Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - December 10th, 2021

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Another busy week, including some stats on the US employment picture, Labor Department coming out saying that job openings rose to eleven million in the month of October. That tim is the second highest total on record. And keep in mind this is against a backdrop of more than twenty four million Americans quitting their jobs from April to September and what's been called the Great Resignation, something you and I talked about so much.

That story, by the way, a Bloomberg Big Take, also featured in the magazine this week, A really good one. We're gonna do a deep dive in just a few minutes. In the meantime, Today's changing labor market a major outcome of the pandemic. It's affecting the economy in a lot of different ways. Carol. It's something that we talked about with Carlisle Group co founder and co chairman David Rubinstein. I like to think of him as an elder statesman. Not just it's an age thing, but he's just seen

so many different market cycles, economic pictures. He's worked in the public sector in the Carter administration, understands, obviously the investment world than the private sector. So I always loved getting some time with him. Plus a venture capitalist and a o L founder Steve Case and Apparvist president David Lee talked all about building sustainable brands. Carol. This is

from a panel that you did this week. In keeping with that, our Bloomberg Business Week investigations team also examines the s G ratings industry through the lens of the rating agency heavyweight m s c I, and its findings cast harsh light on what E s G investing actually means. All of that to come, we begin with this week's cover story. It's also a Bloomberg Big Take, one of our most read stories on the terminal as well. This week, it's about scientists looking for a super vaccine to beat Delta,

A macron and all those variants. Bloomberg News Healthcare reporter Bob Langrath wrote it. He joined us a on with Bloomberg business Week editor Joel Weber. What we're ultimately talking about here isn't about just a booster or or even anything that's specifically about COVID, although it couldn't solve it with but there is a very very very early science that suggests that we could actually be able to develop

something that looks like a pan coronavirus. So that would account for not just COVID, but remember mers, remember stars, uh, even maybe even the common cold um. And again, let me underscore this early science. And if this plays out a little bit though, knowing what we know now about being able to develop vaccines, it might not be so much that the science would be the thing that would hold us back so much as the economics of it. All Right, So, so Bob, take us to Singapore, where

the science as part of the sciences is coming from. Yeah, So we begin the story with a lead of one of the from one of the kind of world's top bat coronavirus exports, a guy named Lintha Wang. And Singapore has been studying bad born viruses for decades and one had led the team that discovered that stars that was at one of the the coronavirus UH deadly chroma virus epidemic and two US in three he discovered that came

from bats UH and UH. So when the UH the pandemic started to happen early on, he had this idea that maybe some of these stars survivors in Singapore some kind of special antibodies that they could protect against COVID.

To look at them. It turns out they didn't. But then about a year later, you know, those survivors in Singapore, the original stars, you know, started getting UH immunizations for COVID, and he had this idea, like, now they've kind of this is this rare window into immune systems, have been exposed to these different, you know, epidemic strains of coronaviruses, and do they have some special cross reactive antibodies And

looked again and they did. They had antibodies and protections against like five different coronaviruses that have never been in humans before. It feels like a holy grail. That was the first signs like this sort of thing might be possible.

And he and about you know, ten twelve, thirteen other labs and a bunch of smaller Biottack, So, you know, racing to work on this, but you know, a long term the key question is if if this continues to look prompting, who's going to put up the money to do it, for the big kind of Manhattan project to do it. You know, here we are with the omicron variant making its way around the world, and the executives of these companies are being asked, are you working already

on an omicron variant shot? If they're giving us some sort of shot every six months to attack a new variant, that's money in their pockets. So incentives aren't necessarily aligned with them creating this shot to end all shots. All right, they have a thing, you know, that works right now, and they've a kind of procedure they know that probably gonna work to make something for a new variant, at least for you know, we don't know how long these

things are gonna work, that's one thing. And then if new variants keep coming, you know, even with m R and A, which is faster than other vaccine technowledge, you're still scrambling to keep up. You're still gotta know a virus that raises ahead of things. So you know, so the riskier thing but it could pay off, would be to put in a lot of money, a big Manhattan style research project by someone to see if this universal thing is really possible, but someone has to put big

bucks behind it if the research continues to be promising. Well, the other thing here is like there's there's big bucks and and there's some of that, right, and I h just put some of that in there. But there's even like potentially different technologies, right, Like we've all come to understand m R and A is one thing, but nanoparticles, Yeah, so that's one of the new tell more. Yeah, i'd

say like the next next generation like vaccines. So the idea behind these nanoparticle vaccines, which is one of the main technologies are pursuing for a kind of pan or coronavirus shots, is that you have a little kind of

virus sized particle. It's either some sort of bacterial or kind of artificial protein you can of add on a little different spike proteins or surface proteins from different coronavirus is kind of all over the top, So so it looks like to the immune system, looks like a virus with pieces of ten different coronaviruses on top, and that in theory might train the immune system to kind of

generate cross reactive antibodies against multiple coronaviruses. And that's what they're showing in these lab experiments and and it's more to lab experience. There's a few phase one human trials, but not many. That's what they're showing that may be happening in some of these early experiments. And yeah, so

it's very intriguing. That was Bloomberg News healthcare reporter bomb Langrath along with Business Week editor Joel Weber, coming out the pandemic has royal the global travel industry for more than a year and a half, you know that, and the emergence of the amicron variant not helping things out right now. Yeah, Trivago CEO Axel Heifer joined us on when businesses might finally turn the corner. You're listening to

Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Yeah, it's not easy to be a global travel and hospitality company during the pandemic and the emergence of yet another coronavirus variant. It's only adding to the uncertainty and volatility within the industry. Airlines, cruise lines, hotels services we used to book them also taking a

major hit for the last eighteen months. Our next Yes, well, he's right in the middle of it. That is so true, and we've seen the stocks kind of moved back and forth, sometimes rolling, sometimes taking a hit as a result of the news to do with the virus. You mentioned the executive right in the middle of it. We're talking about

