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State Of U.S. Infrastructure Demands Bold Action · 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. Today, President Biden is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: meeting in the White House with congressional leaders from both
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: parties to talk about legislation. What can they get done.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: One of the key topics, of course, is infrastructure. So
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: is a perfect time to chat with our next guest,
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  Speaker 1: Ed Mortimer, he's a Vice president for Transportation and Infrastructure
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: at the US Chamber of Commerce. And Greg Reagan, he's
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a president of Transportation and Trades Department at the A
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: f l C I o U. They both join us
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  Speaker 1: here today to talk about infrastructure. And let's start with
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you here. You know, from the Chamber of Commerce's perspective,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: what do you think or how much should UH we
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: allocate this year in this upcoming plan to infrastructure? What's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the number in your perspective? Also, thanks for the opportunity
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: to speak from the business community's perspective. This is a
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  Speaker 1: critical issue as we're getting through a pandemic. UM, we
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  Speaker 1: need to have a federal vision and investment to build
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  Speaker 1: twenty century infrastructure. And so we're teamed with my colleague
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: at the n f l C i OH to say
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  Speaker 1: in action is not an option UM. And we look
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: at infrastructure in in a in a in a broad sense.
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  Speaker 1: We look at our physical infrastructure, focusing on our transportation networks,
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  Speaker 1: our water systems, woral broadband, our energy grid UM. And
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: so you know the investments that need to be made.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We need to not just fix what we currently have,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: but we need to know with autonomous vehicles and drones,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we need to modernize. And so you know, the numbers
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: are high, but I will tell your listeners the numbers
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of doing nothing are pretty high. To the average American
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: loses dollars a year due to inadequate infrastructure. Currently, our
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: economy loses seven billion dollars lost productivity. So doing nothing
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: actually cost us more than making the investments necessary to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: provide long term economic growth for our economy and modernizing
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: our infrastructure. Why has you know, I've lived obviously for
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: decades in America, and I've lived UM for a little
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: over a decade here in Germany altogether, both economies have
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: crumbling infrastructure, and these are the leading, you know, industrial
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: economies of the world. Why have we let it go
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for so long? Greg, I think we've just rested on
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: our laurels. We are, you know, we built it up.
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  Speaker 1: We made the massive investments to build the interstate highway system,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to to build out Amtrak, to do UM, to make
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: these big things, and then I think everyone said, well,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: but job is done here. Um. I think there was
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: an austerity period in our in our government that that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is hesitant to make any big investments. And frankly, we've
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: waited too long. Everything has and and unfortunately that's the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: way sometimes government works, as you wait until wait, until
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's right in your face, before the problem is
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: right in your face, before you have to solve it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: But I think we're past that point now and we
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: need to have the leadership and have the federal investments
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: that can can rebuild our infrastructure and make us a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: modern competitive country. Again, Greg, how much of infrastructure spending
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: generally do you think should be some type of public
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: private effort as opposed to simply the government coming in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: we think there is a role for P three's public
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  Speaker 1: private partnerships in our infrastructure. You know, in general, I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: don't think that is the primary solution here. I think
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: we need big federal spending UM, and the states and
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: local governments will meet, oftentimes sharing that cost as well. Um.
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  Speaker 1: There are some places where P threes makes sense, UM,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but I think that is for US. It's a relatively
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: small part of the overall pie. And you mentioned, UM,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this isn't just you know, the plane vanilla infrastructure that
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: we that we think of, um, roads, bridges, ports, airports,
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  Speaker 1: But the bill that the President has proposed is also
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: about childcare and nutrition and you know, broadband deployment. How
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: important is that other stuff to the US infrastructure. So
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of what the debate is going
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: on right now. As you mentioned, President Biden put up
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the American Jobs Plan, which included a lot of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: care economy, and we can again from the business community,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: we think those are important and they need to be addressed.
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  Speaker 1: But I think we're trying to get bipartisan consensus so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: we can actually get a bill to the President's desk
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: this year. And if you look at the Republican counterproposal
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  Speaker 1: that was put up by a Senator Shelling Moore Capital.
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  Speaker 1: There does appear to be some bipartisan consensus that the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: physical infrastructure is something that can be addressed in the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: federal legislation this year. We may be able to tackle
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  Speaker 1: some of those other issues down the road, but let
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  Speaker 1: our view is let's get what can get done this
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: year now, and so that would be more focused on
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the physical infrastructure, and then let's continue that conversation and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: see if there are other ways that we can address
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  Speaker 1: some of the other issues that the President has brought
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: up through the American Jobs Program. Greg, I guess from
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: labor's perspective, what do you think of the top two
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: or three items on your wish list that you'd like
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to give to President Biden In Leaders of Congress here,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we would like to see what you know, the American's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Jobs planned. However, how our Congress ends up finally addressing that.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: But the key part for that is is the big
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: upfront investment in our in our various transportation systems, um
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you know, a stimulative type of investment that will sort
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of reset the standard for our country allow us to
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  Speaker 1: get some of the big projects done like Gateway for instance,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: or the big people I mean gate Gateway. It's insane
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that we haven't done that. We're talking about over a
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  Speaker 1: hundred year old tunnels, um that are I go through them.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I go through them twice a day, and I kind
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of have my fingers cross every time we go into
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  Speaker 1: the tunnels. It's it's it's amazing. And and the fact
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: that we haven't found the you know, in the we're
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: our GDP UH is supported by that region and we
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: can't six hundred year old tunnels, it shows that our
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: priorities are kind of out of whack here. And if
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: you go down in Baltimore the B and P Tunnel,
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  Speaker 1: that one was built during during US grants first term
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: as president, and that has that hasn't been been addressed.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So you know, but we need the big money from
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the federal leadership to get from the federal government to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: get all that stuff done. And then you know, when
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you look at those big projects, they're going to succeed
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: when a lot of the local spending, whether it be transit,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: whether it be other rail projects, highways and bridges, airports,
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  Speaker 1: all of these things need to be upgraded, and they
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: they're going to rely on each other to be successful
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: down the road. All right, and this is UH. This
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  Speaker 1: week is designated United for Infrastructure Week. It's actually the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: ninth annual, but I have to admit the first time
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I've heard of it. What what does that campaign hoped
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to then accomplish? Paul, So, I think you know you
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: mentioned this is our ninth year, and so you know
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: we're glad to see it's taken a nine years, but
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: we're now at the top of the federal agenda UM
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and this year our our theme is U Lead with
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Infrastructure UM. In Action on infrastructure this year is not
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: an option from our perspective, and we truly want to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: see this federal legislation bipartisan solutions that will provide a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: long term blueprint for infrastructure moving forward. Ed Mortimer and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Greg Reagan, thank you very much. This is Bloomberg. Now,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: as fall said, we're gonna bring in Brian Smallock right now.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: He is a principal and portfolio manage. You're at Hood
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: river Hood River Capital Management. They have three and a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: half billion dollars under management. Brian, UM, let me first
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: get your reaction to the inflation print. It was twice
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: as high as the highest UM the highest forecast I
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: guess in our survey, and if you look at the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: core number, the biggest game since Yeah, the inflation is
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: definitely ticking up. When we talked to our companies, you
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: see it across the board. It's not that surprising to us,
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  Speaker 1: given the amount of money that's been printed, how expansionary
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: money policy has been, and the fact that we're paying
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: people to not work. So you're seeing you're seeing wage
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: pressure as the economy is coming back with a vengeance.
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  Speaker 1: So that combination isn't great. I think it's going to persist.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And you have to take an account whenever you're looking
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: at any sort of stock, can they manage cost pressures
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: or Martin is gonna hold up? And as the top
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  Speaker 1: line benefit of reopening outweigh the negatives of cost pressure
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: coming from inflation. Brian, You guys, uh, they're managing. Focus
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: on small cap stocks, give us a sense of kind
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of how they've been performing kind of throughout this pandemic
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and kind of what what's your view of that kind
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of that part of the market right now. So small
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: cap has been extremely strong since the pandemic has broken.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: There's been multiple reasons for that for that to happen.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Small cap companies have more domestic focus, so the top
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: line is held in better. Small cap companies are also
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: more nimbles, so they can adjust their business models um.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And and they don't have as much currency exposure, so
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: so that's that's so that's a good thing too. Um.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: If you look on an absolute basis, the Restle two
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: dozen growth index last year was up almost so it's huge.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: This year, it's not up as much, but you've seen
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a big shift front within the index and within small
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: cap in general, from growth to value. So it's just
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: been more important over the last four or five months
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to evaluation, which it's obviously something that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: we focused on up the river. Will small caps get
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: hit harder by wage pressure? I mean we talk about
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: people not wanting to come back to work if they're
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: getting paid to stay home essentially, and Paul and I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: hear this from you know, hotel operators, restaurant owners, et cetera.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: But the bottom line is, um, if you pay them more,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: they'll come in right, So, uh, is that going to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: hit smaller businesses harder? I think for the most part
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they'll laeable to manage through it. And hopever, we can
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: do it on a case by case basis. You just
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: want to be in businesses that have pricing power and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: can put through cost pressures in a relatively time timely fashion.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So like, for example, if you're a banker insurance company,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: you can do that pretty quickly. Um, if you're selling actresses,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you can take up the price your mattresses if demand
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: exceeds supply. So for the most part, I think it's okay,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but they're going to be surprises and you have to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: be able to manage it. And that's that's why in
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: small cap it makes sense to use an active manager
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: because it's inefficient. You can figure out what businesses are
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to adjust to the dynamic inflationary environment. So, Brian,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I know you guys are overweight financials. Talk to us
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: about some of those regional banks. Why you like that
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: part of the market and presumably seeping in yield curves
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to their benefit. And presumably I guess a reopening trade
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: to the economy has gotta be good for their their
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: loan book. Yeah, exactly, so, so you have loan growth
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that's going to be accelerating in margins which are basically
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: at all time lows because the yield curve has been
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: terrible for their business, and now if that improves, you
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: can see a dramatic uptick in their margins and acceleration
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: their loan growth. And the stocks are relatively inexpensive. When
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we look at the rest of the market, you can
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: easily find a regional bank that trade anywhere from ten
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to thirteen times earnings. Compare that to your typical tech
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: stock or biotech stock or software company. It's a lot
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: more expensive. Those stocks were run up during the pandemic,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and that's part of the reason why you've seen this
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: trade from from growth to value. It's because you're seeing
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: relative value of companies like regional banks. They are seeing
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: their business has improved and they look absolutely cheap. Then
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: your pick is Western Alliance. We like Western Alliance. We
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: also in Try State, which is another one the reason
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: why I like Western Alliance that they've had a good
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: loan growth franchise or extended period of time. They grow
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: their loans north of teen percent. They have a best
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: in class efficiency ratio covering it around. They just did
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: a really acreative deal which we think is over thirty
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of creative earnings called the Mara Home. So the earnings
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: estimates need to move up fairly substantially for next year,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and it's cheap and around eleven tents earnings. You also
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: like Purple. You mentioned mattress sellers, and I thought, what's that?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Where's that coming from? But I see that you like Purple,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and I know they are a few Bloomberg anchors who
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: sleep on those mattresses. Yeah, so the smallest, just about
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: three of them. Uh, And we like it. We we
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: like the product a lot. Uh. It's a lot better
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: than a than a phone mathress, which which tends to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sleep a little hot and loses the shape over time.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Us the only one that has a special polymer. And
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: so so it's so so there's actually no prusch. You
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: cantually put an egg under you soft soft related anyway.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So so so Purple is stealing ship. They just prenounced
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the quarter yesterday to beat on top line, and more importantly,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: they beat on margins. All right, refinitely give it there,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: But that's a good name. We will do some more
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: digging there. We'll chat with you coming up soon. Brian Smaller,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Principal portfolio manager, hood River Capital Management. I want to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: bring in Mike McLane or commodity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about cryptos, and Mike, we do talk to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you on a reg basis about cryptos. One of the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: things we've been hearing a lot more and more of
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the past months is these uh, these currencies or these
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: blockchain systems are becoming regulated and becoming more acceptable and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and and getting into the mainstream, which to me, you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: as a kind of libertarian, red blooded American, is such
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a bummer. That's why I am so pumped about the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Internet computer. It is putting another layer of censorship protection
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: between you know, ethereum smart contracts and and and users.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Plus it's been wildly popular talk to us about this
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: new um, this new system, and it's got a utility
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: token of course. Well that's another thing we both have
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in common, Matt. We both have that Midwestern sensibility. I'm
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: from Chicago, You're Cleveland, right, and you know Columbus Columbus,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: We go Hi, we drive boy the many times in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the Interstate eight. And I'm trying to understand more about
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: what it really is. But what it's what it's catching
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: me and grabbing me is there's so many signs of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, like things kept coming into space like you.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: You and the Internet computer might have a good solid
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: use case. I just haven't dug into it much lately.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: In fact, just I just sent to editors my my
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: theory um Um technical outlook because I want to write
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a primer on that for next week. And then I
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: look at I think, look at then you're gonna love it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I had to say, Mike, you are going to love
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it because what this does it doesn't necessarily compete with ethereum,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: but it helps Ethereum work on a decentralized Internet. So
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you know, right now, if you're using ethereum smart contract,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: chances are you're using it over a website that's hosted
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: by Amazon Web Services or Microsoft, and then you get
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: this big tech governance layer in there that can affect
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: your transaction or um you know, your outcome. But what
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the Internet computer does is um It's blockchain works over
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a number of many, multiple different servers around the world,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: none of which are at any time in control of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: your contracts. So it completely decentralizes um the the use
