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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bloomberg This Weekend podcast with David Gura, Christina Ruffini, and Lisa Mateo.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us for today's selection of conversations from the show.
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Speaker 4: You can listen to our favorite discussions right here on the podcast, but also make sure to join us live every Saturday and Sunday morning starting at 7 a.m.
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Speaker 3: Eastern.
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Speaker 2: We're on Bloomberg Television, radio, and the Bloomberg Business App, bringing you unique takes and in-depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle, and culture.
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Speaker 4: We had all of the insanity of a different stripe. playing out over the course of the week. Jensen Huang resigning.
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Speaker 2: From his post in NVIDIA. Yeah, I like it.
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Speaker 4: I'm going to keep it alive here. And then, of course, we had this ground stop that took place yesterday. I mentioned just a moment ago. We had that press conference at the White House. Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, tweeting this just moments ago, 10 minutes ago here. Operations are slowly returning to normal this morning. Planes are pushing back and taxiing and taking off, and it is safe to fly. He writes, we are in close coordination with the airlines to support the ongoing recovery.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 3: But of course, there's a knock-on effect, and Americans will continue to see delays and cancellations as carriers try to reschedule. We're going to go now to Ed Ludlow, who is the host of Bloomberg Tech. But Ed, I understand you were up late with some of our colleagues trying to figure out what exactly happened here. I confess, I listened to the entire press conference, and I'm still not sure.
00:01:34
Speaker 2: It's a tech story, though. It is a tech story.
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Speaker 4: It is a tech story.
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Speaker 2: Something with routers.
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Speaker 3: Please explain.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: So, you know, you have Secretary Duffy on Friday the 13th talking about routers. And basically the FAA has a really old telecoms network. It's called FTI. And the good news is they identified the problem. Routers started getting overloaded that had a cascading effect. Controller communications got impacted and radar data got impacted. The worrying bit and something important to clarify is that they don't know why the routers became overloaded. So they know they did. They're still investigating what's going on. So what happened last night was a big scramble. There were phone calls between the FAA, the intelligence services, the carriers themselves, all kind of say, does anyone know why this is happening? And what do we do about it next? And, you know, you guys have covered the headlines on how the country thinks it needs to now modernize, which at this stage of the game seems a little late. And the other piece is
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that I think L3 Harris is a company, a name that's involved in diagnosing what's going on. But I think, you know, I'm due to fly to New York tomorrow. I hope I'll see you guys next week.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we're looking forward to that. And likewise, hope that you get here on time. Yes, L3 Harris Technologies, according to our colleagues at Bloomberg News, operates and helps maintain the older telecommunications network. It has been tasked here to diagnose the cause of the data overload. Without question, the big story of your week, Ed, was the one involving NVIDIA. And for so many years now, you have interviewed Jensen Huang. I remember I was saying a few moments ago, as we dealt with the story in the last hour, seeing you in Washington after one of those big NVIDIA conferences that took place.
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Speaker 7: Yes.
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Speaker 4: There you had occasion to speak with him there. Talk a bit about, I guess legacy is the wrong word here, but as this company looks to hire a new permanent CEO, who might be a good cultural fit for this company? How difficult it will be to replace him, given... Yes, the kind of business acumen that he had, but also the technological expertise that he brought to bear as well as one of the co-founders of this company.
00:03:29
Speaker 6: Sure. I mean, I spent, you know, a reasonable amount of time with Jensen Wang over the last three or four years. And, you know, I posted about this during the week, but the lesson is that the access to someone is no substitute for the reporting. And, you know, frankly, all of us were none the wiser, right? So the real question that we're still questioning standing with is what is NVIDIA without Jensen Wang? There are lots of very talented people there, a deep, deep bench of talent from software to chip design and architecture to hardware engineering. But it's a real thing, right? What does that look like going forward? And you guys may have seen overnight, there are initiatives from different corners, real initiatives. There were some fake ones circulating too, to try and push the board to consider bringing Jensen Wang back. There was a report in the Financial Times that Rene Haas, who is the ARM CEO, had been approached about the role as NVIDIA CEO long term. NVIDIA's board issued a statement in response to that saying they have not made any formal approach to anyone. But Rene Haas is one of the names in the running because he was at NVIDIA for quite a long time. In 2006, he had about a seven-year stint leading the compute business. All of NVIDIA's technology today The blueprint for it is based on arm designs, arm architecture. So there's a lot of logic in that, but it seems very early. And again, you know, like there is so much we do not know. There is so much we do not know with both an NVIDIA board investigation going on internally, relying on outside counsel too, and then various US Justice Department investigations that span a very broad range of questions. And some of the questions being posed are pretty off the mark too around Jensen Wong. So it's interesting.
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Speaker 3: I mean, he's going to have an interesting couple of weeks ahead of him. I'm wondering, isn't it all realistic that he could have a redemption arc and come back at this level, this high profile level? What does that look like? Does he have to show some sort of penance? He obviously is going to have to testify in front of lawmakers. Does he get rid of the leather jackets, which we've been talking about ad nauseum and kind of rebrand physically as well as within the company?
