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Carol Massar
When patients have a disease and the cause is known, it usually ends up needing a specific solution. On the podcast targeting the toughest diseases, we explore the innovative tools, methods and unique philosophy Vertex Pharmaceuticals is using to search for treatments for some of humanity's most challenging diseases. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
Lenovo Advertiser
If a Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't shop around. Just go directly to the source Lenovo.com it's your last chance to get exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business, like the ThinkPad X914, Aura Edition and Yoga 7i 2in1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source Lenovo.com, where PCs are up to 35% off. That's Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.
IBM Advertiser
So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage? On top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages? Funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter Business. IBM Foreign.
Odoo Advertiser
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Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Announcer
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts radio news this 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 Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio the U.S. justice.
Tim Stenovec
Department released files from investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, a notorious sex offender, after Congress passed legislation compelling the department to make the files public. Let's get right to it with Jason Leopold. He's part of the team at Bloomberg News that's been reporting on the Epstein saga. He's Bloomberg News senior investigative reporter and the author of the FOIA Files newsletter. You've spent the last 42 minutes going through these files.
IBM Advertiser
What?
Tim Stenovec
What are they? What have you learned? I mean, I know it's just a cursory glance at this Point. But I haven't even had a chance to download the file. What's there?
Jason Leopold
Yeah, there. There's a lot here. So I haven't had an opportunity to go through everything. Basically, the Justice Department has broken these files down into different categories. There are categories that just pertain to court records. Right. Some of these records are documents that have previously been released, but also records that appear to have been grand jury or they are grand jury material that judges in recent weeks have said that they would unseal. There's records that actually do relate to previously released documents in response to a FOIA request. There are categories of records that deal with DOJ disclosures under the Epstein files Transparency Act. And what that contains. Is there some Bureau of Prison footage? There's Ghislaine Maxwell's proffer there, you know, some various memos and correspondence that appear to have been previously released. But what I'm seeing right now that. That appears to be brand new is there are thousands of images. And I have to say, some of these images, even with the redactions, are. Are disturbing. So they're. You know, we're going through that. We're seeing some images of various people in Epstein's orbit who had been traveling with him. There are lots of images of former President Bill. Bill Clinton and a trip. A trip that was taken in Africa. And, you know, right now there are a few documents that kind of show the various correspondence that, you know, that took place between some attorneys and Epstein's attorneys. So it's going to take a while to go through this. And it's important for me to note as well that Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General. Excuse me, the deputy Attorney General, indicated that this would be released in troves or, excuse me, in batches in the weeks ahead.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
When you say they're disturbing, is it because of who you're seeing, who's in them as you've just talked about them, or is it because in some ways they're disturbing in terms of their. You.
Jason Leopold
Content.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Content.
Jason Leopold
Yeah, fair question.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Some way.
Tim Stenovec
And.
Jason Leopold
Yeah, right. So. So the images are marked. Excuse me, there's like a folder, right. Or pictures of the folder, and it's marked child sex sexual abuse material. And so then there's photographs where there are. I would imagine that many of them are victims. They're blacked out, redacted there. And, you know, you can see Epstein in some of these photos. So the combination of just sort of like that in your face, like this is child sexual abuse material in and of itself is disturbing. Knowing what you know, perhaps what these, what these photographs show.
Tim Stenovec
Jason, what, what are you hoping to learn? Like, we know. We already know.
Jason Leopold
Yes.
Tim Stenovec
About Jeffrey Epstein and, and what he did. And, and, you know.
Jason Leopold
Yeah.
Tim Stenovec
Like, what are the unanswered questions that you hope these files answer for us? For you?
Jason Leopold
Good question. So I am, as I indicated, probably, you know, a couple of weeks ago when we spoke, I'm looking for records related to money, related to learning more about his wealth, learning about the government's undisclosed, until we reported it, money laundering investigation that took place in 2007 and 2008 that disappeared when Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge in Florida. So I want to follow the money, you know, and I'm hoping that these documents, whether it's today or in the weeks ahead, will provide additional detail about the government's own money laundering investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. And I think that once we can, you know, learn more about the money, we can sort of figure out how that financed his, you know, his sex trafficking operation.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey, Jason, you know, one thing I love to ask you about is that, you know, you're someone who makes these FOIA requests. There's a lot of material that can come out. You know, a picture, a document on its own doesn't necessarily mean anything. Like we have to be smart and careful as we go through this stuff. What is your, what, like, what is top of mind for you as you go through all of this is there is so much that is a smart thing to be looking out for, for something, you know, significant in this ongoing investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and the people in his orbit.
