Latest / Masters in Business / Bonus Episode: Barry Joins Bloomberg Hot Pursuit!
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Holts and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this
- 0:05Speaker 1: is Hot Pursuit. So today we have a special tree.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Barry Redholts's back again to co host with me. Matt Miller,
- 0:20Speaker 1: our usual co host, is out because his wife is
- 0:23Speaker 1: having a baby this week. So I guess that takes precedence,
- 0:26Speaker 1: and rightfully so, over recording a podcast. But we have
- 0:29Speaker 1: a lot of really fun things to talk about. First up,
- 0:32Speaker 1: Asen Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has sold a minority stake
- 0:36Speaker 1: in his Acid Martin Formula One team. Then we'll talk
- 0:39Speaker 1: about the Formula One race in Las Vegas, which was
- 0:42Speaker 1: a wonderful, glittering circus, so we can get into that
- 0:45Speaker 1: that was fun. And then I want to talk about
- 0:47Speaker 1: this Michael man Ferrari movie that we've been hearing about.
- 0:50Speaker 2: And then let's see I.
- 0:51Speaker 1: Drove the Audi Sq eight Etron last week. We could
- 0:54Speaker 1: talk about that, and then what are you driving over
- 0:56Speaker 1: the holiday? So let's get right to it. Barry, thank
- 0:59Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Let's talk about this
- 1:02Speaker 1: Aston Martin sell off. Did you see the news and
- 1:06Speaker 1: how did that strike you?
- 1:07Speaker 3: You know, it's not a wholesale transaction, it's a minority stake,
- 1:12Speaker 3: suggests ay, you know, F one teams have gone up
- 1:15Speaker 3: in value dramatically, partly due to drive to survive on Netflix.
- 1:21Speaker 3: It looks like someone is taking a little profits off
- 1:24Speaker 3: the top. I'm not reading more into that unless you're
- 1:27Speaker 3: gonna break some news.
- 1:29Speaker 2: No, you know, it's really interesting.
- 1:31Speaker 1: I did talk with Lawrence Stroll in Las Vegas, and
- 1:35Speaker 1: you know, you kind of hear things trickling through the grapevine. Oh,
- 1:39Speaker 1: this is an indicator he's not committed. He's just trying
- 1:42Speaker 1: to siphon off some of his shares. But you know,
- 1:45Speaker 1: he really really tried to reiterate the fact that that
- 1:48Speaker 1: is not the case. He's one hundred percent committed. He
- 1:51Speaker 1: did say repeatedly that the racing team is profitable, so
- 1:54Speaker 1: this wasn't about raising cash. This was more about trying
- 1:57Speaker 1: to leverage some of the other franchise. Is that this
- 2:01Speaker 1: equity firm, it's called Arctos Partners based in Dallas, and
- 2:05Speaker 1: they do on a lot of other properties, so it
- 2:08Speaker 1: seems like this is more of a strategic thing. But
- 2:10Speaker 1: Lawrence really did say, you know, Formula one has been
- 2:13Speaker 1: He used the word transformational for Aston Martin's brand I
- 2:17Speaker 1: think you're an Aston Martin fan. I think I seem
- 2:19Speaker 1: to remember that Barry Well.
- 2:21Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of some of the older dB fives.
- 2:24Speaker 3: The challenge with some of the newer cars is that
- 2:28Speaker 3: they're festuned with a lot of two generational Mercedes technology,
- 2:33Speaker 3: but they're still amongst the most beautiful cars on the road.
- 2:36Speaker 3: And that's the car lover's dilemma. Do you go for
- 2:40Speaker 3: the looks or do you go for the brains? And
- 2:42Speaker 3: Aston Martin has fabulous looks but not necessarily great brains.
- 2:46Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes that's a dilemma, and more things besides
- 2:50Speaker 1: the cars I seem to remember from my dating years.
