Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - September 17th, 2021

is off this week. Coming up on the show, We're going to hear from venture capitalist Kai Fu Lee, chairman and CEO of Signovation Ventures on his new fiction book, A Ten Visions for Our Future. We're also gonna take a look at what impact an infrastructure bill could have on cryptocurrencies, plus how Peter Teal games tech, Trump and the i R s to make billions all tax free. It's this week's cover story. All of that to come, but we begin with Bloomberg Business Week's annual ranking of

best business Schools. It's the Best B Schools one and two, and perhaps not a surprise that the one that comes out on top. Katie Greifeld and I spoke with the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, Joel Weber, also Bloomberg's managing editor for diversity. Do we do a drum roll, Joel? Why not roll Stanford? Stanford? Repeat? Uh? Not a Stanford not coming as a surprise to anyone who follows business schools closely, I think well, and and it has been one that, um, we've had them at the top before,

they've been knocked off the top of four. Um, but they are back on top. Another one that has been kind of a sleeper and has and has repeatedly shown up in our rankings as Dartmouth's Tuck that came in number two, and then Harvard at number three to around out the top three. Uh. Business Week has long been known for its business school ranking thirty plus years that

we've been been doing this. Um, so we and I think the thing that we've really uh doubled down on and and UH props to Caleb Solomon, who has been one of the main architects of this is we've really like leaned into the data and the surveys, We talked to hundreds and hundreds of students and let that inform so much of what ends up being part of the ranks.

Alumni to alumni is a huge part of it. And then this year, which is I think really exciting and and I can happily share the mic care is that we've look, we're always looking for ways that we can make this ranking be more full throated even and this is an example of it. We've added a significant amount of diversity into that. Uh. So, so, Jeff, let's bring you in how did you uh, how did you grapple with that in all the articles and stuff that you

got to write in in uh accompanying the ranking. Well, it's kind of interesting. There's sort of two things going on at the at the top level, sort of the macro look. The schools are surprisingly not diverse. Um, I

guess we're not. Surprisingly they kind of mimical you see in the C suite in terms of when you look at college overall and graduate school overall, it tends to be sixty forty women to men, and when you look at the school it's flipped where women are still in the minority and with gender, I mean, with with race and ethnicity. You still see the applicants lagging where they should would be in the population based on where they're in the schools, which is that's more of a universal

truth across all education. But it was interesting kind of look at what's working and how different the rankings are when you compare the best schools for diversity to the best schools in the ranking. Your top three schools were not in the top ten of the ranking that I was writing about. They were, however, in the top twenty. So Jeff. When it comes to diversity, for the universities that aren't doing so well in terms of the diversity of their student bodies, do they seem concerned about it?

Are their efforts underway at these universities and colleges to improve on their diversity measures? Yeah, I mean we I actually went out of my way to view the last place school um Uyu. And you know, even they're just in this their last sort of round of employee reviews. Every employee at the BIS school has to say what did you do in the last year to improve diversity and what are you going to do in the in

the next year. And they have a checklist of all the kinds of things they consider, like three pages of things they could be doing depending on their job in various aspects of the university, recognizing that they can't just say, you know, that's something that's not our thing. Or whatever nobody says, just as nobody says in corporate America, diversity is not really our priority. It's it's clearly top of minds, particularly in the last year and a half. Jeff, you're

managing diversity reporter. We've gotten to talk to you a lot here on Bloomberg Business Week Radio and Bloomberg Quick Take about the way that the C suite is or is not diversifying, the way that diversity efforts are are not working at America's publicly traded companies. Who's doing a better job US companies are US business schools when it comes to the big US companies versus Big U S

NBA programs. Definitely big US companies, But I think the pressure is differently at different I mean the big the top one companies in the SUP you know, can't hide UM and they're under like really direct pressure to do something different, and they're the top one D companies and people want to work there. It's it's an easier sell.

Where I think there's some issues in the way that enrollment works and how people come into colleges um into business school that kind of restrict the pipeline and to some degree is maybe even more challenging, unfortunately in in the NBA world than it is in the corporate world. But but I would like to say one of the things I found really interesting that is a really big opportunity that corporate Americas should be looking at is a lot of these programs are like a hundred students are less.

And in US, if you have a program that has a hundred students or less and it comes anywhere near reflecting the diversity of America, this is a great laboratory for even much jority executives to learn about what the future holds for for for business. So you should really be looking at the graduates from these smaller schools who are in diverse programs as as maybe somebody who's kind of been there, done that, where if you get to one of the big schools with a thousand students, you

can still kind of stick to your own. That's a Bloomberg's Jeff Green and Joel Webber, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we're gonna look at crypto banking with the CEO of Vast Bank. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week

with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Spinovik from Bloomberg Radio, Walmart and a press release distributor are investigating a hoax tying the retailer to a supposed cryptocurrency deal after an announcement later determined to be false that caused a surge in light coin. For more on this and all things do Currencies, I, along with Bloomberg's Creedy Gupta, spoke with Brad Scrivener, the CEO of Vast Bank. It's

the first bank in the country to offer crypto banking. Brad, what went through your mind earlier this week when when

you saw those headlines? You know, when you see things like that, you know that crypto has certainly arrived, right, I mean for it to pop up on the headlines like that, and uh, you know, where we are a national bank, we're highly regulated, We're going to do the right things and uh, you know for us, I feel good to be positioned where we are, uh and knowing that, like I said, we're going to do the right things

when it comes to the crypto markets. But I do, Brad wonder if it you know, there's this fight for legimnacy. I think when it comes to the crypto community, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it certainly seems like that that fight is continuing, and I'm wondering if if this type of thing sets that that that fight for legitimacy back. I think you're hitting on a really key point here, and some the research shows this right there.

There are those crypto curious out there, there are those institutions out there, and what they're looking for is some certainty. They're looking for the things that here in the United States that we have, which is, you know, a a legal way to participate in these types of things. So that's why as a national bank, I think this is a really good thing. Those folks that are crypto curious, they would like to participate, but they're just not going to go out there and opening up an account with

someone that that they may not know. Uh. You know, we've been around for thirty nine years, highly regulated from the Office of the Controller of the Currency, and I think it's things like that that are going to give institutions and individuals greater confidence to be able to come into the market to the extent that they want to. Well, that's interesting that you mentioned that there is is this kind of desire for for people to use this more broadly.

But what's it going to take to get that kind of normalcy that perhaps the dollar, the gold, that other other currencies really have here at a time when you do actually have some major companies PayPal, Venmo, um Tesla that have come out and actually supported the currency. Overstock is another one, So how what is it going to take?

Who do you need the bit from? Judging from the reaction that we've had since our announcement, you know, as the first national bank to to come out with this capability to purchase directly from your account, okay up to eight current cryptocurrencies. So I think folks are out there looking for certainty, and we had people contacting us saying, hey, we want to participate, but we were waiting for a national bank to get involved because there's this expectation that, um,

we are highly regulated. We do have people that are that are reviewing us regularly, uh and in terms of our our regulators. So I think this is a really really good first step. And when the O c C came out with the interpretive letter that said that this was an acceptable activity, meaning custody of a of a crypto assets. You know, that was a really good first step, and I think it's good for our country to bring this into a regulated banner and people will have greater confidence. Probab.

Let me follow that up with asking about the bank specifically. How exposed is the bank specifically to crypto as opposed to as opposed to simply through your clients. Well, when you say exposed to crypto, we do not bring on crypto assets directly onto our balance chiefs, so there would be no exposure, uh, in terms of safety and soundness

like that. You know, I've used this analogy before. Think about you know, what's going on like a safety part a box, right, everybody's familiar with that inside of your your bank. Well, that's the equivalent of like the digital wallet, and those digital currencies inside of that safety deposit box are yours, just like if you are storing you know, jewelry or whatever the case may be inside of a

safety deposit box. So the value of that going up and down, that is the customer's responsibility to understand those pieces. But the bank directly is not exposed to that volatility. The bank has been around since so it's not new, even though many people listening right now, probably haven't heard of it because it is a local bank. I'm wondering, as the CEO of the company, how you're thinking about turning this bank's local profile into a national profile as

you adopt cryptocurrency. Yeah. So we're a family owned bank like they've been around thirty nine years. And at the end of the day, we know customer preferences have continued to change. Technology has changed rapidly, so we knew we needed to be able to remain relevant to those ever

changing customer needs. And uh we may had a partnership that we put in place starting in with S A P. So we came the first bank in the country to do the S A P banking services starting them and then in when Mr Brooks in the O c C made the announcement that under our charter, national banks could custody crypto assets, we were positioned with a technology stack that enabled us to pivot and then be able to

bring forward to the custody of these digital assets. I'm wondering right now, what portion of your bank is made up of people doing you know, quote un traditional banking not involving cryptocurrencies, versus people who do crypto banking yeah, so we've had a really strong update. We are in all fifty states, uh in terms of the digital assets side with the bank, also in the in the territories Puerto Rico, Guam, and d C. And we've only been at us for two weeks, so we feel really good

about that now. Obviously, from a revenue standpoint, the traditional bank still dominates that side of the revenue stream, but we're very pleased with the folks that have come on. And you know it's in the app stores right now, so app Store, Google Play, you can go downloaded and basically within five minutes to be ready to go. Where are you seeing the interest coming from? Geographically here in the U S? Where are most people signing up from?

You know, we're California, New York, UM, Texas, Oklahoma, clearly that's our backyard and Florida would be the top five from memory right now, we've got a real time recording system that shows us as you know. In fact, if you guys wanted to sign up right now, I could see it as you as you came on. What's cryptocurrencies are you seeing as the most popular in your accounts? Bitcoin has been the top one, Ethereum and then Cardono. I believe I heard like coin earlier was the you know,

the Walmart announcement. That's that's one of them as well, right, the one that what didn't end up being we should note it wasn't a real announcement. Yeah, that's the fake announce Yeah, thank you. Right. Yeah. So file coin, orchid algorand in bitcoin cash, those are the I think I named the eight. That was Brad Scrivener, the CEO of vast Bank. Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, we stay in the crypto space and look at how the infrastructure

bill could impact digital currencies. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg you live in Frio in New York, to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston Bloomberg one oh six one, does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine ten, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg

Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. One way that lawmaker is proposed to pay for the one trillion dollar infrastructure bill that the Senator approved last month is by imposing tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrency brokers the same way stockbrokers report its customer sales to the I r S. It could open the way for tighter regulation in the crypto space. It's something that the Biden administration is moving toward, as it also pushes for tax compliance for more I

along with a Bloomberg Quicktake. In Bloomberg News process at reporter Katie Greifeld spoke with Danelle Dixon. She's the CEO and executive director at Stellar Development Foundation. Danelle, this was a contentious part of the infrastructure bill. What's your takeaway here, Yeah, it certainly became so it was really fun for us to see the influence that we could have from the block pain and crypto space. Uh, and for us just

to really engage with policymakers. But in the end, I mean the languages with the languages, so it didn't change, but it was really fun to be to engage and to to try to really create that educational opportunity I run with these policy makers. And so, Donnell, this bill, I know it was roundly criticized by the crypto industry for being too broad. Can so can you walk us through exactly what was the language that got crypto advocates so upset. I mean, what was the biggest point of

contention there. Yeah, so I think it was the definition of broker. So that was defined as any person who, for consideration, is responsible for regulator regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person.

And so the argument and the concern was that there are many players in the space that run for example, validators that just validate transactions on working on blockchains, but they don't actually have access to any information that traditional brokers would and they don't act as brokers. So there was just concerned that this was very very broad language with technology that's very new and maybe not widely understood. If you could write the regulation or write the legislation,

what would you wanted to say. It's a great question. I think that the regulation itself should just have exclusions in it at the very least, to talk about they would think about blockchain more itself as infrastructure, and think about these providers that are allowing and helping these transactions just to progress that they actually are excluded from the bill,

for example, like validators and folks who run notes. There was language that was proposed that we were comfortable with and that we actually you know that that it didn't ultimately make it through um, but it would really just be excluding and making clear that it's not actually trying to go after these true infrastructure providers that are just helping blockchain to operate. And so we've seen some efforts

to try to change the language. Last month, there actually was an amendment that would change the reporting rules, but that was blocked by the Senate. So I'm curious what's the path forward from here. Well, I think that this actually created a really great opportunity for us because it showed that, first of all, there is this large constitution and see that policy makers are willing to engage with and listen to. And I think that the pass forward is to create those open dialogues before you get to

the language of the bill. I think that it's crucial to engage with lawmakers to discuss the use cases and the roles for different participants, and that's bringing industry experts and policymakers together. And so that's what we're really focused on doing. Now. Which policymakers can you single out for

us that that really seemed to get it well? I think that there are many I can't single out any particular prob Like, you know, we actually had some that supportive language that we wanted to bring to the table.

But most importantly, I think it's that when you actually understand how the technology operates and what we're trying to do here, I think that you know, you'll understand that the definition of broker doesn't and shouldn't cover some of these players that don't have access to that type of information and frankly, have no relationships to any of the

participants who are making these transactions. So I think it's really all of the senators and the members of how the House that we need to really engaged with, but it's also the regulatory agencies that we're really focused on participating with and engaging with. I think some of them understand what the technology does, but they don't have a knowledge of what the use cases can do and what it can and the value that that can bring to

their constituents. So it's a lot of work for us to do in the US, but I think it's actually really good work. And I think that you know, once we demonstrate that excluding their own constituents from this really useful and valuable services that are offered through blockchain. They're going to want to be a part of it in there, and we're going to be able to help them to get there. And so Daniell's stepping back a little bit.

It definitely feels over the past few months that regulators have started to circle crypto, whether it's the US Congress with the Infrastructure bill or just the SEC this week cracking down on coin Base and really investigating their proposed lending product. I'm curious, what do you think is on the radar next? And we have just about thirty seconds here.

A lot of focus right now is on the decentralized finance space, and so I think that we're going to see we just have to provide a lot more education and around that. I want us to be able to demonstrate the value of this technology neutral opportunities that we have and that's made in the open and valuable to everyone. I think we need to focus on a lot of different areas, but that's I think that the next target space.

That's Denial Dixon, the CEO of Stellar Development Foundation. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and coming up next, you may know Kai Fu Lee as the chairman, CEO and founder of the VC firm Signovation Adventures. But he's also an author of fiction. He's gonna tell you all about his new book A This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Kai fou Lee has spent

nearly forty years at the forefront of artificial intelligence. He's the chairman, CEO, and co founder of Signovation Ventures. It's a venture capital firm with about two point five billion dollars in assets. It focuses on AI, healthcare, and other high tech and has made more than three hundred investments. It's one of the first Chinese VC firms to have a presence in the US, and he's also the co chair of the Artificial Intelligence Council at the World Economic Forum.

He's the former president of Google China and before that was an executive at Microsoft and at Apple. His newest book is AI Ten Visions for Our Future, and unlike his last book, it's a work of fiction. He and his co author, the sci fi novelist chen Cho fen Right ten stories. They're all set twenty years from now in ten forty one. Now, these stories illustrate a world

that's layered with artificial intelligence. They cover themes like AI displacing workers, deep bakes, and how AI will reimagine education. Of course, also imagines what could go wrong. Kai Fu Lei joins us now from Beijing. Kai Fu, great to chat with you. Thanks so much for taking the time. Why are these stories? Why is sci fi? Why is it the best way to communicate what you envision AI

doing to society in twenty years. AI is such an important technology, perhaps the most important in the history of mankind, and yet it's sometimes viewed as rocket science, very hard to understand. So I wanted to see if there's a way to make it accessible to people and that it's actually not only understandable, but also fun to read. That's why I found a science fiction writer to work with me.

He writes the stories, I write the analysis, and then we make sure that the stories are realistic within the twenty year time frame, so that the stories you read will be roughly what life will be like twenty years from now. Do you think the companies that deploy AI today that are working on solving these issues, do you think they're taking into account the pitfalls the perils that

that you associate with AI. I think they are trying, but because it's a new technology, so the tools to come bad the problems aren't there yet, and the engineers building the products weren't aware of the problems. None of the problems were intentionally created. Issues with respect to personal data and explainability and what happens when a makes a mistake and accountability UH and also bias. So these were not intentional by the companies or the engineers who build it.

But now that we know these are real problems, we need to put the training regulations UH and investigating new technologies to come back technology problems. Do you think the incentives, though, are aligned for companies that do work on this type of technology to create solutions or are they mainly concerned with us getting to to buy more, to engage more, to to read more, to spend more time on the platform without being concerned about the consequences. It is exactly

because the incentives are not aligned. So I think the only way to fix it is to realign the incentives, and in the short term, the Internet companies could have an incentive realignment if there were either regulations or certain parties that may do an AI audit, or maybe there would be a watchdog functions that are estimating percentage of

fake news and things like that. That forces them before their brand and reputation to consider that, because if they lose their brand and have a some kind of a media disaster, they will lose customers. So that would is one way to externally force an approximation to an alignment, but there are also otherwise. Why can't we not um encourage building of applications and products that help us in

the long term. So if there were a product that could make me more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more wealthy, m more happier, than that would be a product I would want to buy more than I would want the Facebook, New speed Um or YouTube. So I think there are ways to align user interests. I think people just um the company's just felt like they got such a good

AI tool. It can make money directly, so use it for that singular purpose and forget really that companies should be focused on user needs first, and users want more than um just watching some videos and and reading some blogs. There are long term goals that we have and when we have such a powerful AI tool that can optimize our long term goals. It would be such a unfortunate um events if nobody tried to build something that that's for our long term interests. So let's stick with Facebook

because it's one of the companies that you mentioned. So who should regulate Facebook? Should it be the US government or should there be some sort of Internet national body that takes these difficult questions into account to come up with some regulatory framework. After all, for all intents and purposes,

Facebook is a global company, right right. I'm not an expert in regulation, and I think regulation, in my opinion, is just usually the last resort because, especially given the tools that the US has generally used, such as breaking a company up, that's just too brittle. So I think there needs to be ways to push the company into an alignment with the goals that we the users have,

and I mentioned a few of them. Uh. You know, when I work for Google, there were third parties that measured the relevance quality of Google Search engine, and Google paid a lot of attention to that. So if there could be similar third party watchdog measures of level of fake news, number of deep faith, and uh, how much spam? Uh?

And then this measured externally. That would put a pressure on the engineering team to figure out at least to spend part of their time to make the content higher quality, uh, instead of just getting us to click more and more. So, okay, feel let's take a step back and just think about how we interact with AI in just just take us through, because I think that there are a lot of people who don't necessarily think about it each and every day

that we are interacting with this technology. We are experiencing this technology, So so what does it look like for in our daily lives globally? So one example is that AI language capabilities to converse with us will grow significantly, in many cases indistintinguishable from human human communication. And that means a I will become a companion, UH. And that companion can learn our interests and try to help us improve ourselves. That would be an educational companion or to

figure out how how we might be healthier. That it might be a more of a doctor or psychiatrist companion, or it could just be a friend, a power for for a young kid. And they take and take shapes in UH, both in the in the phone and and the computer of course, but but also v R and a R will be really realistic by then that if we put on something like glasses, we will see UH figures and avatars superimposed on the glasses and and then there there there is as though they were in the

actual environment. So it would be UM, really virtual reality that's indistinguishable from the real reality. UH. In transportation, autonomous vehicles should just about work by then, get all the kings worked out. Of course, throughout the way we will see incrementally robot buses and shuttles and trucks and so on. But truly the steering feed wheel free car that we can either share right or buy will be just about

fifteen to twenty years from now. UM. That will dramatically change our habits because we will have um something like ten hours a week freed up that when we're in the car, we can educate and entertain, communicate, no longer have to drive or look at the road UM. And also cars can be on demand available UM. And they will be smart. They will talk to each other, they will avoid accidents, they will miss each other by one enemy there in a very calculated way. They will drive

more safely, probably eventually reducing fatalities. So it will be more efficient, lower costs, save us time, more comfortable um and and also safer uh. And finally, in healthcare, AI will be able to with a very high likelihood predict the next pandemic because if it could be watching a lot of data all over the world, and AI will be used to alongside with scientists invent new drugs and that the cost of the new drugs probably could be as little as ten percent of new drug inventions today.

And what that means is today's pharmaceuticals can only go after blockbuster drugs for common diseases. But in the future, when the cost is slashed because AI is proposing treatment that are highly accurate working with scientists, reducing the cost by that means rare diseases for which is not economical

for pharmaceuticals to book go after will become possible. And and also AI will be keeping us healthy by taking all of our m R I and gene sequencing and blood to regularly monitor our health and give us hints on how to be healthier and a little longer, and

both of which will happen in twenty years. That's Kai fu Lee, chairman and CEO of Signivation Venture, is also the author of the new fiction book A Ten Visions for Our Future that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week From Bloomberg Radio. I'm Tim Stanovick. Coming up in our next hour. A new book describes that we can end climate change in one generation. We're going to hear from the author, and in our Pursuit section, COVID nineteen has kick started a

resurgence in golf real estate. Plus how Peter til Game, Tech, Trump and the I R s to make billions all tax free. It's this week's cover story. All that to come. 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 stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Tim Stenovik.

Planning ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including how one company is looking to make a whole woman, whole life healthcare model. We're gonna hear from the CEO, plus a new book examines how we can end the climate crisis in one generation, and in our pursuit section, how a house made of bread. Yes, bread is one of the highlights of this year's art Basil. It's gonna cost you millions of dollars if you want it.

We begin this hour, though, with the magazine's cover story. For more details, we turned to Bloomberg's Katie Greifeld, also my Business Week co host Carol master Well a Bloomberg exclusive. It's also the Bloomberg Business Week cover story. It's about Peter Teal, you know, the Silicon Valley billionaire investor and disruptor. Turns out he's kind of just like all the their rich folks out there, so writes Max Chafkin in his

new biography of Teal. Let's get more on this Bloomberg Business wee get or Joe Weber, along with Bloomberg u S Technology Managing editor Mark Millian. He is on the phone in our New York City bureau, Peter till. We've talked about him a lot in his relationship, interesting one

with Trump. The cover story this week begins this uh meeting in Trump Tower right in the transition period after Trump had been elected where Peter Teal, who you may recall was on the stage at the Republican National Convention just a couple of weeks before that, months before that, and and basically he was able to bring a bunch of tech CEOs to Trump and basically be this bridge between tech and the recently elected president uh in a way that was somewhat unexpected. And it speaks to the

power that Teal wields in Silicon Valley. Like obviously he's been integral part of this PayPal mafia for years, first outside investor in Facebook, and there's a lot of roads

in Silicon Valley that leads to Peter Teal. And what's interesting was this sort of little marriage that happened between Trump and Teal, and that proved um not great for a lot of people in Trump's circle, and and it seemed to have worked out really well for Peter Teal, who we think um more than double misfortune during that during that time, Mark want to bring you into this conversation because it's been really wonderful throughout the Trump presidency

and thereafter. Is you know, exploring these relationships that the former president had with some likely subjects and someonelikely subjects and Peter Tell seems to fall into that category. Yes, I would definitely agree with that. And one of the spite holding hands at that meeting at Trump Tower, that is a dark image, the bro hand holding love best they had their um. But yeah, I mean Teal is uh, long time technologists from Silicon Valley, foreign born, um gay.

I mean there are a lot of things about his background that would suggest that he would not be um part of the MAGA contingent um. And yet he is a contrarian investor above all else. And he's made a lot of bad bets over the years, um, but he's made some some fantastic ones. Facebook is certainly in that camp, and I think Trump is is in that camp. Yeah, Mark, That's what I want to dig into because I mean, like you said, this is what Teal does. I mean,

he's a venture capitalist, a capitalist. This whole thing is finding you know, startups to invest in. I mean, how much does this? Is there a parallel to draw between his m O when it comes to you know, investing, being a venture capitalist and this kind of unlikely relationship he forged with Donald Trump. I think there's a direct line. I think his his entire investment strategy Speaks is the reflection of the title of Max's book, which is contrarian.

I mean he looks at where the popular opinions are and where the where the winds are blowing, and he goes the opposite direction, and oftentimes that doesn't work. Max chronicles in the book his hedge fund Clarium Capital, which was like very early to seeing the housing crisis, but in fact was too early and just went so far down this contrarian path that it it led to disaster. Um. And so this strategy is not bull proof, but when you nail it, I mean, it can really pay off.

And I think um Trump was was an example of of where he saw it early and he went in pretty big and and it did pay off in some ways. Matt, as you go through you know Max's book, and this excerpt which is the cover story, Um again, like you said that that picture of the two of them holding hands, I mean, I think for a long time, early on, we were all just trying to make sense of this relationship. But in the end, Uh, Peter Cheel benefited big time. Yes,

it certainly did. I mean not to the extent maybe he envisioned in his wildest imaginations of sort of remaking government in his image. Um, you know, Max, this excerpt goes into some detail about how he offered, you know, a long list of of picks for various administrative positions that the campaign deemed too extreme. Um so, which is something really said something for sure? But you know the other thing that I think is important, and this is sort of the where Max's excerpt culminates. And and I

think it's uh. One of the reasons that this this biography um by Max Jeffkin have I mentioned out next week is so important is that what we're really going to be watching here's Peter Teel's transition from from being a silicone Silicon valley power broker to something that maybe is more about the GOP and politics going forward, and that will play out in mid terms. First and foremost

really good point. This story cover on the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week, which is available Bloomberg Business Week, of course, and that's Max Chafkin's book, The Contrarian. We're gonna be talking to Max next week, Joel, and thanks, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up a new book looks at how to end the climate crisis. In One Generation. We're gonna hear from the author. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg

Quick takes Tim Stenoviek from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Tim Stenovik with Katie Greifeld. Well, Katie, I think a lot of people feel powerless when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. And they do see stories about what's happened to the world and they say, well, I can try to recycle, I can try to drive less, but ultimately, what can I do? That's something that our next guest, Paul Hawkin, tries to address in his latest book, Regeneration, Ending the

Climate Crisis in One Generation. Paul Hawkins is an environmentalist and author. He's an entrepreneur, he's an activist. He's dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. And he joins us now on the phone from the San Francisco Bay area. Paul, it's really great to have you on the show. Congratulations on your most recent book, Regeneration, Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. How do we get how do we do it?

How do we how do we get to the point where we don't feel powerless, well, I think we feel powerless and thank you very much for inviting me on in the program. We're feel powerless because it was being told to us. And the climate narrative is that we can call it, that has been for quite a long time. Uh fun. The science point of view, which is future existential threat and we don't do this is things are going to get worse, and great science and they've been

absolutely spot on in terms of their predictions. Um. And then what happened is that a tactic there was really adopted from tobacco, which was taken up by British petroleum and there was individuated the problem, which is that we

just drove, you know, oil wells and sell gas. You can calculate your carbon footprint, you know, as if you can solve the problem, you know, and so yeah, you can drive, let's get a bike, recycle, use cold water and washing machine, put power strips in your home entertainment center. These are some of the solutions that are coming out, you know. And what happened is individuals will listen to that and understand that that made sense, that did lower impact.

But unless you had you know, I Q lowering the room temperature. You knew that they were completely inadequate to the task at hand because you're reading the headlines, right, it's like it's like sustainability theater. Right. Yeah, it's like you know, and it makes you feel disempowered as an individual, go oh man, this is worse than I thought, and so um, and then people didn't turn the big government.

You know, government is big by the facto, but I mean government and just say, well, you know, you should do something, you know, but there's only certain things government can do and they should and they're not and they haven't been. But that's so I'm for that government is

the slowest institution to move, not the fastest. Then people feel like, well if they think that the only thing that can happen is between the individual, the individuated he she by himself herself, and then government in its enormity, and where the generation talks about is actually the golden juice is in the between those two. You know, it's not the two opposites at all. Where do we go

from here? Because at the individual level, there's frustration, like you say, government can be slow to move, how do we ultimately get started and and fix this two things. One is right now, there's no difference between our climate denier and somebody who understands the problem and does nothing from the host point of view of the same people, you know. And so you have four people who understand it and we're doing nothing. You have ninetent of the

world just disengaged. And no matter how you see this, you can't read the science and not understand that this is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, and probably will, you know when you think about it. And so how do you become disengaged? And that's your question reverse, you know, which is how do we become engaged? And the way we do it is we've talked about it in a very different way, and we talked about possibilities instead of

probabilities number one. Number two, the rhetoric that came out of science, which was good, which is about existential threat which occasions. Fear activists took that over got the science. Then they blamed, shamed, you know, and pointed thinkers and

so forth. You know, you're the cause, you're the problem X, and you're it, you know, so and and then and then you then communicate to people with fear threat you know, shame, blame, you know, fingerpointing, and you know cabin glaciers, right, and then you expect them to do something, They're gone, They're off. That channel has been turned off. And so Paul, let's talk about the regeneration process. Because I'm looking at page two nine of your book. You've laid out a few guidelines.

I mean, what principles should people be keeping in mind? As you know they try to regenerate, which, like you lay out, our bodies are doing every day, every minute. Well, the first principle is to understand just a working definition, which is mine and you can do it yourself, your own definition, but mine is to put life at the center of every act and decision. Nor does this harm life? Or does it increased life? You know? I think about it from the perspective of you know what what I'm

gonna do for dinner tonight? Right? I think We're gonna order pizza? Does does that hard? You know it's going to be delivered on to us? Um how in a bicycle? There you go, which is which I guess is good? You know, But but does that harm life? Does it does it reduce life? Does it help? Does it? Should I have gone to the grocery store. Should I not have ordered groceries online? Should I go walk by foot

to groceries? I mean, there are all these questions that we can try to answer with that checklist every day, and we don't necessarily know the answers to them. Of course not. Let's just turn the question around and say, do you want to to degenerate lifeliners? I don't think so. That's not your purpose, that's not why you're here. And that's what the entire economic sector does. It extracts life.

If you just go down a supply chain, you'll find when you get to it not very far, that it is taking life itself, you know, removing it, killing it, you know. And the fact is that that's degeneration. So the book is saying, well, that road doesn't go much further. We can see the end of that. That's the ocean of certification. That is extreme, whether that is fires we can't even put out, you know, not not not just fires, not such know, the hemispheres on fire. We don't even

know how to put the fire out anymore. They're so big. And so we can see, like, do we still want to go down that road any further? I don't think so. So we generation is just a one eighties a pivot, and it is step by step, bit by bit, but at least the question is there, for example, does it or does it not? And does it create more life or reduce it? Does it most importantly, does it steal

the future or does it heal it? And we have this idea of the world economic system works the way it does and makes much money for so many people blah blah blah blah because it works well. Yes, and it is also stealing our future. If it wasn't stealing our future, there wasn't be all these headlines about what's happening to the environment, earth, people, et cetera. And so we pose the question as what would it look like to have an economy that heals the future. That would

be a GDP two. That would be revenues too, that would be companies as well, but very very different orientation. And it is a question. But you have companies. The biggest food company in the world is Nestlee and they announced that their mottel going ahead is Generation regeneration, and they're taking very seriously about, Okay, we need to pivot the regenitive agricultural systems, if we're going to continue to exist as a company, as a food company in this world,

in this earth, at this time. That's author Paul Hawkin on his new book Regeneration, Ending the climate crisis in one Generation and still come. On Bloomberg Business Week. The CEO of TIA on raising new funds to create a

whole women, whole life healthcare model. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg Eleve in Rio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine six to the country Syria, Sex m Cheddal one Mine Team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg

Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. We've talked a lot about health tech over the past year, as the pandemic and lockdown quickly forced people to start doing virtual visits and change the way they think about their health. Carolyn Whitty is the co founder and CEO of TIA. It's a company that just raised a hundred million dollars in Series be funding to create a whole women, whole

life healthcare model. Joined by Bloomberg's Katie Greifeld. We caught up with Carolyn and she described her company so zooming out. KIA is creating a fundamentally new paradigm for modern women's healthcare. And what that means is we are a healthcare provider at the core who delivers comprehensive healthcare to women online and offline that supports women's whole health needs, mental, physical, and emotional support them throughout their lives from puberty to menopause.

So when people think of women's health, they mostly think of reproductive health. But how do you move beyond that? You're exactly right. I think part of the part of the challenge that PI has faced over the less for years of building this company is a mental model shift redefine him fundamentally, what is women's health from beyond a body part or life stage pregnancy, fertility, menopause, to care for the population. And that's really what PIA is all about.

And there's a reason for this. We know that while pregnancy is a very very critical and important journey in a woman's life, one that TIA is investing into support through our integrative care model, there are many, many other needs that women have that are all too often ignored that fall outside of your reproductive organs. We know that

cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women. We know that women are diagnosed with anxiety and depression at two to three times the rate of men um There's so many issues facing women. We are not body parts but whole people, and it's time that the health care system was built for us to serve us in all of our needs. The kiln. As far as membership options go, you offer a fifteen dollar a month membership or an annual fifty dollars a year. How does insurance play into this?

And is the cost of an actual appointment supplemental to that membership feed Yeah, so TIA is a membership based women's healthcare practice. What this meane is women don't use TIA, but they joined TIA and it's more of a community driven care model. Your membership pe covers benefits that go beyond what a typical doctor's office for insurance covers. Chiefly thinks like care coordination, community events, seamless access to same

day bookings, referrals, and so forth. Once you are a member of ts the price of for which moost women pay for Spotify and Netflix each funds you can actually use your insurance for all of our services, from primary care to acupuncture, to mental health and gynecology. UH. It's a really proud that women are able to help women, I should say, really squeeze the sponge out of their insurance benefits to get the preventative healthcare that we know

that all women need and deserves. And so, Caroline, I want to talk more about your latest funding around a hundred mill lillion dollars. That is one of the largest Series B investments ever for a woman led healthcare startup. What does to your plan to do with that money. We're gonna do three core things. First is scale our whole woman, whole life care model to more women in

more places. UH. Today he is live in three markets New York City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and were launching in San Francisco and across the Day area later this year.

So we're opening a lot more clinics in those markets and rolling out new markets as well, with the goal of opening fifteen clinics next year, serving a hundred thousand women across our virtual and in person care platform by the end of the Second thing we're doing is rolling out additional services that better support women throughout their lives from puberty to metopause, with a specific focus on the

pregnancy journey. UH deeply investing in the preconception and postpartum care parts of this journey that are under invested in where we think it can have the biggest impact. In the third area is continuing to strike strategic partnerships with the leading health systems in every market in which we operate.

Health system partnerships like our partnership with Common Spirit in Arizona, is really critical to enabling PIA to provide continuous care and not only within TIA's four walls, but across outpatient

to intatient care through the obstetrical journey, labor and delivery. Nick, you and so forth were able to provide a higher quality or easily accessible experience by partnering with health system Carolyn, just in the last forty seconds that we have with you, every story right now is a labor story, and I want to know the struggle or ease you have had in attracting providers doctors to the platform. Yes. So, one of the things that make TIA really distinct is the

way we actually hire trains that are providers. Unlike other virtual only players, we are not a networker marketplace model, but actually employ all of our clinicians, which is really key for integration of services, clinical quality, UH in a continuous relationship based care experience that we deliver to all of our patients. So we believe TIA. TIA's model a full stack platform model based many say technology, brand experienced

clinical practice. It's really the right way to truly overhaul everything about healthcare is delivered and do it in a higher quality, lower cost way. That's Carolyn Witty, the CEO of TIA. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we take you through this week's pursuit section, from golf course living to a house made of bread. It's the stories you definitely do not want to miss. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. We head to the back of the book now with the magazine's pursuit section and joining me now as Chris Rouser, editor of the Pursuit section for bloom Burg Business Week. Chris a handful of different subjects in the Pursuit section in this week's magazine. What is the common thread that ties together a house of bread, new hotel in Paris and and living on the golf course. You know, it's all

different kinds of ways that you could possibly live your life. Um, it's all about structures and shelter. Our section opens this week with UM a new trend, which is that people in how houses and how home communities around golf courses are actually really selling out like crazy ever since the pandemic started. And this was a trend that was actually

not going well before the pandemic. There was a big boom in the two thousands of building basically too many houses inside golf clubs and golf course developers had to essentially donate some of the unused golf courses to parks. Yes, exactly. There are hundreds of clubs in the nineties and two thousands were shut down actually because it was too much. They had built too many. Uh. And now because people want to have a little privacy, um, live in a

private community. Uh, these courses are actually really selling through. And some of them are quite expensive and quite lavish. Yeah. For example, in Hawaii, a home that is four better than four point five bats runs you five point six million dollars. Geographically, they're all over the country. Uh, South Carolina. Uh, you have one available or you talk about one that's available in new community available in UM ninety minutes f

New York City to yes. Now, Silo Ridge is a community that we've had our eye on UM for for a couple of years now, and it's up in Wassaic, New York. And you basically you can take the train up there, you can drive, you can take your helicopter and as one does, one does, and you know, you

can build a house there. You can buy a lot, or you can buy a condo in these these buildings which like to a lay person may look like a ski condo, but these are three or four million dollar apartments in this in that ski condo, and they're on the golf course and UM and they've actually developed up uh summer programming for families because you know, what they've found is most popular is the family stuff. You know, people love the golf and being in being there and

being out there in the outdoors. But also just like programming for kids is very valuable these days. You also, right in the pursuit section, your team of journalists writes about a house made of bread. It's art, but it's gonna cost you, and it's not even permanent because it's made of bread. Take us into it, right exactly, how could a house made of bread be anything but art?

Um So this coming we've we've got the return of art Bossel, which is the first major major or the biggest art fair that's returning after the time after the pandemic. Masked vaccinated, right, yes, mass vaccinated, and it's it's in Switzerland. The big hot thing is going to be bringing artists that collectors haven't been aware of or haven't been able to see in person for the past year and a half. And a lot of those people are painters. They appreciate

a lot. They're very hot in the art market and they have been for the past few years. But one Galerus is bringing an ER's Fisher sculpture, which is a giant house made of sour dough bread and they're they're building it in the unlimited section of our buzzle, which is where they have these big sort of immersive works and if you buy it, it costs you. It'll cost you around three million dollars and it comes with detailed

instructions on how to rebuild it right. You have to have artists come in or bread sculptors come in, which I didn't know until Bred house builders Thread house builders. I didn't know that was a thing. Gingerbread house yes, uh, and actually maintain it because it will rot and that's part of the art. And you know, not a lot of people have room for that necessarily in their houses. But it was our favorite thing that we saw that was going to our buzzles. Yeah, one of my favorite

things in the magazine this week. And you've got to check out a picture of it because it looks exactly like you would imagine a log cabin. Instead of being made of logs, it's made of loaves of sour I guess, and they're falling from the ceiling. It's really it's a very active I was telling someone about this. Is it edible? I think that's a lot that um. There's like a mortar that they made out of um, out of an organic material. But I don't know if it's like super adible.

I don't know if you would want to, Yeah, you know, don't eat the art is always a good yeah, unless it's like a banana stuck to a wall, right, right, which you're supposed to Yeah, exactly. Um, let's talk about a new hotel that is opening up in Paris. This is one of my favorite juxtapositions in the section, and you turn the page from a house made of bread to the most fabulous hotel in Paris. Cheval Blanc is a resort chain owned by l v m H and

they've had they have previous to this. They had four resorts in like uh St Merits and in the cab in St Parts and now they've built one in a city. It's their first city project, and it's in this complex that l v m H bought right on the sun overlooking the Eiffel Tower called the Samaritan, and they it was an old department store and now they've they've spent

sixteen years, nine million dollars renovating it. Part of the new complex is a shopping center, very LVMH focus, and then part of it is this Cheval Blanc hotel and it was designed by Peter Marino, who does a lot of luxury stores. This is his first ever hotel and it's just fabulous. What's what's so special about it? You know? The main thing that struck our writer, as our couple writers actually as they were touring around, was um, almost

every room has a balcony. So you you have your room, it may cost a night, it may cost a lot more UM, and but you have your own private terrorists and you walk out and it's like floating over um the sin. You're so close to the river, you have that great view of the Eiffel Tower. Um. But also you know the I was gonna say, costumes. The uniforms

of the staff are LVMH designed. The rooms smell have a like a fragrance design from someone who worked at Dr Partfoons Like it just is super luxurious and um, and it has that great access to that great part of Paris. Well, if you are going to be traveling, perhaps you're planning on going skiing, or you're hitting the links on one of those new homes that you bought on a golf course, you're gonna need some new gear.

And there's an interesting story in the Pursuit section this week about a handful of LinkedIn executives who've gotten together to to help make gear shopping easier. And it's not quite a bot. You're you're actually talking to former professional cyclists or golfers to help you get the right gear.

Take us into it. Yes, so um, there's this website called Curated and it helps you, as you said, by sports gear because a lot of what a lot of mistakes that people make because they buy the most expensive gear. You're like, Okay, what's the best I'm gonna learn how to ski? What are the best skis? Were the best boots? And you know what, if you are learning how to ski, you don't want the best skis and you don't want

the best boots. You don't want anything fast. You want things really generous with your turns um and so this this one guy who was a LinkedIn executive actually made that mistake himself. When you're trying to learn how to ski about way to expensive gear, how to turn it all in after his instructor was like, no, no, no, you need the basics. So Curated collects experts in all these different sports fields to help you find the equipment

that's right for you. So again, you wouldn't want like a super elite set of golf clubs if you were starting. You want something with a generous, sweet spa. You know, the right wait for you so we had our writer go through and experiment with some of their experts to see what they recommended. And and our writer is a ski writer, so he has tested thousands of skis, and when he was talking to the ski expert, the guy actually was like, Okay, I have two recommendations for you.

This pair in that pair, and one of them was the pair that was literally the writer's favorite pair of skis and the winky skis on all the time. So like, so they're pretty good, and so we recommend this service. Interestingly enough, it was growing kind of slowly before the pandemic, as you as your team rights. But then the pandemic hit and people were thinking, wait a second, I need

gear and I need to figure out what to buy. Yeah, a lot of people were playing sort of socially distance sports like skiing, like golf, uh, like tennis, where their equipment actually really matters, and people were shopping online a lot more so this was this was sort of their moment. Well. Speaking of equipment, there's a class of relatively new hardware that helps people try to relax and get to sleep. There. They're sort of headphones that you wear at night. Do

we need these? Do you need these well, Um, I don't know if anyone needs this kind of device, but I will say if you're a grown up and you've lived in the world, probably probably at various times, you've been like I wish that I had less stress, and I wish I could fall asleep and stay asleep easier. And every you know, you people try everything from melotone into headspace, the meditation app to not having any screens

in bed. If chances are you've tried all this stuff, and um there I got word of this device which is called a cove and you wear it around your head. It's like it almost looks like headphones, but it actually contacts your head behind the skin behind your ears, and you wear it for twenty minutes every day and it vibrates. And what it does is what they say it does, is they say it sends um these calming signals to your brain, which helps your brain better manage the connection

between your brain and your body. Um. And they call it inter reception. And so when I first heard about it, I was like, this sounds like a bunch of balogny. Like I've tried everything, I'll try it um. And I tried it for almost three months now and I actually found that it did help improve my sleep quality and it did help my base level of stress during the day.

I'm not a super stressed out person. Um, but you know I I thought it worked well enough that we should show it to our readers and and have them give it a shot. If they wanted five it's five dollars. You have to have an app with it. I think if you're something someone that has tried everything and and like a small but noticeable improvement in sleep quality would have an effect on your life, I think it is

worth it all. If you're having trouble falling asleep at the LVMH hotel and hopefully you're not hopefully you're not this one, but in your breadhouse you might be having That's true. It doesn't have great installation when it comes to sound quality. Chris Rouser, editor of Pursuit Section, check it out in the back of the book. This week, and that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Tim Stanovic. Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg Business Week Daily show. It airs Monday through Friday and starts at two pm, Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News. Also check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and on

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