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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston, bringing you

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Speaker 2: stories of capitalism. Americans are complaining about high food prices,

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Speaker 2: and that's after all those federal subsidies for farmers. We

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Speaker 2: go to New Zealand to look at supporting farmers a

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Speaker 2: different way. Plus, Elon Musk has been promising us robotexis

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Speaker 2: for years. Now, is twenty twenty six truly going to

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Speaker 2: be the year they arrive? What will they look like?

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Speaker 2: And how will they make money? And climbing the highest

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Speaker 2: peak in the world for fun and for profit. We

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Speaker 2: bring you the story of the business of Mount Everest.

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Speaker 2: But we begin with the dramatic developments in Venezuela last weekend,

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Speaker 2: when the United States sent its military into seize President

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Speaker 2: Maduro and his wife, transporting them to New York to

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Speaker 2: stand trial on criminal charges. Richard has has spent his

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Speaker 2: career in and out of government advising on foreign policy.

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Speaker 2: He is senior counselor at Centerview Partners, President Emeritus of

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Speaker 2: the Council on Foreign Relations, and author of the Substack

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Speaker 2: newsletter Home and Away. When there's so much uncertainty, it's

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Speaker 2: helpful to know where you're headed. What is the goal

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Speaker 2: of the United States government right now? As far as

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Speaker 2: you can discern it, It.

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Speaker 3: Is not regime change, It is not democracy or human rights.

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Speaker 3: I think the goal of the United States, and a

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Speaker 3: minimum is American the access for American companies, American oil

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Speaker 3: companies to Venezuela's oil sector, which is large, but not

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Speaker 3: quite as large as the statistics lead people to believe. Yes,

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Speaker 3: you've got seventeen eighteen percent of the world supply, but

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Speaker 3: a lot of it's.

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Speaker 4: Hard to get to of.

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Speaker 3: It's not the greatest quality crewed, it's and terrible disrepair.

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Speaker 3: But anyhow, I think that's priority number number one. Whether

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Speaker 3: there are other priorities, for example, to stop Venezuela and

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Speaker 3: support of Cuba, even though as much or more comes

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Speaker 3: from Mexico, but there's that, whether to wean Venezuela from Russia,

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Speaker 3: China and others, obviously to keep them out of the

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Speaker 3: drug trade.

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Speaker 4: So I think were there.

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Speaker 3: There may be secondary or subsidiary objectives, but the principal objective,

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Speaker 3: and the President talked about it, what fifteen twenty times

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Speaker 3: at the Saturday press conference last week, was the oil access.

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Speaker 2: When you were in the State Department with Secretary Powell,

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Speaker 2: you were head of, as you say, policy planning, not

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Speaker 2: policy prediction. So it's hard to predict what's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: But in order to plan, you have to think about

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Speaker 2: a range. What's the range of possibilities right now in Venezuela.

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Speaker 2: What's the best it can be, what's the worst it

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Speaker 2: can be?

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Speaker 3: The best it could be is what we just described

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Speaker 3: actually holds that you have a situation there where you

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Speaker 3: have more continuity than change, and the United States does

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Speaker 3: not have to get more involved, more intrusive with boots

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Speaker 3: on the ground or anything like that. There's not massive violence,

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Speaker 3: and we develop into a growing economic relationship. The bad

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Speaker 3: news with that is you obviously don't have democracy or

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Speaker 3: particularly unit. It's the average Venezuelan in person might be

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Speaker 3: slightly better off, but it's much more continuity than change.

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Speaker 3: The bad scenarios or things unravel essentially conditions of instability

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Speaker 3: may not be as your chaos in a rock within

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Speaker 3: a year. So I'm not predicting chaos, but you asked

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Speaker 3: me for the menu. At the other end of the

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Speaker 3: menu is a real breakdown of order that rival groups

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Speaker 3: essentially start to slug it.

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Speaker 2: Out now we hear it's a little unclear. The United

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Speaker 2: States is sort of going to take some of the

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Speaker 2: oil fair amount of the oil, sell it, put it

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Speaker 2: into account, and then maybe give some back to Venezuelans,

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Speaker 2: sort of like an allowance. How is that going to work?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the interesting parts of that

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Speaker 3: BECU Yeah, I've read the same stuff, is what's the

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Speaker 3: how to put it?

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Speaker 4: What's the sharing arrangement?

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Speaker 3: David how Rich is this allowance?

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Speaker 4: And this is exactly the sort of thing. At some point.

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Speaker 3: Nationalism hasn't disappeared in the world. Nationalisms are really powerful force.

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Speaker 3: So at some point the people challenge the Venezuelan government saying, hey,

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Speaker 3: why are we giving this generous or sweetheart deal to

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Speaker 3: the Americans? Why are we not keeping this year. That's

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Speaker 3: exactly the dynamic. By the way that decades ago led

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Speaker 3: to all the nationalizations, not just in Venezuela but around

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Speaker 3: the world. Deals with outsiders with the international oil companies

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Speaker 3: were seen as way too generous to them, and countries

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Speaker 3: basically said, hey, this is our sovereign wealth, why are

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Speaker 3: we giving so much of it away? So the idea

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Speaker 3: that that argument would not surface sooner rather than later.

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Speaker 4: I kind of think it will.

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Speaker 2: What are the likely consequences beyond Venezuela start with Latin America,

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Speaker 2: for example, certainly Colombia's come to people on the President's

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Speaker 2: the president was Cuba, maybe Mexico.

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Speaker 3: All of the above, and and there's Canada and others,

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Speaker 3: and then we've got a little bit farther a field

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Speaker 3: to it to Greenland. I think Cuba is probably the

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Speaker 3: one that most worried because it's not doing well. It's

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Speaker 3: not a failed state only because of external support, So

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Speaker 3: they're gonna have to probably find some substitutes they've got Mexico.

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Speaker 4: I don't know what Russia.

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Speaker 3: Would be prepared to do it. I think they're probably

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Speaker 3: the most nervous clean out. The President has attacked the

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Speaker 3: president of Columbia, UH, which is too bad in some

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Speaker 3: ways because Columbia was one of the great success stories

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Speaker 3: of American foreign policy. People often criticize versions of nation building. Well,

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Speaker 3: we kind of got inside Columbia and it wasn't it

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Speaker 3: wasn't a change of regime, but with the existing regime.

