Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - July 11th, 2025

28:45Just say Alexa. Play Bloomberg 1130. Amazon held its annual Prime Day this past weekend. For the first time ever, it happened over a course of four days. Amazon betting the extension would give shoppers more time to navigate the millions of deals despite tariff-related price worries. A bunch of robots lending a helping hand to get orders out to customers. In fact, Amazon marked a milestone earlier this month when it announced it's now using over one million robots in its warehouses. that's actually about the same number of human employees at the facilities. The news comes at a time when more tech companies are making job cuts and issuing automation warnings.

29:22Ty Brady is the chief technologist for robotics at Amazon. He joined Matt Miller and me all the way from Tokyo, Japan. It was in the middle of the night when he spoke with us. But it was where that one millionth robot was deployed in a Japanese fulfillment warehouse. It's an incredible achievement. I'm so proud of our team to be able to deploy more than 1 million robots to our global fleet. Our 1 millionth robot here in Tokyo, we actually deliver it to a fulfillment center in Chiba here in Japan. A great region for us, for sure. And the way that we see it is it's really a force multiplier for both safety for our employees and also for the efficiencies.

30:04Getting those goods right to our customer's door on time at a low cost, just in time for Prime Day. So when we talk about robots, I don't think of the Roomba. I think of C-3PO. And that doesn't seem to be where we are quite yet. Certainly not in America, right? We don't have a bunch of humanoid androids running around. How far away is that, Ty? Matt, you're speaking my love language because when I think of robots, I actually think of R2-D2, not C-3PO. Because I do want to remind you, who was in the back of the X-Wing fighter when Luke Skywalker had to go into the Death Star? That was R2-D2. And why I love R2-D2, and actually R2-D2 was the inspiration for my entire career.

30:48It's because R2-D2 helps a Jedi be more Jedi. And that's kind of the way that we view our robotics inside of Amazon. on, we see our robotics as an extension and amplification of what a person can do. Just like any great robot, it should be a tool centered around a person, right? So we put people at the center of the robotics universe. That's what we've done with a million robots that we've deployed out there, whether it's in mobility or manipulation. We are giving our frontline employees the right tool set in order to do their jobs more efficiently. And we're also creating more safety for them.

31:24Ty, where's it all going? And I ask that if we're giving, you know, increasingly you've got these robots, you've got AI and all of this is assisting workers. Like, where is it all headed? Yeah, it's well, I really do believe that we're pioneering the field of collaborative robotics. So as we continue to gain efficiencies, as we continue to create safety for our employees, we become more productive. That has clearly worked inside of Amazon and frankly for e-commerce, where we see that if you can build your robots in the right way, that amplifies human potential. and as a system that works with people.

32:03It's not people versus machines, but it's machines and people working together in order to do the job. We have really revolutionized that field. So what we have seen historically is the more robots that we have added, and this is now over 10 years plus since Amazon really got serious about robotics, we've created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and we've also even created new job types. So where I see it going is that the onus is on us roboticists to build our machines in a way that is intuitive and natural for people to use, to build them with specific intent in the functions in order to help people do their jobs better.

32:44And my goal is to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive. I aim to eliminate every single one of those tasks and allow people to think at a higher level and use the tool set in order to get the job done. What kind of robots are helping you deal with like Prime Day, for instance? It's coming up, I think, July 8th is when it kicks off. Massive shopping day for people around the world, but also for people in Amazon warehouses. I mean, do they have like an exoskeleton like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow? Or is it actually, you know, a humanoid that's running around picking up orders and putting them in boxes to ship out?

33:24Yeah, we think of function first before form, right? So when you say humanoid, that's really the form base. But the functions that we really index on in robotics is the ability to move items from one side of the warehouse to another or manipulate items or store or sort or identify and pack those items. That's really what we do. So if you were to walk into one of our fulfillment centers, you would see these little drive units moving goods at will thousands and thousands of these drive units moving our pods to a person in order to pick out those items you would see robotic arms picking up heavy packages this is the repetitive jobs that i speak of before picking up heavy packages and moving those into sortation systems you would see sortation drives moving uh to the right and correct spot in order to bring it to the truck.

34:15You would see a cute little robot that we call Proteus, and that's safety certified around people that can move these large containers of goods to the right truck at the right time. So it's really the symphony of people and machines working together, which is really incredible to see. And it's a very practical, in a very practical manner. And that's something that I'm very proud of, because this application is really what's driving the fundamentals of robotics. It allows us to be adaptive and more modular creating the safer environment for our employees and also frankly gaining a lot of efficiencies hey ty it does look like we're just showing some some pictures out there for those who are watching us right now and it does look like robots are increasingly becoming more you know quote unquote human-like in terms of standing up and having kind of appendages that's the form he doesn't want to talk about i know i know you don't but but i want to go to something times of london out uh andy jassy of course your chief executive sending a memo to staff in June saying he expected its corporate workforce would shrink as it rolls out AI.

