Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. We're right here every day bringing you the
Speaker 1: latest news from the world's of business and finance, plus technology, politics, economics,
Speaker 1: all harnessing the power of Business Week reporters and editors,
Speaker 1: and of course Carol that's part of a team of
Speaker 1: twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts more than a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty countries and Jason. You can download Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube
Speaker 1: by searching Bloomberg Global News. This story is the most
Speaker 1: read on the Bloomberg in the past one hour, and
Speaker 1: it talks about the CDC. It talks about a warning
Speaker 1: it is not though, specifically about the coronavirus. Let's get
Speaker 1: into the details. Bloomberg News senior medical reporter Michelle Cortez
Speaker 1: is back with us, She joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Minneapolis. I have to say, Michelle, I was like
Speaker 1: quick scanning and I'm like, wait, what is this about?
Speaker 1: Right exactly as I couldn't get any parrel. It's horrible.
Speaker 1: But there is a virus who seems to be sweeping
Speaker 1: through the US and the world in fact, every other year,
Speaker 1: and it happens. It starts increasing picking up in August
Speaker 1: and runs through November, and it leaves in its wake
Speaker 1: paralysis and effects mainly children average age of five. And
Speaker 1: so the CDC is saying, hey, it's August. It happens
Speaker 1: every even year. Is an even year. So if you
Speaker 1: have children and they start complaining that their arm doesn't
Speaker 1: feel strong or their legs are suffering a little bit,
Speaker 1: especially if they've had, you know, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a cough for a fever a few days ahead beyond
Speaker 1: the lookout for that. What is it called. It's called
Speaker 1: acute flaccid militis. People call it like a polio like syndrome,
Speaker 1: but it's not polio. They have looked for the cause
Speaker 1: of this and they haven't been able to identify it.
Speaker 1: There is not polio in these kids, and so we
Speaker 1: know that that's not what it is. They think it's
Speaker 1: an enterovirus. It's called N six eight, and they see
Speaker 1: higher levels of that viral infection, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: catch because as we're seeing what's testing with coronavirus. It's
Speaker 1: just difficult to catch it right. So what there. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a warning to parent, especially amid with everything
Speaker 1: else that's going on, and it's very important that you
Speaker 1: do kind of catch it early correct exactly. So the
Speaker 1: thing is, unfortunately for kids who start showing the signs
Speaker 1: of muscle weakness and paralysis, many of them actually don't
Speaker 1: fully recover from it. There have been very rare cases
Speaker 1: of death, but there is this paralysis that can persist.
Speaker 1: So they want to get kids treated right away so
Speaker 1: that they can do an m r I, figure out
Speaker 1: if there is something in their central nervous system that's
Speaker 1: causing it, and start immediately rehabilitation efforts and things to
Speaker 1: keep their muscles strong so that what they don't lose
Speaker 1: they will continue to be able to use. Going forward,
Speaker 1: No go ahead, no no, no, you please finish. So
Speaker 1: the the what they're worried about is that parents are
Speaker 1: going to say, oh, you know, he did have a
Speaker 1: little bit of a fever, but he's feeling better now.
Speaker 1: He's complaining that his armor's legs bothering him. But coronavirus
Speaker 1: is out there. We don't want to go to the doctor.
Speaker 1: We don't want to go to the hospital because we're
Speaker 1: afraid that it's going to get worse, and maybe we're
Speaker 1: just watching to see if he gets better, and the
Speaker 1: proasis can happen just in hours. So it's very important
Speaker 1: if that's what you're seeing in your child to call
Speaker 1: your doctor, go to the emergency. It's terrifying your story.