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Speaker 3: We helped them deal with their civil war, we help

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Speaker 3: them deal with their the drug issues.

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Speaker 4: UH.

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Speaker 3: Mexico has a funny issue because it's not where the

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Speaker 3: government is part of the problem, except they're indirectly part

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Speaker 3: of it because they're either unable or unwilling.

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Speaker 4: Or both to deal with the cartels.

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Speaker 3: They're they're not meeting their sovereign obligation to make sure

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Speaker 3: that their territory isn't used as a drug production.

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Speaker 4: And traffick thing.

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Speaker 3: So the question there is what might at some point

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Speaker 3: we do about it. There's been periodic threats that we

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Speaker 3: would use military force against the cartels. I think Canada

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Speaker 3: is more just a scratchy relationship. I don't sense any enthusiasm,

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Speaker 3: shall we say, for it to become a fifty first date.

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Speaker 3: Ironically enough, Venezuela is slightly closer to becoming the fifty

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Speaker 3: first date right now in a de facto way than

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Speaker 3: is Canada. And I think the other big question mark

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Speaker 3: is Greenland farther afield geographically. But there's been so many

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Speaker 3: pronouncements by the administration, both off from a strategic argument

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Speaker 3: as well as from a resources argument, that I actually

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Speaker 3: take this seriously as a possibility. Though what's baffling to me,

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Speaker 3: And here I am an.

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Speaker 4: Old fashioned diplomat.

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Speaker 3: If the United States wanted a more intimate strategic and

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Speaker 3: economic relationship with Greenland. I think it's there for the offering.

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Speaker 3: That's why God invented diplomats. You sendbody there, you negotiate

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Speaker 3: the terms of it, you make it generous to them,

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Speaker 3: because it's important that how it's been allowed to come

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Speaker 3: to this, I truly don't understand, David.

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Speaker 2: Greenland is another territory, not country, but territory in its

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Speaker 2: own right. It is under the pre protection of Denmark.

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Speaker 2: The sovereignty is with Denmark, you said to me when

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Speaker 2: the National Security strategy first came out. While look at

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Speaker 2: this because of the Monroe doctrine, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, even Canada,

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Speaker 2: you can say it's Western hemisphere. Greenland's not last time

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Speaker 2: I checked, and it is theoretically subject to natal protections.

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Speaker 3: One hundred percent, So you're right. It's kind of what

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Speaker 3: it reflects is not the Western hemisphere focus of this administration,

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Speaker 3: which Venezuela can give you explained by It's more the

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Speaker 3: commercial and economic focus of this administration. And that's where

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Speaker 3: I think it makes sense that this administration essentially sees

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Speaker 3: foreign policy more in terms of homeland security and economic welfare.

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Speaker 3: So they're worried about drugs, they're worried about immigration, and

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Speaker 3: they're into the business of promoting business. And I think

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Speaker 3: Greenland falls a little bit into all that, but it

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Speaker 3: also shows something else, a lack of concern. I don't

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Speaker 3: word for David for Europe. I mean, the two great

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Speaker 3: theaters of history for the last one hundred plus years

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Speaker 3: are Europe and Asia. And this is an administration that's

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Speaker 3: dialing a lot of its attention towards this part of

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Speaker 3: the world. If you connect the dots, it looks like

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Speaker 3: we're moving towards the world what you might call of

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Speaker 3: spheres of influence, with the United States is preoccupied here.

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Speaker 3: Russia and Europe literally slug it out in their part

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Speaker 3: of the world. We'll see China has something of a

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Speaker 3: free hand in its part of the world, and we've

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Speaker 3: gone voluntarily, which is the strangest part of this to me,

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Speaker 3: as someone who studies history, from being a truly global

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Speaker 3: power to being something more of a regional power.

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Speaker 2: The Units is pulling back from Europe, as you put it,

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Speaker 2: at a time when Europe you could be seen as

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Speaker 2: being under contest from Russia. And what's going on in Ukraine.

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Speaker 2: President Putin must be watching this. What is the Venezuelan development?

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Speaker 2: Say to President Putin, whatever narrow.

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Speaker 3: Setback he's experienced in Venezuela because of the Russian connection,

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Speaker 3: whatever humiliation he might feel there, I think is offset.

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Speaker 4: He's got to like the larger thing here.

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Speaker 3: He's got to like the fact that we're demonstrating that

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Speaker 3: great powers have the right to act with a pretty

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Speaker 3: free hand against leaders they believe are illegitimate.

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Speaker 4: He listens to that, and he goes, where have I

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Speaker 4: heard that before.

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Speaker 3: He's got to like the fact that this separates us

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Speaker 3: even more from the Europeans. He's got to like the

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Speaker 3: fact that the United States is more preoccupied with the

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Speaker 3: Western hemisphere. So I think for Vladimir Putin, this is

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Speaker 3: all good. One of the implications, by the way, since

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Speaker 3: you raised the David this has though for this negotiation

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Speaker 3: about Ukraine, the war, ending the war, which I think

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Speaker 3: the chances of which you're remote.

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Speaker 4: I think they've become more remote. Just think about it.

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Speaker 3: If you're President Zelensky American security assurances in the current context,

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Speaker 3: to imagine you would place your country's fate in America's.

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Speaker 4: Word, that we would be there for them.

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Speaker 3: I think you're going to want a lot more than

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Speaker 3: that if your President's Lenski and whatever he's going to

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Speaker 3: require is going to be way too much for Vladimir

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Speaker 3: Putin to accept. So I'm afraid we're about to mark

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Speaker 3: the end.

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Speaker 4: Of four years of this phase of the war.

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Speaker 3: My unhappy prediction, as we're about to go well into

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Speaker 3: year five.

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Speaker 2: Up next bailing out America's farmers. Why are we looking

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Speaker 2: at another round of subsidies? And is there a better way?

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Speaker 2: This is a story about thinking the unthinkable. Last month,

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Speaker 2: President Trump proposed another twelve billion dollars in federal aid

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Speaker 2: for farmers hit hard by low crop prices and by

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Speaker 2: the fallout of his trade policies.