35:16And this was the quote, we will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs in the next few years. We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. That's AI. But I do think about AI and robotics really increasingly merging, replacing workers. How close are you guys to using more robots than humans in your warehouses? Yeah, it's a great quote, first of all. And I do want to point out the difference between there's AI systems and there's physical AI systems, right?

35:49So you can think of an AI system as the digital chess that's in your computer and you can play chess there. But physical AI is that you would want a system with a real chessboard in front of you. We're actually picking up the pieces and moving those pieces, right? So this physical instantiation. And what we have seen is when we build the right tool set for our employees, what we do is we really increase productivity for our employees. And what that does is that allows us to invest more in two key areas. We invest in better collaborative robotics, right, a better tool set for our employees to use.

36:22And we also invest in our people. We have upskilled more than 700 ,000 of our employees. It's really important to be mindful of upskilling. It's important to realize that jobs will change over time. There's no doubt about that. And our aim is to give our employees, in particular our frontline employees, the best tool set possible for them to do their jobs. So I love that upskilling figure. And it sounds like you guys are prioritizing, certainly making sure your employees, they can kind of move up or move on to where you guys have demand and where you need workers. But I do want to go back to, is there a point where you do have more robots than humans in your warehouses?

37:04And are you close? Yeah, just be careful about the correlation. Because imagine if you were, let's just say that you're a carpenter, right? What I aim to do is give that carpenter the best tool set possible. I don't really count the number of tools that they would have. But instead, I would actually index on the effectiveness of those tools. Are we allowing that carpenter to do their art and create or build the house in a shorter amount of time with even higher quality and create a safer environment? So, I mean, we could index on the numbers. We're proud of the numbers that we have for sure because it represents some really pioneering work by the many women and men, scientists and engineers that have designed them.

37:48But remember, we also manufacture these. So we have manufacturing jobs. Remember, we support these in the field, we deploy these live in the field, and then, of course, we have our frontline operators that we're very, very thankful for. So it's a full ecosystem that when you, it's really a force multiplier. When you do robotics right, when you do robotics that extends a person's capability to do their job, amplifies the human potential, then you really have changed the game. And that's why today's 1 million, it's a 1 million force multiplier for our employees, for the benefit of our employees, and also for the benefits of our customers.

38:25Because we know that they love to have the world's largest selection of goods. Robotics helps with that. We can actually, as compared to our manual buildings, we can store more than 40 % more goods in the same footprint. We know that it fuels a lower cost that we can pass along to our customer because of the efficiency gains inside of our entire fulfillment chain. And we know it fuels the fast delivery times that we know our customers love because we have the ability to pull any order really quickly and bring that the right good right to the customer. So robotics is helping spin that flywheel.

38:58Carol has never gotten over Eric Brynjolfsson's book Race Against the Machine. And so that's what she's asking about. You went to MIT, right? And so, you know that, you know, you know, Brynjolfsson. Here's the thing. I think it's great if robotics, especially some of those tedious jobs, repetitive jobs, physical jobs. And then if you're upskilling to, you know, people who are working now on creating the robots, like I think it's a pretty cool thing. I think, you know, it's supposed to be dystopian, but I love the idea in WALL-E that we will eventually just float around in deck chairs on a cruise ship drinking Icys while the robots do our work for us and get paid dividends.

39:37What do you think about that kind of future? And I especially wonder about cryptocurrencies being used because machines will have to work with machines and transact. And this was the idea that we were kind of sold on at the birth of Bitcoin. But is there anything that's not science fiction to that idea? Well, I could tell you what we're doing is definitely not science fiction. It's actually very practical and applied, and it's giving a great success to our employees, and it's also benefiting our customers very directly. That was Ty Brady, chief technologist for robotics over at Amazon. Matt Miller also there.

40:21He'll be back in our next hour. And I got to say, we want to have Ty back really soon. Tim, you will love this guy. He's so into robotics, but really understanding the science, the technology, and kind of where we're going with all of this. But he's fully human. He's not part robot at all. As long as I know, as far as I know. All right, that wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead in our next hour, U.S. landfills are heating to dangerous levels, spewing trash, juice and toxic emissions. And it's making people sick. We'll explain. Plus, building a new sports and entertainment empire with the parent of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty.

40:56This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser. And I'm Tim Stenevich.

41:03Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.

41:46If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. The next opportunity. The next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. A storm damages a second home. A pipe bursts above a collection you spent decades building. An unexpected loss puts a growing business on pause. Those are the days no one sees coming. But for more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has been ready when they do. With deep expertise, coverage for businesses, homes, valuables, and more, Cincinnati Insurance works with independent agents who take the time to understand what matters to you.

42:25Together, they help protect more than what you own. They help protect what you're building toward. And when a bad day does come, Cincinnati Insurance has real people there to help make things right. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next, it's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati Insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact. That's where 4imprint comes in. 4imprint have promotional products that work as hard as you do.