Speaker 1: You mentioned at the average age was five, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and the cases have been rising correctly, right, correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have been rising. But it's also important to remember
Speaker 1: that it's very very rare and of course, probably the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who get this enter of virus
Speaker 1: don't have any complications at all. Right, it's probably thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of people who get it, and the numbers
Speaker 1: were talking about are less than two hundred and fifty,
Speaker 1: so the numbers are are small. But it started, we
Speaker 1: started seeing this significant increase in there were a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty cases and twenty fourteen, and that it increased
Speaker 1: in we were up to two d and in thirty
Speaker 1: eight or so in nineteen. Now now we have seen
Speaker 1: already even before August began, sixteen cases so far this year.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so we're seeing a lot. You know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dark person, Michelle, but I gotta say
Speaker 1: that there's something with viruses and viral infections. It feels
Speaker 1: like we're seeing a lot more and a lot more
Speaker 1: that are, you know, very difficult to overcome. That's that's
Speaker 1: very true. And this is affecting kids, coronavirus and affecting
Speaker 1: older people. Influenza is just around the corner of that
Speaker 1: hits everybody. Uh yeah. The good thing is Carol social distancing,
Speaker 1: wearing a mask. It protects against all of these things.
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing that I feel like there was so
Speaker 1: much pushback and now we've got kind of everyone. I
Speaker 1: mean the medical you know, you go to CDC and
Speaker 1: you go to various medical websites. They explain why masks
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's so simple, but it really does make
Speaker 1: a difference. It really does, all right, Michelle, one more
Speaker 1: thing for us to worry about, all right, but we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Um, Michelle, Thank you so much. Michelle Cortez,
Speaker 1: she's our our senior medical reporter at Bloomberg News joining
Speaker 1: us from Minneapolis. Check out her story and I'll put
Speaker 1: it out on Twitter. It is indeed the most read
Speaker 1: story on the Bloomberg in the past sixty minutes. This story, too,
Speaker 1: among our most read on the Bloomberg. This Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week story. It's about the London traders that hit a
Speaker 1: half a billion dollar jackpot when the price of oil
Speaker 1: went negative. Remember that story back in April. Well, Liam
Speaker 1: Vaughan is a financial investigations reporter at Bloomberg News. He
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from London along with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business wee get or Joel Webber. He's on the phone
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. Um, Joel, you know this is you know,
Speaker 1: about being a guest on the right side of the
Speaker 1: trade or just making a really really smart bet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it looked like this. The day that oil
Speaker 1: went negative was one that, um, you know, people were
Speaker 1: not really prepared for it, and you know, just bite
Speaker 1: a couple of more innings from CEM that it was
Speaker 1: a might have been a possibility when it happened, I
Speaker 1: just think it took a lot of people by a surprise. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know, I guess there's a couple of people
Speaker 1: in the world who could have been prepared for it.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of what Liam managed to unearth with
Speaker 1: this firm um little known in London called Vega and
Speaker 1: and Liam bring you in here. What did you discover
Speaker 1: about how they how they pulled this off. Yes, so
Speaker 1: there was a lot of speculation asked April twenty three
Speaker 1: about how exactly oil has fallen as far as it did. Like,
Speaker 1: as you say, there was some expectations because there was
Speaker 1: no demand for oil at the moment. You know, nobody's
Speaker 1: driving anywhere and nobody's making much. So you know, there's
Speaker 1: this kind of very unusual technical circumstances why you'd expect
Speaker 1: oil to be very cheap. But nobody really predicted it
Speaker 1: would go as far as he did. I mean, it
Speaker 1: literally fell forty dollars in a little over an hour,
Speaker 1: and so there was sort of ummings and irons about
Speaker 1: whether maybe some sort of at least disrupted trading was responsible.
Speaker 1: Um and we managed to find out that actually there
Speaker 1: was a firm, this tiny little firm called Vega Capital London,
Speaker 1: which is literally an office above a pub with a
Speaker 1: few deaths. Most of the guys they are trade from home. Um.
Speaker 1: They're predominantly expit traders, you know, quite kind of grizzled
Speaker 1: long in the two veterans of the oil market, who
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times used to bind sell
Speaker 1: oil using hand signals, had managed to stick it out
Speaker 1: and then this particular day, owing to these unprecedented swirling
Speaker 1: movements in the market, were on the right side of
Speaker 1: his trade and managed to sort of bad half a
Speaker 1: billion goats, which you know, considering the size of the firm,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, considering that normal earnings topathically,
Speaker 1: it's just an incredible sum. It's mind blowing. And I
Speaker 1: love how you say in your story, Liam, you know
Speaker 1: this is a company, as you said, most of them
Speaker 1: are working from home. There's not a lot of information,
Speaker 1: and that their website, the company website has remained under
Speaker 1: construction on LinkedIn since it was founded a few years ago. Right,
Speaker 1: so there's not a lot known about this firm. So
Speaker 1: is it a case that they were just on the
Speaker 1: right side of the I mean, obviously they were, But
Speaker 1: how were they able to pull this off? And I
Speaker 1: just wonder what regulators, you know, they've got to be
Speaker 1: scratching their head about how did this firm do it? Yes?
Speaker 1: So how very Matt Lavine is really good explaining this stuff,
Speaker 1: and he's absolutely right little couching it as somewhere between
Speaker 1: hedging and potential manipulation. UM. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: messing quagmire that the regulators we're going to have to
Speaker 1: um get through and make a decision on. But essentially mean,
Speaker 1: what they were doing and what is this kind of
Speaker 1: feature of the oil market is that you can buy
Speaker 1: oil throughout the day but not know the price, and
Speaker 1: you just agree to buy or sell oil at whatever
Speaker 1: the settlement price ends up later that day. So what
Speaker 1: these Panny guys did, knowing that we were likely on
Speaker 1: a very downward day, is they bought up as much
Speaker 1: oil in this kind of what's called the trade at
Speaker 1: settlement market as possible, which meant that they were committed
Speaker 1: to buying thousands of bowers of oil and whatever the
Speaker 1: titles are two thirty. But then throughout the day they're
Speaker 1: also selling oil to kind of offset their position. And
Speaker 1: you know, according to our sources, they're selling very aggressively
Speaker 1: in unison in the last kind of you know, period
Speaker 1: of the day, two minutes really of the day, and
Speaker 1: they they're trading coinciding with a complete exodus of buyers,
Speaker 1: and it contributed, you know, to this massive would fall
Speaker 1: in the market. UM. Now, as we point out, you know,
Speaker 1: there are strict rules around trading at settlement. You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to trade in such a way as to try
Speaker 1: and deliberately move the settlement price to try and profit
Speaker 1: in another market. And people have been you know, in
Speaker 1: trouble for that previously. UM. And so what the regulators
Speaker 1: will have to determine is whether these guys who were
Speaker 1: aggressively hammering the market at the end of the day
Speaker 1: were legitimately hedging their position or they were actually trying
Speaker 1: to to you know, last through the market. And I
Speaker 1: think it's it gets really technical there. UM. And you
Speaker 1: know one reason Liam that um, as you write in
Speaker 1: the story, that that this is complicated for regulators. Um
Speaker 1: is something that you also know a little bit about
Speaker 1: from from your book because bringing a case you actually
Speaker 1: have to show intent, which means you have to get
Speaker 1: your hands on some stuff that shows, you know, in
Speaker 1: papor In writing that somebody knew what they were doing.
Speaker 1: So is how often a regular is able to pull
Speaker 1: that off? Yeah, thank you Joel for for mentioning the book.
Speaker 1: Just written another book called Flash Trash, and it is
Speaker 1: worth mentioning because it's actually strikingly similar situation for this
Speaker 1: whereby you had the flash crash and took down and
Speaker 1: saying and there was this big sort of scrudgingly after
Speaker 1: the event, and then a couple of years later they
Speaker 1: emerged that this guy in the in the surrounding his
Speaker 1: bedroom may have, you know, through his disruptive trading, actually
Speaker 1: been a significant contributor towards it. And this is a
Speaker 1: very very kind of reminiscent situation. Um And yeah, to
Speaker 1: your point, um, you know, historically we see if you
Speaker 1: see another, authorities have really struggled to bring and make
Speaker 1: stand manipulation cases because it's not enough just to sort
Speaker 1: of show from the data or even from methodism things
Speaker 1: that people intended to move the market. You have to
Speaker 1: actually kind of show beyond the reasonable doubt and the
Speaker 1: market wouldn't have moved anyway. And it's actually very hard
Speaker 1: to do that. Um So. In the surround case, the
Speaker 1: reason he got in trouble is because when they arrested him,
Speaker 1: they found him computer and there's actually videos of him
Speaker 1: unbelievably trading. Um And it also quite early in his
Speaker 1: career he sent emails talking about his plans to sort
Speaker 1: of manipulate the market. Um So, they had that hard evidence,
Speaker 1: but sund was pretty careless in that respect, and that
Speaker 1: these guys or any you know, traders have been sort
Speaker 1: of following the news over the last few years, they
Speaker 1: will be pretty savvy to the need to communicate in
Speaker 1: a in a effective and efficient way. Um, and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of of means of communication these days
Speaker 1: are fully encrypted and stuff. So even if the regulators
Speaker 1: suspected there's you know, there's something untowards here, actually been
Speaker 1: able to charge anyone is a different matter. Well, it's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible and as sophisticated and complicated and even with
Speaker 1: all the regulations we have to see this kind of
Speaker 1: a trade. It's it's pretty remarkable. Liam, Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. It It is, as we said, among our
Speaker 1: most read stories on the Bloomberg liamba our financial investigations
Speaker 1: reporter at Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone from
Speaker 1: London along with Jill Webber, editor at Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: He's on the phone from Massachusetts and dude, check out
Speaker 1: Liam's book Flash Crash, A Trading Savant, a Global manhunt,
Speaker 1: and the most mysterious market crash in History. That book
Speaker 1: just came out in May of this year. In this
Speaker 1: week's edition of Bloomberg Business Week Small Business Survival Guide. UM,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about small business and how
Speaker 1: they're getting through the pandemic. We're going to talk this
Speaker 1: week about preparing your business for uncertainty, which is one
Speaker 1: thing I feel like we kicked off the show Doug
Speaker 1: and I Doug Krisner talking about that specifically. Joining us
Speaker 1: right now is Bloomberg News editor Dimitrick Hessands. She joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone, and I believe she's in New
Speaker 1: York City today, along with Hunter Lovin's board member at
Speaker 1: Simplify Power on the phone from Colorado. I'm great to
Speaker 1: have both of you with us. Um, Demitra, let's kick
Speaker 1: it off because you've been, you know, tracking small business
Speaker 1: for US week to week. Tell us a little bit about,
Speaker 1: UM the thinking on this week's topic, because I do
Speaker 1: feel like the one thing people are certain about is
Speaker 1: that they just don't know about the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: And really, UM, it's true. And you know what was
Speaker 1: compelling about this, especially to Nick we've talked to him
Speaker 1: before also liber when he first met the folks that
Speaker 1: Simplify Power there, makers of Sustainable Safer Batteries based in California.
Speaker 1: We've written about them before and we've been in touch
Speaker 1: with the CEO. He's recently been in touch with Hunter
Speaker 1: and talking about something they've done called scenario planning, which
Speaker 1: really has been an incredibly useful tool to anticipate. I
Speaker 1: mean it's not really about it. It's sort of putting
Speaker 1: different scenarios before people at the company and really testing out,
Speaker 1: you know, what the company can withstand, how we can react,
Speaker 1: what it can do, what tools it has, it can
Speaker 1: It can be something that you used to decide about
Speaker 1: your supplies about you know, how much you need to
Speaker 1: kind of stockpile in terms of whatever it is that
Speaker 1: you make, um you know, where how you're going to
Speaker 1: deal with getting products to your customers. Um So to
Speaker 1: some degree, to a very large degree from what we've
Speaker 1: heard from them, this has really been very helpful to
Speaker 1: them in weathering this period in a way that many
Speaker 1: of their small businesses haven't been able to. So Hunter,
Speaker 1: come on in on this, and you know it's so
Speaker 1: timely because tomorrow I'm getting ready to talk to We
Speaker 1: have a group of CEOs that we regularly talk to
Speaker 1: you as part of our Bloomberg Live breakaway group and
Speaker 1: they're all wondering about reopening and what they're you know,
Speaker 1: second half talk, you know looks like and this whole
Speaker 1: idea of scenario planning I think fits right into this.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about what you guys did
Speaker 1: and how and how it really helped you. It's the
Speaker 1: most powerful tool I'm aware of too for a business
Speaker 1: to figure out how to deal with uncertainty. It's in
Speaker 1: effect and over the horizon, look at what might be
Speaker 1: coming at you, which then enables you to test your
Speaker 1: strategy against a variety of mutually inconsistent but plausible possible futures,
Speaker 1: the goal being defined a strategy that as Royal Dutchell,
Speaker 1: which invented this discipline, calls a no regrets strategy. And
Speaker 1: it's a process that I helped companies go through in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time and simplify. We took
Speaker 1: I shut them a power point presentation the evening before
Speaker 1: then it took about four hours the next day. They
Speaker 1: involved basically everybody in the company. And even if you
Speaker 1: got no value out of the scenarios, just getting everybody
Speaker 1: in the company together and surfacing your assumptions is an
Speaker 1: incredibly good way to engage your employees. In this case,
Speaker 1: the initial time we did in November last year, the
Speaker 1: crew was not being terribly imaginative in terms of what
Speaker 1: could go wrong. And I said, guy, it's get a
Speaker 1: little wild and crazy. What if we had a pandemic?
Speaker 1: And Katherine von Berg, the CEO, looked at the ceiling,
Speaker 1: rolled her eyes. But then she started thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: Simplify gets a lot of its materials from China. What
Speaker 1: if there were a pandemic, What if our supply chains
Speaker 1: broke down? What if it came here? How would we
Speaker 1: keep the company operating? And so she started putting in
Speaker 1: place the mental capacity. So that went In December, words
Speaker 1: started coming out of China that there's this weird disease
Speaker 1: that's killing people. She went into overdrive and as a result,
Speaker 1: the company's profits this year about over last year. It's
Speaker 1: doing very well. It was shut down for all of
Speaker 1: two days over a weekend to do a deep cleaning
Speaker 1: and to put in place the safety provisions. It was
Speaker 1: deemed an essential enterprise and it's rolling. It's doing just great. Hunter,
Speaker 1: how like wild is that that a year ago? That
Speaker 1: that's exactly the you know, kind of crisis situation that
Speaker 1: you guys brought up the discipline of scenario planning, has
Speaker 1: you look at what are called the steep forces social, technological, economic, environmental,
Speaker 1: and political. What's really happening out there in the world
Speaker 1: where you might want to think about what's the impact
Speaker 1: that it's going to be on your company. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been predicted by the scientists for
Speaker 1: a long time is pandemics. It's not unimplausible outcome. So
Speaker 1: I was just trying to get them to think about
Speaker 1: what could go wrong, guys, and how are we going
Speaker 1: to deal with it if it does. Yeah, that it did.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty remarkable. And Demitro just got about twenty
Speaker 1: thirty seconds here. I mean, yeah, it is pretty You
Speaker 1: know when you think about scenarios, that's not maybe the
Speaker 1: first one that comes to mind. But you know here
Speaker 1: we are no, absolutely not. I mean, I suspect again
Speaker 1: Hunter probably used it as one of many examples out
Speaker 1: of those areas that we've touched on. It just so happened.
Speaker 1: It was happening. You know, whatever your business, this can
Speaker 1: be super youthful. You're gonna you're gonna press the right
Speaker 1: in different ways. But it's very forwarding, Well, this was
Speaker 1: great and really helpful. Demitri, Thank you so much. Demitri
Speaker 1: Cassaniti's editor at Bloomberg News and of course, Hunter Lovin's
Speaker 1: board member at Simplified Power, joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Colorado bro Journal. Yeah, but you let me drive?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, who's going to drive home? Honey? Please,
Speaker 1: I'll drive me. I want to drive, Just drive baby.
Speaker 1: The question trying this is the drive to the globe?
Speaker 1: Wrong commun radio. All right, you are listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Jason Kelly and Carol Master. Forgot where I
Speaker 1: was for a second. It's been that sort of day.
Speaker 1: It's been a disruptive sort of day, Carol Master. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to talk about. Disruption in the
Speaker 1: stock market, disruption in stocks and maybe some disruptive names.
Speaker 1: Happy to have with us, probably rom She is portfolio
Speaker 1: manager for American Century Investments, joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from New York City. Probably really nice to have you
Speaker 1: with us. Thank you for having me so. Disruption certainly
Speaker 1: has been the name of the game here in How
Speaker 1: do you approach it as an investor? Because you have
Speaker 1: I believe and keep me honest here you look after
Speaker 1: the Focus Dynamic Growth Strategy Fund for American Century and
Speaker 1: we've had maybe not so much focus, but we certainly
Speaker 1: had a lot of dynamism and maybe even some growth
Speaker 1: in this market. Yes, so yes, um, I do cool
Speaker 1: Man in Focus Dynamic Growth Fund, And this is a
Speaker 1: fund where we try to keep the names limited adjacent
Speaker 1: to names, But what we're focused on is early to
Speaker 1: rapid growth phases UM for companies and that automatically leads
Speaker 1: to innovation and disruption, just like you pointed out. And
Speaker 1: disruption comes in several sizes and shapes. Uh. We all
Speaker 1: think about e commerce. Most of us are not going
Speaker 1: to stores anymore. We buy more online. And we've had
Speaker 1: reports that you know, three years worth of growth has
Speaker 1: been squeezed into three months and apparently in e commerce
Speaker 1: and Makan say report tells you that it's ten years
Speaker 1: worth of growth in three months. So just astounding numbers there.
Speaker 1: But UM, disruption is not just in technology, Uh, it
Speaker 1: also is in traditional industries. It is also in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, healthcare for examples. So we look at disruption
Speaker 1: pretty much across us the boat if you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out too, I mean the fund,
Speaker 1: the American century focused dynamic growth fund that you co
Speaker 1: manage UM, Amazon, Alphabet, and Tesla among the top holdings.
Speaker 1: The fund has returned nearly on average annually in each
Speaker 1: of the past five years, putting it in the percentile
Speaker 1: for funds in that category. So it's really been a
Speaker 1: top performer. And you do look at the holdings and
Speaker 1: they are companies that we know, how often are you guys,
Speaker 1: since you seem to kind of keep it down to
Speaker 1: a core portfolio, how long do you kind of hold
Speaker 1: on to something that gets into UM into one of
Speaker 1: the holdings, So, you know, But to what I said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're looking at companies in the early and
Speaker 1: rapid growth faces and I will touch on Google and Amazon.
Speaker 1: You know that are not particularly early, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. So however, so since we get an early,
Speaker 1: we hold for long periods of time. So historically it's
Speaker 1: been an average holding period of about five ideas UM
Speaker 1: because we want to stay with these names and you know,
Speaker 1: see them grow and you know, get there earlier obviously. UM.
Speaker 1: So back to your question on you know, Google and Amazon,
Speaker 1: so these are not technically new companies, but still uh,
Speaker 1: you know, rapid growth phase. Amazon for example, you know,
Speaker 1: with the online retail their dominance there and obviously the
Speaker 1: trend towards e commerce is accelerated here. And not just that,
Speaker 1: but to start this whole aws um you know, which
Speaker 1: really was a product that was focused internally, right, so
Speaker 1: their servers ran on this product and they made it
Speaker 1: available to the world. So so we don't sit out
Speaker 1: names just because of their age. We just look at
Speaker 1: their innovation cadence and whether that leads to growth for
Speaker 1: our investors. Um And so Amazon fits that. They'll Google
Speaker 1: the same way. They're very dominant in the digital market.