Jason Leopold
Yeah. I think that, you know, what is important, what to look out for are one is that, you know, these records are supposed to be, you know, at least the correspondence, you know, the government's own records unredacted. Right. The text of the material and it's, you know, in the, in the, whether it's email messages, whether it's the government's own memos, FBI reports looking at to see how they truly handled this investigation.
Carol Massar
Right.
Jason Leopold
The reason we're here now is because, you know, of reporting that the Miami Herald did back in 2018 that kind of, you know, took a look at the U.S. attorney at the time, Alex Acosta, and how he ended up, you know, signing off on this non prosecution agreement.
Tim Stenovec
So he was part of the Trump administration too.
Jason Leopold
Yes, right, exactly.
Tim Stenovec
Yeah.
Jason Leopold
And so, you know, we've seen reports related to it, but, you know, this is really getting deeper into the weeds. So kind of looking at the FBI's own you know, files related to that kind of, you know, in a sense, the records, leaving the pictures aside, right, because there's many different stories that, you know, one could write out of all of these records, but really kind of getting deep into the weeds and explaining to the public how this happened, how Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to at least initially escape federal charges. You know, what did the FBI know? What did they learn? Who did they speak to? Are there any other individuals that they were investigating? You know, the Thomas Massie, the chair of the Government Oversight, or, excuse me, the House House Judiciary Committee, you know, he had said yesterday that there should.
IBM Advertiser
Be.
Jason Leopold
You know, 20 different people who, who should have been charged. You know, okay, well, you know, who are those individuals? Will they disclose, you know, those names? Did those, you know, individuals, you know, reaching some kind of that plea agreement of their own or, or cooperated. So there's a lot here. It's reexamining the government's own investigation and what, you know, what, what essentially they did during that time that led to Jeffrey Epstein escaping those charges.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Jason, we want to mention the White House has, respond, has put out a statement, a response to the drop from the doj, the Epstein materials, and it says the Trump administration is the most transparent in history. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee's subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein's Democratic friends or Democrat friends, the Trump administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have. And while President Trump is delivering on his promises, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money in meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The American people deserve answers. Are we going to get answers out of this? Yeah, go ahead.
Jason Leopold
First, I do want to say it's kind of funny that the Obama administration had called themselves the most transparent administration in history. As someone who deals with documents regularly, as, you know, prying loose from government, there is no, you know, most transparent in history. So just wanted to note that. But, you know, I think that this is a, an example of what, you know, what is going to go on for. For some time. I don't think that the release of these records, even though there's a lot here right now, is going to satisfy everyone. Right. Because there's always going to be those questions, well, what didn't they release? Or why don't we have this? Or, you know, people kind of interpreting those records?
Tim Stenovec
How will we know? It's exhaustive.
Jason Leopold
That's a great question. And you know, again, I'll circle back to what Congressman Thomas Massie said. You know, there are certain records that should be here. There's a certain categories of records, you know, FBI, what's known as 302 reports. These are interview summaries that the FBI prepares after they speak to witnesses, people that are under suspicion. You know, those records are not there, those specific interview summaries. We know it's not exhaustive, but the Justice Department, as part in response to the Epstein Files Transparency act, they have to provide additional details within two weeks, as a matter of fact, about what, you know, what they released, what they redacted, why they redacted it, and answer those questions.
Tim Stenovec
But they're already not meeting a deadline today by not releasing everything.
Jason Leopold
Correct. Yeah.
Tim Stenovec
What's the, what's the consequence of that?
Jason Leopold
Well, there's lots of threats of consequences, and those threats do come from, you know, lawmakers. But it, it doesn't appear to be anything that is certainly written into the legislation itself. It says if, you know, if you do not meet this deadline, you know, you immediately go to jail, you're arrested or anything like that. So it, to me, I think the consequences we're going to see at this point is just going to be lots of threats.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey Jason, I know how you're spending your weekend or at least your Friday night.
Jason Leopold
Yes, this is my Friday night, probably my Saturday night, Saturday night and Sunday.
Tim Stenovec
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.
