Loading summary
Transcript114 lines
- [00:00]
Adobe/Travel Pass Advertiser
Sending a file is easy. Making sure your clients understand the file is the hard part. But with PDF spaces in Adobe Acrobat, you can give your clients the full picture with custom intros, audio summaries and a helpful AI assistant to your docs. So if you want to stop the endless follow ups, do that with Acrobat. Need to make your docs crystal clear? Do that with Acrobat Want to make sure your clients get everything they need to hear? Do that with Acrobat learn more@adobe.com do that with Acrobat Sonesta Travel Pass Makes traveling more Rewarding Designed to help you get more out of every stay, sign up@sonesta.com to enjoy instant savings, bonus points and valuable perks like early check in, late checkout, room upgrades and free stays over time. With Sonesta Travel Pass, every stay brings you closer to your next reward. Choose from more than 1100 hotels across 13 distinctive brands and unlock the best available rates when you book direct with Sinesta Travel Pass Here today, Rome tomorrow. Join now@sonesta.com terms and conditions apply when
- [01:07]
The Hartford Insurance Representative
you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk and before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering and claims experience. Learn more@thehartford.com Riskmitigation policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates Hartford, Connecticut
- [01:50]
Carol Massar
Bloomberg Audio Studios
- [01:52]
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast Announcer
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 businessweek Daily Podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio
- [02:19]
Carol Massar
well, it is one of the largest market cap companies. In fact, I think it's the fifth largest. We're talking about Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos. He's still chair. It's now run by CEO Andy Jassy. He's now five years.
- [02:32]
Tim Stenovec
I can't believe that since he took
- [02:33]
Carol Massar
over as the chief executive office.
- [02:34]
Tim Stenovec
Seems like just yesterday.
- [02:36]
Carol Massar
So how time it really does. Hey, and what's interesting is Jassy was as Brad Stone writes in the COVID story of Bloomberg Businessweek, he was once Jeff Bezos deputy and the head of Amazon's cloud computing arm, massive computing arm. Five years into his tenure as CEO, he's killing projects, co cutting staff, pleasing Wall street and steering the Everything Store through its greatest challenge yet.
- [02:59]
Tim Stenovec
His impact and role at Amazon. It's the COVID story of the new issue of Bloomberg Businessweek. It's also the Bloomberg Big Take. For more, let's head to the Bloomberg News San Francisco bureau. It's where we find Brad Stone. He's the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. You can read it online@Bloomberg.com on the Bloomberg and pick up on newsstands. Brad also the author of several books too, about Amazon, including the Everything Store. Brad, so much coverage when it comes to Amazon, especially of, of, you know, the post Bezos era. The thing that I want to know is why Andy Jassy still drives himself to work every day in a 1998 Jeep Cherokee. Like, seriously, is the Maserati at home? I mean, but also, also like, even, I don't know, like I thought CEOs these days from a security perspective, like everything was so is so tight and secure. And like, you know, I know Bezos had a minivan for years too. But anyway, I thought that was interesting.
- [03:51]
Brad Stone
They've got these corporate values that they promote internally and externally. And one of them is frugality, the idea that you're saving every dollar for the customer. Walmart does the same thing. And I think the way Andy's such a Amazonian, it's where he's worked his whole life. He embodies the principles. And so I think it shows up in its personal choices, which include he Wore to the BusinessWeek photo shoot, what he called his eight minute jack. And it's a sport coat. He literally bought in eight minutes in a scramble for a customer meeting once. And so it's just the kind of guy he is.
- [04:27]
Carol Massar
All right, so you know this company like no other. And Tim mentioned you wrote the Everything Store. You wrote Amazon Unbound. Why is now a really good time to be writing about Andy Jassy?
- [04:38]
Brad Stone
Yeah, I mean, for tech companies right now there is only one thing that matters and that is where are they in this great AI race? And do they have the leading models? Do they have the right partners? What kind of money are they spending on data centers? And this is what investors are watching and with bated breath because the numbers are so large and Amazon got a slow start, they had an opportunity to invest in anthropic early, which they didn't. Some of their early Models that they developed in house haven't really been considered state of the art. But I think it's become apparent over the past few months, maybe the past year, that Amazon's catching up in a number of ways. One, they've done, they've gone and Andy has formed partnerships with anthropic, with OpenAI. OpenAI renegotiated its Microsoft deal essentially to avoid the exclusivity contract. So ChatGPT models could be on AWS, Amazon Web Services, Amazon RedID, Alexa, they call it Alexa plus now. And they're making these chips, these Trainium chips that are in some ways competing with Nvidia. And Amazon's offering is very Amazon. Like it's come to Amazon, you'll have a sort of menu of all the models and you'll do it more cost effectively than you might elsewhere. And frankly, like AWS is now growing at a pace that it hasn't grown in a couple of years. Like the market has sort of turned. And so it just happened to be five years for Andy Jassy. But you can make an argument now that Amazon has caught up and it is one of the names that is leading us, whether we like it or not, into this new era.
- [06:16]
Tim Stenovec
As you write in the piece, Amazon invented this category with us and cloud computing. Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos sort of conceived this together years ago and he was the head of us before he became CEO of Amazon. How did what he saw happening at us as a result of AI inform the way that he make decisions about AI at Amazon?
- [06:36]
Brad Stone
Mm, well, I mean, I think they, they have a very good sense for, you know, what customers want, what the demand signals are. And no surprise, you know, we, I see this in my own, you know, kind of personal habits I'm experimenting more with. I think everyone kind of feels it. And what Amazon saw probably earlier than most is that customer and corporate demand for AI services was much, was, was maybe even higher than folks even anticipated. And so they're spending $200 billion in capex this year alone building data centers. We visited one of them in Mississippi. It's the lead to the piece outside Jackson, Mississippi. These massive buildings that are rising up from the clay. And basically one thing that Amazon can do better than almost everyone because they are so early to the cloud computing movement, is stand up these data centers and they're doing them all across the country. They're, they're putting their own chips in them and they're promising that capacity to companies like Anthropic and OpenAI who can't even themselves get enough compute. So it does seem to me that Amazon's pretty well positioned right now, particularly for the bull cases and AI adoption.
- [07:55]
Carol Massar
So does he have his L A raised girlfriend now wife to thank for him being CEO of Amazon?
- [08:06]
Brad Stone
All right, so I don't think so. I mean, we talk about Andy Jassy's history, and it was almost a peculiar set of circumstances that got him to Seattle in the first place. You're right that his wife wanted them to spend a couple of years earlier in their careers on the West Coast. And maybe Seattle was a bit of a compromise. But he went early to Amazon. He joined in 1998. It was just the bookseller Andy Jassy pioneered at the time. It was CDs. So the music category on Amazon. He was early on the marketing team, and then he was the first shadow or sort of technical advisor to Jeff Bezos, which is basically the person that's going to follow the CEO around. And he really became a kind of disciple. And then when they conceived Amazon Web Services together, he broke off and ran it with a lot of autonomy for 15 years. So, yeah, it's this extraordinary story. Probably lots of good fortune that he was there at the beginning of this momentous Internet revolution.
- [09:15]
Tim Stenovec
But it wasn't always totally without speed bumps. You point out in the piece that Bezos admonished him at one point publicly in a meeting, and he basically said, why should I ever listen to you about anything ever again if you get these numbers wrong.
- [09:28]
Carol Massar
Ouch.
- [09:28]
Brad Stone
I mean, it was the kind of. It was. Probably wasn't personal. It was the sort of comment that Jeff demanded excellence in meetings and had a brusque way, particularly early on, of conveying. But, you know, Jassy tells that story to illustrate to young people that, like. And this resonated with me that even if, you know, what are you concerned about when you go into big meetings with your superiors? Well, you're concerned that, you know, you'll look foolish. And he said that there were instances when that happened. And the next day everything was fine. People moved on. And so, like, he didn't end up worrying about that anymore. And it gave him new confidence.