43:01Durable, useful, and designed to make a lasting impression. Think quality apparel your team will wear again and again, including popular and exclusive brands. Drinkware that's enjoyed again and again. Bags, notebooks, tools, and tech items that don't just look good, but actually get used. With thousands of customizable options, 4imprint makes it easy to find what fits your brand and your budget. You'll get expert help, free samples, and their 360-degree guarantee means you can be 4imprint certain your order shows up just right, right on time. Whether you're gearing up for fall events or simply planning ahead for the season, 4imprint can help your brand show up, stay useful, and make connections that last.

43:41Explore the possibilities at 4imprint.com. 4imprint. 4certain. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Or watch us live on YouTube. Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including how all those global tariffs, some in place, some to come maybe, are affecting one small business in the luxury space. Plus, as sports team valuations rise, the corporate empires running them are thriving. On that, we check in with the CEO of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment.

44:19It's the parent company of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty. First up this hour, addressing America's hot garbage problem. It was recently one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg and a Bloomberg Big Take. It explores one of the lesser known environmental fiascos in the United States. We are talking about toxic landfills. Bloomberg Businessweek writers Laura Bliss and Rachel Doddle reported and analyzed just how overheating waste below the surface of U.S. landfills is harming the environment and surrounding communities, which are left with little recourse. Laura joined Carol and Matt Miller, and she began by discussing one of the U.S.'s largest repositories of municipal waste, the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Los Angeles.

45:00The landfill that you mentioned in L.A. County is a great example. And pockets of buried waste in this landfill have been rising to temperatures over 200 degrees for the past three years. That's about 40 percent higher than the EPA safety standard. Um, California regulators suspect that what's causing this is, um, too much oxygen getting into this landfill, which is a problem known to start fires. This goes against federal regulations. Um, the landfill operator says that's not the case, says nothing is on fire. Um, and as I found out, these landfills that have been overheating, um, are a phenomenon that we've seen across the U.S.

45:42over the last 20 years. And there's real debate. There's real controversy. you know, within the industry and between regulators about what's causing them and what to do about it. Laura, first of all, I read your story. The first thing I read on the Bloomberg and I could not put it down. And, you know, I'm the type of reader who typically gets goes through the first four paragraphs. I'm from the Matt Winkler School of Bloomberg and then I'm done. So fantastic job writing this. uh i one question i did have is isn't it pretty easy to determine whether something is on fire or not i mean it seems like you could gauge that pretty quickly you would you would think so you would think so and a challenge um with these incidents is that you know the the temperature climbs you know this is happening several feet below the surface of the landfill um and so you don't necessarily see smoke, you don't necessarily smell, you know, what you might think of as a burning smell.

46:44You know, these events can manifest in a lot of different ways. And it's because actually that you don't necessarily see those, you know, classic fire symptoms that the industry is saying, well, this is not a fire. We think it's something else that's going on here. But as the story shows, and thank you so much for reading it, I mean, you know, regardless of what we call it, you know, residents are getting sick and there's a lot of challenges in really addressing the problem and kind of getting to the root cause. What's exactly what's crazy is like people are getting caught up. Is it a fire? Is it not a fire?

47:18And there's all these terminology, you know, terminology, subsurface oxidation, smoldering events. But it's an important distinction because you write the distinction isn't trivial. Federal regulations explicitly forbid operators from running landfills in a way that starts fires. Why is that so important, especially when you so clearly write that people who are living nearby, they and their families are getting pretty sick? Absolutely. I mean, it's been, you know, a well-known issue in the industry for years, you know, that these fires can create really dangerous and toxic situations. And, you know, among the, you know, few regulations that are out there at the federal level for landfills, You know, don't start a fire is absolutely one of them.

47:59And, you know, one of the concerning things that I found is that one of the key rules that environmental engineers and safety advocates say, you know, was really there to prevent fires was actually rolled back. And so, you know, as far as like what is there to do about it, that is something that a number of scientists highlighted for me, that we we need the return of some of these rules, for example, to stop too much oxygen from getting in. Because as we all know, right, that can that can start fires when you when you mix that with hot enough temperatures. And the point is, it starts fires, but it also gives off really dangerous gases.

48:36Right. And and talk to us about what's happening to people who live nearby. Yeah, I mean, so just to take the Chiquita Canyon landfill as an example, I mean, we see elevated levels of benzene, you know, a known carcinogen, carbon monoxide, other toxic gases that are known, you know, to cause the kind of respiratory neurological cardiovascular symptoms that people are reporting. you know, hand tremors, headaches, nosebleeds that won't end. You know, people are having, you know, cancer also and wondering, you know, is what's going on with the landfill having to do with my diagnosis? So what can these people do about it?

49:17I mean, as I was reading your story, I had a feeling of like frustration in my chest because it's so hard to prove causation, right? People are getting sick who don't live near the landfill also. and these corporations have seemingly endless pools of money for litigation. I think of Dark Waters. I think of Erin Brockovich. You know, what can the houses who is the couple that you that you write about in your lead? What can they do about it? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. There are like, I think, over a dozen mass torts moving through the legal system right now of residents trying to take legal action to represent themselves.

