Bishop T.D. Jakes on Understanding Covid-19 Vaccines

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Well, Jeff Bezos, the household CEO name, do you want to game stop thing again? Oh? Yeah, I do, Thank you. So earlier we were talking to Dave Wilson and I said that game Stop stock had fallen into THEO had been in the single digits just a few weeks ago. I got was getting it confused

with a MC, so I want to correct myself. It had fallen to you know, it had come from just about eighteen dollars a free weeks ago. Alright, so good to clarify. Since we've been watching the moves We've also been watching the moves at Amazon in terms of changing the CEO job. Jeff us us a household see you name, and I'm guessing now, Tim, that will become true for the new Amazon CEO who's taking on the top leadership job at the world's largest online retailer. We're talking about

Andy Jasse. Let's get more about Jasse. Bloomberg News technology reporter Matt Day joining us on the phone from Seattle. Matt, great to have you here with us. Um, what do we need to know about Andy Jasse? A few things. He's as Amazon lifer. He joined in at a Harvard business school, so he's been you know, invasis his shadow for for quite a while. He's actually the first sort

of chief of staff to Bezos. When they first established that role at Amazon, it was very much in the mold of the executive he's been following for for quite some time there. And what about when it comes to

his role with Amazon Web Services. I mean, Amazon Web Services is by far the most profitable segment when it comes to Amazon, but it's by no means the biggest, that's right, Um, you know, and I think people were surprised, you know, it's just five six years ago now, when Amazon first broke out the revenue for Amazon Web Services, Andy jase A s into inception, Um, it is the biggest profit driver for the company. It's really reshaped how corporations of all sizes by their own technology. You know,

they're far away the leading cloud computing company. I think it's his promotion really underlines the value of you know, this wonky tech business to a lot of people think of it as a primarily retail company. Matt, I love your story and you really get into who this guy is, and I'm curious. You know, it sounds like Jassy understood the potential for something like Amazon Web Services way before

anyone else. I always talked about the time years ago when the Bloomberg story came out and was like, if you were streaming X y Z last night, you probably were doing it through an Amazon Web server. And we were like, what, wait, what is this business that Amazon's into? What was it that Jesse saw and that enabled him to kind of just get out there and in many

ways own this market. Sub Jensing and Bezos and a few other Amazon executives fifteen years ago now, they looked at the way that companies eye technology, run technology and realized it was all, you know, kind of cumbersome and complicated a string together, so they worked to simplify it to its simplest parts, right, And that's that's really what

they launched with. Here's an online storage service, here's an online you know, the equivalent of of processing power, raw raw computer chips for rent essentially, and by kind of breaking it down into its simplest parts, they made a really really simple case that you know, maybe customers wanted to string all this together themselves, and they were They were proved right by that. You know, folks did want that kind of simplicity and ease of use. Um, and

it's really really shaped thing. What about when it comes to Jeff Bezos management style? Um, you know you said that Jasse has been at Amazon for as a lifer. I what does it mean in terms of how he's going to lead Amazon similarly or or different than Jeff Bezos has led it. He's definitely in the basos mods

in terms of how these structures his team. Right. There's these these legendary weekly meetings will have where they dive into data and try to pick out trends and kind of lead with the customer and lead with the numbers. That's very Bezocene in the way that he structured it. I think it's too soon to tell how he's going to bring um what changed in my frame rather to the retail side of the business. And he's been diving

into cloud for for a very long time. And though he's been in all the all the top meetings, you know, you haven't been running day to day operations for the company's sprawling other divisions. UM. I think we expectation is for a similar style to Bezos, and maybe something different as it gets his hands into the other elements of the company. Well, that's what I want to ask you, because you said very much in the mold of Jeff Bezos, which could be an incredible thing and certainly be calming

to investors right now. But at the same time, you know, what, do what does Amazon need in a CEO going forward, especially then you still have the safety net of Jeff Bezos being around. I think Bezos which would probably say that Amazon still needs to make big bets. Um. You know they are. They are a giant company, and I think big it's the reputation for sort of winning in every market they enter Amazon doesn't be it that way.

