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. The Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Deputy team leader for US Equities Jess Metton,
Speaker 2: Carol and I are sharing the hosting duties this week
Speaker 2: and head on the program. We're going to continue with
Speaker 2: our coverage of the Bloomberg Business Week Cities issue. Our
Speaker 2: magazine team breaks down how New York City is spending
Speaker 2: big to reform its bail system and bucking a two
Speaker 2: billion dollar industry in the process, and the CEO of
Speaker 2: Creatio explains how her platform can help people automate workflows
Speaker 2: at the enterprise level with little to no coding knowledge.
Speaker 2: And the CEO of digital marketplace Flash Food details his
Speaker 2: strategy for connecting consumers to heavily discounted food and thereby
Speaker 2: reducing waste and saving money. Plus a look back at
Speaker 2: some of our special coverage from the twenty twenty three
Speaker 2: US Open, including a conversation with former USTA CEO Katrina Adams,
Speaker 2: all of that to come. We begin this hour on
Speaker 2: a somber note, though, as Monday will mark the twenty
Speaker 2: second anniversary of the September eleven attacks on the United States.
Speaker 2: To help us reflect on one of the darkest moments
Speaker 2: in our nation's history and pay tribute to the thousands
Speaker 2: of lives lost on that day in two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: Jess and I welcome in Joseph Pfeiffer, the first FDNY
Speaker 2: chief to respond to the attacks. He's also the author
Speaker 2: of Ordinary Heroes, a memoir of nine to eleven. He's also,
Speaker 2: i should note, unretired, having been appointed FDNY First Deputy
Speaker 2: Commissioner back in March. Chief, it's good to have you
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's good to be here with you today.
Speaker 2: You know, every year around this time, I wonder what
Speaker 2: people think about who were there that day, and you were,
Speaker 2: of course one of the first people who were there
Speaker 2: that day. What does this time of year mean to you.
Speaker 3: It's a time to remember. It's a time to remember
Speaker 3: the tragedy of that day, but it is also a
Speaker 3: time to remember how how firefighters ran into danger to
Speaker 3: save lives. And there's Another thing that we need to
Speaker 3: remember is that the global community came together and we
Speaker 3: supported each other in one voice against terrorism.
Speaker 4: You were the first fire chief at the World Trade
Speaker 4: Center on that day, and remarkably, you already had a
Speaker 4: documentary film crew with you filming another instance, as far
Speaker 4: as when you were dealing with a routine gas leak.
Speaker 4: What kind of goes through your mind whenever you think
Speaker 4: back to that moment, having already been down there before
Speaker 4: everything began.
Speaker 3: I remember it was a beautiful summer morning with bright sunshine,
Speaker 3: and we were standing in the street at an ordinary emergency,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, we heard a loud
Speaker 3: noise of planes coming overhead, and as you know, we
Speaker 3: never hear planes because of the tall buildings. And then
Speaker 3: I see this plane flying on a very low altitude,
Speaker 3: so low I could read on the fuselage American, and
Speaker 3: it raced past us at fast speed, and I saw
Speaker 3: the plane aim and crashed into the World Trade Center,
Speaker 3: And in that moment, I knew that this was no accident,
Speaker 3: that this was a direct attack, and that's the message
Speaker 3: I gave on the radio. And really, in that moment,
Speaker 3: our entire world changed. And the next one hundred and
Speaker 3: two minutes would evolve with a traumatic memories of what
Speaker 3: took place.
Speaker 2: You must have replayed those moments in your head countless
Speaker 2: times at this point.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 3: And one of the moment I remember is that as
Speaker 3: we pulled up to the World Trade Center, we saw
Speaker 3: smoke coming out of the top, flames coming out, and
Speaker 3: people started to gather by the windows, and we knew
Speaker 3: that at that time there would be like twenty thousand
Speaker 3: people within the World Trade sent the complex, and every firefighter,
Speaker 3: every paramedic, every fire marshal, every police officer, every responder
Speaker 3: looked at the burning buildings and they knew they were
Speaker 3: going to the most dangerous fire of the lives and
Speaker 3: they made a personal choice to go in. And even
Speaker 3: though this is our job, this is what we do,
Speaker 3: it still was a personal choice to run into danger.
Speaker 4: And your brother Kevin was amongst those that went up.
Speaker 4: And it was interesting that the documentary crew that you
Speaker 4: were with actually had a moment where the two of
Speaker 4: you were talking and he went up there. When you
Speaker 4: think back to that moment, how do you feel.
Speaker 3: I think back to the moment when he came up
Speaker 3: to me without saying a word, and we looked at
Speaker 3: each other, wondering if we're both going to be okay.
Speaker 3: And then I ordered him to go up to evacuate
Speaker 3: and to rescue those that were trapped. And it was
Speaker 3: the same order I gave many fire offices. And I
Speaker 3: think back to that moment, which was a special moment
Speaker 3: that we saw each other. And then I saw him
Speaker 3: take his Unit Engine thirty three in turn to climb
Speaker 3: the narrow stairs of the World Trade Center.
Speaker 4: So whenever you talk about in your memoir called ordinary heroes,
Speaker 4: is that the ordinary hero that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: That is.
Speaker 3: And as my brother went up, I know the firefighters
Speaker 3: went up. People were coming down, and the firefighters said
Speaker 3: to people, don't.
Speaker 1: Stop, keep going.
Speaker 3: You can make it out of here. Some simple words,
Speaker 3: and those words we know from people who survived. Those
Speaker 3: words made a difference because they made it out.
Speaker 2: When I think about nine to eleven, I remember where
Speaker 2: I was, along with many other the people who are
Speaker 2: around my age and older, they remember where they were,
Speaker 2: they remember what they were experiencing. It was sort of
Speaker 2: like a you know, talking to my parents that moment
Speaker 2: that John F. Kennedy was killed, or talking to my
Speaker 2: grandparents that moment that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Since nine eleven,
Speaker 2: tens of millions of Americans have been born people who
Speaker 2: only heard about nine to eleven as stories. They didn't
Speaker 2: live through it, they didn't experience it. How do you
Speaker 2: keep the memory of these ordinary heroes, keep the legacy
Speaker 2: of them in a world where it's increasingly becoming a
Speaker 2: distant memory.
Speaker 3: The memory of nine to eleven is part of history,
Speaker 3: and certainly are young people many of them weren't even born,
Speaker 3: and they can read about it, But they also can
Speaker 3: see documentaries, and I think that's a different experience that
Speaker 3: they actually looking at a documentary experience it again. And
Speaker 3: the question for us, I think, is what do we
Speaker 3: want them to learn from it. Is this just an
Speaker 3: event that they look at it on a program or
Speaker 3: is there more meaning to it? And I believe that
Speaker 3: we want our young people to understand what took place
Speaker 3: that day, and we do it with our probationary firefighters.
Speaker 3: We bring them to the nine to eleven museum and
Speaker 3: for them to walk around and see the burnt out
Speaker 3: fire trucks. We want them to experience what took place.
Speaker 3: But I think as they look at this event as
Speaker 3: part of history and they see our firefighters and first
Speaker 3: responders running in they see them as superheroes running into danger.
Speaker 3: And you know, it can never be a superhero. It's
Speaker 3: just too difficult to to to do those things. And
Speaker 3: what I tell them is that on that day, our
Speaker 3: heroes did ordinary things, but at an extraordinary time. And
Speaker 3: I think when they think of nine to eleven as
Speaker 3: that as ordinary heroes, they can start to imagine themselves
Speaker 3: as being one of those heroes. And we need that
Speaker 3: today more than anything else. We need our new generation,
Speaker 3: our young generation, to tackle some of the problems that
Speaker 3: we're experiencing. Not only do we have to deal with
Speaker 3: acts of violence and terrorism and homeland security issues, but
Speaker 3: we have issues of climate change or what I'm referring
Speaker 3: to now as climate security. How do we deal with
Speaker 3: the heat, the wildfires that we saw in Mali, the storms.
Speaker 3: I I think that's what our new generation, our young generation,
Speaker 3: should see themselves as part of the solution to those problems.
Speaker 4: Earlier this year, you actually came out of retirement to
Speaker 4: take on a new job as the nation's largest fire
Speaker 4: department here and you were named first Deputy Commissioners. That's
Speaker 4: the second highest civilian rank in the department managing those
Speaker 4: day to day operations, So very impressive. What motivated you
Speaker 4: to do this after you did retire from the FDNY
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: It's coming back to the fire department that I love,
Speaker 3: that there's so much part of my life and saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got some more work to do. There's other things
Speaker 3: that I can do now. As I mentioned, it's not
Speaker 3: only responding to emergencies here, but how do we shape
Speaker 3: the department to deal with lithium battery fires and to
Speaker 3: deal with the climate change safety issues. So it's it's
Speaker 3: for me, it's exciting going to work every day.
Speaker 2: It's pretty remarkable that in the last twenty years, twenty
Speaker 2: two years and moving forward, we'll probably see more people
Speaker 2: die as a result of the toxins the pollutants at
Speaker 2: Ground Zero than who were actually killed in the attacks,
Speaker 2: and continue we continue to see members of the FDN
Speaker 2: Y die each year as a result of this. How
Speaker 2: do we keep those heroes in our memory even though
Speaker 2: they're dealing with the health effects decades later.
Speaker 3: It's hard to believe that twenty two years later, we're
Speaker 3: approaching the number of our firefighters that died on nine
Speaker 3: to eleven lost three hundred and forty three of our members,
Speaker 3: and we're approaching that number. We're at three hundred and
Speaker 3: forty one that died from Post nine to eleven diseases
Speaker 3: from from the toxics that that you've mentioned. And we
Speaker 3: keep those memories alive by in the FDN Y by
Speaker 3: putting their names up on a on a wall, and
Speaker 3: and we're putting up for this year forty three names
Speaker 3: that have just died in the in the in the
Speaker 3: last year. So we have at our fire Department headquarters
Speaker 3: a plaque of with the names of all the firefighters
Speaker 3: that have died since the beginning of the FDNY and
Speaker 3: opposite including the nine to eleven nine eleven firefighters, and
Speaker 3: opposite that are the fire fighters and our members and
Speaker 3: our medical ems folks that died post.
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: As we come to this twenty second anniversary, whenever you're
Speaker 4: speaking with family members of those who are going to
Speaker 4: have their names added, how are they feeling at this moment.
Speaker 3: There's a level of sadness, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: there's a sense that we're supporting each other and they're
Speaker 3: not alone. Coming together as department and other family members
Speaker 3: that have lost loved ones. We stand arm in arm,
Speaker 3: and we stand arm with the City of New York
Speaker 3: and the country and even the world, and in that sense,
Speaker 3: we can make it through it.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's more work to be done in
Speaker 2: taking care of those not just members of the FDN Y,
Speaker 2: but those who are living with the effects of nine
Speaker 2: to eleven More that Congress can do.
Speaker 3: There's definitely more that Congress can do. They could continue
Speaker 3: to fund our medical programs, and we're dependent on that
Speaker 3: in FDN Y. For the people who have got sick
Speaker 3: that they've survived, actually eighty five percent of them survived
Speaker 3: longer than what was expected because of our medical programs,
Speaker 3: and those medical programs aren't cheap and seeing physicians and treatment.
Speaker 3: So Congress has a responsibility to care for the victims,
Speaker 3: not just from that day, but the victims that we're
Speaker 3: seeing now. And so I would I would ask Congress
Speaker 3: for our families and our future, your families who are
Speaker 3: suffering from from nine to eleven cancer, to to continue
Speaker 3: to help those families.
Speaker 2: What motivates you to keep serving? As Jess mentioned, you
Speaker 2: unretired after nearly forty years with the FDNY, and I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people in your position would would say, hey,
Speaker 2: that was that was a great career. A lot of
Speaker 2: people probably said to you, that was a great career.
Speaker 3: I like the term unretired. It's actually fun being unretired,
Speaker 3: going back and looking at new challenges and looking at
Speaker 3: the complexity. So we have to deal with and bringing
Speaker 3: together our experienced people and our young people coming in
Speaker 3: and saying Okay, we can do this together. We can
Speaker 3: protect the city. We can deal with new challenges, new disasters,
Speaker 3: and we can do it together. Which is the secret.
Speaker 3: And it's not just with an FD and Y. I
Speaker 3: work closely with NYPD and emergency management and the city
Speaker 3: should be proud. There's some good people serving New York City.
Speaker 2: Well, Chief Ffiffer, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate you taking the time.
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Speaker 2: America's pre trial detention system is actually a global outlier.
Speaker 2: It's set apart by an emphasis on cash bill and
Speaker 2: the for profit infrastructure that supports it. So if you
Speaker 2: can't afford your bail, a company in the two billion
Speaker 2: dollar commercial bailbond industry will cover it for a fee.
Speaker 2: And if you don't qualify for bail bonds or can't
Speaker 2: afford them, you go to jail. You eight months or
Speaker 2: even years for a trial. Sarah Holder and Fulla Kenne
Speaker 2: Bey their City Lab reporters here at Bloomberg News. Fuller
Speaker 2: and Sarah writing about the success and challenges of New
Speaker 2: York City's supervised release program and the current issue of
Speaker 2: Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It's the annual Cities double issue. It's on
Speaker 2: newsstands now, it's online at Bloomberg dot com, Slash BusinessWeek,
Speaker 2: and it's on the Bloomberg terminal. Full is here in
Speaker 2: the studio. Sarah's on zoom in New York. Also here
Speaker 2: the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Joel Webber, in our Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Interactive at Brokers Studio. Joel, good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: The supervised release program here in New York City. I
Speaker 2: can't really call it experimental anymore.
Speaker 7: I didn't know about it, though, Did you know about it?
Speaker 2: I had heard of it, okay, in terms of you
Speaker 2: know when we voted for it, yeah, but or voted
Speaker 2: against it, depending on how people voted. But I didn't
Speaker 2: know about the successes and failures of it.
Speaker 8: So one of the things as we were kind of
Speaker 8: putting together the city's issue, we really wanted to take
Speaker 8: like this, look at where cities are three plus years
Speaker 8: after the pandemic, and this idea from Fulla and Sarah
Speaker 8: I thought was a really interesting way to talk about
Speaker 8: criminal justice and this experiment that's happened in New York
Speaker 8: that I think has been worthy of more national attention
Speaker 8: than it's perhaps received, and as you mentioned, us huge
Speaker 8: outlier in terms of incarceration numbers. What the program has
Speaker 8: shown is this interesting success already. And part of this
Speaker 8: is the burden that is put on people who are
Speaker 8: and it's until proven guilty, but they cannot be on
Speaker 8: the street unless they have money for bail. And this
Speaker 8: has really challenged that assumption. And Fulla talk to us
Speaker 8: about who are the instrumental people who are helping make
Speaker 8: this pilot a thing.
Speaker 9: Thanks Joil, and so I guess, first of all, the
Speaker 9: jail system in the US have been it's greatly expanded
Speaker 9: since the seventies and so there are four times as
Speaker 9: many people behind bars.
Speaker 5: Pre trial on four times four times and pre trial.
Speaker 9: Yeah, pre trial, so so you know, accused but not
Speaker 9: convictive of any crime than there were in the seventies.
