Hot Market Summer

Summary

Everybody’s Business — “Hot Market Summer”

Podcast by Bloomberg and iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Max Chafkin & Stacey Vanek Smith
Date: June 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

Theme:
This episode explores “Hot Market Summer”: the phenomenon of high prices and “luxurification” across everything from $10 ice creams to biohacking peptides, and analyzes how inflation, wages, and culture are intertwining in America’s business and everyday life. The hosts, joined by Bloomberg's David Papadopoulos and journalist Amanda Mull, break down why ordinary treats are feeling luxe, the regulatory and social explosion of peptide drugs, and the ways the labor and wealth divide is manifesting in the summer of 2026. Underrated stories of the week include a striking new jobs statistic and a World Cup fairy tale.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Ice Cream, Inflation, and Sticker Shock

(Main Segment, 01:57 to 14:32)

Price of Ice Cream: A Symbol of Inflation

• Reporting Hook:
  Stacey shares her recent story on skyrocketing ice cream costs ("we were getting just like an ice cream truck ice cream here in New York, and the cost totaled $9." [03:04]). Bloomberg sent reporters into New York streets to poll people on what they're paying.

• On-the-Street Survey Results:

  • People cite paying $10–$12 per cone; one recalls paying $0.25 decades ago, and another $1.50 for three not long ago ([03:55-04:28]).
  • International comparisons are made; in some places ice cream is $2.50, $3 ([04:28]).

• Contributors to Rising Costs:

  • Fuel (diesel for trucks), rent, energy for cold storage, and overall "food inflation" converge on the simple cone ([03:04], [04:58]).
  • David Papadopoulos notes it’s not just inflation but the level—“sticker shock” from five years of price surges:

    "Inflation overall in this country, including for ice cream, has been well over 20%, approaching 30%. It just put us at different price levels, a sticker price level that we have not gotten used to and gotten comfortable with." ([06:08])

• Luxury-ization Trend:

  • Max: “And that I think has happened for sure, Stacy, in ice cream.” ([08:15])
    Premium shops thrive (Van Leeuwens, Jenny’s), while budget chains close.
  • Stacey: “Ice cream has become kind of a small luxury experience...you want a fancier ice cream so that it feels special.” ([08:37-09:22])

Broader Economic Forces

• Companies “play the inflation game” by pushing products up-market, maintaining volume by making luxuries seem like necessary “treats.” ([09:22])
• Many Americans are experiencing wage growth lagging inflation, with overall US inflation “well over 20%, approaching 30%” over recent years ([06:08], [09:54]).

Notable Quotes

• On Sticker Shock:

  “Some of what they're feeling is the past five, six years in which inflation overall in this country...has been well over 20%, approaching 30%.” — David Papadopoulos [06:08]

• On Ice Cream as Luxury:

  "Maybe you can't afford to take your family out to dinner...but you can take them out to ice cream. So you...want a fancier ice cream so that it feels special." — Stacey Vanek Smith [08:37]

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2. Inflation Outlook and Politics

(09:54 - 14:32)

• Oil Prices’ Role:
  Reopening of the Strait of Hormuz could mean a drop in oil prices, and thus inflation ([09:54]). But experts doubt this will bring US inflation to the Fed’s 2% target.

• Fed and Political Response:

  • New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh called out the Fed's failure to control inflation, promising a renewed focus on "price stability" ([10:37]).
  • Trump, in a soundbite, downplays inflation concerns, expecting “as soon as this war is over...inflation is maybe a little high now, but it's about to come way down” ([11:44-12:31]).

• Reality Check:
  David emphasizes that lower inflation means slower rising prices — not lower absolute prices.

  "Getting inflation to come down doesn't mean that prices overall go down. It just means that they stop rising as much as they were. And what people truly want...is that that bag of Doritos goes from $7 back to $5.25." ([13:12], [14:21])

• Closing the Segment:
  Stacey: "I want a $5 ice cream cone.” David: “I want that chicken sandwich again for $5. I'm not voting for no one until they get my chicken sandwich back to $5.” ([14:23-14:32])

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3. Peptide Mania and Biohacking

(Main Segment, 16:59 to 29:33)

Peptides 101 and Regulatory Gray Areas

• What are Peptides? Amanda Mull:

  "A peptide is, it's a short string of amino acids...they are basically molecules that have the capacity to bind to different receptors in your body to toggle different bodily processes on and off." ([17:55])

• GLP-1s (“Ozempic” et al) as the Gateway:
  Legal, prescription weight loss and “anti-aging” drugs have built huge demand. Telehealth platforms have made access easier and cheaper — sometimes veering into gray or illegal access ([18:25-19:54]).

