This is Bloomberg business Week Inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus gloom War, business finance, and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek from Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast.
A FED decision and Jay Powell saying a rate cut could come as soon as September, earnings from four of the Magnificent Seven, a renewed round of Mid East tensions, new polling around the US presidential race from the crucial swing states, and as we put our show to bed, the news broke that rush is releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkevich and former US Marine Paul Wheelan as part of a major prisoner swap with the United States.
I can even get my head around it. It's exploding, Tim, There's so much.
Yeah, I mean, things are moving so quickly that by the time people hear this, there will be additional news. So just keep that in mind. Everyone. It's a busy summer week to wrap up the month of July, certainly on many fronts, including on the US elections because we're going to tell you about the billionaire financier who's spending
millions on upcoming Republican races. And we're going to hear how Blackpack, a Democratic political action committee, is mobilizing and engaging African American voters.
Also in the new August issue of Bloomberg Business Week, how the internet's biggest recreation zone for kids is fighting to keep predators away and it's not always winning.
All of that to come. We have to start though, with earnings from several of the so called mag seven, all with trillion dollar plus valuations, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon all out with results and for a roundup as some were crossing the Bloomberg we leaned on the co host of Bloomberg Technology on Bloomberg TV, Ed Ludlow, and Bloomberg News chief technology correspondent in our in house Apple guru Mark German.
Great beat for iPhone revenue in the quarter, which is interesting because we're pre sixteen.
Yeah, like, why are people buying phones right now? They should be waiting, right.
It was a lot of wait in markets like China that they were buying the fifteen generation with the intention of holding onto it. And then I go to the grater China revenue, missing estimates, and the third party data. Third party data is not always right, but he did tell us that Apple was slipping in Greater China.
Is the IDC data, the IDC data.
There's counterpoint research, there's loads, But my point is that there was worried they would They did really face domestic pressure on the handset market there, and you always look to China as a point of focus. So you have to read between the lines because on the earnings call, CFO look of my Street often addresses that issue head on how they did in the market in China, specifically.
Ernie's per share coming in one dollars and forty cents per share, that beat estimates of one dollar and thirty five cents, So a beat there as well.
Yeah, I don't know, you know, I'm looking at kind of our ride through bier marker men, you know, marking a return to revenue growth last quarter, he says, topping analyst estimates, indicating that upgraded iPads and a strong services business helped make up for some of those headwinds in China. So sales were up five percent to eighty five point eight billion in that fiscal third quarter the iPhone maker, saying, putting out that statement, analyst had predicted eighty four five.
So that's a beat. Three months ago, the CFO had said the company would grow by a percentage in the low single digits during the period.
Okay, overall revenue beat, iPhone revenue beat, MAC revenue beat, iPad revenue beat. Wearables, homes and accessories also beat.
We've been talking with you throughout the week about the tech reporting season and the big megacap tech companies that have reported. How are you thinking about them? I don't know that there's one trend line to.
There is a trend line excluding Apple, which is capital expenditures. And what's so interesting is, like I was talking a bit about this in the blog earlier, Apple's capex is always low. A lot of investors always bemoaned its cash balance. You know, it's so ginormous, right. I look at the release and I see Apple's board of directors declares the
cash dividends of twenty five cents per share. There's one really important thing when you cover a stock like this, you need to remind yourself how widely held is the stock around the world. Yes, there are many institutional investors that hold it in volume. One of them was on my show today, Denny Fisher of Janis think all the individuals that Apple stock because they think it's prestigious. I always find that fascinating. So little divvy goes a long way.
It does go a long way. Hey, listen, we've been reading his comments along with Ed's on the blog. We read a story on Apple. Let's bring him in. Mark German is Bloomberg News chief technology correspondent. We call him our Apple Guru. Joining us right now, coming off of earnings, Mark, walk us through what you think the Bloomberg audience needs to know about this release.
Yeah.
The through line here is that Apple beat across the board in every product category iPhone, iPad, wearables, home and accessories, mac and services. So nice beats across the board. There still the iPhone one percent year of a year decline, not terrible, especially given that we are going into the new iPhone season. The other thing to note, though, is Greater China. Greater China's down about six percent. This came in both below expectations and obviously it's an annual decline.
That's something that I think a lot of analysts and investors are going to want to take a look at why is China's performance continuing to decline. Apple does say though that they still see this as an improvement over the China situation in the first half of the year, but still this is not great. Looking ahead, we're going to want to know any color about how they're thinking they're going to do in the current quarter of the
fourth quarter. The new iPhone line, the sixteen, will go on sale towards the very end of Q four, towards the end of September, so that's going to be a significant moment obviously contribute quite significantly to the bottom line in the current period, which obviously we're looking ahead at that. Another thing I want to call out is the iPad. iPad grew twenty four percent, not entirely a surprise. I'm surprised that Wall Street estimated so low on the iPad.
Let's not forget that Apple hadn't released a new version of the iPad for about a year and a half and then released two major versions of the new iPad in May along with major updates to their accessories. So no surprise there.
Hey, Mark, One thing I'd love to do with you, and I know it's hard, is the math on China. You know, you get that three Q iPhone B and then the weakness in Greater China. Is it likely to be products specific in terms of iPhone or where does Apple tend to point to us when they have a specific geographic weakness.
Well, the thing is Apple never really gets into geographic weakness on a product ed product basis. What they have said over the past several quarters as people have asked about the declines in China, is that these declines are not due to the iPhone. Now they're not saying what those other products are that are contributing to the declines. Whether it's the iPad, whether it's the math, whether it's wearables,
they're not sharing that information. So I believe personally that it does have to do with the iPhone and some of the softness we're seeing there. A lot of people are buying Huawei Vivo Opah the local phonemakers instead of the iPhone at this point. So I would say this has to do with the iPhone. This quarter, we're.
Talking with Mark German, We're talking with Ed Ludlow. Apple third quarter iPhone revenue that's a B. Third quarter Greater China revenue that was miss third quarter revenue. Overall, that was a beat mark in terms of AI and Apple Intelligence, which they showed off a lot at the Developers conference in June. What would be a question that you'd want to know about that? I know they're still developing, they're working on it, but what do you want to know?
I want to know if they think it's going to drive sales, because I can tell you after using it for the past few days or so, I don't think there's any reason why anyone should buy a new iPhone based solely on the new features that are currently available or will be available from Apple Intelligence at the get go. I happen to think that Apple Intelligence is really a late twenty twenty five story, and maybe next year is one of that's going to drive sales, But the current
incarnation it shouldn't be a sales driver. Quite frankly, based on their marketing and some ridiculous comments I've seen from Wall Street analysts and others who cover Apple. Maybe they'll still grow based on it. Some people will be disappointed if they buy the iPhone based on Apple Intelligence, at least from the beginning.
ED come on back in here to remind us about Capex and why CAPEX should be looked at differently with Apple, with that Microsoft alphabet, Amazon and Meta.