00:05:39
Speaker 2: What are his options?
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Speaker 8: Sure.
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Speaker 6: So as of Wednesday night, right up until late Wednesday, you know, Jensen Wong was holding on based on our reporting. And then he, he conceded and, and the board, uh, you know, we wrote Jensen Wong was ousted. A lot of people came back to us and said, no, he resigned, you know, in the board statement, it says Jensen Wong resigned effective immediately, but, but, you know, the board moved to, to make this happen. Um, The thing is that we need to be super clear on is there are three basic separate issues. There is Jensen Huang's infidelity. You know, Nvidia's code of conduct accounts for that, right? You know, he had one or more affairs. That's an isolated issue. In one specific affair with Alice Huang, Alice Huang, there's lots of reporting on, The US authorities and NVIDIA are looking at whether that relationship meant that NVIDIA's trade secrets or IP or any national security considerations were disclosed to parties that they shouldn't have been. Xi is an alleged spy for China. That idea is being disputed and debated, but that as well is a third separate bucket from whether those secrets were disclosed disclosed outside of a safe zone. And then you guys will have seen so much on the Bloomberg about Alice Wong and whether chips that were banned for export made their way into China somehow. And those are all separate and we don't have updates on them. When the board issued a statement Sunday and Jensen Wong confirmed he'd had an affair, they said there was no reason to believe at that time Sunday, almost a week ago. that there had been any IP trade secret or national security leakage. So, you know, you just have to wait, I'm afraid, Christina.
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Speaker 3: As I think of these buckets, I guess there's- You know me and my legendary patients at Ludlow.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: I also just think of Alice Wong as a customer of NVIDIA. So as you talk about kind of that first bucket of code of conduct, I imagine that, you know, regardless of the allegation here for being a spy, that an issue as well. Talk about this meeting this week. We're looking ahead to earnings, Ed, and there's a town hall that will follow that, what, 24 hours later. I'm curious what you'll be listening for from Colette Kress, the interim CEO of the company, who's going to be a familiar voice to many investors
and analysts on the call. She's been on it before. She is, of course, somebody who's been at the company for, what, more than a decade. What are you listening for? I don't know if you'll be able to hear it yourself in real time, but what do you want to learn of what she has to say at that town hall?
00:08:20
Speaker 1: Yes.
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Speaker 6: So my understanding, my firm understanding is like earnings will go ahead as completely normal. Colette Kress is both interim CEO and carries on as CFO. And yes, she's been there for 13 years. She'll take questions from analysts. And net-net, no one thinks that the events of the past week, actually it extends to sort of late October, doesn't it? Let's be honest. But nothing will change the sort of trajectory of the financials in the near term. Most analysts don't really even see anything happening differently through the balance of 2027. They see opportunity for some of NVIDIA's rivals if Jensen Wang is not at the helm. Maybe there are customers that are like, okay, I was going to buy NVIDIA chips. Maybe I'll go with a different option. And just very quick on the town hall Wednesday, we know that because of a memo that CollectCrest sent out to staff that was seen by Bloomberg. It's a very normal thing post earnings for NVIDIA to kind of have a sort of town.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: Hall, call it what you will.
00:09:18
Speaker 6: We just don't know. But, you know, in the memo, Crest did say that, you know, they will give NVIDIA staff some answers.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: The answers we're all.
00:09:26
Speaker 9: Chasing, I guess.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: You talked about those three buckets with Jensen Wang's issues, but there's almost a fourth here, and that's him as the chief advocate of changing U.S. policy with China on these chips and pushing to limit these export controls and trying to influence the White House on this issue, where he, in fact, possibly could have been being influenced on that perspective during that time.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: Where does this go?
00:09:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, go ahead.
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Speaker 7: No, no.
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Speaker 6: Just to clarify, so one of the U.S. Justice Department probes that Bloomberg's reported is an espionage probe. And it looks at Jensen Wong's relationship with Alice Wong. But very like to be completely clear and underscore it. Bloomberg's reporting states that Jensen Wong himself is not a target of that probe. So they're looking at the relationship. And under the broad umbrella of espionage. And that is where Bloomberg's reporting stand on the allegation that Alice Wong is a spy. But you're absolutely right that the bigger question is that, okay, there was a relationship that Jen Spong had with a customer. She was the founding executive of Megaspeed. And the accusation and the reporting is that Megaspeed was able to get access to systems and transfer those systems into mainland China where U.S. export controls prevent them going. And that is in itself being looked at. and is one of the core questions that Congress has for Jensen Wang and in part why they have summoned Jensen Wang to testify. But they have also now, you guys may have seen, I think it was late morning yesterday, expanded their request to include NVIDIA's corporate counsel and representatives from the Commerce Department. And I think you guys also in the last couple of hours have been over the idea that there's a little bit of tension between the Treasury and the Commerce Department. Just a little bit. Because the Treasury are basically saying, well, hold on, we had all the power in the world to prevent mega speed moving this technology across borders.