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Speaker 5: I'm delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States

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Speaker 5: will be taking a small point of the hundreds of

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Speaker 5: billions of dollars we receive in tariffs, and we're going

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Speaker 5: to be giving and providing it to the farmers in

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Speaker 5: economic assistance.

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Speaker 2: It's become almost impossible to think of US farming without

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Speaker 2: government payments supporting it. And the US is far from

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Speaker 2: the only country that intervenes in agricultural markets. But it

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Speaker 2: turns out that there is one country, New Zealand, that

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Speaker 2: has gone a very different way with some unexpected results.

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Speaker 6: The government wiped those subsidies in one year, and the

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Speaker 6: net result of that has been staggering.

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Speaker 2: America started down its path to paying its farmers back

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Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty three, in the midst of the Great Depression,

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Speaker 2: when President Roosevelt announced the Agriculture Adjustment Act.

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Speaker 7: With the whole world in turmoil, even the United efforts

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Speaker 7: of the farmers themselves would not have been sufficient without

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Speaker 7: the cooperation of the government of the United States.

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Speaker 2: In a recent report covering fifty four countries, the OECD

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Speaker 2: found that quote agriculture support policies generated on average eight

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Speaker 2: hundred and forty two billion dollars per year in transfers

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Speaker 2: towards agriculture between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Dan Glickman was Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration.

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Speaker 8: Well, first of all, there's a huge amount of agriculture

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Speaker 8: subsees in the United States. I mean it's billions and

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Speaker 8: billions of dollars. I think that first of all, farm

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Speaker 8: programs are complicated, and nobody understands the accept people in

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Speaker 8: farm countries. So you know, you have people who have

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Speaker 8: to deal with them all the time are largely the

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Speaker 8: only ones that had been involved in the writing of them.

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Speaker 8: But look, farming is a precarious, tough business. These people

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Speaker 8: have to deal with drought, disease, floods, tariffs, geopolitical issues.

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Speaker 8: To a soybean grower, China was kind of the salvation.

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Speaker 8: We were exporting, you know, millions and millions of time

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Speaker 8: tons of soybeans to China, and when the President announced

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Speaker 8: his tariffs, they were kind of off again on again.

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Speaker 8: But the impact of that was for the Chinese to

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Speaker 8: kind of cut us off and go to Brazil and Argentina,

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Speaker 8: and it just created a lost market for America and

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Speaker 8: it was hard to make that up. And that instability

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Speaker 8: that occurred as a result of that meant that a

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Speaker 8: lot of grain elevators were full and the grain couldn't

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Speaker 8: be sold, or the uncertainty of production in the next

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Speaker 8: year or two. So it was really you talk about

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Speaker 8: a dagger in the heart of American agriculture.

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Speaker 2: Yet across America and around the world, businesses in all

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Speaker 2: sectors are forced to adapt to changing macroacademic conditions without

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Speaker 2: the promise of government assistance should things go south. What

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Speaker 2: makes farming different? In the depression era, national food security

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Speaker 2: was critical, but America now produces far more food than

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Speaker 2: it consumes. There was a time that we thought that

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Speaker 2: free markets helped discipline conduct in all sorts of places.

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Speaker 2: Is there a risk with farm subsidies basically becoming less

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Speaker 2: efficient in farming.

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Speaker 8: That is a very good question. There's no question that

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Speaker 8: farm subsidies kind of skew the economics, the market economics

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Speaker 8: of agriculture. After all, off for supporting a crop with

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Speaker 8: government subsidies, and no longer is the market alone determining

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Speaker 8: the price or the location or what you produce. And

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Speaker 8: that is a problem. And it also it skews the

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Speaker 8: differences between the commodities. You may be supporting corn more

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Speaker 8: than soybeans, or wheat more than corn, are those kinds

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Speaker 8: of things, and so that does create inefficiencies within the marketplace.

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Speaker 8: On the other hand, we will probably never get rid

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Speaker 8: of farm subsidies.

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Speaker 2: But what if America or any country around the world

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Speaker 2: did get rid of farm subsidies. It turns out that

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Speaker 2: there is one such country. In the early nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 2: New Zealand's economy was in trouble its main export market,

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Speaker 2: Great Britain had just joined what would later be called

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Speaker 2: the European Union, and public spending was at an unsustainable level.

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Speaker 6: We were within months of being bankrupt.

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Speaker 2: Lockwood Smith is a farmer himself and a former agriculture

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Speaker 2: minister in New Zealand. In nineteen eighty four, he'd just

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Speaker 2: been elected to Parliament for the first time.

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Speaker 6: By the early nineteen eighties, the level of support across

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Speaker 6: our three main livestock industries if you like dairy, beef production,

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Speaker 6: and sheep meat or lamb. The average sort of producers

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Speaker 6: subsidy equivalent across all those industries got up to thirty percent,

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Speaker 6: but it differed among the industries. For beef and dairy

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Speaker 6: it was only about thirteen percent, less than twenty but

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Speaker 6: for lamb the producer's subsidy equivalent got up to ninety percent. Basically,

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Speaker 6: ninety percent of the revenue coming into sheep farmers pockets

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Speaker 6: was from subsidies of various kinds, and of course they.

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Speaker 4: Responded to that.

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Speaker 6: Because they got more subsive they produced have they had

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Speaker 6: more sheep, and our sheep numbers climbed progressively up to

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Speaker 6: seventy million by nineteen eighty four, we had seventy million

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Speaker 6: sheep and we couldn't export all the product of that

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Speaker 6: those seventy million sheep. We ended up turning thousands of

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Speaker 6: frozen sheep carcasses into fertilizer because we couldn't, you know,

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Speaker 6: we didn't have the markets to export that stuff. And

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Speaker 6: so the economy was in crisis. Saw the writing on

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Speaker 6: the wall. I mean, we were within months of bankruptcy,

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Speaker 6: if you like. And in nine eighty five they decided

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Speaker 6: action had to be taken and they abolished in one year.

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Speaker 6: They abolished all those subsidies. They wiped many of the

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Speaker 6: tariffs protecting other industries. They abolished all of the subsidies

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Speaker 6: for agriculture, wiped them in one year. I wouldn't recommend

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Speaker 6: that anyone else should try to do that, but that's

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Speaker 6: what happened here.