50:00Los Angeles County is also sued. You know, at the state regulatory level, there have been a lot of enforcement actions. And I think what a lot of these efforts are all kind of pushing for are funds, you know, from the operator to fund the relocation of residents, right, to get out of this danger zone. And so I think that is what a lot of people are pushing for at this point. But, you know, There's also, I write about in the story, Pilar Schiavo, who's an assembly member in California, has a bill that she's, I think, is awaiting a hearing in the state Senate that would basically just attach more penalties to landfills in the future that exhibit these symptoms that cause these kinds of problems for people.

50:44What do the companies say? Well, just to reiterate, right, they say that this is not a fire. This is what they call an elevated temperature landfill, which is a term that the industry has applied to at least 10 large landfills across the U.S. over the last 20 years that have exhibited similar symptoms. And they pointed to millions of dollars that they've spent in mitigating the problem, adding gas wells to trap the odors, putting a cover on top, contributing some money to residents to buy air filters and things like that. Why don't they just go in there with cranes and dump trucks and move it away?

51:22I mean, there is a temperature regulation, right? They're not allowed to be above a certain temperature. And you can just stick a thermometer in there and see that this does exceed that regulation. It's true. It's absolutely true. I think the challenge is, you know, what do you do when these kind of hot temperatures become this kind of runaway problem? and again the question of causation what to call it like this this this all matters right because that drives it the question of what do you do about it and California regulators say you need to dig a fire break which is actually not unlike what you're saying right you need to to sort of create an almost a trench right to stop this reaction from progressing the operator says that that would make things much worse they say that the the you know solution is to to keep pulling heat out using these wells.

52:13So there's just there's a lot of disagreement there. Well, you know, and I feel like it gets into a bigger problem in the United States, Laura, and that has to do with waste, right? Like, what do we do with it? You know, if you can't, you know, I think there's pushback against creating new waste facilities, right? Or waste or dumps. I wouldn't want it in my backyard. Exactly, exactly. So then what you have to do is deal with the existing ones and just pile more and more stuff into it. I mean, as you note in our in your story is that for a long time, people burn garbage. We thought that was the way to do it.

52:46And then we realized, OK, that's not the way. I mean, in doing kind of also some, you know, giving us a little bit of a history lesson in terms of dealing with garbage. I mean, this is, again, becoming another big problem, not only maybe potentially for the health of U.S. citizens, but also for the climate. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think this whole situation is a great and really alarming picture of the problems that can arise, like when we just keep kind of piling our trash higher and deeper, right? And I mean, I will also add that safety advocates will say, you know, we're going to generate trash, right?

53:23We know that trash is going to generate methane emissions. And that's kind of part of the story too, because trapping these emissions, you use these wells that can actually lead to more oxygen intrusion, which is known to start these fires. And so, you know, advocates will say, like, we just need better monitoring, right? We need, you know, better technology to monitor emission levels, you know, real-time temperature monitoring, for example, so that, you know, operators and regulators can take action more quickly instead of, you know, letting problems kind of spiral. Well, and as Carol and I were talking about this yesterday, one of the great things to do would be to stop generating as much waste, right?

54:04I was over the weekend camping, looking for a spoon, and I went to a store and they had a box of 200 plastic ones if I wanted it, but that's part of the problem. Yeah, like making things that you actually reuse. You've got to attack the problem at the root, right? Laura, I'm sure you've thought about this a lot. Absolutely. I mean, it's funny. Part of the way I celebrated publishing this story yesterday was taking the base of my dead electric toothbrush to a battery recycling facility, which even in the city of San Francisco was not that easy to find. But that's another problem. That's another issue of this, too.

54:39Right. We're not just generating more waste. We also have a lot more flammable waste, you know, vapes, e-cigarettes, like these kinds of things. And so, you know, figuring out the right safest place to put it is is important, too. Yeah, and you bring on the recycling experts too. They'll say, you know, you think so much stuff is being recycled, but it's not necessarily the case. Doesn't everybody now have a drawer full of dead vape batteries? Not in my house. No? Not in my house. Laura, incredible story. Matt's right. We were talking about kind of the waste yesterday. And when he saw it this morning, he was like, oh, my God.

55:12Like, this is what we've been talking about. It's a great deep dive. And we so appreciate you giving us some time with it. Laura Bliss, Bloomberg Businessweek editor and writer. Check it out. You can find it on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg.com slash Business Week. This is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg 1130. Well, the WNBA, known as the W to fans, announced plans to expand to 18 teams by 2030.

55:50adding Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cleveland to the previously announced Portland and Toronto teams, which begin play next year. The expansion builds on several seasons of dramatic growth and comes at a time sports teams have been getting acquired for record-breaking and eye-popping amounts. So let's talk about sports and entertainment and hospitality. We've got Sam Zussman with us. He's CEO of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment. And it is the parent company of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA's New York Liberty and their home arena at the Barclays Center. We're also joined by Randall Williams.

