WEBVTT - Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - October 8th, 2022 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.920 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:13.680 Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.360 Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.600 past week saw the biggest two day rally in U 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.840 s Dock since as investors continued a debate over a 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.479 more or less hawkish fed and then while Elon and 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.120 Twitter were the big tech topic of the week, it 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.640 is really Elon's other business of self driving cars that 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:34.680 makes the cover this week. We'll get to that in 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.320 just a moment. Speaking of innovation and change, we're going 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.000 to explore the new world order many are facing when 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.800 it comes to alternative energy, e commerce, and e learning. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.279 We're gonna speak with the CEO of Pearson, as well 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.320 as the founder of All of It's an e commerce 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.040 business with a mission to reduce waste, getting rid of 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.199 those cardboard boxes. Yeah, exactly. Let's stick around for a 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.040 second hour. That's when we're going to talk about the 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.320 power of quitting. We'll do that with former pro poker 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.680 player Annie Duke. All of that to come, but first 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:01.600 we'll be in with this week's cover story. In the 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.840 magazine's features section, it's all about the driverless debate are 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.800 humans better drivers than machines? For more, we turned to 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.840 Bloomberg business Week columnist Max Chaffkin, along with the editor 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.840 of Business Week Joel Weber. If you go back maybe 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.399 a decade ago to ted in these conferences, you had 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.319 everyone basically going around, in particular Google, uh, kind of 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.520 leading the charge, but also lots of automakers, lots of technologists. 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.160 Basically everybody's saying, hey, you know, my kids ten and 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.640 you know they're never gonna need a driver's license. And 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.120 that really became baked almost like conventional wisdom, uh, not 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:40.000 just among technologists, but among policymakers, consultants everywhere. And you 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:44.000 saw basically about five years ago this amazing explosion of 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.919 investment um, not just Google and Cruise, but smaller companies, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.240 basically everyone throwing billions into this field, and a lot 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.200 of those a lot of that money's gone nowhere. We've 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.040 seen a lot of stocks either crash in the case 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.480 of Aurora, which is one of these kind of bubbly 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.560 self driving companies, or you know, in the case of 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.760 coming like Zooks, which was super hyped, and then it 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:06.960 kind of got swallowed up by Amazon. So so it's 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.200 just been a lot of kind of um, you know, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.040 difficulty in the industry. Okay, So one of the sources 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.240 in the story who has become something of a detractor, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.639 uh is the name that we haven't really heard from 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.440 for a while, and that's Anthony Lewandowski. Who is Anthony Lewandowski? 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:24.519 And what did he have to tell you? So he is, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.040 you know, one of the most interesting people in self 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.720 driving cars. He was for a really long time, I mean, 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:31.400 you know, leading the charge, the charge that I was 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:33.840 just talking about talking about how great driverless cars are 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.840 going to be. He is really the person who created 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.560 the in to the extent that one person created the 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.040 Google self driving car or even the industry, it was him. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.880 And he went through this weird, very controversial journey. He 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.680 went to uber um and then got caught up in 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.640 this um massive, you know, multi billion dollar litigation over 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.360 alleged trade secrets theft, wound up with criminal charges, he 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.959 pled guilty, and then he is pardoned on the last 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.560 day of the Trump presidency. And he's kind of come 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:08.239 out the other end, obviously with tons of baggage. Very controversial, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.320 but sort of saying some things out loud that I 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.639 think people in the industry were saying quietly for a 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.440 very long time, and that is this is not going 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.280 as well as we wanted it to go. What's incredible 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.160 about this guy is he's the one who sort of 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.720 created the first version of autonomous vehicle, right. He described 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.000 this situation years ago where he took a Toyota Prius 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.320 and got it to move across was it the Bay Bridge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:32.640 and it was for It's funny, it was for a 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.560 reality show. So I mean in this kind of driverless 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.160 car world, he was sort of the scrappy entrepreneur, the 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.720 one who was kind of trying to push it to commercialize. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.360 He took, as he said, he created a sort of 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.120 hack together a Prius, drove it across the Brave Bay Bridge, 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:48.839 and then that basically got swallowed up into Google became 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.560 the Google Driver. But now he's doing something that is 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.360 you could argue, is is sort of I don't know, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.080 less complicated than that when it comes to the application 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.800 of evs, essentially using them on an industrial and that's 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.000 what one and this actually I think the part of 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.840 the article that's kind of interesting is like maybe self 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.160 driving cars do have a practical purpose, but again, it 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.280 doesn't look like what we've been told about, you know, 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.880 having a robo taxi pull up outside of your home 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.520 or driving into the office, or you doing all that 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.280 and then sending your vehicle off somewhere like run around 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.400 and make money for you all day. It actually looks 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.919 like we maybe a mining application mix. Yeah. Yeah, So 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.839 Lewandowski's company is doing what they call autonomous haulage, basically 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.520 driverless dump trucks. It sounds maybe harder than driverless cars, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.280 but but you gotta remember these are closed sites. Uh, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.400 these trucks are basically just going back and forth, back 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.960 and forth. I mean, they very much are like it's 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.200 more like conventional robotics. And I think the one thing 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.280 that kind of opened my eyes is readiness. Thing is 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.880 there's been a lot of hype on driverless cars and 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.000 and the sort of robo taxi narrative that we all 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.400 thought was gonna be worth trillions of dollars caused Kathy 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.159 would to you know, value Tesla. You know, I don't 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.000 know in the in the many trillions of dollars um 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.320 that I think. There's a lot of questions, but there 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.360 have been A. There's been huge advances on kind of 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.000 more day to day autonomy. So we're talking about Advanced 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.839 driver Assistance a DOS, which is now like in every 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.400 new car. It's you know, dramatically changed the driving experience. 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.799 It's a big part of Elon musk strategy with Tesla. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.400 And then we have these autonomous industrial applications what Anthony 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:19.800 Levandowski is doing with mining, but of course it's also 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.880 happening in agriculture. It's happening in lots of industries that 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:24.880 really no one's paying attention to. Can we talk about 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.440 the Derek Zulanda problem. My favorite point I've been talking 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.280 about the news room, so so self driving cars and 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.200 lots of problem. I mean, one of the challenges for 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.760 self driving cars is there all these parts of driving 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.400 that they struggle with, one of which is what the 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.640 industry calls unprotected left turn. This is a left turn 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.600 that's not um, you know, not one lane to one 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.520 lane or not with a left turn signal. And it's 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.480 kind of funny because be an anti turner any yeah, yeah, 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.480 like any normal driver just calls out a left and 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.159 it's just like Derek Zuland or kind of rebranding not 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.400 being able to turn left is like, I'm you know, 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.840 I'm not an ambi turner. Um, but I think that's 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:00.359 one of those jokes you have to be a certain 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.880 age to uh. I think three of the four of 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:08.040 us it's important, right, Like, no, no, absolutely. And it's 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.200 one of these things where you know, if you listen 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.200 to the industry, they're saying, hey, they're these edge cases, 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:15.800 these things nobody thinks about. And one of these things 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.000 that they are talking about is an edge case is 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.680 basically left turns so so like really like, there's just 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.680 a lot of problems that the industry has and they're 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.039 just so far away from from mastery that that I 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.120 think this this discussion we've had where people have been saying, oh, 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.200 they're the way there, they just need to get that 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.400 one more percent, it's it's I think it's very hard 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:39.320 to say with any kind of certainty that that's the 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.160 that's the ratio, that's the number. That was Bloomberg business 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.280 Week call him this, Max Chafkin, along with the editor 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.120 of the magazine Joel Weber, coming up how renewables could 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.400 move us closer to a clean energy future. That's next. 0:06:50.400 --> 0:07:00.520 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.880 is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:09.359 Tim Spinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Well, there was a story 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.320 on the Bloomberg this past week. It was about how 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.080 climate change made Hurricane Ian's most extreme rainfall about ten 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.320 worse than it would have been without two centuries of 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.200 greenhouse gas pollution. This is according to a first take 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.240 analysis of the storm by two US climate researchers. And 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.200 while climate change might not be on the mind of 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.200 the average energy consumer, we spoke with someone who thinks 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.000 about this stuff quite a bit. Jason Few is the 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.120 CEO of fuel Cell Energy. It's publicly traded at one 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.320 point for billion dollar market cap company. It produces units 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.280 that make electricity from hydrogen. He gave us an update 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.520 on the business as well as the concerns he sees 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.480 as we move towards a renewable future. We do two 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.920 things as a company. We decarbonized power and we produce hydrogen. 