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Speaker 2: The immediate aftermath was tough, and some farms went out

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Speaker 2: of business.

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Speaker 6: Probably the biggest pro I've ever seen on the front

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Speaker 6: steps of the New Zealand Parliament were that year, in

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Speaker 6: nine to eighty five. I remember the newspaper headlines, you know,

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Speaker 6: the roar from the hills as farmers gathered on the

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Speaker 6: steps of Parliament and all the surrounding streets protesting against

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Speaker 6: the removal of those subsidies.

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Speaker 2: Peter jax Blake is a retired farmer on New Zealand's

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Speaker 2: East Coast. He since handed his farm off to his daughter,

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Speaker 2: but remembers it all too well.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, I remember that I was part of a protest

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Speaker 9: group that we the Prime Minister David Longing a few

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Speaker 9: as ministers arrived gives an airport one day and hold

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Speaker 9: of us swen out there with placards and so banging

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Speaker 9: on his car windscreen because he wasn't having a bar

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Speaker 9: of trying to her. So he went to every street

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Speaker 9: and seeks they needed, stopping and waving out placards and

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Speaker 9: saying well, holding up a bank statement showing well, yeah,

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Speaker 9: eighteen twenty percent interest rates is impossible. He just or

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Speaker 9: he said, well change bank. I mean they had know

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Speaker 9: some of they at all.

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Speaker 10: For farmers, I was probably too young through the eighties.

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Speaker 10: I was only a baby, so no, I couldn't remember

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Speaker 10: any of the hard times. But I always remember even

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Speaker 10: right through Mum and Dad always trying to save money

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Speaker 10: in every way and never overspend.

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Speaker 2: The immediate aftermath was tough, although farmers did agree that

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Speaker 2: there was a need for subsidy reform, they felt it

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Speaker 2: was too swift and that they were unfairly targeted.

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Speaker 9: What happened is they sort of took the subsidies off

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Speaker 9: before they did any other economic reform, so farmers wore

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Speaker 9: the brunt of it for a few years. Basically, your

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Speaker 9: income had, land prices had, interest rates went through the roof.

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Speaker 9: Inflation was tracking long fifteen sixteen percent. So because none

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Speaker 9: of the other parts of the economy had been reformed, yeah,

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Speaker 9: pretty tough going. Federalizer use dropped in half. So basically

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Speaker 9: just tufted out where everybody by generation we're living on

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Speaker 9: a smell of a night. AIDI Egg took from the

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Speaker 9: time from nineteen eighty four, which is when the really

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Speaker 9: hit the fan. It was ten years really of not

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Speaker 9: making much progress at all.

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Speaker 11: You just.

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Speaker 9: You were able to gradually do with some improvements, but

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Speaker 9: things didn't really turn the corner until the mid nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 2: But things did eventually turn a corner.

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Speaker 6: The result has been quite quite stunning. Actually it was

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Speaker 6: hard initially, but the improvement in productivity since then has

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Speaker 6: been stunning because you either changed what you're doing or

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Speaker 6: you did lose your farm, you went out of business.

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Speaker 6: And so you know, they started introducing new genetics into

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Speaker 6: our sheep flock because it was the sheep industry was

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Speaker 6: affected most because they'd had the highest level of subsidies.

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Speaker 6: They bought in new breeds of sheep, like finished land

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Speaker 6: Race and a breed developed in New Zealand Parindales, to

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Speaker 6: improve the fecundity or the number of lambs that you

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Speaker 6: had from being just one lamb to two and more.

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Speaker 6: Today we have more than about one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 6: percent lambing percentages compared with less than one hundred percent

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Speaker 6: back then. They introduced new terminal size to improve the

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Speaker 6: growth rate of the lambs being born in the flock.

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Speaker 6: They improved our pasture management practices, so we've got better

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Speaker 6: utilization of our pasts in New Zealand. Here, of course,

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Speaker 6: all our livestock farming is conducted outside, just out in

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Speaker 6: the natural environment, just grazing pasture, and the net result

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Speaker 6: of that has been staggering.

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Speaker 4: Today.

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Speaker 6: Our sheep numbers have come down from seventy million in

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Speaker 6: nineten eighty four to less than twenty six million today.

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Speaker 6: Yet the amount of lamb or sheep meat that we

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Speaker 6: produce is pretty similar, not much less than we used

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Speaker 6: to produce when we had seventy million sheep, and it's

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Speaker 6: quite a stunning story. The productivity improvement in our sheep

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Speaker 6: industry has been since nineteen ninety when the things settled

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Speaker 6: down after the changes. Productivity improvement has been one hundred

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Speaker 6: and seventy percent, which is if any every other industry

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Speaker 6: in New Zealand had done that, wou'd be a wealthy country.

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Speaker 2: Agriculture is still a major part of New Zealand's economy,

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Speaker 2: accounting for around seventy percent of goods exports, but it

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Speaker 2: remains largely unsubsidized and its farmers wouldn't have it any

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Speaker 2: other way.

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Speaker 9: We're not getting any assistance from other than what we

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Speaker 9: generate on farm to to mitigate emissions, et cetera. And that, yeah,

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Speaker 9: everything we do is a pass the environment. And the

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Speaker 9: fact you put fear lies, you build out the organic

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Speaker 9: matter in the land. Pretty cool when you see other

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Speaker 9: farming systems around the world how relied on brain and subsidies.

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Speaker 2: So could the New Zealand model be applied elsewhere. We

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Speaker 2: spoke with farmers in Iowa last summer of the role

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Speaker 2: of subsidies in their work.

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Speaker 4: Big thing, you know.

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Speaker 12: I guess for me as a farmers, I want to

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Speaker 12: make sure we have markets. I don't want direct payments.

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Speaker 12: I would rather not have direct payments from the government.

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Speaker 12: If we have markets that will buy the grain and

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Speaker 12: stuff from us, not have to depend on the government

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Speaker 12: and develop those markets.

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Speaker 13: We don't want to rely on government payments. That's the

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Speaker 13: last thing that we want to do. We've worked to

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Speaker 13: try to eliminate that, and we want to try to

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Speaker 13: create demand through domestic markets through exports to offset that.

