Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news. As it happened. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinevin on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. It was another jam packed
Speaker 1: week and this week, first of all, when it came
Speaker 1: to trading, we did wrap up the month of August,
Speaker 1: tim marking the seventh consecutive monthly gain for U S docks.
Speaker 1: Despite so much going on domestically and in the world,
Speaker 1: the chief among them, Carol, was a week where the
Speaker 1: US officially wrapped up operations in Afghanistan, a process that
Speaker 1: has left thousands of Afghans seeking refuge in the US.
Speaker 1: This coming nearly twenty years after the United States first
Speaker 1: invaded the country after September eleven, We're going to talk
Speaker 1: all about that with Janami day Murray, the Senior Director
Speaker 1: of US Emergencies, had saved the children, and what the
Speaker 1: ganization is doing to help those refugees, half of whom
Speaker 1: our children now Afghanistan. As to mention definitely on our
Speaker 1: minds this week. So too was China, which continues to
Speaker 1: increase oversight on companies, industries, investing, and it's kids. Every day,
Speaker 1: tim it felt like China was coming out, regulations were
Speaker 1: coming out from Beijing about another crackdown on some other
Speaker 1: aspect of their economy. We got into that with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: New Economy editorial director Andy Brown, who wrote about the
Speaker 1: billions that Chinese tech leaders are shelling out in a
Speaker 1: sign of solidarity. We're going to hear from him in
Speaker 1: a bid And the thing about Andy is there's pretty
Speaker 1: much no better voice to talk to about that, given
Speaker 1: his experience living in China for so many years. All
Speaker 1: of that to come in our first hour of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. And if you check out the cover of
Speaker 1: Business Week, you're gonna see it's a special double issue
Speaker 1: and Carol, it is all about cities exactly. Uh And
Speaker 1: I love the cover. It says welcome to utopia and
Speaker 1: then in parentheses in theory. And so that really speaks
Speaker 1: to the cover story, which is a story by our
Speaker 1: Joshua Breusting. We're gonna hear from him a little bit
Speaker 1: later on, and he writes about e commerce legend Mark Laurie,
Speaker 1: who's got a plan for the perfect city. But now
Speaker 1: he's got to actually take those words and put them
Speaker 1: into action. Not so easy. Not so easy. Mark Laurie
Speaker 1: is a fascinating guy. If his name sounds familiar, because
Speaker 1: perhaps because five or six years ago you saw him
Speaker 1: on the cover of Bloomberg Business Week when he launched
Speaker 1: jet dot com, that company ultimately getting acquired by Walmart
Speaker 1: a few years ago for more than three billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Uh Lori before that was the founder of diapers dot com,
Speaker 1: a company that he sold to Amazon for hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. And now he's got his sight set
Speaker 1: Carol on creating this utopia. Unclear where exactly it's going
Speaker 1: to be, but he's had this realization of late that
Speaker 1: this is what he wants to focus on for a
Speaker 1: bit more though. On this week's Double Cities issue, let's
Speaker 1: catch up with the Washington d C editor behind it all.
Speaker 1: Here's Amanda Culson Hurley. This is a great cover story,
Speaker 1: UH and just a great story about how Laura, like
Speaker 1: like a lot of other people in UH in the
Speaker 1: tech world, has gotten the city building or city planning
Speaker 1: bug and UH really has this vision of um of
Speaker 1: not only building uh this city from scratch that would
Speaker 1: eventually have five million people, but structuring it on the
Speaker 1: economic ideas of Henry George, who was a thinker in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Uh. And in the process, the city
Speaker 1: and Laura's vision would kind of save capitalism from itself.
Speaker 1: It would uh you know, reduce inequality and produced a
Speaker 1: society and egalitarian society. Um. You know, he's not h
Speaker 1: and he admits on the story. You know, he's not
Speaker 1: super clear in the details yet, still working through a
Speaker 1: lot about how, you know, how this city would be governed,
Speaker 1: even where it would be located. They're looking at sites
Speaker 1: in the American West, but it's not even clear what
Speaker 1: state it would be. End. I gotta tell you iired
Speaker 1: a team. Yack. Then here's what are you serious about it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, man, I think we talk about the importance
Speaker 1: of public private partnerships. This feels like a public private
Speaker 1: partnership ultimately on steroids, leaning more towards the private. So
Speaker 1: it's curious. We'll have to see where it goes. You know,
Speaker 1: this one hit really close to home. A third story
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about in the city's issue.
Speaker 1: I know, sometimes I'm on the phone with my parents
Speaker 1: or something, your friends, and I'm like, I gotta just
Speaker 1: call you back because there's an ambulance right here, there's
Speaker 1: a highway right here, there's some person screaming right here. Uh.
Speaker 1: How do you make cities quieter and therefore increased quality
Speaker 1: of life because people want to live in them sometimes
Speaker 1: regardless of how loud they are. Yeah, that's right. And
Speaker 1: this Uh, we have this great essay in the Issue
Speaker 1: about sound in cities, and it kind of starts with
Speaker 1: the fact that UM cities did get somewhat quiet during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and yet noise complained, you know, largely did
Speaker 1: not decree, which tells you something, right um, in that
Speaker 1: a lot of the time people weren't commuting in the work,
Speaker 1: they were staying at home, and then their neighbor turns
Speaker 1: on a leaf blower or something, and you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be so much quieter in the suburbs or
Speaker 1: you know, in a residential neighborhood than than in Times square. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that's not really the case. Or perhaps it's quieter,
Speaker 1: but you know that neighborhood noise is every bit as
Speaker 1: annoying if not more so so our our writer fergus O'Sullivan, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, try to kind of dive into what it
Speaker 1: is about urban noise that bothers us or pleases us
Speaker 1: the most, and kind of found that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: often it's not just about the volume. It's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's about the kind of overall effect. It varies
Speaker 1: a lot from place to place. That was the Washington
Speaker 1: d c editor behind it all, Amanda Coulson Hurley and
Speaker 1: to got the City's issue. Lots of stories there. You
Speaker 1: can find that at Bloomberg dot com, on newsstands and
Speaker 1: also on the Bloomberg terminal. Still ahead though, on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, you have seen those horrific images of the
Speaker 1: people of Afghanistan as they struggled to get out of
Speaker 1: the country amid the US withdrawal. This week, one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand were able to get out with the help of
Speaker 1: the United States, and many of those now seeking refuge. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to get into how that's happening, some of
Speaker 1: their stories. That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes.
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. This past week was filled
Speaker 1: once again with tough images of the evacuation of Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: a crisis situation that involved the airlifting of fifty hundred
Speaker 1: Americans and one hundred thousand Afghans. Those Afghans are now
Speaker 1: taking shelter and countries around the globe, thousands here in
Speaker 1: the United States. Save the Children is a among the
Speaker 1: organizations helping out. For more on the work they're doing,
Speaker 1: Carol talked with janemy Day Moray, the senior director of
Speaker 1: US Emergencies that Save the Children. I am out at
Speaker 1: Delis Airport providing services and supports, particularly to the young
Speaker 1: children and the new mothers who are coming through. Working
Speaker 1: inside the airport, UM providing safe places for women, private
Speaker 1: places for women to be able to nurse and also
Speaker 1: change diapers. Many of the children have been traveling for
Speaker 1: more than thirty hours, and you can imagine UM sitting
Speaker 1: in the same diapers that whole time. They have their
Speaker 1: diaper rash, and so they really need support UM when
Speaker 1: they're getting off the flight, right And from what I
Speaker 1: understand that, I mean, there are so many that our kids,
Speaker 1: about half of them, is that correct? From what we've
Speaker 1: been seeing absolutely and many of them are young children,
Speaker 1: so very very vulnerable children. The families have taken an
Speaker 1: incredibly long slight and been evacuated. As I'm sure people
Speaker 1: have seen on the news. It's about a fifteen hour
Speaker 1: flight then to the dullas here in Virginia. UM families
Speaker 1: then have to come into the airport, their process through
Speaker 1: customs and border protection, which has been taking a number
Speaker 1: of hours. They then proceed upstairs where they're tested for
Speaker 1: COVID and in that large lounge where all the families
Speaker 1: passed through, that's where we have our first mother and
Speaker 1: baby areas. For many families, when they get to that space,
Speaker 1: it's the first time they've been offered any food, water,
Speaker 1: relief UM in hours, many many hours. We're talking about
Speaker 1: Jena May dam Ray. She's senior director of US Emergencies
Speaker 1: that Save the Children with US from Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Jano May. One of the things that I find a
Speaker 1: situations like this, times like this, is that one needs
Speaker 1: to get beyond those big broad headlines and understand that
Speaker 1: underneath all of those headlines are people, families, children, individual stories.