- [10:06]
Carol Massar
I am curious, too, about the relationship between Jassy and Jeff Bezos. And I think increasingly we see people like Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook of Apple, like they are the ones who are dealing with Washington and all of those issues. And then there are other folks, like, really running the company. But. But talk to us about. I mean, is Jassy involved in the politics and so on and so forth. Because Amazon, of course, as you know, there, has its fans and it has its foes, like, of people who are really critical of the company.
- [10:34]
Brad Stone
Yeah, I mean, I think Andy does have his own relationship, certainly with the president and the White House. But I want to like one, make. Make one distinction, which I thought about a little bit and wrote about in the Business Week daily newsletter this morning, which is we are surrounded by leaders in corporations and even political movements who are kind of, you know, inextricably linked to their organizations. And so you can't imagine, say, Tesla without Elon Musk or the MAGA movement without Trump. And, you know, Bezos really did architect an orderly and model CEO transition. And he did it five years ago. He's kind of stepped out of the way. He's executive chairman. He's, he's very involved as an executive chairman, definitely probably helping Jassy to manage Washington, introducing and talking about evangelizing for new technologies. But, you know, you have to say, you have to give them credit. You know, in this day and age when the key man, risk, to use the SEC term, is so high at companies like he gave Jassy the reins and he really stepped out of the way. And I think it's worth saying at a time when, you know, you've got Palantir or Tesla or SpaceX going public where you can't even imagine what, what happens to the market value of one of these companies if the key guy, the key figure is no longer there.
- [12:02]
Tim Stenovec
And Brad, you make the point in the piece too, that early on in the transition he had to make some really tough choices as a result of, of some over hiring during the pandemic, a, you know, somewhat bloated corporate workforce that I think many would argue. How was he seen internally and externally as he was doing that? And what exactly did he have to do?
- [12:21]
Brad Stone
Yeah, probably not, you know, very, very popular. He's laid off a good percentage of the company because, as you say, there was over hiring during the pandemic. They also, he also, Andy also felt like Amazon was too bureaucratic. He wanted to remove layers. And then, of course, somewhat spoken, somewhat unspoken, you've got AI making the company more efficient. And, you know, when you take opportunity away from people or you reduce the, the ability to promote, or people feel like promotions are closed off, it creates conflict. And this is not unique to Amazon. This is probably across business, certainly across Silicon Valley right now. He made some unpopular choices. He also killed some prominent projects like the Go Store that just walk out technology and supermarkets, Amazon Fresh grocery stores different like you know, robot delivery drone, you know, delivery robot projects. But he's also placed bets elsewhere like the satellites. They're creating a satellite Internet service and they're going to be opening a new supermarket new like superstore in Chicago. So you know, I think there's a lot of people who have a lot of respect for him and like with a lot of companies, it's not unanimous.
- [13:44]
Carol Massar
Great, great deep dive. As you know, this company like no other. Brad Stone, editor of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Brad, thank you. His story it find it on the Bloomberg and online@Bloomberg.com he's of course the author of many books including two on Amazon.
- [13:58]
Adobe/Travel Pass Advertiser
Stay with us.
- [13:59]
Tim Stenovec
More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this
- [14:05]
The Hartford Insurance Representative
Support for the show comes from public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts?
- [14:31]
Brad Stone
Yep.
- [14:31]
The Hartford Insurance Representative
High yield cash? Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services by 0/ all investing involves risk of loss. See completedisclosures@public.com disclosures Being a small business
- [15:05]
Chase for Business Advertiser
owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place with their digital tools. Looking for tips and advice, their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn more@chase.com business chase for business Make More of what's Yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices, message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co.
- [16:03]
My Policy Advocate Advertiser
Here's a paradox. We buy insurance for peace of mind. Yet the very policies we trust can deliver the biggest financial shocks. Across America, millions of claims are denied every year. Not people did anything wrong, but because policies quietly excluded the things that happened. The psychology of trust tells us we assume the contract is fair. But in insurance, the information gap is massive. The insurer knows every detail of what's covered. The policyholder rarely does. That's where my policy advocate comes in. For just 27 cents a day, their platform reads your policies and shows you in plain language where you're vulnerable. They're not selling insurance. They don't do that. It's about transparency, giving ordinary people the same understanding insurance companies have had for decades. Because when you know what's really in your policy, you can plan, protect and avoid surprises. Before you trust your policy to protect you, let my policy advocate tell you what it really says. Visit mypolicyadvocate.com today, peace of mind starts with knowing the truth.
