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- [00:01]
IBM Representative
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- [01:32]
Carol Massar
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this
- [01:39]
Podcast Narrator
is Bloomberg businessweek 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 Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.
- [02:02]
Carol Massar
All right, so let's get to it. There's a lot of stuff going on. As I said, I'm obsessed with some of the news out of China. A surprise breakthrough from Chinese AI startup Moonshot rippling through global markets. We're seeing that play out. It started overnight in Asia. Semiconductor stocks. Charlie just talked about it. Sharply lower. We're kind of thinking, is this another deep seek moment yet? President Xi Jinping also overnight, his first appearance at China's premier AI summit, lending his support to the country's push to become a global global leader in AI. You know you've also got Alphabet tanking. There's another story kind of at play here, right?
- [02:37]
Tim Stenovec
Shares of Alphabet tanking As Google is months behind on schedule and delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro, its most powerful flagship AI model, it's trying to improve its capabilities, particular encodings. And then the credit markets are also reacting to this AI trade. We got to talk about credit, Carol.
- [02:53]
Carol Massar
The bonds sold by hyperscalers to fuel their AI ambitions have become a drag on investor portfolios with falling prices and wider spreads to negative total returns. That is certainly your world. I feel like it's a lot, but it is always when it comes to what's going on with AI, we wanted to check in once again with Mandeep Singh. He's Bloomberg Intelligence Global head of Technology research. Mandeep, I know we, I feel like we have the same conversation with you over and over again, but there's stuff that keeps coming at us. SK Hynix adrs too are bouncing around the Cosby route. Feels like nervousness continues to grow increasingly out of this AI trade. Is it fundamentally based, Is it valuation based? Is it just a little bit of fear? Fear of people being on the wrong side of the trade? You watch the fundamentals, you always remind us what matters. So how do you see it?
- [03:41]
Mandeep Singh
Yeah, I would agree with your assessment that it is fundamentals that are still holding up and it's the valuations and the nervousness around positioning is what is driving this sort of volatility. And look, we know AI being expensive has been raised as a concern by a lot of companies lately. So it doesn't surprise me that, you know, a model like Kimi 3, which is an open rate model, much cheaper to use, is gaining traction. And there are companies out there that have explored using this model, notably Cursor, which is a company that X AI and space, Xbot, you know, they use Kimit 3 under the covers. And so from that perspective, open source will have some sort of adoption. But fundamentally nothing has changed. Everyone wants to use LLMs, it's just that they were expensive. That's why we had concerns around memory pricing and, you know, now we are talking about open source adoption, but I don't think fundamentally anything has changed. It's just a function of how folks were positioned when it comes to the valuations. And certain sectors have gone parabolic within the tech space and you're seeing a drawdown over there.
- [05:02]
Tim Stenovec
Mandeep, tell us about this new Chinese AI model. Because as Carol and I were discussing just a few minutes ago, it wasn't too long ago in markets that we had that deep seek moment, that scare when a new model from a different country comes out and Spooks the market. Is this just a Deep Sea 2.0? Is there something different about Moonshot? And when you look at the market right now, is it really reflecting the same type of fear that we saw when the Deep SEQ model was released a little over a year ago?
- [05:32]
Mandeep Singh
Yeah, I mean, look at how far we have come since that Deep Seek moment. We had a company like Anthropic grow from, you know, 9 billion revenue run rate to 47 billion run rate in six months. So that's despite Deep Seek. And so look, open source gaining traction is something that has carried forward. I should stand corrected. It's open weight, not open source. But all these companies are looking for ways to reduce their, you know, inference pricing, which is very expensive for frontier models. And we have been compute constrained. Those are the things that reflect the fundamentals. Everything else around, you know, nervousness around Deep Seek and new types of models just shows that there is a lot of investment being made. Companies are exploring how to reduce their costs, but they want to consume more capacity and deploy as much of LLM functionality as they can. So from that perspective, the fundamentals are still good and that's what's reflected in the revenue run rates of these companies and the demand that we have seen in terms of the backlog. And we'll hear more from hyperscalers when they report over the next two weeks in terms of how they're guiding around their CapEx numbers.
- [06:51]
Carol Massar
All right, and we're going to talk a little bit more too about the China angle with a member of two of our AI team in just a moment. But I want to talk about one of the hyperscalers. And as you said, we got to watch and see what they say on earnings. But we've been watching. Shares of Alphabet stock has been down almost, well, 3.7%. Its lows today, down right now, still about 3%. Talk to us about this news. We highlighted yesterday late the delay of that Google Gemini launch. What do we need to know about this? What does it indicate for Alphabet more broadly for the AI story?
- [07:26]
Mandeep Singh
Yeah, I mean this is such a fast moving space that if you have a delay in the release of your model and your competitors have rolled out new models that are getting a lot of attention like Kimmy3 did with some of the new functionality in terms of coding agents and established use cases, that is where Alphabet, because maybe they lost some of their key researchers on the LLM side that may have had an impact. I don't know the reason for the delays, but for a frontier model company like Alphabet that has a lot going for them in terms of the chip side and the cloud business. Delay of the model is certainly a setback. I do think they will release something soon, but for now I think it's right to see that getting reflected because you can't afford to not be on the frontier if you're a hyperscaler right now.
- [08:21]
Carol Massar
All right, so Mandeep, a good buddy, you're watching the World cup this week and turns to you and says, mandeep, what the heck's going on? Like, should I pull all my investments? What would you say?
- [08:32]
Mandeep Singh
No, I think you just got to write out these volatile phases and look, there may be some changes in terms of what's going on in the memory complex. If Apple is get to like they're looking to get CXMT qualified for use, that is a big deal. Now those are the type of things that have a bearing on the market. But on the demand side, when it comes to LMS and the need to deploy limbs and inference tokens, that I think will hold good because everyone knows that, you know, there are established use cases around these lamps.
- [09:08]
Carol Massar
All right, so I'm going to read that as Mandeep Singh saying, take a chill pill for a little bit everybody. All right, Mandeep, thank you as always. Have a great weekend. Mandeep Singh, He's Bloomberg Intelligence Global Head of Technology Research. We lean on him so much.
- [09:20]
Seth Fiegerman
Stay with us.
- [09:21]
Jason Leopold
More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.
- [09:27]
Public.com Representative
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Public.com Legal/Compliance
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- [10:37]
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- [11:07]
Amazon Health AI Narrator
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- [11:13]
Amazon Health AI User
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- [11:26]
Amazon Health AI Narrator
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- [11:37]
Podcast Narrator
You're 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.
- [11:51]
Carol Massar
We're going to stay on tech, Emily and I, and the Build trade and threats and concerns. I want to go a little bit more into what is going on when it comes to China and I'm like perplexed and I know Mandeep just addressed it. Let's get to a member of our team on the AI watch. That is Seth Fiegerman. He is Bloomberg News AI Editor. Seth, good to have you here with us. We just talked with Mandeep about the trade today, the news out of China, President Xi kind of being all in no surprise, right when it comes to building up China's presence in AI and moving along. The race and nervousness from you and the teams reporting. What's your take on all of this? What are you hearing from those in the industry?
- [12:32]
Seth Fiegerman
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of the narrative for the last year and a half post deep seek was that we were seeing Chinese rivals put out replacement models for lower cost that can undercut top US AI firms. But we weren't really seeing any of these firms compete what they call the frontier, you know, the absolute cutting edge of AI technology. And so I think part of what's jarring about this announcement, at least at first blush, is whether Kimi and Moonshot are now at that level. And I think there's mixed reactions in the industry so far as we continue to report this out. And there's a joke sort of that, you know, it takes the worst time to review a new model as the day it comes out. You know, you need to kind of live with that and see how it kind of socializes and gets used day by day. But it's clear that the capabilities of this model, from what they publicly disclosed match or exceed those of models from US firms that were released as recently as a month or two ago. So suddenly the question is, is China six to 12 months behind as some had thought, or is it really just one or two months behind? And the difference could be pretty monumental.
- [13:34]
Tim Stenovec
And talk about just what makes the product so competitive because it's not just competitive on price. Right. They're going for more of a premium kind of high quality model and looking to attract buyers who maybe aren't as much price sensitive.
- [13:49]
Seth Fiegerman
Yeah, this is, as you said, price like a premium model, I think is the most expensive model that we've seen come out from China at this point. Certainly on the open weight side, it's comparable to some of the mid tier offerings from Anthropic with its Sonnet models. This is a little bit different than what we've seen with Deep Seeking others where that's really fully a pricing game. What this is is more saying this model can compete on the more advanced tasks, you know, the agent task doing coding for example, which has become really the lucrative and key selling point for AI technology right now. And again, it comes at a moment when we're hearing more and more that there's cost consciousness emerging among developers and businesses of how much they're spending on AI models. And I think there's a growing awareness that maybe you don't have to bet entirely on one model. Maybe you kind of have a little bit of a buffet of models that you rely on and you can use different ones for different tasks. You may not need the absolute top of the line ones for every task. That way you can save costs. So if it prices at a premium way and starts to draw away customers who might have turned to top of the line offerings for those AI agentic tasks, that could be a meaningful hit to some of these US firms.
- [14:55]
Carol Massar
Seth Figureman, you guys follow this stuff inside and out, but I keep thinking about the EV race and the EV industry and how China is now what we are talking about, kind of non stop, high end, low end, more affordable. And so I do wonder China's lead when it comes to EVs, is that kind of a lesson for the US and kind of for everybody who's looking to stake their place when it comes to AI.
- [15:20]
Seth Fiegerman
You know, it's funny that you mentioned because again, I think the sense has been that China is following a playbook that gets used in other industries, that it's flooded the market with more affordable models. And at least until today, the thinking was it didn't have to have the best model. It could still siphon away meaningful market share and potentially destabilize or undercut U.S. firms who are trying to make as much money as they can to offset their heavy investments here. But with this model, I think the question becomes not just whether they undercut you on price, but whether they actually are able to create comparable capabilities that compete at the cutting edge tier of AI development. And we're still not quite there, but we could be heading there sooner than we thought.
- [15:57]
Tim Stenovec
What is that going to look like in practice? How are investors going to be able to judge when they look at the various LMS that come out of China? Is China just catching up to the US or are they actually surpassing the US in the technology?
- [16:12]
Seth Fiegerman
I don't think anyone yet thinks that China has surpassed the U.S. but the narrative until today had been that we thought China was a bit further behind than they might have been. Now again, this is early days. This model just came out. People need to play with it. And one of the challenges throughout AI is that there's not always agreed upon benchmarks and leaderboards to really say this one is definitively better or worse than that one. But the initial tests that they publicize certainly suggests that it ranks near the top of models out there, but still behind the most recent offerings from Opening Anthropic that came out in the last couple of months. So again, China has not surpassed the US but it is certainly competing at a closer neck than we might have thought.
- [16:51]
Carol Massar
Listen, the team though, you know, reminding us that Airbnb runs a mix of Chinese open source models along with Western vendors Pinterest touted, touted their utility. Even Microsoft, one of OpenAI's biggest backers, CEO Satya Nadella, saying he's considering using Deep Seek models in its co pilot cowork product. So yeah, I get it. And I feel like there is now the discussion of where are cheaper models. And you're right, not everybody needs the top of the line because it's expensive. Having said that, are there security issues? Where's the US Government? Do we have to. Do companies need to be concerned that the government is going to maybe clamp down on this?
- [17:30]
Seth Fiegerman
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of different ways to answer that question. One is that the Trump administration, if they do feel that China is on the cusp of overtaking the US Might decide that that in itself is a national security concern and way whether it makes sense to have more restrictions there. The other is, and I think this comes more from the AI labs in the US and certainly companies like Anthropic that a lot of this year has been defined by models that are advanced at, say, cybersecurity capabilities and what the risks are there. And the belief has been, well, if Anthropic is the market leader, they can help kind of set precedents around what steps should be taken, what safeguards should be offered, and ultimately they can deploy their models to trusted partners first before other bad actors might exploit them. If we enter a world where China has one or more models that are more advanced or equally advanced than what we have from saying Anthropic, would they follow those same precautions? And if they don't, what might be the societal impacts of having a widely available, more advanced open source model through a Chinese firm that hasn't gone through that same rigorous safeguarding process? We're not there yet. Those are questions. I imagine folks would be asking a
- [18:37]
Carol Massar
lot of questions, right with everything and anything to do with AI still as we move forward. Hey Seth, thank you so much for jumping on with us. Seth Fegerman, he is Bloomberg News AI editor joining us here on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
- [18:48]
Podcast Narrator
You're 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.
- [19:02]
Carol Massar
Hard to believe the World cup wrapping up this weekend. I kind of can't get my head around it.
- [19:06]
Tim Stenovec
Who are you for? Are you allowed to say
- [19:12]
Miguel Lorenzo
no?
- [19:12]
Carol Massar
I'm not gonna say, Sebastian. Who should I be rooting for?
- [19:16]
Tim Stenovec
Spain. Give Spain a chance.
- [19:18]
Carol Massar
Give Spain a chance.
- [19:20]
Tim Stenovec
You already won. Just.
- [19:22]
Carol Massar
Well, I have to say it's been fun to be around the newsroom. People are watching everywhere. They're watching their phones, streaming networks, you name it. And as AP reports, every match of the tournament has been available for US viewers in English on Fox or FS1 or Telemundo or Universo in Spanish. And there are streaming options such as Fox one or Peacock. And what caught our attention from the this AP story? Thank you Sebastian, for pointing it out for us that the American Spanish language TV network owned by NBCUniversal, we're talking about Telemundo points to Nielsen ratings to show that roughly half the World cup viewers in the United States have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish. We wanted to know more. So joining us to talk about it is Miguel Lorenzo. He's senior vice president of sports content at NBC Universal Telemundo Enterprises. He joins us from New Jersey. Also with us is our Vanessa Perdomo Maglion. She is Bloomberg News sports business reporter, co host of the Business of Sports podcast. She joins us right here in our studio.
- [20:20]
Mandeep Singh
Welcome.
- [20:21]
Carol Massar
Welcome, Miguel. Great to have you here. Sounds like it's been a great run this round of the World Cup. Tell us about the ratings. Who's watching and how do you know that roughly half of the World cup viewers in the US have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish. Talk to us about that.
- [20:38]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
That.
- [20:39]
Miguel Lorenzo
Sure. Well, thank you for having me. The, the audience in this World cup has been an amazing story, and I, I think it speaks to many things. It speaks to certainly Telemundo and Peacock's coverage of the World cup across many different platforms. I think it also speaks to the World cup tournament itself, whether it's the expanded field where there's more teams and there's more games, the. The legends like Messi and Ronaldo, the stars of the World Cup. And we can't discount the fact that it's a World cup taking place in our backyard, in our communities. And a World cup that is a world away is still interesting to all audiences of soccer. But when it's taking place in your country, it's hard to replicate that excitement knowing that whether there's matches in your city, you know, in your communities, watch parties, there's just, it's another level to it that we haven't seen since the last World cup here in 1994. And certainly whether it's on social media or through our coverage, the response from audiences with these matches have been amazing.
- [21:42]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Miguel, obviously, one of the things we can't ignore when we're talking about Telemundo is the iconic voice of Andres Cantor. I mean, everyone knows that go. You know, everyone knows what that is. And if died, do you think that's one of the reasons why people are so invested to tune into Telemundo? Because even people who don't speak Spanish are tuning in.
- [22:06]
Miguel Lorenzo
Absolutely. You know, Hispanics are about 20% of the US population, yet as you mentioned, nearly half of the World cup audience in the United States has been on Telemundo and Peacock. And so the excitement and the passion that our talent and that our production brings. Andres Cantor Certainly being one of them. It's, it's certainly one of the reasons why audiences are watching on Telemundo. You know, it. Andres is a very important part of it. And certainly, you know, his calls of these various Argentina comebacks have been very viral.
- [22:39]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
But, oh, the last one, he almost lost his voice.
- [22:41]
Jason Leopold
I love that.
- [22:44]
Miguel Lorenzo
He needs to really make sure he's taking care of us. You know, drink some honey and some lemon.
- [22:48]
Mandeep Singh
We got to save you.
- [22:49]
Miguel Lorenzo
There's a lot of games to go through, but, you know, it's been him, it's been other talent on the team. I mean, we've had some major names join our team. Whether it's Andres Guardado, Carlos Salcido. These are big names with the Mexican national team that have played with that team. And we saw when Mexico beat Ecuador, the Mexican team came over and started throwing them up into the, into the air in celebration. So there have been so many great moments like this. Maxi Rodriguez is another one. Messi has given him like a celebratory hug before every game. It's worked out, it's been good luck because obviously Argentina has made it this far. So when you look at all of our talent and all the excitement that they bring and the passion into that coverage and, and that's just not just during the game, but everything before and after and everything happening across our platforms, it's no surprise that to us that audiences are gravitating towards our coverage and watching these matches on television.
- [23:46]
Tim Stenovec
Hey, Miguel. So the Spain vs Argentina match. This is featuring two Spanish speaking teams facing off in the World cup for the first time World cup final since 1930. What are the expectations? Are we going to see record viewership? Just talk a little bit about, you know, what to expect for the game.
- [24:07]
Miguel Lorenzo
Yeah, I mean, any World cup final is a dream scenario, but it's extra special for Telemundo and our audiences at the final features Argentina and Spain. I mean, these are two teams with massive followings, a tremendous history. It's the defending world champions against the defending European champions. That's never happened before. You know, the possession dominance of Spain, the overwhelming will of Argentina, and of course, arguably the Goat Messi. You know, Spain is the slight favorite, but I don't see how you can doubt this Argentina team with the way that they've come back so many times in this World Cup. This really does set up to be one of the greatest World cup finals in history. And we certainly think we're going to set some records in this final come Sunday.
- [24:53]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Miguel, after the World cup, you know, finishes up. We're going to be very sad. I'm going to be very sad. But obviously, you know, we're going into the rest of the soccer season. Telemundo has some Liga MX games as well as just signed a deal with Bundesliga to have some Spanish speaking, you know, telecast for that league. Tell us about all the other soccer people can tune into on Telemundo once the World cup is over.
- [25:18]
Miguel Lorenzo
Absolutely. I mean, Telemundo is home of the biggest sporting events in the world. Obviously now with with the World cup, we have the Summer Olympics in 2028, which of course include men's and women's soccer. We're the home of Premier League along with NBC Sports. You mentioned Bundesliga, which we announced earlier this week. We have a couple of teams in Liga Max, Chivas, Digres and Juarez. And Telemundo is also the Spanish language home of U.S. soccer for the men's and the women's team. So there is a lot of soccer coming down the pike even after this World cup that we're really excited about. And having not just Telemundo but Peacock as our streaming platform, to be able to distribute all this high class and elite soccer properties for our audiences is something that we're excited about.
- [26:02]
Carol Massar
All right, so I've got to ask you, and this is courtesy of our Sebastian Escobar, because there is this running joke, as you know, Miguel, I think on social media media, that all the English speaking fans who switched to Telemundo for the World cup are now hooked on their primetime telenovela, El Senor de los Cielos.
- [26:19]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Are you.
- [26:20]
Carol Massar
Thank you Mucho Sanyos. Are you tracking this telenovela fan crossover? I'm just curious. And Sebastian, by the way, is a fan of the show. I did not know that about him. But anyway, are you tracking this crossover?
- [26:34]
Miguel Lorenzo
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you've seen our World cup coverage, we certainly were promoting El Sen de los Sieros, Operacion Triumpho, El Turco, a bunch of Spanish properties that are really important for Telemundo that launched on July 7th. So we're certainly tracking it. There's been a lot of great crossover from World cup audiences watching these properties on Telemundo and even also on Peacock itself. We've seen a lot of World cup audiences on Peacock sampling and trying other non World cup content, which is actually really impressive when you think about it, because 104 games, that's a lot of commitment for World cup soccer fans to watch. That's a lot of hours of soccer. There's not a lot of time left in the day, and so they're still finding time to watch these other properties. You know, there might be some, some agreements there with wives and husbands, some trade offs, because it's a lot of commitments for, for soccer this summer. But we're absolutely, we're absolutely tracking that and it's been great to see.
- [27:30]
Tim Stenovec
So after this World cup winds down,
- [27:32]
Carol Massar
speaking of commitments,
- [27:35]
Tim Stenovec
what are you guys going to be thinking about for the next next few World Cups? Is Telemundo interested in securing the media rights for the next one, the one after that?
- [27:45]
Miguel Lorenzo
Right now we're just focused on producing Sunday's World cup final. And let's not forget we also have a third place match. We've talked about the final, but we do have a game tomorrow in Miami between France and England. So our focus is there. If I can maybe Sebastian will will appreciate this, but if I can quote a go to athlete response. We're taking it one day at a time and we're focusing on what we have in front of us these next two days.
- [28:10]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Miguel. I think one of the other interesting things when we're talking about France and England is that game is just as competitive almost as this Spain and Argentina games. Some people saying that it actually could be the final. Do you expect to see viewership for that as well as you just as high as the final? Almost.
- [28:28]
Miguel Lorenzo
Well, I don't know that we would see it just as high as the final. The final is on its own level, but we're certainly going to see tremendous audiences for the third place matchup. And I think for a lot of reasons. One, as you mentioned, it's England and it's France. These are two elite teams. They have some of the biggest stars in the world, whether it's Mbappe or Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham. One of the other things that we've seen in this World cup is the tremendous viewership that we've seen across these 104 games. Ultimately, has it been tied to one particular team? You know, absolutely. We've seen record in historic numbers for Mexico, for Team usa, but it's really been across multiple teams. It really speaks to the quality of play in this World Cup. You know, matches with England have set records. I mean, Cape Verde, Gabo Verde, those were some of the best World cup matches in this tournament. And before the World Cup, a lot of people didn't even know where they are in a map. So, yeah, we definitely expect great audiences for this matchup tomorrow between England and France. But, you know, the World Cup Final. It's in its own category.
- [29:30]
Carol Massar
Hey, Miguel, just got about 30 seconds left here. Any regret not cashing in on the hydration breaks and running ads during them?
- [29:38]
Miguel Lorenzo
None at all. We have monetized the hydration breaks and we made a commitment to our audiences to stay on the feed as soon as the game starts, make sure that audiences don't miss any moment of the action. And it's actually one of the many things that audiences have come back to us as positive sentiment around our World cup coverage, whether it's our production, our talent, our hydration break strategy. So we're really happy with everything that has gone down for the World cup as it relates to our production and our strategic decisions.
- [30:07]
Carol Massar
Listen, thank you so much. We know it's a busy time for you guys, especially as we head into this final weekend. So muchas gracias. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Be well, Miguel. Miguel Lorenzo, he's senior VP of sports content at NBC Universal, Verso Universal, Telemundo Enterprises, joining us there from New Jersey. And of course, Vanessa.
- [30:25]
Jason Leopold
I know.
- [30:26]
Carol Massar
What are you going to do after this?
- [30:27]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I'm going to go into depression.
- [30:30]
Carol Massar
There'll be more football.
- [30:31]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
You know, the Women's World Cup 2027.
- [30:34]
Tim Stenovec
We're ready.
- [30:35]
Carol Massar
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione. She's of course Bloomberg News sports business reporter and co host of the Business of Sports podcast. Check it out. It's on the Bloomberg on the terminal and also wherever you get your podcast.
- [30:45]
Seth Fiegerman
Stay with us.
- [30:45]
Jason Leopold
Plus more from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.
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Public.com Representative
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Public.com Legal/Compliance
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.comDisclosures Aging doesn't stop,
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Amazon Health AI Narrator
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Amazon Health AI User
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Amazon Health AI Narrator
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Podcast Narrator
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern. Listen on 8 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [33:16]
Carol Massar
Something we've been dying to get to the iconic Paramount Pictures film the Wolf of Wall Street. You probably know it. It saw Hollywood turn Jordan Belfort and his band of boiler room brokers at Stratton Oakman Oakmont into the face of 90s excess. I mean, it was an iconic movie telling this tale. But you know, if you really get to the story behind it, as our team here and our Jason Leopold has done, it's even darker and more debauched than previously known. And it features things like never before seen footage, thousands of internal FBI documents, archival interviews, including insights from Jordan's former wife Nadine. There's so much here. We're going to get to Jason in just a moment, but let's show you a little bit of the documentary. It is entitled the Real Wolf of Wall Street.
- [34:08]
Miguel Lorenzo
The Wolf of Wall street movie doesn't even accurately portray the level of insanity that occurred.
- [34:16]
Jason Leopold
This is a company built on fraud.
- [34:18]
Carol Massar
It was glamorous. If it feels too good to be
- [34:21]
Miguel Lorenzo
true, it probably is.
- [34:24]
Jason Leopold
You got the power.
- [34:25]
Podcast Narrator
You can do whatever the hell you want to do.
- [34:27]
Public.com Representative
People lost money.
- [34:28]
Miguel Lorenzo
People got hurt.
- [34:29]
Carol Massar
For a lot of people, the American
- [34:31]
Jason Leopold
dream turned into the American nightmare.
- [34:37]
Carol Massar
All right, everybody. That, of course, is the trailer from the Real Wolf of Wall Street. It premiered this past Tuesday, July 14, exclusively on Paramount plus all three episodes are out there for streaming. Joining us right now is an executive producer of this documentary. He's a journalist. He is a Bloomberg colleague. Jason Leopold is Bloomberg News senior investigative reporter. The author of the FOIA Files newsletter comes out each Friday. Read it and subscribe on the Bloomberg. He's also host of the podcast Disclosure. He's joining us from la. Congratulations. Very, very cool. And your FOIA Files newsletter that's coming out today. Tell us how you came to be involved. Tell us about this. And as most things do in your life, it starts with a FOIA request, doesn't it?
- [35:25]
Jason Leopold
It's started with a FOIA request. I'll condense it. I mean, basically, when the movie came out in 2013, I'm a big fan of Scorsese movies. It was incredibly entertaining. I became very, very interested in the FBI's investigation into Belfort and Stratton Oakmont. I wanted to find out what that investigation actually looked like. It kind of followed it a little bit. In the 90s. I filed a FOIA request four days after the movie came out and a couple of months later sued the FBI to compel the release of records. I got thousands and thousands of pages and to me they were pretty revelatory because it kind of peeled back the, the curtain and gave insight into what that investigation looked like, how, how serious those crimes, those financial crimes were, how extensive they were and sophisticated. And, you know, the movie, again, it was entertaining. It in, in some ways it kind of romanticized all of this. But this was, you know, these documents, these thousands of pages really kind of, you know, laid bare that, that 90s excess, that high, you know, the high flying days of Wall street and pump and dump schemes that, you know, that Jordan Belfort and, you know, his, his former colleagues benefited, excuse me, benefited from.
- [36:48]
Tim Stenovec
Okay, so then tell us about how that transformed into you being one of the executive producers on this documentary.
- [36:57]
Jason Leopold
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I intended to actually write a real big magazine story or feature, I don't know, maybe a book, something around these documents because they were really great. And what happened was, is that a guy named Donald Trump decided he was gonna run for president in 2015. And my attention shifted. I, you know, I was covering Donald Trump's president candidacy and that, that was kind of it. That's kind of where I've, you know, been at. Fast forward to 2024. One of our other former colleague here at Bloomberg just, just asked me, which worked on Bloomberg Originals, which is our, you know, documentary film side, asked if I had anything in my archive. And it just so happened I have thousands of pages of documents that I had never used before. And that's the documents that I described and discussed today in the newsletter. These documents have never been released before. And so we got into that discussion because it was, is there anything that would potentially make for a good documentary? So that kind of started the conversations. And then before, you know, before you knew it, before I knew it. The next thing, I'm meeting a guy named Ross Portnoy, former friend of Jordan Belfort's, who just filmed everything in the 90s. I mean, he just had incredible footage of these decadent parties, these drug fueled parties that Jordan Belfort put together.
- [38:34]
Carol Massar
So take us there. First of all. So you did this FOIA request a while ago. So now you're going through the documents again, and then you're getting the footage from Ross Portnoy and you're going through this stuff. Just, it's like, you know, when you find an old box of, I don't know, pictures in the attic of your family, you start going through it and you're just like, kind of blown away. Just tell us some of the stuff that you were coming through that just, you know, that you went through that were like, oh, my God, Yeah, yeah.
- [39:02]
Jason Leopold
And I want to make it clear that, like, you know, the, to me, you know, there's certainly something to be said for the fact, like, did the movie get this right? Did it get that right? I mean, it's a movie, right? So you can dramatize it. What was fascinating to me, as I mentioned, was the sophistication of these crimes that, that Jordan engaged in. After he was arrested in 1998, you know, and started cooperating with the FBI, he was still under suspicion for some of his financial dealings. This one document in here is really great and it shows that while Jordan Belfort was out on bail, he continued to engage in these suspicious financial behavior. And in 1999, he was denied access to Trump's hotel and casino in Atlantic City. And New Jersey State police casino security surveillance cameras is they observe Belfort attempting to convert currency into casino chips while refusing to provide the ID required to complete a cash transaction report. And so that document is here, and it just kind of gives you insight into the addiction that he had into making money illegally. Right. He ultimately pled guilty to securities fraud and money laundering. Laundering. But in addition to that, I mean, wow, it's incredible in these documents how he was laundering money and how this, the crimes were on a global scale. There's a description, a really detailed description in here about moving $1.5 million out of the US into Switzerland. And I mean, what's fascinating about it is that it really does feel like it gives. It makes it feel kind of current about what's happening right now. And you. And we've talked about that before, you know, as it relates to this. And what I mean by that is that this was a wild west back in the 90s, and right now you're kind of seeing these, you know, something similar with regard to, like, crypto, prediction market, you know, questions about oversight, you know, regulations. So I feel like when you read these documents, while they're dated more than 30 years ago, it. There's something that feels current about it.
- [41:35]
Tim Stenovec
You know, you mentioned that the movie almost kind of romanticized this, these financial crimes. I've seen it myself on social media. Like, there's. There's financial memes kind of glamorizing, you know, the Leo DiCaprio going into work in the suit and Margot Robbie. And I think that people. Sometimes it's easy to forget when you're watching the movie that this wasn't just a movie. This actually did happen. Something that your documentary focuses on is the real fallout. Like, you actually speak to some of the victims that lost money due to Belfort's crimes.
- [42:14]
Jason Leopold
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's. There's a lot. There's a lot of that. I mean, yes, of course, with, you know, with these financial crimes, these pump and dump schemes, right? I mean, the penny stocks, that's. That's what. What the 90s was all about for. For people like Jordan Belfort is. Is making money, you know, illegally, fraudulently pumping up these, you know, these stocks and then dumping it. But there was investors that were left holding the bag. What's noteworthy, though, is that his former colleagues and co workers who were dramatized in the movie, other characters played them in the movie. They've never had the opportunity to really tell their story. And so this is their first time that they're speaking and they're discussing what it was like behind the scenes, like what it was really like at Stratton Oakmont. And, you know, the high price that they paid. Some of them went to jail, you know, for years more than Belfort went to jail for, meaning a lengthier prison sentence. And, you know, the reason we're talking about this now, you know, it's 13 years after the film came out, is because that film is still hugely, hugely popular. It's regularly on the top 10. And Belfort you know, he hasn't disappeared into, you know, obscurity. He is, you know, a well known media influencer now. You know, he gives motivational talks, gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, peers on, you know, on various news programs.
- [43:56]
Optum Representative
Right.
- [43:57]
Jason Leopold
I mean, so it's, it's still very current in some ways, but as I mentioned, the extent of these crimes in these thousands of pages, you know, the most well known being Steve Madden, there's, there's a lot more, but it is
- [44:13]
Carol Massar
a good reminder, right? Like it's very easy for a movie to make. Even kind of folks doing bad things kind of look like, you know, celebrities of sort. But it's a reminder of what he did, especially when he's out there still on social media. Jason Leopold, congratulations.
- [44:28]
Jason Leopold
Thank you.
- [44:29]
Carol Massar
Executive producer, adding another title to your accomplishments. He's, of course, Bloomberg News senior investigative reporter. Check it out. It's now on Paramount Plus.
- [44:37]
Podcast Narrator
This is the Bloomberg businessweek 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. YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
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Optum Representative
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Tony Ayo
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