Carol Massar
When patients have a disease and the cause is known, it usually ends up needing a specific solution. On the podcast targeting the toughest diseases, we explore the innovative tools, methods and unique philosophy Vertex Pharmaceuticals is using to search for treatments for some of humanity's most challenging diseases. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
Lenovo Advertiser
If a Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't shop around. Just go directly to the source Lenovo.com it's your last chance to get exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business, like the ThinkPad X914 Aura Edition and Yoga 7i 2in1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source Lenovo.com, where PCs are up to 35% off. That's Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.
IBM Advertiser
So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage on top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages? Funny how that works Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business IBM.
Odoo Advertiser
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Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Announcer
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Tim Stenovec
Investors pumping money into US stocks at a near record pace as they position for lower borrowing costs, tariff reductions and task cuts in 2026. This according to a note from bank of America. Here are the numbers. U.S. equities saw inflows of close to $78 billion in the week that ended Dec. 17, the bank said in a note, citing data from EPFR Global. It's the biggest weekly inflow since a record 82.2 billion entered the market a week a year ago. Why?
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
I don't know. Eric Weiner, let's bring you in and ask you that.
Tim Stenovec
I was asking you, Carol.
IBM Advertiser
Well, I don't know.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Window dressing?
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
He's much more.
Tim Stenovec
You don't have to answer the question.
Jason Leopold
Rhetorical.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Eric Weiner is Senior Equities America. He's right here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Why is this happening? Is it window dressing?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Is it?
Carol Massar
No, no. Well, I can't say that it's logical, but everybody on Wall street is bulled up. Like heading into next year, we are basically as crowded on the bull end of things as we've ever been.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
That makes me nervous.
Carol Massar
That is the flip side of this. I Mean, if you talk to a lot of traders, that that level of positioning is a sign of danger.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Yeah.
Carol Massar
But you know, when you think, when you're thinking about flows and you're thinking about what people are, you know, who are portfolio managers are doing, they're chasing the momentum and everybody is telling them the stocks are going to go up. So it's a rational response. Whether you buy into the logic, that's a different story. And I, I'm not quite sure about the economic setup for all of this, but why? Well, there are a couple of things. First of all, you have, if you looked at the Oracle meltdown earlier this week, they're kind of becoming the canary in the coal mine for the AI trade. And the concern really is not just about spending that is going to Oracle, but also the amount of money that they're putting aside for, you know, debt buildups for leases for these data centers. You have questions about how much, how much people are willing to pay for the companies to pay to have their electricity funded through this. There you're having questions about how much of a return you're eventually going to see. And there's a lot of betting that involves looking way far down the road on money that's being spent right now and that can turn really quickly. So you have that and then you have a questionable consumer and you have the questions about, like, if you read the stories about the CPI data yesterday, the questions about, you know, the validity of where we are with inflation. There's just a lot of uncertainty out there right now.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Well, this is what we kicked off the 2pm hour with, talking about with Mike McKee that in terms of especially like the inflation data, we've got to wait till we get a clean print. I want to go back to, though, how bullish people are and bring up some of the targets that are out there for the 2026 close. And I'm not sure if we're going to start with the top or the bottom, but you've got B of a at 7100, you've got Goldman at 7600, your Denny Research 7700. Go all the way to the top and you've got Oppenheimer at 8100. And let's just remind everybody you're, you're looking at A S&P 500 right now with a print of 6834. I mean, some of those are some pretty big bullish numbers.
Carol Massar
It's not just that, it's that they've been raising them consistently over the last couple of months. So it's that you're. You took it from a baseline. You know, like, if you look, you go back to April, and everybody goes, oh, my God. And everything falls, and then we start coming back out. As we came back out, everybody had to really adjust very fast and put it all back together and say, okay, well, now we're back in kind of a normal environment. And now we're overshooting, and they're reacting. The reaction is as if this trajectory will continue.
Odoo Advertiser
I.
Carol Massar
That. That is something that I wonder about, but that is clearly where we are. And when you start looking at the actions of strategists over, like, the last month, every single one is up.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
How often do they get this right? Oh, hey, did I ask an obvious question?
Carol Massar
Tim just answered for me.
Tim Stenovec
I mean, does it matter?
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Oh, that's why.
Carol Massar
No. Well, they don't. Yeah. So this is like. And again, it's like a parlor game. Well, we joke about it. Like, it's sort of, you know, chimps chucking darts at a board.
Tim Stenovec
You know, it' fun to talk about.
Carol Massar
Pick your metaphor.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
I know.
Odoo Advertiser
Yeah.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
I mean, like, what do you do with this? Like, we put it up. We have a beautiful graphic. Like, what do we do with this?