Speaker 9: And so these systems have sprung up in jurisdictions across
Speaker 9: the US, New York having one of the most expansive
Speaker 9: ones to address this ballooning population of folks that are
Speaker 9: being held before they've been convicted. And so here in
Speaker 9: New York we have this supervised Release program. And so
Speaker 9: each borough has a provider, well Brooklyn shares Brooklyn and
Speaker 9: Staten Island share provider. But basically the intend is to
Speaker 9: divert people from jail and keep them from having to
Speaker 9: pay bail that in many cases they can afford, and
Speaker 9: instead give them programming, give them, you know, job interview,
Speaker 9: help give them access to housing, give them access to food,
Speaker 9: and give them access to things that they need to
Speaker 9: ensure that they don't end up back in front of
Speaker 9: a judge or back you know, in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 9: And so that's sort of what this program sprung about
Speaker 9: of and it's what it's meant to address to keep
Speaker 9: people out of jail. I note that twenty seven people
Speaker 9: have died at Rikers since the beginning of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: And just so our listeners and viewers know, Rikers here
Speaker 2: in New York is a place where people are held,
Speaker 2: a pre trial place.
Speaker 10: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's just like people who are waiting trial.
Speaker 9: People who are waiting trial. Most of them, I think,
Speaker 9: like ninety percent.
Speaker 4: Of the folks were I want to bring Sarah into
Speaker 4: this conversation to get your insight on also the politics
Speaker 4: when it comes to letting people walk through, walk us through,
Speaker 4: as far as what the issues are there and the
Speaker 4: politics behind that.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, bail reform as a policy change has
Speaker 11: you know, attracted a lot of attention nationwide. It's kind
Speaker 11: of a new boogeyman. After the defund the police movement,
Speaker 11: people were talking about sort of diverting funds from police
Speaker 11: departments and reforming the practices of police. Now we're talking
Speaker 11: more broadly about the criminal legal system that fulla laid
Speaker 11: out for us, trying to think about new ways to
Speaker 11: hold people responsible for crimes, but also sort of understand
Speaker 11: that the current system as it is right now, lets
Speaker 11: people who have the means walk free while others who
Speaker 11: do not have the means who are just as innocent
Speaker 11: before proven guilty have to go to places like Rikers.
Speaker 11: So bail reform as a national movement has been tried
Speaker 11: in places across the US. Illinois, Washington, d C. And
Speaker 11: New York City are trying to look at different ways
Speaker 11: to allow people to await trial outside of jails like Wrigers.
Speaker 11: But obviously politicians that engage and try to exert these
Speaker 11: policy changes face a lot of political tax It's a
Speaker 11: hot button issue across the left and the right, and
Speaker 11: so programs like this are kind of trying to actually
Speaker 11: set up the infrastructure in place for cities that take
Speaker 11: on this politically fraught challenge of bail reform, like what
Speaker 11: do people who are no longer eligible for bail?
Speaker 12: What do they do?
Speaker 11: And so Supervisor releases sort of like a programming change
Speaker 11: that attacks this or addresses this more political church political issue.
Speaker 11: And Fuller can talk a little bit more about, you
Speaker 11: know what politicians face when they do take on bill reform.
Speaker 8: Well, before we let him do that, let's talk about
Speaker 8: what this looks like in practice. And there's a character
Speaker 8: in the story, Kevin, which is a pseudonym, But let's
Speaker 8: talk about what Kevin faced and how the program affected
Speaker 8: him personally.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So, at a basic level, when you're arrested in
Speaker 9: New York City, your process, your booked, and then eventually,
Speaker 9: usually after twenty four hours or so, you're in front
Speaker 9: of a judge. And you know, in reporting out of
Speaker 9: the story, Sarah and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 9: in court watching watch these arraiements, watching this happen, right,
Speaker 9: and and and these these hearings take You wouldn't guess
Speaker 9: five minutes no matter what their charges are. And so
Speaker 9: at that point a judge is going to decide, well,
Speaker 9: are you going to get bail or are they going
Speaker 9: to release you and say come back to your coordinate,
Speaker 9: or are they going to.
Speaker 5: Give you supervised release.
Speaker 9: And so, once you're diverted to a program like this,
Speaker 9: someone like Kevin is is being connected with a social
Speaker 9: worker immediately and they'll have to meet. Depending on the
Speaker 9: severity of the charges, they'll have to meet a certain
Speaker 9: number of times a month. For him, it's it's four
Speaker 9: times a month, and essentially it looks like a therapy session.
Speaker 9: You know, he talks to his caseworker about issues he's
Speaker 9: facing and what he's trying to do. He's looking for
Speaker 9: a job maybe, or he's looking for you know, help
Speaker 9: finding housing, and they hook him up with with services
Speaker 9: and and and so in his life it's it's helped him.
Speaker 9: It's helped connect him with services, helped get him a job,
Speaker 9: and help, you know, make him feel help helped him
Speaker 9: navigate the system that can be so complicated.
Speaker 8: Even you know, one of the most interesting things I
Speaker 8: thought was reminded of is the economic toll that being
Speaker 8: in jail and not being able to afford bail actually is.
Speaker 8: Talk about what Kevin based on that front.
Speaker 9: So when he was standing in front of the judge
Speaker 9: waiting to hear what his fate would be, you know,
Speaker 9: city prosecutors had asked for a million dollars bail, and
Speaker 9: that's something he could never could never afford or can
Speaker 9: never pay. And so this program allowed for another way, right,
Speaker 9: sort of a midway.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 9: They don't have to let him go walk free, or
Speaker 9: they're not letting him walk free, but they're also not
Speaker 9: going to make him go to Rikers, right, And so
Speaker 9: he's able to do this programming. He's able to still
Speaker 9: go home, but he has this responsibility to come and
Speaker 9: participate in supervise release and he's been going he'do weekly
Speaker 9: for six months as his case winds to the system.
Speaker 9: That's six months he would have spent in rikers.
Speaker 2: It's incredible that story full on its own. But Sarah,
Speaker 2: I want to bring you back in here and talk
Speaker 2: about how the city and advocates for this measure success
Speaker 2: on the larger term. How do we know if it's
Speaker 2: successful here in New York City.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean it's a really interesting question. I think
Speaker 11: case workers are grappling with that as well. Like one
Speaker 11: of the biggest takeaways, like when we were at arraignment's court,
Speaker 11: was that people were not getting sent to rikers and
Speaker 11: they were getting sent to supervis release. And I think
Speaker 11: for caseworkers that's a measure of success. You know, are
Speaker 11: you diverting one more person away from that notorious jail.
Speaker 11: And we saw, as you know, sometimes prosecutors would ask
Speaker 11: for a million dollars bail or we saw, you know,
Speaker 11: even fifteen thousand dollars bill something that defendants just could
Speaker 11: not pay. And we saw judges and public defenders and
Speaker 11: even prosecutors in some instances say, you know, why don't
Speaker 11: we do supervisor release instead? This person is not a
Speaker 11: flight risk, they will return to court. So we saw
Speaker 11: in real time people getting diverted from from wrekers. So
Speaker 11: that's one measure of success. Another is how many times
Speaker 11: people are showing up for court again. You know, places
Speaker 11: like DC seen you know, people release pre trial come
Speaker 11: back to court, you know, more than eighty percent of
Speaker 11: the time.
Speaker 2: And that's that's.
Speaker 11: Really what bill is supposed to do. It's supposed to
Speaker 11: ensure that people, you know, face their day in court
Speaker 11: and don't disappear. Supervised release is another way of making
Speaker 11: sure that people do that, that they show back up.
Speaker 11: And then another way of thinking about this is whether
Speaker 11: people are getting re arrested while they're awaiting their day
Speaker 11: in court. You know, people out on supervised release in
Speaker 11: the city get re arrested less than ten percent of
Speaker 11: the time, less than two percent of the time for
Speaker 11: a violent felony. And you know, people are looking at
Speaker 11: those numbers and trying to understand how to get those
Speaker 11: even lower and how to work with some folks who
Speaker 11: are recommitting violent acts or even other offenses and giving
Speaker 11: them a lot more attention within this program.
Speaker 4: Hey full of Something I'm curious about is how does
Speaker 4: the approach when it comes to the US differ than
Speaker 4: what typically is seen more internationally.
Speaker 9: So in other jurisdictions I mean, cash bi able are
Speaker 9: seen as a last resort. I mean the UK and Canada,
Speaker 9: and in the EU cash bail is sort of like
Speaker 9: the last last resort, and bail bondser illegal in most jurisdictions.
Speaker 9: I think it's just the US and I believe the
Speaker 9: Philippines that.
Speaker 4: Allow the US being more of an outlier.
Speaker 9: Clearly, the US is definitely an outlier, but New York
Speaker 9: is also not totally an outlier, right, Like there is
Speaker 9: It's not like I want to get in the politics
Speaker 9: of this still, but like, who else is following New
Speaker 9: York's lead here?
Speaker 8: And where else should we be watching to see what
Speaker 8: the programs how those programs unfold.
Speaker 9: So there are quite a few jurisdictions, or I guess
Speaker 9: not quite a few, but there are some jurisdictions that
Speaker 9: are trying to address the same issue, right trying to
Speaker 9: reduce geo populations. Because we have to remember that jailing
Speaker 9: people is expensive for a jurisdiction, For municipality, what's the
Speaker 9: cost of New York. In New York, it's like fifteen
Speaker 9: hundred a day. I think per person, and so I
Speaker 9: mean it's pricey. Yeah, it's like a I think it's
Speaker 9: sort of like a college tuition or something like that. Right,
Speaker 9: Like you're talking about annually jailing people, and so there's
Speaker 9: a there's an extreme cost for municipalities and then on
Speaker 9: the other hand, there's an extreme cost for the folks
Speaker 9: who are going to jail. Right, you're not working, you're
Speaker 9: not paying rent, you're not you know, watching your kids,
Speaker 9: you're not you're not doing all of these things that
Speaker 9: contribute to society as well.
Speaker 5: And so there are those costs.
Speaker 8: Okay, So I said, we talked about the politics. Let's
Speaker 8: talk about the politics.
Speaker 2: What's the city line on this?
Speaker 8: And what about where the state comes in?
Speaker 9: So this is a city it's a city funded program, right,
Speaker 9: So the city spends about sixty seven million dollars a
Speaker 9: year on this and in the last budget cycle we
Speaker 9: saw more money set aside for this program.
Speaker 2: Is that a lot of money or not a lot
Speaker 2: of money?
Speaker 5: It's more than the pre K. Wow.
Speaker 2: As we reported before, I will be off Thursday taking
Speaker 2: my son his first day pre K. So you did
Speaker 2: the great story on pre K earlier this year about
Speaker 2: Eric Adams not providing funding to those PreK centers.
Speaker 9: And so I guess in the grand scheme of thing,
Speaker 9: the New York City budget is one hundred and seven
Speaker 9: million dollars, so it's not that much money, but it
Speaker 9: is for a program like this, quite a bit of it.
Speaker 9: It's quite a quite an investment.
Speaker 8: And just keep in mind and also the economic side
Speaker 8: of this, right, like instead of paying fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 8: per person per day, we're allowing those same people who
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 5: Might not be even violent.
Speaker 8: Offenders to basically like be able to be having you know,
Speaker 8: keep their normal the feeling right, and be in their community.
Speaker 8: So I think it's really interesting. So what about the
Speaker 8: how does how do other jurisdictions? How is this going
Speaker 8: over elsewhere?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 8: Because clearly we brought up to defund the police as
Speaker 8: a talking point, like this is a charged idea because
Speaker 8: it goes against some conventional, long standing wisdom.
Speaker 9: Definitely, And I think the New York City program is
Speaker 9: a great example of of the challenges that programs like
Speaker 9: these fates. Right, Like, on one end, the program seems
Speaker 9: to be working and it seems like it's it's getting support, right,
Speaker 9: and so it's ramped up and so the caseworkers have
Speaker 9: a ton of cases.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 9: We've met some people that have seventy cases on their plate.
Speaker 9: On the other hand, they have to worry about the
Speaker 9: politics of this, right like New York has rolled back.
Speaker 9: New York State has rolled back it's bail reforms, I
Speaker 9: think three times at this point.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 9: In other jurisdictions, we've seen campaign ads sort of demonizing
Speaker 9: bail reform leaves out in last year, ran ads right
Speaker 9: saying that he would, you know, reverse the bail laws.
Speaker 9: And so the politics of this are fraud to say
Speaker 9: the least. And we see this in juristictions across country.
Speaker 2: Full of fantastic story, Sarah, A great story. Sarah Holder,
Speaker 2: city Lab reporter at Bloomberg News, on the phone from
Speaker 2: our bureau. Full of Kenneby, city Lab reporter here at
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News with us in the Bloomberg INTERACTI Brokers Studio,
Speaker 2: along with Joe Webber, the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This
Speaker 2: story and more in the City's issue, the Double Issue
Speaker 2: a business Week.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 6: On Bloomberg Radio. The Bloomberg Business app and YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
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Speaker 12: There was a story if you saw this tim by
Speaker 12: our Ed Ludlow. It was about how to start it
Speaker 12: back by Microsoft, you know, the company that got us
Speaker 12: all nuts about next level AI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in videos I'm milcha, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: thank you exactly.
Speaker 12: Well, we're talking about open AI and notes how it's
Speaker 12: on track for one billion dollars of annual revenue as
Speaker 12: businesses adopt the technology behind chat ChiPT, which is the
Speaker 12: generative AI bot. You know this that ignited that wave
Speaker 12: of artificial intelligence investment, I mean, and just set us
Speaker 12: all off and running.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially those in video shareholders.
Speaker 12: Yeah. Yeah, it's all pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with some thoughts on AI and what it means
Speaker 2: to our workflow and our world with us as the
Speaker 2: CEO and founder of Creatio, Katherine Costa Riva. Good to
Speaker 2: have you with us, Catherine. Creatio is a CVRM. It's
Speaker 2: a customer relationship manager and it sells software that automates workflows.
Speaker 2: Catherine joins us on Zoom from Boston. When I hear CRM,
Speaker 2: I think Salesforce, So talk to us a little bit
Speaker 2: about what you do that's different than Salesforce, especially as
Speaker 2: Salesforce comes out with their numbers today and says, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going all in on AI.
Speaker 13: Yes, happy to what Creation does. We're doing no code platforms.
Speaker 13: So this is a little bit different type of software,
Speaker 13: the no code platform for workflow automation and CRM off
Speaker 13: top of it. But the whole idea of Creation is
Speaker 13: actually no code capabilities to automate workflow not being a
Speaker 13: professional software developer. Let me share some numbers with you.
Speaker 12: Point, but break that down. Before we share numbers, what
Speaker 12: does that mean no code?
Speaker 13: Yeah, for that was exactly what I want to do. Yes,
Speaker 13: these numbers will explain what no code actually means. In
Speaker 13: the world, there are twenty five million software developers. The
Speaker 13: demand for workflow automation today, Carol is five hundred million
Speaker 13: apps in the world. There are one point seven billion
Speaker 13: knowledge workers who can easily use the new code platform
Speaker 13: to automate those apps. Because the mass is very clear,
Speaker 13: twenty five million software developers is not enough to automate
Speaker 13: five hundred million apps, which is a demand for enterprise
Speaker 13: workflow automation today. So what Creation does and what no
Speaker 13: code platforms in general? What they do They give tools
Speaker 13: to those one point seven billion knowledge workers to build
Speaker 13: and automate their own workflows like CRM like Customer Relationship management,
Speaker 13: so CRM like sales automation, marketing automation, service automation. This
Speaker 13: is just an example of the workflows in the companies
Speaker 13: in different enterprises that can be automated with no code platforms.
Speaker 13: So this is the big think about it, Like like
Speaker 13: a Minecraft. You all know Minecraft, That's that's a popular game.
Speaker 13: All kids in the worldplay Minecraft. Just just think about Minecraft.
Speaker 13: But in the world of enterprise software, when you design
Speaker 13: and build your own software, your own workflows, not being
Speaker 13: a professional software developer.
Speaker 12: It sounds like why wouldn't everybody use it? So give
Speaker 12: me an idea of the growth of your business so
Speaker 12: that we get an idea and who who are your partners,
Speaker 12: who are your clients, who are you working with?
Speaker 13: Happy to happy to Creation? Despite the economic slowdown and
Speaker 13: everything happening in the world right now, Creatio continues to
Speaker 13: grow at fifty sixty percent. Yeah over, yeah, is that
Speaker 13: top line? What exactly is that inn is the top line. Okay,
Speaker 13: and you mentioned Salesforce in the beginning, so Creation is
Speaker 13: together with Salesforce in those Gardner Magic quadrants for Salesforce automation,
Speaker 13: like the best software for Salesforce autom for marketing automation,
Speaker 13: service automation. Although we are a much smaller company, but
Speaker 13: thanks to these capabilities of no code platform and ability
Speaker 13: of our clients to automate to build their own products,
Speaker 13: not being software developers, we see this demand from the
Speaker 13: market and we get all the recognition from industry analysts
Speaker 13: because this is the next era of enterprise software.
Speaker 2: Talk a little bit about the funders, how you're supported
Speaker 2: venture capitally you've raised.
Speaker 13: Listen, we wouldstrap the company in twenty fourteen. We founded
Speaker 13: the company here in Boston. We bootstrapped for many years
Speaker 13: and then were raised caple two and a half years
Speaker 13: ago for the first time in the history of the company.
Speaker 13: That was a minority investment of sixty eight million dollars
Speaker 13: and again just just to speed up, to accelerate the
Speaker 13: growth of the company and to deliver the message of
Speaker 13: no code to as many people in the world as possible.
Speaker 13: I can tell you that that my my peer right
Speaker 13: now just came to the office here here in Bossy.
Speaker 13: He just came from his tree. Literally all over the world.
Speaker 13: He was in Australia. We had a huge event No
Speaker 13: Code Days Australia, then in Indonesia, then in Malaysia, then
Speaker 13: in Dubai. So we have spread in the world and
Speaker 13: evangelize in this new new technology. This this is new
Speaker 13: for the enterprise software world, new technology of no code software.
Speaker 13: And you were talking about janey I and AI in general.
Speaker 13: That's definitely a big part of of the Creatia platform
Speaker 13: and it does accelerate software development as well.
Speaker 12: So you mentioned about working with salesforce, So are you
Speaker 12: could you be at some point a company their acquisitive
Speaker 12: that they take on and bring you into the fold.
Speaker 12: Or is your goal to.
Speaker 13: Kind of do it?
Speaker 2: Is your goal to do it alone?
Speaker 5: You go as you go?
Speaker 12: Is your goal to do it alone?
Speaker 13: And I'm just curious we're doing it together with our
Speaker 13: partners all over the world system integrators. There are seven
Speaker 13: hundred organizations in one hundred countries of the world who
Speaker 13: evangelize Creatia as a no code platform and implement Creative
Speaker 13: to our clients in those one hundred countries. So we're
Speaker 13: not alone. We have amazing clients and amazing partners all
Speaker 13: over the world. But this is just the next generation
Speaker 13: of software. Let's talk about like, let me compare with
Speaker 13: Salesforce twenty years ago, even more than twenty twenty five
Speaker 13: years ago, to be precise, when Salesforce was founded, that
Speaker 13: was a complete era of enterprise software, the cloud era, right,
Speaker 13: You remember that time when the cloud.
Speaker 12: Just came and so many people.
Speaker 13: Didn't believe actually at that time that cloud is going
Speaker 13: to be the future and all the software products will
Speaker 13: be in the cloud. What we're building here at Creation
Speaker 13: today is the next generation of software. We're saying that
Speaker 13: the future of enterprise software is no code, and in
Speaker 13: ten years from now, we're seeing that all enterprise products
Speaker 13: will have those no code capabilities when knowledge workers without
Speaker 13: technical skills can automate their workflows and can automate their processes.
Speaker 13: So that's what Creature is building right now, and yes
Speaker 13: it is. It is a new era of software, and
Speaker 13: not so many people heard about it yet.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering what you're hearing from the sales your own salesforce,
Speaker 2: the folks that you have around the country, around the
Speaker 2: world selling your product right now in terms of what
Speaker 2: it tells you, what it tells us about the economy,
Speaker 2: because we've heard about softness, especially when it comes to
Speaker 2: software as a service.
Speaker 13: Yes, that's that's a brilliant question, Kim, and listen, that's
Speaker 13: a very interesting topic because the demand is there. We
Speaker 13: clearly hear from each and every prospect and client of
Speaker 13: Creation that despite everyone is cutting budgets, everyone is cutting budgets.
Speaker 13: Digital transformation and investment into the technology and workflow automation
Speaker 13: tools like Creation is still on the top of the agenda.
Speaker 13: So that would be the last budgets that will be cut.
Speaker 13: People still invest into, not still, but continue to invest
Speaker 13: into workflow automation and applications like Creation. So what we
Speaker 13: hear from from the salesforce globally, we hear that it's
Speaker 13: a lot of scrutiny from the procurement offices. Everyone is
Speaker 13: very very attentive to details what kind of technology they
Speaker 13: want to acquire. But at the same time, the demand
Speaker 13: is there. Everyone needs digital transformation.
Speaker 12: So if no code is meaning that you can design
Speaker 12: software that even non technical people can execute, do we
Speaker 12: still need we still need a lot of coders to
Speaker 12: do this because we keep telling everybody go learn how
Speaker 12: to code? Is that wrong?
Speaker 2: And just very quickly?
Speaker 13: Yes, that's a great question. We do need a lot
Speaker 13: of software developers. The population of software developers is growing
Speaker 13: just four percent year over year. We need more and
Speaker 13: more of them to build deep platform itself. But workflows
Speaker 13: have to be built by knowledge workers. The platform D
Speaker 13: technology needs to be built by software professional software coders
Speaker 13: and developers.
Speaker 12: Really fascinating stuff. Come back soon. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 12: Katherine costera reva. She is the CEO and founder of Creatio.
Speaker 12: Joining us on zoom from Boston.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen.
Speaker 6: On Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the.
Speaker 14: Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 12: John Wortheim is with US, executive editor and senior writer
Speaker 12: at Sports Illustrated, contributing course on it for sixty minutes.
Speaker 12: I'm gonna be a little bit of a fangirl, John,
Speaker 12: I love your pieces on sixty minutes. But he's here
Speaker 12: with us to talk about the US Open. He's on
Speaker 12: the phone in Los Angeles. John, welcome back, How are
Speaker 12: you good?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 15: I want to zam that intro music? What a great
Speaker 15: tennis on core?
Speaker 2: We might be able to get you the information on that.
Speaker 2: I think pauls All to our team at Bloomberg Business.
Speaker 12: Skaream it's cream? How about that? I didn't recognize that either. Hey, John,
Speaker 12: So let's talk tennis. What are you looking forward to
Speaker 12: this year? It's an interesting year and it's a packed year.
Speaker 12: I'm just warning you from.
Speaker 5: When you're here.
Speaker 15: Yeah, you know, I'll play any funny. This is the
Speaker 15: first US Open after Roger Federer and Serena Williams and
Speaker 15: for years and years tennis. And what are we going
Speaker 15: to do when these two titans are no longer around?
Speaker 15: What's going to happen at tennis? And I think three
Speaker 15: of the last five sessions attendance records. Someone was telling
Speaker 15: you about the the secondary ticket from from the secondary
Speaker 15: market for tickets is off the chart. There are a
Speaker 15: lot of good storylines on them. Is the abundance of
Speaker 15: American players who are who are still left in the draw.
Speaker 15: Is this Coco Goffs year to win? On the women's side,
Speaker 15: is Novak Djokovis and Carlos Alcarez, This great new tennis rivalry.
Speaker 15: Are they going to have another installment for the third
Speaker 15: straight Major in New York? We missed Roger Feeder, we
Speaker 15: missed Serena Williams, But there is the show goes on.
Speaker 15: There's plenty of plenty of tennis to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the Tiapos story as well, and he's
Speaker 2: currently battling it out right now in the third set,
Speaker 2: in the fourth set, actually right now. So who else
Speaker 2: are the big names that you're watching this year?
Speaker 15: Oh? I, you know, some of them are the big
Speaker 15: names that we're used to. When Niga schwanhek won last
Speaker 15: year and is really establishing herself as this generational player
Speaker 15: and his Coco Goffin emerge his a rival, and Jesse
Speaker 15: Pegula is in fact the highest ranked American male or
Speaker 15: female of She's an interesting character with a much different
Speaker 15: backstory than than other players. But I also think the
Speaker 15: fact that sort of the fields are wide or open,
Speaker 15: and you know, I think it will be it's either
Speaker 15: Djokovic or Alcarez don't win, but there's still a lot
Speaker 15: of space on stage for other players to make their move.
Speaker 15: Taylor Fritz, who's the highest rank American male, but he
Speaker 15: hasn't had great success in a major. Is this the
Speaker 15: tournament where he finally breaks through. There's a lot of
Speaker 15: we're sort of we're used to these three players on
Speaker 15: the men's side better than all Djokovic who absolutely dominated.
Speaker 15: We were used to Serena doing her ritual run. And
Speaker 15: it's much different to cover the sport now that the
Speaker 15: fields are wider open. You know, Ka Djokovic is obviously
Speaker 15: still as relevant as ever, but it's kind of fun
Speaker 15: not being able to pencil four players through to the
Speaker 15: final weekend and you have this capacity for surprise, keeping us.
Speaker 12: All on our toes. It's interesting, John, I always think
Speaker 12: about we talked about this a lot with golf, right,
Speaker 12: you know, golf after Tiger Woods. You know, in tennis,
Speaker 12: we've had a lot of conversations with the USTA over
Speaker 12: the years about, you know, making sure there's their interest
Speaker 12: with the younger generation. And we see it continuing and
Speaker 12: we do see younger, newer, interesting players come out. What
Speaker 12: is it about tennis that you think that continues to
Speaker 12: be a really popular sport.
Speaker 15: I would love to see some sort of mess some
Speaker 15: sort of data on how many people are at the
Speaker 15: US Open, because it's fun at an event and you
Speaker 15: walk around and you eat good food, and they're guys,
Speaker 15: you know, juggling versus the actual tennis. I'm never quite
Speaker 15: I'd always sort of just for my own and it's
Speaker 15: just interesting to see. I think tennis is actually getting
Speaker 15: a little bit of above from pickleball. I mean there's
Speaker 15: sort of this this existential fear in tennis that all
Speaker 15: the tennis courts are going to be turned into pickleball
Speaker 15: courts and players are retiring to go try their hand
Speaker 15: at pickleball. But I think it goes the other way,
Speaker 15: and I think all these millions of people that are
Speaker 15: playing pickleball have a new found appreciation for this, this
Speaker 15: other racket sport. I think tennis is Globalization is a
Speaker 15: little problematic in the US, right. I mean, in golf,
Speaker 15: all the events are pretretty much held in one of
Speaker 15: three time zones, and the majority of the tour they're all,
Speaker 15: you know, mostly American and certainly English speaking. Kennis doesn't
Speaker 15: have that, right, I Mean, You've got the player from
Speaker 15: Tunisia's playing the Colombian and a lot of times the
Speaker 15: events aren't in the US, They're not on the US
Speaker 15: friendly time schedules. But I think overall this is a
Speaker 15: really really global sport, and I think big picture especially
Speaker 15: you look at how many other businesses would love this
Speaker 15: kind of a footprint. You know, I was saying, it's
Speaker 15: like stepping out a balloon, right. So it was a
Speaker 15: lot healthier and easier in the US when all the
Speaker 15: events were sort of between California and Florida and the
Speaker 15: players came from here. It's a lot trickier where you've
Speaker 15: got Serbs and you've got Tunisians. But I think it's
Speaker 15: healthier for the sport overall.
Speaker 12: You know, it's funny that you say that we talked
Speaker 12: with the folks over at IBM yesterday and talking specifically
Speaker 12: about trying to bring some of the content from some
Speaker 12: of the other matches that aren't either at ASH or
Speaker 12: you know, the main you know, kind of the main focus,
Speaker 12: if you will, here at the open to make sure
Speaker 12: that maybe some lesser well known and even you know,
Speaker 12: global players at least get their time and that their
Speaker 12: fan base gets to see them. But it's also there's
Speaker 12: an AI artificial intelligence component where AI is doing the
Speaker 12: commentary voice, you know, and talking about the players and
Speaker 12: so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: They got a long way to go, though, John, don't worry.
Speaker 2: I watched a little bit last night. It's not anywhere
Speaker 2: close to what you do. It's not close to what
Speaker 2: we hear from the Macnrope brothers.
Speaker 12: But is it good giving you know, some of these
Speaker 12: players who might not get attention and their matches some time.
Speaker 12: But is it also a little worrisome? I don't know.
Speaker 2: With the AI component, Yeah, it's wear of AI.
Speaker 15: We all recognize some of the outside of the potential.
Speaker 15: I'm not sure AI's most urgent need is for sports commentary.
Speaker 15: I mean, I've heard things that like, it's still whatever.
Speaker 15: We won't think, we don't bout AI. It gets better,
Speaker 15: right it sort of learns from its suma rapidly. But
Speaker 15: I've heard it's pretty cringey right now, and they're, you know,
Speaker 15: using terms that aren't real tennis terms. Suspect that will
Speaker 15: improve it. I got to think there are other ways
Speaker 15: to excentuate players from other countries from AI. But you know,
Speaker 15: I guess I give the USCA and IBM credit for
Speaker 15: at least experimenting. But I think I think we got
Speaker 15: to wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Hey, John, I love I love every year the
Speaker 2: tips that you write.
Speaker 12: I have been dying off air going.
Speaker 5: Through the list.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not just the ones that you write,
Speaker 2: but you also crowdsource them this year with you know,
Speaker 2: help from people on Twitter x whatever you call it. Okay,
Speaker 2: a couple of things that I have a couple of
Speaker 2: things I want to ask now, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: take yours. What's the deal with how loud the crowd
Speaker 2: is this year? And I've noticed it too watching TV
Speaker 2: when I'm not here and watching the matches on TV,
Speaker 2: you have the commentators complaining that, hey, they are too
Speaker 2: there are crowds and ash are being too loud while
Speaker 2: the players are playing.
Speaker 15: I think it's healthy and I think, you know, at
Speaker 15: first level, I feel like crowds take their hue from players.
Speaker 15: And we talked before about Francisciajo. He will say very
Speaker 15: openly he wants crowds to be louder, he wants them
Speaker 15: to move around. Why I can't tell us to be
Speaker 15: more like the NBA. I think there's a sense that,
Speaker 15: you know, I go to a sporting event, I act
Speaker 15: a certain way. I get it. It's tennis, it's not Nastar.
Speaker 15: I'm not gonna you know, we're not going to go
Speaker 15: go Topla, you know, men aren't going to remove the
Speaker 15: first but they're they're I think before I think, you know,
Speaker 15: you know, I think you could keep decorum and also
Speaker 15: have fun and be loud. But I also, honestly, I
Speaker 15: think that crowds take their cue from the athlete, and
Speaker 15: if it doesn't bother the players and father's the ESPN
Speaker 15: booth when not the players though, that's that's not much
Speaker 15: to turn.
Speaker 12: I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: I got I saw daggers. I saw daggers from the
Speaker 2: player she looked at she looked out my way one
Speaker 2: of the matches earlier this week.
Speaker 5: I love this.
Speaker 12: Unless you have a match that day, there's no excuse
Speaker 12: for dressing like a player when you attend the US Open.
Speaker 12: You don't wear stirrups to a Yankees game and hint
Speaker 12: guards and leotards to the LA leave the ristbands home jam.
Speaker 12: It's so true. It is really funny to kind of
Speaker 12: look around the crowds and there are people, you know,
Speaker 12: who were just fans and they're dressed like a tennis player.
Speaker 15: I don't get. I kind of sort of sometimes want
Speaker 15: to approach those people and say, listen, no judgment, but
Speaker 15: can you just explain that they can here, and I
Speaker 15: don't know if blaze me when you've got these you know,
Speaker 15: sixty year old Postelli guys with wristbands on to go
Speaker 15: to go watch. You know, I don't get it.
Speaker 12: All right, there's another one we have to do because
Speaker 12: I felt like where is that one tent? Tim, because
Speaker 12: I felt like this happened to me because I did
Speaker 12: take that l I R R to go back home
Speaker 12: to Manhattan. Oh here it is. Your fund is crushing
Speaker 12: it and the Hamptons were amazing, and your kids left
Speaker 12: camp and your buddy got you these tickets. If you
Speaker 12: insist on a change over conversations, keep it down, Tiger.
Speaker 12: It's so true. I'm the l R. Like they're coming
Speaker 12: back from here and they're like, hey, you know the
Speaker 12: investments and there they name dropped so many different people
Speaker 12: and fun and fun.
Speaker 2: Godness, it could have been a source for you, Carol.
Speaker 12: But it gets a little crazy, right John.
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's a certain type and you certainly see that
Speaker 15: type at the US Open. And you know, we all
Speaker 15: love we all love full markets, and we all love
Speaker 15: you know, and when we close on a high, as
Speaker 15: we seem to be close to doing. But yeah, I
Speaker 15: don't need to hear about that, and neither does the
Speaker 15: person of the.
Speaker 2: See before you go.
Speaker 12: One thing I did want to ask you, and getting
Speaker 12: back to just a little bit more serious, is the
Speaker 12: role of Saudi Arabia in sports specifically overall. You saw
Speaker 12: it with LIV, golf, WTA, stuff's percolating. How are you
Speaker 12: seeing it as somebody who's covered this industry for a
Speaker 12: long time or covered this world.
Speaker 15: Oh man, we could do a whole hour on that.
Speaker 15: I did a piece a few months ago for sixteen
Speaker 15: minutes when I went. I went to Riatt and sort
Speaker 15: of saw what it was like on the ground, and
Speaker 15: I'm clearly the Saudis sports as a place to get involved.
Speaker 15: Their economics are much different from conventional sports economics, which
Speaker 15: is not about media rights deals and selling tickets and
Speaker 15: sweet and merchandise. I think this is about rebranding a country.
Speaker 15: And you know, we saw in golf that took it
Speaker 15: took one shape in golf, it's taken others. In soccer,
Speaker 15: you know, you'll do football slash soccer. You'll notice, you know,
Speaker 15: there are big time offers and athletes are being paid
Speaker 15: a clear premium to come play in Saudi Arabia. Some
Speaker 15: of them are accepting it, some of them are not.
Speaker 15: I mean, it's interesting to me. There now is a
Speaker 15: bid on the table for the Women's Tennistry to hold
Speaker 15: their final events, which is sort of their big showcase
Speaker 15: of things. They're big money, the great money maker in
Speaker 15: Saudi Arabia, and I think, you know, we can have
Speaker 15: a debate about this is the tour of Billy g
Speaker 15: and King that's just left China for ethical reasons because
Speaker 15: it didn't want sort of to be compromised on principles,
Speaker 15: and they left China. If it's strange that they would
Speaker 15: then you know, pitch their attentions in Saudi Arabia. The
Speaker 15: flip side is, listen, we're all creatures of incentives. And
Speaker 15: if Sawnie Ray is offering top dollar, who are we
Speaker 15: to tell soccer players or golfers or female tennis players
Speaker 15: not to get taken. It's a story that I think
Speaker 15: is only going to accelerate because I think it's clearly working.
Speaker 15: And you know, the Saudi Private and Veil the Peah
Speaker 15: have the private and that's the fun. They've had billions
Speaker 15: and billions of dollars to lavish on this sort of
Speaker 15: soft power, and sports are clearly going to benefit and
Speaker 15: athletes are going to have a real decision.
Speaker 2: To me, but it's tennis different. I mean, you mentioned
Speaker 2: China several times there, and what they did in China
Speaker 2: is tennis different.
Speaker 15: You know, I think a couple of things. First, they
Speaker 15: the WTA left China citing these ethical concerns, so you
Speaker 15: sort of set a precedent for you know, ethics and
Speaker 15: morals and human rights that matters to us. It's a
Speaker 15: little strange to then say, actually, you know what, make
Speaker 15: that back. It doesn't. I think the Women's Tennis Tour
Speaker 15: sort of has this strand and has for for decades
Speaker 15: of activism and social and fairness and equality. And this
Speaker 15: is more than just about four hands and backhands and
Speaker 15: a bouncing ball. This is a movement. A little strange
Speaker 15: to then go to a country where women are not
Speaker 15: given equal rights. And we saw this week somebody was
Speaker 15: playing some guests for retweeting something that was unflattering to NBA. Right,
Speaker 15: And yet I think you could argue just as easily.
Speaker 15: You know, look, Chris John and Ronaldo can make whatever
Speaker 15: you see, a quarter of a billion dollars playing soccer.
Speaker 15: Why can't women athletes avail themselves to that money the
Speaker 15: same way men can. So it's really complex and thorny.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we got to rude. Come back into the hour
Speaker 12: in Saudi Arabia. We would love to you name the
Speaker 12: date at the time, John, you are here, John Wroth,
Speaker 12: I'm of Sports Illustrated of sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: the Bloomer Work Business app, and YouTube. You can also
Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York
Speaker 1: station Just Say Alexa. Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg Business Week, including a Bloomberg Big take on
Speaker 2: the one aspect of post pandemic life that just can't
Speaker 2: seem to get back to normal. Returning to the office
Speaker 2: full time. Plus, we'll go back to the US Open
Speaker 2: for a pulse check on the growth of tennis in
Speaker 2: America with former pro and former CEO of the United
Speaker 2: States Tennis Association Katrina Adams. First up this hour, a
Speaker 2: conversation with Josh Dominga's He's the founder and CEO of
Speaker 2: flash Food. It's the digital marketplace that connects consumers to
Speaker 2: heavily discounted food. His company is helping grocers around the
Speaker 2: US and Canada reduce food waste well simultaneously enabling shoppers
Speaker 2: to save on their food. Josh recently spoke with Carol
Speaker 2: and Bloomberg News Deputy team leader for US Equities Jess
Speaker 2: Metton in our New York studios.
Speaker 12: Hey, so a story poptin on my radar while reading
Speaker 12: in for our next guest. It was from Dive. They're
Speaker 12: a business to business news organization. They wrote, as grocers
Speaker 12: dial up their efforts to reduce food waste, a key
Speaker 12: area of focus within sustainability, artificial intelligence and other digital
Speaker 12: innovations are helping food retailers improve their data processes and
Speaker 12: workforce efficiencies. So I'm curious what our next guest has
Speaker 12: to say about that, and so delighted to have back
Speaker 12: with them. Earlier this year, he was named one of
Speaker 12: Canada's most Influential change Makers by the Globe and Mails
Speaker 12: Report on Business magazine. Josh Domingis founded flash Food, the
Speaker 12: digital marketplace that connects consumers to heavily discounted food. I
Speaker 12: always feel like I was thinking about you again, is
Speaker 12: that why the heck where we'ren't doing this sooner?
Speaker 16: Anyway?
Speaker 12: Welcome back, welcome back. And Jess was reminded like this.
Speaker 2: The first time we had she was here.
Speaker 12: She's in for tim but like nice to have this continuity.
Speaker 12: How are you.
Speaker 16: I'm doing well.
Speaker 12: I mean, congratulations you have a bigger family now, yeah.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 16: We had another one, so our newness is now three
Speaker 16: months old. And I was joking that, like I go
Speaker 16: from all all things crazy at home to all things
Speaker 16: crazy at work, but just on a journey, and it's
Speaker 16: so grateful to be in the position that we're at.
Speaker 16: We're really excited with what's happening stateside, Like.
Speaker 12: Well, tell us about the journey and what's happened since
Speaker 12: April A lot. I mean you said to me, how's
Speaker 12: the world going on? Like it's crazy, it's not stopping.
Speaker 12: It has just been so busy. Even with questions about
Speaker 12: the outlook and all these problems, there's growth, people are
Speaker 12: doing things. What's changed since April A lot of things.
Speaker 16: But I'll say the first thing is like the reliance
Speaker 16: on from shoppers on flash foot now like we've become
Speaker 16: a lifeline for some of our customers, some of our
Speaker 16: shoppers where like they're not feeding their kids or their
Speaker 16: families as affordably as they would read or as healthily
Speaker 16: without the app, and we're seeing that just play out
Speaker 16: in more and more communities. And there was a story
Speaker 16: I was telling Estraur Director of Commons before we sat
Speaker 16: in here, and me and my president stopped at a
Speaker 16: store in the Midwest last week and we went to
Speaker 16: the store. It was one of our newer stores that
Speaker 16: we had partnered with and still in like kind of
Speaker 16: the pilot phase, and so we weren't going to go
Speaker 16: in and like talk to anybody. We weren't planning on
Speaker 16: doing that. Really, we were just going to kind of
Speaker 16: see how people were doing in the store. We ended
Speaker 16: up meeting the assistant store manager. She's like, you need
Speaker 16: to go talk to the store manager. He pulled in
Speaker 16: the meat department manager who was the one running flash
Speaker 16: food at the store, and he just pulls us society.
Speaker 16: He's like, I've reduced the amount of food that I'm
Speaker 16: throwing out like a ridiculous amount. And then he called
Speaker 16: over the seafood manager who was just like walking by,
Speaker 16: and he stopped and he's like I just want to
Speaker 16: say thank you, Like what you're allowing us to do
Speaker 16: is so impactful. And we left that meeting. We were
Speaker 16: going to another dinner with a couple of other executives
Speaker 16: at Admire in the Midwest and the store that we left,
Speaker 16: and I was talking my president and I'm just like,
Speaker 16: this is not like a it's not like a surprise factor.
Speaker 16: It's not like a reinvigoration. It's more like confirmatory to me,
Speaker 16: it just is so obvious that this is going to
Speaker 16: continue to happen, and the scale is going to keep happening,
Speaker 16: and we're going to be in every community in America,
Speaker 16: like it's just a matter of time. So it's balancing
Speaker 16: that with I guess the headwinds that are the grocery sector,
Speaker 16: that are the food sector that.
Speaker 12: Like and I want to give you, but give me
Speaker 12: give me we are bloomberg. So we get a little
Speaker 12: like number crazy, but give me an idea in terms
Speaker 12: of like we'll go ahead, good.
Speaker 4: Well, the size and scope that he threw out the
Speaker 4: last time he was here, he was talking about how
Speaker 4: it's about five to ten thousand dollars of food every
Speaker 4: day of stores throwing out and that really stuck out
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 16: Yeah, we've now saved shoppers. So one number that comes
Speaker 16: to mind is like, we've now saved shoppers over two
Speaker 16: hundred million dollars in the groceries, Like, and we're in
Speaker 16: just under two thousand stores. There's so what does that mean?
Speaker 12: So when somebody shop, tell me what that number means.
Speaker 16: So the average the average discount on flash food is
Speaker 16: about fifty percent off. Okay, So like we've saved shoppers
Speaker 16: in total across the entire platform over two hundred million
Speaker 16: dollars now, and that number is like we're in nineteen
Speaker 16: hundred stores. There's forty or fifty thousand grocery stores in America. Like,
Speaker 16: we're still just scratching the surface. There's still so much opportunity.
Speaker 12: Who's shopping? Who is your shopper?
Speaker 16: I was talking about this earlier, Like there's a small
Speaker 16: cohort of people that don't have to ever think about
Speaker 16: how much their grocery their groceries are, And.
Speaker 12: There's a cohort increasingly, not because I feel like, but
Speaker 12: to be fair, to be fair, there's people who are
Speaker 12: on It's a.
Speaker 16: Very small number and it's getting smaller, and there's a
Speaker 16: small number of people who just like are on the
Speaker 16: other spectrum, and our shoppers are the mass market that's
Speaker 16: in between. Like, it's not just people who need to
Speaker 16: save money on their groceries. People need to save money
Speaker 16: anywhere now. So in terms of the shopper, it's typically
Speaker 16: young moms that are our main shopper. But it runs
Speaker 16: the gamut, like across the spectrum economically.
Speaker 4: How does it work exactly? If you go to the store.
Speaker 12: Remind everybody else, I know you went through this last time.
Speaker 16: But yeah, so you usually check the app, So I'll
Speaker 16: talk the flow. You check the app in the morning,
Speaker 16: you see what a store posts, you buy it. So
Speaker 16: let's say you buy a pack of chicken rest and
Speaker 16: it's fifty percent off. Anytime that day, you go to
Speaker 16: the store and you go to the flash Food zone,
Speaker 16: which is by the customer service desk usually, and they
Speaker 16: have a device with the list of names of people
Speaker 16: that are coming to pick up. You just say I'm Jess,
Speaker 16: I bought this chicken through flash Food. They click your name,
Speaker 16: click confirm, pick up, grab your item for you, give
Speaker 16: it to you, and you're done. So the transaction happens
Speaker 16: in the app, and that way you know that your
Speaker 16: food's going to be waiting for you there anytime in
Speaker 16: the day. We actually have stories of people who will
Speaker 16: like buy from multiple stores and they'll send their father
Speaker 16: in law, their mother in law, whoever's coming home from
Speaker 16: work that day, like, Hey, stop at the store, you
Speaker 16: got to grab my order. That's actually becoming more of
Speaker 16: the thing as we add more locations.
Speaker 12: Are they restrictions on how much you can buy?
Speaker 16: No?
Speaker 12: No, do you typically sell out? It's the purple fridge.
Speaker 16: Right, Yeah, we're selling like depending on the store, but
Speaker 16: we're selling seventy five to eighty percent of all the
Speaker 16: food that makes its way on the flash food platform.
