Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly and I'm Carol Master. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Extra. It's our weekly podcast bringing you an in
Speaker 1: depth interview you will not hear anywhere else. And this
Speaker 1: week we caught up with Susan Lyne, President, founder of
Speaker 1: BBG Ventures. Her career, man, it has spanned publishing, multimedia,
Speaker 1: and of course now she's a venture capitalist. She's also
Speaker 1: though the former president of ABC Entertainment. Jason she saw
Speaker 1: time at a o L dot com directed the board
Speaker 1: of Guilt Group. Love catching up with her. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a wide range of conversation. To be sure, the
Speaker 1: things she's seen and the thing she's expecting to see
Speaker 1: are really really interesting. Check it out. Your career has
Speaker 1: spanned so many different industries and multimedia. I think about publishing,
Speaker 1: venture capitalism. I want to ask you, there's so much
Speaker 1: going on in these worlds. What is it that you
Speaker 1: find kind of interesting in terms of disruptive trends? Right now? Oh? Wow? UM,
Speaker 1: I know it's broad, but I just curs there are
Speaker 1: so many things and they, um, they fall into a
Speaker 1: couple of categories. So I still think that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of industries that are that have not been disrupted. Actually,
Speaker 1: health care is probably the biggest opportunity that exists right now.
Speaker 1: There are still so many consumer unfriendly parts of of
Speaker 1: the health care journey UM, and everybody, every single group
Speaker 1: at the table, believes that we need to have new solutions,
Speaker 1: whether it's insurers or it's it's health care providers or
Speaker 1: its consumers UM. So that's always a good moment to
Speaker 1: be be investing. And we're actually seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: I think more interesting models for delivery of either mental
Speaker 1: health care or or physical health care UM that will
Speaker 1: need to scale to prove themselves out, but could be
Speaker 1: very viable over time. Well, and I looked at your
Speaker 1: investment more family. I mean, since then, you guys are
Speaker 1: in a lot of different areas. Are in retail, UM,
Speaker 1: You're in you know, property, You're in so many different
Speaker 1: areas in terms of healthcare. What are some of the
Speaker 1: new models that you're seeing. What are some of the
Speaker 1: interesting opportunities that you find that you want to commit money. Well,
Speaker 1: we've made a couple of investments. We're in a company
Speaker 1: called spring Health that takes over healthcare coverage for employees
Speaker 1: so they sell to companies, They say, let us do
Speaker 1: this for you. We will be able to get your
Speaker 1: employees to the right kind of care faster than you
Speaker 1: could possibly do it. And they do that using algorithms.
Speaker 1: They have a great database UM, and they can both
Speaker 1: save companies money and at the same time they can
Speaker 1: get employees the care they need so much faster that Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a real bonus for a company culture. How difficult
Speaker 1: do you think that it is to kind of untangle
Speaker 1: the existing healthcare infrastructure. I think this is such a
Speaker 1: tough one, and I think it's why you're not seeing
Speaker 1: it one of the earlier cases of disruption. So how
Speaker 1: how much you know the traditional healthcare companies that we
Speaker 1: have today will be ultimately five years, ten years, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be the major players because there's companies
Speaker 1: like the ones that you're investing in UM under the
Speaker 1: I think it completely depends on which part of this
Speaker 1: you're talking about. So I think the insurers are probably
Speaker 1: not going to change in the short term, but I
Speaker 1: think they are looking for more cost effective and more
Speaker 1: successful solutions to a lot of different issues for consumers UM.
Speaker 1: So they're actually aligned with with all of us right,
Speaker 1: if you can find the right product for them, if
Speaker 1: you can find something that you can show them you're
Speaker 1: spending X. Now we can do this for why and
Speaker 1: you're going to save money. So I think there are
Speaker 1: there are definitely alliances to be made. UM. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest issues has been how slow it is
Speaker 1: to get change at UM at large health care institutions,
Speaker 1: whether their hospitals or their UM but there are far
Speaker 1: fewer providers and so and by that I mean insurance providers,
Speaker 1: UH that it's probably easier if you can find an
Speaker 1: alliance with them. Now. There are also a lot of
Speaker 1: companies that are starting clinics and new models for delivery
Speaker 1: of either women's health care or UM or prenatal and
Speaker 1: postpartum care. They're taking some piece of this and they're
Speaker 1: saying we can do this better UM and so I
Speaker 1: think it will take time for those to scale up.
