Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg BusinessWeek 20180203

This story looks at the unification front between north and south korea because of the games. North korea is making the most of this little opportunity. If there were an olympic medal for freestyle propaganda, they are getting it. Julia what are the south koreans getting out of this . They will march their sports stars under a unified flag with the north. That is a big statement. That is what this story is about. Why would you be willing to do this . That was the question we posed because we think this is going to be shortlived. The games are going to happen and we will be right back to a different mood. Carol you have to think about it too, because it is a great sports story. Everyone likes to watch the Olympic Games, but it is also a financial story. South korea has paid billions in getting ready for these games. How do we make this a business story . There was a lot of Business Opportunity in this, and they are willing to put it all on the line with this decision. Carol it is kind of shocking, though. Go back a month. Thinking about the conversations going back and forth. A completely different tone. It came as a surprise to a lot of people and shows how strategic the North Koreans are being in putting a little wedge between the americans and south koreans. Julia but there is also strategy here for the south koreans. The North Koreans have managed to damage big events in south korea, we can go back to 1988 and 2002. Ticket sales have risen as a result of this and he would surely rather have some level of unity rather than the fear the North Koreans could disrupt it. Absolutely. We will wait to see what happens. Julia right, they still could. Carol i also wonder about the north Korean Leader and if he is playing around with washington here. I think that is absolutely true. He has the olympics on his doorstep and is using that as a moment to get what he wants, which is more publicity. Julia and he really is. It is still expensive for the president. An incredibly popular president in south korea and he is seeing his popularity in the polls heavily damaged by this. 90 to 60 . Which shows the uncertainty around it from at home. I think it is a fascinating story. It is why we put it in the issue right now because it is the most important thing people should be talking about. Maybe other than the games. Carol going back to the financial story, we have seen north korea in the past, the 1998 Olympic Games in seoul and the shooting down of a plane and the athletes were killed. South korea knows what north korea can do. Joel we can hope nothing happens, but they are doing this under a unified flag and that is something to watch. Julia from a global perspective, you mentioned the United States, but the chinese are saying dont react to anything here, so it is a global problem. Joel many more geopolitical players involved. Julia from a Global Challenge to a globally challenged company, and that is ge. Our cover story this week. Joel it really encapsulates what ge stands for right now. This was a bastion of american corporate earnings and through a lot of erosion that confidence , has disappeared. If you look at the dow over the past year, it is the bottom. That was hard to believe not that long ago. We really got into the culture of the management as being part of what is at stake here. This is a management factory that people came out of here left and right and lead other Amazing American Companies and yet, that is sort of at risk because what will ge become . Carol this is what the story digs into. There are so many details, so much about the history. We got more about what is to come from this 126yearold company. If you look at this handful of inventions that changed life for people in the 20th century, the vast majority were invented or commercialized at ge, whether the lightbulb, the jet engine, it was a Company Making Television Shows and movies. It has been in honestly important and innovative. But over the past few years, and especially the last year, the Company Seems to have been on the verge of falling apart and what i was trying to do was figure out what happened. Carol you say over the last year, and it does feel everything has started to come apart in the last year, but it has not necessarily been 12 months in the making. Take us back. Drake the thing i think people are always really impressed by with ge is it was an oldfashioned Manufacturing Company that managed to outlive the golden era of manufacturing, partly by jack welch ruthlessly making it more efficient and adaptable, but also moved it heavily into financial services. After welch stepped down with the financial crisis, it became especially clear that was not a sustainable strategy. Carol how did we go from this company that has been around for 100 26 years that was so revered, we respected their leaders, they were examples of everything going on in the economy, to a company we are thinking, do we break it up . That is a big turn. Drake part of the reason it is so dramatic is ge was a Company Associated with things like the light bulb or the refrigerator, but the product that may be was most iconic was its managers. It was the famed factory for producing these elite, killer managers. In a way, that may have insulated the company a little from a certain kind of scrutiny and allowed it to not be as transparent as other companies. Now, i think some of that is coming home to roost. Julia turning ges troubles into a cover image was the job of the art director. Chris we had this idea that ge is the Great American garage and this Iconic Company that people think of from the lightbulb to the jet engine, is kind of an illusion. Julia lifechanging, things they developed or were part of distributing. Joel was very excited about the title and you say the great ge mirage, but you have used a pretty great image in order to depict that. Chris we didnt want to use the lightbulb because it is overused, but we thought the refrigerator represented this american monolith. Carol and for such a long time, going back to its beginnings. Julia one of the other big things is the circling vultures around the fridge. I thought was pretty smart. Chris a nice foreshadowing of the darker side of the story. Carol next, the memo that pits republicans against republicans and democrats and has washington on edge. Julia and growing crisis from trumps crackdown on Illegal Immigrants. Carol this is bloomberg businessweek. Carol welcome back to bloomberg businessweek, im julia massar. Julia im julia chatterley. You can find us. Carol the fbi fight over the release of a memo that by the head of the House Intelligence Committee. It is a complicated story and we got more from editor matthew philips. Matthew this is a memo put together by republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee that worked for devin nunes, a republican from california and a longtime trump supporter. It contains classified information that looks at ways in which the fbi sock approval sought approval for a surveillance warrant of a trump associate, carter page, a wellknown figure in this backandforth of the russian investigation. The white house thinks that by releasing this memo, it will provide evidence that the fbi acted politically, improperly, in getting the wires tapped of a trump associate. Our story starts aboard air force one on the way to davos and the president gets furious when staffers tell him about the latest wrinkle in the pressure investigation, which is that stephen boyd, a name we have not heard before, the associate attorney general, comes out and says it would be extremely reckless to release this memo, in a letter to devin nunes. Trump gets angry about this and to him, it is further evidence the department of justice is trying to undermine his and gop efforts to look at the rationale for the russia probe. What ensued was a backandforth between white house officials and doj staffers. In the end, it didnt matter because nunes and his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee voted on party lines to release this. Certain republicans say it will provide evidence that the fbi acted improperly, democrats say it is simply a partisan show and the republicans are playing this dangerous game in releasing this classified information. Julia to what extent has the white house contributed, we think, to the production of this memo or the contents . Matthew that is a super important question and one that is being asked. We dont really have a clear answer to that. Remember, devin nunes was someone who came to light early on in the russia investigation in the spring of 2017 when he reportedly went to the white house in a latenight visit and shared with them some information that his Intelligence Committee had uncovered in its investigation of the white house in the russia probe. There is a relationship there. Asked specifically if the white house had assisted nunes and his staff in producing this memo, press secretary Sarah Sanders said she did not know, she could not answer that question but if there was any sort of cooperation there, that would raise all kinds of Big Questions about why the white house, which itself is kind of under investigation, why they are helping the investigator. Carol staying with politics, president trumps crackdown on Illegal Immigrants is creating a cloud of uncertainty over some sanctuary cities. In 2018, we have diverging sanctuary laws in the United States and two of the countrys biggest states, texas and california, two varying rules. In california, the governor has declared california a sanctuary state, meaning any lawenforcement agency that enforces most immigration directives, including detaining undocumented immigrants charged for a crime, art in violation of the law and the attorney general has promised to prosecute anyone who complies, whereas in texas, a the governor has done the opposite and banned the enforcement of sanctuary rules. Their county sheriffs will be jailed if they dont comply with these detainer requests. We have created an environment between these two states where immigration rules are being enforced in varying directions that creates conflict with the way Law Enforcement are able to do their job. It creates inconsistencies, affect the social climate, the economy and the political divergence that is further polarizing on the basis of immigration. Julia to me, this was fascinating. America is clearly a big country and the states individual within it, but you have described a patchwork of local rules. What does the federal law say here. You point out you have to go back five years or so to a Supreme Court decision to even get a sense of that. Just explain. Kartikay so the federal law states that detainer requests requests to turn over undocumented immigrants must be complied with. Enforcement of that is sort of the question, as are states rights. There was, indeed, a Supreme Court order in 2014 related to the state of arizona that sort of allow them to enforce their own rules, but it created this is what opened the door to states passing their own laws, and now effectively, Law Enforcement officials that were earlier declining to comply with these detainer requests because they didnt want to create an environment where undocumented immigrants lived in fear in their own communities, now have to. So they are having to straddle this political fence between what they believe is best for their communities versus what the federal government and state is requiring. Carol that is a good point because you writing your story how this confusion and fear by immigrants is having a chilling affecting communities. You talk about that specifically in texas where women arent reporting rapes, maybe arent taking their kids in for vaccinations. It is already impacting immunities. On communities. Kartikay thats right. The mayor of austin said exactly that. While he doesnt think the california solution is necessarily the way to go, a little too far left for his taste, in texas, there is a culture of fear and many analysts call it psychological terrorism where you are creating an environment where people dont want to stick their neck out in society. Julia next, the radical rethink being considered at the Federal Reserve. Carol and the uber of the middle east has its own radical rethink of the role of women. Julia this is bloomberg businessweek. Carol welcome back to bloomberg businessweek, im julia chatterley. Carol im carol massar. You can listen to us on radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on am 1130 in new york, 106. 1 in boston, 99. 1 fm in washington, d. C. And am 960 in the bay area. Julia in london on dab mux 3 and in asia on the Bloomberg Radio plus app. In the economic section, the Federal Reserve may be considering new policy options as Jerome Powell succeeds janet yellen as fed chair. Carol more on this story with editor cristina lindblad. Cristina we have new leadership to consider the framework the fed uses to guide Interest Rates and since january 2012, 2 inflation has been the target. Which would barely ever hit. So that has started this debate, which has been gathering steam and in january, the Brookings Institution held a panel questioning the 2 target. They found a lot of former fed chairmen and economists to talk about that. The time seems right to kick this debate into the open. Carol the concern is because the fed cant seem to the economy cant seem to hit the 2 mark. The fed is being very slow in terms of raising rates. The concern is when we go into an economic downturn, they wont have the ammunition to juice the economy. There is not much lower they can go. Cristina there is still a historic low level even though he have the cycle of tightening. That is a concern. We evaluated four different ideas out there. It is interesting because several of the regional fed president s are backing some of these different options, some former fed president s have also lined up behind some of these different ideas. The most basic and easy to understand is, lets pick a new inflation target, a higher one. By telling the public what the target is, the idea is it is almost manifest destiny. It sends out a price signal to the markets, Companies Feel more room to price their products higher. We will psychologically engineered this. Carol managing inflation expectation. Julia the first country that comes to mind is japan. You can say you have a new inflation target, but if inflation doesnt get there come you have a credibility problem. Cristina its true, there were time in the last years where if you look at inflation, it was flatlining. But we are creeping closer, so the possibility of hitting 2 is not as outlandish as it would have been a year ago. Maybe the time is right to say, maybe lets move it higher, people will understand. But every time you move the goalposts, there is a credibility issue for the central bank. This is a debate that will take a long time to come to fruition because you dont do this lightly. Carol now to a different sort of policy change in the technology section. Kareem, the uber of the middle east and it has built much of its business on transporting women who arent allowed to drive. Julia now the company is rethinking its business as the laws is in saudi arabia, which could one day mean female drivers. Jack it is the leading ridehailing service in about a dozen countries from north africa to pakistan. Julia how long has it been around . Jack going on six years now. Just under six, it operates in about 80 cities in a dozen or so countries. It is valued as 1. 2 billion on the strength of a 500 Million Dollar cash infusion from Kingdom Holding co. , one of the big players in saudi arabia. Carol the companyss ceo, and you put this in the story, one of its goals is to provide a safe, worry free ride for women, especially in saudi arabia. Jeff they built that valuation in large part on supplying a cheaper and in many cases, relatively safer alternative to scant Public Transportation options or a sea of unrecognizable Cap Companies in places where there isnt a ton of other options available to people who cant or dont drive. Carol women particularly in the middle east. They are not allowed to drive and in terms of getting around, there are rules and restrictions. Julia for now. Jeff in the case of saudi arabia, which you point out is careems most important market, the country is preparing in june to issue its first drivers licenses to women in order to raise the employment in the country. Julia does this mean there will be less passengers, and the other thing that hit me here is what about potential drivers for careems cars. Jeff as our reporter started reporting the story, it was pretty unclear whether the loosened restrictions on female drivers in saudi arabia would extend to professional driving, chauffeurs, but now it seems that is the intent. That careem and lesser player in this market uber are rapidly trying to train thousands of women to drive their cars to be ready when the first licenses go out in june. Carol pakistan, a lot of their drivers are actually women. Jeff pakistan, i would say, is near the number two most market for careem right now. They have been using women as drivers there for about a year, egypt and jordan another example. Julia next, the most dangerous stretch of water in the western hemisphere. Carol and taylor swifts plan to capture all the money from her upcoming tour. Julia this is bloomberg businessweek. Julia welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Im julia chatterley. Carol im carol massar. Steve cohen makes a comeback on wall street. Pirates of the caribbean. Julia all that still to come on bloomberg businessweek. Julia we are back with editor in chief joel weber and were talking in the features section about emily changs new book. It looks at the bro culture in Silicon Valley. Why so few women work there. It wasnt always the case. There were a couple details from this chapter that we excerpted that i was excited about. The original jpeg was a playboy centerfold. That sets a tone. That was the opening anecdote that emily so gracefully starts the story with. Carol the original sin. How can you talk to a woman when you have that . The glorification of that sets an interesting tone. The other thing i didnt know was how many women were once in this field. Julia making advancements in the field, as well. The date she also talks about is 1984, which happens to be the most iconic super bowl commercial of all time, which shows a woman with a sledgehammer breaking the monotony of the idea of the ibm world. 1984 happened to be the highest percentage of women ever receiving science degrees. And it has been downhill ever since, which is a crazy irony. You think about these things together and that sets are really interesting conversation that emilys book is about. Julia is that about the culture . If you look at finance, that drew people from both sectors because it was a money generating business. Why does Silicon Valley turn women off . Part of it is how the table was set. I think there is a cultural challenge that the community has and it is wrestling with it and we see that at google now. Julia it was something there y were looking for, wasnt it . And thats part of the story. Carol who knew these two psychologists who did this research, mostly men and determining who would be the best programmers . And they totally skewed who they were looking for based off that. Not a great way to come to a conclusion. The whole game was a rigged. Julia if you are looking for you look forocial, men. There was something flattering about that somewhere around the line. Carol there are prominent women who have been successful and still are within Silicon Valley. Most of meyer, sheryl sandberg. Absolutely. Especially with lean in and me too, we need more women like that. In positions of management and me too, and emily explores this, we need to celebrate that and make sure they are able to advance. Julia you mentioned two very wellknown women in Silicon Valley. What about them . Were they seen as Something Different . Especially then, they were externally proactive in sort of challenging the convention. They get a lot of credit for that, but google still remains a very sensitive one as some recent news has a brought to light. Its not like you could ever not keep advancing. Thats part of the narrative. Carol its Pretty Amazing since women were the first computer programmers to see where the industry has gone and a think of Silicon Valley as being innovative and for thinking, but forward thinking, and yet, you look at the statistics and its not that way at all in terms of women. And we are so tickled to have emily here and also in the magazine because just to talk about this issue, you cant talk about it enough. Carol there will be lots of conversations about this book. Also lots of conversations off of this other feature, at 10 mile stretch between venezuela and also the island of trinidad. Which is basically the most lawless market in the world. Its so lawless some interesting things have happened. Venezuela is falling apart. Trinidad on the other site is relatively stable. There are stories about the interesting trade that happens when the two coasts. Theres a coast guard station, but no boats. Its a freeforall. The things that are most needed there are things like diapers. Julia compared to a bar of gold. Diapers are basically gold there, which is horrifying and a sad when you think about that. We wanted to explore what that looked like on the ground. That was an extremely dangerous assignment and why its absolutely worth a read. It feels like a frontline. Julia one of the things i love about businessweek is we take fresh angles on wellknown storylines like and venezuela. Here is dan for error with that ferrero with that story. Dan the point is that venezuela is in chaos and venezuelans have have always had a lot of commerce, the nature has changed a great deal. The thing to think about is that venezuelas fishermen no longer fish because they dont have customers. They dont have industry back home. You have a bunch of people that are unemployed that have boats and a need to feed their families. Fishermen are becoming smugglers and smugglers attract pirates, innocent people attack pirates. So, there is a madness and chaos and lack of law on this stretch of water. Carol an amazing trade going back and forth. Tell us about the reporter he you sent down there because it was a risky situation that this reporter was going into. Dan Jonathan Franklin is an american who lived in chile for 20 years. He wanted to go to venezuela and everybody was aware of what dan Jonathan Franklin is an was happening in the larger cities. Jonathan wanted to go to the coast into the coastal villages and see the fishing parts of northeastern venezuela. And see what was going on there. We just determined as time went by that it wasnt safe. He moved his locale a mere 10 miles across the water and saw the same situation from the other side, and many of the people he spoke with interest in trinidad were venezuelans. You can cross that water in a couple of hours, even in a relatively slow fishing boat. If you have a fast boat, you can get across that 10 miles rapidly. Julia reporters have been detained for illegal reporting. He had been detained on a couple of instances and the photographer on this piece, whose work is really lovely, had been recently detained and eaten beaten in caracas in a street demonstration. The risks are high. Carol we are loving this story. Theres a line that talks about the arbitrage of foods, diapers, weapons, and peoples. There is a trade going backandforth. Dan constantly. What venezuelans have to offer is gasoline is a very big thing because it is still supported by the state and its very inexpensive and people bring gasoline in volumes from a couple of gallons to 250 barrels. They execute sales at sea, one boat will offload gasoline to another. Thats a big one. He mentioned that exotic animals are a trade. Drugs, guns, what they take back in other directions are things you can no longer reliably get in venezuela, prominently diapers. Julia you can get three times the value in venezuela that they would be bought for in trinidad. Compared to bars of gold. Dan toothpaste. Supermarkets are empty. The boulevard is worthless. Things that hold value are necessities. Carol it really talks to the plight of whats going on in venezuela. The demand for basic necessities , and as a result, you have this arbitrage of desperate and profit minded and is will we are and that is what we are seeing go back and forth. Dan there are desperate on both sides, primarily in venezuelans. Definitely profit minded people on both sides. Theres a lengthy passage with a smuggler who says business is great. Carol goes by chivo. Dan primarily englishspeaking. He knows venezuela, its 10 miles away, likes the country. Now has to perceive it as a Business Opportunity and he says in the end, the place has gone contraband and thats good for him. Carol up next, steve cohen finds new investors in the second act. Julia why manhattans wealthiest are having trouble selling some of new yorks nicest homes. Carol this is bloomberg businessweek. Julia welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Im julia chatterley. Carol im carol massar. You can also find us online at businessweek. Com. Julia steve cohen was banned from managing other peoples money. Carol but, thats over now, and we talked to kathy burton about his new investors. They are operating out of the same space they are always operating from, which is a building in stamford, connecticut, close to long island sound. Full of steves art. I have seen jeff koons pieces in there. Ive been there over the years. I been there a bunch of times. This huge Trading Floor, thats really cold. Keep everyone awake. So, thats all the same, but the people are different. Carol steve cohen, we talk like everyone knows who he is. We certainly do. Billionaire art collector, wellknown runner of a hedge fund who got into trouble. Kathy exactly, and a lot of trouble. The government spent almost a decade trying to get him for Insider Trading, and they pretty much failed. His firm did plead guilty to Insider Trading, but he did not. They paid a record fine of 1. 8 billion. There were six people who either pled guilty or were convicted of Insider Trading at the firm. But he only got banned for two years and the government had initially wanted to ban him for life. Carol he had to give his client money back. Go. Nd now, he can julia regulators never thought this moment would come. Kathy they thought they would be able to ban him forever. Julia its exactly the same as it was. Talk about whats a different because one of the most at outstanding things we talked about was the amount of compliance and oversight in the environment hes created. Kathy its a different place. They have a 50 member team, twice as many as the past. And in the past, they never actually dinged anyone for compliance. But now, they have a 50 member team that sits on the Trading Floor and they carol they are on the Trading Floor. He sits in the middle. They are there with him. Kathy they monitor email traffic, phone conversations in realtime. Carol was that his choice or did he have to do that . Kathy i think they did that as a way of showing the government they were serious about changing. Carol speaking of the lives of the rich and the richest, white big mansions arent selling in why big mansions arent selling in manhattan. You have to decide what the market is, and really, its of the above 10 million. Below that, for mere mortals, who have large families or just want to live in a penthouse like many of us do, sub 10 million is really accessible for a lot of new york nationals. Lawyers, doctors. Definitely not journalists. [laughter] carol really successful journalists. Write a book that gets turned into a movie. Fair enough. But, below 10 million is within the realm of stability for a lot possibility for a lot of people. Once you get above 10 million, 15 million, you have to be truly wealthy to afford these things. Carol the single homes that are six floors. Even more come actually. Even more, actually. Oftentimes seven with a subbasement. These are huge. They are oftentimes more than 10,000 square feet. You have to want that. Ultimately, a lot of people dont and this is a real problem for the market. Julia to what extent is it about demand is changing and people dont want these big houses or perhaps an apartment where they can entertain more easily . A lot of the people who are selling these do not need to sell them. If you can live in one already, you are not desperate to unload. You have certain perceptions as to the worth of this house and you look around and say, these new glassy condominiums are nothing close to the original details. It should absolutely be worth more. So, thats that aspirational pricing that comes in. The other part of it is that people have fewer children than they used to and also, dealing with the mansion is dealing then is different from dealing with a condo or a coop. Carol maintenance is your responsibility. James not just maintenance. Receiving packages, some of has someone has to be there constantly. For a lot of people who are that wealthy, not new york professionals, these are people who have three or four houses and they want to arrive in their apartment or their home or wherever it may be and have everything waiting for them. Julia its not a financial thing. Its the upkeep of the house. Some have several of these houses and you want to treat it like a hotel. James and then theres the final part of it which is totally intuitive but a real stumbling block, or some people dont like their home spread over several floors. All of these things have conspired to really make the manhattan super luxury townhouse market sit. Julia taylor swift risks her reputation to get millions of dollars act. Carol and, tequila makers get inspired by the bourbon industry. Carol thijulia this is bloomg businessweek. Carol welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Im carol massar. Julia im julia chatterley. You can listen to us on the xm you can also listen to us in new york, boston, washington, d. C. , and in the bay area. Carol and in london and asia on the Bloomberg Radio plus app. In the business section, taylor swift is tightening up the way her concert tickets are sold. Julia and scalpers are not happy. For her upcoming gravitation tour, the same name as her most recent album, taylor swift and ticketmaster have come up with a plan to try to ensure that they keep all of the money pretty much from the ticket sales. The last time taylor swift went on to work for 1989, she thinks she lost maybe 85 million to scalpers based on rough estimates of how much tickets usually go to scalpers and how much average ticket prices was. This time, if you are a big fan, you sign up for a program, which is part of an initiative taylor ticketmaster has. You bought an album and watched newsletters and for each one of those interactions, you have a boost that lets you take part in a presale, we can get tickets where you can get tickets for a little bit less than you might normally. You have to prove you are a real fan. If you are part of the regular, not a huge taylor swift fan, the prices for the general sale is much higher than your normal ticket price. Most of them are several hundred dollars, especially if you want to be close to the stage. In some cases, looking at 1500 pa. The idea is the super fans get good tickets for not that much and everybody else has to pay a fortune. That will stop scalpers from buying up these tickets really early on. How is it working . Lucas so far, it depends on who you ask. Some people in the media think its a disaster. Ticketmaster says its a success. Its hard to gauge because the behavior is different. Normally, when a big concert goes on sale, it sells out in five minutes. A lot of people probably can empathize with knowing that the tickets go on sale at 10 00, they do the everything right and still dont get tickets. This has been pretty much the opposite. None of her shows are sold out. You can get tickets right now, glendale, arizona, new jersey, you can probably get floor seats, but you have to pay a lot for them. Ticketmaster says it will sell out and it will be a long process and people have to get used to it because its new. Its hard to gauge if youre a journalist or fan. Julia you can argue both ways. The reason is so that before was they sold out before was you have the odd rhythms and the the algorithms and the bots that scoop out all the tickets that allow them to resell later. Well be are saying is that those guys have been priced out, so its ordinary individuals that have to buy tickets, even if its at an astronomical price. Lucas thats what ticketmaster would like us to believe. There are still Tickets Available for resale. Its hard for me to know how many are by scalpers who are just convinced that even if they bought them at a higher price, they would want them even more. Or if they are fans who bought them and then decide i dont want to go. Thats the argument they are making that it will stop scalping. Its been one of the big problems in the music business for years. Scalping has been going on for decades, but especially since tickets went online. There has been a huge problem with people buying a lot of the tickets and profiting off the backs of artists and concert promoters. Julia in the pursuits section, demand for tequila and the very best tequila heavy industry have the industry involving to keep up. Evolving to keep up. Carol here is editor chris rovzar. Chris the Big Companies are like shoot, we have to speed up production, but you cant. The agave plants and the heart of the plant takes 12 years to mature. The brands that hone the bigger companies, they have been finding other ways to speed it up so they use pressure cookers s to cook the agave, they use science to speed up the way they grow, and as a result carol not as good . Chris they produce agave flavoring. Carol you talk about aged tequila and a new marketplace for this or a way for tequila makers to go after a new segment of the market. What is aged tequila without technology . Chris its aged either in metal casks or barrels. Its a way for them to make more money on the product as the quality is declined. Thats fine. A lot of people are doing shots with tequila or putting it in margaritas. But, if you want to sit there and sip and have something special, it takes a lot of work and aging tequila is not like bourbon or other kinds of whiskey. When you age whiskey, you want it to take on the flavor of the arrow its in. Tequila, you want it to taste like tequila. Its a precision game and hard to get right. Julia favorite tequila . Chris tequila excellencia. I didnt know it was a thing. Julia was that the George Clooney one . Chris casamigos. Patron makes an aged tequila. Julia favorite story this week . Carol the story about the pirates between the stretch of land between venezuela and trinidad. Its like a roiling arbitrage of diapers, weapons, between desperate people and people looking to make a profit. Julia this used to be a vibrant fishing village. Now, its become a haven for pirates. It is a confusing, destabilizing mix and a different angle on an important story in venezuela. Carol our reporter took risks to tell the story. Julia more Bloomberg Television up next. David you actually started out, you wanted to be an actor. Leslie i was sort of a mediocre actor. I was also tending bar more than i was acting during those years. David so, what was your skill set . The scripts or the talent, or both . Leslie we had the hottest comedy and the hottest drama in the world on television on nbc. David Companies Like netflix and apple and facebook and amazon, theyre in the streaming business. Leslie money alone doesnt lead to good programming. It is tough. Were competing with companies that could eat us live. Alive