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.560 When you think about some of those concerns or areas 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.120 that you raised, you know we've had commercial available products 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.360 since two thousand and three, and in fact, our first 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.480 commercial fuel cell was sold actually in Japan to the 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.400 Cairn and Beer Company using biofuels. So, you know, it 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.560 just shows the fuel flexibility of the platform when it 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.640 comes to hydrogen and some of the concerns that you know, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:20.160 get raised around hydrogen. You know, hydrogen is used widely, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.240 you know, around the world. You know, ninety million metric 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.920 tons of year of hydrogen are used. There's some forecast 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.640 that suggests that you know, of the world's energy will 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.559 ultimately come from hydrogen, if not greater than that. We 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.840 tend to think that hydrogen is going to be an 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.480 important part of the solution, the same way we think 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.960 carbon capture will be an important part of the solution 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.840 to achieving the one and a half degree scenario in 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.000 terms of climate change itself. And and from a safety standpoint, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.320 like I said, you know, hydrogen widely used today. It's 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.199 very safe and unlike a battery, which contains everything that 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.439 you need inside the battery to actually start a fire, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.560 that's not the case with hydrogen. So it's actually quite today. 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.280 So why isn't adopted more widespread? Why will it maybe 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:13.240 only energy um production in the years to come. Why 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.800 not more Well, I think part of it is, uh 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.240 there's a cost question right in terms of this this 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.360 desire to have green hydrogen. One of the things that 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.199 I'm really excited about is the move not only in 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.640 the United States, but I'm I'm seeing in countries around 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.719 the world and the conversations we're having and in the 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:36.040 conversation I actually just got to participate in in Pittsburgh 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.120 with Secretary Grant Home and energy ministers from around the 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.720 world at a CEO Hydrogen roundtable, the conversation has shifted 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:49.040 from using colors to really talk about carbon intensity, and 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.640 I think that's one big change that's going to help 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.640 drive accelerated adoption. Another change or thing that's happening that's 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.920 going to help drive adoption is the work that you're 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.800 scene that's going to get done as a result of 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.840 the i ra A in the United States. You have 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.800 similar legislation in markets like Korea and Japan and across 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.480 the EU. And we've seen this movie play out before. 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.360 We saw how incentives, whether it's I t C, production 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.240 tax credits, those kind of things really helped drive the 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.080 cost curve down. We're gonna see that same thing happen 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.480 with fuel cells and with hydrogen as an effective way 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.400 to get us to the cost that everyone's targeting, you know, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.839 which is you know, as low as a dollar a 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.120 kilogram for hydrogen, and that's going to make it highly competitive. 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.240 And I think as you look around the world today 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.040 and you're seeing increased energy prices, those sparks spreads are narrowing, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.680 uh and and so I think you're gonna see adoption 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:52.280 start to accelerate with hydrogen as one of the answers 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.360 to solving this climate crisis we have today. From an 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.680 infrastructure perspective, when it comes to generating power, explain to 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.920 us how you take a hility and allow it to 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.359 create power using hydrogen using fuel cells versus using fossil fuels. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.760 So when you think about an input fuel and you 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:14.080 think about hydrogen, hydrogen just becomes the input fuel that 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.720 we would be using with our solid oxide platform for instance, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.839 in which we would take that hydrogen and we use 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.640 that hydrogen as the feedstock to create electricity. That hydrogen 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.560 interacts with the fuel cell, right, and and the chemistry 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.120 that we use in this case of solid oxide technology 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.600 to produce that power. And if that hydrogen was produced 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.800 by you know, a zero carbon source of electricity, let's 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.439 say you're using electrolysis, so you're taking electricity and water 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.720 and you're converting into hydrogen. Then you're using that hydrogen 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:56.040 to produce power. That hydrogen has zero carbon intensity, then 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.760 the power being produced from our platform is zero carbon. 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.800 But we also have the ability to use blended hydrogen 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.840 and natural gas, for example, which even lowers you know, 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.000 the carbon intensity of the fuel in that case. But 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:15.120 in all cases, whether it's hydrogen, renewmal natural gas, or 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.440 bio fuels, that serves as the input fuel that the 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.319 fuel cell needs to then convert that to power, whether 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.800 it's for the grid or for a commercial industrial customer, 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.760 UH and delivering that power as a as a product. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.360 I'm curious, Jason about the business and the business outlook 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.000 and the growth. And I know earlier this month you 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.960 came out with your latest update quarterly update. I think 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:40.960 there was a wider than expected loss for the quarter, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.560 strongest quarterly revenue in five years. UM and you guys 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.720 talked about an increase in marketing and consulting costs because 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.160 you had raised headcount for rebranding, accelerated and accelerating your 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.280 sales and commercialization efforts. Give us some more color if 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.320 you will in terms of the business who's buying you 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.439 guys have custom are certainly in the energy space and 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.600 the corporate space, but give us an idea of where 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.600 the growth is coming from from your business. So are 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:11.280 the customers that we target largely cut across the utility 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.160 sector where we're providing grid based power, and we might 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.280 be providing that power purely is just a power resource 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.000 on the grid, or we might be providing that power 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.360 and using the thermal energy where we might be connected 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.920 to a district heating system and we're providing that thermal 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.840 energy in addition to the power. Or we might be 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.840 in an in a microgrid configuration where we're providing power 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.440 to the grid and in the power outage, we go 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.320 into what we refer to as island mode and we 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.640 provide power to a dedicated set of resources, keeping those 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:49.720 critical resources powered while the grid is down. We also 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.240 serve commercial and industrial customers, and in many of those cases, 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.280 we're providing power to those customers, and again we might 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.920 be providing the thermal energy such that the using steam 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.880 from our platform in their manufacturing process. And we also 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.520 have the ability to do things like provide carbon to 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.359 those customers. So when you think about carbonated beverage companies, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.000 are you think about food processing where carbon is really 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:20.920 important to not only processing proteins, but then extending shelf 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:25.840 like by keeping those proteins shield. Those are always in 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.640 which we leverage our platform to deliver value to our 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.280 customers in addition to hydrogen, and we're building projects for Toyota. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.120 Today we will deliver hydrogen to Toyota power and water 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:39.360 all from the same platform at the Port of Wana 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.320 Beach in California. That was fuel Cell CEO Jason Few 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.200 Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week. Another company looking to 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.320 help combat climate change by partnering with retailers to keep 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.120 excess packaging out of landfills. That's coming up next. This 0:14:52.360 --> 0:15:00.880 is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.440 Bloomberg Love Rio in New York to Washington, d C. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:09.359 Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.880 Bloomberg nine six to the country Sirius XM Channer one 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.680 nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business and Bloomberg 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.840 Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:26.760 Messer and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stenovin on Bloomberg Radio. Well, 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.080 in vision a world where every time a consumer buys 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.240 an item, they put another item back into the economy, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.600 not a landfill, and the transaction produces little to no waste, 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.240 seem impossible. While we spoke with the founder of a 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.200 company that is doing just that. We're talking about Nate Faust. 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.000 He's the founder of Olive. It's an e commerce business 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.840 with a mission to reduce waste from online shopping. He 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.000 might be a familiar name to you if you follow 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.240 the industry well for the last decade. He who was 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.360 the co founder of jet. It was sold to Walmart 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.600 back in sixteen for a cool three point three billion dollars. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:00.720 It was the largest U. S. E commer acquisition at 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.360 the time. Before that, he actually founded Quidsy dot com. 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.680 That was diapers dot com. He did that also along 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.280 with Mark Laurie. So already a few success He knows 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.120 the thing are too this is maybe this is like 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.920 retirement project exactly. Well, anyway, he explained the story behind 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.400 the company and how he expects the e commerce delivery 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.640 experience to evolve. That's really what started this whole journey 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.000 was just the frustration of of dealing with breaking down 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.880 boxes and all the trips up and down my driveway 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.040 and the epiphany that this this isn't how it has 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:37.480 to be. It's you know, incredibly inconvenient both for customers 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:42.680 and for the environment. And so what we've built at 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:47.360 olive to address that is really a closed loop system 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.400 where we partner with brands and retailers to deliver their 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:56.000 customer orders in reuse packaging that we pick up from 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:01.120 their doorsteps, along with any returns. And to really further 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.960 that circularity model, not only do we eliminate all that 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.000 packaging waste, but when we pick that up, consumers also 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.600 have the opportunity to drop in us clothes that we 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.040 then sell on their behalf, so that we keep them 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.600 out of landfills and increase the circularity of goods and 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.359 multiple uses along with the circularity of packaging. You know, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.560 I think it's been more than a year year or 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.320 so since we last checked in with you, So tell 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.439 us about what's the update in terms of your business, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.119 the volume that pick up, the usage and love some 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.920 insight on that. Since last time we spoke, we did 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.480 make a pretty significant shift in our business from a 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.320 business to consumer model through a business to business model. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.720 You know, previously we had an offering where you could 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.600 basically order from a bunch of places that stuff would 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.280 come to us, we'd combine it for you into a 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:57.119 single weekly packaging and reusable packaging. But we actually had 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.440 a lot of our early brand partners saying, oh my gosh, 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.440 our customers love this. Could you just provide this experience 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.800 directly for us? And so we pivoted to a A 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.920 B two B model where now we work directly with 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:16.399 brands and Olive waste free delivery is a ship method 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.160 that shows up at checkout and you know, we're still 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.600 early on, but you know, we're doing several thousand deliveries 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.639 and pickups a week just in the New York metro area, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.359 and you know, smattering of of other pickups across the 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.640 rest of the country, but with a big focus on 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.840 the New York market at the moment. How do you 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.600 scale this? How do you get it beyond fashion and 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.119 and get it beyond clothing. It really just comes down 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:50.639 to volume, and the greater scale of the supply chain, 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:56.680 the greater the ability to move through products that might 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:02.280 have you know, slightly lower rees values, but It really 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:08.440 just comes down to synchronizing that delivery and pick up 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:13.200 such that there's no incremental cost getting those used goods 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.960 out of people's homes and up for sale in secondhand markets. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:24.320 So have you had a conversation with Amazon um there, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:29.480 that's obviously the biggest e commerce player there is. I 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.639 love to one day be able to address all um 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.720 you know, e commerce categories, but right now we're more 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.000 focused on mid sized apparel. I was being a little silly, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.399 but I do think about, you know, and as consumers, 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.520 I increasingly am thinking about, you know, I don't need 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.840 to get everything tomorrow. I don't need to get everything 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.040 in five million boxes. And I do wonder, as you 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.400 guys move along, how are you measuring that you are 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.800 indeed lowering carbon emissions by what you are doing. We're 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.359 actually in this new model putting there the data so 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.560 that we can perform a study similar to the one 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.960 that we had started in the prior B two S model, 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.440 where that was more about the consolidation and the reduction 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.640 of the sort of last mile stops. And in that 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.199 first version, we weren't actually eliminating a lot of the 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.719 packaging because we were intercepting it and consolidating it. In 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:31.679 this new model, we're elimiting the packaging and we're also 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.520 with the driving the circularity of the goods having a 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.440 significant sustainability impact. And so we're getting close to kicking 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.600 off that study to really measure our our end end impact. 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.399 I think thanks to Olive founder net Fast, you're listening 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.080 to Bloomberg business Week for e commerce to e learning 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.280 as an iconic on seventy eight year old publishing company 0:20:51.320 --> 0:21:01.200 continues to delve deeper into digital. This is Bloomberg. You're 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.159 listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:10.639 Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. According to a 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.280 report out late last year by Research Dive, the global 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:17.040 digital educational publishing market is predicted to garner a revenue 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.520 of nearly twenty eight billion dollars by seven. That's growing 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.680 rapidly at a compound annual growth rate of se to 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:29.280 him from during the forecast period. So that's seven, so 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.359 pretty rapid. Yeah, it's happening really really quickly. For some 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.640 thoughts on the industry and strategies for growth, we spoke 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.560 to Andy Bird. He's the CEO of Pearson, and prior 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.560 to that he was president and chairman of Walt Disney International. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.320 He spent fourteen years at the company. Yeah, this was 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.320 a fun conversation. We began by asking him though about 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.479 the macro economic landscape and what he sees going forward. 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.720 It's very chaotic out there. I think there is a 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.719 flight quality certainly were seeing that. You know, we're listed 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.000 on the foot Sea and in London and we were 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.960 actually the best performing company for the first half of 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.600 this year. And I think that's down to the resilience 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.760 of what we do, not just the necessarily the sector 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.520 we're in, but but the range of businesses were in. 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.040 In the resilience of our business. And I think, you know, 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:20.280 the days of free money being over, um, you know, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.480 it's starting to have an impact. I think, you know, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.240 those days over are just paused. I'm not sure they're 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.080 going to come back to the you know, to the 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.160 recent past very quickly. I'm not I'm not so certain. 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.400 I mean, you know, in many ways, the last decade 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.520