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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. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend podcast. That Chair J. Powell dominates our first hour thanks to an exclusive conversation with Carlisle's David Rubinstein this past week, and also because of another Bloomberg Business Week exclusive and cover story with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was asked about keeping Chair Powell should Trump find himself back in the White House. All of that to come in just a moment.
We also leaned on one individual to tie up the Bloomberg world of markets, business, and yes, lots of politics. Stefan Sielig, under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce during the Obama administration, stop by to help us make sense of it all he did.
Indeed, all that to come, we begin with former President Donald Trump. It was one week ago that an assassination ATTEP was made on his life. This past week, the former president announced Jade Vance as his vice president and running mate, and officially became the Republican Party's candidate for president, all happening at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
There is no victory in winning for a half of em, So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States.
Donald Trump is also the cover story for the August issue of Bloomberg Business Week, just out on newstands, online and on the Bloomberg Business we Go. Editor Brad Stone, alongside Bloomberg White House correspondence Nancy Cook, Joshua Green and Mario Parker, sat down with the former president at mar A Lago for an exclusive interview to learn more about the policies that may come should he be elected to a second term, everything from Texas to Tara s Fedjow, Jpowell, Taiwan and more.
Here's Bradstone, editor of Bloomberg Business Week, on how the interview with Donald Trump all came together.
You know, earlier this year we knew that we would be covering a momentous campaign Business Week. Obviously it's our lane is business and the global economy, and so we reached out to both campaigns and we told each candidate that we wanted we asked for an interview focusing on business and the economy, and the Trump campaign responded first and they were willing to do it. We went down
to mar A Lago on June twenty fifth. I went with our White House colleagues, Mario Parker, Josh Green, Nancy Cook. We visited mar A Lago early, I guess late in the morning on a Tuesday. It's off season, so it's very quiet there and Palm Beach and up mar A Lago.
You know what can I do? It was you know, it's it's.
A little bit of what you imagine, a little bit of that, uh, you know, that Trump style luxury that one might be familiar with from his buildings and and the and the former casinos. Lots of monuments to Trump in the in the clubhouse where we were, like birthday gifts, balloon towers in the bathrooms, like lots of momento Trump focused mementos.
Uh.
And then the candidate himself came in and.
As I wrote, you know, was was was personable, you know, tries to be charming. I mean, it's interesting because you put him in front of a camera or a crowd, and you know he's not the biggest fan of the media, but he was.
You know, he wanted to do this.
I think the cover of a magazine and the cover of BusinessWeek means something to him, and he wanted, you know, he wanted to get his message across.
You know what's interesting too, Brad, I think about the interview in Trump's policies taking greater urgency are becoming even more important to know in detail if you consider the events of the last couple of weeks. I'm thinking about President Biden's debate performance not so great as we know, the assassination attempt over the weekend and subsequent supercharge momentum that has come to the Trump campaign as a result. We really want to understand these policies and some of
the kind of cues he has given. Maybe over the last couple of months, you guys wanted to dig deeper.
Yeah, I mean there are two things, you know.
One is it's a pretty vague set of policy proposals you talk about. He talks about higher tariffs, lower taxes, stopping immigration at the border, but at the same time
he's targeting inflation. So you know, one, I think because these are vague, broad brushstrokes, it has allowed proxies to come in with things like Project twenty twenty five or this independent white paper that suggested he could curtail the independence of the Federal Reserve, and there's been some confusion there, and in our interview he kind of tried to try to walk that back and disavow some of these other projects. The other thing is that there are some contradictions in
his plan. I mean, if you're attacking inflation, then increasing tariffs or shrinking the labor pool through harsher restrictions on immigration is not conventionally the way to do it. And so you know, we talked to a lot of independent economists in the story that point that out.
You know.
As for pushing and pressing Trump on that, it was interesting he kept bringing up William McKinley, the twenty fifth president, a fellow Ohio, and I might add who's probably most known for he was assassinated early in a second term. But he thinks that people are discounting the wisdom of tariffs that you could drive not just revenue, but tougher negotiations with your partners and in a sense that he thinks it will all pencil out.
In the end, even though the campaign does.
Not really talk about how they would you account for the increase of the deficit that would come from things like permanently reducing the corporate time Brad.
Everything ties back to economics and business, no question, and even foreign policy. And I'm curious about what you learn about his views regarding Taiwan, what he said about Ukraine, and sort of what surprised you about those.
Well, I mean his riff on Taiwan was shocking in the moment and shocking as I reflect on it. I mean, he basically said that Taiwan is a you know, a US ally. He said that Taiwan has stolen our chip business, that they should be paying us for protection, that it's thousands of miles away and very close to China, and he called it the apple of She's I so probably unsettling for Taiwan partisans as it relates to Ukraine, things
like Iran and Israel. I mean, he spins, you know, a scenario where he doesn't think that the conflicts that are happening now would be occurring if he were still president. And of course you can argue with that, but he traces it back to Iran and you know some of the sanctions there that were then lifted, you know, in the nuclear agreement, and he just believes that America's enemies have been empowered after he left office.
I am curious as you guys were talking to Donald Trump, Brad, at any point did he did you get a feeling he didn't want to go to certain areas or was he pretty much an open book when it comes to maybe his policies, his economic policies during a second term.
Yeah, I don't recall anything any topic being off limits. I would say that, you know that there were certain areas where we pressed, you know, the economic impact of tariffs, who he would bring into his administration, where you know, I think we probably ended up hitting the limit of his current thinking. At the time, he hadn't picked a vice presidential candidate. Obviously we pressed him on that. He
wasn't willing to go there yet. Now, of course we know it's JdE Evans, but I mean, look, this was supposed to be a forty five minute interview, and Jason Miller, the campaign chair, he tried to end it a couple of times, and President Trump kept talking to us, so there was a lot in his mind and nothing that was really off limits.
One thing I am curious. I feel like Donald Trump is somebody that you know, we've seen a lot in the media. You know, you think about The Apprentice, I think about when he used to go on David Letterman and he was fixing the ice skating rink here in New York City. Like, there's just kind of a bigger than life kind of individual, larger than life individual. What
was he like face to face? And you know, we know we've seen him in sometimes debate or other you know, he's very combative, he's very you know, going talking to a crowd. What was he like face to face?
As I said before, I mean, I think you get a different Trump in a crowd or in front of a camera, and in the smaller and the smaller setting, he's a little bit more solicitous. And it really struck me that he's quite absorbed with who likes him and who doesn't, and who's on his team and who isn't.
So as an example, Carol I showed him a copy of last month's Bloomberg Business Week with Bernard Arnault all the time and he's and and he you know, he sat with us for a little bit and then and this was before the interview, and then during the interview, maybe like fifteen minutes in, he kind of stopped and said, by the way, you know your previous cover candidate did.
I'm I'm friends with him.
I'm curious if he's friends with if he said he was friends with me. So he wanted to know whether one of the wealthiest people in the world, mister Arnaut, was a Trump supporter.
Essentially, That's how I interpreted it.
And you know, we published a transcript and you can see the whole conversation.
But I think that was what surprised me.
You know that he's quite interested in in who's his supporter and who is right.
You were in Paris for that interview with Bernard Arnaut, so remind everyone, did he say anything about the former president?
Did not come up?
Come up.
But but you know, when when up with President Darnau did open some a factory I think it was in Texas and appeared with President Trump.
Hey to that end, I'm wondering about how the thinking around this piece changed over the last few weeks and really over the last few days, as it was going to print because you mentioned you did this in late June. That was before the disastrous debate for President Biden. It was also before he had picked a running mate, and it was also, of course before what happened on Saturday
with the assassination attempt. So talk a little bit about how you're thinking around the piece changed before publication and since you did the interview.
Yeah, tim not much changed.
You know, this was a cover story about the candidate and his plan for the economy and for American business.
That didn't change. You know.
