Speaker 1: It's the big take from Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm West Cassova today. The most interesting people in the world,
Speaker 1: well some of them anyway. Each year at this time,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week releases the Bloomberg Fifty. It's a list
Speaker 1: of fifty people who have done something important, noteworthy, inspiring,
Speaker 1: are just fascinating to talk about. Who's on this year's
Speaker 1: list and what they've done. My colleague Brett Began joins
Speaker 1: me from New York. He spent months working on this
Speaker 1: list with reporters and editors around the world. Brett Vegan,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. Yeah, my pleasure. So Brett. In November,
Speaker 1: the world's population past eight billion people. How do you
Speaker 1: go about picking fifty of them? Wow, well we start
Speaker 1: with all eight billion, and then we go to seven Now, um, well,
Speaker 1: we are fortunate. We have a huge newsroom and I
Speaker 1: have at my disposal reporters and editors who know everything
Speaker 1: about everything. And starting in the spring, really so we
Speaker 1: go back to almost June when we start putting this together,
Speaker 1: we start reaching out to people. They start nominating people
Speaker 1: that they think are really exemplary for the work that
Speaker 1: they've done this year. So basically, Our goal is to
Speaker 1: find people who have a metric or a data point
Speaker 1: from this year that really stands out. So we break
Speaker 1: the list up into five broad categories. So the first one,
Speaker 1: since we're Bloomberg Business Week West, we go with business, right, Um.
Speaker 1: Then we have science and technology, we have finances, we
Speaker 1: have entertainment, and then politics. Some of them are names
Speaker 1: that you know that are doing things that you probably
Speaker 1: weren't aware of. Some of them are names that may
Speaker 1: sound new and are doing really incredible things. And then
Speaker 1: other things other people are doing totally mind blowing things
Speaker 1: that you've never heard about and are crazy, and we
Speaker 1: get really excited about them and put them on the list.
Speaker 1: I mean that is one of the things that I
Speaker 1: like about this list that it isn't just like the
Speaker 1: usual suspects. Yeah, there's some famous people. I think Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise is on the list this year, but like you say,
Speaker 1: kind of for an underspect, why you Tom Cruise on
Speaker 1: the list? Well, Tom Cruises on the list West because
Speaker 1: actually Top Gun Maverick is not only his biggest movie ever,
Speaker 1: but it's the biggest movie of the year. So that's
Speaker 1: actually a great example of someone who everybody knows. But
Speaker 1: the sequel to The Night SI movie is taken in
Speaker 1: about one point four six billion dollars. I like the
Speaker 1: way you say about one point force yet about one
Speaker 1: point four six billion at the box office. So it's
Speaker 1: the highest grossing film of the year and of his
Speaker 1: entire career. When you think about like Tom Cruise, you know,
Speaker 1: think about all the major movies he's had, so for
Speaker 1: this to be number one all time merited him a
Speaker 1: spot on the list. What's interesting about Cruise also is
Speaker 1: he's kind of an exception to the world because one
Speaker 1: of the really cool things about this list is, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of these people just never heard of and
Speaker 1: they're doing really interesting things that you wouldn't ordinarily know
Speaker 1: about it, right, I mean, I think about someone like
Speaker 1: Nicholas Bloom. Okay, he's a professor at Stanford, and he's
Speaker 1: on our list this year because he has become the
Speaker 1: go to person for companies that are really looking to
Speaker 1: try to figure out how to deal with return to
Speaker 1: work hybrid work models, and more than a hundred institutions
Speaker 1: met with him this year, from Wall Street banks to
Speaker 1: startups to the I m F really looking for his
Speaker 1: guidance on how do we manage our workforce, and that's
Speaker 1: a big issue. A lot of people, you know, conflicted
Speaker 1: about having to go back game companies want I'm in
Speaker 1: people who are used to working at home from the
Speaker 1: pandemic that they don't want to go back exactly. And
Speaker 1: someone like Francesco Bellettini, right, that's not a household name.
Speaker 1: She runs the fashion house St. Laurent. So what's interesting
Speaker 1: about that. And she's a good example of something that
Speaker 1: I like to put on this list. And this is
Speaker 1: the sixth year we've done it. So she is leading
Speaker 1: ys L and they actually had a better year like
Speaker 1: year over year return than a lot of other fashion
Speaker 1: houses and companies that would sort of be in their
Speaker 1: universe because they were a little bit less dependent on
Speaker 1: China than some of their competitors were. So she actually
Speaker 1: had a really good year. She and her team sort
Speaker 1: of increased sales in the first nine months of this
Speaker 1: year more so year over year than they had in
Speaker 1: the past. And one of the reasons we put this
Speaker 1: list together and why like doing this so much and
Speaker 1: finding people like this is this sizes into a larger story,
Speaker 1: really is a COVID story. So her success in many
Speaker 1: ways is not only because people want to buy, say
Speaker 1: Laurent clothing, which they do, but they want people to
Speaker 1: buy more of it. But also because when you're a
Speaker 1: little bit less dependent on China than your competitors, you
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to do better. So here at the
Speaker 1: Big Tag Podcast, we have made a list of the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg five from the Bloomberg fifty. Because we just don't
Speaker 1: have enough time to go through the whole list. I
Speaker 1: encourage everyone to go to Bloomberg dot com and see
Speaker 1: the whole list, but we've chosen five who really intrigued
Speaker 1: us among the other intriguing people. So the first person
Speaker 1: on the Big Take B fifty list is Asia Pinky Cole.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about her? Yeah? So Pinky Cole
Speaker 1: is the founder and CEO. And I don't know is
Speaker 1: this a family program list? It is a family program,
Speaker 1: but it's in the top. It is in the name.
Speaker 1: So the name of her restaurant chain is called Slutty
Speaker 1: V and they're based out of Atlanta, and she's the
Speaker 1: founder and CEO. And this is kind of an Irreverend
Speaker 1: burger chain. The names of the burgers are like one
Speaker 1: night Stand things like that. Um In preparation for this podcast, West.
Speaker 1: I actually went to the Slutty Vegan that opened in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: So this isn't just a list. You had to do
Speaker 1: some serious reporting. That's exactly right. I spent forty eight
Speaker 1: dollars on vegan burgers. It's really known for these overstuffed burgers.
Speaker 1: They have names again like manage Atoix or Hollywood hooker Um.
Speaker 1: And it started as a single food truck about five
Speaker 1: years ago and not to become mini empire. Here's Pinky
Speaker 1: Cole in her own words, there's so many challenges in
Speaker 1: this industry when you talk about vegan food, like I'm
Speaker 1: paving the way right right, I'm one of those people
Speaker 1: in the space where I'm creating a lane where it
Speaker 1: really didn't exist in this capacity. So now you've got
Speaker 1: all these big businesses went to open up vegan concepts,
Speaker 1: which is cool for me because that's more fol for
Speaker 1: me to eat. But then also the ingenuity of it
Speaker 1: and the organicness of the whole vegan movement is diluted.
Speaker 1: So what I'm doing to combat that it's monopolized in
Speaker 1: the market. I'm going to continue to create brands that
Speaker 1: people can appreciate when they get a really good experience
Speaker 1: and happen to get really good food that so happens
Speaker 1: to be vegan. The thing that stood out to us
Speaker 1: about her is in the whole context of plant based meats,
Speaker 1: where they had a big splash, some of those companies,
Speaker 1: some of the leading companies, are having a really rough
Speaker 1: time now where initially they were very popular and now
Speaker 1: they're having trouble sustaining those businesses. And she is a
Speaker 1: pretty big success. And of course, as we talked endlessly
Speaker 1: about sustainability and about the problems associated with eating me
Speaker 1: both you know, for your health and environment, these plant
Speaker 1: based meats seems like a pretty big deal and she
Speaker 1: seems to be catching fire in a way that isn't
Speaker 1: kind of like Penians like, you know, eat your peas. No,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right, and that's that's kind of why she
Speaker 1: started this, is that she is a vegan and she
Speaker 1: wanted to eat vegan junk food. One of the cool
Speaker 1: things is that every person on the list that has
Speaker 1: sort of a right up in the magazine report goes
Speaker 1: and says what's interesting. And the person who wrote about
Speaker 1: Pinky Cole is Kate Crater, who's a Bloomberg food writer
Speaker 1: in London and here's what she had to say. Pinky
Speaker 1: Cole is a force of nature. Are you see a
Speaker 1: lot of dynamic people in restaurateurs in the food industry,
Speaker 1: but not that many that really break out and just
Speaker 1: attract a crowd and attention and adulation and love up
Speaker 1: and down the board. And Pinky Cole is that person.
Speaker 1: At the start of this year, she had basically four
Speaker 1: locations in mostly in the Georgia area. By the end
Speaker 1: of next year, she'll have at least twenty one. Thing
Speaker 1: that's also great about Pinky is that she opens her
Speaker 1: restaurants very often in places that are underserved communities. She
Speaker 1: really has her eyes on the black community. She started
Speaker 1: a nonprofit that aims to empower people of color who
Speaker 1: want to get into business and don't always have the
Speaker 1: connections or know how to start doing it. She really
Speaker 1: wants to bring more people into it, offer a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities to people who haven't always had opportunities. She's
Speaker 1: not just saying it, she's doing it, and the impact
Speaker 1: of that is superb. We'll be right back. Our second
Speaker 1: person we picked in our slim down list is in
Speaker 1: the finance category. That's dal Leap sing So. Dal Leap
Speaker 1: sing in February as a taught national security advisor to
Speaker 1: the White House, really played a very central role in
Speaker 1: efforts to cut Russia off from the global financial system
Speaker 1: after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Basically was able to freeze
Speaker 1: more than half of Putin's six forty billion dollar war chest. This,
Speaker 1: of course, is a really a huge issue because I
Speaker 1: don't know that there's another event in this year that
Speaker 1: has had more far reaching global effects than Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. Absolutely not. And he really helped turn Russia
Speaker 1: into basically the most sanctioned nation on Earth. The reporter
Speaker 1: who wrote about the leap seeing is Salia mosen Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: senior Washington correspondent, and here's what she said. So, Putin
Speaker 1: has built up something like six hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollars that he has stored through his central bank in Europe,
Speaker 1: in the US, and in other currencies. He was building
Speaker 1: that up so that he would make sure he had
Speaker 1: a pool of resources to keep funding his war and
Speaker 1: his invasion as soon as U S sanctions came down
Speaker 1: the pike. But he did not see coming. Were two things.
Speaker 1: The first one was that the US and the Group
Speaker 1: of seven would have the audacity to sanction a G
Speaker 1: twenty central bank. Russia is still part of the G twenty.
Speaker 1: To cut off a central bank from the global financial
Speaker 1: system of an economy that provides so much of our
Speaker 1: food and energy resources had the potential to shake global markets,
Speaker 1: and they did shake global markets. It showed Russia that
Speaker 1: the US and American allies are not afraid to stand
Speaker 1: up to him, even if it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: self inflicted pain. And actually all of us saw that pain.
Speaker 1: We all experienced it through gas prices. Gas prices went
Speaker 1: really high. It added to inflation, and it made all
Speaker 1: of our summer vacations more expensive. And it was all
Speaker 1: to pay for the cost of pushing back against Putin
Speaker 1: in what some people saw could become World War three.
Speaker 1: The second thing that deletes things efforts contributed to was
Speaker 1: cutting off Russia from a very complicated system called Swift,
Speaker 1: which is basically the Gmail for banks and in financial institutions.