Speaker 1: But as startups, a lot of them are doing very
Speaker 1: well right and when it starts to show UM an
Speaker 1: impact on bottom lines or something, it's very easy for
Speaker 1: them to ramp up. I have to ask you about
Speaker 1: the media world because I feel like there's so much
Speaker 1: going on. You're the former president of ABC Entertainment Streaming
Speaker 1: Wars already laying it out in Business Week magazine. This
Speaker 1: is going to be one of the big themes to watch.
Speaker 1: Um who who will you be watching? There's Disney, plus,
Speaker 1: there's Apple plus, Comcasts got Peacock, HBO has got a
Speaker 1: new entry. Yeah. Who do you think it's interesting? Well?
Speaker 1: I think Disney is really interesting. Now I'm I'm probably
Speaker 1: biased because I was a little bit company for a decade,
Speaker 1: but I do think they have unique assets and that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I has done that I think
Speaker 1: it's been incredibly smart. Um. If you look at the
Speaker 1: movie business that Disney has because of the companies that
Speaker 1: have acquired, because of Pixar, because of Marvel, um, because
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars franchise. Uh, they have you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say more than half of the billion dollar
Speaker 1: films that have come out in the last five years. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to see it exactly and again for exactly
Speaker 1: Um and who who know the franchise right, so so
Speaker 1: they don't have to hear a long description of it
Speaker 1: before they know, Hey, I want to I want to
Speaker 1: watch this. Um. And now with Fox they have an
Speaker 1: even bigger library. So I think they're going to be
Speaker 1: hard to beat among the new entrants, and they're coming
Speaker 1: out pretty inexpectedly. I think it's six, So it's easy
Speaker 1: to kind of tack that on absolutely. Um, it's cable
Speaker 1: dead or getting slowly towards that. I mean, there's still
Speaker 1: like eighty million US cable subscribers. But what what happens?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's going to take time. But
Speaker 1: I look at my children and they are not cable customers.
Speaker 1: So this is largely a generational shift. I think that, uh,
Speaker 1: that people who have grown up with digital assets and
Speaker 1: to understand how to use Apple TV and how to
Speaker 1: use Roku and can put together their own you know
Speaker 1: what would have been a cable assortment, right right, they
Speaker 1: can do that themselves for a lot less money. Do
Speaker 1: their own bundling exactly, although some say that you could
Speaker 1: ultimately see a bundling of streaming services down the road.
Speaker 1: Do you think that. I think that's very possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not? Right? So what about building a brand in
Speaker 1: this environment? You did it with Lifetime. You did so well.
Speaker 1: It was a very clear message, ramped up so successful.
Speaker 1: Can we do that again today on television? In the
Speaker 1: in the broadcast or or or cable world, I think
Speaker 1: you can. I think that tougher the Yes, it's definitely tougher,
Speaker 1: But it all comes down to programming. To be honest,
Speaker 1: if you look at how every single one of the
Speaker 1: cable networks became successful, it's because they had a single
Speaker 1: show that defined what they were about, right um. For
Speaker 1: for HBO, it was the Sopranos for um uh, for FX,
Speaker 1: it was Madman um for UH for Showtime. You can
Speaker 1: go through all of them. You knew what you were getting,
Speaker 1: you did. And then once they realized they had an
Speaker 1: audience for that right, they could begin to develop shows
Speaker 1: that had a similar feel or were for similar group
Speaker 1: of people. And the great thing about cable always was
Speaker 1: that it was not about the number of people watching.
Speaker 1: It was about the passion of the people who were watching.
Speaker 1: So if they really, really really loved to show, right,
Speaker 1: that meant more than having an extra million people viewing it.
Speaker 1: Has It made it that much harder for a cable
Speaker 1: carrier to kick them off, right because they have a
Speaker 1: revolution right right. And I also do think like in
Speaker 1: today's social media world, where there's so much data collection,
Speaker 1: you had a very clear identity. So if you're trying
Speaker 1: to market it two advertisers, right, you knew exactly what
Speaker 1: you're getting. So I think you're going to see that
Speaker 1: the new streaming services to where initially a single show
Speaker 1: or a single series is going to define what this
Speaker 1: one is all about, and that's going to be what
Speaker 1: people kind of choose their sides with. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if you got to watch any of Mark Zuckerberg today
Speaker 1: upon Capitol Hill, if he talked a lot about Libra
Speaker 1: it was the House Financial Services Committee? What do you
Speaker 1: think will happen to social media going forward? And these
Speaker 1: big players? Are you see it? Should they be broken up?
Speaker 1: In your view? I I feel like I am not
Speaker 1: really the person to answer that question, but I do
Speaker 1: believe that there is too much power in too few
Speaker 1: platforms at this moment, and uh, that's always dangerous. So
Speaker 1: whether they get regulated, whether they get broken up, that's
Speaker 1: for other people to decide. But I don't think you
Speaker 1: can leave things the way they are where where a
Speaker 1: single platform like Facebook has the power that it does.
Speaker 1: BBG Ventures are you finding all the opportunities you want?
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about, we talked before we got
Speaker 1: started that there's so much capital out there, whether it's
Speaker 1: private equity, family offices, venture capital. Are you finding enough
Speaker 1: opportunities because I feel like there's a lot of money there.
Speaker 1: We absolutely are. We've seen five thousand companies with a
Speaker 1: female founder since we launched BBG Ventures five years and
Speaker 1: this is what you do. If you're making investment, there
Speaker 1: has to be at least one female founder. That's exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we do that not to be a do good organization,
Speaker 1: but because we think there's a real competitive advantage to
Speaker 1: having a founder who intuitively understands that end user. Women
Speaker 1: are the dominant consumer. We're responsible for of all consumer purchases.
Speaker 1: So in all likelihood, if you are building a consumer
Speaker 1: product or you're building a consumer service, women are going
Speaker 1: to be the early adopters. They're going to be the
Speaker 1: people who determine whether or not you scale. And uh
Speaker 1: so we saw both an opportunity because the rest of
Speaker 1: the venture capital world was focused on something else. Um,
Speaker 1: we saw a big opportunity to invest in the best
Speaker 1: of these female founders. I'd love to hear you say that.
Speaker 1: I know you've also been on corporate boards, are on
Speaker 1: corporate boards. I think it's getting a little bit better
Speaker 1: in terms of female representation, Um, what do we need
Speaker 1: to do to get it much much better? Where it's
Speaker 1: le parody and there is and when I think about it,
Speaker 1: it should be diverse and all. Absolutely so no question
Speaker 1: does it take to get there? So we've been having
Speaker 1: this conversation for a long time. Absolutely in my world now,
Speaker 1: the venture capital world, I think that it takes probably
Speaker 1: five to ten female founded companies going public um and
Speaker 1: maybe five to ten exiting as unicorns right for there
Speaker 1: to be a major shift. We're already seeing a number
Speaker 1: of storied old um boys club vcs bring on their
Speaker 1: first female partner and it's all because of FOMO, right,
Speaker 1: It's because they fear they're going to miss the next
Speaker 1: wave of big successful companies. Um. So you have to
Speaker 1: have somebody on your team, on your your investing team,
Speaker 1: who who has those networks, who knows those women, and
Speaker 1: who can make sure that your firm gets a chance
Speaker 1: to at least compete to invest. That's what's going to
Speaker 1: change it. One last question in terms of investing. You
Speaker 1: make investments, and I'm curious is the endgame still taking
Speaker 1: companies public? Because we've seen what an interesting year with
Speaker 1: we working disappointments our I p O s. What is
Speaker 1: the ultimate endgame or does that not have to be
Speaker 1: it anymore? Will it not be? So? I think that
Speaker 1: UM more companies end up getting sold than go public,
Speaker 1: and that's always been the case. UM. I do think
Speaker 1: there are a number of female founded companies out there
Speaker 1: that will go public during the next let's call it
Speaker 1: two years, three years, UM that are are on that trajectory,
Speaker 1: that are preparing themselves for it, and that are trying
Speaker 1: not to make the same mistakes. So the real issue
Speaker 1: for the companies that have gone public and have either
Speaker 1: failed or there yes exactly UM is that they were
Speaker 1: focused on on growth over everything else and they went
Speaker 1: public still losing billions of dollars in some cases billions
Speaker 1: of dollars a quarter, and the public market has just
Speaker 1: said we don't like this. So there there was clearly
Speaker 1: a big disconnect between what the private markets value right
Speaker 1: now and what public markets are looking for. UM. I
Speaker 1: think the the female founders I've seen out there UM
Speaker 1: they're watching this very closely, and so are every VC
Speaker 1: UM UH. And I do think that there are lessons
Speaker 1: that have been learned that you have to take seriously
Speaker 1: more than just you know, x percent year over year growth.
Speaker 1: You really have to be able to show that there's
Speaker 1: a business model here that can be successful even if
Speaker 1: you're not profitable right now, that there's a path to
Speaker 1: profitability that is very very clear, which I feel like
Speaker 1: is you know NBA one one um Susan Lyne, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. It was fun and you've been listening
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Speaker 1: Street Time. I'm Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Messer and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. Thanks for listening. This is Bloomberg