Carol Massar
You look at it as investors. You look at it in aggregate. And so. And then you. You look at, like, the totality of it. So when you have everybody moving in this direction, you are either thinking, okay, everybody is right. And I really have to get with the crowd, which is where a lot of portfolio managers kind of have to be.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Yeah.
Carol Massar
Just to.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Or they get fired.
Odoo Advertiser
Yeah.
Tim Stenovec
Or they get fired.
Carol Massar
Like, you. You can't. You. You can't get this because you're losing money. But at the same time, if you're an investor and you're thinking about this, you're like, you know, maybe this is the time to not exactly buy in directly.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
The only thing I would say is Ryan Dietrich, who has. Was bullish about this year. Right. And I think he's. He was still bullish. Yes.
Tim Stenovec
Yeah. He said. He said the technical that he's looking at is when you see a decline like we saw in April, and then a surge higher by more than 10% that same year, it bodes well for the next year, but he's a technician, so these guys. And I think, you know, critics would say that they pick and choose which sides to look at. But to be fair, Ryan's been right. Three of the three last year.
Carol Massar
And technical trading is a very specific thing. And the market Isn't overbought. I mean by, by their, by their standards. So I get that.
Tim Stenovec
Okay. So Carol mentioned we're going to go global a little bit. This is the time of year where I like to bring up global macro movers and look at what stock markets have done well this year. And you know, Surely S&P 500 up this year by double digits. That's certainly a great year. But Venezuela, we're getting smoked. Yeah. Venezuela, Ghana, Lithuania, Tunisia, Jordan and Slovenia all more than 50%.
Carol Massar
Europe. Europe is doing better than us. The number. I was looking at it earlier today because we're working on a story about sort of the year in. In review and 50%, the MSCI All World Index EX U S is up 26% and the S&P is up 16%.
Tim Stenovec
So some people would argue finally.
Carol Massar
Well, that's the thing. It's, it's. They were kind of due.
Tim Stenovec
Yeah.
Carol Massar
And Europe in particular was kind of due for this. But you don't normally see this. This is the biggest gap that we've seen in about 10 years in and up in an upswing market. So normally like if things go down, the US leads down. If things go up, the US leads up. And this is the weird year where the rest of the world kind of caught us. And a lot of it is self inflicted. I mean, you know, if you have the uncertainty, once you had you introduced the tariff uncertainty and then things kept getting weirder, it became safer to buy into growth in other places. And there was growth actually in other places. So, you know, and if you look beyond Europe, like the smaller countries in Europe and Eastern Europe, they're doing a lot of tech development and so there is a lot of fast growing stocks that you can go buy into and make a ton of money.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Is it significant though? It was not a straight move to the upside here in the United States, but is it significant to look at, you know, to kind of go back to the bump that we got post Liberation Day in the selling and how quickly investors came back.
Carol Massar
Yes. And the. If you want to talk about flows, because we were talking about it. Yeah, look at the flows in April and May. It was like people pulled out of the market in March and then raced back in. As soon as you could get back into the market, you did.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
And that's 37% from that April low. Now mind you, we also fell lower. So you had to come back.
Carol Massar
We were like a half.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
But yeah, right. So.
Carol Massar
But it's dramatic, it's enormous. And even with all of this, I mean we can look at Tesla and say, okay, valuations are crazy, but if you look at like the Mag 7 Nvidia is actually like kind of cheap relative to Walmart.
Tim Stenovec
Walmart, truly.
Carol Massar
Yeah, it is. They are, These are, and these are looking basis. These are bellwether stocks and they're not overpriced. So if you want to buy in, you know, it's pretty good.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
One of the things I wanted to bring out and thanks team in the control room because you pointed out that UnitedHealth, which was up as much as 2% or almost 2% today, is now down 4, 10 of a percentage point. If I look at Cigna, which was a little bit higher in today's session, it too is down about 7, 10 of a percent. And this has to do with what we're hearing from, from President Trump at the White House. When it comes to drug pricing and pharmaceutical companies. This is a reminder that you can have economic fundamentals in a backdrop, but then you can also have something come out of the White House that's going to impact the trade in a big way.
Carol Massar
This is the new, new thing for the market which is an interventionist president. And my question would be if we were sitting here with Jamie Dimon or name the Jensen.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Oh, Jamie's coming in.
Jason Leopold
Okay, that's next. Stay here.
Carol Massar
But the my question would be, why are you not having a problem with this pro business president getting in the way of what we would call consider your business. The idea like when Elizabeth Warren said anything, Bernie Sanders says anything, people on Wall street freak out. But yet you can have the president taking stakes in companies, taking percentages of profits of Nvidia, telling drug companies, yeah, no, you can't do that. And we don't hear a word about the free.
Tim Stenovec
Be fair. To be fair, we did ask Steve Moore about this last week. Yeah, Last week we asked him about this former adviser to the president. He was nominated for a Fed governor position. He was extremely critical of President Trump. Yeah, yeah, he's. But he's an old school free markets guy and that's the typical traditional Republican. But Eric, you kind of answered your own question with the evolution of politics and the evolution of the Republican Party and who's in control of Washington D.C. that model has been flipped on its head.
Carol Massar
Absolutely. I mean the American Enterprise Institute, which I think that's where Moore is.
Tim Stenovec
These guys has been in the past.
Carol Massar
In the past. These guys hate this. Like this is absolutely what's not supposed to be going on. So like when you talk to them, they are like I don't know why anybody is standing up for this. It's corporate America that's going along with it. And what it appears to be is that they're okay with cutting individual deals.
Tim Stenovec
And just Heritage foundation, the control room, correcting us. Thank you.
Carol Massar
Oh, it's Heritage.
Tim Stenovec
Heritage foundation, where Steve Moore was.
Carol Massar
Yeah, so it's. But all of them. Are any of these old school economic institutes where they are free market true believers. They don't like this. It's the companies themselves that are allowing it to happen. And they will cut individual deals with the president to make their markets work.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
And.
Carol Massar
And that's a very strange form of market capitalism.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
10 seconds on triple witching. What do we need to know?
Carol Massar
A lot of volume and things are pretty muted in terms of index moves. I mean, it's, you know, a lot of action, but it's not really driving price.
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Announcer
You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey, one of the things that we love to talk about. Robotics, technology, automation. Bloomberg Weekend recently reported out that humanoid robots are coming as soon as they learn to fold clothes. Count me in.
Tim Stenovec
Okay. Okay.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Why they wrote this? Apparently they the team attended a recent Silicon Valley summit and there they saw small robots roaming and pouring lattes while evangelists hailed new AI techniques as transformative. But full size prototypes. They're pretty scarce.
Tim Stenovec
Okay, I want to see what type Rady has to say about this. He's chief technologist at Amazon Robotics. Tai is also founding partner of Mass Robotics. It's a not for profit organization that's become the world's largest robotics innovation center and serves on a number of boards to promote STEM learning and advancement. Ty, good to have you back on the program. Happy holidays. I want to get to this idea of humanoid robots because it doesn't matter if a humanoid robot can fold laundry for a lot of the purposes that you have for Amazon. How are robots, apart from the Kiva robots, used right now in Amazon warehouses?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Well, thanks, Tim. Thanks for having me on, Carol. It's been nice to hear you as well. It's always a pleasure to be on the show and talk all things robotics and tech with you. Indeed, the age of physical AI is here. Amazon is building our physical AI systems to help better the customer experience, expanding our selection, lowering cost, fueling the faster delivery times that we know our customers love. But given your question, think of the very practical everyday experience where we're doing this at a very high reliability and scaling this, where we're shipping millions and millions of products every day here for the holiday season. It's really exciting to see. It's very real, it's very practical, and it's something that we're very proud of in. In what we're doing with our employees.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
All right, we want to talk about this. You know, we do, and we will. But I do want to pick your brains because I always feel like I learned so much. You know, when you join us, bring it. Is that so. So these humanoid robots, I mean, Elon's working on them. Other people are like, is it years away? What's. What's your thought, your expertise? You know this world.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
I do know this world. I'll tell you that. We usually start with, what problem are we trying to solve? What's the problem we're trying to solve? And once we figure out the problem, then we actually go to functions. What functions of the robotics should the physical AI systems do? Right, so from the functionality, should it fold laundry, should it do your dishes? Then we derive form. And I. You kind of get the cart ahead of the horse when you start with form first and then see, how can you apply this technology? And we don't do technology for technology's sake. Inside Amazon, what we do is we solve problems. We solve problems, everyday problems at an incredible scale that actually advances the state of the art in robotics.