Axel Heifer, the CEO of the booking platform Travago. He caught up with us from his home base in Germany to talk about the latest hurdles brought on by COVID and when he expects fingers crossed things to pick up. The situation got a lot worse, and particularly in some of our core markets in Europe, with infections on record

highs in Germany and in many other markets. On the other hand, um, we continue to believe that the outlook and the spring will be very very strong and that we will be through the pandemic more or less by the middle of next summer. So right now, very tough and sometimes also a bit depressing, but the outlooks very positive. Well in terms of outlooks, they're in their earnings report that you were parted back in November. On November one, Treviga said that it does not expect a full rebound

and travel over the winter. When do you expect a full rebound and travel? I do think that that we will see a very strong spring. Um. I mean like like this year, um we and and also last year we've seen that coming out of a winter with high infections, with restrictions in many places, um, people want to travel and want to actually see friends and family, want to get out and then get a break and um, and

we expect exactly the same pattern. Um. Having said that, what will be different from our perspective in two versus twenty one, and for sure obviously twenty is that there is a signatantly greater number of people vaccinated twice or even three times, and to be honest, also a significantly greater number of people that God's sick already and have antibodies because of that. One thing I wanted to go back to is a Thanksgiving weekend. How did that go

for you guys? And is that an indicator maybe what we'll see through the rest of the winter season. I mean it went well in the US overall, is uh is still much much more stable than Europe, to be honest, um, and there is one very big benefit in being in the US. You don't have to worry that much about travel restrictions being imposed between states, UM, which is a problem in Europe, and it is something that adds a

lot of uncertainty to your travel plans. UM. There are there's a regular flow of new restrictions, change and restrictions, testing requirements, etcetera. And this distriction is what what is is concerning people and holding them off from traveling. UM. In terms of looking forward, it is very very difficult

to say, Um, the new variant is obviously adding uncertainty. UM. And like in the past, some governments think that you can stop a virus from entering the country by imposing very strict travel restrictions, which obviously only works for so long. Sounds like you disagree with that assessment. It's very difficult to say, to be honest, and I don't want to be a politician in in in times like we are in today, but it works to slow down the spread of a virus, which in particular in winter can make

sense if your hospitals are full already. But um the general idea of of locking out the virus in today's world and in the kind of global economy that we're living in is just theoretical. And you know, every every new virus variant will make it eventually to every single country. Hey, actual, tell us about the thing you're doing, the partnership with Huawei. It's a strategic partnership. What is that all about. Yeah,

it's it's actually very interesting. Um. So, Huawei is building basically their own ecosystem with Harmony os and their own services, and the most important services from our perspective our obviously search, pedal search and pedal maps, and we are partnering with them to help them to bring similar services to their customers that exist or ready on other search engines like Being or Google um and leveraging our supply of hotels worldwide.

I'm curious about Wai Huawei. I mean, anyone who listens to our program regularly or follows the news knows that Wali has been under scrutiny by governments around the world and certainly engaged in a spout with the US government.

So take us in your thinking here. I mean, we are we are interested in basically helping every search engine UM to compete more effectively with Google and UM, and we are we also in discussions with others, but it is it's for sure one of the big search engines that is up and rising, given that they have a huge installed base of devices UM that will be powered

by their new search UM over the next years. In the break, Tim and I were talking and I'm saying that sometimes I just get overwhelmed by the amount of travel platforms that are out there, and so how do you and and truth be told, I am now looking for ease, you know, and platforms that are really clear, UM, So how do you think about how you want to evolved so that you can catch your users attention or

more users attentions. So, UM, You're absolutely right, I mean they we are in a situation where there are too many platforms, and in particularly in the pandemic, we've seen

that size matters a lot. And it doesn't only matter in terms of economics, but also in terms of quality of service, because that the more users you're having on your platform, the better your data is and the better your product is and so what we started to do and the Huawei partnership is UM one of the first partnerships in that direction is we started to develop business to business solutions where we help actually other companies to serve their customers better m by accessing our back end

services and basically benefiting from our our size and our scale UM for their own benefit. Actual Because tree Vago offers people who use the service weekend stays, cars, flights packages, you have this unique in it into how people are feeling and booking at any given moment. I did want to ask you just about what you're seeing on the platform in real time right now. Because this is a global platform. You serve customers and get revenue from the U, S,

from Germany, from Brazil, Australia, the UK. What can you tell us about what people are doing on the platform right now that does or does not reflect any sort of trepidation about Akron. Yeah, so the US is relatively speaking UM stable to be honest, so there is not

that much concern UM about the new variant yet. UM Europe has been hit by a combination of of really increase in in delta cases UM a significant increasing delta cases and concerns about the new variants breathing, and then in ature um you see a decline in overall activity predominantly coming through through the new variants. So it's a bit a mixed back as you as you would expect

across the globe. But generally speaking, people are nervous and they're nervous about making travel plants because they have seen in the past that any new variant is likely to lead to travel restrictions at some point in time. That was Triviago Ceo Axel Heafer still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, the cost of Christmas in that's right, what might those nine ladies dancing, seven swans of swimming, six ge lank and of course those five golden rings? What are they

going to cost this year? I believe to have to say five golden rings. No, you've gotta sing. I'm also partial to the ten Lord de Lapy labor an issue on that one, that's for sure. That's all 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 oh six one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country, Sirius XM Chado one nineteen and around the globe of Bloomberg Business is app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. So twelve Days of Christmas. We're just gonna put that out there. What would it maybe cost us this year?

It's definitely It often goes up from year to year, and safe to say it's going to go up this year. You got the latest CPI numbers this past Friday, and rising prices are proving to be stickier than many had hoped for. And those higher costs, well, they can really affect people's holiday spending patterns. And with all the supply chain snarls we've been covering, we don't even know if

we're going to be able to get everything we want. Anyway, to help us to build out our holiday budget, we caught up with the Chief Investment Officer of p NC Asset Management Group, Amanda Gotti. She joined us to help break down and most expensive installment of the p n C Christmas Price INDEXI. It's still cp I, but Christmas Price Index right. Five Golden rings. The twelve Days of Christmas.