Speaker 1: When they send money to each other, they need to
Speaker 1: send messages, and those are secret messages because you don't
Speaker 1: want other people to know how and when into who
Speaker 1: you're moving money to. And the US then led an
Speaker 1: effort to encourage Europe to join them and tell Russia
Speaker 1: you cannot use Swift anymore. Now, not all of Russia
Speaker 1: is banned from using Swift, some of the major banks are.
Speaker 1: But all of this to say that Delete sinks. Efforts
Speaker 1: that he led and spearheaded brought Russia in the first
Speaker 1: crucial months of the war to its knees. The ruble
Speaker 1: fell in the first month, and yes the ruble has recovered,
Speaker 1: but the overall picture of the Russian economy is one
Speaker 1: of devastation of really large human toll inflation, people losing
Speaker 1: their job bobs, all because they're cut off from the
Speaker 1: global system. Okay, Brett, moving onto politics. This is a
Speaker 1: person who I think a lot of our listeners won't
Speaker 1: have heard of and has done something really extraordinary. And
Speaker 1: her name is Park G. Hume, right, So, she is
Speaker 1: an advocate for women's rights in South Korea, which is
Speaker 1: a nation that's really struggled with sexism and harassment. And
Speaker 1: she helped attract eleven thousand new members of them female
Speaker 1: and soul alone, to the center left Democratic Party right
Speaker 1: after the presidential election in March. Park is a young woman,
Speaker 1: not yet thirty years old, and when the me Too
Speaker 1: revelations Me Too movement was really picking up steam. She
Speaker 1: got interested in those stories, went to journalism school, and
Speaker 1: with a partner, was able to expose a vicious online
Speaker 1: spy cameraing. And this ring was blackmail and girls as
Speaker 1: young as aged twelve, And these spy cameraings are a
Speaker 1: real problem. Basically, recording devices are put in bathrooms and
Speaker 1: locker rooms and film women without their consent. And she
Speaker 1: was able to infiltrate basically one of these rings and
Speaker 1: wound up getting a pair of twenty six year old
Speaker 1: men sentenced to more than thirty years in prison each.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how she got started. She was doing
Speaker 1: that anonymously and eventually realizing that in order to have
Speaker 1: a bigger voice, she needed to sort of make herself known,
Speaker 1: and she became an advisor to Democratic Party's candidate in
Speaker 1: this year's elections. Did she have a political future herself?
Speaker 1: Do you think that she has an interest in running?
Speaker 1: So she was named the interim coach here, which is
Speaker 1: really like kind of an astounding feat for someone of
Speaker 1: her age. But then the Democratic Party lost local elections,
Speaker 1: she resigned. She's a writer and an activist, and I
Speaker 1: have to imagine that there probably is a future for
Speaker 1: her in politics, but at this point hasn't said exactly
Speaker 1: what those plants entail. No. Next on our list is
Speaker 1: science and tech, and the person who intrigued us is
Speaker 1: Tom Oxley. This is fascinating, Um, Toma. This whole thing
Speaker 1: is crazy. And I read Ashley Vance's stories the Reporter
Speaker 1: on this one, UM several times to make sure that
Speaker 1: I understood this correctly, and I'm still not sure I do.
Speaker 1: But basically Tom's company, which is based in Brooklyn's called
Speaker 1: synchron They are able to implant something into the brain
Speaker 1: of people who are suffering from a l S otherwise
Speaker 1: known as Luke Garrig's disease. And it's essentially like during
Speaker 1: a coronary operation, like putting a stent in your heart.
Speaker 1: They're essentially able to do that in your brain and
Speaker 1: in doing that, it gets a signal that allows you
Speaker 1: to basically text using your thoughts. Here's Tom Oxley. The
Speaker 1: goal of a brain computer interface is to enable control
Speaker 1: of a personal device without having to use your hands.
Speaker 1: That's critical for people who have injury or disease such
Speaker 1: as stroke als, spinal cord injury, who were not able
Speaker 1: to use personal devices like you are I. The way
Speaker 1: it works is it records the intended action directly out
Speaker 1: of your brain and then converts that into a Bluetooth
Speaker 1: signal to control your personal device. We had the f
Speaker 1: d A approval to kick off the clinical trial. We
Speaker 1: had to then figure out where we were going to
Speaker 1: do this, who was the right patient, who was the
Speaker 1: right physician. SOO became the year when the first patient
Speaker 1: in the US was implanted with a permanently implanted brain
Speaker 1: computer interface. So I was dreaming about how we were
Speaker 1: going to make that happen, and it has happened. In
Speaker 1: one word, would be inspiring. Seeing our patient and learn
Speaker 1: how to use the device for the first time, achieve
Speaker 1: reconnection with their families has been nothing short of life
Speaker 1: affirming for the mission that we're on. That to do
Speaker 1: list for three is now expanding our clinical trial to
Speaker 1: include six sites around the world. It's crazy. It's like
Speaker 1: kind of sci fi come to life. Yes, you mentioned
Speaker 1: Ashley Vans, the reporter who has written about this, and
Speaker 1: here's what Ashley said about Tom Oxley. Toms are really
Speaker 1: interesting character. He's he's an Australian, he's a medical doctor
Speaker 1: and he has a PhD. In this field, and so
Speaker 1: he's a bit of a rarity in that he's not
Speaker 1: just a pure startup tech founder. He has this this
Speaker 1: deep background in this field. He's taken his company from
Speaker 1: Australia and based it in Brooklyn, and what's indicative of
Speaker 1: where this field is heading. He's raised tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in venture capital. And so we've gone from
Speaker 1: this period where this was this academic pursuit that was
Speaker 1: progressing very slowly, and now we're seeing these companies get
Speaker 1: tons of money um as people rush to this this
Speaker 1: future that's in the near term about helping people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And then you know there is this
Speaker 1: kind of sci fi, possibly positive, possibly dark future where
Speaker 1: we're talking about humans with chips of their brain talking
Speaker 1: to computers and this kind of human machine hybrid. So
Speaker 1: we'll have to see where all that goes. The big
Speaker 1: advantage for Synchron today is the surgery that they used
Speaker 1: to put this into the brain is much less invasive
Speaker 1: than something that's being promised by like Elon Musk's neuralink,
Speaker 1: where you you actually have to cut through the skull
Speaker 1: and implant this computing chip. Synchron goes in through a
Speaker 1: blood vessel in your neck and and sort of threads
Speaker 1: this stent in it's it's kind of like an outpatient
Speaker 1: type surgery. Um in the years to come, what the
Speaker 1: company really wants to do is increased the computing horsepower
Speaker 1: on its on its brain computer interface to let people
Speaker 1: do many, many more things. And and you know this
Speaker 1: is gonna be no easy task because you're talking about
Speaker 1: putting these chips on this tiny little device that all
Speaker 1: these wires wires in your brain. So that's that's the
Speaker 1: challenge ahead for this company. We'll be right back bread.
Speaker 1: The final person on our slim down list of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: fifty is in the entertainment category, and it's Bryan Flores.
Speaker 1: Brian Flores was a head coach for the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 1: The Miami Dolphins fired him. He was one of the
Speaker 1: very very few black head coaches in the NFL when
Speaker 1: he was fired. He has since sued the NFL. He's
Speaker 1: calling attention to what's known as is the Rooney Rule,
Speaker 1: which requires teams to interview at least one black coach
Speaker 1: that since expanded to two for a head coaching position.