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Speaker 2: It's easy to think about a world where farmers don't

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Speaker 2: rely on direct payments from the government, where we create

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Speaker 2: products for the market instead of creating markets for the products,

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Speaker 2: where we encourage innovation through competition. Dan Glickman says that

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Speaker 2: what might be thinkable as a matter of economics may

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Speaker 2: well be unthinkable as a matter of politics.

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Speaker 8: Every Senator has large amounts of farm country and farm

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Speaker 8: products and farmers, and they're a huge part of their constituency,

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Speaker 8: and they have equal power. So the Senator from North

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Speaker 8: Dakota has equal power to the Senator in California. That's

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Speaker 8: the dominant factor. Then you have other factors like the

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Speaker 8: fact that Iowa has been the first caucus in the

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Speaker 8: country historically. That's changing. But Iowa's people go there and

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Speaker 8: they talk about corn. Even Bernie Sanders talks about corn

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Speaker 8: subsidies and doesn't really rail against them. And it doesn't

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Speaker 8: matter what your political party you're in, Republican or Democrat,

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Speaker 8: liberal or conservative. For the most part, everybody kind of

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Speaker 8: talks about markets working. But it looks like we're going

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Speaker 8: to have subsidies of some sort forever.

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Speaker 4: Coming up.

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Speaker 2: Self driving taxis. Elon Musk promised they'd be here five

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Speaker 2: years ago. Are they finally going to arrive this year?

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Speaker 2: This is a story about overpromising and under delivering. We've

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Speaker 2: heard about robotaxis coming our way for five years now

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Speaker 2: and they're always just around the corner. But are they

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Speaker 2: really coming and when will they get here? Our colleague

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Speaker 2: Ed Ludlow tells us the tale.

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Speaker 14: Is twenty twenty six, the year of the Robotaxi.

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Speaker 15: I would say twenty twenty six is the year of

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Speaker 15: the zoos robotaxi.

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Speaker 16: I think it's going to be in twenty twenty six

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Speaker 16: where this really starts to take off.

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Speaker 17: If I just zoom out today in twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 17: Most of the autonomous activity in the world is happening

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Speaker 17: in China and in a handful of cities in the US.

440
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 14: It's the buzziest topic in Silicon Valley and the public

441
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 14: is going crazy for it. But enthusiasm alone isn't enough

442
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 14: to get us to a robotaxi world. Six years ago,

443
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 14: Elon Musk confidently predicted he'd have one million self driving

444
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 14: testlas on the road by twenty twenty one, of many

445
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 14: predictions that proved to be too optimistic. After hearing that

446
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 14: robotaxes are here for several years in a row, we're

447
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 14: told twenty twenty six will be the year of the robotaxi.

448
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 14: The number of vehicles on the road is set to

449
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 14: more than double to eighteen thousand this year from eight

450
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 14: thousand in twenty twenty five. For our purposes, a robotaxi

451
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 14: means on demand, point to point autonomous ride ailing. It's

452
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 14: dynamic and not fixed route.

453
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 18: We will continue to see a growth in autonomous taxes

454
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 18: in twenty twenty six, it will not be a dramatic change.

455
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 14: Mark Vegan is a lecturer at Harvard University's Ken School.

456
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 14: He also runs an autonomous vehicle lap.

457
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 18: This is not going to be a year in which

458
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 18: we see twenty cities with twenty five to fifty percent

459
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 18: of ride hail rides being in robo taxis. It's all coming,

460
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 18: but I don't believe it is a hockey.

461
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 14: Stick for a Nasson industry and business without much of

462
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 14: a track record. There are already many players. Weaimo, owned

463
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 14: by Google parent Alphabet, takes existing cars and retrofits them

464
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 14: with its self driving system. It also works with car

465
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 14: makers on purpose built robotaxis, like its vehicle with Zeka,

466
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 14: even though it still has a steering wheel. Right now,

467
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 14: Weimo is the only company running fully driverless paid robotaxi

468
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 14: services in the US without a safety driver, and it

469
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 14: does plan to make twenty twenty six the year that

470
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 14: it publicly launches across America from San Diego to Washington, DC.

471
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 14: Tesler and Amazon owned Zookes are also piloting their first

472
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 14: driverlest programs. While main Mobility and av Ride have launched

473
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 14: in cities with safety drivers at the wheel, and in

474
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 14: some cases there isn't even a wheel, the Zoke's vehicle

475
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:21,880
Speaker 14: is bidirectional, it has inward facing seats and no driver controls,

476
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 14: no steering wheel, no pedals, and that has been the

477
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 14: plan from day one.

478
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 15: Our robot Dachseed has been on the road for about

479
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 15: a euro plus. We've learned a lot. We've been transporting

480
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 15: ourselves and members of the public. We've been practicing the service,

481
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 15: getting feedback, making adjustments. We've expanded our geo fans a

482
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:42,479
Speaker 15: couple of times.

483
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 14: Aisher Evans is the CEO of Zookes. It designs and

484
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 14: builds its own robotaxi from scratch, runs its own app,

485
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 14: and wants to control everything end to end. Zooks plans

486
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 14: to own, operate, maintain, and manage its entire fleet itself.

487
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 14: Why not do what others are doing and start by

488
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 14: retrofitting consumer vehicles.

489
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 15: We kind of look at what happens at scale, right,

490
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 15: and then you work backward from there. And we felt

491
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 15: that in a way, even though at the beginning it

492
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 15: would be slower and more difficult at scale, it's going

493
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 15: to be easier and more ubiquitous and more consistent, and

494
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,719
Speaker 15: we are giving them the personalization, we're giving them the experience,

495
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 15: and we felt that starting that way made more sense.

496
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 15: And yeah's been more difficult, it's been slower, but we're

497
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 15: seeing now with regular people using it that it was

498
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 15: worth it, and we believe it will allow us to

499
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 15: scale faster.

500
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 14: How much is this going to cost to scale the

501
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 14: Zooke's platform and offering to the visions you've just outlined,

502
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 14: but also to sort of bring a return on everything

503
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 14: that's already gone into this project.

504
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 15: It's going to cost a lot, no question about it.

505
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 15: This is a capital intensive endeavor, but I think the

506
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 15: returns are going to surprise people.

