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- [00:00]
Carol Massar
You're a pro at running your life, at committing to your workout, at showing up every day. At Bombas, we're pros too.
- [00:06]
Tim Stanwick
Pros at making socks.
- [00:07]
Carol Massar
Our sport assortment has specialized socks for whatever sport you're committed to running, hiking.
- [00:13]
Jeff Kip
Golf, Pilates and so much more.
- [00:15]
Aaron Yogfeld
Made with sweat, wicking yarns, blister fighting.
- [00:18]
Jeff Kip
Details and targeted arch support.
- [00:19]
Tim Stanwick
Bombas sport is pro level socks from.
- [00:22]
Jeff Kip
The Pros of Socks.
- [00:23]
Carol Massar
For another pro you go to bombus.com.
- [00:26]
Aaron Yogfeld
Audio and use code audio for 20%.
- [00:27]
Tim Stanwick
Off your first purchase.
- [00:28]
Carol Massar
That's bombus.com and use code audio support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures there's.
- [01:32]
Nicole Torres
A fire inside you you can't ignore.
- [01:34]
Carol Massar
Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far.
- [01:39]
Nicole Torres
Now we're here to help you keep going further.
- [01:41]
Carol Massar
Capella University what can't you do?
- [01:44]
Nicole Torres
Visit capella.edu to learn more.
- [01:49]
Carol Massar
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this.
- [01:55]
Is Bloomberg businessweek Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg businessweek Daily Podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio hi everyone.
- [02:19]
Welcome to the Bloomberg businessweek Weekend Podcast. It was a week defined by crosscurrents that included a closely watched U.S. jobs report that came not on a Friday but on A Wednesday and it did come in stronger than expected and it sent US treasury yields higher. We also had the AI scare trade rotating through and taking down sectors throughout the week.
- [02:39]
Tim Stanwick
Also always in the backdrop, global alliances evolving and causing some unease for investors. You can check out all of this on the bloomberg and@bloomberg.com as for us, this week we focus on the demand for power and critical minerals. Yes, because of the AI data center boom and also as the US looks to shore up its stockpiles on everything. On that two mining leaders partner up. We'll hear from the CEOs of United States Antimony Corporation and America's Gold and.
- [03:04]
Carol Massar
Silver Corporation and on that surge in energy demand for AI and more. Might geothermal be part of the solution? More on the race to unlock reliable carbon free power from beneath our feet. With the CEO of Sage Geosystems.
- [03:17]
Cindy Taft
We're tapping into hot dry rock. This is what that next generation geothermal is. So it's rock that has the heat, but it doesn't have that large body of water. And what that allows you to do is increase the geology that you can find that heat. So Instead of the 2%, you're talking about 50 or 60% of the geothermal around the world.
- [03:40]
Carol Massar
And later on in our second hour, the CEO of Angie on earnings and what it says about Americans spending or not spending on their homes, we can.
- [03:49]
Jeff Kip
Tell you that last year we've talked about this before, we saw a big disruption in April, May, we saw things sort of get back to normal in the second half of the year. Then I think in December there was some compression. And if you go out and you look at consumer confidence statistics like consumer confidence was down almost 30% year over year, November, December, and I think the early read was down 20 in January. So we do see some signs that there's some shifts, nothing major, nothing scary, but we do see some shifts in homeowner behavior.
- [04:19]
Tim Stanwick
Also in our second hour, he was there at the dawn of cable. He led Viacom and co created mtv. Media industry veteran Tom Freston stops by to talk Unplugged, his new book on his adventures from MTV to Timbuktu.
- [04:32]
Tom Freston
The idea that, you know, you could compete with something like Vevo and YouTube where people could get any video they wanted on demand on the Internet. Once the Internet was capable of really streaming video in full force was, you know, it was an unattractive proposition. So you, you ended up with what you have today, which is a network bereft of music, whose name used to.
- [04:54]
Tim Stanwick
Be music television, plus longevity, tourism Social saunas and the boom in wearables. Our Bloomberg pursuits team on the quest to live longer and what we give up along the way.
- [05:05]
Carol Massar
All of that to come. We begin with a company whose stock is one of the best performing in the S&P 500 this year. Generac, the maker of home and industrial power systems, you know, things like generators, missed fourth quarter Wall street estimates when it reported this past week with both revenue and earnings per share lower.
- [05:23]
Tim Stanwick
Despite the soft numbers, its stock actually rallied after the company forecast a 2026 EBITDA margin range with a midpoint above analyst consensus driven by stronger demand from data centers and commercial customers. Breaking it all down for us, the chairman, president and CEO of Generac, Aaron Yogfeld.
- [05:40]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, so the back half of the year we actually had a lot less outage activity. So our residential business, you know, for portable generators, home standby generators, really depends heavily on mother Nature honestly to, to help us drive demand for those products. And so it was a very quiet back half of the year. The fourth quarter in particular back half of the year was 90% lower in outage hours versus the year before. So sometimes that happens and you know we guide based on kind of average outage activity and we got a lot of below act below outage activity in the quarter.
- [06:09]
Carol Massar
Well, it's interesting, you know, so what gives you confidence around mid teens growth when the weather has been the primary culprit for weak residential sales in 2025?
- [06:18]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, so on the residential side, you know, obviously we think a return to normal average environment that will happen. I mean we will get ice storms again. We have one in January right. With, with winter storm Fern. So we're off to a good start here this year. And so we feel like, you know, we're going to return to more normal kind of outages and more normal patterns if you will. We've got some pricing in there as well. You know, the consumer for our products is pretty healthy still. You know, I think there's concerns about the consumer across the broader economy. But when your power goes out, you know, these products tend to become a priority for households. So you know, we're not very worried about, about the consumer's health for at least for our category.
- [06:57]
Carol Massar
Yeah.
- [06:57]
Tim Stanwick
Erin, explain the consumer behavior here. Is it that a consumer without a generator goes through a power outage in the middle of winter or the middle of the summer and says I never want to experience this again and you know, when they get power back they call somebody to install a generator? Is that how it works?
- [07:13]
Aaron Yogfeld
You've got It Right. And in fact, I would just point this out. You know, winter outages tend to drive people to that point a lot faster than summer outages. When you have an outage in the summer, you know, maybe it's nice enough and temperate enough outside. Open the windows and you kind of push through and survive in the dark if you had to. Winter is a whole different ballgame if you lose your power in the wintertime, especially if you live in the northern states or, or in the case with winter storm fern, Even in the southern states where you had, you know, just tremendously cold weather, you get pipes that freeze, you get a lot of damage in your home and a lot of things just, you know, your home becomes unlivable.
- [07:44]
Carol Massar
There's kind of an assess moment there for Tim reaching. It happened to him. No power during the cold weather. Hey, what I want to ask you is investors are really noticing the forecast. Your 2026 EBITDA margin range. How much of what's going on, the growth, the magnitude. Is it all because of data centers?
- [08:05]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, I mean, obviously, largely the headline here is our entry into the data center market. We started shipping products, our first products in the fourth quarter and we're ramping, we're going to scale this year. We're having some very meaningful conversations as we work towards final contract negotiations with a number of hyperscale customers. And, you know, this is going to be for us, it's a generational opportunity. You know, the backup power that is required by each data center site. I mean, you can literally have hundreds of large gensets sitting there waiting for outages to happen. And the project sizes are enormous and the opportunity is equal to that.
- [08:42]
Carol Massar
Is this all about the large megawatt, megawatt generators? Is it all about that? That's what the demand is for. Like I want you to get into. What is the AI play for you guys?
- [08:52]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, for the most part. So there's, for us, there's a direct AI play which is, you know, you build a data center, you need to have backup power because even a second of downtime there are, you know, there are requirements, commitments that they've made to their customers and their penalties and things that kick in if they can't supply information or the, you know, the AI models different, you know, depending on what they've contracted that data center out to do. Basically, they've got to have continuous source of power, so they invest in backup generators for those facilities. And that's a product that we're new into and that's a huge opportunity the indirect side of data centers is pretty interesting though. And as more data centers come online, you're going to see a lot more requirements for power. Right. Demand is going to grow for electricity. We have supply constraints in particular. Particular there are parts of the grid around the US like PJM as an example up in the Northeast.
- [09:39]
Carol Massar
Yeah.
- [09:39]
Aaron Yogfeld
You know, this is a major concern on very hot days, very cold days. Going forward you're going to see more brownouts, more blackouts and that's going to lead obviously to more opportunities for us in some of our core products like home standby generators for homeowners and other generators for businesses and things like that.
- [09:56]
Tim Stanwick
So, okay, so we each have a million questions that we want to.