Dan Arends
Right?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
So if you wanted a robot to wash your dishes, well, congratulations, you have that. You don't necessarily need a humanoid form to wash your dishes. As a matter of fact, it'd be kind of comical to see a robot pick up the dish, pick up a sponge, put the soap on it, and scrub the dish and put it in the drying rack. When you have this really practical robot in your kitchen today called the dishwasher, which is amazing. It blends right into the woodwork. So we think about function first and then allow the form to follow.
Tim Stenovec
Okay, so we want to talk specifics here about what's happening in the warehouse. Is Blue Jay and Aluna and more. Your systems. Blue Jay Robotics. Luna Agentic AI Delivery glasses. Amazon's warehouses. These are well known for robotics and the use of tech and AI. How does all of that continue to evolve and specifically impact productivity side by side with human work?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Absolutely. Yeah, we. So the word I want to use is supercharged. We're supercharging the world's largest fleet of robotics out there with AI using AI systems to better the reasoning and to Better assist our employees. We want to eliminate the menial, the mundane and the repetitive through the use of robotics as a tool set for employees. And we're entering this era where foundation models are making our robots smarter, more affordable, more adaptable, more conversational, and really reshaping work as we know it. Not just in E commerce, but actually across industries and creating new kinds of jobs.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Ty, I'm jumping in because right now we're showing for those who are watching on TV and YouTube and our streaming service, what looks like your special delivery glasses. As we continue to show this, just tell us what they're all about. They look like normal glasses, but what do they enable a driver to do more easily?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Yeah, well, it's the fundamental principle that we have is to use them as a tool set. So allow the driver to understand where the delivery should be. Allow them to be kind of hands free in order to take the picture of the package at your door. Allow them to understand what's the best route to the customer's door. Allow them to see their delivery notes of where they should place the delivery at the right spot that's just right for our customer. I mean, we're customer obsessed. So any tool that we can give our delivery employees or our frontline employees, that's how we want to use technology.
Tim Stenovec
Are they rolled out?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
I think we're still in the early stages of deployment.
Tim Stenovec
So when would they be fully rolled out across the network?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Hard to tell.
Tim Stenovec
Would it be within a year? Maybe within 2026?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Yeah, we're pretty. We are a pretty. Once we get to the alpha and beta deployment, it's typically within about a year that you will see this starting to roll out. And we take a very measured approach when things roll out. We test it, we make sure it's great for our employees. Does it add value for our employees? Does it create a safer environment for our employees? And then we'll test that at a smaller scale and then we go into the, you know, the millions and millions of scale.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey, I want to go back to Blue Jay and Aluna. Tim brought up Blue Jay, your next generation robotic systems system. Excuse me. And Aluna is an agentic AI system. So talk to us about that. How much are they deployed today across your fulfillment fulfillment network? And I'm curious about milestones that we should all be watching out for in the next 12 to 24 months. Ty.
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Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
So at Luna, we're actually using kind of in a monitor, in a monitor only manner right now during peak. Right. We actually just went through the peak of peaks where we have our largest outbound happening just actually yesterday. And what Eluna does is it gives operators a complete real time view to help guide their every move. Right. So think of many, many dashboards now can be consolidated into human consumable text, human consumable recommendations of how to actually deploy the network and how to deploy various robotics inside that building in a way that it gains these more efficiencies. So we're seeing that that is rolling out today. And then we're really excited about Blue J as well. You can think of this really for our sub same day network. That's a growing network they have inside of Amazon, where we're getting the goods right to the customer's door in a matter of hours. What bluejay does is it really indexes on a smaller footprint. You can think of this as three assembly lines kind of combined into one where we have robotic arms picking orders for our customers out of our containerized storage systems and allowing those to be delivered right to the customer's door. That's really an exciting time.
Tim Stenovec
So if we think about this time right now, the holiday peak, where people are trying to get stuff as quick as possible, specifically, where did this, where does the tech that you just outlined have the biggest impact? Is it smoothing labor variability? Preventing bottlenecks? Does it improve on time delivery metrics? Is it all the above? Is it something I didn't even mention?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Yeah, it is all the above. Plus what it's allowing us to do is really exception handling.