Speaker 1: What can you share with us about some of the
Speaker 1: people that you are helping some of the personal stories,
Speaker 1: as you said, a lot of them, the kids in particular.
Speaker 1: Half of these refugees have been kids so far. Most
Speaker 1: of them are coming not wearing shoes, without any bags.
Speaker 1: UM help us put some faces uum these individuals. There
Speaker 1: was a father who was watching his three beautiful little
Speaker 1: girls through some coloring in the space, and he was
Speaker 1: a very tall, proud man, and of course wearing a
Speaker 1: COVID mask. But he turned to me and his eyes
Speaker 1: just welled up with tears and he said, I was
Speaker 1: a translator at the US embassy. I had a good
Speaker 1: life in Afghanistan. I had a car and a house,
Speaker 1: which are a big deal to have in Afghanistan. And
Speaker 1: he said, I have nothing now. I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I have to start again. I have nothing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I told him, you have your
Speaker 1: beautiful girls, and you are welcome here in the US.
Speaker 1: And that was just one moment. And then if I
Speaker 1: may share another one, a beautiful moment at the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: airport again, another family. They were about to board the
Speaker 1: bus to go out to Port Dix. And one of
Speaker 1: the soldiers who was there, who's helping staff up the site.
Speaker 1: Uh looked at them. The last man who was there
Speaker 1: with his family is the last person in mine to
Speaker 1: get on the bus, and he gave him. The soldier
Speaker 1: gave the man a big bear hug, and the man
Speaker 1: smiled and just hugged back, and the soldier said to
Speaker 1: the man, welcome to America. You're gonna love it. And
Speaker 1: it was just this beautiful moment of smiles and and
Speaker 1: welcome to people who have suffered incredibly on their journey
Speaker 1: to get here, and they've arrived here with hope for
Speaker 1: a with hope for safety and security, but also hope
Speaker 1: for a better life now here in a for their families.
Speaker 1: You know, I do think that when it comes to
Speaker 1: the Middle East, we tend to group all the countries together,
Speaker 1: all of the situations together, And there's obviously different situations,
Speaker 1: different countries, different relationships that the US has um with
Speaker 1: various regions within the Middle East. But it's also a reminder,
Speaker 1: and you're helping us be reminded of that that it's
Speaker 1: not just soldiers and terrorists and war, but it's people
Speaker 1: who were prior to this living a quote unquote normal
Speaker 1: life and a good life. Absolutely, and that's also a
Speaker 1: very troubled life because the country has been at war
Speaker 1: a long time and conflict is deadly for women and
Speaker 1: girls and children especially they're the innocent ones in these conflicts.
Speaker 1: And so for US as a country to now be
Speaker 1: receiving thousands of Ascan children who will be able to
Speaker 1: become contributing members here and be a part of the
Speaker 1: you know, be a part of our country now is
Speaker 1: kind of what we're all about and what we were
Speaker 1: we were founded on years ago. But it's beautiful to
Speaker 1: see the reception that they are receiving, both here at
Speaker 1: Dulles and also in Philadelphia at the airport and at
Speaker 1: all of the military bases where they're arriving or being
Speaker 1: sent in order for their visas to be processed. Save
Speaker 1: the Children is also working out at Fort Bliss, which
Speaker 1: is Bio Paso, Texas. That's one of the largest receiving sites.
Speaker 1: They'll have about ten thousand of the refugees there while
Speaker 1: they're waiting for their visas to be processed before they
Speaker 1: can be safely released into the US, and where they're
Speaker 1: again operating programs for children to keep them safe, to
Speaker 1: help them start to learn English, to help them uh
Speaker 1: again be children and and come back to being what
Speaker 1: a normal experiences. I know, schools across the US are
Speaker 1: starting now, and children here have traditions as they start,
Speaker 1: and these chill when they're starting to build their traditions
Speaker 1: in the US and the days ahead. Tell us what
Speaker 1: happens once they settled. You've talked to us about helping
Speaker 1: them get settled. They obviously have to get processed as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, through customs, border protection, get visas um, obviously
Speaker 1: some basic supplies, and then transferred, as you said, to
Speaker 1: a transit shelter. Um. What are the next steps for them?
Speaker 1: How are they then assimilated into US a society. Well,
Speaker 1: they will from the transit shelter. They're then sent to
Speaker 1: the military days. They'll be there for the next they're
Speaker 1: they're predicting the next months or six weeks, sometimes a
Speaker 1: little bit longer. During that time, they're trying to establish
Speaker 1: programs on the basis that will help them start to
Speaker 1: begin to learn about life here in America and help
Speaker 1: them without assimilation process. And then they will travel on.
Speaker 1: Many of them have families or have worked for employers
Speaker 1: and they who have a presence in the US. They'll
Speaker 1: be moving on to community. These across the country and
Speaker 1: will start to contribute. Once they get their visas and
Speaker 1: their work permits, they'll be able to start to contribute
Speaker 1: um in our communities to being a part of who
Speaker 1: we are as a country. That's Jane may Day Murray,
Speaker 1: the senior director of US Emergencies at Save the Children.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we had to Beijing, where China's President g
Speaker 1: continues to make his mark to create a common prosperity
Speaker 1: for his country and in the process Chinese tech billionaires
Speaker 1: while they're forking over billions to show their allegiance. That
Speaker 1: story is still to come. On Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleven Rio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM General one
Speaker 1: nine and around the globe the Bloomberg Business in Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovian on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So yeah, another round of headlines out of China. This week,
Speaker 1: as the government and regulators continue to crack down on
Speaker 1: aspects of their society with a goal of creating, in
Speaker 1: the words of Chinese President g a common prosperity. Those
Speaker 1: moves this week included China limiting online gaming by miners
Speaker 1: to three hours a week, China's securities regulator planning to
Speaker 1: rain in the country's buyout firms, and China threatening to
Speaker 1: ban e commerce companies that violate i P laws and
Speaker 1: tim That's just a few of the headlines that came
Speaker 1: out of Beijing this week. With all this in mind,
Speaker 1: we checked in once again with Bloomberg New Economy editorial
Speaker 1: director Andy Brown, who recently wrote about what wealthy tech
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs in China are doing to show solidarity with the
Speaker 1: Chinese government. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. This is political
Speaker 1: theater of the highest order. Um President, as you say,
Speaker 1: is on a campaign to promote common prosperity. In doing so,
Speaker 1: he's reviving the maoist eras there are of egalitarianism, and
Speaker 1: the country's billionaires have got the message. Then they're coughing
Speaker 1: up billions of dollars, something like thirteen billion just in
Speaker 1: the last few months handed over to charity. Great. If
Speaker 1: you're looking at your billionaires and your most dynamic Chinese
Speaker 1: companies to hedge their political risk, you're a shareholder, perhaps
Speaker 1: you're not quite so happy, Andy, Is this the Cultural Revolution?
Speaker 1: Two point oh? In some ways, Look, this is a
Speaker 1: lot of this is a lot of this is about politics.
Speaker 1: And you know, during the Cultural Revolution, people in China
Speaker 1: famed compliance. Um uh, they didn't really mean it. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a penalty to be paid in China to day
Speaker 1: if you go against the party line. And line now
Speaker 1: is egalitarianism um And this means really a an assault
Speaker 1: on the private sector. And that's really where the problem
Speaker 1: comes from because so much of China's inequality is baked
Speaker 1: into the system, is baked into the taxation system. But
Speaker 1: it's the billionaires the private sector that are paying the
Speaker 1: price for this. Well okay, So you know, every time
Speaker 1: you and I talk, I think about, you know, presidency
Speaker 1: and what the end game is. Because on one hand,
Speaker 1: right they do long term planning, China does as a country,
Speaker 1: as a nation, as a government, and they have been
Speaker 1: very open about wanting to dominate major industrial sectors. At
Speaker 1: the same time, some of what they're doing feels like
Speaker 1: they're pushing back on the ability to do that in capitalism.
Speaker 1: Can they do both? Can they be leaders in industries? Um?
Speaker 1: And at the same point, Okay, it's a really good point, Carol.
Speaker 1: I mean, China is playing by a different set of
Speaker 1: rules here. This is not capitalism where the purpose of
Speaker 1: the corporation is to maximize shareholder value. What companies in
Speaker 1: China are being told now is that your purpose in
Speaker 1: life is to fall into line and support government policy
Speaker 1: when it comes to technology, when it comes to the economy,
Speaker 1: and also social and political objectives. So we saw that
Speaker 1: with this announcement that online gaming companies, we're going to
Speaker 1: have to drastically limit the number of hours that kids
Speaker 1: spend in front of their screens three hours a week.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a bit to fix a
Speaker 1: social problem in China, and companies are expected to take
Speaker 1: the lead. And it doesn't matter the impact on their
Speaker 1: profits or indeed especially not the impact on foreign investors.
Speaker 1: It's simply peripheral. So are they putting at risk their
Speaker 1: ability to be a global leader going forward, one that's
Speaker 1: respected by global investors, global business? You know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to unders and kind of what the endgame I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand the idea of spreading out the wealth and
Speaker 1: making sure that there's no upheavals within China itself, but
Speaker 1: I do wonder about what the future role is then
Speaker 1: as a nation. Yeah, well, you know when when you're
Speaker 1: when you're the communist party. Um, you know, every every
Speaker 1: mail looks like it needs a hammer. And Um, they're
Speaker 1: going about this in a really draconian peremptory way. I mean,
Speaker 1: the problems that they're addressing in China are similar to
Speaker 1: problems elsewhere in the world. I mean, inequality in China
Speaker 1: is about the same as inequality in the United States. Um.
Speaker 1: The difference is that, you know, the way the way
Speaker 1: they've decided to go about this is to is to
Speaker 1: scapegoat the country's leading entrepreneurs, including uh Jack mar Of course,
Speaker 1: who was the biggest and the most powerful of them all,
Speaker 1: and that was Bloomberg New Economy editorial director Andy Brown.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out Andy's weekly column at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com and on the Bloomberg you're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week coming up next. He talks with everybody, and
Speaker 1: those conversations have led to another book, this one about
Speaker 1: the American experiment, and by everybody, we really mean everybody
Speaker 1: the innovators making and remaking the United States. Has told
Speaker 1: to Carlisle Group co founder and hosta Bloomberg Wealth David Rubinstein,
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: So Tim, let's be fair. He talks with all kinds
Speaker 1: of leaders from all walks of our u s lives,
Speaker 1: of our global lives. Really the household names, the executives,
Speaker 1: the innovators, the warriors, the upstarts, the artists, and from
Speaker 1: those conversations he has written trilogy of books. Those books
Speaker 1: on leadership called How to Lead, Wisdom from the World's
Speaker 1: Greatest CEOs, Founders and game Changers. The second though, The
Speaker 1: American Story, It's based on his conversations with historians. And
Speaker 1: the third in the series, Just Out, is all about
Speaker 1: the arc of the United States as a young country
Speaker 1: as it invented and reinvented itself in real time. And
Speaker 1: that book's titled him It's called The American Experiment. Dialogues
Speaker 1: on a Dream. The conversationalist, philanthropist and author Behind It All,
Speaker 1: David Rubinstein. He is co founder co chairman of the
Speaker 1: private equity from the Carlisle Group. He's also host of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Wealth on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Here's our conversation. Well, generally,
Speaker 1: I like to talk to people who are willing to
Speaker 1: say something, as you know from being an interviewer. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you watch the Sunday talk shows, sometimes you say,
Speaker 1: why do these people go on these shows? Because they
Speaker 1: don't want to want to say anything. What you want
Speaker 1: is somebody who's willing to say something and say something
Speaker 1: they haven't said before. That's the best interview, right, And
Speaker 1: so I'm always looking for somebody who is willing to
Speaker 1: be engaging and doesn't want to just spar with the
Speaker 1: interviewer and not say anything. So you know that's that's
Speaker 1: a challenge, but that's what I'm trying to do. And
Speaker 1: you always want somebody that people will listen to and
Speaker 1: want to hear. So if I got an engaging guest,
Speaker 1: but nobody's ever heard of that person, it may not
Speaker 1: be as effective. If you can get Jeff Bezos, you know,
Speaker 1: you know that's people want to hear from him. So
Speaker 1: if you want somebody has a name, and who's going
Speaker 1: to engage And some people are great and some people
Speaker 1: are not as great, And you know you've just figured
Speaker 1: out during the interview. But we think about what's happened
Speaker 1: with the pandemic, the capital riots, um, the inequities, George Floyd,
Speaker 1: we could go on and on. There's it feels like
Speaker 1: a decade or two decades of history have happened in
Speaker 1: the last year and a half. How is that, David
Speaker 1: shaped kind of your thinking and putting this book together.
Speaker 1: And again, the voices you wanted to get to, each
Speaker 1: one has a different thing. The January six event, um,
Speaker 1: I do talk about it extensively in the book, and
Speaker 1: I basically say it was a severe stress test for
Speaker 1: America and America one. And I dedicate the book to
Speaker 1: the public servants who protect our democracy. Because remember, we
Speaker 1: had sixty five lawsuits that were filed to overturn the
Speaker 1: January to overturn the election, and none of them actually prevailed,
Speaker 1: none of them got very far. All the judges basically
Speaker 1: complied with what is the rule of law, and they
Speaker 1: basically didn't act political. So I think we learned a
Speaker 1: lot about the importance of the rule of law in
Speaker 1: this country. We also learned a lot in terms of
Speaker 1: the importance of health care in this country, how it's
Speaker 1: so unfair that people are her minority status or or
Speaker 1: are poor. Really we're suffering disproportionately because of COVID because
Speaker 1: they don't have good health care to begin with, and
Speaker 1: they didn't have access to the best health care. And
Speaker 1: it's a sad situation. But it also made me think
Speaker 1: about this my mortality. I'm seventy two years old, and
Speaker 1: when you're seventy two, you had a chance of you
Speaker 1: got this disease that you could maybe not survive. And
Speaker 1: we now know that six the people when on ventilators
Speaker 1: didn't actually come back out of the ventilators. We were
Speaker 1: putting people ventilators think it was helping, wasn't. So we
Speaker 1: learned a lot about how to treat people. But suppose
Speaker 1: I had gotten this and I went on a ventilator,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't be here now. So I learned a
Speaker 1: lot of up my mortality and thinking about it, And
Speaker 1: the result is I'm rushing to get more things done
Speaker 1: because I now realize, Hey, life is really short and
Speaker 1: something bad can happen very quickly, and so that that's
Speaker 1: been something that I've been thinking a lot about. It's
Speaker 1: like the Hamilton's right, I'm running out of time right concept.
Speaker 1: As you point out in the book, the American experiment
Speaker 1: has been relatively short at this point. And I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if you could contextualize the way that you think about
Speaker 1: what happened over the last year, year and a half
Speaker 1: as to what extent it really stress tested us, because
Speaker 1: you do you do make note of the judiciary essentially
Speaker 1: saving the United States, not the lawmakers, because you do
Speaker 1: call out in the book the lawmakers, the senators and
Speaker 1: the members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.