- 2:54Speaker 1: That's right, I mean we all can relate, right, Why
- 2:57Speaker 1: does it have to be one or the other?
- 2:59Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you know, if you look at the
- 3:01Speaker 3: history of Aston Martin, this is a relatively new thing.
- 3:05Speaker 3: That these teams are worth a billion dollars. The sport's
- 3:08Speaker 3: been around for decades and it's been a wealthy person's
- 3:12Speaker 3: hobby because it's so expensive and rarely profitable except for
- 3:17Speaker 3: one or two of the teams. So I'm not surprised
- 3:21Speaker 3: that somebody has been carrying a team for as long
- 3:24Speaker 3: as Aston Martin group has been carried by Stroll. For
- 3:28Speaker 3: him to say, yeah, I'm gonna sell a little bit
- 3:30Speaker 3: because it's worth twenty x what it was ten years ago.
- 3:34Speaker 3: I don't have any problems with that.
- 3:35Speaker 1: Yeah, And Stroll did say, look, last year, more than
- 3:39Speaker 1: half of the people who bought a new Aston Martin
- 3:42Speaker 1: were new to the brand, and he attributes that rise
- 3:47Speaker 1: basically solely to Formula one, which I thought was really interesting.
- 3:50Speaker 3: That's enormous. That's a tremendous you know. The old expression
- 3:54Speaker 3: was when on Sunday sell on Monday. Sure, and that's
- 3:57Speaker 3: why you have whether it's NASCAR or any else in
- 4:00Speaker 3: the United States. Not a big surprise that when the
- 4:04Speaker 3: team does well, hey they sell more cars. Not that
- 4:07Speaker 3: the purchasers of the Aston Martin DBX suv is going
- 4:13Speaker 3: to be you know, racing that, but the fact that
- 4:16Speaker 3: you could go buy a seven hundred horsepower suv after
- 4:20Speaker 3: watching the team do well on Formula one not completely unrelated,
- 4:25Speaker 3: So I'm not surprised. He mentioned the relationship between the
- 4:29Speaker 3: team and Aston Martin proper.
- 4:31Speaker 2: Speaking of Formula one, did you watch the race at all?
- 4:35Speaker 2: I did not.
- 4:36Speaker 1: I was at the race and it was a success,
- 4:38Speaker 1: and we can get into that for a second. But
- 4:40Speaker 1: unfortunately the TV time did make it a little bit
- 4:43Speaker 1: hard for those of you on the East coast. I mean,
- 4:46Speaker 1: the race started at ten Pacific, so that's a bit
- 4:49Speaker 1: of a tricky time to watch. I think that time
- 4:52Speaker 1: was linked to when European fans could watch on Sunday morning.
- 4:57Speaker 1: I was there for four days, which is probably one
- 4:59Speaker 1: day two long in Las Vegas. But the race itself
- 5:04Speaker 1: there were some hiccups. Of course, I'm sure you've heard
- 5:07Speaker 1: about the manhole cover, yes, and I was actually physically
- 5:12Speaker 1: trackside when that happened. That was unfortunate, But you know,
- 5:16Speaker 1: from what I understand, that in itself wasn't a demerit
- 5:21Speaker 1: on failure to plan on the part of Las Vegas.
- 5:24Speaker 1: But what was kind of a demerit was the fact
- 5:27Speaker 1: that they kept fans in the stands while they tried
- 5:29Speaker 1: to fix the manhole cover until two thirty, almost three
- 5:33Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. They resumed racing at three in
- 5:36Speaker 1: the morning, but they kicked fans out at two because
- 5:38Speaker 1: they didn't have enough staff to cover security. So people
- 5:41Speaker 1: were kind of upset about that, which was unfortunate.
- 5:44Speaker 3: That's poor planning. How do you have contingencies for well, hey,
- 5:48Speaker 3: it's not like there are races where there are I
- 5:51Speaker 3: don't know, crashes and things go wrong. I mean, how
- 5:55Speaker 3: this happens on a regular How how could they not
- 5:58Speaker 3: be prepped for that?