00:11:27
Speaker 4: I want to dovetail this story with the one that you'll be covering next week, and that is the anthropic IPO. And you're somebody who wades in. Twitter or X's Waters, and there were a lot of scurrilous tweets about Anthropic maybe setting all of this up. Again, totally unfounded, but it's kind of dovetailed these two stories maybe cumbersomely. Let me pull back from that, casting that aside, and just ask you how this incident involving NVIDIA and Jensen Huang is likely to shape the way that this IPO unfolds next week.
00:11:54
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, the reporting is that the Anthropic IPO will price and trade next week, and all of the conversations I've had in the last 48 hours seem like it's full steam ahead. I mean, when all of these headlines started to break last weekend, it would be completely reasonable to say, uh-oh, is this going to derail Anthropic's IPO? Anthropic is on the hook for several hundred billion dollars of NVIDIA gear. NVIDIA was due to put $ 10 billion into the private placement portion of the raised 10, just Nvidia itself putting $ 10 billion of the 90.4 that Anthropic wants to raise across the IPO and the private placement. And, you know, it's this idea that, you know, if we just zoom out, the thing that connects all of this and it's in all the research, why is it such a disaster to many people's mind for the AI ecosystem that Jensen Wong has gone. He was the conductor, the maestro, the glue between the frontier labs, the supply chain on the hardware side, the policy side. And so, you know, people will be asking those questions this week.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: Ed, we've got about a minute left. Do you expect this to be bigger than SpaceX? It is six times oversubscribed. What does that tell us?
00:13:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, SpaceX... pitched itself as being an AI IPO as well. But Anthropic is the first pure AI lab to go public. It also has the public benefit corporation element. And all of the signals are that this will be the massive IPO that will overtake SpaceX's. But the lesson learned from SpaceX is that it's an amazing moment in time. And then everyone's shocked because weeks later, they try and raise even more money through debt markets or other mechanisms. So AI need money. And so that's.
00:13:46
Speaker 8: The story really.
00:13:49
Speaker 4:
Stay with us for more on Bloomberg This Weekend, right after this.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: Tens of millions of people worldwide are living with dementia, and every year there are about 10 million new diagnoses, according to the World Health Organization. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, and it's estimated to contribute to 60 to 70 percent of those cases.
00:14:18
Speaker 4: For former Prime Minister David Cameron, this is personal. He and his siblings lost their mother Mary to the disease last year, and he spoke with them and many others as part of his new Bloomberg podcast, Ending Alzheimer's. We sat down with the former Prime Minister and started by asking about his mom.
00:14:34
Speaker 7: It's personal because we lost my mother to Alzheimer's last year, and it's a terrible illness and disease, and the end is really so painful for them and for the family. But my interest goes right back from when I was a member of parliament. And really, my interest came from my own sort of embarrassment about my ignorance. You know, I was thought, well, dementia, that's sort of what happens to people when they get old.
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Speaker 2: It isn't.
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Speaker 7: It is caused by diseases of the brain. And once I got to understand that and saw how little that was understood, I thought, well, there's a chance as prime minister really to push dementia. this issue and that's why we had the dementia challenge in 2012 and tried to switch the whole world on to how we ought to be.
00:15:14
Speaker 1: Pursuing this with the same vigor that we pursue curing cancer.
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Speaker 3: Why do you think that hadn't been done until now? Why do you think it had just been kind of accepted as something that happens when you get older?
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Speaker 7: I think it was just a misunderstanding that lots of people had. The charities, one of which I'm now president of, Alzheimer's Research UK, had done a lot to move public opinion but there's still more to be done.
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Speaker 1: And then I think the fact that, you know, Dr.
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Speaker 7: Alzheimer discovered this disease 120 years ago and for about 100 years, really not much progress was made. And so I think a lot of people just thought, well, this is something we're going to.
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Speaker 1: Have to deal with.
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Speaker 7: And this renewed attention to it. has led to some real breakthroughs. And so now there's a sense, look, we are curing cancer.
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Speaker 1: We got a real.
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Speaker 7: Chance of doing that with the diseases that cause dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most prominent.
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Speaker 4: How well do we understand the pathology of this now? It's 120 years since it was first discovered, as you say. How fully do we understand what the disease is?
00:16:10
Speaker 1: I think the answer is not fully.
00:16:11
Speaker 7: I think we know that the buildup of these plaques in the brain, the so-called amyloid plaques and these tau tangles in your nerve endings, we know they're important. I mean, the simple way of thinking of it is, Not everyone who has amyloid plaques has dementia, but everyone with dementia has those amyloid plaques. So trying to work out the exact causation and trying to work out the exact sequencing still needs.
00:16:35
Speaker 9: To be done.