Just because historically capital expenditures for Apple are just kind of a non event. They're not at the ten percentage point to twenty percentage point range that the hyperscalers have, particularly in the current environment. Right, It's just not a part of their story. And Mark always correct me if I'm wrong. But what I find so interesting about Apple strategy is the cost of where they're trying to get to,
which is Apple intelligence. Think about the partnerships, right, you know, Apple is not as hyper focused on the building of its own large language model. It has some activity there, but it partners with open ai, so open ai takes the R and D cost. How does Apple facilitate its cloud It relies on GCP Google Cloud platform, you know, and Google does its own R and D investment on the silicon side. And I find that so interesting, And you know, that's why I'm a tongue in you know,
you guys know what I'm like, tongue in cheek. But it's why I post in the blog about the divvy and about cash generation and the growing balance sheet. Because investors always say, I wonder what they'll do with that one day?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, well, listen, they say, during the quarter, our record business performance generated EPs growth of eleven percent, nearly twenty nine billion in operating cash flow, allowing us to return over thirty two billion to shareholders. I mean, I always think about this mark whenever we talk with you, and
whenever we talk with that. I mean, just the law of large numbers when it comes to Apple, specifically, as you continue to look at this this report and release, I don't know what should we leave our investors with. What do you think that they should be thinking at top of mind when it comes to Apple.
I'll simplify it for you. From a financial standpoint, everything is just fine, right, a little bit of concern in China. But my concerns about Apple aren't the financials today. It's that this company is not pushing out products at the pace that they used to. I'm simply not seeing that game changing innovation that we used to see. I'm simply not seeing them leap frog ahead of the competition. I'm
seeing a lot of response the competition. Like with Apple Intelligence, I'm seeing something that's not as good as the competition with Apple Intelligence. I'm seeing them add features to iOS that Android has had for a number of years. I'm seeing really impressive new technology like the vision Pro that's not a product, it's more of a prototype or developer kit.
Yea.
So I'm concerned about Apple products right now, and obviously products hardware surprives this company.
Yeah, so long term, Mark, because you have such a good view into the pipeline, much to the chagrin of Apple, I imagine no car coming Vision Pro, as you mentioned the live blog, not even mentioned in this report. Is that right?
That's right?
So what is the big picture for the pipeline over the next five years.
I think we're probably two or three years away from a bigger new product push, whether that's augmented reality, glasses, foldable phones, new types of touchscreen devices, new home devices, new max. But I'm not seeing anything in the next two to three years that you know it's gonna be a game changer.
Right.
The vision Pro technology is a game changer. Nobody wants it. It's too heavy, it's too expensive, there's no contact and you.
Know, we lean on you like we lean on Mark. I feel like we've been going through a lot of the Tech news.
That's why we flew him out to New York this.
Week on the on the Bloomberg Jet, the good and the bad of the big tech that have been reporting.
Yeah, that's a really really smart question. So there's one thing that I learned very quickly, which was Microsoft, do not miss Wall Street estimates that won't go well for you. And I think that it's because we've joked about the money machine, but now the investors are really starting to do the math on it. You know, the Capex number was everything. I think I even Heardy and King on the phone to you just say couples of expenditures and
then hang up. It's because with that you can basically do the math on the timing of sales growth from bottom line growth from artificial intelligence, and then you can sort of extraplay out further field.
The goats on Apple and more. Bloomberg News Chief Technology correspondent Mark German, also the co host of Bloomberg Technology on Bloomberg TV.
Ed Ludlow coming up roadblocks geared toward kids. It's got a problem, a pedophile problem.
That story up next. You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen on Apple car Play and and Broun Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Roadblocks you're all familiar with the twenty six billion dollar market cap gaming company. It was launched in the early two thousands under the premise that games were the next frontier for education software. Kids could design multiplayer online enclaves using a set of building blocks and a simple coding language.
The platform's weird, whimsical etho attracted thousands and millions of kids, who moved through its worlds as Lego like avatars with frozen smiles and beadiys, spending roebucks to spruce themselves up with virtual wigs, clothes, dragontails, or wings.
This wasn't around when we were kids. It's a different universes. It's a completely different.
Universe, not the barbies and doll houses stuff I played with.
That said, Roadblocks has a dark side. Since twenty eighteen, police in the US have arrested at least two dozen people accused of abducting or abusing victims they'd met or groomed using Roadblocks. That's according to data compiled by Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Some were already on sex offender registries or had been accused of abusing miners. There were also a SHARE's deputy, a third grade teacher, and a nurse.
Bloomberg News investigative reporter Olivia Carvill and Bloomberg News video game reporter Cecilia Donastasio write about Roadblocks in the current issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. You can read it now on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com Slash BusinessWeek.
We began by talking about someone who used to be on the platform, who went by Doctor Opatnik, known as Doc.
So Doc was a really popular developer and side Roadblocks, and he designed a game called Sonic Eclipse Online. So it was based on Sonic the Hedgehog, and what children, you know, don't love Sonics. So he created this game on Roadblocks and thousands of children playing Doc's game and looking up to him as a developer that they, you know, want to be friends with, that they want to talk with, that they want to, you know, understand what are the
next developments that are coming with his game. So he actually had a cult like following of children across Roadblocks and other platforms that he would talk to kids on like Discord, Twitter, now x, Instagram, Snapchat. He was across the mall.
He's not a good guy.
He is not a good guy.
It turns out to say the least.
Tell us a little bit about what he ultimately was doing.
So doctor o Fetnik grew this following through twenty twenty in the height of the pandemic when children are really attracted to roadblocks and we're wanting to play in the online spaces because they're trapped at home. And in that year, he was exposed as being predatory towards some of the young kids who were working for him on Roadblocks. So a lot of gamers tried to tried to shut them down, get them off the platform. And in the end, it's kind of a long story.
You have to read it to get all the details, but.
It wasn't They weren't successful, And fast forward eighteen months later, he was actually arrested by the FBI.
We'll get to that in a minute, because I want to bring in Cecilia to talk a little bit about what makes Roadblocks unique, because we talk a lot about social media platforms and the restrictions on age with social media platforms. But seciily you cover gaming, and the whole idea with Roadblocks is that this is a place that caters specific two kids. It's four kids. Talk a little bit about the intricacies and sort of what makes Roadblocks unique in terms of what is available online four kids.
It's a great question. So most social media platforms don't allow people under the age of thirteen to sign up for them. That includes Discord, that includes Instagram. But Roadblocks actually welcomes people who are under thirteen. About forty percent of its seventy eight million daily active users are under
the age of thirteen. And you know, parents have the ability to toggle on certain safety features on Roadblocks, but by default, you can make an account if you're you know, six, seven, eight years old and talk to strangers in a variety of games. A lot of the video games that are designed for children. A lot of video games appeal to children, of course, but games that are designed for children don't
actually allow children to communicate with strangers openly. You can't type to them on your phone or on your keyboard or through your video game console. A lot of them have these sort of like canned messages you can send like hello, how are you do? You want to play a game together? But on Roadblocks you can have really robust conversations and develop relationships cecil.
Yeah, you know, and I kind of jumped the gun there, kind of cutting to the chase. But I want to ask about you actually created an account that said you are a four year old? Tell us about that?
Sure, So to test for Blocks's features and what was available to us, you know, Olivia and I will create accounts just to understand exactly what would the experience be for someone who was of this demographic. So I did create an accounts if I was four years old on Roadblocks, and I entered a game, and somebody who was in that game who understood that I was four years old, attempted to groom me over a direct message. He asked
if I was single. This person asked if I was single, and when I told them that the account was four, they said age is just a number with a winkie face, after trying to get me to share my snapchat. It was an alarming experience. It was unplanned, and we you know, we were very very surprised.
To see there are supposed to be tools in place, whether they're AI, are actually human moderators to monitor this sort of thing so it doesn't happen. At least that's what Roadblock says, tell us about the moderation features and why something like that wasn't caught and it did get to you even though you had registered an account saying you were a four year old.
Sure so, Roblock says that safety is foundational to its platform. The platforms two decades old at this point, and it does have chat filters and artificial intelligence designed to catch bad words grooming. It also attempts to bring users off platforms, which Olivia and I learned predators really like to do. They like to maybe meet a child on roadblocks, then move them to somewhere the's less moderated, like Snapchat, like Discord,
like Instagram. But what was really surprising to me was that the person who was trying to groom the four year old account, they didn't say, what's your Snapchat? They used this is pretty clever. They used the ghost emoji, which is stab Chat's icon.
Yeah, so that's a way to sort of get them offline and somewhere else. And the idea was it would get around the AI exactly.
And when they asked you to leave the game, they spelled at l eeve. So one of the big challenges for Roadblocks's three thousand moderators is what we reported in the story is that predators and bad people on the internet in general will misspell words, will find ways around the chat filters, and that's just something that's so hard to keep up with.
All right, But when you have a platform like this, the company's got to be on it, or police have to be on it, or somebody has to be on it. Turns out there were some vigilantes actually Olivia who were on it and kind of doing their own police work on the platform.
Yep.
I mean, part of the reporting for the story that Cecelia and I was trying to attend is if Roadblocks isn't able to police its platform, who out there really is? And we did find this group of young gamers vigilantes who feel like Roadblocks is moderation is doing a good enough job to protect kids online. So they've actually criticized the platform on YouTube and on Twitter and highlight predatory behavior and ask the company to take it down in
a public space. So we spent quite a lot of time trying to understand how they operate, what they're looking for, and you know what their process is to try and find grooming or predatory behavior on roadblocks.
Tell us about Ben Simon.
Well, Ben Simon is he describes himself as an anti hero. He's a very controversial figure. The company has sued him for one point six million, and the allegations against him aren't nice. You know, things like uploading photographs of Adolf Hitler onto the platform, which he denies, but also harassing the company employees, which he admits that he has done
in the past, using homophobic slurs on roadblocks. So he's actually a he's relatively young now, but he created a huge YouTube tube following by highlighting predatory behavior on roadblocks and being kind of this rebellious vigilante moderator in a sense.
So he's got over one point two million followers on YouTube who really tune into him, specifically because he knows so much about roadblocks and the platform, and a lot of children now who play the game will actually go to Ben Simon or Rubensim as he's known on YouTube and file reports to him because they think they have a better chance of getting that content removed if he posts about it, rather than through Roadblocks's normal moderation report system.
As part of the problem, just roblocks rate kind of protects the kids in terms of their actual identities, and so as a result, if you're a predator, you're also your identity is protected.
Yeah, that's right, Carol. That's one of the hardest things for Roadblocks is when you create a user account, you're encouraged to be anonymous. So when you sign up for the platform, it actually says do not use your real name, and so Cecilia and I for this story, we spoke to a lot of people who work at the company, a lot of child safety advocates, and they raised concerns over the fact that for Roadblocks itself, identifying who is
behind their avatar is really hard. You know, it's just kind of a group of pixels playing in a game. You don't know their name, their age, their location, and what their intentions are.
Are.
Any of these concerns kind of cecily slowing down the growth of this platform and this company.
There have been scattered concerns around safety on real Blocks for a couple of years now. There are a couple of lawsuits against the company that are alleging that it's start as safe as it's advertised, but Rodblocks does continue to grow on one of the goals chief executive officer de Puzuki Hous is to reach one billion daily users, which is just it's over ten times more than what it has today. Real Blocks is growing. It's free on basically every platform you can think of, and kids love it.
It's not just a video game, such as a platform for people to make video games. It's really social media for the younger generation, and I don't see it becoming less popular anytime.
Soon, Olivia. You've done a lot of reporting on sex stortion predators online. What is unique about Roadblocks's platform that makes it so difficult for authorities to catch up with these folks but also such a fertile ground for them, because those are the things that need to change to prevent this from happening further.
The protagonist in this story is doctor Ofetnik we've talked about in His real name is Arnold Castillo. He was arrested by the FBI in early twenty twenty two and I went to see him in federal prison up in Otisville, and I asked him that question you know what about Roadblocks draws predators into the platform, And his response was accessibility, that it is just very easy to create an account and just jump from game to game and have access to thousands, tens of thousands, you know, if not millions
of children on a daily basis. So I think that's what makes Roadblocks unique. And not only is it easy to make an account, but you don't have to give any identifying information RASA.
That was Bloomberg News investigative reporter Olivia Carville and Bloomberg News video game reporter Cecilia Denistasio their story in the August issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, now out on newstands, online and on the Bloomberg Terminal. Roadblocks, by the way, reported the results for the latest quarter on Thursday morning. The company did boost its bookings guidance for the full year,
and the guidance beat the average analyst estimate. Check out all the details on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg dot Com.
Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The US presidential race is in full swing and with a bit of a twist this.
Week, as new polling finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump any dead heat when it comes to the key swing states, and the.
Big billionaire Democratic donor and well known financial figure puts his stamp on the GOP. The story among our most read this past week.
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You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
According to the latest Bloomberg News Morning Consul poll out this past week, Vice President and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has wiped out former President Donald Trump's lead across seven battleground states as the vice president rides a wave of enthusiasm among young, black and Hispanic voters.
Harris was backed by forty eight percent of voters to forty seven percent for Trump, a statistical dead heat in the swing states that will likely decide November's election. It's a stronger showing than the two point deficit for President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race.
Now many swingst to have significant black populations. An NPR, PBS News Marist poll conducted July twenty second found Harris with a support of fifty seven percent of black voters, compared to thirty four percent for Trump.
Now.
On Wednesday, Republican nominee Donald Trump questioned the vice president's racial identity at a contentious roundtable with black journalists, fumbling an attempt to reach out to voters of color.
For some thoughts on the upcoming vote in November, we reached out to Adrian Shropshire, executive director of Black Pack. It's a Democratic political action committee focused on mobilizing and engaging with African American voters. Bloomberg's Emily Graffeo and I talked with her about one week ago. That was before Donald Trump's most recent comments.
The good news, right is that Vice President Heroris is not unknown. I mean, I think part of the challenge with what we were hearing, you know, from inside circles and the Democratic Party about, you know, the potential of going to an open primary into you know, sort of extending the internal debate and frankly chaos, that would have been more challenging. Right, The vice president is not unknown.
She's been vetted not only from her own presidential campaign, but through the twenty twenty election, through the last four years of the administration. So she's not unknown. And in fact, you know, we've seen in our polling and even in the door knocking that we've been doing over the last few days, we made the sort of pivot. Folks are are you know, very much aware of who she is
and we're seeing lots of excitement. I don't think that the challenges, you know, are very different than the challenges that we were facing three weeks ago, which is, you know, voters, a lot of voters, particularly black voters that we're talking to, need to know because they don't have a real sense of the accomplishments of the administration. They need to understand the accomplishments that the Biden Harris administration have that the
Vice President was directly involved with. We hear from folks that they don't know a lot about what she's done over the last four years. So she will need to tell that story. The campaign will need to tell that story. We will need to tell that story. But I think that that is is, you know, not different right from what we're facing before getting the information out there. Telling
her story. I think a lot of voters still don't know about her biography and want to know about her her backstory, So I think that they need to tell
that story. They also just need to continue with the contrast that they've been doing and making the stakes of the election very clear about where where we have the potential to go as as America as a democracy that is, you know, toward that more perfect union or toward you know, an America that you know is continues to sort of push you know, divisiveness and uh and and rhetoric that is, you know, not taking us to the future, but taking us back.
Adrian.
One thing that we've seen in polls in recent months, and this is before Kamala Harris was at the top of the ticket it became becoming the presumptive nominee, is that although we can't really say that former President Trump is popular with black voters, he has picked up black voters since at least according to some polls, since leaving office, becoming more popular with them. I'm wondering what your polling shows in terms of how that could shift now that Kamala Harris is in the race.
So I mean, I'd say a couple of things about about those those polls. I mean, one is it really is unfortunate that when we see national polls that really capture the headlines, particularly about black voters, it's unfortunate that the sample size of those polls are so small, and I think that that does a disservice not only to people's understanding of the race, but the electorate and how
it is moving. When in our research and in our polling, which are much larger, much more robust bus sample sizes, we do not see that kind of shift and support among black voters. And that is across demographic when the Black electorate, I mean, you know, regardless of gender, regardless of age, we see the same level of support for Trump that we saw on the election day in twenty twenty, and on election day into twent he's sixteen, which is under ten percent. So we have not seen those kinds
of shifts. We haven't seen them in our polling, we haven't seen them in our focus groups, and we definitely haven't seen them in the conversations that we've had on
the doors. I don't think that that means though that you know, this is sort of an easy, you know, sort of chewing in terms of mobilizing and exciting the black electorate for the vice president, I think that there's a lot of work to be done, that there's a lot of conversations that they need to have with Black voters, both to help Black voters understand her vision for the future.
House problems, that sort of intractable problems that people are feeling very deeply, whether it's the cost of living or it's crime, those sorts of issues that are really burdening people. They need to tell the story about how they're going to address those issues. But I don't see any I have not seen in any of our research the kinds of dramatic shifts that I know that we've seen headlines and papers over the last few months.
Our thanks to Adrian Shropshire, executive director of Blackpack, do we.
Know that most of the time in politics, money talks. Vice President Kamala Harris raised a record three hundred ten million dollars in July, according to her campaign, more than doubles the nearly one hundred and thirty nine million dollars
that Donald Trump raised in July. Harris started August with three hundred seventy seven million dollars cash on hand, the largest war chest at this point in an election cycle, and more than the three hundred twenty seven million dollars Trump reported having in the bank.
One boost for the GOP coming from Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who's spending tens of millions of dollars to back Republican primary candidates across the US. This story, a Bloomberg exclusive, was reported by Bloomberg News national reporter Mike Smith and Bill Allison, Bloomberg News campaign finance reporter Mike kicking it off for us with what Ken Griffin is up to, there.
Is a lot of nuance and it's not entirely clear exactly what he's looking for, but in general, it's sort of old school, pro business, conservative values that he is back, for example, national defense, and one of the main things his promoting is sort of helping the American dream, which is obviously a very broad description, but that's how he describes him.
Does that backing might include Donald Trump at this point.
Well, so far, No, As far as we can see in the most recent filings in terms of money, he's yet to give money to Donald Trump. He hasn't ever given money to Donald Trump that we know of, and he's quite guarded in saying whether he's going to back Trump or not. He's certainly a Republican. He gives to Republican causes and candidates, but Trump is yet to be seen.
So Bill, let's go through the money. What do we know about Ken Griffin and his donations to the GOP going back the last decade or so, what has he typically supported, how much has he given up, and where does it go? And what is he doing today?
Really, since since twenty sixteen, he's focused on Congress, of both the Senate and the House. He's given I think two hundred and forty eight million dollars since twenty fifteen, which is an office a lot of money, about a quarter billion dollars. And he's focused largely on super packs
that again elect members of Congress. And in the last couple of cycles, he's really looked at early money having an influence on primaries, like who gets chosen to be to get elected to Congress, you know, like you'll look at safe Republican districts, will put a lot of money in behind what he views as a superior candidate and try to get that person into Congress. And so far this cycle he's spent more than seventy five million dollars into political committees at the federal level.
Mike, how successful has he been over the last decade, because it seems like he hasn't always bet on the right horse, so to speak. He supported the opponent to JD. Vance and is a Ohio Senate race who Jdvans ended up beating. He's thinking about supporting somebody who could challenge Matt Gates. He has supported Nicki Haley in the past, Kevin McCarthy in the past as well. How successful has he been?
Yeah, I mean, that's an elusive thing to answer, but we can say that this year or this this cycle, he's gotten behind sixty different candidates in congressional races. They've won about two thirds of those or a little bit more. So it's not a bad record. He has won a lot, but he's also lost some and a lot of his money has gone into losing races, and a lot has gone into winning races.
You know, And I do wonder too, Bill, You know, we often could, but it's very true. Money talks, right, and money gets attention. How influential has he been really in kind of shaping what's going on in the Republican Party. We talk so much about it being, you know, Donald Trump's party right now, but how much has he really been influential over the GOP overall?
Well, the Republican of operatives that we talk to, the people who run super packs, the people who recruit candidates, the people who really kind of do that nuts Bolt's work of running the party say that, you know, he's fundamental to their success. He's very influential. He's very important if you have an idea for a super pack, you want to elect veterans, you want to elect women with business experience. There's a whole broad range of folks who
do different kinds of super packs. He's somebody who's definitely going to be on your list to try to get, you know, at least to his advisors, to make your pitch to say this is what my plan is, this is what I'd like to do, and you know, if he decides to fund you, you have a good chance of you know, also drawing money from other donors.
Bill somebody might read a story like this and come away with a really cynical view that politicians can be I'm not going to say they can be bought, but certainly people with power are able to donate a lot of money to super packs that go around traditional campaign finance.
Just give us some context as to how something like this is is legal and how super PACs are able to operate in this world when certain individuals are only allowed to give a small, relatively small amount of money to individual candidates.
Boy, there's you know, there's a famous saying in politics that you know, there are three important things politics, money, and I forget what the other two are. And this is this has been kind of consistent throughout history. Super packs are legal because of basically the First Amendment. The Supreme Court held that you know, if you're if you're speaking independently, ie not donating to donating to a politician, but donating to a group that tries to elect politicians
at that's First Amendment protected activity. And that something called the Citizens United Case gave us these these creatures or these super packs, And it is fairly important in US politics that you know, you be able to have you know,
there's there's three different kinds of donors. There's small dollar donors which are very important, but you need millions and millions of them to add up to you know, a lot of money, and then you have a handful of people, there's the folks in the middle, and you have the handful of people at the top who can with one check, you know, fund, you know, a huge, huge advise. You know, we've seen already in this campaign an investor named Timothy Mellon who put fifty million dollars into a super pack
backing Donald Trump. I mean it, We've had, we've done stories that Elon Muskus thinking of putting forty five million dollars into a super pack each month to help Donald Trump with this ground game. So obviously it's hugely important and it's perfectly legal.
Bloomberg News National reporter Mike Smith and Bill Allison, Bloomberg News Campaign Finance reporter.
That wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead in our next hour, controversial podcaster Joe Rogan invades Austin, Texas and becomes comedy's new kingmaker.
Plus everyone is googling what it means to be brat after UK singer songwriter Charlie XCX labeled a VP Kamala Harris as such.
All right, and folks just stop right there, don't say it, don't even suggest it. August may be here, and yet summer is not over. Our Bloomberg Pursuits team and all the things to still obsess over, to do and to see to cap off summer twenty twenty four, we still have what a month?
Oh yeah, six weeks? We still got a month?
Yeah, lots more. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
I'm Carol Massa and I'm Tim Stenavic's day with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen on Apple car Play and and Broud Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including what having a brat summer means for Kamala Harris and the.
Twenty twenty four election, plus the good, the bad and the cute about Italy's electrified subcompact Icon, which is back on sale in the US after a five year break, and then a little later on Summer's not over, at least according to our Bloomberg Pursuits team. They're going to tell us the best things to do in New York City this summer, the coolest Broadway shows and movies to watch for, and from a Lego set to a new Land Rover, a checklist of products and experiences that cut their eye.
First up this hour, we're talking Joe Rogan. You probably know him, I mean, come on, He's widely believed to be the most popular pud caster on earth. He's got a huge Spotify contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and on message boards people sometimes describe him as the Oprah Winfrey for men.
About four years ago, during the pandemic, he relocated his family from la to Austin, Texas, and since then he's cultivated a lifestyle Taylor made for a new age of the comedy profession. It's one ruled by podcasts rather than Hollywood movies and sitcoms. He's got a new podcast studio Asana Cold Plunge, a bow hunting range, and most important, a new dystopian alike club for doing stand up called the Comedy Mothership, all of it engineered to share with his friends.
Over the past two years, a growing group of comedians and podcasters have followed Joe Rogan to set up shop at Austin, with names such as Shane Gillis, Matt McCusker, and Tony Hinchcliffe to name a few. And let's not forget Joe Rogan's pal Elon Musk, moving Tesla's headquarters to Austin back in twenty twenty one.
Okay, so why are we talking so much about Joe Rogan? Why are we because Felix, Jellette and Ashley Carmen wrote all about Joe Rogan for Bloomberg business Week. Check out their story on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot Com. Slash A BusinessWeek Felix's Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Entertainment and Telecom editor and the author of It's Not TV, The Spectacular Rise, Revolution in Future of HBO, who joined Bloomberg's Emily Graffeo
and me recently. Felix, So, how much Joe Rogan did you listen to when writing this story?
A lot, a lot of Joe Rogans months of joy really months. Yeah, because he wouldn't talk to us. He doesn't really do interviews, and he loves to talk about the comedy stuff. The comedy club on his show. So it's mixed in with you know, moon landing conspiracies and a lot of mma, you know, minutia that I don't really need to know, but it was interesting. You get his whole perspective on the comedy world.
So just not just recent podcast episodes, but episodes going back a few years.
Yeah, for years he's been talking about this. I mean he moved from La to Austin about four years ago, and yeah, he got down there and he just like everyone who moves to Austin, they just can't shut up about it. Yeah, it's the greatest down ever. You know, we got the best barbecue, you know, like it's incredible, the hill cum Yeah, it is hot in the summer. But the one thing he didn't have is he missed having a place to perform because he was a regular
at the Comedy Store in La. Austin had a stand up comedy scene over the years, but it was always pretty minor, especially compared to the you know, live music scene there. And so he was like, you know what, like I'm just gonna build a comedy club for myself and my friends, and I'm gonna spare no expense. He said, on his show that you know, it's not to make money, he just doesn't want to lose money on it. But he basically just puts all the money back into the comedians.
And it's a really nice club. And because Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan and he has, you know, this huge platform that anybody who goes on Joe Rogan show is going to get a bus, you know, bump for their their comedy show, their podcast, their book, whatever it is. So his ability to recruit people is amazing. And every time he has someone on the show, he gives them the sales pitch. Come to Austin, you know, come hang out with me. You can perform at the club, you can come on my show, you can have your show.
You don't have to be you know, tethered to the studios of LA and New York anymore. Just move here. And you know, some people resist, but a lot of people have heard that pitch been like yeah, okay. And you know, Shane Gillis, Brian Simpson, Tony Hinchcliff, some pretty big name comics have moved down there, and you know they all are headliners at the club and hang out with Rogan outside the club. There's like this whole scene
around the bar at the Comedy Mothership. It's kind of fascinating when you're there because you have this feeling that anyone that's kind of in that world, Elon Musk, Johnny Manzell, anyone that's been on Rogan's podcast recently could pop in at any time. That's kind of like their clubhouse. And it's been this very and then that's at the top end.
And then there's been this whole down effect in Austin where since Rogan opened the Comedy Mothership, there's now maybe a dozen other comedy clubs that have also opened up in the Vicinity in downtown Austin. And now if you talk to like young aspiring stand up comedians, which we did for the article, you know, instead of moving to New York or LA to try and make it, a lot of them are now like, you know what, I'm
going to Austin. So there's all these group houses popping up in Austin where you have you know, ten, you know, up and coming stand up comedians all packed into a house doing the open mic nights around town and desperately trying to get a spot in the Comedy Mothership.
So Joe Rogan embraced Austin. But in your reporting and Ashley's reporting, did Austin embrace Joe Rogan?
Yeah, I mean I think they have to a certain degree. I mean, Austin has been such a boom town. You know, it's been like the fastest growing city, you know, every year for like twelve years. I think they lost the title this year. But there's been a ton of people
moving there, including a lot of people from California. And you know, there's this expression in Austin politics now, which is, you know, don't California my Texas, which initially people thought, oh, all these you know, California immigrants are going to make our you know, the state bluer. And actually, in the end what's happened is it hasn't been like the liberals who've moved out of California. It's the more libertarians, tech folks that want low taxes that move to Austin, Elon Musk,
all these tech companies. So actually Austin has gotten a little bit less liberal over time. And you know, I was talking to Evan Smith, who's the co founder of the Texas Tribune. He's a longtime Austin journalist, and he was saying, you know, there was a time where if Joe Rogan had moved to Austin, there would have been like an outcry, you know, but those days are basically over.
Like there was a little resistance at the beginning, but then they're like, well, he's putting all this money into downtown Austin, he's revamping this part of town that really suffered during the COVID and yeah, the town has embraced them.
Can you talk a little bit about how podcasting has disrupted the traditional comedy route, because back in the day, the whole idea of becoming a successful comedian, you know, you go and do some really good sets, you get on one of the late shows, right, you do really well on the late shows, and then you're given a sitcom and that's that was like gold. Yeah, that was that was the way to get to the top. Yeah, it's not like that at all anymore.
No, I mean, the whole profession has really shifted, and it's fascinating to think. I mean, in the nineteen seventies, you know, the big upheaval and comedy was when Johnny Carson moved the Tonight Show from New York to LA and you know, that was the biggest thing, like getting in to do your show, you know, your act on Tonight Show, and that could just catapult you. You get a sitcom,
you get a you know, movie, whatever. And all the producers on Tonight's Show would recruit and they used to recruit at you know, the comedy clubs in New York. When the show moved to LA that all moved to the Comedy Store, and so the comedy Store was like the place to be back in the day, and that was, you know, eventually, decades later, that's where Rogan hung out.
A lot of his friends are like comedy store cup medians, and I think they also saw that connection that existed back in the day between the Tonight Show and the
Comedy Store. You know. Yeah, late night television no longer what it once was, but it is fascinating that now like the big thing is Rogan's podcast, and similarly, the comedy club that he runs is now kind of like a gateway, and that's where talent is like, you know, pulled to with the hopes of like, well maybe if I kill it, maybe if I just absolutely make a name for myself at Rogan's Club, maybe then I get on his podcast, and that scene is like, you know,
the big place to be, and even people that are out there, you know, promoting whatever it is they want to promote, especially to the demographic that listens to Joe Rogan, which is like young men presume, you know primarily, like you know, if you're selling something to that demographic, yeah, like you want to get on his podcast, you want to get on the podcasts of all of his friends who were also in Austin this whole little universe, the Rogan Verse as we like to call it, you know.