- 5:59Speaker 1: And you'd think, out of any city in the city
- 6:02Speaker 1: besides New York City, what city is a twenty four
- 6:05Speaker 1: hour town that's Las Vegas. How can you not have
- 6:08Speaker 1: another shift of guys you know coming on. It's kind
- 6:11Speaker 1: of a head scratcher on that. But you know, the
- 6:14Speaker 1: actual race itself turned out to be really exciting. Obviously
- 6:18Speaker 1: we all knew Max Verstappan was going to win, but
- 6:20Speaker 1: the race for second was really exciting. I thought, and
- 6:24Speaker 1: you know who doesn't love a Sergio Perez Charles Leclerk standoff?
- 6:29Speaker 2: And I have to say, everybody was in a really
- 6:31Speaker 2: good mood. People were happy.
- 6:34Speaker 1: The logistics were easy, there were signs everywhere.
- 6:38Speaker 2: I didn't have a trouble getting around.
- 6:39Speaker 1: I thought it might be a bit of a circus,
- 6:41Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, Barry, we got to get you
- 6:43Speaker 1: out to Vegas.
- 6:44Speaker 2: I know you say you don't like it.
- 6:45Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to be in Vegas for the market.
- 6:48Speaker 3: Council conference in December, and I actually have the better
- 6:52Speaker 3: part of half a day free, and I'm looking for
- 6:54Speaker 3: something away from the strip to keep me entertained. I
- 6:59Speaker 3: don't know if I could do half day of driving
- 7:01Speaker 3: school at Lamborghini, but that might be fun.
- 7:04Speaker 2: That would be so fun.
- 7:06Speaker 1: Speaking of Lamborghini, our tribal Ferrari, I did watch that
- 7:10Speaker 1: movie when I was in Vegas. I bet you they'll
- 7:13Speaker 1: have screenings when you go to Vegas, maybe of the Frari.
- 7:16Speaker 2: What'd you think of it?
- 7:17Speaker 3: Well, by the way, you lost me at Michael Mann's Ferrari.
- 7:21Speaker 3: You lost me at the first two words.
- 7:23Speaker 2: You're not a Michael Man fan.
- 7:25Speaker 3: I could watch the first Transformers movie if I have to.
- 7:29Speaker 1: Well, the verdict on Ferrari for me was Penelope Cruz
- 7:33Speaker 1: was the only thing that kept me in the theater.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Let's say that she's always great. She's incredible. She's incredible
- 7:41Speaker 1: both her acting and her character. She plays the wife
- 7:45Speaker 1: of Enzo Ferrari, Laura, who actually is really an equal
- 7:50Speaker 1: partner with him. She sort of runs the books and
- 7:52Speaker 1: keeps the house in order as best she can. In
- 7:55Speaker 1: terms of the racing team, and I think Adam Driver
- 7:58Speaker 1: did a good job too with the acting. But this
- 8:00Speaker 1: CGI effects of several different crashes in the film, which
- 8:04Speaker 1: takes place just during nineteen fifty seven, just the one
- 8:07Speaker 1: year where they're really trying to win the Millimilia race
- 8:10Speaker 1: in Italy, some of the crashes just looked ridiculous.
- 8:15Speaker 2: Oh really, it just.
- 8:16Speaker 1: Was so fake and kind of gratuitous.
- 8:21Speaker 2: I don't know, do you. Are you a fan of
- 8:23Speaker 2: car movies?
- 8:24Speaker 1: Bary?
