Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week Inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, everyone, Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. The war in Ukraine still
Speaker 1: top of mind, fitcher J. Powell, even citing its various
Speaker 1: ripple effects this week, as the U saw interest rates
Speaker 1: hyped for the first time since and beyond the devastating
Speaker 1: impact of Vladimir Putin's assault on a neighboring nation, Russia's
Speaker 1: economy is taking under the weight of international sanctions, as
Speaker 1: well as the mass exodus of thousands of the country's
Speaker 1: brightest minds. Russia's brain drain is the subject of our
Speaker 1: international cover story. We'll get to that in just a bit,
Speaker 1: along with how investors are looking at Europe and China's
Speaker 1: endgame in the midst of ongoing combat. All that to come.
Speaker 1: We begin, though, with a story from this week's To
Speaker 1: Knowlogy section. Nick Clegg is a former UK Deputy Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: who's now president of Global Affairs at Meta Platforms, and
Speaker 1: he's the one dealing with the latest crisis at the company,
Speaker 1: the social networking giants Russia problem. From More, we turn
Speaker 1: to Blueberg News technology reporter Kurt Wagner to help us
Speaker 1: understand why he has so much on his plate. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Nick Clegg with that geopolitical tensions flaring and
Speaker 1: kind of also has us wondering, Tim, where's Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: and Cheryl Sandberg? And Nick Clegg is basically the head
Speaker 1: of all policies at Facebook. So anytime you think about misinformation,
Speaker 1: you think about relationships with governments, uh speech, right, Like
Speaker 1: what's allowed on Facebook and Instagram what's not? These are
Speaker 1: policy decisions and now all of those roll up to
Speaker 1: Nick Clegg, and he is kind of the final word,
Speaker 1: um on what Facebook and Meta do in those instances.
Speaker 1: And obviously that's a lot of different things, especially as
Speaker 1: we get ramping up here on another US election, and
Speaker 1: you can imagine that all of these decisions are pretty consequential,
Speaker 1: and um, he's now the guy in charge of all that.
Speaker 1: All right, what's up with Cheryl and Zack? Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: they're still there for those wondering and and this has
Speaker 1: always been a kind of two headed monster at Facebook, right,
Speaker 1: it was it was Mark Zuckerberg handling the product and
Speaker 1: Cheryl Sandberg handling the business. But then after the election,
Speaker 1: all of these policy issues I was just talking about
Speaker 1: really um reared their head for for kind of the
Speaker 1: first time, and so they took off, Like Cheryl kind
Speaker 1: of started addressing a lot of this. Mark obviously got
Speaker 1: much more involved. We started hearing from him on all
Speaker 1: these different issues around politics and policy. And over the
Speaker 1: last you know, a couple of years, what they've realized
Speaker 1: is one, neither of them are necessarily something that they
Speaker 1: want to do. This is not a job that's very fun.
Speaker 1: And number two, they've become so unpopular in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways that their message. Facebook's message is often getting
Speaker 1: lost simply because of who's delivering it. Right, So, anytime
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg says something, people have a strong opinion about him,
Speaker 1: regardless of what he's saying. And I think part of
Speaker 1: that is, you know why Nick Clegg is now the
Speaker 1: face of all this stuff. So how did this come
Speaker 1: into sharp relief? And look not just during the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: because I think that was the name that Nick Clegg
Speaker 1: was a name that people became familiar with that and
Speaker 1: even if they weren't following British politics before. But with
Speaker 1: Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, how does it
Speaker 1: all come to ahead? Yeah, so the timing is pretty incredible, really,
Speaker 1: Um Meta promoted Nick Clegg on I believe was February six,
Speaker 1: Um so just a month ago to the day. And uh,
Speaker 1: at that point Mark Zuckerberg said, Hey, he's the last
Speaker 1: word on all of these big things. You know, if
Speaker 1: you have an issue, to take it to Nick. About
Speaker 1: a week later, Russia invades Ukraine and suddenly, um, you know,
Speaker 1: here's Nick one week into his his new fancy job,
Speaker 1: and um you know, he's back channeling with the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: UH President Zelenski and his staff. He's talking with Russian
Speaker 1: regulators trying to kind of navigate this whole thing. Um
Speaker 1: in in the first big challenge that happens immediately after
Speaker 1: he gets this promotion, and so the story really kind
Speaker 1: of looks at how these first couple of weeks have
Speaker 1: gone for him. We actually got a chance to sit
Speaker 1: down and interview him for this. It was his first
Speaker 1: interview since getting that promotion, and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: just think it's kind of a timely look at who
Speaker 1: this guy is and why he suddenly has, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the most important jobs in tech. So so
Speaker 1: help me out here, Kurt, because in your story you're
Speaker 1: right met His critics called the announcement when he was
Speaker 1: named a little more than a public relations move. Yet
Speaker 1: at the same time you say that he's the one
Speaker 1: who's been Cleggett Nick clegg has been talking to Russian officials,
Speaker 1: He's the one who has talked with President Zelinsky. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, how do you see it? Well, I
Speaker 1: I don't think that it's just a pr thing. I
Speaker 1: think he truly is making a lot of these decisions.
Speaker 1: And it was actually a question that I got to
Speaker 1: ask him, Um, I brought up that criticism. I said,
Speaker 1: what would you say the people who you know are
Speaker 1: you you? You just got promoted to be um, someone
Speaker 1: to take all the heat off of your bosses, you know.
Speaker 1: And he said, Look, if I wasn't actually wielding any
Speaker 1: power internally, if I didn't actually have any control over
Speaker 1: the things that I had to go out and then defend,
Speaker 1: then yeah, this wouldn't be a very good job. And
Speaker 1: it's not one that I would have accepted, but he says,
Speaker 1: you know, he's willing to take that heat because he's
Speaker 1: the one making these decisions, and as a former politician,
Speaker 1: he's not, you know, unfamiliar with people paying angry at
Speaker 1: him no matter what he does. Yeah, it's it's I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not a job for everyone, obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: making but but it is if you think about it.
Speaker 1: And that's why you see so many people who have
Speaker 1: worked in politics take on these policy type positions help
Speaker 1: us think forward beyond Ukraine, beyond um Russia's invasion of
Speaker 1: Ukraine and the challenges that that Clegg has in front
Speaker 1: of him when it comes to regulators in the United
Speaker 1: States and in Europe. Yeah, of course, well, I mean
Speaker 1: we there's some data transfer regulations happening in Europe right now,
Speaker 1: or discussions i should say, around data transfer. That's very
Speaker 1: important and that Facebook has been vocal of out. I
Speaker 1: think the election here in the US, of course, mid
Speaker 1: terms are coming up, and they're going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with all of the same issues that they dealt with
Speaker 1: in right How how do they want to handle back
Speaker 1: checking the political post, how do they want to handle
Speaker 1: advertisements from candidates. Right, Um, these are all the issues
Speaker 1: that haven't gone away, um in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: That was Bloomberg News Technology reporter Kurt Wagner. Up next,
Speaker 1: our editors round table on why many Russian citizens are
Speaker 1: trying to outrun Vladimir Putin's war and then back here
Speaker 1: at home in the US, a big idea for closing
Speaker 1: America's wealth gap. Will dive into our special equality issue.
Speaker 1: Plus later we'll check in with a pair of innovators
Speaker 1: Segue inventor Dean came In and his mission to bring
Speaker 1: robotics to kids. It's the subject of a new Disney documentary,
Speaker 1: also Shark Tank. Start Damon John Back's a new immersive
Speaker 1: entertainment platform. Makes me wonder if you put the two together,
Speaker 1: what would we get? Would we get a segue in
Speaker 1: the mediv robotic of something robotic in the metaverse? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it is coming. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Russia's
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine will scarre Eastern Europe for years to come,
Speaker 1: with a death toll climbing daily and millions of people
Speaker 1: being uprooted from their homes. And it's not just Ukrainians
Speaker 1: who are trying to outrun the violence. For the second
Speaker 1: time in less than a decade of Vladimir Putin's aggression
Speaker 1: has sparked an exodus from his own country. In our
Speaker 1: editor's Roundtable this week, we spotlight both our domestic and
Speaker 1: international cover stories. First up, Business Week editor Joe Weber
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg News automation editor and opinion columnist Leonid Burschitzky
Speaker 1: explained Russia's new brain drain. As the war has dragged on,
Speaker 1: We've been continually looking for ways that we can talk
Speaker 1: about things that are interesting and forward spinning and have
Speaker 1: global economic complications in and this one really is a
Speaker 1: personal story of Leonid, who himself had left Russia. UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the takeaways from this there's been multiple
Speaker 1: waves of a Putin exodus, as it's been coined before
Speaker 1: over decades. UM. Obviously this is no exception, and anyone
Speaker 1: who is talented is attempting to find a way out
Speaker 1: of the country. UM. In total, the number that UM
Speaker 1: leon had included in here over time is somewhere between
Speaker 1: one point six million and two million. That number comes
Speaker 1: from two thousand nineteen, so in excess, two million immigrants
Speaker 1: have left Russia on his watch. That right now what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is is going to have real implications because
Speaker 1: Russia probably had a pretty good thing going for it
Speaker 1: with talent still, but after this wave, the opportunities feel
Speaker 1: like they're going to be outside of the country. So
Speaker 1: so lean it as someone who has been in the
Speaker 1: country has seen the things that we haven't seen. What
Speaker 1: does it feel like right now as you're watching this
Speaker 1: wave exit, Well, I probably know more people in Key
Speaker 1: of who are refusing to leave the city now than
Speaker 1: in Moscow. Like pretty much everyone that I knew there
Speaker 1: has left pretty hastily in uh in recent days those
Speaker 1: that hadn't left before. And uh, you know, my phone
Speaker 1: book is growing useless. Um, and I just need to
Speaker 1: get new numbers for all these people in Yerevan and
Speaker 1: de Lussi and Istanbul and this kick and you know,
Speaker 1: and not not to speak about European capitals in the US.
Speaker 1: This is really, you know, not a immigration where uh,
Speaker 1: like we've seen before, this is a stampede. What really
Speaker 1: struck me about your column, Leonid, is that historically, you know,
Speaker 1: in our lifetimes, the men and women who have left Russia,
Speaker 1: they don't leave Russia to look for a more comfortable
Speaker 1: life the same way that other emigration happens. Um, they're
Speaker 1: looking to find freedom and intellectual property as as you right.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about how you've seen that play out. Well.
Speaker 1: The wave that left in the early nine nineties after
Speaker 1: the breakup of the Soviet Union was kind of traditional
Speaker 1: left way, and people were looking for that are living conditions,
Speaker 1: more comfortable lifestyle, more money, that sort of thing. The
Speaker 1: people who lived, especially in the West fifteen years, are
Speaker 1: people who already had a reasonably comfortable life in Russia,
Speaker 1: and we're making high salaries, some of them movement by
Speaker 1: Western standards. Uh. These are people who worked in um,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty prestigious areas of research, the media, the
Speaker 1: software industry, UM, you know, all sorts of profession like
Speaker 1: people who in the arts, lawyers, people who made decent
Speaker 1: amounts of money and sometimes um, we're even wealthy entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1: The reason they lift is, yes, like to said, the
Speaker 1: lack of freedom and the difficulty of difficulty of expressing
Speaker 1: yourself under an increasingly repressive regime. That's Bloomberg News Automation
Speaker 1: editor and opinion columnist Leonide Burschitski on the international cover
Speaker 1: story along with Joe Weber found it in the Remark section.
Speaker 1: This week also marks the release of bloom exannual Equality Issue.
Speaker 1: Our domestic cover story is about so called baby bonds
Speaker 1: in the fight to close America's racial wealth gap. We
Speaker 1: continue with the editor's roundtable this week, where Joel, Carol
Speaker 1: and I break down the equality coverage with Rebecca Greenfield.
Speaker 1: She's Bloomberg News Equality team leader. This has been talked
Speaker 1: about for a while, especially on sort of a federal level,
Speaker 1: but quietly on a state level. It's happening. It's not
Speaker 1: happening on a federal level, but between Connecticut, Washington, Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. There are little signs that, hey, people, lawmakers,
Speaker 1: bipartisan effort to actually get this done and what it
Speaker 1: would look like, what's beginning to look like, is basically
Speaker 1: a trust fund for underprivileged newborns. So the moment that
Speaker 1: that kid becomes eight team, they actually have money in
Speaker 1: a way that they wouldn't have everwise had before that
Speaker 1: gives them an equal footing to perhaps do things that
Speaker 1: other people with money would be doing. Right, Becca, what
Speaker 1: were some of the other story in the package that
Speaker 1: you felt really hit that theme as well? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the Baby Bonds cover story, of course, really gets at that. UM,
Speaker 1: but all the stories we tried to look at it
Speaker 1: through what what's changing, what's happening, or what are people
Speaker 1: trying to change? So um one of our stories by
Speaker 1: um Our labor reporter josh Idolson looked at this movement
Speaker 1: that is gaining steam and seems like it will realistically
Speaker 1: happen to expand workplace protections to people who are discriminated
Speaker 1: against her being overweight, which is perfect. There aren't clear
Speaker 1: laws spanning that right now, which I think many people
Speaker 1: myself included would find surprising. You know, there he There
Speaker 1: are lots of people who have stories where you know
Speaker 1: they're managers or bosses. They you know, you gained weight,
Speaker 1: what happened? People generally think of overweight and fat people
Speaker 1: as lazy and unable to do their jobs. Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of this happens in the retail space. So retailers
Speaker 1: want their workers to have a certain look. They don't
Speaker 1: provide clothing that fits done but makes them wear the
Speaker 1: clothing of the brand. And so this push is coming
Speaker 1: from from the retail Union in New York to say
Speaker 1: there should be clear laws thing you can't discriminate against people, um,
Speaker 1: just for their weight. And it's kind of happening in
Speaker 1: tandem with a change, and I think of how the
Speaker 1: culture thinks of overweight people. Um. You know, of course
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of discrimination, but I think there's
Speaker 1: been this broader how that every size movement and greater
Speaker 1: acceptance that being fat isn't just necessarily even something people
Speaker 1: can control. Our thanks to Bloomberg News Equality team leader
Speaker 1: Rebecca Greenfield, business Week editor Joel Weber, and automation editor
Speaker 1: and opinion columnist Leonid Boschitzki for joining our editor's roundtable.
Speaker 1: Catch the entire conversation at Bloomberg dot com. Slash podcast
Speaker 1: still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, how volatility and cyber
Speaker 1: warfare are affecting the outlook for a pair of heavyweights
Speaker 1: in a cloud services packed, The executives from Nasdack in
Speaker 1: Amazon Web Services That's Aws discussed the changing landscape for
Speaker 1: data in the capital markets. That's next. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world. Bloomberg eleven
Speaker 1: Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine
Speaker 1: six to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team,
Speaker 1: and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. Back in December,
Speaker 1: NASTAC and a w S. Amazon Web Services announced a
Speaker 1: multi year partnership to build the next generation of cloud
Speaker 1: enabled infrastructure for the world's capital markets. Two key voices
Speaker 1: from that alliance are here now to break down how
Speaker 1: a surgeon volatility in war in Eastern Europe are shifting
Speaker 1: the business outlook for rub A Borno is Global Channel
Speaker 1: Chief at AWS and Lauren Dillard is Executive VP of
Speaker 1: Investment Intelligence over at NASDAC. We began our cam versation
Speaker 1: with Lauren talking about nasdacs adjustments in the midst of
Speaker 1: a lot of market turbulence. We sit in a really
Speaker 1: unique place in the ecosystem, so we sit in between
Speaker 1: asset managers and investors and corporates, and frankly, a lot
Speaker 1: of the needs around the clients we serve are unchanged.
Speaker 1: There they of course are changed from pressure, but you know,
Speaker 1: they still need to do business. They still need to
Speaker 1: make investments, They still need to do manager research, which
Speaker 1: is something that we provide in our technology. Our corporate
Speaker 1: listed clients still need to understand their investors. There's obviously
Speaker 1: a a push for more E s D disclosures. So
Speaker 1: all of kind of those business matters continue. We have
Speaker 1: a healthy pipeline of I P O s UM and
Speaker 1: it remains strong. But because of the market volatility, we
Speaker 1: could see some of those getting pushed out, so that
Speaker 1: we see a little bit of what I would call
Speaker 1: an adjustment. But the pipeline has been extraordinarily strong to
Speaker 1: start and you don't see any of that at this point,
Speaker 1: the pipeline backing off at this point, Lauren, mean you've
Speaker 1: seen some quality deals take place despite what you've seen
Speaker 1: with some of the pullback. But um, and there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of optimism and frankly, you know accessing the
Speaker 1: public markets. Um. But you know windows open and closed,
Speaker 1: and so the team that focuses on that, you know,
Speaker 1: stays with that pipeline. So ru But let me bring
Speaker 1: you in this kind of same thing. I mean, like
Speaker 1: we said, we asked all of our leaders who are
Speaker 1: coming on UM about the headlines. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we are realizing or that we've seen
Speaker 1: certainly is that in this war, it's certainly a ground
Speaker 1: war and military war, but it's also a cyber war.