What we did have to reconsider was the timing, just because you know, this is a little bit right off the current events of last weekend, and we didn't we didn't want it to get lost in the you know, well deserved attention that was coming to you know, the incident in Pennsylvania. I mean, yeah, obviously it could have affected it a whole lot more, and thank heavens, it didn't. But if anything, I think maybe the importance of the story went up.
Just because you know, Trump was already.
To my mind, feeling a lot of momentum on June twenty fifth. It seemed to me that he had a bounce in his step and as Carol, as you said, you know, recent events over the past few weeks have transpired to at least make it appear that he has the momentum.
Right now coming into the GOP convention.
As I say in the editor's note, a lot can change. It's July, but this is why we think that the time is right for more attention on his economic agenda.
Hey, you talk about momentum behind Trump, a lot of attention. He is getting momentum around from folks in Silicon Valley. You understand the tech community so well, having spent so many years covering it and writing about it. Having said that, whether it's Elon Musk and some other entrepreneurs out of Silicon Valley, seems like he's getting a fair amount of love, but not from corporate America. And that is something we've
been talking about, certainly among the publicly held companies. You guys talked a little bit about that.
Yeah, and let me say two things.
One, I do think we're hearing some loud voices from Silicon Valley that are in Trump's camp, but there's no real telling whether that's.
Some minority or a majority.
I think that there's a risk calculation that investors and entrepreneurs engage in in tech. And you know, and the risk calculation here is if you support Trump any wins, you know, you're on the right side of a president who remembers his friends and enemies. And if if Biden wins, that support, you know, doesn't necessarily make a difference. And so I think that and what you're seeing in the business community now is and I I quote some folks saying this is, you know, there's a lot of fear.
You might not think that Donald Trump deserves the second term, but being overt about it and getting on his enemies lists, you know, might end up hurting you. So if you're a big public CEO, you know, you might have a fiduciary duty dear shareholders to kind of keep your nose down right now.
And I think that's a little bit of what we're seeing in the business community.
Interesting, Hey, Brad, One thing that we've been talking a lot about, and it's also getting a lot of attention outside the newsroom, is the transcript of the interview with the former president and the Republican nominee. Because you and the team over at Bloomberg business Week fact checked the transcript and I encourage everybody to check it out online because it has sort of hyperlinks to footnotes that include context and information and a lot of numbers based on
what the the former president said. Talk a little bit about that process, because that's not something that we see with every interview.
No, it's not.
And by the way, I think we would do that for other interviews with other presidential candidates too, So it's not anything special or unique for Donald Trump.
But look, I mean this was a ninety minute conversation.
You know, there were parts of his answers and also frankly, parts of our questions that we thought deserved either more context or correcting the public record. This is also something that we've seen other news organizations do. I think it's a great way to add just extra context for our readers, but along the way offering the candidate's remarks in a totally transparent form. So in my mind, it was sort of the best of both worlds. It was not an
easy task. It's a ninety minute conversation that covered a lot of ground, and so kudos to my colleagues.
In the Washington DC Bureau who did the hard work.
I just want to confirm you did not go home with a maga hat.
Right.
So at the end of the he had his aide Steven Miller, go out of the room during the interview to come back with the ha that said Trump was right about everything, and he was crowing about the hat. And as I said, he was bragging about a bunch of things, and he tried to give it to us.
At the end.
Then we politely declined and cocher diet coke coke. Yeah, he did go on his ref about thin people not drinking diet coke.
Okay, all right, Bradstone, incredible your second monthly issue and an incredible cover story that is, of course the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, Bradstone. Check out the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week on newsstands, catch it online and on the Bloomberg So appreciated so many different aspects. Our team has been all over the different pieces of it.
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 then brout Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
We have leaned on our next guest many times throughout the global pandemic, in the days following the murder of George Floyd, throughout the twists and turns of the twenty twenty presidential rate, and so much more. He's someone who's worked in leadership roles in both the private and public sectors, including a nearly thirty year career on Wall Street, which is why we love talking about about so much of
what is the Bloomberg world. His former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade at the used Department of Commerce that was during the Obama administration, headed up the International Trade Administration. I could go on, but then we would be done. Let's get to it. Stefan Sielig is back with us, managing partner and founder of Bridge Park Advisors, the financing advisory firm here in our Bloomberg studio.
This environment, I'm not.
Quite sure where to start, but it does feel like politics is the right place to start in terms of what might happen in November. Does it matter who ultimately is in the White House come November?
You know, Look, I think it depends on what the issue is, right and so some of the things we've talked about in the past, like China, this is one topic where maybe the only topic where Democrats and Republicans seem quite aligned, which is getting tougher on China. I'm not sure policies will be radically different between a Trump and a potentially Abiden iministration. I think the deficit ain't gone down with either president. I think defense spending is
going up with either president. I think as a result of that, from an economic perspective, I'm not sure there's going to be a ton of difference. I think from a political perspective, clearly President Trump is going to be much more isolationist. He is going to have much stricter immigration policies, and he is going to spend a lot
of money. And so I think what all that does, which is why you're seeing the steepening of the yield curve, the so called Trump trade that you've talked about in the strengthening of the dollar, is you know, those are all going to be quite inflationary, especially if he adopts some of these more aggressive tarror proposals that he's talked about both with China and in imports, which could be Trumpian hyperbole, right, but if it does happen, that inflation is going to go up dramatically and.
Can you play that out for us because I don't think I think there's times in terms of I think of voters who are just trying to pay their bills at this point. But how would that potentially play out and impact the US economy and US citizens.
Well, tariffs are nothing else other than taxes, right, They're taxes on goods, and unfortunately they're quite regressive because the people that are impacted most are you know, the folks that are paying their bills every month in groceries and car payments and everything else, and so prices will go up. There was not a very significant impact in the Trump original set of tariffs because they were not that significant,
and President Biden obviously kept them largely in place. So the real question is he going to be much more aggressive in the next term and if that is going to happen. You know, some economists are talking about one hundred basis point two hundred basis point increases in inflation, let alone about the impact and the slowing of the economy overall.
You talk to CEOs all the time in your position at Bridge Park Advisors. What are they telling you?
Well, look, before we talk about the CEO perspective. In a moment, I almost have a counterintuitive point of view, which is the strengthening of Trump from this horrific assassination attempt could in fact have an opposite of the Trump trade, which is this could be maybe an accelerant to having
a change Democratic ticket. Really and if that were to be the case, just based on the poll numbers, you'd actually argue for taking the opposite side of that trade, because now Biden looks so much weaker than even he did after the debate that that may force Democratic leadership and the President himself to really re evaluate whether or not he wants to stay in And I have no perspective on whether that is going to be the case or not, but it is interesting that the strengthening of
Trump could have that potential outcome.
Do you realistically see a scenario in the next few weeks where there is a change at the top of the ticket. I mean, the President did reiterate he's in it to win it.
Yeah, we've all heard the same thing. On the one hand. On the other hand, despite which you may think about the President some of his policies, I believe he is a true patriot and he wants to do the right thing for the country, and if he becomes convinced that he is not going to be able to beat Donald Trump, he may change his mind, because at the end of
the day, this is not just a narcissistic decision. It is a decision that many people believe is going to fundamentally affect and I'm sure he does the direction of this country. Going back to your question about CEOs, what I would say is, first of all, most fortune five hundred CEOs are Republicans, So I don't know poles have
been taking seventy five percent are Republicans. You're starting with a base that most CEOs of big companies would vote for Trump kind of along party lines on the one hand. On the other hand, for this particular candidate, in the conversations I've had, I don't see much enthusiasm. For one, I don't think they appreciate his style. Two is some of these policies. CEOs are not isolationists, they are not xenophobic,
they are not protectionists. They don't like tariffs, and so they don't like all of the social policies that are being talked about, for example, LGBTQ rights, and so while I think on the one hand, you know, many of them are seeing the writing on the wall and as a result not standing up and lining behind President Biden.
On the other hand, I don't think there's a lot of enthusiasm for this particular president as much as there is enthusiasm for traditionally central centrist Republican policies as a way to drive corporate profits in corporate prosperity.