• Outlaw-to-Mainstream Pipeline:
  The scene starts with “biohackers” and bodybuilders stretching regulatory boundaries.
  A regulatory push under Biden (2023) attempted to clamp down, putting nearly 20 common peptides on a Category 2 List ([21:25-24:00]).

• RFK Jr. and the Regulatory Pendulum:
  The FDA under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is far more sympathetic to “harm reduction,” directing the agency to allow compounding pharmacies to make some peptides once again ([24:06-24:47]).

• Societal Risk and Contradictions:
  Mull discusses the odd but growing blend of anti-vaccine skepticism and peptide biohacking:

  "It's all risk tolerance. The risk profile of somebody who says that they do not want to be vaccinated but also is interested in these peptides. I'm very confused by that." — Max Chafkin [24:47]
  Mull: “...look at it...as a coherent attitude toward authority.” ([25:03])

• Caveat Emptor:
  Mull warns that many peptides (e.g., BPC157) are widely used with little to no clinical evidence — “if the mechanism...might speed the growth of tumors...what happens then?” ([26:24])

• Threat to Regulatory Systems:

  “It seems like all this stuff could just break our current system of evaluating drugs…If you can just create enough hype...maybe you just don't have to run the clinical trials.” — Max Chafkin ([27:38], [29:06])

• Journalist’s Caution:

  “[GLP-1s] do seem to be miracle drugs. Legal, safe, effective...But because none of these drugs, or a lot of these drugs at least, have not been through the...rigorous testing that GLP-1s have been through, we just don't know…” — Amanda Mull [26:05]

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4. Underrated Stories

(32:29 – 38:31)

A. Multiple Job-Holding at Record Highs

• Source: ZipRecruiter study — about a third of workers are working multiple jobs to make ends meet ([33:03]).
• Implication:

  "For a while, even though prices were rising...average wages were keeping up...now we are [falling behind].” — Stacey Vanek Smith [33:37]
  There is a scramble and hustle economy beneath headlines of boom and frothy markets.

B. World Cup Cinderella Story & LinkedIn Recruitment

• Max’s story:
  Small nation Cape Verde ties (00) with soccer powerhouse Spain in the World Cup, a moral victory fueled in part by a player who was recruited to the national team via LinkedIn InMail ([36:12-37:19]).

• Listener Feedback:
  Listener Kyle highlights that US women's soccer is historically a powerhouse (“the women's [US] team have won multiple World Cups. They are true perennial contender.”) and calls for more coverage ([37:37-38:31]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On Modern Ice Cream Inflation:

  "I left a $5 tip." — Max Chafkin [03:57]
  “I'm 76 years old. It was probably about a quarter when I used to have it.” — Interviewee [04:19]
  “If there's a plus to the high prices, it'll help people on a diet because you eat less, or share one instead of getting two.” — David Papadopoulos [05:30]

• On Luxury-ization:

  “Fewer kind of like budget ice cream options than there were in the David Papadopoulos $5 sandwich era.” — Max Chafkin [08:15]

• On Sticker Price Levels:

  “Some of that is just, hey, we've been through a great inflation surge and we all need to get used to it, and it's going to take time.” — David Papadopoulos [06:08]

• On Peptide Biohacking Boom:

  “This story is really just all about risk tolerance all around.” — Amanda Mull [21:46]

• On Regulatory Whiplash:

  “RFK Jr. Has instructed the FDA to reconsider the regulatory status of a bunch of these peptides...” — Amanda Mull [24:15]

• On Friction Between Anti-Vax and Peptide Use:

  “I am very confused by the risk tolerance...the risk profile of somebody who says that they do not want to be vaccinated but also is interested in these peptides.” — Max Chafkin [24:47]

• On How Biohacking Could Break the System:

  “If you can just create enough hype around a product, people are willing to like risk their lives in very real ways in order to use that product. Then like, maybe you just don't have to run the clinical trials.” — Amanda Mull [29:04]

• On US Women's Soccer:

  “The women's team have won multiple World Cups. They are true perennial contender.” — Listener Kyle (read by Max Chafkin) [37:38]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ice Cream Inflation & Luxury-ization – 01:57–14:32
• Inflation, Oil Prices, Fed & Politics – 09:54–14:32
• Peptide/Biohacking Boom & Regulatory Story – 16:59–29:33
• Workforce—Multiple Jobs & Economy Divide – 32:29–34:37
• World Cup, Underdogs, and LinkedIn Recruitment – 34:37–38:31
• Listener Feedback on Women's Soccer – 37:25–38:31

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Structure & Flow

• The episode nimbly weaves personal anecdotes (ice cream, childhood prices) with street interviews, broad economic analysis, and deep dives into regulatory puzzles and societal trends.
• It closes with lighter stories (World Cup upsets) and an inclusive nod to audience feedback, especially on the success of the US women's soccer team.

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Takeaway

“Hot Market Summer” fizzes with the contradictions of 2026: Everything, even an ice cream cone, is burnished with gold and priced like it, even as most people strain to keep up. Whether popping $12 on a treat, chancing untested anti-aging drugs, or juggling jobs, Americans are caught between top-heavy market exuberance and the everyday grind. And amidst the busyness, the country finds new heroes—in soccer upsets, side hustles, or simply the pursuit of a $5 sandwich.

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Transcript

[David Papadopoulos]

Modern enterprise. It's a lot of moving parts. Comcast Business helps orchestrate it all with SD Wan keeping 150 hospital locations connected and zero trust security protecting a bank's 2000 branches. No one does business like Comcast Business.

[Chase Business Advertiser]

Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities and drive growth. Chase for Business helps business owners like you with personalized 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 [e-mail] 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.

[Max Chafkin]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Radio news

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Max Jaffkin, Stacey Vanek Smith, how is your SpaceX stock doing?

[Max Chafkin]

Oh, Stacey, it's first of all, I am a journalist. I don't buy individual stocks. But as we've been talking about, you know, many people in the market are exposed to this stock and oh boy, it's been a wild ride. SpaceX was briefly like the fourth or fifth most valuable company in the world. The stock is down, it's up. But, but yeah, the market has been wild.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's a hot market. This is everybody's business. From Bloomberg Business Week, I'm Stacey Bannik Smith.

[Max Chafkin]

And I'm Max Chavkin. Stacey Today on the show, we're talking about the hot market in all sorts of ways. $8 ice creams, biohacking the World Cup. Stacy we are summer maxing here on Everybody's Business.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I've never felt so in tune with the culture, and I will also pretend I never heard you say that.

[Max Chafkin]

At least I didn't say summer. Moggin.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It is summer. You spoke of summer maxing, and I don't feel like summer maxing is something that you can really do without ice cream.

[Max Chafkin]

Well, I do it without ice cream, but I recognize because I have small children that ice cream is an important component of happiness. Well, pretty much at any time, but especially in the summer. And I have to say you've been talking about this because you've been you wrote a story about it. It's online now. It's in the new Business Week. But ice cream has gotten super expensive and we wanted to talk about this, but we also wanted to kind of broaden the conversation to inflation, to markets and so on. So we brought in the guy we turned to when we want to talk about inflation, our man David Papadopoulos put Bloomberg editor as well as the former host of Elon Inc. R.I.P. david.

[David Papadopoulos]

Hello, Max, Stacey. How you guys doing?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Good. So, David, we wanted to bring you in for this part of the show and then pivot to larger economic forces because as I was reporting this ice cream story, which the idea was born because we were getting just like an ice cream truck, ice cream here in New York, and the cost totaled $9. So we went on a quest to see what was going on with ice cream prices. And it turns out that global forces have kind of converged onto the humble ice cream cone between food, inflation, the price of fuel, like the diesel that runs the truck is going up, all the energy prices going up from cold storage for ice cream. And so we sent our producer Jasmine J.T. green and Miles J. Hershenhorn out into the streets of New York to. To talk with people about ice cream prices.

[David Papadopoulos]

And what'd you get?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Here is what we got.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

How much did this ice cream cost you?

[David Papadopoulos]

10 bucks. $10?

[Max Chafkin]

I left a $5 tip.

[David Papadopoulos]

No, $3. No, no, it was $12.

[Max Chafkin]

It was about $12 each. Oh my gosh. About 10, $11.

[David Papadopoulos]

About 10, $11?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Yeah.

[David Papadopoulos]

$12

[Max Chafkin]

for each one?

[David Papadopoulos]

For each one.

[Max Chafkin]

When you guys were younger, you remember

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

what the cost of ice cream was then?

[David Papadopoulos]

I'm 76 years old. It was probably about a quarter when

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

I used to have it a couple years ago was only $7.

[Chase Business Advertiser]

Yes.

[David Papadopoulos]

Really? $1.50 for three.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Right.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Two years ago for three.

[David Papadopoulos]

Three pesos. It's about a quarter dollar nowadays, depending on the franchise. Because, you know, there is Hack and Dads, there is Ben and Jerry's, but in a conventional ice cream shop or parlor, it's maybe 30 pesos. It's about $2 and a half. $3.

[Max Chafkin]

What do you think is contributing to this rising cost of ice cream?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Maybe it's the rise in rent in the area that stores need to get a certain amount to keep that space.

[Max Chafkin]

We definitely do believe inflation is kind of.

[David Papadopoulos]

Yeah, inflation just.

[Max Chafkin]

It's extreme at this point.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, it is.