Speaker 1: They are still in power right now. Yes, And I
Speaker 1: know many of them, and privately they will say to you, well,
Speaker 1: I had to do that, or I knew it wasn't
Speaker 1: going to really prevail. Sure many of these people are
Speaker 1: you know, I live in Washington. I host I host
Speaker 1: a series uh in front of Members of Congress once
Speaker 1: a month with COVID ending soon hopefully I'll be resuming that.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of members and so forth,
Speaker 1: and you know privately what they say is, um, well
Speaker 1: I had to do this, and they didn't really believe
Speaker 1: in it, but you know, and so forth. Some will
Speaker 1: say that I'm not going to go and say who's
Speaker 1: had that, But clearly it's a very political situation. It's
Speaker 1: the saddest part of the whole situation we now face
Speaker 1: is that we've politicized the government so much so that
Speaker 1: the country's really unable to move forward very much. We
Speaker 1: have people who don't want to wear masks, who think
Speaker 1: that it's a good thing to force people not to
Speaker 1: wear masks. In effect, we we we you know, a
Speaker 1: sad situation in many ways when you think about it
Speaker 1: that school children whose teachers want them to have masks
Speaker 1: are being told they aren't supposed to have that mask.
Speaker 1: So bad situation, and people are dying because of this.
Speaker 1: When did debate become like a bad thing? I thought
Speaker 1: that was what kind of the routes of democracy. We're
Speaker 1: all about, this whole idea of having different perspectives and
Speaker 1: hopefully talking it through and getting to a better place.
Speaker 1: When I worked in Congress and nineteen seventies and the
Speaker 1: White House, uh, there was obviously political disputes all the time,
Speaker 1: and obviously this was after Watergate. It people thought eventually
Speaker 1: you've got to get something done, and so you had
Speaker 1: bipartisan legislation. Now if to be considered a great legislator
Speaker 1: used to be you're good at bipartisan legislation, get people
Speaker 1: on both sides of work together. Now to be a
Speaker 1: great legislator, um, you're probably somebody that is good in
Speaker 1: only getting your Democrats or your Republicans to support you.
Speaker 1: And members of Congress now spend so much time raising
Speaker 1: money because they want to raise money for their campaigns
Speaker 1: or to work anybody from challenging them, and they have
Speaker 1: to spend their time in the case of members of
Speaker 1: the House, to raising money. And the money and the
Speaker 1: Internet and social media has just divided the country in
Speaker 1: so many ways that I find it interesting when I
Speaker 1: host these dinners, so many people say this is the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing that members feel they're doing. In Washington.
Speaker 1: They can have a dinner when nobody sees their meeting
Speaker 1: with somebody from the opposite party cause there's no press there,
Speaker 1: and they can talk to people from the opposite house,
Speaker 1: which they really do because they rarely have conference committees anymore.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, look, I also recognize this every
Speaker 1: generation ten thousand years back and so forth has always said, well,
Speaker 1: in my time it was better, and now it's not
Speaker 1: as good now. George Washington's father allegedly told him, well,
Speaker 1: your generation are not gonna achieve anything because you guys
Speaker 1: are not hard working or whatever. Well, the truth is,
Speaker 1: every every generation tells the younger people, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: be tough enough, you're not gonna be surviving, and an
Speaker 1: ultimately civilization goes forward. So sure their challenges. Now. I'm
Speaker 1: not happy with many things that have happened. One thing
Speaker 1: that did happen, though, uh, during all this period of time,
Speaker 1: it is the is the George Floyd murder. In that case,
Speaker 1: the thing that struck me was this, we've been through.
Speaker 1: I lived for the Civil Rights Revolution, We've lived through
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and so
Speaker 1: many things that have been done, infirmative action of the things.
Speaker 1: But this one murder crystallized for people in this country,
Speaker 1: the fact that we are still discriminating in so many ways.
Speaker 1: Just think about it. All the people that have been
Speaker 1: lynched over the years didn't seem to have the same
Speaker 1: resonance as this one murder. Maybe because it was on TV,
Speaker 1: maybe everybody saw it. Maybe because people saw. It was
Speaker 1: so ridiculous the way it was handled. But we've made
Speaker 1: some progress obviously on racial relations. And i'd say in
Speaker 1: the book that while we've made a lot of aggress
Speaker 1: on racial relations and and and gender equality and other things,
Speaker 1: we still have a long way to go. The rhetoric
Speaker 1: that is in the Declaration of Independence and the rhetoric
Speaker 1: in the Constitution is wonderful. What we've been spending two
Speaker 1: thirty years try to live up to that rhetoric, and
Speaker 1: to some extent we've made progress, and some extent we haven't.
Speaker 1: And what I say in the book is that we
Speaker 1: have these genes. These genes are part of us, the
Speaker 1: belief in the rule of law, the belief and equality,
Speaker 1: belief in the power of voting. And we've been trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that people um kind of honor these
Speaker 1: things that are part of our genes. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: do and sometimes we don't. The rule of law is
Speaker 1: a gene that's so strong that it prevailed in the
Speaker 1: January sixth situation and and the and the post election fight.
Speaker 1: And I think that was good in many other countries.
Speaker 1: And you've had a leader of do what was done here.
Speaker 1: I think you could have had a military takeover. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about some of the conversations Ken Burns, Madeline Albright, Um, Juliaepor,
Speaker 1: who I don't know is necessarily a household name, Um Alter, Isaacson,
Speaker 1: David McCullough, some of the things Rinna Morano, Um. Some
Speaker 1: of the conversations that stood out. And obviously they talked
Speaker 1: about very different topics. The different topics well, ken Burns
Speaker 1: talked about Vietnam, and it turns out in Vietnam, the
Speaker 1: political leaders knew all along, They knew all along that
Speaker 1: we had no chance of winning that war military. It
Speaker 1: was really a political um exercise, which was disappointed because
Speaker 1: we lost fifty eight thousand men and the Vietnamese lost
Speaker 1: millions of people. UM. David McCulloch did a wonderful job
Speaker 1: of explaining how nobody took the right brother seriously in
Speaker 1: this country. They had to go to France to kind
Speaker 1: of prove um that they could they could they could fly.
Speaker 1: Another reason why we love France, right. Um. You know. So,
Speaker 1: Rita Moreno is an incredible story and a woman from
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico who was not taken that seriously as an
Speaker 1: actress because she was from Puerto Rico. She was given
Speaker 1: kind of latino Latino jobs, but she turned out to
Speaker 1: be an Academy Award winner and she had an interesting life.
Speaker 1: She lived with um, a very famous person for quite
Speaker 1: some time, Marlon Brando and I think eight years or so,
Speaker 1: and then try to commit suicide because he was unfaithful.
Speaker 1: And then she recovered from that and obviously went on
Speaker 1: to now win an Emmy, a Grammy, uh, every other
Speaker 1: word Tony that you can win. So she's um quite
Speaker 1: an impressive person. Now we're still performing at age eighty nine.
Speaker 1: The investment environment, I don't know whether it's back, whether
Speaker 1: it's crypto. What's interesting to you right now? Well, clearly
Speaker 1: crypto is something that gets a lot of attention. It's
Speaker 1: amazing how many people are interested in crypto. Are you
Speaker 1: invested in crypto in any way? I have not invested
Speaker 1: in crypto currencies myself. I have invested in some companies
Speaker 1: that kind of service the industry. And my standard view
Speaker 1: on crypto is when you go to Las Vegas, most
Speaker 1: people are smart to know you're not gonna win there,
Speaker 1: maybe spend more time than you're certainly not gonna win,
Speaker 1: but you enjoy it. You have the pleasure of gambling.
Speaker 1: So you picked one or two percent of your net
Speaker 1: worth and do that. Well, the same as true in crypto.
Speaker 1: Crypto you want to speculate, you don't really know that
Speaker 1: much about it. Try it one or two or three percent.
Speaker 1: It's not harmful and you'll probably have enjoyable time. Perhaps.
