Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - April 1st, 2022

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. The war in Ukraine remaining atop the headlines, with the humanitarian and economic costs still on the rise, and as Russia's economy gets driven further into isolation, some investors think they may be able to capitalize on the carnage. That's the subject of our international cover story. Also ahead on our broadcast will explore the most important link in the U S. Pharmaceutical supply chain and here's a hint, it is not China. We've also

got an unlikely comeback story from America's Postmaster General. Plus NBA star Chris Paul's Financial Playbook will take you behind the scenes with the kings of fast casual dining. Carol goes one on one with the CEO of Chipotle Mexican grow It's a pack couple of hours. All of that to come. We begin though with our editors roundtable this week's international cover of Bloomberg business Week magazine. It's also I gotta say, check out the image. It's quite a

cover image. The story it is about the financial vultures tapping into what maybe the opportunity of a lifetime. Bloomberg Business Week Editor at Large Eric Shatzker wrote the piece. He and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber help us break down a case study and distressed investing that's playing out in real time. Bosses everywhere, We'll love this one.

This is why returned to office policies exist. Eric and I were just brainstorming while we were both in the office, and I was like, look like, I think the big question that everyone's wondering is like, who's buying Russian debt? Because that is could be viewed as toxic. A lot of people feel that way, just want nothing to do with it, and yet it also could become a major

buying opportunity. Uh. And that led Eric to make some calls, and what he found was that lo and behold, maybe some of the usual suspects were actually doing just that. So so Eric quit, what does this strategy look like? And talk about the morality side of it, because a lot of people just don't want to go there. Oh yes, uh, well, let's set aside the morality for a second and begin, as you say, with the strategy. There's two ways of

thinking about Russian debt. You can either buy the Russian sovereign debt, which your bonds issued by the Russian Federation, or you can buy Russian corporate debt. Now, sovereign debt has been trading at a big discount. Initially was trading at twenty cents on the dollar. In some cases you could get a yield north of seventy pretty extraordinary even in the distressed world, and corporate debt was trading in

the same neighborhood. Now, one of the reasons the Russian debt was trading in such a discount is that some people, some very notable people. In fact, I thought that Russia was going to default on interest payments as early as the middle of March, and it hasn't defaulted. In fact, Russia made the interest payments, those bonds have re rated, and anyone who bought in that early. Again, we're talking about the sovereign debt has made out at least on

paper like a bandit. So far um the other opportunities I say, was corporate debt. You could buy Russian corporate bonds also trading at a huge discount, to part with high yields and hope that you get paid back there as well. Now this is where the moral quandary enters. The equation if you're buying Russian sovereign debt, even though U S sanctions and European sanctions allow you to do so,

are you tacitly supporting Putin's war in Ukraine. Many people think that that is the case, which is why even the most adventurous distress debt investors have instead opted for the corporate debt. Why because it's a little further away from Putin himself, and also because in theory, there are better recovery opportunities if these companies default, which is to say, stop making interest in principal payments. Some of these bonds

are governed by British law. For example, they were issued in the Netherlands, and you could go to court and you might actually win control over some of these companies. Assets outside the Russian Federation could be in Spain, could be in Italy, could be in the United States, even, which is the case with Luke Oil, one of the bonds that these distressed debt investors have been buying. Many

Americans are familiar with Luke Oil gas stations. Luke Oil has assets here, so if you made a case against that company under those circumstances as a creditor, you might actually win those assets. Pretty remarkable. Hey, take a step back. I'm always thinking about the conversations you had initially as you worked on this story, and how many people sa, I will talk to you, but you gotta keep my

name out of it. This is so interesting, right, Distressed debt is a funky business to start with, because these investors are buying toxic Yes, yes, yes, they have acquired that Moniker. They're buying toxic securities. And particularly if you're operating in distressed sovereign debt whish to say, government debt, often emerging markets, you find yourself in the middle of things like humanitarian crises or negotiating with dictators, and that is not a suit that many people find that comfortable

to begin with. Russia is a different story altogether, because this is war. There's human tragedy, there are people dying, bodies, you know, in the streets, maternity wards being bombed out. We've seen these images on television and for those reasons, um, there's much more reputational risk, let's say, involved with the Russian debt even than there is in things like Venezuelan debt. And so some investors who have participated in distressed opportunities

like Venezuela won't even go near Russia. And I find that quite fascinating. Not only won't those people go near it, but the people who are buying. And I did talk to a number of hedge funds that have been buying Russian corporate debt. Again we're not talking about the sovereign debt. They won't even admit to doing that publicly because of the risk of approbe realm and the fact that many of their clients, pension funds, have asked them not to buy any Russian debt, in fact, a divest of all

Russian assets. And what are some of them doing. They're turning around to those clients and saying, I'm not going to fire you as a client, but I'm going to have to treat your funds differently, and I'm sorry, you're just gonna get lower returns, which unfortunately is quite possibly true. That was Bloomberg Business Week Editor at Large Eric Shatzker, along with the editor of the magazine, Joe Weber. More from our editor's roundtable to come later this hour, including

our domestic cover story on NBA superstar Chris paul Up. Next, find out who's really in control of our drug supply chain and which virtual health platform received a major investment from private equity heavyweights. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Biz to this week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Spinovik from Bloomberg Radio. A few years back, I was doing some

research Tim it. I really was schooled on how much the global pharmaceutical industry relies on India for manufacturing and supplies. Bloomberg News healthcare reporter and Edne writes about it in this week's Solutions section. She and Business we get inriginal. Webber explain why many Americans are likely unaware of their

primary drug source and our geopolitics factor in. There have been several years or longer decades where you know, the FDA as well as UM lawmakers have been talking about China and India and how they supply active ingredients for our drugs in kind of an equal way there they' you know, the SBA has put out a little bit of data m did not go nearly as deep as uh the U S Pharmacopeia Group, but they you know, it made it look like they were they were a

little bit more equal footing far as far as providing active ingredients go and um, you know that was what surprised me. I mean, India's just by far has the the you know a vast amount of the large factories, um that are making these active ingredients that go into the US market. So explain you know, in terms of active ingredients, you know, this is what the core of so many pharmaceuticals that maybe we take for granted. Yeah,

this is you know, the key material. This is the key chemical that you need and your drug to to make it work. So you know, if you're taking tile and all um, you'll see you know, it's also called a set aminicine, and that's the active ingredients because that's what's actually making your headache go away or your pain go away. There are inactive ingredients that go into it. Um that may mostly probably bind it and and things like that, or or help with an extended release if

that's the kind of drug it is. But the active and median is basically what makes it work. And and I'm curious, as you know, we're thinking about the geopolitical backdrop that has suddenly emerged in you know, the India's um being more closely aligned than with Russia than maybe a lot of people expected. Like how hard would it be to bring the production of these active ingredients back

to the US. That is extremely difficult. Um. You know, the the drugmakers don't really you know, they're they're perfectly comfortable relying on India. It's it's cheap enough, you know, where they want to go, and so incentivizing them to come back in some way federal incentive helping props them up with you know, expanding factories they may already have here um is probably you know, one of the few

ways that that it's going to happen. But you know, even then, when if a company decides to build a factory here or expand something, it can take several years to get that going. It's not just like flip the switch. We had this you know, production line lying around it has to be very specific to the type of drugs they're trying to build in things like that. So, um, this, this information that us from my copia has could help push that effort a little bit. Um, given that you know,

it's everything is so concentrated there. Um, even when it was split when people thought it might be split between Indian and China a little more. Um. Not great for a lot of reasons, but at least there might be a little more diversity. This is showing that you know, he's coming from one area and that even raises a lot more eyebrows. Yeah, and a really startling figure in here. Of the one drugs that Americans use the most, you write, eighty three have no production source in the US for

their active ingredients. That's according to somebody, a senior researcher at the Center for Analytics and Business Insights at WASH you in St. Louis. So you mentioned potentially government involvement here, Is that realistic for for us to think? Because I I gotta tell you it, you know, two years into this three almost three, you know, entering the third year the pandemic, it does feel like this is, at least on its surface, a national security issue, right and UM,

the Association for Accessible Medicines. They're the ones who are the lobby group for the generics and and really the drugs we're talking about here are generic drugs. UM. A lot of the brand name drugs are going to Europe and for their active ingredients. UM. They said they have been in talked with the VIBE administration. UM. You know, the administration has been looking at the supply chain of a lot of different things given just what's happened during

the pandemic, and pharmaceuticals has been one of those. So they are in talks. UM. Under the Trump administration, there was some money that went to a company UM in Richmond, Virginia to get kind of started, UM, so they could try to make COVID drugs domestically. I'm called slow. But you know, that's just one company. It's not the whole solution. Bloomberg's Anna Edney and Business Week editor Joel Webber with

us there. Now, though, we turn to another owner of healthcare that's getting a lot of interest, carell for private equity. We're talking about bright Line. The company provides virtual behavioral health services to children and their families. It's now valued at more than seven million dollars after raising a hundred and five million from investors led by KKR that was in its most recent funding round. Tim we caught up with bright Line co founder and CEOA and we allen

talked about a lot, including the platform. We provide a national solution for families that's an in network benefit that means it's covered by insurance companies and we offer it through employers so they can provide it there employees and the children of those employees. There are three levels of care, so we basically we meet families where they are. Some families made this need a bit of self guided content or exercises, digital exercises, their recommendations for how to support

their child. Some families need things that are more skill buildings. So for example, example, a family that maybe has a child that doesn't have a clinical level of anxiety that it's anxious about taking their masks off at school, or a child that doesn't have depression that is struggling with maintaining a proper sleep schedule. Those things can become full

on clinical anxiety or depression if left unsupported. And so for those things that are are lower lower in terms of clinical scale, we provide coaching, which is real scale building for children, adolescents, teams and parents and caregivers. And for things that are truly in native a clinical service or a diagnosis, we have a full care team, a therapists, by chiatrists, speech language pathologists, and they work through evidence

based and measured clinical protocols. What about when it comes to insurance and paying for this, and and how how it compares to uh comparable services that are perhaps more traditional in the sense of in person Absolutely well, I think first I'll say, if you are speaking pediatric mental health services in the United States, you're ten times likelier to have to go out of network for those services than primary care. The way it would be is that the status quo in the country where that we just

didn't have pediatricians covered by insurance. It's kind of wild imagine that, but that is the world that we've been in. And so bright Line is the first national provider that has network relationships with local insurance companies and local blues plans as well as national insurance companies. And so a family that goes to bright Line through their employer would have in some cases for some services, no out of

pocket costs at all. In some cases they would just be paying a deductible or a co pay for services, so it's a radically different affordability level for families. That was Naomi Allen, she's co founder and CEO of bright Line. Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, the software that many of the world's biggest tech companies rely upon for customer engagement. Tim you used it, I've used it. Probably everybody who's listening has used it. You know what we're talking about.

It includes some well known tech billionaires among its backers. That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week, all right. So when you

talk with CEOs. In addition to labor worries, supply chain constraints, and the overall volatility in our environment, one thing that's off on top of mine is engaging and serving their customers and tim that's where our next guest comes in. Karen Peacock is CEO of the customer communications platform Intercom. As you'll hear in a moment, her company has backing from some of Silicon Valley's top leaders. And if you do anything online, whether you know it or not, there's

a good chance that you've actually used intercom software. Intercom is fundamentally the best way for companies to talk to their customers. And so if you're on a website and you see a chat bubble in the corner, that might be intercom. If you're reaching out to a company and you need strong support, if you're in a product with a company and they are are reaching out to in a real time, contextual way, there's a good chance of

that intercom. And we think of ourselves as an engagement os, really helping companies convert customers, helping them engage their customers, helping those customers be successful, and helping them support their customers. And we work with about twenty five thousand, actually more than five thousand companies, including folks like Amazon and Lastian, Lift, Shopify, and more. Yeah, a lot of them. So talked about the growth in your business and your and your client acquisition.

What kind of trends have you seen. You know, we started as a startup selling the other startups and the problems that we solve, exactly as you highlight of helping companies engage customers connect with our customers. What we realize is every company needs to care deeply about that, and in fact, mid market and enterprise companies have even bigger needs there. And so we've been steadily moving up market and selling more and more to the bid market and

enterprise companies. And that's how we've ended up with with new customers like Amazon, customers like Last Sean and Lift and others. And we should just to be fair, you've got some backing from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, certainly well known names to our audience. Karen Um, What is the best way to grow from selling to other startups to selling to the big players that you mentioned like Amazon and more like how is it? Is it?

Word of mouth? How does it work? Yeah? I think it starts by having a real focus on customers and spending time understanding what are the most important problems they're they're trying to solve and helping them do that, and helping them do that in a way that's not ten better, but that three or four times better, ten times better than what they've done in the past. And that really comes down to having a great product and a great UM customer oriented mindset to make sure that they're getting

all the value that they can. Well, you mentioned and counting customers, and you said, you know, whether it's Amazon, Shopify, other smaller companies, mid sized companies, bigger companies, what is it when you talk with these customers. What's top of mind for your customers when it comes to their needs

for serving their own customers. Great question, and what they're really looking for is a way to build a strong relationship with their customers, to make it not just kind of a one time transaction, but to really build trust and to build that ongoing relationship which makes their customers want to come back and buy more with them, do more with them, makes them want to recommend UH that

company to other people. And that's part of our Our real focus at Intercom is moving from a world where companies in the past have just sent out tons and tons of spam email. I'm sure you both get a lot of that UM spam phone calls now, a lot of uh spam direct mail, A lot of that I personally don't even bring into my house. I just go

straight to the recycling there. And what we do, and what companies are looking to typically do, is figure out a more personal relationship with customers and reach out in ways that really are good for the customer and good for the company. Will explain that to me, because I do. I'm at a point where, first of all, I'm tired when I buy something that I automatically get a survey and write my service and like I'm getting overwhelmed, like I haven't even used it yet. And then and Tim

and I both looked at each other. It's like, man, some of those bots they drive us crazy. I get on a website and and they don't find them helps. There was a joke that went around last week. It was like closed the pop up that comes up if you want to say fifty no, you don't need live help and yes except the cookies, right, all the things you have to do when you go and visit a website. Now, So, how is this tell us about how it's evolving in terms of some of the offerings that you have, UM

are that your clients are using YA. So what we've really as is it getting better, more friendlier to customers, getting more personalized, and more in contact. So rather than a world where you have to just span people, we believe that the best time could talk to someone or engage them is when they're already thinking about you, not when it's hours later or days later and they're trying

to do something to clear out their inbox. So right after you've used the product, then asking and took the question about how did you like it, what's working or not. When you have a problem with something like a support need, don't make the customer have to like hunt down a phone number and weight on hold. Enable the customer to to actually ask you the question right then and there and figure out a way to get those questions answered

lightning fast. That was Karen Peacocks, CEO of software maker Intercom. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up next, we'll rejoin our editors round table and dive into our domestic cover story. We're gonna get business lessons from one of the NBA's best players. We're talking about Chris Paul. Turns out he's also a prolific investor with a pretty good mentor behind him. I'd say it's an unbelievable mentor behind him. Yeah, you've definitely heard of him. Let's just say there's a

little magic there. Stick around to find out who's helping CP three with his playbook. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio tell me how to get back to our editors round table With a look at this week's domestic cover story of Bloomberg Business Week. It's all about NBA superstar Chris Paul Well. The future Hall of Fame point guard, is still chasing his first championship ring.

He's already earned more than three million dollars. That's just playing in pro basketball all well putting together a business empire off the court. Bloomberg Business Week contributor Arian Cohen in Business Week getittor Joe Webber taking us inside CP

three's financial playbook. I just find it absolutely fascinating because we we've watched different athletes be able to to turn what they do on the core or on the field into something that's far bigger that than that and goes beyond the sport, right And I think Chris Paul is

sort of a current embodiment of that. The Phoenix Suns, which he's the point guard of UM or the top seed in the NBA playoffs, that's the playoff, the postseason is about to begin, so a lot of attention on Chris Paul, who has this amazing NBA career but still doesn't have a title. And I think, you know, being the top seed going into the playoffs, this could be that year UM. One of the people that we talked

to was Bob Igert. Bob happens to be a mentor of Chris's UM off the court, and Bob said that he thinks this is the best team that he's ever seen Chris on. So we'll see how that plays out. But really the focus of the story was about Chris Paul's playbook and that was something that Arion got to spend some time talking with him about what you learn, Yeah,

he was really interesting. You know, when you look at a lot of the retired UM athletes or athletes who indrest a lot, when you look at their portfolios, you don't get a real sense of what their personal interests are. You see a lot of restaurants and maybe some you know, sports chains, but when you look at Chris as you really get a direct reflection of you know, what's in his refrigerator at home, what he's watching on TV at home, what's what he's wearing on his wrist. Um, he's really

interested in plant based foods. He went vegan about four years ago and credited with reinvigrating his entire career. He had a kind of lull about four years ago in his career and has really come back. Um. He's also very interested in sort of family and kid oriented uh projects. Um. He is invested in like a financial literacy app called goal Setter and then the family organizational app called Life three sixty Uh. And he is so enthusiastic about all of it. I mean, he's just a joy to talk

to me. He really cares, He really wants plant based feed to get to people who lived in feed deserts. And he's just a really good guy. I have to say, this was such a fun read. He sounds like a really great guy, and I love his advice. I also just love you know, talked to us a little too about talking to Bob Iger about this relationship between these two. Oh you did, okay, okay, cool, okay, So tell us about there was it was inspired by Chris Paul I did. I will say just you know for a little how

the sausages made. I got to the end of the story and it said, you know, with Joel Weber at the end, And that's not something I get to I get to see a lot when I read Blueberg Business Week, because Joel, you're the person behind the entire magazine each week, so you actually got to do some reporting here. Yeah. So I just had a couple of minutes with Bob where I got to talk to him about his relationship with with Chris, which, um hear a name dropped? Did

I just hear a name drop? Which Arion had put on a on a t for me? But you know, we were I was just really interested in their relationship because Arion had talked to Chris already and we'd known that they had this really close relationship. Um where where Bob is his mentor. And it turned out that very early in their relationship, Chris had landed in l a playing for the Clippers and was looking for a business mentor and basically turned to can you can you imagine

a better mentor than Bob? Was basically like, go to the top of corporate America and be like, Bob, you're the CEO of Disney. Can can I? Um? You know this was a number of of years ago, about ten years ago, would you be my mentor? And and and I basically said, look like a lot of people have come to me with that, and you know, probably he probably gives most of them the modest brush off. And yet he and Chris really kicked it off and it's become something that that Iger says is is kind of more

than a frenchip, more than a mentorship. It's like they're friends now and they talk multiple times a day. Um. But what stood out to you about their their relationship to you? Are you on? Um? First of all, I love talking to recently retired CEOs. Bob Eiker has been retired for about three months, and they're just fancy free and really wonderful to talk to you because they'll say anything and be very honest. And Bob Eiker did not disappoint. UM.

They really have a unique relationship. They have a ton in common. You know, they both have kids, they're both very kind of family values oriented. Both of their careers kind of reflect those family values. But above all, the thing that Chris kept coming back to was that, um, Bob really puts family first. I mean, the anecdote, Dave is that Bob once took a day trip to Disneyland Shanghai because we had to be back in California for

his son's basketball game. And that really was kind of eye opening for Chris of like how you have the big job and really focus on family. And both of them do that. Honestly, by um they call it jettisoning all discretionary activities. Like these guys they do their job and they do the family, and that's it. There's not really space for anything else. That's Business Week contributor Arianne

Cohen on this week's domestic cover story. We should know that CP three is coming to Bloomberg later this month, will interview athletes and business leaders as part of a new digital series How I Got Here with Chris Paul streaming exclusively on Bloomberg Quick Take that starts up on April. Alright, Business Week editor Joe Webber sticking around with us as we dip back into the feature well as part of our Roundtable, Our Editors round Table. We've got a profile

on US Postmaster General Lewis to Joy. It comes to us from Bloomberg News senior writer Devin Leonard. Can I just tell you Devin has been following the US Postal Service for years. Yeah. I think a lot of stuff will in this profile will surprise people who have been following to Joy for the almost two years that he's been Postmaster General. Still in a job though after many expected President Biden to replace the Trump administration holdover, and

that's making his recent successes even sweeter. He's been really quiet. So so the way that the post Office works, UM is that the postmaster is not actually appointed by the president. It's a board of trustees that does that appointment. UM. A board of trustees under uh Donald Trump uh brought to Joy in everyone just expected Biden would toss him, uh. Except Biden can't do that because it's not appointed by him. So there's this little uh separation of church and state.

But what has been remarkable about Joy's tenure, and this is really the first time that he's spoken, and that alone was interesting. So Devin has written a book about the Postal Service, but also nobody does profiles like Devon, and you really get this color from this guy because you see someone who was really successful in the private

sector has transitioned to the public sector. The Postal Service has just been mired in financial problems for years now, and yet it's almost like the agency is starting to turn a corner. How did that happen, Devin? I guess he he came in and he has a plan, and I mean that was my whole thing, you know, But the story was, I really thought the guy deserved a second look. The election didn't go badly. If he was. If the joy was supposedly Donald Trump's operative, well Donald

Trump lost the election. He might not think so, but uh and Joe Biden one and then postal ballots are also really important in the Atlanta runoffs and Side Georgia runoffs, and the Democrats won that. So so you know, the Senate flipped. So again, if he's if he's the manurion postmaster general, well he's doing a pretty pretty bad job.

Then he introduces his plan, everybody gets upset. Well, guess what anytime a postmaster general introduces rolls at a big hand like this, all these people, all these special interests, get all upset. So I just you know, I wanted to look at the plan and talk to him about the plan. And you know it's a little early to say whether or not the plans working. Look, they did get some stimulus money after Donald Trump, you know, vetoed a bunch in the Carris Act, so so so that's helping.

But you know, I think he's I think he's really having an impact. You know, you know, we'll see what happens. He's still facing a lot of adversity. As you know, we talked about in the story what's this dude like? And by the way, Devon's book Neither Rain nor Snow History of the US Postal set, well, that was really

crazy because the guy does he doesn't. He hasn't done really any interviews, and so I told them, look, you know, I'd like to do this, but you know, I really want to kind of hang around with a guy and get a real sense of him. And then he just like it's almost like he was unburdening himself or you know or something. I just, you know, just the stuff that he said. He was really fun. You know, he he talks really fast. It's like his mind's racing sort of fat, you know, faster than this mouth can keep

up with him sometimes. But he just has really strong ideas. He's really shure himself. Of course, who's a very successful entrepreneurs so of course, you know, I think you know, he thinks, you know, he's right and everybody else is wrong. But yeah, New Be Logistics to the customers like Disney, Boeing, Verizon and the the USPS. He sold it to XPO Logistics for you know, two thousand and four team for

you know, over six six million dollars. So you know, I mean, he's he's pretty pretty confident in himself, and he doesn't really care what people what people say about him or think about him. That's what I found most remarkable. I mean, he he basically said he's had a place in his life now where he's the most comfortable, at

least professionally, where he's ever been. He has he has no problem sleeping at night, and and it seemed to yeah, it seemed to be like, well, I think it has to do also with you know, six hundred million dollars sales company. Right, that's not going to hurt um. But but I do think Devin, there's this there's this really interesting sort of feeling that I got from him, that he's not letting anything on the outside burden him. His focus. Really,

it seemed like is the usps. Well, that's what he says. I mean, you could argue to him that's a coping mechanism too, but but I mean, I mean, he's he does have he does have really thick skin, and he has a real real sense of as he said, a lot of this stuff was bs that that's that's how he looks at He's just trying to plow through our Thanks once again to Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber and to Bloomberg New Senior writer Devin Leonard for taking

part in our editor's round table. Check out the entire conversation at business week dot com right find it also on our podcast feed that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanavaca head. In our next hour, Carol sits down with Chipotle CFO Jack hard Tongue why he says the fast casual dining giant still has plenty of room to grow. Plus Carrol eating some

chicken burritos too, right. I think I had a burritaball, a little bit of chicken, a little bit of guak alright. Plus we've got the company working to rebuild the middle class talent pipeline and lift people out of poverty, especially women of there. And a Bloomberg investigation into the messy truth about recycling. It involves trackers and moving across the continent.

This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happened, Sloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol

Masser and I'm Tim stock. Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including a deep dive into Chipotle's ascent in the stock market and in the minds of burrito lovers everywhere, my conversation with longtime CFO Jack har Tongue. Plus our Bloomberg team takes a look at a Plastic bags two thousand mile journey and what it says about the state of global recycling and sustainability efforts. That's kind of depressed after that story,

really depressed. Oh my god, unbelievable story. It was also one of the Bloomberg Big Takes this week. First up this Hour, new context for recent Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study that was published in The Lancet showing the pandemic pushed more women out of the labor force than men during the early months of the crisis,

reversing decades of progress in education and gender equality. With that in mind, we turned to Britina Chickarelli, CEO of the nonprofit and Power It Works to move people from poverty to the middle class through tech skills training and job placement programs. We have certainly seen women of color in particular just proportionately impacted by this pandemic, with a great loss of economic stability and rising demands in terms

of childcare and elder care. So the problem is very real, and I think our opportunity is to identify ways in which we can create better pathways to accelerate another kind of career track that helps these women in particular gain an economic foothold. If we talk about the inequities that are at there, the inequalities. You know, we we used to talk about income gaps. That's not what it's about.

It's about wealth creation, right, And how do you do and how do you help those that haven't had the same opportunities be on a better path to help create generational wealth and so on? And this is something we've certainly seen Blacks and minorities that certain haven't had the same access. Tell us about the research you guys are doing and the specific actions that maybe can move black women into positions and technology where it seems like every

CEO of Bertina that we talked to they want tech workers. Absolutely, it is everybody I talked to in the tech sector right now. It is the number one concerns a perceived lack of talent. Let's start with what we know and which really guided our research today. We know that less than five cent of the tech workforce in America is comprised of women of color, specifically Black, Hispanic and American Indian women. And that's just an astonishing fact. And so

we set out with this research really to understand two things. First, what should that percentage be? What should we be striving for as a society. And secondly, what might be some pathways to be able to reach a much more ambitious goal. So that was how we framed a pathways. So well, I'll tell you our findings, right, the three things that we walked away with this research that we conducted in partnership with Burning Glass is first, and this really speaks

to that question of a pathway. First, we found there are five hundred job classifications right now today where there are similar skills, abilities, and qualifications required to do those jobs. They are not in the tech sector, but tech adjacent. These are jobs like an electronic medical record specialist, right, an individual who needs to have knowledge of information systems, project management, customer service quality assurance. And here's the interesting fact.

In those five hundred job categories we mapped for skills similarity, the percent of women of color and those jobs are ten.

So you know, I have to see. Let me I believe talking about this with the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Patrick Harker, and has done the same research of saying that there's so many skills that aren't in tech jobs that are are very similar to skills that are needed in what would be classified as tech jobs, and yet those people aren't being shown or provided the opportunity to take that step uh into that tech community. So so talk to me more about that.

So how do we change that? How do we make that better? So? I think, really where we where we identify this gap, where we know that there are skills that are halfway there and we can go the difference that the distance is through short term skills programs, bridge skills programs like m power and a number of others, and the way we think about this right, it was important for us to put some dimension around how might we bench mark our success? And that's where the equation

for equality comes in. When we have an equation for equality of one, that's when we know the percent of women of color in tech jobs is equal to the percent of women in these tech eligible jobs those five hundred that I mentioned. So when we get that one ratio, that means that the investments that we're making in bridge skilling programs upscaling recruitment, retaining practices, then we will have

been successful. So I think the first priority is really to communicate to many of these women who have a lot of those skills similarity aspects, communicate the opportunities through these programs, providing the flexibility so they can take these types of courses which are often free, and get the required certifications and skills to be able to be connected to much higher paying jobs. Britina, is this is this you mentioned happens when we reach that goal and how

we reach that goal. Are you optimistic that that happens during our lifetimes? I mean, I just look at how slow we have been when it comes to progress within these realms. Yeah, so I I I by nature I'm an optimist, and especially now. And the reason the reason is because there is so much urgency in the business sector on finding great talent and investing in that talent.

We have to do it. And you know, for a long time we've been very laser focused as a society, rightly so on K through twelve, and we need to continue to do that. And they're great organizations like Girls Who Code and the Y and Urban Alliance. Those efforts need to persist. But we also need to recognize the urgency that today tech openings are up. With these short term programs, we can more quickly position these women to take the jobs that are open right now today. That

was Bertina chick a Rally, CEO of end Power. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up next. Why pertly is used to keep its firm grip on the burrito business for years to come. There'll be some menu innovation though along the way to a little bit like yeah, you know the case it has to come from somewhere. It does. We're gonna talk with the CFO of Chippotle on the other side. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim

Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio. Safe to say that started back after the financial crisis. Chief financial officers playing a critical role in shaping corporate strategy and positioning organizations to meet future challenges. Bloomberg TV's new monthly program, it's called Chief Future Officer, profiles these leaders and explores the impact they're

making on their companies and industries. For the latest episode, Carol traveled to the Chicago area to catch up with Chipotle CFO Jack hard Tongue inside one of the company's nearly three thousand US kitchens. They talked exp mansion, the talent pipeline, and the stock price. It says the IPO in two thousand six, it's six. It's up to something like kind of off the charts. Do you watch the stock price? Of course I do, but here's here's what do you what? What is it that you look for?

So I don't worry about the stock price day by day or even week by week. Um, you know, I kind of have this saying that. You know, people talk about the market is an efficient market, Well, it is over time. It's not efficient every minute, every hour, every day, or even every week. I mean, when the market's going up and down like this, it's not right when it's up here, it's not right when it's down here. Eventually gets it right. So I'm more concerned with does Wall

Street understand what we're doing? Do they understand what our potential is in terms of seven thousand restaurants and then understand their economic model. Today as strong as it is, our volumes are nearly two point seven million, we're on our way to three million, and then week at the three it's going to be up the three point five.

So if they understand the whole story, while our stock will be volatile, you know, day by day, week by week, over time, they will realize that a a business with seven thousand restaurants, not to mention the potential outside the US, with the kind of valiume and margins that we can deliver, UM can generate substantial share older value, much much higher than when we are today. You mentioned outside international, it's a smaller part of the business, but you do oversee

it again, you're not franchising. Some say you could really create some tremendous growth by doing franchising. You're gonna stick with the owned and operated model or we're open to the idea of some kind of franchise model. UM. You know, there are areas of the world where it's going to be harder for us to to own UM and to run the businesses ourselves. We own all the restaurants in Europe,

all the restaurants in Canada. When the process of bringing our digital system to Europe, that's going really, really well. We've also opened up some alternative sites, like we open our first chipport Lane in Canada. That's off to a great start. Uh. We've opened in Europe a tiny little restaurant that's the smallest restaurant in the world. It's like set smaller than the very first one like the New York City small apartment or actually larger maybe exactly exactly,

but it's doing really, really well. So these alternative formats on the digital system is working. So it gives us great optimism that international is going to be a growth vehicle course and you know, hopefully not to distant future. So what's the opportunity for Chipotle and the next ten years? It excites you the most, well, I think the most exciting thing is that we're not even halfway to our

potential um in the US. So you know, when I joined the company with a few hundred restaurants and we're talking about a thousand, maybe two thousand. Here we are at three thousand, talking about seven. I believe as we approach seven, that number is going to be higher, and

you know, a lot a lot higher. Well, you know, I hate to, you know, say that right now, but you know, I feel like the more people that discovered Chippotle, and the more we are successful with our digital system, with our loyalty program, and you know, with formats like the chippot Leane and the and the digital only formats, I do believe that that that the number will go up. I don't know how much higher, but for sure it's going to go up. Um. And we just talked about

international and international we're just scratching the surface. And we've been very bonsible in international where we've taken the same food ethos we've owned the restaurants so far, and so it's been a very slow let's make sure we get this right. You know, sometimes you have to go slow before you go fast, and that's kind of been our approach. We've gone slow and now we're positioning ourselves too, I think in the non too distant future go fast in international.

So those are two things that excite me the most. All Right, what's the challenge for the next ten years that is on your mind the most that maybe it keeps you up at night? People. Um, when we run all of our restaurants like we do today, UM, we have around a hundred thousand employees. As we grow, we're gonna need more employees. Uh. We promoted nineteen thousand people last year of our of our promotions were in house. So the people we hired today, like the crew that

we're seeing today, those are future leaders. So we always have to be on our game in terms of hiring great people that believe in Chipotle and our purpose today that have the desire to learn how to cook, learn how to run a business, learn how to leave people. If we do a great job with that, the future only gets brighter. So we're in great shape from with people standpoint. But that's something that I'll always worry about. Are we are we hiring and developing the right people.

You don't want to be losing people. If we lose people, then we might have to resort to franchising. And it's hard to follow a purpose during tough times like during a pandemic. It's hard to invest in things like food and people you win margins or under pressure. When you own your own restaurants, you can make those investments. How do you see your role as CFO changing in the next ten years? Safe to say it's changed a lot in the past ten years. How about the next time

it has? You know, I I think it'll just evolve with the challenges. I mean again, I'm I'm already fortunate that I've been able to get involved in real estate and supply chain. I spend time in our restaurant, spend time and suppliers, um you know, spend time international as well. So I always I already get to spend a lot

of time in a lot of these areas. I think, um, in terms of evolution, Um, it's probably more a matter of the folks on my team, some of which are new topol in the last few years, some of which have been with us for a long time, to to help them rise up so they can take on bigger responsible As we become a bigger company, everybody in the company will need to step up and take on bigger responsibility. So my main goal will be to make sure that they're ready to take those one and teach them about

the roots. Tee some about the roots. Absolutely. What's the skill set that you think every CFO should be acquiring in this environment. Well, I think probably most important is to really understand the essence of your business. Um. Every CFO knows how to review spreadsheets, every CFO knows how to read financial statements and go through what a CFO is supposed to do. But I think what you have to do is put those aside at some point, go spend time in your business. In our case, spend time

in restaurants, spend time with suppliers. I think, get to know how other people within the business, what their challenges are, what their opportunities are. UM, what really makes the customer care about your brand or your business. And I think the more you do that, when you go back to the spreadsheets, you're going to be thinking about things from

a different sample. Your priorities might change a little bit, and it might change how you make investments to make sure that the customer experience is better next time, rather than the margin is better. I mean, if you invest in the customer in a way where they become loyal to your customer, the margins will come. Jack, what's the skill set that you think in a CFO needs to have for the next ten years, especially in the environment we're starting to think about the metaverse and just how

things change. Look at how much things have changed in the last couple of years because of the pandemic. What's the skill set that a CFO needs for the next ten years. I think being digital savvy UM is probably the most important thing. And listen, I'm I'm not an expert. Thank god we have Kirk Garner on our team because he is fantastic and leading all of our technology, including digital.

But I think being more aware of again, what the younger generation, what you know, the twenty and thirty year olds and now the teenagers, what are they doing from a technology standpoint? Because what they're doing today is going to lead into all of our businesses in the future. So I think trying to stay you know, keep up or even stay ahead of where technology is going, not just in the next five years, been ext center fifteen years.

I think that's the most critical for a CFO. That was Chipotle CFO Jack har Tongue from Inside the Kitchen. You can see Carol's entire interview on Chief Future Officer on our Bloomberg YouTube channel, and be on the lookout for new episodes on Bloomberg TV as well. Still to come on Bloomberg Business Week, a global retail giant sustainability

push reveals the messy truth about recycling. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chadel one nine team, and around the globe. The Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com this is Bloomberg Business Week. This next story definitely caught our attention earlier this week. It was

a Bloomberg big take. It was among our most read on the Bloomberg when it hit. It's about a plastic bags two thousand mile journey and the truths of out recycling being revealed as a result. Well. To help map out the long and winding route for our plastic way star, Bloomberg Green Teams set out to literally follow the garbage using a set of tiny digital trackers. Bloomberg News Senior writer Kitchell brings us a story from London. The questionry was rush and I was trying to answer, was, um,

you know, where does all our plastic go? The amount of plastic that we use in the world and the amounts made and sold every year has been rising exponentially for years, and it's going to double again sometime in the next twenty years. So it's actually an incredibly important question to ask, is where does all this stuff go when we finished using it? Can I just put out a number that you put out so wonderfully in your story. Global plastic production now reaches almost half a billion tons

each year. That's a lot of stuff. It's a huge amount and it's something that we can see in our everyday lives. You know, if you go into your local supermarket or shop or service station, or you open your fridge or cupboard, there's plastic everywhere. And China used to take a out of the garbage right, and then they stopped a few years ago. We're not importing this anymore. Don't send us your trash. That that was the old solution to unwanted plastic was you just used to get

shipped to China. But in China said we're not going to take this stuff anymore. So the global stream and plastic need to find a new place to go. Okay, so you took three tracking devices and three different types of plastic. You dropped him off at a place that was purportedly where you can recycle plastic. What did you learn? So the place I dropped it was Tesco, which is the UK's biggest supermarket, has annual sales about sixty billion

pounds and across the whole of the UK. Tesco has put out these white bins inviting customers to return their soft plastic bags, carrier bags, wraps to be recycled and turn into new products. And what I learned kind of long, shorty store short, was that the vast majority of this stuff that customers are diligently returning isn't being turned into new products but tesco. It's being exported overseas, it's being burnt in incinerators, and not a huge amount of its

being recycled. It's part of the problem. And help me out here. I mean, I guess the good of plastic was kind of a durable and how lasting it is. The bad of plastic is how durable and lasting it is. Yeah, that's I mean, that is the issue. Plat Plastic is a wonderful material, particularly for selling food in because it's you know, impermeable to water. You can steal food products in an air tight way and it doesn't degrade. Actually

it is a very safe way to package food. But that same durability is a big problem when it comes to disposing of it, because if you just bury it or leave it, it takes thousands of years to degrade and and and throughout that time it breaks down into tiny, little small pieces of small chunks of plastic called microplastics that get absolutely everywhere. So it's not a great situation.

They've talked about this in the ocean right, in particular that you're seeing those you know, microplastics, microplastics and as a result, you know, you think about the food chain, right, Whoever eats it in the ocean and then we eat plastic comes back to all of us. Hey, hey it I want to talk about the Lentil snack pouch and

where exactly it went. So it quickly went to Harwich International Port, then the outskirts of Rotterdam, then through Germany, uh past Berlin, and then it found its way to Poland. Where did it end up in Poland? Yea, So two of my three trackers made their way to Poland. They both went to exactly the same place, which is a small town called Gelona Gora, which is close to the

border with Germany. The reason all the stuff gets sent to Poland is, you know, quite simply cost um It is much much cheaper to dispose of plastic in Poland than it is to do so in the UK or Germany. Labor is cheaper, landfill is cheaper, and it's just a cost effective way for big retailers to get rid of their plastic. But of course there's the the environmental cost

of shipping it there in the first place. So net net takeaway in terms of plastic, is it just a case we have to stop using it or is there a way to actually reuse it um so that we can get rid of some of the economic impact and not economic environ mental impact. I think what we learned during this story is we're not saying plastic recycling doesn't work, but we're saying it's can't be the only solution. There's

so much plastic that can't be recycled. So what we need to do is better understand how that protect works. But we can't just ship it to overseas to make it someone else's problem. That's making the situation a lot worse. We need to really understand how these systems work. Yeah, hopeful that we figure it out soon. There's a lot of attention on plastics now, which is a really good thing.

Governments are looking at it. I'm not particularly hopeful, knowing what I know about what happens to plastic when we throw it away, I'm not particularly optimistic for the short term. That's Bloomberg New senior writer Kitshall ll be sure to check out the full story online or on the terminal some really amazing graphics that go along with the reporting here, and there's a documentary about it as well. It's part of our storyline series on Bloomberg Quick Take. You can

find that at Bloomberg dot com slash qt. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, coming up, looking to refresh your wardrobe now that your pass is dragging you back to the office. Well, we've got a guide to create a your very own signature look from head to tell, courtesy of our Bloomberg Pursuits team. We're going big on bespoke, aren't we. We are? All right, you gotta bring your wallet. Okay, you on your wallet too, that's giving up. Next, this

is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. So normally at this time each week we turned to Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser to gude us through Pursuits in the Business Week magazine. Unfortunately, Chris not available this unfortunately for us or for him, I don't. I think it's okay. He deserves a few days. And where he is, he is in Switzerland. He's there for work. Okay, you

can't give him that part of it. Oh yeah, work a watch trade show, right work. Check him out on Instagram, by the way, he's posting some pretty cool stories from there. Yes, some of our Business Week colleagues do have the best job when it comes to journalism, and thankfully we all to have. Bloomberg Pursuits Deputy editor Jim Gaddy here with us in New York to break down the signature style edition of the Pursuit section. I mean, I get to

go to Switzerland. What's deal with that? Chris is the boss, he gets to choose where he goes. Well, spekin of bosses. Bosses want us back in the office. Uh, And as you can see, I'm really well dressed in my yoga pants and a wrinkled linen shirt. Um. You talk about like the whole section is all about coming back to work, but basically in a different way, right, and in a

bespoke way. So tell us about the coverage here. Yeah, you know, we wanted to talk about the new ways of getting your clothes custom made, and you know, not just a suit. I mean you think of a bespoke suit that's kind of like the first thing that comes to mind. But we're seeing surveys coming out where half of millennials are saying they're never going to wear a

suit again, never gonna wear a suit again. I read that, I was like, yeah, well it must be nice, but also, are you never going to go to a wedding again? We're away Sorry, yeah, they're still just but but it is right. Things that we've talked about the world getting more casual, but there's something more significant. It feels like this time. Yeah. I mean we've had stories coming out of Bloomberg in London, for example, where you're seeing bankers

get this, wearing chinos. That's a big deal. Finance guys. Wait what not just guys wearing brown shoes? Just not casual? No, no, this is like the thing now people. Uh, you know, hedge funders are ditching the tie and digging corduroy. Now, I mean, you know, g Q can say the suit is dead, but when you know, you see stuff like this, there's a real sea change. Corduroy. I think that's only for like professors in college. Yeah, well I guess they're the new style icons. I guess, so okay, but the

way you guys do it. And let's be fair. I mean you are talking about me more casual, but this is like gorgeous casual because it's bespoke. It's custom. Casual doesn't mean sloppy, right, Okay, but look to be fair, we you get dressed up when we go on TV. We do, we do, we do. Yeah, so we're not always cash. So talked us about some of the places. Yeah, there's a whole new sort of generation of tailors who will make a leather jacket for example. Uh, I don't know,

a belt, a short sleeve button up shirt. You know, things that are made for you and you know. We talked to one designer, Patrick Henry, who runs a label in Los Angeles called rich Fresh, and he has some NBA clients. He makes these amazing track suits started like six four thousand dollars six thousand dollars. Yeah, and he's had a great quote he said, if you work hard and you have the financial means to have the best

of things, you should have clothes. It looked beautiful on you, regardless of your height, your weight, your size, or your race. And so that was kind of like the guiding principle that we did with this section. So you know, like maybe you want like a personalized belt, maybe you want like a denim jacket, or maybe you want to shack it. Yeah, a shirt jacket. Yeah, I've got my eye on this

embroidered Babis and butt Head denim jacket that's featured. But be blakely because this is just a throwback I think too. You know many elder millennials, geriatric millennials, childhoods gen X two. Yeah, what what's appealing? I mean, how do you walk into an office wearing this? You know, I don't know if you can go into your your hedge fund conference meeting with the Beavis and butt Head denim jacket on, but you know, you could definitely walk in with another jacket on.

You could. You know, it's really about and again some of these surveys that we're seeing, it's like meeting the customers where they are. So if it's you know, if they're cool with it, then you know you don't have to sort of stand on ceremony. Hey, if it's good enough for John Mayer, you know, it should be good enough for the hedge fun but it isn'tteresting was it hard to find these places? It seems like there's a

ton of them out there. There's a ton. Yeah, honestly, it was harder to sort of like pick, like to weet out or not not weat out, but you know, decide which one is to actually focus on because there's so many. Like you can any pretty much the city you go to, you or if you live in uh, there's somebody there who can make something for you. Most of them, you know, we focus on her in Los Angeles or London or New York because that's where most of our customers are. I have to say, just up

the street. For me, there's been like a place where the same thing you just walk in. It's a small little shop. It's a guy. I don't know whether you worked for a big fashionait. He's got his own little place and they'll make a custom suit or do whatever you use this New Jersey or don't you dare it's just outside Manhattan, Okay, New Jersey. I'm sorry. Hey, we're

going to from head to toe here. So I want to talk a little bit about what we put on our feet, because a little Manhattan cobbler shop offers sort of a different take when it comes to customized shoes. They're gorgeous they're beautiful, many different materials. Um, what's unique about this shop? You know what? They're from Switzerland and they opened up in December of last year. That's a

surprise to me. When I read that, I was thinking, wait a second, you know, these are the shops that closed during the pandemic right when no but he was doing anything. Who's betting on a cobbler? You know? They said most of their customers are walk ins, and they're just kind of kind of coming off the street. And most of what they're doing is again you think of like a custom shore, you think of like some black leather fancy thing. Like most of the people come in

and want something casual. They can wear it with jeans. They want something with like a big rubber soul because they're doing a lot of walking these days, and so then you can mix and match, like sometimes you know, they'll put the laces on the side. These clients, the clients are people with unique taste. They cater to people with very specific kind of ideas and of what they want, what they need. Uh. One of my favorite examples, he said, someone came in last week. It was in a wheelchair

and he needed shoes with zippers. That's like the sort of level of detail you can get at this place. Uh So, I don't know. I I've loved how these shoes kind of came out, all the leathers that you can pick, the different souls, the different laces, um and what is it takes maybe ten weeks to arrive. They start from six hundred nine hundred dollars. So well, that's

what shocked me. And I mean, I know, okay, forgive us, because there's people out there saying six hundred nine hundred isn't a lot of money, but I think there is not. They're probably people saying, you guys are nuts that you don't think that that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money. The thing is, you should have seen the look that Carol just gave me. She's like, she's like, you're not buying. I think you could put My mother would have looked at me and be like, master,

you are weird, my daughter. No. But I think about, like, these are an investment and you can take care of them, right, And I think about you could walk into a big department store and drop easily that amount of money and kind of a mass produced shoe. This is custom made for you. Yeah, we should probably say the name le Major Dome. I don't think it's actually said that. I was waiting for. Say they're saying, thank you very much, Jim for saying that. But just about the price real quick.

The last thing on that. The guy that we talked to who bought a pair, he said they're the most price, they're the most expensive shoes he's ever had, but he says they're fifty times the next best shoe he's ever had in terms of quality. So Chris is away in Switzerland. Story the editor of Bloomberg pursuits, so I want to use this as an opportunity because he's not here to defend himself, to talk about how he smells, because we've already heard about his haircut stuff pictures his haircut. But

he he talks about his journey over many decades. When it comes to fragrances Cologn's yeah, yeah, you know, my new c K one was on his Like Chris and I had the same age, so totally you know, I read this and I was like, yeah, I think back to trying to you know, going to the drug store, you know, convincing my parents to let me buy some all right, to tell us about Chris's adventure. Yeah, you know he uh, he's been uh, he's I don't know he discovery isn't he's going he's changed his hair already

again since the last time. But you know, he went through and kind of like pandemic is kind of forced a lot of us to rethink the things in our house. And so he has this huge shelf of dusty cologne and he's like, you know what, I'm just gonna kind of like go back through and see which of these actually work for me. Still sky One, you know, reminded him of being kind of like in high school and being awkward and you know, just trying to fit in.

He had a funny line assimilation by odor, which is, yeah, you're just trying to fit in sometimes. And then so he gets a little bit older, a little more sophisticated, He gets some uh or mez, he gets some saying Laurel kind of things, and he still keeps those. But he's like, what if I just picked my own, Like I can what can I do? What can I smell? Like? What is possible out there? So he went to this uh place in New York here old Factory NYC, their

direct consumer brand started UH. Their goal is to make Fragrance fun, affordable and accessible prices about sixty dollars. And what they'll do is they'll send you a little tinkerer box with a lot of bass notes and them, and you kind of like smell them all. You pick one and then they send you like a little booster after that, and then you know, you smell them. I was in

the office when we were smelling. Then they have like funny celebrity names like Ashton and Taylor and Jaden and like that a little yes exactly, so we were all smelling them and things, and you know, he did like it. It was fine, you know, it was fine. It wasn't like as life changing as a new haircut I got, let's say, but because you know, the challenge here is that, you know, you kind of run up against the limits of your ability to smell these things. There are reasons

why these things are so expensive. There are experts who can tell how to smell things right their professional noses. UM. It's a great read. There's also a story about custom jewelry UM so I highly recommend you check it out. Jim Gaddy so great to have you here always pleasure. I'm ready to be spoke, are you? Yeah? You're gonna get that jewelry. I think I'll start with the shoes. I love the shoes. They're pretty cool, cool, all right,

Jim Gatty, Thank you so much. Our thanks to Bloomberg Pursuit's deputy editor Jim Gatty for taking us through the section that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for joining us. I'm Tim Stantovick and I'm Carol Mass. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News.

Check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg Terminal, and you can see Tim on Bloomberg Quick Take available on Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have a great weekend, everybody. Check out your fragrances. Maybe this is Bloomberg