00:16:36
Speaker 7: But these drugs that you can now take that... stop the buildup of plaques and remove them do seem to be having some very positive effects. Whether that's the final answer, we don't know. But, you know, 10 years ago, there were very few drug trials in this area going on. Today, there's 190 drug trials all over the world and a real sense that we're making breakthroughs.
00:16:57
Speaker 3: The other part about this that is a really important component that I didn't think about until I was reading up on this is the diagnostics. Because I think A lot of people don't know that you can possibly maybe not get a blood test to diagnose this and it's cheaper and it's easier and it's much less invasive than CT scans or functional imaging. How reliable is that test and does more progress need to be made there?
00:17:17
Speaker 7: More progress is needed, but this is going to be a, it's going to happen and it's a big breakthrough. So today, you know, Britain, country of 66 million people, 1 million people with dementia, probably only one in three of those actually have a proper diagnosis. And that would probably be based on a cognitive test not a brain scan. So the idea that you can have a blood test where you're looking for this particular biomarker that you've got the buildup of the plaques, that could be a real game changer. And I think that being widely available is a year or two away.
00:17:52
Speaker 4: This is a deeply reported series. You report from London and from Los Angeles and Las Vegas, New Jersey as well. You sit down with Senator Andy Kim, who's gone through this himself. He's had a loved one develop Alzheimer's. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
00:18:05
Speaker 8: One of the questions was, what was your work? What did you do over the course of your career? And my father just looked at me and looked at the doctor and just said, I don't know. And it was really heartbreaking.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: It was a moment of tragic irony as Senator Kim watched his father, who worked in Alzheimer's research, now on the other side of the disease.
00:18:35
Speaker 8: It was heartbreaking, the idea that Alzheimer's has erased from my father's memory his life's work of trying to cure Alzheimer's. And I often say you can't help but feel like Alzheimer's won.
00:18:49
Speaker 4: Senator Kim talks about looking at his father's writings, his notebooks, and seeing this diminution in his ability to hold thoughts and write those thoughts down. Something he's been quite passionate about is making it easier for loved ones of people who are dealing with this disease to care for them. And as we talk about treatments and diagnostics, this is
a crucial part of this disease's placement in our society right now as well.
00:19:11
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was an incredibly moving interview because I didn't know Senator Kim before and I didn't know about his father, but extraordinary that he spent his whole life trying to understand this disease and then his brain was just sort of wiped out.
00:19:27
Speaker 1: But I think Senator Kim's right.
00:19:28
Speaker 7: How we get greater understanding and how we help relatives understand care it's really hard because you know it's little things like when you go and see your your parent you know the first thing you normally say is hi mom you know what did you do yesterday what have you been up to you can't do that because it can be really depressing for them when they can't remember. So trying to explain how the disease works and how better to handle people with it is important. And then, of course, this massive issue of how do we pay for the care? And we're having a big debate about that in the UK.
00:19:59
Speaker 1: But even better would be if we could find some.
00:20:02
Speaker 7: Cures to this disease to reduce the level of suffering and the level of cost that inevitably has to be borne by someone.
00:20:08
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about what this was like just for you? I mean, this had to be hard to relive some of this stuff, to rethink the last couple days or years with your mother. Can you just talk to us about why you wanted to do this? And what was your family's reaction when you said, hey, I want to put this all down on a podcast?
00:20:25
Speaker 7: Well, I've got two wonderful sisters, an older one and a younger one. And because I've been president of Alzheimer's research for a decade, I've had a big interest. And then mum gets this disease. And then when she passes, you know, I remember talking to them about it. And they didn't hesitate, actually. They said straight away, yes, you should do it. We've got to spread it. understanding about this. And then when I said, would you like to be interviewed for it? They jumped at that as well.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: And then the program opens.
00:20:55
Speaker 2: Have you ever interviewed your sisters before?
00:20:57
Speaker 1: It was quite interesting because, as ever, women are more perceptive than men.
00:21:01
Speaker 7: And they'd spotted, we were trying to date the start of mum's Alzheimer's, and they both thought it was much earlier than I did.
00:21:09
Speaker 8: Really?
00:21:09
Speaker 1: Because I think they'd spotted some of the signs.
00:21:12
Speaker 4: Let's wrap up by talking about progress toward a cure. And I'm curious if you think Big Pharma, the big pharmaceutical companies, acknowledges we have here that it is a disease and one that needs treatment. And if the investment is commensurate with how big a burden this is on so much of the world.
00:21:27
Speaker 1: I think we're getting there.
00:21:27
Speaker 7: I mean, if you look back, so I launched the Dementia Challenge in 2012. In 2014, a paper came out called the 99% paper, which showed that 99%.
00:21:37
Speaker 1: Of drug trials have been unsuccessful.
00:21:38
Speaker 4: Devastating paper.
00:21:39
Speaker 7: And so, you know, it felt like at that moment, we're going to go nowhere. Fast forward 12 years, we've got 190 drugs in development. We've got two or three being used here in the United States. We've got a whole lot of new tests coming online in terms of blood tests, a much better understanding about what's happening in the brain, a much better understanding about how to get drugs across the blood-brain barrier so they work more effectively. So I think we're in the right place. We're still going to need philanthropy. The pharma companies will do the trials, but there are still gaps to fill in in our basic scientific knowledge.
00:22:14
Speaker 1: So we still need the philanthropy. We still need the charities to do their work.
00:22:18
Speaker 7: And then we need governments to be more creative about how do we trial novel medicines? How do we fund new treatments? How do we recruit people for clinical trials? During COVID, we were recruiting people for clinical trials on the internet. We were doing things much faster. That sort of warp speed approach, which we used.
00:22:35
Speaker 1: For COVID drugs, we've got to use for Alzheimer's drugs too.
00:22:38
Speaker 4: Can you make this pitch very clearly? Because it is in the podcast. The lack of data that we have, and it really is something where this is... a part of medicine that needs people to participate, to sign up to be examined, if not go through clinical trials, but at least for us to know more about the way the brains work.
00:22:51
Speaker 7: We definitely want people to sign up, but we also need governments to make it easier and to say, so in the UK, the drugs aren't currently licensed on the NHS because of the expense, but we could do much bigger clinical trials. And I think that's a good way in.
00:23:08
Speaker 4: Our thanks to the Right Honorable Lord David Cameron for joining us there. The first episode of the Ending Alzheimer's podcast will be released on Monday, a co-production of Kaleidoscope and Bloomberg. You can watch and listen at Bloomberg.com and Bloomberg Podcasts on YouTube.
00:23:23
Speaker 3: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this.
00:23:39
Speaker 4: Allison and Stephen Ellsworth went from making an apple cider vinegar-based drink in their home to a huge payday thanks in part to an appearance on Shark Tank that paved the way to wider sales of the drink Poppy.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:23:49
Speaker 3: Last week, the couple sold the prebiotic soda to PepsiCo for.
00:23:52
Speaker 2: Nearly $ 2 billion.
00:23:53
Speaker 3: Now they're back with a new beverage in the hydration game for everyday consumers.
00:23:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that happened last year. David and I sat down with Allison and Stephen Ellsworth to find out how they
still have plenty of pop in their playbook. Alice and Stephen, welcome. Thank you for joining us here in the Bloomberg studio. Everyone knows about Poppy, right? I mean, you had the Super Bowl commercial.
00:24:11
Speaker 1: I mean, come on.
00:24:13
Speaker 2: But not many people know about the story behind it, like the decades it took to kind of get there, the struggle, talking about maxing out credit cards, talking about selling a car to get bottles, like all that. Can you guys describe what the beginning part of this journey was like for you? Oh my goodness.
00:24:30
Speaker 5: It was a decade in the making almost really was 10 years. Everyone loves to say overnight success. And to your point, they don't see all of those like nitty gritty things of, I mean, I was doing like deliveries to grocery stores with my baby strapped to the back of me and like bottling it ourselves and maxing out the credit cards. And I loved every second of it, the chaos. I think it's, you know, to be an entrepreneur, it's the best job in the world. And, um, you got to love those high stress moments for sure.
00:24:59
Speaker 4: Steven, when did it feel viable to you? So you had faith that this was going to take off. When were you sure that it was going to?
00:25:07
Speaker 9: I think that there was, the great thing is there was those wins along the way. I think the moment that I knew it was going to be really, really huge was after our first Super Bowl commercial. We were already a sizable business at that point, but when we doubled down and bought a Super Bowl ad, it just took it to the next level. The business 4X' d overnight, year over year. It was actually really, really tremendous. But along the way, we had those wins, enough to keep us going and excited about what the future held.
00:25:37
Speaker 2: Another one of those big wins was Shark Tank. You were nine months pregnant when you were there.
00:25:41
Speaker 4: I remember seeing her.
00:25:42
Speaker 2: I was like, there's the belly.
00:25:43
Speaker 4: She's ready to go.
00:25:44
Speaker 2: So what was that experience like for you? How did that change kind of the trajectory of your business? Because your brand evolved right after that, too.
00:25:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, there were so many early indicators from being at the farmer's market and Whole Foods approaching us and saying, hey, this needs to be in grocery stores to getting a deal on Shark Tank. And then virality at launch was insane. We were one of the first founder-led brands to really put ourselves out there on social media. And so I think there was all of these micro-win moments. And Shark Tank changed our lives, absolutely. And we feel like we're living the American dream at the end of the day.
00:26:19
Speaker 2: And so.
00:26:21
Speaker 5: You know, obviously crazy to do it again, but we love it.
00:26:23
Speaker 4: Can you talk a bit about that social media strategy, how unique it was and the role that that played in the success of the brand?
00:26:30
Speaker 5: You know, I think it made us digital first from day one, because keep in mind, we launched Poppy March 3rd. 2020, like the first week of COVID, which is like crazy. So everybody was like forced in their house.
00:26:44
Speaker 2: How do you connect with them?
00:26:45
Speaker 5: Well, everyone had a phone in their hand and they were desperate for human connection. And so we were just trying to really think through disruptively of like how we could you know, kind of hit this wild, wild West that was TikTok at the time. And I remember everyone telling me it was not a great idea and that it was just a bunch of kids dancing on there. And I was like, Hey, no, like, I think that this is where community is. And I started making recipe videos. I was dancing. I literally anything to get as many people to see Poppy as possible. And then Honestly, it was just me sitting down and telling the story and being authentic that really broke through. And I think I have that original video that I posted that kind of like broke the internet and changed the whole trajectory of the business. Has like 250 million views on it. It's unreal. So I think it made us think differently from day one.
00:27:30
Speaker 3: It did.
00:27:31
Speaker 2: On the business side, I think, Stephen, what do you think, what lessons have you guys learned the hard way? I'm sure there's a lot.
00:27:37
Speaker 5: So many.
00:27:39
Speaker 9: So many lessons. I think the biggest one is just making sure that you overinvest in people early on.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:27:48
Speaker 9: As entrepreneurs, you feel like you have to do everything yourself because a lot of the times you do. You don't have the access to the great talent. You don't have access to the capital required to hire great talent. And so there definitely is this transition mode, at least both Allison and I went through it. where we started to delegate and release some of those responsibilities to other folks. But that's probably the biggest lesson is not only the team, but who you surround yourself with, who are your investors or advisors that are challenging your thoughts, providing that diversity of thought to ultimately grow the business and push it forward.
00:28:23
Speaker 4: So let's talk about this next chapter. Let's talk about Jetty. What is it and what are your hopes for the brand?
00:28:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, when we were kind of post-exit, there's the post-exit blues and you're like finding yourself again and purpose outside of it. Like it's crazy, you know, and then you kind of get to the other side and we're like, we played golf for a little bit and we like hung out with the kids. And, you know, it was really, we missed the chaos. We missed the chaos. Like it's crazy, like just the... the excitement you see when someone tries it for the first time, like it's such a creative outlet to be able to, I don't know, create something that people fall in love with. And so, um, we were kind of not
sure what we're going to do. And one day I was like, Oh wait, I haven't had water today. And it was like two o'clock and I'd had two coffees and I was trying all these electrolyte mixes. And I just realized everything within hydration has been made for the extremes, right? For, for sports or a thousand milligrams of sodium. It's just so intense. And so I was like, why don't we make just approachable everyday hydration? And so it's a product I made for me and for my kids. And we only have 100 milligrams of sodium compared to some of the others. And we have powders as well. So we're the first hydration brand to launch powders and drink at the same time.
00:29:37
Speaker 2: So how is it different launching a product this time?
00:29:40
Speaker 8: Around?
00:29:40
Speaker 2: You self-funded?
00:29:42
Speaker 9: We have self-funded. I think what's different this time is we have access.
00:29:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker 9: Access to retailers, to distributors, to a great team this time.
00:29:52
Speaker 4: Maybe I could ask you lastly, you have the experience, obviously. means now that you didn't have before. You mentioned a moment ago the importance of people. How have you thought through the way that you structure this company based on your experience building the company that you did before?
00:30:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:30:08
Speaker 9: Listen, as a second time founder, it's very easy for me to say, I don't know everything. I feel very comfortable saying that. And I actually get excited about that. I love being in the room with other people that are better and smarter than I am. And so that's really how we focus on building the team. We always talk about hiring player coaches, especially early on, those folks that can be strategic, that can develop the plan, but are also not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and get to work. And really just focusing on hiring A-plus talent, paying them what they're worth, bringing in that top-tier talent, as opposed to trying to nickel and dime and save $ 2, 000 here or $ 5, 000 here, whatever it may be, and bringing in a couple of B players. We've just found that the people that are operating at that level like punch far above their weight. So we want drivers, not passengers.
00:31:02
Speaker 8: Excellent.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: Well said. Allison and Stephen, thank you so much.
00:31:04
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
00:31:04
Speaker 4: Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
00:31:05
Speaker 9: Yeah, this was great. Thanks.
00:31:08
Speaker 2: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this.
00:31:24
Speaker 4: Time for one of my favorite parts of the show.
00:31:27
Speaker 2: That is the Pointed News Quiz.
00:31:28
Speaker 4: Lisa Mateo, back with us once again. You're holding that tea like you've got tea to spill.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: Empty, like my ambitions for this segment. Wow. It's going to be fantastic. You guys are going to love this.
00:31:40
Speaker 4: Set the stakes.
00:31:43
Speaker 2: Here it is for you, okay?
00:31:44
Speaker 7: Yes.
00:31:44
Speaker 2: So for those of you playing along, please do play with us because it's a lot of fun. There are three categories, and they each have 30 chips in front of them. As they hear each category, they are going to place their bets. It's harder than usual. On how they feel about each category. She has her finger. We should know that.
00:31:59
Speaker 4: How's the finger doing?
00:32:00
Speaker 8: It's good.
00:32:00
Speaker 3: I took the cast off so you wouldn't mock it on TV.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: It's doing much better. It didn't stop me. I'm sorry. Nothing will stop it. Nothing will stop it. All right. Are you ready for your three categories?
00:32:09
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
00:32:10
Speaker 2: And then you're going to write your answers on your whiteboards.
00:32:12
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:32:12
Speaker 2: Let's get to the categories first and then you place your bets. That's the first move.
00:32:15
Speaker 8: Okay.
00:32:15
Speaker 2: First is IPOs.
00:32:16
Speaker 8: Okay.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: Second category is movies. And third category is M & A. Wow. Margers and Actors. I was tempted.
00:32:30
Speaker 4: To do that, but I don't have much more faith in these other categories, so I might just pull the Ruffini.
00:32:36
Speaker 2: Even? Even Steven? We're just going to split.
00:32:39
Speaker 9: Even Steven.
00:32:40
Speaker 2: Oh, you're both doing the same.
00:32:41
Speaker 7: Boo.
00:32:42
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go. Let's go to the numbers. Happy Saturday to you, too. First category question.
00:32:47
Speaker 3: American or international audience, Lisa Matea.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: Let's go to IPOs.
00:32:51
Speaker 8: IPOs.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Shall we? Anthropic is set to go public with a valuation of $ 1. 4 trillion. So name what company valued higher during its debut.
00:33:03
Speaker 8: Okay, well.
00:33:04
Speaker 2: Who valued higher than that?
00:33:05
Speaker 5: Okay.
00:33:08
Speaker 2: There was one company who did.
00:33:10
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:33:11
Speaker 8: Okay, you ready?
00:33:11
Speaker 2: You ready?
00:33:12
Speaker 6: I'm ready.
00:33:12
Speaker 2: I wrote SpaceX. Let's see.
00:33:14
Speaker 5: Christina?
00:33:14
Speaker 2: I thought it was Google.
00:33:15
Speaker 8: No, SpaceX.
00:33:16
Speaker 2: Oh, it was SpaceX.
00:33:17
Speaker 6: Wow.
00:33:20
Speaker 2: That was easier than I thought it was. You made it harder than it was.
00:33:25
Speaker 3: I did. Because when we were getting ready to talk to Barry, I was looking at the over.
00:33:28
Speaker 2: Easy with your finger.
00:33:29
Speaker 3: Something about the oversubscriptions and the.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: All right, well. I get your chips. Actually, SpaceX debuted at $ 1. 8 trillion. That was really dumb of me. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:33:37
Speaker 5: Fair enough.
00:33:37
Speaker 8: Okay.
00:33:38
Speaker 2: I overthought it.
00:33:39
Speaker 9: There we go.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: Okay, no worries, no worries. I will hold on to these because you can get them back in the bonus round.
00:33:43
Speaker 4: You could get them back in the bonus round.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: You can earn them back, Christina.
00:33:45
Speaker 5: Save it, girl.
00:33:45
Speaker 2: Be a little less smug. A little less. Sorry. Lisa, let's go to movies.
00:33:49
Speaker 8: Movies.
00:33:49
Speaker 2: Okay. You've got this. Jeremy Latcham has been tapped by Skydance to be the president of what studio?
00:33:56
Speaker 1: Oh, I do know this one.
00:33:57
Speaker 5: Oh, yes.
00:33:58
Speaker 8: Yes.
00:33:59
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. What is the name of that studio? He's thinking. He's thinking.
00:34:05
Speaker 1: Tick, tock, tick, tock.
00:34:06
Speaker 2: Jeremy Latcham.
00:34:08
Speaker 8: Okay. I wrote Paramount. What did you write?
00:34:10
Speaker 4: DC.
00:34:11
Speaker 1: DC, Christina.
00:34:13
Speaker 7: All right, well.
00:34:13
Speaker 2: So what does that mean, Christina?
00:34:14
Speaker 8: We've tied.
00:34:15
Speaker 2: So James Gunn is out and this guy is in. Wow, you knew the names. I did. Wow, how is that the case?
00:34:22
Speaker 3: There is a giant nerd in the Ruffini household who is very upset about this.
00:34:26
Speaker 2: Well, because he's a member of the founding team of Marvel.
00:34:29
Speaker 4: Joey is getting dragged on this show today.
00:34:32
Speaker 2: It's in your poor brother. But that's the whole thing with this. So he's one of the founding teams of Marvel. You know who does Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy and all those things. And very successfully. Yes, yes, yes. So it's been, except for Supergirl, which was me. But there's always one. Can't all be winners. There's only one.
00:34:48
Speaker 8: Supergirl.
00:34:49
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're at a tie right now because I have both of yours. Thankfully we have M & A to decide. Yeah, M & A is going to be the deciding factor. Thanks for this, Lisa.
00:34:57
Speaker 8: All right.