[David Papadopoulos]

It's really bad. I guess just maybe demand, I think

[Public/IBM Advertiser]

demand for like ice cream has gone up a lot. And especially like things like gelato that are like trendy right now.

[Max Chafkin]

Is it still worth it? It's worth it. It's worth it.

[David Papadopoulos]

If there's a plus to the high prices, it'll help people on a diet because you eat less or share one instead of getting two.

[Max Chafkin]

Who are these people that get their own Ice cream cone is what I want to say. I always.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What, do you have them brought to you? That's how you get ice cream cone.

[David Papadopoulos]

Max shares with his kids.

[Max Chafkin]

I share. I never. It's like one serving for every two to three years.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

This is the nightmare when you're a kid. There's always the adult who's like, I'll have a bite of your desserts. Oh, that's nice. And that is not. Don't do that to your kids. Get your own ice cream. But 10 bucks. What do you think of this, David,

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

listening to all this?

[David Papadopoulos]

Well, I mean, I think a bunch of things. First of all, I think the guy who gets his ice cream for 30 pesos or 2 and a half dollars, that's the place we gotta go to. I mean, that's clear to me. But listening to these people, a couple things come to mind. One of them that really jumps out to me is, and as your story does say, there is currently ongoing ice cream inflation as we speak. That is absolutely a. What's really messing with folks even a lot more is overall sticker shock price level versus current inflation. I think some of what they're feeling is the past five, six years in which inflation overall in this country, including for ice cream, has been well over 20%, approaching 30%. It just put us at different price levels, a sticker price level that we have not gotten used to and gotten comfortable with. I remember there was once I really had it with a bag of like, some sort of bag of fancy nacho chips. And it was one bag and it was $8.99. And I was just like, that's absolutely absurd. I will say, like, like that guy in there who said, you know, he remembers paying ice cream when it was a quarter in New York City on Lexington and 57th Ave, not far from the office, we used to get in the year 2005, we used to get great sandwiches, great chicken sandwiches for $5. That seems absurd, right? That seems like $5 for great. And some of that is just, hey, we've been through a great inflation surge and we all need to get used to it, and it's going to take time.

[Max Chafkin]

All right. Before we get to chicken sandwiches in kind of in full, I just want to. I just want to say there is another factor we should acknowledge as quickly anyway, which is that in a lot of categories, you have the sort of background inflation that David's talking about, but you also have this kind of luxury ization of various markets. And that I think has happened for sure, Stacy and Ice cream.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Right.

[Max Chafkin]

Like. Like a lot of these companies, maybe, maybe partly in response to inflation, maybe in response to just other factors, have sort of pushed into the higher end. There's more money at that top point of the K, which is then driving prices up further because there are fewer kind of like budget ice cream options than there were in the David Papadopoulos $5 sandwich era.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, we did discover that, which is that ice cream shops that tend to charge lower prices, like Carvel and Baskin Robbins, have actually been closing shops and Dairy Queen, whereas, like the Van Leeuwens, where a cone costs eight bucks, and Jenny's and like Millie's sort of premium shops have been opening, opening. And one of the things that seemed to come up was that because things have become increasingly unaffordable, ice cream has become kind of a small luxury experience. So maybe you can't afford to take your family out to dinner or on a road trip right now, but you can take them out to ice cream. So you actually want a fancier ice cream so that it feels special. That was something we heard a lot, too. I'm wondering, David, if you're hearing that in other parts of the economy.

[David Papadopoulos]

Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely feel like companies coming out of the pandemic have very, very much figured out the way to play the inflation game and how to, in a world of rising prices, how to effectively jack up their own prices as much as they can while keeping volume going and keeping customers coming in. Absolutely. Pushing them into more luxury products is a good way of doing that. Oh, no, this isn't the same thing you were eating before, Max. Look. Now it's like this new thing.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The last couple inflation reports, we have seen inflation outpacing wages, which is a very big problem. But we have potentially turned a corner here this week. The Strait of Hormuz is apparently reopening. And a lot of the source of inflation, especially recently this year, has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices going up so much. And of course, that gets into everything that is shipped, which is everything. So are we potentially going to see inflation come back down? And, I mean, if that's the thing dragging on the market right now, are we potentially going to see that drag led up and things really start to grow?

[David Papadopoulos]

Yeah, there's no doubt that as oil comes down, inflation will come down. I still don't think, though, that anybody's expectation is it brings it down enough to really get you back to 2% target. Kevin Warsh, the new chair at the Federal Reserve first press conference yesterday. He was emphatic. He was emphatic that we at the Federal Reserve have failed on inflation these past five years, and we're going to fix it. And he just brought up price stability again and again.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Felt bad for Trump a little bit.

