: don't seem to be paying what a lot of people
Speaker 1: think would be a reasonable wage on their own and
Speaker 1: also what you know is kind of compare to the
Speaker 1: minimum way it's is oftentimes significantly below that. Where do
Speaker 1: you where do you? Tips and and gratuities come into
Speaker 1: this conversation, especially with regard to door Dash. Yeah, it's interesting. UM.
Speaker 1: Door dash has had controversy over tips in the past.
Speaker 1: UM it has had to admit that it was not
Speaker 1: giving the drivers their tips in an appropriate way. And
Speaker 1: one thing the company has done in this particular instance
Speaker 1: is to not always tell the driver how much they
Speaker 1: are going to be tipped. Usually when you when you
Speaker 1: place an order, you actually tip in advance UM on
Speaker 1: a lot of these platforms, So you know, door dash
Speaker 1: might offer you three dollars, the person who's who you're
Speaker 1: delivering too is offering two dollars, but DoorDash will just
Speaker 1: say we'll give you three dollars, and this person will
Speaker 1: give you a tip, but you don't know how much
Speaker 1: it is, so it tries to um it's trying to
Speaker 1: complicate the idea of saying, you know, this is the
Speaker 1: minimum model take because you don't actually know how much
Speaker 1: you'll make on any should have cried. Something we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to talk about and hear about, of course,
Speaker 1: is how gig workers are treated in this economy. In
Speaker 1: this case, these door dash workers are taking matters into
Speaker 1: their own hands. Yeah, it's an important issue, and I
Speaker 1: agree this conversation will continue. That's Bloomberg News technology writer
Speaker 1: Joshua Breustein who edited that story. And be sure to
Speaker 1: check out Tim's interview with one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of hashtag decline. Now, that's Dave Levy. He caught up
Speaker 1: with Tim on Quick Take. Yeah, check it out at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash qut Still to come. On Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, it's wine time. We're going to hear from
Speaker 1: the CEO of Jackson Family Wines about their path forward
Speaker 1: and the ultimate job offer. Free wine involved, Sign me up.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine sixty to the country, Sirius XM Chado one
Speaker 1: nine team, and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business app
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: the California wine industry. Tim, you know a lot about this.
Speaker 1: It's faced fires, drought, then the pandemic in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. It hasn't been easy. And Rick Tigner,
Speaker 1: he's president CE of Jackson Family Wines. He stopped by
Speaker 1: to tell us how it's all going and to talk
Speaker 1: about a job offered that maybe too good to refuse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might have heard about this one because it absolutely
Speaker 1: went viral. So, Carol, you started the conversation with a
Speaker 1: question that we've been asking most of our guests. What
Speaker 1: has the last year been like? Obviously, when the pandemic
Speaker 1: hit last March, you know, no one knew what that
Speaker 1: was gonna be. And I think everyone thought it was
Speaker 1: gonna you know, in relatively quick, but it had its
Speaker 1: challenges and uh, you know, we we've been resilient as
Speaker 1: a company. We've survived own in areas that we probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have grown in, like the digital part of our space.
Speaker 1: People had the channel shift right. And then then this
Speaker 1: opportunity came up to create a promotion around this really
Speaker 1: good op campaign campaign which we did about ten years
Speaker 1: ago and it had good results back then. But we thought,
Speaker 1: what it couldn't be a better time right now with
Speaker 1: unemployment as to be what it is. You know, there
Speaker 1: are people out there that need to kind of pivot
Speaker 1: in their current careers or get a new career. So
Speaker 1: we thought it was a really good time to relaunch
Speaker 1: a really good job campaign. Well, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: When I was doing some research and reading in for this,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, this looks like they
Speaker 1: have done this before. Tell us about your really good
Speaker 1: job contest, because uh, we were reading about it and
Speaker 1: talking in the newsroom and we're like, I kind of
Speaker 1: want to sign up for this. Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a four month long, you know, nationwide
Speaker 1: search for a person who's actually looking to have their
Speaker 1: ultimate dream job in the Wine Country. And what I
Speaker 1: would say is, you know, the sky's the limit. You know,
Speaker 1: the last time we did it, we were kind of
Speaker 1: looking for a social media kind of influencer type of person,
Speaker 1: and we had some really good results. Now we're we're
Speaker 1: looking for is really a person who you know, wants
Speaker 1: to really either get into the wine space, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of different jobs. Uh, Like I said, the
Speaker 1: sky is the limit. So some people give you an example.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're in the restaurant business and your restaurants
Speaker 1: closed last year. Right, you could come out to California
Speaker 1: and the really good job campaign and be on our
Speaker 1: culinary team, right and walk out of here as as
Speaker 1: one of our chefs or one of our our in
Speaker 1: our culinary program. Maybe you're in sales, you mean, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to be in hospitality, you could get that job.
