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Amazon Insiders Weigh in on CEO Jeff Bezos Stepping Down · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
0:04
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
0:06
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts,
0:10
Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Kind the Bloomberg Markets
0:13
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts,
0:17
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. It is time to talk Amazon.
0:21
Speaker 1: It's the story of yesterday evening, today and for what
0:26
Speaker 1: will be the foreseeable future, at least in big tech.
0:28
Speaker 1: Let's bring in somebody who knows a lot about the company.
0:31
Speaker 1: He was an early investor. Matt mclwaine is Group managing
0:35
Speaker 1: director at Madrona Ventures. Matt, your reaction to Bezos's I
0:40
Speaker 1: don't really want to call a departure. He's still going
0:42
Speaker 1: to be executive chairman. What exactly will you be doing? Well?
0:47
Speaker 1: I think you'll get to keep being a pioneer and
0:50
Speaker 1: and thinking about the next major areas where you know
0:53
Speaker 1: Amazon can find opportunity. Um. I mean I was surprised
0:57
Speaker 1: that he's handing over the CEO job because I think
1:00
Speaker 1: he got to do a lot of that pioneering and
1:02
Speaker 1: envisioning in the role today. But On the other hand,
1:06
Speaker 1: I am highly confident that Andy Jassie, who's going to
1:10
Speaker 1: be taking over as CEO, will do an incredible job
1:14
Speaker 1: in that role. He is absolutely the most logical choice
1:16
Speaker 1: for all kinds of reasons. And man, any uh, anything
1:19
Speaker 1: we should take away as it relates to timing. Why Now,
1:26
Speaker 1: you know, they really did have an exceptionally good year
1:29
Speaker 1: in really tough circumstances, and Jeff leaned into the business
1:35
Speaker 1: and helped them innovate, not only on uh you know,
1:39
Speaker 1: how are we going to scale up to to support
1:41
Speaker 1: all of this increased demand? And I think they spent
1:44
Speaker 1: over ten billion dollars on COVID related you know, testing
1:48
Speaker 1: and processes and protocols so that they could keep their
1:51
Speaker 1: employees healthy while they're continuing to serve their customers. So
1:54
Speaker 1: that must have been an exhausting year. I know how
1:56
Speaker 1: exhausting it's been for all the startups we work with,
1:59
Speaker 1: and it mobi Jeff just said, look, you know, there's
2:02
Speaker 1: there's certain aspects of that role that I think another
2:04
Speaker 1: person and and somebody like Andy, who was of course
2:08
Speaker 1: Jeff's you know, technical adviser, think of that. It's kind
2:10
Speaker 1: of like his chief of staff twenty years ago, early
2:13
Speaker 1: in his tenure at Amazon, and then you know, Andy,
2:16
Speaker 1: through that process, you know, helped identify and transform how
2:20
Speaker 1: Amazon was going to scale of the business through you know,
2:22
Speaker 1: kind of cloud based infrastructure. And then he went up
2:26
Speaker 1: and started you know, Amazon Web Services. You know, I
2:28
Speaker 1: remember hosting with Andy fourteen years ago, uh an event
2:33
Speaker 1: at a warehouse in Seattle for startups and I got
2:36
Speaker 1: up to make fond adventure capitalist and Andy got up
2:39
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we've got this new service. It's called
2:41
Speaker 1: you know, compute as a service and storage as a service.
2:44
Speaker 1: We're calling it Amazon Web Services, and new startups might
2:47
Speaker 1: want to give it a try. Fourteen years later, that
2:49
Speaker 1: as a fifty billion in revenue business growing at almost
2:55
Speaker 1: it's very hold and catch fire. So Amazon stock unchanged today,
2:59
Speaker 1: and obviously people are quite fine with this change. But
3:03
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, what what does it mean for
3:05
Speaker 1: the future of Jeff Bezos. Does he want to concentrate,
3:08
Speaker 1: for example, on Blue Origin is space company, and it's
3:12
Speaker 1: maybe his philanthropic work. I mean, we know he does
3:15
Speaker 1: philanthropic work. We're not quite sure where or was. But
3:19
Speaker 1: he also of course owns the Washington Post or while
3:21
Speaker 1: start at something new, do you think, Yeah, you know,
3:26
Speaker 1: Jeff is fabulously curious, and so I wouldn't put it
3:30
Speaker 1: passed him to start something new. But he has been
3:32
Speaker 1: investing in several areas outside of Amazon. You know, you
3:37
Speaker 1: mentioned Blue Origin. You know, it's probably less well known.