[David Papadopoulos]

And again and again. You know, in the world of central banking, there are hawks and doves. The hawks are about, you know, driving down inflation and price stability. The doves are about, you know, loose, loose monetary policy, low interest rates, create as many jobs as possible. Kevin War showed up for his first press conference dressed as a hawk.

[Max Chafkin]

Trump has a view of the inflation situation that we really need to. I think we should hear and consider.

[David Papadopoulos]

Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?

[Public/IBM Advertiser]

Could that be.

[David Papadopoulos]

No, I love it. The numbers were great.

[Max Chafkin]

You know what I really love?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I love the.

[David Papadopoulos]

You know why? Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now. Something you didn't know.

[Max Chafkin]

Do you know we've been taking out

[David Papadopoulos]

millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know, who doesn't know about it? Iran.

[Max Chafkin]

Until right now. I think these are just words like, I'm not sure that, that we need to, like, really look too far in. But I think what he's saying is it's a point Stacey just made a second ago. Inflation is maybe a little high now, but it's about to come way down when you consider, you know, it's going to look so good, more superlative. Definitely no need for warsh to, to raise rates. That's what, that's kind of where, where Trump's headed, I think.

[David Papadopoulos]

Well, no, that's absolutely what he's saying there. And it's absolutely like, to a certain extent, it's valid. Inflation will come down as oil comes down, but again, it's running right around 4% right now, max. Because you make so much money and because you're such a star here and you get 15 and 20%, you know, pay increases, why does it matter now

[Max Chafkin]

that it's on tape? It has to be true.

[David Papadopoulos]

But to the rest of us who are, you know, grinding along, getting 2% bumps, you know, pay raises a year, it matters.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Well, do you think now that let's assume the Strait of Hormuz stays open, are we about to see inflation potentially come way down?

[David Papadopoulos]

I think there's no doubt that it's gonna come down. I was just looking at some research on this. Just anytime oil comes off that much and gasoline prices come off that much, they have such a Big effect. Both direct effect and knock on effect. It'll come down. But again, will it come down enough, Stacey, for that disenchanted, frustrated worker to say, hey, okay, I actually feel good about this. Now look, inflation's heading in the right direction. I'm gonna back the party in power. I don't know. I'm not sure. I still think that like you got from your, from your very extensive and terrific ice cream price poll, there's a lot of frustration out there about the cumulative toll of five years of inflation. The other thing that's important to remember here is inflation. Getting inflation to come down doesn't mean that prices overall go down. It just means that they stop raising as rising as much as they were. And what people truly want, what they truly want is that that bag of Doritos goes from $7 back to $5.25.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I want a $5 ice cream cone.

[David Papadopoulos]

I want that chicken sandwich again for $5. I'm not voting for no one until they get my chicken sandwich back to $5.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

A chicken sandwich in every pot. This is, this is David's voting issue.

[David Papadopoulos]

Exactly.

[Max Chafkin]

David, thank you for being here.

[David Papadopoulos]

Thanks, guys. Modern enterprise. That's a lot of moving parts. Comcast business helps you orchestrate it all with SD WAN working at scale to keep 150 hospital locations connected and working as one plus SASE and zero trust security protecting financial data across a bank's 2/3 thousand branches. And AI powered networking that optimizes traffic across five continents. No one does business like Comcast business.

[Max Chafkin]

So there's a lot of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a Global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions. Resolving 94% of common questions. Not noise proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Public/IBM Advertiser]

IBM support for the show comes from public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called generated assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend, small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on Public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, 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 Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures

[Max Chafkin]

everyone I know, or at least everyone I think I know, is talking about peptides. These are possibly legal, possibly illegal drugs that can do everything from help you

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

lose weight, keeping your skin looking good and right. This is just a exploding business.

[Max Chafkin]

And like half of this is illegal, half of it is legal.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Or it's a gray area.

[Max Chafkin]

There's a gray area. There are all these kind of strange characters who are who are trying to make happen, including the secretary of the Department of Health Human Services, Making America, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Yeah, we have a treat right now, which is that Amanda Mull, who has been diving into this world, meeting all the characters, is joining us here now in the Everybody's Business studio. Amanda, thank you for being here.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Max Chafkin]

Can you just explain for people who have like not missed parts of this discourse, like, what is a peptide?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Well, a peptide is, it's a short string of amino acids. Everybody who writes about peptides describes them as a short string of amino ac. And I've discovered over weeks of research that's because there's no other way to do it in a way that makes sense to anybody. Not that that does. But they are basically molecules that have the capacity to bind to different receptors in your body to toggle different bodily processes on and off. So like in the case of GLP1, S P stands for peptide. They bind to receptors that affect your metabolism.