Speaker 1: Every day is going to have a new opportunity. But
Speaker 1: obviously you're gonna start off learning about how to make
Speaker 1: wine with our winemaker, which will be fun, and we'll
Speaker 1: be able to walk to vineyards and understand really how
Speaker 1: grapes are grown, right because ultimately that's where the that's
Speaker 1: where the there's us. They're there when it comes to
Speaker 1: making wine. And then you know, we'll follow that person's passion.
Speaker 1: So we're very excited about the applicants and and really
Speaker 1: for me when I think I said this is somebody
Speaker 1: to the day. To me, it's like a pedal and
Speaker 1: the pebble in the pond, the pebble out there, and
Speaker 1: the ripples have been amazing. The response has been incredible.
Speaker 1: We've gotten more applicants that we would have out already
Speaker 1: and we're just getting started. So we're super super excited. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting and and um, I love this whole
Speaker 1: idea that like you're kind of open to you know
Speaker 1: what the job might be. But it also comes with
Speaker 1: a ten tho dollar per month's salary. If I if
Speaker 1: I have this right, rent free living for a year
Speaker 1: and all the wine you want to it is like
Speaker 1: a wind wind wind gott of the icon on the cake,
Speaker 1: the free wine. But but but imagine you're out there
Speaker 1: and you're either underemployed. But let's say you make you know,
Speaker 1: eighty thousand or ninety thousand or forty thousand opportunity to
Speaker 1: make ten thousand dollars a month, right, what's a big
Speaker 1: expense when you make money rent or mortgage? Right, So
Speaker 1: now you can live rent free in a really nice
Speaker 1: place in Hillsburg, California. And then on top of that
Speaker 1: you can drink what would be in a in a
Speaker 1: moderation by the way, to give the person like thirty
Speaker 1: cases of wine bottles. So so super excited about the
Speaker 1: whole program. I'm glad to see you're excited too. Well.
Speaker 1: I think it's just clever here. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: we talked so much Rick about especially in this past year,
Speaker 1: and we've talked a lot about inequities and diversity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: the need for it. You know, we've seen all the research.
Speaker 1: We've all talked about it over and over about the
Speaker 1: importance of having a diverse workforce. But and and part
Speaker 1: of doing that and creating an inclusive workforce is widening
Speaker 1: out your labor pools. And I feel like this is
Speaker 1: kind of a way of doing it, like bringing somebody
Speaker 1: who you might not normally go after. It's amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: as a company, we have a d n I cast
Speaker 1: force as an example. But but but imagine as we
Speaker 1: add somebody to our to our to our team. Is
Speaker 1: this a team. More's important to me is that what
Speaker 1: I'm hoping is they bring information to us, They teach
Speaker 1: us people have different backgrounds and different histories and have
Speaker 1: different education levels, I'm excited about the people who we
Speaker 1: bring on board. They'll be able to teach us about
Speaker 1: how to become a better company. And uh, I'm all
Speaker 1: about open door policy. As a CEO. We have all
Speaker 1: kinds of ideas about open door weeks for the CEOs
Speaker 1: and the rest of our executive staff. But you are
Speaker 1: right at a time when all of these initiatives are
Speaker 1: out there. You know what a better time to create
Speaker 1: this campaign? So it is. You know, it's not marketing
Speaker 1: genius because we did it before and probably just stole
Speaker 1: somebody's idea back then too. Trying wines on a Thursday afternoon, Carol,
Speaker 1: not that bad of a way to end the workday.