507
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 14: Then there's Tesla. Its vision is a robotaxi service made

508
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 14: up of three things. A purpose built cybercab now entering

509
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 14: production used Tesla's the company takes back in controls, and

510
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 14: privately owned cars. In that last case, owners would let

511
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 14: their Tesla go out and work as a robotaxi for

512
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 14: the day, essentially renting out their car like Airbnb on wheels.

513
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 14: A lot of companies are investing a lot of money

514
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 14: on making the dream of robotaxis become a reality in

515
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 14: the near future. But for that to happen, at some

516
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 14: point it has to be a business, and that means

517
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 14: distributing the substantial capital costs across a lot of units.

518
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 14: Sarfrasmredia leads Uber's autonomous Mobility team.

519
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 17: When you talk about the unit economics of autonomous vehicles,

520
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 17: it's actually quite simple because you can start with the

521
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 17: reality that everybody who's losing money. If we were to

522
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 17: price those rides, or any of our competitors were to

523
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 17: price those rides sort of to break even, they really

524
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 17: would not be competitive with any other ride you would

525
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 17: take on Uber. And what we expect is over time

526
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 17: that cost will come down, not just for the vehicle

527
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 17: but for the compute and so as that cost becomes

528
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 17: more competitive, I think you'll see the unit economics improved.

529
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 17: But that's going to take several years.

530
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 18: It's very capital intensive, and the capital comes in two forms.

531
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 18: One is the development of the technology itself, the software code.

532
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 18: Think about this. You and I have spent decades of

533
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 18: learning how to drive, so we know when it's a rainy,

534
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 18: miserable day in New York, you're gonna be more cautious.

535
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 18: All of that has to be coded into the software

536
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 18: that's operating the vehicle. The other side of the capital

537
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,479
Speaker 18: investment is the more traditional kinds of capital. You think about,

538
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 18: You're going to need to get relatively high utilization of

539
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 18: the vehicles in order to pay off that capital cost.

540
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 14: In other businesses, the leader of the pack is the

541
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 14: one who makes the numbers work. Rubotaxis can be different.

542
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 14: Competitors work to get to harness the parts of your

543
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,719
Speaker 14: operation they do well to try and get to scale.

544
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 16: I think it is a dating situation where you know,

545
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 16: we're all kind of interested in each other because look,

546
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 16: think of the data that we have, right We know

547
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 16: about pick up and drop up locations. We know how

548
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 16: to get through into a gated community, for.

549
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 14: Example, David Risher is Lifts CEO.

550
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 16: We know when people take rides every single day. You know,

551
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 16: in every single jurisdiction, United States and the other HAID

552
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 16: the robotaxi companies know a lot about how to drive

553
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 16: cars with no human driver.

554
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 4: We don't know anything about that.

555
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 16: So it's actually one of those really nice things where

556
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 16: at this time we're all trying to sort of date

557
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 16: and learn from each other and figure out what the

558
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 16: models are going to be going forward.

559
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 14: Well, robotaxi pioneers in the US hunt for scale and

560
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 14: for partners. China's racing ahead, with Golden Sachs projecting a

561
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 14: fleet of one point nine million robotaxis in operation there

562
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 14: by twenty thirty five accounting for twenty five percent of

563
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 14: all ride hailing vehicles in the country.

564
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 17: If I just zoom out, today, most of the autonomoustivity

565
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 17: in the world is happening in China and in a

566
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 17: handful of cities in the US. In twenty twenty six,

567
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 17: I think you're going to see that change because you'll

568
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 17: see more cities in the US and you'll see what

569
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 17: is nisson operations in the Middle East, a market like

570
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 17: Abu Dhabi, where we with one of our partners, offered

571
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 17: the first driver lests fully driverless ride outside of the

572
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 17: US in China in the last couple of weeks.

573
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 19: There.

574
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 17: They've been very supportive of bringing autonomous tech to their

575
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 17: city and more broadly in the UAE.

576
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 14: Not all robotaxi companies are operating in the same way.

577
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 14: Where Zoos wants to build its own ecosystem, ride share

578
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 14: companies like Uber and Lyft want to focus on what

579
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 14: they do best, dispatching cars and managing fleets. In December,

580
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 14: Uber entered a partnership with av Ride, allowing riders to

581
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 14: order a robotaxi through the Uber app.

582
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 20: Main cameras are the gator Ride around the.

583
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 14: Later Cirgey Killer off is av Ride's chief commercial officer.

584
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 20: We intentionally decided to not to create like the own

585
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 20: right hailing app and partner with existing players, and that

586
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 20: Rubber is a perfect partner for that. I think riders

587
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 20: will benefit from having the Huber's hybrid model by combining

588
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 20: the autonomous rides and human drivers on the service.

589
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 14: Robotaxis may finally be on the way, but when they

590
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 14: get here, we shouldn't assume that they'll do away with

591
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 14: human drivers, at least not entirely.

592
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 16: Every day, three million plus people open up their phones

593
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 16: and choose to take a lift. Sometimes today they're in

594
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 16: a human driving car ninety nine point nine to nine

595
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 16: percent of the time, but over time, increasingly that'll be

596
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 16: in a machine driven car.

597
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 4: And that's great. Right.

598
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 16: On the other hand, when you want help with your luggage,

599
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 16: or maybe you want someone to chat with at the

600
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 16: end of the day, or maybe it's your grandmother and

601
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:48,959
Speaker 16: you want to make sure that someone actually walks her

602
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 16: to the door at the end of the ride, that's

603
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 16: when you're going to choose a human drivers.

604
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 4: I think the two of them are going to compliment

605
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 4: each other really well.

606
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 14: Annoying ditches are one thing, but there have been much

607
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 14: more serious problems with some robotaxis as they've gone into operation.

608
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 18: In twenty twenty three, it's a very unfortunate incident in

609
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 18: San Francisco where a woman was hit by a conventional

610
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 18: vehicle was knocked under a Cruise autonomous vehicle. The irony

611
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 18: of this is we probably lost one hundred people in

612
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 18: the United States to car related fatalities. We don't like

613
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 18: when technology kills people.

614
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 17: We need to demonstrate with our partners a superhuman safety

615
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 17: record that's not just miles driven, but also that the

616
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 17: rides are going to be safe in different use cases,

617
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 17: that they're going to be able to address edge cases.

618
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 14: So maybe truly these robotaxis are about to arrive in

619
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 14: a city near you. They're high tech, they're all the rage,

620
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 14: but it turns out.

621
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 21: For animal or debonies about it.

622
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 14: Even if you take away a driver, you can't take

623
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 14: away user error.

624
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 15: Hi, this is Aisha. I'm in a right are we

625
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 15: departing soon? What's the hold up? He's not buckled up.

626
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 4: Oh he's buckled up. I know that.

627
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 15: Yeah, yeah, it can detect. Okay, thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, no,

628
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 15: I get it.

629
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 4: I get it.

630
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 12: Thank you?

631
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 14: All right, we try to gain the system is okay, aha,

632
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:25,880
Speaker 14: we do.

633
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 12: It's amazing.

634
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 2: Up next the thrill of summoning the highest peak in

635
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 2: the world and making money doing it. This is a

636
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 2: story about making and spending money at the top the

637
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 2: top of the world. That is, for as long as

638
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 2: there have been humans, we've pushed beyond the horizon. From

639
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 2: the great explorers to learning to fly to landing on

640
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 2: the Moon. We strive to do what has never been

641
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,720
Speaker 2: done before, and then we do it again and again,

642
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 2: to the point where it becomes as much a status

643
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 2: symbol as heroic accomplishment. Our colleague Michael McKee takes us

644
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 2: to the very pinnacle of this phenomenon, to the top

645
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 2: of Mount Everest.

646
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 22: Mount Everest has been conquered Tensing Norki, the Chapa now

647
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 22: called the Tiger of Tigers, and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, who,

648
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 22: like the leader of the expedition, is to be knighted.

649
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 19: At twenty nine thousand feet climbing Mount Everest has long

650
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 19: been one of the pinnacles of human ambition, and in

651
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 19: the decades since it was first conquered by Sir Edmund

652
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 19: Hillary and Tenzignergey Cherpe in nineteen fifty three. Everest has

653
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 19: become something of a playground for the rich, with qes

654
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 19: sneaking down the summit during the peak climbing season in spring.

655
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,720
Speaker 21: Climbing very high mountains or even the highest mount Everest

656
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 21: is expensive, so there's a natural limitation that not everyone

657
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 21: can do this. The climbing permit alone from the government

658
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 21: of China on Nepal costs like fifteen thousand dollars, so

659
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 21: that's already a lot of money to climb one mountain,

660
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 21: and then you need all these equipment, you need oxygen,

661
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 21: you need guides, and yeah, it costs a lot to

662
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 21: climb these mountains.

663
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 19: Lucas Wurtenbach is an Austrian adventurer. His company runs tours

664
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 19: that can cost as much as two hundred thousand euros.

665
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 19: Is latest pitch using xenon gas. The target market investment bankers,

666
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 19: CEOs and billionaires, the cash rich and time poor.

667
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 21: One of the big problems of climbing Mount Everest is

668
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 21: that it takes so long because your body needs time

669
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 21: to adapt to the low oxygen of these high altitudes,

670
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 21: and the the idea was first that remove this process

671
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 21: of adapting the body to these low oxygen levels from

672
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 21: the mountain itself to your home with systems where we

673
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 21: can simulate altitude. That was the first step that we

674
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 21: started like ten years ago. And with this we could

675
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 21: make the expedition duration. We could cut it down from

676
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 21: ten weeks to three weeks, but we aimed to go

677
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 21: even further. So we have been working on different technologies

678
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 21: how we can enhance the acclimatization process, and we ended

679
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 21: up with a medical gas called senon that has been

680
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 21: used in medicine as an anesthetic gas for seventy five

681
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 21: years in Europe but also in the US. It helps

682
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 21: the body to deal with low oxygen environment, with a

683
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 21: hypoxic environment. It increases your red blood cells, it protects

684
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 21: your lungs and your brain, and these are all beneficial

685
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 21: effects that would help you in high altitudes. So after

686
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 21: this treatment, people fly to the mountain. They can helicopter

687
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 21: into base camp and then immediately start climbing. Before it

688
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 21: was about ten weeks because you trek into base camp

689
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 21: and then you start to do mighti per rotations on

690
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 21: the mountain to get your body used to it. And

691
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 21: then after a period of let's say seven or eight

692
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 21: weeks on the mountain in base camp, you finally start

693
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 21: your one week summit push, so we could bring it

694
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 21: down from ten to one week.

695
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 19: I assume this opens up a whole new world of

696
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 19: clientele who might not have ten weeks.

697
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 21: Yeah, that's exactly the point I started this company in

698
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:42,800
Speaker 21: twenty fourteen.

699
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 19: Furtenbach also hopes to capitalize on a growing shift from

700
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 19: the ultra ridge to seek out adventure in their downtime,

701
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 19: from submarines to space, to Antarctica and everest. In a

702
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 19: world where travel is increasingly accessible, luxury could.

703
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 4: Mean being the for it.

704
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 19: Lauren Wilt is the US CEO of Quintessentially, a luxury

705
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 19: concierge service providing lifestyle support to its clients, including on travel.

706
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 23: It's interesting because as travel has become so much more

707
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 23: globally accessible, which is an amazing thing for our industry,

708
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,799
Speaker 23: we are seeing much more intentional travels. So what that

709
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 23: looks like for quintessentially might be a conservation trip to

710
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 23: Africa where they are staying on a preserve. We love

711
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 23: Singita properties. It could be a gorilla trek through Rwanda

712
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 23: that has a real focus on giving back to the communities,

713
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 23: so really taking it to the next level and hyper

714
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 23: customization is what we are doing in the luxury market.

715
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 19: Back in Nepal, a country where tourism contributes about seven

716
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 19: percent of its GDP and about the same number of

717
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 19: its jobs, that trend is playing out on Everest.

718
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,800
Speaker 21: This is development that I personally could see style after

719
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 21: the pandemic.

720
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 19: What's a higher level of luxury and comfort? You said,

721
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 19: from base camp to the summit. It's the same mountain

722
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 19: climb that you have to do, no matter what.

723
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 21: It is still the same mountain. That is true, and

724
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 21: it is still even with a high level of luxury.