56:25He's a familiar voice and face to all of you. He's Bloomberg News Global Business of Sports Reporter. Both of them join us here in the Bloomberg studio. Sam, I want to start with you. I think, you know, the brand Brooklyn is something that you are leaning into big time here with the Brooklyn Nets. Also, of course, with the New York Liberty, with the Barclays Center. but I think people outside of New York might be surprised to find that the Barclays Center basketball is a big part of it but it's not the biggest part of it by any means sort of break down the the share of what comes from basketball versus what comes from everything else that Barclays Center does yeah so um thank you for that Tim so Barclays Center is a real entertainment mecca.

57:10We are open roughly 190 nights a year. We do somewhere around 75 to 80 concerts a year. Brooklyn Nets games around in the 40s, Liberty Games in the 20s. We are the third highest grossing arena in the world. And it's not just about the content, it's also about how we do it. Our goal at Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment is to create bold and unique experiences, the Brooklyn way, meaning Brooklyn DNA, right? If you sort of think about what Brooklyn stands for globally, not just nationally, for creativity, for relentless hustle, for authenticity, for diversity. We represent about 150 different cultures.

58:06And so we want to make sure that when you come to an experience at Barclays Center, whether it's a concert or a game, you have a unique DNA, Brooklyn DNA based experience that might be different from the experience you would have with the same game played at a different arena or the same concert played at a different arena. And we manifest that with food, with service, with ancillary entertainment, with how the venue is. The fan experience, the audience experience is sort of first and we manifest that. So, Sam, one of the things you mentioned was culture. And the reason I bring that up is because obviously New York City has a lot of it.

58:51But Madison Square Garden in particular has been open for since 1968. The Barclays Center opened, I believe, in 2011 or 2012. You built culture in 15 years to become the third highest grossing stadium or arena in the world. What went into that? So the work and the vision of a lot of people that came before me, but I would say it's focus first and foremost, but secondarily and maybe first is a lot of long term thinking. So we are, I consider us and the ownership group to be long term builders. Everything that we do is with a long term goal. We're focused on building generational fandom. We're focused on building the experience, the service that we provide, the training that we put in, the selection of vendors, the selection of entertainment, the selection of concerts.

59:55If you look at Barclays Center, it is only, to your point, opened in 2012. It is only 13 years old. And we've already embarked on a set of arena renovations with over$150 million over four years. And we've opened several new clubs that you told me. The Crown Club is my favorite. The Crown Club is my favorite. Yeah, and look, Crown Club literally is first and unique in its experience. A chef restaurant with unparalleled wine list where people come in and they're having the time of their life. There are some people who don't even go to the game. They just go to the Crown Club and sit down there the entire time.

1:00:46I think Raymond needs to bring me to the Crown Club. He's your guy, not me. He's your guy. there um a follow-up to the the renovations we're seeing this age of of sports teams who have to renovate these stadiums and the cost of that continues to go up you guys obviously got out ahead of that why is that important to say hey we're going to put money into this even though the stadium is less than 15 years old you know there's a world where the psi family could have waited 20 years down the line and be like okay now's the time but you're out ahead of this why is that it is because we're long-term thinkers and it is because we're audience and fan focused right so i'll just to give you an example we have taken two levels of um suites and we've turned them over into um bull facing clubs where the reason we did that was not the utilization the reason we did that is that we noticed that the consumption pattern and the preference of the audience has shifted.

1:01:49People like less to run from their seats to buy something and run back and miss the game and so on. There are folks who come in. Look, when you look at overall how you experience a concert or a game, it's an experience. It's entertainment. And so if you can offer somebody the opportunity to come into a club with several hundred people to be able to eat, drink, take that food to your seat, watch the show or watch the game, go back and forth, be with your friends, entertain your clients, it's a very different experience than buying a ticket and sitting in a seat. And so what we've observed is this is the trend.

1:02:36This is what people want. We've done primary research. We spoke to people. And so we want to give that experience to people. And we have not invested, we're not doing this because things are getting old, because we want to give things a facelift. We're doing this because we want to satisfy the patterns of what we hear people are wanting and we believe in the notion of keeping everything fresh of being being leaders and thought and entertainment and and we're putting our we're putting our money um you know to to work i want to talk about the growth of women's basketball and the wnba randall had pointed out to tim and i that the liberty were ranked the second most valuable wnba team 450 million, at least by Sportico.

1:03:25Is it possible to get to one billion? And what would that look like? Talk about like how we've gotten here and where we're going. I think it's not just possible. I think it's highly likely. You think there's a race to get there? Look, we're in sports. There's always a race, right? Look, we don't, but I would say this. The race is to win another championship, to be a dynasty, to give fans a great experience, to have the best players, to take care of our players, and so on. That's what the race is, not the valuation. You also don't dictate the valuation. The valuation comes because you do all these things right.