- [17:02]
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast Announcer
Mypolicyadvocate.com youm'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.
- [17:19]
Carol Massar
About a year ago we were kind of coming off Trump's President Trump's Liberation Day. Higher or uncertain tariff environment. It was, we were kind of up in the air about a lot of things and at the time we were forecasting put out a story at Bloomberg just ahead of Memorial Day that the price of a cookout was going up.
- [17:36]
Tim Stenovec
Beef prices were an issue then too.
- [17:38]
Carol Massar
Yes. Right. And that was. Well, the story got into a lot of the issues were domestic ones that were impacting the prices of things. And then I think about this year, Tim, what's going on?
- [17:46]
Tim Stenovec
Okay, US War in Iran, higher energy prices, higher gas prices. Inflation prints just this week reminding us that inflation is outpacing wage growth. Not so good, not so great.
- [17:56]
Carol Massar
So what does it mean for our summer picnics as we get ready? Please, please to kick off summer. It's just around the corner.
- [18:01]
Tim Stenovec
It was a. It felt like 45 this morning. That was the feel like temperature, 51 degrees in New York.
- [18:06]
Carol Massar
I still had layers. I hear it's going to be like 80 degrees on Sunday. For more, let's head to Stu Leonard's Wine Wines and Spir store. It is in Norwalk, Connecticut. That's where we Find Blake Leonard. She's the president of Stu Leonard's Wines and Spirits. She's also part of the next generation that will take over running the store founded by her grandfather. She will take the reins as president along with a cousin from her dad, Stu Leonard Jr. Keeping it in the family. I love that you are a certified sommelier from the Culinary Institute in Napa. You've worked for many other families, too, in the wine business, including the well known Gallows. Blake, welcome, welcome. How are you?
- [18:43]
Blake Leonard
Hey, thank you so much for having me today. And, you know, since it's Friday, I wanted to start off just cheersing you with an aperol spritz right here.
- [18:50]
Carol Massar
Oh, my God.
- [18:52]
Tim Stenovec
I feel like she's seen Stu Leonard do this a few times on our show.
- [18:54]
Blake Leonard
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:56]
Tim Stenovec
Learn from the best.
- [18:57]
Brad Stone
I love you.
- [18:58]
Carol Massar
I love you. But I do resent that there wasn't one sent to us. That's all I'm going to say.
- [19:02]
Blake Leonard
I know.
- [19:02]
Carol Massar
I'm just going to say I think
- [19:03]
Tim Stenovec
the interstate liquor laws, it's a big issue. Truly, I'm not.
- [19:06]
Blake Leonard
That is true.
- [19:07]
Tim Stenovec
I don't know.
- [19:08]
Blake Leonard
Okay, well, maybe, you know, we're right here in spritz season now, so I'm excited.
- [19:15]
Carol Massar
Hey, talk to us, though, about the environment before we get into the summer season, what people are interested in terms of wines and spirits. But talk to us about the consumer, what you guys are seeing.
- [19:26]
Blake Leonard
Yeah, well, you know, I was the other day just visiting one of our wine suppliers, and he was saying that it cost him over $2,000 more just to get a container of wine here into the US Right now. And that's, you know, just one part of the whole transportation piece, you know, for getting wine into our wine stores.
- [19:45]
Tim Stenovec
Wow. So you couple that with. With actually selling the wine in a time when we're hearing more and more about young people not drinking as much. This idea of, like, you know, dry January actually lasting the entire year, what does that mean for. For the overall business?
- [20:02]
Blake Leonard
Well, you know, you also see customers here on the store, and I was just talking to a lady of their day who was just talking about how much more it costs her to fill up her huge, you know, van that she. She drives with all her kids in the back. So, you know, we, you know, everyone here on the store floor is definitely feeling it. I think one good thing, and, you know, I was hearing all the stock prices before, but about being a family business, is that we can, you know, work with our suppliers and hold those costs. In a lot of instances, we'll See, split that transportation cost with our suppliers so we can keep prices here on our store floor family friendly.
