Loading summary
Fidelity Advisor
As a top performing advisor, you demand top performing funds. That's why Fidelity's 1000 experienced research professionals combine deep insights and advanced analytics to deliver consistent outcomes for clients across market cycles. Explore 300 plus Morningstar rated 4 and 5 star funds at I.fidelity.com Topfunds across all Fundshare classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor Shares and Fidelity ETFs as of 6, 15, 2026. Past performance is no guarantee of future
The Hartford Representative
results when you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, that isn't always easy. Risk can touch multiple parts of an organization at the same time, often in ways that aren't immediately obvious. It might involve property liability or cyber. It could stem from regulatory requirements or challenges tied to a specific industry or the scale of an operation. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline, not not a one time decision. the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. That means working with companies to identify where they're exposed, decide what matters most, and put practical standards in place so risk is managed as part of day to day operations. And when losses do happen, the Hartford can pair that risk control work with insurance coverage grounded in underwriting, risk engineering and claims experience developed over time. Learn more@thehartford.com riskmitigation so there's a lot
Fidelity Advisor
of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises, so let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter Business IBM,
Carol Massar
Bloomberg Audio
Ruthie Rogers
Studios Podcasts Radio News this is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast Announcer
Business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio.
Adam Thompson
Hi everyone.
Carol Massar
Welcome to a holiday weekend edition of Bloomberg Business week and Happy 4th of July. It is, of course, a big one. It's the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and while many of us are taking some time to unplug, there were some big stories this past week that we should point out. Consequential decisions from the U.S. supreme Court, peace talks to end the U.S. and Iran war continuing. And a bit quick read on the U.S. economy with the U.S. monthly jobs report out just before heading into the long holiday weekend.
Tim Stanweck
And we wrapped up the second quarter in the first half of the trading year with The S&P 500 having its best quarter going back to 2020 and semiconductor stocks having their best quarter ever. You can read all about the market action@bloomberg.com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal for us this hour, we are leaning fully into the summer season. Why not? Yeah, we hot outside.
Carol Massar
It's official, man.
Tim Stanweck
Oh, it is official.
Carol Massar
Be careful outside. It is really hot.
Tim Stanweck
Well on kick it off by hitting the trails. AllTrails CEO Liz Hamran joins us to talk about the massive boom in outdoor recreation and how technology is changing the way that we navigate the great outdoors. There's a little tension there, right? Yeah, you brought this up. What we want to get away from our phones, but they also help us get out there.
Carol Massar
Plus, if Your idea of July 4th weekend is less about hiking and more about staying poolside with an incredible meal, well, we've got you covered as well. Later on this hour, legendary chef Ruthie Rogers joins us to talk about food, culture and her new book, Table 4 at the River Cat Cafe. Then we jump into the business of pools with Latham Group CEO Sean Gad. He talks about the state of the consumer and also why fiberglass pools are becoming the ultimate hot weather home upgrade.
Tim Stanweck
And finally, no summer weekend is complete without the perfect beach read. We sit down with the acclaimed novelist Teddy Wayne to talk about his new literary thriller the Au Pair, which is generating major buzz as this season's must read.
Carol Massar
Paige turner, it is indeed all that to come. We begin with a look at the great outdoors. Hiking has seen a surge in interest in recent years and driving that wonderful discovery could be the tech in our
Tim Stanweck
pockets that brings us to AllTrails. Liz Hamran wants you to go take a hike. She's the CEO of the hiking app AllTrails. She joined us along with Adam Thompson, Bloomberg Pursuit Senior editor. He was one of the editors on our great Bloomberg Pursuits piece, how to see the most Popular US National Parks without the Crowds.
Adam Thompson
We knew that this was going to be a really busy year at national parks. Every year is busy. They get over 320 million people a year, 320 million visitors. And this year felt like it was going to be even higher. Between the fact that airfares are high so people are thinking about staying closer to home and the fact that there's a lot of America, 250 things going on. Add to that the fact that there's some cutbacks at the park, so there's a little extra level of chaos there. So we thought that there was a lot of chance that people would be coping with crowds at the most popular parks, and we wanted to come up with a way to give them lots of alternatives on ways to enjoy the parks without running into everybody they know.
Carol Massar
Well, funnily enough, like, a lot of us want to put this down, but you can also use it to kind of decompress and go on a hike. Liz, come on in. On. Tell us a little bit about the platform, the growth that you've seen, and the activity that you're seeing as of late in terms of what people want to do.
Adam Thompson
Yeah.
Liz Hamran
Well, AllTrails, our mission is to help the world find its way outside. And our app. With our app, you can search over 500,000 global trails. And on those trails, you can read community reviews. So that helps you just find the perfect trail for you. And in addition, we have tools that help you plan. They help you navigate, and just help
Tim Stanweck
you enjoy your time outside the freemium model. The idea of, like, you can use this and get a taste of it, but pay more or pay and actually get more. What's the balance there?
Liz Hamran
So the base product has a huge number of features. You can find your perfect trail, you can navigate, you can read community reviews.
Tim Stanweck
And this is a free product.
Liz Hamran
And this is a free product. And then the paid version, AllTrails plus, has a number of features, the most popular of which is offline maps. So, particularly for national parks where there's not great cell service, we find that our members purchase Altairails plus so that they can download maps and then never get lost out on the trail.
Carol Massar
So, Adam, talk about the collaboration, because you guys worked with AllTrails to kind of come. Not kind of. You did put together this great story about looking at different regions around the country and, like, where to go.