You know.
One of the things that we've been talking a lot about is kind of the establishment. Folks in Silicon Valley are really in kind of the venture startup world, and they're backing of Donald Trump and JD. Vance. It seems like at this point, why do you think that they appeal to them? Is it tax like? What is it?
Well, part of it is JD. Vance. You had a job in Silicon Valley for a while, and so I think there is a little bit of a connection that he has personally with some of those folks.
But Peter til and Elon, we're backing Trump.
For a long time.
Yeah, And I would say, frankly, Carrol, those are not really representative of the Fortune five hundred establishment traditionally. Now it may be the New World Order, but it certainly wasn't the world order of the last you know generation.
Well, is it important to make that distinction because it's interesting. They're in the headlines a lot, sure, but they're.
In the headlines a lot because of you know, the huge you know, wealth and success of Elon Musk and a number of other folks that like to you know, comment on this. But traditionally, corporate CEOs are going to be much more reticent for making public political, you know, statements, because it's kind of not their lane and not their job.
So as a result of that, you kind of have the squeaky reel sort of phenomenon where you have folks like Bill Ackman that like to comment on these things, and Elon Musk because of X and other things, that likes to comment on these things. We're traditional corporate executives, I think, because you know, their customers and their clients are both Republicans and Democrats, are quite chary about being as vocal.
Hey, we well, speaking of that, we did just speak to Kara Murphy over at Kestra Investment Management, and she encouraged our listeners and our viewers to look beyond the election and argued that who's in the White House really
doesn't matter when it comes to financial markets. That said, we spoke to Read Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder and billionaire, about six weeks ago over in at our San Francisco conference, and he said it absolutely does matter because he's concerned about a lack of stability as a result of a Trump presidency. What side are you on? Does it matter who's in the White House?
You know, I think, of course it matters, But you also have to have to ask that question in conjunction with what happens to the Congress, and is it going to be a divided government or not a divide of government, because that is a natural check in balance UH that I think will cause some of them more extreme outcomes from UH taking place. But what I would say is, you know, the United States position in the world will
clearly be different between these two governments. And you know President ex president former President Trump and President Biden have a different worldview in terms of cooperation internationalism versus isolationism, and that is going to impact not only the citizenry, but impact businesses in many respects. And so I don't think it can be ignored. I am not quite as alarmist as some folks in terms of the end of democracy and civil war and some of the other things
that you know, some people are talking about. On the one hand, I do think, you know, this is an important election and we need to be rightly talking about the issues.
Someone do you feel like you worked than the government the Obama administration? Do we still have checks and balances?
Obviously our system hasn't changed. What has changed, Carol is we used to govern from the middle, and now we're governing from the extremes in both parties, and that is what creates a lot of I think these tensions and a lot of our ineffectiveness in terms of our ability to implement any policies. And I think, frankly, and this is my personal point of view, until we get back to the middle, we're going to have a lot of We're going to have some real issues because that's what
creates the animosity and the ability to collaborate. And you know, when President Biden was in the Senate, he was you know, notoriously well known and rightly so for actually being being able to collaborate across the aisle. And you don't see that from either party at the moment. And I don't see that changing with this election in either direction.
You did say until we get back to the middle, which strikes me as really optimistic. Do you see within I mean, it's not an.
I think he said he was an optimist within our lifetime.
Do you get back to the you know, you know, I don't know, Tim, You may as well be hopeful because it's better than the other choice.
Yeah, that's fair.
Your clients, what do they ask you most about?
Well, you know, I think at the moment, as you as you rightly said, there was a whole conversation around what was going to happen on the top of the Democratic ticket than the implications of the assassination attempt, clearly, But I think there's still a lot of uncertainty in the economy. And you know, you guys spend a lot of time, understandably talking about the markets, but the markets and the real economy are divergent. And the fact is is that despite being at all time highs in the
equity markets, you know, consumer sentiment is not high. Savings are being depleted, Inflation is going up, Costs to consumers
are going up. Car payments, mortgage payments are are higher because of interest rates, and that's creating a real sense of a you know, lack of prosperity with most American households and households, Carol, you know this, households don't own a lot of stock, right, so that all of that good stuff that we talk about in the equity markets really doesn't impact households traditionally, and even that high equity market guys talk about this all the time. It's really technology.
And it's not just technology. It's a handful of companies in the technology sector.
Why do you think that so much America is struggling at a time when the economy is so good for so many people.
Well, I don't know, Tim, is it's so good for so many people's there's a real wealth gap, and it's good for a lot of I think your listeners who occupy a certain economic position in this country, and I'm not so sure it's so good for so many people. A lot of people are struggling, and that is why this populism that President Trump and jd. Vance espouse has becoming,
has become so popular. And I think, you know, we can't ignore that, and you know, we can all have stylistic concerns and concerns about some of their policies, but the people, the Americans that they are talking to, really feel what they are they are trying to address.
Yeah, I think it explains very much the political environment that we are, not just in the United States, but really globally right in terms of people not feeling that they're doing better.
For sure, and you know, Brexit, the elections in France, et cetera, et cetera. I mean this is a global phenomenon.
Thank you, as Oweys Stefan Seelik, his magic partner at Bridge Park Advisors.
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.
On inflation, we in the first quarter, we didn't make any more progress. The second quarter, actually we did make some more progress. We've had now three better readings, and if you average them, it's that's a pretty good pace.
That's Federal Reserve Chair J Powell talking with David Rubinstein this past Monday at an Economic Club of Washington luncheon event. It was just about a week and a half ago that Chair Powell was up on Capitol Hill for two days of congressional testimony that was followed by cooling inflation data. It all comes ahead of another FOMC meeting at the end of this month.
In David's conversation fed Share, Powell declined to give any guidance on the timing of interest rate moves. That kind of makes sense, right, Carol, that's not surprising.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
He did though, say that the most recent CPI data quote do add somewhat end quote to confidence that inflation is heading down to the central banks two percent goal and that labor markets are now in a quote better place.
Right.
We got another kind of confirmation of that as jobless claims were ticking up, So again some softening in the labor market, not coming undone, but nonetheless some softening.
Well.
The conversation, though on Monday, also touched on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and whether J. Powell would serve another term as Federal Reserve chairman if Donald Trump is back in the White House. All of this, we do want to point out happening before the Bloomberg headlines and Bloomberg Business recover story on Donald Trump saying he wouldn't seek to remove Powell before his term ends in twenty twenty six.
Now, let's get to our conversation with David Rubinstein, who is a co founder of the private equity firm Carlisle, also a Bloomberg host. For more on his talk with FED chair j Powell.
Well, I am the chairman of the Economic Club of Washington, and in that capacity I often interview government leaders and business leaders. And Jay Powell and had been somebody i'd interviewed before. He had worked at my firm a number of years ago, while before he was at the FED. And so we worked out a date that I would do this interview today, and we had about seven hundred people there and obviously a live TV audience.
David, we were chuckling the whole time. I mean, this was like a really a Powell that you don't see at press conference, as a Powell that you don't see every day. It's clear that you too are familiar with one another. What did you want to get out of the interview? Because we know that he's not going to give us any indication about a rate path he established that at the top of the interview. What did you want to get out of it?
Well, I think it's always good to humanize well known people and people can understand them better and the way they make decisions and the way they kind of handle their job. And I thought humanizing him would be always good. Clearly, when you're a chairman of the FED, you talk in what I've often called Fed speak, which is to say, it's very difficult for the average person to understand it.
But Jay does a better job than some of his predecessors and speaking in common English because he's not a trained economist, and I just thought giving people an update on his perspectives on the economy would be a good thing. I mean, obviously, as you point out, he's not going to announce at an interview with me that he's lowering interest rates.
You can't expect that.
But I think he gave a pretty good description of how they decide to lower interest rates or increase interest rates, and I thought it was informative, and therefore I thought, you know, he accomplishes his goal, which is the kind of you know, show people how he makes decisions. And I accomplished my goal, which is kind of humanized the Chairman of the FED a little bit more than maybe he otherwise would be.