- [20:34]
Carol Massar
And you guys have not yet seen price increases, my understanding is due to fuel. Correct?
- [20:39]
Blake Leonard
Yes. We have not. You know, here in the wine business, as you started off with the tariffs, that was big last year and for this year, really no one wants to raise the price of wine right now. And I always look, this is a great new rose that just came in. It's a new, fresh vintage. But, you know, we're retailing this under $15. And if I were to go and sell it over $15, what happens to sales is they go down. So you really have to be price sensitive with those barriers there. And we look at it as hopefully a temporary thing and, you know, trying to look at the longer picture is
- [21:14]
Tim Stenovec
the idea on it with a product like that. And if, you know, if I'm thinking about margins correctly, that you take a little bit of a hit there, but you get people in the store to buy that, and then they buy other things that don't have as big, that have bigger margins.
- [21:26]
Blake Leonard
Yes, well, and one of the things that I love doing is I'm like a little, you know, wine detective out there. But I love going. Every year we go to a wine show either in Paris or in Italy, and we get to meet firsthand with a lot of these multi generational families who are making unbelievable wine. And we get to bring them back and sell them in our stores. And really they're wines that over deliver for the price. And we often say they taste like they're twice the price. So really trying to bring not only the price point, but also the story back for our customers because we think that now more than ever, that's what customers want to hear about.
- [22:01]
Carol Massar
I'm always amazed, like when you're over in Europe or Paris and you just order, I don't know, just a little wine, nothing big, and it's just great. Like, I feel like over the years and you know, this, this industry, like, it just feels like, you know, we keep getting told you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a great bottle of wine.
- [22:21]
Blake Leonard
Yeah, no, you don't. And you know, right here, this is, this, this is a Corsican rose that I have. And this is also one of our best sellers. It's a Provence rose under $15. A female winemaker. She won the top 100 winemaker. You know, one of the top 100 winemakers in the world. She was awarded a couple years ago. So there's Great value out there. You do have to, you know, spend time looking for it. But that's what we really strive to do for our customers here on the store floor, as well as educate them.
- [22:50]
Tim Stenovec
So let's talk a little bit about the next generation of Stu Leonard's and sort of the timeline for you and your cousin taking over. And also I'm curious about, with a background in wine and spirits, what you can then do in your approach to the grocery business, a historically low margin business, a very challenging business that, you know, you have to work with the ups and downs of the economy and the macroeconomic environment. What is your plan for Stu Leonards when you take it over?
- [23:16]
Blake Leonard
You know, yesterday, all of my cousins and my dad, you know, it was work, but we got to spend the day all together in the city listening to other family businesses talk. And it was a really awesome day. But one of the biggest takeaways I had listening to Jim Perdue speak and we got to meet him afterwards and hearing Enterprise as well, and Panda Express, they all stick to their core values, so no matter what happens is sticking to their core values. And when I look back at our business today, you know, I grew up drinking milk from stews, and my kids today, they're also drinking milk from stews, but it's organic. And so, you know, if we had 20 years ago tried selling organic milk, it would have been way too expensive to really for our customers at that time. But we've evolved. And so it's kind of just a slow evolution over time. And that's, you know, one of the things that. That always sticks out to me is that my kids are drinking organic whole milk now.
- [24:11]
Carol Massar
Blake, I just want to mention we have a headline crossing from Reuters. Space X picks the NASDAQ as its listing venue for its massive upcoming IPO on that. Did you guys. Do you guys ever think about going public?
- [24:25]
Blake Leonard
We've definitely had offers, and we have offers either go into partnerships or to be purchased. And it's always something we think about because in my generation, it went from four in my dad's generation now to over 13 of us. And now in the fourth generation, there's over 22 great grandkids. So it's definitely something we always think about. But really what we want, and you know, my cousins and I all just met recently to talk about this, is we really want to keep this a family business and want to continue. You know, the decisions we get to make every day are really, you know, ones that we don't have to rely on anyone else for that. So listen.