Speaker 1: But in the twenty plus years that they've been in business,
Speaker 1: they've had you know, twenty type growth in the top
Speaker 1: line throughout that time. So obviously they fit as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, they're obviously disrupting the digital advertising market,
Speaker 1: but also they have investments in YouTube, you know, Android,
Speaker 1: way more and and you know, and the list goes on.
Speaker 1: So disruption, as you well know, and we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot on this show, doesn't just come in the
Speaker 1: form of technology companies. Boston Beer, the maker of Sam Adams,
Speaker 1: that's one that you have held over the years. Tell
Speaker 1: us about that. And there's the disruption and how it
Speaker 1: manifests in the beer business. Yeah, you know, this one
Speaker 1: is a fascinating story because it's a family owned business
Speaker 1: in a very tough category. There are huge players in
Speaker 1: the beer business. But what Boston Beer has done and
Speaker 1: done over and over again is to create new categories.
Speaker 1: So going back all the way to craft beers, um,
Speaker 1: so they were ones that pioneered that and then followed
Speaker 1: that up with Hot Teas and now Hot celsus Um
Speaker 1: with the Truly brand and the Truly lemonade is really
Speaker 1: restonating and it is a product for the times because
Speaker 1: what it has is um you know, it is a beer. However,
Speaker 1: it has a hundred calories, one gram of sugar, is
Speaker 1: gluten free, and the forecast are that the category itself
Speaker 1: will grow at two hundred percent UM. Just in and
Speaker 1: Boston Beer is the only company that has actually gained
Speaker 1: share UM in this year. Obviously, you know, with a
Speaker 1: lot of us sitting at home, we're not just working
Speaker 1: from home, it looks like we're drinking at home too.
Speaker 1: So that's confirmed. That's confirmed. Yeah, and I can guarantee
Speaker 1: you that our producer Paul Brennan, who's on vacation right now,
Speaker 1: dollars to donuts. He's drinking the same Adams Boston Bear
Speaker 1: is up a hundred this year. Yeah, totally checks out
Speaker 1: the very briefly. Probably gotta ask you just a minute left.
Speaker 1: Talk about Tesla for a second. It's a name we're
Speaker 1: obsessed with. Um, We've had a lot of balls and
Speaker 1: a few bears on here. This has defied gravity in
Speaker 1: many ways. Yes, so you know Tesla is you know,
Speaker 1: textbook disruption if you will, Um, you know, just because
Speaker 1: the whole concept of electric vehicles, and not just electric vehicles,
Speaker 1: but the entire supply chain and actually engineering it at
Speaker 1: scale globally. So and then that's the first and the
Speaker 1: second thing is this is the first automobile which is
Speaker 1: a software first model. In other words, there is a
Speaker 1: fix more often than not, it's coming over the air
Speaker 1: versus having to drive somewhere to get your car service.
Speaker 1: And then the third thing is, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: just disruption in the car the battery itself, however, it's
Speaker 1: also disruption in the way to go to market with
Speaker 1: the director customer, no dealership. And then we can talk
Speaker 1: about autonomous vehicles. You know, the car text after the
Speaker 1: energy storage that doesn't get a lot of air time,
Speaker 1: but it's just, you know, it's kind of disruption packaged
Speaker 1: at every point. That's why we own it, you know,
Speaker 1: that's why we own it. However, you know, of course
Speaker 1: the controversy and the fair side of the argument has
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged as well as being said. You know,
Speaker 1: the innovation is dead and that's why we hold this
Speaker 1: stuff absolutely. All right, Well, we really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Probo rom portfolio manager for American
Speaker 1: Century Investments, looking after the focused dynamic growth strategy. She's
Speaker 1: the comentor at that phone. Joined us on the phone
Speaker 1: from New York City. Thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, South Cloud,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And
Speaker 1: of course you can always listen to our radio show
Speaker 1: at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us
Speaker 1: on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News.