This is Bloomberg business Week Inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast. Well lots of big news this week. The conflict in the Middle East entered a dangerous new phase. Jd Vance and Tim Walls squared off in what is likely the final debate of the twenty twenty four campaign. Dock workers along the US East and Gulf coasts went on strike for the first time since nineteen seventy seven, as the union took a hardline stance against automation found at other ports around the world.
All topped off with the September jobs report on Friday that followed comments earlier in the week by fed share Jay Powell about a solid labor market but noting that conditions have quote clearly cooled over.
The past year.
Check out the latest on everything from the economy, to the presidential campaigns to geopolitics on the Bloomberg Terminal or at Bloomberg dot Com.
This hour we tackled geopolitics and the US political divide thanks to two new books. One gets into the psychological roots of tribalism and how the things that keep us apart can actually bring us closer together. The other book, Timely Considering the escalating tensions of the Middle East, takes us back to nineteen twenty nine and Ghosts of a Holy War.
Plus this week we got our own read on the consumer when we caught up with Josh Weinstein, the CEO of Carnival. All of that to come, we begin with the escalating conflict in the Middle East. This coming week marks the one year anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel.
Much has happened, including this past week Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel. As we recorded this, the world was awaiting a possible Israeli response against Iran. One conversation we had on the conflict took us back to nineteen twenty nine and came courtesy of your Denna Schwartz, an Award winning journalist and Emmy nominated producer her new book, Ghosts of a Holy War. Teen twenty nine massacre in Palestine that ignited the Arab Israeli conflict.
The events we're seeing today in which there is already this broader war against Israel by Iran and its proxies in the region, really shows us that this is not a conflict about land as it has been treated for decades. This is a holy war, as I argue in my book, and it needs to be looked at as such. And we see that very clearly now in which this war is not just between Israelis and Palestinians, it is between
Iran and its proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq. For the last year, this didn't just start as you said, you know, yesterday or last week. It's been going on one century ago with a massacre and what was then British mandate Palestine.
Well take us back to nineteen twenty nine, because it does feel like we need to understand the history, and I feel like we continue to be kind of on a history life, and for those of us not either from the region, born in the region, lived in the region, or have some personal impact from it, you know, we're constantly kind of studying to understand the complicated nature. Somebody said very simplistically to me, well, it's kind of like gang wars to some extent because you have so many
different groups. How do you see it and how does going back to nineteen twenty nine take us back there in terms of what happened.
Yeah, so, so many people begin their conversations around the origins of this war with years like nineteen sixty seven or nineteen forty eight, but this conflict began long before that, actually two decades before.
We see the emerging.
Of the driving forces behind this conflict today, and those forces our religion, as I said before, but also disinformation, and it was a campaign of disinformation that led to this horrific massacre of one of the world's most ancient Jewish communities in Hebron in what was then British and Date Palestine in nineteen twenty nine. And my book Elucidates and Gripping detail the parallels between that massacre one century ago and the massacre of October seventh.
Why do you think so many modern conversations about the history of the region, at least the modern history, start in nineteen forty eight and don't go back to nineteen twenty nine.
Yeah, that's an excellent question, And I think it comes down to people not really being able to wrap their heads around what is really complicated and a conflict that has such a long history, and so they try to look at it in the simplest way possible.
And it makes sense then to begin.
That story in nineteen forty eight, But that's like beginning a story in the middle, because you see the emergence of what has become a very prominent lie that is told around alak samosque it is the third holiest site in Islam, and it sits upon the ruins of the ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem, and that the temple is the holiest site in Judaism, and that kind of tells you why religion plays such a big role in this conflict.
But the rumor that is still told by Muslim leaders today is that the Jews of what was then Palestine were planning to conquer Al Alczamosk. That was the lie that led to the massacre of nineteen twenty nine, and that lie continues to be told today by groups like Hamas the Iitola of Iran Hezbadah. And you can just look at the name that Hamas gave to its operation on October seventh. It was called Alaksa flood because this lie about the Jews of Palestine in nineteen twenty nine
or today Israel. This lie that they're trying to conquer all Okzamosk to rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple is such a powerful force, a galvanizing force in the region, and corrupt leaders like the leader of Palestinian Muslims under British rule in nineteen twenty nine, have managed to distract criticism of corruption, nepotism, misappropriation of funds. For the last century. They've been able to distract their people from their own failures by holding on to this lie that is so powerful.
Yodana, I know the book focuses on nineteen twenty nine, but I want to go back even earlier than that and sort of understand how the seeds for this were planted, maybe even during the British occupation of the area earlier in the century.
Yeah, so we're talking about British Mandate Palestine. This was a mandate given to the British Empire to rule over what it had just conquered from the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled that territory for more than four hundred years, and before the Ottoman Empire conquered the region. It was a province of a rotating cast of foreign powers, going back to the Romans, the Greeks, the Crusaders. It was
actually the Romans who gave Palestine its name. It had been known as the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judea, and when the Jews of Judea carried out a rebellion against the Romans, they punished them by renaming the land after the Israelites' ancient enemies, the Philistines.
Well, and I guess that's what I'm wondering is you know, you go back to, as we said, the early nineteen hundreds and the role of colonialism the UK specifically, you know, in establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, which was against the wishes of the indigenous Arab population.
You do also wonder how that kind of set the stage in addition to what you were talking about, which led to the Hebron massacre, that there was more going on that made for a very volatile environment between these two populations.
Absolutely, Yeah, the conflict didn't just begin out of nowhere
in nineteen two twenty nine. Of course, the tensions between Palestine's Jewish minority and its Arab majority had been simmering for years and had already claimed dozens of lives by nineteen twenty nine, but the massacre in Hebron and the riots that engulfed Palestine that week in August of nineteen twenty nine really became the first mass casualty event of this conflict and kind of set the formula for every eruption of violence that we have seen since.
You lived in Israel for more than a decade, and as we've been speaking with our reporters on the ground there, they've shared with us this feeling that people in Israel right now do feel like that the conflict they are fighting is one that is indeed existential. And I'm wondering if you think, given what's going on there today, the actual existence of Israel in the future is threatened.
Absolutely understanding that really helps to explain the actions Israel has taken since October seventh. You know, there's talk of disproportionality, and we heard this from Biden today, but I think if you are in Israel and you see your country being attacked from seven fronts, and you see a world that doesn't really understand that the only reason we're not seeing mass casualties yesterday and today as a result of Iran's ballistic missile attack is a result of Israel's defense systems.
I mean, you don't just have the Iron Dome intercepting some of those rockets, but you also are many of those rockets, I should say, but you also have the government investing in bomb shelters for israelis something that I wish, you know, other countries would do. If imagine if Gozans had bomb shelters or Lebanese civilians had bomb shelters that could protect them from the terror groups that are embedding
themselves within civilian populations. And you know, Israel really is fighting a war not just against the Palestinians, it's against Hamas, but it's also against Hesbalah. And you know, like I said earlier, we really should be looking at the names of these organizations because they tell us everything. I mean, Hezbalah's name means the.
Party of God.
Hamas's name is the Islamic Resistance Movement in English. You know, so much of what these organizations say themselves we're not hearing in the West. And what they're saying is they desire to destroy the state of Israel and Israel israelis hear that, but I think a lot of us here don't understand that.
So in your thinking about the region and the way forward, we assume we fingers cross that we get to a better place at some point. Although it's hard to see right now, does a two states solution in some ways help the situation, specifically in Israel and with the Palestinians.
So I do believe that a two state solution is the only solution to this conflict. And just going back to the history here, I began writing this book nearly six years ago. You know, I didn't just pick up and start writing this after October seventh. I was writing
about this massacre well before October seventh. The reason I did was because there was this family in Memphis, Tennessee that I was introduced to that had found this box of letters in their attic, containing hundreds of pages of letters from their late uncle who was murdered in the massacre in nineteen twenty nine, and his letters painted this beautiful portrait of peaceful coexistence in Hebron that preceded the massacre.
And what really captured me and reading these letters was that I had never known, and many people didn't know or don't know that Hebron was once a beacon of coexistence in Palestine, and today, if you're familiar with Hebron, it is the antithesis of peaceful co existence. And I think understanding how that happened really can tell us how we can find a way out and work towards peace, because really, if you look the last century, a two state solution has been on the table since at least
nineteen thirty seven. Right and Palasan leaders have rejected every single two state solution since then. I mean, Palestine could have been independent and free for the first time in history in nineteen forty seven had Palestinian leaders and Arab leaders accepted that solution, and instead they declared war on the unborn Jewish state.
And in the meantime, many innocent lives have been lost and continue to do. So You're Donna, thank you so much. Appreciate getting some time with you, your Danish Schwartz, journalist and author. New book is Ghosts of a Holy War, the nineteen twenty nine massacre in Palestine that ignited the Arab Israeli conflict. So we appreciate getting some time with her.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen on Apple, card Play and and brout Otto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Okay, Carol, you know I was out in Colorado. I was biking last month with my dad. I went all over the state. I saw in some situations neighbors dueling with each other when it came to political signs across the street, next door, neighbors literally calling each other out, depending on where I was A few times. It was kind of funny out there, but it reminded me of the deep divide that we see in the American political landscape.
Not that I need to be reminded of it, because out there in the media, it's there each and every day. It's not just our imaginations though. A report from the Pew Research Center this summer said, quote, Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines, and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive than at any point in the last two decades.
Well, we feel it, right. We talk about it constantly. This division that we're seeing, whether it's across party lines or elsewhere.
Oftentimes folks out there use division and the word tribes to sort of describe the It's often looked at in a pejorative way, just another thing that kind of pushes us apart, and it makes us separate from one another. Yet, Michael Morris argues in a new book that perhaps rather paradoxically, what keeps us apart can actually bring us closer together.
Kind of love that idea.
Michael Morris is Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School. His new book is out Tribal How the cultural instincts that divide us can help bring us together.
He joins us from New York.
Michael, so great to have you here with us, so relevant in terms of here we are in an election year. So talk to us a little bit about, first of all, just kind of general concept of what divides us can bring us together. Why did you think we needed you needed to write this book and bring it bring it to people.
Well, thank you for having me. This is a book that I've been working on for almost ten years. I'm a behavioral scientist, you know, a research psychologist, and my specialty is cultural psychology, which is the study of the cultural frames in our heads that guide our thinking, guide our actions and decisions, and what activates them and how
they change. And I've been teaching at top business schools for decades at Columbia Business School, formerly at Stanford Business School, So I've developed a toolkit for thinking about how to use the cultural forces that shape people's thinking to create unity in a group, or to create change in a
society or in an organization. And that's the reason that I started writing this book sort of to create a playbook for activists, leaders, managers, high school teachers, coaches, anybody who has to orchestrate a group into a productive direction.
Well, and what's interesting is you hear the word tribe or tribalism, and you might get a little i don't know, maybe put off a little bit or think one way. But you say, when we think of tribes, it's countries, it's churches, it's political parties, it's companies, it could be families, right, groups that we deal with all the time.
Yeah, tribes, you know, from a from an evolutionary standpoint or from a you know, classic anthropology standpoint, it just refers to the distinctively human form of social organization, which is large communities that are united by shared culture as opposed to being united by blood relations or being united by you know, diadic bonds between people. And that's you know, that's how we differ from other primates. We can you
could never have a Chimpanzee Manhattan. You know, once, once they get more than fifty individuals in a group, it starts to break apart because they depend on either being related or having a direct personal bond of trust. We can trust total strangers because we share culture with them, so we can we can understand them, and we can predict their movements, and we can predict what they will do, so we can trust them. So, yeah, tribalism is mostly a good thing. It's made us human. It's what got
us where we are now. I think what's really interesting is, you know, over the past ten years while I've been writing this book, there's been kind of a trope of toxic tribalism that has emerged among the pundit class and
has been picked up by politicians and business leaders. And the idea is that somehow, a deeply evolved drive to hate each other has somehow reawakened, and now we're screwed because we don't talk to each other anymore, and there's no way to get the genie back into the bottle anymore. And this makes for colorful articles, and maybe it makes for you know, riveting speeches, but it's a kind of despairing,
fatalistic take on the conflicts of our time. I don't think it's a helpful way to think, and I don't think it's an accurate way to think. It's not a way of talking about tribal instincts that any evolutionary scholar or any behavioral scientists would recognize. So I think we've kind of talked ourselves into this take on tribalism that's not scientifically founded and not helpful.
Well, Professor Morris, would you dispute the idea that we're more divided now, like the Pew research says, than we are at least politically, and then we have been in previous decades for the last twenty years. Does that seem not necessarily accurate to you?
You know, perhaps in the last twenty years, but certainly not the claim that I hear more often, which is that the American people have never been this divided. You know, if you read history in eighteen sixty Abraham Lincoln became president. He had less than forty percent of the popular vote. Seven states seceded before he was even inaugurated. The Civil War breaks out. A few weeks afterwards, four more states secede.
Now that's that's a crisis. That's that's a legitimacy crisis for a president, and that's a big rift to heal. But Lincoln was one of the leaders, and there are many throughout history and business leaders who they had faith that the best way to heal a divide was tribal memory. It was it was appealing to our common ancestors, appealing
to our common past. You know, Lincoln had that famous, mysterious line in his first inauguration that the the mystic chords of memory shall yet swell the chorus of the Union. You know what was he talking about. Well, he thought of himself as a storyteller in chief, and he made all of these wonderful speeches like the Gettysburg Address that you know, made reference to the sacrifices of our common
ancestors and the common ideals that you know. You know, even people in the South were moved by that speech. One holiday we have coming up as Thanksgiving and We often associate Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, but it was really Abraham Lincoln who started Thanksgiving as a national holiday. And he did it because he thought that we need we needed a national ritual of gratitude and memory. Uh and
that and that, more than anything else, could bring people together. So, you know, we may think of nostalgia and sentimentality about the past as a you know, as a silly, irrational way of thinking, but it's it's a deep part of our tribal wiring and one that can be used for inclusiveness,
not not just for divisiveness. You know, we see, you know, we see a brand of populist politics nowadays where the story is, you know, things used to be great, but now we have all these immigrants and things are are going to hell. Well that's that's a divisive form of populism. But there have been many leaders who practiced inclusive forms of populism. And I think we need to understand tribalism and understand all the ways that we can use it At a time like this.
This is fascinating, I guess I want to ask you about what's going on in our culture where so many younger white men are pretty angry and feel left behind.
What's happened, Well, they used to have a not automatic, but a relatively easy path to success in social standing because they were from the favored group, the group that was sort of the prototype of who should have positions of power and responsibility and affluence, and that is declining. It's certainly not over, but it's diminishing, and so they feel like people are cutting ahead in line, you know, people are taking the places that should be theirs. And
you know, it's not completely new. I mean, there's been resentments about affirmative action for decades, but I think now it's not just affirmative action. It's that we've had waves of very talented immigrants coming into the country, you know, for the past twenty years, and that means that a lot of our you know, native born, white male good old boys are not you know, are not getting those promotions.
You know, it's it's it's Russians and you know, Brazilians and you know, Nigerians who are getting those promotions, and not necessarily because of any DEEI policies, just because we have so many talented people from all around the world who've arrived.
Have you seen anecdotally. Have you seen anecdotally that show up in your business school classes in the decades that you've been teaching, Have they become more diverse?
Very much so.
The MBA population has changed dramatically. I had a class last spring, a class of fifty people, and I had seven Nigerian students. You know, some of them Nigerian Americans, but they were all you know, students who were Nigerian, you know, by identity, and that's you know, Nigeria is one of the most populous countries in the world, so we shouldn't be surprised. But it wasn't the case when
you were in the business school classroom. We weren't recruiting from Africa and the African diaspora in the same way. It's good for the world that we are your.
Advice to folks who where we see so much division, but you say in your book it can bring us together. What are tools we can do? Piece of advice, Well.
What we need to do is understand what tribal psychology really is. And there are three parts to it, what I call the peer instinct, the hero instinct, and the ancestor instinct. The idea that we were driven to kind of imitate our peer group, were driven to emulate our heroes, and were driven to perpetuate the ways of our ancestors and maintain traditions, and all of those things can be positive forces for unity. And what we need to do
is understand the levers for invoking these forces. They're inside every person, but there are triggers that bring them to the four that are invisible to us because they operate unconsciously. And so I've tried to explain what we've learned from lots of research about what those triggers are that a teacher, or a manager or a politician can use. And then over the longer term, cultures are malleable, and we have to understand what are the signals that we can send
to help evolve the culture. Culture is not a fixed thing that we're stuck with. It's something that we can mold good.
That's a great way to wrap it up. Michael Morris, thank you so much of Columbia Business School. His new book out today, Tribal How the cultural instincts that divide us can help bring us together. You're listening and watching Bloomberg Business Week.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, just Say Alexa PA Bloomberg eleven.
Cruise line Giant Carnival dropped earnings this past week with the profit beat, and yet the stock fell initially after the company announced adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter that was slightly below consensus and a weaker outlook for net yields in the current quarter. So investors were a little concerned initially.
And yet several analysts raised their price targets on the stock. For the latest on Carnival's business, we caught up with the Carnival president and CEO who's also the chief climate Officer, Josh Weinstein. He joined us just after FED chair j Powell speech Monday at the National Association of Business Economics.
I don't usually follow the FED chairman. This is a big this is a big thrill to go check out Jack White.
Jack White in Nashville.
Well, we'll talk about the third quarter first, and as I've been able to say for the last several quarters, it's record you know, we just hit a record for revenues, for revenue yields, for operating income, customer deposits, bookings two years out, so right up and down our business, it's records and strong demand.
So we ended the third quarter up about eight.
Point seven percent in our yield year over year, which was strong, and the same time, we held our cost flat, which was which is also good to note, and that resulted in, like I said, a record quarter, and as
we were able to adjust our full year guidance. We did that for the third time this year, and it's going to take us up to about six billion dollars of EBITDA, which again, to use a broken record word, it's a record, and so we're expecting much more as we get into the fourth quarter and then beyond.
In terms of macro, what matters in terms of FED policy for you, and what's going on in terms of the interest rate environment. He did also talk about the savings rate, suggesting consumers can continue spending, which we want to get into too in terms of it seems like consumers are certainly still spending on cruises. But give us macro, give us consumer spending. How you would describe it all?
Well, For us, the word's going to be robust, you know. I mean, we've been living through this cycle with everybody else. We've lived through the high inflation, We've lived in the high interest rate environment, and now we see inflation down, we see the Fed taking action to start reducing that interest rate environment. And through all of it, what we've been seeing is robust demand. And because of our business,
you know, first of all, it's a global business. As you know, we have a portfolio of brands that are really world class all over all over the world. And what we see is strong demand depending no matter how you slice it, whether it's geographic, whether it's contemporary versus more premium. We're seeing that strength and we see it in the results. We see it in the onboard spending levels.
You know, as part of our third quarter results. It's not just about the ticket revenue which was taken anywhere from you know, six months to up to two years in advance, but what's the actual onboard spending environment, which is much more real time. And the fact is our onboard spending for this past quarter was up over six percent year over year, and that's actually an acceleration because in the second quarter it was up closer to four
percent year over year. So what we're seeing is is consumers that are healthy, that still want to spend on experiences. And as you've probably heard me say before, we are an unparalleled value, right, we are a better value to land. I remember being in the offices with you in December talking about my hotel stay. Not only are we unparalleled in the value, we are unparalleled in the experience that
we give to people. You get value for what you pay for, and we deliver on that guest experience like nobody else.
So, Josh, are you seeing any weakness across any part of the portfolio of brands right now from any segment.
Of the consumer?
Now, we're really not no pullback whatsoever, now, you know.
I mean, as a matter of fact, if you look at our twenty twenty five booked position, it's higher in price and occupancy than it's ever been at the same point in time. When you look at twenty twenty five, we're higher in every single quarter price and occupancy. So things are, things are moving in continuing to move in
the right direction. And I think it's I think you know, cruises cruises tiny Right at the end of the day, we're the biggest cruise company in the world, but if you take the whole cruise industry, it's only about two percent of the overall vacation market. So we are a very tiny segment in a huge market with a lot
of room to grow. Because we're getting the word out, we are being more effective in communicating the value and communicating the experience and really deferent differentiating our brands so that they get a cut through and it means something to people, and that's paying dividends.
Talk to us about the cost side of the equation, as you just said, and I read too that nearly half of twenty twenty five bookings are done at record ticket prices. The cost equation, You guys are a floating city once you're at on the water. Food, you know, meals labor. Tell us what you're seeing in terms of the cost side of the equation, Josh.
Yeah, So it's good news there too. You know, we are seeing that deacceleration of deceleration part of me of inflation, and we were actually just today able to take our cost guidance for the full year down from up four and a half percent on a unit basis to up three and a half percent on a unit basis, so
we're making good progress there. We are seeing the benefit of a lot of hundreds and hundreds of activities that we're doing across our brands, taking little bits of efficiency, better sourcing savings when we can, and it adds up given our scale. So all things are starting to move in the right direction on the cost side, which is very different obviously than what we've been experiencing along with everybody else as we went through that inflationary cycle.
Speaking of the inflationary cycle, I'm wondering about the pricing power from your perspective. If you're going to be able to continue to raise prices in your view next year and year after year.
You know, that's certainly the goal.
You know, at the beginning of this year, when we were talking about our guidance for the first time, there were a lot of folks that were saying, oh, yeah, but you know, when you get to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four. You took your pricing up in twenty twenty three ten and a half percent, that was our results last fourth quarter.
You're not going to be able to top that.
And we just came out with guidance today for the fourth quarter where our yields are going to be up five percent, the majority of which is more price. So we feel very good about what we're doing in our ability to manage the booking curve, increase our demand profile, and ultimately deliver on board as we always do.
What keeps you up at night barring another global pandemic? No, but seriously, you've been rosy for a while, and I'm just curious. It does sound like some really strong metrics. And I said, reading some of the analysts commentary, they feel the same way. But I'm just curious. What's the difficult part of what you guys do. I mean, you're ordering new ships, you're adding to that. Tell us Josh, like, where is it that you get a little concerns? Is it the election outcome? I'm just curious.
No, I think those types of things are temporal.
And you know, I mean, truthfully, after living through what we lived through.
In twenty twenty and twenty twenty one and get.
Getting back from literally a pause to where we are today, there's really not much that that keeps me up at night. Truthfully, that's within our control. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, in a two year period, we went from negative EBITDA to up over six billion in EVA DA.
So so I don't see much.
Within our control that we can we can't push forward, and you know that showing I mean just just in this year alone. We came out with guidance in December for the first time, and we said our yields will be up about eight and a half percent. Now we're saying up close to ten and a half percent. We said costs would be up four and a half percent, now they're going to be up three and a half percent.
We said our return on investing capital will be up nine percent, and now we're saying, no, it's ten and a half percent, which is a five point improvement year over year. So I think we're making real good decisions. We've got an amazing team all over the world with all of our world class brands really driving the business forward, and you know, I just think we were just starting to scratch that potential. We are really focused on just doing the basics better and better, and it's working.
Hey, Josh, you're also chief Climate Officer at Carnival Corporation. You mentioned things that we're in your control. One thing that's not in your control is the weather is the climate. The connection between weather and climate. The two are not the same, but the two are certainly linked. Many Americans, millions of Americans are still cleaning up after Helene in multiple states. It's killed more than one hundred people. Many are still missing at this point. How do you think
about climate change in your role? How do you think about planning for an uncertain future?
Well, first of all, our heart, our sympathy goes out to all those impacted by Helene. I mean, it is a tragedy unfolding, and we have a lot of connections to a lot of those local communities.
So that's first and foremost.
As far as the bigger picture goes, you know, we understand that the world is evolving rapidly. We need to do our part, and we need to plan for the future. And when it comes to doing our part, we are we are steadfast in our in our in our drive to reduce our own carbon footprint and do what we can to make the world a better place.
We have.
We are thirty five percent bigger today than we were in twenty eleven, and we admit this year we will emit ten percent less absolute greenhouse gas emissions than we did in twenty eleven, even though we are thirty five percent bigger today. It's because we understand the importance of doing what we can to drive that sustainability agenda. And as far as preparing for the future, that goes into
all of our decision making. You know, when we're talking about the ships that we're building, when we're talking about the destinations that we develop, how can we develop them in a way that they can deal with whatever that environmental landscape is not five years from now, but twenty years from now, in thirty years from now, And keep leaning into technology, keep doing our part to figure out how we can we can and we can reduce our consumption every single year.
That's the goal.
And I'm assuming that's incorporating to when you guys build out whether it was Grand Turk or I'm thinking about Celebration Key right, that opens up in summer of twenty twenty five. Just the revenue and cost impact of that debut tell us at bit about the dynamics around that one.
Yeah, it is going to be It is going to be pretty special, you know, twenty twenty five. We open up in July of twenty twenty five, and then we outse go through a ramp up phase as we as we learn and we figure out what works, what doesn't work, and how we tweak, and it really is going to bear fruit in a significant way in twenty twenty six when we have nineteen Carnival Cruise Line ships that are going to be a reaching celebration key from I think
about ten different home ports in the United States. So not only is that going to be a boost to our ticket revenue, is going to be a boost to the spending in the destination. And then to the point we were just talking about, the proximity to the United States is phenomenal from a fuel spend and carbon emission standpoint. Because it's so close, we can go slower and shorter distances to get there. So we are very much looking forward to its introduction.
All right, great stuff, as Aways, You're a gem for being so patient, So appreciated, Josh, look forward to next time. Josh Weinstein. He's the President, CEO, and Chief Climate Officer of Carnival Corporation. Joining us from Carnival's headquarters in Miami.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Easter Listen on Apple car Play and then Bright Auto with a Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the actor and comedian who is now an investor bringing South Asian culture into the mainstream, One smooth, spicy Chai at a time.
Plus why the best air fresheners for your car are also the most expensive spoiler alert, it's not those little trees seeing at the guests. Also later on the Dracula, watch Tom Brady's eleven million dollar auction and Ai Judy Garland reading you the Wizard of Oz.
That's all in.
Pursuits first up this hour, we're not talking metaverse in high tech, not talking geopolitics or the state of the world. Rather something simpler and closer to our hearts.
Mac and cheese and building a dream from it. That's what Aaron Wade did, leaving her job as a corporate lawyer to start a mac and cheese restaurant, write a cookbook and manual on how to start and run a business. She came up with a blueprint for a really serious problem in her industry.
Yeah, She's did a lot of stuff. Aerin is author of the book The Mac and Cheese Millionaire, Building a Better business by Thinking outside the box. She joined me alongside Bloomberg Daybreak Europe co anchor Stephen Carroll, who was recently in for Tim.
I began my career with a huge passion for food and had cooked in restaurants, but found that it was a really dead end job. The pay is low, the treatment is not great. So I just did not see a future for myself. So I decided to go to law school and do what you know, generations of lost people with no direction have done and become a lawyer. But I didn't. I didn't love it, so I actually got fired. Turns out you're not good at what you
don't like doing. And I decided I wanted to create the restaurant that I wish that I could have worked at. So not just was it a love of family, my family recipe of mac and cheese, and wanting to bring that to the market, because I just didn't see that being filled anywhere. You know, there's like pizza restaurants, barbecue,
but not mac and cheese. But I really want to focus on how do I create the kind of workplace that I wish, the kind of restaurant that I could have worked in, and what do I need to do to do that?
So, what in particular did you want in terms of making it the place that you wanted to work at? What was it that needed to be different?
You know, my book is filled with a lot of trial and error. I think the truth is I didn't know. I knew what I didn't want to do right, but sometimes it's harder when you haven't had the example set of what you do want to do. So I found that it really came down to three things, which was you know, communication, collaboration, and collective success and having to give you examples of you know, ways that we did all those three things. But that I found was really
the secret to our success. And you know, not only in an industry where the average tenure is you know, less than ninety days. Our average tenure is two and a half years. But our profitability was in the top one percent of restaurants. So I'm really proud of what we achieved.
Yeah, because look, it's a difficult business to get into, and I think if you know, if you're going to make a leap of faith into something new. You didn't perhaps pick the clearest or the easiest path to do that. Talk us about getting getting the first the first homeroom started.
I think that's why actually it makes for such a great business book, because you know, if we were using these techniques successfully, I mean, it is the hardest industry to make it, so, you know, I really think they can these ideas can work anywhere. But yeah, I mean it's it's crazy. I mean, banks won't even give you loans because it's considered you know, your your odds are
better and less Vegas than investing in a restaurant. But I do think that with sort of you know, by using these techniques, I think people in all kinds of businesses can can beat the odds.
Tolk us through the first few months of that business, though, at what point did you know that you hot you were onto something and that you that was going to take off into something that of course it became a hit.
Luckily we were packed from you know, day one, and I really credit it to frankly, just having an exceptionally good quality product. So you know, at most restaurants, if they have mac and cheese at all, it is a side dish it's something that is not paid very much attention to, and for us, this is really the main thing. So you know, we made each one to order, We
used my family recipe. We put nearly a quarter pound of cheese in each portion, so you know, it's incredibly cheesy, it's fresh, it's it's made with love and care, and you know, and that makes a huge difference versus sitting in a vat somewhere. So I think people were very, very obsessed with the products from day one. But frankly, I think also what we did is like created tremendous
value surrounding the experience. Because I had worked a lot in fine dining, but something that I thought was really lacking in a more casual setting is like, you know, great design and great service. Those things don't need to
cost more, they just need someone to care more. And so, you know, I think that people's perception of value of getting to sit in this really beautifully designed space, getting you know, some of the best service that they've had in a restaurant while eating you know, the best version of mac and cheese they've ever had. It's just a winning combo.
I have to say, there's a restaurant in our neighborhood, a local, one family run and they have an incredible mac and cheese and we will go there just for the mac and cheese. And it used to be a place downtown. I don't even know if it exists, but that's all it did and great, you know, cast iron skillets and any kind of like varieties of mac and cheese. It is like just that food that we just love.
We just love. What's one of the biggest I don't know what was one of the biggest moments in this process. I feel like everybody who started a business, especially in the restaurant in history, we've all seen the bear and loved it. But I do wonder where you were. I don't know. It was either just a huge learning experience, whether from your team, from your workers, I don't know.
Tell us you know. I have to say we used a lot of like really interesting techniques to engage people in the business. For instance, we're an open book company and so share financials and teach financial literacy, and I think that was a huge aha, right, It like really unlocks people's like potential and power to understand business in a deep way and to feel like they're part of something that's bigger than themselves versus just showing up every day to cook. So, you know, I'd say that's one
moment that I'm incredibly proud of. But you know, another is that we used all these techniques of you know, we had a lot of different tools to be communicating, collaborating, and we actually came up with a solution to sexual harassment which our staff was experiencing, and it I wrote a viral piece in the Washington Post about it, it got adopted by the EEO. I went to Washington to go testify about it, and it's now used by restaurants
and bars all around the world. So, you know, I think that also, frankly, when you tap into the power of a workforce. You know, we were just a small restaurant but made a difference on a global scale, and I'm incredibly proud of that.
But talk to us a little bit more about that, like how you came to realize it's something needed to be done differently.
Well, I was approached by a number of female servers at the restaurant who all were complaining, and honestly, they said they'd worked at a ton of places and this had happened everywhere this was just the first time that they thought maybe someone would actually do something about it. And so I did what I usually did when someone brings up a problem, which is include them in the solution to it. So, you know, we came up with a system that our entire staff that wanted to participate
did participate in creating it. And I think the reason it's so effective is that, honestly, it really sort of honors people wherever they are. It's like basically a color coded system, and when someone experienced is something with that color, they just report the color and an action is taken. So you know, for instance, a yellow is just you get a bad vibe at a table. You just say hey, I've got a yellow at table two, and a manager will take it over for you. And an orange is
you have a bad feeling. Plus let's say an ambiguous comment something like I like your shirt. You know, depending on who says that to you and how they say it to you, it might feel totally benign or aggressive. And so same deal. Someone just goes to a manager and says, hey, I've got an orange at table too,
and the manager takes it over. And with a red, that's someone saying something overtly sexual or touching a staff member, and in that case, again the staff member just says the color and then the manager's required to kick the person out. And you know, I think what's so cool about the system is that you know, guests honestly don't know is being used on them, so it's very customer
friendly it. You know, staff members are going to have all kinds of different experiences, and some people are going to find certain things threatening and other ones won't, and so it allows allow us to meet staff where they are and take action and it's really easy for managers
to use. And what we found is amazing. As we thought it would just be a way of coping with harassment and just giving us a way to deal with it, but actually what it did is it really nearly eliminated the worst forms of it, because very few people walk into a restaurant and like stick their hand of someone's shirt. But you know, they will usually start with lower level things like checking them out or making low level comments, and then once things are tolerated, they escalate their behavior.
So it just really sort of stopped the problem from happening, and in a way that I think is really respectful to people, you know, no matter if their customer, staff manager.
I think what I find really interesting about this, this Color Code of Conduct is you're giving people language to be able to talk about how they feel and how they feel affected by it. And it's a model that's been taken up by businesses elsewhere as well. Talk to us a little bit about how you're seeing. You know, what you've heard about how the Color Code of conducts being used outside of your business.
Yeah, I mean I've gotten like from just fabulous feedback. And actually, you know, one of the most fun parts is there's plenty of people that use it that I'll never know. But I'll walk into a bar and I'll find like one of our posters on the wall. Or I went to speak at a conference and it was like all these you know, bar owners from like across America and the globe. And I was so surprised because at the end of my session, I didn't, you know, I wasn't getting a ton of questions, and I was like,
what's happening here? And then I asked people to raise their hand if they had known of the system or if they use it in their bar, and like everyone raised their hand and I was like, okay, cool. So I wonder doesn't help people.
This is an industry where there's a huge staff turnover, right, I wonder how much that's helped towards staff retention at a time. You know, we talk so much about the tight labor markets, and we know that hospitality is one sector really affected by that. Has it helped you to keep people good people on your staff?
Oh?
I got one hundred percent. I mean to my point about sort of all the tools in the book, right, if we can use them, then anyone can. Because I think you know, something really missing from the converse right now about the labor market and what to do is that, in my experience, the most meaningful things actually don't cost money. They just take time and care. Right Like, we are constrained. There's only so much we can pay people when we're charging folks ten dollars for mac and cheese, right, Like,
It's just that's just true. It's not going to be the most highly paid job of someone's life, probably, But you know, there's so much you can do that makes work an enjoyable place to come to and meaningful and purposeful. And I think those are the things, honestly that you know, make life worth living.
One of the things that I really liked about your book and your own story as well as You're talking about wanting to fall in love with work, and do you think that we need to be in love with what we do in order to succeed.
I mean, in my experience, yes, I mean, you know, I'm really smart and I was working as a lure and I got fired. And I don't think it's an accident. I found it very hard to be good at something that I didn't like doing, you know, versus something I'm passionate about. You know, my my worst days as an entrepreneur have been better than my best days as a lawyer. But you know, I think, I think it's a real gift, you know, to wake up and enjoy going to work.
And it's one I didn't, you know, previous to starting my own restaurant think was possible. So I guess I just wanted to communicate people to people that I do think it's possible, and I try to give them tips and tools for, you know, how to find that passion within yourself, how to pursue it, how to create spaces where other people can't to Because I think Honestly, we spend more of our lives at work than in almost anything else, and we don't enjoy it. Like what are we doing here?
I would certainly say yes. It's one of the pieces of advice my dad Kate gave to me growing up, like, find something you love to do. And I remember my first job in journalism. I had to be in it, like the wee hours made maybe fourteen fifteen thousand dollars, had to borrow money from my father and mother to buy a car. Use car for four thousand dollars, I can get into New York City because there was no mass transportation, but it was I knew It's what I
wanted to do, and it's amazing. Like right, when you find something you want to do. Having said that, you also a right to create anything new of value. You always have to be willing to fail upward, to make mistakes and get a little better every time. This philosophy had worked for you, for me, you with everything from adding new menu items to refining management philosophies. But something about experimenting with people's safety at work felt too important to fail upward.
That's important, Yeah, I mean most of the book is sort of ridiculous stories about you know, what are the ways that we felt before we found systems that worked. And I was pretty terrified of doing that with our harassment system. But the truth is, there is no other way to create something that doesn't yet exist. So we did, and I tried to put in our mistakes so that other people don't need to make them too.
I really, I really enjoyed how honest you were about this, because, you know, having when you have a non linear career path moving out of things, that can be difficult to be honest about the stuff that doesn't work. You know, when you've invested, for example, a lot of money and going to law school, you know that's got to hurt, right, And I wonder do you take things from your legal
career into what you're doing now? Are there elements of what you learned in law school and maybe what you learned from working in the industry as well, that are relevant to your job now?
You know, Actually, one of the most helpful things that I took from my legal career into being an entrepreneur was actually how we deal with discipline. I had been really interested in this question because I feel like it's pretty ineffective in most workplaces. And I had worked all through law school at a district attorney's office, actually Kamala Harris's office when she was d of San Francisco. But so I was very interested in, like what are different,
you know, ways that we approach punishment. And we ended up at my restaurant, Homeroom adopting a system that I had seen used in the criminal justice system called restorative justice. So, you know, most stuff at work, when someone screws up, you just get punished, You maybe get a write up, you maybe get doct shifts, you know, things like that. And with restorative justice, the idea is actually it's not
to punish people, but to make it right. And so we started shifting from like punishing people when they screw up to you know, walking them through this restorative model of figuring out how to make it right with staff, you know, like how to you know, apologize, like do nice things, fix it with the customer, you know, help your manager, like really make it right with all the people affected by their behavior. And it was a real sea change for us, you know, it was really helpful.
Aaron, you dropped something like an elephant in the living room. We have to ask you so you worked with Kamala Harris or it sounds like you have some experience what what would you what do you think some our audience in your experience with with working with her or dealing with her or talking with her that you think is worth sharing.
Oh gosh, I mean I do think you know she was. I mean I had worked for her because I was really drawn to she was doing stuff that at the time was considered pretty out there, and you know, so yeah, I have tremendous, tremendous respect for her, and you know fun that she's running for president right now. So I guess I just say I think I really respect that
she has tried things other people weren't willing to do. Frankly, at the time, I don't think she gets much credit for that, but she's an innovative prosecutor and she's good at what she did.
Well.
Be sure to keep us up to date on what you do with Homeroom, especially if you expanded out and grow. And we love talking to certainly small business owners. But your path has really been an interesting one and thanks for sharing it. Aaron Wade, chef and entrepreneur. I guess I can say also lawyer her former lawyer. Her book is The Mac and Cheese Millionaire, Building a Better Business by Thinking Outside the Box. Joining us from Oakland, California.
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When it comes to foreign policy, the United States has sought to cultivate a deeper partnership with India as a bulwark against a more assertive China. Well, India has sought greater US investment and deeper cooperation and technology sharing and defense.
It makes sense considering they're about four point eight million Indian Americans in the US. That's according to data from the US Census Bureau. Indian Americans account for twenty percent of the nation's Asian American population overall, and about two thirds of Indian Americans are immigrants, while thirty four percent are US born. Also, around half of Indian Americans live in just four states California, Texas, New Jersey, and New York.
Well, reaching out to this community, one smooth cup of chai at a time. Are actor and comedian Hassan Minaj along with Any Sanyel, who co founded Kolkata Chai, along with his brother Ion Bloomberg's Matt Miller joining me in this conversation as well.
Yeah, so five years ago, my brother and I decided to do the craziest thing possible, which is bring authentic chai to America. We grew up being able to travel back to India a lot, and you know, New York City, you can find anything you want to eat and drink, but it was really hard to find a good cup of chai. So that's where we started. We opened six months before the pandemic. We bootstrapped our first cafe location, which I don't recommend, but five years later we are
at three locations. We just brought on, you know, one of the more generational talents in this country to join the business, and we're super excited.
How said, how did you get involved in it?
So funny enough, I had heard about the cafe for a long time. Getting a great cup of chai is kind of a somewhat of a secret in our community. You talk about where you can get a great cup. I had heard about the cafe over in Nolita, and then, funny enough, my wife put me onto it. I get back home, I opened one of our drawers and it's full filled with KCC. Seriously, yeah, she goes, have you had Colcutta chain? And I go, yeah, I've heard about it? Is it the real deal? And it became Bena approved
and therefore it became Hasan approved. And then I went down to the location their location, they're celebrating their five year anniversary this week, but I went down to the Nolita location and I saw the community that they've built. They now have three cafes, and of course I wass have the incredible DDC business and they've built this amazing omnichannel platform. You know, Annie got to chatting and a lot of times, you know, celebrities, we get asked to
participate and hey, you should endorse this product. And what they'll do is they'll they'll use your name and likeness and they'll white label you with some commodity tequila sneakers T shirts and that's great.
Or you like drink it on the Patriot Act, sure, or yeah yeah, show yeah, or you talk about the Samsung Galaxy Z Full three by Frizon five G the fastest five G network available.
Right, I've done that commercial, but this is different. This
is something where I genuinely loved the brand. I loved what they had been building, and I wanted to authentically tell our story through t is one of the largest markets that's growing right now, and getting a great cup of chai has been something that in our community we've always wanted and they really cracked the code, not only just from their brick and mortar business, but the fact that they broke the code with the massolid chi concentrate.
So when I was having that great cup of tea at their location and Nolita, I was like, wait, this same cup can be here in New York City. I can have it in the Midwest, you know, you can have it wherever across the country. Which is which was like? That was?
That was My good friend Kritty Gupta used to make me chy and bring it into work, and then unfortunately she was transferred to London. So now like I'm in the market, what is the secret to making it really truly authentic?
H what's the coca cola recipe?
Yeah?
I wish I could no the secret is is my brother. He's the head chef, and he's figured out the perfect blend of tea, spice and a little bit of sugar to get that sweet and spicy balance. We sourced all of our tea from legacy tea estates in Assam in India. So this is where one hundred years ago they planted t two hundred years ago they started planting tea, and so all of our our product is coming from that region.
So we're talking about the most authentic, you know, unfiltered product that you can find.
What Paris is for fashion, I would say Assam is for tea.
Would you agree with that?
Honey?
How big is the market? I have a daughter who loves it. Was in Tanzania, brought it back, loved it, loved it, loved it. So tell me how big the market is and tell us a little bit about the business.
Yeah.
So in the US, the package teap business market is about a fifteen billion dollar category, but it's growing slowly because tea is a little bit sleepy. However, you have these modern formats like macha, which is actually growing at a ten percent kagger and so we see ourselves as that next iteration of Macha. You mentioned, you know, the growing Asian American population in this country, and that is fueling this need for people to want to have the real thing. We don't want to go to you know,
the takeout spots, to the fast food spots. We want that real, authentic from the source product. And so that's really where we're excited about chai as a new category and our business. So we've grown three hundred percent year over year, so we are on a rocket ship right now. Revenue upline revenue, and that's accelerated by our direct to consumer business and our e commerce products.
So we do is that where most of the businesses and that's where the.
That is where most of the revenue is yep. So we use our brick and mortar locations as community building and product introduction to the market since Child's relatively new, and then we celebrate that growth on direct to consumer. And so we have a best in class chai mix which is like a tea and spice mix, and we do a liquid concentrate product which Hussin alluded to as well, and you can make chai in thirty seconds at home. So we're gonna get you right.
But what you guys were talking about was exactly the problem that they solved. Hey, I had a colleague that put me onto this great cup of chi. You know, my daughter came back. He give me this great cup of chie. And the difficulty has always been is how do you pack a package and product this great experience that you had somewhere in Tanzania or somewhere in Delhi or Mumbai or in Assam, and how do you get.
It to the break room?
Yeah, when that had out to go, you don't want to go to Starbucks and get the chai tea latte.
I'm not here to throw in any other places. But but what cacc has also done, which is historical, is they're the first storefront location for a chai cafe. So this this thing that is different. Yeah, that's that's that has a deep resonance in our culture. It was usually relegated to like a side item that you would get at a restaurant. But this is like a true brick and mortar store front and an omni channel business.
What do you do to grow it? So what's the plans? Is it more stores, is it more.
Bring him on to grow right?
Or do you also like it ends with us.
It ends with us break a cup of tea in it. Yeah yeah, yeah, number one movie in the box office.
But also like bringing it into other big retail.
Yeah, no, you nailed it.
I think right now our growth is happening on direct the consumer and e commerce. So that's really where we're dialing in new product formats, you know, new ways of advertising and telling that story. I think having Huston, you know, generational storyteller, bringing Chi to mainstream America through that type of format, through that pop culture format, that's what we're really excited about. And then to your point about retail expansion being in grocery stores, that's the next step for us.
We want to be accessible to all Americans.
For me personally, it was about a healthier caffeine alternative to coffee. No caffeine, there's no caffeine, but you know, yeah, not to get too scientific, but there's l fianine in it, which is almost like a like a cleaner, kind of
healthier sort of kick that you get from Chi. So it and also for people who were if coffee's giving you a little bit of a rumble in the tumble, it's messing with your tummy a little bit chai is a great alternative to that, and so for me, I think people really want the real thing and they want a healthier alternative to coffee or espresso.
And do you give did you give something to Blake Lively? I mean you passing it on to people who aren't Indian.
You want to me, chai fundamentally is about community, family commiseration. It's like intrinsically linked to joy in being together and so like to me, the X factor to me was why isn't this having it's yerbamate or macha moment? And I think it really is about to have that.
All right, this was almost perfect. It would have been perfect if you had brought us a cup.
But did you want a cup? We could have plugged it.
I'm just saying, hausin minhaz and anis Sanyelle, thank you so much, really appreciate it. Called Katta Chai company. This is Bloomberg.
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All right, she is definitely one of my all time favorite people here, no doubt about it. I know, Matt, you think it's you, but it's really Hannah Elliott. She's Bloomberg Pursuit's auto columnist who's also a MATS co host on the Hot Pursuit podcast. And we've got a lot to talk about.
Yes, where do you want to start?
I go go because I don't know where do you want to start? We had a great time yesterday. We record our podcast yesterday, we put it out tomorrow, and we talked about a number of things from a car show they went to over the weekend, a big a big land yacht that I was driving, the Infinity QX eighty, and also air fresheners.
I really want to get to that, but go do cars first, Let's talk start.
Let's talk first about the giant suv that I was driving, which I really liked. The Infinity QX eighty. It's all new, the twenty twenty five model year, and Hannah's going to get it next week. What do you think about these giant three row SUVs? Hannah?
How big is too big?
I was going to say, I didn't want to interrupt you, but I can ask you plenty of questions about it. Matt, You know my my question is, and this is going off of our conversation that we had on our podcast. You mentioned that you thought it looked great and then you kind of compared the interior to a Chevy and I know that, and I know that this suv costs about one hundred thousand dollars. So my question to you
is is it worth it? Would you spend if you had one hundred grand to spend on a big, big suv, would you buy this one's sheet?
So no, I mean it's a good point.
What I meant was that the infotainment system is a Google based system. Okay, so that's a platform that they used, and Chevy also had that in my Silverado. And but I would compare this more to Chevy's Cadillac brand and their Escalade. So this is an Escalade range Rover competitor. If I was looking at one of those cars in the same price, I might consider this as an alternative. The problem is that you can get a range Rover with a V eight, You can get an Escalade with
a V eight. You cannot get the QX eighty with a V eight. It only comes with a twin turbo V six, and it's the same problem that Ford and Lincoln have. They just don't put out big V eight's in their giant trucks anymore. And in something that weighs like eight pounds, you really need V power for me to enjoy it.
I have to say, I don't know if it's a problem for them, Matt, because they're saving emissions, they're probably getting a little bit better fuel efficiency. And frankly, I don't know if you know the mom's buying these family hollers, do they care that it's a V eight Because if I don't think I would.
The seats comfy? Can I put the kids in the back and well, this thing pack them in for soccer?
Not only do I think it looks beautiful, but the interior is very comfortable, and the leather is super nice, and the color, the design.
Is what's the mileage on that puppy?
It's sixteen city nineteen highway, so it is one mile per gallon better than the V eight that they had last year, which doesn't matter to you, but I guess if they sell, you know, one hundred thousand of them.
Then it does.
Here's another question for you, Matt. How did you feel pulling into sort of a posh event in the Hamptons in an infinity, did you feel like you were sort of on par with the Ferraris and Lamborghinis or no.
No, obviously not on par with the Ferraris and Lamborghinis. There were a ton of them at the bridge, which is the show Carsho. I went to, you know, everybody like a Rolls Royster or Maserati. But you know other people were driving in the Defenders and the Broncos, and yes, in the big Escalades and range Rovers. I did feel okay, you know, it looks the part, so it didn't bother me. It also smelled pretty good.
Nice, thank you. Well, can we talk about these air fresheners, because I do care about I have something that I spray in my car like every time I go in. It's like some organics.
Also, Carol smells delicious right now, I will tell you.
I believe it.
It's actually a brand that you to fatigue, which I'd never heard of before I read your story.
Hannah.
So your point on air fresheners is the cheap ones are the worst, right, but the expensive wonder wait, the hanging tree is.
Not good, you know, what news flash, the hanging tree is not good and anything you buy in your gas station is probably not going to be good. And there's a specific and very real reason for that, which is they those are made with the least expensive materials and
with the least expensive chemicals. And what we found we hear At Pursuits, tested ten different air fresheners for the car, and we did found that find there's a direct correlation between price and quality, and the more you pay, you're going to tend to get a better, less nauseating air freadare. But the bigger thing that I found with this story, which to me was really interesting, because we all have very specific ideas about what kind of smell we want
in our car. I think everybody wants the new car smell, of course, and then once that wears off, it's like you don't want curry or fish or like like smells that are great to eat but not necessarily to drive. With. The idea is this is a really big open space that automakers and large fragrance brands haven't really attacked in the past, but they're starting to very smart and yes
they're smart. It's so there are ten including some offerings from Diptique, some offerings from Frederick mal some offerings from Aqua to Parma. There are these known fragrance companies that are starting to develop freshnurs for your car. But also they could double. A lot of them could double as great like things to put in your closet, your linen closet, drawers, handbags, that's sort of name.
I love it, one called sex wax, but we're going to leave it on that new mister. Don't touch it. Don't touch it, Matthew Miller.
No, no, no, and that thinks. So many people recommended it to me.
Yeah, and it's bad.
We got to run. Hanna Elliott, you're the best, Matt Miller, thank you so much. We'll see you tomorrow.
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The Goat selling watches and watching a coffin and dead celebrities working again thanks to AI. I guess there's a theme there.
Okay, wait, I'll wait.
All from our Bloomberg Proceeds Team, a new issue out featuring some of the latest and greatest. Here to talk about all of it all is the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, Chris Rouser, along with Bloomberg Pursuits columnists who heads up our arts and culture coverage, James Tarmi, both joining us in the studio. Chris, I gotta tell you, I don't think Carol actually believes Tom Brady's the goat.
And I, okay, I also have like a little.
You know, there's more than one goat, is my point. Serena Williams is a goat, of course, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, So I didn't were we.
Operating under the presumption that there was only one goat?
Carol's across all fields.
Let's just say Carol doesn't sound like a huge Tom Brady fan.
Get ready for a lot of man.
He's fine, He's fine, He's fine. All right, moving on, moving on, what's up to Chris?
Well, Tom Brady is selling a lot of his memorabilia that is game warn jerseys, helmets.
And which do they smell like?
Tom?
People will pay Actually.
We just went down a weird street, but go ahea and of.
A special interest to me. He's also selling a bunch of very expensive watches.
He's got quite a collection.
This do this Nadal watch is pretty cool.
Yeah, so he has a baby Nadal, which is a watch that was made in partnership with Raphael Nadal and Reshard Meal. And they're not to everyone's taste, but the Reshart Meal watches are. People call them the billionaire's handshake. And this one's estimated to sell between three hundred and five hundred thousand. It was a colorful kind of watch.
The one that I really thought is kind of in your face is the one that's like Tom Brady like.
On the dial, well, it literally says Tom Brady in diamonds and then there's a seven also on the dial to symbolize his seven Super Bowl victories. And that's yours for a mere four hundred to eight hundred thousand.
I think it'll go for more. I mean it's it's a custom made royal oak from Odemar Pigue. There are like internal chats on the Bloomberg terminal where people talk about watches, and they exploded about this because everybody thinks it's really horrible and everybody wants to watch to own it. Wow, he wore it during his roast his famous Netflix roads. Yeah, but it's not clear to me whether he commissioned it or someone gave it to him or the company gave it.
I'm actually surprised Carol wasn't up there roasting him.
My understanding security.
Now he commissioned it, commissioned it?
Yes?
What does that say?
Hey?
What's the market though? For these kinds of watches right now?
So the watch market at auction and across memorilia generally everything is softening, and just secondhand watches in general, which
were so so hot during the pandemic. Sothebies, who's auctioning off this stuff, says that the single owner sales, like celebrity owned sales, are still doing well for them, and Sylvester Stallone sold some really crazy watches for many millions of dollars earlier this year, So this is kind of These are special cases that it's really hard to put them in the context of the broader collectibles market because people love Tom Brady so much, and I honestly think
these estimates, which are three hundred and five hundred thousand, yeah, I think they're low.
They're also coming straight from him it's not like somebody else owned them and they're putting the collection up for sale.
Why is he getting rid of this stuff?
Well, I asked that question, and first of all, they didn't give me a straight answer. Secondly, there is some speculation out there that he is kind of thoughtfully timing the market.
That this is.
You are actually seeing an uptick, as Chris says, in demand for these single owner memorabilia sales, but you're also seeing a continued softening of the memorabilia market. So if he's able to time this right, I mean, let's put it this way. This is not the only watches that he has. Yeah, and also these are not the only
jerseys and helmets that he has. So I think if he's able to again this is pure speculation, but kind of time the market in a nice way and clean ups to the tune of eleven or more million dollars.
Yeah, one mariecondo, right, Like.
It's just the time. I think it's like that's why I think a sliced salone also sold his watches.
All right, let's talk about a watch with a coffin.
Oh yes, so this in Business Week in this last issue, we featured a company which I've always thought is very interesting. Is called Chrono Swiss and it's an independent Swiss watchmaking brand, and it was started in nineteen eighty three during the Courtz crisis, which is when battery powered watches began killing off all mechanical watches because they were seen as more
accurate and just more efficient and much more inexpensive. And this guy who was working for Hoyer, which is a big company, was going to get laid off and the company couldn't afford to pay him in his last paycheck, and so he said, you know what, just give me a bunch of those old mechanical movements, which are the little, you know, the engine of a watch, because you don't want them anymore. They're they're basically worthless. You're going to
switch to courts. And so they paid his last paycheck in these movements and he went off and started this company in his garage in Munich with his wife in nineteen eighty three called Chronoswiss, and it was basically focused on keeping mechanical watches alive. Now, mechanical watches all these years later are very big and they're very brightly colored.
They're really cool.
They use all these old watchmaking techniques like yo'she which are these like hand carved metal dials, but like bright colors, really high tech new chemical vapor deposition to get really great color and metallic finishings. And so they make these wild watches. And they had a Dracula watch that came out this year which I thought was so funny. It's eighteen carrot gold, it's grand faux enamel, and if you order it, it arrives in a.
Coffin, like an actual coffin.
It's a watch size cars.
Okay, just making sure.
I just want to make sure before we get to some real estate. There's another watch story that I want to hit social media. Kind of all over social media in recent weeks was the former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump selling one hundred thousand dollars watches, which makes.
Me wonder if Tom Brady might buy one, because aren't they buds?
No comment?
Okay, okay, what's up with these watches?
So Donald Trump? Donald Trump is actually a watch collector. He has some nice watches, Vastrond Constantine. I think he has a Rolex Protect Philips, and you know he whenever he sells stuff, that's kind of like feels like something he would wear or do his fans buy it. So
he started with an independent company. He started he basically licensed his name, and they're making a couple of lower price watch lines for like five hundred dollars, seven hundred dollars, and then some higher price watches for one hundred thousand dollars which are solid gold. You can get them in rows or yellow gold. And they have a turbion complication, which is as a thing that helps the accuracy of timekeeping.
It's an expense complication to make on a watch. I went through and did some comps and it it's not it's overpriced probably for what it is, but I really think people are people will buy them. There's only they're only making like one hundred and forty seven reference to him being the going to be one hundred of the forty seventh presidents.
Why why do one hundred and forty seven?
Yeah, doesn't I sign them?
He signs them on the back, yep. And they've become they all come with a personalized message. And I heard from some of our readers that people will definitely be buying them.
Okay, all right, how about from watches to a thirty million dollar house a beach front in the oil Nut Bay development on Virgin Gorda James because just talking about beach Shack at one point it was yeah she she missus. Mac was not so happy with the home when they bought it.
Give us the give us the store.
So this house is currently owned by Mac the former chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, and his wife Christy, and they spent a really, really really long time renovating this house and they spent a huge amount of money. They told me that they spent eighteen million dollars renovating the house after they bought it. And it was a spec house. It's it's it.
Yeah.
So so the houses.
Was it gut? Did they build what they did gout?
No? No, they kept the total footprint, They kept the roof, and they kept the walls more exterior walls more or less, and they just did the inside and really got it and they moved windows, they moved doors.
And while they were doing that, a hurricane came through and ripped everything apart and they had to do it again.
They said to me they had to do reconstruction. Of the reconstruction, but you know, it has a lot going for it. It's on the beach, it is right near this very very exclusive oil Nut Bay development clubs, so you have the amenities of it. You can just go to the gym, you can play tennis. But it is now on sale and you can buy it, or I can't buy it, but one can buy it for twenty nine point five million dollars.
Do they make any money on this puppy.
Well, you know, honestly, I don't think so, because it's gonna have cost them basically twenty eight to twenty nine million dollars all in and they're selling it for twenty nine and a half million dollars. So I think they're really just trying to get their money out of it.
This was not a good flip. I'm just gonna say.
You know, I don't get the impression that it actually was a.
Flip, you know.
I think I think they're really.
Trying to kind of marie condo their own lives from a super rich level and getting rid of one of what they told me was severalification homes.
But it does seem like there was some nice flexibility with the home, like they wanted it for sort of every purpose.
Under the sun.
You could imagine a home here being used for.
Completely and it can have it can easily accommodate twelve guests more than that. But also, you know, it's actually not such a sprawling house that you're going to feel like you're alone in a castle. If you've just you and a friend or you and.
A spouse, everything customed to in it, which is pretty amazing.
Chris Setti heard from folks who are going to buy the Trump Watch. Have you heard from the readers who are planning to buy this?
Interestingly, I have not. And sometimes when we do publish these listings, we either we find out immediately that someone has read cell houses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's incredible.
It is.
It is kind of and we find out immediately that these these things have sold off off of articles that we.
Because James talks to the brokers for the story and then they call and they'll be like, yeah, that ten million dollars house in Montalk, someone read the story about it.
There's a side revenue street.
We do not get the cuts.
Well, you know who's going to be starting to get cuts a dead celebrities thanks to the eye. Oh yeah, what's going on?
This is big. So basically when a celebrity has two ways of making money they can. It's personal services, which is them performing, them doing concerts, readings, writing books. And then there's their intellectual property basically, and so when a celebrity dies, their personal services income goes away because they can no longer produce work, but their intellectual property continues
to exist. And celebrities have estates. For example, Michael Jackson was five hundred million dollars in debt when he died. Now his estate over two billion. Has made over two billion dollars through this Broadway Show, through other like app posthumous albums, and generally that's not usual. Generally, like a celebrity's net value decreases about ten percent per year after they die. Now with AI they can create new work, and so they're not creating new work, but computers are
creating anywhere. So there's this company called eleven Labs which has a reader app which is an example of how you can do this, and basically, Judy Garland, Lawrence Olivier, Burt Reynolds, all their estates have signed with this app and they can they'll read books for you. James Dean can read you The Legend of Sleepy hollow and you can put in your own stuff. So literally, Judy Garland could read your tax returns.
That's pretty cool.
If they can do this for dead celebrities, they can do this for people who are alive right now. And this has huge implications.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I mean deep fake technology is a problem, and you know we Taylor Swift has been a victim of stuff, like politicians. I mean, that's a big issue. And some people who managed dead celebrities of states say this is this is not good, like we should not be doing it. The guy who owned like represents Jim Morrison's a state, Dennis Joplin, He's like, these artists will never make any more work. They're gone, Like
this isn't what it's for. Pressure what they did right, Like a lot of other people are going for it.
I mean, can I just say that I recognize the criticisms, but you know, there's pictures of Audrey Hepburn next to a pearl necklace that Tiffany's is selling or whatever. You know, people use dead celebrities licenses all the time. To me, this doesn't as long as it's clearly labeled as like an AI version of it, it doesn't seem that much of a bridge.
Yeah, I think.
People just worry about, yeah, the gray areas where it's not clearly labeled. So like, there's a show called Elvis Evolution which is premiering in London. It's an in person show and they're going to have Elvis through Ai performing for the first time in forty five years, and it's just going to be a big test of like whether people actually want to go see that or whether they're
creeped out by it. Ab A Voyage, which is sort of a hologram version of the same kind of thing, but abba all of those members are alive and they were part of it, is actually quite popular, So maybe this could be a thing.
Yeah, you know, I don't know. It's kind of cool. Hey listen before we go, just real quickly, James Ptarmi, you have an article about the best movies, books, TV and exhibitions coming in October. Can you pick just one for us?
You know, I can this for Contacts. We did a big culture issue and culture preview, and one of the many recommendations that I put out, I'm really really excited for the Louisiana Museum. Outside of Nice Copenhagen. They in Denmark. They have this huge, extremely unconventional show about the ocean and it's artworks, it's science, it's history, and it's quite unusual for this day and age, both thematically and also conceptually.
And I know a lot of people who are going out of their way to see it, and I am going to do my best to do the same.
And Linn Manuel Miranda is coming out with a concept album for what could possibly be his next show. It's called The Warriors. It has all these hip hop stars, all these Broadway stars. It's going to be amazing.
I saw that. I was curious about that. All right, cool stuff. Guys always always appreciate all that you guys do to you.
Guys who can never ever be replaced by Ai Bloomberg Pursuits columnist James Carmon, who oversees.
Sounds like a threat our coverage, and the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, Chris Rouser.
Here in our studio.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you hit your podcast. Listen live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, Tune in and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal