Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Virtual Reaity Robots Will Be Operating On You: Vicarious CEO

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Virtual Reaity Robots Will Be Operating On You: Vicarious CEO · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Right now, I want
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  Speaker 1: to go to uh Charlestown, Massachusetts and talk to Adam Sacks.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: He's the CEO and co founder of Vicarious, which is
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  Speaker 1: a robotic surgery startup backed by Bill Gates and looking
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  Speaker 1: at us spack um, Adam, I gotta say, as a
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  Speaker 1: lifelong motorcyclist, I'm a big fan of surgery. Is this
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  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that I would need after, you know,
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  Speaker 1: running into a pickup truck? Hey, guys, thanks so much
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  Speaker 1: for having me out. Um so, uh well, let's hope
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  Speaker 1: that never happened. But we're you know, we're targeting pretty
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  Speaker 1: broad applications across abdominal surgery. Uh so you know, yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: I think there are multiple procedures that are emergent procedures.
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  Speaker 1: I'm imagining a robot like from short circuit standing over
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  Speaker 1: an operating table, and I'm sure that's not what it's like,
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  Speaker 1: what do you what do you do? And you also
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  Speaker 1: make it possible for doctors to use kind of a
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  Speaker 1: virtual reality look at the inner abdominal space. Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So you know what we essentially do it vicarious surgical
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  Speaker 1: is we're creating a tiny little robot that goes inside
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  Speaker 1: of your abdominal cavity and allows the surgeon to connect
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  Speaker 1: to the robot using hand controllers in a VR headset
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  Speaker 1: that they wear. It essentially becomes, you know, their avatar
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  Speaker 1: inside the body. They're they're they're beamed inside of their patients. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: and it allows for a you know, a much much better,
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  Speaker 1: much more immersive approach for the surgeon, gives them a
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  Speaker 1: lot better spatial awareness, a lot better ability to operate
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  Speaker 1: once they're inside. This is as compared to you know,
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  Speaker 1: the two main alternatives that exist today, which you're either
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  Speaker 1: either open surgery sort of the classic way of performing surgery,
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  Speaker 1: where a surgeon will make one large incision and open
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  Speaker 1: the patient up that that incision is associated with complication
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  Speaker 1: rates that by the way, it's still the dominant way
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  Speaker 1: of operating today, or robotic well and Adam, that's the
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  Speaker 1: way patients are used to getting surgery right, having a
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  Speaker 1: doctor physically be there in the room performing the surgery themselves.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think do you think there's a barrier
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  Speaker 1: in people being willing to have a robot do this
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing instead. Well, I say this is you know,
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  Speaker 1: one of the handful of areas where sometimes it actually
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  Speaker 1: is best to be the second entrant to the market. Uh. There,
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  Speaker 1: you know that there's an incumbent here in robotic surgery
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  Speaker 1: that has developed a system. They perform about three percent
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  Speaker 1: of the applicable procedures, which gives us a tremendous amount
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  Speaker 1: of white space while still being about a million procedures
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  Speaker 1: per year. I mean, surgery is an incredibly large market.
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  Speaker 1: They're performed all over, all over the country and all
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  Speaker 1: over the world. So there's already been you know, uh
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  Speaker 1: comfort over the last twenty years grown in in robotic surgery,
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  Speaker 1: while at the same time, the incumbents have not addressed
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  Speaker 1: h the real needs of surgains and patients. So you're
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  Speaker 1: going to combine with the spack the transaction combines the company,
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  Speaker 1: the transaction values of the company. I should say at
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  Speaker 1: a one point one billion dollars. It's um going to
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  Speaker 1: provide you with about four or twenty five million in cash.
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  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do with the with the money?
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  Speaker 1: Is this all going to R and D and then deployment? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So the point where we're at now is uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: much more development than research, kind of finishing up the
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  Speaker 1: final development all we've we've been at this full time
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  Speaker 1: for seven years, and we've reinvented the way surgical robotics
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  Speaker 1: work actually from you know, from truly the ground up,
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  Speaker 1: the actuator level of so uh, less than half of
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  Speaker 1: the money total that the proceeds in this transaction will
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  Speaker 1: be used for development, really refining the features and then
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  Speaker 1: getting through the regulatory halfway so that we can get
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  Speaker 1: our systems to hospitals, the surgeons into patients. UM. Half
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  Speaker 1: of the money, more than half of the money actually
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  Speaker 1: will be used to drive the commercial effort and the
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  Speaker 1: growth and revenue that you've seen our in our projection.
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  Speaker 1: Do you work do you work with Bill Gates on this?
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  Speaker 1: What's it like working with Bill Gates? I? Uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we we've had the pleasure of meeting him a handful
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  Speaker 1: of times and actually pitching this to him in person.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, I wouldn't say we worked you know,
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  Speaker 1: cater tate with him at all. We we give him
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  Speaker 1: updates on what we're doing. Adam quickly, I just quickly
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  Speaker 1: want to ask, we only have about a minute left,
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  Speaker 1: but why a speck Did you look at taking another
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  Speaker 1: route to the public markets? Did you look at doing
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  Speaker 1: an I p O. Yeah, the answer is of course.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, I think facts give unique advantage in
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  Speaker 1: that they have, you know, the cash and trust combined
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  Speaker 1: with the SPAC sponsor who brings you know, UH, their
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  Speaker 1: own set of expertise and experiences, especially in our case
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  Speaker 1: having you know that the former CEO of the Shaw
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  Speaker 1: Asia being the stack promote and all the public market
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  Speaker 1: experience that comes with that, and their ability to do
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  Speaker 1: deep diligence, send surgeons out to try our system to
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  Speaker 1: do cadaver lab and then to stand behind all of
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  Speaker 1: their diligence with both their capital and their experience. So
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  Speaker 1: it's it's uh. I think that there's a real place
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  Speaker 1: for spacts UH in the world, and we're incredibly excited
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  Speaker 1: to be partnering with d A. And there's a big
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  Speaker 1: pipe component we should point out. Usually a vote of
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  Speaker 1: confidence there from the pros. Adam, thanks so much for
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  Speaker 1: joining us. Adam Sacks, CEO and co founder of Vicarious
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  Speaker 1: Taker will be r B O T. Don't want to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: bring in strip classis. He is the principal director of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: research at the John Burns real estate consulting firm out
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  Speaker 1: in Irvine, California. And um, Rick, I am desperately seeking
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  Speaker 1: a home in Westchester, New York. Uh as soon as
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  Speaker 1: I can convince my wife we're moving back state side.
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  Speaker 1: And um, I've noticed that the prices are a lot
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  Speaker 1: higher than they were when I left five years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Are we in a housing bubble? Yeah? So good luck
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  Speaker 1: with that search, good luck to really anybody across the country. UM.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we put out a paper on this a
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago called Investormania two point oh. And
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's important take a step back
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and just really just hit on the head. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: housing fundamentals are the strongest in decades, and we expect
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  Speaker 1: to boom over the next few years. But our view
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  Speaker 1: is that we are in the early stages of a bubble,
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  Speaker 1: no imminent risk of a collapse, and honestly, the next
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  Speaker 1: two years are probably gonna be the best years for
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  Speaker 1: housing in in a decade. So the word bubble is
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  Speaker 1: a loosely defined term. How do you define bubble and
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  Speaker 1: what factors are you considering in leading you to this
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  Speaker 1: conclusion that we could be building towards one? Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: I think the one the one element that we don't
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  Speaker 1: have that is usually check off the box where the
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  Speaker 1: bubble is crazy wacky mortgage lending. So we don't have
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  Speaker 1: a knock on both thank goodness. We don't have the
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  Speaker 1: ninja loans, no income, no job, no assets, um. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that's that's the reason why in the paper Investor Media
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  Speaker 1: two point oh one point oh was really the retail
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  Speaker 1: buyer investor getting five plus mortgages, no equity, no documentation.
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  Speaker 1: That is not happening as far as we're we're seeing.
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  Speaker 1: It's much more. And this is the two point oh
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  Speaker 1: much more of an institutionally backed umbrella of investor groups.
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  Speaker 1: And so in the paper we identified two hundred plus
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  Speaker 1: and it's pretty eye opening because most of these groups,
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  Speaker 1: actually the lion's share, did not exist in the last upturn.
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  Speaker 1: So I can walk you through the categories. It's flippers,
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  Speaker 1: it's I buyers. I think like the open door off
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  Speaker 1: the paths of the world, single family rental landlords which
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  Speaker 1: are now institutionally backed um backed by capital really across
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  Speaker 1: the world, pension insurance company's sovereign wealth funds, vacation second
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  Speaker 1: home buyers, foreign investors. And then the last one I
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  Speaker 1: think is when you when you ask that question, bubble um.
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  Speaker 1: This last category, so the theme of democratization of rental
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  Speaker 1: investing and all of these alternative fractional ownership crowdfunding groups
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  Speaker 1: that are advertising themselves kind of like the Robin hoods
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  Speaker 1: of real estate. That's the thing that worries me, I
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  Speaker 1: would say the most, Well, dude, for me, this is
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  Speaker 1: the worst of both worlds, because you're telling me the
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  Speaker 1: bank is gonna be the bank is going to really
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  Speaker 1: scrutinize my financials without giving me a mortgage. But prices
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  Speaker 1: are going up like bubble style, so you know, the
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  Speaker 1: million dollar house I want is going to cost too
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  Speaker 1: sick and I'm never going to get a mortgage. Um.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, do I get with one of these? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: Do I have to end up renting from one of
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  Speaker 1: these groups? There are big institutions that are going out
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  Speaker 1: and buying loads of houses and then renting them out
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  Speaker 1: to people. So I have not yet seen a group
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  Speaker 1: renting out two million dollar plus homes at scale. So
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  Speaker 1: you tell me if you find that, I would love
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  Speaker 1: to hear that. Um. But but I mean, honestly, I
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  Speaker 1: mean we you know, we saw the monster housing housing
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  Speaker 1: numbers this morning, and a big percentage of those homes
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  Speaker 1: and I'm talking single family, they're going to go right
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  Speaker 1: into the rental pool. And I mean this is just
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  Speaker 1: if you, if you follow with the big public builders
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  Speaker 1: are saying publicly, I mean they're selling right into those groups.
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  Speaker 1: The big public single family rental operators are buying ten
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  Speaker 1: to of their homes straight from home builders. Um. So yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I do think that the rental market is going to
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  Speaker 1: capture a lot of this. Well, Rick, I'm glad you
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  Speaker 1: brought that up. Obviously, the data you're referring to is
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: housing starts jumped to night teen point four percent, to
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  Speaker 1: the highest since two thousand six. That's what the data
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  Speaker 1: revealed this morning. I'm wondering how long you think that
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  Speaker 1: strong construction activity can really continue, though, especially as we
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  Speaker 1: look at pricing pressures and material costs, supply chain issues,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: all these inflationary conversations are having Yeah, yeah, no. Homebuilders
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  Speaker 1: are trying their darndest to add some supply to the market,
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  Speaker 1: and it just it takes a long time. I mean,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you don't buy land and slow homes on it the
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  Speaker 1: next day. But I can tell you we're extremely bullish
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the next couple of years. And we've got housing starts
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  Speaker 1: and now I'm stack in single family bulle family here.
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  Speaker 1: We've got housing starts going up to roughly two million
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  Speaker 1: four so we we do expect that we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get back to the oh five six type of construction levels.