[Max Chafkin]

And these are the weight loss drugs that are often called Ozempic and Govy

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

and so on, Zepp bound, Mounjaro, et cetera, et cetera. So they are generally, in the context that we're talking about them now, they are generally injectable drugs that affect some sort of bodily process. Something that was happening is that there was a lot of telehealth platforms all of a sudden because 2020 there was some regulatory loosening around who could provide telehealth across state lines. And a lot of investors and entrepreneurs in the healthcare space were looking to, you know, found new telehealth startups and find like white space in that market which was suddenly sort of wide open. So you had enormous consumer demand for a new type of drug and you had a lot of investors and entrepreneurs looking to found new healthcare businesses. So you had sort of a perfect marriage of those two things. And that is really where the peptide craze sort of took off. It was just with this one drug. So you've got these telehealth companies who have cash paying customers who are looking a lot of them for good deals because otherwise these drugs are very expensive. Most of them list prices more than $1,000 a month. So you've got a group of people who already wanna pay cash. You've got an opportunity to legally sell them a version of the drug that is, you know, in a lot of cases, 250, 300 bucks a month versus 1200. So you get a real frenzy for GLP1s there and then people start looking for other peptides. Like if GLP1s can do all that, what else is out there?

[Max Chafkin]

Yeah, I was gonna say. Cause your story opens in this very memorable way with a sort of gray market lab just outside of Prague. And this is a company that has basically sprung up to test essentially gray market peptides. So you buy some kind of off label or maybe possibly illegal or whatever substance that you're going to inject yourself. You send it to these guys in, in the Czech Republic or in Czechia and they test it, they say, yeah, it's good, it doesn't have any lead in it or whatever. Right. I think that's what they're and that it is what it's supposed to be. How do we get from Ozempic to that, to this like world of all of these kind of weird products that don't necessarily have clinical results that no one even, you know, you can't even trust. That's maybe dangerous. Like how do we bridge that divide?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Yeah, well essentially like there are people out there in this sort of like somewhat shadowy fringy world of like longevity medicine or anti aging medicine who have been sort of dabbling in these like alternate peptide drugs for a long time. What these substances are is generally things that have been developed by pharma companies, some of them big name pharma companies, some of them smaller outfits as sort of like investigational drugs as we think that this peptide, if, if injected might help people who need more human growth hormones secreted by their own bodies for some reason.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

There's like, also like, there was a big regulatory change here, which I think kind of, it seems like was like happening in the background, which led to this. Like there was the Biden administration era regulations and then to RFK Jr. And that seems like a pretty integral part of also what was happening as the, as the medicines are evolving.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

So there has been for a really long time this sort of like niche group of people online that are, that are like, you know, biohackers basically is what you would call them now, who are looking to like fine tune everything about their bodily processes as much as they can. They have a really high risk tolerance. They are, you know, human lab rats basically for their further, for their own bodybuilders or bodybuilders, like, bodybuilders have very high risk tolerance when it comes to injecting unknown substances. So you get these people who are like already in existence. And then you have people who are like, maybe slightly lower risk tolerance, but who, who are really sort of dazzled by the promise of GLP1s, who are able to get some of these off label. The £15 that they needed to lose to get absolutely shredded just melts off of them. And they're like, what have I been missing? Where are the other peptides? What else can I do? You get this sort of conversion moment where they're like, let's inject some stuff. And so you get these people, this newly large and growing group of people who go looking for more peptides and then, you know, it starts making the rounds in like the sort of manosphere podcasts in the biohacking Silicon Valley community. People who are like sort of individualist health hackers really start to take up this, this kind of stuff and they start finding it online. So the Biden administration sees this in 2023 and goes, we gotta do something about this. The first line of enforcement about this is like a strongly worded letter from the fda. So if you've got a customer base and some risk tolerance, this story is really just all about risk tolerance all around. So the Biden administration goes, hold on, none of y' all should be doing this. And what they do is they take almost 20 of these compounds that are popular in these circles and put them on what's called the Category 2 list. So a lot of those guys who had been taking, you know, HGH secreting peptides, who had been taking musculoskeletal healing peptides and they get into this sort of underworld of research, use only chemicals. Because it turns out that importing and selling active pharmaceutical ingredients, or what usually gets called API, is like, you know, there are regulations covering it, but it's not nearly as like proactively, you can

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

just send this stuff around the world. I mean. And now though, it seems like the regulatory environment is getting much friendlier.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Well, it's sort of up in the air because the FDA still says right now all of this stuff is illegal. You're all violating the law, don't do this.

[Max Chafkin]

But RFK.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

But RFK, RFK is very pro peptide. RFK Jr. Has instructed the FDA to reconsider the regulatory status of a bunch of these peptides that the Biden administration had moved onto the banned list. And what he says is it's basically harm reduction if people are ordering this powder from overseas and reconstituting it into a liquid with like God knows what. So the argument basically is that if we let compounding pharmacies, which are sterile, state regulated, inspected, licensed facilities, make this stuff, they make finished drugs.

[Max Chafkin]

I am very confused by the risk tolerance. I mean, you're so right. It's all risk tolerance. That's risk tolerance. The risk profile of somebody who says that they do not want to be vaccinated but also is interested in these peptides. I'm very confused by that.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

I mean when you put it like that, it doesn't make a ton of sense. But I would look as it, look at it rather than as like sort of an incoherent attitude towards scientific evidence. But like instead it's like a coherent attitude toward authority. And like, to be clear, the peptide thing has gone so far beyond like the anti vax, like fringy health people. Like, it's becoming more mainstream by the day. But for this group that like really helped sort of like incubate this, this set of ideas around this particular type of risk tolerance. The idea that like vaccines or other types of commonly prescribed prescription medications are something that the government and big pharma is doing to you. It's top down. They're doing it to you in order to turn a profit on you and your health.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So how promising are these drugs? Like did you come away from this being like GLP1s are gonna solve a lot of the health issues we have, or did you come away saying this is potentially super dangerous?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

I think it's both. I think that like GLP1s do seem to be miracle drugs. Legal, safe, effective, BPC157 is something that like, if you go online and, or if you like find somebody in person, because I guarantee you, like, if you're listening to this, you probably know somebody who has injected BPC157. It has become incredibly common.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What is BPC157?

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

It is a musculoskeletal healing agent, basically, like, and it's one of the ones that has like, basically no human testing on it. But then you have like, if you look at the mechanism of the drug. Yeah, like it probably can do some of this stuff that it said to do. But like the mechanism also suggests that it might speed the growth of tumors. And if you're a person who has a tumor somewhere in your body that you don't know about and you get on this for a few months, like what happens then? So it is one of those things where it's like peptides, if you can get a sort of stable formulation and one that's well designed, it does seem that they can have very real effects physiologically on the human body. We know that because of GLP1 drugs, they have profound effects that other types of medications have not been able to recreate in decades of scientific research and effort. But because none of these drugs, or a lot of these drugs at least have not been through the sort of rigorous testing that GLP1s have been through, we just don't know what all the other stuff that they might do could be. So it's sort of like a caveat mtor situation taken to like a logical extreme.

[Max Chafkin]

It seems like all this stuff could just break our current system of evaluating drugs. And, and I think, you know, some of the people who are most enthusiastic about biohacking are the people who want to basically get rid of the FDA and just, just, just say, well, a lot of people are using. It seems. Okay, there you go. And it seems like that would represent an existential threat to the pharmaceutical industry and maybe to our entire way of like evaluating drugs.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Also to your point, like there is, there is a reason that, that a, a, an enormous amount of very responsible, very tightly regulated study has to be done before we just potentially very powerful and also very dangerous substances onto the consumer public. So if you end up in a situation where like you can basically do an end run around those regulations by just like creating a lot of hype and creating a lot of consumer demand and you know, just relying on a sort of like feckless regulatory system to say, okay, well for harm reduction we need the public to have direct access to this, because otherwise they'll just get it from China. Like, that creates a lot of perverse incentives for bad actors to just like promote stuff on TikTok until, until they get somebody to say, all right, fine, trial.

[Max Chafkin]

When you just get it to Rogan.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Yeah, like, like that's, that's basically trial, right? Yeah. And that's like, it's like you say that in a way that is phrased as a joke, but like, I don't think that that is necessarily a joke at this point where it's like if you can just create enough hype around a product, people are willing to like risk their lives in very real ways in order to use that product. Then like, maybe you just don't have to run the clinical trials. Maybe that's just an expensive thing that like, doesn't. Maybe you can just do things.

[Max Chafkin]

Amanda, thank you so much for being here.

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

Thank you.

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[David Papadopoulos]

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[Max Chafkin]

Okta secures AI Stacy Underrated Story Time what do you have for us?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

My underrated story is a little somber, which I know is the purpose of the underrated stories is to be not somber. So I apologize, but I think it's very relevant. What it lacks in levity, it makes up for in pertinence.

[Max Chafkin]

I like it. Also, I don't agree. The underrated story is just, it's a neutral thing. I think we can be equal opportunity. I'm braced though for some bad, for some bad vibes.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Breeze, you're still for bad vibes. So it was a study that came out from ZipRecruiter, which is a big jobs website, like a job search website. And what they reported is that about a third of workers now are working multiple jobs in some way to kind of make ends meet, which is huge.

[Max Chafkin]

And you know, we've been hearing stories about this for a long time, you know, especially as the economies become unequal. How much bigger has this gotten? Like, what is a normal level of this? And where are we today?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The ZipRecruiter study did not have like a timeline, so it may have been this way for a long time. But I think what this made me think of, what the third of workers made me think of, was that recently in the last couple inflation reports, we've seen inflation outpacing wage growth because for a while, even though prices were rising like on average, average wages were keeping up. So we weren't getting ahead, but we weren't necessarily falling behind and now we are. I think wages are rising around 3%, inflation's like over 4% and so it puts people in this position where they can't afford things. And so I think that is maybe part of what's going on. It's an interesting portrait of the other

[Jasmine JT Green (Producer/Reporter)]

part of the economy.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I feel like there's the SpaceX part of the economy that we started the show with, which is just like, like outperforming everything everybody thought, creating just enormous wealth. And then there's this other part of the economy where there's just a big like scrambling, you know.

[Max Chafkin]

Yeah, it's, it's really, it is bracing in certain places. Especially when you think about these SpaceX workers. You have a, like a large number of billionaires precess ipo, but you also have a lot of kind of workers who, whether because they own equity or just because of the, you know, the, the general frothiness of the AI bubble are, are commanding just insane wages, you know, mid, mid six figure type situation and then, and then stock options on top of that. It's, it's wild. Okay, so my story is kind of related to this. Stacy, do you, you know that I am all in on the World Cup? I am following it. I, I would never watch it at work, mind you, but I am keeping a close eye. Let's say on, on the goings on and fun story so far in the World cup is that Cape Verde, which is a tiny country, island nation off the coast of Western Africa, beat Spain 00 in a game of soccer.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I have a few questions here. 00. I mean I am not, I am not the sports fan that you are, Max. As, as has been well established, but I always thought of 00 as a tie.

[Max Chafkin]

It is a tie, but it was just such a big upset. It's relatively speaking of victory much a moral victory. Huge. The tie was a huge upset and there have been a lot of fun stories. So, you know, I love sort of geriatric athletes. There is a great older athlete on the Cape Verde team there.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Older means what, 40?

[Max Chafkin]

I mean so, so there's a 40 something goalkeeper. And then the thing, the thing I actually wanted to talk to you about is that one of the Cape Verde players, the way he found his way on the Cape Verde team was via what I would say is the most important communication platform of our time.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What is that?

[Max Chafkin]

InMail, the LinkedIn email service. The way you get.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Really. Did he get recruited for the team on LinkedIn?

[Max Chafkin]

It is amazing. Yes, he is a Cape Verde nationality, but he was living in Ireland playing for an Irish professional team. He got this LinkedIn message and he did what I think most people do when they get a LinkedIn message, which is ignore it. But then he got another LinkedIn message, you know, six months later. It was in Portuguese. That was part of the reason he ignored it. But then he chose to translate it and he joined the Cape Verde national football team and the rest is history. They're making a Cinderella run, Stacy. If the US doesn't go all the way, I'm putting it all.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You're all in for Cape Verde on Cape Verde. I love it. I love this story. That is a beautiful, underrated story.

[Max Chafkin]

I totally agree. And I have to say before we leave this show, I need to acknowledge an additional soccer related note from Kyle, a listener who wrote in with a quibble.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What is Kyle's quibble?

[Max Chafkin]

Max, Stacy. And I'm hoping Randall. Max, Stacey. No, I love the podcast, but there's a little miff today listening to the conversation about the World cup and the popularity of soccer in the US Specifically the comments about how soccer might be be more popular if the US team ever made us the round 16. Kyle points out that we were talking about the men's team and the men's team historically, as Kyle put it colorfully suck in general. But the women's team has been incredible. The women's team have won multiple World Cups. They are true perennial contender. And Kyle says, randall, I hope you can use some of that Bloomberg money and go to Brazil next year to cover the World cup and the US wnt, that's the US Women's National Team. If you do, let me know because we'll be there too, cheering on our champions. I responded to Kyle that I will personally approve Randall's expenses for the Women's World Cup.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

We should have a whole everybody's business trip to Brazil to properly report this. I can't believe I missed this because this was a huge issue around equal pay, which was a big deal when the women's team won and they protested their salaries and they got a huge salary bump because they were like, we're winning, we're filling seats. And the excuse had always been that like not as many people were interested in soccer but because the women's team has, they have been such champions, they got a huge pay bump. And yes, that is such a good note. Thank you, Kyle. This show is produced by Jasmine JT Green, Stacey Wong and Miles J. Hergenhorn. Magnus Henriksen is our supervising producer. Sam Rogich handles engineering and Dave Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muskus, Julia Rubin and Maria Lang. If you have a minute, please rate and review the show. It means a lot to us. And if you have a story that should be our business email, address [e-mail] that is everybody with an S. Everybody's loomberg.net thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

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