- [25:04]
Carol Massar
So fun to catch up with you. Stay in touch.
- [25:06]
Blake Leonard
Thank you very much.
- [25:07]
Carol Massar
Especially as we kick off the summer season. Blake Leonard, she's the president of Stu Leonard's Wines and Spirits joining us out there in Connecticut.
- [25:16]
Adobe/Travel Pass Advertiser
Stay with us.
- [25:16]
Tim Stenovec
More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Coming up after this,
- [25:23]
The Hartford Insurance Representative
Support for the show comes from Public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public you can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts? Yep. High yield cash? Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services By Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services By ZeroHash all investing involves risk of loss. See complete disclosures@public.com disclosures small businesses are
- [26:23]
Chase for Business Advertiser
the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities and drive growth. With a widespread presence in communities across the country, Chase for Business supports small business owners at a local level that makes it possible for you to connect, learn from each other and grow together. There's a real commitment to seeing small businesses succeed. The Chase for Business team has knowledge and expertise that span a wide range of financial areas. They can help you make more informed decisions as you navigate the complexities of running your business. They'll help your business grow with individual guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place. With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your community. Learn more@chase.com business chase for business make more of what's yours the Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co. We buy insurance
- [27:23]
My Policy Advocate Advertiser
for peace of mind. But every year millions of claims are denied. Not because people did anything wrong, but their policies quietly excluded what happened. Insurers know every detail. Policyholders rarely do. That's why my policy advocate exists. For just 27 cents a day, their platform reads your policies and explains where you are vulnerable. They don't sell insurance. They deliver transparency. Before you trust Your policy to protect you. Let my policy advocate tell you what it really says. Go to mypolicyadvocate.com you're listening to the
- [27:55]
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast Announcer
Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app or watch us live on YouTube.
- [28:07]
Tim Stenovec
How about this?
- [28:08]
Carol Massar
Okay.
- [28:09]
Tim Stenovec
A bus company with a million followers on TikTok.
- [28:13]
Carol Massar
Wait, what?
- [28:14]
Tim Stenovec
All right, if you're listening on radio, it's like a TikTok dancing person with a bus. There's some lips on the bus and the bus is just going everywhere in the world. It's a green bus. It's a flix bus.
- [28:29]
Carol Massar
Carol, can I just tell you, one of our producers, Cece and I discovered this TikTok account and we just went down a rabbit hole. There it is. The bus continuing to dance. And I'm just gonna say we were laughing.
- [28:45]
Tim Stenovec
This is why you can't get TikTok on your phone, Carol.
- [28:48]
Carol Massar
This is why what?
- [28:49]
Tim Stenovec
You can't get TikTok because you would be in that rabbit hole.
- [28:51]
Carol Massar
Oh, my God, we were laughing so hard. And it just, it's. Their TikTok presence is really entertaining.
- [28:59]
Tim Stenovec
Well, if you're Flixbus, you do have a million followers on Tik Tok. The company operates in dozens of countries in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. Here in North America, they own Greyhound and flixbus. Back with us is Kai Boysen, CEO Flicks North America. He joins us from Dallas. Kai, it's been almost two years since we've last spoke. It's good to have you back on the program. It's a very different environment than when you last joined us. Flights are more expensive. Jet fuel is is their shortage of jet fuel in parts of the world. Here in the US Gas is more expensive. How is your business right now?
- [29:38]
Kai Boysen
Our business is strong. I mean, intercity bus is the most cost effective option by far. I mean, if you just look at New York City and D.C. distance and people can travel on bus is a fraction of the railways or airlines. Cost budget clearly matters and fuel increase also drive shift demand historically from personal cars to intercity bus. And that's why we're seeing it right now.
- [30:06]
Carol Massar
You know, it's interesting, I have a daughter who is up in Boston and who has taken Amtrak several times, but she's also increasingly taking the bus. It's less expensive, I think, maybe less delays she's seen. But it's interesting and I think she was a little bit surprised how much she liked taking a bus.