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of these Ethereum contracts over the Internet and takes out
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that layer of control that you know big tech government
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: would have if you are using it over Amazon or Microsoft.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a win win. I'm so impressed it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: jumped up so fast. UM. And how long has it
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: been around I mean just recently as lunch right. Well,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: they've been developing it for years, but UM, it's only
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: recently UM been put out there, UM on display and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: immediately was brought into trade on coin basically started trading
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: on Monday. It's already worth forty eight billion dollars in
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: market cap, one of the biggest cryptos out there. But
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the token itself, which is what I keep trying to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: tell people, isn't as exciting or important as UM, the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: blockchain platform that they've created, which is the case for
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: so many of these things. I've noticed. It's a coin
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: market kept on dot com. It's number nine. It looks
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: like it's moving up rapidly. But to me it makes
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: complete sense. Is what's happening Like with Ethereum, everybody's realizing,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: oh wow, this is the platform for the space. Looks
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: like this is a major company. When you look at
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: things like Tether, it's most widely traded on the entire space.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Tether is an Ethereum token, and it looks like they're
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: all just complimenting each other and the rest of the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: financial world, like we come back to our own backgrounds,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like us young as older people have to say, which
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: just embraces technology, and that's what I see them as
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: happening Wall Street financialization avances. You say that as you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: look at that list of the top cryptos, what I
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: don't see is a JP Morgan branded one or a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Wells Fargo branded one. To me, it's still as I
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: listened to some of these you know big banks, cus
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they're still not there, are they. Oh no, well they're not.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: They're also And then there's an investment case. You know,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you what's really stilted this year's if you don't add
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: bitcoin to your portfolio, allow your clients to do it,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you're gonna lose money and you may look look really
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: bad ten years from now. But things like dose coin
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you can't. That's just expeculative. So we have to differentiate
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the difference. It looks like to me, we have a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: major use case for intricate net computer and then you
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: look at dose coin that's just gambling, so trading versus investing.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: It looks like in the computer Internet, and it's annoying
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that investments in the investment bucket. It's to me, it's annoying,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you know, because and I'll say this, I'm not long crypto,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: so just everyone knows, you know, I have used this
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: in the past. I might have fragments of a bitcoin
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in a locked wallet, but which because I'm because I'm
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: reporting on it, I never really thought it would be
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: ethical to buy it. I wish I hadn't been so
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: ethical because I'd be driving the lambos right now. But
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I just think it's fascinating and the does coin aspect
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: kind of um, it's a b in my bonnet right
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: because it's it's such a it's a meme coin, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: it's so useless and meaningless. I mean, it's not useless
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: obviously anymore, because it's worth a lot of money. But
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it annoys me when people look at the Internet computer
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: which has a silly name, and then they think, oh,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: this is just another meme coin. Well, this is definitely
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: not another meme coin. I know. We can see that.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: The key thing I think people need to differentiate about
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: things like dose coining. And I have twenty something kids
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and all their friends that's what they talk about that's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: what it's fun. It's like more than kids exactly in
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: their twenties. And but that's what they you know. Just
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: think of the money you might have spent at a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: bar or a restaurant, or to a game, or going
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to the track or going to a casino. Why not
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: we can't. You can do it on your phone with
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: your friends and drink at a bar and double dog
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: there each other over social media. And to me, that's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: what's happening on a global scale. But then I look
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: at it in a computer and whoa, this is impressive.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: But this is part of that rapidly advancing technology overwhelming us.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I can't buy it on DraftKings. I don't think you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: can buy dose corn on draft kings yet. But maybe
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: along with your black jack hands and poker and it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: all a boy, you could pick it up. Recommend their
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: strategy Mike mcloan Commodity Strategies for Bloomberg Intelligence. Thanks for
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: joining us. This is Bloomberg. Let's get over right now
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to Calm Vault. The CEO, Sanjay merchand Donnie joins us
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to talk about what businesses can do using data, maybe differently,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: in order to increase the their or reduce their integrity
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: gap increase their success. Sanji talked to us about what
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: com Vault does. First. Umball has been in the data
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: business since the beginning. We've been around twenty five years.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: This year's our anniversary as a company, and we help
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: customers and what we call that data journey, which is
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: about really how they store, protect, manage and use data
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: UM And we do this through a series of um
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Intelligent data services delivered you through the cloud or on premise.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: So you know, we've been in the data business all
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: through and that's what we do today, all right, Sanja
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: In you know the prior fourteen months, the way everybody
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: goes about their daily lives has been upended, the way
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: we work, the way we learn, doing it much more
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: on a remote basis, was corporate America? Was the average
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: household ready for this from a data perspective, a data storage,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a data retrieval, a data data security perspective, You know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: absolutely not, Because what happened was, you know, I like
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to think, I like to simplify things, and in my
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: mind there were were sort of seen three structural shifts
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in the last fourteen months. First, when the pandemic came
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: upon us. It was all about, gosh, how do we
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: get people working remotely? How does this even happen? So
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, things like firewalls and getting them laptops and
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: changing business process that they could do things. We got
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: through that, um, you know, and then quickly got into
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the phase we said, how do we optimize this, you know,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: how do we sort of really make sure that we're
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: doing this right because this is here to stay and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that's been going where in the throes of that and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: then now we're sort of seeing a third structural shift
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that's happening where folks are you know, quickly moving to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: public cloud services, quickly moving into digital transformational capabilities, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this is where data becomes key. And all through this
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: journey of the last fourteen months, what's really come to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: before is that that enterprises businesses that are looking at
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: data as a as a vital asset our ted would
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: will tend to do better because it's it's you know,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: it really is now the lifeblood, the core capability inside
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of a business. And what we do is all the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: way through we've helped customers really do that journey, you know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: make sure that as they transform, as they go through
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: these structural shifts. Data is front and center, it's being protected,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it's giving them the asset to analyze to run their
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: business with. So I'd say that you know, no one
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was really prepared and just for what would happen data
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: protection or or you know, using data really turned on
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: its head. But we've been resilient, we've been quick, and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: we've been able to as a you know, um as
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: companies don't turn around and help and and really get there.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So I think we're much better today that we were
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: fourteen months ago, and we're not going back. I mean,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: how much of it the sticky sound? I think a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: lot of it is thinking. I think you know what
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: it's taught as is UH. You know that there are
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: benefits and being able to do things remotely. You know,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: you don't have to go into your data center for everything.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: You don't have to travel across the world to have
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a meal with a customer, UH to close the deal.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: There are many other ways you can you can get
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: this done, and I think there are some benefits. There's
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: also some some downside. You know, there's a lot of burnout,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of you know, screen time that that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: people are happy to get away from and get back
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: in person. But I think there are some things in
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: here that exam will stay remote, light touch, Uh, these
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: are these are good things, um, digital transformation, these are
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: good things, and I think they're here to stay. Sun.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: One of the things we're concerned about with more and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: more remote work remote learning is the security of the data.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: And we see that yet again with a colonial pipeline
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: hack and that the problems it's causing. Where do you
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: think you know, it takes me when when you look
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: at the companies that you work with, where are we
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in terms of really securing our systems and our data?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: You know, this is a continuous thing. Um, let's let's
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: let's be oversimplified. You know, the bad guys, what do
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: they want? They want the data. It's not about the infrastructure,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: It's about the data so much. And uh, and the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: new frontier is really is really the digital the digital asset,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: which is effectively, I hope you know, is the data.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So what we have to do is really think of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: data as the assets that you have to protect in
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: different ways. It's not just physically you know, putting you know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: putting bigger walls of modes. It's really really saying Okay,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: what data matters, Where does it live, what are the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: policies we want to have it around, who gets access
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to it? And so it's really it's really doubling down
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: on the way we manage data and the way we
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: think about data. That becomes key, you know, because the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: vectors will keep changing. A few years ago it was
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a different attack vector. Today it's it's ransomware. Tomorrow it
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: will be something else. What really matters is what are
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the core assets, what are the concentric circles of data
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that really really run your business that are important? And
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: how do you protect that your I p H. And
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: what we do is is, you know, you're never a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: hundred percent safe because you know, things just keep you know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the the attack surface just gets keeps getting better. What
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: we have to do is help companies, help businesses who
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: who don't, who weren't built to have Pentagon level defenses
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: sort of protect their assets in a simplified way. And
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and you know, we're constantly from up We don't a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: security company, but where we look at data as being
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the lifeblood of the business and we do everything we
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: can in our technology to help customers manage that better,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: protect that better. UM isolate keeps things better. Um, but
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a constant journey. Hey, Sanja, thank you
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the time. Sanjay Merchant Donnie, he's the CEO of Convolt
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: taking a look at companies data storing the data, are
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: retrieving the data when that data is lost in so clearly, Um,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that is becoming a bigger and bigger issue for most
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: companies here, particularly data sensitive companies. As more and more
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: work goes to the cloud. As we work more from home,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: perhaps learn more from home, more data is being in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: applications quite frankly, are being put up in the cloud,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and data security becomes a key issue. Thanks for listening
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen
• 26:11
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• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Put on Fall Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.