1:04:14But yes, I do think that it will happen. I think it is, you know, famous last words, but it feels to me like it's straight down the fairway. When I look at, I joined the company three years ago, I have seen the average crowd go from 2000 to five, right? That's a much different time three years ago. From 2000 to a sellout. I have seen, you know, I won't belabor all the key performance indicators, but attendance, ticket prices, season ticket holders, sponsorships, every single metric has gone up tens of percentages a year. And when you are at the arena, it's palatable. A Liberty game is loud. It is a party.

1:05:08It is a fun experience. Everyone is invested. And there are some things that you could just see. You can feel. We're speaking with Sam Zussman, CEO of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment. Also joining us, Randall Williams, Bloomberg News, global business of sports reporter. Sam, how is the consumer doing right now based on ticket sales? Are you seeing any weakness, any lack of demand in different events due to concerns that the consumer has about parting with discretionary income? I mean, there's nothing essentially more discretionary than what we're talking about here. Yeah. You know, it's interesting.

1:05:42We are we're in the experience economy. Right. Like when you think of people buying products and services, they do that in order to save time, in order to gain efficiency. For us, it's the opposite. For us, people are giving us their time and giving us their money in order to gain an experience. And so it's quite interesting. It's in good times that people want to do it, and it's actually in tough times that people want to do that as well. And so, look, I can't exactly measure the macro, but I can tell you in the micro, if we look at attendance in concerts, it is stronger than ever. If you look at attendance in Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty Games, we are in the high 90 percentage.

1:06:35you know when you look at discretionary purchases of merchandise or food and beverage and so on if you look at ticket prices if i only had those to go by i i would tell you that the economy is doing great sam one of the things that both you and emily mentioned was the growth of the wmba and i'm going to ask you about these cba negotiations that are going on and i don't know if you can answer that but the players have said they want better salaries better benefits increased retirement all of these things we haven't heard much from the league so from your vantage point what do you think is a fair deal from both sides because you know these cba negotiations go on once every decade and we only have 20 seconds yeah well i won't use that because i that is actually a topic that i um that i should refrain from it's it's an active negotiation and so i think we should let the professionals negotiate around the table.

1:07:30A good place to end it. Sam Zussman, CEO of Brooklyn Sports Entertainment. Randall Williams, Bloomberg News Global Business Sports Reporter. This is Businessweek.

1:07:43Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.

1:08:25If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. The next opportunity. The next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. A storm damages a second home. A pipe bursts above a collection you spent decades building. An unexpected loss puts a growing business on pause. Those are the days no one sees coming. But for more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has been ready when they do. With deep expertise, coverage for businesses, homes, valuables, and more, Cincinnati Insurance works with independent agents who take the time to understand what matters to you.

1:09:04Together, they help protect more than what you own. They help protect what you're building toward. And when a bad day does come, Cincinnati Insurance has real people there to help make things right. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next, it's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact. That's where 4imprint comes in. 4imprint have promotional products that work as hard as you do.

1:09:40Durable, useful, and designed to make a lasting impression. Think quality apparel your team will wear again and again, including popular and exclusive brands. Drinkware that's enjoyed again and again. Bags, notebooks, tools, and tech items that don't just look good, but actually get used. With thousands of customizable options, 4imprint makes it easy to find what fits your brand and your budget. You'll get expert help, free samples, and their 360-degree guarantee means you can be 4imprint certain your order shows up just right, right on time. Whether you're gearing up for fall events or simply planning ahead for the season, 4imprint can help your brand show up, stay useful, and make connections that last.

1:10:20Explore the possibilities at 4imprint.com. 4imprint. 4certain. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Or watch us live on YouTube. A recent most read story on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg.com that caught our attention highlighted the struggles that some U.S. small business owners are facing due to volatile trade policies. It was about Robert Keeley, the owner of Keeley Electronics, who used his 1.83 million American Express reward points, almost 2 million, to pay an$11 ,000 tariff bill.

1:11:00For some, it may feel like their only lifeline left. Small business owners often lack the cash reserves, lobbying muscle, or supply chain flexibility to absorb steep tariff hikes or pivot production. One small U.S. business owner with a global supply chain is Stephen Silver. He's chairman and CEO of the independent family-owned Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry. I think that the tariffs have put a lot of pressure on imports, such as Swiss watches. And that's an interesting situation that they're having to deal with. We're having to deal with as a company that's supporting 21 independent Swiss watch brands.

1:11:36So navigating that's been pretty interesting. From the perspective of inventories that are held inside the United States, those inventories have gotten more valuable because the tariffs don't affect those. The interesting sidebar with regards to manufacturing, which is, I think, one of the major purposes of these tariffs, is we bring, as a trade, we bring in a lot of rough, a lot of cut gemstones, but they haven't made into anything yet. So tariff on those products coming in, we've never experienced before. So I think you may see an elevated price point jump. Whether the consumers are forced to absorb that or not is a different story.