They look around and they see fierce competitors in in every area in which they play, whether it's Walmart, retail, Microsoft clouds, you know, there's plenty of others down the line. And so I think that the marching orders for him coming, and certainly, as Beatos would would rejected to keep making those kind of large bets that can move the needle for you know, it's already a one point seven trillion dollar company. Hey, Matt, what does this mean for Amazon

Web Services now? Because look, since Amazon established a WUS years ago, there's so much more competition, and there's also pricing pressure for sure, and that's it's been a little bit of debate in the national analyst community. You know, what threat do uh Microsoft and Google, who are very much you know, following the ass playbook, what threat they present to Amazon's cash cow? You know, I think this this elevation certainly answers the you know, does Amazon want

to cleave off Amazon Web Services conversation? It's been a long point of debate about whether it be worthwhile to spin off that unit, just because of the obvious differences from the retail business. Jazz think the top role probably cools that for for a little bit anyway, right, because do they in some ways it provides them a bit of a cushion to have that UH company part of

you know, the Amazon umbrella at this point. Oh absolutely. Um, but I think there's just been some drag from the UH if you're sitting in the US side anyway, just all of the sort of political entanglements that Amazon has found itself in thanks to its market power and retail and some of the personal feuds between you know, foreign

President Trump and Jeff Bezos. I think if if Andy were being a little candidate to Jesse, you might admit that, you know, being related to Amazon is maybe hurt a WUS and some sales conversations over the years with a Turkey political line to navigate for. And it's interesting too that you say, while they are similar creatures. Um, and he's very much into philanthropy, which is something that's how to Jeff Bezos. Yeah, and Amazon. I think overall, I

would say, um, so great story. Um, Matt really appreciate it. Matt Day, tech reporter at bloom News. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. So, just a few days ago, the Associated Press came out with an analysis of seventeen U S States and two cities, and they found that black people inoculated with the COVID nineteen vaccine TIM at this disproportionately low level. So once again we see these inequities.

It's not just happening nationwide, but here in New York City as well. Yeah, we'll definitely see that. So let's see what Bishop T. D. Jake's has to say about that, Chairman of td Jake's Foundation. He's on the phone once again with us from Dallas. Bishop Jake's good to have you here with us, and I know this is something that has been front and center for you. You all recently hosted an event that included Dr Anthony Fauci to

get a better understanding of the COVID nineteen vaccine. Talked to us about that event and what the takeaways were from Dr Fauci. First of all, it's played you to be with you til today. Uh. We did conversation with America,

which anybody can go see on two d j's YouTube channel. Uh, and we did an extensive conversation with Dr Kisomikia Corbid and dogg from your university, and she's from the Institute of Biology and Infectious Diseasus, And of course Dr Fauci, just to aggregate information and ask some questions that would help to alleviate some concerns or address some of the concerns that are prevalent in the African American community. Do you think those concerns Bishop Jake's are are being addressed?

Are are you hearing that those concerns are are shifting as we learn more and more about the vaccines. I think that they are gradually shifting in certain pockets. Of course, African American community is not a monolith, and so depending on your age and who you congregate or coalesce with, UH, your perception of the situation might be varied according to your age group of how closely associated you are with

a tremendous amount of deaths that we are saying. Being a pastor, also, I'm abundantly aware of how many funerals were conducting and really have a front row seat on the families behind the numbers. So it's very apparent to me that we are definitely losing lives that a much larger rate than our white counterparts, and I thought it was really important to maybe use our platform to level the plane for and get out adequate and accurate information

so that people can make their own determination right. The CDC did come out and they've talked about Black, Hispanic and Native American people dying from COVID nanteen it almost three times the rate of white people. So, Bishop Jakes, do you feel like things are improving, that there's more information out there, maybe education to put the Black community maybe more at ease so that they will up in

terms of their numbers for getting the vaccine. My biggest concern is that even where the attitude is improving, the access is not. But we're only having about penetration and into the black community where it is accessible, particularly to our older citizens, where they can easily get into one and then come back and get the second fascination that's necessary to uh secure some relative safety from from being infected, and so that that is a problem. Accessibility is a problem,

and then dispelling risk continues to be a challenge. I think it's something that we're going to be working on all through first and second quarter of the year, probably into the third quarter, getting them comfortable just due to the fact that we've had so many historical discouraging UH incidents that have occurred between health professionals, the government officials, and the Black community that have continued to call for and angstent and anxiety amongst people of color and trust

associated with taking the vacination right. I think it's important to keep in mind there is historical context and lots of reason for people to be skeptical, especially in the Black community, about this UM very brief so, you are a great communicator. You have more than four million Twitter followers,

You've built up a huge following. What is the right way for the Biden administration or even local officials to communicate in communities throughout the United States that this is a vaccine that is safe and that people need to get I think that the community most trust its own leadership. That there are various leaders on the Baith community is one aspect of it, but also personalities of interests that also have coalesce huge following the people UH that they

trust their motives. I think that's one aspect of the I think people, every day, people off the street influence people more than even personalities too, so I think they have to use a multiple approach in order to miss film miss and unfortunately you're also fighting the onslaught of

social media and wrong information being pratentuated through all those vehicles. Well, and I think everyone hopes too, that is people see more and more people get the vaccine, and as time goes on and hopefully with a safe outcomes that more people will step up and take it. Um. Bishop Jake's always good to check in with you, be well, Chairman of the T. D. Jake's Foundation. On the phone from Dallas. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg

Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Well, I gotta say, Tim, I've lost count how many COVID related cover stories Bob Lingrith has done for Business Week. He's covered Guilliad from Desevie, He's covered the White House COVID outbreak. It has been so many different stories and we've learned so much from him. Yeah, we certainly have. And this one is the cover story and the cover of Bloomberg Business Week this week is ready for the next one. And it features a large

picture of a bat. Yes it does. So it's really kind of warning us. Here's what we've got to do to be ready for the next one. Let's get into it with Bob. He is healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News on the phone in New Jersey, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber on the access line in Brooklyn. It's a reminder, joll, there will be more pandemics and epidemiological crisises. Um, we've got a plan for it. Well, we need a plan for it. And you know that

the cover line they're ready for the next one. It ends with the question mark like ready for the next one, and right now we are not. And UM. What Bob did, um and reported out here, and I've lost track of how many cover stories Bob's done over the course of the last year for us, it's been truly amazing. Um. But what he really maps out here is the five

point plan. And if we were to get on it and you know, jump all over this five point plan, we might find ourselves, um, in a pretty decent place, certainly a better one than we found ourselves in a year ago. Right about now, um, and Bob, along the way, you also got some exclusive reporting about you know, how close we were to actually maybe having a leg up on on viruses like this. Um, so walk us through what what you learned, um as you reported out your

cover story. Yeah, so it turns out that as I did, they're supporting you know that there were a lot of people thinking about this and interested. You know, year didn't know it was going to be a coronavirus, but everyone knew something was coming eventually, the infectious dis these experts did and there weren't people that were thinking about how to prepare, on how to do things. But uh, there just wasn't the WheelPower and energy to get it done.

And one company, Glastow Smith Client I found out the very reporting actually proposed a whole uh kind of epidemic preparedness vaccine research center. They proposed this to the US government to BARDA, which is what's funding a lot of the vaccines now at a small agency funding a lot

of the vaccines now. And they proposed a research center that would have looked in specifically into Messenger RNA vaccine that's one of the successful vaccines, and Anno virus space saccine that's the other type of vaccine has been successful in The idea was they would have taken like everything, uh, that you know, looked worrisome and gotten prototype vaccines into early trials so they could be ready to go and

invent the next epidemic. But it just didn't happen. So we weren't quite as a here, you know, as we should have been right, and we should have been right, we could have been That's the whole point. And the cost of this thing, Yeah, it would have been five million over ten years, which I guess sounded like a lot, you know, three or four years ago, but compared to the costs he's had to bear now through this pandemic. Uh,

you know, it's just you know, nothing like that. Now people are kind of dusting off versions of the proposal and saying, let's do it again, let's do something similar, And then some of these ideas are out there is what you know, we need is the willpower to do it. Another idea that's out there is to form me. And one of the problems they had is is good you know, data on the right these key moments when epidemics are starting to emerge. You know, it's sort of like a

early in a forest fire. You got to identify it and identify the threats really soon and act and for that, you need really really good surveillance and really really really

good data. And one of the ideas that's out there is to form a sort of a national weather uh service style agency that would model uh you know, upcoming emerging virus is a pandemics that come up with forecasts or more reliable uh you know, to tell to warn people, tell them you know what's coming or what might be coming, and they give politicians kind of the fortitude and cover

to act. What about when you find amustriction was looking into what about when it comes to international cooperation and making sure there is international cooperation for the next pandemic.

One of the key themes that you highlight is repairing and augmenting the w h O. Yeah, and this is probably you know, this is an area that people are talking about, and it's probably the twickiest, most difficult area to to to fix or improving reformed, because the basic problem we have is, you know that the viruses they cross borders. They don't care about you know, countries, and isn't not the national borders or you know, which political

regime is in power, They go everywhere. And that's what we found, uh And yet uh so we want companies countries to cooperate as much as possible in reporting the early stages of pandemic. But the problem is no one really has the authority to do that too. And and and if countries that don't report on times, if they don't want to admit the scope of the problem, that might hurt their economy, etcetera. And we've seen this again again,

then the world is a step behind. And the w H o uh, you know, it doesn't have a lot of teeth. That's just the way structured. So there's there's rumblings and discussions of what else can we do? You know, what can can we give a w H and more teeth? But we can can we add to it to give some other groups uh sort of a it's called like a you know, a NATO furbridging emerging viruses, your biological NATO have you know a little more power maybe a

group of like minded nations to prepare there. So that's that's kind of ideas out there that people are trying to formula and try to figure out what to do. But that's probably a single most difficult area. But but another thing that um you talk about in the story is effectively how blind we're flying right now, especially as these variants start to come at us. And and really the solution there is genetic sequencing. How can we improve our genetic sequencing which is almost like a non existing

at this point in the US. Yeah, I mean that should be one of the uh simpler areas to fix. I mean, you know, we have become of the technology is there, We have the technology, we just kind of haven't applied this in a national scale and made it a priority. And then you know which you know some other countries have done. They're far ahead of us on this.

I think we sequence about three out of a thousand uh cases of the virus, so we just get a tiny, tiny sampling, and some other countries like England are doing five percent, some smaller countries or even doing more. So we're kind of way way behind. And this is something just basically a national effort, uh and making a national priority of that would just make a big difference. And the other thing that needs to be done is it needs to be an effort to kind of push more

the sequencing expertise. Because we're a federal system, a lot of things are in states and local public health labs that we need an effort to push a lot of the expertise out into state and local public health labs. They're doing the contract tracing. But this is fixable. Someone just needs to make it a priority. Yeah, it's really logical.

And you have four and five, you stay developing more vaccines faster for those uh kind of worse and virus classes that are out there, like let's go, let's start working on them now. And also a big one which we know has been a problem, ironing out distribution and logistics. It's the cover story of the US Bloomberg Business Week and we'll put that out on Twitter. But it's a great kind of five point list of things that we need to do. Um, Bob, thank you so much, really appreciated.

Bob lane grath He his healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News. All of his reporting and COVID has been incredible. Our thanks to the Business Week. Get it or Jill Webber on the Access line in Brooklyn. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So it's the story that brooke late yesterday, the business story heard around the globe. Safe to say right, I don't know what you're talking about, Carol. Jeff Bezos, Haye,

Tim stepping down a CEO. Yeah. Look, when you think of Amazon, you think of Jeff Bezos. Started in his garage in the nineties, took a public a couple of years after starting it. The guy has been running it since then. Yeah. And as our Bradstone rights, the move seemed like, uh, despite being a surprise, seemed like the natural next step and opens up really a new age for the world's largest online retailer. So let's get into

it with our go to voice on Everything Amazon. He's Bradstone, Senior Executive editor of Global Technology, author of The Everything Store, Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. And Brad's got a new book coming out to that's on Amazon called Amazon on Bound. And Brad joins us on the phone in San Francisco. That book comes out in May, available for pre order. So you are such are Amazon insider, Amazon veteran. But you were surprised by this news, right, Carol.

I was telling Tim actually earlier today, but I think I, uh, you uttered a loud expletive when I saw the news. Um. In some in some ways it is it does feel like a natural progression and the formulation of the formalization of the status quo at Amazon. Were he certainly been working on new things and allowing his deputies to run

the bigger businesses. But it's also surprising. I mean, you know, he someone who know micromanaged his businesses, whose identity is wrapped up in Amazon, who obviously took and deserves, you know, a lot of credit for the remarkable rise of this company over the past twenty five years one point seven dollars at one point seven trillion dollars in market cap um.

So it's hard to imagine him moving on them. It's probably gonna be a little bit of a test of of Andy Jasse to see how much room he has and can take to operate with Bezos still there as executive chairman and placing a lot of these big bets. Were you surprised at all by Andy Josse being the person who was named to Phil bezos shoes, Not at all, And in some respects though, you kind of look back and you wonder whether this has been in the works

for a while. So there was a lot of speculation about the succession plan and whether it was Jassy or Jeff Wilkie. You know, Wilkie was another deputy who for many years ran the retail group before that really architected Amazon supply chain. You know, he he was a possibility to takeover as well. And then last year we found out that Wilkie was going to retire in January of two twenty one. So who knows, maybe the writing was

on the wall and he saw it. But where it does make sense is is Jase has you know, built this amazing business AWS a fifty billion dollar run rate, you know, really changed the way companies and governments and universities by their technology. You know, now they do it in the cloud or rather than servers in the in the back room. Um, he's he's changed enterprise contributing. You've got Microsoft and Google and iby him and Oracle pursuing Amazon.

But Jack also has the you know, the full handle on the full company because he sat on the s team. He's been a part of major decisions like where to put hqu two and whether to buy Whole Food. And when he started at the company in the late nineties, he worked in the retail group, so he really had the full scope of the company and it kind of makes sense that he'd be the guy to step up, all right. I have to say that in your story,

I was drawn to this. She's a bezas His decision to step down also reflects an uncomfortable reality for one of the wealthiest people in the world, and that is the walls of his highly compartmentalized empire have been crumbling for some time. I don't look at Amazon, Brad typically and think of it as crumbling. But so, what do you mean, right right? Well, actually that's a good point, Carol So, and this is a theme of my upcoming

book US. You know, it's the largest shareholder and the out going CEO of Amazon, but he also owns The Washington Post. Personally, he has a private space company, Blue Origin. He's got an investment fund in a family office, and he's got these philanthropies now UM the Day One Fund and the Bezos Climate Fund or the Bazos Earth Fund, and a lot of there's a lot of pressure on him to give away his money. And over the past few years we've seen a collision on all these assets.

So the Washington Post made life very difficult for Amazon during the Trump administration. UM, you've got um union organizers and and and and workers protesting Amazon's treatment of its of its warehouse workers in front of Bezos, you know, personal properties homes around around the country. Um. And and as he's been trying to give away his money to climate organizations, they've expressed concern about Amazon's climate impact. And

it's it's it's a relationship with organized labor. So that's what I mean by the walls are kind of crumbling. You can't keep everything compartmentalized anymore. You also have this anecdote about him traveling to India in the early part of last year and Prime Minister Norrendrew Moody declining to me with him because of the post coverage of the country. I guess my question is, can you then, with Jeff Bezos as executive chairman but no longer as CEO, will

that help solve some of these issues? Or is he like inextricably bound to Amazon. Yeah, that's a great point to him. It's he can't escape it that easily. Um. You know, for for guidance, we can kind of look to Bill Gates though, right who who has really seen twenty years ago as a as a monopolist, you know, sharp business elbows? Um. The government, the way of the U. S. Government is coming down on Microsoft. And now he's really a roving philanthropist diplomat who has been a leader um

in this in this pandemic crisis. So yeah, in the short term, no, I mean, Jeff obviously can't outrun Amazon, and he'll be inextricably linked to the company and all of its political issues. But maybe over the long term, as Bill Gates has done, he can kind of start a path for himself as a more independent philanthropist. Listen, and Jeff made it very clear, um Brad that he's not retiring. Um So where should he Where will he

spend most of his time going forward? It's only going to be about the geeky inventions and the big and the bets that he thinks could lead to Amazon's next wave of growth. And this is one of those things that I observed reporting the new book. He he loves to micromanage and and and really get into the weeds of the new things. Um So, I'm gonna mute my Alexa before I say the word Alexa. But he's really he really micro managed Alexa, the the cash sheerless Amazon

ghost stories. He was he was deeply involved in that the healthcare initiatives. Amazon is trying Project Typer, which is this very expensive effort to get satellites into space and to sell internet access. He's involved in that, and you know he sees these big bets. He's really an inventor at heart. Um, I'm sure they'll read him into the big decisions. They call him one way doors kind of

Amazon lingo for decisions that can't be reversed. But I expect that, in addition to all the other stuff, he's going to continue to basically geek out at Amazon. Brad, I want to talk about space. When it comes to the wealthiest people in the world. Uh, Jeff Bezos is number two. Elon Musk is number one according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They are both involved in a new kind of base race. Where does Jeff Bezo stack up versus Elon Musk? Right, well, it's it's not a favorable

juxtaposition at least right now. I mean, SpaceX is launching it seems every week, the Dragon nine to um to orbit to the International Space Station. Um, it's it's uh, it's been it's been testing. I guess the Starship, the larger rocket with kind of kind of entertaining. Entertainingly exploded upon attempted landing yesterday. But UM SpaceX also announced that they're going to be bringing paying astronauts, paying tourists to orbit, and and Blue Origin, you know, frankly hasn't really hasn't

really hit any of those benchmarks. It it has always taken a more step by step approach. UM. The first project is called New Shepherd, and he wants to take like like Richard Branson, Blue Origin wants to take paying tourists to suborbital space at the very edge of space. And they've been working on that for a fifteen years years and I gathered I reported that they're gonna that

they're hoping to take human passengers later this year. But that's gonna be a big test for the CEO, Bob Smith, who joined a couple of years ago UM, to see whether they can really safely pull that off. And then Blue origins building a rocket called New Glen, which will more directly compete with SpaceX is launch capacity, but that's delayed, and that's probably got a couple of years until it comes out of the factory. So Basis spends a lot of money on this. I you know, they profess that

it's not a competition, that they're taking their time. There's lots of room for many winners in this growing category. But I know that I I suspect and strongly suspect that the mismanagement there and the solo progress really frustrates Jeff Bezos. Yeah, it's got to. And you know too, and I were talking in the break Brad, I remember when it felt like these space companies, whether it was Branson, whether it was Elon Musk, whether it's Jeff Bezos, that it just seemed like a kind of a fun thing

for billionaires. Elon Musk is shown it's a lot more serious than that and a business um going forward. I do wonder, speaking of fun, the timing of this is it just not as much fun to run the company. I'm just trying to understand a little bit about Jeff

Bezos and his timing. Well, you know, we don't, of course know for sure, because they're being very circumspect in what they say, but we can we can take a couple of guesses as to why Bezos has has moved is moving on later this year from the CEO role to be executive chairman, And I think you're right. I mean one of it. One of the factors is that the CEO of the company is going to be the guy getting grilled in Washington, getting grilled by the FDC,

getting grilled in in Brussels. And as we saw last year when Bezos had to testify in front of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, he would probably be rather doing other things. And you've got you know, Larry Page and Sergey Brandon. Google is now completely invisible and Sundar has to go answer the question. So yeah, I suspect um, he would rather be spending his time doing other things. But look, I think it's also that he's he wants to make

a filic philanthropic contribution and his time is pretty constrained. Um. And also you know there's he he you know, probably he's earned two he has a two billion dollar fortune and probably wants to take it a little bit easier. So and the fact that he's really not going anywhere and will continue to contribute to Amazon. So I think those are all part of part of the larger picture. Brad.

You you mentioned before you went to break talking about the initiatives that in the past Bezos has worked on. Some of the hardware efforts the company Alexa for example. Um, what does that tell you about what Bezos is thinking about as executive chairman? I mean, what are the sort of you know, borrow a Google phrase, the moon shots that the company is thinking about right now. Yeah, Well, from a broad perspective, you know, he he believes that Amazon at the current size needs to take really big

best if it's going to continue growing. And and so that's you know, where he's spending his time. He's he's focused on the kind of future horizon, this technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, UM, satellite born internet access. Amazon has an ambitious project called Project Keyper that competes with Elon Musk's star Link of Space. Yeah, exactly, there's a real rivalry there. Um.

The healthcare initiative. They have a group inside Amazon that they called the Grand Challenge, And in a very Amazon like way, they're not crying one thing to trying many things. So they have a telehealth service for employees that they're going to start offering to other companies. They have walk in clinics. There are things that you can do with Alexa and ask it health questions. Of course, there was have in healthcare with JP Morgan and Bookshire Halfway, which

they just closed. And I think Jeff very very involved in that and determining what experiments should proceed. So that's where he's going to spend his time to place those next. Bet all right, give us a twenty second tease, elevator pitch or just a tease for your book coming out

Amazon Unbound, coming in May. How did a company in two thousand thirteen with a hundred and fifty thousand employees and one fifty billion dollar market cap turn into the one point seven trillion dollar company with one point two million employees. I turned off the whole path in addition to bazos evolution into this international man of mystery and tabloid fatimy. Sounds great. I'm gonna put my preorder in. You can already pre order now, do it? I mean, look,

the Everything store was so good. I can't wait for this one. Brad all Right, Brad Stone, Senior executive editor of Global Tech here at Bloomberg Road Mac Journal. Now, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no, honey, please, I'll do the riding. I want to drive. Just drive by question. Try this is the drive to the Globe community. Thanks we'll try us on Bloomberg Radio. Great, it's just about eleven minutes to go until we wrap up this

trading day. And we've got the SMP off its best levels of the day down pretty much just at its best levels of the day, and the NASDACA office ties and lows. Let's get into it with Alan Zaffron, founding partner and co CEO at I e Q Capital. They've got roughly eleven and a half billion in assets under management, and uh Allen joining us on the phone from Foster City, California. Allen, good to have you here with him of myself, how are you doing? Fantastic, Caroline, Tim Hopefully you dug yourself

out of the snow and you're doing reasonably well. Halfway. Car My car wouldn't move this morning now. And but you know you're in California, so you know you have little sympathy. You know, I don't get it. We paid the high tax. This you're like in New York, but we don't get the snow. Want to talk about it, California. Jim's cars frozen in a part, literally frozen in a parking lot, and my back hurts as a result. So gosh,

what a week. Where do I start. Let's talk about Amazon, because we are all in on it today us safe to say twenty four hours ago are close to it. We were all shocked by the news that essentially Jeff Bezos resigning as the CEO of the company not going away. But you like and you look at some of these, you know, big US companies, some of these big US

growth stocks. How do you see that news? I don't find it that surprising, um unless obviously business has done an incredible job, unworldly, one of the greatest business transformations we've we will ever witness. But the timing ain't bad. Think of it this way. You took a company from nothing to you know, a massive amount of value, two trillion in value. Do you really want to be the person that tries to get up to four trillion in value?

It's it is not going to be his rewarding. And the other issue for Jeff He's got a lot of other business interests. He actually has a charity that he's trying to give ten billion dollars away from climate change. He's running a space business at Frankly Blue Origin that's behind SpaceX. He's got an ego just like Elon musk, and he probably wants to focus on some other aspects. And lastly, to give me this way, he's still got two hundred billion dollars of personal equity in the company.