And we talked to like Tucker Carlson who's trying to launch his own streaming network, independent streaming network. Yeah, he goes down there, has dinner with Joe Rogan, does the podcast, goes to the club, does another podcast in the club, you know, and just goes hang out in the mid sies, Like that's the new place to be and it is a huge shift for the industry.
So what's the comedy like at the club? Is it all branded with the Joe Rogan you know, carnivore diet.
Yeah, I mean you think, like and when it first opened, people were like, oh, it's an anti woke club, you know, it's all going to be Rogan style humor. In truth, it's not really like that. It's much more just like a anything goes comedy club. I mean, it's like whatever people are doing that's funny. You can get up there. Some of the humor is you know, political, but most of it's not.
So is it. How's the club different than other comedy clubs that people would go to.
I mean, first of all, it's very hard to get into these days. I mean that's part of why you know, another dozen clubs have opened up in Austin, because it's just really hard to get a ticket just to get in there. Additionally, you know, it's kind of like Rogan's guys who are the headliners. There's a smaller room, and there's a whole system, a hierarchy in the club. You know, you get a job as a door guy, then you work at the club, then you can do the staff
shows in the smaller room. If you really are successful there, maybe you'll get up to the top room. But it's kind of like, you know, there are definitely, like plenty of big performers comedians around the country that will never go to the Comedy Mothership. It really is kind of like a place for Rogan, the people that are already in his inner circle and the people that are desperate to get into his in orse.
Just very briefly, you're not allowed to bring a phone or cameras or anything in, but they have cameras set up for a very spell reason.
Yeah, because they you know it's gonna you're gonna start seeing more and more live shows on Netflix. Netflix. Just at their first live show, Brian Simpson did a live from the mother Ship. You'll see more of that. The whole place is wired so that they can do specials.
Our thanks to Felix Gillette, Bloomberg BusinessWeek Media Entertainment and Telecom editor, also the author of It's Not TV, The Spectacular Rise Revolution in Future of HBO.
You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up, we'll having a brat Summer. Turned to votes in November for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Plus the electric Fiat five hundred, reasonably priced, quick charging and cute, super cute. Our Auto View, Hanna Elliott breaks down the good, the bad, and the noisy of this Italian icon. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg business Week Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
If you're spending your summer dancing to pop music and wearing neon lime green, you, along with hordes of TikTok young adults, and now even Kamala Harris, maybe having a brat summer.
The phrase became a viral meme that originates from brat. It's the sixth studio album from British songwriter and pop artist Charlie XCS on your playlist right, yes, okay, now
it is. Bloomberg's Amanda Mole writes that the album and it's the lime Green motif have become a near immediate fodder for memes, mostly in an effort to mark things as a particular type of edgy Zoomer approved cool, and now Vice President Kamala Harris is getting in on the trend with a tweet last month that simply said, Kamala is bratt Yes indeed.
Well.
The strategy is simple, lean into online memes and hope that energizes young voters to head to the polls come November. Bloomberg Business Speak Senior reporter Amanda Mull joined Tim and Bloomberg News cross asset reporter Emily Graffeo to explain what exactly is a brat summer.
A brat summer is something that the definition of it has sort of developed as brat summer has worn on. It started as just sort of like something of a nonsense phrase, which is how a lot of memes start. Charlie's album is really fun. It is a lot of very danceable beats. It's a lot about partying, about having a good time. It is a super fun album. So I think that a lot of young people especially have dubbed their summer brat summer because they want to have fun.
They want to go out with their friends, they want to go out to a club, they want to dance, things like that. We're seeing a lot of that. Like culturally, I think we've gotten far enough away from the pandemic where a lot of young people who were maybe in school during during school closures have grown up a little bit and really just want to like get out there. So this was sort of like the Perfect Part album to pair with that, and it came out in early June.
So this this phrase has been around for a little while, long before Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. And I think that, like the meme itself had gained some momentum in the past, like you know, six weeks since the album had come out, and then when this happened, and it seemed to like ignite some interest in the campaign among young people who were already having a Brat Summer. So a lot of times new memes just come from
two things being in proximity to each other. So Brat Summer was already in progress, and Kamala has joined the party.
I suppose, well, now that I know about it, I think it's over because that's typically how this stuff works.
That's probably true.
That's probably true. So I apologize to everybody who was hoping to have a brad Summer. Why do you think Kamala Harris it was so quick to embrace and be embraced by this culture, but was why was Joe Biden not brat?
I mean, the Biden campaign had had problems for quite a while in igniting interest and support among young people. His polling in that demographic was really bad for the entirety of the campaign basically, and I think that in a lot of sectors of democratic politics, people were worried about that. It wasn't clear that Joe himself was worried about that. You know, he has probably other fish to fry,
maybe not bigger, but other. And so when the campaign changed hands, I think that it seems like people who understood that the Democrats were having issues with young voters quickly took the reins, and you know, sensing this uptick in interest and in conversation among young people, just sort of went like, Okay, if they want to talk about us, even if it's sort of ironic, even if it's sort of detached, there's some enthusiasm under there somewhere, and we
should just go directly at it and embrace it.
What have we seen so far about whether this is actually resonating with the younger voters. I mean, we know we have that anecdotal evidence that people are wearing Kamala T shirts, But have you seen any kind of rise in donations to the campaign or just more evidence that people are more interested in the campaign specifically.
There's been a lot of social media chatter. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence, but also you can start to see in some sort of circumstantial numbers that have started to come out since the campaign changed hands, vote dot org has experienced a real uptick in interest and in visits, you know, the largest uptick in like quite a while.
And you've also the Harris campaign has said that they've received donations through I believe It's Act Blue from nearly a million people who had not donated previously in this cycle.
So you've got some.
Evidence that people who were not previously engaged on a couple of different levels, both in voting overall, who are looking for information on how to do it, and people who had not been previously financially engaged to are then like stepping up their level of involvement. So I think that you know, obviously a lot of that is just from the change in hands, but young voters are generally disengaged at a rate much higher than other cohorts of
the population. So if you're seeing the sort of like basic uptick in you know, just figuring out how to vote, I think it's safe to say that like a probably a sizeable portion of the interest is coming from that most disengaged cohort.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, the proof will be in the pudding and we'll see who actually does turn out. But I'm wondering, obviously, you observe this stuff. You're not giving strategy advice. But I'm wondering how the campaign is able to keep the momentum going and stay in the cultural zeitgeist for the next hundred days.
Well, I think that the best way to do that is to you know, this is a lot of fluff. This is fun. People are having fun. But I think that in order to keep young voters engaged, Kamala Harris is going to have to put some real policy proposals forward that engage them on the things that interested in. Without doing that, I think this will peter out very very quickly.
That was Amanda Mole, Bloomberg BusinessWeek senior reporter.
So bummed.
I miss that, man. It's like it's become such a big part of like the conversation right now. Carol is Brett, tim Is Brett from the casual yet edgy aesthetic a bratt to something that is small, practical, and adorable. That's how our Bloomberg pursuites. Auto columnist Hannah Elliott described the new electric Fiat five hundred.
We talk about it all the time. Hannah has such a cool job. She drives then writes about supercars and luxury vehicles. Sometimes these things cost millions of dollars. This time, though, Hannah shares her experience driving the more reasonably priced and cute Italian icon.