Speaker 1: And we have talked so much about cybersecurity. How are
Speaker 1: you guys at Amazon Web Services? Are you seeing any
Speaker 1: kind of breaches or increased act activity because of our
Speaker 1: following this war in Ukraine. It's such a good question. UM.
Speaker 1: While we're seeing an increasing activity of malicious state actors,
Speaker 1: were also just being higher operational tempo by other malicious actors,
Speaker 1: and we've seen several situations where malware has specifically targeted charities,
Speaker 1: NGOs and other aid organizations just to spread confusion and
Speaker 1: cause disruption. So this is an area where we are focused.
Speaker 1: We're continuing to work hard to protect these customers and
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to work closely with them UM
Speaker 1: as they carry out their much needed work to help
Speaker 1: those that are impacted by this terrible conflict. But that's
Speaker 1: absolutely a huge focus of ours is UH cybersecurity and
Speaker 1: supporting our customers there. So Ruba, what would you say
Speaker 1: to people listening right now. Who need to keep their
Speaker 1: own networks safe. What's the right way to do this
Speaker 1: in this environment? So our teams are continually learning from
Speaker 1: the intelligence that we collect, and I think that what
Speaker 1: we're working on with our customers is work with your
Speaker 1: account manager, security specialist, solution architects, and other technical professionals
Speaker 1: to constantly assess the threat landscape that you have, the
Speaker 1: threat perimeter that you have, and ensure that you are secure.
Speaker 1: But we are ready to support our customers there. But
Speaker 1: it's it's really a constant game. The threat landscape is
Speaker 1: constantly increasing, UM, and the number of threat actors is
Speaker 1: constantly increasing as well. So it is diligence that isn't
Speaker 1: a death the nation. You will never have it solved
Speaker 1: at the end, but it is constant work, UM, And
Speaker 1: so I would say, just reach out and we're ready
Speaker 1: to help. I also I am curious for both of
Speaker 1: you in terms of employees you might have overseas, whether
Speaker 1: it's Russia, Ukraine. I mean, one of the things that
Speaker 1: has come out about this and unfortunately, UM, it's come
Speaker 1: out because it took a war for us to understand.
Speaker 1: You know how much companies reply rely on I t
Speaker 1: out of Ukraine, um, and how important it is, um, Lauren,
Speaker 1: any thoughts on that, I would just I would just
Speaker 1: say that we we obviously run markets in in across Europe,
Speaker 1: specifically the Nordics and the Baltics, so um, we we
Speaker 1: are very focused, as as our other companies on you know,
Speaker 1: the safety of our employees obviously, the resiliency of our
Speaker 1: markets um, and and of course the outpouring of our
Speaker 1: our employees families. Yeah, but what about you when it
Speaker 1: comes to Amazon Web Services. We've done a lot of
Speaker 1: reporting on tech companies that have had to get employees
Speaker 1: out of Ukraine, But um, what's the presence right now?
Speaker 1: And Russia, Ukraine in Belarus and and what are you
Speaker 1: doing in those areas right now? So we don't have
Speaker 1: a local presence right now. So it's just about for
Speaker 1: us to without a local presence to provide direct support
Speaker 1: and award zone. But we are focused on the humanitarian
Speaker 1: aspect of this. So if donations are employees want to donate,
Speaker 1: so we're also matching their donations. We're helping our customers
Speaker 1: as well with donation buttons on charitable organizations and the
Speaker 1: homepages of our websites and then in addition to that,
Speaker 1: UM focusing on our our people. So not only are
Speaker 1: we supporting our team members, uh, for example, team members
Speaker 1: in adjacent countries like Poland, we've given them additional time
Speaker 1: off to take care of themselves and their families. But
Speaker 1: this is something where we're going to have to respond
Speaker 1: to the moment and meet our employees where they are.
Speaker 1: So as we hear feedback on what they need, we
Speaker 1: will meet them in that moment. That was Reba Born.
Speaker 1: Now she's Global Channel Chief at Amazon Web Services along
Speaker 1: with Lauren Dillard, the executive vice president of Investment Intelligence
Speaker 1: at NASTAC. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next,
Speaker 1: China's role in the GLO markets and potentially in the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. It's safe to say it's complicated. We'll
Speaker 1: dig into Jiji and Ping's game plan with a longtime
Speaker 1: China watcher. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Chinese stunks this week on a tear,
Speaker 1: biggest advance we've seen in a couple of decades. After
Speaker 1: Beijing vow to shore up it's battered financial markets, promising
Speaker 1: to ease a regulatory crackdown, support property and technology companies,
Speaker 1: and stimulate the economy. Tim they're all in. They really
Speaker 1: have Carol, especially over the last year. Chinese stocks, though,
Speaker 1: have plummeted because of the growing government oversight, Chinese relationship
Speaker 1: with Russia, and concerns over economic growth, as well as
Speaker 1: other reasons. Well, we had the perfect guest this week,
Speaker 1: considering the recent newsflow involving China back with US, Dexter
Speaker 1: Tiff Roberts. He's Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's he's
Speaker 1: a security initiative. He's also Mansfield Fellow at the University
Speaker 1: of Montana. Tiff is also an author and former Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week China bureau chief, and he says the about
Speaker 1: facing Beijing was to be expected. I'm not really surprised because,
Speaker 1: as you said, it's been so it's been almost a
Speaker 1: blood bath for Chinese stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai,
Speaker 1: and UH I think they became concerned. So shijiing Ping's
Speaker 1: right hand economic person, Leoha, you know, he met with
Speaker 1: UH top finance officials and basically said, uh, it's time
Speaker 1: to market stability is what we need to focus on now,
Speaker 1: and promised to ease up on the regulatory pressure that's
Speaker 1: been on the tech stocks that's brought down, UH brought
Speaker 1: down so many of them in terms of their value. UM,
Speaker 1: So I wasn't that surprised. I guess the question is
Speaker 1: how how long or how sustained will this rally d
Speaker 1: I think there are continuing issues, particularly on the regulatory side.
Speaker 1: I don't think China's backing away from its desire to
Speaker 1: deal with what they perceive as national security concerns related
Speaker 1: to online data, which many of the companies that have
Speaker 1: been hit very hard have been, in one way or
Speaker 1: another involved in that business. Tip is China at all
Speaker 1: starting to back away from its relationship with Russia too,
Speaker 1: because that has also been something we all are watching
Speaker 1: very very closely. I think that China wants to signal
Speaker 1: to us that it's backing away from its relationship with Russia.
Speaker 1: I think they are disturbed by how long this war
Speaker 1: has been going on. They're definitely disturbed by the degree
Speaker 1: to which their international reputation has taken a beating for
Speaker 1: this perceived support and this real support for Russia during
Speaker 1: this during during the invasion in the war. So I
Speaker 1: think that's the message that they're trying to put out,
Speaker 1: that they are actually stepping back. I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: for a whole variety of reasons that they're they're going
Speaker 1: to actually just create real distance between them and Russia.
Speaker 1: What would real distance look like? And and I mean,
Speaker 1: could China actually actually afford to do it, especially if
Speaker 1: you know Russia is so cut off from the rest
Speaker 1: of the world that China is really the only country
Speaker 1: that can supply it with high with with higher end technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think for China, I mean the trade relationship.
Speaker 1: You look at the Russian trade relationship. I think it's
Speaker 1: about UND forty seven billion dollars last year. For Russia,
Speaker 1: it matters a whole lot. China is their number one
Speaker 1: trading partner. For For China not so much. I think
Speaker 1: it's about two percent of China's trade. That compares to
Speaker 1: roughly twelve percent each for the US and the EU.
Speaker 1: So the relationship, the economic relationship is far less important
Speaker 1: to China. Uh. I think there are I think what
Speaker 1: we're dealing really with here are political issues, and that's
Speaker 1: where the alignment between the two countries becomes very very important.
Speaker 1: You know, China's increasingly drawing that line in the sand
Speaker 1: about how it feels about democracy and you s dominance,
Speaker 1: whether it's through the dollar or something else. Absolutely, I know.
Speaker 1: I think the big issue here is China feels like
Speaker 1: it's the political values are roughly aligned with Russia, and
Speaker 1: much of that is defined by opposing the values of
Speaker 1: the US and Western liberal democracy. They see that as
Speaker 1: as really um to what they're trying to achieve. Hey, tif,
Speaker 1: so who needs China more? I mean you talked about
Speaker 1: the importance for Russia, But does Russia or the US
Speaker 1: need China more? And who needs the US more? Russia China? Uh? Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's a little complicated. I need a whiteboard. The second
Speaker 1: that I'll go for the second part. China needs the
Speaker 1: US more than Russia, I think obviously. Uh, the US
Speaker 1: is I guess it now, just right, just barely smaller
Speaker 1: trade relationship with the US than with the EU, but
Speaker 1: extremely important the source of much of China's high technology.
Speaker 1: So there's no doubt that China needs the US more
Speaker 1: than than Russia. Dies So yeah, so I I would
Speaker 1: just point that out. And then the first part of
Speaker 1: your question is Um, maybe maybe tell me again who
Speaker 1: needs who needs China more? Um, Russia or the US? Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I told you it was complicate. I think the US
Speaker 1: clearly Again, doesn't you know the China, China and the
Speaker 1: US have a tremendously important economic and trade relationship. It's
Speaker 1: tremendously important to a lot of our biggest multinationals in
Speaker 1: the US. So even as the UH, you know, even
Speaker 1: as tensions grow on the political side between the two countries,
Speaker 1: I think, UH, the U s will continue to put
Speaker 1: h and rightly so, a tremendous amount of importance on
Speaker 1: maintaining a strong economic and trade relationship with China without questions.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like both ways, whether it's coming from
Speaker 1: China or from the US, they both really need each other. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what I says. I think so, I think so. Now,
Speaker 1: Having said that, that doesn't preclude the fact that UH,
Speaker 1: a political relationship just keeps getting worse and worse, and
Speaker 1: I think that will continue unfortunately. So it's a real
Speaker 1: it's a tough position for both countries, increasing anger, outright
Speaker 1: anger and disagreement about how they look at the world,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, very tightly economically linked Dexter Tiff.
Speaker 1: We haven't been able to talk to you since Russia's
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine. And you know, it really seems like
Speaker 1: a big part of the conversation early on in this
Speaker 1: this war was where China would go and how this
Speaker 1: could embolden Xijian Ping to take over Taiwan. And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering where you fall on that if if you think
Speaker 1: that what Vladimir Putin is doing and has done in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: how that leaves uh China and the situation in Taiwan. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I think it explains to a large
Speaker 1: degree white China is being I would call it wishy
Speaker 1: washy on on which side they want to stand stand behind.
Speaker 1: China knows that. I mean, first of all, China I
Speaker 1: think feels that they feel Putin's pain, if I can
Speaker 1: say that, they actually think that Putin is is is
Speaker 1: an a grieved party here and that NATO expansion is
Speaker 1: a threat to Russia, and they sympathize with that in
Speaker 1: large part because they see h a rough parallel to
Speaker 1: the to the US and into Pacific and particularly Taiwan,
Speaker 1: they see also a threat obviously. Uh there, And I'm
Speaker 1: just finished by saying they would like Russia's support going forward.
Speaker 1: When when and and and when they eventually do decide
Speaker 1: to move more forcefully against Taiwan, is that just a
Speaker 1: matter of time? I am afraid so I'm one of
Speaker 1: those I think the I don't think that she jimping
Speaker 1: is a status quo sort of a guy. He. I
Speaker 1: think he's made it fairly clear that he would like
Speaker 1: to see uh Taiwan much more under China's uh thumb
Speaker 1: during you know, during his watch. I mean, the good
Speaker 1: news is she Jing thing is gonna be around for
Speaker 1: a long time, so they don't have to do it
Speaker 1: tomorrow or anything. But yes, I think I think he
Speaker 1: uh he doesn't want to see the relationship change dramatically.
Speaker 1: One thing that jumped out and I was actually off
Speaker 1: for a day, but I saw the story and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I got to send it to myself because I it's
Speaker 1: just sitting with me. Um. The Dad Jones report about
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia in active talks with Beijing to price some
Speaker 1: of its oil sales to China in the Yuan. That
Speaker 1: it's something that they've been talking about for years. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is a guys. According to people with the
Speaker 1: matter and so on and so forth. What's your read
Speaker 1: on that. That's pretty dramatic to me, I think so,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is obviously all about China's long term
Speaker 1: goals and maybe not so long term to internationalize the
Speaker 1: U N right currency, and this would be a significant step.
Speaker 1: I'm having said that, I think we can get ahead
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I mean, if we look at you know,
Speaker 1: just looking at for example, Swift, the global provider of
Speaker 1: financial transactions, compared to the China's rival, the steps the
Speaker 1: I P s, I mean, there's no compet and whatsoever
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're talking about I think something like
Speaker 1: eleven thousand institutions globally processing five or six tillion dollars
Speaker 1: a day by Swift, and China is doing you know,
Speaker 1: less than twelve trillion I think for the entire last year.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, I think to your question, Carol,
Speaker 1: I think it's a step forward, but there's still a
Speaker 1: long way to go. And I don't think, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't think China has is capable of bailing out
Speaker 1: Russia there um as sanctions tighten on on that country. Tiff.
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot, We've covered, uh, this Chinese stocks,
Speaker 1: not just Chinese stocks listed in the US, but those
Speaker 1: in Shanghai and Hong Kong. We've covered the Russian invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. UH. I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about trade between the U. S and China because during
Speaker 1: the Trump administration we'd call this a trade war, and
Speaker 1: that's something that I think has been really lost in
Speaker 1: recent years with the coronavirus pandemic. Here, um give us
Speaker 1: an update on what you think we need to be
Speaker 1: watching for when it comes to trade between the U.
Speaker 1: S and China and how things actually get better from here. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the tensions are still there. You know, we
Speaker 1: can the trade war may go away. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, the Phase one deals signed by the previous
Speaker 1: Trump administration went nowhere, as you know, so China did
Speaker 1: not satisfy or meet its uh it's commitments on that
Speaker 1: on that trip on that Phase one trade deal. So
Speaker 1: we still have a uh A lopsided trade relationship. We
Speaker 1: had news just about a week ago that the Biden
Speaker 1: administration was considering leving uh some kind of sanctions, perhaps tariffs,
Speaker 1: related to China's continuing mercantilist practices. It's industrial policy. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think the tensions are still there. Um, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they may sort of be pushed to the
Speaker 1: side momentarily when we're dealing with, you know, a global
Speaker 1: international crisis as we are with the Russian war against Ukraine.
Speaker 1: But but but I think it's still there. I don't
Speaker 1: see that really getting much better. That's Dexter tiff Robert,
Speaker 1: Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Asia Security Initiative, also
Speaker 1: Mansfield Fellow at the University of Montana and the author
Speaker 1: of the myth of Chinese Capitalism, The Worker, the Factory,
Speaker 1: and the Future of the World. That wraps up the
Speaker 1: first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim STINEBC.
Speaker 1: Ahead in our next hour, innovators and investors from tech
Speaker 1: to entertainment, how renowned inventor Dean Caman got Disney in
Speaker 1: his corner. And Damon John of Shark Tank on a
Speaker 1: new platform that bills itself as Netflix for Game Night.
Speaker 1: And up next, the head of Ireland's Inward Foreign Direct
Speaker 1: Investment Agency on investor appetite in Europe with war raging
Speaker 1: on the continent, all of that to come. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news As it happened. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser and plenty ahead
Speaker 1: in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, including how Damon John's love of board games
Speaker 1: led him to his latest investment, Plus inventor Dean Cayman's
Speaker 1: mission to promote stem education gets a big boost from
Speaker 1: a company you know and love. Okay, we're talking Disney here,
Speaker 1: and the daughter of a financial titan sets her own
Speaker 1: path in the investing world. First up, this hour, we
Speaker 1: look at Europe and the risk appetite for investors on
Speaker 1: the continent as war drags on in Ukraine and the
Speaker 1: number of refugees grows. Martin D. Shanahan is CEO at
Speaker 1: i D A Ireland. It's the government agency in Ireland
Speaker 1: that's responsible for attracting and developing foreign direct investment into
Speaker 1: the country, a task that's made immeasurably harder by the
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic and now by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Irelen
Speaker 1: would play it's part. We have seen five Ukrainian refugees
Speaker 1: arrive at our borders in the last two weeks. And
Speaker 1: again for your guests, Ireland is the furthest away probably
Speaker 1: a European country, you know, around the western edge of Europe.
Speaker 1: But but but we've taken you know, our our position
Speaker 1: is that Ukrainians are welcome in Ireland. They can come in.
Speaker 1: They don't require visa's paperwork at this point, they can arrive,
Speaker 1: they will receive all of the supports that Ireland kind offer,
Speaker 1: whether that's healthcare that we provided with social security numbers.
Speaker 1: They can work in Ireland immediately and we will um
Speaker 1: you know, support and our expectation is we will have
Speaker 1: money more in the coming weeks. It is a humanitarian crisis,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, it's also a crisis with global applications
Speaker 1: in terms of geopolitical markets, and we're certainly seeing that
Speaker 1: play out in global markets right now, whether we're talking
Speaker 1: markets in the United States and Europe or even other
Speaker 1: markets around the world. What about for your job when
Speaker 1: it comes to attracting foreign direct investment. Does it make
Speaker 1: you at all concerned that the cell of of Ireland
Speaker 1: is going to be more difficult given its proximity, given
Speaker 1: that it's in the You've given that it's it's proximity
Speaker 1: to Ukraine. Yeah, so, I mean I think a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Firstly, you know, undoubtedly this is has made
Speaker 1: probably Europe less attractive for FDI. I think this will
Speaker 1: also impact on the global flows of foreign direct investment
Speaker 1: as investors become more cautious and they take time to
Speaker 1: make decisions. And obviously FDI had already global flows left.
Speaker 1: I had already been heavily impacted by the COVID pandemic
Speaker 1: and are only recovering that coming down from the pre
Speaker 1: COVID level. So so so that there's going to be
Speaker 1: a continuation. I think of that caution, then Europe potentially
Speaker 1: slightly less attractive than it was. I think within Europe again,
Speaker 1: Ireland is the supposed the most geographically distant from you know,
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, and well, what I think in so far
Speaker 1: as there was any kind of you know, plus here,
Speaker 1: you know, it just gives us more stability, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean that we're not in the direct region.
Speaker 1: So you know, it was already a really competitive world
Speaker 1: for foreign direct investment. I think has just become more
Speaker 1: challenging in terms of I supposedly the economic impacts on
Speaker 1: Ireland though of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think
Speaker 1: the first thing is, you know, we're not directly exposed.
Speaker 1: You know, even if I look at our own portfolio
Speaker 1: of foreign direct investment companies, there are there are eight
Speaker 1: Russian companies, you know, operating in Ireland. There are very few,
Speaker 1: if any Ukrainian companies operating in Ireland, so that director
Speaker 1: exposure doesn't exist. But what what will happen, and what
Speaker 1: is clear is there's going to be indirect impacts, and
Speaker 1: those indirect impacts are going to come in a number
Speaker 1: of ways. They're going to come through increased energy prices
Speaker 1: and we're already seeing that. And you know, and even
Speaker 1: though Ireland isn't directly exposed again because we get our
Speaker 1: gas from the gas field off the shores of Ireland
Speaker 1: and from the UK, prices in general are going to
Speaker 1: increase as you know, supplying demand issues kicking. So the
Speaker 1: global corporate tax, right you guys have been a haven
Speaker 1: or maybe is that the that that is not a
Speaker 1: fair character all right, phrased the question because of your
Speaker 1: low global corporate tax rate. You've got Google, Apple, Meta, uh, Facebook,
Speaker 1: of course, UM, so many I think TikTok has just
Speaker 1: been has gone into Ireland because of your low global
Speaker 1: corporate tax rate oven I will not use that h word. Um,
Speaker 1: but you guys last fall are now all in on
Speaker 1: a global minimum corporate tax rate of now fift It's
Speaker 1: been twelve and a half percent in Dublin and in Ireland. Um,
Speaker 1: why the change? Yeah, the change resulted because there's a
Speaker 1: global agreement and you know what you had to do it,
Speaker 1: didn't you? Well, we we were the last interet I think,
Speaker 1: as you know, and because and we wanted certainty. We
Speaker 1: wanted to certainty about what rate we would be going to.
Speaker 1: And that's why it took so long, because you know,
Speaker 1: there was wording there which said, you know, at least
Speaker 1: fifteen percent. Ireland wanted to know at what rate exactly
Speaker 1: we would be um setting our rate at, which was
Speaker 1: whatever the you know, the most competitive rate was going
Speaker 1: to be. So when true discussions at the o c D,
Speaker 1: it became apparent that was going to be the minimum
Speaker 1: and it was became apparent that everybody was going to
Speaker 1: leave at once. Then that provided the context for Ireland
Speaker 1: to enter the agreement. And you know, Ireland just to
Speaker 1: be absolutely there, Ireland is not a tax haven. It
Speaker 1: never has been a tax We have a competitive rate
Speaker 1: of taxation to encourage businesses, both Irish business international businesses
Speaker 1: to be there and and some can, but it will
Speaker 1: be incorrect and and obviously have a definition of what
Speaker 1: that is and and its Ireland meds. None of the
Speaker 1: crisis definitely brings corporate companies, big corporate companies to you guys.
Speaker 1: It certainly is one of the factors, undoubtedly, as well
Speaker 1: as the very high rates of education and talent. Both
Speaker 1: are the Irish talent and the talent that we have
Speaker 1: attracted it from elsewhere, The pro enterprise policies, the stability.
Speaker 1: So even post you know, it was known all of
Speaker 1: last year we're likely to go into the agreement, we
Speaker 1: have continued to see even though we're increasing the rate
Speaker 1: for companies over seven absolutely not. And in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: we gained market chair of FDL and to Europe during
Speaker 1: twenty one in the midst of the pandemic. And that's
Speaker 1: because again I think you know, when companies were much
Speaker 1: more cautious about the best some decisions that are made,
Speaker 1: that couldn't travel and so on, they decided to go
Speaker 1: with stability and track records. That was Martin D. Shanahan,
Speaker 1: the CEO at I T A Ireland. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week coming up. The wellness business is booming, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that, and it looks like private equity continue
Speaker 1: to get in on the action. How a young woman
Speaker 1: with an investing pedigree is making her mark on what
Speaker 1: some people argue is a trillion dollar business. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Master and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes. Tim Stenoby from Bloomberg Radio. Bloo Pursuits team
Speaker 1: covers the business of wellness regularly, whether it's products and services, treatments,
Speaker 1: places to go. It's massive. Some have pegged it at
Speaker 1: a one and a half trillion dollar market and investors
Speaker 1: are noticing. That includes Ellie Rubenstein. She's the co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Mandatrey, a private equity firm that invests
Speaker 1: in the wellness area. If her name sounds familiar, it should.
Speaker 1: Her dad is well known in the financial space. He
Speaker 1: is a Bloomberg contributor on radio and TV's host of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubinstein. He's been a guest certainly
Speaker 1: on our broadcast, and his daughter Ellie joined us to
Speaker 1: explain her decision making process and how her background has
Speaker 1: shaped Mandatree's focus. One of the things I always tell
Speaker 1: people is you learn more from your failures or you
Speaker 1: learn more from what your passions are. And so we
Speaker 1: spent the last ten years starting my career actually focus
Speaker 1: within the seafood markets or um within water. And we
Speaker 1: kind of have a running joke in my family. My
Speaker 1: father eventually said, do you have to source all your
Speaker 1: own food? Huntered Asherman? He said, can't you go buy
Speaker 1: a seaboot or beef Company's Dad, It's not that simple.
Speaker 1: But you know in our family, usually when some and
Speaker 1: says what you can't do, that motivates me. So that
Speaker 1: was the emphasis for it, married with a very strong
Speaker 1: emphasis on culture of where I wanted to live, how
Speaker 1: I wanted to live, and really the people that surrounded
Speaker 1: myself with. So that was why I decided to go
Speaker 1: and start my own firm. I would say that um
Speaker 1: I did step out of my family and that I
Speaker 1: did move to bail at a young age and be
Speaker 1: a professional ski racer. And you know, while I might
Speaker 1: have gone east for college at Harvard, I put my
Speaker 1: foot down again and said, you know, Dad, I love you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the support and the advice, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go back to Harvard for grad school. And
Speaker 1: and so I feel like I started to become my
Speaker 1: own person when I took charge of my life. And
Speaker 1: for me, that meant the decision of going to Purdue
Speaker 1: and receiving my double masters, my master's and AgEcon and
Speaker 1: my MBA and food and agribusiness. And why that matters
Speaker 1: was I wrote my essay on my passion for sourcing food,
Speaker 1: smoking my own food, and really taking charge of the
Speaker 1: health aspect when you control your own supply chain. I
Speaker 1: did not anticipate Mandatory would become as big as it did,
Speaker 1: but that was really where it came from, was what
Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy doing. Elliot, I want to I'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about where you're putting your money right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's probably not a better time to talk
Speaker 1: about it, because we're talking so much about rising commodity costs,
Speaker 1: rising food costs, around the world. Uh, much of the
Speaker 1: world being cut off because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Speaker 1: from so much grain. So we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: commodity prices and I'm wondering how we should be thinking
Speaker 1: about diversifying when it comes to where we're getting our food.
Speaker 1: So when we started Mandatory, it was an anomaly at
Speaker 1: the time to say we are a firm focus on
Speaker 1: the global food supply chain. And what that means is
Speaker 1: it allows you to manage to risk number one the
Speaker 1: supply chain and number two the geopolitical risk. So we
Speaker 1: think a couple of areas that we tend to focus
Speaker 1: on would be number one globalization to glocalization, uh, number
Speaker 1: two companies disrupting the supply chain logistics, and then number
Speaker 1: three clean protein and and how that can be a
Speaker 1: hedge against some commodities. So a couple of examples of
Speaker 1: that globalization and localization. Gotham Green's is an indoor ad company.
Speaker 1: It is the leader in the space. We've had y
Speaker 1: we have we've actually had we've actually had the founder
Speaker 1: on garage. Yeah, go with it. Yeah, talk about a
Speaker 1: dynamic CEO. So, you know, this is an area that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we would have ever invested in. But
Speaker 1: what they have is an impressive model that cuts that
Speaker 1: supply chain down in half. And usually Leafy Green takes
Speaker 1: about a week to reach the grocery store, right, but
Speaker 1: instead they cut that in half, which allows it to
Speaker 1: stay on the shelf in the grocery board two times
Speaker 1: as much. It's also focused on in areas. So while
Speaker 1: at in New York, let's be clear, tin Brooklyn, they
Speaker 1: tend to locate in uh food deserts, right, And so
Speaker 1: they have a very unique algorithm. Instead of looking at population,
Speaker 1: it's looking at where can they help get people leafy green.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of this and and of course
Speaker 1: it's great for the ironment, you know, it cuts down
Speaker 1: and it's a very big proponent of E s G.
Speaker 1: But I think that they're really changing the game in
Speaker 1: terms of farming and and so that would be one area.
Speaker 1: What's your due diligence process? How do companies get on
Speaker 1: your radar? And how do you decide to say yes
Speaker 1: to a company? Sure, I want to first point out
Speaker 1: I think one of our advantages has actually been our
Speaker 1: diverse leadership. Um So if you look at only fift
Speaker 1: of women PE managers it manager. Seventy of us are
Speaker 1: diverse leadership. And why that matters is that in our
Speaker 1: portfolio companies, there are forty percent that's either CEOs are
Speaker 1: co founders um that are that are women. And so
Speaker 1: when we're trying to attract companies that either need female
Speaker 1: perspective on their boards or female founder, that really matters.
Speaker 1: So a couple of themes that we've looked at, We've
Speaker 1: talked about supply chain. There's one called Teta Logistics, which
Speaker 1: is a female founded CEO, and so that is an
Speaker 1: Amazon like uh, supply chain distruction company that assists restaurants
Speaker 1: with kind of on the go um and healthier options
Speaker 1: for restaurant. Another one that I would love to emphasize
Speaker 1: is Evolved. UM. It's in the gut infant, gut probiotic space.
Speaker 1: And so our managing director is actually the only women
Speaker 1: on the board. So I think what we've always tried
Speaker 1: to look for is four things. You know, UM, I
Speaker 1: would say, where can we add creativity, where can we
Speaker 1: lead with conviction, where can we provide confidence? And also
Speaker 1: our culture. If you visit us in Bail, Colorado, at
Speaker 1: our office, we have team workouts, we have a kitchen,
Speaker 1: you'll see us eating together. And so usually we actually
Speaker 1: try to influence potential founders by bringing them to bail
Speaker 1: and make sure that they can fit into that Manatree
Speaker 1: family and culture. You know, we really live out our
Speaker 1: our investment thesis of improving human health through nutrition and
Speaker 1: so making sure that that alignment is there is a
Speaker 1: big part of who we are. You know, there's so
Speaker 1: much going on in this space and I can only
Speaker 1: imagine the people who are knocking Elie on your door.
Speaker 1: And you talk about some of the criteria in terms
Speaker 1: of picking um in a world where we're thinking about
Speaker 1: impact on climate, when we're thinking about innovation disruption. You know,
Speaker 1: how do you though, additionally kind of weed through everything
Speaker 1: that comes through your door. So, first of all, we
Speaker 1: are growth equity and so that'll weed out some of
Speaker 1: it in and of itself. We try to be the
Speaker 1: second largest check in behind the founder. We we obviously
Speaker 1: our hands on UM and we're really kind of that
Speaker 1: last stage in. But I will say that there's there's
Speaker 1: themes that we stick to, and so those would be
Speaker 1: clean protein, precision, nutrition, supply chain disruption, UM and usually
Speaker 1: they have to get through our lit Mistress of are
Speaker 1: they actually improving human health, and so we call ourselves
Speaker 1: an calary conversion business. That's a big thing for it.
Speaker 1: We've seen plenty of companies that might not be healthy,
Speaker 1: so we go after much larger kind of the themes
Speaker 1: that we've seen, such as functional beverages were decline in
Speaker 1: soda sales. It's got to be a category leader with
Speaker 1: a very large addressable market, so we're not in just
Speaker 1: kind of these niche sweet spots. One last thing I'd
Speaker 1: say is we almost go in unsexy categories. Another company
Speaker 1: we just close called Good Culture, and they're the market
Speaker 1: leader in disrupting sour cream and cottage cheese. It's a
Speaker 1: great example of both E. S. G. In the regenerative agriculture,
Speaker 1: which it appears that if you know, the animals are
Speaker 1: treated better and the land is treated better than that
Speaker 1: end product, and the consumer is also healthier. So that's
Speaker 1: usually the way that we think about it. That's Ellie Rubinstein,
Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of Manatree still to come
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Business Week The future of game nights. It
Speaker 1: is here. We're speaking with the shark tank star behind
Speaker 1: any platform that's turning the games, you know, and love
Speaker 1: into an immersive experience. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the
Speaker 1: financial capital of the world, Bloomberg Eleve in Frio in
Speaker 1: New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: one oh six one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty
Speaker 1: the country, Sirius XM Chado one nine team, and around
Speaker 1: the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. Our next guest is an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur in every sense of the word. He wants Round
Speaker 1: is a parrel operation out of his mother's basement. Well now,
Speaker 1: Damon John is the CEO of the multi billion dollar
Speaker 1: lifestyle brand that he founded. We're talking about Fu Boo.