So when he's stepping away, he's not really completely stepping away. He's got a team of twenty six people back again, that's his steam. He's already been groomed to take over for him, so far from being at a shock, it's kind of time for him to step away, let the other people run the business, and he's going to have plenty of strategic influence and insight going forward anyway. So it's it's time. One number that we've heard a lot today Alan has been one point seven trillion dollars. It's

the market tap of Amazon right now. And I know thanks to a note from our producers that you think that future returns are both stocks and bonds even right now likely constrained by today's elevated valuations. Um. What do you think is overvalued? Um? I think the biggest thing that's overvalued is traditional bonds, not stocks. However, when you value stocks in the end, what you're doing is you're valuing the future cash flows, which are based on where

rates are discount rates. Game Stop excluded from this. Yeah, I didn't use my surplus check to buy call options on game Stop like others. UM. When you start to see interest rates rise, I believe that is the singular greatest fundamental threat to the stock market. UM. I don't think you're going to see a rapid, dramatic and horrible rate rise in rates, because I think the settle reserve is gonna slowly jawbone and manipulate that rate to move

up in a more orderly fashion. You'll get it coming up in fits and starts over years, not over months or quarters. But because rates eventually creep up, they compete with stocks or where capital goes, and basically people pay lower multiples on their earnings on those stocks once rates go higher and higher. Or think of differently, your present value is worth less when you're using a higher discount rate of future cash flow. So that's a long winded

way of saying. When you do the math, if you thought you were going to make ten percent in the next decade on stocks, maybe you're gonna make seven percent. It's not zero, and it's still better a lot better than bonds, but it's probably lower than the percent you made in the previous ten years, which was higher than ten percent a year. So this decade, maybe we give back a little of the over return we made in the previous decade. Okay, so you're saying the bond Wait,

I'm sorry. So are you saying bonds are the better way to go? No? No, far from it. To be clear, I think traditional bonds are not a terribly attractive asset class because you get you know what you're making the moment you buy it, which are treasury bond right now, I was one percent called corporate bonds are about two percent.

I do think stocks are going to give you a much higher return than bonds, but instead of making ten percent per year, because I think eventually the pricey multiples dropped from what they are today, that reduces the return. If you work it out in the mass, what might have been a ten percent return looks more like a

seven percent return. Because even on paying twenty three times earnings today and years from now, someone's going gonna pay sixteen times those earnings, the earnings are going to grow a lot. The sixteen times a lot of earnings will work out to my money growing at about seven percent a year. But not ten percent a year, So it's like getting back to more realistic views. Certainly, when it comes to the equity returns, is that fair historical returns?

I think that's right. But one of the important caveat it turns out pe ratios valuations literally have zero predictive ability over the next twelve months about where the markets are going. So even if I tell you the markets marginally over versus averages, they could just get more overvalued over the next year. And with all the stimulus that's been thrown in this economy and consumers being in great shape, I wouldn't be surprised that the stock market does better

than ten percent this year. I think all the conditions are in place for a very strong year this year. Eventually rates will move up and multiple will compressive. Well, NASA nastas already at five percent year to date, so it's you know, halfway there. Um. I do wonder about when you think of portfolio construction, you think there are opportunities away from traditional equities and fixed income, private private real estate, private credit, and equity replacements. What are the

what are the alternatives that you're thinking about? Uh, Well, in a world where I can only make one percent after tax buying high quality bonds cement. It can find the right vehicles either reefs, either in the public markets or even in the private markets, if properly structured, can

give me a good way to return. It turns out there are firms that make private loans the private businesses, and if they're thoughtfully done, where you're the s in your lender and have the lean on all the collateral and assets, you could argue that made closer to eight it's taxable. That's still after tax four or five. That's a lot more interesting. There are other obscure areas of the market, things that are called secondary investments. When you're

actually buying someone else's liquid investment. They need cash and they are willing to sell to you at a discount from the current value that that investment. They want to get out. All right, we're gonna leave it there. Allen Zafron, thank you so much. Founding partner and co CEO at I e Q Capital eleven and a half billion in assets under management. On the phone from Foster City, California. You're smiling. Yeah, California must be nice right now. I can't wait for you to be able to dig out

your car, it's a little warmer. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Sarah to Bloomberg Global News