00:34:58
Speaker 2: Here is your question for M & A. What artificial intelligence on-demand doctor service was recently acquired by Aura?
00:35:06
Speaker 4: Artificial intelligence.
00:35:08
Speaker 2: What is the name of this artificial intelligence on-demand doctor service? I know of none. It's a tough one. I don't know. This one I have not heard of, so I will give.
00:35:21
Speaker 3: It to you.
00:35:21
Speaker 2: If either of you get this, I don't know.
00:35:23
Speaker 3: It's something to do that was also.
00:35:25
Speaker 2: A legal word. Was it counsel? You did not get it right.
00:35:30
Speaker 8: Is that really? Yes, it is.
00:35:31
Speaker 4: I wrote what's up doc.
00:35:32
Speaker 2: It's not what's up doc. I wrote it was counsel or advocate. It was counsel?
00:35:35
Speaker 1: It's counsel.
00:35:36
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:35:37
Speaker 1: Look at that. Late search.
00:35:39
Speaker 2: Oh, coming in for the late win.
00:35:40
Speaker 8: All right.
00:35:41
Speaker 2: That was as shocking as me for me. So they acquired them for $ 625 million.
00:35:43
Speaker 8: Wow.
00:35:45
Speaker 2: Council is actually in the Ora app, so it allows you to kind of ask questions about your health and then receive AI answers to draw on that Ora data that's already in there. So Council, who knew? David Gurra, that means that I get your chips. Come on, pass them along, pass them. Thank you very much. Christina is in the.
00:36:04
Speaker 1: Lead, but we have a vote.
00:36:06
Speaker 8: Wait a minute.
00:36:06
Speaker 2: You can't steal her chips. Wait a minute. Okay, for our radio listeners.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: David Garra just piled a, he just took a stack.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: Of chips out of his pocket and replenished his chip.
00:36:15
Speaker 1: That wasn't on camera.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: There's no evidence of that.
00:36:17
Speaker 3: Tim, we've got to talk to Director Tim.
00:36:19
Speaker 2: I can't believe you missed those shenanigans. Director Tim, who are we implicating here? He was very sly with that. That was a very smooth move.
00:36:24
Speaker 3: Put those away.
00:36:25
Speaker 2: Back in my pocket? Put them back in your pocket from whence they came. All right, Lisa, I swear if I don't get this bonus, I'm coming for you. I can't believe you did that.
00:36:32
Speaker 7: He was watching, you know?
00:36:33
Speaker 2: Pulled him out of his pocket.
00:36:34
Speaker 3: It was very fast.
00:36:34
Speaker 2: It was very fast. All right. You can earn them back, so don't worry, okay? You can keep them in your pocket, David Gurra. Food and beverage is our bonus. You don't deserve them back.
00:36:42
Speaker 8: All right.
00:36:43
Speaker 2: Food and beverage.
00:36:43
Speaker 5: Food and beverage.
00:36:44
Speaker 2: You're going to get this. You're going to get this. Which popular brand of fruit-based treats is getting $ 60 million investment from Mars? Fruit-based treats. Yes, they are fruit-based treats. Oh. And they're getting $ 60 million from Mars.
00:36:59
Speaker 4: I know what this is, but I can't.
00:37:01
Speaker 2: Because they're good. You keep them in the fridge. I eat them and I still can't remember what they're called.
00:37:06
Speaker 7: Yes, yes.
00:37:06
Speaker 2: They're so yummy. I love these things.
00:37:08
Speaker 4: I actually don't know the answer to this.
00:37:09
Speaker 2: You don't know? It's something like Tutti Frutti, but it's not Tutti Frutti. You're correct. It's not Tutti Frutti, but you're close. I just put nothing. Not even a guess?
00:37:16
Speaker 4: I couldn't even guess.
00:37:16
Speaker 1: Lifesavers?
00:37:17
Speaker 8: No.
00:37:18
Speaker 2: No, it's not a lifesaver. It's true fruit. True, true. These are really good. They are good. They're like frozen, like freeze-dried fruit, and they're covered in like dark chocolate or milk chocolate. They're so good. They're great. They have fewer calories than a giant hunk of chocolate. I love them. They are quite expensive, I will say. Oh, so you didn't get the bonus, but you can't put them in your pocket.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Oh, look at that.
00:37:37
Speaker 4: Tied it up again.
00:37:38
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
00:37:39
Speaker 4: You can test your knowledge on all 10 questions. You can take the Point of News quiz at Bloomberg.com.
00:37:43
Speaker 2: And you can test your ethics while playing this quiz.
00:37:45
Speaker 4: Nobody's going to judge you if you play it yourself on the Bloomberg Business app.
00:37:48
Speaker 2: We're at Bloomberg.com.
00:37:52
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg This Weekend podcast. Don't forget to tune in live for the show every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern.
00:38:00
Speaker 4: We're on Bloomberg Television, radio, and the Bloomberg Business app, bringing you unique takes and in-depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle, and culture.