Speaker 1: That's when I feel pretty lucky about my job. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna put that up there. Well, you can't do
Speaker 1: it every day, but that one was a special one.
Speaker 1: That was Rick Tigner, president and CEO of Jackson Family Wines,
Speaker 1: still to Gamma Bloomberg Business Week, the mayor of Miami
Speaker 1: also looking to attract workers. We're going to tell you
Speaker 1: about his quest to lure Techy's from Silicon Valley to Florida.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: If you think of tech hubs, you often think of
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley on the West Coast, Silicon Alley in New
Speaker 1: York City cities like Raleigh, North Carolina, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The
Speaker 1: mayor of one southeast city, though, is looking to add
Speaker 1: his to this list well. He in his city of Miami,
Speaker 1: the subject of a story in Bloomberg Business Week magazine.
Speaker 1: This week, Carol caught up with the Mayor of Miami,
Speaker 1: Francis Suarez, and started by asking about the tweet that
Speaker 1: got the ball rolling. You have been looking forward when
Speaker 1: it comes to your city of Miami, looking to make
Speaker 1: it a high tech city. Tell us about the viral
Speaker 1: moment back in December when a Silicon Valley penture capitalist
Speaker 1: tweeted about moving to Miami. From Silicon Valley, who asked, okay, guys,
Speaker 1: hear me out, what if we moved Silicon Valley to Miami?
Speaker 1: You responded, I did. I said, how can I help?
Speaker 1: And frankly, it was It's been a ten year passion
Speaker 1: project for me. I'm a fairly young man. I was
Speaker 1: a fairly young elected official. When I was elected, I
Speaker 1: was thirty two. I was forty when I was elected mayor.
Speaker 1: So I understand, and I understood, and I've understood for
Speaker 1: ten years that the future of our economy as a
Speaker 1: as as a country, as a as a as a
Speaker 1: world is tech base that is inescapable. From my perspective,
Speaker 1: that is nonpartisan. From my perspective, that's just a reality.
Speaker 1: And the quicker that city embrace that reality and start
Speaker 1: fashioning their economies around that reality, the better off and
Speaker 1: the more equitable cities that we're going to have in America.
Speaker 1: And so that has been our goal, our mission. The
Speaker 1: how can it help sweet was sort of a lightning
Speaker 1: in the bottle moment where we propelled ourselves from someone
Speaker 1: sort of on the outer range of the conversation to
Speaker 1: literally the city that's most talked about right now in
Speaker 1: the world on tech. Whether whether anyone thinks that we're
Speaker 1: gonna overtake Click on Value tomorrow or not, no one
Speaker 1: can disceive the fact that everybody right now is talking
Speaker 1: about Miami tech. It is the hottest thing, and it's
Speaker 1: been hot since that December four two, which is I
Speaker 1: think an accomplishment in and of itself, because you know,
Speaker 1: we live in a twenty four hour news cycle where
Speaker 1: news changes quickly and people move on to the next story.
Speaker 1: And you know, to to keep and maintaining attention to
Speaker 1: the city for over four months of the country from
Speaker 1: the four months in the world, really is is a
Speaker 1: significant achievement, right. But talk is one thing, action is another.
Speaker 1: So tell me about you know you've had conversations or
Speaker 1: you've been tweeting with Elon musk Um. What's the plan?
Speaker 1: What's the specific response is what's the specific actions that
Speaker 1: maybe are coming from either venture capitalists or investors to
Speaker 1: help create your mission. Look at the deliverables. Just in
Speaker 1: the last four months, we have UH through our DDA
Speaker 1: program created eight hundred and fifty jobs just in the
Speaker 1: last four months. That's UH with an average pay of
Speaker 1: over a hundred thousand dollars. That's over eighty five million
Speaker 1: dollars of economic activity just from one program in one
Speaker 1: section of the city. We had a soft bank that
Speaker 1: created a hundred million dollar Miami initiatives for companies that
Speaker 1: are gonna be built here in Miami or people that
Speaker 1: are moving to Miami. We have the author of that
Speaker 1: tweet Delian, who helps run the Founders Fan, which is
Speaker 1: probably the most prominent VC firm in San Francisco, opening
Speaker 1: office in Miami. So you have Founders fun led by Delian,
Speaker 1: led by Peter Thiel, led by Uh, led by Keith Boix,
Speaker 1: who were sort of out of that PayPal um created
Speaker 1: paperall you could say it, I won't say. I won't
Speaker 1: use that word. Instead, it side so derogatory right now.
