Spotify Betting Big on Podcasts

dot com. If you can also listen to a radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, and be sure to watch us too on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. Global virus cases him nine one million topping million deaths, surpassing one million vaccines given out more than twenty nine million shots given worldwide. Cannot come soon enough to vaccine for for widespread vaccination, I should say exactly, and figures cross that it continues to pick up speed.

Back with us is Dr Sandro Golea. He's Dina Professor at Boston University School of Public Health, author of Pained Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's health. He joins us once again on the phone from Boston. Dr Golea, nice to have you here, Happy New Year. How are you tell me kind of what's going on in your world from an academic level as all, as well as from what you're seeing on the vaccine in COVID. Happy New Year, Carol, and happy new year, kim. Um. I am, I am.

As we've discussed on the show before, I'm unfortunately well and my family as well. And these are these are difficult times. I find myself entering the new year with an equal mix of trepidation and hope, and on any given day, I try to make sure that hope overtakes trepidation. Now you know why trepidation, Well, we have a lot of challenges we're still facing as a country, separate and apart from the politics that we are all living through.

We COVID remains a really important problem. The economy, which is a result of COVID remains an important problem. And and all of this, as we've discussed, is on a foundation of structural issues like racism that we have been dealing with as a country for a long time. So I think those things all give me trepidation. All of a sudden, I want you for an hour. I'm just going to tell you, um, Sandral, let me ask you

something though. What we saw last tweak obviously the dysfunction um that I think it's safe to say has been caused by our president, whether it's internally within the government and then more more broadly across society. How do you think that has hindered in some ways the rollout of the COVID nineteen vaccine. I think enormously. I don't think we can over overstate how much lack of federal leadership

has hindered their response to COVID. We've vaccinated about nine million people in the country right now, and if we keep vaccinating at this rate, it will take us two years before we vaccinated the whole country, which of course is unacceptable. And remember this is in the in the context of a lot of promises that have been made by the by the executive branch. So politics has been an integral part of the COVID story right from the beginning.

It has been a part of the story as to why we separated from who, has been part of the story why half the country doesn't seem to believe that COVID is a real thing. It's been part of the story as to why we do or don't go a vaccine or masks. And I think it's a real reminder. Uh. You know, Rudolf Rca, one of the fathers of microbiology, said that medicine is politics on a grand scale, and we've never seen that more clearly than we have in

twenty twenty. I'm wondering about the rollout of vaccine right now here we are, we're almost exactly a month into when that first shot was given. What have we learned about the right way to give people the vaccine? And I mean age wise, profession wise, what is the right approach? Well, fundamentally, our priorities are right, and by that I mean that we are prioritizing healthcare workers and people at highest risk, and those are people at the older age groups and

people with underlying conditions. So I think all of that we have the concepts correct. I think what where we're stumbling is really at the implementation and the programatics. So a couple of things that we've learned. Number one is that the guidelines are being interpreted very strictly in clinics and hospitals and nursing homes, which means that a lot of vaccine is going unused because there are not enough people in that risk category greed to get the vaccine.

In that particular spot and that care needs to be loosen. And number two, we are realizing that the vaccine distribution is going through these formal channels of hospitals and nursing homes, and it's not happening fast enough to get to the people who are at high risk, people over a certain age, and people with underlying conditions. And there are states that

have done well, you know, we shouldn't forget that. For example, West Virginia had vaccinated everybody in its in its assistant living facilities nursing homes before Christmas, which is quite remarkable, and they did that by contracting out the CPS and Walgreens. Other states have taken approaches that are right now controversial, for example Florida creating large vaccination sides for people over the age of six to five. But ultimately the right

answer has to be determined state by state. But it's pretty clear to me that we need to make sure that the vaccine is available very very quickly, with criteria that are clear about who's prioritized, but flexible enough to make sure that the vaccine can be delivered quickly. In a particular context, we are also seeing a little bit of hesitancy from healthcare workers. The reporting shows that it's not necessarily doctors, but different people who work at long

term care facilities and hospitals as well. What's the right messaging to make sure that they're fully informed on why they should get the vaccine. I think the messaging is simple, that the vaccine is safe, it's effective, and fundamentally doesn't just help the personnel takes them, it helps the rest of us remember what we're trying to achieve as collective immunity. So tim you're being vaccinated helps me, My being vaccinator

helps Carol. And I think there is a personal need to take the vaccine to make sure that would protect ourselves, but also a collective obligation to take the vaccine to improve our collective immunity. And I think that message I suppose I go back to where I started, Carol, with my mix of trepidation and hope. My hope is that in the next few weeks, the common sense is going to prevail that enough people will recognize that we are dealing with a safe, effective vaccine to help us end

a really terrible pandemic that has paralyzed the world. And we're going to see much less of that hesitancy and weeks going forward. I do want to ask you and I have to say, um, Dr Galaia, Tim and I kind of went back and forth. Do we want to bring this up? But it is the second most read story on the Bloomberg. It's from the New York Times and it talks about a Florida physician who developed an unusual blood disorder shortly after he received the Fiser vaccine.

Not yet known if the shot is linked um to the illness, and he did die from an unusually severe blood disorder sixteen days after receiving that vaccine. Help me out here. How are we to be smart about when we hear stories like this? Yeah, that's an excellent question. The what we have to remember is that that when you're giving vaccines to millions of people, the vaccine is a point in time and other things are going on

to people's lives that precipitate illness. So it becomes very difficult for us as humans to say, well, the vaccine happened, and something bad happened, Well, therefore the vaccine must have caused it. The reassurance we have is that these vaccines that are in the market right now we're tested on

hundreds of thousands of people. Literally, the side effects are every single one is monitored carefully by a review committee, and there's been nothing in the trials that suggests that these vaccines cause these kind of severe illnesses like the one that's being right now discussed as potentially being in conjunction with somebody who took the vaccine. So this is true,

This is true for all vaccines. And a lot of the anti vaccine movement that was really triggered by some shoddy science around children who took vaccines and then developed autism, And the science has now pretty conclusively demonstrated that the development of autism terrible diagnosis, really had nothing to do with taking the vaccine. It was These were diagnosies that were going to happen anyway, and the vaccine was just

one of a series of events. To think of it another way, if somebody develops a disease, well, we seldom go back and think of the fact, well they crossed the street two weeks before, and and of course if we if we actually focused on cross industry, would they say, well, that person developed developed the disease because he crossed the street.

Now I'm not saying that to minimize and I really want to be careful that I what misunderstood, because I do think that in a moment like this, all those cases should be taken seriously and the signs should be looking very carefully to make sure that there's nothing we're missing. But there are systems in place, and we as a country are very good at looking at these cases and making sure that there's nothing that we're missing. And Dr Glaia.

We should note that the article goes further to point out that roughly nine million people here in the US have received the vaccine already, and as far as side effects go, the most serious problems recorded reported were these twenty nine cases of anaphylaxis, that's the severe allergic reaction, and none of those were fatal. Remind us, did you get and and those and those were among people are and those were among people who previously had history of

an ephylaxis and allergic reactions to think, sorry, go ahead them. No. I was just gonna remind us, did you get vaccinated yet? No? I have not. I'm I don't. I'm not patient facing, meaning you know, I run a school of public health and although a lot of our students and the number of faculty deal with patients. I don't on a day to day basis, so I'm not in the in the high risk category. So I will I will wait my

turn when that comes in a few months. But you would be comfortable getting any of these vaccines that are available and have been tested now. Oh, if I if I could get the vaccine tomorrow, I would, But I also I also want to respect the fact that there are people who are higher risk than I am, and they should get the vaccine first. But if if if the vaccine were we able tomorrow, I would, I would need it because I would like to make sure that I'm no longer at risk of getting COVID, and I

think all all your listeners should feel the same way. Listen, before we leave, we'd be remiss if we didn't ask you forty five seconds here, Um, what's going on at Boston University School of Public cath or you bring students back? What's the expectation? And just got about forty five seconds. Yeah. The our current our current thinking is to do what we did in the fall, which is where we create an opportunity for students to learn in person if they

if they need to learn in person. We will teach some students in person, some digitally, so it will be a bit of and mix. But many universities, for example, like Princeton and Brown, who who they were not in person in the fall, are now coming back in the spring and doing just that, which is saying to students, if you need to learn in person, your circumstances are such that you need to be here in person will create those conditions for you, and the students who want

to learn from home can learn from home. Thank you so much. Always learn us so much when you come on with us. So thank you so much. Stay safe and look forward to next time. Dr Sandra Gala, he's dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. On the phone from Boston, and do check out his book. We've talked a lot about the inequities when it comes to health care. He's written a book it's called Pained Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health. I mean, this is

I feel like a conversation we have to continue to have. Yeah. I think one thing that's become clear is that the pandemic has exposed so much about our society that so many people were familiar with but we're finally having a conversation of about the inequities and inequalities within our health care system and perhaps what we can do to finally start to address those. Yeah, life at large, and hopefully those conversations lead to actions. This is Bloomberg Business Week

with Carol Messer from Bloomberg Radio. Spotify it's the most popular paid music service in the world. Stock swored something like a ten percent last year, It's up another nine percent so far this year, and yet kind of little thing. It hasn't turned a profit since it's founding back in two thousand six, So what is it's big better profitability?

This story covers that reporting for Bloomberg Business Week, Lucas Shaw, he is Bloomberg News Entertainment reporter on the phone in l a along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber on the access line in Brooklyn. This is such a smart story, really everything and anything you want to know

about Spotify and it's plans to be profitable. Joel. Yeah, And if I rewind my relationship with with Lucas, I think the very first time I met him, when I like took over Bloomberg Business Week, he like stopped me in my tracks, and we just he was like podcast man podcast and he's he's so right, and and this

story is a modest reflection of it. And the you know, the thing that I kind of love about it is, you know, Spotify has long been a music service, and along that way they realize that music is actually not that profitable. A lot of that revenue ends up having to go back to the record labels, and they've been unsuccessful at really um being able to like have artists come directly to them. But what they've realized is that podcasts have gigantic revenue potential. So so Lucas Joe Rogan

is the thing that everybody knows. But what does Spotify having the works? Spotify has plans for any kind of show you can think of, and then ten other kinds of shows you probably never thought about. I mean, they bought Bill Simmons company. He hosts a very popular sports podcast, and they're now working on dozens of different sports and pop culture shows. They have, you know, Jamal Hill coming into work on network of shows and buy for Black Women.

They have Michelle Obama, they have to do con Dutchess of Pussics. They make kind of really cheaply made true crime shows. They're working on shows all of the world, both as originals and translations. You know, think about the exhaustion you feel trying to consider how many different TV shows are available right now, and then multiply that times

about a hundred or a thousands for podcasts. So for years, Lucas this was a sort of idea of experience when it came to music streaming services, right the same music was offered on Apple Music that was offered on Spotify that some people had title whatever YouTuber Google was calling that, you know, their current music service had the same music. Um but now it seems to have changed because of

of podcasts. Do you see this sort of evolving in the way that streaming video services have evolved, where if you want to listen to Joe Rogan or if you want to listen to Michelle Obama, the only place to do that ultimately will be with a Spotify subscription. I think it'll be very similar to just streaming TV, but with a slight change in that some of the podcasts may still to be available everywhere. There is not a

dominant player in podcasting it. Spotify is not there yet, especially not in the US, and so for some shows it it really hurts their potential audience size to only be there. But you'll see them play with windows of exclusivity, and there's lots of different forms of that. So the Michelle Obama podcast started as a Spotify exclusive. Now that it's it's been off for several months and Spotify sort of sucked up all the potential customers. It has been

distributed more widely in other places. A show like The Rewatchables, which Bill Simmons company makes, where they kind of talk about old movies. All those new episodes are available everywhere, but if you want to go back and listen to any of the older episodes, you have to go to Spotify. So I think we're gonna see a lot of playing with that, and definitely Spotify competitors are starting to do

the same. You know, Amazon just bought Wondering, which is a podcast studio and has struck rights for exclusive shows.

Apple has a handful of exclusive shows. But I think we're going to see them really increase that investment at point in the next twelve eighteen months, just under Rewatchable, as I highly recommend the point break episode that, Yeah, it's so good but but Lucas, you you brought up a couple of competitors there, and you know, Apple is one that I'm I'm really curious about because you know, a couple of years ago when they spun off podcasts as a separate thing from from iTunes, this was before

sort of Apple Music. They sort of had a missed opportunity there, and it seems like Spotify is really doubled down on it and by making uh podcasts such as Steamless part of the user interface. So so who's who's ultimately the on the team within Spotify. That's that's you know, cracked this code. Well, it started with an executive named Courtney Holt, I would say, who joined after a long

career in media. He dabbled in trying to make original videos work at Spotify and thenically glommed onto this idea of building a podcasting apparatus. He knew he was smart enough to kind of know what he didn't know, and so he went out kind of armed with the checkbook to buy a bunch of companies that were studios they could bring in to create the infrastructure right away. So they bought Gimlet Media, which is a really good podcast studio based in New York, perhaps best known for the

show Reply All. The guys who were on Gimlet Media are now Spotify employees are overseeing a lot of the podcasting business, not just Gimlet. They bought podcast which was another studio based in Los Angeles. They bought Anchor, which was the technology company they brought in again, they bought the Simon company, and so they have you know, there's

a whole new part of that business. I was talking with somebody on the music side recently to acknowledge that there were hundreds of Spotify employees and an entire group and teams that they didn't know and they almost never interfaced with. And it's it's a really you know, it's a bet the company kind of move for Spotify. So I gotta ask you. I mean mentioned uh coming in the stock up more last year or so. Investors are

kind of betting big. They've got expectations, Um, Lucas, have they cracked the code from becoming profitable based on all of your reporting. I gotta say, those ad insertions, of streaming ad insertions drive me crazy. Um, but if you're paying for it, it does, right, Yeah, So I do wonder like, have they cracked the code? The way I like to think about it is that that Daniel Act, Spotifies CEO, has bought himself time to figure it out. They definitely have not cracked the code yet. Podcasting is

still a very small business. Um, and I agree that kind of delivering at people who pay for Spotify premium is something that they might have to work on in the future. But what they're trying to do is to just continue to get bigger and bigger. Spotify now has more than three hundred million customers, more than forty million paid.

If they can get to five hundred million US six hundred million, seven hundred millions, that becomes so big that I just think that advertisers have to take it seriously and you'll see more of that money shift over from radio, because radio, for all of its problems in the U. S Alone, is like at fifteen billion dollar business. If Spotify can take five billion of that money at a better margin than has on On on the paid service, right then it becomes a real business. We're just not

there yet. Yeah, Well, expectations are definitely high on Wall Street. Um. It's an incredible story. There's so much detail, it's such a smart read and another great report by Lucas Shaw. Lucas, thank you so much. Entertainment reporter at Bloomberg News with us on the phone from l A. Check them out at Twitter at Lucas Underscore Shaw. Jill Webber, of course, editor of Bloomberg Business Week on the remote Access from Brooklyn. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovy on Bloomberg Radio, you are listening to Bloomberg Business Week and a top story today because I think it's safe to say that many of us believe that in figuring out what would wrong last Wednesday, the riot and breaching of the capital, we need to understand those that did it, ask the question why, and we need to talk to them. Tim, Yeah, we do. Um. This was just a fascinating piece by our colleague William Turton.

No regrets a capital riot or tells his story from the inside, and I think a lot of people are wondering what were these people thinking. Unfortunately, we have William with us to really help shine a light on that. Yeah, he's on the phone in New York City. The story among the most right on the Bloomberg. Williams, so good to have you here. It's a must read for everyone. So tell us about the individual that you talked to.

Brandon Fellows. Hi, thanks for having me on. So. Brendon Fellows is a twenty six year old from upstate New York who decided to go to the Trump rally when he saw a tweet from President Trump in December he said there's going to be a big rally on the sixth and DC. He said, to be there. It will be wild. So when when Fellows saw that tweet, he

decided to go to DC. And you know, something really revealing that he told me is that, you know, while he does believe the election was rigged and he had has been, you know, consuming a lot of content about electand fraud, his primary motivation was his anger at government shutdowns due to due to coronavirus, which I thought was

really kind of fascinating. Yeah, that part was really interesting, william And I wonder to what it says about the idea of you know, there's so much psychology here, right, like, why were these people who many of whom are now apologizing, what what sort of sparked them to to actually make this move to to do something. Um, And and what did he tell you about that? Well, something fascinating about Brandon is that, um, he had never been to a Trump rally before, and when he came to this rally,

he didn't even know that there was a march. He simply came to see to see Trump speak. So he quite literally got swept up into the mob. Um when he joined this march. And by the time he had already reached the Capitol, the outside perimeter had been breached. So you know, he walked onto the Capital law and scaled a wall and eventually climbed through a window to

get into the Senate. And once inside, he got into the office of Senator Murkley at Democrats Oregon um where he put his sweet up on the table and smoked to joint. Why did he did he understand he was breaking the law by doing that? You know, it's it's hard to know. He claims that because he wasn't being arrested while inside, and in fact, the police officer gave him directions to the statue hall inside the Capitol, that you know, he was under the assumption he wasn't doing

anything wrong. Um. You know, of course, the kind of it's difficult to believe, but but you know, I think it's revealing he he did not think that he was going to get in trouble for for doing this based on the reaction of the police officers. You know. You you talk about in the piece that he's had some

friction with his family over this and over his beliefs. Like, yeah, and I think it's it's it's probably something that we're a lot of us can relate to with the way that disagreements politically are are happening it now, Um, yeah, I'm wondering after talking to him, UM, take us through like what he's planning to do moving forward? I mean, how do how does one move past an inflection point like this? Well, you know, I'm not sure in speaking to him if he's actually grappled with the fact that

he's done something wrong. Um, you know, and and you know, one of the reasons we know that is because he's planning actually to return to d C for for more events on the twenties surrounding the inauguration. But you know, I think you both made a really interesting point at the beginning of this program, and that you know, some people will say that that we shouldn't listen to people, and and that by talking to them is platforming them. But I think they're wrong. It's actually really important to

understand the psychology and motivations of these people. And there's a really good example of that. I mean, these folks said that they planned to storm the capital on the sixth, no one listened to them, no one took them seriously, and then they actually did it. Um. So you know, I think just in general, we need to we need to actually listened to what these people are saying. Well, well well, even and Tim and I were talking beforehand. You know,

I really do want to understand these voters. I know Tim does too, like how did we get to this point? And we need to stop ignoring you know, parts of the voting public are parts of the country, because this is how we get to these places. I mean, you tell his story. He lives in a converted school bus, he stopped working last spring because of fears of COVID nineteen um and you said, you know, he became disillusioned

when New York State denied him unemployment benefits. I mean, we have we talked about the opioid epidemic in the past that people who were just kind of lost in society. I mean, we really need to understand these stories and these individuals who feel like there is no voice for them. And this is where the President, in many large ways, you know, did speak to them. Right. But I think it's also important to understand that these people are becoming

radicalized by the internet. I mean, he told me that he gets the majority of his news from YouTube. He pointed out Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder. He also said he's recently started watching news Act and One American News, which have both promoted false claims of a rigged election. So, you know, the culpability of platforms like YouTube and Facebook, um and Twitter are are a parent in this In this riot, it's no different than forgive me because I'm

hearing radicalized by the Internet. It's no different than we talked about terrorists. Right, we think about nine eleven, and after nine eleven that individuals who are being radicalized by the internet. We saw that as a bad thing. Yes, I mean a lot of folks who ended up joining the Islamic State were radicalized by YouTube, right, I mean, it didn't just happen on the Homeland series. I'm just

going to say folks, it didn't just on Homeland. Well, well, William, we bring up a really good point because you mentioned news networks one America News, you mentioned news Max, and you talked about YouTube. And the platforms that have really gotten all the attention in the last six days have been Twitter and Facebook because of their actions against President Trump, and in Amazon because of it's deep platforming of of Parlor.

But the conversation is much bigger when it comes to the message and the radicalization right right, And and you make a good point. I mean YouTube is really dodging uh, a lot of criticism here that that that I think needs to be focused on them. I mean, their platform is sort of unlike any other in terms of pumping

out misinformation. And for years now, um, you know, the algorithm, the YouTube recommendation algorithm has prioritized the most diverse, divisive content, which pushes people to the kind of more crazier and zanier conspiracies. And and you know, you know, from what we've been able to tell, YouTube has done very little to address I I wonder, I mean, you obviously can't make prescriptions here, but um, you know what what does Why do you think YouTube has avoided some of the

conversation that we've seen over the last week. Why do you think it's sort of the sleeping giant when it comes to radicalization. Well, it's really hard for journalists and researchers and other people to actually kind of quantify and show the amount of misinformation because of the nature your videos themselves. I mean, it's kind of like a law of large numbers problem. I mean, in a tweet or Facebook post, right, it's apparent, right, you can just see

a screenshot and you can see what's happening. But in videos that you know, maybe our thirty minutes or an hour long, it's it's way more nuanced and way more difficult to actually moderate. Um So, yeah, but that's why people have focused on the recommendation algorithm as a thing that they could do to not prioritize this kind of most divisive content. Our thanks to our William Turton uh Sobersecurity Report the journal. Yeah but you let me drive, Oh no, no, no no, non, please, I'll do the right

I don't want to dry, just drive, baby. It's the question to try to the Globe Dawn Radio stepstick talk everyone about eleven minutes left in today's trading session, Charlie giving you that rundown and we're bouncing around. We're off definitely a far lows. In fact, we're working our way up. We're back in the green uh here when it comes to those major averages. Great to have back with us, Janna Burton, she's co director of Growth Equity over to Advance.

She judges us on the phone from Boston. UM, nice to have you here. How are you. I'm doing great, Thanks for having me back. Happy new here, Happy new Year. What's going on in your world? Tell me like we you know, we turned the calendar page. Not a lot really changes. But I have to say the last week, UM, I think there's a lot of soul searching about democracy, what our nation means, thinking about politics, what a new administration ultimately is going to mean, and what division means

with him, not just politics, but within our nation. So I don't know, is there some way to tie that in and and come out with an outlook on the other side? Well said, And I think change is the only constant, right, So I think it's an equity investor, you have to appreciate that there are always cross currents in the marketplace to your political economic now where in the midst of a pandemic, with hopefully some light at

the end of the tunnel. But I think again, um, given some prospects for investors, it's no surprise that equity markets could be volatile. That's why SMP actually declines on average about fifteen percent per year. But over the long term, over the past five ten years, it's generated in excess of that. Um. Wait, wait, explain that again. You're saying,

on average, the SMP is down for the year. Know what I What I'm saying is on average you usually experience what folks refer to as a draw down meeting to work from the peak to the trough levels. On any sort of calendar year basis or a a twelve month period that you look at, on average, it's about a fifteen percent decline last year. Unfortunately, most of us remember who was twice that level, whereas AB five under declined

almost So. I guess to your point, we've got a lot to digest right now, both on the fundamental basis as well as the macro basis, as well as the political side of the equation. But I think as an investor, our job is to look forward, and as we sit here today, we think that this is going to be a good backdrop for equity investors, particularly those focused on

the long term. Why because secular stories that we've talked about for many, many years as still with us, but now we can play those alongside cyclical stories, so that economic recovery in the industrials, in the consumer discretion in discretionary space, as well as some of the stable um stable areas of the market like healthcare. So plenty of opportunities for investors. What what are the stories that are that are playing out in some of these what you

call MS price or underappreciated opportunities UM Starting with health care. Yeah, well healthcare. I know I've talked to Caroll many times before about healthcare, timb. This is my first time talking to you about healthcare. But health care has been underappreciated by investors for a very long time. And I know this is our twelfth day of the year, but it's finally working. This is a perfect area of the market where I think it's a hybrid. It offers investors both

the earnings growth opportunity. The sector is expected to generate about ten percent earnings growth next year, but it's trading at over twenty discount on a multiple basis relative to the SMP five hundred, So you're basically, um, you know, allowing investors to participate in this growth at a significant discount to the market. And this is one of the few sectors of the market that are that is very idiosyncratic.

And what I mean by that is you have defensive areas of the market like pharmaceuticals, but you also have high growth areas in the market like life science tools. I mean, it's you know, I have to say, it's pretty remarkable. I was just doing a quick kind of of playing around the bloomberg and bringing up the spire healthcare sector. It's one of the majordustry groups in the SNP, and you're right, like, I mean, we've seen some gains last year, but it was it was uh eighteen, it

was up maybe about four and a half. It's just amazing. It's despite we know that everybody's going to need more and more healthcare going forward. It's it's pretty anemic to some extent in comparison in terms of the returns. Jana, You're absolutely right. I think a lot of this blame is really carried by the political um backdrop that Unfortunately, meeting of the companies were hit with and unfortunately regulatory of political uncertainty doesn't usually bode well for multiples. But

I think we're at this inflection point where UM. I think the silver lining behind COVID is, look what the human ingenuity and the innovation has enabled us to do, which is to provide folks with a vaccine in less

than a year. Right, So the picks and shovels of that business a legit, and now you have increased funding, you have tech advancement that I really think it is revolutionizing those drug development and delivery of a much needed therapies, not just in fighting the virus, but other chronic diseases like cancer and others. So I really think this is one area of the market where investors will be well served because there's so many unique stories that are still

trading at such a discount to the market. What about when it comes to technology, because what's been getting a lot of attention, of course over the last year has been what we you know, what is referred to as big tech, both in a good way and also in a pejorative way. To I think UM, software services, security, What are the companies that are the themes that that you're seeing or looking for. Great point. Last year, again, information technology was the best performing sector of the market.

At when most folks don't appreciate is only a third of the sector outperformed the overall sector, meaning only a heard of companies. So you've got hundreds of companies and only a third were able to match a dissector returns. Why because many of the sort of accelerants were driven by the fangs or the big cap guys. Right, And what I'd like to highlight is a big long term

secure themes are with us. It's expected that we're going to spend somewhere close to three point eight trillion on I T services this year just I T in general, and less than ten percent is still being spent cloud and security and guess what, we're going to need a lot more of it. So that's you. Jail wind is with us and those companies will benefit well. Yanna, Good to check in with you in this new year. Yanna Barton, she's co director of Growth Equity Already Advance on the

phone from Boston. Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud or at Bloomberg dot com and be sure to check out our daily radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio. And be sure to watch us too on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News