Well, David, help us understand your relationship. You mentioned that you guys do go back years. Of course, he was a partner at the Carlisle Group before he went into public service. I'm wondering if you're in touch with him regularly now, if you consider him a friend, Just give us an idea of your relationship with him.
I wouldn't say I'm in touch with him regularly when you're a chairman of the FED. You know, I think it's somebody like me doesn't want to be calling him up all the time, and you know, I don't want to look like I'm trying to get information from him. And he worked at Karloff for years. Well, I wouldn't say I was his closest friend or vice versa. So I know him reasonably well. I've interviewed him I think three times or four times at the Economic Club in Washington,
and I have a good relationship with him. But I wouldn't say we're, you know, close as a friends. But I certainly like him and admire what he's done for the country and the job that he's had.
You know, what's interesting too, and something we've talked a lot about David is you know, the neutral rate and what he thinks about that two percent goal that the Federal Reserve has. He said, the neutral rate is probably higher today. Monetary policy is restrictive, but not severely restrictive. I am curious how you see things. Do you think the neutral rate doesn't make sense anymore, that it does
need to be higher? And what is your expectation or what you think the Fed should be doing when it comes to interest rates right now?
Well, I think the country will do much better off listening to j Pal's hues on where the interest rate should go than probably my views on interest rates. But I think that's a general sense that the market is believing that there will be a cut, and I think Jay made it clear that he doesn't listen to a political situation. So I have said in speeches that I thought it would be unlikely that the Fed would want
to cut during a presidential election period of time. But I think he's made it clear that that's not his view or the view of the FOMC, that if they think the data warrants a cut, they will have a cut, and therefore the FED could do something at the end of July when they meet, or they could do something again when they meet in September. And my guess is that some time before the FED meets after the election,
they will do something that'd be my current thinking. The economy could change, and obviously data is everything, but right now the markets are anticipating, and I think the FED is not shutting down the idea that something could happen before the election.
Before the election, okay, do you think that the election in any way sways I mean, we're all human, right, and we can say we're very objective, but we're human and impacted by lots of things that are going on in this world. Do you think that j Powell and policymakers at the FED might be swayed a little bit of small influence when it comes to the November election presidential election.
I think the.
FED, everything Jay says, is that they don't really pay attention to the election dates. And I think right now, since so many people pay attention to the markets and the interest rates where they are, that I think that the will do what the data suggests is appropriate. And when the data gets to the point where they see inflation more or less getting the two percent and the economy softening a bit.
I suspect they.
Will not wait until after the election because they don't want to be seen as political and therefore, while they might be criticized by some for lowering interest rates before the end of the before the election's over, I just think the Fed has given enough signals, including today, that they're not going to worry about the election. They'll do what the data suggests is appropriate.
I do wonder, David, as you said, you've talked with Jay Powell several times, certainly in this format. So monetary policy obviously in the economy first and foremost, and there are certain things that Jay Powell will go you guys laugh about some of the things he will obviously not reveal.
But having said that, at the end of the conversation, when it comes to the things the Bloomberg audience cares so much about in terms of monetary policy and the economy, what was your key takeaway from j Powell?
My key takeaway from the interview and with my discussion with him, is that he's a man who's very much on top of the data. He enjoys the job, not worn out by it, doesn't say, well is to me, I have got all this pressure on my shoulder. I think he can deal with it quite well.
He's used to it.
He's been in the chair for quite some time. I think he's reasonably happy now with where the economy is. Remember, we didn't go into the hard landing that everybody was predicting. People thought there would be a recession that last year
or this year. That didn't happen. So whoever gets credit for it, the FED deserves some share of that credit because they manage the economy into a really nice soft landing so called and so right now, while unemployment is going up, I don't think it's going up by such on a level that's scaring people. I think the markets are in pretty good shape and the economy is in pretty good shape.
He didn't want to comment on the market, the idea of the so called Trump trade returning after this horrific event. He was clear about that up on top and I'm at the top of the interview. But I'm curious about your view and what you think is being priced into markets right now, David, the Fed chair not weighing in, but politically, what is being priced in right now?
Well, clearly the events, no doubt scared a lot of people about the violence that is still prevalent in this country in many areas. Unfortunately, and so fortunately, we did not have an assassination, though one person did die tragically and another person still in the hospital for the wounds that that person suffered as well. Sad situation. Obviously, the investigations will figure out what the federal what the Secret
Service could have done differently or better. I'm not an expert in that area, so I just can't say what they will find. But clearly, you know, we have an eliminated violence from our political situation.
Unfortunately, David, you've served in the federal government. You were chief counsel to the US Senate Judiciari's Committee sub committee back in the seventies, Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy during the Carter administration. The democracy has faced other heavy periods before. It feels rather heavy today. Is there something different this time around?
You are?
I feel like it's safe to say, a student of history, you respect past leaders and what they've done. How do you make sense of this particular political and historical period.
Well, it's difficult to really put it in context right now. Because you can't really tell what the historical impact it is till many years afterwards. But right now the country seems to be fairly bitterly divided between the Democrats and Republicans. And it wasn't the case fifty years ago or so. When John Kennedy ran for president against Richard Nixon in nineteen sixty, they campaigned in most of the states because
they didn't know how the states would go. Now the country's fairly divided, so we know how almost all the states are going to go. They're only five or six, maybe seven states where it's a kind of a swing state. So it's much different than it used to be. The tensions between both sides seem to be much greater than
they used to be. Bipartisanship is something that is not as common as it used to be in Washington, d C. So I don't know whether the events of this weekend will scare people into saying we should try to be less i'd say violent in our rhetoric and less condemning of other sides. President Trump has suggested that he would make a more unifying speech than otherwise was going to make, and I think President Biden's speech last night was designed
to also have a unifying impact. Whether we can unify our country in a way like this that way I think we should, I don't know, but it will probably have some beneficial impact, though obviously the events were tragic.
David, are you optimistic given the heated political environment right now?
I'm optimistic that the country is in reasonable shape economically politically we can do more than we should than we have been doing to kind of bring the country together, and that part the jury is still out, but I'm hopeful that that while the events were tragic over the weekend, that they'll have some beneficial impact in getting both sides, Democrats and Republicans to try to work together more cooperatively.
J Powell said to you, predictions are very difficult, especially about the future. When you think about the future for the United States politically, economically, what's top of mind and curious if you have any plans to maybe want to be at the Federal Reserve.
You guys talked about if it's a good job.
Well, I think it's really hard to kind of say that all of a sudden, we're going to eliminate all the schisms that we've had in the last couple of years. Clearly there are a lot of tensions between the two side political sides. J Powell has been appointed by a Republican president and reappointed by democratic president, and he's done a really good job of kind of walking a fine line of not trying to be seen as political or democratic or Republican. I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.
Well.
I think he's done a good job. I remember, this is not a job that anybody really thinks it is an easy job. Many people who have emerged from the job, you know, are generally applauded after they've served, but when they're serving, very often they get criticized by both sides.
And it's hard to be chairman of the FED. And in fact, as one chairman of the FED once said, William mc chesney Martin, my job is to take away the punch bowl at the party, which is to say, take away all the fun that you would you would want to get. And so that's the job of the chairman of the Fed, is to take away the punch bowl. And people don't like that.
Absolutely.
David Rubinstein, thank you so much. Busy day for you and so appreciate checking in with you. Bloomberg host and Carlile co founder and co chair David Rubinstein. You can catch his show and conversation with Jay Powell July twenty fourth at nine pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV.
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 ed Broight Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube plenty.
Hen our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including a retired NASA astronaut on sharing space and the privatization of space travel.
Plus the Porsche's first nine to eleven hybrid that comes with more power, speed and a start button and a one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars price tag.
And I got to tell you something. Hannah Elliott, who reviews cars for Our World, she loved it all right. First up this hour the Great Space Race, which when it comes up, a lot of people probably think of the billionaires, you know, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson. There is a different kind of space race though, happening, and that is the race to fill low Earth orbit. We're talking about satellites.
Originally, launching satellites was the role of governments, but with the number of satellites orbiting the Earth commercial or otherwise expected to quadruple in the coming years, it's become an increasingly commercialized venture.
That is the focus of the new HBO documentary Wild Wild Space. Take a listen.
You've heard about the billionaire space race. This isn't that movie. We're in the midst of a revolution in space. It's like the Wild West.
The era of governments controlling this stuff is over.
At Disastrospace, I run a secret rocket company.
Chris is living embodiment of Silicon Valley.
I'm a scientist and he is a capitalist.
We're trying to build Tanasa at one one million to the budget.
And people take it really seriously.
Right if you're declaring to the world the have a product that works, a bit of bloody work. Now, I started rocket Lab in two thousand and six.
You could not have a more online background for starting Arriger company.
No university education, no airspace background.
It's a company.
Peter's rocket is a very high performance machine, but it's expensive to build. We often get accused of building priorities or more like a Ford, how much more an high volume product.
If Peter's not right, Peter loses.
If I'm not right, I adapt we hit something.
I'm not built.
I'm going to crucify head.
The fabric of our civilization runs on the satellite.
There is a lot of money.
To be made up.
There is now open to the business.
Nothing's writing on this set of things, like our right to privacy.
There are commercial companies that have nothing to do with governments, snapping pictures day after day in the power of.
The world falling into the wrong hands.
So now you have thousands of satellites which themselves are potentially weapons.
And whoever controls space may very well control the future of humanity.
That's the new HBO documentary Wild Wild Space, which premiered last Wednesday on the streaming service Max. The documentary is inspired by Bloomberg BusinessWeek feature writer Ashley Vance's book When the Heavens Went On Sale, The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to put Space within Reach. Ashley is also the author of the first Elon Musk biography ever written. It's called Elon Musk Tesla SpaceX and The Quest for a Fantastic Future.
He joined us alongside Oscar winning director Ross Kaufman, who directed Wild, Wild Space, among other films.
Well, I'd done the Elon Musk biography, which came out around twenty fifteen, and was not a space nerd going into that, but SpaceX was my favorite stuff to report on. And then right when I finished the book, pretty much because I think SpaceX had proven some things out and commercial space felt real, there were these rocket and satellite companies that suddenly were popping up, not just in the United States but all over the world, and everyone thought, oh, be the next deal on Musk and whatever.
You know, people thought, maybe you.
Can actually make a go of this, and so I just kind of caught the bug, and I spent a couple of years going literally all over the world trying to find the most interesting stories, and so, you know, a bunch of those went into the book, and then and then started filming a bit along the way.
Just because I had this access to these rooms.
You don't usually get to have a camera, and we kind of caught the companies young enough where you were able to like be in the Michigan control and film these things that you never ever get to see when a rocket blows up.
And that's what I was amazing about. I'm like, well, wait a minute, how the heck did they like? I was like, where there was the footage with somebody else, but you were filming it all along?
Yeah, I mean some of this, you know, I credit companies were giving us this access and seeing this risk. Astra Space is one of the main companies in the film. The CEO Chris Camp we had this arrangement early on when the cup, when it was really five people in a garage. He said, look, if you want to go on this, you can tell the truth whatever happens, good or bad, and come with us all the way to orbit for the first time. And that ended up being
this very winding road. And to Chris's credit, he did let me do what he said, and.
You feel it, Ross, come on in. So how did you come into the picture. And when you also were able to finally like see some of this stuff that Ashley had you know, filmed, were you like, oh my god, a gift?
Well it was really I mean, first of all, I got a call from HBO and they said, hey, Ross, we have this documentary footage. It wasn't a documentary.
Yet it's footage that this author.
From Bloomberg filmed, and it's kind of all over the place, be honest with you, And they said, we'd love for you to come in, take a look at some of the footage, and then see if you feel like you can make a movie out of it in some way, shape or form. And so I went in and I didn't realize no one had told me there was about three hundred.
Hours of it.
So it was a little I was like, Okay, well this is a bit more of a job than I thought. And so but I screened the footage with my editor, and some of.
The footage was incredible. I mean being in those.
Rooms where rockets crash and it was really it was.
It was incredible.
And then some of the footage was really not it was it was funny. We really had to really gut through it all and.
Try to figure out what I love.
And I said this before, is that when you first started shooting Ashley, the footage is not very good because you didn't really know how to film the people. But as you progress, as the years went by, the footage got better because you and so and it mirrored how the companies functioned right, and it really like stylistically it was perfect.
But who could have ever thought that anyway? So that's kind of how I got involved.
At what point, Ross, did you did you sort of have the story come into place.
About five minutes before we finished editor.
Because because it is it really is. It's it's not you're not telling it. You're sort of telling a story in real time. I mean, you know this stuff is. You can check the stock prices of some of these companies today. Still you might not want to exactly for some of them, but you follow the process from essentially from birth all the way to going public during this this crazy run up during like with SPACs and COVID, Like when when did you figure out the story?
Well, we were literally shooting until maybe a month before we finished editing.
Wow.
Yeah, things are happening. And that's the beauty of verite documentaries. You're following things as they're progressing, right. I mean this kind of film kind of stops. It doesn't end, you know what I mean, I mean the film itse OpenDS. But the problem like, all right, we have to stop filming at some point, and this is the film. So it's that's kind of what I love about this kind
of filmmaking is fly on the wall filmmaking. You don't really you get in that edit room and that's where you craft the story.
Well, Ashley is an incredible storyteller, and we've been very lucky to have him here at Bloomberg and be able to talk to him about all of his stories on space and whatever you're working on. Having said that, how was it to see kind of the book come to life and what was important to you in telling these stories?
It was really cool, as ross was saying, you know, I had never made a film before. I just had this idea, this would be a cool thing to try to do a movie in a book. At the same time, it turns out I bit off more than I could chew. And look, I mean, ross has won an Academy Award. It was amazing to have him come on. And so you know, he came on with fresh eyes. I'd spent
years reporting on these subjects. You start to lose a little bit of perspective of what the wider world knows, what they don't know, what's what's going to appeal And so Rossie got through the book, he'd gone through the footage and as you as you guys saw a lot of this stories. This group of friends who were at NASA Ames which is the NASA Silicon Valley Center in their twenties. They had this guy, Pete Warden, who was the head. He's this iconoclastic brigadier general who wanted.
There's a dad and the grandfather and the uncle all rolled right.
He brought it all these young kids and wanted them to do weird stuff in space like go show that NASA can be better, was basically it. And so I think Russ got into a lot of that part of the story and that sort of ends up becoming the heart and so no, it was really gratifying.
To see it come out of the book and to see.
How another storyteller what they were interested in and how they told it well.
Actually certainly a prominent part of the film, but it also focuses on three founders.
We've mentioned some of them.
Peter Beck of Rocket Lab, Chris Camp of Astra, and Will Marshall of Planet Labs. Coming in from a perspective of somebody outside of the industry as a filmmaker, I mean, are there three more perfect characters who you could put on the screen and follow I mean, these guys are truly well it was for.
Different reasons, absolutely, but there's this unifying principle that we kind of came up with at a certain point very early on, and it kind of everything kind of fell into place. The principle was, like, I love found families, and all my films they end up being these crazy families that are and in this case, this this Brigadier General Pete Warden brought in these young people and they became this little found family and I was like, that's kind of what I love like And there was love there,
their friendship. There's love and that's kind of a big part of this film, and people just have a great time, like it's this is a really funny film.
It's a bit of a romp.
And but so bringing these people together, figuring out the characters because the Ashley's book is it's got more than three or four characters, right, you know, like multiple multiple characters and companies. So that was, you know, just trying to figure out who do we follow. Well, that was the principle that we went with and I think it worked.
Yeah.
I do feel like the three main characters are kind of you know, Friday and Id Ego.
And Super Ego.
Hope we can talk about that just a moment to think archetypes. Did you guys agree though? These were the three characters, these were the three companies you had to tell the story about.
I think there were a lot of discussions along the way, but we never had really I don't ever remember any fights or disputes or anything.
I think, yeah, well, I'm just to say very clearly like I had a couple of things going. I mean, one and nothing is about space, and two Ashley is an incredible person to work with. The book was amazing, So it was it was kind of scenes.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ada. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
We're back talking with a couple of the folks behind Wild Wild Space. It's a new HBO documentary. As we mentioned, the film follows entrepreneurs of three companies. One of those is Astra Space. And here's the co founder of Astra Chris Kemp counting down to a launch.
This is our last day in our launch window. We're going to get it this time. Hey, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen.
So too, County County down ten ban Hey seven six, five four three two one.
Go well that one obviously, I'm go say for those listening on radio, the launch finally went off. In case you were wondering.
That's from Wild Wild Space, the new documentary premiering at nine pm tonight, Wall Street Time on HBO.
All right, let's get back to Ashley Vance, features writer at Bloomberg business Week, author of the first Elon Musk biography, Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and The Quest for a Fantastic Future, and a producer of the film and with US Academy Award winner Russ Kaufman. He is the director of Wild Wild Space and earlier film of his Born Into Brothels, won the Oscar for Best Documentary two thousand and five as well as the Emmy for Best Documentary two thousand
and five. And he's been taking pictures in the studio and we're assuming they're going to be killer pictures. We all want copies of them. We're just going to put it out there, maybe get us an academy.
It's a lot of pressure, pressure, all right.
So actually tell us, I keep saying the id ego and super ego. You do have three main characters and companies that are profiled.
Tell us about tell us about them.
Yeah.
Well, Chris camp who we got to see in the clip. I always thought of him as this archetype of Silicon Valley almost. He's this unbridled ambition, this person who will stop it and nothing to achieve his goals. He's, as we mentioned in the film, he's a capitalist and quite driven. We have this guy, Will Marshall, who is the founder and CEO of Planet Labs. I've known him forever. We describe him as a space hippie in the film. I
think that's fair. He's always tried. He kind of came from this university background where he was trying to do good in space. They've created all these imaging satellites that track rainforest and the movement of refugees and things like that. And then we've got Peter Beck who comes from New Zealand. It's probably one of the most incredible stories you'll ever hear. College education. He's self taught in aerospace, which does not happen, you know, just so people know a PhD at the
least to do this. And you know, these days, rocket Lab is the really after SpaceX is really the most legit rocket company there is. And Peter is just that archetypal engineer. I mean he is he is rockets called to him. He has to build things with his hands. This is what he was put on Earth to do. And he's possessed and all that. And then some of these characters, we see them, these things get challenged over over time.
You know, well, Marshall.
Starts as a space hippie, still still is one, but planet goes public during all this.
It does a lot of deals with governments.
It's it's satellites sit in this weird place between nonprofit and and not spying but kind of watching everything that happens for governments. And so, you know, I think the film gets into some of that.
Yeah, talk a little bit about that tension Ross, because that's that's something that is certainly notable. Is this idea of optimism an opportunity among the characters. But at the same time, this idea of democratizing imaging of every single thing, every single day on Earth is something that if not used correctly and in the hands of somebody with ulterior motives, isn't necessarily a good thing.
Absolutely.
I mean it's like anything. I mean, look at the Internet, right, people went in with the best intentions and doesn't always work out. Individuals are flawed. It's gray area. These companies have to make money. It's a slippery slope, and you know, we're kind of dependent on these individuals hoping that they will do the right thing. But when it comes to the bottom line, you know, even the best intentions can
sometimes go awry. So it's a I feel like this film also sheds light on a lot of the issues that we are not only facing, but we will face.
I got to tell you, one of the things that kind of blew my mind is just how crowded it's getting. I know, Bloomberg has done some reporting on this, and you think about, you know, all of these satellites that are you know, floating around and I do wonder kind of how you were thinking about that, and do we need to be worried? Do we need to clean it up? It's something you guys bring up in the film.
I thought about it a lot, and part of the reason I went into this book and the film was I'm a nerd, so I'm interested in the stuff. But I thought like the rest of the world wasn't paying a lot of attention to what's going on. Again, I think the film is funny. I tend to be pretty optimistic about things, but we do raise these these questions.
Most people have not paid attention as we've gone from two thousand satellites in orbit to very quickly ten thousand, and we're heading to one hundred thousand.
There is because they're going up every day.
They're going up, you know, are often.
It used to be a rocket went up once a month and that was pretty good, and SpaceX is going almost every two days now, and we really are on this exponential curve with the number of satellites that are going up. So the question is, you know, are humans every time humans find some new place that's interesting, they want to go. Usually some bad things start to happen pretty quickly.
And this is our last.
Not even pristine anymore, but our last bit of new territory to barge into, and so, you know, are we going to repeat all the mistakes we've made here on Earth? Are we going to do something different? All these companies and governments and actors are incentive to make this work because the second something blows up and creates a bunch of debris, none of this stuff can operate.
It.
It's bad for everybody.
But we have to be worried about that right now.
If you think about defense, right people.
Make mistakes, and we show in the movie you know Russia, So Russia's the wild Guard and all this. Their space programs in the decline, but they're very proud and nation and they have this great space history. They shot a missile a couple of years ago at one of their own satellites just to remind everybody that they can do that. And so so yeah, so people can have the best intentions, but that doesn't always mean it's gonna work out.
Well, what after you coming in? Ros says sort of a newbie when it comes to space. What what was the thing that you took away that kind of keeps you up at night?
Oh, there's so much.
Yeah, and this idea of private individuals kind of pulling the strings listen to space debris. Just the idea that I mean, I read the other day that if America for some reason, our internet goes out, we lose GPS, we lose satellites, there's no real backup plan. It's one of those things where who knows what could go down if you know, one of these worst case scenarios happened. The fact that there's no real backup plan, that's kind of one of the most frightening.
Things to me.
Have you seen Leave the World Behind with Jillia.
Roberts, Oh my god, Yes, it's.
Kind of when things go astray and all the tesla's it's not a document.
Are on the highway, all coming to one space.
Yes, definitely see that movie.
It just reminds us how dependent we are on all those satellites and all this connectivity.
Hey, Ashulely, I wanted to ask about Elon Musk because the film is not about Elon, but there are some references to him, and you see him a little bit. I was thinking, you know, with SpaceX being so successful at what these companies want to do, is there any chance that there's room for more than just SpaceX, Because make no mistake, they're the best at it.
Yeah, it's an open question. I mean, they're the world's biggest rocket maker. And the world's biggest satellite maker. So that's a problem for some of these other companies. Lots of people try look, rocket Lab and Peter Beck in this film are very legit. They they just had their fiftieth launch. They did that faster than SpaceX. They got they got to fifty fist.
Did they become a tesla?
I mean, no, SpaceX, excuse.
Me, people, way to go.
The next rocket they're trying to make is a very direct competitor to the Falcon nine.
I have a ton of faith.
That Peter Beck will figure out whatever he puts his mind to, but SpaceX is clear they're the dominant force. I would say rocket Lab, I would imagine that those two companies are the ones to stay for a long time.
I am curious when you guys do a documentary film like this, is there is it a three or four hour film when it gets cut down or right from the get go, Ross you're keeping it kind of lean and mean.
Well, I always like to kind of make a film whatever length it kind of needs to be. It sort of speaks to us in a way throughout the edit, but we knew very clearly this was a feature documentary. Hover around ninety minutes. I always like to make it as short and effective and efficiently as possible.
So there wasn't severe editing at the end.
There is always severe editing every moment. But yeah, like but we're like surgeons by the end. We're cutting out every frame, like every frame that makes sense to cut out. It's really I love the process. With an incredible editor, patient porter on this film. I producer Jay Callen. It was just a great team.
So all right, just got about a couple of minutes. I am curious, we are curious. What do you want people or why do you want them to watch it? And what do you want them to take away? Let me go to you first ross.
You know, I like to go into these movies without any really preconceived notions going in, and I even don't even like to think about what people will take away from it at the end. I just want people to go in see this movie, try to just understand. One of the things I like to do is just trick people into caring, so in a way through great characters, great stories. That's kind of what I love to do.
And then the information and you know, all the different all the different issues and problems Hopefully through these characters, they will come to a place where they care about the issues that these characters care about.
You told stories, and you gave us a lot to care about. How about for you, Ashley, what do you want people to come away with?
Well, look, for sixty years, space was dominated by a handful of governments. Almost any story you've ever seen about space revolves around that. It's some courageous pilot, it's some genius in a room solving a problem.
Pr film, I think is the.
First ever look at the reality of what space is like now, which is this is a business.
It's full of real humans.
There's struggle, there's comedy, there's tragedy, there's pride, there's ego, all of that, and so you know, I really, honestly I cover this stuff all the time for many years. I think this is the first true look at what modern space looks like, and it's amazing.
Modern space also means there's going to be a lot more companies. I mean already there were a lot.
Right that is absolutely we're kind of in this weird period where the first wave there's a few going bankrupt, but there's already many many rocket startups coming to replace them and so yeah, I mean we're in the very first innings of where all this is going as far as commercial space is disconcerned.
Well, congratulations guys, thank you so much. We enjoyed watching it.
And good luck and it's making its debut. Wild Wild Space a new HBO documentary, premiering nine pm tonight, Wall Street Time on HBO.
So check it out, everybody.
Yeah.
The film based on Ashley Vance's book When the Heavens Went On Sale, The Misfits and Geniuses racing to put.
Space within reach.
He's also features at a Bloomberg BusinessWeek also with us Ross Kaufman Academy Award winner, the director of Wild Wild Space. Check out the film tonight at nine pm.
We watched, We loved.
It's very, very incredible.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Applecarplay and then brout Auto with a Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
Sticking on the topic of space, this hour, our next guest sure knows a lot about it. She has spent more than four thousand hours in space and been part of three NASA missions, including a six month mission to the International Space Station that launched one day after her fiftieth birthday.
Now retired Catherine Coleman breaks down the insights she found essential to her success. It's all in her book Sharing Space, An Astronaut's Guide to Mission Wonder and Making Change. She joined me along with Bloomberg's Katie Graefeld in.
Some ways now by being a retired astronaut, I get to go out and talk a lot and talk about my experiences, and I am somebody that actually kind of processes their life through talking, you know, with others, and makes decisions that way. And it's I think what needed to be in the book, you know, sort of got brought together by going out and doing these talks and
looking out into audiences in realizing what was essential. Like I remember one one group of women, they were all like seniors in college, being courted at the very big computer conference basically being their speaker and realizing this was an audience of about one hundred young women, all in computer science and engineering, and realizing that this is them, they are the future. And I have only like twenty
minutes to impart to them things. I think they really need to know so little moments like that I think really led to the book.
Well, I want to talk a little bit about your career because it's been it's been so interesting. I mean, a PhD from UMass Amhurst, you went to MIT Ratzi was sort of your introduction into service. It sounds like, can you start, like, give us the abridge version of how you found yourself, how you were able to become an astronaut.
What was it like.
It's one of the two main reasons that I wrote the book was that you're up there. And it's not just about the floating. You know, you see my hair be big and we're floating around. It's about the fact that you fly from place to place. It's the only way to get around, and it kind of reminds you that you're in a place that almost nobody else is in. All the rules are different, which is extremely important for science and all the stuff we can learn up there.
And at the same time, it's also a human thing to realize that you are one of In this case, right now, there's thirteen let's see twelve people up in space on different space stations as we speak, and they're at the very edge.
I literally cannot imagine it. And I always wonder how people prepare themselves for things. How do you even prepare for an experience that you know you've never had before? I mean, what is the physical reality of training look like to get ready to be in space?
I think there's that all that practicing. It's the reality of needing to be as safe as you can be. Spaceflight will never be safe, but we need to be as safe as we can. And that means you, as a crew member, being able to do your part. You know, if this happens, we need to do this. If there's a fire alarm, you need to you know, don your mask and get to the main computer and you know,
and take the certain steps. And so we practice those things, we drill them, and we're also of course graded and watched and observed, and that adds that extra tension that helps you make the mistakes that you might make on the real day when that stress comes from seeing actual smoke or realizing you might need to lose leave the space station really quickly. So we do practice all those things.
We've got great smart instructors. But then it is really just amazing to then be up there and be able to operate, and I think also to be able to be sort of mentally present as a human. That's a really another big important part to think about before you go.
Yeah, and I'm again so many things that I can't imagine about what you just said. Seeing smoke in space and being able to control oneself is pretty remarkable. And I'm curious what it's like coming back because you see clips on YouTube sometimes with astronauts coming back from space and they forget that they're in zero there. Now there's gravity on Earth and they you know, they drop whatever they're holding because they expected to just you know, float
by them. I mean, have you had any experiences like that? What does the return trip actually look like?
Well, it's but I would say the words sad, wild, and then just nice to be home. I really didn't want to leave, you know, it was it takes a couple of months to get good at the work up there about not just understanding how to keep everything in its place and do all the experiments and get more done. It really has about a month long learning curse. You just want to stay and get more done. And I felt like my family would be there when I got home, and so I wanted to stay, so it was a
little sad. It is as Scott Kelly, who was I was on a crew with Scott, and he talked to us before we came home and talk to us about what landing was like. You said, it's the best e ticket ride you will ever go. Where I mean you're coming down and I mean spacecraft are built this way where we haven't a blative shield under the spacecraft. That means it's supposed to actually burn up, and pieces of burning spacecraft are supposed to go buy the windows.
Wow.
And so knowing that is very comforting, I mean actually having it narrated and understanding what's happening. And he's like, and then parachute opening and he looks at me. He
goes Coleman, set a timer. Parachute opening because you need to make sure that you are not talking because it is so abrupt, And then that capsule is spinning and swinging and it is really wild, and then it settles down and then you're just watching the watching the sort of the feet clocked down and realizing you're just going to hit the ground with a really big, solid funk, and you just hope you're not going to get dragged around by that parachute.
Hey, Katie, I'm wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about the way that borders kind of melt in space. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because you know the ISS, for example, US Space Agency, ros Cosmos, Russian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japan, Canada. Oftentimes you're with people from all over the world as an astronaut, and although countries might not get along on
the ground, sometimes you're getting along in space. And I'm wondering what your experience was seeing the world kind of come together in space.
Being part of you know, not just the mission up there, but the getting ready. It's been my experience that, you know, the governments say this is what we're going to do together, and there's formal agreements, but it is the people that really bring the mission together and make it happen, because it happens by having dinner with each other, by going for walks, by saying, what's your family like? Can I meet your family? And that's really what brought our crew together.
And so being up there, especially in times like these, all I can say is from what I understand, everyone is doing their job and not and that means on the ground. That means the crew up in space and not even thinking about not doing their job, because the mission itself is really really clear. Up there. You are together as a crew keeping each other safe. And you know, down here on the ground, we don't always agree with
each other. Hear all about it on your show. I mean, it's and it's not easy, and sometimes you just have to like put the things you can't agree about they're they're not part of the mission right now, which is in our case down here figuring out how are we going to make sure everybody can live safely down here on Earth.
What do you make of the rise of private enterprise companies like SpaceX and certainly Boeing to a lesser extent, supplanning a lot of what NASA has historically done.
The more the more the merrier, not to trivialize it, but more people in the game, bringing their ideas, their new ways to do things and doing them in concert. We talk about these companies as if they're alone, but are often doing things with NASA for NASA, and I think you know each of these we talk about the billionaires, but each of them has a vision, and they have resources, and they have, you know, a vision of how to pave the way to space for more people, And each
of those visions I find to be valuable. And I like to look more at the substance than at the people there, and just to see what they're accomplishing, and I like what each of them are doing. The more people you bring up on orbit, the more people get that view and understand actually the magnitude of what we can do.
One thing we wanted to talk about is Mars, and we mentioned Elon Musk's lifelong dream is to colonize Mars. What are your thoughts on colonizing Mars or actually putting humans on that planet.
Eventually, absolutely, we will be doing that, and I think it's a good time for everybody to be thinking about it and how to do it and even thinking, you know, I like to think about settling Mars. Swich to me and pop implies more like having a plan and going there together. And you know, for one country to be the only country there doesn't seem like the right thing to me. And I think that comes from that view from the space station of looking back at the Earth,
and you talked about dissolving borders. When I look back there I see. First of all, I feel very close to home. But second I see that everyone could be and actually is so connected if only they knew how much we could accomplish more together. And that includes doing the most important thing I think we'll do, which is colonizing and going off and settling on Mars.
Very very cool. Thank you so much for sharing some of your journey with us. You can read more about Katie Coleman's journey in her new book out today. It's called Sharing Space, An Astronaut's Guide to Mission Wonder and Making Change.
This in this Business Week, you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ad. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
From Space Exploration to exploring the first Porscha nine to eleven hybrid.
Yeah yeah you heard that right, Yeah, I would you.
Both, Yeah, exactly right. Back in May, Porscha unveiled the first hybrid version of its most famous sports car, the nine to eleven. It is the Carrera GTS with a newly developed three point six leader six cylinder engine with a single electrically driven turbocharger say that five times fast, and an in transmission electric motor that reduces lag times to nil as the car sprints forward. I sound like I'm Hannah Elliot.
I was going to say, reading her words, we know all that thanks to Hannah Elliott. It also comes with a whopping price tag of just about one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars, so not cheap, but it's a Porsche, so you wouldn't expect it to kind of be, you know,
affordable to many people. And for those Porsche files worried about the electrification that could spell the end of the nine to eleven, don't worry about it, so says Bloomberg News auto columnist Hannah Elliott, who recently took the car out for a spin.
There were a lot of nine to eleven lovers and porshapurists who were a very reticent about the idea of electrifying their beloved six cylinder engine. You know, Porsche made that engine famous in nineteen sixty three, and I myself was hesitant. You know, you don't know what to expect. Porsche actually removed a turbo charger from this engine, and then it made the existing turbocharger larger and then added
an electric motor. So there's a lot going on under the hood, and you know, we kind of didn't know what to expect. But I'm happy to report to you that the Carrera nine to eleven GTS hybrid is really, and honestly it was in a good way, very unremarkable. It's got about sixty horse power more than the previous version,
and it's a little bit faster. But you know what, at the end of the day, you'd be hard pressed as I was, to even tell any difference between a hybrid nine to eleven and the standard nine to eleven that we love.
Hey, Carol's fighting me because she wants she wants to ask another question. You know what, Carol, go ahead, No, oh god, we just.
This is what happens your voices a little.
This is what happens when Hanna Elliott comes on. It's like we just we fight each other. We get to talk to but go ahead.
And ask another the pedal to the metal and how did it feel? And where did you ride it?
Drive it?
Okay, So I drove it on a track in Spain, which, yes, it does sound very glamorous, and of course it was great. But Spain is also a really great place to drive cars right now because the weather's fabulous and you can these automakers can get the tracks there for pretty cheap, so they just have journalists come out to these Spanish tracks and you spend the day driving around.
Yeah, but Hannah, watch out for the olive trees. Okay, well this.
It's interesting that you say that, because this was a really interesting track. It's it had some sort of inclines, it had banking, it was over three miles long, so it was a really tricky track, and the car handles it's so fabulous.
You know.
This is why we no one loved the nine to eleven, and it's also why Porsche was so hesitant to do anything.
To this car.
This is the crown jewel of the brand and it engenders such a fervid fan base that anything that would change the amazing handling, the amazing breaking, just the amazing power delivery, it would It's kind of dangerous, you know. You think you don't want to change something if it's working, But I have to say, truly that from a driving perspective,
this hybrid, new hybrid variant, it's great. It's you know, Porsche didn't want I want to tell me how many more miles per gallon we're going to get out of the car. I think it's pretty negligible. Really, Yeah, this is an interesting thing. You know, you make a hybrid in order to help meet CO two in emission standards, which is for sure true, but Porsche is also saying, look, we're actually getting a little bit more horsepower, a little bit more speed out of combining the electric motor and
the turbocharger. So it's kind of a win win.
Yeah.
I will say though, the biggest change for me, we're changes in the cabin and I don't know if you guys want to talk about that.
Ye're not, but go there right, like it's so iconic, right you get inside a Porsche, right, the dios and so and so forth, tell us what the experience was like, because it sounds like that's where you were a little disappointed.
So this is where I was really surprised. The car itself in terms of driving, it's very well within the Portue nine to eleven lineup. It's not the fastest but it's in the middle. It's in the middle inside though, this is really the first nine to eleven to have a button to start the car, rather than the sort of faux key fob that you go to turn on the left side, which is a really signature touch for
a nine to eleven. Now they've put a button there, and Porsche has also removed all of the analog gauges. You know, Porsia has this signature five gauge set up behind the steering wheel with the techometer right in the middle. They've done away with that. Now it's screens, you've got a push button start, and they also remove the back seat.
Now that's now available as a no cost option. But people who really love the nine to eleven and spend a lot of time in that cabin, whether they're commuting to work or driving it on the weekends, you're going to notice. I think the biggest change that you will notice is inside the cabin.
Does it feel like when you drive it that you're driving a hybrid?
No?
And you know why.
I First of all, there's no electric only range. You know how some plug in hybrids you can I've an electric only mode for a few miles. This Caarra GTS doesn't have that. You don't even plug it into charge. This is a mild hybrid, so all of the energy is being transferred under the hood. You're not input you're not plugging in, and you're not driving in electric only mode.
So honestly, you will be pretty hard pressed to feel any difference in terms of ooh am, I driving a hybrid, other than maybe you could feel that it's a little bit faster if you're doing like if you're burning rubber from zero to sixty miles an hour, it is about point three seconds faster, so you'll feel it in that way. But just from a regular driving perspective, honestly, you're not going to feel any difference.
Scale of one to ten, what do you give it?
Oh?
I give it eight eight.
I like hybrids, Yeah, I think you know what I think hybrids. We used to think they were a bit of just a bridge technology while we all accelerated toward electric vehicles. But I have to say now, the idea of some of these sports cars becoming hybridized where you kind of get the best of both worlds, it does make sense. And you know, as we're seeing EV sales sort of slow down a little bit. Obviously they're still growing, but just not as such at such a quick rate.
The hybrids, to me are looking really interesting because, like I said, it does kind of combine the best of both worlds. You get the pure power and really quick acceleration of a electric battery, but you also get that tangible, really fun driving feeling of internal combustion.
You contrast it with the actid Martins dvantage that you recently had on track as well. Why was this so different?
Three words?
Four wheel drive?
That's why.
I mean, it's just so much more predictable, and I'm the first to admit it makes me think I'm a better driver than I really am. The car is a lot more controlled.
Wow.
What I also love is you called it exuberant, go out of the gate. It sounds like you just had a blast driving it around, and it sounds like more to come. So good, so good, so good.
It's a great way for us to wrap up on our Friday.
Hey, if you ever want us to come on one of these trips to Spain or like around the track, Yeah, just just let us know.
Okay, I Hey, if you want to go on the next one, beat my guest I'll sit in the corner and drink some quart or something.
Okay, deal, done, done, Hanna Elliott, You well have a great weekend.
She is auto column at the Bloomberg Pursuits.
Check her out on Twitter, on x, on Bloomberg dot com, and of course, at the Bloomberg Tournaino.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. I'll ale Apple and Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcast. Listen live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg journalone