- [30:23]
Kai Boysen
U.S. that's spot on. I mean, what we see is Generation Z are less likely to have a driving license. They like their comfort and convenience. And spot on reliability plays an important part of the equation right now. And we have increased our reliability massively. I mean, 97% of the time we depart on time, within scheduled time and 85% we arrive on time. That's second to none and way better than airlines and railways. So what we see is a continual increase in the number of passengers on our buses year after year.
- [31:00]
Tim Stenovec
I'm wondering about the split between Flixbus in the US And Greyhound and sort of how you position those two brands and how you're positioning the Greyhound brand, which is seen, I think by a lot of people as a real legacy brand in an environment where there are some newer upstarts.
- [31:18]
Kai Boysen
I mean, Flixbus and Greyhound are two very strong brands for us. Approximately more than 40% of our business is in Flixbus and more than 50% is in Greyhound. And what we do mostly is Flixbus really strong in the east coast and the west coast, shorter distances. And where Greyhound comes in, it connects multiple states together and becomes the pipe for the long distance travel.
- [31:47]
Carol Massar
Tell us a little bit about the demand that you're seeing. I mean, has it increased year over year? What moves the needle? And I know some of what we've been thinking about here in the newsroom is like, when you saw the Spirit shut down, did you guys see an uptick in business?
- [32:01]
Kai Boysen
Oh, yes, significant increase in demand with the Spirit shutdown. We saw over that weekend more than 30% increase in ridership on overlapping lines. I think we have more than 120 overlapping lines with spread. So that was an opportunity for many travelers to experience our reliable and comfortable service. So intercity bus is clearly a strong alternative when there is a kind of disruption with the airports, airways, airlines or railways, or especially when there's a big travel period, we are a very strong alternative to them.
- [32:39]
Tim Stenovec
What's the sweet spot though for somebody who makes the choice, okay, I'm not going to fly, I'm actually going to take a bus instead. It works for something like New York to Washington or New York to Boston, for example. It doesn't work for New York to California.
- [32:55]
Kai Boysen
It depends what you're looking for in that instance. I mean, if our strongest competition is when it comes to the travel time is up to 12 hours. So that's where we're really strong versus alternative modes of transport.
- [33:10]
Tim Stenovec
So what does that look like in the US in terms of city to
- [33:13]
Kai Boysen
City, I mean that covers vast majority of Northeast lines, ATVs, all the city pairs mostly it covers also multiple. I mean if you look at the southeast, we cover majority of cities there. If you want to move from one region to another and you have the time, then what we offer is reliable service, clearly on time, performance is stellar. And the second one is comfortable service. Your first class seat, you rest and relax and you've got wi fi all the way through a strong WI fi and and on the way you can see and enjoy the United States, the beautiful scenery where possible.
- [33:48]
Carol Massar
Kai, coming into you we talked about we really were kind of surprised. Our producer Cece who fell into your TikTok account and kind of shocked that you guys have a million followers. I am curious, tell us about what goes into what you guys program and has that every time I see the dancing bus it does make me laugh. What has that done in moving the needle in terms of bringing in younger customers. And I am curious about your, you know, the demographics of who are getting on buses.
- [34:23]
Kai Boysen
I mean we welcome all walks of life and kind of we've got everybody from every segment. But you're right, we attract disproportionately young people, Generation Z mostly coming on our buses and enjoying and how we attract them, I mean number one is clearly is being on time, reliable service. They want to make sure that they don't have any surprises like they see at the airports, long queues or delays and cancellations. That's number one. Reliability is really important. Connecting more locations, I mean we connect more than 1,800 stops in this region and that's far more than airlines as well as railways combined. And not only cities, we reach the rural communities. So it's possible for anybody to hop on a bus and travel all the way to its final destination without changing actually mode of travel. So what happens that we with that on our mind, that what we see is we continue to grow lines, add new lines to our network. I mean just in the course of last two months we added more than 25 lines to our network, new lines to make sure that our network is growing and we are meeting the demand out there. So the growth is out there for us with the reliable service.
- [35:35]
Carol Massar
But the demographics who's getting on the bus? Is it increasingly a younger population? Is it a mixture? Has it really not changed in the last few years?