725
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 21: In base camp, for example, it is still something like

726
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 21: winter camping. We can set up more comfortable tents, bigger tents,

727
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 21: so you have more space, more personal space, more private room.

728
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 21: We can set up a bed in base camp. People

729
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 21: used to sleep on very thin mattresses with a sleeping bag.

730
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:39,760
Speaker 21: Now we can have beds. We can have heated tents.

731
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:43,439
Speaker 21: We can have a Western chef coming into base camp.

732
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 21: We can serve good wine, we can have Italian coffee

733
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 21: with a big Italian coffee machine.

734
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 19: And the Nepalese government is taking notice. Every year it

735
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 19: hands out just a few hundred permits to climb Everest

736
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 19: and recently it hiked prices. Depak Joshi is the CEO

737
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 19: of the Nepal Tourism Board.

738
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 11: This is kon Off Nepal. This is one of the

739
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:11,479
Speaker 11: probably the most pride activity every adventure lovers they want

740
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:15,839
Speaker 11: to do in their lifetime. It costs a lot from

741
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 11: last year on us. The government has made one fee structure.

742
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,240
Speaker 11: Before that, there was eleven thousand US dollar Poorer Climber

743
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 11: that used to be the kind of fee to climb

744
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 11: Amount Everest. Now it is increased to fifteen thousand US.

745
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,399
Speaker 19: T That's a small percentage of the one hundred ninety

746
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,800
Speaker 19: nine thousand euros that Furt and Back Adventures Signature Everest

747
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 19: expedition is priced at. But with increased prices come increased expectations.

748
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 21: We have to be very selective. So some of these

749
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 21: people just have this idea that now you can buy

750
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 21: Mount Everest in a one week trip and you don't

751
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 21: need to do any training for it, and it makes

752
00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 21: everything very easy. But it's still the same climb, so

753
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 21: it still need to do the same training, maybe even more.

754
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 19: Is there an ethical problem with commodifying risk as an

755
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 19: affordable adventure for the wealthy.

756
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 21: Yes, it bounces back to the responsibility of the one

757
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 21: who is offering this product. So I see a very

758
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 21: high responsibility on our side to keep everything what we

759
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 21: offer safe because ultimately the clients are paying us to

760
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,439
Speaker 21: keep them safe. So of course we can't offer any

761
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 21: products that we don't think are one hundred percent safe.

762
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 21: The same goes for the senon treatment. We couldn't do

763
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 21: this if we wouldn't have the medical backing that this

764
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 21: is one hundred percent safe and only serves to increase

765
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 21: safety on climbing. So I'm very confident that we take

766
00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 21: this responsibility very serious, and I think at the end

767
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 21: it's also on us to tell the client if something

768
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 21: goes too far. It's a full stop here.

769
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 19: How do the sherpas feel about this?

770
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 21: The sherpas that have been involved in this project, that

771
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 21: have access to all the informations, they absolutely love it

772
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 21: because for them it means less work for the same money.

773
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 2: Cap two this is kept two six.

774
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 19: But the sherpa we spoke to wasn't so sure.

775
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 24: You know, guess is the I think as that is

776
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 24: one term is okay, but even they continue is does

777
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 24: that they want to need to make a record from

778
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:42,720
Speaker 24: ever sun.

779
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: It of it?

780
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 19: Ever it The Sherpa are an ethnic group with deep

781
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 19: ties to the Himalayas, with many working as guides and

782
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 19: providing influential support to Everest expeditions. Cami Rita Sherpa's thirty

783
00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 19: one summits of Mount Everest are a world record and

784
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 19: include guiding many wealthy clients to get their moment atop

785
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 19: the world's highest peak. We met him at his home

786
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 19: in Katmandu. Rich people Are they more difficult to work with?

787
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 24: Yes, a little bit difficult with the rich people.

788
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 4: Why is that? Do you think?

789
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:20,240
Speaker 24: I think they are.

790
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 4: Reached people.

791
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 7: You know.

792
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 24: They're thinking only money, you know, without share. But they

793
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 24: can't do anything, so need to their need to the

794
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 24: share buy in the mountain. Some people is thinking about

795
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 24: his money only.

796
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 4: You know.

797
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 24: Sometimes I have a.

798
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 4: Lot of money. I need to like this.

799
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 24: I need to like this in the mountain too. You know,

800
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 24: this mountain has not get to everything.

801
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 21: We can see all different kinds of personalities, but as

802
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 21: you can expect, many of them are these type A personalities,

803
00:45:55,440 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 21: high performers in their shops. They can be difficult, but

804
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 21: they can also be very.

805
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 4: Good to work with.

806
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 21: They have very different motives why they climb Mount Everest,

807
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 21: And it's always hard to explain someone who has not

808
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 21: been climbing, who never had this wish of climbing or

809
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,720
Speaker 21: climbing Mount Everest, Why you want to do this? Why

810
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 21: you put yourself in one of the most dangerous environments

811
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 21: on this planet. Why would you do that and then

812
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 21: earning criticism for it because it is bad for environment.

813
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 21: You leave all the treash on the mountain, people die

814
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 21: up there. Why would you do this? And I think

815
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 21: you can say whatever reasons. People are looking into finding themselves.

816
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 21: People are looking into going back to real adventure, finding

817
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 21: a raw experience, and I think this is partly the

818
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 21: truth for some people. But at the end, if we

819
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 21: look at very raw and fundamental things that we do

820
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 21: in life, we don't invest money to have the experience

821
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 21: of making the planet better. We do it to make money,

822
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,760
Speaker 21: and we don't climb to find ourselves or to find

823
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 21: an experience. I think we climb mountains, and especially that

824
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 21: goes from Mount Everest to be under summit.

825
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 19: Be it Everest or another form of adventure travel. Local

826
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 19: economies will continue to devise ways to get what they

827
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 19: feel is their fair share of the revenue, but the

828
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 19: human pursuit to be first, to be fastest, or to

829
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 19: go highest, seems unlikely to ever go away. Just be

830
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 19: prepared to pay for it.

831
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:48,919
Speaker 2: That does it for us here at Wall Street Week,

832
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 2: I'm David Weston. See you next week for more stories

833
00:47:52,280 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 2: of capitalism.