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Crypto-Assets Regulation Is Healthy Development, Need Clarity: Burniske · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Bramowitz. Each day we
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. Cryptocurrency
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: investors seem to think that the asset class is looking
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: bubblicious and bitcoin itself is in a bubble, but they
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: don't see it popping anytime soon. Here to talk about
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this with us is a cryptocurrency investor himself, Chris Berniski,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: partner of Placeholder. He also is an advisor to our
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: investment management, which does invest in bitcoin, and he joins
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: us here in our eleven three oh studios. So, Chris,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: would you agree that bitcoin is in a double and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: yet it won't pop anytime soon so it doesn't matter?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: There are any number of ways we could approach this question.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: On one hand, we could say money is the bubble
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: that never pops and uh as a store of value
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: or or that being one of its use cases for bitcoin,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: there is a lot of demand within the traditional capital
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: markets for a risk off store value, a disaster hedge,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: so to speak, just as people use gold. So that's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: one side of it. Um. Now bitcoin is is off
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: over from its all time highs. Now, there are over
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a thousand other crypto assets right and many of those
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: um are near all time highs. They're not off um
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: although today we've had a correction and many of those,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I would argue are much more in a bubble um
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in terms of where their prices relative to where their
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: actual utility is. Chris, maybe just step back for just
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a second, because I always like to find out, you know,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the definition of these things, like a definition of bitcoin,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and I was trying to put it into a context
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that appeals to my analog brain, and I was thinking
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of stamps, actual physical paper stamps is a limited number
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that are issued, and if you go back in time,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: stamps or even revenue script was something that could be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: traded and could be used for multiple transactions, and at
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: each point you could even place a little snip or
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you could cut away a little piece of paper that
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: would sort of detail who actually used that stamp. Is
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that a good way to look at what a bitcoin
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is or what a cryptocurrency, what role it plays. I
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: think that stamps have some properties which relate closely to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to a cryptocurrency, but um, a cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Bitcoin
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: is more broad in its use cases, and so I
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: really would think of it um per the economic definition
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of a currency being a means of exchange, a store value,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and a unit of account. Right now, bitcoin serves as
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a great store of value, a medio to to to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to low value mean medium of exchange, and not a
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: great unit of account outside of the crypto space because
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: it's so volatile. One aspect that has definitely been present
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: on people's minds is this idea of regulation. And the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: SEC came out last week and said that initial coin
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: offerings in particular look a lot like securities. In fact,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: they are securities, but they're not they're not sticking with
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: they're not following securities laws. How much does the sec
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: is apparent interest in cryptocurrencies, Uh, basically cap the potential
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: gains just because this has been a really largely unregulated space,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and that will change. I think, um, it doesn't. It
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't cap the opportunity to actually expands the opportunity in
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: that we need this space to be better regulated. We
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: need more clarity. The entrepreneurs, the investors, all of the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: all of us are craving more more clarity, and so
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: regulation is just part of the maturation of this asset class.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And and for me, there may be uh temporary jitters
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: um around the sec coming in and enforcement action, but
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: longer term, I think this is a healthy development. What's
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the ultimate goal? Is it for a bitcoin to act
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: as basically a gold substitute, a store of value, especially
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: for people in countries where the currency is incredibly volatile?
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  Speaker 1: Is it to replace paper currencies and replace national currencies?
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  Speaker 1: Where are we heading with this? Well, I'm going to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: pull it back to the idea of crypto assets, which
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: is what I wrote the book on UM. I think
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  Speaker 1: of crypto assets as a new asset class that organizes
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  Speaker 1: human activity. And so the goal, I would argue, more
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: than replacing fiat currencies is replacing equities um as again
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: as a means to to organize and incentivize human activity.
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  Speaker 1: UM around information networks. Bitcoin is an information network that
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: transmits currency ETHEREUM is an information network that coordinates compute
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  Speaker 1: logic and developers file coins and formation network that stores files.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So we go far beyond the idea of cryptocurrencies, which
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is why I call them crypto assets into cryptocurrencies, crypto commodities,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: crypto tokens, and the information networks that they support. Chris,
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  Speaker 1: Cryptocurrencies and financial technology fintech seemed to come together, at
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: least in various news reports, particularly when it comes to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: markets in Asia. And I'm wondering if you could just
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: give us a little insight into what you believe the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: future will look like in a place that is readily
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: accepting of cryptocurrencies. I mean, could we have a cryptocurrency,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: let's say that's even back partly by gold, for example.
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  Speaker 1: I think the possibilities are unless I think, um, you
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  Speaker 1: brought up Asia. Asia has certainly been um, one of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the hard hottest areas for this space. UM. Something that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to get to the bottom of is
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  Speaker 1: how much of this is entrepreneurs and people building real
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  Speaker 1: utility versus how much of this is speculators Because we know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: um that some of the Asian nations have a tendency
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: UM or an appetite for speculation. UM. But certainly in
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: countries like Korea or China where digital payments mobile payments
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: are prolific. I think that there's a high likelihood that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: they adopt cryptocurrencies on a on a mass scale earlier
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: than we do in the US. Just going back to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: what you were saying about crypto assets, I'm trying to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: envision what this means. Does it mean that there could
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: be some kind of crypto tender that could be used
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  Speaker 1: within an industry, like a retail cryptocurrency specific or you know,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: specific to automobiles or something like that, and then you
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: could invest in a sector based uh type of tender?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Is that? Is that what you'r is that where you're
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: going with this? I think that's one way to look
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  Speaker 1: at it. That that would be say sector specific currencies UM,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and you could design properties of that currency UM to
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: fit that sector. And there could even be loyalty points
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: baked into it. There's all kinds of things right These
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  Speaker 1: UM these protocols are really just software that replaced middlemen,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that commoditized middlemen and the functions of middlemen in different areas.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: But I just wonder how much a barrier is of
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: having regular consumers wrap their heads around a different form
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of tender for different types. It's a complicated issue. How
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: do you get enough people on board. Well, that's the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: currency aspect, right, and I don't necessarily know that we
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: end up having sector specific currencies or more these universal currencies,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: some like Bitcoin that are really good at storing value,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: others like z cash which are anonymous, others like light
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: coin which are a little faster or whatever it may be. UM.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But again, to pull us back with this opportunity, it's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: not only currencies, right, Many of these are commodities UM,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: creating markets for digital commodities, just as we have markets
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: for physical commodities. So why can't I trade cloud storage
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  Speaker 1: futures or bandwidth future um or GPU flop futures, and
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: really what crypto commodities things like file coin or gollum
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: or these things. A lot of those are creating digital
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  Speaker 1: markets for these digital commodities. And in terms of getting
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the retail or that the average investor, average user on board, UM,
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  Speaker 1: I think we're very similar to you know, late eighties,
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  Speaker 1: early nineties trying to get people on board with the Internet.
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  Speaker 1: Most people had no clue what it was going to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: be used for, how to be relevant to their lives,
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  Speaker 1: And it is built to be relevant into their lives
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  Speaker 1: by entrepreneurs and Investors. Thanks very much for being with us.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Chris Berniski is a partner for a Placeholder and advisor
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to our investment management and he is the author of
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the book Crypto Assets, The Innovative Investors Guide to Bitcoin
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and Beyond. We turned our attention now to Joshua Green,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: our national correspondent for Bloomberg Business. We can be followed
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Joshua Green. He is also the author
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of the Presidency. Josh Green, maybe you want to give
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: us an update, is if there anything that we need
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to know about the ongoing feud between the Trump White House,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, the Republican Party, all because of this book
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Fire and Fury by Michael Wolfe. Well, it doesn't seem
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: like it's going to be resold anytime soon. Uh. You know,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Bannon put out a statement apologizing to Donald Trump Jr.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Who we described as treason as for holding a meeting
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: with Russian officials in um. Doesn't seem to be much
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: indications in the White House that's doing anything to smooth
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the waters. But I've been talking to people in Bannon
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: orbits who say you know, he is determined to get
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: himself back into Trump's good graces, and you know the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: only way to do that is to keep on a pole,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: lologizing and trying to ingratiate yourself to Trump, who actually
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: does have a long history of continuing to talk to
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: people he's fired and eventually bringing them back into the fall.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So it's unlikely, but not impossible to think that Bannon
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: could somehow worm his way back into the president's good graces. Josh.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: One thing that I have struggled to understand is this
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: all unfolds, is what Bannon's political clout really is. Because
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of people associated him with President Trump's base
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of supporters. Bright Bart certainly was under his thumb. Bright
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Bart seems to be distancing themselves from Bannon. So does
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Bannon really represent at this point the base as so
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: many people initially believed. Well, that's unclear. But it's also
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: what I think drove the split between Trump and Bannon.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: You know, Trump obviously thinks that nobody but Trump himself
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: deserves credit for his presidential victory um and Bannon, on
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the other hand, thought that Trump was a bit on
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a set of ideas that Trump turned out not really
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to believe in that much this idea of a kind
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: of a right wing populist nationalism. So Bennon's project, ever
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: since he left the White House last August, was trying
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: to advance this national movement beyond Trump and he had
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: he had uh spent a lot of time recruiting candidates
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to run against Republican incumbents Canadas who would work to
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: out sent a majority leader Mitch McConnell, who Bannon's thought
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: was impeding his nationalist project. Um. I think the problem
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: is that that Bannon, Bannon's ego kind of got out
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: ahead of where maybe it belonged. And what we what
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna find out from this latest episode is now
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: that Trump has split with him so publicly and so decisively,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: is there really a populist movement that's loyal to these
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: ideas that will split off and go with Bennon or
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: is it really more a cult of personality that's likely
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to stay loyal to the president. Josh Green, what does
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: this do for a potential legislation regarding infrastructure, welfare reform,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: more men, even funding for the US Mexico border wall.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think it does a whole lot I mean,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: on the margins, it might make that a little bit
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: easier to pass. Um. It's going to be necessary to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: do that in a bipartisan manner. And one of the
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: things that Bannon did it Bryite Barton News, was put
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the right wing of the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Republican Party not to come together, not to make deals
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: with Democrats. With that voice silenced or diminished, it ought,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in theory be easier for for the President and Republicans
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and Democrats in Congress to agree on something and move
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it forward. Josh, what about Bannon's allies in the White
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: House or former allies. I'm thinking in particular of Steve Miller,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: does this potentially threaten their fate in the White House?
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Or as Steve Miller effectively got against Bannon and edified
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: his standing with President Trump. No, Trump made clear you're
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: either with Bannon or you're with me, and Miller is
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: very much with Trump. You know, went on CNN interview
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Jake Tapper yesterday, Uh basically was abasing himself to Trump, um,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, behaving like a factotum. In fact, the interview
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: was cut short in Miller. Miller was apparently marched out
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of CNN by security, so he's left absolutely no doubt
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: as to where his loyalties lie. They lie with Trump,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: not Bannon. I think that Jack Tapper at the end
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of the interview said there's one viewer you're catering to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: right now, and he was talking, of course, to regarding
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a president of Trump. Thank you so much for joining us.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It's wonderful to hear your perspective as the expert frankly
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: on Ban and Steve Bannon and giving some color of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: what we can expect going forward and why this is significant.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Josh Green, national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week. Press one
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: for information about your account, press to to make a payment.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Robert Locacio he joins US now. He is founder and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: chief executive officer of Live person, which is based in
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: New York and seeks to make that your experience when
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you call companies, that customer service should be automated with
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence rather than have a real person on the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: other line. Robert, your business has sound tremendously well in
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the past year. Your share prices have surged. Is that
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the future? Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the business for twenty years and working contact centers and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I invented chat and and seeing the change in consumers.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But um, the future is really about consumers be able
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to have a conversation with a human or or a
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: bot or something that's automated. And I think ultimately about
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: conversations will become automated because we want it. We don't
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: want to be on hold, we don't want to make
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: phone calls and these and so our behavior is driving
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: us to do things differently. What's the price point comparison
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: between having a human being answer the phone call and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: read off of a computer screen as opposed to having
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: a machine listened to your voice and follow various prompts.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So it's six dollars is the average UH cost of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a phone call? UM There are about two hundred and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: eighty billion phone calls that take place every year to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: contact center, so about one point two trillion dollars is
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: spent on phone calls. An automated message or or bought
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: UM or even an agent answering through messaging or something
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: like chat is about a dollar fifty, So a dollar
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: fifty versus six dollars, dollar fifty versus six dollars and
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: this and when I go back to this number, It's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: one point two trillion dollars is spent on phone calls
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that we as consumers have to make that we don't like,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and the agents who answer those calls don't like it,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and the company's imagined nobody likes it. It's just hold
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: on a second. But I think the part of the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: criticism of automated responders to these phone calls is their efficacy.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And you know, is this is this a problem? You know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: at what point do you end up on hold at
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the end of a long automated intro anyway, because your
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: request is so nuanced that you do require a live
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: human being. So in the analog world of voice, when
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you try those automated systems, they're horrible. I mean you
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: think about people screaming into the phone no, yeah, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: then it's noisy, right, So this was just another bad
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: This is like bad analog with bad analog, like an
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: automated analog system like voice. But when you go to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: something like we do messaging, where let's say with T Mobile,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you can message to a T Mobile rep. We can
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: see the text, so we we can automate a response back.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: We can bring a human in when it's appropriate. But
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: when you have text, and you have that over a
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: digital framework like like messaging. Um, you can you can
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: do AI, but you're right, voice analog voice. This just
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: needs to go away. I think it's evil. You know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I've said it for me. Voice calls are evil? Wow? Okay,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: are are evil? Can can we just I'm totally is
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it's it's the greatest waste of our time is being
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: on hold. We lose years of our life sitting on hold.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: We all know it. It's horrible. Okay, it's horrible. Having
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: said that, I want to go back to sitting on
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a couch and I key a couch specifically. And I'm
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: wondering if you could tell a story about how you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: launched your first business and what failure has taught you. Yes,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: So I started a company out of college in and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it was interactive kiosks like touch screens for college campuses
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and funded on credit cards. But it went under and
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: in I sort of picked myself up, and uh, I
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: was in Baltimore at the time, moved to New York
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: City and I sub let a loft from a guy
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: who made t shirts. A little space and a loft,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and I had only a couch and a computer and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I ended up sleeping on that couch for two years
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and showering at a health club, uh, down the block,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: down in Tribeca. And that's how I got started with
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: with Live Person. So I mean, what was the lightbulb
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: moment for you for Live Person? The light bulb moment
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: for me was I remember going onto the internet. Uh,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: this is and uh And I remember obviously there was
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: stuff being said about at that time although it was
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just coming especially commerce was just starting. But I didn't
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: see anybody on. There was nobody there. It felt like
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a very lonely experience to me, and that when I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: showed up, but like Dell's website at the time, like
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: there's nobody here. And that drove me to think about
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: how do you bring the human element two the digital element,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: which was which was the web. But on the failure side, UM,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: failure for me has always been I've been twenty years,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: sixteen years of public company CEO. UM. You know you
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: only learned through your failures. So it's it's for me
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and you just can't quit. I always tell other CEOs
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: or entrepreneurs when you hit the bottom, you just gotta
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: work through it and there's another day. But you can't
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: quit at the bottom. You've gotta keep going. What's the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: next iteration of automated response. The first thing we have
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to do is we are working on right now on
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: what we're creating conversational design that feels very um natural.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: So we as humans need conversations. We know this now.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: We need conversations to transact, We need to ask questions
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and on the other side, to automate them. We need
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a way to too create. I call it like a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: poetic experience that a consumer can ask questioning and something
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: comes back that's empathetic, that seems human um, that doesn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: try to fake them out because it isn't human. And
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: so the way we design those conversations are very much
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I say, it's like because I was English literature major, Like,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's like designing poetry. You know, you want to look
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: at the best conversations from the live agents who had conversations.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You want to look at the brand, the brand expression
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in the market and bring that into our conversation. But
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I I can. I I'm gonna make a prediction which
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: people are gonna think I'm a little a little crazy,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: but I I actually think conversational commerce and messaging and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: having conversations will replace great parts of the Internet will
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: replace the web. Websites have failed um Outside of Amazon,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: most businesses don't transact through their websites. Thanks not, there's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: an opportunity here. We've got to leave it there, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: look forward to having you in the future. Robert low Castio.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: He is the founder and the chief executive of Live
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Person and he is indeed live not a robot. Well,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: there was a rousing speech from oprah Winfree at the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Golden Globes, this having to do with the really first
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: major awards ceremony and bringing to the four the me
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to moment. And here to help us understand the financial
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: implications is Deborah Cat's founding partner employee rights attorney for Cats,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Marshall and Banks, joining us from Washington, d C. Home
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: to Bloomberg ninety nine one and one oh five point
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: seven fm h D two. Debra, thank you very much
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: for being with us. Can you connect the topic of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: sexual harassment in the workplace with discrimination when it comes
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to equal pay for equal work? Sure? First of all,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: thank you for having me. And this is a topic
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that is very important and it all too often we
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: siloed the topics of sexual harassment and sex based wage inequities,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and yet they're very connected. Sexual harassment is about abuse
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of power, and often power is abused because you do
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: not have women in the c suite. Only five percent
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of fortune companies have CEOs in those positions, and because
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of the great power disparity, you have an environment that's
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: more likely to allow sexual harassment to continue. Women who
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: face sexual harassment are six and a half times more
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: likely to leave their jobs. And when they leave their jobs,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they're not typically trading up. They're usually trying to get
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: out of a very bad situation, and they often have
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to go to lesser paying jobs and start all over again.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: They lose equity, they lose title, and ultimately they have
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a much bigger loss in economics over their entire career
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: as a result of the sexual harassment experience. So they're
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: very much tied together, Debrah. Can you give us a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: sense of how prevalent the trend that you're describing really
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: is with people with women leaving their jobs as a
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: result of sexual harassment and thus not able to sort
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of fulfill their uh their potential in their careers. Sure well,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: low income workers to be stuck staying in their jobs
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: UM and do not have the luxury and to get
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: out of some very egregiously harassing situations. But I represent
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: women UH in financial services, doctors, lawyers, who are highly educated,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: who are being subjected to sexual harassment, who try to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: navigate the situation, who try to avoid the harass er
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and maintain and at a certain point they may just
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: decide that they cannot live with that situation. And sexual
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: harassment UH effects women in law firms, medical practices, financial services,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and it's extremely prevalent, and it's underreported, and many women
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: reasonably feel that if they come forward and report their concerns,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: they're going to be persona non grata, not only at
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: their particular company, but within an industry. So many women
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: choose to just vote with their feet and they leave,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and they try to get out of a bad situation
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and get somewhere else. And I can't give you a
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: percentage of of women who actually UH go to lesser jobs,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: but in my experience that's that's not uncommon, and that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they wind up landing in less lucrative fields or positions,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: or they exit their chosen careers altogether. And we're losing
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: tremendous talent as a result of it. How much of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the blame lies with HR departments that could potentially respond
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to this in a way that would keep them, keep
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: people there, keep women there. The spotlight is clearly on
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: HR departments now, But for I've done this work for
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: over thirty years, and typically HR partner departments carry out
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the will of management. They're very complicit, and historically we
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: have seen people who harass get away with it because
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they're perceived as star performers, are the big revenue generators,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: and HR is there to help them remain in place
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and manage the people out, manage the women at who
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: have asserted claims. Now we're in a moment where that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: type of behavior is less is less tolerable, and we're
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: seeing some very famous and high profile people UH being
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: terminated in very public ways. But HR departments have been
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: complicit in allowing this kind of behavior to go forward
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: for decades and decades, and HRR officials often do not
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: have reporting relationships that allow them to elevate the issues
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: without themselves having a target on their backs. So we
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: often represent HR people who have tried to do the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: right thing but have not been given to power, or
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: when they made recommendations to exit real star harassers. Uh
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: they themselves found their careers in jeopardy. So it's a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: complicated issue. But um, I think we know that without
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: really a tone, it's top It says sexual harassment is
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: not acceptable and will not be tolerated in this company.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Uh h R officials are really not given the power
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: that they need to do what they need to eradicate
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: sexual brassment within their companies. Debor Cats, thank you so
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: much for joining us. We'll have to have you back.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Debor Cats founding partner and employee rights attorney with Cats,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Marshall and Banks, which is based in Washington, d C.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Pim Fox. I'm
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: abramowits one before the podcast. You can always catch us
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: worldwide on Bloomberg Radio.