3:41
Speaker 1: I think stylistically, Jeff and Andy and the Amazon folks
3:44
Speaker 1: tend to kind of just go do things and make
3:47
Speaker 1: a difference. You know. In Jeff's case, you know, there's
3:49
Speaker 1: the Bezos. You know, you know therapy clinic at the
3:52
Speaker 1: Fred hutch Cancer Research Center that I've been on the
3:54
Speaker 1: border for many years, and so there's a passion there
3:57
Speaker 1: around helping with the leading edgeways to to treat and
4:00
Speaker 1: cure cancers. You know. You know, for that matter, Andy,
4:03
Speaker 1: Jeff has been incredibly involved in education and educational opportunities
4:07
Speaker 1: through organizations like Nier Scholars in Near Prep, where he
4:11
Speaker 1: serves on the board and that donates his time. So
4:13
Speaker 1: I think of the nonprofit world. They both share a
4:16
Speaker 1: lot of passion around climate change, and you know, they
4:18
Speaker 1: were very involved together in you know this the new
4:22
Speaker 1: arena that our new hockey team that Andy's one of
4:25
Speaker 1: the owners of is the kind of Climate Pledge arena,
4:28
Speaker 1: so I think in the environmental areas and the commitment
4:32
Speaker 1: by Amazon to be carbon neutral uh by some time,
4:35
Speaker 1: and then theties I can't remember exactly the year, you know,
4:38
Speaker 1: those are kinds of things that I think Jeff will
4:40
Speaker 1: continue to be engaged with and involved with. And then
4:43
Speaker 1: you know, to your point, you know, will he find
4:45
Speaker 1: some other area. I think this whole broader area of healthcare,
4:49
Speaker 1: with all that's happened with COVID this past year, I
4:51
Speaker 1: think it's really caught the attention of Amazon and how
4:54
Speaker 1: they can take some of their you know, start with
4:57
Speaker 1: the customer, iterate, you know, learn and then scale up
5:01
Speaker 1: kind of approach and apply it to uh, to the
5:04
Speaker 1: health care world. Matt, what do you think of philanthropy
5:07
Speaker 1: real quick? Here? Jeff has been um, I guess criticized
5:10
Speaker 1: by some by not being perhaps as aggressive as some
5:13
Speaker 1: of his peers. Uh. You know, I think that there's
5:17
Speaker 1: always gonna be you know, folks that that that could
5:20
Speaker 1: keep you know, kind of high profile you know, uh, individuals. Uh.
5:24
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's so much generosity of both
5:28
Speaker 1: time and resources, and the senior folks at Amazon that
5:31
Speaker 1: I've come to know over the last you know, twenty
5:33
Speaker 1: plus years. UM, and I think that Jeff is amongst those.
5:37
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, he's got a lot of
5:38
Speaker 1: passion for education as well. UM. You know that's an
5:42
Speaker 1: area with uh, you know, you know, some of the
5:44
Speaker 1: foundation priorities that he has set up that I think
5:47
Speaker 1: he'll probably be able to have more bandwidth to to
5:49
Speaker 1: to do additional things in UM. But you know, you know,
5:53
Speaker 1: these are folks that are you know, deeply, I mean,
5:56
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. Jeff and I went to rival
5:57
Speaker 1: public high schools in Miami and we both you know,
6:01
Speaker 1: did not come from you know, a lot and had
6:04
Speaker 1: to work really hard. And I can completely empathize with,
6:07
Speaker 1: you know, his desire and passion. I share it for
6:09
Speaker 1: giving every person the educational opportunity that they deserve to have. Well,
6:13
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to seeing all of that. And just
6:15
Speaker 1: very quickly, did you get out of your Amazon position?