- [09:59]
Carol Massar
You want to go back to residence?
- [10:00]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:02]
Carol Massar
Tim might be shopping for a generator.
- [10:05]
Tim Stanwick
There's an interesting thing happening in, in some parts of the country and you know, I don't want to get in the details of new laws in New York City for example, but some places are, you know, years ago, few years ago argued that we want to just get rid of gas lines in general and don't want fossil fuel hookups within new buildings. So new construction in some parts of the country doesn't have any gas. How do you account for that with a product that you know, you want to have connected to a continuous gas line?
- [10:36]
Aaron Yogfeld
Right. I mean obviously you can use lp. Right. So if you have an LP tank or a propane tank, that works just as fine. In fact, a lot of our installations in parts of the country like Florida, you know, homes down there don't have connections to, you know, a gas line because it's just, it's untenable for them to be able to put that infrastructure in. So you know what's interesting, like in policy driven areas like New York, when it comes to let's not have new net, new nat gas hookups, oddly enough, you can still have a propane gas hookup. So you know, those are the ways to kind navigate around some of those challenges. And again, you're using it for an emergency. Right. This is not a continuous use product. So you know, I think really cooler heads should prevail when it comes to certain policies like that. I mean, you want to make sure that homeowners, businesses have access to emergency backup solutions. Right. Backup power, backup, you know, batteries, things of that nature. And those are the things that I think we've got to be careful of when we do policy related things like, like, you know, no net gas, new hookups and sometimes there's unintended consequences of that. And we've got to be careful about that.
- [11:33]
Carol Massar
Hey Aaron, you guys have been expand and earlier this year you talked about the acquisition of a new facility in Sussex, Wisconsin and you are quoted in that release saying our commitment to aggressively invest in serving this booming segment offers a generational. Generational opportunity. You've used that word before for generous with the potential of doubling our sales of CNI products in the next three to five years. How confident are you on this? Is it likely more on the conservative side or more on the optimistic side?
- [12:02]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, it's interesting when we. So we've been having these high quality conversations with data center co locators and hyperscale operators and you know, there's obviously a massive deficit of supply for backup power generation today based on all the things that are on the drawing board to go on the ground for new data center construction in the years ahead. So our entry into this market, you know, we came into the market, we thought there'd be some interest in the product, but we maybe undersized that.
- [12:28]
Cindy Taft
Yeah.
- [12:28]
Aaron Yogfeld
And to be, to be blunt, you know, we went ahead and we, we acquired a new facility and with an. Towards doubling our capacity. We said on our third quarter call we thought we had about $500 million of global capacity to serve the data center market. We now have doubled that to over $1 billion with the acquisition of that plant and some of the other investments we're making. This is a, again, we keep using that word generational, but it's true, you know, sometimes in business, you know, you can be with a company like I have for over 30 years and, and maybe never see something as, as interesting as this in terms of opportunity. And I just, it feels like one of those moments that we have got to go after this. And you see it, I mean look, you see what other industries are dealing with H Vac, you're seeing other power companies and things that, you know, the, the infrastructure needed to handle the data center boom. That's, that's $650 billion. Right. Of hyperscale dollars that are going to go to, to work here on cap capital expenditures in 2026. They're going to go into things like generators and H Vac equipment and cabling and all the things that make make these centers real.
- [13:27]
Tim Stanwick
Aaron, we only have about 30 seconds left, but a lot to hit just in the last bit of time that we have with you. All the challenges of doing this in the United States, doing this domestically, finding labor for this, the biggest challenge for you as, as you're running this business right now.
- [13:42]
Aaron Yogfeld
Absolutely. The biggest challenge for us is, you know, the continuing shortage of labor. There's no question that, you know, in terms of the number of people that are going into manufacturing, from a career standpoint, that continues to be a real challenge. And of course now with trade policy being what it is, you know, there's a lot of things that are coming back onshore, which is great, but it just puts a lot more, that much more pressure on the labor force.
- [14:03]
Carol Massar
It's a shame you're not optimistic, Eric.
- [14:07]
Aaron Yogfeld
I try not to be. I try to be conservative.
- [14:10]
Carol Massar
Listen, we so appreciate it all the time you always give us. Be well, Aaron. Yeah, he's Chairman presidency of Generac.
- [14:20]
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures hi, I'm.
- [15:22]
Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but.
- [15:27]
Nicole Torres
Like I never liked being told, oh wow, you look so good for your age.
- [15:31]
Carol Massar
Like why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look.
- [15:35]
Nicole Torres
Great at any age? Every age.
- [15:37]
Carol Massar
That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now.
- [15:46]
Nicole Torres
Meaningful Beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningfulbeauty.com.
- [15:56]
Aaron Yogfeld
Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it. You are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's O D O O.com you're.
- [16:58]
Carol Massar
Listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [17:11]
Tim Stanwick
Hey, I want to talk a little bit about energy. So in October, Bloomberg reported on how for the first time in years the US Federal government has leased every parcel of public land it's open for geothermal development and at record price prices on that. Just last month, Bloomberg's Michelle Ma reporting that Ormond Technologies, one of the world's biggest geothermal energy developers, co led a $97 million Series BE funding round for a company that's tapping hot rocks to generate electricity.
- [17:35]
Carol Massar
Yeah, that startup, Sage Geosystems, it is one of the companies leading the push to utilize innovative technology to really harness energy from the ground and meet surging power demand from artificial intelligence. You know from everything that we've talked about that this demand to build out AI data centers means a lot of power is needed. And whether it's going to be solar or nuclear or carbon based, we need it all geothermal as well. So let's get more on the company. For that we do head to Houston, Texas and to Cindy Taft. She's CEO of Sage Geosystems. She spent more than three decades in the oil and gas industry, including most recently as VP of unconventional wells and Logistics over at Shell. She's had teams around the globe. We are so delighted to have you here. We've been looking forward to having you on. Tell us a little bit about your company.
- [18:22]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I love talking about next generation geothermal. So yeah, we founded Sage about five years ago. So as you described, my background is Oil and gas. My co founders, Levering and Lance Cook, their background is oil and gas. However, they spent their careers doing something a little bit different than I did. They are the scientists, the innovators. So they created a lot of very challenging technologies for the oil and gas industry. And so, so we're using that knowledge of the subsurface and of our oil and gas background to advance what we're calling next generation geothermal. What the industry calls next generation geothermal.
- [19:01]
Tim Stanwick
Okay, so people think of geothermal, they think of the. Okay, I'm sorry to Bruce, my freshman year geology teacher, because I'm going to butcher this a little bit. But they think of the.
- [19:12]
Carol Massar
Don't do it, don't do it.
- [19:13]
Tim Stanwick
You know, the warm temperatures of the. As you go further down when you drill and using that heat water to generate steam. Correct.
- [19:22]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, Tim. So maybe just a brief overview.
- [19:26]
Tim Stanwick
So she's like, she's like, yeah, I give you like a C minus, but I'll just take it from here. Okay, go ahead.
- [19:31]
Cindy Taft
But no, when most people think about geothermal, even myself, when I still at Shell, you think about Iceland or the Geysers of California. So that, that's conventional geothermal. That's where you're drilling into a hot pocket or pool of water that's just below the surface. It's very convenient if you have a volcano or the ring of fire in your backyard, because that is the circumstances that you need for that very unicorn geology to find the conventional geothermal. So the challenge is it represents only about 2% of the geothermal around the world. What SAGE is doing, and there's other companies of course in the industry, is we're tapping into hot, dry rock. This is what that next generation geothermal is. So it's rock that has the heat, but it doesn't have that large body of water. And what that allows you to do is increase the geology that you can find that heat. So Instead of the 2%, you're talking about 50 or 60% of the geothermal around the world. And the only reason why it's not 100% is because in some areas, like eastern US the heat is there, but it's very deep and just not economic to drill for.
- [20:48]
Carol Massar
Hey, my understanding is we've seen alphabets, Google Meta platforms among the data center operators who have actually inked deals with geothermal companies to provide the power. Meta is a partner with you guys. Tell us about that partnership. And what does inking a deal mean? Like, are they ponying up money? Are they helping you in development? And I'm also curious, how much power can geothermal ultimately provide and how long does it take to kind of ramp up?
- [21:17]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, so no, great question. So, yes, we have a term sheet with Meta. So we are going to be. That will become a virtual ppa. So we'll be building geothermal in the vicinity of one of their data centers, but we'll be putting it on the same grid that they're taking power off of. So that gives us flow flexibility on location, but it's still a virtual ppa.
- [21:40]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah, Power purchase agreement.
- [21:42]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, sorry, virtual power purchase agreement. That's exactly right. So we like the flexibility of not having to necessarily put the power in the backyard of the data centers, although into the future that seems to be probably the solution that we're all headed for. So that you don't congest the grid. And so that's what our agreement with Meta is. Now to your other question. What is the resource? What's the size of the resource? So when we talk about conventional geothermal, again, those large pools of hot water just below the surface, you're talking about 40 gigawatts, but if you can expand it to this, you know, hot dry rock, you're talking about between 5 and 7 terawatts. And this is in the lower 48 US only. So if you do that around the world, you know, the resource potential is huge.
- [22:36]
Tim Stanwick
So I'm curious about sort of these, these PPAs that you have and why we're not necessarily hearing as much from the government about this type of, of energy development versus natural gas. And of course, nuclear geothermal doesn't seem to get a lot of love.
- [22:59]
Cindy Taft
Lot more love as of late. So one thing I will say is geothermal has always been supported by both sides of the aisle. The current administration, especially with Chris Wright as the Energy secretary, he is very familiar not only with conventional geothermal, but with next generation geothermal and the resource growth that you can have in that area. And so you've seen geothermal in a couple of the executive orders. It's actually very well supported in the one big beautiful bill. So, you know, I think geothermal is coming into a huge momentum, supported, you know, supported by not only the last administration, but also very much by this administration.
- [23:46]
Carol Massar
We're talking with Cindy Taft, she's chief Executive officer of Sage Geosystems, joining us from Houston, Texas. Our Bloomberg NEF folks who track all things energy have noted that the primary downsides of geothermal energy include high upfront capital costs, long project development timelines and potential seismic risks. So Earthquakes from drilling. Can you address those?
- [24:08]
Cindy Taft
Yeah. So it is an infrastructure, you know, projects. So yes, upfront capital costs are large, just like a lot of infrastructure projects. Timelines can be longer. I mean, you know, if you want to invest, say in a software, you know, you're going to know and say six months whether that software is going to be successful in an infrastructure project, it's going to be two or three years until you know that that is successful. As far as earthquakes. Yeah, I'd actually like to talk about that. And so really depends on how you're operating in the subsurface. So the earthquake and tremors that you have seen from say the oil and gas industry or other industries is when they're pumping water continuously or any type of fluid into the subsurface and it will find its way to natural faults and fractures that are connected to what they call the basement rock. It'll lubricate those fractures and make those fractures slide or slip. And that's what results in the earthquake. What we're doing, we are using fractures to harvest the heat because in a matter of a week you can create very large surface contact areas with those fractures. But the way we're operating our fractures is we're putting water into that fracture, but then we're taking it out. We're putting it in and we're taking it out. And so we're not pumping volume upon volume into that subsurface, meaning that we're not going to. We have less likelihood of connecting to these natural faults which would result in the earth earthquake. So I think the, the risk, at least for the way we operate our fractures at Sage is a lot lower than what you're seeing in the oil and gas industry, in particular in the disposal of water, which is a waste product for the oil and gas.
- [25:58]
Tim Stanwick
Oh, okay. So that's what I want to talk about. As Carol always says, there's, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And you know, coming from the American west and growing up in drought stricken California, I'm curious about where you can do this, where there is an abundance of water. So you're not actually using that natural resource?
- [26:15]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, Tim, it's a great question. We do need water. We, I will say that the water needed for our operations is less than a coal plant. It's less than combined cycle natural gas. And that's because we are reusing the water. We're putting it into the subsurface to harvest the heat or absorb the heat, and then we're using it as a carrier to bring that heat to surface and then we turn around and we pump it back into the subsurface. And so in our geothermal applications, that water stays in a pressurized system. So the losses are what we've measured is less than 2%. So you don't have to use a lot of makeup water because you're not losing a lot of water to the production of the energy. So we do need upfront water volumes. But again, those losses being less than 2%, the makeup water is very immaterial.
- [27:08]
Carol Massar
Hey, Cindy, just got about 30 seconds. I mean, ultimately it comes down to we saw this with solar and wind, cost comparisons between that alternative energy and existing forms of energy, and also the financial viability. So where does geothermal fit in? Does it have a ways to go before it can be like, oh, well, this makes sense financially.
- [27:27]
Cindy Taft
Yeah, Carol, I think we are where wind and solar were 15 years ago right now, 10 to 12 cents a kilowatt hour if you're above scale, that can be driven down to 6 to 7 cents a kilowatt hour at scale.
- [27:42]
Carol Massar
Cool stuff. Stay in touch. Love this. Love this. Cindy Taft, Chief Executive officer of Sage Geosystems, joining us from Houston, Texas.
- [27:51]
This is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business and app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130.
- [28:09]
Well, you might recall earlier this month Bloomberg exclusively writing reporting out that President Trump was set to launch a strategic critical mineral stockpile with $12 billion in scene money, all in a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the US Works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals. Meantime, you see a lot of companies doing deal in the space too.
- [28:30]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah, on that, shares of America's Gold and Silver Corporation rallied as much as 8%. This after the miner said it would partner with United States Antimony to construct and operate an antimony processing plant in Idaho. Some details here and then we're going to get to the conversation. Facility will be 51% owned by America's gold and silver and 49% owned by US antimony. It'll be located in the Silver Valley in Idaho.
- [28:53]
Carol Massar
All right, so let's get to it. Great to have with us Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of United States Antimony Corporation. It's a $1.1 billion market cap miner, producer and seller of antimony products. It's based in Montana. Stock is up 66% year to date. About 21% of the float short. Also with us is Paul Andrea Hewitt. He is chairman and CEO of the $2.6 billion market cap precious metal miner based in Ontario, Canada. It is America's gold and silver Corporation. That company's shares are up about 61% year to date. Gary and Paul both joining us here in studio. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Tell us about this joint venture, the financial aspects, how it actually logistically works down, and what it means in terms of critical minerals in the US and just kind of elsewhere. So whoever wants to pick it up.
- [29:39]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Yeah, I'll just start. So look, this, this joint venture, we've been working on it actually not that long, to be very honest. Actually, Gary and I were talking about it. We met about a month ago. One month ago, we met both teams assembled at the mine site in Idaho. His executive team, my executive team. We were signing documents late last night with our legal teams, both of us, at 10:30 at night, finalizing this. And this is a transformational deal, actually. This allows us to supply a product, antimony, to the US from the beginning right to the end. So us, Gary's the expert in the antimony world. We're the experts in the mining world. And what we have is a mine, the Galena mine in Idaho. Right now we've got about 330 employees. We just bought a second mine in Idaho. We closed it in December. So we bought the original one, transferred the whole management team and made some big upgrades in capital. What we're doing is revolutionizing this mine. This mine's been around for a long time, and it produces five critical minerals. So we produce silver, copper, antimony, lead, and then a small amount of gold. But they're all five critical minerals, which is very, very important. This deal is very important to us and us miners and to the US as a whole, because we need 50 million pounds of antimony per annum, and we're not even close to producing it, not yet. So this will allow us to start chewing away and getting some of that antimony produced domestically.
- [31:07]
Tim Stanwick
So, Paul Andrea Hewitt giving us the America's Gold and Silver Corporation view. Gary Evans, come on back in here and talk about why this deal made sense for you at US Antimony.
- [31:18]
Gary Evans
Well, as you know, we're the only two. We have the only two smelters for antimony in North America, so Montana and Mexico. And currently we're getting most of our supply from foreign sources. We get it right from the country of Chad, Peru, Bolivia, Australia, Chile, Mexico. And we are looking for homegrown antimony we are already processing Paul's antimony through another facility up in Canada. We receive that and we can make antimony trisulfide out of it. So the idea, when we met a month ago, met, our two management teams got together, we immediately said look, this is an easy answer. We'll put our new technology we developed in Bolivia. Last year we made the first commercial grade antimony hydromet facility. And it's now we receive 150 tons a month of antimony from that facility. We can duplicate that in the United States. So we have the technology, we have the patents, we have the license for North America and Australia. He has the land, he has the supply. So it was a marriage made in heaven.
- [32:25]
Carol Massar
So why weren't you processing here in.
- [32:27]
Gary Evans
The U.S. well, we are processing, but it's using foreign supplies. So he has domestic supplies which the country doesn't have.
- [32:35]
Carol Massar
So this new. So the processing facility that you're going to be building. Yes, give us timeline. When is it going to be running up at commercial space?
- [32:43]
Gary Evans
That's a great question. He fortunately has all the permits, so we, so we are in the construction engineering phase now. We should start within 90 days, be done in a year.
- [32:54]
Carol Massar
Wow. So in a year. Yeah, it's up and functioning.
- [32:56]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
If you think about the last one. Sorry to interrupt. The last one that was built in the US was built in 1942 at that same area in Silver Valley and it took six months to build it. During World War II that was actually built. Gary's team just built one in six months in Bolivia. So. So these are not massive facilities, but they're very important. So we will, once we get the, once we get the engineering stages and everything done and we start construction, it'll go pretty quick from that time.
- [33:25]
Tim Stanwick
Carol mentioned Project Vault earlier this month, Bloomberg exclusively reporting out that President Trump set to launch a strategic critical mineral stockpile with $12 billion in seed money. Gary, have you been in touch with the White House, the administration at all about this? How much antimony do you expect the stockpile will hold?
- [33:42]
Gary Evans
Well, we currently have a contract with the DLA, which is Department of War for $245 million to deliver antimony ingots. Which is like a gold bar. It's an antimony bar. It's serial stamped. We put it on a pallet, we shrink wrap it and we send it to the government. It's strictly for inventory for all the subcontractors of the government. Could be Boeing, Northland, could be General Motors. They need antimony to make their products. So we are the, the stockpiler for the government. And we're the only approved company. In fact, when it went out to gov.com it said United States and Timoni Corporation is the only company capable of bidding on this contract. And so the fact that we've been around 50 something years, we can do this. And so now we can take America's gold, silver's antimony through our new hydromet process and do the same thing.
- [34:32]
Tim Stanwick
Have you talked to the White House just in the last few months about this?
- [34:35]
Gary Evans
Well, General Jack Keane, I don't know if you know who he is. He's on our board of directors and so he's been very helpful. We've already won the DLA contract. We have a Department of War grant coming with our now new joint venture. We're filing a new white paper with the Department of War. We filed a grant request, the Department of Energy, for $45 million January 15th. So we are constantly in the mix seeking capital, capital to help grow this enterprise.
- [35:03]
Carol Massar
We're talking with Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of U.S. antimony, and Paul Andre Huitt at CEO at America's Gold and Silver Corporation. Without the U.S. support and backing, would this be happening?
- [35:14]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Yeah, look, there's no doubt what's happening now is changing things for us and.
- [35:18]
Carol Massar
It'S opening doors, this project, financially changing it, making it.
- [35:21]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Well, we're going to be one of the first groups, Carol, actually putting in submitting this white paper for capital.
- [35:26]
Carol Massar
Okay.
- [35:27]
Gary Evans
And nobody's done that yet.
- [35:28]
Carol Massar
Okay, we're the first.
- [35:29]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
So which is really important. I was just at the White House. In fact, I've met with a couple senators, governor, Congressman, and it's very clear that this project vault, it creates a floor. It allows us to not have that volatility that we're up against. You know, we've got to prepare ourselves for. If China's going to dump a whole bunch of antimony on the market, we've got to be able to protect that pricing for us. Us like people like us who are producing it domestically.
- [35:57]
Carol Massar
Well, let's go there because you know, you also have the US reaching agreements with the European Union, Japan and Mexico to cooperate on securing critical minerals used in various industries. So they have committed to creating price floors. What kind of price floor is needed for antimony? What would be the ballpark? The price that kind of would shield you from China over saturating the market?
- [36:18]
Gary Evans
I think something in the $20 per pound range would be a great price floor that protects us. You got to understand, China has a hundred year Plan. We've been sitting behind the eight ball for 25 years watching China go all over the world, take over countries, take over mines. And they drove the antimony price down to such a level, it drove everybody out of business. And fortunately, our company stayed alive. Only one that did stay alive. And now we're reaping the benefit of having these refineries up and running.
- [36:51]
Tim Stanwick
Hey, Paul, you have lived all over the world. You've done this all over the world. We're a big part of the conversation is the US Reliance on China.
- [36:59]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Yeah.
- [37:00]
Tim Stanwick
And I'm just curious what, what you're seeing because the US and China still haven't reached an agreement when it comes to export control licenses for rare earths and permanent magnets. Are, are, is any export, any antimony being exported from China to US consumers that's not military related. And Gary, feel free to jump in here too.
- [37:19]
Gary Evans
Yeah, I mean, I can probably answer this pretty well because we monitor it daily. China cut off all antimony exports to every country in the world, including the United States in September 24th. People think, oh, it's got to do with Trump's tariffs. This was during the Biden administration. This happened. Well, guess what? China's biggest mine called the twinkling China depleted last June of 24. So September, three months later, they stopped all exports. Now, are we seeing antimony dripping into the market? In the black market? Probably some coming from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, but China has actually arrested 20 some odd people. They don't want antimony going to the free world. Why? We all need it. In military, you can't fire a bullet without antimony testimony. Laser guided missiles, night vision cameras, night vision binoculars. I mean, it's in everything you can imagine in the military. And so our administration, fortunately has taken the lead in saying we've got to fix the critical mental problem. And it is fixable, but it's going to take some time and it's going to take a lot of money.
- [38:24]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
And the one thing that I heard coming out of the White House, Tim, was very clear. One of the messages I was talking about was, well, we need 50 mental million pounds and we're going to be able to help make that solution. But it was very clear to me, leaving the White House, that we have to also think about our allies. And honestly, I never thought about the CEO of America's Golden Silver.
- [38:42]
Carol Massar
I thought, but go there because there's so much conflict. It feels like even with the US and its traditional allies that have been there for a long time, you're saying we can't do that. We've got to be cooperating.
- [38:52]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
You're absolutely right, Carol. We look, it was very crystal clear. It was made very clear to me. Change your pitch even as as the CEO of America's Gold and Silver. Change your story. Because you don't just need £50 million for the US you need another 80% on top of that for our allies who we have to make sure in NATO that we protect along the way. Which honestly for me, I didn't understand that completely and I think a lot of people don't understand it. Never mind the £50 million we consume per year.
- [39:17]
Carol Massar
Right.
- [39:17]
Paul Andrea Hewitt
Our allies is another £40 million. So we've got a deficit here. China's been so far ahead. Like Gary said says we're starting to to help this situation significantly by this.
- [39:27]
Carol Massar
Jv which goes back to national security. Can't just think about your own backyard. You've got to think about your allies as well. Gentlemen, please stay in touch. Let us know how things are going. Gary Evans, CEO of US Antimony Corporation Paul Andre Hewitt. He is CEO of America's Gold and Silver Corporation. You are listening and watching Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
- [39:49]
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- [40:50]
Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you but like I never liked being told oh.
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Nicole Torres
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Carol Massar
Like why even bother saying that. Why don't you just say you look.
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Nicole Torres
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Carol Massar
That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now.
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Nicole Torres
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- [42:26]
Carol Massar
Listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [42:39]
Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Businessweek, including the media mogul who oversaw MTV at its peak. Now reflecting on his life of adventures from bartending his way across the Americas to building a TV network in Afghanistan, Tom Freston joins us in just a bit.
- [42:58]
Tim Stanwick
Plus, a wellness treat in Sardinia, Italy. The hot truth about saunas and getting buzzed with less alcohol. It's all in the wellness section of Bloomberg Pursuits. We ask, is it all worth it?
- [43:10]
Carol Massar
Hey, first up this hour, homeowners are feeling the squeeze and so is the platform that connects them with home improvement contractors.
- [43:17]
Tim Stanwick
Angie, the online portal for home improvement reported fourth quarter earnings this past week that missed analysts expectations. Revenue fell 10% to roughly $241 million. The company expects another decline during the current quarter. That also sent shares plunging over 20% on Wednesday following that report.
- [43:34]
Carol Massar
Even so, Angie CEO Jeff Kipp expects positive revenue growth this year, especially as he sees millennials spending an average of $14,000 per household on home improvement projects.
- [43:45]
Tim Stanwick
Jeff joined us to talk about the quarter, the outlook, and how his company is using AI.
- [43:50]
Jeff Kip
Our numbers were actually in line with our guidance in revenue and above our guidance and ebitda, the analysts set their own numbers. And so that's, I think, where the disconnects are. Stocks very sensitive to that small cap, and I think that's what's driving. And I think they're also looking at our forward outlook and seeing it's not as strong as maybe they'd hoped given our rif. The EBITDA estimates moved up post RIF without any new guidance and we previously had a number of around 150. I think the thing that's important to note is that our CapEx estimate is lower than what we gave on the last call. So we're actually a little bit improved overall. But I think that's the kind of sum on why people are looking at it unhappily.
- [44:36]
Tim Stanwick
Jeff. Service requests decreasing 4% leads decreasing 9% year over year. In the fourth quarter of the year, proprietary service requests, though, increasing 15% year over year in proprietary leads increased 25% year over year. Explain the difference between those two metrics and why you saw service requests and leads decreasing.