Speaker 1: And but yes, you know the PayPal group of people
Speaker 1: that started PayPal, you know, and then and then having
Speaker 1: you know, conversations with Elon Musk about how do we
Speaker 1: look towards the new future of transportation and transportation technology.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you just look at those deliverables alone,
Speaker 1: we've seen that we've radically changed Miami in four months.
Speaker 1: Have you talked with the Elon Musk directly or has
Speaker 1: it been all through tweets? You have no, No. I
Speaker 1: talked to him directly, UM, with a phone call. We
Speaker 1: spoke by phone for about thirty minutes. UM. He was
Speaker 1: excited about the prospect of Miami being his second quote
Speaker 1: unquote second customer for the boring company. I went out
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and how the Born Companies boring tunnels
Speaker 1: person in person UM and was just blown away. I
Speaker 1: took technical experts from the city from the county, and
Speaker 1: they were blown away by the technology and by the
Speaker 1: ability to do it at a fraction of the costs. Well,
Speaker 1: but how do you do it because us? I mean
Speaker 1: there's things that you've tried to do. Listen, we all
Speaker 1: were talking about at the news room when you UM
Speaker 1: put out a resolution to potentially pay some of your
Speaker 1: municipal workers in bitcoin, exact taxes in the cryptocurrency, maybe
Speaker 1: invest city funds in it. The Miami City Commission, though,
Speaker 1: only read to look further into the matter at some
Speaker 1: unknown future date. It feels like it's going to be
Speaker 1: an uphill battle, will it. And are you still working
Speaker 1: to make Miami a crypto hub? Oh? Absolutely, And no
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an unpoll battle at all. I
Speaker 1: think it was a fourd or one vote. I mean,
Speaker 1: in politics, you rarely ever get an unanimous vote. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the commissioners wanted to sort of
Speaker 1: dilute the resolution a little bit. And look, you know
Speaker 1: they're they're both commissioners that are over seven years old.
Speaker 1: I understand that for them it's something that maybe they
Speaker 1: don't understand quite as much as someone who's in their
Speaker 1: forties or thirties or twenties. So yeah, there's definitely an
Speaker 1: education process. There's definitely a collaboration process. When you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a council, um, you know, and a mayor council relationship.
Speaker 1: That's always uh, you know, whether it's crypto or whether
Speaker 1: it's right uage cans. I mean, it's always something that's
Speaker 1: complicated and tenuous and you have to work on it continually,
Speaker 1: and you have to gain people's trust issue by issue.
Speaker 1: So I think afford to one vote was a resounding
Speaker 1: vote to go forward. Uh. And now we have to
Speaker 1: go into the next phase, which is to procure a
Speaker 1: company that will do it. Um. In terms of the
Speaker 1: last piece, which is for us to invest. Look, we
Speaker 1: would have invested when I when I suggested, we would
Speaker 1: have been up you know, thirteen thousand dollars. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: which is about But but the key is there may
Speaker 1: be some state laws that are required to be past
Speaker 1: that allow us to hold crypto. But the state government
Speaker 1: right now, based on some legislation that I've advanced, has
Speaker 1: imitated wy Owings crypto laws, and that is saving through
Speaker 1: the legislature and hopefully will pass and be signed into
Speaker 1: a lot of this legislative session. And we're looking at
Speaker 1: things like charter banks um that will allow people to
Speaker 1: deposit crypto into banks. So there's a lot of innovation
Speaker 1: coming on the crypto space in Miami. We also want
Speaker 1: to be a mind hub for from the world, but
Speaker 1: like something with the Boring you know company with with
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, to do that, it's not easy, Like you
Speaker 1: have a high water table. I mean, are these things
Speaker 1: realistic in terms of something like the Boring Company. You know, people,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how people advance obstacles without even doing the
Speaker 1: most basic research. One of the things that I said
Speaker 1: very very clearly in my tweets when I came back
Speaker 1: from Las Vegas, and you may be shocked to hear this,
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas tunnels on board underneath the water table.