Adam Thompson
Yes. So what we did was we took a bunch of anonymized data that they gave us and were able to chart where the busiest trails were within each of the 16 parks that we looked at. So we list that. Then we list three alternative parks that they also had that showed crowds that weren't so bad, but also high ratings and varying levels of difficulty. So they weren't all too easy or too hard. And then we mixed in weather patterns for the past several years. So how much precipitation is there during different times? Of year. And, you know, what are the temperatures like, Is it too cold or too hot? And so we kind of mixed all those together and came up with a series of recommendations and when you could go to each of these places without it being too crowded.
Tim Stanweck
So is this going to be like when Netflix came and did the Chef's table special about Lucali, the local pizza place in Carroll Gardens that now you have to line up at noon to actually get a piece of pizza? Is that what's going to happen now?
Liz Hamran
It actually should be the opposite, because what we're giving you are tools so that you can plan ahead. So if everybody is going to particular trails, the top 10 trails in any national park tend to get about 50% of the traffic that we see. But there's so many other trails that are highly rated, that have great views. So in some sense, like, we're trying to help people distribute the crowd.
Tim Stanweck
Why is it so not distributed? Is it because, like, if you go to the Grand Canyon, you want to hike that one trail that goes, you know, down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and that's what everybody wants to do. I think it's called Angel's Landing or something.
Liz Hamran
So I think it's a couple things. One is there are these iconic trails that everyone knows about, and then there's also just the things people have heard of, or when you just research and find, oh, these are the top trails. But what we find is that there's much more to being a top trail. And is it highly rated? Is it crowded? Can you get the best views? And so we think there's just a lot more out there that people can explore that are equally good and maybe less crowded than these more flagship or marquee trails.
Carol Massar
Well, I have to say, I went for the first time to Yosemite National Park. I was working. I was in San Francisco, and I had to stay through a weekend, and I found a tour to take me. Pick me up really early Sunday morning. And I spent the day there, and it was just stunning. And it just kind of opened my mind to. I don't know, I'm stuck in the New York metro. I'm just not thinking about these gorgeous national parks that are around the country. But that's one of the parks that you guys highlight.
Adam Thompson
Indeed, it's one of the most popular.
Carol Massar
Stunning.
Adam Thompson
And what we tried to do also was give this package some geographical diversity. And some of them aren't very far from cities. I mean, Indiana Dunes is just outside Chicago, and it's really beautiful and not as famous as some of those other ones. But we tried to provide some alternatives that way as well. You know, I used to live in Colorado, so I know Rocky Mountain national park is spectacular. All the parks in Utah are stunning. Acadia in Maine, Great Smoky Mountains. I mean, there's just like endless number of places to go.
Tim Stanweck
And forgive me, it's bright. Angel in ah, at the Grand Canyon, and then at Zion, it's Angel's Landing. So what is your favorite place to visit? I mean, you're. You're based on the West Coast.
Liz Hamran
I am. You know, it's hard to pick a favorite. There's so many amazing places. You know, we have family in Wyoming, so I have to probably say Grand Teton national park just because it's so majestic and we love visiting.
Carol Massar
One of the things I'm curious too, is like, how climate change has impacted trails. Has it changed dramatically? What are you seeing on the platform in terms of things that are not accessible anymore? Do you see any of that?
Liz Hamran
You know, we are seeing that national parks and public lands are more popular than ever. So I think 75%. We had a 75% increase in people visiting public lands in 2025. Now, I think that what you're seeing with those crowds and with some of the changes is again, you want to be more prepared. And so, for instance, I was actually just researching for our trip to Wyoming, one of the trails in Grand Teton national park, and it's still pretty snowy. And so someone who had reviewed it like 2 days ago said, you know, you should probably wait for better conditions. Although we had a good time, we needed additional equipment. And so that's one of the other great things about Alltrails is helping people be prepared so they know what to expect.
Tim Stanweck
Liz, maybe that's part of the competitive advantage, but I'm curious. It's a competitive space. You have trail forks, you have Strava. These are just a couple, you know, off the top of my head, how do you differentiate yourself when the person is like, going to the App Store, they're going on a trip and they need a hiking app.
Liz Hamran
So I would say it's our community. The Alltrails community is over 100 million members. And it's those community reviews that really help people find the perfect trail for them. So there's over 50 million reviews that have been left. We have over 100 million photos, and you can search and find really recent reviews and then find people who are maybe similar to you. So you might think a trail is moderate. Your friend might think it's easy. And so you can really, through the community reviews, find the perfect thing.
Tim Stanweck
Are the AI LLMs, are they, are they scraping that data? Are they, are you licensing that data to them?
Liz Hamran
Well, we have a partnership with both OpenAI and with Anthropic, so we have all trails apps within ChatGPT and within Claude. And so we. So if you're. You're looking for a hike, you can use the AllTrails app in, in the LLMs.
Tim Stanweck
That's pretty cool.
Carol Massar
Brian, you have to come back. I'm Adam Rather. You have to come back in here. Anything else you want to highlight in terms of. I'm just kind of going through the list and being like, I need to go there, I need to go there.
Tim Stanweck
It's kind of what happens when we look at pursuit stories.
Carol Massar
I know it's like the life.
Tim Stanweck
I see we're here in the studio,
Carol Massar
but anything else, like in terms of the places 8, because you guys have a nice little mix here.
Adam Thompson
Yeah. Well, one thing I'll also say is that if you get to these parks and find that they're too crowded, we actually even offer an alternative to the park. There's a state park nearby or national park. So we tried to offer as many options to people as possible. I'm excited. My family's going to Acadia.
Carol Massar
That's what I was looking at later
Adam Thompson
in the summer and we are very excited to test drive this thing ourselves.
Carol Massar
Maine is gorgeous. Such beautiful places.
Tim Stanweck
As I remind everybody as somebody who went to college in Maine, bumper sticker, if you can't handle our winters, you don't deserve our summers.
Carol Massar
Okay, well said, well said.
Tim Stanweck
But Acadia is unbelievable.
Carol Massar
What's next for you guys as you think about as you continue to build out the platform just to wrap up?
Liz Hamran
Yeah, well, we'll continue to add more and more trails all across the world and continue to have the most real time up to date kind of community powered information and to build new tools. We just launched Backpacking some new backpacking tools and a route assistant to help you plan a multi day backpacking trip. So if you're a first time backpacker, check out Alltrails peak and plan your backpacking adventure.
Carol Massar
All right, really cool stuff. I'm ready for the summer.
Teddy Wayne
Are you ready?
Tim Stanweck
Yeah. This is such a great story. I mean it breaks down to parks and national parks in the west, the
Carol Massar
southwest, the mountain west, timing, summertime, windows. It just kind of goes through all of it.
Tim Stanweck
It's so Bloomberg. It's all the data and big thank you to Adam Thompson, Bloomberg Pursuits Senior Editor one of the editors on the piece. You can check out that piece on the Bloomberg terminal and at bloomberg.com/lign? Liz Hamring, too, the CEO of AllTrails
Fidelity Advisor
Advisors the best way to outperform client expectations is to choose funds and ETFs that outperform the market. Fidelity helps power long term growth in client portfolios with 300 plus Morningstar rated
The Hartford Representative
4 and 5 star funds including active ETFs.
Fidelity Advisor
Discover what sets Fidelity apart when it comes to performance@idoc fidelity.com topfunds across all fund share classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor Shares and Fidelity ETF as of 6, 15, 20, 26. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
The Hartford Representative
Support for this show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge on Public. You can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English like if the Vix hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500 or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the risk, monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market paid for by Public
Fidelity Advisor
Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, LLC. SEC registered advisor complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures aging is real and so
Vital Proteins Advertiser
are the benefits of adding vital proteins collagen peptides to your daily routine. Because around the age of 30, your body needs backup to keep your collagen up to help support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. Available in the classic Collagen peptides, Collagen and protein shakes and new Vital Proteins Collagen sparkling waters so you can stay vital. Stay you. Visit vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast Announcer
You're 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.
Carol Massar
Well, she is an award winning chef, co founder of a Michelin starred restaurant, author of 13 cookbooks, a native New Yorker, has a podcast where she talks with the likes of Paul McCartney, Tina Fey, David Beckham, Mel Brooks, Martha Stewart, Francis Ford Coppola, Mark Carney, Bob Iger, Jony. I've whose comfort food by the way is peas.
Tim Stanweck
Okay, I like that.
Carol Massar
Who would have known? She has also, full disclosure, talked with Michael Bloomberg, of course founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has talked with many, many folks. All of it comes together in a great book. It also comes together like a great meal with amazing company. Her new book is entitled Table 4 at the River Cafe which as we understand is a highly coveted physical table located near the restaurant's open kitchen. Here to tell us about it and more is Ruthie Rogers, co founder of the River Cafe in London, host of her podcast Ruthie's Table 4. She joins us from London. We are so delighted to have you. Congratulations on the new book. And we were thinking about where should we begin. And, and if you had to pick one single thing, Ruthie, as to where you are today, why you got there, your restaurant, iconic, well known in London, award winning, you've got now a five year old podcast. What might that thing be?
Ruthie Rogers
You know, from the very beginning we started with the values of a restaurant. What is a restaurant? Why do people go to restaurants? What do you look for in a restaurant? I see that the way people are greeted, the way people are made to feel welcome. Of course the food, we change the menu for every meal. We write a menu. We rather like you do at home. We see what is fresh, what we have, we bought the day before and what of course always what is in season in the Italian market. So I think every day is a different day. We have great people working here who we, you know, the whole kitchen is open and so there's a kind of way that we all work together. And I think, you know, you want really people to come to your restaurant and leave, I always say quite simply happier than when they arrived.
Tim Stanweck
So tell us about for people who haven't been to the restaurant, the coveted table four.
Ruthie Rogers
Well, you know what, Michael Kane always used to sit at table four. But then, you know, when Nancy Pelosi came in, we sat at table one and there might be a table who prefers somebody who prefers table. Table 10, which is near to the entrance. Table 4 is slightly also a pun on the word for. So it's a table Number. But it also is a table for Michael Bloomberg, a table for any of the other people who are in the book. Because what we wanted to do during, when we. We had to stop the restaurant because of the pandemic, we wanted a way to reach the people who ate in the restaurant. How could we reach them? We thought about reading a recipe every day, and then that segued into the story. Because when you think about, when we, when we talk to people through the lens of food about their memories, it's very thoughtful. It brings back. If I asked, did your mother cook, did your father cook? Did you go to restaurants? It brings up other stories.
Carol Massar
I love that aspect. Being from a large family, food was a big part. My mom loved to cook. And, you know, especially around holidays, birthdays, a relative in town, she would cook and make sure there was things for everybody who liked, you know, even if she had to do, like, five different vegetables to make sure everybody was happy. But we would say, sit, Ruthie at that table for hours. And I feel like that's where you're coming from.
Ruthie Rogers
The best things happen around a table, I think very. And the sad things happen around a table. But I think it is around a table that we all meet. It doesn't matter. We could have a sandwich around the table or a drink around the table, but there is something of that conversation. And when, when I, you know, when we interviewed Elton John and David furnished the woman who worked for his chief of staff, who said she'd worked with and heard so many interviews over 25 years. But it was only when Elton started talking about potting peas with his grandmother or how they tried, you know, the people who use food, you know, to seduce, to impress, to give joy, to share. It's, you know, and I'm also, you know, I meet a lot of women who don't cook or men who don't cook, and that's fine. It's not about the cooking. It's about somehow being together.
Tim Stanweck
Well, let's talk about the podcast a little bit and the way that these interviews have come together in this new book, as Carol mentioned, a host of names, these are not your favorites. These are just some of the interviews that the publisher picked.
Ruthie Rogers
We should know clear. Because so many brilliant people are not in the book, but they'll be in volume two.
Tim Stanweck
Well, what is the connection between the podcast and the restaurant and the way that you try to bring what you bring to life in a restaurant to an audio format that you invite people to sort of be at the table with you?
Ruthie Rogers
I Think there are two things. I think a friend of mine came into the restaurant the other day and he said, you know, oh, I don't. You know, I'm having trouble with one of my children. I'm not sure that I can join this crowd. Look at this room, Ruthie. There are so many people at this table looking so happy and celebrating. And I said, you know, if you went to every table in this restaurant, everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. It could be a happy story. Their daughter might have graduated, or they could have been fired that day, or their mother might be sick or, you know, there's so many stories that people have. And I think what I wanted to do is talk to people and have their stories told, as I say, through the lens of food. And you discover we have different sections. We have the chapter of food is family. And so we have the McCartney family. We have the Beckham family. We have the Harry Russell and Matthew Rice. We have. And that's families. We have the art. Food is art. And we have Tracy Emin, and we have Johnny I, who's a designer. We have the political artist politics. We have, as you said, Mark Carney. And it's not about famous people. It's not about celebrities. It's about people who have stories that we all want to know about, you know, and so I think it's quite democratic.
Tim Stanweck
Our thanks to Ruthie Rogers, co founder of the River Cafe in London and host of her podcast Ruthie's Table 4. Her new book, Table 4 at the River Cafe, is out now.
Carol Massar
From curating the perfect vibe for icons and celebrities, especially when it comes to food, we go to a centerpiece of the classic American holiday weekend, the backyard pool.
Tim Stanweck
Shawn Gad is the CEO of Latham Group. They design, manufacture, and market in ground residential swimming pools in North America, Australia and New Zealand.
Carol Massar
Pools, they sound so simplistic. We get what they are. But tell us about your business and the different product lines.
Sean Gad
Yeah, absolutely. So Latham is essentially the number one manufacturing pool manufacturer in the world. We've got scale in both fiberglass and vinyl pools, and we also sell auto covers, which is a safety device that goes over your pool, protects your investment, and also protects the people around the pool and your family.
Tim Stanweck
Biggest area of growth for the company right now. What is it? Not geographically. I mean, segment wise.
Sean Gad
Segment wise, we essentially play. There's two parts in which a pool gets in. If someone moves into a home, empty lot, I mean, empty space, they want to put a pool in for recreation. That's the number one market and then there's a secondary market which is single family new construction home builders who are using the pool to help offset the interest rates that they're buying down.
Tim Stanweck
So higher. Higher rates.
Sean Gad
Yeah. So what they say is they, they'll come in and they'll say the standard mortgage is at six and a half, 7%. They'll buy it down to say 5% and then they'll put upgrades in. And one of the upgrades they'll put in is a pool.
Carol Massar
All right, got it. Talk to us about the types of pools you guys have. Something called the San state strategy, which in your earnings call show double digit sales gains in fiberglass pools in your priority Florida market. I gotta tell you, those of us who grew up near pools, with pools, whatever I remember mostly either cement or liner pools, tell us about fiberglass. I'm a boater and fiberglass man, that is tough stuff.
Sean Gad
It is tough stuff. So Fiberglass makes up 25% of the US market. It is the growing, it is growing substrate that goes into pools. So it's been taking share every year.
Carol Massar
So it's like a formed entity and
Sean Gad
you just drop it in. Yes. Basically you dig a hole.
Ruthie Rogers
Yeah.
Sean Gad
And drop it straight in. The advantages over. Over cement, which is the number less 50% of the market in which we're going after and that happens to be in the sand states, you know, 50% share, but it takes sort of 90 days to. 120 days to put in for us. You want a consumer decides, I want to be in a pool within six days. We're in and out.
Carol Massar
Six days? Yes, six days.
Sean Gad
Six days. So tremendous advantage. And then obviously Tim's like, wait a
Carol Massar
minute, how big is my backyard?
Sean Gad
No 100%. And so the opportunity for lathan the pool company is, is a couple of things. One, we've done very well in the midwest, northeast and Canada where vinyl is a standard vinyl liner Pools and fiberglass, when you think about the southern states, the majority of the pools that go in are cement. And really it's because they haven't seen an alternative.
Tim Stanweck
But do consumers think about the actual material or do they say, I want a pool. They call a builder. The builder has the relationship with you and that's how they get that type of material.
Sean Gad
Consumer engages a dealer or a builder, comes into their kitchen table, sells, sells a product. Because we're the incumbent, we're still the unknown. So essentially we're a new product in the south. And I say a new product. We've been there for a couple of years, but we are in the new. And we're spending and investing a significant amount of marketing in the Southern markets on our sand state strategies. And when you think sanstate strategies, it's basically Florida to Southern California.
Carol Massar
Okay.
Sean Gad
But we're taking a very targeted approach on how we get there. So we're looking at neighborhoods. So right now in Florida, we're looking at neighborhoods that have a higher propensity for pools. That is price of pool, price per house, household income, age of home, and size of the lot. Once we get the right neighborhoods, we're working with dealers to go in there and position fibreglass.
Carol Massar
Sean, I want to ask you, I mean, whether. I think you guys talked about this too on the call, and I think you talked a little bit about some weather, maybe. I'm looking for my notes here, but maybe had a little bit of an impact. But I'm just curious. Talk to me about weather in general. Cold seasons are the start of like spring cold. Can it kill a quarter or a year for you? And at the same time, climate change, where it's getting hotter, you know, perversely, is that kind of a good thing for your business?
Sean Gad
Yeah. So one, obviously we're cyclical business. Most of the pool building occurs during the spring, summer, autumn months. That's what. So it is a cyclical business. Generally, where it's cold is generally our smaller quarter. So it's not going to kill the year.
Ruthie Rogers
Yeah.
Sean Gad
And when you think about that first quarter we basically missed equivalent to one day of shipping. Okay. So it's not. It wasn't by any stretch going to impact us to that degree. What I love about going into the Southern states is their season's much longer. And so when you think about where it's freezing cold in Connecticut in March, Florida and Texas and Atlanta are ready to go. So as we penetrate further into the Southern markets, we'll be able to balance our business in a much more effective way.
Tim Stanweck
What's the typical cost of. From soup to nuts for a pool?
Sean Gad
Yeah. So the basic pool, when you think about that, the average in North America, across North America, is $95,000. But you can get into a pool anything from $70,000 and of course, in go away up to 200, depending the pool you want. And what else you do when you. When you put in the pool, if you do landscaping, kitchens, et cetera, why
Carol Massar
is it so expensive? It's basically dig a hole.
Tim Stanweck
Hey, if it's that easy, Carol, do it yourself.
Vital Proteins Advertiser
No, I'm just.
Carol Massar
Is it the material cost? Is it labor?
Sean Gad
It's all of the above. I mean, I think in reality during COVID material costs went up obviously and hasn't corrected. Labor definitely went up and hasn't corrected. We do a lot of the labor in our factories. It's the advantage of being a fiberglass pool.
Carol Massar
So is everything done in the U.S. everything.
Sean Gad
Everything that's supplied to the U.S. is done in the U.S. so fiberglass, because it's quite hard to freight to a house, you need to be close to your market, which is one of our advantages. And so when you think about that, we have, we have control of the costs, we have control of the product and we're in control of the quality. So it gives us a great pull.
Tim Stanweck
That was Sean Gadd, president and CEO of Latham Group.
Carol Massar
Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, no summer weekend is complete without diving into a great book. We've got a new literary thriller for you.
Tim Stanweck
The award winning novelist and screenwriter Teddy Wayne joins us next. This is Bloomberg.
The Hartford Representative
Support for the show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge on public. You can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English like if the Vix hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500 or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk, monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market market paid for by
Fidelity Advisor
Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC advisory services by Public Advisors LLC. SEC registered advisor complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures
Vital Proteins Advertiser
aging is real and so are the benefits of adding vital proteins collagen peptides to your daily routine. New vital proteins collagen sparkling water. Your daily gloup now in three fresh flavors, Strawberry blossom, lemon, lime and blood orange. Improved skin health in as little as 30 days thanks to collagen peptides. Cheers to that. Or go with our classic collagen peptides so you can stay vital. Stay you. Visit vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Fidelity Advisor
Hey everyone, it's Kal Penn, host of Irsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Wil Wheaton, who played Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me 40 years ago and now narrates Stephen King's the Body, the novella that inspired it all. We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life, channeling his memories of River Phoenix in the recording booth and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have. I know Gordon Leche. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it. Listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast Announcer
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 app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa. Play. Bloomberg 11:30.
Tim Stanweck
Teddy Wayne writes novels you can't put down. I know this because I've read all seven of them. They include the Winner, which has been optioned by Sony for a film starring Tom Holland, the Great Man Theory, the Love Song of Johnny Valentine, Capitol and others. Teddy's a novelist, a screenwriter. He's also a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, McSweeney's other publications, too. He was a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Carol Massar
I feel like it's outlander for guys. I'm just gonna put it out there. But anyway, his new book, the Au Pair, is a literary thriller. We're not gonna spoil it. We're gonna get to that in just a moment. Teddy, of course, joining us in our Bloomberg studio. Welcome, welcome.
Teddy Wayne
Thank you for having me.
Carol Massar
Your book is being kind of passed around our newsroom, to be quite honest, and different people reading it. Anyone who reads your book and I listen to a bunch of podcasts, it's often men who make really questionable or in some cases really bad decisions. What's up with that?
Teddy Wayne
I think I'm just entranced by the idea of someone destroying their life who has a pretty good one, a fairly accomplished or content life, but is driven by the American pursuit of more and more. More happiness, more money, more sex, more. More status and that ambition is their downfall.
Carol Massar
Why are you so interested in that?
Teddy Wayne
I live in New York City. It's all around me. I'm at Bloomberg right now.
Carol Massar
That is so funny.
Teddy Wayne
The Mecca of ambition and status and money.
Carol Massar
It does feel like there's. We live in a society certainly in the New York metro. It's never enough, right?
Teddy Wayne
It should be. We all know that instinctively. We all have been taught that over and over many times in our lives. But. But when you're actually presented with the opportunity and the potential to get more, it's very hard to turn it down.
Carol Massar
There was somewhere on a podcast you talked about billionaires specifically, and you were like, that's not what people really want to be or shouldn't be. It's not like all of a sudden everybody's so happy or everything's solved.
Teddy Wayne
There is that stat. I'm sure you guys know that study that people's happiness rises to a certain income level and then maybe tails off. I think the original number is $75,000 a year. They upgraded that to at 150 or something because of inflation perhaps. I strongly believe that past a certain point it actually goes down your happiness that you might have more material comfort. Of course you might feel in some sense like you won at life. But the people I know who are in that kind of ultra rich, high net worth category tend to have thinner relationships, tend to feel like if they don't recognize it themselves, that people like them for their money and their power. And I think it's very difficult to have that kind of level of wealth, not even income, and still have an authentically happy life.
Tim Stanweck
Well, perhaps it's a good segue to talk about your new book, the Au Pair. The Au Pair is a literary thriller. It's about a middle aged novelist who lives in brownstone Brooklyn. He's married. The marriage is not so great. A young Norwegian au pair enters the picture.
Carol Massar
Okay, let's just say it's trouble. I mean, come on.
Tim Stanweck
Well, I'm not gonna give everything away, but let's just say things get a lot messier than it sounds like they're going to get. You talk about writing about what you know and what you're surrounded by. That profile of Steven, the main character, middle aged, plays pickleball. I guess you play pickleball too. He has two kids, lives in a certain part of Brooklyn and that's very similar to you.
Teddy Wayne
Adjacent to me. I live in Copple Hill, not Brooklyn Heights. I do have two kids, just got
Tim Stanweck
across Atlantic Avenue to get to it.
Teddy Wayne
His Career trajectory and his financial situation in the household is different from mine. He had a massive hit when he was nine years earlier, before the novel starts. His second novel was a bust. He's financially dependent on his wife who works in private equity. That's not my situation at all. I've observed though, both the plight of the novelist who had a sort of a big bang of an opening and then a whimper in their next phase. And I've observed separately a number of men who are financially dependent more or less on their wives. And they tend to respond to it better than Stephen does. There's a lot of insecurity here, a lot of sense of emasculation. His wife is not too thrilled with the arrangement either. So I was interested in exploring this phenomenon that. That didn't really exist in America 20 plus years ago, certainly not 30 plus years ago. It's not widespread now, but it's much more common than you'd think. And there's nothing wrong with it objectively, but I think the genders have. Still trying to figure out how to. How to adapt to it.
Tim Stanweck
I found it notable that you wrote about how when you started this process for writing this book, you started it as a screenplay or maybe a short story that could turn into a screenplay that you could gift your agent who could then go and sell it to a streaming service.
Sean Gad
The.
Tim Stanweck
The economics of writing a novel in. In today's environment, is that the way you have to approach something in order to like make the economics work, make it financially work. You have to think about all these different income streams.
Teddy Wayne
If I didn't live in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, maybe I'd have a little more leeway because I live where I live and I'm not a professor at a university. This is the only way I make my living, is writing. So it's a bit of a rare breed now I think, again, the type of me, the guy who earns a living as a novelist, was in proliferation 30 plus years ago in American life. Probably from like 1920s up until about 2010. The industry has contracted greatly. It's much harder to make a living as a novelist, certainly as a literary fiction novelist, it's called. So yes, I had this idea of 30, 40 page short story. I'd had a nice film deal with the winner. Let me write this as a short story. We'll sell it to Hollywood for IP highly cynical origin story. I'm aware of that. Once I started writing it though, I got very excited by it, by the themes, by the characters, by the setting, by the plot as well and decided to turn into a novel. So that was a quick short lived idea. But. But I use that initial conception of this is the only way to make a living now for a guy who's trying to support a family as one of the major themes of the book that Stephen is now a failing novelist who's financially dependent on his wife, who can't make much money as a writer anymore. This undergirds all his anxieties pretty much as a writer.
Carol Massar
Is that kind of rewarding to start out like with a shorter mission and just be like, wow, I'm just really loving this and I'm going to run with it.
Teddy Wayne
It is when it works out well. If it doesn't work out well, it's, it's quite. Maybe I should have kept it at that short level.
Tim Stanweck
You know, it. We're approaching this as broadcasters, as reporters. And I couldn't help but notice in this book and some of your other books, I'm not going to again, not going to give anything away. But you thank people within a profession. I'll just go ahead and say it like an NYPD Detectives Bureau prosecutor in the Bronx who you've leaned on in the past. And it's almost like you reported out certain parts of this book by making sure that it works in terms of like if somebody in a profession, in a legal profession were to read it, they would say, okay, wait a second, that's how things would, would actually unfold. Can you talk about not the creative process but the actual reporting process in this?
Teddy Wayne
Absolutely. I'm not a criminologist. I have no police background, as you might be surprised by, to find out. So I have these two friends, a detective and an assistant da. I feel like the one detective and one assistant DA who are both avid readers of literary fiction. So it's great to have them in my back pocket. They help me a lot with the winner as well. There's a crime in that too. And I wouldn't know the first thing about what police do what, what lawyers do you get. Pick up some things from life from watching enough courtroom thrillers and so on. But it helps to have people who are experts and not only that, they've helped me come up with plot turns for both these books. The ending of the winner was completely invented by my DA friend who knew about this specific thing. I won't spoil it for your viewers that not many people knew about, which he gave to me as this is a great twist for the ending. That is even a lot of cops don't know about it.
Tim Stanweck
That's pretty cool.
Carol Massar
And I'm not sure if I've got getting this right, but I thought I heard on a podcast, too that the ending for this book, you were planning to go one way and then you went to it. Was it a school event or something? And actually talked to a father at the school event who kind of gave. Talked with you about some stuff and kind of helped shape you.
Teddy Wayne
The ending was a little bit quieter and subtler and I'd been working on it. I kind of knew something was wrong. I went to my daughter's preschool graduation party.
Carol Massar
Which you love to do, right?
Teddy Wayne
Which I'm always up for. Going to a preschool party.
Tim Stanweck
I were you last week.
Carol Massar
We've all been there.
Teddy Wayne
It was at the club. It was the after party. We were. I was talking to another dad there. He works for a company. I can't say what it is because it'll spoil. The last sentence of this book has a twist in it, so I can't say what he works for. But we talk for a while. I generally interested in people's jobs and ask what they do. The next day, my wife and I were talking about the book and she said, I think you need something else here at the ending, but I don't know what. But it's currently not working. And I realized what this guy does for a living could play a big factor in that. And I ended up rewriting it based on that.
Tim Stanweck
Okay. Oh, go ahead, Carol.
Carol Massar
Do you and your wife often talk? You're both writers. Like, do you often. You both work from home. Like, do you often kind of bounce off of each other?
Teddy Wayne
We do, literally, because we live in a small apartment and we are constantly in each other's way. But her name is Kate Greathead. She's a wonderful writer, too. Her last book is called the Book of George. I'd say we're probably each other's first and last readers, I think. First and last line of defense. Plenty of discussion while we're in the midst of things. Not the kind of couple where we show each other every single page we write that night. But good to have someone in your own field who you can talk with about your own work, but also about broader literature and movies and so on.
Tim Stanweck
How much does a draft stay consistent? I know it's dependent on the draft, but this, for example, the au pair, which is coming out tomorrow, stay consistent between first and last draft.
Teddy Wayne
The spine stays consistent. I've written this and the last book very quickly. The first draft. My new method is Write it as fast as possible at a blitz like pace to slightly match the pace of the reading experience. I want to write books that are page turners, that are quick reads that people tend to finish in one or two sittings. So I wrote them so quickly, they're necessarily short too, because of that. So the revision process tends to flesh it out and deepen things. You get ideas like that ending twist. Plenty of other backstory and other elements of character and psychology and narrative end up coming in too.
Tim Stanweck
We're speaking with Teddy Wayne. He's a novelist, he's an author, he is a screenwriter. His new book, the Au Pair. I want to talk a little bit about some themes that have come up in your work in the past. One of them is technology. And again, I'm not going to give anything away, but technology features prominently in this book and also in another book. And I'm just wondering the world that we live in today. You talked earlier about how we're reading less so and buying fewer books. Perhaps some of that time is being taken up by us being addicted to our phones and information coming at us from. From every different angle where we're kind of measuring everything too. I'm just wondering how you view technology.
Teddy Wayne
I'd say all of it's being taken up by that. I think that's the main difference between now and 1950, certainly. But even 2003, let's say I'm susceptible as anyone else. I spend a lot of time on my phone. I'm not proud of it. I don't like what it does to me. I can't resist the allure of a glowing device that has access to everything in the world ever made, much of it bright and shiny and video and visual. So I understand why people are drawn to these things. I do my best to have my children resist it, but there's only so much you can do with it. And it's certainly leading to the erosion of my industry as a writer. But it's not doing great things for most people's characters and personalities, I'd say.
Carol Massar
What do you hope when somebody reads your book like they walk away with? Because I do feel like there's messages about society in there. And I think I mentioned earlier, like the transactions that we see in our economy, the power structure, whether, you know, you see it right off. There's just always someone that can be above someone in positions. But it's a part of a lot of your books.
Teddy Wayne
Well, first I'm trying to entertain people and to write something that will make the and put down the phone or their laptop and just read a book. Secondly, I think art can serve two essential purposes. It can comfort the disturbed or disturb the comfortable. Comforting the disturbed is a great thing. It's not really what I do. I'm in the business of disturbing the comfortable. Specifically the probably upper middle class professional class that might buy hardcover novel and have time to read it on the beach, say, or on their vacation and an attempt to make them look around their environment, look at themselves with new eyes in a way that I think fiction can often be anesthetizing or anodyne and make us feel good about where we are and about ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with that again, but I'm more interested in making people question themselves.
Carol Massar
And other works of art, often like movies or something like the Anatomy of Fall.
Ruthie Rogers
Right.
Carol Massar
That inspired this. I mean you are inspired by other works that are out there.
Teddy Wayne
You have to be. It would be strange to be closed off by that. I've heard of writers who say they don't want to read other novels, other fiction while they're writing. I don't know how you would do that. But I'm always looking for what might rub off on me. I think it's important to have a bit of a magpie sensibility, to pick things from anywhere. Whether it's another novel, it's the obvious place. But film, music and then of course real life and little moments from real life.
Tim Stanweck
One of I think was it was Capitol, your first. It was novel. So it's a 2010 novel. It tells the story of this young immigrant from Qatar. It's actually very Bloomberg like he comes and works on Wall Street. He creates this algorithm to trade oil that ends up being really successful. There's a character in there who runs the fund that he works for and he builds this relationship with him and he goes and visits him on. On his estate in Connecticut. And there are helicopters involved and lots and lots of money. Was there a specific individual like hedge fund manager you modeled that person off of?
Teddy Wayne
Not hedge fund. I think each book of mine is an attempt to be some kind of diagnostic assessment of America at the time it was either written in and. Or the time it portrays.
Tim Stanweck
And this is post financial crisis. But it was takes place pre 9
Teddy Wayne
11, takes place in 1999. But it's meant to be in its own way a kind of post 911 novel about the 911 world. Even though it's all set before that. So that book was again as you pointed out, he develops an algorithm that uses news Articles. It's been a while since I read it or thought about it. Uses news articles and algorithmically sifts them to predict oil futures. It felt like a kind of metaphor to me of, of let's say, 2003 to 2000 and whatever US foreign policy of some kind of exploitative oil acquisition and profiteering from Iraq. So that guy was not modeled off a specific individual. I was more thinking about the Dick Cheney style of foreign imperialism.
Carol Massar
All right, so I've got to ask, I mean, did you have a Norwegian au pair?
Sean Gad
Just kidding.
Teddy Wayne
Swedish. No, we never. Not even had a nanny or we rarely even get babysitters, to be honest. So it's all invented.
Carol Massar
Writer's block. It seems like there's a theme often where you have a writer or somebody who meets somebody, whether it's apartment or this book, where somebody who isn't necessarily a writer by training or something can write. So naturally, do you have writer's block a lot or like, why is that a fun theme for you?
Teddy Wayne
So I have a strange situation of once I get started, I can't stop and I'm very excited to write and there's no problems. It's between projects that I think I'll always. I always fear I'll never come with another idea or another idea worth pursuing.
Ruthie Rogers
Get it?
Teddy Wayne
And that is a probably chronic lifelong anxiety that I'll be afflicted with forever. Invariably something pops up and I get an idea and I run with it. But there's often a several month gap between the end of one project and the start of a new one where I do feel that sense of a block and that might inform these characters.
Tim Stanweck
Is that where you feel you are right now or do you feel like you have with this new book coming out that you worked, you know, has been quite a while in the making. Are you ready to start a new one?
Teddy Wayne
I'm in the midst of working on one, so I'm good for now. But when this is over, I still feel like what's left?
Carol Massar
All right, so the book is out. A teaser. We don't want to give it away. 30, 40 seconds for those who might
Teddy Wayne
be listening of what it's about.
Ruthie Rogers
Yeah.
Teddy Wayne
Failing middle aged Brooklyn novelist hires an au pair. 24 year old Norwegian au pair who upends his life and bad things happen.
Carol Massar
All right, Summer read as we kick off the summer officially and it already
Tim Stanweck
has been sold to like a. Has it been sold like who is it who bought it for a streaming rights or fifth season?
Teddy Wayne
A big product production company. They do I think severance and things like that.
Tim Stanweck
So would it be a series versus a one off film? Okay. All right. Well, congratulations.
Teddy Wayne
Thank you.
Tim Stanweck
Thanks so much for joining us.
Carol Massar
I'm just kidding. Good luck with it. Thank you so much. This was really fun. We really enjoyed it. Teddy Wayne, of course, joining us. The book is the Au Pair.
Ruthie Rogers
Yeah.
Carol Massar
And there's lots of books. And you've read them all.
Tim Stanweck
I've read all seven and I will read the eighth one now.
Carol Massar
And that wraps up our weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio Special Holiday edition. Thank you for joining us.
Tim Stanweck
Be sure to tune in to Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Monday through Friday starting at 2pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg TV and on Sirius XM Channel 121.
Carol Massar
You could also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Podcasts. We're simulcast on Bloomberg originals, available on bloomberg.com originals and streaming platforms including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV plus and more.
Tim Stanweck
I'm Tim Stanvak.
Carol Massar
And I'm Carol Massar.
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Have a good insight.
Carol Massar
Have a safe weekend everyone.
Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast Announcer
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.
Carol Massar
Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more@business.optum.com
Fidelity Advisor
hey everyone, it's Kalpen. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Vital Proteins Advertiser
Aging is real and so are the benefits of adding vital proteins, collagen peptides to your daily routine. Because around the age of 30, your body needs backup to keep your collagen up to help support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. Available in the classic Collagen peptides, collagen and protein shakes and new Vital Proteins Collagen Sparkling waters so you can stay vital stay you. Visit vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Date: July 2, 2026
Theme: Celebrating America’s 250th Independence Day with a look at summer’s big stories in money, power, technology, lifestyle, and culture.
This special holiday weekend edition taps into the spirit of summer and July 4th, focusing on America's 250th Independence and the ways in which technology, business innovation, outdoor recreation, and culture shape our current lives. Carol and Tim cover top stories—Supreme Court decisions, US-Iran peace talks, the robust performance of US markets—and transition into lighter summer themes: navigating national parks with AllTrails, entertaining with legendary chef Ruthie Rogers, the booming business of backyard pools, and a buzzy summer beach read from author Teddy Wayne.
Record Interest in National Parks:
AllTrails' Platform and Growth:
Exclusive Data for Crowds & Hidden Gems:
Crowding & Distribution:
Climate Change and Real-Time Updates:
AllTrails’ Community and AI Partnerships:
Continued Expansion:
Philosophy of Hospitality:
Origins of Podcast & Book:
Book Structure:
Market & Product Focus:
Growth Segments:
Fiberglass Pools:
Marketing & Regional Strategies:
Cost and Operations:
New Book:
Themes:
Writing Process & Economics:
Personal touches:
Industry Reflection:
A festive, future-facing look at how Americans are navigating, celebrating, and reflecting on summer—on trails, by the table, in the backyard pool, or through a novel that makes you think twice about your own ambitions.
Listenership Tip:
For data-driven insights, personal stories, and cool summer inspiration, check out the full episode and referenced features on Bloomberg.com and Businessweek’s platforms.