- [44:58]
Jeff Kip
So fundamentally our network business is third party affiliates who bring homeowners through, not our experience and match to our pros at the end of their experience. The proprietary experience means that homeowners come through an experience we can control.
- [45:13]
Tim Stanwick
Okay, so we wait, I just want to. Yeah, sorry, I just want to jump in. So that basically would be like googling a home services provider and getting to Angie through through that or getting to a home services professional through that versus going to Angie's website and booking through that. Is that the difference? Is that the distinction?
- [45:29]
Jeff Kip
It would mean either going to a affiliate who's a site who tells homeowners they can find pros for them either through Google or direct.
- [45:38]
Tim Stanwick
Okay.
- [45:38]
Jeff Kip
And then homeowner getting connected to our pros because the affiliate does not have pros.
- [45:44]
Tim Stanwick
Okay, okay. Is this typically search based?
- [45:50]
Jeff Kip
Typically they get to both of us through search more than through other channels. Although Angie has a stronger brand, so we have a lot more direct traffic. The fundamental change is that we used to have a much higher proportion. If you look at this, we're going to have given up over 250 million of revenue from these network partners year over year.
- [46:10]
Cindy Taft
Year.
- [46:10]
Jeff Kip
We made a switch at the beginning of the year, which is we no longer auto match homeowners to pros. They're only matched when the homeowner affirmatively chooses the pro. So that's the experience we believe is right. When we did this, it X'd out a lot of those network partners as traffic. So we made a conscious decision to bring down the network channel and invest in what we believe is a much better experience through our proprietary channels. So what you're looking at is really strong growth in our proprietary business and expected coming down in the network business. And our whole discussion was at the very beginning of the year, we guided to minus 12 to minus 16. We came in at minus 13. We said we were going to grow in 2026. We still believe we're going to grow in 2026. As we inflect off of this big cut we took in the network traffic, we're actually feeling pretty positive about it because if you look at our homeowner NPS, it's up over 30% over the last couple of years. Our Pro churn is down 30% over the last couple of years, and we see real success within the ecosystem.
- [47:11]
Tim Stanwick
We're speaking with Jeff Kip, CEO of Angie, joining us from Indianapolis this afternoon. So, AI, if people are getting to, you know, for years it's all been all about search engine optimization and connecting people who are, you know, googling or searching for something. What if you're using like, you know, our colleague Matt Miller is Boiler is on the fritz. His wife is like using ChatGPT to try to try to fix it and then ultimately in some era that could connect her to some sort of home services pro.
- [47:44]
Jeff Kip
Right. So we are actively working with multiple LLM providers. We just announced a deal with Amazon's Alexa several weeks ago. We have an app submitted to another major player. We're working with the third major player to integrate. And we have other talks going on.
- [48:00]
Cindy Taft
On.
- [48:01]
Jeff Kip
So we're actually excited about the presence of LLMs who haven't fully developed their ad product or their ecosystem because they will actually diversify our channels. We're heavily dependent on Google right now, so having more players where homeowners go to do search and discovery is good for us. And we've built the technology to offer our pros on those sites or pick up the conversation from the LLM if that seems better. So we like this and we think this will help us.
- [48:28]
Carol Massar
You know, I want to go back to what you said in terms of, I guess, you know, trying to improve the customer experience. And I'm just looking at some other metrics here that you guys said, I think in your release that you acquired professionals, you acquired professionals fell 27% to 20,000 in the quarter, while average monthly active pros fell 23% to 111,000. It sounds to me just like in terms of the matching, you're, like, letting the customer decide that this is about maybe weeding out. Weeding out some professionals that maybe weren't up to snuff. Is that what's going on? Like, you're. You're trying to. I'm trying to understand a little bit.
- [49:06]
Jeff Kip
So there's two factors involved. One is we did actually go through and remove all of the pros below three and a half stars.
- [49:14]
Carol Massar
Okay.
- [49:15]
Jeff Kip
Last year, I think. Secondly, we were actually highly scaled in our sales force and acquiring somewhat unprofitability, unprofitably for multiple years. And so we're comparing to a base of pros that was acquired somewhat unprofitably, and we've really reduced. If you looked across our releases, what you'd see is we've almost doubled the value creation through our sales force while reducing the number. And so what you're seeing is basically comparisons to classes who probably shouldn't have been acquired. And then we have trimmed it some as well.
- [49:50]
Carol Massar
All right, makes sense. Makes sense. All right. So the outlook. How do you describe it? My understanding is, you know, you guys are looking to return to growth, I think, in terms of revenue, Correct?
- [50:02]
Jeff Kip
Yes.
- [50:02]
Carol Massar
Going forward. So do you get that based on everything that you've done so far, or there are other initiatives that you want to put into place?
- [50:09]
Jeff Kip
So I think there's two or three things. One is, you'll note in the release said January stabilized.
- [50:14]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah.
- [50:14]
Jeff Kip
So we're stable in January. We're being a little more Conservative and saying minus 1 to 3, minus 1 to minus 3 in the first quarter. And then we think we will be flattish in the second quarter and grow in the second half of the year. The biggest thing that needs to happen is we need to finish getting through this network traffic coming down so that we actually have a compare where we no longer have that in there. And we get to the second half of the year where that's flattened out and we're growing, growing. So it's a little bit optical and it's a little bit strategic, what we did with our traffic. And I think people had hoped we talked about growing in the first quarter. We're now not going to do it.
- [50:50]
Carol Massar
Yeah.
- [50:50]
Jeff Kip
Our product roadmap got a little disrupted by the reduction in force, but we're still on track with where we were planning to be.
- [50:57]
Tim Stanwick
Jeff, I just want to. As Carol mentioned, we're going to, you know, we're looking at the economy from a lot of different angles right now. And one way we can do that is by understanding what people are spending on in terms of their homes. Is it discretionary or is it like a leaky roof and they got to get it fixed. So what can you tell us about what you're seeing across the energy network?
- [51:17]
Jeff Kip
So two or three things. I'll just start by saying we don't see much of a shift between discretionary and non discretionary. We're more two thirds, not more than 2/3, non discretionary. And we don't really see that move a lot even at different times where there's higher economic inflection production like April, say this year. What we have seen over the last couple of months is a bit of a mix down in job size and so then revenue per job for us. So we do see that. We can tell you that last year we've talked about this before, we saw a big disruption in April, May, we saw things sort of get back to normal in the second half of the year. Then I think in December there was some compression. And if you go out and you look into at consumer confidence statistics like the University of Michigan, which does it monthly consumer confidence was down almost 30% year over year. November, December and I think the early read was down 20 in January. So we do see some signs that there's some shifts. Nothing major, nothing scary, but we do see some shifts in homeowner behavior.
- [52:19]
Tim Stanwick
That's interesting.
- [52:20]
Carol Massar
I have a crazy question. Oh, are that these folks who do work thinking about like buy now, pay later? I mean can they do things, do they do things on installments? Is that part of the process?
- [52:30]
Jeff Kip
Definitely. They definitely particular our larger, more sophisticated pros really think about their financing packages and how they sell them. So that's definitely an element for a lot of pros.
- [52:41]
Carol Massar
Is there an uptick in that in terms of people like accessing that and able to do, to get projects done?
- [52:48]
Jeff Kip
Talking when I talk to our pros, I think they find that they can, can close the job and get the job done easier with it. I don't know about volume. We don't, we don't sell that or offer that on our platform directly.
- [53:01]
Carol Massar
Jeff, just got about 30 seconds left here. Are there enough professionals of this kind to do projects? Because we constantly talk about shortages, whether it's contractors, electricians and the like.
- [53:12]
Jeff Kip
So it's been a long term secular trend of pressure on particularly the skilled trades. We continue to see it. We talk to and partner with major distributors who talk about the central fact in their businesses. You're losing more businesses and more skilled professionals than you're adding every year. So I think the long term trend is still against it now. Yeah, young people are starting to go into it. My son got out of college and went into construction. So here we go kids. Let's go.
- [53:40]
Carol Massar
Hey, listen, always appreciate you stopping by, Jeff. Be well. Jeff Kip, CEO of Angie, joining us us.
- [53:47]
This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2:00pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg 11:30.
- [54:05]
It is the media story that keeps on giving. And this past week, activist investor Ankora holdings revealed a 200 million billion dollar stake in Warner Bros. Discovery and urged the board of the company to reject Netflix's offer and reconsider Paramount Skydance's competing bid, adding a new plot twist to one of Hollywood's biggest takeover battles. That story still developing as we put our show to bed.
- [54:27]
Tim Stanwick
The latest on the pursuit of Warner Bros. Coming out after we caught up with someone who really knows the industry, having served as CEO of Viacom and head of Paramount Pictures through its heyday in the 90s. He's got a tell all book all about his adventures from hitchhiking through a pre Taliban Afghanistan, using a drug smuggler to get clothes from Asia to New York City tariff free, to almost getting kidnapped in the Sahara desert with Jimmy Buffett, to getting unceremoniously canned by Sumner Redstone. Tom Freston Carroll. He has seen a lot.
- [54:59]
Carol Massar
Yeah, he certainly has. He's co founder of mtv, a co founder and the former CEO of Viacom. He's also princess of the consulting and investment firm Firefly 3 and the author of a new book which we want to talk to him about. It is entitled Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu. It came out back in November. He joins us from California. Tom, so great to have you here with us. How are you?
- [55:19]
Tom Freston
I'm good. Carol, hello to you and hi Tim.
- [55:22]
Tim Stanwick
Hi.
- [55:22]
Tom Freston
Nice to be here.
- [55:23]
Carol Massar
It's great to have you here and there's so much we want to talk about. We do want to just start off with the media industry because it just feels like it's at a moment in time.
- [55:31]
Tim Stanwick
I thought you were going to start with Beavis and Butthead.
- [55:33]
Carol Massar
No, I'm not. But we'll get there. We'll get there. And to so much more. I'm Just thinking about what you witnessed, you know, at the beginning, the dawn of really the cable industry and the build out of it. It's now being very much dismantled, dismantled for a host of reasons. Some networks being sold for scraps. You know, the headlines. How do you see this dismantling, Tom, continue to play out?
- [55:54]
Tom Freston
Well, I mean, we had during my era, the 80s and the 90s, so the early 2000, sort of the cable TV revolution, which morphed into the digital revolution and streaming and all that, where people really got to watch whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted on whatever device. And now we're moving into the AI revolution. So the media industry is in a constant state of flux, always sort of, you know, influenced greatly by technology and, you know, it's hard to say where it's going to go, but we're going to see more consolidation amongst the legacy media companies companies, that's for sure. There's a few deals in place right now, as you know.
- [56:34]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah, well, speaking of those deals, the fate of Warner Brothers discovery, David Zaslav, mentioned in your book a few times. Do you have a view on. On whether that company should go to Netflix, Netflix or Paramount Skydance?
- [56:48]
Tom Freston
I think it's a better fit and you know, you hate to see another movie studio sort of disappear in a form of consolidation. And Warner Brothers is like the king of, you know, the most treasured studio of all. But of the two alternatives, I think the Netflix one is more interesting and bode's better for people in the business and bodes better for consumers. In the case of Paramount, you really have two legacy companies merging together. They talk about $9 billion worth of cost savings and that means more people on the street. It's not that interesting of a combination as taking someone like Netflix, which is a sort of a quasi digital company, and marrying that with, with Warner Brothers seems to be, seems to be a better fit. If you were to ask me, which you just did, what.
- [57:36]
Tim Stanwick
What about, you know, a lot of your book goes into your relationship with Sumner Redstone. We're going to get to, to some of that in a minute. What do you think he would think about today with what's going on at Paramount Skydance? You describe him as being just so obsessed with the company's stock price and always trying to buy more shares. You describe him as always being on the phone with his stockbroker at the time, because that's how it worked at the time. What do you think he would think of what's happening at Paramount Skydance?
- [58:05]
Tom Freston
Well, I think he'd be sad. He'd be sad to see what became of the empire that he was a major force in creating and how the values deteriorated and how, how Viacom sort of missed the moment, if you will. They missed a moment in the digital transition. You just compare it to Disney, which spent, say they doubled down on their content creative abilities. They spent $16 billion buying Pixar and Lucasfilm and Marvel, which made them a little more invincible. On the other hand, Viacom spent $16 billion on stock buybacks, which was great if you were cashing in stock options, but not so good, good for the long term viability of the company.
- [58:48]
Carol Massar
Hey, you know, on that, you know, I think about mtv, you know, you were one of the people who got this, you know, up and running and for such a long time it was just so much a part of our kind of cultural fabric and then went from music to, you know, dealing with political issues and really the issues of our time, if you will, and became an important place for even politicians to show up out during campaigns. Having said that, you know, it is, you know, reduced drastically and dramatically. I don't know what is it like to see that? And I wonder if, you know, today, could it be created today or could it be in some other form?
- [59:27]
Tom Freston
Well, you know, it's sort of like looking back and seeing your old high school on fire. Yeah, it's. They haven't really put any money or effort into MTV for, I don't know, 15 years or so. I think all the music people who were there left. They even saw the music television off the bottom of the logo and it became sort of a repository for grade B reality shows. Well off its original mission. I do think that MTV could be reinvented in a digital format to be a more interesting curator of music. These days, music still a huge category and there's a huge amount of listening going on. So it's crazy not to think that MTV couldn't recapture some corner of the music business. I mean, on one hand you have a lot of consumers who are sort of tired of the algorithmly programmed streaming services and so forth. So I mean, I don't think it's a layup, but it's certainly worth it. It's a brand with worldwide recognition. And I, and I do know that they're working on that at Paramount with Jeff Schell and David Ellison.
- [60:36]
Carol Massar
Well, you know, Tom, I think about, you know, your book and this journey, right? And then, you know, the so many journeys, if you will, which is really fun to go through. But I'm wondering, a 35 year old Tom Freston today, would you create MTV or something against the platforms that we have or would you do something different when it comes to media and content?
- [60:56]
Tom Freston
That's a good question. You know, the media world is so different right now. I mean my default is sort of media and entertainment. So I'd be interested. It's harder to carve out a place right now. I mean, I think the closer you get to talent and content creation, the better off you would be. The days of the monoculture where you had the rise of MTV as a really important gatekeeper, those are gone. So I'm in the lucky position of not having to worry about working in the business right now. In that particular business, I find it more interesting sort of on the fringes for myself.
- [61:37]
Tim Stanwick
We're speaking with Tom Freston. He's the author of Unplugged Adventures From MTV to Timbuktu. He's a co founder of mtv. Tom on that I was surprised when I was reading the book as like an elder millennial, I grew up with mtv so it totally everything you wrote about made a lot of sense. I remember all the shows that launched on MTV and on Comedy Central too. You mentioned though a few minutes ago this kind of common refrain that we had about MTV Even in the 90s, which is it doesn't show music videos anymore. What I was surprised to find was how strategic of a decision and how important of a decision that that was and what you found sort of early on in showing music one music video after another and why that didn't necessarily keep viewers for extended periods of time. Explain how that transformation started and why it did become a place that wasn't just music videos.
- [62:31]
Tom Freston
Well, when music videos sort of hit, it mean they were really kind of revolutionary. People hadn't really seen anything like that six or seven years in. I mean a bloom was a little off the roads. That's not to say that that the music videos weren't good. But a new device had come along technology wise called the remote control, which was maybe the biggest disruptor of all that little soap bar sized device. And people would check out after three minutes or so if they didn't like the next video that was coming on. We thought though that we still, we wanted to stay close to music. It brought us so much. But we thought maybe we could be a big place and a more reliable place and less reliant to the peaks and valleys of the music industry if we created our own programming that was about some of the things that the music was about, about, you know, I'm talking about fashion and movies and, you know, beefing up our news area. We thought we could take say 10% of our 168 hours a week and devote it to non music programs or stuff that related to the popular culture and we could have a sounder and a bigger business. And that turned out to be the case. Now the problem was that these shows would get higher ratings than music hours. So gradually over time, and like I'm talking Now, the last 10 or 15 years, there was a decision to just get out of the music business entirely. Because the idea that, you know, you could compete with something like Vevo and YouTube where people could get any video they wanted on demand on the Internet. Once the Internet was capable of really streaming video in full force was, you know, it was an unattractive proposition. So you ended up with what you have today, which is a network berish of music, whose name used to be music television. That's not to say that, as I said earlier, that it couldn't be reimagined for digital in a way that they could make a business out of it using a digital on demand technology. So it was a strategic move to get into non music programming. And I would also say that the creative cadre that we had at work always wanted to stretch out and do new things. So we came up with new formats like the Real World, or we would find young animators and bring them into the fold and do shows like Beavis and Butthead that we thought had the same attitude as animators. Mtv, but it wasn't necessarily music, you know, made it a bigger place.
- [64:57]
Carol Massar
We think about, I mean, how much of TV today is reality tv? And I put quotation marks around it and you know, Real World, you write about it in the book. I mean, you guys were a pioneer when it comes to reality television, which so dominates the landscape. Tom and I think about the Apprentice and we think about how many have said what it did for Donald Trump, who at the time was not actually doing well in business, and the image it actually projected, not my view, but what a lot of other people say. And I just think, how do you think about Real World, the beginning of reality tv and do you feel in some way responsible for the creation of what that is today and helping create a path for Donald Trump. How do you think about that?
- [65:45]
Tom Freston
Yeah, I know the question. I know that question. Look, we started, you know, we started the Real World because we couldn't afford writers. We just wanted to do a soap opera so in the end we said, forget writers. We were good at post production. Let's put seven or eight people in a loft and tape them and then make it into episodes. That became this new low cost form of programming. And then we did celebrity reality show with the Osbournes. Those were the first two reality shows and it was very attractive to the networks. As their business model began to deteriorate, they could make shows that people wanted to see at a much lower price. And yes, it led to like Naked and Afraid and the Bachelor and worst of all, or maybe best of all in some people's mind, the Apprentice, it brought us the new President of the United States. So I don't feel responsible necessarily for that. But there is a threat through line that when television programming became less scripted and more real, you know, and it's.
- [66:45]
Carol Massar
Funny, I think about, you know, we've got a world where everyone can be a content creator and we have a man in the White House, our president, who is very good at creating content. For better or worse, people can make the debate is, is it free speech at its fullest when you think about the ability for anybody and everybody with their phone that can make content, or is it kind of a reveal of mankind at its worst? I'm just curious how you think about this.
- [67:11]
Tom Freston
Well, it's a reveal of mankind at its best and its worst. I mean, it's true. Everybody is their own like individual broadcaster. They can create content, share it, comment on other people's content, people comment on yours. I mean, that's really been the social media revolution. It's really been a whole new paradigm for media. And yeah, it can be very disappointing at times to see what people do and come up with and what they say. And you know, that's a much larger issue owing to a larger discussion for which I don't know, there's a solution. But yes, all the guardrails and program standards and things that we used to enjoy and adhere to in the 80s and 90s, they've all vanished.
- [67:56]
Tim Stanwick
Tom, you know, you're known for creator is at mtv, but I, I do want to talk a little bit about Comedy Central too. I was struck with sort of the creative process of coming up with this idea for Comedy Central, the potential competition that you were going to get from HBO at a certain point and the staying power of some of the programs on there, including the Daily show, the Colbert Rapport, and notably South park park today. I mean the, the idea that a South, south park could be as relevant in some, you know, in some cases in 2025, 2026, as it was in the mid-90s, I think could be surprising to a lot of people. Talk a little bit about how, you know, within 10 minutes you guys came up with this idea for Comedy Central and how you landed Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
- [68:45]
Tom Freston
Well, I was having a staff meeting, I was in the early 90s, and someone slipped me a piece of paper, said HBO's and I announcing they're going to have a comedy channel. And they were at the time, the big players. I mean, they were on pay tv, they had Robin Williams and George Carlin, they did all these big comedy specials, said, oh, they're getting into our business and if they're going to start with a comedy channel, they'll do a music channel and a kids channel, kind of eroding our Nickelodeon and MTV business. So we decided in that meeting, like, let's announce our own comedy channel. We didn't really have a comedy channel or even an idea for one, but we thought we announced we could be in every news article that was ever written about theirs. And, you know, so we, we kind of announced that we were doing one. And we came up with a format quickly which was sort of TV comedy, an extension of what our Nick at Night brand was. And so that was how we got into the business. We had a war with HBO for a couple of years and then we ended up merging and form Comedy Central. And the, the thing that really pushed Comedy Central into public consciousness was South Park. And south park was a cartoon. It started as a. One of the guys at MTV found Matt and Trey and had him do a little six minute thing for as a Christmas car that he sent out to his friends. And it got wide acclaim. And then we saw and we said, well, let's make a TV series out of this. And we've done it. And now, now it's like no Christmas card in history has ever paid off. Like South Park. I think they're in their 25th or 26th season and those guys are geniuses. The other thing I'd say about Comedy Central is it's interesting to me. We always had a great eye for new and emerging talent. And if you look at the amount of people who started their television career on Comedy Central, Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, Matt and Trey, Dave Chappelle, all of these people, most of whom have gone on to bigger, bigger lives outside of Comedy Central, they're sort of the front line of the Trump resistance today. A role that was filled like in the Richard Nixon era, largely by musicians. And, you know, you have to be really proud to see how, you know, with our ear to the ground, we were, we were able to give all these people their television start. Very satisfying. Comedy Central had a more cultural cache than I think any of our networks. And outside of Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live, I don't know of any other entity that's been able to discover and cultivate as much comedic talent.
- [71:16]
Carol Massar
So we already know we want like another 60 Minutes with you. And I know you've talked with our producer and I think you're going to come back and talk with us because we would like to continue this conversation.
- [71:25]
Tim Stanwick
We barely scratched the surface.
- [71:26]
Carol Massar
I mean, I have to say, the way the book is written in. You talk about your travels all around the world and we've been in the newsroom talking about like Afghanistan, which I think so many people have one view of what that is about. And you remind us, you know, an incredible land, people. And we want to get into it because we want to talk soft power with you and so much more. So I hope we can truly get you back here real soon and continue this conversation.
- [71:50]
Tom Freston
Well, I'd love to do that. We'll stay in radio contact. I'd love to come in the studio. This is been fun. Okay.
- [71:56]
Carol Massar
We really enjoyed it. Tom, be well. Have a great weekend.
- [71:58]
Nicole Torres
He is.
- [71:58]
Tom Freston
Thanks, Carol. Thanks.
- [72:00]
Carol Massar
Yeah. Tom Preston, the book is Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu and we are going to continue that conversation. It's really been a great read for us, so we really appreciate Tom's time today.
- [72:15]
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Nicole Torres
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- [75:18]
Carol Massar
Listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [75:31]
It's time for Bloomberg Pursuits. And this week, a deep dive into something we are all chasing. More years, better years. It's all about Tim, the quest to live a longer life. But it's got to be kind of a good one, too.
- [75:42]
Tim Stanwick
And yet, what if along the way, we give up pieces of ourselves? It's the COVID story of Bloomberg Pursuits for the February issue of Bloomberg Business World magazine. And this one, it really spoke to me, Carol.
- [75:53]
Carol Massar
Yeah, I know it did. Did I think. To all of us with us is deputy editor of Bloomberg Pursuits. He is Justin Ocean. Joining us here in studio, Nicole Torres, managing editor for Bloomberg Pursuits. She's out there in Wales, which I'm wondering if she's already, like, in the pursuit of longevity. Guys, it's so great to have you here with us. Let me start off the quest to live longer. Pursuits is so well known for its wellness coverage. Justin, kick it off with us. Tell us about how you guys were thinking about it this time around.
- [76:22]
Aaron Yogfeld
You know, it's no stranger to anyone. It's a booming industry. I mean, so many things can be considered wellness, yet some estimates put it at over $1 trillion. You know, that includes, obviously, vacations and, but, you know, other things, down to what we would call self care, like, you know, getting your nails done, things like that, massages. But we're more interested in the longevity aspect. So living longer currently in the US and around the world, the idea is to do like, biohacking and hack your routines and, and focus on technology. And, you know, one of the stories in this section is about health trackers. But our main story, the one we talk about is blue zones. And these are areas in the world where historically people have been living longer, you know, over 100 years. There's a guy, Dan Buettner, who has popularized this.
- [77:10]
Carol Massar
People have been talking about these blue zones for a long time. And, you know, it's how you eat, how you live, having a community. Like it's become a real thing.
- [77:18]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah.
- [77:18]
Aaron Yogfeld
And so, and there's a tourism around it. I mean, so we sent a writer, Alice Robb, to one in Sardinia. So she actually came to us with the idea because she was just on her computer doing the lonely freelance life, and an ad popped up for one and she realized that, you know, when she looked out the window, her neighbor, that's the first person she had seen kind of all day.
- [77:40]
Carol Massar
Oh, my God.
- [77:41]
Tim Stanwick
Well, that, that actually gets us to a really important part of, of what wellness is. And Nicole, I want to Bring you in. Because here in the US in recent years, so much of the idea of wellness has really focused and sort of emanated from this idea of the, you know, bro podcasters like the Andrew Hubermans, the Joe Rogans. And it's the idea of making sure you're getting the creatine and you're jumping into cold plunges and you're talking, you're, you know, going into saunas and stuff. But what my big takeaway, Nicole, from this was, it has so much to do with who you're around and the relationships that you have.
- [78:15]
Nicole Torres
Yeah, completely. I think that was what I found so interesting in Alice's piece. I think that is true for wellness overall. But when it comes to something like longevity, it seems there are really two distinct ways to go about it. And the way we talk about in the US the way that is kind of all over the airwaves when it comes to, like, bro culture, is to just double down on yourself and to go on these really expensive longevity retreats where you're sitting alone in a room getting all kinds of medical tests done on yourself. You know, you're like looking at the quality of various organs. You are just everything is very personalized to you and you're thinking about what supplements to take. You're thinking about your exercise routine. Everything is super easy, individualized. And Alice wanted to know if blue zones really held up as a place that can speak to and actually like, improve longevity. Because so much of what we hear about longevity is this really high tech, very medicalized types of approaches. And what she found was in these Blue Zones, the focus is not really on living longer, it really is on living better. And I think what she discovers and what she hears from a lot of her sources is living a good and high quality life where you're surrounded by a lot of people and you are social and you have connections that often leads to a longer life than being totally isolated on your own, even if you are focusing on how strong all of your individual cells are.
- [79:48]
Tim Stanwick
And unfortunately, Carol, the demographics here in the United States are just showing us that increasingly people are sort of moving inward and especially elderly people are living alone.
- [79:57]
Carol Massar
Listen, I hear about it all the time. Having had one elderly parent making sure that there was activity around him because it gets much, much harder. And I think what's really also said, Justin, and come on back in, is this idea of it used to be families, I think, about several generations in a household now. It's almost like a feather in your cap. If you get A degree. And then you move to another country to work and far away from your. Your family.
- [80:27]
Aaron Yogfeld
Yeah, no, that's very true. I mean, in. In certain circles, especially among high earners like there, it is a point of pride to be mobile and to have a, you know, quote unquote, world citizenship versus, you know, really setting down roots in one place. And it's a major problem. And, you know, especially in the U.S. with older Americans, you know, one in four adults older than 60 live on their own. About. There's a poll for the national. There's a national poll on healthy aging where more than one in three felt isolated. Half of Americans lack fewer than four close friends.
- [81:01]
Carol Massar
So, God, there was a statistic about. A 2023 survey found that 26% of Americans ate every meal alone the previous day, an increase of more than 50% from two decades ago. In 2023, in the UK, 20% of households don't even own a dining table. I, like, I don't know how you are, Tim, because you've got little kids and you guys, I don't know, but it was like I grew up, like, dinner time, everybody got together, like, didn't matter where you were. And we did that. I know. With our daughter as well.
- [81:28]
Tim Stanwick
Yeah, we're trying to do that. It's hard working until the evening is challenging when kids want to eat early. But maybe this is a good segue to meeting people in different environments, like at a sauna. And the rise of sauna, which is a story in the Bloomberg Pursuit section. Nicole, come on back in here, because here in the US we're talking a lot about saunas, bath houses. It's not just a US Trend. This is happening in the UK as well. But there's like hundreds of years of history of this in the Nordic world too.
- [82:00]
Nicole Torres
Yeah, absolutely. So this piece that we did is all about how bath houses are booming primarily in the US and uk and that's notable because in the US and in the UK there are has not historically been really strong bathing cultures like there have been in the rest of the world. And so people who are opening all of these saunas and bath houses now are really talking about how this is a new idea that's thousands of years old. And one line in the story that I really loved was how in the US and like, I'm American, even though I live in the UK now, the writer talks about how if they're the closest thing to a bathing culture that America, Americans get is the shower, it's not like spending a long time in the bath, like we might do in Wales or something. So it was a really interesting cultural comparison and I think that speaks to a lot of readers who are discovering a boom in new saunas opening in cities like London and in New York. We talk about dozens that are opening in these cities and we kind of look into why. And the reason reasons are really, there are so many reasons for why that we kind of spoke about earlier. But I guess the through line here that ties to this overall conversation on finding community and trying to tackle loneliness is it's really nice to just go to a space, a so called third space that's not home and it's not work, but it's somewhere where you can go and be around other people and you can connect with other people. And it's nice, nice to be in one of these places where it's not actually that difficult. You don't need to worry about making small talk. You can just go into a sauna and say, it's hot enough for you.
- [83:36]
Carol Massar
What I didn't realize and it's become a thing. I've heard more people in New York talking about it, but the people who come in and they do the waving of the air and I'm like, when someone told me, I'm like, that's not real. But apparently it is, right? It's like, I guess essential oils that are getting like spread around, it's called.
- [83:51]
Aaron Yogfeld
And so you sit in a sauna for a determined amount of time, they'll play music and somebody waves using a towel of hot air at you. And it is actually like makes your head like get buzzy. It's kind of wild.
- [84:02]
Carol Massar
So you like it, you do like it.
- [84:03]
Aaron Yogfeld
And it adds what we talk about bathing cultures around the world. There's often like a spiritual angle that is missing. And so far, you know, bath houses in the US are really leaning into that bro culture about class and optimization. And you've got to, you know, sit in and do a cold plunge and it's going to raise your dopamine and all these various health benefits where at the end of the day, as Nicole said, it's about being around people. You know, when you think of traditional sauna cultures, it really is about the intimacy of strangers. And often it's like it's not about wearing a swimsuit or optimizing. It's about just like being amongst fellow people.
- [84:37]
Carol Massar
I have to say one of the most fun things I've ever done was in Tulum and it was a sweat lodge and you're in this Thing, and it's small and it's super hot, and they keep throwing things on the flame.
- [84:46]
Aaron Yogfeld
The Temez call.
- [84:47]
Carol Massar
Oh, it's rough, but it was incredible. It was really, really cool. Hey, before we go, just real quickly, Nicole, come on back in on the story about how Oura rings and Apple Watches affect our mental health. I've had both. Tim has his Oura ring on as we speak. Just a quick thought on this one because, yeah, man, we're obsessed with these wearables.
- [85:09]
Nicole Torres
No, so that story came about with the writer who just. Just got an Oura ring, I think, for her birthday. And she was just talking to me about it, and she was, like, talking about how it was just stressing her out. She was starting to track her data on a daily basis when she never used to. She was looking on her app in real time to see that her stress level was rising from that was like it was sensed in her Oura ring. And so I told her that she should write about that and also try to find other people who might be having similar experiences. Because wearables have really surged over the last however many years. Like, almost everyone I know has an Apple Watch that tracks their data and tells them how many steps they need to take. We have Oura rings. We have all kinds of different things we wear that track our movements and our heart rates, all sorts of stuff. And while this has become so ubiquitous, I think it is really important for us to question, like, what happens as a result. We're getting so much data now. How are we using that data? How is it actually making us feel? Are these wearables that promise to make us well and more healthy, are they actually working? There's a lot of evidence that they are, but I don't think we pay enough attention to how a lot of this data can needlessly stress us out. And that's what the piece really focuses on.
- [86:31]
Carol Massar
Bottom line. The only thing I want to add is that, like, you know, staying well, living longer, it costs money. So there is certainly a distinction of people tapping into all of this. Guys, this is so great. We could go on, but we've unfortunately got a wrap. But a really incredible section again from you guys when it comes to wellness and this big quest that everybody's on to live a lot longer.
- [86:52]
Tim Stanwick
That was Justin Ocean, deputy editor for Bloomberg Pursuits, and Nicole Torres, managing editor for Bloomberg Pursuits. It's the Pursuits cover story of the February issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. It's out on newsstands now, online@Bloomberg.com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
- [87:06]
Carol Massar
And that wraps up our weekend edition of Bloomberg businessweek from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [87:11]
Tim Stanwick
I'm Tim Stanwick.
- [87:12]
Carol Massar
And I'm Carol Massar. Have a good and safe weekend everyone. Check out a sauna, maybe a spa, or just go out for a long walk with people you love. That will probably feel really good.
- [87:23]
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get. Your podcasts listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also watch us live Every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
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Nicole Torres
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Nicole Torres
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Carol Massar
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Carol Massar
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Nicole Torres
Cake batter, to name a few.
- [88:20]
Carol Massar
Find your favorite flavor@premierprotein.com.
- [88:27]
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- [88:54]
Nicole Torres
Hey, this is US Olympic gold medalist.
- [88:56]
Tim Stanwick
Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
- [88:59]
Nicole Torres
As athletes, our lives are about having.
- [89:01]
Tim Stanwick
A clear path and a team that.
- [89:03]
Aaron Yogfeld
You can absolutely trust.
- [89:04]
Carol Massar
So when it came to getting the.
- [89:05]
Aaron Yogfeld
Best mortgage, we chose PennyMac.
- [89:07]
Nicole Torres
PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
- [89:12]
Carol Massar
Learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection.
- [89:19]
Aaron Yogfeld
And Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.