Speaker 1: In other words, their board under the water. So, you know,
Speaker 1: people would just take a time in a minute to
Speaker 1: read my social media posts because I answer point by
Speaker 1: point the concerns that people have, like water table, which
Speaker 1: is a natural one that people say, Oh, you know, Miami,
Speaker 1: the water table. Look, guess what Las Vegas also has
Speaker 1: a water table, and guess what, the tunnels are built
Speaker 1: underneath the water table, so they're built underwater, so like
Speaker 1: they would be LAMI, there's absolutely no different. I love
Speaker 1: that you talk about you know, read my tweets because listen,
Speaker 1: this is you know, you've talked with the Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Social media and becoming popular socially um on platforms can
Speaker 1: really provide some momentum for whatever mission. Lon Musk has
Speaker 1: certainly prove it proven that out. So tell me about politically,
Speaker 1: how does this plan get more momentum if you get
Speaker 1: another term as mayor, you face re election at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Is a run for governor for
Speaker 1: Florida part of your bigger plan in order to you know,
Speaker 1: carry out your your hopes of creating, you know, putting
Speaker 1: making Miami a high tech city. Well, listen, for me,
Speaker 1: I hate to sound overly political answer, but I sort
Speaker 1: of take it one step at a time. And so
Speaker 1: for me, my my senior focus is you know, presenting
Speaker 1: a concrete vision for the future so that I am
Speaker 1: re elected. I was blessed to be elected by six
Speaker 1: when I was elected in two thousand seventeen, so I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that I can maintain or grow on that confidence
Speaker 1: that I have from my residence. After that, if I'm
Speaker 1: elected in November, I become and I assume the role
Speaker 1: of president of the US Conference of Mayor. So I'm
Speaker 1: president of all the mayors nationally beginning January one, and
Speaker 1: I was selected by my peer mayors across the country.
Speaker 1: So that's a huge honor for me, and it's going
Speaker 1: to allow this Miami move this moment that we've converted
Speaker 1: into a movement, to hopefully become attemplate for how successful
Speaker 1: cities should be run and the technology that should be
Speaker 1: investing in, in the kind of ecosystem and economy that
Speaker 1: all cities should be really fighting for and striving for.
Speaker 1: So that's my hope. Whatever happens from that point forward, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's in God's hands, and I'll be very
Speaker 1: glad and very happy, uh to potentially consider other offices
Speaker 1: in the future, depending on the circumstances, because just quickly
Speaker 1: being governor could maybe help in a big way, right
Speaker 1: of course. I mean, you know, when you're when you're
Speaker 1: when you're if any governor of a state has a
Speaker 1: huge role in things that I consider to be critical
Speaker 1: like education, for example, I think you know what we
Speaker 1: want to do in Miami's we want equality of opportunity.
Speaker 1: We want to make sure that every child in our
Speaker 1: city has an opportunity to be successful. We call that
Speaker 1: Miami for Everyone. And so, if you're a governor of
Speaker 1: a state, one of the biggest things that you propose
Speaker 1: in terms of your budget is education spending. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that Florida should do is
Speaker 1: strive to be the highest per computer of spending state
Speaker 1: on education in the United States. And that's something that
Speaker 1: we should come as a goal because as we educate
Speaker 1: our children, were giving them the best chance to be
Speaker 1: prosperous in a modern day economy. That's Francis Suarez, the
Speaker 1: mayor of Miami. Check out the story on him in
Speaker 1: the magazine this week by Bloomberg's Miami bureau chief Jonathan Levin.
Speaker 1: Find it on newsstands, online and on the Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: that writes up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovk. Be sure to tune
Speaker 1: into our Bloomberg Business Week Daily show Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just
Speaker 1: search Bloomberg Global News. Check out to our Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week podcast, where you can hear the entire conversations of
Speaker 1: our guests featured in today's weekend show. Find that at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and you can also see me on Bloomberg Quick Take.
Speaker 1: It's available at Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming
Speaker 1: platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week It's available on news stands now, at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com and on the bloom Terminal. Have a great
Speaker 1: weekend everyone. This is Bloomberg MHM.