6:18
Speaker 1: You still in? Oh? Well, we we were early investors
6:22
Speaker 1: in Amazon, and so you know, from a Madrona perspective,
6:26
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't been investors in Amazon. As a
6:28
Speaker 1: venture capital firm, what we do do is invest in
6:30
Speaker 1: a lot of companies that build on top of things
6:33
Speaker 1: like Amazon's cloud business or work with the Amazon Alexa
6:37
Speaker 1: and Echo platform. And so it's been very instructive over
6:41
Speaker 1: the years to have those close relationships and think together
6:43
Speaker 1: about how do you build out an ecosystem around some
6:46
Speaker 1: of the successful investments that Amazon's made in different areas,
6:49
Speaker 1: Like that story I told you back from two thousand
6:51
Speaker 1: and seven. Well, Matt, we would love to hear more
6:52
Speaker 1: about that very very soon, and thank you for joining
6:55
Speaker 1: us today. One of Amazon's early investors, early early investors
6:58
Speaker 1: want Michael Wayne, group lunging director at Madrona Ventures, and
7:03
Speaker 1: so now we want to bring in somebody with a
7:04
Speaker 1: little bit of a different perspective. He wrote the book
7:07
Speaker 1: Working Backwards Insides, Stories and Secrets from Inside Amazon. He
7:12
Speaker 1: was a former Amazon VP. His name is Colin Ryer,
7:15
Speaker 1: and he joins us now. So Colin excited to hear
7:18
Speaker 1: some of the secrets from inside Amazon. Haven't had a
7:20
Speaker 1: chance to read your book, very definitely will now. But
7:23
Speaker 1: it tell us something about Jeff Bezos that we may
7:26
Speaker 1: not know well. So I worked with at Amazon started
7:32
Speaker 1: and I worked for two years as Jeff Bezes as
7:35
Speaker 1: chief as staff right after Andy Jossy left that role.
7:38
Speaker 1: And moved on to to start web services. And at
7:42
Speaker 1: that time it was a pivotal time for Amazon. We
7:45
Speaker 1: were creating and launching Amazon Web Services, the kindle fulfillment
7:50
Speaker 1: by Amazon, know, things that would eventually go to be
7:53
Speaker 1: very very large businesses at Amazon. But one of the
7:57
Speaker 1: things that isn't really talked about too much side of
8:00
Speaker 1: the company is Jeff and Andy and the management team
8:04
Speaker 1: spent a whole lot of time figuring out how to
8:06
Speaker 1: build and enduring company and create really created a set
8:10
Speaker 1: of principles along with some scalable, repeatable processes on how
8:15
Speaker 1: small groups and large groups can build and operate, uh,
8:19
Speaker 1: and create new businesses that are really customer obsessed, long
8:23
Speaker 1: term thinking, uh, you know, have a spirit for invention
8:26
Speaker 1: and then really take pride on operational excellence. And that's
8:30
Speaker 1: what we what we call the Invention Machine. And and
8:33
Speaker 1: it's a set of its leadership principles in a set
8:36
Speaker 1: of scalable processes. And I think that's going to be
8:39
Speaker 1: one of Jeff's and Amazon's enduring legacies that will last
8:44
Speaker 1: after you know, well, some day we're gonna look at
8:47
Speaker 1: these hockey pucks and cylinders we have in our kitchen
8:50
Speaker 1: and and and think that, Hey, can you believe we
8:52
Speaker 1: thought two day and one day delivery was a premium
8:55
Speaker 1: express experience. You know, the customer experience is going to
8:59
Speaker 1: evolve over time, and I'm excited to see how that
9:01
Speaker 1: happens and what Amazon is going to do. But an
9:04
Speaker 1: enduring legacy for Amazon that they've given everyone at Amazon,
9:08
Speaker 1: and also what we talked about in the book for
9:10
Speaker 1: that other organizations can use is how to build these
9:12
Speaker 1: types of companies. And it's a new way of building
9:15
Speaker 1: and operating and management science, if you will. Colin talked
9:19
Speaker 1: us about the culture, the work culture within Amazon. There's
9:24
Speaker 1: been lots of stories writing about how it's so demanding,
9:28
Speaker 1: it's perform or get out. Talk to us about the
9:30
Speaker 1: culture that Jeff Bezos created at Amazon dot com. So
9:34
Speaker 1: if you had to encapsulate, well, what the culture is,
9:37
Speaker 1: you know, and Jeff has described it this way, he
9:40
Speaker 1: would say customer obsession instead of competitor obsession. M a
9:44
Speaker 1: willingness to think long term and being misunderstood for long
9:47
Speaker 1: periods of time, and just an eagerness to invent. And
9:51
Speaker 1: part of that is also you have to um if
9:54
Speaker 1: you're going to invent an experiment, you have to have
9:56
Speaker 1: some processes in place on how you fail and how
9:59
Speaker 1: you can learn from failures and move forward. And then
10:01
Speaker 1: the last thing is really taking pride in operational excellence.
10:05
Speaker 1: And you know, most of the work that a lot
10:07
Speaker 1: of these teams do don't see the light of day,
10:10
Speaker 1: but even outside of your team. But you have to
10:13
Speaker 1: get the little details right. And you know, one of
10:16
Speaker 1: Amazon's leadership principles is and it's just on the highest standards. Um.
10:20
Speaker 1: You know, if you go and work at Amazon, you
10:23
Speaker 1: need to bring your a game every day. You have
10:25
Speaker 1: to hold yourself first and foremost account vote to those
10:28
Speaker 1: high standards, and then those around you and those around
10:31
Speaker 1: you will do the same to you. So it's a
10:33
Speaker 1: culture that I personally liked it. You made me want
10:38
Speaker 1: to be a better person and work with teams and
10:41
Speaker 1: produce something that sometimes we didn't even think were possible. Um,
10:45
Speaker 1: it's not for everyone, you know, they're luckily there are
10:48
Speaker 1: many different company and corporate cultures. But you know the
10:51
Speaker 1: one Amazon has is is really customer obsessed. And I
10:56
Speaker 1: mean even with them Amazon, I presume Colin you're talking
10:58
Speaker 1: about the Whier color job. I mean, we know, you
11:01
Speaker 1: know stories coming out constantly. For example, just a couple
11:04
Speaker 1: of months ago, we wrote a story about how four
11:07
Speaker 1: thousand employees are on food stamps in nine states. We
11:11
Speaker 1: also know that Alabama is trying to unionize and Amazon
11:15
Speaker 1: is ratcheting up anti union pressure on a worker is there.
11:18
Speaker 1: Do you think that Jesse will be a better boss
11:21
Speaker 1: to those employees? You know, I think Amazon now has
11:26
Speaker 1: one point three million employees, give or take UM. The
11:31
Speaker 1: vast majority of those do work in UH fulfillment centers
11:34
Speaker 1: and the logistics armament, and so it is a key
11:39
Speaker 1: component of Amazon success. And I do think that Andy
11:43
Speaker 1: is going to continue to focus on creating a safe environment,
11:47
Speaker 1: leaving the charge in some respects about career choice or
11:51
Speaker 1: military veterans coming back to Amazon, UM and UH, you know,
11:56
Speaker 1: with fifteen an hour minimum waves stepping up before or
12:00
Speaker 1: other a lot of other companies have. I think you'll
12:02
Speaker 1: see some of that continue that have e been said.
12:05
Speaker 1: Amazon does occupy a different place in society than it
12:08
Speaker 1: did five or even ten years ago, and UM, it
12:12
Speaker 1: can and should be scrutinized the company practices just because
12:17
Speaker 1: of the impact that has in society, and UM, you know,
12:20
Speaker 1: be part of the scital dialogue on how a company
12:25
Speaker 1: that large interacts with its employees and business partners. So, Colin,
12:31
Speaker 1: would you expect Andy Jesse to do, uh anything different?
12:36
Speaker 1: Do you expect him to maybe pivot the company in
12:40
Speaker 1: any way? New products, new services, new verticals. I think
12:46
Speaker 1: that there will be some surprises along the way inventions.
12:50
Speaker 1: But in terms of you know, how Jeff and Andy are,
12:54
Speaker 1: I think they have many more similarities than than than differences. Um.
12:58
Speaker 1: You know, Andy does have an inventive spirit. He created
13:02
Speaker 1: Amazon Web Services that went from zero to ten billion
13:05
Speaker 1: dollars faster than Amazon dot Com itself did, and you
13:09
Speaker 1: know it's now about a fifty billion dollar business. So
13:11
Speaker 1: and he's got experience working both with small teams creating
13:15
Speaker 1: you know, taking ideas and creating them from scratch and
13:18
Speaker 1: making them uh very viable products and services for customers,
13:22
Speaker 1: as well as managing large, multi billion dollar businesses. So um,
13:27
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, in terms of what will
13:30
Speaker 1: happen in in your term, it's going to be more
13:32
Speaker 1: of the same. And part of that is just simply
13:35
Speaker 1: because of Amazon scale. A lot of the seeds that
13:38
Speaker 1: uh we're planted, you know, they take years to develop
13:42
Speaker 1: and you know to reach the scale that it will
13:44
Speaker 1: be noticed outside of Amazon. So the things that we'll
13:46
Speaker 1: see over the next twelve or eighteen months likely will
13:49
Speaker 1: have started before. You know, Andy took the CEO roll.
13:53
Speaker 1: But I would expect how Amazon operates, it's gonna be
13:57
Speaker 1: not changed too much. But Amazon will surprise us with
14:00
Speaker 1: new products and features as they always have. Yeah, that's
14:04
Speaker 1: certainly the case. Colin Brier, thank you so much for
14:06
Speaker 1: joining us. We really appreciate your insight. Colin Brier, former
14:09
Speaker 1: Amazon Vice president and author of Working Backwards, Insights, Stories
14:14
Speaker 1: and Secrets from Inside Amazon, is also co founder of
14:18
Speaker 1: Working Backwards LLC, based in Seattle, Washington, Well. New York
14:24
Speaker 1: State has an aggressive commitment to source sevent of its
14:28
Speaker 1: energy from renewable sources by next guest is part of
14:31
Speaker 1: the effort to achieve that goal. Clint Plumber, he's CEO
14:35
Speaker 1: of Rise Light and Power to Holy own affiliate of
14:37
Speaker 1: LS Power based in New York City. Clint, thanks so
14:40
Speaker 1: much for joining us here. This is a fascinating story.
14:42
Speaker 1: I look you start by just saying having you describe
14:45
Speaker 1: what Rise Light and Power rate is and how you're
14:48
Speaker 1: part of this renewable effort with the State. Hey, thanks
14:52
Speaker 1: so much for having to y on Um. We are
14:54
Speaker 1: the largest power generating station in New York City. We
14:58
Speaker 1: have about of all the generating capacity in New York City,
15:02
Speaker 1: and over the course of the last several years, we've
15:04
Speaker 1: been making aggressive investments in retooling our facility to help
15:08
Speaker 1: achieve the state's goal of transitioning to clean energy by
15:13
Speaker 1: So can't explain what that means to those of us
15:16
Speaker 1: who should know more about this area but don't. New
15:20
Speaker 1: York City uses a great deal of power, and that
15:23
Speaker 1: means it's very important that we're able to transition that
15:26
Speaker 1: from its conventional mix of mostly fossil fuels to cleaner
15:31
Speaker 1: sources like wind and solar. Our site is a gateway
15:35
Speaker 1: for bringing capacity into New York City. So we've been
15:39
Speaker 1: making investments over the last several years in building out
15:42
Speaker 1: battery storage on our site so we can store energy
15:45
Speaker 1: that's produced at night that's cleaner and cheaper, and deliver
15:48
Speaker 1: it during the daytime. We've also been developing a series
15:51
Speaker 1: of new transmission facilities that will allow us to connect
15:55
Speaker 1: New York City to other points in the grid, like
15:57
Speaker 1: upstate New York, where power is cheaper, where power is cleaner,
16:00
Speaker 1: and in so doing, we're able to reduce the cost
16:03
Speaker 1: of energy in New York City, and we're able to
16:05
Speaker 1: improve the air quality around our plant and others. Clint
16:08
Speaker 1: tell us about the Tax Skills Renewable Connector. That sounds
16:11
Speaker 1: interesting to me. Yeah, that's the project I was referring to. Pull.
16:15
Speaker 1: It's a um it's a big buried transmission line. It
16:20
Speaker 1: will start at our site in Queens on the East
16:22
Speaker 1: River and traverse the East River, the Harlem River, and
16:25
Speaker 1: the Hudson River to a point that about a hundred
16:28
Speaker 1: and twenty miles north of New York City, just south
16:30
Speaker 1: of Albany. It will connect to the bulk transmission system
16:33
Speaker 1: there that gives us access to abundant wind and solar
16:38
Speaker 1: energy resources across Upstate New York, both existing and new.
16:42
Speaker 1: There's a tremendous amount of potential to build new wind
16:46
Speaker 1: and solar across upstate New York, but those projects are
16:49
Speaker 1: shut in because they don't have access to the same
16:52
Speaker 1: type of customers that are in New York City. So
16:55
Speaker 1: we see this project is one that will give New
16:57
Speaker 1: York City energy users access to clean, cost effective renewable
17:01
Speaker 1: energy made right here in New York State, and it
17:05
Speaker 1: will help spur economic development, job creation, and new tax
17:09
Speaker 1: base for communities across upstate New York that will build
17:12
Speaker 1: and host those facilities to deliver power down state. Now,
17:16
Speaker 1: as CEO Rise Light and Power, your CEO of an
17:20
Speaker 1: energy asset manager and developer. It's wholly owned by l
17:25
Speaker 1: S Power. But I'm curious as to where you get
17:28
Speaker 1: your funding in general for all of these projects, and
17:30
Speaker 1: whether it's all state funding and what a new administration
17:33
Speaker 1: might mean given how focused you are on clean energy
17:36
Speaker 1: and renewable energy. Yeah, absolutely so. LS Power is a
17:41
Speaker 1: privately held company that manages about ten billion dollars in
17:44
Speaker 1: private equity funding. Um So, we're very well capitalized. As
17:48
Speaker 1: you also mentioned, we own and operate the largest generating
17:51
Speaker 1: station in New York City, so we have a steady
17:54
Speaker 1: stream of cash flow to fund these development activities. Um So,
17:58
Speaker 1: all of our investments are privately funded. Um We do
18:02
Speaker 1: see the new federal administration taking aggressive actions in support
18:07
Speaker 1: of new clean energy, both onshore and importantly offshore. I
18:11
Speaker 1: spent thirteen years in the offshore wind business before coming
18:14
Speaker 1: to this job. I'm very proud to be part of
18:17
Speaker 1: the team that developed and built the first offshore wind
18:19
Speaker 1: farm in the United States. We see the Biden administration
18:23
Speaker 1: making aggressive moves to help grow the offshore wind sector.
18:27
Speaker 1: As a coastal metropolis, New York City is prime to
18:33
Speaker 1: take advantage of the abundant offshore wind energy resources near
18:37
Speaker 1: our city and so at Rise Light and Power. In
18:39
Speaker 1: addition to the cat Skills project, we're also working on
18:43
Speaker 1: a number of initiatives to help bring clean, cost effective
18:46
Speaker 1: offshore wind energy into our site as well. So, Clint,
18:50
Speaker 1: just give us a sense of how New York State
18:52
Speaker 1: is relative to some other states in terms of renewable energy.
18:56
Speaker 1: If I drive up state the next or the next
18:57
Speaker 1: time I drive up state, should I be on the
18:59
Speaker 1: lookout for wind farms solar farms. Yeah. New York has
19:04
Speaker 1: a long history of being out on the forefront of
19:07
Speaker 1: thinking about UH clean energy technologies. In fact, it really
19:12
Speaker 1: is a story of two different grids. The upstate power
19:15
Speaker 1: grid in New York is very very clean and very
19:19
Speaker 1: very cost effective because going back a hundred years, we've
19:22
Speaker 1: been building hydropower and in addition to that, we now
19:26
Speaker 1: over the last decade or so, we've been very aggressive
19:29
Speaker 1: in building out wind and solar facility. So it's a
19:31
Speaker 1: very clean grid, it's very cost effective grid. The challenges
19:34
Speaker 1: when you get to a densely populated urban area like
19:37
Speaker 1: New York City, it's difficult and expensive to build large
19:41
Speaker 1: scale renewable energy in a place like this, and the
19:45
Speaker 1: unique geography of New York and that we've got this
19:47
Speaker 1: pinch point coming down the Hudson River Valley, it's very
19:51
Speaker 1: difficult to build transmission lines there. So New York has
19:56
Speaker 1: very aggressive policies that are progressive and that are move
20:00
Speaker 1: bing us in the right direction. It's simply a meet
20:02
Speaker 1: a a challenge of the bottlenecking our ability to access
20:07
Speaker 1: that was cleaning a bunch of resources upstate and at
20:10
Speaker 1: the same time getting access to the clean resources that
20:13
Speaker 1: are offshore. Our focus at Rise Light and Power is
20:16
Speaker 1: being a hub for bringing in both offshore and onshore
20:21
Speaker 1: renewables and breaking through that log jam to get it
20:24
Speaker 1: in New York City. You know, we can talk old
20:26
Speaker 1: day and it gets more interesting the deeper we get
20:29
Speaker 1: into subjects like this. And we appreciate your time, so
20:32
Speaker 1: do come back soon please. Clint Plummer is CEO of
20:36
Speaker 1: Rise Light and Power and uh, I don't know about you. Poll,
20:40
Speaker 1: but I'm probably certainly getting some of my power from them. Yeah,
20:43
Speaker 1: you know, I just you know, I'm one of those
20:44
Speaker 1: that just flips the switch and just expects it to work,
20:47
Speaker 1: and I don't only think about where it comes from.
20:48
Speaker 1: But Clint was just you know, explaining the economics of
20:51
Speaker 1: upstate versus downstate. This is a project that makes a
20:53
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me, at least, absolutely a lot
20:58
Speaker 1: to talk to our next guests about. Let's just get
21:01
Speaker 1: straight to David Garrity, chief market strategist for a laid
21:03
Speaker 1: Law and Company and partner at bt Block, huge expertise
21:07
Speaker 1: in tech, really across the spectrum of tech. So we
21:11
Speaker 1: want to talk about Bezos moving to executive chairman in
21:14
Speaker 1: a few moments, but I have to start with the
21:17
Speaker 1: game stop saga and basically the Reddit swarm. David, you
21:22
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen next? Who are the heroes
21:24
Speaker 1: the redditors are going to anoint? Obviously they've annointed Mark
21:27
Speaker 1: Cuban to Mouth and a few others, people who clearly
21:30
Speaker 1: have everyone's best interest at heart. So who who's next? Um, clearly,
21:36
Speaker 1: looking at the Reddit mom I mean, certainly champions have
21:40
Speaker 1: come forward, Arguably Mark Cuban has always been something of
21:43
Speaker 1: a controversial figure, has always been out there representing himself
21:47
Speaker 1: as working for the little investor. UM. But nevertheless himself
21:51
Speaker 1: has made a fabulous amount of money being a billionaire. UM.
21:56
Speaker 1: But I would argue that the Reddit mom itself is
21:59
Speaker 1: going to have to be schooled. We're looking at the
22:02
Speaker 1: upcoming testimony before Congress I think in February nineteen with
22:06
Speaker 1: respect to robin Hood's CEO U. There are questions clearly
22:12
Speaker 1: with respect to how social media is being used to
22:15
Speaker 1: disseminate investment advice. UM. You know, from the standpoint that
22:21
Speaker 1: you have when people sign up for robinhood account, they've
22:23
Speaker 1: automatically are on margin and they have the ability to
22:26
Speaker 1: trade options at no cost. One has to argue, is
22:29
Speaker 1: there customer suitability requirements in terms of how investors are
22:34
Speaker 1: able to trade? I mean, we're clearly at a moment
22:37
Speaker 1: here where people are potentially at the risk of losing
22:39
Speaker 1: billions of dollars UH. And the market at the same
22:43
Speaker 1: time has been potentially, at least in some areas destabilized
22:48
Speaker 1: to the extent that heavily shorted stocks have gone the
22:51
Speaker 1: other way. Clearly, they're being shorted for a good investment reason.
22:55
Speaker 1: I would argue that the Reddit mob is going to
22:57
Speaker 1: have to be schooled. Uh, so this market but wars
23:00
Speaker 1: and stabilizes. Yeah, David. Customer suitability, that's a big, big
23:04
Speaker 1: issue when you know, someone opens up an account at
23:08
Speaker 1: a regulated broker dealer, when you sign up for this app,
23:12
Speaker 1: there is none of that, is there? No people are
23:15
Speaker 1: able to sign up very easily, and one would argue
23:19
Speaker 1: too easily, and from that standpoint, there does need to
23:22
Speaker 1: be some regulatory oversight here. Um. I would argue, here's
23:26
Speaker 1: a good opportunity for regulators such as FINRA, UH and
23:29
Speaker 1: the SEC to come and inquire more closely as to
23:32
Speaker 1: how it is that Robin Hood is conducting their business.