- 8:24Speaker 3: Of course, of course. I watched a YouTube documentary on
- 8:29Speaker 3: the making of the Fast and Furious films, of which
- 8:32Speaker 3: I am not a giant fan. However, one of the
- 8:36Speaker 3: things that was so fascinating is they used as little
- 8:40Speaker 3: CGI as possible. When you see these cars flip and smash,
- 8:45Speaker 3: or or when that Honda goes under the tractor trailer
- 8:49Speaker 3: and that very famous scene. Yeah, those are real drivers
- 8:52Speaker 3: doing those actual stunts. There's very little green screen. In fact,
- 8:56Speaker 3: they won an Academy Award for creating this new type
- 8:59Speaker 3: of rig that allows the actor to sit in what
- 9:04Speaker 3: looks much more like a real car than just the
- 9:08Speaker 3: usual you know, the projected screen behind you, and you're
- 9:11Speaker 3: actually out there doing the stunts as they're filming. It's
- 9:15Speaker 3: really quite fascinating approach. Sometimes you have to forego the
- 9:21Speaker 3: technology and actually get a couple of cars out on
- 9:25Speaker 3: the road and see what's gonna happen.
- 9:27Speaker 1: I totally totally agree. There's nothing that can really be
- 9:32Speaker 1: actual driving. I mean even the shifting, you know, the
- 9:35Speaker 1: gated shifting in the Ferraris, It just seemed.
- 9:39Speaker 2: A little off to me. Yeah, I don't know. Did
- 9:43Speaker 2: you see Ford versus Ferrari?
- 9:45Speaker 3: Oh God, I love that movie. That Yeah, that was
- 9:47Speaker 3: great as a car movie, but it was also a
- 9:51Speaker 3: great movie and if you can check both of those boxes, yeah,
- 9:54Speaker 3: that's a winner. And I'm obviously not the only one
- 9:56Speaker 3: who thinks that way. It did great at the box office.
- 10:00Speaker 3: I haven't rewatched it. I wanted to let enough time
- 10:03Speaker 3: go buy so it was fresh again. But that's in
- 10:06Speaker 3: my list of films to see again soon.
- 10:09Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 10:09Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about what we're driving over the holiday.
- 10:13Speaker 1: I just drove the Audi SQ eight E Tron, that
- 10:17Speaker 1: is their luxury electric big suv. I liked it, surprisingly agile.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Have you driven any of the Audi E Trons Berry.
- 10:25Speaker 3: I have not. I've driven the Takehand from Porsche, which
- 10:29Speaker 3: is the same platform. Yeah, just tuned to be pure
- 10:33Speaker 3: sport as opposed to more functional, but it's a very
- 10:37Speaker 3: worthwhile platform and it delivers a pretty robust performance. What
- 10:41Speaker 3: was your impression of the big Audi.
- 10:43Speaker 2: I have to say I liked it.
- 10:45Speaker 1: And the interesting thing, it's interesting that you mentioned Porsche
- 10:48Speaker 1: because Audi's going to be building a lot of their
- 10:51Speaker 1: upcoming evs on the same Ppe platform that Porscha developed,
- 10:58Speaker 1: So I mean we are talking very very close siblings here.
- 11:01Speaker 2: Anyway.
- 11:02Speaker 1: In terms of the SQ eight E Tron, I have
- 11:05Speaker 1: to say I drove a sportback version, which basically just
- 11:08Speaker 1: means the roofline is a little bit more aggressively sloped.
- 11:11Speaker 1: No difference in the in the performance, but I really
- 11:14Speaker 1: liked it. Ultra ultra quiet inside, like as quiet as
- 11:18Speaker 1: an A eight sedan, and very surprisingly nimble for a
- 11:23Speaker 1: six thousand pound suv. Audi's nice because if you don't
- 11:28Speaker 1: like all of the screens that you're going to find
- 11:30Speaker 1: in a Mercedes and you want something that's a little
- 11:33Speaker 1: more intuitive and less crazy inside than some of what
- 11:37Speaker 1: BMW's doing, out as kind of a nice in between.
- 11:42Speaker 3: To me, I totally get that. Yeah, you look at
- 11:44Speaker 3: how funkified, if that's a word. The things you see
- 11:48Speaker 3: from Hyundai and Kia on their EV side and the
- 11:52Speaker 3: whole BMWi line of evs. They all have like this
- 11:57Speaker 3: attempt to be a little different and set aside from
- 12:02Speaker 3: what the internal combustion cars look like. I'm not the
- 12:06Speaker 3: biggest fan of that the audies unless you know exactly
- 12:10Speaker 3: what you're looking at and say, I know this is
- 12:13Speaker 3: an EV they don't look all that different from the
- 12:16Speaker 3: rest of the AUTI line.
- 12:17Speaker 2: Yeah, and which is good to me. I agree.
- 12:20Speaker 3: I don't think that just because you want an electric
- 12:23Speaker 3: platform doesn't mean suddenly you've given up everything you know
- 12:27Speaker 3: and love about automobiles and the way lines should be
- 12:30Speaker 3: in the way a car should be designed. And I'm
- 12:33Speaker 3: with you. When I first saw that the EQS screens
- 12:37Speaker 3: on the interior that are the size of a small
- 12:41Speaker 3: movie theater, it's like, Wow, that's really technologically impressive. And
- 12:45Speaker 3: then it's like, hey, wait, everything goes through the screen.
- 12:49Speaker 3: Can I just raise the volume of the radio or
- 12:52Speaker 3: lower the fan on the heat? Do I have to
- 12:55Speaker 3: always go through a screen? So I'm hoping people find
- 12:58Speaker 3: a happy medium in terms of usability and ergonomics. It
- 13:03Speaker 3: looks like Audi seems to have gotten there first.
- 13:06Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Are you driving a Mercedes over
- 13:09Speaker 1: the holiday?
- 13:10Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I'm driving a seven thirty seven
- 13:13Speaker 3: to Chicago, Okay, God, but when I'm there. My brother
- 13:16Speaker 3: in law has had a series of very interesting cars.
- 13:20Speaker 3: I used to enjoy his Camaro Z twenty eight back
- 13:24Speaker 3: in the day. The problem is, if you're in Chicago
- 13:27Speaker 3: in late November, those sticky summer performance tires turn into hard,
- 13:33Speaker 3: useless rocks. I'll be in a cls AMG version, which
- 13:39Speaker 3: is it is the beautiful older model that he can't
- 13:44Speaker 3: bear to part with because the new one is a
- 13:47Speaker 3: jellybean and the previous generation has just lovely lines and
- 13:53Speaker 3: a serious bit of horsepower under the hood. He was
- 13:58Speaker 3: looking at a take hand and what prevented him from
- 14:01Speaker 3: pulling the trigger on that is you can't put two
- 14:04Speaker 3: golf bags in the trunk, And apparently this is a
- 14:08Speaker 3: big issue for a lot of buyers. Can a golf
- 14:13Speaker 3: bag fit into the trunk? Yes, which it supposedly can
- 14:16Speaker 3: do in the new Corvette. I never would have even
- 14:19Speaker 3: thought to ask about.
- 14:23Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. Thank you so much
- 14:25Speaker 1: for tuning in. I'm Hannah Elliott. You can find all
- 14:28Speaker 1: of my work on Bloomberg dot com or on Instagram
- 14:31Speaker 1: at Hannah Elliott XO.
- 14:33Speaker 2: That's two h's, two l's, and two teeth.
- 14:36Speaker 3: I'm Barry Ridolts. Check out Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio,
- 14:39Speaker 3: and be sure and check out our new podcast, At
- 14:43Speaker 3: the Money. That's on Apple Podcasts and it will soon
- 14:46Speaker 3: be everywhere.
- 14:47Speaker 1: Matt will be back next week. Thank you so much
- 14:50Speaker 1: for Barry riddholds my special cos today and really the
- 14:54Speaker 1: best friend of the pod.
- 14:56Speaker 2: I'm Hannah Elliott and this is Bloomberg