Businessweek Extra - Mahindra, Moynihan, Schwarzman

market cap. We're talking about Steve Schwarzen for Blackstone, a non Mahindra of the Mahindra Group, and Brian moynihan, a Bank of America. Check it out, Steve, I'm gonna point to you, what are you most worried about in the world right now? Jeez, there's a lot to worry about, you know, because you know, first of all, just stepping back from it, uh, you know, the social media and the Internet are making it very difficult for almost any

government to function. Uh. If you come out with a plan, you have instant uh mobilization of opposition to anything you're doing. It even makes it difficult for companies. UH sometime with sort of this roving band of opposition. Uh. And and you know, financially, um you know, sort of the you have a few weaknesses in the system. I think that European banking system isn't is uh strong, certainly as the

U S which is in great shape. You have um private investments in the technology area, which that we work, um you know sort of non public offering has exposed as as being uh you know, really uh pretty inflated. When when you when you have an industry that more or less marks up its positions, uh you know, in a closed circle among itself, and then it pops out into the real world. The real world says, what are

you thinking that? That's usually um, you know, sort of a wake up call, but it's you know that that part of the world isn't big. That's that's a relatively small uh set. Um. And I guess any of us on the stage, and then I'll finish, because I don't want to dominate anything. When you have thirteen trillion dollars of negative interest rates, I don't even know what a

negative interest rate is. And in other words, why would I take my money and give it to somebody and for the privilege of them holding it, I have to pay them like it's a storage unit um. And I'm supposed to get interest when I give people money. And as as interest rates go down, uh, most of those places that have those negative interest rates, it's not stimulative because banks have trouble earning money, uh, you know, in that kind of environment. Uh. And if banks don't do well,

then they don't grow their capital. They can't then extend credit, and countries don't grow unless there's credit extension. And so this whole movement, particularly in Europe, to negative interest rates, I think is some kind of uh warning sign, some type of wake up call. How did we get in that position? Why are we in that position? Not us as Americans, but us as financial people looking at the world.

So Brian may know more than I do, but it just seems so, Brian, does this negative rate environment that we increasingly see around the globe tell you that there's some underlying weakness that maybe we're missing. We we know the obvious problems that are out there, but is there something more substantial? Well, I think Steve's point is right.

There's the monetary policy decision, and to take rates as low as possible to uh, to accommodate the economy, accommodate growth, and they're lower in this country than have been historically, but they're still positive. In other places are negative, and

there's a significant amount of it. I think there's a debate whether it actually transmits the economy because if you look in some of the countries where the rate structure has been negative for five years, the banks still have to pay consumer depositors interest because to these point, they're not gonna give us a hundred dollars and get ninety five back and think it's a great thing. And so

I think there's a great debate. The economists will hack out, but the reality is it showing a weakness and economies armies, probably more fiscal work done and more reform work done to stimulate those economies, and well, good luck with that,

and good luck with that. The good news is in the US you already have an economy which is pretty flexible and work talent people, uh, lots of capital, deep capital markets at the banking system, that restructured, a set of rules that you can understand one law that covers an economy. It's the largest in the world as opposed to multiple laws. And so you're seeing the US continue

to grow, unemployments low, and consumers continue to spend. So the question really from the macro sense, is all that parade of interesting things to ponder and worry about it is only Wednesday is offset by seventy U s economy has been speeding up its activity all this year, and that is as big as Chinese economy. And so when was that tension just going to be really wrestled to the ground. And that's the question, well and so and on.

I put that to you because you look across a hundred countries, You're you're operating in a hundred countries, I believe, is that are we at a breaking point where we may see something snap here? Or can we continue on, especially from a consumer perspective, in a nice upward, gentle trajectory. Let me start in a light or note first, because when you asked Steeve this question, but what's on your mind? I do have a very weighty global problem on my mind right now, and that is I have a two

year old grandson who lives in New York. His father's Mexican American and speaks to him only in Spanish. So right now my major preoccupation is how to improve my Spanish so I can communicate with my grandchild. But if you look at it that's a lighter note. But frankly, that to me is the real thing that what is me about the world. You look at it from a

human centered point. When you try to operate in a hundred countries language communication, keeping the core of your business and the governance and the values of people is a major problem. So I'm looking at more as a I'm not really worried about growth. I think we have enough locuses of growth to come up. You heard the Prime Minister of India this morning, and I don't think what he was talking about was hype. Steve, you've been out

there very often. I think he knows what the potential is if you look at the population, and he talked about four ds this morning, the democracy, the demography as well, and he talked about demand and decisiveness. If India does get moving again. And I think he's taken some steps recently like the tax cut, which should do exactly what the tax cuts did here, you're going to get another engine of growth for the world, for sure. And I Brian, and I see him more in India than I do here.

So I think both these gentlemen understand what the potential of India is I'm really not worried about consumer demand coming in from different parts of the world. We just have to look around the world. All the focus has been on America, rightfully, but I think you're going to see an uptake and a lot of other parts of the world. But why does it feel And I know we talked so much about recession, and I know you spoke with David Western over the summer quote that we

used a lot on Bloomberg. We have nothing to fear about a recession right now except for the fear of recession T shirts, bumper stickers. I mean, but I just feel like it feels like if you talk to businesses and CEOs, they're hesitant to spend. But then you talk about the strength and to constus, how do you reconcile those two and and and are you still ruling out recession? That nobody if you look at all the consensus, you know,

the thirty eight economist. When I talked to David, I said, look, there's nobody has a negative sign in front of any of their estimates. And so in the bottom five probably average and the it's you know, five point five for gdp US next year, and stuff. So even though people saying the probability is going up, because that's the uncertain the question is nobodys predicting it is going to happen. The fear you have is going to your point, it's only ones day and what's going on? Will you get

the consumer confidence to to deterior right now? It's it's come up, it's come down a little bit, and we get intera if that starts to happen, that's the word. You do not see that in your activity every day. Um. The combination of housing prices still being constructive, which that part of the wealth is constructive, the stock market still being up, that part of their wealth is constructive, their wages growing faster now than they have really since any

any point of last sight nine years. The employment levels being high. So that's always the good news. The questions what breaks set and that's what I worry about. The the psychology of business deteriorating somewhat again high high, still very high, but tipped over a little bit. One do the one does a business owner convey to their teammates that it might not be as good for this next year. I higher wages, a bigger boninus more incentive plans whatever,

or you get to keep your job. We don't not see that in our Our middle market loans are growing on a faster clip now and they were the last few years. So it's all okay. And and that's the question that we said. And I think the fear could cause us to back up before the data will show you're there. So some of that fear and caution, Steve, comes from this dispute between the U S And China. There are a few people who have done as much dare I say, shuttle diplomacy than you have between the

leaders leaders of those two countries. You write about it, h in your book. Steve's book, by the way, is on sale now. I don't know if anybody has heard about what it takes um, but we'll have that commercial

in a moment. But you do write extensively about China in the book, your experience there, the Schwartzman scholars, your relationship with President she How does this get resolved at least to the satisfaction that the CEO s that that Brian is talking about, specifically feel good enough to start spending money again. Yeah, I'll talk about that in one second,

but but just in terms of risk. Uh. I've always felt that, you know, the cycle when it comes to an end, won't do it from from normal you know, business cycle issues, because because that seems to be managed pretty well. Uh, it'll be some type of geopolitical type of incident circumstance which which hits the confidence of consumers. It won't be over production of goods and things like that. I could be wrong, but I've been thinking about this for a few years, and we've got enough of these

major things that that could change people's attitudes. Uh. You know, we're full employment. Uh. You know, so people have a good situation, but their behavior may change if they're scared of something. Uh. As as to China us um Uh that's as it's an interesting situation because basically driven but by the fact that you know, in the last presidential election, we discovered that that of Americans couldn't write a four

check in an emergency. So so if you think about that, these are people who fundamentally don't have savings uh, and they don't earn much money. Uh, and their their education American education has really slipped dramatically for the last thirty to forty years, and those those people are very unhappy. Uh and and they they in effect or demanding some type of change. And part of that change happens when

they don't and they don't get satisfied with domestic solutions. Historically, with populism, um, you get angry at some foreign entity. And China's the target. And it was pretty obvious that it was going to be. And I talked to the Chinese about that right after the election, and they were not sensitive to that, and I told them, don't don't

worry about it. We we didn't understand it either, uh, you know, which is why, you know, we had a president elected that nobody thought would be elected except him. Uh And and so we all learned something. I said, don't feel bad, you know, you didn't have bad staff work, but now you know. And they they said, okay, well, you know, if that's the case, we're going to have to adjust to. China for four years has been growing

faster than any major country in history. Uh. And so this is like whatever practices they have which in history when you're you know, sort of a we used to call them, you know, developing countries or underdeveloped countries. Uh. Now we call them emerging markets. Uh. You know, they in the United States did this in the nineteenth century. We hide behind terror falls, you protect your industries. Uh, you don't let foreigners in into certain things that you

know where they can compete. Uh. And and that world lives until you become a more matured country and then you integrate well, I think I think in China, part of part of the interesting issue is they still think they're poor and we sort of think they're rich. And their their GDP per capita is ten thousand dollars are

is roughly sixty. But when they started this sprint forty years ago, I think it was like four person So so it's been enormous progress, but there there's still you know, sort of like one six of us, and now we're demanding our bottom and effect. Uh. And also European countries don't like they have similar problems, uh that that we're asking China to like become a more mature country and join the rest of the world. Their attitude is we're still poor. So so okay, if we have to make adjustments, Um,

it's not our favorite thing to do. What what do we do? And so what you've been seeing over the last two and a half years is the US wanting them. You know, it's sort of the leader of the developed world to come pretty far. And on the Chinese side, UM are trying to figure out how far and how fast they want to get someplace. So so so you know, the two countries got quite close um in May, at which point the Chinese just withdrew they you know, they

had agreed to a variety of things. We thought, uh, and then they looked at the whole and they said, uh, you know, my goodness, let's not do that. And now that's just starting again. And meanwhile, what's happened in this two and a half years is that the two countries have started um as a results of false starts and in a variety of other tactical stuff, you know, are are starting to decouple, which is very dangerous. Um. Well, can we I want to dig a little bit into that,

because I do wonder. I think increasingly we're expecting this world where it's China and its allies and the United States and its allies is not used. It in a very interesting place figuratively and literally between China and the

United States. How do you see it? I see it as a situation of enormous opportunity I have to be mercenary, of course, absolutely because to be and I'm I'm just being truthful here that for a long time, it wasn't kosher for anyone in American policy positions to admit that there was a kind of conflict with China and that India in fact could be one of the players in this game as a buffer against China. That was just no no. If you went to the Council on Foreign Relations,

nobody would admit that. I think it's now it's in the open, and I think President Trump has even made it more in the open. I mean going to Houston and listening to our Prime minister. I think he made it very clear what kind of alliance he had. I think there's nothing but opportunity for India in this and we have to play our cards right and see that we are viewed now as a very very appropriate ally

for the US as a buffer both in defense terms. Frankly, if you look at the number of defense exercises between the US and India, they're proliferating dramatically. Defense procurement from the from India is already burgeoning. We never used to buy the used to buy more from the Russians and frankly all the all the tenor of the relationship with

India's right. This is a democratic country, the country that values I p R. There's a country that has scale and growth, so there is profit for global companies too over there. So I think India has nothing but a unique opportunity right now and we have to just play those cards right, and I think it would be a win win for both the US and for India. So I actually agree. And having been with a bunch of CEOs with Prime Minister's Morning, all who are talking about

their business expanding in India. It's been a natural recipient. And I think some of the bureocracy and things that were difficult to operate, they have been doubt whether they

can be proved, and everybody knows. I think the broader context here though, is is you know, global trade and and if you go back and say, if the China US situation will take longer, the questions what can resolve in the interim, And this is where unfortunately I'm not sure what happens given the politics in the situation this week to U S, m c A and things like that, which are critical to get done because as much as India is a beneficiary, Mexico and Canada in a in

a trade with US is a beneficiary in a sense or a way to operate. Let's make it simpler that wage scale in Mexico is actually lower than the parts of China. There's they could use the jobs. There's a lot of people can move to manufacturing there, there's already integrated manufacturing supply chains. Canada's a different situation. So I think to keep the US kind of moving forward, there

are three or four things to knock out. Everybody hopes for China US, but there are a couple of things to knock out first, and one of them as a U, S M C A. I just don't know politically if they can push it through, even though I think O sides seem to want it, and if they could push that through, that would be good and give more time

to work I think on China. So I want to stick with something you said in the context of the meaning that you had with Prime Minister Modi, which is clearly CEOs are stepping into a brighter and maybe higher expectation type spotlight. We hear it over and over again.

Do you feel a greater responsibility now, especially given what's going on in Washington, in London and capitals around the world, to speak out both on your own issues related to business but also social issues in the end of the day, especially our company has been around for two d and thirty plus years and so we've been around through all kinds of fun stuff if you think about it. But but the round he is our job is to produce profits and make progress so much society needs to do.

And so the idea of the purpose statement by the b R T the work I do that we all do with your National Business Council and the World Economics Forum leadership for years, the you know Mike's leadership on the climate. You pick your thing. The idea is we have to have companies can do both produce a great profit and make sustainable make progress on the STGs. And

so I think all of CEOs agree with that. And I so the attribute where people say we're speaking out publicly on an issue generally comes from the need on that second, but it also reverberates the first. If you have teammates working for you and you went what we went through the last five or six years on Post Nightclub Charleston, Vegas, Houston, Parkland, and you had teammates in every one of the situations that led our team to

say we ought to take a stand on something. It was not because we need to go out and make some policy statement. It was because if you think about to have great teammates to make that profit you have to make, you have to protect on HP two, which was a North Carolina issue about we had to come out because it was our headquarters town are people would not travel there and so well, people are thinking this

is about you know me or something. It's not. It's about we have to represent the two hundred thousand teammates that five or six hundred thousand people in their families and ensure them well and pay them well. But also we need them to be successful and to produce great profit and sustain progress on the STGs and that and is the key. And so as long as we can do and the investors and stuff should stay with us, and then it gives us the permission and the availability.

But it comes from really the view that our customers are teammates, our communities and our shareholders really are more aligned. And it's nothing new. This is we came out of the community. We were formed by people saying we need financing. To Steve's point, in this community two d and thirty years ago, So start to think about We've been through all the impeachment proceeds. We've been through tough elections. That one was a mess and maybe they made a nice

play called Hamilton's out of it right. We have been there through this and we will be there through the next one if we basically do both make great returns for our shorewlers and deliver on the society needs. Because any day that means communities grow, that means we grow. So in India we handle the same thing we bill children's museum and Mumbai, Uh why because they never had a children's museum. You'd say, how's that consistent? Well, that's what our teammates wanted us to do to help out.

So it's it's work on both sides. Steve, I want to bring you back in because I'm curious, as you know, on the campaign trail, some of the candidates have kind of put private equity UM on their radar and we've been happy with that. We'll just watch the batons and UM. But I am curious that's saying, you know, private equity is responsible for some of the inequalities that are in our world. What do you say to that, Well, I'd

say there's a lot of misunderstandings. Um and Um. You know, the private equity industry is comprised of a lot of different firms. And but basically what we do is leaving other asset classes like real estate aside. Um, we buy companies and we try and make them grow faster because when you exit, you get to higher multiple for higher growth. Uh And and to do that, you have to invest in these businesses. They just don't grow faster because it's

in your interest. So so you put more capital in them. Uh. And you come up with good strategies uh. And you you drive growth. So when you grow businesses, you typically need more people. Uh and and so um, this is sort of a virtuous circle. Uh. And you know, from a financial risk perspective, UM, you know, we went through the global financial crisis, and private equity firms didn't didn't you know, have financial difficulties more than other kind of companies.

So so so on the downside, UM, the industry hasn't really created much difficulties. UM. On the upside, you arned typically for your investors who were pension funds. The regular people, they're the fireman, the government employees, the corporate employees. You make double the stock market indexes. So so basically this is a really good model. Uh in the nine eighties. Uh,

it wasn't so much like that in the eighties. There were only a few firms and prices were so low in the eighties that you could buy something and just cut costs, uh, layoffs some people and you were successful. That world is just gone. With the kind of higher prices that you have to pay to buy anything today, you just can't be successful doing that. You you must grow your way out of uh. You know, the creation price and and so I think there's some leftover perceptions.

They are also an occasional, high profile type of situation, whether it's in the retail business. But but you must look at retail generally, and Brian would know more than I do. But retail has been with the disintermediation of the Internet. The number of retail companies that have gone busted are huge. The same way you could get a private equity company that owns a newspaper that was in this political treatise that one of the candidates came up

with what's happened to newspapers. I mean, the vast majority of them have gotten into trouble. So you can take one example and and make something out of it. But but just to give you context, right, there were sixty six they were roughly a hundred and fifty one million jobs in the United States. Uh, sixty six million people change jobs in a given year. Right, US economy is unbelievable dynamic. The number of people who were fired in

the United States was twenty one million. The number of total job in the private equity owned companies is eleven million. So when you look at the massive amount of companies, where do you get those twenty one million people who lost their jobs. It's not from private equity. It's a very small part of the whole economy. So so this this argument is wrong. Uh, and it's sort of pyramids mistake on mistake, and I think there's there's an ideology that goes with it, and also terrible marketing on the

part of the private equity firms. You have to give them a d for not being able to explain this. This is pretty simple. Explain what you're doing. So because of where we are and all the discussions that we've

had at this summit about climate and sustainability. I think it's fair to say that when we look back on this week, even this very newsy week, this star and apologies to to all of you, is going to be a sixteen year old Gretta Fundberg her statement about what the world is doing or not doing related to climate change. I'm just going to quote what she said to the

heads of state. People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing, where at the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money in fairy tales of endless economic growth. How dare you that's memorable? Is she right? Are we not doing enough as governments and as companies to really face this and our corporate leaders at least a non listening I think they were.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see the number of people who showed up at the climate events, the CEOs who signed up wearing that large, ungainly badge about the one point five degree ambition. That's not a pretty badge, where that itself was not a fashion statement, not a fashion statement. But people are committed, and you know, my I've had one statement I make about sustainability, and I've

been repeating it with monotonous regularity. I don't really intend to get into the debate of whether climate change is real, who's the guilty party, who has not done it? Has the West polluted? Should the West be paying an India only benefiting, should be be getting money? I stay out of that. My statement is, it's very simple. This is the biggest profit opportunity for business people in the next

few decades. Why are you even me wasting time arguing about who's right who's wrong, whether it's a sixteen year old or it's the president of the US. You know. Frankly, somebody asked me the other day in a podcast. They said, do you have a message for governments and do you have a message for other companies? I said, yes, I do a little tongue in cheek and I said to governments, I would say, please, don't fight climate change, don't invest

in innovative technology. Let India do it, let us get ahead of the game, and then you come in after we've put ourselves right on the top. And to my fellow company people in business, I would say climate change isn't real. Just stay out of the game, keep arguing with the sixteen year old girl, we are making money at everything we've done in renewables. Let Mahindra Group go out,

they clean up the opportunities. You come in later. Because to me, the point I was making was this is futile and we are just creating almost a media created sensation of villain victim. And frankly, the winners are everybody because everything our group has done in sustainability has actually made money and the businesses we've started in the last five years are amongst the fastest going waste to energy solar. Why are we even wasting time on arguments? We agree?

I'd agree that the time, the debate, the debate and arguments of what's going on scientifically stuff are just don't help. And I agree that, but the non that, Yeah, the reality is we have to make progress, and we have to make a lot of progress. It costs about two trillion dollars a year, UH is the estimate for the environmental part of the SDGs six trillion overall all the

charity World's eight hundred billion a year. The US government budgets only four trillion a year, so there's only no government's gonna solve this, and no charity is gonna solve it. Who's gonna solve it is capitalism and driving the change. So in a lot, since two thousand seven to two thousand nineteen, we did a hundred twenty five billion dollars of stuff around the environment. In the next seven years ten years, we'll do another three hundred billion. That is,

you know, green bonds. That is, we're carbon neutral in twenty not five years from now, we're carbon neutral next year. Um it is sold installations across the country of India, solar installations across UH, the prologst Uh warehouses in the United States is a wind farm financing. There's a tremendous business opportunity, but it's time for capitalism to come to

drive it because that's where the money will be. And so it's how we operate as a company, and all of us have companies, you operate and driving them to carbon neutrality and making that commitment. It's how we then finance the build out. And it's the last part is to keep thing a non mentionance. We can't be in the western developed countries. We cannot be of a sort that we will not allow other countries to have the

energy that they need to have to develop. We have to produce the right energy form that it was sustainable energy for all from the last un A Secretary General where they figured out a plan and how much it costs. That is the critical things. We can't be arrogant in the West or developed countries and say hey, you can't have the power. We have to sit there and say

we will get you the power the right way. And that that is where we really got to watch what's going on with coal and other things and somebody's econm. We have to provide the replacement. EVA costs us all money, but I think the business opportunity actually takes care of it. That goes back to point you can bruce a profit and you can make the bulls and if you look at what we've done and this is this has become a large business force. And her right again about saying

you're just focusing on money. I would just say, Gretta, let it be about money, don't make it about either, or you've got to ditch that dichotomy. So the only argument I have with her, it's it's both. It's because she's making it sound like give up your ways of making money, and what about the environment. I'm saying the real power is not that, So she is wrong. I'm saying, be a businessman, you're showing us the money. There is money there, and the pursuit of profit and capitalism is

in fact one of the answers to this solution. So I would argue with her if I met her, that don't make it so, you know, black and white. But I think there's concerns that the goals that a lot of folks are laying out a more ambitious, ambitious than the actual initiatives. And I think that's some of the concerns. But from what you folks are saying, I mean, I'm listening to you talk and under Steve, you guys have s G investments over Blackstone, so I know it's it's

it's just the pounding effect. If everybody doing more and more and more and and isn't going to be enough, there would be great debate every year on the forty

years about that. The question is if we do more next year than this year, and you get more people doing more, and you get the investors, not only Steve but also the mainstream investors to say, if you're not doing something on this, we're gonna start to take the money, not not the oil companies, but all of us, and then you'll see the compounding effect to that, and it is powerful. I mean, just think of called an ambition loop,

which is already in. We set an ambition three years ago about reducing our cobbin footprint by twenty percent in three years. We did it in one year, so we made another rollover. It just keeps MULTIPLI episodic, No, I mean I think they've answered the questions. I mean, the sale has been made. Uh on sustainability. It's a favorite saying, and I mean, really, you know there there's there's not much bay right that that are we doing it fast enough?

Because I think one of the things that was brought up on one of the panels is we're kind of running out of time. You can't reverse what's done, and so do we need to be more ambitious with our goals. Let's actually put the policies into place. I read a book recently and said you should always go big. Excuse me said, I read a book recently that said you should always go big. I guess, well, that's one of

the big takeaways. The you know, the hardest thing to do is change what people think and inform a consensus I think on sustainability. Um, that's that's happened. Uh. And virtually every business I know has concerns in that area. Uh. And as Annan was saying, um, it's it's very profitable to to address those issues. I mean, we we found once we started looking at that area. You know, we we owned a large retailer. Uh and um, you know we we we hired a t to start putting in

sustainability stuff. And I know this sounds almost like primitive, but on the roof of every one of these retailing units is some air conditioner condenser or something, and you know it's it's what keeps the store uh, you know, cooled. And we just sent somebody up to look at every one of them. Uh. And what you found is that a little rubber you know, sort of thing that makes some of these circular things do something. What it was

was was like tired. It wasn't taught. Uh. And as a result of that, the electric costs were way higher. And by buying something as simple as like a two three dollar you know sort of little part um, we could cut electric bills by and you know who could be against this. The practices at the beginning were the problem. But what what's happened is there there's a the sensitivity on these issues has driven the business community do all

kinds of things that are basically there. Some of the are not even so hard, and they're really important to mindset. We only have a couple of minutes. We're gonna ask you to be kind of quick, but we'd like to end on an optimistic note because we do feel like we're all challenged every day with some of the headlines that are coming out. So give us something, Brian, to be hopeful about. I'd be hopeful about the human capital in the world for lack of better term of ingenuity

and ability to solve problems. And so if you look at nineteen s nine in America today, we went through Vietnam, we went through an appeachment reservation a president, we went through the civil rights issues, We went to the DNC with rights in the streets X six night, Bobby Kenny, Martin,

Luther King. Twice as many people work in the US, six million more working, less manufacturing, eighty million more people working, and the unemployment new claims today that are filed on a Thursday are the same nominally as they were back then, and the population has come from two fifty million people of three hundred and some million people and eighty million people more work all because of the ingenuity in the US.

That's a very optimist We'll figure our way through this, and if we configure out if there's and they configure way, there's Europe configure way thors. It's just gonna take some time. But you have to be optimistic that all his talent, he's eight seven billion, eight billion people in the world are going to figure out solutions. We just have to get them working. I'm going to keep it very simple. Um. Even though I gave an argument against greata earlier, I

find her one of the biggest causes for optimism. I grew up in a generation of time of Woodstock, and you know, people from my generation missed the fact that young people didn't seem to have the kind of search for identity that we went through. They weren't questioning anything. There weren't those coffee room conversations questioning the world, existentialism sat, where's all that gone? It was all Instagram now. And the protests in New York gave me hope because it

felt like the old days. It felt like people, young people were beginning to question again. And you know in America more than anywhere else that that generation is what brought about real change that brought an end to the war. So I'm optimistic because if if these young people are going to become anything like what that generation was, you're going to see real change, in very positive change. Last word to you, Steve Well, I I said a meeting

before lunch. Well, I guess we all were with with with the Prime Minister of India talking about the development of India, and he's a very special kind of head of a country. But what gave me enormous optimism because they went around part of the room and and each

CEO was talking about what they were doing in India. UM, and each of these individuals, we're really amazing, Uh, what they were doing, what they were innovating, what were they were creating, the way they presented themselves, UM, the way they were conceptualizing how to expand. It just happened to be one country that I sort of looked at this group of people and I said, this is a resource.

Uh that's really unique. UM. The drive, the commitment the creativity of every one of the speakers, And I said, you know, we've got a winning hand long term because there are people in the back of each of those people who are equally gifted. Uh And and I think that's a part of America we take for granted or we don't see it. But anybody who sat in that room watching listening had to be dazzled by the people who were in charge of substantial organizations trying to do

really interesting things. And those people will do that in other areas as well. And that's what I think is. It's it's a really really under understood area of uniqueness in America and a reminder of everything going on behind kind of a crazy headline. That was our panel from the Bloomberg Global Business War. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week X drop you short of tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday at gpm Wall

Street Time. I'm Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser, and I'm Jason Kelly. This is Bloomberg