Carol more from the bloomberg 50. Our exclusive interview with beyond meat founder, ethan brown. Jason first up, the top political story, impeachment. Carol congress will ring in the new year with partisanship and division. This time, in the form of the Senate Impeachment trial of President Trump. Foot skit to reporter lets get to reporter josh green with more on that. You have a fascinating story that talks about how, with everything going on, this could benefit joe biden. Josh as we look ahead to january and the beginning of the 2020 election voting, one of the Big Questions everybody and questions everybody in washington has is what affect his impeachment going to have on the democratic field . What i wrote in businessweek takes a look at joe biden and his situation. One of the ironies of the impeachment trial is that it came about because President Trump thought that joe biden looked like he was going to be a serious rival and embarked on this mission with ukraine to turn up negative information on biden. The irony is that it has led to trumps impeachment but it hasnt hurt his approval rating. Biden is leading the field heading into iowa. However, because there is going to be an impeachment trial, he is going to sideline five of bidens contenders, all senators, who are going to have to spend their time on capitol hill while joe biden can be in iowa. Carol what about the other non senators . Pete buttigieg. Does he benefit from this . Josh i think he does. Iowa matters here. The caucus is on february 3. There are four front runners, biden, buttigieg, warren, and bernie sanders. We know that the two liberals are stuck in an impeachment trial on capitol hill. That leaves iowa wideopen for joe biden and pete buttigieg. Buttigieg would rather be a nonsenator than a senator. He is going to try to close this deal in the weeks leading up to caucuses. Jason i want to take you back to something you said at the top, this notion that this thing has not stuck to joe biden in any meaningful way. Does that surprise you . Josh it does a bit. When i say that, i mean among democratic voters. The has been popular throughout with key demographic roots in the demographic electorate. While trump and conservatives and conservative media hammered him over ukraine, thats almost made democrats defensive about not falling for that spin, not listening to those attacks. Biden has led throughout. Buttigieg has been leading in iowa but overall, joe biden hasnt paid a price in the democratic electorate for these ukraine attacks. Jason thank you so much. Carol while Washington News was one of many things our team was watching this week, for more on the issue, lets bring in joel weber with this cover story. Happy holidays, a lot going on. Joel absolutely. We put together a holiday cover. Jason quite a cover there, talking about softbank. What a year. Joel this is one of the biggest stories of the year and it started with we work and it started early on, when there is going to be an ipo. As the coverage developed and went on, there was another story we begin to think about, softbank. Carol i do love the cover, seasons greeting from softbank. We did talk about it so much. What i love about the story, you guys go into the layers of softbank division fund. Obviously, the leader of at all. It all, but there are obviously other players. Joel masa, the guy who is the visionary at softbank, especially at division fund, this outside force into the con valley, 100 billion vc fund that can do a lot of things because it had so much money. One of the ways is to go into Something Like we work and bankroll we work, a business not ready for the long haul. Carol funny you talk about the business model. They were very aggressive. Joel they flooded the zone with money. Go big or go home. Sometimes that works. They have had some wins. Other times it doesnt. The other thing it reveals is the culture within softbank, and specifically, the vision fund, where theres a lot of tension. Not always great decisions. Carol another big story, businessweek turns 90. Joel its great. Jason you look great for 90. Joel the magazine has been around for 90 years. We honor that with an essay on how businessweek has covered business through the decade. Sometimes we mark moments that history hasnt looked back on so kindly. As a cover about the, death of equities there for a couple years afterwards looked so good, then doesnt look so good now. Its an amazing accomplishment this magazine has been around this long. Are we the authoritative voice weve been on business . Jason so interesting talking to the people who put together that essay. Their combined tenure is almost 90 years, in effect. Joel we dont go all the way back to 1929, ready for the right before the crash, but collectively, the people who worked on this essay can trace their lineage back to people they worked with who did it work back then. Jason thank you. 90th andr more on the its launch back in 1929 jason someone who has spent three decades contributing to the magazine, its economics editor, peter coy. Peter i was with the magazine from one third of my life, pretty proud of that, but i was not around in 1929. The fascinating thing is the magazines launch in september of 1929, which history buffs would recall is seven weeks before the terrible stock market crash, which helped usher in the great depression. So, not an auspicious time to be launching a magazine. But we survived those tough times and ended up thriving, eventually, huge success. And at one point, had more advertising pages that any magazine in the country. And more circulation then any business magazine in the world. Jason what was the idea from the beginning . Peter mcgrawhill was the publisher. They bought a Company Called aw shaw, which had a magazine called system, a magazine called business. And that was a monthly. They spent about a year tinkering with it and relaunched it as a weekly, which was originally called v businessweek. It was intended to be, in a way, will we intended to do today, which was to be a quick read for people who care about business, whether youre a business person yourself or not. But youre interested. As opposed to the trade magazines which were very niche, vertical, it was intended to be for everyone. Carol thats what i think is great. For most, they have a core thing they are interested in, but they are interested in the world at large. As weve learned, its all interconnected. Peter it is. If you are working for a tech company, youll be interested in the tech coverage. But you might be more interested in the coverage of adjacent areas, because youre not following that on a daytoday basis, yet it will impinge on your life. Carol you guys go into it in terms of early history on how this magazine, whether through economists featured or some of the stories, could really put pressure on the government in terms of policy. It became a must rate. Must read. Peter i think youre referring to our early coverage. We follow a specific economist not wellknown in the United States. Businessweek was the first and most important publication that sort of championed some of his ideas. Remember, when the depression hit, people had no idea what to do about it. There were a lot of people say, ok lets get rid of the rot. All ofan just liquidate these people who took on foolish loans, that will clean the system. What kane said thats the wrong solution. That will spiral downward. The government needs to support the economy with tax cuts and spending until it can get back on its feet. You dont put someone whos been in a car accident through vigorous physical exercise. You have to help them recover, give them i v fluids. Thats the message. Carol coming up, peter coy will be back to tackle levels. Jason we never get enough of peter coy. Boeing halting 737 max production. Well look at what went wrong. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back. Im carol massar. Jason im jason kelly. Join as everyday on the radio. Also, catch up on our daily show. Listen and subscribe to our podcast. Get it at bloomberg. Com. Carol you can find us online and on our mobile app. Our top mobile story, it was boeing. Jason the company halting production of its grounded 737 max in january, which could deepen the crisis, engulfing the plane maker and ripple through the u. S. Economy. Carol Peter Robison has been following boeing for years. He explains from seattle. Peter people focus on the pressure boeing put on its design team to finish the plane and the way the faa was blind to the change because they had delegated the process to boeing. What we looked at was specifically within the group of boeing pilots. Its a group of people who test the planes and write the manuals and train customers. What we found was during that period when the max was developed, it was in disarray. They werent speaking to each other because there were disputes over plans to make more money from jenny customers. Training customers. Training had been a service boeing provided, but boeing felt it needed to turn it into a revenue generator. There were disagreements over that. At the time the Max Development was peaking, boeing moved developers from seattle to miami. It put distance between design teams that were located pretty close together, especially given the difficulty crews had flying the plane. Looking at training was important. Carol this was a big story. This all concept of separating pilots from the engineers, where it used to be. Boeing wrote the book on checklists and quality training and doing everything right. Part of it was all the involved and important parties were physically near each other and constantly talking to each other. Peter exactly. Theres a note of frustration i hear from people talking about this because they feel it didnt used to be this way. On planes like the triple seven, you had a lot of crosstalk and collaboration. Time the max was developed, these groups were in different divisions. They had different managers, different motivations. Carol as a company, customer training used to be a service. It was a cost to boeing. They wanted to make that into another revenue line, a revenue source. That was at play, as well. Peter right, this goes back 20 years. There was a point in 19 97 when boeing formed a joint venture with a Company Owned by warren buffett. Thats when it got the Training Facilities in miami. By all accounts, that didnt work well. Boeing continued this effort to make money from training. Its focus as all these new pilots coming in the industry, we need to cut costs. The manager of the units said our marching owners here, given whats coming, we need to make training less expensive. Boeing introduced a point system where some of the instructors felt they created incentives for airlines not to train pilots. They felt pilots would use these points on training flight attendants or maintenance technicians. Carol there has been so much time trying to figure out what happened to these planes. Theres been a lot of reporting, commissions looking into it, regulators looking into it. Are we closer to finding out what went wrong here . Peter there hasnt been a public chronology of who did what when that makes it comprehensible to everyone after the challenger explosion. But the report by National International aviation authorities, led by the former ntsb chairman, came the closest. The report concluded that boeing simply didnt test the specific malfunction that brought down these planes. It was a malfunction of a vein that set off the software the pilots hadnt been told about. Ultimately, that comes down to not having sat down at the simulator, talked about it, worked through potential failure scenarios. Carol from boeing to the bull market. As we head into the new year and decade, the 2010s were really good for stocks, perhaps better than they seem. Jason that bull keeps running. Heres this weeks explainer on the longest, coldest call calmest bull market in history. Eisenhower was in the white house. Tv was mostly black and white. And the baby boom was at its peak. That was the 1950s, last time the stocks had a decade like the one they are wrapping up now. Stocks in the s p 500 turned 249 in the last 10 years, 1. 2 times the historical average. Not only that, the 2010s were the first decade without able market, a 27 drop from the peak. There were plenty of moments to make investors queasy. Six separate 10 correction, europes sovereign debt crisis in 2011 and 2012, and now a global trade war. But none of those killed the bull. While perceptions of risk were high, fundamentals were stable. U. S. Gdp extended to 2. 9 each of the last nine years. Is expected to be in the same range in 2019. Thats the smallest fluctuation in any stretch of data back to 1930s. Led to a stretch of wins in the market and like a kids sports league, almost every investor took home a trophy. Carol we cant talk about the bull market without talking about bubbles. We have seen a few. Jason someone who has seen a , peter coy is back with this weeks remarks. He talks about why the risky pursuits of returns and negative rates are no laughing matter. Peter the economys recovering from the worst financial crisis since the great depression. We had a long run of growth. But what . Were heading into another bubble, as evidenced by the lowest Interest Rates in the history of the world. As far as i can tell, and somebody can disprove me, this has never happened before. And so what happens when rates go so low . Investors are desperate for yield. That means they take on more risk. That is the definition of a bubble, when you ignore risks and you just make a bet that this asset price is going to go up and up and up. Carol investors get stressed out when prices are down in terms of assets, yet thats the point where theres opportunity, versus when youve got valuations at a higher level. Peter right now, its a holiday season. Carol there you go. Peter im not going to sing, but there is this attitude like, things are good. Stock market is hitting new highs, there is a lot of jubilation in the air. Well, thats when you should be worrying because thats when bad loans get made in good times. The american economist said instability breeds instability. Thats exactly when the y overreach. Carol coming up, and overlooked but vital corner of the financial system. The repo market. Jason this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Jason welcome back. Im jason kelly. Carol im carol massar. You can also listen to us on the 119, on sirius xm channel 106. 1 in boston. Jason amn 60 in the bay area. In london on a dab digital and through the Bloomberg Business app. Carol the repo market makes eyes glaze over, others turn away from you at a cocktail party, but its an important one. Jason we needed to make sense out of it. There was a story online this week, we called on we called on joe weisenthal, markets editor, markets guru. We have him on our show every day. He gave us a metaphor you are going to remember. Check it out. Joe the repo market is essentially how various entities, whether its a bank, whether its a hedge fund, money fund, how they finance themselves on an overnight basis. Nobody wants to hold cash because cash doesnt really earn anything and people want to be maximizing their profits. So what they do when they need liquiditys they borrow it overnight, and they might pay collateral like mortgage bonds, to make the cash bills that they need to pay so they can make the bills they need to pay. Jason its one of those things no one cares about until it stops working, which is what happened in september. Joe exactly. In september, we saw the rates on overnight repo borrowing absolutely soar. Its important to recognize that prior to that, for most of the time, it moves in line with where the fed sets the rate. Its one mechanism in which the fed sets shortterm Interest Rates and you expect them to behave. The issue is, the cash that banks have is really reserves held at the fed and the fed trying to normalize its operations postcrisis has been reducing cash at the fed. At the same time, you have regulators telling banks you have to hold a certain amount of cash to ensure you have adequate liquidity. What we saw in september was a confluence of multiple things. There is the fed tightening. Theres the regulatory restraints, saying you need to hold these reserves even though the fed is eliminating their existence. Then you have the timing issue, where due to tax payments, treasury auctions, suddenly that created a lot of demand. Carol it was the end of the quarter. Joe thats exactly right. End of quarter payments. Theres another issue, where the quarter end and year end is when regulators take a look. The analogy i like to use is you might have a messy bedroom, but if you know five or 10 mins before your dad is home, you clean up. Occasionally, the regulators come peeking in and they want to see how liquid is your balance sheet. What assets do you hold . Everybody scrambles to hold their most liquid assets at the same time. The problem is if theres a finite amount of them, you have to pay up. Carol could we expect another squeeze in december . Joe this is a big question. The man everybody listens to his two on repo is a strategist at Credit Suisse whenever he puts out a note, everybody wants to get it. He is concerned about this, theres going to be this major liquidity squeeze, various entities demand this liquidity ahead of regulators checking in. The flipside is the fed seems to be more cognizant of the risks. Theyve certainly stopped shrinking their supply of reserve balances. That eases some of the strain. Theyve engaged in operations, where people can borrow, is essentially, liquidity at the essentially, liquidity at the fed. Its kind of unclear right now. But what we saw in september may have been what have kicked regulators into gear to present a blow. But we dont know for sure. Jason coming up, we catch up with a guest on this years bloomberg 50. Carol going above and beyond, our exclusive conversation with the beyond meat founder on the companys banner year and what is to come in 2020. Jason this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Jason welcome back. Im jason kelly. Carol im carol massar. Still ahead, vanillanomics. Watching Global Market forces at work. Jason im glad you said that, not me. Its great story. Youve probably seen the ads, mission, wetheir hear from bombas, on growing the company. Carol love that story. First, beyond meat. Barclays has forecasted that Meat Alternatives will be a market. This might explain when they debuted back in may, shares soared, making the best ipo since the financial crisis. Jason its also by the company and the ceo made the bloomberg 50 list. Heres our chat with ethan brown. He joins us from los angeles, tells us what surprised him in 2019. It is around, continue to educate the media just how healthy and how much ever company is driven by the human health imperative. If you look at the products were creating, take the duncan sausage. It has 50 less fat, 37 less sodium. More protein and more iron. When youre beginning with a blank canvas, you can leave out the things you wouldnt want to be consuming, such as cholesterol. You can lower things like saturated fat. We provide a consumer with a healthy product they get to enjoy, yet continue to move the ball forward and make the products healthier. As we get into 2020, we drive toward goals that will enable the consumer to do what they love. Carol do you think about doing reformulating to lower calories or lower sodium . Is that in the future . If you look at the dna, we are an innovation driven company. We produce all our products in the u. S. And have our Innovation Center in los angeles. We call that the Manhattan Beach project. More importantly, we want to invoke the sense of urgency and scale that occurred in the Second World War with the manhattan project. We brought together the best scientists and engineers and have a clear goal. When youre doing that, youre always improving. We have flavor, aroma, flavor, and texture. Its also about market and helping understand the products. When you look at the beyond burger, that has 16 the daily value of sodium. Not 60, 16 . Thats reasonable, such as two flour tortillas or half a cup of marinara sauce. A lot of it is separating the misinformation and reality. This is one i consume almost daily, something i feel good about giving my own children. Lets educate consumers about the health of our products and the process. Were proud of our process. If you look at how we produce meat from plants, instead of running plant material through animals and the antibiotics and the hormones, depending on the species, what we are doing is taking the protein from the plant, running it through heating, cooling, and pressure, and that resets the bond. Thats it. Thats a much better process. We offer complete transparency. You can be welcome at our facilities. People should see where their food is made. We believe strongly in that principle. Jason walk us through assessing these concepts. Youve name checked some of the bestunknown fast food. Youve got some partnerships in casual dining. How does that work . It feels like everybody wants a piece of this market right now. You always want to align yourself with marquee players. When we decided to go into retail in 2009, the First Company will be called was whole foods. You look at our venture history, the First Venture firm was kleiner perkins. We have a great list now. But if youre now looking at the fast food space, quick serve restaurants, you want to adopt the same philosophy. Who are the marquee players . How do you become of service to them. Whether it is mcdonalds, subway, we are looking at carls jr. , we are looking to serve the very best partners in the space. Carol what is the focus . Retail or foodservice . A 50 50 split . Its a relationship with the consumer that makes the business special. We listen to what they say. They say to keep everything natural. Thats what we do. That makes it harder. It would be easier for animal protein. We wont do that. Were focused on what the consumer wants. If its quick serve restaurants, well be there for them. If it is retail, we will be there for them. Right now its 5050. Carol it could change going forward. Jason when you think about the test lets talk about mcdonalds. What have you learned so far . Obviously, thats from a volume perspective, but also a brand perspective, something everyone has been looking at closely. What have you taken away from that test . I had the great privilege of being in the ontario area, and i drove out to mcdonalds. I went to three Different Stores and had the burger at each location. And they were identical and delicious. It was a fantastic experience for me, and one that was very satisfying. It was a goal i had for a long time to be of service to mcdonalds. Its going very well. I think you heard the ceo of mcdonalds canada say that. We cannot comment further than what they said publicly but we are enthusiastic. Carol does it expand into the United States . Thats up to them. What you want is a great test and i think we have every sign thats the case. Carol china accounts for 27 percent of meat volume. They already eat Plant Protein and they look at meat as a status symbol there. Whats your approach . What are your expectations for china . We are aggressive in each market we occupy, whether he United States, mcdonalds, kfc, etc. Youll see us move with speed and exploit the first mover advantage we have in terms of building the brand closely associated with the plant meat movement. I cant disclose anything in particular, but we are excited about that market and very active in our plans. Jason lets talk about chicken if we can. Big chicken fans. The kfc test, as it were, down in atlanta, was where it was. It went gangbusters. How soon can you get into that market in a meaningful way . Youll see exciting things from us in the poultry space in 2020. I cant name partners or developers, but we look at three core platforms. Beef, pork, and poultry. You can see consumers pulling off beef and pork. Youre also starting to see pressure on the poultry industry. Weve done a lot of work there. Youll see the fruits of that in 2020. Jason i do wonder what youve learned along this interesting year as the ceo and leader of the company that is about a lifestyle and who we are. To get up every day and go into an office and work on issues that are important, not only personally but to the world, is a privilege. We were recognized by the markets for what were doing. We dont believe that this is a shortlived trend. This is something that has long legs to it. If you think about what were doing, we are not suggesting people dont eat meat. That would be a big mistake. I love Fried Chicken and burgers. The idea behind the company is to provide a better form of meat, to provide meat that provides the experience we love but in ways thats healthier for the bodies and earth. If you look at what the mobile phone did, nobody had to denigrate the landline. We dont think we have to denigrate animal protein. We just have to provide the consumer with a new and better choice and let them make the decision. If were successful, more and more will sign on. Jason coming up, the economics of vanilla. Carol dubai and saudi arabia. Only a two hour flight, but one of the most profitable for the Largest International airlines. Jason this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Jason jason welcome back. Im jason kelly. Carol im carol massar. Join Bloomberg Businessweek every day on the radio. You can catch up on every daily show by listening to our podcast. Jason and of course, you can find us online at businessweek. Com and our mobile app. You pointed this out. This is the type of peace businessweek does well. It takes something many of us take for granted, in this case something in all of our kitchens, were talking about vanilla. It goes deep and it explains the wild market economics. Carol it required a wild trip to get this done. Heres the adventure in madagascar. This is a regional market, a place where vanilla enters the international marketplace. And its really remote, really hard to get to. Its basically a hut, a wooden hut in a really small village in northeastern madagascar. And just to give you an idea of how tough it is to get there, you fly to the capital, you take a small plane to a small airport in the northeast. Then you have to drive over really bad roads to get to this particular market area. When we did that, our driver couldnt go any further because the road was swallowed by a river. We had to wade across the river and walk for a couple hours beyond that to reach this little hut in a village where dozens of farmers would bring their annual harvest of vanilla. Thats where it would be bartered over by International Flavor companies and exporters, and then go out into the wider world. Carol theres a great line in your story where you talk about where you went, this great observation lab. Im going to quote your line, it exposes the genius and insanity of globalized commerce. Commerce. Thats what you saw at work. Yes. Its almost hard to imagine what happened in the vanilla trade, for example, how the crop is paid for. Its all cash. Its a cash economy. The buyers have to get cash along the same route we took. The biggest denomination bill in madagascar is worth about five dollars and these buyers are buying tons of vanilla beans. These vanilla beans can cost as much as 600 per kilo. They need lots of cash. They bring bales and bales of cash to these markets on the back of motorcycles, and just being carried. That is one example of kind of the strange market that vanilla is, because of its isolation in madagascar, and also because of price swings. Jason i have to say, reading this story, between the two of us, this notion of how is this Market Limited to this one really obscure place . This is not one of those things you read about, where only people who are billionaires can get this. This is something we both have in our homes. How has this been so limited to this one geography . It comes from an orchid. It grows from the flower of an orchid. Its native to mexico. But many years ago, it was transferred to africa and it was found that it grew very well in madagascar. Vanilla is not one of those products that can be grown like soybeans. An easily managed commodity. It is a stubborn crop. It likes to grow among other plants and its incredibly labor intensive. So every step of the growing and cultivation process is done by hand, even the pollination of flowers is done by hand. So, it basically comes down to one of the main reasons madagascar dominates the trade so much, labor cost. The minimum wage is about . 18 an hour. So, in talking with people who work for vanilla companies, they talk about trying to grow, start plantations in other tropical areas like places like indonesia, countries in africa that have started to develop a vanilla industry. But they say that works well when vanilla prices are at highs. But whenever the prices tank, it becomes financially unstable to invest in those kinds of operations. Jason for a long trip in search of vanilla, to a much shorter pedestrian trip that has helped build emirates into the worlds Largest International airline. Carol its a story on one of the most profitable routes and how the airline got there. Heres the editor of the business section, jim ellis. Emirates, which a lot of people thought wont make it simply because its got this hub in the middle of the desert, theyve become the Largest International airline. They have basically become a connecting point for longhaul traffic around the world. It makes a lot of sense because of the placement of the gulf region. Traffic from asia, australia could connect from north america and it becomes a mega hub. People think of it as the airline for long haul travel. Whats interesting is it turns out one of their most profitable routes is a short, two hour flight from dubai to riyadh, the capital of saudi arabia. Its because of some truisms about business the saudis dont like, but a lot of people that work in saudi arabia dont want to live in saudi arabia, at least not all the time. Theres no alcohol. Theres a lot of restrictions on women. Its the exact opposite of dubai, the freewheeling fun spot of the middle east. Its a place where lots of people from outside the region love to live. A lot of people have moved to there. As dubais growth has slowed, more have to look for work elsewhere. A lot of them go to saudi arabia because the government has a lot of projects that need outside consultants and expertise. Saudi arabia is responsible for half of the consulting revenue in the middle east. Jason that is amazing. It is a small country, even though its a rich country, and it needs a lot of things, energy people, everything from education, energy, and diversification away from the energy economy. They bring in a lot of people for that. A Cottage Industry has broken out for people who live in dubai on the weekends and work in saudi arabia during the week. Jason coming up, many have heard of it. A stock brand with a mission, helping those in need. Carol we sat down with the founder. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back. Im carol massar. Jason im jason kelly. You can also listen to us on the radio. Three xm channel 119, 11. 0 in new york, 106. 1 in boston. Carol am 960 in the bay area. In london on dab Digital Radio and the Bloomberg Business radio app. Carol jason this direct to consumer suck company bombas started in 2013 as a way to help the homeless. For every pair of socks they sell, they donate a pair to those in need. Carol and theyve done it at a profit, and with impressive growth. We caught up with Founder David heath. David we were always focused on positive roi, in terms of customer acquisition. One of the things that separates us from our peers is in total to date, weve only raised 4 million in capital, while a lot of our peers have raised 150 million. You peek behind the curtain, none of them are generating any money because they are basing this ratio. Chasing this lifetime value per cost per acquisition ratio. We went back to fundamentals. Consumer businesses have been around 100 years now. The way consumer businesses work, you buy a product for y, sell it for x, and by the and run the company for margin. What is direct to consumer have to be different . So we bucked the trend and weve been profitable every single year, weve been in business except for year two. Carol what is your growth rate . 100 year over year. Some years close to 200 . Carol and youre at 100 million, 200 million or so . David just about. Jason talk to us about the customer. I am a customer. Its interesting because ive both bought socks, and theyve been giveaways. Carol its a great gift. Jason it is a great gift. Who is the typical customer, if you could generalize . David there is not really just one. What weve been super surprised about we have broad demographics. Thats to the point, socks are an item every Single Person wears, whether youre two years old or 92 years old, youre probably wearing socks at some point in your year, even if you live in warm weather climate. And i think the idea we produced something that stands out in the marketplace, super comfortable, comfort is not unique to millennials or boomers. Everyone wants to feel comfort. Weve got just as many customers 2535 that we do that are 6575 and older. Same thing with demographics. 25 of our customers are under 150,000 a year. 25 earn over. We see it as an affordable luxury. One of the benchmarks we used was starbucks. We took a commodity product, improved upon it, provided a good Customer Experience and great brand, and you can see how a customer who spent 20 a year on socks would spend 60 a year on socks. 20 is not the difference between them paying their mortgage or not. You cant do that with a car. Because its an affordable luxury and because we have our mission and because our product stands so much in the marketplace, it attracts a large group of customers. Carol i also think people are thinking about, let me do something. Ill pay up for quality. Something that will last. Thats also giving back and doing good, maybe not impacting the environment as much. Were slowly seeing that happen in retail. We see the waste in the retail industry, people starting to filter through. Youre saying that play out. David totally. Were living in a social media age, where information is king. No longer can you hide bad Company Values behind a closed door. Whether its glassdoor with employees, social media where customers expressed a good a goodoing to post experience or bad experience, the benchmark and the standards by which you have to live are so high. But its great because it makes everybody responsible. The lens and the voices moved. The power shifted back to the consumer. It used to be, there was a delay and you can cover it up for a while. This day and age . Information is flowing rampantly. You cant hide behind these things. You look at these companies, wework, or even away, you cant prop up a company on bad actions. It will eventually suss out. You have to play by the rules. Jason Bloomberg Businessweek is available on newsstands now. Carol and also online and our mobile app. You can find more stories, including this weeks cover. Alright, what is your mustread . Jason one of the shorter stories. Its a story about emirates. I love that airline. Its a story that tells the story of this route, but also the economics. Carol my must read was about vanilla, going to madagascar. The trip alone was difficult. He got into how does vanilla get to stores here into our pantries . It is a complicated story. It tells the story of global trade. Jason not such a rare element. Wow, what a market. Carol check out our podcast on apple podcasts, soundcloud, wherever you get your podcast. Jason this week, the ceo of our whole conversation with the ceo of beyond meat. More Bloomberg Television starts now. Scarlet im scarlet fu, this is etf iq, where we focus on the access, risks and rewards offered by Exchange Traded funds. Scarlet 2020 vision. Global macro investor tpw not looking through rosecolored glasses and makes the case for why the America First trade still has legs. Hoping for a roaring 20s . We will show you how to get there without backup gin. You will need more than that cheap index fund that did well in the last decade. Remember the old saying, be kind, rewind . We have a blockbuster etf that