Speaker 1: He's also CEO of the marketing firm The Shark Group
Speaker 1: and one of the stars of ABC's a long running series,
Speaker 1: Shark Tank. It of course, offers budding entrepreneurs the chance
Speaker 1: to secure business deals that could make them rich. Well now,
Speaker 1: Damon is combining his pension for investing with his love
Speaker 1: of board games and games shows by backing a new
Speaker 1: interactive streaming platform. It is called game Star Plus. You
Speaker 1: know I think it is I think I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think everything's going to be in the metaverse. But
Speaker 1: you know, I guess the simplest way to say it
Speaker 1: for all the listeners, it's kind of like Netflix for
Speaker 1: Game Night, you know, and me being a huge lower
Speaker 1: of games, and I think board games. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: through this last two years, all of us have picked
Speaker 1: up some of that old love for board games. This
Speaker 1: was just a new delivery of form of delivery of
Speaker 1: board games. And that's why I thought it was an
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing investment. So all right, you made an investment,
Speaker 1: like where's it going to go? What's tell us how
Speaker 1: it's going to play out? Here? I'm thinking about our audience,
Speaker 1: they're investors and trying to understand and as the technological
Speaker 1: world continues to really evolve, where do you see this
Speaker 1: all going? Well, I think that more people are going
Speaker 1: to start living in the meta earth and or you know,
Speaker 1: online and doing what they're doing. But you're bringing the
Speaker 1: simplicity of Game Night like a Netflix, and I think
Speaker 1: that for the initial customer. You know, we we're launching
Speaker 1: and we already launched Family Feud. Really great, uh I
Speaker 1: P you have obviously Steve Harvey there after that We
Speaker 1: have seen it with Mary Lopez and Jeopardy with Ken Jennings,
Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune, and there's so many more slated. These
Speaker 1: are all titles of people really love you average out
Speaker 1: about anywhere from fifteen to twenty dollars for you know,
Speaker 1: a game. But this is a subscription of about three
Speaker 1: dollars three ninety nine a month and you get You're
Speaker 1: gonna get tons of games. And this is definitely something
Speaker 1: that I think some of the streamers are gonna want
Speaker 1: to acquire down the road because they need to get
Speaker 1: more eyeballs and keep more stickiness on their platforms, and
Speaker 1: I think this is a way to do this without
Speaker 1: having to compete for more content from other streamers. So
Speaker 1: talk to us about this platform. You mentioned family few
Speaker 1: that it is out there and it's streaming, So how
Speaker 1: many consumers are using it. What's the stickiness of someone
Speaker 1: who signs on and stays with it? Well, it too
Speaker 1: early to tell the stickiness because we just launched it
Speaker 1: and you can go to Target dot com and get
Speaker 1: it or go into Target because there are some uh
Speaker 1: physical components to the game, some cards you may want
Speaker 1: to have, but it's a little too early to look
Speaker 1: at that and you know, listen, after being one shark,
Speaker 1: thank every year seeing people tell me how they're going
Speaker 1: to do a good jillion dollars in the first week.
Speaker 1: I cannot to give them estimates like that. I just
Speaker 1: think it could be Africa. Yeah. I like the fundamental
Speaker 1: of knowing the I p s. They're knowing the celebrities,
Speaker 1: they're knowing my reaches, they're knowing people are moving towards
Speaker 1: streaming in all different forms, knowing the metaverse is coming around.
Speaker 1: I like, I like all the different things in position
Speaker 1: for success. So is the game right now, damon? Is
Speaker 1: it one that's meant to be played when people are
Speaker 1: physically together or is it to the point now where
Speaker 1: you can actually play with people who are not in
Speaker 1: the same space as you and you do this over
Speaker 1: the internet. Well out right now is going to be
Speaker 1: physically together, but it's going to grow to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are games that exist in apps that exist, they're
Speaker 1: all separate that obviously you can play separately. You know,
Speaker 1: that's nothing new. Um, but right now is physically in
Speaker 1: the home because then you'll be able to stream all
Speaker 1: the games to that home. And uh and and and
Speaker 1: and the physical components of there too, a couple of
Speaker 1: those pieces, so right now you need to be in
Speaker 1: the same household. Hey David, you know, as you guys
Speaker 1: build this out, content content, content, and we see it
Speaker 1: with the streaming services, but that's going to be true
Speaker 1: for this platform as well. Is it fair to say
Speaker 1: that it's gonna you know, there's gonna be maybe as
Speaker 1: you guys build it out and add content. In terms
Speaker 1: of profitability, it may take a little while, I would
Speaker 1: say so, but um, you know, listen to the two
Speaker 1: founders come from both the board, from the gaming world
Speaker 1: and from the lights of seing world. I think that
Speaker 1: there's going to just be a lot of massive I
Speaker 1: p there. And you know if I would have you know,
Speaker 1: we we already saw this. You know, years ago we
Speaker 1: thought the Netflix was something wasn't going to happen. Now
Speaker 1: you have Kulu, Netflix and all these type of things.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be the new normal.
Speaker 1: What other titles are you thinking of? If you mentioned
Speaker 1: that you have, um seen It with Mario Lopez, Jeopardy
Speaker 1: with Ken Jennings, Uh, you know Wheel of Fortune coming,
Speaker 1: you already have Family Feud out. How else are you
Speaker 1: thinking about? I don't want to call it content. Necessarily
Speaker 1: it is content, um, but it's it's kind of it's
Speaker 1: a little different in the sense of like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interactive. Well, we're looking at all ips. You know,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite ips monopoly of course, but you
Speaker 1: know we a deal of no deal or you know
Speaker 1: the price is right pyramid, you know. I think I think, um,
Speaker 1: all of these IPS is gonna be on there. What's
Speaker 1: the acquisition process for getting that intellectual property? Like, is
Speaker 1: it really tough to get monopoly? It is? Really, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's somewhat tough, but you have people like myself,
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey, the great founders who worked over at Sony
Speaker 1: and various other places. We all have, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the right connections of Mattel and has Bro, and I
Speaker 1: think that they're always trying to expand their IP and
Speaker 1: put it in different hands as well. So I don't
Speaker 1: think this one is going to be as challenging because
Speaker 1: we're kind of like in that blue ocean space with this,
Speaker 1: and there's not too many other competitors in this area
Speaker 1: delivering it on the same platform. So I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be fairly easy. That's damon John founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of Fubu, CEO of the Shark Group, best selling author,
Speaker 1: and as you know him, probably one of the stars
Speaker 1: of the Emmy Award winning Shark Tank on ABC. I'm out,
Speaker 1: I'm not investing. There's love when they say that, are not.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up. Celebrated inventor
Speaker 1: Dean Cayman is back with us talking about how we
Speaker 1: got Disney and thousands of other companies to work with
Speaker 1: him for many years to help him promote STEM education
Speaker 1: around the globe. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol mess Here and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. When we started this somewhat teams.
Speaker 1: Now we have thousands of thousands all around the world.
Speaker 1: First has given me the opportunity to become better and
Speaker 1: better into never stop training. It is way more than
Speaker 1: a club tending the skills of life. It's technology, respect
Speaker 1: to more. It is more than robots. That's a new
Speaker 1: documentary that last week premiered it south by Southwest. It
Speaker 1: is now streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. It's called More
Speaker 1: Than Robots. It follows four teams of teenagers from around
Speaker 1: the world as they get ready for the robotics competition.
Speaker 1: Dean Cayman is the founder of FIRST, which stands for
Speaker 1: Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, and he's been
Speaker 1: on a year's long mission and to spark interest and
Speaker 1: achievement in STEM education. Yeah, he's been doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time. We always remind everyone too that he's
Speaker 1: the inventor of the segue. He holds a variety of patents,
Speaker 1: many many patents. In fact, his focus though now really
Speaker 1: has continued to be expanding the reach of FIRST robotics
Speaker 1: competitions and the minds of young people. Well, I've got
Speaker 1: thirty seven hundred corporate sponsors committed to helping FIRST become
Speaker 1: a reality in every school in the in the country.
Speaker 1: I have two hundred thousand volunteer technology people now as
Speaker 1: mentors working with these teams. We have, you know, tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of teams, and it's almost exclusively a volunteer organization.
Speaker 1: It's driven mostly by passion by smart parents, smart teachers,
Speaker 1: smart industry leaders, smart government leaders that recognize unless you
Speaker 1: give kids a shot at understanding what really will be
Speaker 1: their future if they embrace technology and and and developed
Speaker 1: that muscle hanging between their ears. Um, this world is
Speaker 1: going to be a great place. But if anything, I
Speaker 1: think first is now becoming more accepted because thirty years
Speaker 1: ago I told everybody, you can all try to solve
Speaker 1: the problem we don't have claiming that our educational systems
Speaker 1: are lacking, and instead, why don't you go after the
Speaker 1: real problem in a free society where you get the
Speaker 1: best of what you celebrate. Thirty years ago and even
Speaker 1: still to this day, all the heroes, particularly to young women,
Speaker 1: particularly to minority kids, all their role models and heroes
Speaker 1: come from the NBA, the NFL, Hollywood motown. They don't
Speaker 1: see young adults successfully pushing ahead in careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, inventing.
Speaker 1: And it's not that those things really are not every
Speaker 1: bit as fun as accessible as as bouncing a ball.
Speaker 1: It's just we have a culture that that made sports
Speaker 1: superstars crowd out everything else. But as sports works, all
Speaker 1: I did was very simple, you're steal a good idea
Speaker 1: that works. I said, let's turn sience, technology and engineering
Speaker 1: into a sport, and then we'll attract all the kids
Speaker 1: that already loved sports. They love the competition. They love
Speaker 1: the excitement, but let's let them develop that muscle hanging
Speaker 1: between their ears. It will be the only sport where
Speaker 1: every kid on every team can turn pro. There are
Speaker 1: millions and millions of jobs out there in the technical fields.