- [35:44]
Kai Boysen
I mean one of the bigger segments for us is clearly young segments, students, university students, that's where we attract. But we also attract the retirees who got the time. And like to travel on a reliable platform. And some people prefer not to fly. They come to us as well. So all walks of life we welcome and we have of kind of presence from all walks of life. But you're right, Generation Z and students are one of our biggest segments.
- [36:11]
Tim Stenovec
We're speaking with Kai Boysen. Flicks North America CEO joins us from Dallas. Hey, Kai, the areas of innovation for Flix, Busted for Greyhound, what are they? You mentioned Wi Fi. Is it Starlink? I mean, I guess you don't even need Starlink. You could use cellular, but like, you know, how fast is it? Where can you innovate to continue to attract younger demographics?
- [36:35]
Kai Boysen
I mean, obviously we work with one of the prominent telecommunications service providers here in the United States and we're very happy with the service.
- [36:42]
Tim Stenovec
So that would be like a Verizon, AT&T mobile type of company.
- [36:46]
Kai Boysen
That's correct. One of those, yes. And in addition, we also do real time actually updates to our services, just pre onboarding, during onboard service and after offboarding. What is really critical is to make sure that our travelers, our passengers are up to speed as to where we are, when we're going to arrive, if there's any delay. So it's really critical. Our platform enables that massively and also not only with the passengers, but the bus operator, all coming together, making sure that we provide a seamless experience. I mean, our motto is kind of happy experience, happy rider experience always comes back with incremental actual revenue for us. So we're going the extra mile to make sure that each and everybody is happy with that experience. And that comes with reliability, comfortability and obviously cost effectiveness. Bringing that all together with many connections will make that difference. And innovation for us is not only kind of once we've got the customer on board and that's done and dusted, no innovation that continues for us. We always look out, what are the best search options available, what are the best payers that we can bring so that we can provide the option to our travelers to travel from, let's say from a distance that it needs to actually connect with multiple buses. So it's a continuous operation and we leverage AI in that way strongly to find the optimal service.
- [38:14]
Carol Massar
Kai, before you go, we do want to squeeze in. We got about 40 seconds left here. Are you seeing any bookings around the World Cup? Especially as we've heard other options are really expensive.
- [38:23]
Kai Boysen
Just quickly, okay, yes, we're seeing a strong demand already with the peak and we know that World cup is a huge, large scale event and it's going to make a difference. Ridership is increasing, early bookings, especially in the Northeast. We cover all 16 cities. So this is a large scale event and it's going to put pressure on the infrastructure for cities. And what we do is we increase where we see uptake in demand. We increase our schedules so we help reduce the pressure on the city infrastructure. And we work very collaboratively with the cities and local transit authorities to make sure the fan experience is superb.
- [39:01]
Carol Massar
All right, we gotta leave it there. Hey, have a great weekend, Kai. Thank you so much for carving out time for Tim and me. Kai Boycen, he is CEO of Flix North America, joining us on this Friday.
- [39:12]
Bloomberg Businessweek 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.
- [39:42]
Carol Massar
If you follow markets, you know the value of long term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has helped individuals and businesses navigate tough moments. With expertise, personal attention and independent agents who focus on relationships, not transactions, the Cincinnati insurance companies let them make your bad day better. Find an agent@cin fin.com from coast to
- [40:18]
Adobe/Travel Pass Advertiser
coast, Unlock adventure at Red Lion Hotels by Sonesta where restful sleep, friendly service and trusted local knowledge are part of every stay. Red lion makes it easy to feel welcomed, comfortable and connected wherever the road takes you. Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, you can spend less and make more of every trip. When you sign up for Sonesta Travel Pass, you'll get their best rates instantly. Go to sonesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sonesta TravelPass. Here today, roam tomorrow. Join now at sinesta. Com. Terms and conditions apply.
- [40:52]
Chase for Business Advertiser
This dog Salon Operational excellence thanks to Genius from Global Payments Scheduling, Personalized Checkouts, Instant absolutely Genius Big league reliability for any business.
- [41:05]
Blake Leonard
That's genius.