Speaker 16: Some of the markets, some of the stores, as we
Speaker 16: like have been on for a while, more shoppers know
Speaker 16: about them.
Speaker 5: When we launched.
Speaker 16: There's some like education to let shoppers know. For example,
Speaker 16: like from the last time I was here, we went
Speaker 16: from I think it was like ten or fifteen stores
Speaker 16: with Stopping Shop to now over three hundred stores live
Speaker 16: with them across New England, New Jersey, New York. So
Speaker 16: Stopping Shop is our biggest expansion in the last quarter
Speaker 16: that we've had.
Speaker 4: So in context as far as if something is two
Speaker 4: to three days before the expiration date is due or
Speaker 4: even weak out. What causes that to happen? Are people
Speaker 4: just going in not if it's Saints Suitor? Are they
Speaker 4: not wanting to grab that and they're trying to buy
Speaker 4: something that's going to last a little bit longer. So
Speaker 4: that's why stores end up having to throw this out.
Speaker 16: That's exactly it. It's consumer habits. Specifically in North America.
Speaker 16: When we go grocery shopping, we're always reaching at the
Speaker 16: back for whatever has Yeah, we're all guilty of it,
Speaker 16: and the near dated stuff moves to the front.
Speaker 4: And we think that there's not quite as many items left.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of questioning why those things might be there.
Speaker 16: That's exactly the next point. If you go buy a
Speaker 16: watermelon and there's one on the shelf, consumer is the
Speaker 16: worst one. So the retailer has to stalk the shelves.
Speaker 16: So it's a combination so that we get selection. It's
Speaker 16: a combination of like inventory getting into the store, but
Speaker 16: also consumer habits that drives to this like dual sided problem.
Speaker 12: I guess someone who's created this business, Josh, do you
Speaker 12: think about, like you know so much when we talk
Speaker 12: about retail or some other markets you know, managing your
Speaker 12: supply chain is crucial, right, and I do wonder do
Speaker 12: you think that there is a moment in time where
Speaker 12: food or supermarkets are better at managing their food purchases
Speaker 12: so that there isn't waste that you can't tap into
Speaker 12: or is it not it's not the way this market works.
Speaker 16: I mean, I mean, I'm just curious if you yeah,
Speaker 16: it's not. It's not serving to the business. But I mean,
Speaker 16: I would love if that were the case from personally,
Speaker 16: from like an environmental perspective, I would love if that
Speaker 16: were the case.
Speaker 12: But is there something about it that almost makes it impossible.
Speaker 16: It's it's not ever going to get there. It's so
Speaker 16: hard to manage inventory and fresh food. Like we're in
Speaker 16: New York City and you can get a banana at
Speaker 16: any time of the year. Like people forget how just
Speaker 16: much of a miracle that is, Like you're not they're
Speaker 16: not growing down the road. You got to get that
Speaker 16: across the world basically, and take that for any item
Speaker 16: like and avocado. The same thing. So as long as
Speaker 16: our habits are as they are, which they will tinue
Speaker 16: to be, it's basically impossible to be perfect on your inventory.
Speaker 12: Isn't that funny? Like I think about growing up. I'm
Speaker 12: older than both of you, but it's like peaches were
Speaker 12: in season, like this was in season corn, and you know,
Speaker 12: there was just certain things that we would have and
Speaker 12: it was kind of fun. But it's not that way anymore.
Speaker 16: It's gone away very different. And now if they don't
Speaker 16: have something at one store, your competitor has it down
Speaker 16: the road. So like because of that reason, in addition
Speaker 16: to supply chain, in addition to moving food, and in
Speaker 16: addition to every time you touch food like it degrades
Speaker 16: its quality a little bit, it's just really really difficult
Speaker 16: to get fresh food right forecasting. So my belief is,
Speaker 16: no matter what, we're going to have a surplus in
Speaker 16: North America food at the grocery stores. I think it's
Speaker 16: going to reduce over time, but I think it's always
Speaker 16: going to be there. And I say that having friendships
Speaker 16: close ties with some of these companies that are doing
Speaker 16: what you're saying, like using AI and leveraging the best
Speaker 16: way you can order, the best way you like, you
Speaker 16: can adopt your systems to being perfect.
Speaker 12: Where's the Whole Foods? The Walmart, Cosco, the Kroger, the Wegmans,
Speaker 12: the Albertson's, the all d to partner with you. What's
Speaker 12: what's the conversations you're having. Yeah, I'm assuming you are.
Speaker 16: Yeah. Yeah, And if anybody knows any of them, like
Speaker 16: give them a call. No, we're speaking to uh, We're
Speaker 16: speaking to basically everybody in America.
Speaker 12: Do they want to do it?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 16: And you have different levels within these big companies, decision
Speaker 16: making from different people. It depends who you get in through.
Speaker 16: With some of the like we are, what I'll say
Speaker 16: is we're very focused on being national in America and
Speaker 16: that is something that we continuously are focusing on. And
Speaker 16: then with some of those companies like I think it's
Speaker 16: a matter of time, like I just for whatever reason, bring.
Speaker 12: Them revenue, you potentially bring them new customers.
Speaker 16: We will absolutely drive in new shoppers that'll spend more
Speaker 16: money in their stores. We'll help produce the waistline, drive
Speaker 16: in like a contract of their waistline. So it's just
Speaker 16: found money in a lot of ways. But the challenge
Speaker 16: with big companies, and this is not just grocery, is
Speaker 16: you have a strategic priority list. What do you pull
Speaker 16: out to put some new in front of and who's
Speaker 16: owning it, Who in the organization, who's allowed at speaker,
Speaker 16: who has the most like opportunity to do it? And
Speaker 16: that is the hard part of selling anything into a
Speaker 16: massive company. It's not whether somebody wants to do a
Speaker 16: thing or not, because a lot of folks and a
Speaker 16: lot of companies are excited about new ideas. It's really like,
Speaker 16: how do you get to the heart of what the
Speaker 16: other person cares about enough to really drive something through.
Speaker 16: And I think one thing I'll say is like we
Speaker 16: were founded in Canada, Canadian company based in Toronto. Now
Speaker 16: we predominantly American in terms of the store accountant and
Speaker 16: a lot of our staff. But we had a pandemic
Speaker 16: where I couldn't cross the border for two years. So,
Speaker 16: like you, if you take away that block of time
Speaker 16: and if I just happened to be stateside, I think
Speaker 16: we would have had more of those names on sooner.
Speaker 16: Now saying that we're in a very good position with
Speaker 16: a lot of names that you're shared and we're really
Speaker 16: focused on I think I think here in a couple
Speaker 16: of months again and we'll have another update. I think
Speaker 16: that's I think that's the right way to go.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what different verticals are you thinking about next?
Speaker 16: So one of the most exciting things that we're actually
Speaker 16: doing right now with a third party delivery company one
Speaker 16: of our grocery partners. All of our grocery partners have
Speaker 16: distribution centers that have waste because they can't get through
Speaker 16: so they bring all this food into these centralized locations
Speaker 16: and then they try to send it out to their
Speaker 16: stores and for whatever reason, there could be a breakdown.
Speaker 16: There could be a snowstorm, there could be a flood,
Speaker 16: and they can't get the food to their stores in time.
Speaker 16: So at the distribution centers there happens to be a
Speaker 16: higher amount than normal of fresh food waste. And what
Speaker 16: we've done with one of our partners is partnered with
Speaker 16: a third party delivery company and put a flash food storefront.
Speaker 16: So they took a location on that distribution center's facility
Speaker 16: and they retrofitted it. It was like an old guard shed.
Speaker 16: They retrofitted it, cleaned it up, put a bunch of
Speaker 16: fridges in and it's now a flash food storefront. And
Speaker 16: we actually have a flash food by Meyer storefront in Lansing,
Speaker 16: Michigan on the door dash app So if you're in Lansing, Michigan.
Speaker 16: You can order groceries at up to fifty percent off
Speaker 16: delivered to your door.
Speaker 12: That's great. And what's the business been like with that model?
Speaker 17: Right?
Speaker 16: It's early and Lancing is the university town, so without
Speaker 16: having the university in town, it's just there was yeah, no, no,
Speaker 16: it's fine. There were just kinks to for example, like
Speaker 16: at the beginning there was only five mile radius for delivery,
Speaker 16: and just so happens at these facilities that are going
Speaker 16: to be with every CpG or every food company are
Speaker 16: going to be in places that not a lot of
Speaker 16: people live. So you just you learn things as you go.
Speaker 16: It's a brand new vertical for us, but that has
Speaker 16: sense almost tripled in terms of like the coverage and
Speaker 16: the radius.
Speaker 12: What's the delivery time though, or the delivery is it
Speaker 12: a long distance no?
Speaker 16: Same day same same day delivery?
Speaker 5: Ok?
Speaker 12: And the cost for the delivery I.
Speaker 16: Think it's five dollars depending on the order size, but
Speaker 16: it's like between five and ten dollars.
Speaker 5: But your order is up.
Speaker 16: To fifty percent off the food that you're getting. So
Speaker 16: this is a model that we're testing out now it's
Speaker 16: going well, it's going better than we anticipated. At the
Speaker 16: stage better than the original model. I think it can
Speaker 16: be bigger than our origine a model in terms of
Speaker 16: the amount of food waste production. I think it's different.
Speaker 16: I think it adds a whole bunch of different partners.
Speaker 16: I think all of these CpG companies have locations across America. Yeah,
Speaker 16: consumer product good companies have I know that they have
Speaker 16: locations across America that have wasted their facilities. Like, there's
Speaker 16: a there's a scenario here where this could be a
Speaker 16: really big vertical for us.
Speaker 4: You also mentioned you have a bit of a reach
Speaker 4: on TikTok.
Speaker 12: Now, yeah, so the Joshtok no no, no, no, the
Speaker 12: flash food brand, we would not we would not have
Speaker 12: any reach if it was the Josh we're getting, like, yeah,
Speaker 12: exactly and the kids.
Speaker 16: That'll probably be more exciting as people are on boxing
Speaker 16: and shoppers aren't boxing. So on flash fed, you buy
Speaker 16: a box of produce and you see a picture of
Speaker 16: what's going to be in it. But a lot of
Speaker 16: times people are opening this box and they're seeing items
Speaker 16: that they never tried before. So there's been like a
Speaker 16: pretty big unboxing theme on TikTok where people are sharing
Speaker 16: what they're getting and then they're also sharing. For example,
Speaker 16: like one person getting one hundred bananas for five dollars,
Speaker 16: they'll unbox it and they'll be like They'll know they're
Speaker 16: getting a bunch of bananas, but they're like, Okay, what
Speaker 16: am I going to do with all these bananas? And
Speaker 16: then you'll see them share that. They'll be content going
Speaker 16: back and people saying, try this, try this. And so
Speaker 16: this is the other side of it, like we've built
Speaker 16: a platform that's helping retailers make more money, reduce waste,
Speaker 16: drive in new shoppers. But there's also a whole angle
Speaker 16: here on like the origination of what are you making?
Speaker 16: What are you doing in the kitchen? Like what are
Speaker 16: you trying? What are you cooking? And it's becoming a
Speaker 16: fun part of the process in a way that I
Speaker 16: personally didn't anticipate when we started.
Speaker 12: What's the most difficult part of the business.
Speaker 16: Getting more retailers on board faster? That's it because I'll
Speaker 16: sit down with an executive and share all the things
Speaker 16: that I've shared on the show, and they're just there's
Speaker 16: one executive of a big retailer who has whatever, almost
Speaker 16: two thousand locations, and I was like, why don't you
Speaker 16: just do this in all your stories. He's like, what
Speaker 16: people don't realize is we have, however, many thousand employees,
Speaker 16: however many undreds of thousands of shoppers that come into
Speaker 16: the stores every day, and there was a coffee mug
Speaker 16: in front of them. He's like, for me to get
Speaker 16: this coffee mug, move from here to there in one
Speaker 16: of our stores in Unison consistently on a daily basis
Speaker 16: is a monumental task. And so as he was saying
Speaker 16: it that way, I was like, Okay, Yeah, these are
Speaker 16: big numbers. So the challenge is like getting scale faster
Speaker 16: because we are tightly embedded with our grocery partners. We
Speaker 16: don't have a business if it's not for our partners.
Speaker 16: And that's unique in a lot of tech companies. And
Speaker 16: we're not trying to come at this and be smarter
Speaker 16: than them, because we're not. We just have one vertical
Speaker 16: that can solve one part of the problem in a
Speaker 16: really meaningful financial way. And just yeah, that's been it.
Speaker 12: I gotta say, Son of a great interview is that
Speaker 12: you're leaving and I still have like a dozen questions
Speaker 12: I want to ask you. So you're going to have
Speaker 12: to come back. It sounds like there's going to be
Speaker 12: in the future. Just Imanus, he's founder in CEO flash Food.
Speaker 12: Congratulations on the family and good to see you.
Speaker 16: This be so much for happening.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on.
Speaker 6: Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the.
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Speaker 2: As Matt Boyle, Senior Management and Workplace Reporter rights in
Speaker 2: today's Big Take, it's hard to cast entire continents as monolithic.
Speaker 2: That is, Asian workers are coming back, European nations are
Speaker 2: adopting new policies, and US employers are fending for themselves.
Speaker 2: We've got Matt with us right now. Once again, it
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg, the Bloomberg Big Take. Matt's with us in
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Interactive Brookers Studio right now. So, Matt, I
Speaker 2: gotta be honest with you. I've totally been thinking about
Speaker 2: this from the US perspective.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we all along. That's the problem that none of
Speaker 7: us are stepping back. We see headlines, you know, Google
Speaker 7: says this. Elon Musk says that you know, what's Goldman
Speaker 7: Sacks up to. Oh they've gone to five days, and
Speaker 7: we all sort of freak out about every individual. I'm
Speaker 7: not to say those companies are not big, influential, blue
Speaker 7: chip employers, but they're only a very small part of
Speaker 7: the picture. So what we wanted to do the story
Speaker 7: step back, what's going on in London versus Lisbon, what's
Speaker 7: going on in Munich, you know, versus Mumbai for example.
Speaker 7: Find the data. And the good thing now that we're
Speaker 7: three and a half years into the pandemic, we finally
Speaker 7: have some data coming out, some pretty reliable data on
Speaker 7: you know, what are the different office attendance rates? And
Speaker 7: then you've got to dig deeper though and figure out, Okay,
Speaker 7: what's behind that is? What is shifting that shaping that?
Speaker 7: Is it the way the city is laid out, is
Speaker 7: it how long the commute is is it corporate culture
Speaker 7: in that particular part of the world. And that's when
Speaker 7: it gets really interesting.
Speaker 4: What do you think we're the main catalysts when you're
Speaker 4: looking at some of the counterparts in Europe as well
Speaker 4: as Asia being able to return to the office faster
Speaker 4: than us over here.
Speaker 7: Well, just to start with Europe. One thing you're not
Speaker 7: seeing here in the US is policy makers are playing
Speaker 7: a huge role. In at least a half dozen European countries.
Speaker 7: You have either remote work laws or what's called right
Speaker 7: to disconnect laws where managers are not allowed to contact
Speaker 7: certain types of workers after normal business hours, and has
Speaker 7: a remote work law. The Netherlands has got one coming
Speaker 7: in as soon as the Dutch Senate passes it any
Speaker 7: day now. And then, you know, then you've got to
Speaker 7: have a little counterpart between the employers who are probably
Speaker 7: not too thrilled about the government coming and saying you
Speaker 7: have to give your workers the right to lobby and
Speaker 7: you know, make a proposal to say I should be
Speaker 7: able to work remotely. I mean, could you imagine that
Speaker 7: in New York? Imagine that in Texas?
Speaker 4: I know I'm from Texas.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I definitely can't imagine that.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, Matt, you write about it in Europe,
Speaker 2: not just the right to disconnect laws, but Unilever, for example,
Speaker 2: doing a four day work week. I mean, that's something
Speaker 2: that's completely foreign to US Americans.
Speaker 7: Yes, although there they were doing it, not in Europe,
Speaker 7: but in New Zealand and Australia and those are two
Speaker 7: of the countries where you see some of the highest
Speaker 7: rates of remote work and some of the more English
Speaker 7: speaking countries you do see more. So it makes sense
Speaker 7: for them to try it there. Are they going to
Speaker 7: bring it to the Netherlands and the UK, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Okay, you've got some just absolutely great data in this story.
Speaker 2: You point to McKinsey study that said by the year
Speaker 2: twenty thirty, we could actually see one point three trillion
Speaker 2: dollars of real estate value in big cities around the
Speaker 2: world erased as a result of differing remote work policies.
Speaker 2: That's bad. We know that. That's bad. What do policymakers
Speaker 2: say about that? And what do companies are What are
Speaker 2: companies doing to try to.
Speaker 7: Well, there's what landlords are saying about it. First, Yes,
Speaker 7: that is bad if you are a landlord, or if
Speaker 7: you're a landlord with Class B and Class C real estate,
Speaker 7: you know, the Class A stuff seems to be doing okay.
Speaker 7: But again, what's really struck me was that how differently
Speaker 7: that's playing out in New York and San Francisco a
Speaker 7: much deeper impact because you have you know, downtown business districts.
Speaker 7: Let's say, right here in Manhattan, where you don't have
Speaker 7: as many people living and working and playing as you do,
Speaker 7: and let's say a European city, which are much more intermixed,
Speaker 7: so you have less of an impact on workers, you
Speaker 7: have more of an impact on real estate landlords in
Speaker 7: some of these cities like New York.
Speaker 2: But I wonder if what the sh shift, if there's
Speaker 2: a shift happening here, like if the pie doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: change sizes, but if different slices get bigger. And I
Speaker 2: can give you my anecdotal example, Matt, that I've talked about.
Speaker 2: I mean, people listening to this have been tired of
Speaker 2: hearing this. But you know, when I was on a
Speaker 2: parental leave earlier this summer, I noticed that restaurants in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood of Brooklyn were like as as crowded as
Speaker 2: they were on weekends because remote workers were actually now
Speaker 2: going to them during the day. And I just thought
Speaker 2: about the way that exact ending his shift.
Speaker 7: That's why Sweet Green is opening in the suburbs. That's
Speaker 7: why Pretemage is opening outside of city centers.
Speaker 5: In the UK.
Speaker 7: I mean, businesses are not dumb. They're going to go
Speaker 7: where the customers are certainly so, Yes, if you're living
Speaker 7: in Brooklyn or by me and Westchester. In my town
Speaker 7: in Westchester, sleepy suburban town now has a flex work
Speaker 7: center right next to the train station. So I'm going
Speaker 7: to try it out and just like hang out in
Speaker 7: the flex work center to do it for work in
Speaker 7: the middle of west I mean, why not would this
Speaker 7: have happened in twenty nineteen? Of course not so, Yes,
Speaker 7: the pie is being Redistris did. But if you're not
Speaker 7: moving with the times and realizing that the way we
Speaker 7: work is different now and that you know, work is
Speaker 7: no longer a place we go it is it is
Speaker 7: a thing we do, some people are going to get
Speaker 7: some very hard lessons here.
Speaker 4: So when you're speaking with your sources, because this is Bloomberg,
Speaker 4: obviously we're going to talk about what this means for
Speaker 4: the economy. How does that offset when you're talking about
Speaker 4: consumers and spending versus obviously the issues we continue to
Speaker 4: talk about when it comes to real estate and trying
Speaker 4: to get people back into offices.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean what struck me as a former retail
Speaker 7: reporter was that some of you know, some of these
Speaker 7: changes really echo you know, the what we used to
Speaker 7: call the retail apocalypse, right, you know, when all the
Speaker 7: malls were dying, and what we're going to do about malls, well,
Speaker 7: maybe repurpose them people, you know, and you had started
Speaker 7: to see that certainly. And I know you cannot convert
Speaker 7: every single office building into condos, we know how hard
Speaker 7: that is.
Speaker 5: But could they be.
Speaker 7: Converted into other uses? Certainly? I think we do very
Speaker 7: well here at Bloomberg as we follow the money, and
Speaker 7: you know, right now, the money and the spending, as
Speaker 7: you know, as Tim saying, is sometimes being spent in
Speaker 7: more residential neighborhood. So is that where you should be
Speaker 7: opening up if you're selling sandwiches and salads?
Speaker 5: Probably?
Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about the most important thing for employers, productivity,
Speaker 2: because they're you know, every few weeks we get this
Speaker 2: new study and you said a couple of them. Remote
Speaker 2: workers are more productive in some countries. Remote workers are
Speaker 2: less less productive when doing other tasks in other countries. Holistically,
Speaker 2: taken together, what does the data tell us.
Speaker 7: It's tough because productivity is vastly misunderstood, and everybody loves
Speaker 7: to take their favorite bit of research that supports whatever
Speaker 7: their conclusion is and wave it around, you know, and
Speaker 7: saying I.
Speaker 5: Was right, I was right, there was.
Speaker 7: But there were studies on remote work even before the pandemic.
Speaker 7: One of the most famous one was about Chinese call
Speaker 7: center workers who when they went remote were just as productive,
Speaker 7: if not more, and happier, more satisfied. That's what we
Speaker 7: often fail to realize with a lot of these a
Speaker 7: lot of these studies, tim is that regardless of where
Speaker 7: productivity goes, and productivity is often in the eye that beholder.
Speaker 7: Is it how many emails did you send out today?
Speaker 7: And if so, why are you measuring productivity by how
Speaker 7: many emails you sent out?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: Or how many hours were you in the office? Remember
Speaker 7: the workaholics of the nineties, or were the last guy
Speaker 7: to leave the office? Where are they now? Maybe some
Speaker 7: of them are CEOs, but you know, do they regret
Speaker 7: being the last guy in the office every day? Were
Speaker 7: they most Were they the most productive? Though probably not?
Speaker 7: Were they Were they the most satisfied? Probably not?
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 7: I think we need to take a little bit more
Speaker 7: holistic view of productivity and realize that you have to
Speaker 7: look at employee engagement. You have to look at whether
Speaker 7: your employees are being challenged, they're doing the test they
Speaker 7: want to do with the people that they want to
Speaker 7: do it with. You know, are they coming in on
Speaker 7: the right days. Don't have to be in five days
Speaker 7: a week, but are you coming on the days that matter?
Speaker 7: Where there's intentionality, when you have something to do, a
Speaker 7: reason to be in the office, you know, mentoring for example,
Speaker 7: a brainstorming session that is better done in person. And
Speaker 7: when you're home you're doing your heads down focused work.
Speaker 2: Now you're going to help me build this incredible Bloomberg
Speaker 2: studio at my two better apartment.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, cool, we have a butch you for it.
Speaker 2: Let's do it perfect, Let's do it. Hey, this is
Speaker 2: a great piece. I encourage everybody to check out. It
Speaker 2: is Today's a big take, a great one to read
Speaker 2: just right after Labor Day as well. Matt Boyle is
Speaker 2: senior Management and workplace reporter. You got to read everything
Speaker 2: that he and his team are right. It is a
Speaker 2: great story. He's of course with our colleague here at
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. He's with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brookers Studio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business App and YouTube. You can also listen
Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station,
Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 12: Katrina Adams for President, Chairman and c. You have the
Speaker 12: US Tennis Association, Chair of the US Open, as well
Speaker 12: as the chair of the International Tennis Federation Cup and
Speaker 12: Gender Quality and Tennis committees. Former pro tennis pro double specialist,
Speaker 12: and I could go on and on and on. You're amazing,
Speaker 12: Thank you, thank you for coming back and finding time, and.
Speaker 5: You're busy, always excited to be here with you guys.
Speaker 12: Well, tell us about what you're excited about this year
Speaker 12: at the Open.
Speaker 9: Oh my goodness to see you.
Speaker 5: What's open?
Speaker 17: It's facular, right, I mean, everything that's happening here. I mean,
Speaker 17: you know, obviously you just mentioned Venus Williams. Just to
Speaker 17: see her back on the court again, you know, since
Speaker 17: nineteen ninety four. I was sitting in her box in
Speaker 17: nineteen ninety seven when she played her first final and
Speaker 17: lost to Ortina Hingis. I was here when she played
Speaker 17: the final against Serena Serena, her sister. Yeah, when Serena
Speaker 17: won in ninety nine. But you know when you look
Speaker 17: at the emergence of Cococa Off and Francis Tifo and
Speaker 17: Jess Pagoula, and and you know, Michael Moe look what
Speaker 17: he did today taking out John Isner and so many
Speaker 17: young players, Ben Shelton. It's exciting for the American players,
Speaker 17: Tommy Paul. There's so many I can't even name them
Speaker 17: all right now, And you know there was a time
Speaker 17: I could I could name them all on one hand?
Speaker 2: Does it feel like we're sort of in a you know,
Speaker 2: Andrea AGAs, see Pete Sampress, Jim Curry or Michael Chang
Speaker 2: sort of era where we have these Americans.
Speaker 17: Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 5: Let's let's yeah.
Speaker 17: I think that we have the ability to get there,
Speaker 17: because when you talk about Taylor Fritz and tifone in
Speaker 17: the top ten, and Paul, Tommy Paul and knocking on
Speaker 17: the door and Ben Shelton, those guys are knocking on
Speaker 17: the door. Yes, we'll get there. But until they start
Speaker 17: winning majors like Pete Samprass and Andrea Agassi and Jim
Speaker 17: Curry and Michael Chang, then it's it's a different it's
Speaker 17: a different story.
Speaker 5: But it's a long time. It's good, but it's a long.
Speaker 17: Time coming to be able to talk about these guys
Speaker 17: being in these majors, get into the second weeks consistently
Speaker 17: and then having some new names to join that on
Speaker 17: the men's side. We've always been down on women's side,
Speaker 17: but to be able to talk about these these men
Speaker 17: is really exciting.
Speaker 12: Gudrida. What is it that kind of keeps the younger
Speaker 12: generation coming back to tennis?
Speaker 17: I think being able to see players like we just
Speaker 17: on the court week in and week out, you know,
Speaker 17: and at these majors going deep to motivate the young
Speaker 17: kids to want to get into the sport. So when
Speaker 17: you talk about Fritz and TFO and Paul, you know
Speaker 17: who were they watching when they were young kids, who
Speaker 17: motivated them to get into the sport. And for them,
Speaker 17: I think when they came up through the USC Player
Speaker 17: Development program where they really got to travel together, train together,
Speaker 17: motivate one another, push one another. They're still doing that
Speaker 17: and they were looking up to the John Isners of
Speaker 17: the world, the Jack Socks of the world, both who
Speaker 17: are retiring here. John isn't played his last singles match
Speaker 17: here and he and Jack are playing doubles later today
Speaker 17: it's this Jack's last tournament where he'll be retiring. So
Speaker 17: I think it's generational. You know, Mike and Bob they
Speaker 17: retired last year, two years ago. Now Mike and Bob
Speaker 17: Ryan and so I think, you know, each generation inspires
Speaker 17: the next generation, and it's fun to watch these brotherhoods
Speaker 17: and sisterhoods form and develop.
Speaker 2: I still have this question about access. You know, tennis
Speaker 2: for a lot of people looked at as like a
Speaker 2: country club sport. Still it's very expensive to get courts
Speaker 2: and cities, especially during the winter if you live somewhere
Speaker 2: where it snows, I mean Tiapo for example. Let's look
Speaker 2: at his story. Would he be a pro tennis player
Speaker 2: if his dad didn't work at a tennis center. I
Speaker 2: don't know if the answer to that good.
Speaker 17: Because he grew up in an njtail program. So the
Speaker 17: program itself was accessible, The program itself was free. The
Speaker 17: program itself, you know, provided opportunity.
Speaker 9: I run a.
Speaker 17: Program like that here in harlanm the Harlem Junior Tennis,
Speaker 17: an education program which provides access and opportunity for inner
Speaker 17: city youth. There are over two hundred those types of
Speaker 17: chapters in jtail chapters around the country in addition to
Speaker 17: after school program so access is available. It's not about
Speaker 17: having access. It's not about learning the sport. It's about
Speaker 17: once you develop to be a player and you become competitive,
Speaker 17: that's where the cost comes.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's my concern. Every tennis court I see is
Speaker 2: being turned into a pickleball court.
Speaker 5: Not every tennis court. Let's not. Let's not put that
Speaker 5: out there now.
Speaker 2: This is this is driving me crazy. Thank you.
Speaker 15: I know.
Speaker 2: This is when you when you speak to a serious
Speaker 2: tennis player and you ask them about pickleball, that's the answer.
Speaker 5: So what's the challenge?
Speaker 17: So I think the challenge where you're looking at those
Speaker 17: courts are probably at clubs because clubs are about making money.
Speaker 17: So our club is looking at taking a court, one
Speaker 17: tennis court and turn into four pickleball courts where they
Speaker 17: can try. Now they've they've got sixteen players on a
Speaker 17: court versus four, right, So they're looking at the opportunity
Speaker 17: to be able to make more money. To you know,
Speaker 17: it's about monetization. But I also think, listen, I have
Speaker 17: nothing against pickleball. I think it's a great opportunity for
Speaker 17: people to get out and get exercise, to have fun,
Speaker 17: to be social. I think it's fantastic. There's a great
Speaker 17: buzz out there, but it's about longevity. Where where where
Speaker 17: will it go? I think it's growing, But I also
Speaker 17: I don't want to say it's a fad because you
Speaker 17: want it. You want all the racket sports to succeed.
Speaker 17: It's a racket sport. We are a racket sport in tennis.
Speaker 17: But what I do want is that it's done right
Speaker 17: in that people are staying healthy. It's also a sport
Speaker 17: where the highest injuries are coming because everybody thinks they
Speaker 17: can go out and play pickleball, and you know, they're
Speaker 17: running their knees and ankles and they're falling and this
Speaker 17: and that, and so I think there just has to
Speaker 17: be a little more structured to it. You know, tennis
Speaker 17: is a skilled sport and it's a mechanical sport. So
Speaker 17: is pickleball. But people aren't realizing that they're able to
Speaker 17: go out and learn and make you know, hand eye
Speaker 17: coordination quickly without really understanding the mechanics of it or
Speaker 17: the footwork of it, and that's where they're starting to
Speaker 17: get injured.
Speaker 12: What do you love that people talk about when it
Speaker 12: comes to tennis generally, what do you hate that they
Speaker 12: talk about?
Speaker 17: What I love is that it's an individual sport where
Speaker 17: you can just go out and build your own self
Speaker 17: esteem and your self confidence. Right you're figuring out Oh
Speaker 17: my gosh, yes.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 17: I love to compete. I'm a natural, boring competitor. So
Speaker 17: for me, it was about competing not just against you,
Speaker 17: but against myself and getting better, pushing myself to hit
Speaker 17: one extra ball, pushing myself to go one more rally,
Speaker 17: pushing myself to do one more drill, and pushing myself
Speaker 17: to get better. Every single day I went on the court,
Speaker 17: learning a new shot, learning a new spin, And I
Speaker 17: think that's the thrill that I had that hopefully everybody
Speaker 17: else is having. You know, even I speak to a
Speaker 17: lot of older women that may not be started until
Speaker 17: they're at forty, and they're going out and they're learning
Speaker 17: at forty fifty and they're becoming these three point zero
Speaker 17: level players and having so much fun, and just a
Speaker 17: thrill that excites me the fact that you could start
Speaker 17: so late and have so much fun. It's not going
Speaker 17: out there being you know, playing here at the US
Speaker 17: Open for everybody, but just to go out and have
Speaker 17: fun and build a camaraderie with people and still have
Speaker 17: a competitive drive and natural competitive drive in yourself. So
Speaker 17: there's nothing that I hate about the sport.
Speaker 12: Okay, So then what I want to ask you is,
Speaker 12: I'm thinking about Michelle Obama who at the beginning of
Speaker 12: the week was talking about just equality and pay. And
Speaker 12: here we are, and you know, Tim knows we talk
Speaker 12: about this all the time, that we continue to have
Speaker 12: these conversations and it's the same thing with women in
Speaker 12: you know, the CEO role. How do you feel about it?
Speaker 12: Why does it take so long for their baby parody
Speaker 12: with pay?
Speaker 17: I think it's it's life, right, it's parody. There's no
Speaker 17: parody in plant paid anything that we have. So fifty
Speaker 17: years of equal pay here at the US Open, I
Speaker 17: mean that that says a lot. Yeah, we finally have
Speaker 17: parody and in pay at all of the Grand Slam events.
Speaker 17: Fifty years here, we have it at all of the
Speaker 17: Grand Slams in Australian Roland girls and Wimbledon. Wimbledon was
Speaker 17: the last one two thousand and two, but or twelve.
Speaker 17: But when we look at the tours and we have
Speaker 17: our joint events, and the mind the eighth event is
Speaker 17: still getting paid more than the women at the same event, the.
Speaker 12: Same week, significant location.
Speaker 17: That's where it's challenging. It's getting better, but it's about sponsorship.
Speaker 17: You know, why are we not getting the same level
Speaker 17: of sponsorship for the WCA or for the women events
Speaker 17: that the men are And so, you know, thank God
Speaker 17: for villaging Kings fifty years ago. So go out and
Speaker 17: find a sponsor to throw in the pot to make
Speaker 17: the prize money equal here at the US Open. That's
Speaker 17: because of her and Bristol Myers, who added fifty five
Speaker 17: thousand dollars to the women's prize money to make it
Speaker 17: equal to the men. And then they never look back.
Speaker 17: They realized how much of a great thing it was,
Speaker 17: and we were fortunate enough to be able to do
Speaker 17: that going forward.
Speaker 2: What's wild to me is that it's fifty years of
Speaker 2: equal pay here at the US Open. But there are
Speaker 2: so many other sports today where there's not even close
Speaker 2: to parody.
Speaker 17: Oh no, I mean when you look at the women's
Speaker 17: soccer US.
Speaker 2: W women's national team.
Speaker 17: Women's women's national soccer team, it's it's it's crazy that
Speaker 17: that just happened, you know, And they fought for years
Speaker 17: when they were the better team with their better results
Speaker 17: at World Cup, better recomition, right exactly, and now you know,
Speaker 17: now we have a professional women's hockey team. It's we're
Speaker 17: constantly fighting. And you look at the Women's NBA, the
Speaker 17: w n b A not yet do they have parody,
Speaker 17: even though it's a shorter season, but just look at
Speaker 17: when you look at the amenities. They don't even have
Speaker 17: their own private jets yet. It's crazy to travel from
Speaker 17: from game to game.
Speaker 12: And it says something about whether people say, oh, we
Speaker 12: still think you're valuableth No, it says something about your
Speaker 12: value and your worth.
Speaker 2: It says a lot.
Speaker 17: And so we still have a long way to go,
Speaker 17: and it's something that we as professional athletes have been
Speaker 17: fighting for for a very long time, longer than fifty years,
Speaker 17: and hopefully we can get there.
Speaker 2: Hey, Katrina, one thing I wanted to ask you. You
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about earlier about what it took
Speaker 2: to be a professional tennis player all to practice you
Speaker 2: wanted having the desire to keep going. Tennis is a
Speaker 2: sport that drives individuals completely insane. I mean, you watch
Speaker 2: some of these players on the court and they're screaming
Speaker 2: at it, at themselves. And if you were watching with
Speaker 2: some one of those, so was I. If you're walking
Speaker 2: down the street and you were to see this person
Speaker 2: in the context of like the middle of the street,
Speaker 2: you would say that person actually needs help. So you
Speaker 2: see them on a tennis court and it's like totally normalized.
Speaker 5: And you're like, I get that. I get that.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, though, how you take that after you retire
Speaker 2: and you use that energy in your professional career, Like
Speaker 2: does that keep going, that mental toughness that you built up?
Speaker 2: It does?
Speaker 17: And I think you know we are. We build ourselves
Speaker 17: to be perfectionists in everything that we do, and so
Speaker 17: there is no room for failure quote unquote failure, but
Speaker 17: only for improvement. So whatever we're doing and whatever profession
Speaker 17: that is, we want to be the best. And I
Speaker 17: know for a fact there are people that hire former
Speaker 17: professional tennis players or athletes because they understand winning. They
Speaker 17: know that they want to win, but they understand what
Speaker 17: losing feels like. So they want to hire them because
Speaker 17: they know that they're going to give it their all
Speaker 17: because they don't like the feeling of losing. So they
Speaker 17: know that they're going to make sure that they're successful.
Speaker 17: And so I think that is those our qualities and
Speaker 17: the life skills that we have that make us great
Speaker 17: in business, no matter what the business is, and you
Speaker 17: learn how to work as a team. Even though tennis
Speaker 17: is an individual sport, I still have a team. I
Speaker 17: got to work with my coach, I gotta work with
Speaker 17: my physio, I got to work with whomever it is.
Speaker 17: I got to work with whoever my practice partner is
Speaker 17: on the other side of the net to make sure
Speaker 17: that our drills are going properly right.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's an.
Speaker 17: Individual sport when you're out there competing, but when you're training,
Speaker 17: it is teamwork. And so when you go into business,
Speaker 17: into the professional world outside of sport, or it could
Speaker 17: be business in sport, it's still working with a team
Speaker 17: and you're still driven to do and prepare. It's all
Speaker 17: about preparation. So for me to be the best on
Speaker 17: the court for my match, how well did I prepare?
Speaker 17: For me to do a presentation for you know, some
Speaker 17: some job or to get some deal, how well did
Speaker 17: I prepare? And I think that's what people are hiring
Speaker 17: or looking for in the qualities of individuals.
Speaker 12: You only have about thirty seconds left here, any predictions here?
Speaker 5: Yeah, an American.
Speaker 2: Let's go on the men's and women's side.
Speaker 17: Let's go American.
Speaker 2: All right, go you think so, let's go. So we're
Speaker 2: back to we are back to the nineties.
Speaker 5: There we go, There we go.
Speaker 2: Do you still play? I do very little, but I
Speaker 2: do double singles.
Speaker 5: I just hit.
Speaker 17: I all compete, just well, I compete on the golf course.
Speaker 12: Oh that's right.
Speaker 2: Oh are you screaming yourself on the golf course?
Speaker 5: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Okay, good, That's what I'd like to hear.
Speaker 12: You know what we really want to notice? Do you
Speaker 12: throw clubs? But you're definitely hit though here. Thank you
Speaker 12: so much, awesod likely to everything. Thank you, Katrina Adams,
Speaker 12: former president, chairman, CEO of the US Tennis Association, former
Speaker 12: pro so much more so inspiring and so much fun.
Speaker 12: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 12: Let's get to the guy who's behind it, the man
Speaker 12: behind it all is Chris Studley. He's senior director of
Speaker 12: Event Services at the ust A. Welcome. Nice to have
Speaker 12: you here again.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 12: Is it again we told you last year?
Speaker 4: Did we?
Speaker 2: I think briefly, Okay, briefly one year, one year. We've
Speaker 2: had you before.
Speaker 12: I was just gonna say so, I know we always
Speaker 12: talk about food because it's such a big part of it.
Speaker 2: Chris.
Speaker 12: First of all, I can't believe you didn't bring us
Speaker 12: any food.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry about that. I'll grab it after the segment.
Speaker 12: No, no, no, I'm just kidding. But like, talk to us
Speaker 12: about what goes into it, because you do, Tim is right,
Speaker 12: as you walk around, that is such a big part
Speaker 12: of the experience. I've eaten here, Tim is eating here.
Speaker 12: Tell us about how you think about it as what
Speaker 12: you want to offer up to the people who come.
Speaker 10: Well, I can tell you, first of all, I look
Speaker 10: at this tournament as a food and wine festival. And
Speaker 10: by the way, there's tennis. So much to what you
Speaker 10: were describing before. People are walking around eating and drinking.
Speaker 10: And what we want to bring in the names you
Speaker 10: mentioned is the best quality that there is in sports.
Speaker 10: We don't want you to come to a sporting event
Speaker 10: and say, oh I have to eat. We want you
Speaker 10: to come here and say what a great meal you
Speaker 10: had and I got to watch the tennis. So from
Speaker 10: our offerings that you described to our champion steakhouse run
Speaker 10: by Benjamin's right from Manhattan to Aces bringing the best chefs.
Speaker 10: We partnered with Tatiana chef Kwame and Aces to do
Speaker 10: some special dishes for us.
Speaker 5: So, I mean it's really about the food to me
Speaker 5: for sure.
Speaker 2: How do you make sure that the quality is what
Speaker 2: you get in you know, the year round establishment.
Speaker 5: So great question. We meet with these chefs throughout the year.
Speaker 10: I can tell you right now we've been talking to
Speaker 10: people even during this tournament saying I want in next year.
Speaker 10: I'm not going to give you any names today, but
Speaker 10: we will evaluate each and every one. We look at
Speaker 10: what sells, what do our fans want, what's the quality.
Speaker 10: We'll meet with these chefs throughout the year. I can
Speaker 10: tell you you know a number of chefs that we
Speaker 10: brought in, from James Kennet, Crown Shy to Melboy's of Harlem.
Speaker 5: We've been there in the off season.
Speaker 10: We sit with them, we talk to them, and you know,
Speaker 10: to some the menus might not lend themselves to a
Speaker 10: concession stand necessarily, but we'll work with the team to
Speaker 10: bring that item into that environment for our fan.
Speaker 12: How important is it from year to year, Chris, in
Speaker 12: terms of some consistency so that people come back and
Speaker 12: they're like, I know this is going to be here,
Speaker 12: and then also bring in some.
Speaker 10: New It's very important, right. Our fans always want to
Speaker 10: see us innovate. It's the name of the game and
Speaker 10: food especially Obviously, trends change over years and we want
Speaker 10: to be right there.
Speaker 5: But you need to have the staples right.
Speaker 10: Everybody talks about our lobster role as being one of
Speaker 10: the one of the iconic foods of the USO and
Speaker 10: it's also our hamburger.
Speaker 5: Believe it or not.
Speaker 10: They're all Patla free to even though his name might
Speaker 10: not be on that stand. It's all Paler free to
Speaker 10: meet Pat stand over here too. The stak sandwich has
Speaker 10: almost become just as famous as the lobster. Also, you know,
Speaker 10: we try to find what our fans love and really
Speaker 10: gravitate towards and work with it.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit.
Speaker 12: Go ahead, girl, I'm gonna just what about price point, Like,
Speaker 12: how do you think about that as part of the experience.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. You know, listen, we're in New York City.
Speaker 10: Obviously we're a temporary event, but we were very price
Speaker 10: sensitive in a regard. You know, we would put ourselves
Speaker 10: up against any other New York City venue and say
Speaker 10: that we are probably not the most expensive. We may
Speaker 10: not be the least expensive, but we're right in that
Speaker 10: in that sweet spot because we want to have value
Speaker 10: for our fans. I would tell you that our quality
Speaker 10: though surpasses our peers here. So we know that the
Speaker 10: prices sometimes can be healthy, but we know that we're
Speaker 10: giving you the best quality you can possibly have at
Speaker 10: a sporting event.
Speaker 2: So are you seeing what's the typical markup from an
Speaker 2: established restaurant that you'd experienced in Manhattan and the same
Speaker 2: dish that you'd get here.
Speaker 12: Is there a mark up?
Speaker 5: It's not.
Speaker 10: There's no direct correlation in that regard. You know, a
Speaker 10: concession stand, you're not going to really be able to
Speaker 10: compare directly to the items. I can tell you in
Speaker 10: some of our restaurants there's a slight markup just for
Speaker 10: you know, bringing the team out here and operating, but
Speaker 10: there's no set percentage.
Speaker 12: Say hey, one thing you had brought up. We were
Speaker 12: thinking on this job's day, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's pretty incredible. Hospitality one of the
Speaker 2: continued bright spots when it comes to the US labor market,
Speaker 2: and the biggest gains in August were in healthcare hospitality
Speaker 2: as well leasion hospitality. How is it getting employees right now?
Speaker 10: You know, our team did a fantastic job. I mean
Speaker 10: I oversee our front of house services as well, and
Speaker 10: this was probably the earliest we were ever fully committed
Speaker 10: for all of our seasonal staff that we bring in,
Speaker 10: which is it's wild to think about with the lowest
Speaker 10: unemployment rate, right, but people want to come work here.
Speaker 10: We have people that take vacation to come work here.
Speaker 10: You know, you could be a server in a restaurant
Speaker 10: and you're saying to your New York City restaurant, hey,
Speaker 10: I want to go out to the open work there.
Speaker 2: Do people who work for one establishment get paid the
Speaker 2: same hourly wage that work for an their establishment.
Speaker 5: Most of the time.
Speaker 10: I mean, there is some different levels depending on how
Speaker 10: many years you've been here, who you're with, what restaurant
Speaker 10: in particular, but you know it varies. You interview for
Speaker 10: the position just like you would at a restaurant in
Speaker 10: New York City.
Speaker 12: How difficult is it to settle this up? I love
Speaker 12: logistics because we come here and it just looks like
Speaker 12: it's been here forever and we know it goes away.
Speaker 5: I love getting asked those questions.
Speaker 10: I'd say the truth, the logistics behind it is mind blowing, to.
Speaker 5: Say the least. How early do you start the day
Speaker 5: after it ends? I mean we're here figuring it.
Speaker 12: Out, okay with that part, but building this and building
Speaker 12: everything that's in your world to make this happen. When
Speaker 12: does that start?
