Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - March 4th, 2022

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Geopolitical tensions were the story of this past week, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine now a full scale war, the death toll rising on both sides, and the financial fallout rippling through the global economy. That's the subject of our cover story, and we're gonna get to that in just a moment and a riveting and

stirring cover image as well. We will also hear from the CEOs of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and app Harvest on earnings and the head of Plug Power on how Russia's war in Ukraine is affecting the supply of key raw materials, plus the return of the so called razor blade trade on Wall Street. All of that to come. We begin, though, with a special report on the war in Ukraine the magazine with a deep dive into the tactic of using

fine dance as a weapon. Bloomberg News Financial Investigation senior writer Stephanie Baker part of the team covering all the battle raging on Russia's financial front. She joins us from London, Stephanie, take us inside the issue here and your personal experience

watching this in full over the last few years. Right, so Um, I went to Ukraine three times in twenty nineteen reporting on the whole controversy surrounding Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor UM and his efforts on behalf of Donald Trump, UM to pressure Ukrainian officials into announcing an investigation into Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine. So and I had gone and done reporting on Paul

Manafort and his work in Ukraine prior to that. I've lived in Russia for a few years and interviewed and profiled some of these oligarchs that are now being sanctioned. So Um, you know this is this struck me as end of an era. This thirty year period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening up of Eastern Europe and Russia to the global economy. Inward investment from from Western companies building up and it just struck me as this is the end

of that era. Um. Russia is completely isolated. It has now been declared a pariah state, and it's hard to see how it comes back, um unless Putin is removed from the picture. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about that, because we have covered through throughout the week all the different companies that have ceased operations in Russia or put them on pause, or pulled out of Russia completely.

But for this piece, you spoke to Bill Browder, who many of our audiences is familiar with, perhaps having read his book or followed his career over the last few decades. UM. He says, the key to cutting off Putin at his Achilles heel is the olive our talk about that a little bit, right. Yeah, I've known Bill ever since I was a reporter in Moscow in the nineties. So UM, and have you know charted how he was banned by uh Putin from entering Russia when he was once the

biggest portfolio investor in the country. Um. And you know his argument is the way to um hit Putin where it hurts is to sanction the oligarchs um, some of whom he believes are close to Putin and hold his wealth. Uh. You know, Putin has amassed wealth. We don't know the full extent of it. We believe the intelligence agencies know

much more, um. And you know, the way to make him feel the pain is to isolate Russia and the oligarchs UM from every angle, to make him realize that the cost of this war is too great to continue. Stephanie spent party career in Russia. You also witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union when you were in Prague in in n when you had just graduated from from college.

I'm wondering where the Russian people fall into this, Not the oligarchs, but everyday Russians who have seen their currency collapse, who are no longer able to get products from Western companies that have announced that they will stop selling those products there, who perhaps will have their travel industry absolutely crippled as Boeing and Airbus refused to service planes that are on Russian airlines. Do they have any power in bringing an end to Putin? I'm so glad you asked that,

because it's an absolutely crucial question. Uh. The problem is that Putin has shut down independent sources of information. For instance, Um, there was a famous radio station called Echo Muskui, which he has just closed down. Um. And there's I think there's one surviving independent newspaper. He controls the television station, and he's still calling this a special operation and not

a war. So there is an incredible degree of propaganda reminiscent of the Soviet Union happening right now that it's very hard to see how Russians can rise up or understand what's really going on until, of course, some of the casualties become clear. And it was extreme, very very significant that Russia announced at almost five soldiers had died. They don't generally do that, and for Russia to admit

that is a huge, huge deal. UM. So when that starts to filter through to the Russian population, you could see some movement, but the price of protesting, either posting things online or going out onto the streets to protest,

is incredibly high. Um. And I think it's it's sad that not only on that level, that the level of protest is so difficult, but there are tons of Russians and I know many of them who are just ordinary Russians of all levels working for normal companies, Russian companies, just trying to do their best, trying to you know, do business in UH an efficient and a westernized way, and that has all been destroyed. All that work building up UH these companies over the past thirty years has

been destroyed and it will be very hard to recover. Well, it is a must read, and we really appreciate your time, and we know what's been a really busy week. Um, Stephanie, thank you so much. Are thanks to Bloomberg News Financial Investigation Senior writer Stephanie Baker and her work included in a special report in this week's issue on the war

in Ukraine. It is the global cover story. Coming up, we're gonna turn our attention to the world of tech and a big quarterly earnings, a big beat for the team at HP Enterprize. We're gonna check in with the company's CEO, Antonio Nary. That is next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Earlier this week, cland Packard Enterprise boosted and suggested earnings per share forecast

for the full year. After the company released first quarter earnings that blue past analyst estimates, shares of HP rose the most nearly two years on Wednesday, after also exceeding expectations on gross margin. This despite a tough supply chain environment. The president's CEO, Antonio Nary, joined me and Bloomberg News Cross asset reporter Katie Graveveld to talk about how his

team did it. This is driven by customer of the month, is driven by our strategy, anything with the customers, and honestly a great expecution team because obviously we are balancing the revenue and the profitability of the business. Well, I want to dig into that demand a little bit more because what stuck out to me was that you had a growth in orders, which was your third consecutive quarter of at least increase. Breakdown that demand a little bit more.

Where is it coming from? What's driving that? That's actually exactly right. So this is the third consecutive quarter of twenty plus percent or the growth, and it was across

all businesses. You know, our compute business, with obviously people believe is commoditized um you know, grow our edge business, which is all about secure connectivity with a subscription model grew an excess of our storage business including data services grew an excess of fift and even our high performance computing an AI business grew and excess of I will say the shining star though, is we bring it all together in a platform which we call it HPI Green Lake,

which you can consumers. A service grew a hundred and thirty six percent year of the year, So it's across all businesses. But the momentum we have is because we're bringing all our solutions in an integrated, unified experience under Hi Green like Umbrella. A journio we learned on the call yesterday you said that supply and logistics challenges they may last through two. It's it's somewhat different than from some of the companies we've heard from thus far in

recent weeks as they've reported earnings. Are you just being conservative? What's going to improve first here? Is it going to be logistics challenges or is it going to be chip components and availability here? Well, my message has been consistent enough for several quarters, always said that this supply chain and logistics overload situation will continue well into physically or two, and we still see it that way, the majority of the challenges actually are in what are called low level

components and not on the high value commodities. And think think about it now, stuff that people don't think about, a voltage, regulators, capacitors, things that you need to build a system at the low level before you can build

actually the full integrated system. And that has to do with the with the fact that the demand is very strong and the availability of substrates particularly you know, these components are what we call in the old generation of technologies like twenty eight meters and stuff, and a lot of the fabrication has moved to the newer technologies like

fourteen and below. So I think, um, you know, the supplier of the substrate got called a little bit in between because of the huge demand that they are seeing and now they need to catch up. And this takes time because when you start bringing new capacity is complicated systems processes. And we said all along will take well under twenty At the end of two however, I will say we have never seen any noticeable customer cancelation, which

again give us the confidence. The demand is there is very robust, and it's also driven by the data explosion. We see around us above in a personal life and in a in a business side well, and even with those supply chain and those logistical challenge is you did see gross margin increased by thirty or rather gross margin. And what I'm curious about is whether that's sustainable. Yes, absolutely, it is sustainable, and I think he points to the

quality of earnings of how we're driving our company forward. Obviously, we are driving higher mix of software and services. If you look at one particular slide, our CFO Tirek Robiety showed the yesterday and commented on it was the fact that our green Lake offer drives more software in services in fact now is almost two thirds of the offer

that drives higher gross margins, higher gross operating margins. Obviously, the edge business comes with higher gross margins too, also because it's driven by a subscription model to software before you actually deploy some sort of port and access point or or a switching point. So all of that comes with higher margin. And remember that we were one of the first through the pandemic at the beginning of the pandemic to enact what we call our real locational resources

in through the future areas of growth. That's also paying off for us. So the margin are sustainable, and I will say really proud of what the team had done managing prioritization of orders and margins. And listen, if you look at a compute business again in the market is being seen as a commoditized business. The operative margins of the business was thirteen point eight percent. There is no vendor out there and drive the level of profitability in

a commoditized business. And Antonio, let's talk a little bit about intelligent and share because you are going head to head with Cisco, but clearly you're growing in this area. And I'm curious whether that's a function of you taking market share, whether the pie is just getting bigger. Well, we've definitely taking market share. Um. At the same time, the own ramp to digitize your business is through connectivity. You know, we called the edge the next frontier and

the edges where we live and work. Um. You know, that's where the vast majority of the data is created, not in a in a cloud of sorts, but really what the action is and that first step is to be connected in One of the concerns I have, while this is all good, is the fact that connectivity is an essential service, not different than water and electricity, and and that's why it's important as we go forward and we deployed this new massive distributed enterprise and this new

way of working, connectivity needs to be available everywhere. So we are taking share, we are creating new opportunities. But we have a differentiated strategy is called a Ruba Age Services Platform as a part of each pigree lake in that cloud oriented approach. In a mobile first approach, you can procure, provision and manage any aspect of your connectivity, whether it's a Wi Fi connectivity, whether it's a land

port connectivity or a one connectivity. Remember that a lot of the old systems, you know, whether it's a data center, campus and branch, we are connected through fixed networks. As more and more cloud native applications, particularly your phone gets developed, the traffic gets routed through the Internet and the refore you have to connect these millions of endpoints in a

very sustainable way. And HP Aruba Services Platform provide that integrated experience for our customers in a subscription model, and that's why we're growing so so fast. That was President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Antonio Neary. He spoke with me and my Bloomberg Quick Take co host Katie Greifeld still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week the so called razor blade trade. It is back on Wall Street and

retail investors are leading the way. We'll explain. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. Well, this story was among our most read on the Bloomberg

terminal this past week. Tim it was also a Bloomberg Big Take. It was one of the stories that you know had to be on your radar, and you can find it, of course, also in this week's Finance section of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's about Wall streets risky razor blade trade making a comeback and everyday investors piling into exchange traded funds ETFs of course that make it easy to use leverage or short the market, and that

could pose a major problem for lower level traders. Now to understand why we caught up with Bloomberg News Cross Asset reporter Deniza say Kova and Bloomberg Business Week editor Jill Weber. Many retail investors don't really know what they're getting. It just sound. It sounds like something that maybe they

want some exposure to UM. Maybe maybe it promises a quick buck uh and and oftentimes that can happen and successfully, but the downside is also always a risk of So Denita walk us through why we should be caring about this and and and reasonably a trade right now? Yeah, of course. So, first, I've seen a really historic boom in those products. We're talking in terms of total assets, in terms of volumes UM. Just as an example for total assets, we've seen a fifty five percent growth just

over a year UM in the US. This of course comes as retail traders UM have been entering market more and more as voltity has been rising. And some people actually say that Vomageddon, which happened in two thousand eighteen with one volatility product, was kind of an infliction point and a lot of people heard about those products and instead of being concious about it, they're like, maybe we should give it a try. Um. So definitely retail traders

love them. They offer big returns quickly, but um, as we talk in article, they may be offering big losses as well if you don't use them carefully. But in terms of regulation UM and experts, a lot of people worn about the risk of those products, first because they're very complex. A second, they're like very sophisticated vehicles that rely on day trading and timing the market, which is such a difficult thing. So obviously a lot of people are failing at that and in the carry costs, which

can obviously just either way at everything. So there's some interesting tickers and et f s in this space. What are some of the biggest, and especially in the era of the meme trader, which one is kind of grew in popularity the most. Yeah, the biggest one for sure are those who bet against the navdack or the performance of the navtack, so sqq and q q q uh. These are for sure the biggest one in terms of

trade trade volume and assets. But for example, interesting one is uv x y UM that's a very popular one that's also a votility product. So these are kind of the most popular one. For example, um our interviewee, she bets on small caps. She uses the t c A, which is against three times the inverse performance of the Russell two thousands. So pretty much you can bet against any index UM and you can have a lot of leverage.

In the US it's only two or three times, but in other places of the world you can get up to five and even twenty. In that case, yeah, well, uh, look good when it goes up or or or you know your way on the right side of the bat right exactly, uh, DANITZA. Who who are using these products and who should be using these products? What our experts say? Yeah, well, retail traders are definitely using them a lots like we have JP Morgan data showing that the mong ts this

is UM their most popular choice. As as I said, UM big returns really fast, so that's kind of very tempting. But in terms of who should be using them, when we go to those big providers, whether pre shares or other, they all say they're very for very sophisticated investors. They've been on the market for a very long time and they should know how to use them, um, etcetera. Etcetera.

But even the sec when they look at their products, they say they pose risk even for those investors because it's just such a big bet on the market that even if you're a sophisticated investor, you can get it wrong. All right, So how likely is it that we get it wrong and this could lead to some kind of financial crisis? Well, what do people think? It really depends on on the product. Like with votility, Obviously this this is caused system wide risk with betting on an index UM.

I guess the chances of kind of UH causing a system wide risk UM is very small. But if you can imagine just the basic number of how many active majors UM do better than passive index and I don't know what's the number, Maybe just imagine that type of leverage three times and getting it right. So the chances of being wrong, at least from my reporting, seems to be maybe higher than the chances of getting it right. That was Bloomberg News cross asset reporter Deniza Skova and

the editor of Bloomberg Business Week magazine, Jill Webber. You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up next, we're talking about app harvest The company has seen at stock and steady decline since going public via Spack merger thirteen months ago, and yet the company's physical expansion continues on just a

massive scale. They're definitely thinking longer term. CEO Jonathan Webb talks about building his product pipeline and the key innovations helping the company overcome the challenges of climate change, which was also, as we know courtesy that u N report this week, very much in the news. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Shows of the high tech greenhouse and vertical farm company app Harvest have not performed well since hitting the public markets. Just last February, fourth ward earnings released. Last week's showed adjusted

EPs with a bigger loss than forecast. Still, app Harvest is committed to expanding its footprint and building a product pipeline that's tailor made for a future fraud with climate uncertainty, And to be fair, we did see the stock jump on those earnings results, but certainly it's still way off its highs. For look at the business and outlook, we caught up with app Harvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb. He maintains the future it is bright as his team

ramps up in two. We're quadrupling our farm network, diversifying crops so we we we had app Harvest are growing UH fruits and vegetables in a controlled environment, focused on year round production here in the US. Our first facility here in more at Kentucky is is growing tomatoes, which we were targeting a lot of a lot of the imports coming in from south of the border. And then later this year we'll be growing leafy green salad, greens,

strawberries in more variety of tomatoes. So opening more farms, getting more crops to market UH and focused on getting good quality out to grocers all up and down the East Coast and Midwest and southeast. Hey, what does it mean, Jonathan, for your growth trajectory in terms of I'm pulling up the f a function on the Bloomberg. UH So looking at you know, revenue growth, it looks pretty dynamic when you look at two or three um like more than three year over year growth or year over year growth.

But give us some idea of the ramp up with this, Yeah, so we we've been under construction. UH really really proud of our construction team building some of the largest c e A facilities in the world in the middle of a global pandemic. What does that mean? What does that mean? That designation? Uh, Controlled environment agriculture. So you know, I try to say the third wave of sustainability twenty years ago was renewable energy, ten years ago it was electric vehicles.

And today, you know, you'll continue to hear the term c e A controlled environment agriculture using technology to grow fruits and vegetables a year round, uh, not having to worry about climate disruption, using far less land, far less water. Um. But building those facilities in the middle of of of a global pandemic and the supply chain issues is has

been something our team has been able to navigate. And we'll be bringing those facilities online later this year, which is which is gonna dramatically increase our our production across multiple crop types. So when we see numbers like I say on the on the Bloomberg that talks about you know, more than revenue growth from that's pretty realistic. Yeah, yeah, certainly that more could be even more. UM. Look forward

to seeing what the back half the year. Hold, but uh yeah, we we we uh were pretty bullish and optimistic on on where we're headed. And last year was our first year of operations, so we had uh no no, no, no operating history. Prior we were in over a thousand grocery stores from Kroger, Walmart, Costco, Publics. And the reality is the grocer demand and the demand from the consumer side, you know, well exceeds supply in the US. You have

this growing demand for control environment. Product quality is much better, you don't have the harsh chemicals, uh, much better labor practices, you have reliability of crop that you don't have to worry about in an open field, and you don't have the import issues. Uh. And and you know, we built the company with good E. S. G principles as our foundation. And and but ultimately the demand from the grocers is what's going to drive this industry forward. Well, what are

shareholders missing here right now? What are investors missing right now? Because we we we do have to talk about the stock price down significantly from highs last year in UH was trading around four back in March of one. Now it's at three dollars and fifty three cents roughly. Um, what are they missing when it comes to the opp harvest story. Yeah, I'm focused on building and growing the company. I mean the stock I think when near to forty

five dollars last year and down to three bucks. I mean you all learn the public markets and and probably know that better than me. But uh, you know, we certainly got caught up in the in the spack craze with the downward pressure on SPACs, downward pressure on innovation and tech. But you know, I'm bullish on American innovation, and those that want to bet against American innovation can uh, you know, try to determine what type of world they

want to live in. But this company here's head down on execution between now and the end of the year. And um, we're self sufficient and we're you know, continuing to raise and attract capital, uh from from good institutions that that will allow us to grow this business. That I think will set us apart from some of the other stories that have come to market. But uh, you know, as far as the stock price itself, it's you know, we're we're focused on getting you know, maximum shareholder value

by doing what we can do. And I'm hopeful that the stock front price will reflect that here in the years to come. Do you guys regret going public through a spack merger because of getting caught in that down draft? Just quickly? You know, at this point, we're focused on the future and what we're doing here today. Um, and you know, we're focused on building the business. So Jonathan, for those who are not familiar, Um, because we've had your team on before to talk about what you guys

are doing, remind our audience how it all works. Yeah, so, uh at Harvest is building some of the world's largest controlled environment agriculture facilities, growing fruits and vegetables year round in a controlled environment, using less water than open field agriculture, getting roughly thirty times yield for acre um and and and offering reliable quality brought to large grocers like Kroger, Walmart, Costco, Publix, um And And this last year we were growing tomatoes.

This year we'll be growing salad, green strawberries, and tomatoes, distributing all across the US. And Jonathan, and when it comes from to a technology perspective, what is the technology that you've developed at Harvest that is patented or not necessarily you know, copyable. If somebody goes and sees how you do things, they say, wait a second, I can I can do this myself. Well, well, part of it's just sheer execution at scale. And I'll talk about the

technology in a moment. But our first facility in more Head is nearly three million square feet in size. We're bringing about five to six million square feet of additional facilities online this year. To put that in perspective, the one facility alone, you could put fifty football fields inside

of it. So aale. But we acquired a robotics company that's focused on robotic harvesting UH in in Ai picking and order to to better optimized yield production UH and then one of the only facilities to run completely on recycled rainwater. We you know you were mentioning we're going to break about the droughts in California. We're we're in a water rich region. That's why we're building in eastern

Kentucky and area of the country that's getting wetter. People have actually joked, well, haliburt and build water pipelines to the west, and while they do it from Appalachia to the west, but we're taking that rainwater running completely on recycled rainwater here, so we're not reliant on city water at all, and that is a fairly unique design and benefit to to what we're doing uh here here in

uh the eastern half of the US. I have to say, whenever you guys are coming on and I Google and look for some of the images, I mean, it's massive your facilities. Can you guys do this anywhere? Yeah, we've we've definitely, you know, we're we're focused on building our headquarters in central Appalachia where we can get to seventy of the US in a one day drive. Amazon is building the largest prime facility in the world in northern

Kentucky right now, so they're right up the road. But yeah, it's you know, you look at the Middle East, who imports most all their fruits and vegetables. We've we've been been in deep discussions for several countries there. We we invested in a technology red sea farms. Uh. That's out of cows some Saudi Arabia. Uh. And then you look at Southeast Asia, which is heavy demand, which which India and China have ten of the world's fresh water and

the world's population. We we have to figure out how to grow a lot more food with a lot less resources, and using technologies is the only way to do it. Not to mention tops so all getting a little tired exactly. We talked about fossil fuel extraction is being the only extractive industry, and I'm sitting in coal country. We're mining nutrients out of the soil. We're not replenishing those nutrients where you know, Californias is tapping all their freshwater reservoirs

to the point to where you know, the running low. Uh, we don't have a choice. I mean, we're moving again. We're in the infancy of controlled environment agriculture in the US. UM. But but I think over the coming decade, you'll see, you know, just much like you saw evs ten years ago and renewal energy twenty years ago, you're going to see a lot of c A build all around the US. How do you think about expansion not just in the United States, but but globally as well to some of

those countries that you mentioned. Is that something that you do at our harvest or do you license the technology or let someone else take care of it. Yeah. Again, we're focused on getting our national footprint here. Uh, and and have have a couple of exciting opportunities we're working on that we've talked about that we hope we'll we'll get to fruition by the back half of this year

in the US. But we're very cognizant. I mean, we we've had very uh high level discussions in in both Middle East and Southeast Asia with countries that that Frankly, you know, you look at the chaos happening in our world right now. I mean, everybody is trying to figure out how do we become resource resilient and self sufficient in some way, and part of that is growing food

at home. And you know, there's no reason we're shipping food thousands of miles around the world when every country has the opportunity to to build systems, use technology and grow food right at home. And we definitely are gonna explore how we can be a helpful player in that transition, but right now we're focused on our core business here

in the US. That was app Harvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb, and that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovik. Coming up in our next hour, the CEO of Plug Power on how his company is being impacted by the war in Eastern Europe, a region that supplies some of the metals and minerals that the firm needs to build hydrogen fuel cell systems.

Plus Bolton College President Clayton Rose explains how Apple is helping students learn to lead in an increasingly digital world and shuffle up and deal everybody. We're going to tell you why poker. It's all the rage in the metaverse. That's what's actually going on, Tim, in the metaverse, Like, well, we're not think like you know, meetings in the virtual world yet, right, we're planned poker. I guess. So this

is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happened. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I am Carol Masser and I'm Tim st Plenty ahead in our second hour

of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Including a look at the world of higher education as a threat of COVID nineteen begins to wane, and how Apple is spurring the push for digital equity at Bowden College. We're taking a trip to the Central Land, so buckle up. It's one of the busiest destinations in the nascent metaverse, and it's being buoyed by virtual casinos where players can gamble for a chance at crypto wealth. Do you need

ticket to the metaverse now? But you need a little crypto at least for this this version of the metaverse. I get to know first up this hour that we focus on clean energy solutions from Plug Power. The company builds hydrogen and fuel cell systems and sells them to the likes of Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, and a lot more companies. It also sources many key input materials from Eastern Europe, a region as you know, currently in the

throes of war. My Bloomberg Quick Take Hollie Kitty Grayfield and I spoke with President and CEO Andy Marsh after the company posted a wider than expected fourth quarter loss yet reaffirmed its revenue forecast. When you look at the hydrogen market, it's scheduled to be a ten trillion dour market if you look at the analysts and like gold at Goldman Sachs and with that kind of market, you're going to have rapid growth and PLUG is expected to

double it's revue. A lot will come from the generation of hydrogen or electricalizer business, which we expect to grow by more than seventy uh over the coming years, as well as other opportunities to grow the business in new markets like one road vehicles without JV with Renault and Andy.

If you look at the balance of risks of the year ahead, I feel like we have to talk about the situation in Russia and Ukraine because Russia, I mean, it's one of the world's biggest suppliers of platinum and aridium, and your fuel cells and your electrializers obviously use both of those materials. Are those supplies at risks right now? Do you do you get platinum and a radium from Russia or Ukraine? Really good question, and we've we've established

supply change with some of our partners. We have a close partnership with Johnson Matthew which have access to titanium in a rhydium all over the world. This past weekend we opened a joint venture facility, broke around a joint venture facility with Fortescue, one of the largest mining companies in Australia. UH spent a lot of time actually today making sure there was by chains were sound. We do not believe that will impact our delivery this year. So do you get do you get plantinum in a ridiu

from Russia or Ukraine? Their global markets, So you know, we're not specifically buying it from UH, from Ukraine or Russia, but as you know, all these commodities are global. How do you control for that? Well, I think what's important is we have relationships with some of the largest largest suppliers of role role materials, people like Bortescue in Australia, which is one of the largest mining companies in Australia.

So do you anticipate any any hiccups given that it's a global market and given that Russia is one of the world's biggest suppliers, do you anticipate any trouble actually acquiring those commodities plantum in a ridium. I believe that we you know, I think what we were able to do during the pandemic, being able to double our revenue

during the pandemic over the past two years. I think when you look at what's going on in Ukraine, the horrible events there, it also really helps a business like Plug Power because Plug will be able to you know, the energy transition will happen faster. We provide green hydrogen, we provide fuel cells. I've been spending a lot of time with natural gas producers, producers and natural great gas pipeline companies in Europe about how they can transition to

hydrogen and fuel cells more rapidly. Well, Andy, that's something I've been thinking about this week. I mean, it's well known by now that Russia it's such a key supplier for energy, for natural gas, for oil to to Europe and uh, I mean that's really emerged as sort of a crisis when it comes to European energy security. So you see this, this situation that's unfolding is helping to accelerate some of the adoption when it comes to things

like green hydrogen. When I look at it, we have been promoting green hydrogen to help reduce the carbon footprint so that folks have meet the one point five degrees goal. Now it's pretty clear the work we're doing in green hydrogen is a national security issue for both the United States and Europe. And plug Power is probably as the largest fuel selling hydrogen company in the world, is in a better position than anyone else to take advantage of

the this turbop this opportunity in this turbal situation. So can you talk a little bit about how you're moving beyond your core market right now, you do, according to the Bloomberg Terminal, get a large portion of your revenue from just a couple of different companies. Those companies include Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Procter, Gamble, and more. I talked about the transformation that you're doing at plug Power to try to diversify those sources of revenue. Sure, great question. I'm gonna

give you two examples. One is with Fortescue Medals in Australia, we have an opportunit unity, you know, for over the next eighteen months to deliver two hundred million dollars worth of revenue to that worth of products to Fortescue for generation of green peumonia in Australia. With the within Roscom in Egypt, we're actually working with them to build electoralizer plant a hundred megawide electricizer plant which will generate hundreds

of millions of dollars. So you know this market opportunities are with global players around the world, and obviously our JB for on road vehicles with Renault is another huge opportunities for plug Power to diversify our customer base. That was Andy Marsh She's president CEO over at plug Power. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. A new England college is making a commitment to what it's calling digital excellence, and it's enlisting a big tech powerhouse to

ensure every student has a fair shot at achievement. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovik from Bloomberg Radio. Mains Boden is an elite liberal arts college accounts and a ray of influential figures among its alumni from Netflix founder Read Hastings and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Now, the nearly two d thirty year old institution for higher learning is looking toward the future with the help of the world's

most valuable company, Apple. Late last month, the school announced what it's calling its Digital excellence commitment. So for more on Boden's mission to create digital equity across the student body and on its push to get back to some degree of normalcy in the wake of the COVID pandemic,

we caught up with Boden College President Clayton Rose. We began working with Apple in in Earnest a few years ago before the pandemic UM with respect to technology campus and how to think about the future of the use of technology and higher education. During the pandemic, we made the decision to provide every one of our students and any faculty member that wanted one with an iPad pro

and a pencil UH. And we did that UM during the academic year when a number of our students were operating remotely and many of our classes were operating remotely, so that every single student would have access to precisely the same hardware and be able to experience software in exactly the same way UM, and that faculty would be able to rely on very good technology to be able to deliver their classes and to work with their students in real time, and for the students to work with

each other in study groups and offline and so forth. And that that proved to be a very powerful tool for making sure that we were able to deliver a great education during the pandemic. Last the sash well, I want to jump in, UM, but I'm wondering why Apple and rather than a less expensive provider of PCs, because when we talk Apple, we're talking premium products here. I guess I would turn to the old phrase that you

get what you pay for. It's Apple has built fantastic products both in the notebook version and in the iPad version, and they do different things, which is why we're providing our students with both of those tools UH and the

pencil as well. UH. Also the ability to provide the kind of software that we need to offer our students to be able to have the educational experience they have both general UM productivity software but also very core specific software across the range of disciplines really drove us to Apple.

I would also say that UM the UH in addition to the quality of the product, the service relationship that we have with Apple was also very important to us to make sure that students would have little if any downtime. If UM they know something got broken, they needed to get something repaired, and so forth. Well, and this really gets into something we talked about here UM Clayton a lot at Bloomberg about inequity of access or just inequalities

that are out there as well. What were you seeing that was potentially holding back some students because they did not have that same access. Yeah, thanks for that, Carol. UH. The the issue of access and opportunity is a central part of our mission, and we can spend some time if you want, talking about our financial aid program. But to the to the question you asked, what we were seeing is that students would come to campus with a

wide variety of hardware. Everyone would arrive pretty much everyone would arrive with some kind of a laptop or tablet. But the wide variety of laptops and tablets, the wide variety of the quality of the age, the power of the memory UH was making it increasingly difficult for our faculty to be able to rely on the ability for our students to be able to do the work UH in a way that UM was going to provide them

with an excellent education. And many of our students who had UH lower quality and older products were not able to do the same kind of things in the same way as students who had the very best products for us.

We really came to realize, and this was driven home during the pandemic that to be able to deliver the education that we want and action and to prepare our students for the digital world that we're going into, they all need to be working off of an excellent hardware platform and have access to excellent software and to be and to and to have a kind of homogeneous experience to be able to to all be working with the

same tool UH. And that that that drove us. Otherwise, you've got students who are who are operating in a very different, lower quality environment, and we were seeing that and this is for us table stakes for a great education. The cost of this to you guys, and where the money specifically is coming from it was it a gift from a donor, like how are you doing this? So this UH, the funding for this GARL will come from

our operating budget. We concluded that it was so important that we do this that we needed to make room in our normal operating budget UM to cover the cost of doing this. So it's not a specific gift, it's not a limited time UM. My guess is that we'll have UH donors who find this interesting and we'll be able to help us over time. But um, out of the box here we're covering out of our operating budget. Well, okay, will it? Will it lead to an increase in tuition

costs going forward? No, We're very disciplined about our our our budget, so we make choices about what's important and this is very much at the top of the list. And some of the other things that we might not have done we'll get too later. But um, but work their way into the budget later. Can you give us an idea of how much it costs it's costing for student? Sure, it's it's been reported that this is a web per student.

I have to do the math. But total program on an annual basis is at about a million and a half dollars. So if we divide that by the two thousand students, I don't know my calculator, and it's higher math, So I'm going to miss something. I mean, in the greater scheme of operating expenses, it's it's it's not really really significant right now. A million and a half is real money, But that's that's correct. Our our operating budget is about a hundred and eighty million dollars in a

given year. Um and uh, and again this is such an important part of ensuring that all of our students receive a great mode and education that you know, it's it's it's hard to argue that we shouldn't be doing it so real money but um, but manageable in the context of the budget that we have an incredibly important in terms of our priorities. We did the math calculator, Thank you so much for app seven fifty dollars per

per student. UM. I get it though, because we don't do an interview Clayton where somehow it doesn't matter what industry you're talking about, what leader you were talking to, that's somehow the conversation gets back to technology in some ways. And so um, I get it. I get it where you come from. Yeah, And the combination of the of the notebook and the iPad is really quite powerful and

it's very interesting. When we first started, we were thinking about either or and we came to the conclusion that what you really need is to put both of these tools into our students hands. They do different things, they complement each other in very powerful ways, and turning in terms of the teaching and the learning that we do here, and it doesn't matter what discipline, right, you're saying, every student gets this. If that's exactly right. That was Boden

College President Clayton Rose. Still to come. On Bloomberg Business Week, the poker boom is experiencing a second coming, except this time it is taking place in the Da Da DA the metaverse. Why an online casino is one of the most popular places to visit in a far off place

called the Central Land. This is Bloomberg frontcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. As the world opens up with the threat of the latest COVID variant receding. Where

are people going for some excitement? Well, it turns out right back to their computers and a corner of the metaverse it's known as do Central Land. In the text section of the magazine, this week Bloomberg News video game reporter Cecilia Donastasio writes that it's not unusual for gambling to kind of act as this bridge to bring emerging technology to the masses. It's happened before, Cecilia joining us

along with the Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. I love it that, you know, we're all talking about the metaverse and what it's going to be and how it's gonna up in tech and fortunes are going to be made and companies are going to be and die on this thing. And the first place that we get to see what it looks like, what are people doing there?

It's sin right kind of so, so, cecilianlet's bring you in. Um, why why why is it that we could have these grand ambitions for the future and yet we just end up gaming. Yeah, it's not unusual. A lot of new technologies have been ushered in by gambling, by you know, nine Nandy one. The year that the first PCs were introduced, video poker was already very popular. The Internet was in part ushered in by casinos. Even cryptocurrency bitcoins. Some of

the first applications were gambling. And now at the what people say is the dawn of the metaverse. We have poker. So tell us what the central end like if you go there? I mean, do I Am I really going to see a picture of Jamie Diamond? You can if you'd like, Um, so tell us about you go in.

What's the experience? It's a funny experience if you're someone who's played video games, because what does Sunderland look like is a virtual world in the kind of virtual world you might see, you know, on a random web browser in like the early to mid two thousand. Thank you. I was reading this story earlier today and I said to some colleagues sitting next to me, I'm like, what, how is this not Second Life all over again? It

kind of is. And actually, you know, there are a lot of things that Second Life does that to Central Land can't do. But to Central Lands big pole is the fact that it is to Central lines. It runs on the ethereum technology and um they're selling real estate for a lot of money, millions of dollars even what

do you mean? What do you mean they're selling real estate so you can buy a plot of land in the virtual world like um to Central Games has done with their ice poker casinos and you can bring people in and do business there typically using cryptocurrency. Is that number negotiable? Maybe I ask them and find out. So what else can you do there other than you know, play a little poker. Sure, So into Central and there are a lot of things that you can do. So

you can tour, you know, a Southby's art gallery. You can, um, come on, Paris Hilton, you're bearing the lead. Paris Hilton performed a conference a uh concert there. I think Dead Mouse did to the electronic musician. Um. The there's like going to be a Barbatos embassy there soon apparently. So people are doing all kinds of things, sort of speculating on the metaverse into Central Land. How do you Let's go to poker though and talk a little bit about

what people are doing. As you mentioned, it has historically helped usher in you know, gaming has helped us or in new technologies. Um, the legality of this, it's kind of like a little bit you know, wishy washy with what's what you're allowed to do, what you're not allowed

to do. I think the timing is really interesting because we're talking about sports betting on sort of a wide scale at least through your phones now being available in many different states, are people allowed to just kind of gamble with real money in the metaverse, It's really complicated. It's gray area, so UM. In order to gamble in US states mostly UM, you will need a gambling license UM in the states that do happen to allow gambling UM ice Poker, which is the game we're talking about

that exists into Central Land. It is great because you're not necessarily gambling with chips that you then cash out for money. There are a number of different currency systems and digital assets that each have varying values that people are kind of playing with. In order in order to actually access UM the gameplay, you do have to be either in you have to either buy or be in possession of an n f T that sells for you know,

five thousand and seven thousand dollars or more UM. But gambling experts aren't sure whether that qualifies as consideration, which is something that someone would put up in order to gamble in real life. That's a lot of money. Yeah, it's an say, I feel like all of our browser

for it a little bit. So a glimpse of the future here, tell us, is there a greater meaning in all of this way, what's your what's your reading of what what does this mean for for the metaverse and and the companies that are going to be doing business there. That's a great question. I think it's really interesting that there's been a lot of speculation on the metaverse and its prospects. Um Morgan Stanley for example, said that it

could be a trillion dollar opportunity in the future. But what we're seeing right now is that the metaverse is a a lot less populated than top video games be you know, looks like maybe an older video game, and see one of the big draws there right now is doing something that looks a lot like gambling. So I think it's to be seen exactly what the staying value add is of the metaverse. That was Bloomberg News video game reporters Cecilia Donastasio along with the editor of the magazine,

Joel Weber. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming out from gaming in the metaverse to cummies gummies? Yeah, you heard me right in real life are Bloomberg Pursuits team takes a bite out of the multibillion dollar edible wellness boom See what I did there. I see what you did there. You didn't bring me any gummies though, well maybe later. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich

from Bloomberg Radio. Gummies no longer just a way to ingest empty calories. More and more adults are turning to gelatine based chewable suites for treating and preventing a variety of elements and boosting their immune systems. And they're just apparently not for kids anymore. Yeah, well, especially CBD gummies, right, It's a non psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that's found in

some of these products. But there are also gummies for retinal to improve the quality of your parents skin, or at least that's what they're supposed to do, and others that can help with everything from mental fog to mentro cramps. Are Bloomberg Pursuits team set out to separate fact from fiction and figure out which gummies on the market really do live up to the height. Let's bring in Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser and Business Week contributor Asia mangum So.

Chris let's start with you. How did this topic grab your attention? Did Asia call you up and said, I got a story for you, Chris, Well, you know, we'd all on the team been observing the rise of gummies, which has been happening for a few years. And um, you know, I've certainly tested some for sleep, CBD gummies

for stress, and so is the team. And Asia said, you know what, let's look at how big this has gotten and how broad because the global edible wellness market is three point three billion now and it's expected to read eight point three billion and twenty thirty. So people are eating their wellness. Um. And as you said, there's gummies for seemingly everything now, so um, Asia was on

the case. She tested a bunch of them. She talked to a bunch of experts, and we learned kind of like what you should look for, what's good, and what people are trying to do. Okay, So let's start with with what's out there right now, Asia, because as Chris mentioned, there are all these different things, and I think a lot of people might be familiar with gummies. Is a delivery for vitamins perhaps or even in the last couple of years, CBD but but what does the market landscape

look like? What kind of you know, attracted me to gummies? Like Chris said, like this has been trending for a while. Um, there really are gummies for everything. There's gummies to help you sleep, there's gummies if you need to pick me up, you know, at three o'clapping afternoon, instead of having a cup of coffee, you get a gummy. There's you know, gummies a claim you know, to help you know, clear out your urinary track, you know system. Um, they're mushrooms

that are now in gummy forms. So you know, for me, it was just kind of like, you know, whatever you have, whatever is ailing you, there's a gummy for it. Um, If you have is it, there's a gummy for it. Your hair it's thin, if your hair is dolped, there's a gummy for that too. Your nails are breaking, there's a gummy. So the market is that. But I think you know the problem with these gummies, and you know what we mentioned in the piece, it's just the amount

of sugar. Um because a lot of these you know supplements, they actually don't taste good on their own. Let's say apple, you know, side or vinegar, which people you know normally take to help, you know, with digestion, but it's growth. Um. You need a lot of sugar sometimes to you know, just mask up, you know, the the grossness. Really. So one of the funny things about these gummies is the dosage is one or two gummies um, and for me, at least one gum. It's like trying to eat one dorrito.

You know. A few years ago, somebody got me some Sebete gummies and I just they tasted so good that I ate an entire bottle or three days. And it wasn't the right move for me, but it was really hard to eat just one. Yeah, And Martha Stewart just Sugar Coated Company, and she's like, I ate like seven to ten of these every day, but you're really only so let's eat one or two. And that's why Martha's so chill. But you know, so okay. So it's hard

to eat just the one or two. But maybe you're getting a lot of different things, um from a bunch of different gummies. So maybe you eat like, I don't know, six or seven that's a little more satisfying different kinds, but then you're eating your entire day's allowance of sugar in some cases. Um, and essentially eating a box of chocolate. UM. I had a moment and you know, working on this story, and I saw myself in my holy crap I had.

I just had ten gummies. And it was around Valentine's Day and I have, you know, two small kids, and there's celebrations at school, and there was a little box of chocolate on the kitchen table and I looked at how many grams of sugar is in the box of chocolate, and there's twenty three grams of sugar which I consumed just in you know, the healthy nutritional supplement. So I think it's something that easily can get out of control.

And also, if you're taking you know, gummy supplement to help with your skin, consuming so much sugar is actually doing more to your skin. So it's kind of like, you know, you really need to balance out your intake because if you're taking a gummy from metabolism, but then you're taking ten while it can cause you to gain weight, you know how its say, like you know, consuming too

much sugar. You know, you can go to your waistline as you bring up a really good point and that's about the delivery mechanism in gummies, right, is is this actually the right way that you know, health professionals recommend getting all these products, like you know, a pill could be better something that's perhaps transdermal. As far as the delivery system, No, they don't. They don't recommend it, like you know, all the doctors and I spoke to everyone. Um, No,

they're not going to recommend a gummy. However, it is helpful for people that really have a hard time taking pills. I'm I'm one of them. I am toodramatic scene. There are a lot of theatrics and reflect exactly and when I'm like yagging all over the kitchen and it can take me ten minutes to take one self. So you know, it is helpful um for people like myself. Um, but yes, it's no. There are better delivery systems you know, out there than than a gummy. Um, as one of our

experts said, like melatonin. I mean that's you know, you can chew a gummy and you know fall asleep, Like that's fine, but if you want to you know, if you're tackling other problems, um, a multi vitamin that's fine and gummy form, but if you want to tackle like a variety of issues. No, there are better delivery systems out there than than a gummy. So age, I'm thinking people who are listening to this and they're like, oh, yeah,

I take a bunch of gummies. So what's what's some guiding rules that you think, based on your reporting, that people should do, you know, what what should they take in gummy form? You have to you have to read the labels. Um, if if you're seeing eight grams of added sugar, that may not be the best gummy for you. If well, maybe if you're just taking you know, one or two and you're comfortable with that, you know, that's fine.

But if you're taking multiple gummies, you should you know, look for a gummy that maybe have two, you know, grams of added sugar, three grams of paddock sugar. Like, once you start getting into five, six, seven, and eight and you're taking multiple gummies, you may want to pare it down. Also, know, you have to really think about the issues you want to address. Um, if you want

to go to sleep, yeah, melotonin is fine. Um, but if you're like, oh, you know, I need vitamin d OH and I also need vitamin c OH and I also need some immunity boosting this, that and the other. I would actually maybe recommend another delivery system, maybe maybe do a smaller like sometimes I cut my tablets. Yeah. Um, I know that sounds like very juvenile, but it works for me. Yeah no, And it's some really good advice. Asia. Thank you, Asia man gun there um joining us and

she's a Business Week contributor. To check out her reporting. Um, we want to get back to the rest of the pursuits uh section this week, and uh, they're talking about gummies. We know that, but you also talked about some of the best books of spring Chris. Yeah. Every year James Tarmy looks ahead at spring and fall and talks about the most interesting books. And so he has a roundup of ten uh this week, and some of the ones that I'm most excited about our Amy O'Dell, who's us

styal writer. Uh and like so much fun to pull off a real coup and do a biography of Anna Wintour where she got the participation of all of her inner circle and all the major designers. So that's going to be full of juice. Grant Ginder, one of my favorite writers, has a really zippy, funny novel called Let's

Not Do That Again. It's like a political farce. Um. And there's a book called The Last Days of Roger Federer, which looks at athletes and performers and artists as they get older and what happens in their second and third and fourth chapters and the messages. You know, it may not be your greatest chapter, but there's still a lot of good to come. Okay, well, we're not out of the pandemic yet, but Bill Gates already has a book out how to Prevent the Next Pandemic. That's also on

the list here. It's something that we talk a lot about with how experts who come on the show. Um, what is Bill Gates writing about here? You know, he's learned a lot about this, Like not only has he an expert in global healthcare because of his foundation, but he also did a lot of work at the beginning of the pandemic and throughout and so you know, he's learned a lot about how how countries can prepare hair and how communities can prepare Okay, go ahead, Carol, I

just want to go to Cancoon. Can we just go there? I'm sorry, I'm like, let's go to Cancoon. Nikki Exstein writing about Cancoon's new luxury it's not just for spring break right and cool parties. There's some really great luxury resorts going on. Yeah, So Mexico in general and Caribbean Mexico in particular is having like the moment of moment, the months of months, the year of years, because it's pretty easy to come in and out of Mexico with

COVID requirements. I feel like there was no pandemic in Mexico because everybody kept going there. But you know, and so Cancoon is easy to get to from the East coast um and Cancun itself. The city has a huge resorts um. There's plenty of rooms, but if you want a more fancy, like less spring breaking place, there's actually not a lot of options in the area, and the ones that are there, like like in Myacoba, are very expensive. So there's a new development south of Cancoon Um and

the first hotel there is called a Tario. It's built over the mangrove forests. It's on the water. It's totally incredible, and there's just a lot there's more opportunities to have a luxurious vacation. Now, Okay, well, if you want to go on vacation play some golf. It's just in the last thirty seconds that we have with you, Chris, how is remote learning taking over when it comes to golf instruction.

This is a really big trend in golf right now because a lot of instructors couldn't get to their audiences because of COVID, and you know, people just really started learning everything at home, and so particularly golf swing lessons and golf training and golf videos have gotten really huge. The big companies are getting into its tailor made golf Digest, and people are really finding that it's a very efficient

way to learn and get better. Our thanks to Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser into Business Week contributor Asia man Gum for guiding us through this week's Pursuit section. I kind of knew that after this week. It's just, you know, it's been pretty heavy, all right. That wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stick. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week

Monday through Friday, starting at UPM Wall Street. Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. You can also see me on

Bloomberg Quick Take. It's available at Bloomberg dot com, slash qt, and watch on streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. Have a great weekend everyone, and stays safe. This is Bloomberg