It was so fun. I have to say, I did not know what to expect. Like you said, this is a little bit below sort of our normal price range that will typically review. But of course Fiat and especially the five hundred comes from a really long heritage, you know, a debut and Night teen fifty seven in Italy. Of course we've seen all the beautiful Italian movies with the five hundred driving through the streets of.
Italy, So how could I resist?
Right?
Also, this car has been not.
Been in the US since twenty nineteen, and they just brought it back this year as an electric vehicle. They're doing special drops, kind of like with shoes or with records. I drove the Inspired by Music version, which was the latest drop, and it was so fun, you guys, I it was like everything you need and nothing you don't, and I think every electric vehicle should be one of these.
Well, tell me, like, what is it? Because you listen, you've been in so many different evs, and some that are super super expensive. What was it specifically, like you said, everything that you need, Like, just walk us through it a little bit.
You know.
I liked it because it's kind of like a no mustno fuss type of vehicle. It has a range of about one hundred and forty nine miles. That's kind of half where a lot of other evs are. But you start to realize you don't really necessary, brely need that many miles if you're just popping out to the store to get coffee or just for your daily commute. So I really liked how easy it was, and like you said, Tim, how quickly it recharges. I actually did find that it recharges extremely fast.
And also it's just zippy. Now, on paper, the five hundred.
Eight it says it gets to sixteen about a little over eight seconds, which is not very much, but it feels really fast when you're darting in and out of traffic. And you know, this car is half the length of a lot of other cars, including some of my longer ones that I own, So you kind of just zip around, and I swear I probably shaved off ten to fifteen minutes for my commute just because I was zipping in and out of traffic, and I had a really fun time doing it.
Such an la thing to do, right, completely, that's that's so la, hey. Can you One thing I really liked about your story was sort of the history of why Fiat has been on and off in the US and Canada in recent years, but over the last I was going to say thirty years, but like over the last fifty years, what happened Take us into a little history there.
Well, it's a really good question.
You know, these were started to be made in Earnest in the sixties, and they were just really focused on economy, you know, very fuel efficient and kind of bare bones, and they started to get a reputation for not being very well made. I mean, these were sort of economy cars,
which were great for doing economy type things. But by the time that the seventies and eighties came around and America was building these huge metal, very cool cars, think like Lincoln and big Fords and big Cheves Camaros, this Fiat, it just seemed like, why would you want to drive something that has hardly any power? And it was really small and diminutive. It just kind of fell out of fashion, to be honest, and so Fiat has tried. They tried
bringing it back in. You might remember in twenty twelve, you might remember the Fiat A Barth versions, which was another attempt to get Americans excited about again about it again. The A Barth was like this very sporty manual version that actually is doing pretty well on the secondary market
right now. But again it just didn't really hit and by twenty nineteen, in order to make it legal again for the next generation, they would have had to spend a lot of money to redo safety testing, and it was just decided the sales aren't.
Proving worth it. But now we're gonna try it again with the electric version. I kind of like it. I'm rooting for it, I have.
To say, all right, But because you are so balanced and you always talk about the stuff you love and the stuff you don't like, tell us about that jingle every time you turn it on and off.
Oh man, Okay, there were a couple things that I did not like. Now this was it was it felt like you're in a child's toy appliance. The jingle is when you push the button to turn the car on, and when you turned it off, there's this whole like electronic melody that plays, and it makes me feel deranged. It just feels too cloying, too sweet. It's like, we
don't need this, it's too much. Another little gripe I had was this, you know, the single cup holder is kind of out of sight, out of mind in the cabin of the car.
So that wasn't great. And I did end up getting towed in the.
Car through a course of multiple events that involved a broken electric charger and then a parking lot that apparently was private, and.
The car was cold when I went to go charge it.
But I have to say I did get the car back four hundred and sixty six dollars later, and it was fully charged.
That was Bloomberg Pursuit's auto columnist Hannah Elliott.
Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, feeling like summer is over. Well, stop, it's not, and there is still so much to do and time.
To do it, including grabbing a table at one of the city's hot dining spots or grabbing one of the seven products are Pursuits team is obsessing over. That's all ahead, This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek.
Watches out most of the time.
Perceived as a time capsule, it's very chic and posh.
The most powerful car made in the US. You get the beautiful interior or the iconic design.
It's time to take a look at luxury with Bloomberg Pursuits on Bloomberg Radio.
A land Rover defender that can weigh through more than three feet of water. A coffee machine that can make a cold brew in less than four minutes. Tim, are you listening, I'm listening. And dun Jaws is back in the form of a two foot long lego set.
That's actually the most exciting one.
We've got the seven products arriving in August that our Pursuits team is obsessing over.
Plus the best movies, books and TV shows to check out, and the best things to do in New York City this summer. Because, hey, folks, although Labor Day is around the corner, summer is not over. Don't even suggest that to the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits Chris Rouser, who I don't want to hear it in the studio.
I don't want to hear it.
It's only the beginning of August. It is the last month of summer. Four weeks, it's.
The whole month. How many months of summer do we have?
It's a third In New York City, summer summer is short.
You don't go there, do not go Yeah.
Sure, no, it is.
It is.
It's school goes really late in New York City. People don't really slow down until July. Suddenly it's the name of July and you're saying, summer's already over.
So what are we supposed to do?
You did a smart thing, and I have said to myself, I need to do this, What did you do in June?
So for our news our, for our weekly Pursuits newsletter, my big pitch this week was go for a city summer, like, spend time in the city, luxury in it. If you live in New York City, it's quite hot, obviously, but so people flee the city. But a lot of times the best time in the city actually is the summer because you can get into restaurants and all, you can see shows and stuff that are harder to see other
times a year. But my secret is you do get out of the out of the city in the summer, but you get out in the month of June and you go somewhere chill. So we rented a cottage on a lake, nothing nowhere fancy and just like hung out and it was quiet and.
We got a break.
And then you get back and it's the beginning of July and instead of feeling like summer's already over, you're like, wow, I had a whole other summer and shift, now there's the rest of it.
Hold on, did you take vacation or did you work the whole time?
I took one week off, so I was there for like, you know, sort of nine ten days off and then the rest was just the week.
Did it still feel like you were getting relaxation time in even while you were working from there?
Yeah, because there was no one around that we really knew. So it was just hanging out, going to the lake with my daughter, you know, exploring restaurants, just hiking stuff like that.
But I love that idea of June because it feels like, right, you come back and you're like, I've still got July and August to get through having said that, what are some of the smart things to do in the summer, because there's still a lot of things, Like you said about restaurants, right, there's a lot of times people are away.
Yeah, so we talked to Rezian open Table because you know, getting reservations in the city is this whole thing. Now there's bots and you're competing against everybody who has a computer, but actually, reservations on open Table and Rezi slow down in the summer, and particularly they slow down on Saturday nights because a lot of people leave on the weekends, so prime tables, as you can't normally get, you might actually be able to.
Get on a Saturday.
And open Table actually has a new program where they they pick out like the top restaurants in eleven different cities, and you can just kind of go to that list and be like, all right, what are the top hot restaurants. I'm just going to look right now on this page and see when they become a when they're next available, so you don't have to search, like for one particular night or something like that.
One thing that's also fun to do in the summer here, at least according to you, is go check out some of the stuff that's happening during the day. For example, in Fort Green Park. Oh yeah, Soul Summit in July. Yes, what is that?
Have you ever been to Salsal Soul Summit is.
It's a crazy, big party where they get disco DJs to play from the top in the monument in the park and people come from all over the city and outside, and they bring food and they barbecue and they drink and they party. And I brought my daughter and she kept trying to go up to people and saying like, Oh, I want one of those frozen drinks, and the people.
Were like, that's not for children.
But it's just so fun and joyful, and like every different kind of person is there, And things like that happen all over the city, like the Philharmonic as out our concerts and the Shakespeare in the Park this summer actually is not performing at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park so because it's getting renovated, so they're doing pop up performances all through the city.
There's just a lot to see.
You have me at the Word Disco.
Oh yeah, love Love Love.
Let's switch gears a little bit. You also have a story, the best movies, books, TV shows and events coming in August. There's still a lot of stuff going on.
Oh yeah, of course, you know. So in the new Monthly business Week we always have an entertainment page, which we didn't always have before in the Weekly Business Week, And so for every issue we have our recommendations for TV and movies and stuff coming in the next month that pursuits picks. And so there's a bunch of stuff that we're particularly excited about this month. Speaking of things to see in the city, Oh Mary on Broadway. You guys have to see it. It's so funny.
Okay, it's extended through November tenth, so that's doable.
Yes, do it.
And you know I want you to see cats. Also, the TV show Bad Monkey, which is based on a Karl Hyson book, is supposed.
To be really great.
Pact.
The producers of ted Lasso are behind it. It's on Apple TV. Plus, there's a great book by Ian Fraser from The New Yorker called Paradise Bronx, The Life and Times of New York's Greatest Borough.
We want to get them on. We need to do that. Oh yeah, join us anyway.
That's really good and there's this great film Sing Sing, which was actually at a bunch of festivals, so some people have seen it already, which is actually set in the prison upstate, and it stars Coleman Domingo like as as an inmate learning to express themselves through art. With a cast that is professional is mixed in with formally incarcerated people. Just looks like it's gonna be really.
Good, very cool. A lot to choose from over the summer. Okay, so that's sort of arts and culture. What you can do, what you can eat. What about a vehicle that can have some muscle, the land Rover Defender a special version. Yeah, so this is like if you're going to Nantucket or what.
Yeah, yeah, you want to driving, just drive right to Nantucket. See how it goes. Also in the New Monthly business Week, we have.
Making fun of me. Put on the ferry, go to Nantucking, you drive on the beach, Chris, come on.
In the New Monthly business Week, we have a feature every every month in the front of the magazine and the in context section that's called the Right Stuff, And the editors let the let the pursuits team take over one page of the front of book and we just put.
All the coolest stuff that's coming out this month usually arranged around themes, and so this month are Our favorite thing that's come is the land Rover Defender Octa, which is the most powerful Defender yet that has six one hundred and twenty six horse power and it's not cheap. It's one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars. But it can go to from zero to sixteen to three point eight seconds, which is really fast for a big, heavy car.
This likely will be used to get to the grocery store and not do off roading.
There's a lot of Defenders in the Hampton and Tucket. They didn't swim there.
But you got to talk about this new coffee thing.
It's a good way to describe it, the Oracle Jet.
The Oracles And I'm like, Tim's got to be do you have this one?
I do not have this one. No, No, Mine is an old fashioned machine. But Chris, what is this thing?
So this is so their flagship model, which is the Oracle Jet automatic coffee machine now can make cold brew and cold espresso in less than four minutes instead of having to seep.
It overnight in your fridge. Blah blah, blah.
There are a few new products that come coming out that can make cold brew very quickly. This is one of the best. It's two thousand dollars and has forty five grind settings.
Are you a coldbrew person.
Tillage, Yeah, I like coldbrew. Usually I have a warm espresso hot espresso in the morning, but I'll do coldbrew in the summer too.
Coffee.
I am a coffee snob. I'm also a Lego snob. Yes, this was my favorite thing. Same my favorite thing as well. Yeah, why did you include? Like Legos is not Legos not typically something you include in pursuits.
You know, Actually that's not true. We do occasionally talk about how Lego sets get made and how they take an actual item, you know, something that's out in the real world, said Eiffel Tower, which they probably have made for decades. But and then they do cam models and they figure out how to make it best with the pieces.
I stand corrected, Thank you, Chris.
Well.
What I did not know is that they have like a fan idea site that you can submit ideas for them to do this exact treatment with and then if they get ten thousand likes on their website on this like public forum. Right then they'll consider it and they make a lot of them. And so this guy Annie Campbell posted it to the Ideas platform and ten more than ten thousand people said they wanted it to let go to make it, and Lego made it.
It's this Hugel.
I think you need to do this with your son.
I would absolutely.
We said it's Jaws. It's the shark from Jaws and the Boats.
Yeah, he would be a little scared of this. He's like in a scared of animals phase. But yeah, maybe maybe when he's a little older, it is. Maybe I'll do it without him.
It's really cool.
It is so cool. We have a few more minutes.
Where would you like to go?
You know.
One of the things that I liked reporting out during this week's during this month's issue, actually is this story we did about TV shows on CBS. Because CBS is the network that everybody watches, that TV snobs never talk about, and they always have the number one shows.
Tracker is the number one show.
Which they which debuted after the Super Bowl. It had like eleven million viewers, And they always have a number of comedy, which is usually one of the Big Bang Theory spin off so first there's the Big Bang Theory. Then there was Young Sheldon. Now Young Sheldon has ended, and a spinoff of that, Georgie and Mandy's first marriage is coming out, so.
True, I know, a spin off of a spinoff.
Yeah, well there was a prequel. This is a spin off of the prequel to the original. Okay, and it's going to be the number one comedy on TV. And you know, people maybe aren't going to talk about it zero bond, Like, it's just the CBS really knows how to make these hits, and so they haven't a spin off of NCIS Origins, which is the which is about Mark Harmon.
But like before the.
Original n CIS happened, they're doing a Mattlock reboot. They're doing a Sherlock Holmes reboot called Watson, which is just about medical mysteries. And they just Chuck Lorie, who does all their big comedies, is sort of a mastermind of this. But they just are making stuff that people want to watch, and they put it out on streaming, not just on
Paramount plus Paramount Plus anymore. And because it's on other platforms, people discover it on like Netflix, like young people discover it and then they bounce back and watch the live shows, So it actually is bringing in younger audiences, even though you may think it's like an old model.
Quote Sunday Morning and all those shows and you make.
Fun of Sunday Morning is the greatest television show except for the one that you two are on.
Oh Chris, Chris, Yeah, Well, I was going to ask about Chuck Lori because he's has this magic touch and he creates so many successful shows for CBS. We spoke to him actually not a year ago. Yeah, we did philanthropic work that he's done in the Los.
Angeles character by the way.
Yeah, he's great.
And they're filming Georgie and Manny's first marriage in front of a live studio. Audiences think about such a young people who grew up from single cam parks and rec like kind of.
Stuff the office.
They have no idea what they're like.
What is people are laughing at soho show.
Him Home Improvement? Remember Home Improvement? That was y Yeah, yeah, it's going to be like that.
I was thrown blown away by it, said The network air thirteen of the top twenty broadcast series in twenty twenty three.
Everyone is watching the show.
It's like It's just really really wild.
See Tim, Yeah, Carols, Carol's on the van. Just see what Chris is Ie everyone, Carol is everyone Our Thanks to Chris Arouser, the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits it does wrap up the weekend edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Chris. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at tpm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and of course Serious XM Channel one twenty one. You can listen to us on Applecarplay and Android Auto. It's free in the Apple App Store or on Google Play.
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I'm Tim Stanebeck and I'm Carol Master.
Great and safe weekend, everybody. Stay with us today's top stories in global business. Headlines coming up right now.
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