Speaker 10: The planning goes into place right away. The build up
Speaker 10: I mean by the springtime, you'll see a lot of
Speaker 10: movement here and things getting physically set up, aside from
Speaker 10: any new buildings we're going to build right you know.
Speaker 10: Obviously we went under this massive renovation that was all
Speaker 10: year for a number of years, and we stopped for
Speaker 10: the open and we went back into it. But in
Speaker 10: terms of the general repeat business that we're doing, we'll
Speaker 10: start in the spring.
Speaker 2: We're speaking right now with Chris Studley. He's senior director
Speaker 2: of Events Services here at the USTA. We're live at
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty three US open.
Speaker 12: But on that in terms of the food part of it,
Speaker 12: like what's involved logistically with building that out.
Speaker 10: So we'll have trucks showing up in early August. You know,
Speaker 10: with the volume of food and beverage we do here,
Speaker 10: we have trucks coming in every single day. But we'll
Speaker 10: build out a temporary warehouse facility essentially to house everything.
Speaker 10: I mean, you mentioned some of our drinks, the Honeyduce
Speaker 10: we sold for.
Speaker 12: The Honey Duce cup at home, Well, we had a
Speaker 12: lot of.
Speaker 2: People walking around like seven Honey Duce cups.
Speaker 10: Okay, So to think about the logistics behind that, four
Speaker 10: hundred thousand cups are sitting behind the scenes right now.
Speaker 10: You know, they're ready to go, and the team's moving
Speaker 10: them about getting them all over the site. So, I mean,
Speaker 10: the logistics behind it is massive.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of the Honey Duce, one of the reasons
Speaker 2: I asked about labor was because as I was leaving
Speaker 2: yesterday after doing our broadcast, the lines for some of
Speaker 2: these concession stands we're so low, Chris, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: help think to myself, there must be people who see
Speaker 2: these lines and say to themselves, I don't want to
Speaker 2: wait in this line and you know, therefore the USTA
Speaker 2: is not going to get my twenty two dollars for
Speaker 2: the honeyduce. How do you control for lines here?
Speaker 10: It's a great question, and I'm glad you mentioned the
Speaker 10: honey Duce on that one. So innovation, right, So this
Speaker 10: is the first year we're actually able to batch some
Speaker 10: of the Honeyduce.
Speaker 5: To try to speed those up.
Speaker 10: We rolled it out in somewhat of a pilot program
Speaker 10: this year at ten different locations around the site, and
Speaker 10: we're seeing that we're able to increase service. So our
Speaker 10: goal here is let's roll it out all over next year.
Speaker 10: What does that mean that so we are able to
Speaker 10: prepare part of the drink in a ready to mix container,
Speaker 10: and we can control the quality most importantly. You know,
Speaker 10: if you go to a bar and you get a
Speaker 10: drink made and you may not like that one. Here,
Speaker 10: we can actually do the quality testing behind the scenes,
Speaker 10: know the exact precise measurements, and then also deliver to
Speaker 10: you faster. So innovation is key and we're going to
Speaker 10: speed those lines up for sure.
Speaker 2: But so that's the question. Is it then forgive the
Speaker 2: terminology here, but is it a failure to you you
Speaker 2: walk around and see huge lines and people waiting.
Speaker 5: It's disappointing for sure.
Speaker 10: I mean, we want to be able to service every
Speaker 10: customer as quickly as possible, but we also want to
Speaker 10: deliver that excellent experience. So it's a fine balance for
Speaker 10: you know, for sure. But we're trying to make sure
Speaker 10: that we innovate.
Speaker 2: As much as this are. There areas are down here
Speaker 2: where you walk around this year and you say, okay,
Speaker 2: well we could do another of this type of concession
Speaker 2: right here and ease the demand a little bit.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, and you know, it's surprising because each year,
Speaker 10: I mean, we know there's some things that never fade. Right,
Speaker 10: The honey Juice is not fading. It is the most popular,
Speaker 10: is it, really? It is by far. But you know,
Speaker 10: sometimes they're surprising.
Speaker 12: That's honey juice lovers. No, it's actually a matt sorry
Speaker 12: for sure.
Speaker 5: For sure.
Speaker 10: Yeah, No, it's it's always interesting to see what's going
Speaker 10: to be the top seller.
Speaker 5: Of the year.
Speaker 12: Are you adding more drinks that are.
Speaker 10: Like, well, we have this year. We have the Aperol
Speaker 10: Sprits as well. Right, and Dobell has joined us with
Speaker 10: their Ace Piloma cocktail and they're both delicious. I encourage
Speaker 10: you to try them before you leave.
Speaker 12: What's interesting, too, is are there workers that you needed
Speaker 12: that you couldn't hire or you said you could get
Speaker 12: everybody wanted.
Speaker 10: I think we're pretty well staffed. I would say that
Speaker 10: we're really well staffed. And you know, we benefit from
Speaker 10: the folks that come back every year and they help
Speaker 10: us really make the operation home.
Speaker 2: Here, Carol, I got a number for you. What one
Speaker 2: point two million? Okay, that's one point two million mellon
Speaker 2: balls that the USTAS.
Speaker 5: I get a number for you.
Speaker 2: What ninety pounds of beef? Did you have a Hamberger today?
Speaker 12: I did have a Hamberg surprise.
Speaker 5: And I ain't done yet.
Speaker 12: We're going to come back with Chris Dudley, Senior Director
Speaker 12: of Event Services at USDA. He's got a big job here,
Speaker 12: he's getting it done. And we're still here with Chris Dudley,
Speaker 12: Senior director of Event Services at USTA. And I know
Speaker 12: the answer because we were talking about it before we
Speaker 12: got going again. But supply chains were you know, you
Speaker 12: go back a few years coming off the pandemic nightmare.
Speaker 12: Are you getting everything you want and at decent costs?
Speaker 2: Or you've got enough lobster, would I think so?
Speaker 5: Okay, I think so. I think we're in good shape
Speaker 5: this year. Vodka. No, Fortunately, it's one of those things.
Speaker 5: Let's get to the priority. For sure. Fortunately, it's one
Speaker 5: of those things that's kind of been in the past
Speaker 5: for us.
Speaker 12: Now thankfully not an issue, but it wasn't issue.
Speaker 5: It was an issue a while back. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 10: I mean I think everybody fought through the same thing,
Speaker 10: and I think we're on the other side of the
Speaker 10: supply chain in terms of our business right now.
Speaker 2: What were the challenges this year? If it wasn't employees,
Speaker 2: if it wasn't supply chains, what's the what's the big
Speaker 2: challenge this year?
Speaker 5: Weather? Who can control the weather?
Speaker 2: But look at us, I know kind of day right here,
Speaker 2: it's amazing.
Speaker 5: That's the biggest concern we have right now. I think
Speaker 5: we're doing okay.
Speaker 12: I do wonder though, you said while we were off air,
Speaker 12: you know, I'm here before everybody else and I leave
Speaker 12: after everybody. I mean, what's what are the calls that
Speaker 12: you get? Is it that way? You know, electricity isn't
Speaker 12: working or we ran out of burger or something. What
Speaker 12: is it? What's the stress points for you?
Speaker 10: Doing this, you know, to your point earlier lines and things.
Speaker 10: You know, you want to make sure everybody has a
Speaker 10: good experience. So we're trying to send people out. Like
Speaker 10: during the typical day, I might hear that we might
Speaker 10: have an issue with a line over here, a line
Speaker 10: over there in terms of food. If one of those
Speaker 10: facilities isues pops up. We have a great team here.
Speaker 5: One of my.
Speaker 10: Counterparts on the back house side helps me out tremendously.
Speaker 10: Give a quick call and we get everything right back on.
Speaker 10: So those are the little pain point.
Speaker 2: How do you how do you alleviate a line?
Speaker 10: Well, you can send more people over to help out, right,
Speaker 10: I mean if you get a honeydusee line, you try
Speaker 10: to get a couple more bartenders over there too.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've done everything we can.
Speaker 10: I mean, pos is always one thing that we look at,
Speaker 10: and we've upgraded our systems over the years to try
Speaker 10: to process those transactions.
Speaker 2: We met some folks from American Express earlier today. If
Speaker 2: you want to talk to them, they know a thing
Speaker 2: or two about our processing.
Speaker 5: They're fantastic action. They are a good partner.
Speaker 12: Well, I think about like a Disney right, you have
Speaker 12: apps and you can like kind of guide people. Do
Speaker 12: you think about that the role of technology is it's
Speaker 12: a big thing here. Do you say, listen, I know
Speaker 12: there's lines here, but.
Speaker 10: You know what, so I have a great point on that.
Speaker 10: I mean, we tried out mobile ordering. We did it
Speaker 10: so that you could order anything from the food village
Speaker 10: and then you could grab it and go to your table.
Speaker 10: And what happened was our customers said.
Speaker 5: We don't really want to do that seriously, And I'll
Speaker 5: tell you why.
Speaker 10: I mean, you know, when you come here, because you're
Speaker 10: coming here once a year, you want to walk around
Speaker 10: and check out everything. To your point, we were talking
Speaker 10: about what's new. They want to see what's new. They
Speaker 10: want to go look at that menu. They want to
Speaker 10: pick what item they want. They don't really want to
Speaker 10: do it on a small phone screen. They want to
Speaker 10: see the kitchen. They want to know what's going on.
Speaker 2: So, okay, one point two million mellon balls are are created.
Speaker 2: Are bald from melon's. I think that's the proper terminology
Speaker 2: here for sure. Each year, I guess. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to go ahead and say that it's Friday afternoon. I'm
Speaker 2: not making stuff up. I think that's how it goes
Speaker 2: a little bit. We talked to the folks at Chipole
Speaker 2: about quarterly and they've started to invest in technology that
Speaker 2: automates guacamole making so they can free up employees who
Speaker 2: spend time doing that laborious task of actually cutting up
Speaker 2: avocados and getting the guak out. Can you do that
Speaker 2: with with mes mellon ball?
Speaker 10: We actually get them pre bald. Okay, well we bring
Speaker 10: them in. We've done that. We started in the very beginning, right,
Speaker 10: interview's over. Got nothing, I'm telling you for you. We
Speaker 10: look for every way to make as comes to us
Speaker 10: from the supplier pre Ball. But we do have people
Speaker 10: that skewer each one till we get three. Because if
Speaker 10: you notice the drink, it's got three melon balls to
Speaker 10: indicate the same number, and a tennis ball cans.
Speaker 5: That's the tie there.
Speaker 2: I never knew why I was three.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 12: What was interesting too, is I think about more broadly
Speaker 12: the things that you guys are doing here from the
Speaker 12: USTA and using this incredible space. I mean, it is
Speaker 12: obviously about tennis and this is your big event, rightfully so,
Speaker 12: but you're doing other things.
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely, I mean tennis is number one. I got
Speaker 10: to say that off the top, I.
Speaker 12: Had to stop talking about mellon balls. I'm just I'm
Speaker 12: just gonna say, ooops, I threw my pen on that one.
Speaker 12: I was a little but anyway.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 10: Obviously tennis is number one for us, but we're always
Speaker 10: looking for new ways to use the facility. It's great
Speaker 10: we can bring staff in. They can work with us along,
Speaker 10: you know, throughout the year, which is critical for us.
Speaker 10: Like a concert venue, we would love to if you
Speaker 10: know somebody wants to play here, you let me know.
Speaker 2: But Taylor Taylor Swift as long as I can get
Speaker 2: it taken out.
Speaker 12: But do you I mean, are you talking with people
Speaker 12: who have you know, whether it's Barkley's or other like,
Speaker 12: they definitely relationships and they do of course.
Speaker 10: Of course, and we do have some people talking to
Speaker 10: other people. Yeah, to put it very vaguely, but no,
Speaker 10: we would love to host a show for sure.
Speaker 5: I can tell you.
Speaker 10: Ten days after the Open this year, we'll be converting
Speaker 10: the tennis court into a wrestling ring for AW Wrestling
Speaker 10: on September twentieth. So it's gonna be our third show here.
Speaker 10: They call it AW Grand Slam appropriately. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 10: drawn about eighteen thousand people you're over here.
Speaker 2: That's quite a few for sure. You said twenty four
Speaker 2: thousand is capacity.
Speaker 10: Twenty four thousand's capacity. We've got about eighteen thousand in
Speaker 10: the house for the show.
Speaker 2: Is it Do you typically do it with the roof
Speaker 2: open or does it depending weather?
Speaker 10: We actually keep the roof closed for all of our
Speaker 10: outside events. It makes things so much easier, less worry
Speaker 10: whether there's gonna be weather.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I'm thinking about the dogs that we're here. They
Speaker 12: spend a lot of time getting their hair done. Talk
Speaker 12: to us about the Westminster I've seen it. I'm a
Speaker 12: dog lover. I've been to the Westminster dog Show. There's
Speaker 12: a lot of you know, primping, but you guys have
Speaker 12: done it.
Speaker 10: We have, we have. We got one under our belts.
Speaker 10: We got them coming back again next May. We're super excited.
Speaker 10: They took over Arthur ash Stadium, all the player areas,
Speaker 10: you name it. We had three thousand dogs here over
Speaker 10: three days. It was wild.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's the one event that you haven't gotten to
Speaker 2: host here that you want to host? What's on that's
Speaker 2: aid your wish list?
Speaker 5: My wish list.
Speaker 10: I'll take a concert I'll take a concert, give us
Speaker 10: a name, I call me, let's talk about it.
Speaker 12: But you do think about the exclusivity. First of all,
Speaker 12: it is a great venue and it is a little
Speaker 12: bit smaller, which I like to go to smaller places, right,
Speaker 12: I mean, otherwise they get too big, so you could
Speaker 12: really do some really cool things.
Speaker 10: I agree, I agree, all right, So easy to get
Speaker 10: to yeah, which I think people forget.
Speaker 2: Just jump on the seven train or the l R R,
Speaker 2: which is where I did.
Speaker 12: Someone's coming here, they're coming for a night. What would
Speaker 12: you advise that they do. They're going to watch tennis.
Speaker 5: But okay, you got to explore.
Speaker 10: You know, part of hosting all these other events is
Speaker 10: getting people out here that may not have been here before.
Speaker 10: And I can't tell you how many people come to
Speaker 10: one of our events, whether it be Westminster or a
Speaker 10: w wrestling and when they walk through the gates, I
Speaker 10: didn't even realize this place was here because they may
Speaker 10: not be a tennis fan. So I invite everybody that's
Speaker 10: not a tennis fan to really explore. And if you
Speaker 10: are and you've never been here before, make sure you're
Speaker 10: walking around to check out all the secrets behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: And what we got.
Speaker 12: What would you go eat?
Speaker 10: I would probably grab some gelato from the card over
Speaker 10: here right now is also really goodnest and Van Luin
Speaker 10: ice cream. Can we have our own flavor? This year
Speaker 10: they created our own us open. It's a honeycomb fudge slam.
Speaker 5: Of course it is.
Speaker 2: So this sounds pretty good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that actually sounds really good.
Speaker 12: Thank you so much, my pleasure, good luck, good luck,
Speaker 12: and I hope you get a little bit of a
Speaker 12: break between your next events. Chris Dudley, of course, Senior
Speaker 12: director of Event Services at USTA.
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