Tim Stenovec
Right.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
When we think about robotics and you think robotics and physical AI at scale, when you ship millions and millions every day, just 1% of exception handling can kind of eat your lunch. So any tools that we have to help us with the exception handling, maybe one of the systems is not picking up a particular object. Right. So that learning needs to be propagated through our other manipulation systems. Or maybe a mobility system is having some bottlenecks because of the way the inventory is stored inside of the building. People have really good skills of critical reasoning and critical thinking and, and using common sense. So tools that allow them to understand the situation better, perceive their environment better through the use of robotics, and then have truly physical agents to help with that in concert with our employees is allowing us to deal with all the exceptions that we see, you know, every day, especially at peak.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey Ty, just got about a minute left here and I know we've talked about this with you before and I think it's a fair question, you guys have addressed it about the impact on your workforce. And I wonder if it's smarter to think about maybe not that what you guys are doing in terms of automation or other companies for that matter, that it means doing away with workers, but maybe it means that you will have to hire fewer workers in the future. Is that fair?
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Well, first of all, any question you ask is fair. So I think it is fair to always ask those questions. And we should always kind of, you know, have the mindset of people first and which we do inside of Amazon. So what are we doing specifically for our employees? And I'm really proud of this, we're building better machines for them. We're listening to them. We're iterating on our designs. We're rolling out a tool set for them to use it every day at scale, a scale that's almost unimaginable when it comes to what we've done inside of robotics. We're upskilling them. We have a $2.5 billion pledge that we call Future Ready to prepare 50 million people for how technology will impact and change not only the nature of work, but also their everyday lives. And we're also creating a safer environment with our robotics, eliminating the repetitive, the menial, the mundane, allowing machines to do the heavy lifting and the repetitive actions and allowing people to work with them in order to use this beautiful thing here.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Coming up after this.
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Hey audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove. We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that.
Carol Massar
Gives you the most control? So I have two microphones on stage.
Tim Stenovec
We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other.
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Other.
Carol Massar
I feel like that second microphone kind.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Of saved all of our friendships.
Carol Massar
No, no band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. Like the Beatles broke up in seven.
Jason Leopold
And a half years.
Carol Massar
And we're going on 35. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iheart audiobook club on the iheartradio app or.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Wherever you get your podcast.
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Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
A week ago today, when there was expectations or talks and reports that the President was going to do something to make to reclassify classify marijuana in terms of the drug classification, we saw that.
Tim Stenovec
On Thursday he signed an executive order directing his administration to move cannabis into a less restrictive federal category. It set in motion a regulatory shift that could alter the legal and commercial landscape for the drug nationwide. For more and to drive to the close, we bring in Dan Arends, Portfolio manager of the AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF. He joins us here in from Dallas. Dan, good to have you on the program today. I just give us an idea. I'm looking for the the makeup of the Advisor share pure US cannabis ETF. It's up more than 70% this month. It's still well off of this 20, 21 highs. What is, what does the reclassification mean for these stocks?
Dan Arends
Well, this is the biggest thing to happen to US Cannabis stocks ever. And we're very excited about the future. As you said, in the past couple of weeks or the past month, there's been a big run up in US Cannabis stocks in advance of Trump actually signing this executive order yesterday and in the last two days, crazy volatility. And even yesterday it was a, you know, sell the news type of moment because the world hasn't digested all of the ramifications of this executive order yet. I think some investors wanted to have everything. And the kitchen sink inside this executive order.
Tim Stenovec
Would that have been without that bank? Yeah, banking. So talk about that because, you know, Matt Miller points out to us all the time that like the executive order means one thing, but banking is what these companies are really concerned about. The Safe Banking Act.
Ty (Ty Rady, Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist)
Yeah.
Dan Arends
This rescheduling is a huge event and no one should have expected a stroke of the pen to reschedule cannabis the next day and provide banking. It's a first step. But they spoke yesterday in the White House that it's a definite, it's definitely happening. The Attorney General still needs to sign off on it and make the rescheduling effective. But I've always said it's a multi, multi leg, multi step process, even a domino effect, if you want to call it that, that leads to banking. Once it's rescheduled, banking will be a much less controversial issue. And whether the DOJ gives safe harbor for that or the House and Senate passes it, it's a much less controversial issue. We're very confident it's going to happen. And, and these US Cannabis companies, it's a multi billion dollar industry operating in the majority of states. They should finally be able to list on major exchanges in the United States like the Canadian companies do, even though those Canadian companies can't do business in the United States yet. So a momentous occasion and the market doesn't know quite how to digest it yet. We see a lot of multi leg upside from here.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Yeah. You know, and you don't want volatility. Right. You want things to settle down because the coast is clear. Because I do want to point out, I mean, your fund is down 90% from February 10th of 2021. So we're still way off of kind of where it was. It's that banking part of it. Right. That really needs to come through in order for this to settle down and be a market that kind of reacts more normally.