Speaker 1: Do you take us back to your childhood, though, and
Speaker 1: talk to us about how you were inspired at an
Speaker 1: early age and how you see that not happening today.
Speaker 1: I mean, what, what did you have access to in
Speaker 1: your childhood that you want to recreate for children today.
Speaker 1: As a kid, my parents didn't mind that I did
Speaker 1: a lot of taking. I took all the basement. I
Speaker 1: started building things. I bought you know, bolk meters and
Speaker 1: the scyloscopes, and played are you taking apart of cliances
Speaker 1: on your parents? Yeah? I did all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I got as a teenager, I started making money
Speaker 1: doing technology for people, and I realized that most kids
Speaker 1: don't see the power of that. And I also realized
Speaker 1: my mom is a teacher, and I realized just the
Speaker 1: way schoolwork and go. You know, you're intimidated in the
Speaker 1: classroom learning equations, and if you don't get them right,
Speaker 1: you get a red mark. Whereas that same teacher becomes
Speaker 1: the coach after school and if you didn't hit that
Speaker 1: ball or you didn't get that basket, this this teacher
Speaker 1: that's required to be judgmental in the classroom becomes this
Speaker 1: coach that's so nurturing, that helps you after school. And
Speaker 1: I said, no, one, the kids love sports, no whether
Speaker 1: they're intimidated by science and physics and math. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's get those teachers the opportunity to coach a team
Speaker 1: that's using all the things that we claim a valuable
Speaker 1: about other sports, that's using teamwork and exciting stuff to
Speaker 1: give kids the skill sets they need to build a future.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about where we
Speaker 1: are as a society and trying to really understand how
Speaker 1: he can get more kids into STEM and what we
Speaker 1: need to do as as a country in order to
Speaker 1: do that. And I want you to draw parallels between again,
Speaker 1: how you were able to get inspired and and lead
Speaker 1: the life that you have, and how you can in
Speaker 1: turn see that happening with kids today. I just had
Speaker 1: to I'm the world has changed so much and and
Speaker 1: I wonder if we have the educational infrastructure in place
Speaker 1: today four kids to thrive like they did, you know,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. So I believe we have the
Speaker 1: the educational infrastructure. Everybody I know has a teacher that
Speaker 1: they think changed their lives. We've got the best systems
Speaker 1: in the world. We spend more per capital and education
Speaker 1: than anybody in the world. That's the whole point of
Speaker 1: First was it's not an education crisis, the culture crisis.
Speaker 1: It's not what we don't have enough of. It's what
Speaker 1: we have too much. In a rich culture, in a
Speaker 1: rich society, we've been able to turn leisure time into
Speaker 1: a phenomenon. We turned sports into something bigger than life itself,
Speaker 1: and it's crowded out to kids the idea that they
Speaker 1: can excel at something else, they can become superstars in
Speaker 1: some other way. And the entire premise of First look
Speaker 1: at our name for inspiration and recognition of science and technology.
Speaker 1: Kids will always do better at something if there are
Speaker 1: inspired to work hard at it. That's why the US
Speaker 1: is still leads the world in sports and an entertainment
Speaker 1: and Hollywood in the NBA. So we just said, let's
Speaker 1: take that model and create a sport that will be
Speaker 1: available to all kids again, particularly women and minorities in
Speaker 1: the United States that are so subtly but effectively convinced
Speaker 1: by the time they're even in middle school that science,
Speaker 1: technology and engineering. It's difficult, that's frustrating, it's boring, it's
Speaker 1: only for the gifted view because ironically, it's where all
Speaker 1: the big jobs are going to be, so these kids
Speaker 1: have to get into it early. You took me exactly
Speaker 1: where I want to go. Uh. Tim and I were
Speaker 1: part of a Bloomberg Live event. It was all about
Speaker 1: work shifting and just how things are changing post pandemic.
Speaker 1: But every executive, whether it was at that event or
Speaker 1: every executive who comes on air, I mean, everybody's a
Speaker 1: technology company. Doesn't matter what industry you are, you need
Speaker 1: I t workers tech workers. Um, that's just the world
Speaker 1: that we are in. And I do wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody says that there's just not enough out there. Has
Speaker 1: the message out there You've got You have been doing
Speaker 1: this for a while, and I still see a lot
Speaker 1: of money spent on big, you know, sports programs, whether
Speaker 1: it's in colleges or even you know, at lower level.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing an impacted change since you started doing this.
Speaker 1: We are certainly seeing a change, but you're right, there's
Speaker 1: still overwhelmingly more money and excitement thrown by the media,
Speaker 1: particularly at at at at making sports bigger than life,
Speaker 1: and they somehow have still failed to include us as
Speaker 1: the ultimate sports that humans ought to participated. But as
Speaker 1: an example you say, isn't working. When you look at
Speaker 1: the four teams that participate in this great documentary, you'll
Speaker 1: see that one of them, uh two of them once
Speaker 1: from Mexico, once through Japan, two are from the U S.
Speaker 1: They're both in California, and it turns out that each
Speaker 1: of them has a mentor, once a teacher, and her
Speaker 1: husband's the mentor for the competitive team. He works at
Speaker 1: ray Theon and he's hired more than twenty five of
Speaker 1: the kids. This essentially an inner city school system that
Speaker 1: without first wouldn't have produced any kids that could go
Speaker 1: work at Raytheon. And when you look at the thirty
Speaker 1: seven responses, we have a couple of hundred universities that
Speaker 1: are at all our big events scouting, just like the
Speaker 1: football team does. The reason these thirty seven hundred sponsors
Speaker 1: are there is, as you pointed out, every major company
Speaker 1: in the country and in the world is desperately looking
Speaker 1: for more technically competent people and the best way to
Speaker 1: create them and to build a better pipeline is to
Speaker 1: start earlier and have these tech giants and even the
Speaker 1: tech startups be there giving these kids encouragement and inspiration
Speaker 1: and making this the sport of choice for kids because
Speaker 1: it is the only sport where every kid can turn pro. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess that your Border Directors has always blown me away.
Speaker 1: Um Ursula burns right from the Xerox now at to Neo.
Speaker 1: You've got Rockwell, the former chairman CEO of Rockwell Collins
Speaker 1: Rockwell Automation, to Sigma David Seagull. These are people that
Speaker 1: are certainly familiar. Um. You know, pick any of those
Speaker 1: big companies in the STEM world and they are there. Hey.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to ask you, if you will
Speaker 1: indulge us a little bit, is I know I've talked
Speaker 1: with you before about North Dumpling Island that's in Long
Speaker 1: Island Sound. I've passed it when I'm out in the water.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is you are, I believe right, um, operating
Speaker 1: independently of the regional electrical grid there right solar wind. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a home that you've got there. And I do
Speaker 1: think about the week the last couple of weeks with
Speaker 1: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and we've seen the volatility
Speaker 1: and the energy markets, and you see the EU moving
Speaker 1: aggressively to wean itself off Russian oil. Everybody talking a
Speaker 1: lot more about alternative energy, solar, alternative energy power, or companies,
Speaker 1: you know, rallying as a result. What's what's the big
Speaker 1: thing that we need to be having here? We are,
Speaker 1: we are at the perfect storm and this could be
Speaker 1: the catalyst that makes it all happen. But power semiconductors
Speaker 1: are now available to make highly efficient grid quality a
Speaker 1: c out of just about any any any energy. Wind
Speaker 1: batteries can be now efficiently used to both store and
Speaker 1: then we deliver, whether it's DC or to the grids.
Speaker 1: But but you know, for many, many reasons, it's it's
Speaker 1: good for the environment, it's good for the economy, it's
Speaker 1: good for our national security, it's it's good for business.
Speaker 1: And finally, solar power, wind power, all of them collectively
Speaker 1: are starting to become realistically capable of taking on more
Speaker 1: and more of our energy loads. That was Dean Caman, inventor,
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and founder of First and that wraps up the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Tim Stanivik. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street
Speaker 1: Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily
Speaker 1: broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and check
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Speaker 1: Blomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal, and you can
Speaker 1: also see me on Bloomberg Quick Take available at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV,
Speaker 1: Samsung TV, and more. Have a great weekend. Stay safe everyone.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg