This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This past week our backdrop on again off again Middle East tensions commentary from fedcher J Powell, a NATO ally summit. All the details can be found on the Bloomberg and of course at Bloomberg dot com.
And so all of this shaping our approach this week, a lot of people's moods this week, and really shaping our conversations this week, including a conversation that we had with Bloomberg's own Joe Wisenthal. You know him, he's the co host of the Odd Lots podcast. He stopped by to weigh in on the democratic socialist who could be the next mayor of New York City.
Also gene editing Anyone just one of the innovations in life science trends capturing the attention of venture capitalist Jenny Rook of Genoa Ventures. All of that to come. We begin though with that macro view and really all that's coming at today's c suite and CEOs, especially when it comes to the tensions around the globe.
From Iran to Ukraine and even in New York City, geopolitics is definitely in focus for investors. Kevin Kadjawara is managing director and co president at Teneo Intelligence. He joined us to break down how Wall Street is dealing with what's happening around the world. He also talked about what he sees as some of the biggest risks for executives.
Well, I think you highlighted just the variety of issues that are out there, right, and the fact that they are all happening at the same time. What's more typical historically, right is to have a number of sort of discrete events and you can respond to each of them. But
these now happening with greater frequency. They are happening simultaneously, and they are therefore compounding on one another in ways that you know, you look at any individual issue and you might question why the market reacts in that way, but there's really, you know, there's a lot of different
inputs coming in. So I think that the you know, the challenge for say a CEO or frankly an institutional investor for that matter, But for a CEO is, you know, how do I triage everything that's going on and what is actually kind of signal for the business that I'm in versus trying to cut through all that noise.
Well, that's where I want to go, Kevin. Because companies are going public, right, IPOs are happening, Companies are doing deals, companies are making decisions, they're spending cap X so lo what are you hearing from the community about, Like, what are the lines to say, all right, I'm ready to pull the trigger on spending money or hiring people or expanding versus it's just too unclear. I'm out.
Well, I think the way that they look at it is that uncertainty is essentially a tax, or it is effectively tested in the sense that it perverts what would be otherwise normal economic behavior. Right, So in other words, you know, if you were trying to anticipate tariffs, you probably tied up capital building inventory that you wouldn't otherwise do, or because you have no visibility on what the runway
is looking like. You're going to hold off on that potential m and a transaction or opening that new factory, or rejiggering the supply chain in some way, shape or form. So I think though, that while there's this realization that there's a lot going on, there's a lot of uncertainty. CEOs, just like the President himself, always making decisions based on imperfect information, and now it's perhaps more imperfect than usual.
But any moment that you get that clarity and there's an opportunity, you know, you and your CFO had better be ready to act and be able to commit that capital.
On the uncertainty tax on the uncertainty side of this, there's certainly geopolitical uncertainty, but there's also the uncertainty about policies that are coming out of Washington, that are coming out of the White House. I seen this sort of changing way that companies are speaking or communicating with the President, especially companies outside of the United States announcing investments, companies
in the United States announcing investments in the US. How would you say that your clients or you're advising your clients to communicate with Washington, to communicate with the president.
Well, look, I think that there's a The issue is that it gets really bespoke or really quickly depending on the sensitivity of the industry you're in, depending the country that you're you're from, and what the trade relationship is or the overall nature of the relationship is. So you have to take all of those things, into all of
those things into consideration. I think that there is a focus, you know, perhaps a greater indexation, if you will, on things that you know are going to resonate well and via avenues that you know will resonate well with this, you know, with this administration and with this with this president.
Right.
So for some people that means we've got to go to mar A Lago. For some people that means appearing on certain news organ news outlets, and and in others it means executives.
Yeah.
Sure, we saw Jamie Diamond. I think it's fair to say Carol communicate that morning on Fox with Maria Bartiromo. Yeah, and it seemed like he made his message known to Washington through that interview.
So was an audience of one so understanding that going on there that President Trump is listening, yes and watching absolutely Huh. You know, we've had a lot of conversations here, Like, it's just amazing the fear of executives to speak out in the United States of America. Tell me, give me what what intel? And I understand you can't tell us specifics and stuff, but I'm just curious, like, what is kind of the psyche of the corporate clients that you're
dealing with and why there is that fear. Well, I think I understand if you example want to be a target, But aren't you surprised. I mean, these are leaders that are supposed to speak out when things are maybe they don't agree with things.
Well, I think that there are There's again, there's a hierarchy of leaders, right. You just mentioned Jamie Diamond, who's probably the closest thing we've got to sort of a head of state level chief executive in this country and perhaps further empower. But that also plays into his own personality. He is comfortable in that role in the way that
not every executive is, I think. But secondly, I think this is this has forced executives not necessarily to shrink, but to refocus on what's important to them, their industry, their company, the stakeholders they have, and to focus in on those things rather than feeling like they need to you know, they need to weigh in and open on every single issue that is out there.
So do you think that's a good thing.
Well, I think it's I think it's just the new reality. I don't think any of these things are good things or bad things.
It's just the thing.
This is the this is the environment that we are currently in. That environment will change four years from now, and they'll shift again.
Because such a swing. If you think, you go from the murder of George Floyd and COVID and executives are out talking about everything, and we thought that there was this real opening and then it just feels like I understand pendulum swing, but it swung another.
Well, of course, the other thing is is action, right, and I think being on the other side of this now right where we're looking at, for instance, de E and I initiatives right being rolled back in terms of how they're promoted and so on and so forth. But a lot of executives have bought with their stakeholders and their employees and their customer bases. They bought a lot of goodwill because of the actions that they have taken over the years. And now even if you change the
website a little bit or something of that nature. But you remain committed because you can see the bottom line positive impact of these types of policies. You've got a lot of good will already built in with your stakeholders.
So you consider the stakeholders the ones who work for you, the employees as a group of stakeholders. You don't necessarily talk about out the DEI policies outside of the company in the same way, or maybe you don't even talk to them about them internally in the same way. But perhaps you did see a return on the investment, so you keep doing those things and you call them something else like what.
There's elles with it?
And you know, and and today it was a perfect example of the type of company that has a lot of people who are devoted towards helping executives, you know, kind of thread this needle, so to speak. And some need more help than others. And also you know, it's it's it's an awareness of who your audience is, who
your customer base is. Some are going to respond, you know, and we all know the companies right where you know, uh, we're taking certain taking certain stands has stood them in good stead with their audiences, uh and and others who have had a more challenging time. So it's you know, it's about being smart and surgical about this.
But you've seen cycles like I think about, you know, in this world, and I think about the Great Financial Crisis, there's COVID, there's just so much stuff, war overseas, different presidents and so on and so forth. How do you describe the cycle? And how do you think a lot of CEOs And I had to dump everybody in a bucket because it's just not the way the world works. But I am just curious, you know, historically, business wise, economically, the role of the United States in the world, Like, how.
Do you see that there is something changing right now? And this is not just a cycle, This is a secular change, right and this is something that can no longer be punted.
Down the road.
In other words, the decisions that CEOs are making today are existential decisions for their companies and whether they are going to be you know, nimble enough to be some of the you know, some of the winners on the
other side. Think about it in the context of like climate change as an example, right, Remember a few years ago, companies managements were you know, making zero carbon commitments in the light, but the reality of it was it was like a generation or two down the road of management that would actually have to implement that was an easy commitment to make in a sense, right exactly, but right now, like you say, the playing field is actually fundament changing.
And it is not hyperbolic to say that it's a para paradigmatic shift right now. But it is this generation of leadership that's having to have the situational awareness and kind of realize that even though you've got all these balls in the air right now with the just in time, you know, just what's happening right now, with trade, with the geopolitics, with the fiscal bills, all of that presidential administration.
Though not at all.
So you're talking about supply chains, you're talking about what a like what is.
Say we think of as the international rules based order, right which is a system that has that that laid the groundwork for the multinational corporation to be the single most important economic actor. If that is evolving, if the role of the US is evolving, is it axiomatic that those same economic actors are going to be the big winners in the next or do you have to be nimble enough to be thinking ahead of how this is, how this might change. I mean, we're this interim period.
I don't know if it's going to be.
Long or short.
We don't know exactly what it's going to look like on the other side. But you know, those who are aware, it's like Eisenhower said, right, the plan is worthless one of the first bullet flies.
But planning is everything, right.
So interesting putting you on the spot. Is this a positive development in the work that you do well?
I mean, I think so in the sense that it is inevitable that you know, over time, strategic decisions have been made predicated on a certain perspective on what the global operating environment is going to look like, and then all your other decisions stem from that, the.
Global operating environment being a world of liberal democracies.
But not just that, this ability to have to take advantage of the free flow of labor, free flow of capital, you know, a just in time global supply chain system, opening of markets, all all of that, right, the sort of the key variables of globalization. Right, that's shifting. Right, If that's shifting, you've got to start scenario planning for how that might impact your business.
Twenty five second. It's a question, Tim and I like to ask a lot of folks who come on here, because in January we thought about American exceptionalism. A lot is that going away? And forgive me only about twenty five seconds.
Look, the United States has certain built in advantages scale the English language, the doll or a a A an economic ecosystem and financing ecosystem that finds phenomenal ideas and can bring them to market, and so on and so forth. Nobody else has got that still, even with all the challenges we've got.
That was Kevin Kajawara, Managing director and co president at to Neo Intelligence.
Coming up on Bloomberg Business Week, Joe Wisenthal of Odd Lots on how some on Wall Street are decrying a hot commy summer.
That's next. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
So Roun Mom. Donnie is poised to become the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City after the thirty three year old Democrats socialist forced his opponent Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York State to concede within hours after polls closed. Mam Donnie spoke to supporters after Cuomo's concession.
We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford, a city where they can do more than just struggle, one where those who toil in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the day.
Mam Donnie exceeded more than sixty percent of the vote in vast swaths of the city, building a multi ethnic coalition across Brownstone, Brooklyn, working class queens, and Upper Manhattan. We got with us Joe Wisenthal. He's the co host of the Adlats podcast. He had zorroon Mamdami on the show just pretty much exactly a month ago. Before we get going, I do want to point out that Michael Bloomberg, the founder of a Bloomberg LP, the parent company of
Bloomberg Radio, did endorse Governor Cuomo in the election. It was a forty five minute conversation that you and Tracy had yeah with Momdanie on odd Lots. He gave you a socialist vision for New York. What did you take away as his vision?
I would say two things.
Obviously probably the most provocative of his ideas that's causing a lot of anxiety even in the stock market. Like if you look at real estate, some of the rent freeze stuff, which for obvious like economists hate that kind of thing. They think it's you know, various forms of rent control is a terrible idea. We understand why investors in real estate don't like it either. On the other hand,
and so we talked about that. But on the other hand, my main takeaway from that interview is like, yes, like if you're a young democratic socialist, of course you're going
to be really excited about the Mamdannie candidacy. But he comes off in a way that if you're sort of like a I would say, like normy center left democratic liberal or something, and you're sort of the typical person who works in an office in New York City, like he is really good and really talented at not seeming like someone who will be a threat to And I think that when you look at the results, that's like, to my mind, like the really striking part is that
how broad that coalition was, et cetera. Because we know that there are parts of the city that have trended that way for a while. Obviously, aoc IS victory in twenty eighteen that was a stunner, but that was Niche. You know, this was the entire city, right, this was this was kind of everyone across, you know, huge swats, much bigger numbers. He did well in sort of the you know, white educated areas, but also he did well in more non white areas that had trended more towards
Trump and the most recent election. So he clearly did a really good job of sort of overcoming the fact that many people would say he is pretty radical politics, and he's like, well, actually he can sort of like talk very fluently about policy. He comes off as a very thoughtful guy, and he really I think ended up like disarming a lot of the critics.
Yeah, he's also tacked off a lot of billionaires and is a great story that's among the most red on the blue that talks about Wall Street to crying the hot commy summer. Yeah, Dan Low, hedge fund billionaire. It's officially a hot coming summer and there's a.
Short but you know what I mean.
On the other hand, if I were running for mayor and the thing is like, oh, he's upset a lot of billionaires.
It's like, bring it on.
Right, like, you know, seriously, like if if you're gonna say, oh, he's really ticked off a lot of billionaires, that's like about as good of And that's one of the probably the best things you could say.
Most people aren't billionaires.
So is he?
You know, there's another one, a New York power broker, Kathy Wild and she's connected business titans across all different industries in New York City and saying that he terrifies tax payers and employers. I mean, are employers going to be running from Florida? The rest of the final is the rest of Wall Street can to Florida.
Here's my thoughts on this, And maybe I'm like a little biased, but this is my take, and maybe I'll end up being totally wrong. New York City is the best city in the world. We all everybody noticed that, even during COVID or aftermath of people like New York City is dead.
They're like, Oh, We're going to go to Miami. Want to really moved to Miami.
They like went there for like the minimum amount of time they could to maybe change tax satus and a bunch of people.
Came back, you know, going to Miami now.
On the other so it's like, if you're good, like, there are really gonna be that many people like, Oh, I'm upset about the mayor, i'mset about taxes.
I mean move.
But if the quality of life in the city degrades, if people perceive, oh, the public transit is not running as well, it's not as clean, it's there's more crime in the city, the schools aren't as good, then of course you're gonna have people leaving. So my gut would be and again maybe this is just my sort of pro New York bias, My gut is that very few people are gonna leave because they're upset about the mayor.
Per se, this is where all the action is. If you want to talk to someone interesting probing.
At the first mayor that people have been upset about it either.
Was upset about the they're gonna be upset about so like, I don't think that is. On the other hand, if he can't implement a vision of a you know, he says it's gonna make this city more affordable, people expect the quality of services to be good. People expect transit to be good. If you can't deliver on that right, then I would expect that, yeah, at the margins, more
people leave because the city is less appealing. But if the quality of life in New York City is roughly sustained or maybe hopefully improves, then I don't think you're going to have like some mess exitus.
Just like on principle, it's still New York City.
Well, just a couple of weeks before he was on Odd Lots, he was on Surveillance, I was filling in for Paul Sweeney. Then with Tom Keene, I asked Juan Mundani about the label of democratic socialist. Check out what he had to say.
I embraced the label because ultimately I do identify myself as a democratic socialist, and I think, you know, I think that the thing that New Yorkers hate more than a politician they disagree with is one that they cannot trust.
And I think it's important to be honest about how we're coming to this politics and also what that label means to me, which is ultimately that each and every New Yorker has what they need to live a dignified life and that it's city government's responsibility to provide that. And I think we have a general consensus on many of those building blocks in our society, whether it's public
like education or libraries or sanitation. But then there are certain places where we tend to believe that these are necessary parts of living a dignified life, and yet we allow people to be priced out of it. And I think housing is one of the most obvious examples of that.
Okay, So that was our interview with Zoron Mundani back on May sixth. The is on Bloomberg Surveillance. The housing part is something I wanted to hit with you because there's this idea of rent freezes, which he ran on and talked a lot about. But if you think about this from a supply and demand perspective, how do you get people to build more housing, which is what the city needs if you don't provide the incentive that people
are going to pay for it. And if you say, okay, well, if we're going to build affordable housing, we can't raise the rent on.
It, well I would say a few things.
So one is he's not completely doctor naire about how it all has to be rent regulated housing, and in various interviews he has talked about there is a role for market rate development. He's talked about up zoning all of the things that wonks like the abundance.
Yeah, and he's like talking so he's not.
So it's not like a particularly start radical vision on housing.
He's talked about market rate housing. The other thing.
I know this in that video, you know, he's wearing a suit, he's smiling, he's really and then you say they saying he's like dignified life, et cetera. Like that you just see in that clip. Watching it just now, why someone want to see that, It's like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, look, there's a lot of people in the here, like socialists, et cetera. And I get, like, you know, people find that to
be very provocative or scary or radical or whatever. But it did not come off as a radical in that clip, right, he grew up comes off as like a pretty serious, likable politician. And I think what he said too about like sort of being genuine. It's like the fact that he didn't run away from his past. That he didn't run I do think that is a pretty big deal these days, and that in an ear of social media, et cetera, people could sort of sniff out of fraud
or sniff out of phony or whatever. And he certainly doesn't come off as one. And you probably made trade offs and he probably said, you know, there are certain things that maybe aren't just appealing to somebody, didn't run away from them. And I think it helped put together a package of like okay, like maybe I don't agree with him on X or Y, but he seems like a legitimate, serious guy.
I mean, how much can he you know, actually change. And we've had some conversations about you know, really everything's decided out of Albany in many ways in that what a mayor in New York City amazing, this you know, massive city, and how important it is really to kind of the overall US economy. Right, it's a big one that there's just so much that they can actually get done.
So this is where I think a lot of the success I mean, look, the general hasn't happened, but he is the favorite in the general election. So if he becomes the mayor, I think a lot of the success or failure is just going to come down to the
sort of nuts and bolts management side of it. And so you know, it's like what happens to the trash, what happens to the war on rats which the current mayor mayor was just like really taken seriously the war on rats and you talked about that rats are yeah, and he's like made this a big deal And my understanding is actually progress the wonder Yeah, and so like setting us a lot of the questions of this administration again, assume if he wins, are going to be like, okay,
setting aside his sort of loyalty to d you say people and so far, like, is this an administration of competent managers who could do the day to day basis? And I think one of the things he said when we interviewed him is like that he would make a point of that and a sort of diversity of viewpoints within the administration that might be the test even more than some.
Of the housing company.
Does he hate rich people?
I should have I didn't ask him that. I don't know. I mean, I don't like it doesn't come off like that.
He doesn't. That was a nice suit.
I think he's rich.
His mother is like a massively successful filmmaker, and he went to Bowden, so I'm sure he's doing fine.
As a Colby college graduate. You know Boden's a big rival, so I let that one slide before.
Like a private school, that's what we're at, right.
I do want to get your take ry briefly thirty seconds on the grocery stores. You asked him about this because you guys did a whole episode about how York gets his groceries thin margins. When it comes to grocery stores, how do they get any more efficient?
You know what?
I will say, Of all the different things he's talking about, I get the impression this is the one he's least attached to.
And you actually said, like, look, we're talking about city run grocery.
So he is this idea of three or four pilot publicly run grocery stores and food deserts area. I don't get the impression that he's really attached to this idea.
If it doesn't move the dial.
I don't think he wants some sort of like city wide you know, Bolshevik breadline type thing. I think he wants to do a trial that are sort of like they see if there's some way to move the dial on costs or just availability in certain neighborhoods. But I also got the impression if it doesn't work. I don't he doesn't seem to ada.
I can't imagine what Brownstone Brooklyn would have thought of closing Union Market and replacing it with a.
Jose and Oldies, which everyone likes are pretty close to those Soviet grocery stores.
Anyway, Oh.
Joe, that was Joe Wisenthal, co host of the Odd Lots podcast. He's not a shoe in by any means.
No, He's not right. This is a process, right, And there's also it feels like the field of independence could grow too, so there might be more folks on the ballot ultimately to vote on.
I think one part of the conversation also that we've talked about over the last couple of weeks and really this week has been how much power does this next mayor actually have? This mayor will have to work with Albany and work with the city Council in order to implement whatever he or she would like to put into practice.
I think that's a huge point. I think it's something that when you and I first heard it, we were like, what, I had no idea. You just think of New York City as being so independent, the mayor of being kind of having a lot of power to determine you know, a lot of initiatives in a really big city in
the United States. So it's fascinating to see that a mayor can come in have some plans, have some goals, have a mission, and yet it's ultimately up to what's going on in upstate Alwinny about what gets done.
And just remember the campaign season is just starting now in earnest because the general election is still coming up. So expect more campaigning from candidates.
You expect more calls and knocks on the.
Door, big round game.
Look, you've been complaining about it all week. Next message showing me from the doorbell camera. Look who's at the door.
The door knockers in Brooklyn.
Let's just say that I live in New Jersey. I feel blaster at this monk.
Well, let's talk about New Jersey politics.
Yeah, maybe in a week or so. Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, where one venture capitalist is finding opportunity at the intersection of biology and technology.
The founder of Geno Adventures.
Jenny Rook, is up next. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.
Big news earlier this month. In the world of cardiology, millions more Americans should be taking weight loss drugs to prevent heart disease. That's according to the American College of Cardiology.
Exercise in a clean dyah and aren't always enough for heart health, the nation's top cardiology organization said in new recommendations released in June, weight loss drugs should be used earlier, the group said, making them part of the first line of defense for obese patients.
Jenny Rook looks at a lot of this stuff things like this too, but kind of under a bigger lens. She's the founder managing director of Genoa Ventures. It's a VC firm that invests in, as she says, quote, the next generation of companies at the convergence of technology and biology. It does feel like we're on the cusp of something. She is invested in such companies as Interven, Bright, Speck,
and many many more. Some notable exits include It's emergen cymergen zeimergen Enjoy, didn't say it right at Heriboo, and topazm.
More.
She joins us here in our Bloomberg Interrector Broker studio, I'm never good at getting some of the names. Why do they make it so difficult, well to keep out the RIFRAF.
No, there's a.
Process right of how they named some of these things.
There is, but often it comes from the inspiration of the technical founders and they might not be thinking about the breast of the world and how to communicate that science. So that's also something we help them with.
You come by periodically and we talk about kind of big broad macro. But we are curious too about some of the things. I think when we last left off, we didn't get a chance to really talk about some of the things that you are excited about right now that you think are just interesting in your space, that you're investing in.
Take us there, Oh, I'd love to. It seems like a great way to end the week too. I know it's been a long one and let's have our eye on the horizon. Have some exciting things. So you mentioned Caribou. You know that was a Nobel Prize winner, Jennifer Downa's first gene editing company based on her Crisper Cass innovation.
It's a new world post Crisper, and an evidence of that is just last month we had our first in vivo editing of a human to fix a genetic disease, and that is incredible, the first time that's ever happened where the treatment can go into the living body and address a problem with a gene and that infant in this case is now cured of that genetic disease.
Is it help me understand? Is it just what's involved in that identifying the gene and then surgically going in and removing the.
Gene surgically but with molecular So it's like the crisp or scissors go in at the molecul level. But you're right to ask about the process because the whole process and end took six months, which is extraordinary for this one person.
It's molecular base.
Because it's molecular and so they sequence the person's entire genome, They identified what the error was that was the basis of the disease, and then they were able to design DNA to go in and replace that basically cut and paste and replace it with a function in gene.
One thing that came up during our conversation with Jennifer Dudna is the decline and excite meant for this technology that we're seeing from venture capitalists right now. So VC money raised for gene therapy companies peaked in twenty twenty that was three point three billion dollars. Then it's been moving lower since just a few hundred million dollars last year. This is according to data from deal FORMA.
What's going on?
Yeah, well, I think VC money in just about every category has gone down twenty twenty except AI. Right, So we never learned hype cycles, right, So there is there has been a correction and a really retraction for I would say risk capital and long term capital, and some of that is I think it's important to take stock of the moment that this big milestone happened. So twenty twenty five, that's twenty five years after the human genome
was sequenced. So if you think about the hype cycle, then there was oh, perhaps all genetic diseases will be cured. Well maybe one day, but it does take time.
And so I think that was the hype cycle in two thousand, two thousands. Okay, So then now in twenty twenty five, what's the hype cycle related to this? Now that we saw this baby experience this gene editing.
Well, what I say, I would say is now delivering on that propose, but it is a reminder that investors need to inform themselves about the challenges between the promise and the potential and the actual reality of delivering.
On Well, like, what did it cost?
It was expensive, It's expensive.
I read some I read some commentary on it that we shouldn't extrapolate too much from this because this was There was a few there were a few unique elements here. One is that the alternative if this didn't work, was a really bad shortened life for the baby. So the downside potential downside. So the risks of this outweigh the benefits risk because the risk the downside was basically death.
Correct.
Yeah, And so it's a It's a doesn't apply necessarily immediately to all things that we might want to do for our genomes right and health overall. But it's a start, right. It's a great place to start in terms of that risk reward. And just like any innovation in these technologically driven spaces, the cost comes down over time, so starts expensive and then we keep moving. What's interesting about this time though, it is an end of one, but the
approach was quite modular. It's the whole genome. Find the error designed a sequence that goes in deliver and all of those modules can be reused.
So is this already being done to other babies?
Do we know?
I know that there are some in research.
And what about two adults.
I think that's.
Probably a slightly longer timeline. And this is gene therapy is not my particular expertise, although I have a geneticist by training, so I think the timeline for that is really going to depend on some of these other questions you're asking how much does it cost and how does the risk reward play out?
I do think about though, like for the application of something like cancer, Alzheimer's, so many things like it just depends, right, and this is not something that's going to happen overnight. I'm excited about it, that whole idea of genetics, because I do feel like as much as we know about the body, there's so much we and the use of using the body, yes to fix things?
Yes?
Is that something that excites you?
Can I give you a new example?
Yes?
Have you heard of exosomes?
No?
Okay, exosm So you know about.
Cells, right?
Cells are kind of like bubbles. They're the components of the body that can they contain our DNA and the proteins, everything THATLSE.
Is going on.
Exosomes are little tiny bubbles that bubble off of the bubbles, little blebs, right, and best we know, they are a communication mechanism between all those cells. So they come off of a cell and they have little packets of information. They have some of the proteins, they have some of the RNA. There are thirty trillion cells in a human body. There are three thousand trillion cells exosomes in a body, so there's one hundred times two orders of magnitude more
of these little vesicles moving around. Kind of information, so much information, and we're just now figuring out what they are and what they're talking about.
We've spoken to you twice this year, and I think both times was after major cuts were announced to American universities into research.
You were to bring us back to earth here, that's what I want to.
Do, because at the time you were very concerned about what this would do to the pipeline of innovation.
Feeling optimistic, I know, but.
Because what we're seeing, well, we are seeing our anecdotal stories. I've seen some headlines of people's therapies like stuck in the freezer in some cases and they can't access that because of cuts that we've seen. Are you any more optimistic now?
I think we talked last time. I'm long term optimistic, right. These are long term plays that we will continue to have innovation, we will continue to have an impact, but we are still on a trajectory where significant retraction and funding for these kinds of innovations will mean the pace thereof and they're to have impact on people's lives will be delayed.
Because so much of initial ideas comes out of academia, so and so forth.
That's right, that's where where the basic research happens, where someone like doctor Danna, who's curious, says, well, what if we try and you don't know whether it's going to work?
Are you looking increasingly at or potentially thinking that you're going to be looking at firms that are started in other countries because that's where the researchers have gone. Is that starting to happen?
We have always looked over globally and because we're always looking for the best idea, you know.
What I mean, like is it going to be less us or no? Do you think that? Which is so part of I feel like the US innovation or innovative fabric.
Yeah, what I am seeing immediately is a shift of early stage risk capital to focus more on startups outside of the US, which we've never seen before. We've actually seen some of the firms kind of in our network say we were looking at that company in the US, but there's so much uncertainty now we think we'll perhaps focus closer to home.
What is close Look, it depends on who you're talking to, but there's no startup ecosystem like the US startup ecosystem. I think that's fair to say. If you think regionally or geographically, what should investors be looking at outside of the US.
Well, there's extraordinary innovation happening all over the world, but a lot of interesting work in the UK and Europe broadly, where there's wonderful basic research happening, and because there's better information transfer and tool transfer now globally, those same startups can kind of get things going.
What about China?
China is a little more opaque to us, right, but there's certainly again extraordinary innovation happening there and a lot of I would say government support for translating it.
Do people think of the shifts at R and D as just an administration one administration thing?
Is it just an administration thing? It's certainly is heavily weighted by Yeah, that some of those choices in funding availability, in the certainty thereof, and also the regulatory landscape.
Okay, so I guess my question is are they thinking that after President Trump finishes up his second term, could it possibly the pendulum swing back to the way it was and just got about thirty seconds.
Sure, hopefully we will see over time, you know, increased support for this kind of innovation because it is so important. But some pruning is irreversible. If you're a gardener and you overprune a tree, it just never quite recovers, will never be the same.
That's general adventures. Jenny Rook Carol. One thing that we talked about with Jenny, not just this time, but the last time she was on with us was the promise of gene editing technology, so called crisper technology. And then after our conversation with her, we saw a story about super Baby.
Yeah, I kind of love it. It's a story specifically about Bootstrap Bio. It's a California startup. It's working on technology to genetically edit human embryos, and the goal, I think it's safe to say initially and mainly is to eliminate inherited diseases, but it's also about enhancing desirable traits. And this is against a backdrop of a lot of concerns out there from scientists and ethicists about the technology,
safety and potential consequences. We've talked about these designer babies, like do you know, kind of figure out what you want your kid to be and edit out things you don't like, and so that is terrifying to a lot of folks.
Even though the promise of removing some of these inherited diseases that sounds pretty great. Experts do warn that germline editing is unproven and potentially dangerous, and it could have consequences if a flaw is introduced to an embryo, with some calling for a ten year moratorium on the practice.
What I would point out is that even laboratory work on germline editing highly highly regulated in the United States. So researchers continue to make progress, but it's not ready for prime time according to those who are in the field, and so I would assume regulators are going to get pretty involved in this they have to. And that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Coming up in the next
sixty minutes, Tesla, Uber Weymot. Driverless cars are seemingly everywhere and I can't wait.
You sure, I've.
Read some stories in my opinion only this is not anybody else.
Okay.
I've gotten a little bit of pushback in recent days, Okay, and been I've seen some lawsuits that have been fouled. Anyway, Plus the next Reality TV President and Forage Brewing. Yes, it is a thing our pursuits team taps into making beer with ingredients found in the wild.
Yep. Everything from roots, fruits, vines, and even tree bark yep, it can go in a beer. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stinavek.
Stay with us.
Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.
This is Bloomberg Business Week, daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Plenty Ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including investors have revd up shares of Uber in part because of its partnerships with Weimo. We're going to take a deep dive into the world of driverless cars.
Plus, do not compare him to that other reality star who made his way to the White House. I mean, is he even interested in going to DC? Our Business Week team talks to Mark Cuban.
And the top shelf special everything from beer in our backyards to American sake. Having a moment that's from our Bloomberg Pursuits team.
First up this hour, we got news this week that Uber will begin offering its customers driverless Weimo rides in Atlanta, making it the second market after Austin where the two companies are teaming up instead of competing against each other.
We've got the perfect duo to talk about all this. Max Chaptain is Bloomberg Business be Communist co host of the elon Ing podcast. Craig Trudell is Bloomberg News Global Autos Editor and the editor of the Hyperdrive newsletter. Max right here in our Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio, Craig out there in London, Craig, let's start with you, all right,
So there's a lot going on in this sector. What do we know about how things have been going down in Atlanta in Austin, like, how it's all progressing and full disclosure, Tim and I both have done waimos on the West Coast. I've also done them in Arizona and we kind of love them. So how's it all going down? Because all of a sudden it feels like everybody's all in on these driverless cars.
Yeah, I have to say, I mean, just to start, you know, your experience of Waymo's, you know, being sort of surprised and delighted from the sounds of it, is consistent with it. You know, basically everything I hear at this point. You occasionally do hear people sort of to the extent that they denigrate you know, Waymos at all. It's just oh gosh, you know, I would be too scared to get into one of those. But you know, almost universally when you talk with people who experience it,
you know, they get a kick out of it. You don't see you know, a ton of of sort of negative takes on sort of how they performed.
They've held up quite well.
The company has been forthcoming about its safety record and is pretty transparent about if and when it does have issues.
I think things are sort of night and day in terms of how, you know, the company has approached things with with you know, in comparison to Tesla where you have Musk you know, for years sort of hyping up what is driver assistance you know, software that that he offers as something more than that and calling it full self driving, you know, not delivering it and until you know, this past weekend and once he has taken people out from behind the wheel, you know, on day one, we
see these incidents that are that are pretty troubling and getting the attention of of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Okay, we're going to talk more about those in a second. I want to bring in Max Chafkin, who's been following the industry closely. In Max, you've been when we've spoken to you in the past about the driver list car technology specifically weimo you've been you've been a little skeptical about it.
I think everything Craig is saying everything you're saying is true. The questions around Weaimo are business questions. Essentially, is this more than a very very expensive, money losing attraction for tourists in a handful of cities, which it definitely is compelling in that sense, there are questions and these are questions that you know, even Weimo has acknowledged like they need to figure out they need to turn this into
a money making business. They feel like they've gotten the technology to a point that's pretty pretty good, and now they're working on the business stuff and this Uber deal, of course, is part of that. That's part of why you're seeing the stock go up, and then you know, when you compare it to Tesla, the Uber stock go up compared to Tesla, Tesla is I think technically like a good way to think about this is they are
years behind where Weimo is. Like Weaimo was doing some of the stuff that Tesla is doing, you know, years ago, like five years ago. There are ways in which Tesla, yes, is is impressive and ahead. There are a lot of Tesla is a lot of miles logged using its driver assistance technology, which it also confusingly calls full self driving.
But Tesla is really at the beginning of this and like when we're like they have not even even this pilot program we're talking about very modest, it doesn't include members of the public, just a handful of influencers in a very small in a very small part of Austin.
So just just very early. And everything that WEIMO is doing, both in terms of customers and then in terms of on the business side kind of makes that point just shows you how wide the gap is and how far Tesla is, at least at this moment from actually operating, you know, a money making robotech.
All right, So this came up with the newsmorre. We show that there's no so some folks in some emerging market country that aren't sitting with a joystot joystick like actually driving the way.
Most there are monitors. There are people monitoring the windows.
I think the question they're not using joysticks, cording little steering wheels, they're not using little steering wheels, but they are there watching the waymo on that that's like part of the that's like part of the business problem for both of these companies. Like you potentially have like this very expensive piece of hardware, and then a bunch of expensive engineers, engineers who cost more money than Uber drivers, who are having to oversee these autonomous systems. So that's
still a question with Waymo. It's a bigger question with Tesla.
Hey, Greg, come on back in here, because you've covered the you cover more than just these two companies and also more than just the sort of driverless element here. But a question that I have is where does where does this technology leave the traditional automakers Because there was
this promise from Elon Musk years ago. I mean I've lost count of how many years ago this was, but he basically said, you our Tesla will become more valuable because you will be able to essentially set this thing free as a robotaxi when you're not riding around in it, and you'll be able to charge for that. Where where does all of this lead to more traditional automakers?
I mean, I think to your point, you know, there was a real sort of freak out in Detroit and Volfsburg and in uh, you know, Toyota City almost a decade ago now, because Musk started making these you know, pronouncements along along the lines of what you're describing, and everyone kind of panicked, right, and we saw you know, sort of everybody uh, you know, come put together plans to sort of answer what Tesla was up to. You
saw GM acquire Cruise. You saw Ford you know invest in this company called Argo, uh and Volkswagen invested in them as well. You saw Toyota stand up its own uh sort of self driving you know, outfit and you know, higher sort of top notch talent for it. And you know, here we are, you know, roughly a decade later, you know, our goes gone bust. Cruise has has been sort of put out of its put out of business by GM.
I think a lot of the established manufacturers are saying, you know what, we're going to try and make money off of these driver assistance systems that you know, kind of make the human driving safer or at least we hope, you know, can offer that benefit and this sort of safety and convenience.
But you know, this is just not.
Going to happen in sort of a major way for quite some time, and we can't we may not be able to afford to invest in it to the extent that a company like Google can.
Yeah, and weimo Google, you know, even there, we're talking. I don't think we know the exact numbers because of the way that they report, report revenue and so on. But they they've they've dumped tens of billions of dollars into this. This has been an incredibly expensive endeavor, the kind of endeavor that really only a company like Google,
a really handful of other companies can do. We even saw Apple Craig Craig didn't mention Apple, but they also got to try to get into this business and got out of it for for some of the same.
Reasons, right, having super deep pockets.
And the challenge here for Tesla is that a lot of the investors who are betting on this thing, and even to some extent Elon Musk, have sort of decided that this is the future that that you know, Musk has said this over and over. You shouldn't think of Tesla as a as a regular car maker. You should
think of it as an AI company. And now here it is we're seeing the AI and and you know, it's just a long way from being you know, a fully fleshed out uh, you know, robotaxi service, and and that's and whether or not they can somehow get there in the in this, Like in the crazy timelines that Elon has offered, he said they're going to have something like one hundred thousand cars on the roadby end of this year. You know, just huge numbers, numbers that would
blow Weymo out of the water if they delivered. Uh, I mean it's he's he's created a huge challenge himself.
Well.
I do also wonder about the value and Craig come on back in here, in terms of having whether it's Weimo for Alphabet and obviously the self driving for Tesla, the amount of data that they get and what they learn in terms of technologically creating these We've talked with our Steve Mann of Bloomberg Intelligence who's talked about the robotics and the manufacturing that has been going on in
China and what technological capabilities that has given them. So I do wonder by these companies doing these kinds of things, what they ultimately get out of it. Is it's still a plus?
Yeah?
I mean I think that's been the sort of go to messaging on Musk's part, right, is that you know my approach, you know, my being Ela Musk is you know, to put this hardware on every vehicle.
I sell.
It's a much cheaper and less robust you know, hardware set than WEIMO puts on its car. Sure, but people can afford to actually buy it. I can ingest all of this data, and you know, I can put more cars out on the road, bring in more data. Therefore I will eventually win. I think that stood to to reason to a lot of people. And yet we we've it is all sort of theoretical, right, We don't know whether you know, that data advantage will mean anything in
the long run. And we've also sort of you know, heard from Musk, you know, sort of conflicting messaging in the years since he was you know, making that argument of well, we're we're you know, not going to sort of hardcode our cars. Uh, you know, based on all of the data that we bring in, We're going to just you know, sort of build a robust system that can sort of make decisions on the fly, and we're not going to try and you know, code into our
cars what they should or shouldn't do. And so you know, there's sort of speaking out of both sides of his mouth and a lot of you know, sort of theoretical messaging on his part that that makes you sort of question whether or not, you know, he actually has the advantage that was sort of believed, you know, half a decade ago.
Max, just want to bring you in for the last thirty seconds. Given Elon Musk's recently tumultuous relationship with President Trump, does that put the regulatory elements around self driving technology for his company? Does that put it at risk?
I mean, I think they're real regulatory questions, also some maybe some securities questions, like people have made claims about Musks sort of seeming to exaggerate at times that said, I don't think the challenge here is a regulatory challenge.
It's a technical challenge. It's on one hand Elon Musk saying these cars can operate totally autonomously, and you watch in the videos and they have somebody in the passenger seat with an emergency breake, probably somebody sitting in a control center and they're still struggling, you know, And so so that's the question how to make the tech work.
Our thanks to Max Chafkin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek columnist and co host of the Elon Inc. Podcast, and Craig Drudell, Bloomberg News Global Autos Editor and the editor of the Hyperdrive Newsletter.
Well, Max is going to stick around for our next segment as we go from driverless cars to the next reality star and billionaire that may be on the road to the White House.
That's next on Bloomberg Business Week.
This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Well, he's a billionaire with decades of experience playing a rich guy in the press. He took a stick to a TV network. He starred in a primetime reality show. He's a fan of Ain RAN's The fountain Head. He's a fixture on the Manaverse podcast circuit.
Is this Donald Trump?
He likes crypto sounds like Donald Trump?
Right.
Yes, he's been mocked for being less accomplished and than his networth would suggest. And no, Carol, I'm not talking about Donald Trump.
I'm talking about Mark Cuban.
He's a sports mogul, a small business influencer, media personality, a healthcare disruptor, and perhaps the ultimate Trump foil. Max Chafkin and John Tazzi profile Mark Cuban and the forthcoming new issue of Bloomberg Business Week. It's the July issue. It's out on newsstands soon, but you can read the story now on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com. Max is Bloomberg Business we call him this. He's also the co host of the Eliningk podcast. John is Bloomberg
News healthcare reporter. Both join us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Max, I want to start with you.
Wait, I want to know. Is it up in the food car court and you guys were grabbing some coffee and you're like that Mark Cuban guy and you're like, yeah, we gotta do a story.
No.
I mean the way the genesis of this is that John, who's been following the healthcare industry. You know, Cuban got on his radar because Cuban has been doing some really interesting things there. And where I got interested in it is all this buzz around Cuban as a political figure, and it seemed, you know, it seemed like an interesting thing because on one hand, he is this kind of somewhat googoi, somewhat unseerious reality TV personality. On the other hand,
he's doing something serious in healthcare. And we've just learned that being a little goofy, being a little unseerious. Sometimes it can work politically. It obviously works politically really well for Donald Trump.
Well, let's talk about the serious stuff that he's doing in healthcare, cost plus drugs. John Tazzi, Yeah, there's a good portion of the piece that's dedicated to explaining the intricacies of buying certain drugs in the US, and I was shocked to find the price differences.
Yeah.
I mean, Mark Cuban lacked to this company that launed to the public, you know, several years ago, started working on it with an entrepreneur in twenty eighteen. Initially as kind of just an investment, just another kind of portfolio company put some money into, but he got really involved and became a co founder. And now this is sort of what he's spending a lot of his time on.
He's going to conferences. He's going to like small wonky health conferences that you don't expect, you know, a lot of boldface names.
At But there's something that really resonates with Americans about healthcare. You've written a lot about United Healthcare and the aftermath of the murder of a healthcare executive here in New York in December and the frustration that Americans had. There's something that's sort of visceral when it comes to tackling this problem. Yeah, and having someone like Mark Cuban do it.
Yeah, And what he marked, what he did is he came in and looked at this market prescription drugs where there are just vast inefficiencies. There are things that make no sense, and we've written about.
Them, we've talked about them here.
You know, drugs that cost you know, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in one place that you know are cost a tiny fraction of that for the person acquiring them, and you know, huge markups being taken in the middle And what he's trying to do is kind of go into those transactions and uh, sort of take out the middleman and make these medications available for people paying cash without their insurance at a more affordable price
than they sometimes get when they go through the traditional channels.
I got to say, you wade into something like drug costs and healthcare and all of a sudden, you're you know, you're tackling what has been, as we've been talking, one of the biggest problems that are around. And there are other billionaires who've been like tackling, you know, trying to trying to look for some solutions, whether it's Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Jamie Diamond who teamed up. I remember, you know, we were all reporting and thinking, Okay, they're going to
be able to fix all of this. Having said that, you wait into an area like drug costs, and all of a sudden, it's a real political kind of field, right, and you wonder, Okay, what else does he want to do because it's a it's a big beast of a problem.
Well, yeah, I mean there's something inherently politically political about talking about this stuff, just because it's a thing that that makes people angry. Also, you know, a lot of the solutions here are going to require some form of regulation or government spending. And also Cuban is just politically involved. I mean he was during the Harris campaign during the twenty twenty four election. He was like a really important surrogate for Kamala Harris. He was on the campaign trail.
He was kind of crafting or attempting to essentially sell Harris to the business community and sell Harris as a moderate on economic issues. And that is sort of you know, if you think about different directions the Democratic Party could go in twenty twenty eight, you know, one of them would be some sort of moderate approach. And Cuban is
very attractive. And there are a lot of like Democratic political consultant types who are excited about this, a lot of Republican political consultant types who are thinking about this already, because not only does he have this kind of identity as a as a moderate, as a business guy, solutions oriented, but he's really good on camera and he's also good at sort of sounding like a real person. And that's the thing that kept coming up in my reporting how
important that is. And when you look at when we talked to Cuban about like what went wrong with Harris, that's kind of what he Keety Cayden on you know, she didn't know how to sell, That's what he said,
and that she you know, she wasn't herself. It's this, it's this kind of like incredibly difficult thing for a lot of politicians, and I think especially for the type person Mark Cuban is a business guy, somebody who hasn't been in that spotlight to be able to thread that needle to sound like a normal person while also being moderate, like it makes him politically potent.
You know, I want to go back to this comparison that I was talking about earlier. Then you guys laid that out perfectly. I read right from your story. You actually suggested Max to Mark Cuban that he's had a similar career trajectory to President Trump.
What happened, he did not, He didn't reactor. Well he can called it the meanest thing anybody's ever said to me. And John and I were sitting there with him, and I really did think for a second, dude, he was gonna throw us out, I know. And the thing is he was kidding to some extent anyway. But but he and Trump have been kind of publicly feuding for almost twenty years. It goes all the way back to The Apprentice, when shortly after Trump launched The Apprentice, Cuban launched his
own show. They sort of traded punches back then, they traded verbal punches during the Obama administration. I think Cuban is sort of an effective critic of Donald Trump, partly because they are kind of similar, because they are both sort of professional billionaires, guys who play billionaires on TV, and Cuban is able to sort of effectively point to some of the ways that Trump's you know, personality, you know, sort of like the character he plays doesn't really live up to the reality.
However, he didn't care his own reality show. He didn't do as well as Donald Trump.
And the other point that Cuban makes in terms of their differences is that he is a self made billionaire and you know, kind of worked his way up, started companies, uh, you know, started selling trash bags door to door, you know, and that he has that background that that the president doesn't.
I love the Highlight quote. The difference Mark Cuban says is he never had to start from broke.
You know.
You brought up the difference between Apprentice and Shark Tank, and I do think that's an interesting It's an interesting contrast, and again it shows you why Cuban could be politically potent.
You know.
On The Apprentice, it ends with this kind of ritual humiliation Donald Trump's firing someone, which course is very entertaining. And I think one of the reasons cuban show, which was called The Benefactor, didn't work is that Cuban was too nice.
He you know, nice Shark I'm gonna I'm a huge fan of that show, and he's always the nice shark.
So Cuban playing this kind of nice guy on this as a supporting role that was really effective.
The the other thing I think made.
Him sort of beloved both on Shark Tank, well initially on Shark Tank, was just the fact that he's the richest and most successful person there. He's the only billionaire of those judges, and he is the one who's kind of backing the goofy companies.
He's taking it not.
Quite as seriously in the same way that cubans as a sports owner, as the owner of the Mavericks. Part of what made him fun as an owner is that he's the billionaire, but he's also acting like a fan. He's running up and down the court, he's acting like, you know, goofy, he's booing, he's doing all this stuff that a billionaire would not normally do, and that, of course can be attractive.
So that's the perfect segue to talk about the genesis of costplus drugs because as a shark on Shark Tank, he had this inbox where you would get all these emails you Max and John Wright in the piece John and back in twenty twelve or a few years I should say perhaps a few years after that, because it was around the Martin Screelly time. Yeah, twenty eighteen is when this guy, Allen Oshmyansky got in touch with him.
Yep, what happened?
Yep.
So Alex Oshmayansky is a radiologist entrepreneur who is following the drama around drug prices and Martin Screelly raising prices of some older off patent drugs that attracted uh, you know, a lot of attention, a lot of criticism, and he said, why don't we start a company where we can make some of these drugs that are in short supply and kind of solve some of these problems in the market and kind of eliminate the window for people to take
advantage of shortages by raising prices. So he came to you know, he cold pitched Mark Cuban through an email with this idea. The I think the company was originally called something like Osh's Affordable Pharmaceuticals.
Doesn't have the same ring to it, doesn't have the same rings.
But and you know, Cuban bit and he invests and kind of took an interest in the business, and it became what's now known as.
As cost Plus.
A lot of people who know Costplus know kind of the mail order website primarily for generic drugs, some brand drugs available, and mostly lower cost generics. But there are other elements they're trying to build out too, And you know, what they articulate is really they're trying to kind of build an alternative to the existing pharmacy benefit managers the way most people get prescription drugs. They're trying to build something outside of that system to compete with it. It's
not really there yet as a full service solution. You know, there are a number of drugs you can't get. You often can't use your insurance through the site. It's not it's it sometimes can be much less expensive than going through your insurance, but it's.
Not always our Thanks to Max Chafkin and John Tazzi, check out their profile of Mark Cuban in the forthcoming new issue of Bloomberg Business Week.
It's out soon.
You can read the story now though, on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg dot com.
Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Breweries that forage for ingredients are blossoming across the United States.
They don't really have a plan in the morning when they decide to brew beer, they might have like a rough idea of a style and then they just go out in the woods and see what they find and fill a bucket up. And you know, it could be like perilla herbs or bee bomb or fennel or you know, wild dandelions, even like nuts bark.
And the funny thing is, which I always laugh about, is I don't know. I thought when it was like you taste like a blueberry ipa or something from Sam Adams, I think there's like a lot of science to it. Maybe they make like a tincture or it's no, they just throw blueberries in like they're brewing the beer, and they just host in a bunch of.
Blueberries and a balanced investment portfolio in wine. Bloomberg Pursuits is coming up. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Watches most of your time perceived as a time cupsude.
It's very chic and posh.
The most powerful car made in the US.
The beautiful interior, the iconic design.
Now it's time to take a look at luxury with Bloomberg Pursuits.
Searching for beer in the backyard. American sake I believe is how you say it is having a moment. We talked about this in the newsroom.
Who cares how you say it?
Just drink it, Carol.
Oh, yeah, from the guy who like drinks tons of alcohol.
Yeah, I have had sake before. I don't drink it currently. Anyway, maybe after reading this I will, especially a certain American sake that is now being exported to Japan, which is a very big deal.
Yes. Also, do you want to invest in wine?
I just want to drink it?
All right?
It is time for Pursuits. You can tell by what we're talking about with us is the editor of Pursuits, Chris Rouser, along with Bloomberg Pursuits Deputy editor Justin Osan. Justin runs our award winning top shelf newsletter. Chris, I want to start with you. You ever see the whole section?
Does that mean you had to drink a lot to do this?
Chris doesn't drink.
Drink. Justin had to drink, had to do a lot of sampling for this.
How did that go?
It was fun? Yeah, it's a tough job. But somebody's got to do it. I love that.
Well, let's start in just envision some beautiful fields where maybe perhaps somebody would forage for ingredients not necessarily found in beer, because apparently that's happening right now.
Yes, Foraging for ingredients to flavor beer and change beer and make new beer is a new trend across the US, and it's been something that we've written about here and there.
Our beer writer Tony Rehagen is always telling us about it, and Justin wanted to do a big feature on all the different farms where you can go maybe you can help forage for the ingredients their flowers, their herbs, or you can just try new beers every season, And so we sent Tony off across the country to look at these different How did that go?
What's that like? Is it literally taking a bucket and just like picking up things from the ground.
Justin Uh, yeah, Yeah, they don't really have a plan in the morning when they decide to brew beer. They they might have like a rough idea of a style and then they just go out in the woods and see what they find and fill a bucket up. And you know, it could be like perilla herbs or bee bomb or fennel or you know, wild dandelions even like nuts bark.
And the funny thing is, which I always laugh about, is I don't know. I thought when it was like you taste like a blueberry ipa or something from Sam Adams, I think there's like a lot of science to it. Maybe they make like a tincture or it's no, they just throw blueberries in like they're brewing the beer and they just tossing a bunch of blueberries. And that's how this is with all this stuff is very easy.
I love how they call it a ground to glass. Right, we talk about farm to table, right, ground to glass? How big is this? I mean, I feel like, you know, for so long we talked about all the craft breweries, right, and I know they're kind of having it their own moment and maybe not so great, but it just sounds like how much of this is going on.
So it's not it's not huge. It's you know, a select number of breweries across the country, but you know they're in you know, all the kind of major regions. You know, we have a wonder camera up in Main Scratch Brewing is one of the main ones that we profiled there in Illinois, like about two hours in Saint Louis, Portland.
Organ of course, of course, yes, but they fucking but it's increasing and growing because as craft beer as an industry declines, people need novelty and what consumers are craving now is an experience. And what these breweries are really doing is they're not selling the beers in stores as much. They're trying to entice people to come to the brewery and really like drink it in nature and feel nature and feel this moment in time and think of beer in a in a more special way.
So how do you do this in a single day, because the beer brewing process, from my understanding, is a relatively long process. So you're actually be able to infuse the beer with these in greens and drink it that same day.
No, No, they would be brewing the beer and then you know, letting it mature.
So it would still take a long time. Yeah, okay, yeah, but some of the ingredients are ready made and they can just add like they have the malt and the water ready made, and they can add whatever they forage to.
That exactly, and that's how it works. But they're still doing this every day.
They're doing it, Yeah, whenever they have a brewdet because it's all this is pretty small quantity, so you know, they might you know, have one consistent thing that they make over and over, like a dandelion I p a. Or there's this one beer font to floor called pine Zips, which is you know, made with like white pine and it's kind of needles.
And would have gathered white pine trees. That sounds amazing.
Sounds like a joke, though, is that funny? Like this tastes like piney, you know, and they're like because there's pine needles in it.
You guys ever have your like beer brewing moment where like the bathtub in your apartment turned into sort of like a little brewery.
That would absolutely no no, no gates.
I walked in about ten years ago. About ten years ago, I walked in in my roommate. My roommate. I was like, it's weird in here. And my roommate at the time is like, I'm brewing beer, And I was like, how long is this going to take? And I went into the bathroom and you know, it's like your twenties and like you're sharing a department with somebody. The whole bathtub's like full of beer making stuff. I'm like, what are we supposed to do here?
And you were like, did you even clean the bathtime?
No, it definitely definitely didn't.
What's really interesting though, do you guys write that scratch? I mean, they've had some James Beard nominations, right, which is really notable, and so this trend is definitely getting noticed. But there's some beers that have no hops, like so it makes me wonder can you even call it beer technically.
Not it's called a gruet.
Never even heard of a grud until reading this.
Yeah, neither.
That's why you read this stuff. We learn We learned, and it's.
Like one of the oldest styles of beer, you know, before hops became like the primary like hopps in beer is for bittering and but you can get the same effect using different rbs.
Bottom line, before we move on to some other stuff, is it good because the stuff did you? You sampled? So did you like it?
Yeah?
I mean they're they're different. So if you if you're looking for your tradition that they are good. But I think for you know, depending on how adventurous your taste go, you know, it could be not as expected at first, but then like anything, you keep trying and it grows, it grows on you.
Justin I think you should stop right classes glass is half full? All right, So let's go to what's having a moment that you ask? And I say suck because I said sak in the newsroom and everybody's like, no, not everybody, certain select people. So is it suck?
Oh?
It is? See what Why are you looking at me? Like?
Oh, this is radio? Everything I do is with my voice or the record.
He's staring at me like the daggers. All right, take it away. What's going on with sake?
Yeah?
So American sake? You, I mean might just be surprised that sake is even made in America. I mean there are Japanese companies that have done it here, like Gege Khan out of the West Coast and then Desai. It's a premium sake. They just opened up a huge new facility up in Hyde Park, New York, near the Culinary School, and they're trying to make their premium sake using American
water and rice. Is a huge deal. But there's there's all these places all over you know, Medford, Massachusetts or sorry, Midfield, Massachusetts. You have Arizona, they're using like nava hotee in flavorings.
And you know Arkansas, so yeah, Arkansas is interesting. So the reason the whole industry has been able to grow is this farm called Isabel Farms and they grow premium sake rice that before they did it, nobody thought it could be grown outside of Japan, and so that because they've invested so much in this, they've become the main supply. And now they have a mill because milling the rice down is the first step in sake production, and they make it easy for these startups to do it. Also,
the water is really good. In Arkansas. There's a one of the largest independences or Agami Sake, and they have a whole sake fest.
And you know, it's still it's.
Tiny compared to Japan. There's only like about you know, two dozen brewers, but then you know Japan has over a thousand. But it is growing again as like people want to try a local product. It has a good story, and.
You know that it's growing in the US and shrinking in Japan.
Right, Yes, yeah, that's actually the kind of coolest thing is as production or as consumption goes down in Japan, the US is now the number one consumer by volume of sake, imported sake, but then getting the bottle. There's a company called Brooklyn Kura which is now exported for the first time to Japan, and it's a premium product there. It's in a bunch of like fancy department stores. It's at the Peter Luger.
Going to Brooklyn soake.
Brooklyn is everywhere, and Brooklyn is popular.
And the hope is that they've seen it before. We say fashion. If you bring something you know that was Japanese, it got popular abroad, you bring it back to Japan, then people think it's cool again and hopefully can like stoke consumption.
Is there a sort of a corollary between sakke and wine and the way people think about where it's from, Different varieties, different processes of fermentation.
Not as much so sak is interesting. It's more it's more like a beer than it is wine. It's it's made. There are different types of rice. There's different grades of polishing the rice down that make it, you know, different purities and flavors. There's some sparkling ones, there's unfiltered and cold and hot, cold and cold and hot. Most people drink it cold I think hot is for lower grades.
So oh interesting, hot.
Is for college. Hot is for when you're brewing beer in your bathtub.
All right, So you want to invest in wine, you just have to have good taste, right, maybe a lot of money and just be a little patient. It's like Chris tasting lots of money? Do you sound like my mother?
Chris? Is that all it is?
No?
It is much more complicated than that. And you know, it's funny things like wine or things like watches that you wear, like stuff that you participate in a on a regular basis sort of may suddenly seem appealing to invest in when it's a weird economic time, or just
if you become like really a fan. And so you know, we've done these guides and pursuits how to invest in jewelry, how to invest in watches, how to invest in handbags, and we in are amazing wine Colonnists columnist Alan I was like, we got to do how to invest in wine because you know, totally a lot of people know, and it's a big industry that people participate in, but we haven't done a beginner's guide in a while, and so she really went into it, and it's very helpful.
Is there a couple of things that we should can't top of mind real quickly.
I think the main one is, just like one, check your expectations. You're probably not going to make money, so you might as well buy stuff that you like. It's a long term game. You're going to want to age it and then hire an advisor and like really research the fund. Mendels, I'm out, Yeah, you're gonna drink it, Carol.
Sounds pretty good to be an advisors, just because then you can make the money regardless of you know, what happens with the.
Value of that wine.
Can I ask you though, in terms of wine, is it normally French wines that are gonna if you're gonna get something that's gonna go up in value, or is California good? Is there anything like in terms of regional stuff?
Yeah, I mean traditionally it's a Bordeaux and Burgundy. They're like kind of slipping a bit right now. Italy is the one of the hottest places to invest in terms of return in California is getting more and more as well. Champagne region as well, But it's mostly like France is still you know, the heart of that it's the.
Big guns and old wineries because the young independence and even wines that are really amazing, there's just not a lot of it to trade, Like, there isn't the volume that you need to trade to make any like. Liquidity is a big thing in that. Liquidity, which is hilarious, Yeah, is a big issue in this.
You get a pond without even knowing, Hey, there's something else you hear about drinking your weedies. We'll just say that it's all about locally grown whiskey. We don't time to get to it, but I encourage everybody to check out the new issue of Pursuits.
Yeah, and I got to say the investing in wine, you guys really just like lay it out of the things that you need to do. Bottoms up, everybody. Thanks guys, Chris Rouser of course, the editor Pursuits and Bloomberg Pursuits Deputy editor Justin Ocean.
And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
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I'm Tim Stenebek and I'm Carol Master. A good and safe weekend. Everyone choice, some wine.
Or some sake.
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