Speaker 1: But his point because of an experience that he had
Speaker 1: was that this rule as a sham. The reporter who
Speaker 1: wrote about him is Ira boot Way. Let's listen to
Speaker 1: him when he got fired. And then they were down
Speaker 1: to one black head coach left in the NFL. That
Speaker 1: was Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tomlin hired Flores
Speaker 1: as a linebackers coach, is one of his defensive assistants,
Speaker 1: and that's where he is now. You know, Colin Kaepernick,
Speaker 1: who's mentioned in the case, it has been blackballed or
Speaker 1: at least many people leave blackballed by the NFL for
Speaker 1: taking a knee during the national anthem. And uh, there
Speaker 1: was some sense that Flores, by filing this suit, had
Speaker 1: sort of made it so he would never coach in
Speaker 1: the NFL again. But it's not true. He's in. He's
Speaker 1: got an assistant coaching job. Which is interesting because part
Speaker 1: of what this lawsuit alleges is that black coaches they
Speaker 1: get a different treatment even when they do make it
Speaker 1: into the league. So they they if they fail, they're
Speaker 1: fired sooner. Right, there's a shorter opportunity. They're paid less
Speaker 1: and they're less often put into the pipelines that lead
Speaker 1: to head coaching jobs. So you know, now he's a
Speaker 1: defensive assistant, which is what he was in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight when he got his first job in the NFL.
Speaker 1: It's definitely, you know, not what he wants, and it
Speaker 1: will be very interesting to see whether he becomes a
Speaker 1: head coach again. The case right now, they're trying to
Speaker 1: decide whether it will stay in federal court where it
Speaker 1: was filed, or whether it we'll go into arbitration. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the NFL arbitration is decided by Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Speaker 1: So Flora's his lawyers are saying he's biased, he's prejudged this.
Speaker 1: The NFL has already said this case is without Merritt,
Speaker 1: how could he possibly be the person to rule. The
Speaker 1: NFL says every coaches contract has language and that says
Speaker 1: you go to an arbitrator for something like this. So
Speaker 1: that's where this belongs. And that's right now. We don't
Speaker 1: know where kind of what will come next. The basic
Speaker 1: problem has not been solved by the Rooney rule, and
Speaker 1: this lawsuit actually has done in a way more than
Speaker 1: the Rooney rule. So since Flores filed it, we've had
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay Bucks hired Todd Bowles, who's black Dolphins to
Speaker 1: replace Brian Flores, hired Mike McDaniels, who's bi racial, Houston
Speaker 1: Texans hired Love Smith who's black, and the Carolina Panthers
Speaker 1: put Steve Wilkes, who's also in this lawsuit, made him
Speaker 1: their interim head coach. So that's four hires since this lawsuit.
Speaker 1: So arguably that's because of the public pressure that this
Speaker 1: lawsuit brought, because it was a very high profile case
Speaker 1: and teams had to answer for why aren't you hiring
Speaker 1: black coaches? So Brett Eye just running into on the
Speaker 1: street and I say, hey, the boomber of fifties out,
Speaker 1: what's the most interesting thing about it? Like, how would
Speaker 1: you sum up this year's list? Wow? So I would
Speaker 1: say the most interesting thing to me is that the
Speaker 1: far reaching effects of the war in Ukraine. So we
Speaker 1: have Vladimir z A Lenski on the list obviously is
Speaker 1: the president of k correct Um. But then you start
Speaker 1: to think about people like Dalip Singh who are also
Speaker 1: really on the list because of the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And then we have people like Robert Habeck, who is
Speaker 1: the economic Minister of Germany and had to spend much
Speaker 1: of this time figuring out where else they were going
Speaker 1: to get energy from. So every year there are stories
Speaker 1: that pop up that do have these sort of far
Speaker 1: reaching impacts on the list, but none I don't think
Speaker 1: in the six years we've been doing this has had
Speaker 1: more than Ukraine Brett Vegan. Thanks so much for talking
Speaker 1: to me today. My pleasure. Thank you, thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to us here at The Big Take, the daily podcast
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For more shows from
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Speaker 1: Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm West Kasova. We'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow with another Big Take.