Dan Arends
Well, when you talk about that, you know, five year return, the highs were based on promises made when Joe Biden was running for office. They promised legalization, they promised all sorts of things for cannabis multiple times during his pregnancy and presidency, excuse me, and never got it done. Trump has now taken that ball and ran with it. This rescheduling is a momentous occasion but once again this is a multi step process and if the drug, if you want to call it that, cannabis, it's really a medicine in most people's minds, is rescheduled off of DEA Schedule 1. We're very confident, very confident that banking uplifting and multiple other steps are coming.
Tim Stenovec
Dan, I look at the Bloomberg terminal and what's actually in in the advisor shares, pure US Cannabis ETF and I was surprised to see that it's such, you have such a high cash position right now and correct me if I'm wrong and if the data is old, but I don't think it is. The top holding is BlackRock's liquid funds treasury Trust Fund. You have Cura Leaf, Terra, Ascend Village Farms and the company formerly known as Sundial SNDL in there as well. But you know the biggest holding is cash. Why is that?
Dan Arends
No, I'm glad you mentioned that. Total return swaps because these US plant touching cannabis companies cannot list on the NASDAQ or the NYSE yet because they cannot be custodied at major custody banks and brokerage firms. They're mainly listed on secondary exchanges. In Canada we use multiple swap counterparties and total return swaps to get access to these US cannabis companies. The top holding is Cura Leaf. They are a multi billion dollar biggest cannabis company in the world. Behind that we have Trulieve. We also have Green thumb industries. To see the detailed actual holdings of the fund go to the advisorshares.com website and there are additional screens in your Bloomberg where you can see the derivative holdings. But it's very important to understand the reasons that the fund has to use total return swaps to get access to these cannabis companies.
Tim Stenovec
But maybe that changes the company result of legislation in the U.S. absolutely.
Dan Arends
But the fund is 100% invested in U.S. and U.S. exposure cannabis companies.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Hey Dan, folks who have watched the ride, the ups and downs if you will of cannabis and kind of waiting, you know, for either legalization and more regulatory moves, what's your advice to them at this point? It doesn't sound like it's a, it's a buy in completely. Right now.
Dan Arends
Everybody needs to make their own decisions and perhaps get a good investment advisor. Of course.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
But I guess what I'm saying is you've watched this. I mean, what, what's the realistic time frame? I mean, yes, you, it seems to have a White House is much more favorable. But you know, especially when it's in, you know, you're dealing with banking regulation and so on and so forth. I mean, are you looking at a year, two years? What's your, what's your best advice here? And just got about 30 seconds.
Dan Arends
This is just opinions here. I think a lot less than a year or two. There's talk that the attorney general could sign off on the rescheduling as early as next week. We don't know the time frames. We really, really don't know the time frames. But anybody that listened to the press conference and the executive order signing yesterday, it was wording used like it's a done deal, that cannabis is definitely getting rescheduled.
Host/Interviewer (possibly Tim Stenovec or Carol Massar)
Okay.
Dan Arends
And we think it's all moving forward.
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Dan Arends
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Episode: Justice Department Releases Large Tranche of Epstein Files
Date: December 19, 2025
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Featured Guests: Jason Leopold (Bloomberg News Senior Investigative Reporter), Ty Rady (Chief Technologist, Amazon Robotics), Dan Arends (Portfolio Manager, AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF)
This episode centers on the Justice Department's release of investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, following legislative pressure and new transparency requirements. The hosts interview Jason Leopold of Bloomberg, who has been reporting on the case extensively. The podcast also features discussions about record-breaking stock market inflows, robotics advancements at Amazon, and the recent executive order on cannabis reclassification.
| Segment | Time | |-----------------------------------------|----------------| | Epstein Files Deep Dive | [02:35–14:42] | | US Stock Market Inflows & Risks | [17:44–29:16] | | Robotics & Amazon Warehouse AI | [29:46–39:38] | | Cannabis Regulation & Industry Impact | [43:04–50:31] |
The tone throughout is measured and direct, with a focus on data and investigative rigor (from Leopold), pragmatic enthusiasm (Rady on robotics), and cautious optimism (Arends on cannabis). The hosts maintain a skeptical yet constructive stance, particularly regarding government transparency and market speculation.
This summary captures the episode’s main reporting and conversational themes, highlights direct speaker insights, and pinpoints must-listen moments for a deeper understanding.