23:36
Speaker 1: All Right, we have to ask you about Amazon. You're
23:39
Speaker 1: an expert in Amazon. You've been watching really since the
23:42
Speaker 1: beginning of Amazon times. Who is this new guy and
23:46
Speaker 1: what's the old guy gonna do? Yeah? No, certainly in
23:50
Speaker 1: terms of Jeff Bezos, um, you know, stepping back at
23:53
Speaker 1: the end of the third quarter of one into an
23:56
Speaker 1: executive chairman role. I mean clearly he's not walking away
24:00
Speaker 1: from the company by any stretch of the imagination. That's
24:02
Speaker 1: where the term executive chairman comes into play, but certainly
24:06
Speaker 1: he does have a more strategic focus that he wants
24:09
Speaker 1: to concentrate on to the extent that he's put um
24:13
Speaker 1: the people heading up the cloud operations in charge. UH
24:16
Speaker 1: certainly look for Amazon to become more competitive if they
24:20
Speaker 1: aren't already in that area, in order to sort of
24:23
Speaker 1: fend off the likes of whether it's Oracle, whether it's Google,
24:28
Speaker 1: whether it's IBM trying to encroach, or Microsoft trying to
24:32
Speaker 1: encroach on their cloud territory. So in this regard, we
24:36
Speaker 1: don't necessarily see anything that's going to be a significant
24:39
Speaker 1: change of style going from Zos over to his successor.
24:45
Speaker 1: But we would say in a broader question, now, as
24:48
Speaker 1: we're starting to look at vaccinations gain traction or vaccination
24:52
Speaker 1: efforts gain traction, you know the fact that you've now
24:55
Speaker 1: got Amazon, along with its other three peers among the
24:59
Speaker 1: text majors, now having annual revenues in excess of a
25:02
Speaker 1: trillion dollars. As we start moving towards perhaps what hopefully
25:05
Speaker 1: will be a post COVID world, you know, we're gonna
25:08
Speaker 1: have some very tough comps to deal with in terms
25:11
Speaker 1: of growth year every year sales earnings and potentially stock prices,
25:15
Speaker 1: and you know, might we be looking at a situation
25:18
Speaker 1: here where Bezos is deciding to step aside into this
25:22
Speaker 1: executive chairman role, so we can be seen as sort
25:25
Speaker 1: of going out perhaps at the top maybe in terms
25:27
Speaker 1: of the stock price. Yeah, that was kind of one
25:29
Speaker 1: of my thoughts, h David, because what a quarter and
25:33
Speaker 1: what a year Amazon just put up last night in
25:37
Speaker 1: terms of its re results here. And I guess, as
25:39
Speaker 1: you mentioned, David, there are some concerns that near term
25:42
Speaker 1: comparisons are going to be difficult one, but it appears
25:47
Speaker 1: when you talk to investors that the long term bullish
25:49
Speaker 1: case is better today than it's ever been. No no
25:54
Speaker 1: argument there at all. And I would say that you know,
25:56
Speaker 1: clearly we've had to shift towards work from any where, um,
26:01
Speaker 1: the reliance up on the cloud has only grown stronger.
26:04
Speaker 1: Amazon is the leader in that market. It is a
26:07
Speaker 1: higher margin business than the e commerce side of Amazon.
26:11
Speaker 1: And so while e commerce may not necessarily see the
26:14
Speaker 1: same growth because of a transition to a post COVID world,
26:18
Speaker 1: one might argue that the secular shift that we've seen
26:21
Speaker 1: over towards work from anywhere distributed workforce in dependence upon
26:25
Speaker 1: the cloud is going to work very very much towards
26:27
Speaker 1: Amazon's strengths. David, thank you so much for all of
26:32
Speaker 1: your expertise in joining us today to talk about all
26:34
Speaker 1: of the stories. David Garrity is Chief Market Strategies for
26:37
Speaker 1: a laid Law and Company and partner at bt Block
26:40
Speaker 1: And I think the last point is extremely well taken.
26:43
Speaker 1: We're seeing a whole bunch of shops raise their Amazon
26:47
Speaker 1: price targets today after earnings, and you have to imagine
26:50
Speaker 1: that this this can keep happening quarter after quarters. So
26:52
Speaker 1: maybe this is the top. Are very close to the top.
26:55
Speaker 1: So for example, that Jeffreys the price target is now
26:57
Speaker 1: four thousand from thirty eight hundred, A Pivotal the price
27:00
Speaker 1: target is fifty from Morgan Stanley hundred. I mean, these
27:07
Speaker 1: these prices are just phenomenal. Pole. Yeah, they really are.
27:11
Speaker 1: Just point to the long term bullish call I think
27:14
Speaker 1: most analysts have on Amazon. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg
27:19
Speaker 1: Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at
27:23
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn.
27:27
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Bonnie Quinn, and I'm Paul Sweeney.
27:30
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney Before the podcast. You
27:32
Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.