The traditional holiday song is really the basket of goods and services that we use to price for our annual Christmas Price Index. It's literally that simple. We add up the cost for one partridge in a pear tree, two turtles of and so on as the song goes, Okay, well this year, it's it's gonna cost you of tens of thousands of dollars two hundred and five dollars and fifty eight cents. That's correct to buy all twelve days worth of true Love's gifts. That's about what it's going

to cost. It's about five point seven per cent in terms of an increase relative to two thousand and nineteen levels. Um. We're comparing versus nineteen because such an unprecedented year in twenty, we actually had to remove a number of big components of the index, and so we thought a better comparison

was really to compare versus two thousand and nineteen. If you really want to make an impression though out there, um and by all three hundred and sixty four gifts, that's repeating all the verses of the song, you're really gonna have to show out a lot. It's a little over a hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars this year. Alright, so what we've got inflation at this point already at a thirty year high in the US, could approach seven

percent soon. That's based on a Bloomberg story. So we're just a little bit below inflation right in terms of the increase from a little bit below, but pretty darn close. I think it's a very special basket of goods and services. So sometimes we can glean insights relative to what's happening in the broader economy, but economy, but this is a pretty unique basket. So not surprised at all to see the prices up, but um, it is a little bit

more nuanced than what we're seeing in the broader economy. Well, here's what's so interesting, because you do have six gets of laying uh, Carol's like trying to keep a straight face and not laugh right into the microphone as I'm saying that and not singing it. But that's higher this year by fifty seven point one percent versus last year. But then it's it's really interesting because you have things

like what is it nine ladies dancing? Uh, the price remaining the same, and the point that you're trying to make is that live performances where we're out of Christmas Price index because because of because of the pandemic, but the price hasn't actually changed. Twenty nine. Is that suppliers at demand when it comes to live performances, Yeah, there's

a there's a number of things going in there. So last year we had to take this unprecedented step of taking all of the live performances out of the index, and so the index fell fifty nine per cent. And so this year, thankfully, with the progress around the reopening bring live performances back, we were able to incorporate them into the index. I think a number of you know, theater companies and dance companies, while certainly wanting to make up for lost time, also don't want to push their

audiences away by jacking prices up really significantly. And so it is a bit of a fine balance and it is a little bit nuanced here. And so while the ladies dancing didn't move all that much in terms of pricing, we did see some movement in terms of the lords and in terms of the pipers and the drummers, and so again you really have to look under the hood to see what each variable is doing. What's the biggest one? Is it the geese laying? The biggest move is actually

the sixth piece a lane. But I would say the largest increases by far really what we consider to be the exotic pet category. Oh that is well, I'm just gonna tell you that is my favorite thing said all year. But go ahead, Well, I'm glad to be holding that award there for you. Really, when it comes down to it, at least when it comes to the birds, we're seeing higher food prices, certainly higher labor and wage related crisis.

Those both apply more broadly across the economy, and so that is driving up the increased costs of raising the birds. But I would also say, so that's that's the supply side thing. But on the demand side, we're actually seeing pretty significant demand. They're accelerating t and continuing around backyard farming, believe it or not, an even farm to table in the bird category. They're really getting it from both sides. That was Amanda Gotty. She's the c i O of

P and C Asset Management Group. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up next. The fallout from what's been deemed the Great resignation. We're losing workers faster than we can hire them. This is younger generations are rethinking the pursuit of wealth. This does feel like a see change when it comes to the labor market. We're gonna break down the state of America's labor force. Also talk about where to find our next generation of innovators and so

much more. We're gonna do that with Carli Group co founder David Rubinstein. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. There is an unstoppable force that exists with human which is humans want to interact with humans, and that isn't just for a vacation. Humans needed and want to interact on business, to build partnerships, to innovate, to build culture, and they want to congregate. All right.

So that was Hilton Worldwide Presidency of Christmas seta talking with our next guest who is not worried about the likes of Zoom having a lasting impact on business travel. The full chat featured in the latest episode of Peter Pierre Conversations this past week on Bloomberg and hosted by conversationalist, philanthropist and Carlisle Group co founder and co chair David Rubinstein. David joined us with a look at the world's changing labor landscape, the prospect of lasting inflation, and his top

takeaways from his chat with Hilton's Christmas Setta. The hotel industry suffered probably as much as any industry, perhaps with the sole exception of the cruise industry, which pretty much shut down completely. The hotel industry dramatically, UH saw occupancy go down. However, occupancy is now coming back, mostly from travel and leisure, not as much from business. The business is coming back a bit. They stocks though, of the travel lodging companies are done quite well. I mean right

now Hilton is an all time high. I think Marriott is near an all time high as well. So the market is anticipating future growth and the real challenge that they the hotel companies have. In Christmas said, I talked about this is where do you get employees. UM, A lot of employees went away, and now they got to hire them back and probably higher wages, and as a result, you're probably going to have some increases in in UH in the cost of rooms. In addition, should you provide

all the services that you were providing before? People are used to having daily palel service and daily makeup service in their beds. Do you have to do that? Do you have to give free breakfasts every morning to some of your patrons to Some of these things are going to be looked at by companies like Hilton and others.

So what do you think, David about the potential permanent shifts that we see on the other side of the pandemic when we when we do get to the other side of the pandemic, when it comes to travel, leisure and hospitality. Well, I know from the business community, from my point of view, if I had to fly across the country for one hour meeting, I used to do it. Now I'm happy to do a zoom So I'm not traveling quite as much as I used to. I suspect

it will come back at some point. But in the in the know, pre pandemic, I would go to the Middle East or go to the Far East UH for a day or two and now come back. And now I just I'm a little more reluctant to do because you can do so many things on on zoom. Obviously you can't do everything on zoom, and you have to have personal contact at some point. But I do think that business and business travel will will slower, be much

more slow to come back, much slower to come back. Hey, David, did christ say anything about well, you know, because we talk a lot more about more automation coming in robotics, there's a lot more things we can do online with a hotel industry that we couldn't before. Does he say that they're making investments or helping you know, at some of their team members by really introducing automation that maybe sticks with us going forward. Well, sure, um, they are

doing that right now. For example, rarely do people uh you know, need check in anymore. You can just get your ticket online more or less work. Now they're going to use face identification to some extent to check in. So I think technology is going to dramatically change the industry. And and clearly the industry, uh you know, is a global industry. I mean, Hilton is all over the world and they have thousands of hotels and and they have in different categories. That's a big change in the last

twenty or thirty years. Used to be there was Hilton, there was Marriott. Now Hilton has about fifteen different brands. Mary has probably something similar, So you can have something for every different price point that you want. Hey, one thing we were dying to ask you, David Rubinstein, and it has to do the couple of stories that are among the most read on the Bloomberg. One has to do with Goldman talking about young U S workers are

plotting early retirements. They're, you know, thinking about getting out a lot earlier. And then we've got another one on the Bloomberg Big Tickets about the Great Resignation, about how we've had more than twenty four million from April to September here in the US alone quitting their jobs. We're seeing it there as a global phenomenon, and in some countries we've already seen it happening, even pre pandemic. What's going on? Why is everybody quitting? Why are younger folks

saying I've had it? Are we missing something? What do you make of this trend? Well, my generation, basically, you after college or graduate school, you went to work and you worked until you're sixty five or seventy, and maybe some cases even longer than that. Younger people are saying, well, I can work out of my home a bit, why do I need to work in the traditional way? And secondly,

maybe I don't need to work quite as long. I can make a fair amount of money if I do well and retire at fifty five or sixty or even fifty. So the world is changing. The world always changes. I'm not surprised the pandemic has really changed the way people

look at the world. I know my own generation has looked at the world much differently because we're worried more about getting the COVID and getting UM to the point where we can survive this because of the age group, and more and more people who are older than me, even uh there am in my early seventies are saying they don't want to work anymore either because they just want to retire and recognize that life might be easier if they just retired. Are there concerns though about productivity?

If we see this, well, productivity it generally increases because of technology, So technology tends to make productivity get much better, some countries better than others. Yeah, product productivity is always a challenge, but as a general rule of thum productivity does increase even when you have fewer employees, Well, what about them an economic or market rethink, David, like I do, wonder if you're tiring early, or maybe you're saying, you know what, I don't need so much in my wardrobe,

even if you've done well, like you just pair back. Um, are there implications that we need to be thinking about. Well? Sure, I mean, people probably don't need to buy I used to buy a lot of business suits. Probably don't need as many of them. I don't used to buy a lot of ties. Probably don't need a lot of them. Um, And people probably are gonna just change their life a bit.

You know. It's interesting that the industrial revolution changed the way we live or work over about a hundred year period of time, the Internet maybe over twenty five year period of time, the smartphone over seven years or so, and now over just one and a half years. We're changing the way we live and work because of a pandemic that was never anticipated. And whether that's a good thing or not, it's clearly here and it's a reality, and people are much different in the way they look

at work. They don't view it as an obligation so much. If they don't enjoy it, they're not going to do it. I wonder if technological innovation, though, has kept up with the worker attitudes. We're not. We're not seeing Uh we're having a hard time in the United States finding long haul truckers, but we're not seeing self driving trucks at

this point on roads. Um, not yet. Not yet. It's a challenge for Amazon to keep employees incredibly high turnover, but you know, they're not being replaced by robots at this point. So isn't there some concern we're trepidation about the idea that that productivity hasn't in technology hasn't caught

up to worker attitudes. Well, workers are higher ambitions of what they want to do, and then the kind of jobs you might get by working in a warehouse and and fulfilling orders for Amazon may not be as intellectually challenging. Is what some people really wanted to do when they went to college or or or some kind of vocational training. Uh, clearly things are going to have to adjust. But in the end, I think the American workforces it is pretty resilient.

I think we'll come back. We can't compete with the workforce in terms of costs in China or Asia, but we can I think do a pretty good job in making productivity better than it has been. Clearly, technological leaders

usually come from the United States. Hey, David, you know your series of books, your trilogy, you know on leadership historians, really looking at uh, the growth of this nation and how it's evolved and really talking with leaders as we constantly as you say, these invention innovative cycles seem to be happening in less time here. Um, how do you see, you know, in terms of the next trends or the people that you think we really have got to keep an eye on that that really are going to be

determining maybe the future trajectory. And it can be politically as well as on a business and market front. Well, in the business world, change is usually made, as it is in the political world, by people who are younger. Revolutions are not usually led by seventy year old people, and as a general rule, some business change is usually led by demand from people who in their twenties or thirties.

So how many people have now caught on with the kind of social media devices that really the young people really focused on and really helped generate. Same with computers, and the same with other kinds of services that we now rely on. Many of these came from younger people. So I think it's a very good thing if boards of directors and companies would get younger people on them. I think it's a good idea for boards of trustees as well, and nonprofits have more and more people on

them who are younger. I rarely see on the boards that I serve people under the age of forty, but really that's where the change is coming from, and probably it's not a bad idea to have younger people on these boards or in senior positions advising boards of directors

or trustees. Hey, David, let's talk markets here, because you've seen lots of market cycles throughout your career, help us understand and put into context the one that we're seeing right now with the S and P five just continuing to to grind higher and you know, the COVID variants still making their way around the world, and concerns about

growth if the markets have got anything wrong. Initially when COVID came about, it was that the markets we're going to be more resilient than they turned out than than than than than people thought. In other words, when we went through COVID people thought, Okay, the economy is going to collapse, and all of us sudden, the market will collapse. But if it turns out maybe because of federal intervention for sure, but because of federal support and other factors,

the stock market actually has gone up. And in the private equity world that I operate in, markets have never been better. People are making staggering sums of money compared to what they did before, So it's very difficult to predict right now. I would say that the federal government is probably going to increase interest rates next year. That should have a somewhat impact on the market of probably reducing prices a bit, and I suspect inflation won't go away,

so that might impede the market a bit. But I don't see any collapse in the near term. I don't see any kind of uh correction of any consequence. Who might have one day to day blip because of something that happens, but a ten or fifteen pc market correction, I don't see that for an enduring period of time in the next year or so. That's kind of a group co founder and chairman David Rubinstein, also host of

Peter Beer conversations on Bloomberg. He's got a bunch of books out about the conversations he's had with great leaders historian the latest one, it's called The American Experiment, Dialogues on a Dream. And 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 Stanebeck. Ahead in our next hour, a dispatch from the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit, Carol speaks with Revolution chairman and CEO Steve Case, also with am Harvest president David Lee on what it takes to build a sustainable brand. Plus n f d s. They are incredibly hot right now, so hot that one of America's top auction house is just raped in nine

figures on digital art. You heard that right later on also Bloomberg Pursuits, taking you inside the burgeoning world of luxury goods in the metaverse, I gotta tell you something, I kind of want to own it and feel it. Coming up next, Oar Bloomberg Investigations team reveals the e S G ratings process for an industry giant. This is an unbelievable story, A deep dive into the world of E s G. We're on the E s G murage

that's coming up next. 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 st Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the exploding world of n F T s and how Christie's Auction House got in on the action to the tune of a nine figure hall. Yeah you heard that right. We're also talking luxury goods. They're going digital to how the likes of Berbery, Gucci and more. Well,

they are planting their flags in the old metaverse. I guess I could call it the new metaverse. It's happening plaus Venture capitalist Steve ks co founder of Course of America Online, now chairman and CEO of Revolution. He stops by with app Harvest president day Vid Lee. They talk about building a sustainable brand First up, this our look at a side of s G investing that many of us are either misunderstanding or perhaps we're just looking the other way. We're simply choosing to ignore it. I guess

so right. This story is called the E s G Mirage. It's incredible. Bloomberg News Projects and Investigations reporter Cam Simpson and some colleagues here at Bloomberg wrote it and they talk about how sustainable investing is mostly about sustaining profits. Are really looking at the company, it's explained to the lens of ratings joint m s C. I. Cam joins us from London, So Cam a deep dive. I can't imagine how long it took you guys to do this.

Tell us what you set out to do and what you did specifically look into you know, thanks so much, girl. I mean we you know, we came into we came into this year like a lot of people in you know who write about business and finance or anybody who pays attention to it, thinking about this thing called E s G Environmental and social and governance investing and and

knowing that there was a lot of hyperount it. I mean it just completely explo loaded in terms of you know, assets under management, and that can be a little bit squishy depending on who's doing the definition. But you know what's publicly visible are you know, E t s and other and other retail funds that just we're going through the roof. I mean, um, you know, black Rock at the top of the list. And there's a lot of criticism.

There's been a lot of criticism for a long time that this is not what it appears to be and that this is just kind of marketing and it really has nothing to do with saving the planet, which is how it's being marketed. I mean, it's it's marketed, you know, as we're investing in companies that have favorable practices on environmental practices and social practices without anybody saying what that

really is. And the foundation of this whole new cash machine for Wall Street, I mean it is the fastest growing segment of the global financial services industry is are the ratings underneath it? Right? So there's a rating system that allows black Rock and van Guard and everybody else, you know, State Street to say this fund is quote unquote sustainable. So let's talk about that because m s c I is a really big part of this future indexing the world, and they had the whole thing, the

whole thing exactly. So, so talk about what M s c I is and what they've been doing. Yeah, So MSCI has kind of, you know, been had this happy existence for a long time as kind of a back office Wall Street company that nobody really ever talked about.

They you know, they did well in the era of passive investing because they produce indexes for people who sell investments and they press a button in a couple hundred thousand indexes go out today from m s c I. And slowly, over the last decade they were building this you know, e s G ratings business through acquisitions. I think it happened almost accidentally in the beginning, and then some people saw it, well, maybe this will be a thing.

In two thousand nineteen, when it was clear that this stuff was really going to take off, they rebranded the company. The CEO, Henry Fernandez, pitched it on on an analyst call, analysts who rate his stock, and he said, look what we've got. We've got a mission now, and our mission is better portfolios for a better world, you know, really grabbing onto the sustainable mantra, the sustainable marketing around E

s G and they really really started pushing that. But so they dominate the space of these E s G ratings completely and totally. Nobody else is even close they you know, Bloomberg Intelligence calculated at least sixty percent of the money in retail funds is in funds built on M s c i's ratings, and you know, we put that to Henry Fernandez and he said, no, no, that number is low higher than that. So Fernande's heads M s c I has for a long time. Yeah, I know,

he's the only chairman and CEO they've ever had. What's interesting cameras I remember early on talking about E s G is the money was starting to flow in and we were talking about it and that we really did look at it from like, hey, folks, the reason we care about climate change for a lot of reasons, we cared about it, but is that it was going to impact companies and their financial picture. And that is really the tack that M s c I has stayed with.

But at the same time, many investors are thinking, Okay, I invest in this company because they are reducing their emissions, they're reducing their impact on the environment. But that's not

the case. That's really the bottom line of what you found out, you know, I mean the bottom line is when you look at we you know, we went through every ratings upgrade that MSc I gave to companies in the SMP five undered during this record of historic growth for investment, and what we discovered looking under the hood and going through all the ratings and building a data set was that has absolutely nothing to do with the impact of the companies in the world, not absolutely virtually nothing,

almost nothing incidentally at might but the lens that they use in the lens E s G uses in general is what is the impact of the world on the company. It's the exact opposite of what investors think it is. Investors think that they're investing in good environmental practices, which is how these are pitched by black Rock and everybody else. But it's not. It's it's how how those proud those

impacts on the world effect the company. Like It's a clearly the opposite of what everybody thinks it is cam It is a must read and I highly recommend we'll put it out on our Twitter feed, but highly recommend that everybody check it out. Our thanks to Bloomberg News Projects and Investigations reporter Cam Simpson, and as I said, check it out. It's in the latest issue of Bloomberg Business Week, is available on the terminal, on news stands and at business Week and Bloomberg dot com. I love

this story. It's really good. And one thing we talk about a lot, Carol, is if there needs to be some sort of different type of measurement. So we talk a lot about transparency metrics perhaps, Yeah, the idea of metrics that actually move a company's stock when it comes to what impact its actually having on the planet and the people who live on it. Right, Accountability, like all of this really matters. Right, you're listening to Bloomberg business Week.

Coming up, some actual progress is being made in building companies that are not harming the environment and expanding the idea of what it means to be truly sustainable venture capitalist. And of course the co founder of a o L Steve Case, joining us along with the head of one of the companies that he's invested in, app Harvest, David Lee from app Harvest, joining us as well. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg

Quick Takes Tim Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio. The Bloomberg Live Sustainable Business Summit took place this past week. It's an event that brings together global leaders investors all about driving innovation and scale and best practices and sustainable business and finance. Carol hosted a panel with two executives intent on doing just that, and they're in the a tech space. Chief Case you know him, of course, for co founding America Online.

He's now chairman and CEO of Revolution. He took part in the discussion with app Harvest president and board member David Lee. App Harvest went public this year. It's also a company that Revolution invested in through one of its three funds. As for Steve Case, he only expects more dollars to flow into similar ventures. I think the broad trend in the last decade in terms of the growth and interest in the sustainability in the last several years of real acceleration investment in E s G, I think

Boad's really well. I think the perception ten or fifteen years ago was this is sort of a good thing to do, but wasn't necessarily a profitable thing to do. That's clearly changed. Some of the most valuable companies now

being created are focused on unsustainability. App Harvest obviously being one, were also backed Sweet Green recently went to the public for a very very strong focus on sustainability and even a board committee focused on e s G. Were also back Temper Pack, which is trying to focus on sustainable packaging work rid the world of styrofoam, which is terrible for the environment by by using a better packaging, and a lot of big food companies like Hello Fresh and

and Daily Harvest use it as well as you know pharma companies. So it's identifying problems out there that need new solutions that are good business opportunities while also being much more sustainable in terms of what they're doing and

the impact that will have on on the planet. I think there's a rush to to focus on these from the entrepreneurial sector, a rush to invest in these from obviously the investor sector, but also a rush from a concussed customer stand our consumer standpoint they really want to do business with companies that care about the world and care about the pliant planet and have a strategy and

a real commitment to sustainability. Are we being smart enough as an investment based Steve to give companies time At Harvest you went public this year, it's it's been I would say a multile I p O market. Um. But I do wonder, Steve, like, are we thinking about that balance between we we need to be more sustainable as a world right otherwise there ain't gonna be anything left.

So are we understanding enough? Are we sophisticate enough as investors to understand that there's got to be a balance to let these companies grow to make their investments um and maybe at the risk of short term financial performance, but longer term this makes sense because it's got it's

got to be where the world goes. Yeah, every company is a little bit different, but you have to figure out what your time horizon is and make sure you're educating investors, whether you're a private company or a public company on that. On that Sweet Grain, which started fourteen years ago, has has done that and have built up

a significant business us that scaling quite quite nicely. App Harvests started just four years ago as I as I mentioned, and was able to go public and access the capital markets to dramatically expand what they're doing on the production side with new facilities, not just the initial one in eastern Kentucky, but but many others and also invest heavily

in technology, particularly robotic technology. So they were able to use that capital and they educated the market at the time they went public that this really is something that will build significantly over the next decade. But we need access to the capital markets to be able to execute an ambitious plan to really build app Harvests as a company and build it as a brand, and that's the

path they're on right now. David, what is it like the conversations you're having with investors like Steve, with others now that you're public, a public company, in terms of what they want to see, what kind of transparency they want to see them to understand, hey, this is a true sustainable investment. Well, one of the hallmarks they think in in being public when you're interested in in large global impact is every day you are edgy hating the

public investor. Every quarter you have radical transparency, not just to what your financial results are, but frankly, the commitment we have to sustainability. You know, we we we have a high bar because we have gone to investors that are most sophisticated in the world. With that access in capital comes the chance for us to radically speed up how many of these large technology enabled greenhouses we can

produce four perspective. You know, our first farm in eastern Kentucky is two point a million square feet right it. It has a water reservoir that allows us to use less water. But that water reservoir is something like fifty Olympic swimming pools. Large. So the scale of the impact that frankly we need as as a community means that we have to bear the radical bright light of being public has a great benefit, but companies have to be

prepared every every day recorder to be scrutinized. Um. And that is different than when a lot of these companies only could access the private capital markets. Um. It is. It is a great opportunity, but it has a real, a real burden and cost to the team to make sure that they can operate to the rigor of the public markets. Hey, David, what's more difficult being a public company or dealing with kind of the infrastructure the establishment

of how we do agriculture right now? Um, you know, dealing with kind of the old way and coming up against that. That's a great question. I'll give you an example. You know, back in the yearly two thousand's, I was running a food company, public company called Delmonti Foods. And you know, back then, we knew at the company level that climate change was a problem. You know, people were pulling out peach trees in California and planning nut trees

because the climate couldn't serve it. That was twenty plus years ago, and what I would say today, the answer to your question is that there's so much more awareness by the consumer who is really demanding better food. You see it in all the great brands and companies Sweet Green. That was mentioned already by Steve. But look at look at all the companies that have gone public in the last ten years that are really dedicated to a better

future for food. It's no longer the case that because consumers are demanding this, that's staying in the shelter of being private is the easier answer. I actually think that the infrastructure that is being put in place is now part of the broader incumbent food industry. It's no longer us versus them. You know, we are in partnership with the largest retailers. We are in partnership with the largest supply chain providers for our greenhouses, and it's because we're

trying to be part of the mainstream food industry. It's a big change from back in the day when I would largely ignore at Delmonti Foods some of these smaller sustainably painted entrepreneurs. It can't be ignored anymore because consumers

and an investors are really demanding it. And then they got to That is as we've seen in the last decade, a greater focus on sustainability and better access to the capital markets, whether they be at the private company level or the public company level, and that's actually made companies like app Harvests possible. Early on ten fifteen years ago, some of the initial investments and sustainability climate text some

other areas. A lot of those companies failed because they were big ideas that required significant capital and required a longer runway at ten plus year runway, and it was difficult for venture capitalists to back those companies. That's Revolution chairman and CEO Steve Case and app Harvest president David Lee. You can catch Carroll's entire conversation with them by heading to Bloomberg Live dot com and searching Bloomberg Sustainable Business

Summit still to come on Bloomberg Business Week. You may not understand what they are or how they work, and yet millions of dollars are being thrown at n f t s. We're talking about non fungible tokens. The president of Christie's America's on the auction houses two million dollar twenty first century evening sale. Yeah you heard that right, two hundred million bucks with these alternative assets as the centerpieces.

This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven in 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 Chado one nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and

Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. Alternative asset prices have risen during the pandemic, and while price collectibles have long been a favorite of the wealthy, the future of high end artwork could be really turned on its head. I feel like and could be on the blockchain instead of hanging over your mantle. Non af fungible Tokens or n f t s. While they've exploded in popularity. Nowhere was that more evident than last month at a

christie sale. It was dubbed the twenty one Century Evening. So it's interesting as people are coming back to the auction house is to participate in auctions, were now bidding on virtual pieces. There there, my head is spinning. Well. That night of that auction buyer spent a total of two nine million dollars on various works of art. It included nearly twenty nine million dollars on a digital piece was called Human One. It was the first hybrid physical

and digital artwork by n f T artist people. The president of Christie's America's, Bonnie Brennan, stopped by to explain why the auction house got in on the digital art craze. Our first question was what was an n f T. You know, in the last since March of this past year, we've all been learning in real time and as you said that, the n f T s have really taken the art world by store. And we're particularly proud of having sort of ushered in this global rush to digital art.