1:12:19But unless little modifications are made to these tariffs to support U.S. manufacturing in this country with the loose goods that we bring in, you'll probably see some jewelry pricing increases. 10 percent, 20 percent? Who knows? You know, who knows? I mean, it really depends on how much the manufacturers are willing to absorb in the process of delivering the product to the public. How much does it matter to you? I was in Le Mans in France a couple of weeks ago, and I had the opportunity to sit down with Richard Mille, who makes, you know, great watches and very expensive watches. I mean, I don't know the exact prices, but we're talking about$300 ,000 wristwatches.

1:12:59And, you know, for his clients, a 10 % bump doesn't matter very much if they even have to raise the price that much. Yeah, I mean, Richard Mille is a company that we started with when we first went into the independent watch business about seven years ago. So the way that these things will be acted or reacted to is about what the brand wants to absorb in the process of delivering product to its consumers. That's a very good point because they have, I'm guessing they have massive margins. Well, they have margins. So to the degree that they want to eat into that, they will in order to support their business and their consumers.

1:13:40So tell us about your world. And I'm just curious about what you are seeing. I'm assuming you have, you know, tell us about your typical client, if it's a gamut of, you know, in terms of price points and what it is telling you about the consumer right now. And you're dealing with also incredibly high-end stuff, right? Cashmere, Sapphires, Pink Diamonds, Richard Mille watches. Well, not Richard Mille anymore. They went mono brand and we were eliminated. But other brands on the level of Richard Mille are even finer. you know, some of the brands like Grubel Force and other important brands. But you have one carat diamond rings.

1:14:21You have, you know, multiple carats. So like there is a range. So what are you seeing from the consumers? As we discussed earlier, as we move up into the different levels of consumer activity and we start getting into the ultra high end, attitude shift, reasons to buy shift. A lot of our ultra high net worth consumers are buying as storage of wealth. So that points to, you know, product like ultra-rare pink diamonds, blue diamonds, red diamonds, some of the unique, rare historical pieces that we've dealt with over the years, like the Cullinan Blue Diamond Necklace, which we donated to our National Gem Collection in 2010 that sits in the Smithsonian.

1:15:05You know, things like that, historical pieces that are really true collectibles and investments or act like investments. But did you see anybody... The Pink Promise Diamond. By the way, I love the... I mean, the Cullinan, for me, has even more significance because Rolls-Royce actually named their SUV after this diamond. You know, we were actually in discussions with them about when they were first coming out or with the concept of the Cullinan. We sat down with them and we actually gave them a color chart of what the Cullinan Blue Diamond's color was and to see if they wanted to match the color of the paint of the Cullinan.

1:15:42That would be insane. We unfortunately didn't do it with them, but it was an interesting discussion to have with Rolls Royce at that time. What a cool brush with history. It is pretty cool. I mean, in two different ways. Yeah. Can I ask about the lab-grown? Yeah, you're fascinating. Okay, obviously no one's replacing a Cullinan or a Pink Promise with a lab-grown diamond. But you point out that for a large swath of people, diamonds are more than jewelry. They're a store of wealth. I have some I have a very wealthy friend who gave his wife a giant diamond and she immediately got a fake made of it and put the real thing in a safety deposit box because that's just how that set rolls, you know.

1:16:25But for the normal people among us, like for me, I just want to get as much size as I can to put on my wife's finger. Right. I don't care. I'm sure she appreciates. Yes. So how do you see this debate between lab-grown and what I would have called blood diamonds, but I don't think that's fair anymore? Well, the impact on our trade is still an evolution. The last time something this massive happened to our trade probably goes back to the time of Mikimoto inventing the technology to culture a pearl, and it really impacted the natural pearl market. This is a little different in the context of the ability to measure the market.

1:17:06It will define itself over time, I'm sure. But it looks like, to me anyway, that the trend is more of a mass market product that really impacts positively the average consumer that spends$2 ,500 to maybe$5 ,000,$6 ,000,$7 ,000 to buy a piece of jewelry for an anniversary or a special occasion. Instead of spending or financing that purchase at$0.20,$0.30 on the dollar, they can afford to just write a check and not get into debt in the process of buying that product. So I think for that market, it's probably a great tool because the product looks like a natural stone. It's a synthetic diamond. It's an absolute match to what nature produces, but it's not in a laboratory.

1:17:57But it won't hold any value. Zero value at all, because the measure of value in our world is what the secondary market wants to buy that product back into the trade for. So if there's no support there, which there is not, then it's sort of the same thing as buying a T-shirt. Once you've used it, it's done. There is no value. The trade won't recognize it as a secondhand purchase with value. However, with the natural stone, it's a fully developed secondary market. Estate jewelry is bought and sold every day in massive volumes, along with metals. So the alternative, again, going back to the Mickey Moto experience, is there is a market for Mickey Moto cultured pearls or cultured pearls.

1:18:42But that's because they farm them. It's a farming process that does have the risk associated with not producing the product. So as a farming process, the trade recognizes a value, but it is definitely a different marketplace than the natural pearl market it's massively different natural pearls in a big size can be worth millions of dollars as a pearl and nothing even uh comes near to that with a single pearl in the culture culture world i am curious steven because we talked with some folks in the high-end real estate and that when there was the turmoil in the marketplace and we saw stock sell off a lot that people were pulling back from buying property and these are even wealthy, like we talked to high-end real estate.