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  Speaker 1: And I think it also comes back to my earlier
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  Speaker 1: comments on how yes, investors are accelerating this recovery, but
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  Speaker 1: the backdrop from just the fundamental standpoint is really the
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  Speaker 1: strongest we've seen in many, many, many years. So there's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of runway here, Rick, where you seeing,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: um the biggest price inflation. So if you're asking on
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: markets across the country in terms of home prices, I
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: would say so nationally, our index and this is March
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: data is up about fire and this is the resale market.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at a market like Boise,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: which is all the buzz right now, home presses are
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  Speaker 1: up three percent year of rear. And that's so if
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you've lived and breathed in in Boise your whole life,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you look around, you're like, this does not make any sense.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: But if you're coming out of California or maybe Matt
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you and New York, Boise it's pretty affordable compared to Westchester.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe my boss will let me relocate to Boise. That
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: would actually rule. I would love. I mean, I've never
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: been to Boise, but I assume it's amazing having watched
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of Westerns. I think it features heavily in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Legends of the Fall, the Brad Pitt Anthony Hopkins film. UM.
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  Speaker 1: John thanks so much for joining us. Rick Pelacios there,
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  Speaker 1: director of research at John Burns Real Estate. Uh uh
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Rick Pelasio's John Burns Real Estate UM Consulting. Really fascinating story.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: If depressing for someone in the housing market, it's great
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: for those of you looking to sell a house. We
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: just get over now to Lauren Sour she's an associate
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: professor of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: To talk about UM, the vaccine drive and what's working
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: what's not, Lauren, I want to start off with a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: question my producer samaraw Lnga has often asked, but we
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: don't really know. UM, I don't really know the answer,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and we haven't really gotten a solid one. After you
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: get vaccinated? Can you still transmit the disease? Can vaccinated
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: people still pass it on? It's a great question. I mean,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I think the reason you haven't gotten satisfying answer is
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: because the work is still being done to understand that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I know both Fightser and Maderna have studies ongoing where
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: they're looking at transmission, and so we do know that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it protects you against severe disease, protects you against hospitalization.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And the question you have to, you know, dig into
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: a little deeper, using specimens from the UM studies and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: ongoing following of participants and their familial cohorts, is to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: look at this. And that's the work that's happening right now.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We think the preliminary data shows that it is transmission blocking,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: at least from I believe it's the Fiser and Maderna
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: vaccines that we have preliminary data from UM. But it's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: sort of a wait and see situation where we hope
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to continue to see good data that shows us that
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: it is, well, wait for how long, Lauren? I was
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: looking at the CDC guidelines about you know what fully
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: vaccinated people can and cannot do, and it says until
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: more is known to keep socially distancing, etcetera, etcetera. Until
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: more is known. Really is the operative line there? How
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: long until more is known? Yeah? I think so. We
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: already have the preliminary study. I believe it was out
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of Israel that shows that the Fiser vaccine might block
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: transmission UM, which is promising for the rest of the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: release for both of the m R and A vaccines UM.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So I think the until more is known is actually
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: right around the corner. We continue to learn more and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: more every day about these vaccines UM, and the transmission
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: piece is really important, but it's it's also important to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: remember that transmission blocking only happens when you get the vaccine,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: so UM that all of that work is also happening
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to encourage people to get vaccine UM as we continue
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to learn about this piece is really really important. So
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: UM making sure that people are reporting if they have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: breakthrough cases, going to their doctor, getting tested regularly, all
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that gives us more and more information about whether or
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: not we're seeing transmission happening. So, Lauren, I want to
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: talk about one vaccine in particular, obviously in the news
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: this week is Johnson and Johnson's. Are you surprised that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: there hasn't been a conclusion out of the CDC and
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the advisory panel yet and that one might not come
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: until late next week at the earliest. I think we
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: were hoping to see UM out of that meeting that
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: just happened UM the day before yesterday. I believe it
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: was UM a decision. We understand that, you know, this
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: is sort of science happening in real time, and so
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: where many more people are exposed to the process, but
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it can happen that they want more information. I would
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: love to see an outcome out of that next meeting
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: for a determination. I think the sooner we can get
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: back to giving J and J vaccine, even if it
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: is to a slightly different population. The Better Visor's CEO says,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we'll probably need boosters, maybe even a third dose. I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: just talked this morning to the Cure Vac CEO out
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: of Tubing in Germany. He said, it's it's likely as well.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Are we going to be in a situation where we
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: continue to get boosters from these vaccines. Yeah, I think
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that there's a good chance that we will need boosters
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: for these vaccines. That that it perhaps it will look
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: something along the lines of how we get our vaccine
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: where the the vaccine strains are are evaluated during the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: course of the year and then updated and boosters are given.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think in an ideal world, you could
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: even if we see that this booster schedule is similar
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to something like flu, where you could put those vaccines
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: together and have one, you know, vaccine that covers both
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: flu and covid or um flu covid in RSC, you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: all the all the all of the the sort of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: seasonal diseases that we might potentially be exposed to that
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: we do have vaccine for. It'll take some work. Um
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and you know MODERNA and Fiser are already updating their
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: vaccine that I think MODERNA already has an update based
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: on UM the B one I believe it's the B
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: one one seven variant UM. So the work is happening
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: to update the vaccines now, right, and then boosters will
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: be given. So, Laura, that's the booster. But when it
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: comes to just the initial inoculation as many as one
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: in three vaccines in the US are going unused in
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: some states, some in the South in particular. That's basically
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: as signed demand is slowing down. What do you chalk
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that up to? Is that just hesitancy? I think it's
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a mix of hesitancy and access. So the key with
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: fixing hesitancy is once you convince someone that the vaccine
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is safe and effective and that they should get it,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and they make that decision, you have to make it
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: available for them, UM and they have to be able
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to get it. So making sure that you have vaccine
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: site set up in places that populations that are a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: little harder to reach can access, or people who maybe
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: don't have transportation or can't take off work for half
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a day to wait in line at a mass vaccination site,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: making it easy to get the way we do with
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the flu vaccine UM. And so the hesitation piece is
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: really going to have to focus on messaging why this
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: vaccine is safe, right, reading why it's effective and important,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but also finding out what what is the barrier for them,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: what would do they have concerns about, and trying to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: answer those concerns. All right, Lauren, thanks very much. Laurence
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: hour there from John Johns Hopkins Universe. It as we
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: have learned, uh, certainly during this pandemic. Anyone can get
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: famous on social media, whether it's TikTok, YouTube or Instagram,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: but it's a lot easier to make a living there
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: if you're white. Bloomberg's were needed Young In collaboration with Bloomberg,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Quicktake explores how marketers are under paying black influencers while
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: pushing Black lives matter in this program. In this Bloomberg
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Radio special report, when I first started on TikTok, it
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: was already a big talk about how much the biggest
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: influencer on the app was making at the time. Comparing
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: that to what I was getting offered, I could tell.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Twenty two year old Sydney McCrae is an influencer and choreographer.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: She's known widely for creating a viral dance to Magan
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the Stallion six positive club banger Captain Hook. McCray noticed
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a pay gap in the industry yes soon as she
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: first started making beauty tutorials on YouTube about a year ago,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and after the viral post where she explained her dance
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: step by step, the popular videos attracted more than four
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand likes within weeks of posting. Many of TikTok's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: top stars performed their versions of McRae's choreography, also helping
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the song soar in popularity. Then in April, Megan V.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Stallion herself joined in and McCray started gaining followers by
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the thousands. Now she has one point one million TikTok
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: followers and she's verified. But she and other black digital
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: content creator said none of that talent or impact mattered
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: in the multibillion dollar global market for brand endorsement on
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: social media. As a content creator, seeing all of the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: things that we can do for an artist or a company,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: in receiving such little pay for our artistic creations, it
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: was a slap in the face. Really, boy, that's why
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: your hairline going tobaccio net. Then there's influencer in sketch
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: comic Kinney Knox, who started posting videos on the now
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: defunct six second video app Vine. The twenty two year
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: old followers swelled to one point six million, and he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: became one of the top creators on the app. Yet
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: he did not get any offers for brand deals. But
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: he noticed his non black peers who didn't have as
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: many followers or activity as him did get work with
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the big brands. It was weird because it was like
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going viral with every video, but no company is
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: even looking my way. When it comes to twenty five
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: year old Landon Moss, this influencer and actor once had
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a huge brand deal with a couple of other influencers
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: on the same contracts. I come to find out that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: they had made like devil of what I was making,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and one of them had way less followers. In me,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: it was just weird to me that he had made
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: more money than me with less followers. And then to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: think about like what I was originally offered, Like what
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: did they offer him? He some up the influencer pay
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: gap Like this. Racism isn't exclusive to a certain field,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and so even when you have new fields like the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: influencer industry, it's gonna make its way in there too,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: mccraine mos said Knox tell Bloomberg Quick Take. White influencers
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have reposted their work or stolen their ideas which then
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: went viral on those accounts, but they the original creators,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: got no credit. People take advantage of like black creatives
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: like this trend and it's all fun, and then so
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: on profits off something that a black career started, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: then they get praise and fame, and you know, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: when that's just the piece of us and it doesn't
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: stop there. These influencers say they have to be extra
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: careful about what they say, where, how they look, what
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: causes they support, so they won't offend any of the brands. Meanwhile,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: they say they're white peers get away with more explicit
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: posts with merely a slap on the wrist from big brands.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons why it's been such a difficult
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: experience for many black creators is because traditionally, in Hollywood,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: racial biases have tended to flow from the top. Executives
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: hire white directors and producers, who in turn work with
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: white casting agents who cast white actors. Whenever black talent
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: is considered, it's often for roles or projects that specifically
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: require it. Social media companies have often promoted diversity initiatives,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: but in practice they're not much different. Inter Summer, when
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the police killing of George Floyd forced America into a
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: racial reckoning and sparked an international Black Lives Matter movement,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: brands gained a strong desire to work with black influencers,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and black talent managers started getting more calls for their
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: black creators. Knox interpreted those moves this way. Appreciate the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: brands working with the black creators and starting to go
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in that direction, but it wasn't a trend that they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to work when more black creators because they felt guilty.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Knox Masson McRae are hoping for a more equitable influencer
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: industry going forward. What I hope to see change in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the industry is the black creatives get the credit that
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: we deserve, genuine appreciation for Black creators, not just when
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it's convenient, and even playing field when it comes to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: creators of all colors, specifically black creators, giving them that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: same energy that they're giving the white creators, and they're
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: hoping hashtag higher Black Creatives is not just a trend
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: or relegated to the diversity section, but baked into the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: culture of brands in New York. I'm rent a Young.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio are many thanks to Ronda Young along with
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Take for that special report and Matt and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I are so lucky Rnita is joining us now in
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: studio or joining me now in studio, I should say
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: here in New York, Rnita, it was a great report.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: You're here in spirit, Matt. Where is the sense for
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the reporting you did of where the impetus needs to
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: come from for this to really change in a sticky way?
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that the sense is it needs
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to not only come from a real place, but that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that's really what people mean when they say intentionality. It
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: needs to be an intentional elevation of these black talent
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and other talent of color to the same level that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: their white counterparts see, experience feel. So what about the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the income they generate for um, for the platforms. Have
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you seen that black influeners influencers generate the same amount
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of income for a YouTube, for example, than their white counterparts. Well,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: in the article that Sarah Fryer wrote for Bloomberg Business Week,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it was in our diversity issue, UM, you can see
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: that one of the influencers said he made get this
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: one tenth what his white counterparts made, and he had
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: more followers and more engagement, more content as well. Is
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: there pressure from users on the platform for this to change?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: We've seen that, you know, with investments, investors are making
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: companies pushed towards e s G. Do TikTok users have
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that same power? You know, that's pretty interesting question there.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that there is a conversation going on
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: about that, but I do not know. Uh, definitely, but
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you'd expect something like that to happen, especially as the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: work that you and Sarah Fryer have done gets more play.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for that report, Rndy Young. Thanks for
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Miller three. Put on false Sweeney I'm on Twitter at
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: pt Sweeney before the podcast. You can always catch us
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.