Back in March and we sold the people for sixty nine million, and now to date, if you can believe that, we've sold over n f T s for more than a thirty six million dollars. So it is an important new part of our market. It's had a great impact on the entire auction business and certainly our business here. I have to just tell you, if you're not watching on YouTube, Carol's mouth is just a game because number people remember back in March that was sort of I think I was, but I think it was like a

real inflection point. And Ronnie, you can correct me if I'm wrong. But is this something that you truly believe has staying power or is this a fat you know? I think? I will say I think it has stame power. We've seen great curiosity from our established buyers. Tim We've seen we've tried to introduce n f T s into a variety of categories like photography and design. It's been met with great interest. We've also introduced n f T s into new markets, into our sales rooms in Hong

Kong and in London. And I'll tell you this fall, I stood in the galleries and I had a number of traditional, very serious established collectors say take me to the people. Was this fall we had a hybrid work. It was the first sort of digital slash physical work that people had done, called Human One, and all of our clients who regularly buy Picassos and old Masters, really

wanted to see that work. And I think they're becoming more fluent about n f t S and they're starting to see how n f t S might fit into their their collections of again more you know what we're what they're expected, aren't you'd expect to see see it and buy it or just see it, Bonnie, Your established collectors who are used to buying climps and picassos and do you name it. No, Definitely they're participating, Carol. They are there and they are driving some of the prices

that we've seen. It's been nice. We've had um we've had cross over both ways, traditional collectors Benning on the on the n f t S, but we've also the best part about n f t S, it's it has introduced four new clients to Christie's and about a quarter of those have gone on to buy works by artists like Warhol and Picasso. Bonnie, you guys, more than anybody understand the value of something and the retention of that value. And so what's going to be more valuable longer term?

And I'm stealing a headline from The New York Times earlier this year of the summer. They recently asked a painting or an n f T of it, which will be more valuable? Which will be longer term? I think, you know, as always, we have to it's we have to listen to our market. Our market tells us what they value. And right now there's an equal interest in passion and a sense of value being placed on these n f T s. I mean, sixty million dollars. It's

it's right up there. It's it. It leads in the sales of any works of our ever sold at auction. So I think that's an answer. We don't we don't have the answer to that, but I think they will. They will play side by side for a long time. I'll trade you a jpeg of a Picasso for a real Picasso. Yeah, yeah, me too. Well, the thing is this is I gotta tell you the conversations we have in our newsroom around this, because if it's digital, it can be copied ultimately, right, Well, that's the beauty of

n f T s is that they're really is. It's

so much grounded in authenticity. We have, for example, we have a sale going on we've just announced with open c open Sea is the world leading n f T marketplace, and that sale is going to allow collectors to purchase the n f T s via the Etherium blockchain, and that will assure Yes, you can look at the images and you can share the visual representation of the n f T But Carol, if you were to buy that n f T on that open Sea sale the blockchain, it would you would be the only owner of that

work of art, and that really locks in that ownership. Do a digital copy, right, so somebody else could do a digital copy? Am I missing something? You are? So you can? You could certainly have it, you know. That's where you and all three of us could print out a picture of the people that's sold in March, but only the owner owned c and then the actual code. That's Bonnie Brandan, president of Christie's America's on the art of the n f T s. You're listening to Bloomberg

Business Week coming up. We know you like the finer things in life. I mean, come on, doesn't So what exactly does luxury look like in the metaverse? That's a question. Our Bloomberg Pursuits team tells us which brands are building the digital department store of your dreams. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. So we've talked about n f T s in the blockchain being used for works of art, so what about for luxury goods as well? We're going to broaden out the discussion to include every futurist favorite topic. We are talking about the metaverse. Well, it's top shelf brands that you know and love. They're actually starting to test the waters and what they hope could become a new type of digital marketplace.

Are Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser joins us Now, Chris um So, in the Pursuit section this week, you have a feature about a company that actually sells luxury digital goods in the metaverse. And hey, guess what, those margins are pretty good? Yeah. Yeah, when you go when no

one's stitching anything, suddenly the margins look really great. Um. I mean this has to be the top, Carol, right, like, yeah, we have to look back on this, and we're talking about the idea of paying big bucks for something that do a lot of people I think they argued doesn't actually exist. Alright, So what's going on here, Chris? So you know what's really interesting is that luxury brands are famously really slow on catching up to the Internet into

the digital world. They were very slow to have e commerce, they were very slow to have websites, even like even in the mid two thousands, probably didn't have a website. And now they're really tiptoeing into You talked about selling stuff like real goods online. Yeah, just likely you want

to buy a bag online, you couldn't do it. And now they're selling stuff that doesn't even really exist in the metaverse, and they're selling them like Balenciaga is in Fortnite, Gucci is in roadblocks on these metaverses, which you can only imagine someone trying to explain to a bunch of executives in Italy or Paris, like why all this stuff is?

So the trend is being led by some really interesting innovators who are making basically digital department stores and they're selling bags and they're selling clothes uh to people to wear in video games uh and in virtual platform social media platforms um and people are spending real money on it. So I mean, like, what do you mean real money? Like are you buying a broken bag? So rmez is not quite yet there. Expect them to be later on it.

But people are spending four thousand dollars on a Gucci bag, which is more than that bag actually costs in real life. You can't put anything in that bag and actually go out to dinner with it, can you. Well, you can go out to dinner in a in a metaverse. You can go to your apartment or your house that your own in a metaverse. Remember sim City, Yeah, remember sim Power. This is for gamers, right, yes, So the root I feel like the gaming society. This feels new because a

lot of people are learning about it now. But the root of wearing clothes like skins or owning objects that belong to you and have to be authentic to you is the roots are very deep in gaming and and people take what they look like in their avatars very seriously. And it was sort of blasted into the mainstream when Facebook made its announcement that it's really uh re imagining itself as meta. And Mark Zuckerberg made this video where

he was changing clothes on his avatar. He was he had an apartment that he filled with his stuff, and he tried to explain how we're in in the future, We're going to have our own personal spaces. What we look like matters, and we're going to interact in these virtual worlds. You know what. Mark Zuckerberg also has though, he has like a huge beachfront property in Kawaii that

exists in the real world. It's actually physics actually physically there. Yeah. Hey, um talk about the Demterialized though, because they're they're a big part of this. So the de Materialized is a British started company and they call themselves the Digital Department Store of Your Dreams. And basically what they do is they work with artists to create limit to addition products

like an outfit or a bag. They do them in ranges of one to about a hundred and fifty usually, and they do drops like a like an Air Jordan sneaker drop and people race to buy the clothes. And again, you can't wear the clothes in your life, you can wear them on the platforms that they partner with like vr chat, which is a virtual reality, a social world, and it's become quite popular and they always sell out.

Who are these people? And I feel like these are the people that President g Over in China is like, Okay, we have to stop this because they have so much money to spend on this stuff. Like, I don't get it, Chris.

Part of why I think it's not easy to wrap your mind around is because a lot of the people who are doing this are crypto investors, and for them, the money is not it's not real the way that sort of maybe money is to me or and so speculation, yeah, speculation and having fun in these virtual worlds is a little detached from normal currency. And these are the people who are really fueling the enthusiasm for buying this stuff, um, because you know, this kind of thing matters to them

and it's cool. So why do the big brand names do they just want to be part of the conversation, Like it's funny that you When I was reading this, I had put on my desk a story that came out this week about Ralph lauren latest brand, selling digital wears on roadblocks, and I'm like, wait, wait, what, what's roadblocks? What is going on? So is it because they want to make sure they're part of this conversation. They don't at least miss a trend forever how long it stays.

So fashion is after our like. Fashion is probably the industry that is the most um forward thinking about this, and it's huge upside for them because they can mint clothes, they can verify authenticity by attaching their clothes to an f T. You know, authenticity has been a huge problem

for fashion brands. People there's a lot of knockoffs out there, and then they can make outfits that they don't actually have to sew, and so it's a huge it's a huge margin because people will pay real money to wear these things in the metaverse or in the future, maybe in an augmented reality world where we're all wearing glasses and we look around and you know, I'm just wearing sweatsuits, but then you look at me with your augmented reality

glasses and I'm wearing a fabulous cape. Um. Because because I know you like watches, you can just have like ten up your yeah exactly and then um. And you can also go back into your archives and you could rerelease you know, old old things that you designed fifty years ago. You can bring them back and release them exclusively.

You don't have to you don't have to go through all the production, and you know there's just a ton of And then also you can build in resale values, so in the n f T, in the contract, you can have it so that if someone sells, you know, this Gucci back to somebody else, uh, you get five percent of that sale. And resale is a huge issue that's going on in the fashion industry that the original brands are not getting any money back, but people you

don't actually get the Gucci back. Ye. Let me just say, for people who can't see Carol's face right now listening to this, what you can tell by looking at her face is there there are none of these n f T s are on her holiday shopping list. But you know, I do wonder if it's a great lesson for all of us, Timmy, you and I talked about just how much stuff we have and how we're tired of it.

And so many people have had these conversations coming off the pandemic of like what, also, spend too much time online? So I don't want to spend Yeah, I sound like such a curmudgeon here, but it's it's not hitting me yet, I'll be honest. But what about the idea of so much of this week our weekend show, we're talking about the E S G space and sustainability, and I do

think about Chris. I think about my immigrant grandparents. They had a few good suits, a few pairs of shoes, Like I do wonder if we're thinking about the impact of all of the stuff that we have and the impact it has on the environment, is this a way to some extent of kind of dealing with that. Yes, there's a there's a few ways that this could actually help address over supply in the fashion industry, which is

a huge problem. There's like a you know, at the end of every season, there's tons of discounting and then a lot of clothes just get ends up getting destroyed. It's a huge waste. So if you so, the futurists who are who are looking at this are looking far into the future when more when they can train users

to really get into this system of fashion. But imagine if you look at a virtual runway that has all these outfits, and you're a consumer and you have your avatar and it has all your sizes, and you know that. You know, you can try on clothes with your avatar, you can watch a fashion show or that looks you like, you know it'll fit you, and then that company never even has to make the clothes until you order it,

as opposed to feeling. You know, however, many of the czars there are in the world, millions maybe with clothes for everyone to try on, which will never be end up being purchased, and then they just end up being waste. Eventually. People are predicting that this could address that kind of oversupply. It's crazy. And I'm also thinking about, all right, let's go on to something else that's in the magazine, because I think it's interesting because it's another big thing theme

that we're talking about the real world. It's uh and it's something you and I talked about. You know. There's the great resignation going on. A lot of people are quitting their jobs. We are not. We're all at work. Somehow we're here. We are so are we addicted to work? There's a book out about this. Yes. So these two journalists, Charlie Worzel and an Helen Peterson, who is a very

popular newsletter that all my friends are addicted to. UM. Basically quit their left left their workplaces in New York during the pandemic, and went to live in Montana. And they thought, Okay, you know, all the time that we spent uh commuting and stuff, we're gonna switch that up and we're gonna go skiing and hiking and and that didn't turn out to be the case. They just filled all that extra time with work in including write a book,

which like maybe more productive work UM. And so they went and they looked at, uh, these sort of the flaws we have in the American work system because actually, in some European countries with more efficiency, uh, people use that time for leisure. But Americans and actually the Chinese, turns out we're not programmed that way. And so, you know, because more of us have been working remotely, they looked at all this and they saw all these complicated trends.

One they call toxic individualism, which is like sort of everyone's competing with each other to show up how much they work. And then there's hierarchies where if you're not in the office, maybe it doesn't look like you're working as hard as the people who are in the office. So if you're working from home, you work more hours to seem more productive. It's you know, it's created all these structural issue is that you know, I still need to be solved. That's interesting to me about hybrid because

we can talk about hybrid being the solution. But I do think that that's such a great point that are those that don't come to the office disadvantage ultimately, and so I think that's a really really important point. So, um,

let's talk about first of all, Hannah Elliott. I love when she writes something and about her experience, and she talks about um Mercedes Complete ev So it's their first electric sitdan and it's about a hundred thousand dollars and Hannah put it through the most rigorous tests that you possibly could. She drove it over Thanksgiving week when all of her family came to visit. So she picked them up at the airport and you know, she drove around,

she took them on tours. And then when she was at the grocery store parking lot at the Gelson's, suddenly, when she was like racing to get stuff on Thanksgiving morning, suddenly she said, wait a minute, I've had this car several days and I've forgot to charge it, and so she's like, oh no. She gets back to her car, she's like, it's going to be out of charge, and

she still had a hundred miles left. Our thanks to Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser for joining us with a look at the latest and greatest in the section from this week's issue, and that reraps up the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanavak. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.

You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News. Also check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. Bloomberg Business Week. We're available on newsstands now at Bloomberg dot com, business Week dot com, and on the Bloomberg Terminal. You can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake. It's available on Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV,

and more. Have a great weekend, make some pizza. Just gonna say that this is Bloomberg.