1:19:28Did you see any kind of slowdown amid the market volatility? Some. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because we're also a wholesale business as well as a retail business. So we saw a lot of resistance slowdown in our wholesale side. You know, with the ultra high-end, they're very, very smart consumers. And where they see opportunity, they'll take it. And buying something that they don't need but want is a different thing that understanding that their capital may be better suited for a dip in the market, they'll put money into that versus a luxury item like what we deal with. In the long haul, over a long period of time, these rare collectibles are very, very strong.

1:20:15They hold a very, very strong position and And resistance to volatility is part of that. Interesting charts that we develop and look at in our own world. What has a pink diamond done in the last 10 years? What has it done in the last 10 years? It's a pretty interesting chart. What is it? Very, very little volatility. Depends on size, color, clarity, tone of color. But the vivid pink category and intense pink category has been a very, very gradual increase over the last 20 years that has spun off amazing returns for people that buy them. And I believe, honestly, we'll consistently do that in the future because they're so rare.

1:20:57Have you seen the Mrs. Bezos diamond? I didn't. I did not. It's, I think, like 20, 30 carats. It's pretty wild. I want to ask about watches because, you know, on Wall Street, I think there may be some lack of creativity. So the guy that makes, you know, his first 10 million is going to go out and buy something from AP or Patek Philippe, but not necessarily Grubel Forsy or MB &F. What are the most important indie brands right now? For those that really know, and I'm not one of those people, what are the ones that are sought after? So once, so this is a really interesting question because the, what I call the independent stables, Richard Mille, AP, Rolex, those are your three dominant big boy brands that dominate the high-end luxury watch market.

1:21:56Not Vacheron, Constantine, Patek? Vacheron, oh Patek of course, but Vacheron is probably number five or six, I'm not sure off the top of my head what the top 10 are, but these that I've mentioned are certainly in the top four. Then you have this sector called independence, but they're not usually big businesses doing big volume, but that's where the innovation is, and that's where you see the MB &F and this wonderful design and this really unique quality, the Grubel Forsy. These companies don't make a lot of watches. They may make 300 or 400 max. Right, right. But the innovation, the time and the effort, the finishing on these watches is equal to or surpassing great cars that are incredibly rich cars, right?

1:22:47Very, very expensive cars. So that kind of engineering is the same kind of engineering that goes into these independent watch brands. That's where the innovation is. It also points to our client in Silicon Valley. This is a valley of innovation and has been for decades. So the successful - This is why we see like Mark Zuckerberg wearing the Grubel Force. Only recently, right? Well, it's his new thing. You guys are in Menlo Park. And I'm just curious, what would you tell us about kind of Silicon Valley today in terms of based on the purchasing and what you're seeing? Well, we started in 1980. so we've seen pretty much the entire evolution of the different technology companies that have evolved they're certainly different today they're much bigger and they're much you know they're as they have to the AI guys like watches and expensive things as much as everybody absolutely I mean we've got 21 watch brands sitting at the villa which is our new home you know we built a 36 ,000 foot building just to service the clientele that is our local clientele.

1:23:56Who are the most famous? I mean, I'm sure you can't divulge the names of your clients, but. You know how many NDAs I've signed? So don't go there. No, I get that. But some of them are open about their hobby, right? So we know Mark Zuckerberg now has a pretty decent stable of watches. Who are the most famous horological experts in, you know, Silicon Valley or Hollywood? And just got about 30, 40 seconds. All right. Well, you know, I can't say names, but I can tell you that the leaders of some of the big tech companies that you're reporting on every day of the week. And also some of the most important venture capital guys.

1:24:32I've been clients of ours for 40, 50 years. So they love to buy watches. Matt, you know that they do. You just need to look at the pictures. I love it. Stephen, thank you so much. Thanks for coming by. Thank you for having me. Yeah, a pleasure. Stephen Silver, Chairman of CGM. I want to make a quick shout out to Uncharted. Yeah. They were amazing. Noah and Michael have done such an amazing job. I agree. That was the event you did at the Hamptons last week. It was unbelievable. And we hosted a dinner, by the way, for them on the West Coast before we did this. We'll catch up soon. I agree. It was like a whole different slice of life.

1:25:05And it was fun to bring it to our Bloomberg audience. Stephen Silver, thank you so much. This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. 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.

1:26:01We'll be right back. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next. It's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati Insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at c-i-n-f-i-n dot com. As a restaurant genius, I know the experience starts long before the food hits the table. Genius by Global Payments makes it easy. Digital menus and price updates in real time. No reprints, no surprises. The kitchen and floor stayed perfectly in sync, so every dish arrives exactly as it should. From game day crowds to memorable meals, big league reliability for any business.

1:26:44That's genius. Before you sign off, you tuned in for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. Chat GPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in Chat GPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using Chat GPT for Work. Download the Chat GPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more.