Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox.
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Bramowitz. Each day we
Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy and useful interviews for
Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store
Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: we are broadcasting live from the Bloomberg look Ahead Conference
Speaker 1: You're Ahead, which we are having a hosting here in
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg headquarters in New York and pim you know,
Speaker 1: one conversation that is paramount this year is UH corporate
Speaker 1: governance and the the amount that secial harassment and other
Speaker 1: types of activities are kind of hindering corporate growth. And
Speaker 1: this is something that obviously has been brought to the
Speaker 1: foreg part by Harvey Weinstein and the increasing allegations for
Speaker 1: a number of different actresses about his unwanted approaches of them,
Speaker 1: and UH and other other people as well have been
Speaker 1: accused of similar attributes, and so this is something that
Speaker 1: is actually coming to the four as a corporate issue
Speaker 1: and one that is important more than it has in
Speaker 1: a long time. Well, corporate issue, yes, and the financial
Speaker 1: issue for those corporations. And you know, just to make
Speaker 1: clear that there are a variety of different, uh sort
Speaker 1: of remedies that exist. And in the federal in the
Speaker 1: government sphere, you think that there would be a process
Speaker 1: that would allow that kind of uh what my restitution
Speaker 1: or payment for this, but it's not. So. Federal workers
Speaker 1: have a cap on the amount. And let's say you're
Speaker 1: able to prove sexual harassment, there is a cap on
Speaker 1: the punitive and compensatory damages. They're based on the size
Speaker 1: of the company. And so if you are doing business
Speaker 1: with the government, you are let's say, only have between
Speaker 1: fifteen and a hundred employees. You only the campus fifty.
Speaker 1: So the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a very different
Speaker 1: set of rules for almost every different business. You know,
Speaker 1: I have to say, uh, Sam our producer, and I
Speaker 1: were talking about this and one thing that really struck
Speaker 1: us is, you know, in a society where there's so
Speaker 1: much money and time spent putting in creating a sense
Speaker 1: of beauty for women that's sort of flaunce their their
Speaker 1: sort of sexual attributes. How that sort of plays into
Speaker 1: this whole debate, and there has been no one who
Speaker 1: has been more at the forefront of this entire debate
Speaker 1: than Anita Hill, who is currently a professor of Law,
Speaker 1: public policy, and Women's Studies at the hell Are Graduate
Speaker 1: School of Policy and Management at Brandise University in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Of course, she is known and became a
Speaker 1: national figure in one when she accused US Supreme Court
Speaker 1: nominee Clarence Thomas for boss at the United States Department
Speaker 1: of Education UH and Equal Opportunity Employment Opportunity Commission of
Speaker 1: sexual harassment. And she joins US here today. UM. Professor Hill,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. UM. Do you
Speaker 1: think that things have gotten better since as far as
Speaker 1: people being receptive to accusations of sexual harassment and discussing
Speaker 1: them in an open way? I do think things have
Speaker 1: gotten better. I think that the latest media attention UH
Speaker 1: is much better now. I think people are really pondering
Speaker 1: women's experiences differently now. UH. They've stopped asking a question,
Speaker 1: why didn't you come forward? And they're starting to really
Speaker 1: examine the behavior and the structures that in people who
Speaker 1: keep the behavior in place. So I think this is
Speaker 1: an improved conversation, UM, and we just need to take
Speaker 1: those next steps there in the problem. What are some
Speaker 1: of those next steps? Is it uh, recognizing the potential
Speaker 1: finance liability, let's say, in the corporate setting, a reputational liability,
Speaker 1: and obviously all those things play into it, But what
Speaker 1: would you see as some of the next steps. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think companies ought to
Speaker 1: do is to really assess their workplaces. There are a
Speaker 1: combination of things that need to be done in order
Speaker 1: to make change, and we know that from just history
Speaker 1: and and the whole history of social change in this country. UM.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that are structural, uh in terms
Speaker 1: of policies and procedures within the company, and some have
Speaker 1: to do with changing the culture of certain companies, cultures
Speaker 1: that actually in fact encourage the behavior, and then other
Speaker 1: cultural aspects that sort of minimize the behavior and say, well,
Speaker 1: it's not really that bad or anything that we need
Speaker 1: to be concerned about. And of course there's always the
Speaker 1: economic interests that a business has, and I know that
Speaker 1: that's what drives businesses. But the that harassment does cost.
Speaker 1: It costs business in terms of payments or people who
Speaker 1: are asked, but it also costs in terms of the
Speaker 1: human resources. UM. And that's something that companies need to
Speaker 1: take into account. But I also like to flip the
Speaker 1: questions sometimes, and I said and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: how are you profiting from harassment? How what good? There's
Speaker 1: what benefit do you get as a company from having
Speaker 1: a culture that is harassing when instead what you should
Speaker 1: be looking for is making sure that people are judged
Speaker 1: on their merit and that they can perform to their fullest.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes when sexual harassment is in the news,
Speaker 1: you start getting a lot of backlash where uh, you know,
Speaker 1: men in particular will say, well, does that mean that
Speaker 1: no man can never hit on a woman, or that
Speaker 1: you know, if a woman is wearing uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if she's putting herself together in a certain way and
Speaker 1: you can't comment on it, what's her response to that? Well,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I have her
Speaker 1: very often is, you know, even in ninety one, when
Speaker 1: people said, well, now we have to think about what
Speaker 1: we say, well, there's no danger in thinking about what
Speaker 1: you say. Oh, in fact, we should all be quite thoughtful,
Speaker 1: especially now that we know, um what the problem is
Speaker 1: that these are situations that women are finding themselves in,
Speaker 1: and some of them are called workers who are men
Speaker 1: find themselves and then make them uncomfortable that really have
Speaker 1: no place in the workplace. It's time out for people saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know we used to be able to do this. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a new day. And women have spoken that they
Speaker 1: find it offensive. You know, if women don't find it offensive,
Speaker 1: then you know, that's fine, But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you should continue and keep pushing the issue when we
Speaker 1: have been put on you've been putting people on notice
Speaker 1: that this is a problem in the workplace and it's
Speaker 1: it's hindering our abilities to do our job. Does it
Speaker 1: also speak to the sort of lack of just good
Speaker 1: manners and and you know, the way you treat other people,
Speaker 1: because this seems to be an shoot not just about
Speaker 1: whether someone wants to have a sexual relationship or not.
Speaker 1: It's about power, and it's about the power that one
Speaker 1: person has over another person, and it just manifests itself
Speaker 1: in this way. But harassment doesn't necessarily mean sexual harassment. Well,
Speaker 1: there's sex based harassment that can happen on any you know,
Speaker 1: to any number of people. It's a sexual harassment that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. It's been in the news lately. But
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right um. This typically can manifest itself UM
Speaker 1: in different forms depending on the person who is exhibiting
Speaker 1: it and the person who they talked to. So it
Speaker 1: can harassment can come in the form of racist harassment,
Speaker 1: It can come in form a homophobic harassment. It can
Speaker 1: come in the form of all kinds of of of
Speaker 1: language that is inappropriate and that is offensive and that
Speaker 1: really has no benefit, gives no benefit to the work.
Speaker 1: But I you know, it is at some point a
Speaker 1: level on the level of civility. How much civility are
Speaker 1: we going to try to promote in a workplace? But
Speaker 1: there is something that is very special and peculiar about
Speaker 1: sexual harassment when you look at the numbers, and they range,
Speaker 1: but some of the numbers suggested as many as forty
Speaker 1: two fifty percent of the limit in a workforce of
Speaker 1: being harassed sexually harassed. So we know that this is
Speaker 1: a peculiar problem, but there are variations on the thing. Well,
Speaker 1: and we talk about big corporations, and we talk about Hollywood. Uh,
Speaker 1: what about government? Right? I mean, we're hearing an increasing
Speaker 1: amount about allegations with the government. President Trump was caught
Speaker 1: on tape talking about doing whatever he wanted, Uh, with people.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you get the sense that, first of all,
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas would be on Supreme Court today had he
Speaker 1: faced the same kind of UH challenges as he did
Speaker 1: back in I'm not sure that there would have been
Speaker 1: a nomination that I would have could have gone forward
Speaker 1: had there been allegations of harassment. I'm not sure we
Speaker 1: would have even had the hearing, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So you can't go back and say in time and say,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it have happened if X, Because I mean, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be talking about it if that hearing hadn't occurred.
Speaker 1: But do you think that there are procedures that are
Speaker 1: appropriate and adequate in Congress right now and just in
Speaker 1: general and throughout Washington to prevent this? Well, I think
Speaker 1: that if if there was a nominee, uh, my complaint
Speaker 1: or my statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee came before
Speaker 1: the vote and before the hearing and which I testified,
Speaker 1: I think that the procedure would be to take that
Speaker 1: kind of complaint very seriously before pushed a nomination through.
Speaker 1: So I think we're in a different place now. Uh.
Speaker 1: The presumption at that point was always either that it
Speaker 1: didn't happen or that it didn't matter and the harassment.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we're willing to make that
Speaker 1: bold a statement right now about what's going on in
Speaker 1: the workplace that we all live in. A lot of
Speaker 1: times the conversation becomes broad and it goes under the
Speaker 1: heading of corporate governance. Do you think it'd be valuable
Speaker 1: to put an actual grade or rape me? Companies that pollute,
Speaker 1: they might get a grade. Companies that don't enforce a
Speaker 1: sexual harassment free environment for people, they would get a grade.
Speaker 1: Do you think that would get any traction in terms
Speaker 1: of investors, Because as you said, you have a workforce
Speaker 1: that feels harassed in any way, you're not gonna be
Speaker 1: doing their best work. They're not going to be doing
Speaker 1: their best work. And we know now that are not
Speaker 1: about just personal decisions. These are these examining It is
Speaker 1: about a business decision too. And um, with all the
Speaker 1: kind of media platforms that we have now, reputations can
Speaker 1: be out there on the record. And I think that
Speaker 1: that is perhaps a coming wave of things that people
Speaker 1: are going to be putting things on social media. You
Speaker 1: know that that's what happened at Ober. You know, one
Speaker 1: bog put that on the record and other people stepped up.
Speaker 1: So no, we are not and they will be grading
Speaker 1: whether or not there is an official grade. Reputation is
Speaker 1: at stake, and um, I know that there's new studies
Speaker 1: and says that say that the reputation really is what
Speaker 1: UH really is motivating companies to behave differently or to
Speaker 1: put into place different different policies and processes, to end
Speaker 1: a problem, or to react to a problem, maybe fire someone,
Speaker 1: to to change the culture. So I you're absolutely right
Speaker 1: in the social media is the conduit. Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for spending time with us. Anita Hill is a
Speaker 1: professor of Law, of Public Policy and Women's Studies at
Speaker 1: the Heller the Graduate School of Policy and Management at
Speaker 1: Brandeis University. Thank you. We are broadcasting alive from the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Year Ahead conference in our world headquarters here in
Speaker 1: New York. And one of the big questions for the
Speaker 1: Year of head is in the age of Netflix and
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime, how does a company like IMAX compete? And
Speaker 1: here to address that is Richard Gelfond, a chief executive
Speaker 1: officer of Imax, which is based in Stony Brook, New York,
Speaker 1: but he joins us here in our seven thirty one
Speaker 1: Lexington headquarters. So, uh can you address that? How do
Speaker 1: you how do you compete? I think in certain respects
Speaker 1: the modern streaming trends help a company like i'm X
Speaker 1: because streaming, definitionally is on a small device. Usually it's
Speaker 1: in your home or in your office. And I think
Speaker 1: people want a fuller life than that. I used to say.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to be changed to your cow,
Speaker 1: sure that's a that's one way to live your life.
Speaker 1: But if you want to get out of your home,
Speaker 1: you want something really special to do it. So if
Speaker 1: you go to a regular multiplex theater, let's say, and
Speaker 1: it smells a popcorn and the uh um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's noisy and people are yelling, that might not be
Speaker 1: enough of a difference to stop you from streaming and
Speaker 1: do something social. But in the case of IMAX, it's
Speaker 1: a fabulous experience. It can't be replicated in the home
Speaker 1: unless you want to spend millions of dollars. And if
Speaker 1: you know, it really provides you with a reason. Um,
Speaker 1: last night I was at a Springsteen to play here
Speaker 1: in New York on Broadway. I mean I could buy
Speaker 1: the I could stream it, I could listen to the
Speaker 1: music in lots of ways, but this amazing experience, immersive
Speaker 1: experience is why you go. And I think IMAX is
Speaker 1: part of that trend. All right, So we got the
Speaker 1: immerg of experience and obviously the it's great if the movie,
Speaker 1: so the experience is a hit, right, I mean, if
Speaker 1: people really want to want to do that. Can you
Speaker 1: speak to the challenge that you have with the actual
Speaker 1: content providers, because we've been following, for example, the report
Speaker 1: that Disney at one point was holding negotiations to purchase
Speaker 1: Century Fox. Now you are as much a technology company
Speaker 1: as you are a sort of holding to the theater world.
Speaker 1: Does having smaller numbers of of of content providers make
Speaker 1: it more challenging for you? You know? I think maybe
Speaker 1: the opposite. And the reason I would say that is
Speaker 1: because we do blockbuster films. We do you know, larger
Speaker 1: than life kind of movies. We did thor this weekend
Speaker 1: and we did million dollars worldwide and thor and so
Speaker 1: we're not really interested in the mid level and the
Speaker 1: small movies. And I think to the extent big content
Speaker 1: providers come together, they could afford more budgets and more
Speaker 1: blockbuster films higher production value, the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: really work in Imax. We've also experimented with alternative content,
Speaker 1: so we did episodes of the Game of Thrones in Imax.
Speaker 1: This year we did a Marvel TV series, the pilots
Speaker 1: for in Humans in Imax. So how did they do? Uh?
Speaker 1: The they did? Okay? I mean the one on Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones was kind of amazing because it was last
Speaker 1: year's episodes that you could kind of reruns, you could
Speaker 1: get on TV and people paid fifteen dollars for them.
Speaker 1: In Humans was was the beginning of a TV series,
Speaker 1: which people didn't know, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: problems we had. We were really excited about doing Marvel,
Speaker 1: but I think people expected production values commensurate with a
Speaker 1: Marvel film, and when it was a TV pilot not
Speaker 1: a Marvel film. You know, we did three million dollars,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't terrible, but people didn't distinguish that. In
Speaker 1: five years from now, do you think that Imax will
Speaker 1: be thought of as much as a virtual reality company
Speaker 1: as it is? Uh, the massive screen and very big
Speaker 1: production kinds of films. I wish that was the case,
Speaker 1: but I don't think so. Um, we are playing around
Speaker 1: with virtual reality, as you know, and we have a
Speaker 1: number of VR test pilots, but um, that's gonna it's
Speaker 1: gonna take a while. I think the VR experience is amazing.
Speaker 1: Um we we and IMAX have a CEO conference. We
Speaker 1: invite speakers in and I invited one person who has
Speaker 1: helped invent the technology and another who makes films. I
Speaker 1: don't know one to tend scale. I asked them to
Speaker 1: rate VR technology today and the films today, and they
Speaker 1: both independently said one. So, I think we're trying to
Speaker 1: do the best VR there is in the world today,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a long way until it gets
Speaker 1: where it's going to go. One tension here is the
Speaker 1: amount of money that's required to invest in virtual reality
Speaker 1: or bigger and better experiences, paired with the fact that yes,
Speaker 1: people want experiences, but there's a limit to how much
Speaker 1: they're willing to pay for them. How are you addressing
Speaker 1: that tension and how is that sort of challenging your
Speaker 1: balance sheet? Well, it's it's not because we're it's not
Speaker 1: challenging our balance shee. Because we're doing it as a
Speaker 1: pilot and we're eliminating the tension by doing it slowly
Speaker 1: and not spending a lot of money. So we're opening
Speaker 1: ten pilots around the world. We now have four open
Speaker 1: New York, l a UM, Toronto, and in Shanghai, and
Speaker 1: we're monitoring them in in a cost efficient way. So
Speaker 1: if it starts slowly, we're not going to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and I'm not gonna push it. But
Speaker 1: if it takes off and it really works, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put a lot more money in. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what I was addressing. I don't think it's right for
Speaker 1: prime time now. I think it's gonna take a number
Speaker 1: of years until it gets to the point back to
Speaker 1: your question, where it exceeds the image of our company's
Speaker 1: big screens. I think it works very well. It's complimentary,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna take a while. You mentioned big screens.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a big market China. Tell
Speaker 1: us people what you're doing there, because that's a different
Speaker 1: You can't just, you know, import what goes on in
Speaker 1: one place into another and expected to do well. Well.
Speaker 1: That was exactly the model we tried what you're alluded
Speaker 1: to in your question, which as I started going to
Speaker 1: China almost twenty years ago, and I met with the government,
Speaker 1: and I met with studios, and we really tried to
Speaker 1: build something that was much more organically Chinese than a
Speaker 1: lot of US companies do. So now we have a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty employees in China. We're a public company
Speaker 1: on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. We have a Chinese CEO.
Speaker 1: We we have Chinese content in China. So we have
Speaker 1: about five hundred theaters now open. We do about ten
Speaker 1: percent of the Chinese box office when we're involved with
Speaker 1: the movie, either Chinese movie or a US movie. And
Speaker 1: we're as comfortable in Chinese Hollywood as we are in
Speaker 1: this Hollywood. Thank you very much for being with us
Speaker 1: in our world headquarters. Much appreciated. Richard Gelfont is the
Speaker 1: chief executive of Imax Corps. He's all about the experience.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg n B I A making a
Speaker 1: move today, UM, I want to talk now about well,
Speaker 1: I want to bring in Will Marshall. He is the
Speaker 1: co founder and the chief executive of Planet based in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. And just to kind of set the context, Lisa,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I like to do
Speaker 1: is look about space programs and NASA and In two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, there was a solar satellite, a a
Speaker 1: dynamics observatory that was launched by NASA. It weighed sixty
Speaker 1: eight hundred pounds and it costs eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars to build. That's expensive. Our next guest, Will Marshall,
Speaker 1: has a way to maybe bring down the cost of
Speaker 1: something like that. Well, thanks for being with us here.
Speaker 1: So is that kind of an accurate way to kind
Speaker 1: of look at the chronology of what we'd like to
Speaker 1: see happen. Absolutely and what we have done at planet
Speaker 1: as miniaturi as satellites. We've taken satellites the size of
Speaker 1: a BOS and bring them brought them down. Most of
Speaker 1: the cost of involved with satellites is the launched cost,
Speaker 1: and so s d O that you just mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: would have taken up a single whole rocket, and rockets
Speaker 1: are expensive. By miniaturizing the satellites, we can launch many
Speaker 1: many satellites in one rocket um thus bring the cost
Speaker 1: down and therefore the data the cost per unit data
Speaker 1: down by many orders of magnitude. And this is possible
Speaker 1: because of the leveraging of consumer electronics, which have miniaturized
Speaker 1: sensors and processes and hard drives for things like smartphones.
Speaker 1: So we leverage that to miniaturize satellites. So how cheap
Speaker 1: is a cheap satellite? Um orders a magnitude less than
Speaker 1: the one that your colleague just referred to, like a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Yeah, exactly. We have to sell data, and
Speaker 1: we don't like to talk about this cost of the
Speaker 1: satellites themselves, but we brought down the cost of the
Speaker 1: imagery by many orders of magnitude. All right, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about the practical application of this imagery. First of all,
Speaker 1: have you already started to sell that data to a
Speaker 1: number of different industries. Can you give us a sense
Speaker 1: of what they are, how it's being used. Absolutely? Firstly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've launched more than two hundred satellites, is the largest
Speaker 1: fleet of satellites in history, and we're getting about three
Speaker 1: under forwarding million square kilometers of imagery down every day.
Speaker 1: We image the entire Earth every single day. What that
Speaker 1: enables us to do is rapid change. See rapid changes
Speaker 1: over the planet. Um. The industries that are interested in
Speaker 1: that include agriculture, consumer mapping, governments. So in agriculture, what
Speaker 1: we've what we see is that this the people. We
Speaker 1: can help improve crop yields by bearing in season diagnostics,
Speaker 1: so we sell it to big AD companies. We can
Speaker 1: tell crop yield on a pixel by pixel basis and
Speaker 1: then they can inform the farmer when to add water,
Speaker 1: so when to add firdliers during the growing season to
Speaker 1: help improve the crop yield. UM in consumer mapping, that's
Speaker 1: companies like Google that buy our data to have up
Speaker 1: to date sabaite imagery layers on their on their satellite
Speaker 1: imagery layer maps UM and then UM governments use it
Speaker 1: from a range of things from security to things like
Speaker 1: response to the hurricanes that have been happening here recently,
Speaker 1: or the earthquake in Mexico, so disaster response. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you a question. Whenever I think about people shooting
Speaker 1: things up into the atmosphere and it's sort of satellite
Speaker 1: revolving the earth, I think about all the trash or
Speaker 1: sort of all the refuse. Is that a problem for you?
Speaker 1: Not for us? But it is a problem satellite debris.
Speaker 1: Space debris is a big problem. There's there's about thirty
Speaker 1: million pieces of man maybe debris orbiting the Earth. I
Speaker 1: worked on this for many years when as a NASA.
Speaker 1: It's mainly up at higher orbits where the Russians and
Speaker 1: the Americans put a lot of their satellites. Back in
Speaker 1: the early part of the space agent didn't realize that
Speaker 1: this could have this effect of of of where debris
Speaker 1: hits debris and then causes more debris that then causes
Speaker 1: increases the collision. So we actually have a runaway situation
Speaker 1: um in certain altitudes. It's very slow, but just like
Speaker 1: climate change, the sooner you nip it in the budda burdder.
Speaker 1: Now we stay out of that problem by keeping us
Speaker 1: are like way lower in orbits, like more like four
Speaker 1: hundred five hundred kilometers, where that stuff is eight hundred
Speaker 1: and twelve hundred kilometers four or five kilometers. There's very
Speaker 1: little stuff, and it re enters because of the atmospheric
Speaker 1: decay after a couple of years, so it gets quickly
Speaker 1: out of the way. But it is a problem we
Speaker 1: have to address. What about the problem of raising money.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like it's a problem because you're smiling. Sure,
Speaker 1: we've raised a bunch of capital from venture capitalists in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area who are interested both in the commercial
Speaker 1: applications of this data and also the fact that it
Speaker 1: can do a lot of good. Um. So there's a
Speaker 1: huge amount of good that can come from this data set.
Speaker 1: To do you ever have to refuse to sell your
Speaker 1: data to certain governments that you have to vet. We
Speaker 1: do have to vet um. I mean it is important
Speaker 1: to to be stewards of this data to try and
Speaker 1: have the most positive impact, and of course economic impact
Speaker 1: for us, we care about revenue. But the point is
Speaker 1: that that that yes, sir, and and and there are
Speaker 1: certain regulations. Of course we can't sell the datas in
Speaker 1: a well iran and think things like that. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. It's really fascinating. Well well
Speaker 1: Marshall co founder and chief executive officer of Planet, which
Speaker 1: is based in San Francisco. Also uh, formerly of NASA,
Speaker 1: and uh, fascinating stories. I have to I have to
Speaker 1: just plug a story. The Ashley Vans of Bloomberg business
Speaker 1: Week wrote that include a lot of really colorful details
Speaker 1: about your past. I highly recommended that The title of
Speaker 1: the article is the tiny satellites ushering in the New
Speaker 1: Space Revolution. He is one of the world's most successful
Speaker 1: and wealthiest individuals. The er Yes, there you go, Well done,
Speaker 1: all right then, let's just bring him in Eric Shatzker
Speaker 1: as our editor at large for Bloomberg News, and Eric,
Speaker 1: let's clear up him when we're really talking. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping a little maybe just it rubs off a
Speaker 1: little bit, but seriously, the gentleman I'm really speaking about
Speaker 1: is Al Walid bin Talal al Salt, which is his
Speaker 1: full name of Saudi prince. Yes, indeed, and you know
Speaker 1: him perhaps better than most of us, because you have
Speaker 1: spent quite a bit of time with him over a
Speaker 1: period of years, and you most recently had a late
Speaker 1: night dinner with him, and that really doesn't go anywhere
Speaker 1: near describing the experience, and wondering if you could tell
Speaker 1: us who he is to you and your experience with him,
Speaker 1: and then maybe give us your perspective on his most
Speaker 1: recent arrest by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia of
Speaker 1: course happy to. Of course, the reason we are talking
Speaker 1: about Al Walid bin Talala's that he was swept up
Speaker 1: in his anti corruption probe along with ten other princes,
Speaker 1: a bunch of former ministers, some Saudi businessmen, and his
Speaker 1: whereabouts today and the whereabouts of all those other people
Speaker 1: are unknown. I saw him less than two weeks ago
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. I was there for the Future Investment Initiative.
Speaker 1: This was a financial and economic conference put on by
Speaker 1: Mohammed Been Salmon and the Public Investment Fund, which is
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's sovereign well fund. Mohammed Been Salmon of course,
Speaker 1: being the Crown Prince, the son of the current king,
Speaker 1: King Salmon. And after that conference was over on Thursday,
Speaker 1: I went out to al Wilds desert camp as part
Speaker 1: of a small caravan. We got there, we spent the
Speaker 1: evening in the desert. It involved, as you said, a
Speaker 1: dinner which was quite lavish. It involved watching a soccer
Speaker 1: match in the open air on some large screen TVs
Speaker 1: that he had set up. We sat on these elaborate
Speaker 1: gigantic rugs against cushions. Um. We talked about politics, which
Speaker 1: is one of his favorite subjects us politics. In fact,
Speaker 1: we talked about We talked excuse me about Breggsit, which
Speaker 1: he described to me as stupid. We talked about stocks,
Speaker 1: because as you may recall, that was sort of super Thursday.
Speaker 1: Google was reporting, or Alphabet if you prefer, Amazon was reporting,
Speaker 1: and Alva Lead is an investor in tech stocks has
Speaker 1: been for a long time as a current investor in Twitter,
Speaker 1: as a current investor in Lift and we uh, we
Speaker 1: spent a very pleasant evening together, and over the course
Speaker 1: of those several hours, I developed no inkling whatsoever that
Speaker 1: all of this was going to transpire only ten days later.
Speaker 1: And this is what I wanted to get out with you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you said in your article that you wrote
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg you did not get any sense, uh,
Speaker 1: there was anything imminent through earth that he had any
Speaker 1: sense of that. But just reading through the tea leaves
Speaker 1: what could potentially have put him in the crosshairs of
Speaker 1: the current air apparent and frankly, the the factor ruler
Speaker 1: right now of Saudi Arabia. There's probably two things. One
Speaker 1: is the I e And this is really a theory
Speaker 1: because we haven't heard from him on the subject himself,
Speaker 1: that Mohammed bin Salman, acting with the full support of
Speaker 1: his father, King Salmon, is determined to eliminate, if you will, uh,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that any euphemistic way, eliminate descent
Speaker 1: or freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia while he is
Speaker 1: trying to consolidate power. And the second is that possibly
Speaker 1: Prince Al Walid in some way, shape or form, represented
Speaker 1: a different kind of a threat. Now what kind of
Speaker 1: a threat could it be? Under the old king, King Abdullah,
Speaker 1: there were, if you will, worrying factions in the royal family,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they were all pitted against one
Speaker 1: another in a strange way, maintained a sense of stability.
Speaker 1: This king and his son of approaching uh Saudi politics,
Speaker 1: if you will, Saudi rule in a totally different way.
Speaker 1: It is much more autocratic and the power is centralized
Speaker 1: under Mohammed bin Salman, and so if al will lead
Speaker 1: were part and I don't have any facts to corroborate this.
Speaker 1: If he were part of one of those other factions,
Speaker 1: perhaps the crown prince perceived him as some kind of
Speaker 1: a threat. Let's also add to the fact, add to
Speaker 1: that that he is wealthy, independently wealthy. Doesn't get his
Speaker 1: money from a Ramco if you will, like almost all
Speaker 1: the other Saudi royals do. He's made it as an investor.
Speaker 1: He's really well connected. He's personal friends with Bill Gates
Speaker 1: and Rupert Murdoch, for example, and as a result, he
Speaker 1: wields influence, and perhaps that influence presents a threat to
Speaker 1: the crown. But again these are all theories. Now let's
Speaker 1: talk about the other one, which is the descent freedom
Speaker 1: of expression part and further for that, we actually do
Speaker 1: have a piece of evidence. Back in February of two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, Al Wilead had started an Arabic language news
Speaker 1: channel based in Bahrain and that news news channel, i
Speaker 1: should add, actually had a partnership agreement with Bloomberg. We
Speaker 1: were going to provide them with information and with data.
Speaker 1: And that channel was shut down by the Bahraini government
Speaker 1: on day one. It never reopened. Now it appears that
Speaker 1: the cardinal mistake that Al Arab that was the name
Speaker 1: of the news channel made was interviewing a Bahraini opposition politician,
Speaker 1: because the Bahraini government subsequently issued a statement saying that
Speaker 1: the channel had failed to respect the need to fight
Speaker 1: terrorism and extremism, and it was a signal that Al
Speaker 1: will lead in the channel itself had misread, if you will,
Speaker 1: the degree to which bahrain and more importantly, Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 1: economic sponsor and neighbor, were willing to tolerate dissent and
Speaker 1: freedom of expression. And while on the surface, it appears
Speaker 1: that Mohammad bin Selman is modernizing the Saudi economy and
Speaker 1: liberalizing social values, and he wants to return to a
Speaker 1: pre Wahabi form of Islamism. Uh. He does not appear
Speaker 1: to tolerate dissent well. So if under the surface there
Speaker 1: was a lot more of that going on, he perceived
Speaker 1: al will lead as a voice of free expression, as
Speaker 1: a voice of descent, that too, may have been one
Speaker 1: of the reasons to take him into custody. Officially, this
Speaker 1: is according to an official in the Saudi government whom
Speaker 1: Bloomberg spoke to. The charges against him our money laundering,
Speaker 1: bribery and extortion. So they have nothing to do with dissent.
Speaker 1: They have nothing to do ostensibly with royal politics. But
Speaker 1: we have to at least contemplate the possibility that there
Speaker 1: are other things involved. Every conspiracy theorist is heading in
Speaker 1: that direction. Of course, there is a possibility that some
Speaker 1: of those charges are based on fact, but the Saudi
Speaker 1: government has not shared with us any of that evidence
Speaker 1: and probably won't because it doesn't operate. The criminal justice
Speaker 1: system doesn't operate there the way that it does here.
Speaker 1: We're told that due process will be granted to these people,
Speaker 1: that they're going to get legal representation that they're going
Speaker 1: to have a day in court, But who knows whether
Speaker 1: that procedure bears any resemblance to what we know here
Speaker 1: or what we know if you will in the Western world.
Speaker 1: Eric Schatsker, thank you so much for joining us and
Speaker 1: for writing the story. I highly recommended it. I dined
Speaker 1: with Olive a lead in the desert days before his arrest.
Speaker 1: Eric Schasker is an editor at large for Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: and New joins us here where we are broadcasting live
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg's The Year Ahead Summit in our New York headquarters.
Speaker 1: Fascinating story. Quickly, just how was the food? It's pretty good.
Speaker 1: When you're done, I have to say. I had some lamb,
Speaker 1: I had some shrimp, I had some rice salads. It's um.
Speaker 1: There's a lot on offer, at least two dozen courses.
Speaker 1: I was kind of picking. I could deal with a
Speaker 1: course right now. This is Bloomberg. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and
Speaker 1: listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast
Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one
Speaker 1: before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on
Speaker 1: Bluebirg Radio