Speaker 1: I interviewed for my my show on Bloomberg John Paulson recently,
Speaker 1: and he is dead set against it. He just said,
Speaker 1: this is terrible and it's going to zero. And but
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I've interviewed some other people that
Speaker 1: will come out soon who are gonna be saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I think it's a way to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: There's a one personal be interviewing soon. Who's who's made
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in crypto. That's David Rubinstein, co founder
Speaker 1: and co chair of the Carlisle Group. David also hosted
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Wealth on Bloomberg TV and radio, his new
Speaker 1: book The American Experiment Dialogues on a Dream. Here our
Speaker 1: whole conversation on our podcast feed That wraps up the
Speaker 1: first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Tim Stanivack and I'm Carol Masser. Head.
Speaker 1: In our next hour, We've got the cover story of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, the City's Issue. It's about the diapers
Speaker 1: dot com guy who wants to build a utopian megalopolis.
Speaker 1: Plus we hear from Rob Cats, the longtime CEO of
Speaker 1: l Resorts. We talk climate change, labor and stepping down
Speaker 1: after fifteen years as the chief executive. Will also check
Speaker 1: in with one of the early investors and wheels Up.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about private air travel and his new investments
Speaker 1: in clean tech, Plus the director of the documentary Searching
Speaker 1: for Skylab. All that and more in the next hour.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from
Speaker 1: the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted
Speaker 1: business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as
Speaker 1: it happened. Sloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stenovik on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and I'm Tim Stanovick. Lenny Head in our second
Speaker 1: hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including
Speaker 1: a conversation with one investor, Tim who's all in on
Speaker 1: campus housing, private air travel, also clean technology. Plus it's
Speaker 1: not quite ski season at least here in the Northern Hemisphere,
Speaker 1: but it's just around the corner. The CEO of l Resorts,
Speaker 1: Rob Catz, joins us with an outlook and changes in
Speaker 1: the C suite. Also the work they're doing with all
Speaker 1: of those California fires, and the director of the documentary
Speaker 1: searching for sky Lab, America's forgotten triumph. First up this hour,
Speaker 1: let's get back to this week's special double issue of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week magazine. It's the City's Issue. The cover story.
Speaker 1: It's about Mark Lori, who amassed a fortune building e
Speaker 1: commerce sites as latest mission, though investing that money into
Speaker 1: building a privately run city. Lourie shared his vision with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week Technology editor Joshua boostein as you said,
Speaker 1: Mark Laurie has had a successful career building e commerce websites. First,
Speaker 1: he built the company that ran diapers dot com, which
Speaker 1: he sold to Amazon, worked for Amazon for a bit,
Speaker 1: left and built jet dot Com, which was basically an
Speaker 1: Amazon competitor, which was bought by Walmart. He then ran
Speaker 1: Walmart's e commerce UM division for about the last five years,
Speaker 1: but almost immediately upon getting to Walmart, he started talking
Speaker 1: to people about this plan to build a city from
Speaker 1: scratch basically. UM. His current plan is for it to
Speaker 1: have eventually about five million people. That would be forty
Speaker 1: years from now, and obviously a lot would have to
Speaker 1: go right to get there. UM. And he's just starting
Speaker 1: to lay some of the groundwork for what's a pretty
Speaker 1: audacious project. Is it going to happen? Historically? Um? If
Speaker 1: you look at what other people who have had come
Speaker 1: up with similar plans like this, I think the answer
Speaker 1: would be no. Um. There have been a really steady
Speaker 1: stream of these utopian city building projects over the years. UM.
Speaker 1: I talked to a professor at McGill University who studies
Speaker 1: them and says that there's about a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: such projects underway right now. UM. But she said she
Speaker 1: couldn't really point to a single one that had fully
Speaker 1: succeeded in its goals. Some of them do have some people,
Speaker 1: but they never quite get to the heights that they're
Speaker 1: aiming for. Joshua. A few months ago, you got some
Speaker 1: time to to really sit down with with Mark Laurie
Speaker 1: and and really get his vision, which you lay out
Speaker 1: so clearly in the cover story of this edition in
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. What is it that motivates Mark Laurie
Speaker 1: to do this, What is he concerned about, What is
Speaker 1: his thinking around this, the philosophy around this. The thing
Speaker 1: that he's really interesting is this model of landownership UM,
Speaker 1: which was first floated by an economist named Henry George
Speaker 1: in the nine which is basically the idea that you
Speaker 1: could um hold the all of the all of the
Speaker 1: land in a city in a trust and instead of
Speaker 1: allowing people to own their own land, they everyone would
Speaker 1: be leasing the lands from this central trust and the
Speaker 1: income from that from that from those leases could be
Speaker 1: poured back into social services. And now Laurie thinks that
Speaker 1: this is a way to deal with inequality, which he
Speaker 1: professes to be his main, uh, his main incentive in
Speaker 1: trying to pursue this project. Um. It was a little
Speaker 1: bit jarring to to hear this from a guy as
Speaker 1: he sat in his forty four million dollar Penhouse apartment
Speaker 1: and explained it to me. Um, you know, but that
Speaker 1: is really what he seemed las focused. Sounds like a
Speaker 1: really nice apartment. By the way, what I will say is,
Speaker 1: and we're getting ready to talk with David Rubinstein, who
Speaker 1: has a new book out called The American Experiment, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, conversations he's had as America has continued
Speaker 1: to evolve and innovate and change on some really important issues.
Speaker 1: And I do think we are at this critical juncture
Speaker 1: when we look at some of our cities that are
Speaker 1: struggling and have struggled so much in the last year
Speaker 1: and a half, and you do wonder what happens going forward?
Speaker 1: Will the infrastructure ultimately come from the federal government and
Speaker 1: maybe change some of those cities that have been struggling.
Speaker 1: You know, do we have an opportunity because we could
Speaker 1: work from home, We don't have to work in major
Speaker 1: cities to reinvent the cities and towns that we have
Speaker 1: out there. So you, you know, as crazy as it
Speaker 1: might be, Joshua, like you do wonder, does Mark Laurie
Speaker 1: maybe have something that maybe there are ways we can
Speaker 1: do things better? Yeah? I think that they're Um this,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of themes that come up in a
Speaker 1: number of these sort of technology driven utopian city building ideas,
Speaker 1: which I think are rather valid critiques of the way
Speaker 1: that cities work now. Um, I think LORI is correctly
Speaker 1: identified the fact that inequality is an enormous problem um
Speaker 1: and is causing really a lot of strain on on
Speaker 1: the capitalist system in the United States. Um. Also, if
Speaker 1: you have something like autonomous vehicles, you want to cut
Speaker 1: down on car use. Generally, these are big transformations of
Speaker 1: a city, and it's very hard to get things done
Speaker 1: in cities there. They tend to really grind down due
Speaker 1: to inertia politics. Um, there's a lot of there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why things can't happen, um and uh
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think that those those are good
Speaker 1: diagnosis of the problem. Whether you'd be able to do
Speaker 1: something like that by starting a new um, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that's any easier. UM, what you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sartain tempting to give it a try. That was
Speaker 1: Bloomberg business Week Technology editor Joshua Breustein. And For more
Speaker 1: on the world cities, including the reality of China's ghost cities,
Speaker 1: also Rochester's pay phones, be sure to check out this
Speaker 1: week's special double issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's
Speaker 1: all about cities, Remember payphones. I do there are some
Speaker 1: people out there there. My daughter doesn't. Yeah, she never
Speaker 1: interacted with them. Right now, she's just kind of green
Speaker 1: to her cell phone. All right, coming up with two
Speaker 1: billionaires jetting up into space. You may be taking space
Speaker 1: exploration a bit for granted, but there was a time
Speaker 1: when we were early in the game and needed to
Speaker 1: learn much more about Earth, space and the Sun. Enter
Speaker 1: sky Lab documentary that tracks its voyage. That's still to
Speaker 1: come on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Is definitely turning out to be
Speaker 1: a big year for space exploration. Tim, you know this firsthand.
Speaker 1: You were there in Texas when Jeff Bezos went up
Speaker 1: into space, and he did go into space. He was
Speaker 1: the first person, along with a handful of others in
Speaker 1: the capsule that he was in, to go atop his
Speaker 1: Blue Origin New Shepherd rocket, And a few weeks before
Speaker 1: that we saw Richard Branson go up in a Virgin
Speaker 1: Galactics own version of that. We should know Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: went quite a few miles higher, and many people say,
Speaker 1: at least according to the International Definition of space, that
Speaker 1: he was the one who actually went to space. We're
Speaker 1: battling for the billionaires. Now, I know it's a good question.
Speaker 1: In case you forgot. Just here's a reminder. Certainly after
Speaker 1: the two of them went up into space, we're just
Speaker 1: going to say it. We mean Spye, everybody, Loo controlled
Speaker 1: Bezos best day ever. Well after the initial Moon exploration
Speaker 1: came sky Lab, America's first man space station, which launched
Speaker 1: on May fourteen, seventy three. Dwight Stephen Bonievsky is director
Speaker 1: of a documentary on it. It's called Searching for sky Lab,
Speaker 1: America's Forgotten Triumph. Skylab. The best way I can I
Speaker 1: can put it is when I was a little boy,
Speaker 1: I was taken aback. I remember vividly watching Apollo seventeen
Speaker 1: on the television, and since that point I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by space. And the more I learned, the more I
Speaker 1: wanted to share this knowledge. And I've discovered about Skylab
Speaker 1: because it crashed into my homeland of Australia in nine
Speaker 1: will take us take us back then? Because I do
Speaker 1: think that it is. I agree with you that it
Speaker 1: is America's forgotten triumph. When you think of space stations,
Speaker 1: people think of the International Space Station that is continuing
Speaker 1: to orbit right now, take us into what happened with
Speaker 1: sky Lab, especially with the with your interaction with it
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seventies. Yeah, well, this is part
Speaker 1: of the reason why it's become a forgotten triumph, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Um, I grew up thinking it was a
Speaker 1: failure because it crashed into Australia, and it's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing I had the feeling people were like, we
Speaker 1: don't really want to talk about that because of Christ,
Speaker 1: you know, let's move on, let's forget about it. And
Speaker 1: being in astronaut conventions and so forth, I would see
Speaker 1: all the time the Apollo astronauts, the ones that walked
Speaker 1: on the Moon, would have crowds of people come to them.
Speaker 1: The sky labbers, you could stand there and talk to
Speaker 1: them for half an hour before somebody else would come along.
Speaker 1: And I thought this, This actually outraged me. I thought
Speaker 1: what these guys did up there was so fascinating. It
Speaker 1: helped us understand the planet. And they're being sort of
Speaker 1: pushed a shot aside for for the people that walked
Speaker 1: on the Moon, and I thought what they did is equally,
Speaker 1: if not more important than what Apollo did, And I'm
Speaker 1: very biased, of course, um, and I in researching the
Speaker 1: film changed my percession for thinking this is the thing
Speaker 1: that crashed into Australia. Wow, this was a success right
Speaker 1: even up until the point that it crashed, because learning
Speaker 1: from from people at NORAD who were telling me that
Speaker 1: what they learned from skylad crashing set the benchmark for
Speaker 1: all the orbital analysis that they do now on spacecraft
Speaker 1: and they come back to Earth and he said, we
Speaker 1: couldn't pay for this information that we now know. So, Dwight,
Speaker 1: what do you make of of what's going on right
Speaker 1: now with this kind of races to space with from
Speaker 1: private companies now instead of government so many years later.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts? I think it's actually a good thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's exactly what space exploration needs. I liken
Speaker 1: it very much to how the aircraft industry went in
Speaker 1: the beginning. It was a millionaires only club pretty much.
Speaker 1: Now anybody can get on a plane. Um, I think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen with space travel as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: would you do it? I bet you would. I certainly would.
Speaker 1: I have gone to Kennedy Space and I've seen the
Speaker 1: size of the Gemini capsule. If it's something like that.
Speaker 1: No way, I wouldn't even fit into the thing because
Speaker 1: I'm over six ft tur so let's out of the question.
Speaker 1: But in principle, yes, I definitely would fly. Hey Dwight,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about how you went about finding the interviews
Speaker 1: that you did for this story, engineers and their families,
Speaker 1: those people who were eyewitnesses to it actually coming down
Speaker 1: in the Australian desert. Who who did you interview and
Speaker 1: how did you get these interviews. I just approached the
Speaker 1: astronauts and asked them point blank, the guys in Honeysuckle
Speaker 1: in Australia. I was involved back in nine for the
Speaker 1: search for the Apollo eleven telemetry tapes, so I got
Speaker 1: to know them through my work in assisting that research
Speaker 1: and for family members and so forth. It was just
Speaker 1: shot out of a blue Look, I know who you are.
Speaker 1: I think it's a tragedy that's your parents are forgotten
Speaker 1: about because they flew up in space after Apollo and
Speaker 1: everybody was just so enthused to be able to tell
Speaker 1: their story. I didn't have that much problem. The hardest thing,
Speaker 1: the hardest thing in all of this was after making
Speaker 1: the film as an independent filmmaker running out of money
Speaker 1: to be able to promote the thing. And that's where
Speaker 1: I had to get creative in learning how to to
Speaker 1: market the thing. And I am so glad that Bloomberg
Speaker 1: had gotten wind of my creativity and decided to talk
Speaker 1: to me. So I am very indebted to you. Thank
Speaker 1: you well. We're certainly eager to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what it was like to live on
Speaker 1: sky Lab. What did you learn from the astronauts who
Speaker 1: you spoke to for for the documentary, we we interviewed
Speaker 1: Paul White and what I believe was the very last
Speaker 1: interview he ever gave, which was you know, an honor
Speaker 1: bitter sweet, and he said, and we have it in
Speaker 1: the m He said, I never got tired of looking
Speaker 1: out the window. And I thought, wow that that they
Speaker 1: were obviously very busy. You know, the time they had
Speaker 1: to sit in front of the window was allocated by
Speaker 1: the second pretty much. But the fact that they could
Speaker 1: sit there and just take in this visual panorama of
Speaker 1: the earth. Or Jack Lousmore was saying when he did
Speaker 1: a spacewalk, he would see the ball beneath him and
Speaker 1: they're flying over and he was describing it like a
Speaker 1: magic carpet, and he said, he said, this is something
Speaker 1: you cannot describe. And I believe him. You know, I've
Speaker 1: seen film of it and television downing. I it must
Speaker 1: be like standing at Grand Canyon. You can see photos,
Speaker 1: but until you stand at Grand Canyon and see it
Speaker 1: for real, no, no words can can come close to
Speaker 1: describing how it really is. Hey, wait, just in the
Speaker 1: last thirty seconds that we have, what is the next
Speaker 1: story about space you want to tell Apollo Sawyer's test
Speaker 1: project where the Russians and the Americans met up, because
Speaker 1: that was significant in more ways than we're made available
Speaker 1: in in the time that had happened when we think today,
Speaker 1: cooperation between nations up in spaces and the standard not
Speaker 1: the exception that was Dwight Stephen Bonifski, director of the
Speaker 1: documentary Searching for sky Lab, America's Forgotten triumph. Still to
Speaker 1: come on Bloomberg Business Week, we catch up with the
Speaker 1: outgoing CEO of the our resorts. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the challenges that come with climate change is whether you
Speaker 1: know variability, more intense variability, and we've seen this, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, with intense rains by the way. It
Speaker 1: could be intense cold or intense snows during the winter,
Speaker 1: or intense heat, fires drying on. You know, we are
Speaker 1: we think that this is a global um critical issue,
Speaker 1: you know, an emergency. The resorts CEO Rob Katz joins us. Next,
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg in Rio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine nine one to Boston, Bloomberg one O six
Speaker 1: one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine to the country, Serrius
Speaker 1: XM Chane and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovin on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Last month, Bill Resorts announced succession planning, naming Kirsten Lynchville's
Speaker 1: chief marketing officer as CEO effective November one. As for
Speaker 1: the CURRENCYO, Rob Cats, he will stay on as executive
Speaker 1: Chairperson of the board. Cats checked in with us to
Speaker 1: talk about the changes the business outlook in What's Next
Speaker 1: for Vail, We again though with an update on the
Speaker 1: California fires and VAL's Lake Tahoe Ski Resorts check it
Speaker 1: out clearly. You know, our number one priority is making
Speaker 1: sure that we're protecting everybody in those communities, everyone who's
Speaker 1: been evacuated, making sure we're giving them support, sustenance. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not only for our employees, but for anyone
Speaker 1: in those communities UM AT in any way needs help
Speaker 1: right now. UM, it's a very challenging situation. UM. The
Speaker 1: fire is obviously doing significant damage. As of yet, it
Speaker 1: has not reached either Kirkwood or Heavenly, our two resorts
Speaker 1: in Tahoe, UM, but it is close to both UM
Speaker 1: and we are working closely with all the various agencies
Speaker 1: UM to do what we can to help minimize damage,
Speaker 1: particularly to the communities. That's obviously our number one priority
Speaker 1: right now. Rob. When you see this play out, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like, this is the visualization of climate change
Speaker 1: happening in real time. I know your company has been
Speaker 1: one that is for years talked about sustainability, focused on sustainability.
Speaker 1: After all, your business is dependent on it. What does
Speaker 1: it make you think of when you see this visual
Speaker 1: representation of it? Yeah, I think it's it's something that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about for quite some time, which is
Speaker 1: that UM, you know, One of the challenges that come
Speaker 1: with climate change is whether you know, variability, more intense variability.
Speaker 1: And we've seen this, whether it's you know, with intense rains.
Speaker 1: By the way, it could be intense cold or intense
Speaker 1: snows during the winter, or intense heat fires drying. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we are we think that this is a
Speaker 1: global um uh critical issue, you know, an emergency that
Speaker 1: requires global cooperation. Certainly, our company is trying to do
Speaker 1: its part. We have a very proactive and bold commitment
Speaker 1: to zero where we're gonna you know, essentially be a
Speaker 1: net carbon zero company by the year um. And we've
Speaker 1: been active in lobbying and pushing for better US and
Speaker 1: global cooperation on this issue. I think the cost of
Speaker 1: doing our part for climate changes is far outweighed by
Speaker 1: the benefit of mitigating some of these other costs that
Speaker 1: come from these natural disasters. Do you think net zero
Speaker 1: is a way we need to think about it or
Speaker 1: do we need to think about a way of not
Speaker 1: just being net zero, but actually doing something that improves
Speaker 1: the situation action rather than just kind of being neutral. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: just just to be cleared, when we say that zero,
Speaker 1: what we mean is that we would reduce our carbon
Speaker 1: footprint to net zero um from where it is today,
Speaker 1: and that would come from a combination of reducing our
Speaker 1: electrical h and other fuel usage UM by I think
Speaker 1: if it would be I think from last year, I
Speaker 1: would be I think something like twenty over the last
Speaker 1: fifteen years plus buying uh energy from renewable sources. So
Speaker 1: I think I think that is an approach that candidly
Speaker 1: could work around the world. I don't think we can
Speaker 1: reduce our energy use to zero obviously, but I think
Speaker 1: we need to make a major reduction in our energy
Speaker 1: use and then also start shifting to renewable sources. If
Speaker 1: your properties in Kirkwood and Heavenly, if they get lost
Speaker 1: to these fires, uh in Taha, would you rebuild? Yeah, point,
Speaker 1: I don't think. Um, you know, luckily the fire hasn't
Speaker 1: hit them, and uh you know, we're hoping for obviously
Speaker 1: minimal damage. And yeah, we will of course repair anything
Speaker 1: that's damaged as soon as we possibly can to get them,
Speaker 1: uh you know, immediately open for guests, both during the
Speaker 1: fall and certainly for the upcoming winner. And at this point, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're very much focused on a terrific winner. AD does
Speaker 1: climate change impact any of your strategy or how do
Speaker 1: how does it get incorporated into Veil Resorts kind of
Speaker 1: longer term strategy and thinkings. Well, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: as we talked about before, certainly our commitment around the
Speaker 1: environment and reducing our carbon footprint, of course is it
Speaker 1: starts with that. But from a business standpoint, it really
Speaker 1: is about advanced commitment and the season paths strategy that
Speaker 1: we've had um over the last fifteen years, which is
Speaker 1: really to get skiers and riders to purchase their skiing
Speaker 1: in advance of the season by giving them an incredible discount,
Speaker 1: an incredible value on on the skiing. And I think
Speaker 1: you know what's amazing is uh, you know, our season
Speaker 1: path price today uh is very much aligned with where
Speaker 1: it was about twelve years ago when we reduced prices
Speaker 1: uh and actually of course wildly below where it was
Speaker 1: right before we introduced the Epic Path. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people look at that and they said, well, why
Speaker 1: are you doing that? Uh, and how could you make
Speaker 1: money doing that? And I think our strategy has been
Speaker 1: we think if we give this incredible deal, one of
Speaker 1: the best deals in all of travel, to guess that
Speaker 1: they will buy in advance and that gives stability to
Speaker 1: both our company, to our ability to employ and invest
Speaker 1: in the resorts, and to our communities. Right, so we
Speaker 1: think that it has been this stabilizing feature that was
Speaker 1: Rob Kat's CEO of resorts coming up on Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: from wheels up to placing bets on E S G
Speaker 1: and campus housing. We check in with the investor who
Speaker 1: Tim is finding opportunities all over the place. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. We like
Speaker 1: checking in with our next guest because he's involved in
Speaker 1: a handful of different sectors that are important to watch,
Speaker 1: among them aviation, real estate, and of course the financial markets.
Speaker 1: We're talking about David Edelman, who's the CEO of Campus Apartments,
Speaker 1: which manages more than two billion dollars of on and
Speaker 1: off campus housing and real estate. David, by the way,
Speaker 1: also the founder and CEO of Darko Capital. We began
Speaker 1: our conversation talking about private air travels. You know, it's
Speaker 1: two steps forward, one back, but a little bit of
Speaker 1: everything I think you know from the aviation perspective. We've
Speaker 1: talked about my involvement on the lead director of wheels
Speaker 1: Open I think, you know, which is kind of the
Speaker 1: largest on demand aviation company in the country. We just
Speaker 1: went public about a month ago, and you know, private
Speaker 1: aviation is obviously doing very well, uh in this post
Speaker 1: pandemic world, continuing to do well. You guys are continuing
Speaker 1: to see as much demand. I mean, the stacks down
Speaker 1: about a little bit of a hit so far since that, Um,
Speaker 1: what can you tell us about demand there? Demand is great?
Speaker 1: You know about a week ago, we reported really strong
Speaker 1: second quarter earnings about a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: you really excited about the future there. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: private it's just become more effective, efficient and accessible. And
Speaker 1: that's really what we're doing at wheels Up is kind
Speaker 1: of creating this marketplace where we can match up people
Speaker 1: with supply. All Right. So the because I know, we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about aviation and you saw a lot
Speaker 1: of people who maybe didn't do private aviation before really
Speaker 1: take advantage of it. Uh. During COVID, that demand level
Speaker 1: is staying at what we saw during the pandemic, or
Speaker 1: is it going above that or is it going a
Speaker 1: little bit below it. Now it's definitely you know where
Speaker 1: it wasn't headed higher. To be honest with you, people
Speaker 1: are especially come spring. As people started making forward plans
Speaker 1: before the delta variant about travel and getting out there
Speaker 1: a little bit and enjoying summer, we saw a demand
Speaker 1: to pick up. Well, speaking getting out there. I was
Speaker 1: on a college campus over the weekend, dropping my daughter
Speaker 1: for the first time, and just hearing the president of
Speaker 1: the institution and others speak about how great it was
Speaker 1: to have kids back on campus because they haven't had
Speaker 1: them that way. Tell us what you're seeing, because you
Speaker 1: you know, deal with um on and off campus housing.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing? So last week I was also
Speaker 1: dropping my daughter off, so the same thing, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's all great to do it. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we mentioned like the last time I was on during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, a lot of students still chose to kind
Speaker 1: of quarantine in their college apartment or dorm room, not
Speaker 1: wanting to live with mom and dad after maybe having
Speaker 1: experienced a brief time home, but you know, it was
Speaker 1: online remote learning. I think now what you're seeing is
Speaker 1: the schools are opening back up. You know, we could
Speaker 1: certainly talk about those that are and dating vaccines, but
Speaker 1: you know, they're masking up and they're back in action,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's healthy for these students to
Speaker 1: get back there with their friends and enjoy the college experience,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, more than just the education you know,
Speaker 1: in the classroom, but the education of the self and
Speaker 1: making friends and doing all of that. So we couldn't
Speaker 1: be happier to have people back on camp. Hey, David,
Speaker 1: you're talking about what you're seeing in terms of colleges.
Speaker 1: So kids are back. What's been the demand for on
Speaker 1: campus off campus housing? So the demand has been strong.
Speaker 1: We kids really wanted to get back out there living
Speaker 1: there with their friends. And you know, when you think
Speaker 1: from a COVID perspective, with the products we build are
Speaker 1: really kind of four bedroom for bath units, so everyone
Speaker 1: has their own bedroom. It's not high density. It's very
Speaker 1: safe and effective from a COVID perspective. And we're we're seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, from an occupastive occupancy perspective, we're in the
Speaker 1: high nineties across our portfolio. Is that unusual or is
Speaker 1: that pretty normal? Now we're back to basically pre COVID levels,
Speaker 1: And so I think the only dip you would find
Speaker 1: across the country is probably a little bit less international
Speaker 1: students who did not come back, and that's maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of percentage points. So what does that sell you
Speaker 1: tell you? I think you know, it's interesting. We did
Speaker 1: a story earlier. Let me just backtrack with our Steve
Speaker 1: Matthews about the metrics that we're using to really figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on in the economy and the impact
Speaker 1: that the delta arrant is having. So you were looking
Speaker 1: at hotel bookings, We're looking at airline miles being flown,
Speaker 1: We're looking at job opening postings, and a lot of
Speaker 1: those metrics are showing that things are slowing down again. Um,
Speaker 1: how would you describe economic activity from the different lenses
Speaker 1: that you actually look at the economy through. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: see it differently from the businesses were involved in, for
Speaker 1: you know, obviously from real estate to aviation. We don't
Speaker 1: see the slowdown. We see the same trouble people are
Speaker 1: having and trying to get employees that that's certainly a challenge,
Speaker 1: but we we definitely aren't seeing kind of the slowdown
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned. Oh you're not okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Are there any concerns Um, that things could start to
Speaker 1: roll back substantially. We've certainly seen companies rolling back and
Speaker 1: not bringing maybe some of their workers back to the office,
Speaker 1: putting that off for a few months or maybe even
Speaker 1: into next year. Yeah, we're seeing kind of the people
Speaker 1: kind of like to take the wait and see approach,
Speaker 1: you thoks, companies that had announced kind of the post
Speaker 1: labor day back into the office. You're seeing them kind
Speaker 1: of do kind of a little bit of a stutter
Speaker 1: stuff and saying, well, let's wait till October and see.
Speaker 1: And I think people are kind of just pushing it
Speaker 1: back seeing how these boosters come into play. I know
Speaker 1: that's certainly how we're looking at things as well. You
Speaker 1: sound pretty calm, So tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the investment environment right now, because you know you were
Speaker 1: one of the early investors and wheels up. We talked
Speaker 1: about that earlier. Um, Where are you finding opportunities? There's
Speaker 1: a lot of money slashing around in the economy thanks
Speaker 1: to low rates, thanks to wealth creation for a big
Speaker 1: part of the s economy. Obviously, the fet easy policies
Speaker 1: helped create some of the liquidity, a lot of liquidity
Speaker 1: in the marketplace. Where would you are, Where are you
Speaker 1: committing new money and what new investments have you been making?
Speaker 1: You know, interestingly, you know you mentioned doing at the
Speaker 1: commercial break about you know, the fires in California, a
Speaker 1: little bit about climate change and things like that. We've
Speaker 1: actually made a big push in climate tech companies, and
Speaker 1: you know, what we're really looking to do is investing
Speaker 1: companies that are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from software and
Speaker 1: hardware solutions. We've recently, in the last ninety days, invested
Speaker 1: in a handful of unannounced companies that are working on
Speaker 1: reducing methane emissions, a handful of decarbonization companies, and so
Speaker 1: we definitely uh see that as a trend in someplace
Speaker 1: where we think you can uh that there was generally
Speaker 1: a shortage or lack of capital because maybe people just
Speaker 1: weren't as into it. So we're looking to put capital there.
Speaker 1: What's changed that because we've been talking about E s G,
Speaker 1: certainly in climate change for a while, it does feel
Speaker 1: like in the last year and a half, and maybe
Speaker 1: it was seeing the world shut down and the skies
Speaker 1: clear up that made us realize, wait, we can maybe
Speaker 1: make a difference. We've talked about methane the difficulties with that,
Speaker 1: but also how in a short period of time you
Speaker 1: can do some cleanup, serious cleanup of it. What do
Speaker 1: you think has changed in the investment mindset. I think
Speaker 1: that what's happened is that you had the concept of
Speaker 1: the s G, which I think first started with like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's the do good, feel good, and then you have
Speaker 1: the commercialization which then allows people to access it from
Speaker 1: a financial perspective, so that way you can kind of
Speaker 1: put your money where your mouth is versus just saying
Speaker 1: I want to make a difference. You know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to recycle or I'm going to you know, do business
Speaker 1: with companies that are more responsible. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's been a bunch of founders, and you
Speaker 1: know even founders have been around. You know, Chris Soccer
Speaker 1: just haven't been in the fund business in a long time.
Speaker 1: Just launched a fund called lower Carbon You really quibus
Speaker 1: uh where other people haven't really focused in the climate
Speaker 1: change funds and he's doing it. So before we go,
Speaker 1: one of the other investment areas that you've done is beverages,
Speaker 1: h Lebron James, New Tequila. I have talked with some celebrities,
Speaker 1: Nick Jonas, among them Sam Huan, who's got a new
Speaker 1: whiskey of the Atlander fame, um More and more getting
Speaker 1: into spirits. What is it that you find interesting in
Speaker 1: the beverage space and what guides your investments there? What's
Speaker 1: interesting about the beverage space is really kind of too.
Speaker 1: You know, certainly during COVID consumption certainly went up, um,
Speaker 1: and I think creativity is going up. So you know,
Speaker 1: one of our companies we're in is a ready to
Speaker 1: drink a beverage called Vibe. And what I liked about
Speaker 1: that is we saw beer sales declining over the years
Speaker 1: and people want maybe a healthier option, and so this
Speaker 1: is a vodka based kind of ready to drink beverage
Speaker 1: in a can. We just bought a organic lodka called
Speaker 1: American Harvest, And as we think about kind of you
Speaker 1: know that American spirit that's made my Idaho and vodka
Speaker 1: is still the biggest spirit out there, but it's not
Speaker 1: as popular as people talk about. Tequila is like the
Speaker 1: one we did with Lebron and um mav Carter and
Speaker 1: the other spirits that are out there. And so I
Speaker 1: take that the variety. People know what they want. They
Speaker 1: like the ability to have choice, and I think Spirits
Speaker 1: is kind of finding its moment where people want to
Speaker 1: be able to have multiple options to choose from. That's
Speaker 1: David Edelman, CEO of Campus Apartments and the founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Darko Capital. And that wraps up the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanevik.
Speaker 1: Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg Business Week daily
Speaker 1: show Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall
Speaker 1: Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our
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Speaker 1: Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have a great holiday weekend.
Speaker 1: Stay safe. This is Boomberg h