Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Weekend podcast. It's a special edition. Carol, What a
Speaker 1: week here in New York City. It was the Bloomberg fifty,
Speaker 1: the big event finance to fashion, technology, to trade, the
Speaker 1: people who, according to Bloomberg Business Week and we can
Speaker 1: measure it, yes, they defined twenty nineteen. And it was
Speaker 1: so cool because we were actually Monday. It was a
Speaker 1: big dinner, big celebration of those folks that are featured
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg fifty list and in the magazine. We
Speaker 1: were live on the red carpet at the Morgan Library
Speaker 1: Museum in Manhattan. It was the third annual Bloomberg fifty
Speaker 1: and it really was a celebration. And what I loved
Speaker 1: in terms of the conversations of the evening, it was
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life, and it was just
Speaker 1: this great representation of our world and truly from around
Speaker 1: the globe well and coming up in this special edition,
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from some of those folks we
Speaker 1: caught up with on the red carpet. The Gimblet Media
Speaker 1: co founders Matt Lieber and Alex Bloomberg. I've got a
Speaker 1: little bit of like a bro probrush on them. A
Speaker 1: love podcast. Plus, we will hear my conversation with Joey Levin,
Speaker 1: the CEO over at I A C. I got to
Speaker 1: catch up with him before the event get his view
Speaker 1: of what's going on in the world of media. First up, though,
Speaker 1: we caught up with Joel Weber. He's the editor of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. Of course, he told us how the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg fifty issue gets put together. There's a guy named
Speaker 1: Brett Began who actually slaves away at this thing for
Speaker 1: weeks after week after a week to get to a
Speaker 1: point where we can actually have people that we can celebrate.
Speaker 1: So it's big ten team sport, and it's even bigger
Speaker 1: than Brett because we reach out throughout the newsroom to
Speaker 1: all of the journalists and analysts within Bloomberg to make
Speaker 1: sure that we can have a list that actually really
Speaker 1: represents sort of the zeitgeist of the year. What's really
Speaker 1: cool too, is you guys start early in the year,
Speaker 1: right from what I understand, like back in the spring, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, and we try and account for the whole year.
Speaker 1: So it's really a chance to recognize even things that
Speaker 1: happened in January and February we're kind of taking into account.
Speaker 1: And so when you sort of set this in motion
Speaker 1: in a year like this, how do you pick out
Speaker 1: the themes? I mean, how do you sort of break
Speaker 1: it down? So it's a it's an evolving process um
Speaker 1: and it goes up until the last minute, right, but
Speaker 1: things start to stand out over the course of the year,
Speaker 1: whether it's a deal that especially in the oil m
Speaker 1: and A was one that really jumped out of us
Speaker 1: this year like that. That that kind of distinguishes stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you kind of like give it a little
Speaker 1: time and you come back to it and say, did
Speaker 1: that thing hold up or was it an anomaly right?
Speaker 1: Or did something else happen that got bigger than that, right?
Speaker 1: Or was it just like you know, we we have
Speaker 1: we have a lot of people in the list. We
Speaker 1: also have a chicken sandwich and it broke. You know,
Speaker 1: this is a Popeye's chicken sandwich that broke the internet?
Speaker 1: Is what what we realized. They had a three month
Speaker 1: supply run out in a matter of days, and you know,
Speaker 1: like something like that, it's just like even if you're
Speaker 1: like business business dreams this up, you have no idea
Speaker 1: that it's gonna like take off quite like that, right,
Speaker 1: And so we build into the process that there's opportunities
Speaker 1: to just embrace things that are slightly outside of our
Speaker 1: our usual place. And I love folks like Kylie Jenner, right,
Speaker 1: who are on the list for a couple of things
Speaker 1: that they did a couple of things, and you know
Speaker 1: that's it's. Uh, it's a big money the self made
Speaker 1: billionaire gym Z's first building. Um, it's it's an amazing accomplishment.
Speaker 1: And that's why we do this and be able to
Speaker 1: recognize some of these people. It's gonna be very exciting.
Speaker 1: Joe Webber, editor of Bloomberg business Week, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you great. We want to talk about the cannabis industry,
Speaker 1: which was a big story, in no doubt about it,
Speaker 1: but there was a lot more focused, I felt like
Speaker 1: on some of the Canadian cannabis companies, and now we're
Speaker 1: really focusing a lot more on the US company because
Speaker 1: our next guest is from pure Leaf and he turned
Speaker 1: this into one of the world's most valuable cannabis companies.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest U S marijuana company by market value.
Speaker 1: We're talking about two point eight billion dollars, right, he
Speaker 1: is Boris Jordan's congratulated sans on Bloomberg fifty. It seems
Speaker 1: like just a few weeks ago you're with us UH
Speaker 1: in studio. It's great to catch this is a nic
Speaker 1: I mean, our studio is nice, but this is a
Speaker 1: lot nicer. We generally don't serve booz but you know
Speaker 1: here we are. So why do you think you made
Speaker 1: this list? You know, I was surprised. I'll be very
Speaker 1: honest with you. I've in the past made some lists.
Speaker 1: I opened up the Russian privatization market, and uh I
Speaker 1: was on the Global Leaders of Tomorrow. But the last
Speaker 1: thing I thought I'd make as a cannabis UH company.
Speaker 1: Listening to Bloomberg fifty for cannabis UM, I think what's
Speaker 1: great about it is that it sort of reflects the
Speaker 1: fact that people are starting to accept the fact that
Speaker 1: cannabis is going to be a part of our lives.
Speaker 1: In the United States, we have thirty three states that
Speaker 1: are that that have legalized cannabis in one form or another.
Speaker 1: More and more people are using it, and the fact
Speaker 1: that Bloomberg has recognized that. I think it is a
Speaker 1: big deal and it shows that it's becoming mainstream. Well, Burson,
Speaker 1: I do think about you know, for a while, we
Speaker 1: just talked about the Canadian cannabis companies, and I do
Speaker 1: feel like nine was a lot more about the US
Speaker 1: companies and yours included, Um, what do you think is
Speaker 1: going to be when it comes to the cannabis story.
Speaker 1: We we're waiting for, you know, regulations to come out
Speaker 1: from the government, you know, so I'm just curious what
Speaker 1: you think. I think it's gonna be a continuation of
Speaker 1: the U s story. And that's not to say anything
Speaker 1: negative about Canada, but it's just a bigger market. The
Speaker 1: US companies are alterning profitable. Um, you're starting to see
Speaker 1: more and more of them. I think the numbers that
Speaker 1: are gonna be put up by US companies next year
Speaker 1: are gonna be quite big and staggering, and I think
Speaker 1: that will get recognized not only, uh, you know, by Washington,
Speaker 1: but I think also by the markets at large. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, large the mainstream investors have largely
Speaker 1: avoided cannabis until this to today, and I think you're
Speaker 1: gonna start seeing a lot more of them get involved
Speaker 1: as they see these companies start to put up significant numbers. Well,
Speaker 1: and talk to us about sort of the big companies
Speaker 1: getting involved, because there have been some twists and turns,
Speaker 1: shall we say, with some of the bigger US companies
Speaker 1: sort of dipping their toe in some making some investments.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of consolation obviously, how does this sort of
Speaker 1: consumer package goods market more involved in this? How important
Speaker 1: is it that they get involved in order to grow
Speaker 1: this business in a meaningful way. I think they're all
Speaker 1: going to get involved with for instance, purely on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: announced that we we hired um Joe Byrne, who ran
Speaker 1: uh DR Pepper Snapple. He built Voss Water. Before that,
Speaker 1: he was at uh um uh Seagram's company. So he's
Speaker 1: a real guy. These are guys that are built and
Speaker 1: run very big CpG businesses, that understand brands and understand
Speaker 1: supply chain. And you're starting to see more and more
Speaker 1: of those people enter this market. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the first sign, and that's Cure Leaf chairman Boris Jordan.
Speaker 1: We've been hanging out with that guy a lot lately.
Speaker 1: He's so influential right now because as you have said
Speaker 1: a number of times Cannabis it was the story of
Speaker 1: nineteen and it's going to be the story of in
Speaker 1: many ways too well. And they made a bunch of
Speaker 1: acquisitions in twenty nineteen that's really changed their company, made
Speaker 1: them such a bigger player in the industry. There's still
Speaker 1: a few hurdles which he got into, but he sounds
Speaker 1: like could be a big year for this industry. Jason.
Speaker 1: It was a big week, and we did kick off
Speaker 1: the week on Monday celebrating the Bloomberg fifty, the folks
Speaker 1: in the magazine, these individuals who stand out in measurable ways,
Speaker 1: and there was a dinner, a celebration, and we got
Speaker 1: to do a red carpet. The red carpet obviously was
Speaker 1: the thing. We were perched right there, grabbing guests as
Speaker 1: they came in. They're stopping to get their photo taken
Speaker 1: and then sitting down with us. They all looked really great,
Speaker 1: So fashion clearly front of mind. Yes, we did talk
Speaker 1: fashion with on Katie Bow. She's the CEO of ze
Speaker 1: Lingo and this is a startup. It's now got about
Speaker 1: a billion dollar valuation, but it's all about the supply
Speaker 1: chain in retail. Man talk about disruption. She's doing it
Speaker 1: and this is a story we've been talking about in
Speaker 1: some form or wait for it, fashion all year long.
Speaker 1: You think back to Danta Thomas's fantastic book fashion Opolis,
Speaker 1: about the fast fashion world the effects that it's had
Speaker 1: on the environment and on labor. That is really very
Speaker 1: much at the heart of what a Keti is doing.
Speaker 1: We started by asking her to tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about So, you know, everybody wears clothes and u
Speaker 1: UM the apparel industry. The apparel in textile industry is
Speaker 1: almost five percent of global GDP, so it's huge. But
Speaker 1: despite that, very little digitization, very little technology is really
Speaker 1: touched the entire industry, which is which is remarkable exactly
Speaker 1: so unlike pharmaceuticals, industrials, h the way your iPhone is made,
Speaker 1: unlike any of that. Uh, there is very little traceability, um,
Speaker 1: sustainability technology, or really any amount of transparency in the
Speaker 1: supply chain in apparel, and that leads to all these
Speaker 1: problems that you hear often that fashion is accused of,
Speaker 1: which are all true. By the way that we're filling
Speaker 1: up the landfills, there may be little children working in
Speaker 1: factories in Vietnam or in Indonesia or in Bangladesh making
Speaker 1: clothes for you that you're buying here um or that
Speaker 1: the clothes are not sustainable, people are buying too much.
Speaker 1: All of that is true, and all of that can
Speaker 1: be solved with technology by creating a lot of transparency
Speaker 1: across the supply chain. So that's where we come in.
Speaker 1: We we've provide a technology platform for mills, factories literally
Speaker 1: as upstream as the farmers to interact with the brands
Speaker 1: that want products made by these people and make sure
Speaker 1: that it's done in a sustainable, transparent But that part
Speaker 1: of it, I have to think that lack of transparency
Speaker 1: though existed for a reason people don't want you know
Speaker 1: know how hard was it to sort of crack into that?
Speaker 1: So you're exactly right. Today the fashion supply chain has
Speaker 1: about twenty players, uh, and you only need five of them,
Speaker 1: which means that about fourteen or fifteen of those guys
Speaker 1: or girls are just there because they are agents. Their
Speaker 1: agents there traders. They're not adding a lot of value
Speaker 1: in the value chain, so they're really either holding inventory
Speaker 1: health the amazing it's like they're there are twenty and
Speaker 1: there need to be five. Incredible, So about fifteen of
Speaker 1: them don't like us a lot. But the five that
Speaker 1: are adding value, we are adding an immense amount of
Speaker 1: value to their business and just economics and then making
Speaker 1: sure that they're held account able if they're not following
Speaker 1: the right. But to Jason's point, like, how tough was
Speaker 1: it like making your in roads and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, because I feel like it's such an established
Speaker 1: the supply chain or supply you know that was out there.
Speaker 1: How tough was it to do this? Actually, once you
Speaker 1: go beyond the big manufacturers and you really go into
Speaker 1: the world of Asian manufacturing or South American manufacturing, or
Speaker 1: even right here in the US, it's quite fragmented. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, most of fast fashion is made within a
Speaker 1: very fragmented manufacturer base. And then once you start giving
Speaker 1: them technology and bringing them online, it becomes much more
Speaker 1: easy for them to find their suppliers and their buyers
Speaker 1: and you know, transact without agents in the little So
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe it's hard in the beginning to get
Speaker 1: a critical mass in the new country or in a
Speaker 1: new area or in a new in you know, subcategory
Speaker 1: like Denim's or or something, but once you do it,
Speaker 1: there's so much of a network effect that it spreads
Speaker 1: quite fast because businesses see the value very quickly. I
Speaker 1: wonder about the trade wars, specifically the US on a
Speaker 1: trade war, and what that has done for your business.
Speaker 1: So what's interesting is that I think there has been
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of volatility, or at least the fear
Speaker 1: of what might happen in the minds of brands the
Speaker 1: world over, and many of whom that sourced a majority
Speaker 1: of their products from China did they wanted to oversify
Speaker 1: that portfolio a lot. So they want us to um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're not saying no China, They're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: can you de risk my business right by helping me
Speaker 1: understand how I should source and from where and making
Speaker 1: that transparent along the way. We're hearing that from a
Speaker 1: lot of the Stadio as we talked about that they
Speaker 1: want to be having kind of manufacturing in the markets
Speaker 1: that they sell. They want to, as you said, deleverage
Speaker 1: that risk exactly, some optionality. Absolutely. So if you build
Speaker 1: your business, where are you now, fresh infusion of capital,
Speaker 1: you're growing like crazy. Look like I think twenty twenty
Speaker 1: is going to be super exciting for us. We recently
Speaker 1: launched in the United States, we started working with brands
Speaker 1: over here where now just recently started working with manufacturer
Speaker 1: in the U S as well. Um, so it's it's
Speaker 1: looking like is going to be very, very busy because
Speaker 1: we do have a business in eight countries in Asia
Speaker 1: as well. And uh. While I spend most of my
Speaker 1: time in the Green Singapore in New York, now we
Speaker 1: have an office in l A, uh and we have
Speaker 1: lots of customers there. So it looks like it's going
Speaker 1: to be a crazy exciting I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: it is interesting sort of this idea of an American
Speaker 1: manufacturing l A does seem to be a little bit
Speaker 1: of the center of that. And yet even the American
Speaker 1: manufacturing is not immune to some of the issues that
Speaker 1: we've run into overseas exactly. So in fact, it's a
Speaker 1: myth that those problems don't exist in the US as well. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the practices are better, but they're not exactly optimized.
Speaker 1: We can use a lot more technology here as well.
Speaker 1: We can use a lot more transparency, digitization, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: QC and line efficiency tools can be automated. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot that can be done. And it was a
Speaker 1: bit of was a price to me personally when I
Speaker 1: came in and saw that there was just there was
Speaker 1: just so much to be done, even domestically here in
Speaker 1: the US. But now it seems like develop and developed.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you, because I love talking to
Speaker 1: folks like you, because I feel like you're traveling the world,
Speaker 1: You're seeing smaller business, midsized businesses, all kinds of businesses.
Speaker 1: What's the global economy looks like? I think, you know,
Speaker 1: despite despite every fear that people have in their minds
Speaker 1: right now about where the economies are going, where the
Speaker 1: economy is going, UM, I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity in the adversities that we're seeing as well. So
Speaker 1: of course this is a very colored view from my
Speaker 1: viewpoint where you know, Um, on the one hand, we're
Speaker 1: saying we've hit peak apparel and really people should be
Speaker 1: consuming less and consuming better. All of that seems like
Speaker 1: such a huge opportunity to us because consumers is starting
Speaker 1: to ask questions and whole brands and businesses responsive conversations,
Speaker 1: which is exactly where we come in and say into
Speaker 1: the brand that listen, you don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1: That's okay because We're gonna help you. We're gonna help you.
Speaker 1: That's a lingo CEO on Key Ti Bows and Jason.
Speaker 1: I feel like our conversation with her about the supply
Speaker 1: chain when it comes to retail in the fashion industry.
Speaker 1: This is something we've been really tackling a lot in
Speaker 1: our daily radio show. Well and they'll be fascinating to
Speaker 1: see where this company goes, because, as she pointed out,
Speaker 1: this is a supply chain that is actually too long
Speaker 1: and really needs to be shrunk down. You have to
Speaker 1: think that is not an easy task. So, Carol was
Speaker 1: a rainy night in New York. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: setting up a novel here. But we were there at
Speaker 1: the Morgan Library on the red carpet, and despite the
Speaker 1: bad weather outside, people were pouring in really excited to
Speaker 1: be there because it was just buzzing with big ideas, innovation,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't just about the people who were accomplished
Speaker 1: in nine. There was a bit of a look ahead
Speaker 1: to Yeah, and that's important. I mean it's innovators, entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: leaders who have changed the global business landscape and as
Speaker 1: we said, it's measurable ways. But we didn't only just
Speaker 1: think about twenty nineteen, we did think also about and
Speaker 1: one of those individuals, one of those that we're gonna
Speaker 1: be watching for is Sema Hungarani. She's the founder of
Speaker 1: Girls Who Invest. This is about getting more women to
Speaker 1: be managing money in the future. Well, and she knows
Speaker 1: what she's talking about. She was in the c i
Speaker 1: O for New York City's pension plan. She's now shifted
Speaker 1: to the not for profit world to really change not
Speaker 1: just the pipeline, but the decision makers and really adding
Speaker 1: some diversity to the mix. Yeah, it's been fantastic. In
Speaker 1: four years we have put through three d and fifty
Speaker 1: college when we were through our ten week on campus
Speaker 1: summer program where that's four weeks training in the classroom
Speaker 1: and then a six week paid internship at one of
Speaker 1: the leading asset maniti firms in the world. It's been
Speaker 1: incredible and eight of those women are staying in the
Speaker 1: investment business there staying. Are they moving up the ladder?
Speaker 1: They are. It's fantastic. Well and seem one of the
Speaker 1: things that I love talking to you about is the
Speaker 1: fact you were on the other side of the table
Speaker 1: you were or you were distributing money and the ways
Speaker 1: you were picking a manager. So you saw that from
Speaker 1: the other side of the table. Why is it taken
Speaker 1: so long for the rest of the world to sort
Speaker 1: of get on board with this. I think it's just
Speaker 1: coming up and saying, you know, maybe we had to
Speaker 1: rethink this. We've been having trouble recruiting women in particular
Speaker 1: into our business. Uh, and yet we do the same
Speaker 1: thing over and over again. So when I talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of the large investment firms around the world,
Speaker 1: I would ask them, so, what do you do when
Speaker 1: you recruit And they would say to me, oh, we
Speaker 1: go to these four colleges and we go to these
Speaker 1: investment banking programs. And I thought, well, you guys, I
Speaker 1: wonder how we're having a problem with diversity. Let's go bigger,
Speaker 1: broader and so find I'll do the work. I'll go
Speaker 1: find women across the entire country, from colleges all across
Speaker 1: the US, the different majors of study, different ethic backgrounds,
Speaker 1: different socio economic backgrounds, and I'll run a program through
Speaker 1: the summer and we'll train them up so that when
Speaker 1: we send them to you to these internships, they hit
Speaker 1: the ground running the same. I do wonder, though, if
Speaker 1: they're something different because I feel like there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of talk for years about getting more women into
Speaker 1: kind of the financial industry. Is there something that's changed
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years. Is it finally understanding
Speaker 1: that the studies and the importance of diversification that it
Speaker 1: makes a difference in terms of financial difference, that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden everybody's awakened. Yes, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think, um, while the research has been out there,
Speaker 1: there's more research that shows and proves that more gender
Speaker 1: diverse teams get better outcomes. There's actually research now that
Speaker 1: shows that more mixed gender investment teams get better investment results,
Speaker 1: which goes to the heart of girls who invest in
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. And I think honestly, in
Speaker 1: this country now, with movements such as Time's Up and
Speaker 1: hashtag me Too, it's certainly raised uh, you know, more
Speaker 1: attention on this issue and more firms are paying attention.
Speaker 1: And I think the final push has really come from
Speaker 1: the big institutional investors, so you know, have big public
Speaker 1: pension plans in particular, saying to these investment managers, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't have more diversity on your investment team.
Speaker 1: I've read the research too, and I believe the research.
Speaker 1: I don't believe you will get long term consistent investment returns,
Speaker 1: so I might pull my money from you and put
Speaker 1: it across the shoe. I'm so glad you brought that
Speaker 1: up because it feels like that's what has to happen.
Speaker 1: And again going back to uh your time in New
Speaker 1: York City, like the money has to speak here like
Speaker 1: that nothing's going to change. I mean we talked about
Speaker 1: this with the s G as well, you know, and
Speaker 1: start ups. The source of the money essentially says no
Speaker 1: or change, nothing's going to happen. So you think that
Speaker 1: that is starting to happen. Yes, And it's certainly it's
Speaker 1: a combination. I mean, there are amazing leaders in our
Speaker 1: industry who do get it, and I've been trying to
Speaker 1: push to get it as broad based as we needed
Speaker 1: to get. Yes, we're going to have to have the
Speaker 1: big investors out there saying this isn't gonna work and
Speaker 1: standing up and actually pulling their capital and putting it elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So much of what you're doing is creating that pipeline,
Speaker 1: and I do think that's so important. But we've got
Speaker 1: to make sure that there's the support along the way,
Speaker 1: and that really speaks to a company's culture and making
Speaker 1: sure that there's those folks to do that. So how
Speaker 1: do we get to that? Is it just by getting
Speaker 1: more and more women into the industry or what? Well,
Speaker 1: so that's part of it. UM. You know, back when
Speaker 1: I was at the City of New York and I
Speaker 1: was the c I O, and I had these conversations
Speaker 1: with the leaders of the business UM and I looked
Speaker 1: down at their organizational charts and say, you guys, were
Speaker 1: all the women on your investment team. And so what
Speaker 1: they would say to me is, well, we don't get
Speaker 1: resumes from women, so clearly a pipeline issue, which I agreed,
Speaker 1: maybe we do have that and let's fix that. But
Speaker 1: I did say to them, then, you know, I'd like
Speaker 1: to have the other part of the conversation, no judging,
Speaker 1: no blaming. But there's still firms out there in our
Speaker 1: business set of cultures that are not so welcome to women.
Speaker 1: So let's have that conversation to and tackle it from
Speaker 1: both ends. Make a lot more progress, a lot faster.
Speaker 1: So what I'm really encouraged by now is we are
Speaker 1: sitting down with the leadership of the industry and and
Speaker 1: talking about their cultures and why is it that once
Speaker 1: these women come in, they don't stay, And how do
Speaker 1: we help get these women to a position where they're
Speaker 1: getting promoted for these new opportunities, new growth opportunities that
Speaker 1: right now they're not really getting quit in most positions.
Speaker 1: And that's Seema hing Garani, the founder of Girls Who Invest.
Speaker 1: So they're on the red carpet, Carol Master. Earlier this
Speaker 1: week in New York City, we grabbed a couple guys
Speaker 1: whose voices candidly, very familiar to us, and a story
Speaker 1: I followed very closely. You know, I love podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: always coming into the office saying you gotta listen to this,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen that most of the time you don't,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you do. I do sometimes listen. And you
Speaker 1: have to listen to these two individuals because they sold
Speaker 1: their company to Spotify for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: It was the largest deal in the podcasting industry. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Gimlet Media co founders Matt Lieber and Alex Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: So Carol, we asked them to start by telling us
Speaker 1: a little bit about the podcast world. I mean, it's Nason,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been around for that long. Their origins in
Speaker 1: public radio and how they stand out from the pack, Well,
Speaker 1: I think Matt and I were we started the company,
Speaker 1: uh and and uh, we're both sort of coming at
Speaker 1: it from separate perspectives. I was, I was working in
Speaker 1: podcasting already, I worked at this American Life, and I
Speaker 1: had uh started planning money with my co founder at
Speaker 1: Adam Davidson, and so I was seeing sort of like
Speaker 1: this excitement building around this new on demand way that
Speaker 1: like audio is getting delivered to people. And I just
Speaker 1: saw the excitement building, and I was like, we just
Speaker 1: somebody should make more of these. And then Matt had
Speaker 1: was like in the on the other side of the
Speaker 1: sort of like uh of the of the of the scene,
Speaker 1: looking and seeing the same sort of thing. That. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our insight was that if you look over the whole
Speaker 1: history of media, every time a new medium comes about,
Speaker 1: new a new media company gets built. And so a
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, the new medium was radio, and that's
Speaker 1: when CBS got built, and that's when NBC got built.
Speaker 1: And we felt on demand digital audio podcasts were a
Speaker 1: new medium and we wanted to build a defining brand
Speaker 1: for this new medium, and that was gimma. But isn't
Speaker 1: it fascinating because it is like radio in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, just listening to a great story being told.
Speaker 1: And I just think the simple part, it's just such
Speaker 1: a simple thing, but it's great. But it harkens back
Speaker 1: to radio, right, hearkens even further back to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what if you think about, like what we're
Speaker 1: doing in podcasts. A lot of times, what we're doing
Speaker 1: is is one of the oldest forms of media in
Speaker 1: human existence is telling stories to one another. And we've
Speaker 1: been telling stories to one another before there was any
Speaker 1: other media available. We like, many of the oldest stories
Speaker 1: in in human history were oral stories before they were
Speaker 1: ever written down. They were they were telling them before
Speaker 1: human languages, even written language was invented. And so it's
Speaker 1: very deep and very primal. And uh, And I think
Speaker 1: that was one of the issues when we were sort
Speaker 1: of like s first starting this company. Every was like,
Speaker 1: but it's just talking, right, and we're like, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: But it's also on the backs of this new of
Speaker 1: new technology and and all these new tools that we
Speaker 1: bring to it, and so where are we sort of
Speaker 1: in in the evolution here because you guys, as we said,
Speaker 1: we're early, a lot of people have sort of piled in.
Speaker 1: It feels like, I mean, we have a podcast, everybody
Speaker 1: has like you know, everybody sitting around is probably has
Speaker 1: a podcast, Like where does it go next? We think
Speaker 1: we're just at the very beginning. And the term that um,
Speaker 1: I think you you've been using is that we're at
Speaker 1: the dawn of the second Golden age of audio. The
Speaker 1: first golden age of audio was in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: and nineteen forties. It was when broadcast news was born.
Speaker 1: It was when you saw fiction like The Shadow with
Speaker 1: Orson Welles called about and Now. And you know, audio
Speaker 1: hasn't evolved that much in the last sixty seventy years
Speaker 1: until now. And now. What you have are a couple
Speaker 1: of big technology changes. So you have smartphones in every pocket,
Speaker 1: you have connected cars coming online. A lot of listening
Speaker 1: happens in the cars, and you've got smart home devices
Speaker 1: that people are listening at home and even talking to
Speaker 1: their dashboard when they're in their car. And so all
Speaker 1: these things have combined for this whole new um listening
Speaker 1: kinds of listening experiences to come out and new sorts
Speaker 1: of storytelling. So there's a whole generation of creators being
Speaker 1: born now to work for this medium. It's a more
Speaker 1: intimate It's like radio, but it's more intimate. Um, there's
Speaker 1: something about putting on your headphones or something and just
Speaker 1: kind of going. When you listen to a podcast, it
Speaker 1: feels like you're listening to your best friend hang out
Speaker 1: with you, tell you a story that's just made for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But as Ja said, well, as you mentioned, everybody's got
Speaker 1: a podcast, what is it that makes a podcast stand out? Well,
Speaker 1: are there's so much content out there? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if we told you that, then you would just start
Speaker 1: your own. Well, actually, is it just a great story?
Speaker 1: I mean you're asking the question that is at the
Speaker 1: heart of every content company, which is like what people want? Right,
Speaker 1: and that and and and and and The scary truth
Speaker 1: is that like that is an essential mystery. We can
Speaker 1: do our best, and we have been very successful so far,
Speaker 1: and we will continue to be successful, like eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: getting that right a bunch of times, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's really hard. I think the thing that like
Speaker 1: is true about audio though, is that it prizes two
Speaker 1: things above everything else. Like, there's a very simple way
Speaker 1: that it is just it thrives on narrative. And so
Speaker 1: if you can just tell a simple story, like just
Speaker 1: for example, if I say to you, I got up
Speaker 1: this morning, I looked out the window, and then I stopped.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, wait that all I did was say
Speaker 1: two sentences to you, and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: want to listen to the third one. There's something that
Speaker 1: there's something that deep in in terms of like hearing
Speaker 1: a story that people it really grips you. So that's
Speaker 1: I think that is one of the key things that
Speaker 1: audio can deliver. And if you get that right over time,
Speaker 1: that's what people want to listen to. All right, So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the business side of
Speaker 1: all of this, because storytelling is great. We all love
Speaker 1: telling stories, we like listening to them, we like telling them.
Speaker 1: We certainly like hearing ourselves talk because we do it
Speaker 1: for hours a day every day. But you guys figured
Speaker 1: out a way to make a real business out of this,
Speaker 1: something that Spotify was able to and willing to pay
Speaker 1: you a lot of money for. Clearly they see a
Speaker 1: business here. How does distribution ultimately work in a profitable
Speaker 1: way not UM. Yeah, that's a good that's a good question.
Speaker 1: We UM. We did build a business here and so
Speaker 1: Gimlet is UM. It was mainly an advertising business. It
Speaker 1: turns out podcasting, this intimacy that happens in audio makes
Speaker 1: it great for storytelling. It also makes it great for advertising.
Speaker 1: And we're reaching a very unique consumer. They tend to
Speaker 1: be younger and more affluent, more educated. They're very hard
Speaker 1: to reach. Our name for them is the unreachables, and
Speaker 1: we're getting them with this very um, direct, personal kind
Speaker 1: of ad product that really work for us. And so
Speaker 1: so we built a business around that UM. And then
Speaker 1: about a year ago we we started having more serious
Speaker 1: conversations with Spotify, and in Spotify we saw a really
Speaker 1: a global giant music company that you know today reaches
Speaker 1: over a quarter billion listeners around the world every month UM.
Speaker 1: And in that we saw distribution. We saw the opportunity
Speaker 1: to take gimblet and reach a global audience. We thought
Speaker 1: that together we could solve what is one of the
Speaker 1: fundamental problems for the medium and also for the business,
Speaker 1: which is discovery. So if you ask UM, if you
Speaker 1: ask people what podcasts they listened to and how they
Speaker 1: found out. They're still basically finding out because their friend
Speaker 1: told them. They may have read it in media. But
Speaker 1: the kind of discovery that Spotify has unlocked to tell
Speaker 1: you about the right song, the right album, the right playlist.
Speaker 1: We thought that could work for a podcast too, and
Speaker 1: in doing so get too many many more people. Does
Speaker 1: it continue to be an advertising model that gets it
Speaker 1: to profitability? Today? Podcasts are mainly, uh an advertising business?
Speaker 1: Does it continue to be that way? Um? I think
Speaker 1: there's gonna be I think there's gonna be other all
Speaker 1: kinds of other forms of monetization. And Spotify is primarily
Speaker 1: a subscription business. The vast majority of Spotify's revenue comes
Speaker 1: in the form of paying subscribers. And um, we think
Speaker 1: we're gonna unlock new monetization models for for podcasts that
Speaker 1: will realize the true value of the media. All Right,
Speaker 1: So I have to ask you, knowing your story, knowing
Speaker 1: that you both worked in public radio. Public radio, people
Speaker 1: who you know must be like, they're happy ish for you, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that before they like slave away, like here
Speaker 1: they are, They're like and like you guys go and
Speaker 1: create this like Juggernaut. I mean that's amazing. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think I think it was like
Speaker 1: a pretty big a pretty big shock in the industry
Speaker 1: when the sale happened. I think just because, like you know,
Speaker 1: it was like it made real this thing that up
Speaker 1: until that point had not had just been sort of theoretical.
Speaker 1: And so anytime, anytime, even if people were I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we know lots of people in the industry
Speaker 1: and many of my closest friends are in public radio. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm still very very tight with everybody, and so
Speaker 1: everybody knew what was happening. They were excited, they were
Speaker 1: rooting for us, yeah, fighting mostly. Uh, but it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big shop when that when that thing happens,
Speaker 1: and it's like and they're like wow, they were like Alex,
Speaker 1: why didn't you like cut me in a little it. No,
Speaker 1: they're just making sure you're buying right. But the thing
Speaker 1: that I think it was, um, I think it was
Speaker 1: like what was ratifying I think for all of us
Speaker 1: in there, is that it really we were slaving a
Speaker 1: way of doing this thing that we saw value end,
Speaker 1: like we believed in this, like the product that we're making,
Speaker 1: and what the sale did wasn't legitimized that value that
Speaker 1: we saw in it for everybody, and I think that's
Speaker 1: a great thing for the entire discute thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a I mean I think when we look
Speaker 1: in one of the reasons you're on the Bloomberg fifty
Speaker 1: is it was a seminal moment, you know, in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways of saying, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who had dabbled in this were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I sold an ad to whoever, and like
Speaker 1: it's barely covering my costs. Like this is something that
Speaker 1: that really legitimized it in a really big way. So
Speaker 1: what podcasts and for you guys is just blowing up
Speaker 1: even more. Like it's just like, I think what we're
Speaker 1: gonna see is we're gonna see lots and lots of
Speaker 1: new forms, lots and lots of new formats, lots of
Speaker 1: new people coming into into podcasting that haven't been here before. Um, more, bigger, better,
Speaker 1: more creative, more exciting stuff, more stuff that we haven't imagined.
Speaker 1: Do the elections kind of make it an interesting year
Speaker 1: in terms of content? Yeah, I mean you guys think
Speaker 1: about that, well, yeah, I mean we're storytellers and this
Speaker 1: is it's kind of exciting. Yeah, you know, it's super exciting,
Speaker 1: and and and the way and how how you cover that,
Speaker 1: you know, in all the different ways that we're thinking
Speaker 1: about covering it, We're excited. That's Matt Lieber and Alex Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: the co founders of Gimlet Media and speaking of visionaries.
Speaker 1: First up, we caught up with Stephanie Kelton. She's an
Speaker 1: economist from Stony Brook University's got a new book coming out.
Speaker 1: I should point out, The Deficit myth Modern Monetary Theory
Speaker 1: and The Birth of the People's Economy that comes out
Speaker 1: in June, but we caught up to talk to her
Speaker 1: about MMT well, and we started by saying, why are
Speaker 1: people talking so much about this year? MMT certainly having
Speaker 1: a moment. It is kind of astonishing, right that. I
Speaker 1: think in a lot of ways, what's happening is that
Speaker 1: people are coming to some sort of terms with the
Speaker 1: idea that when the new downturn comes um policymakers are
Speaker 1: going to be able to reach for the usual toolkit
Speaker 1: and do what they've done in the past, that we're
Speaker 1: going to have to start thinking, maybe more creatively, more
Speaker 1: ambitiously about what policymakers can do in response to a
Speaker 1: growing weakness in the economy, and I think um for
Speaker 1: many people, m MT is just increasingly viewed as that
Speaker 1: alternative that can help us to um, you know, think
Speaker 1: about ways to to be more ambitious when so we
Speaker 1: don't have to suffer a kind of long protracted recession
Speaker 1: that we had last time. And so, Stephanie, were you
Speaker 1: surprised that this was a year where a lot of
Speaker 1: people from Alexandro Carassio Cortez to Bernie Sanders who Carol mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, they introduced it. We talked about the Overton
Speaker 1: window all the time, right, you know that this sort
Speaker 1: of moved in m MT favor makes me story, But
Speaker 1: it was a moment, you know, and honestly it entered
Speaker 1: into the political and and I dare say even at
Speaker 1: least the mainstream business zeitgeist, to quote our colleague Tom Keane.
Speaker 1: Yes and no, if you've been pushing hard to get
Speaker 1: that breakthrough moment for a set of ideas, and you've
Speaker 1: really worked as a scholar and as an academic and
Speaker 1: with a number of other people as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a team effort, and you know, we put
Speaker 1: heart and soul into this project for more than two
Speaker 1: decades now, and so at some point you do expect
Speaker 1: it to pay off, I guess, you know. But then
Speaker 1: when you have that moment and you have politicians of
Speaker 1: the type that you're talking about giving some oxygen to
Speaker 1: these ideas, it really is remarkable for everyone like a
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and some other individuals high profile who are
Speaker 1: supporting him and to you know, you've had a lot
Speaker 1: of high profile names. I know, Paul Krugman, you've had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a battle, you know, certainly a
Speaker 1: ward words. I'm curious if you're having more and more
Speaker 1: conversation with more folks that maybe we're against it, that
Speaker 1: are starting to say, hey, you've got an idea here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean so for me, some of the most fun
Speaker 1: conversations and communications I have are those that aren't public.
Speaker 1: It's the people who reach out to me privately. And
Speaker 1: you know, were it known who these people are, I
Speaker 1: think the shock waves would reverberate in you know, much
Speaker 1: more dramatic fashion. But it's just encouraging to know that
Speaker 1: there are people who are really out there willing to
Speaker 1: take the scholarship seriously, ask questions when they're not sure, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, do the ideas justice and not sort of
Speaker 1: caricature them and and created an atmosphere of fear and
Speaker 1: concern where these are really just, I think, very sensible
Speaker 1: and sound economic principle remind our world. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know our audience knows, but m m T is essentially
Speaker 1: a government in their own currency can just print the
Speaker 1: money they need. So I never use those words because okay,
Speaker 1: everybody everybody in the journalist world does. But the idea
Speaker 1: is fairly simple. It's that in countries like the US
Speaker 1: that issue their own currency that's not tethered to gold
Speaker 1: or convertible into anything else, that the rules are just
Speaker 1: different for currency issuing government as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: somebody in the Eurozone, Griefs or Italy or Spain that
Speaker 1: now borrows in a currency that they don't control. It
Speaker 1: certainly different from a household or an individual business that
Speaker 1: has to spend in a currency that it can't issue.
Speaker 1: So it does free up some policy space. And what
Speaker 1: MMT is trying to remind us is we're not on
Speaker 1: a gold standard anymore, not in a fixed exchange rate world.
Speaker 1: So let's recognize that, let's try to take full advantage
Speaker 1: of the policy space. That's available to us. It's not
Speaker 1: a free lunch. It's not a carte blanche. You can
Speaker 1: go out and spend that. Yeah, you can't. You're still
Speaker 1: supposed to make wise investments, be judicious with the public purse.
Speaker 1: But recognize there is a difference between the issuer of
Speaker 1: the currency and what we would say are the users
Speaker 1: of currency. The government's not like a household. But continue
Speaker 1: to have debates and policy conversations that are rooted in
Speaker 1: this old thinking of the federal government as if it's
Speaker 1: gotta played by the same set of rules that you
Speaker 1: and I have to play by, And that's just not right.
Speaker 1: So I gotta ask you before we let you go,
Speaker 1: sort of looking ahead a bit, all the attention that's
Speaker 1: been paid to you into and two m MT. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like there is a well spring of sorts
Speaker 1: of new scholarship that's coming up. Are you hearing sort
Speaker 1: of students, grad students and others sort of coalesced around
Speaker 1: this a little bit, because often that's what it takes
Speaker 1: for an idea to move even further into the industry. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I taught at the University of Missouri in
Speaker 1: Kansas City for seventeen years. I'm now at Stony Brook
Speaker 1: University here on Long Island, but we had one of
Speaker 1: the largest graduate programs PhD programs in the entire university.
Speaker 1: There are universities training students, are students are now out
Speaker 1: hiring their own economics departments. I just saw university on
Speaker 1: the East Coast advertising for a faculty position where they say,
Speaker 1: what we're looking for is someone who can teach, mm teach,
Speaker 1: So they're actually hiring, and that's economist Stephanie Kelton. And
Speaker 1: if there's such a thing as a rock star in
Speaker 1: the world of economists, she is certainly. When it was
Speaker 1: so interesting to see her work the room because people
Speaker 1: recognize her. They certainly recognize her work. They recognize her
Speaker 1: from her Twitter account, her little embro leo as it
Speaker 1: were with Paul Krugman. Yeah, exactly. I mean this so
Speaker 1: much attention, don't forget. You know, she has been an
Speaker 1: advisor to Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. She's also
Speaker 1: been an advisor to Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody's talking about this because maybe the world is a
Speaker 1: little bit different. So the Bloomberg Fifty this week, Carol,
Speaker 1: we kicked off the week with a bank, to say
Speaker 1: the least, a dinner, a celebration, drinks. Also our favorite
Speaker 1: part the red carpet because we were able to grab
Speaker 1: and chat with some of the honorees. That's right, Jason.
Speaker 1: And one of them that we spoke with James Mwangi.
Speaker 1: He's the CEO of Equity Group Holdings. We asked him,
Speaker 1: after thirty five years in the industry, how was it
Speaker 1: getting started. Yeah, the first ten years were very difficult,
Speaker 1: couldn't break even, so we became technically insolvent by the
Speaker 1: seventh year. Right, very tough track record where the losses
Speaker 1: we had accumulated were thirty times the capital we started with.
Speaker 1: But essentially we developed a business model that was appropriate
Speaker 1: for the individual entrepreneurs and we became a bank for
Speaker 1: the small, micro and media enterprises. And essentially the models
Speaker 1: knitted with the entrepreneur so well that now we are
Speaker 1: the largest bank in Nairobi Stock Exchange in terms of
Speaker 1: market cup and the largest bank in Eastern and Central
Speaker 1: Africa and with the sixteen million customers nine countries. And
Speaker 1: so when you think about your customer, help us understand
Speaker 1: who they are. You know, you described their size, but
Speaker 1: are they in all types of businesses and as you
Speaker 1: look down down the list, what are the fastest growing
Speaker 1: areas that you see? Yeah, we are very inclusive bank
Speaker 1: because people graduate up, they missed that very micro. They
Speaker 1: becomes more, they become medium, they become a larger. The
Speaker 1: same with the individuals. They start occasionally as peace and farmers,
Speaker 1: they become a growth businesses and the individual as well
Speaker 1: being continuous to grow. But the biggest growing segment, UH
Speaker 1: is the medium mental prices. That's where you find the
Speaker 1: scale size is becoming really significant. I have to say, James,
Speaker 1: what I love about this? And I remember talking to
Speaker 1: Bahammed Units about microloans and what you could do with
Speaker 1: a small amount of money, the impact you could have
Speaker 1: on a family, and I think about what you're doing
Speaker 1: multiplied many times over. That allows people to have a
Speaker 1: financial identity, create a means for themselves and their family,
Speaker 1: and then even kind of work up the value chain.
Speaker 1: It's pretty remarkable and it in hacks the country that
Speaker 1: they're in as well. That's true because the African entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: capitalism in Africa is at the individual level, the entpren
Speaker 1: whatever and that individual supports the immediate family and sometimes
Speaker 1: they extended the family. So when they started the small enterprise,
Speaker 1: they provide the jobs for the entire family, They take
Speaker 1: care of the education of the entire family, and essentially
Speaker 1: they become a catalyst. So small loans have very significant
Speaker 1: impact because of the individual capitalism. Africa is not compily tized,
Speaker 1: so we don't have mutual copy. It is a small
Speaker 1: businesses that aggregate to the African economies. So speaking the
Speaker 1: African economies, let's talk about Kenya because an ambitious plan underway.
Speaker 1: You're an architect of it, Keny Kenya's Vision twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: I believe it's U tell us what's underneath that because
Speaker 1: the indigenous Huge Vision twenty thirty is a long term
Speaker 1: strategic plan to to see Kenya transformed from a least
Speaker 1: developed country to a midle income economy. I've been the
Speaker 1: chairman Vision twenty thirteen now for the last thirteen years,
Speaker 1: and we have seen the economy move from a ten
Speaker 1: billion US dollar size economy to a hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: growing ten times within a period of thirteen years. In
Speaker 1: the process, we have created numerous jobs, thousands of jobs
Speaker 1: for young people because the country is very young, with
Speaker 1: a miniage of eighteen years, so the need for jobs
Speaker 1: is normal. But more importantly we have seen the law
Speaker 1: of the private sector have preyed and that is where
Speaker 1: equity have prayed a very significant role in providing credit,
Speaker 1: uh financial or support. But more important foundation provides capacity building.
Speaker 1: We do financially, trust, we do enterpregnewership training, and so
Speaker 1: once you're combine credit and competence and capacity, we see
Speaker 1: they cannot be being moved. And in the process Kenya
Speaker 1: has have moved now to position five in the continent
Speaker 1: from position sixteen within that vidiod. What was interesting because
Speaker 1: you started this to think around two thousand eight, which
Speaker 1: I think was an interesting time obviously around the world,
Speaker 1: a tough time, but it's fascinating kind of some of
Speaker 1: the things that you've done, like a fiber after cable project,
Speaker 1: but you also had to deal with governance and rule
Speaker 1: of what I mean you to get some basic things
Speaker 1: in place to be able to grow this right, and
Speaker 1: and and and kind of grow the businesses. Yes, we
Speaker 1: broke them the espilation of the people into three. The
Speaker 1: first one was governance, get it light in the way
Speaker 1: we have governed and yeah, and get transparency, get accountability
Speaker 1: and get a structure of governance that is reliable and
Speaker 1: the prey digtable. The second one was look at the
Speaker 1: economy and enable the private sector. Invest in fiber optic,
Speaker 1: invest in lords, power, lad ways, airports and pots so
Speaker 1: that the cost of doing business is reduced and private
Speaker 1: sector is facilitated. We called all that enablement of the
Speaker 1: private sector, so massive investment in UH. And then the
Speaker 1: last one was invested in the socio aspects of the people.
Speaker 1: Focus on education. We started with free primary education that
Speaker 1: now it's free UH day school education and on all
Speaker 1: the way to university and we now have a hundred
Speaker 1: percent transition from primary to secondary education. So you keep
Speaker 1: children to school for at least eighteen years. And when
Speaker 1: you think about sort of the future, part of it
Speaker 1: is creating these financial hubs like Dubai is a great
Speaker 1: example of something that really came to the form pretty
Speaker 1: quickly that really galvanizes people. It's a transportation hub, it's
Speaker 1: an economic hub, it's a financial hub. Do you have
Speaker 1: that same vision truly? UH. The aspilation of the vision
Speaker 1: was to make a financial sector. Kenya is not endowed
Speaker 1: with the nationality sources like all menals, so we focused
Speaker 1: on people and said what would people be good debt
Speaker 1: and we forecast on services. So you find Kenya is
Speaker 1: the hub for banking in sure lance, companies, telecommunication, health
Speaker 1: and education. That's James Mwangi. Here's the city of Equity
Speaker 1: Group Holdings. And I do find it fascinating. I've always
Speaker 1: loved the area of microfinance, go back to uh the
Speaker 1: Grommin Bank and Muhammad units. But you know, James reminding
Speaker 1: us that you know, a little bit of money gives
Speaker 1: somebody an individual financial identity, brings them into the financial system,
Speaker 1: and it all starts small. Now they've got millions of customers,
Speaker 1: they've got billions on their balance sheets, so pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: And he's doing more to change Kenya and its future
Speaker 1: well exactly. And that idea of changing the future has
Speaker 1: so much to do with the financial infrastructure of Kenya too,
Speaker 1: really positioning Nairobi as a new financial hub. That's been
Speaker 1: a limited opportunity there in Africa that could be changing
Speaker 1: largely owing to his work. So this week, of course
Speaker 1: all about the Bloomberg fifty. We caught up Jason with
Speaker 1: a lot of them at the Red carpet on Monday,
Speaker 1: but we also caught up with a few you did
Speaker 1: specifically before the event, Well, that's exactly right. I headed
Speaker 1: across town and downtown over to i a C headquarters.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's driven on the West Side Highway has seen it.
Speaker 1: It's iconic. CEO Joey Levin agreed to spend some time
Speaker 1: with me, and I asked him to go all the
Speaker 1: way back to the beginning. He started as a banker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like to admit that that's true. I was.
Speaker 1: I was a banker, and actually I learned a tremendous amount.
Speaker 1: I'm I don't. I don't at all regret having done it.
Speaker 1: I didn't. It wasn't my favorite thing I ever did,
Speaker 1: but I learned a tremendous amount, and I think it
Speaker 1: opened up a lot of opportunities for me in terms
Speaker 1: of just how to think about things and and uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I wanted to do out of college,
Speaker 1: and there was where I went to college, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of banks that did a lot of recruiting,
Speaker 1: and they pulled me into uh the sort of tech bubble,
Speaker 1: which sort of the peak of the tech bubble, which
Speaker 1: is when the recruiting started. It was a fall two
Speaker 1: thousand when things were just about to crest over. And
Speaker 1: by the time I started, they had the bubble had burst.
Speaker 1: And uh, they offered me thirty thousand dollars not to
Speaker 1: show up to the job, but I decided to show
Speaker 1: up anyway. Yeah. Wow, Yeah it was. It was a
Speaker 1: really interesting time. And I think it's a great time
Speaker 1: to get started on a career, because you could if
Speaker 1: I had started two years early, I would have thought
Speaker 1: you could do nothing wrong. Uh, And I started, uh
Speaker 1: two years later, and it was you could do nothing right,
Speaker 1: and you really had to grind out to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make things work. And uh, I'm actually pretty
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for that. But so I came to I
Speaker 1: See to do mergers and acquisitions, which is what I
Speaker 1: was doing as a banker. Uh. And really Barry had
Speaker 1: told the market he wanted to spend ten billion dollars
Speaker 1: on acquisitions in the Internet, and I thought that that is, uh,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a lot of fun. And the This
Speaker 1: was two thousand three and the Internet was not popular.
Speaker 1: It was people said, we we advertising doesn't work on
Speaker 1: the internet. We were not buying eyeballs anymore. And and
Speaker 1: this thing's overdone, and we thought there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity here, and uh we did. We went and
Speaker 1: spent most of that money in travel, but we we
Speaker 1: were very active in that. And and M and A
Speaker 1: was very sort of core to the center of I C.
Speaker 1: And so I got to know Barry and the vice
Speaker 1: chamber of Victor Coffin very well. We're all very involved
Speaker 1: in this process. Uh and UH and and Dara was there.
Speaker 1: Then who's who's now at uber And it was a
Speaker 1: great group of people who I learned to try his
Speaker 1: tremendous amount from and uh started doing acquisitions, then started
Speaker 1: doing some finance stuff, and then started running my first
Speaker 1: business in two thousand nine. And so go back to
Speaker 1: sort of joining and I mean at that point, Barry
Speaker 1: Diller is capital B capital D Verry Dill. I mean
Speaker 1: like he's he's not an unknown at that point. What
Speaker 1: were your first impressions of working for him? It was funny.
Speaker 1: People had all these things of Okay, you're going into
Speaker 1: your first meeting with Berry, or you're going into a
Speaker 1: meeting with Berry. Don't look at him. I don't look
Speaker 1: directly at him, but don't look away from him. I
Speaker 1: was like, what there was all these like rules that
Speaker 1: people were trying to give me, and you go into
Speaker 1: the meeting. He's he's the regular person. He's very intense,
Speaker 1: and he's very sharp, and he gets to the point
Speaker 1: on everything very quickly, and and sort of intolerant of
Speaker 1: kind of nonsense or waste. But he's just the person
Speaker 1: in a meeting. And uh. The thing that I appreciated
Speaker 1: right away and still appreciate today very much is is
Speaker 1: culture of debate and discussion and challenging and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot of ways. It's it's hard to do
Speaker 1: as a leader because you say to everybody you know,
Speaker 1: essentially everything I say, you should challenge everything I say,
Speaker 1: you should disagree with everything, and and to make sure
Speaker 1: that that you get to the right answer. And it
Speaker 1: is a definitively a better way of getting to the
Speaker 1: right answer. But it is a hard thing and something
Speaker 1: that Barry has has always embraced. And it doesn't work
Speaker 1: for everybody, you know, some people don't don't like that
Speaker 1: kind of culture. But but it worked well for me
Speaker 1: and my personality and and we end up getting along.
Speaker 1: But I didn't really get to nobury even though I
Speaker 1: was in meeting with Barry. I probably didn't get the
Speaker 1: no bury until several years into being a dizing right,
Speaker 1: And did you anticipate when you got here that you
Speaker 1: would be here for for this long? Because you know,
Speaker 1: in today's day and age like it's a pretty long
Speaker 1: tenure at one place, it is, uh. And did I
Speaker 1: anticipate it? No, I definitely did not anticipate it. But
Speaker 1: did I desire that? Yeah? I remember when I was
Speaker 1: interviewing for jobs out of investment banking, I very quickly
Speaker 1: knew I didn't want to be an investment banker and
Speaker 1: I was learning a lot, and I was grateful for
Speaker 1: all the people that I was working with. I just
Speaker 1: knew that that wasn't for me long term. So I
Speaker 1: started doing interviews. And one of the things that investment
Speaker 1: bankers frequently interview for his private equity or st maan
Speaker 1: fncial alternadvances. And I was uh. So I was interviewing
Speaker 1: with a private a great private equity fund, and they said,
Speaker 1: what do you want to uh, you know, talk to
Speaker 1: us about what you want to do or where you
Speaker 1: want to be in a few years. I said, I'd
Speaker 1: like to be, you know, in a company, running a company,
Speaker 1: you know, driving business, building a product. And they said, well,
Speaker 1: then what are you doing here? I said, A good point,
Speaker 1: and so I left and I actually started talking to
Speaker 1: I see then, and I thought, when I went there,
Speaker 1: I want to be a part of building something and uh,
Speaker 1: Barry is very much a builder, and I see as
Speaker 1: a company very much about building and building companies and uh.
Speaker 1: And so I got very lucky in that sense. And
Speaker 1: that's the first part of my interview with I a
Speaker 1: C CEO Joey Livin part two that's coming up, we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how M and A it's
Speaker 1: really been at the more of what he and Barry
Speaker 1: Diller have been doing at that company. So let's get
Speaker 1: to part two now of my interview with Joey lived
Speaker 1: In the CEO of I A C. I headed down
Speaker 1: to see him at his office. He was in the
Speaker 1: midst of a bunch of board meetings. Because you get
Speaker 1: a real sense of the scope of what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. It's everything from Tinder to Angie's List. How's
Speaker 1: that for a couple ends of the spectrum. It's quite arrange.
Speaker 1: And so you started by asking how M and A
Speaker 1: defines the culture at that company. We like the friction, um,
Speaker 1: we like that things challenge themselves and each other. We
Speaker 1: frequently have multiple businesses in the same category competing with
Speaker 1: each other. Our view is we'd rather disrupt ourselves than
Speaker 1: have somebody disrupt us, and so so we're we're often
Speaker 1: if we have a thesis on a category, we want
Speaker 1: several teams going after it and several businesses going after it,
Speaker 1: and it's okay if they compete with each other and
Speaker 1: challenge each other in in going after that um and result.
Speaker 1: Because in many ways you can you can predict some
Speaker 1: components of the future. No one can predict the future,
Speaker 1: but you can say there's here's one way of doing something,
Speaker 1: and here's a better way of doing something. Five years
Speaker 1: from now or ten years from now, our people are
Speaker 1: gonna be doing it the better way or the worst way. Well,
Speaker 1: they're definitely gonna be doing it the better way. Right.
Speaker 1: You don't know where you're going to get the right
Speaker 1: team that that's going to figure out how to do
Speaker 1: the better way better than the other people figuring out
Speaker 1: the better way, but you you do know that that's
Speaker 1: what the future is going to look like. And so
Speaker 1: what we try and do is put a lot of
Speaker 1: bets against that future so that that we can meaningfully
Speaker 1: participate in it. And uh that that sometimes leads the
Speaker 1: conflict that sometimes leads to multiple bets in the same
Speaker 1: category or friction in your words. And that's something that's
Speaker 1: okay with us, right. It feels like it's baked in
Speaker 1: it is. I was we uh, one of our board members,
Speaker 1: Chelsea Clinton, we we did a town hall with a
Speaker 1: bunch of employees, so I was, you know, I was
Speaker 1: in your seat interviewing her, and she said something which
Speaker 1: I thought was very interesting. It's it's a sort of
Speaker 1: revolution on something or a turn on something that we
Speaker 1: say internally, which is inertia is a very powerful and
Speaker 1: the most underrated force in business, both for good and
Speaker 1: for bad. And what Chelsea described said from her observance
Speaker 1: as a board member is that we go out of
Speaker 1: our way to reject inertia, you know, and again for
Speaker 1: good and for bad. Don't don't overestimate a tailwind. Uh,
Speaker 1: don't don't believe too much that that a tailwind is
Speaker 1: your own brilliance. Um. And also don't be sort of
Speaker 1: intimidated by those those headwinds and figure out how to
Speaker 1: push through that. And I think that that is an
Speaker 1: important point in there, and so you know, going back
Speaker 1: to two thousand three and sort of fast forwarding to
Speaker 1: the present, the Internet is a very different place than
Speaker 1: it was in two thousand three. How do you define
Speaker 1: the Internet? It's a big question, but how do you
Speaker 1: define the Internet from a business perspective of in twenty
Speaker 1: nine mind blowing thing in the beginning of the Internet,
Speaker 1: the sort of I don't know if we'll call it
Speaker 1: the first phase. I'll call the first phase for now
Speaker 1: of the Internet was choice and breadth. You recall when
Speaker 1: Google came out, people that they're big thing was one
Speaker 1: of you know, one million results when when you do
Speaker 1: a search and people's minds were blown by that appropriately,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just amazing that you could ask
Speaker 1: about some Nike shoes of some particular year and see
Speaker 1: ten million results about that. That was the first and
Speaker 1: really interesting phase of the Internet. And in a way,
Speaker 1: it's gone the complete opposite of that today. So today
Speaker 1: it's actually about how do you narrow the choice right?
Speaker 1: How do you get to the one answer because now
Speaker 1: always ten million You can't really do anything with ten
Speaker 1: million choices. You you that that's not that helpful as
Speaker 1: much as it is fascinating. It's not that helpful. You
Speaker 1: need to get to the answer right, the one answer.
Speaker 1: And so now all the platforms are about not giving
Speaker 1: choice but giving a solution, and we're thinking about that
Speaker 1: in a lot of our businesses. Take Angie Home Services
Speaker 1: for example, where we are matching consumers with home service professionals.
Speaker 1: Right now, we match you with with several and uh,
Speaker 1: to the extent someone wants that, we will continue to
Speaker 1: match them with several. But what we see is many
Speaker 1: consumers want to be matched with just the right one.
Speaker 1: Just just tell me. I We've grown up knowing platforms,
Speaker 1: knowing the Internet, and we know which brands we want
Speaker 1: to trust and which brands we don't want to trust.
Speaker 1: And if it's a brand retrust, just save me the trouble,
Speaker 1: give me the answer. And that's what we're trying to
Speaker 1: do now with Angie and with other of our businesses too.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's harder in dating. I'd like
Speaker 1: to say that we could find a person and we
Speaker 1: can say, okay, boom, here's a person for you, get
Speaker 1: married next week, and and off you go. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's realistic ever in that category. But we can
Speaker 1: get better with our algorithms, we can't get better at
Speaker 1: matching people as we learn more, so that you don't
Speaker 1: have to go through, you know, hundreds of conversations, maybe
Speaker 1: you go through dozens of conference stations or less than that,
Speaker 1: and to get to find people that you might be
Speaker 1: compatible with. And when you think about sort of the
Speaker 1: Internet again broadly defined in twenty nineteen, it feels like
Speaker 1: if we went back to two thousand three, or certainly
Speaker 1: even in earlier, there was a lot of enthusiasm, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of just excitement about what it could be.
Speaker 1: Today it feels like there's more skepticism, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's from regulators, whether it's from some of the companies themselves,
Speaker 1: whether it's from consumers. How do you read this moment
Speaker 1: where we are, you know, sort of broadly defined as
Speaker 1: this sort of tech lash for lack of a better term.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's the exact same thing that was
Speaker 1: what everyone was so excited about in the beginning, which
Speaker 1: was the the the monopolies of the duopolies or the
Speaker 1: or the the power that was concentrated in the hands
Speaker 1: of a few. The Internet came through and said no,
Speaker 1: no more, We're gonna distribute this and anyone could do anything.
Speaker 1: Anyone's empowered. You can start a business, you can reach consumers.
Speaker 1: You don't need to go through a privately owned platform
Speaker 1: to reach end users. You don't need an infinite amount
Speaker 1: of money to reach end users. You can open your
Speaker 1: shop on your neet and boom, you can reach the world.
Speaker 1: And that distribution was phenomenal and led to so much
Speaker 1: innovation and so much excitement. That's why people were so said.
Speaker 1: What happened is that power got reconcentrated again in a
Speaker 1: handful of hands. Uh. And those are the companies that
Speaker 1: are in the headlines and part of that tech lash.
Speaker 1: And those companies do have enormous power. They're kingmakers of
Speaker 1: other companies, of individuals, of of UH, politicians for not
Speaker 1: necessarily by design, but sometimes by accident. UH. That is
Speaker 1: a you know that that goes back to that scary thing.
Speaker 1: And people don't like to be in that position where
Speaker 1: there's a handful of people with a very significant amount
Speaker 1: of power. It's a sort of more American democratic thing
Speaker 1: to see that distributed. And I think people want to
Speaker 1: see that happen again. And what do you see as
Speaker 1: I A c S role in essentially combating that. Well,
Speaker 1: our biggest thing is having great independent products and having
Speaker 1: those products resonate with users. If we are UH, if
Speaker 1: we can communicate a very compelling product experience in our
Speaker 1: category to a user, I believe we can win, and
Speaker 1: I believe we can we have historically, and I believe
Speaker 1: we can continue to defeat the giants. UM. The giants
Speaker 1: can compete with us, sometimes over implicitly, sometimes explicitly, but
Speaker 1: they do compete with us. We also benefit hugely and
Speaker 1: have benefited usually from their scale UH knowing how to
Speaker 1: use those platforms to to acquire audience, to to interact
Speaker 1: with customers or potential customers, and those platforms have been
Speaker 1: hugely helpful to us in building our business. But also
Speaker 1: increasingly as they look for growth, they are competing with us,
Speaker 1: and that's something that we have to do and you
Speaker 1: just win that on on a better product. So help
Speaker 1: me understand. One of your strategies seems to be keep
Speaker 1: me honest here sort of a build, build and spin
Speaker 1: or build and sell. Obviously that happened with with Matches
Speaker 1: in the process of happening with match and I think
Speaker 1: you've said that you want things only to get so big.
Speaker 1: You're not empire building to something, said, help me understand
Speaker 1: the thinking underneath that. Sure, so I'll correct One small thing,
Speaker 1: which is build and sell is rarely something that we do.
Speaker 1: We don't think of a spin as a sale. We
Speaker 1: have sold companies that generally, when we're selling a company,
Speaker 1: it's just because we haven't figured out how to make
Speaker 1: it work for us. Um, it doesn't sort of fit
Speaker 1: and we we can't. We can't get it going in
Speaker 1: in our ambition, and somebody else may be able to
Speaker 1: do it better. Uh. Spinning is different spinning, it's our
Speaker 1: shareholders get it. We just give it to our shareholders
Speaker 1: and they can continue to hold it forever. And when
Speaker 1: we look at our track record over time, we we
Speaker 1: presume that somebody comes in and from the moment they
Speaker 1: come in, they continue to hold everything forever. They can
Speaker 1: just hold it in separate pockets and out of all
Speaker 1: in one pocket. Uh. And the reason that we do
Speaker 1: that is it there's lots of micro reasons and sometimes
Speaker 1: there's tactical reasons, but the main reason that we do
Speaker 1: it is we like the process of building. We like
Speaker 1: the process of starting over. And when you have something huge,
Speaker 1: it overshadows everything else, and Match is such a good business,
Speaker 1: is doing so well right now, and and and investors
Speaker 1: care tremendously about it, and anything else we do is
Speaker 1: basically irrelevant relative to how many subscribers Tender had in
Speaker 1: a quarter. And when you get to that level, at
Speaker 1: some point you say, Okay, this thing has the ability
Speaker 1: to be off on its own and if we if
Speaker 1: we put that thing on zone, then we can focus
Speaker 1: again on the smaller things. Because when we're focused on
Speaker 1: the smaller things, you put that kind of energy in it,
Speaker 1: there's nowhere to hide and you you've gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: make those work. And we like that process. That's Joey Livin,
Speaker 1: the CEO of I see great interview. I love watching
Speaker 1: a C because they are invested in so many different companies,
Speaker 1: some of them related, some of them not. But I
Speaker 1: just think it's fascinating. Well. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that really struck me about both reading Eric Schatzker's piece
Speaker 1: in the Bloomberg fifty issue and then my conversation with
Speaker 1: Joey was this notion that they sort of grow things
Speaker 1: only to a point and then they spin them out.
Speaker 1: That's happening with Match. You wonder if it's going to
Speaker 1: happen with Angie's list as well. He sort of alluded
Speaker 1: to that a little bit. But this notion that they're
Speaker 1: not building a massive empire, They're really a startup machine, right.
Speaker 1: It's all about unlocking value eventually and then moving on
Speaker 1: to the next investment opportunity. And that wraps up Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week's weekend podcast. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly, I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tune
Speaker 1: into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday. It
Speaker 1: all starts at two pm Wall Street Time. And if
Speaker 1: you can't catch us live, get our daily podcast for
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Speaker 1: We'll be back right here next week at the same time.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg