Trump Made Calls to Warsh in Latest Sign of Bid to Influence Fed

21:10So what's this$400 million investment? What company did it go to? Because you and Ed Lovato have been doing some digging on this. Yes. So we don't know yet what the portfolio company is. We know that it's a company that's been backed by Sequoia in the past. We suspect that it's a sizable raise. If situational awareness is putting$500 million, If Sequoia is involved, it would make sense that whatever the company is, is doing a multi-billion dollar raise because you wouldn't want too, too much risk if you were an investor. So we are still curious to figure out what company it is. Yeah, we don't know yet.

21:47But he's active.

21:48Carol Massar:But he's active. He's kind of a fascinating creature. We've talked about how young he is, how young he was when he went to Columbia, connections with SBF and also is it OpenAI, Sam Altman. Like, it's just a fascinating creature. You have yet to talk to him? He has. The firm has declined comments for the many times that we have reached out to them. But he does talk to people. Like, we've seen some podcasts and stuff, right? But he's kind of a quiet soul. He's done podcasts. And sometimes we see this in the venture capital space. Firms will tend to do more of the podcast sort of narrative than necessarily, like, news interviews.

22:25It depends on the personality. And this firm, while it's a hedge fund, while they did long stocks and short stocks and privates, it does fit a little bit more into the venture capital space. Most of their investors are venture capital individuals, founders, potentially employees. We see the hedge fund money is not really coming from institutions, but rather some of the hedge fund founders. Like it's been reported, Dan Sondheim is an investor for Rose, who is a former Tiger Global executive. So wealthy individuals, money, but more people that have tended to lean into venture capital. So the question about, you know, we touched on this a little bit last week when the turmoil was happening, but the investors, the current investors in the fund and what sort of lockups exist?

23:15Are people calling to get their money back? Like, what is the sort of reputational risk that happens in a situation like this? No, that's a great question. So when we look at the lockup, there is a multi-year lockup. So investors are stuck for some period of time. When it comes to private investments, by definition, that stuff's a liquid. So you're in it for as long as you're in it for, the fund is in it for, and frankly, with companies like Anthropic, you kind of want to be in those positions. Keep in mind, they considered selling a lot of their privates before they got that Citadel deal. So they were willing to potentially part with these coveted anthropic stakes in advance of getting the better deal with Citadel.

23:54Because they might have had to, right? Because they might have had to. It shows just they were stretching for any amount of capital quickly to meet that margin call.

24:01Carol Massar:It's kind of fascinating, this whole story. I mean, I know we talked about his origins. How did he start his fund? Was it just a bunch of Silicon Valley types who wanted to invest with him? I mean, he was a young individual. And I'm not going to put anything against youth because that doesn't necessarily... Young or old doesn't necessarily guarantee one thing or the other. But I'm just curious how they came to put their faith in this individual. No, that is another great question, especially as we've seen what has unraveled very, very quickly. And the risks that come with a highly levered, highly concentrated investment.

24:37He started a couple years ago when he created this manifesto that was called Situational Awareness, a very long document that pontificated about AI, its future, its risks, and gathered a great deal of following, started his hedge fund with like a few hundred million dollars a few years back. And people started watching very closely after his manifesto. He got a lot of interest because of the thoughts he was talking about and people started following his book. He raised a lot of money really quickly. We think this year he raised a ton of capital, grew to$45 billion as of this month, spiraled down to$10 billion.

25:16dollars. Huge decline. And look, we've seen this story before. We've seen this story when it comes to highly levered investments, highly concentrated. The saving grace in some ways was this private book. That's why he's still 10 billion is because you have a solid chunk of capital and he didn't sell everything. But, you know, investors don't want to see this sort of spiraling. And we've seen a lot of other hedge fund returns come out in the past couple of days. And there has been pain across other AI-focused funds, but not pain like this.

25:47Carol Massar:That's what kind of blows my mind. You know, I think about the initial capital that's come in or got them going and then continue to come in. I mean, you're right. Like investors don't want to see a swing like this, right? I mean, that's not the idea of a hedge fund. It's true. It's true. You don't want, you want volatility, but not crazy volatility. When you're up hundreds of percentages early in the month, That's a bit of a red flag. Which is what, who we talked to that used to work for Cliff Afness, his fund, that whole idea that when it was up 400%, that should have been a red flag to everybody.

26:22So we want to talk to you about some of the other hedge funds that you cover and just what performance we have thus far as we get further into the second half of the year. You said July was bruising for other tech and AI focused hedge funds. What have you found? Yes. So Whale Rock is a big hedge fund. And they are focused on AI. They are somewhat concentrated. They were down 22 % for the month. They are still up like 30%, 34 % for the year. So it does show the funds, the hedge funds that we're seeing that are down for the month are still up a lot for the year for the ones that focus on AI. Code 2 was down 8 % for the month.

26:57It was its worst performance in over a year. Still up on the year.

27:03Carol Massar:It's interesting too, though. You get an idea of how much exposure there is to AI. But it's hard not to, right? If you are invested in any of these big tech names, whether you like it or not, you're exposed to a lot of AI. I was listening to something on, maybe it was surveillance this morning, just this whole idea about, I think somebody asked an investment advisor, are your clients asking for more exposure to AI? And they're like, well, you are exposed. If you bought an index fund, you're exposed. Well, we're using it as this catch-all term, but there were certain companies that Oshenbrenner and situational awareness were invested in that are not necessarily the hyperscalers that are associated with as being beneficiaries of AI.

27:46Yeah, there were. And they were companies that were very volatile. Yes, yes. And I think when we look at the funds that did do well, some of them are the quant funds. Like during the pandemic, when the humans were doing really well, the quants were really struggling. And in a moment like this, we actually did see some of the quants doing well, like a Renaissance fund up more than 9 % for the month. An equities fund run by computers outperforming the humans that are also doing this. Taking out the emotion or whatever. Or better risk.

28:20Carol Massar:So next focus for you in this, is it finding out where he's putting his money at this point? Where he's putting his money, what he's doing next, how investors are thinking about the future of this fund. I mean, there's a lot of questions we haven't seen unraveling like this in a little while. And investors, can they pull money quickly or no? There are rules here. So there is a multi-year lockup. It may depend when the investor got in. If they got in very early, they might have their lockup expire sooner. But that investor might not want to leave because they're still up a lot since inception. But if you're an investor that came in later, like in the past quarter, you had a lot of pain.

28:55You might want to get out, but you're probably locked up for a few years.

28:58Carol Massar:Great stuff. Thank you so much, Hema. Thank you. Hema Parmore, she is Bloomberg News hedge fund reporter, as we mentioned. First to really bring this to our attention, reported out her story, the most read on the Bloomberg. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.

29:17The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Everyone's talking about how AI is transforming work, especially in sales. While the landscape shifts, one thing remains the same, the thrill of closing a deal.

29:55Whether it's a gong or a confetti machine, every team has its celebration rituals. Adio is designed for that moment. It's the agentic CRM that turns customer signals into actionable insights, helping you close deals faster with revenue agents and automations working around the clock. You'll have everything you need to scale your go-to market efforts. Elevate your wins with Adio. Start your free trial at adio.com slash iHeart. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Ear Say, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from earth.

30:43I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. and I left it on the mic. That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

31:16Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.

31:35Carol Massar:Or watch us live on YouTube. One of the stories on our radar is actually a lot on this Thursday. This was about tech companies borrowing to fund artificial intelligence investments. And investors are growing wary of the debt with two of the last three commercial mortgage bonds funding data centers having to widen pricing to attract them. I just feel like, I don't know, there feels like there's little things that are making us kind of look at all of what's going on. And then there's what happened today with Alphabet. So that's a little different situation. It's like, bring it on, Alphabet. Yeah, Alphabet drew about$115 billion of demand for its jumbo bond sale.

32:14It was looking to raise as much as$25 billion from its latest U.S. investment-grade bond offering. It's a deal that tests investor appetite for AI-related debt. I think that test was passed with flying colors.

32:27Carol Massar:Yeah, it does sound like they are definitely hungry for it. Hey, let's get more on Alphabet. There's a lot going on. It's an important company to watch, as we always remind you. With us, gratefully, is Mandeep Singh. He's Bloomberg Intelligence Global Head of Technology Research. He's here in studio. Mandeep, 10-part U.S. dollar investment-grade bond sale, drawing tons of demand. First of all, maybe this is stupid, but what do they need constantly all this money for? Well, now they need it all the more because they're raising their CapEx for next year. And they said significant increase, even though they didn't quantify.

33:01And based on our numbers, we are looking at a$300 billion CapEx number. Just for Alphabet. And it cannot be financed with their operating cash flow anymore. So they have to raise money. Yeah, they did equity financing. And now the debt financing. Why not raise more than$25 billion if there is so much demand out there? They could. I mean, I think they are probably going to... Take advantage of it. No, no. But this is not the last time they are issuing a new bond. And they have also issued a 100-year bond. bond. So to my mind, they will continue to raise. And what cadence do you think? I mean, the fact that they want to be very aggressive with CapEx, and it seems like compared to Microsoft, which didn't say we are looking for a significant increase, Meta said they are not raising their CapEx for 2026.

33:56So Google is the one who is coming across as more aggressive now in terms of their CapEx plans relative to the other hyperscalers. The other one who is aggressive is SpaceX. But SpaceX, unlike Alphabet, doesn't have the balance sheet and the cash flow to get, you know, over subscription like the one that we saw with Alphabet. So that's the big difference. Alphabet can afford to do it and they will do it. SpaceX may have a harder time in terms of raising this kind of money.

34:26Carol Massar:Robert Shiffman, who does credit research for Bloomberg Intelligence, he wrote about this too. And he reminded us that Alphabet has already raised about$52 billion across the U.S. and Canadian dollars, sterling euros, Swiss francs and yen in 2026. And then he does say the 10-tronch deal suggests issuance will remain a recurring theme. So we're probably not there yet. Is this about, you know, I was reading it was either The New Yorker and also maybe The Times or something. just this race and it's not just a u.s race mandy but it's china also is it he who or she who overspends or spends outspends is going to be the leader in this industry wherever it lands is that what this is about so right now when you look at what are the parts of this ai infrastructure build out where you can see a clear roi it's your cloud hosting cloud rental which is why I feel SpaceX made that pivot because they can see companies, the hyperscalers, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, at the scale they were at, now they're seeing accelerating top line growth because everyone wants to consume tokens, consume compute.

35:39So even though you're not seeing a huge ROI in terms of the application side, it's the chip makers, the memory guys, the cloud guys, those are the companies that are actually seeing tangible acceleration to their top line growth. So why not keep doubling down, which is what Alphabet seems to be doing? And they have a vertical integration play. They do their own TPUs, their chips. They deploy their chips on their own cloud. And they're able to monetize it at a much better margin, which is why their margins are expanding relative to the other hyperscalers that have to buy NVIDIA chips. The CapEx story, it's like we talk about it every day.

36:18This is the story that it's been driving equity markets for years at this point. When do we start to talk about the actual ROI that companies that are not within the space but are adopting the technology are actually getting? Like we get a little bit of that now, but I mean, when are we going to see this actually change the ability for Procter & Gamble to sell more toilet paper or toothpaste? I mean, I feel a lot of that ROI around AI spend is geared towards optimizing their cost structure right now. At the back end, okay, do I really need to grow headcount in a big way to support my IT systems?

37:00Probably not. There could be a lot of optimization now that can be done using AI, using the tokens that I wasn't able to do before. So, in other words, doing more with less? More with less, yes. Productivity is a big part of it. Are we seeing that play out and at wide scale yet? I mean, coding agent is that one use case that has taken off in such a big way, and it's a big market. I mean, there's no denying the fact that everyone wants a piece of that coding agent because everyone can see software developers being more productive. I mean, if 70 to 80 % of the new code is being written by AI, that is what makes the developers productive.

37:40And now they are extrapolating that to other types of knowledge work. But software development has changed completely because of AI.

37:49Carol Massar:I want to throw into this, and I don't know if it's significant, but I'm curious. We wanted to get your take on it. Google concentrating its AI leadership at its Mountain View, California headquarters. And our story wrote out to gain momentum in the accelerating race against anthropic and open AI. Is that a significant move? Are you hearing, like, what are you, is just Alphabet, Google all in? And they are really kind of hunkering down here. I see it as a slight negative, the fact that they had some high profile departures, you know, Jeff Dean. Right. And, you know, the prior departure of Noam Shazir.

38:24Like, these are guys who have got so much credibility in their respective fields. And, you know, losing them can never be good. I mean, yes, they want to speed up their model releases. I think if there's one hole I can find in that alphabet thesis is they've been slow to release new models. They've got everything going on the infrastructure side, chips and cloud. But when it comes to model releases, they have trailed frontier models like OpenAI and Anthropic. They don't have an equivalent of a Fable 5 or the latest ChatGPT model. So from that perspective, they have to play catch up. and I can see why they would want to, you know, shift things just to speed up that model cadence because that's what they're being questioned upon is, why is there no latest Gemini model released by this time?

39:13Carol Massar:Where is it? Where is it? All right. For those who missed out on this bond offering, there's going to be more, right? There's going to be more? I think so, most likely. Don't worry. It's all coming. Thank you. As always, Mandeep Singh, Bloomberg Intelligence Global Head of Technology Research, making sense of some of the headlines, which is the story we talk about every day. Yeah. The spend. We are grateful to Mandeep for coming on with us seemingly every day. It needs to be Friday. We're a little worn out. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.

39:48The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Everyone's talking about how AI is transforming work, especially in sales. While the landscape shifts, one thing remains the same, the thrill of closing a deal.

40:26Whether it's a gong or a confetti machine, every team has its celebration rituals. Adio is designed for that moment. It's the agentic CRM that turns customer signals into actionable insights, helping you close deals faster. With revenue agents and automations working around the clock, you'll have everything you need to scale your go-to market efforts. Elevate your wins with Adio. Start your free trial at adio.com slash iHeart. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton, who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago, and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all.

41:09We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life, channeling his memories of River Phoenix in the recording booth, and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have. I know Gordy Lachance. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.

41:48Or watch us live on YouTube. U.S. mortgage rates rose last week to the highest level in a year, curbing demand for home loans in an already subdued housing market. Carol? Yes. The rate on a 30-year mortgage rose five basis points to 6.81 % in the week that ended July 31st. That's according to the NBA.

42:05Carol Massar:Awfully close to 7%. We'll see if we ultimately get there. Adam, I know. Okay. I know. It's not as high as it was in the 70s or 80s. But nonetheless, compared to what we've seen in the last decade or so, or almost two decades or a little bit more, it's certainly ticking higher. Adam Zambanini is watching the housing market. He's watching a lot of things, among other indicators of the economy. He is the CEO of Trex. It's the maker of the composite decking. It's a company based in Winchester, Virginia. It has a market cap of around$5 billion. Shares are up this year more than 40%. They're down about 22 % over the last year.

42:41Carol Massar:But it's a great read on so much going on in the economy. Adam, welcome. Thanks for having me. Tell us, first of all, macro view from what you are seeing in terms of the level of activity, people doing projects. How would you describe the economy and how the consumer is looking to do something? So we're in such a unique position at Trex because we're 95 % repair remodel. So we still have a lot of people when it comes to those interest rates sitting on 3%. And so they're not moving around. You got inflation, right? So as the inflation has come through, a lot of people are having more staycations, spending more time at home, investing in their homes.

43:13So we're seeing like contractor logs that are booked out, you know, eight, 12 weeks right now. And we've been doing a lot in terms of how we spur the growth at the lower end. So we've been seeing great growth in the middle tier, the higher tier, the K-shaped economy. But this year, the focus has been on marketing and conversion from wood because every 1 % share away from wood is about$80 million in revenue for Trex. Wow. So again, this is when we spoke to your predecessor about a year ago and i remember him saying that it's all about getting people who have wood decks now when they're thinking about remodeling to remodeling with trex you're not the only player though there's like one other competitor timber tech how do you position yourself against them yeah so when you look at this market it's a 75 billion dollar outdoor living market trex has a 15 billion dollar tam of which decking is about eight billion dollars so when we break it down we invented the category right so we're 95 recycled 100 of the decking is made here in america Most of the railing is made here in america when you start to look at the breadth of product line that trex is the only Manufactured it has it from two dollars a lineal foot to ten dollars a lineal foot So we have pretty much everything that you need from top to bottom.

44:21We're number one in decking We're number one in wood alternative railing. So actually when you look at us in railing, even though we're number one It's only six percent of the total market Our fastest growing segment is railing right now And if you look at like our product lineup, it towers over the competition in terms of what we have to offer But only 6 % because people are still going with wood. Yeah. Yeah. Wood. There's some PVC that's out there. And in some cases, you might have some codes where 30 inches or less, you don't need the railing, but primarily it's still wood. So there's so much opportunity.

44:48Carol Massar:What is the conversion rate from people going from wood to your product? Yeah. What do you see? Yeah. So I would say the last several years, it's been more stagnant. What we did this year is we've really focused on that opening entry, spending a lot more money in marketing. I mean, Trex is a marketing machine. So if you go to trex.com, we go out there. You see Martha Stewart if you go to trex.com. That's right. Yeah, she's a new influence for us. She's actually got two different decks right now. And so if you go to trex, you'll see the fact that you can build your own deck online. We give a cost calculator, just like you shop for your car.

45:20Then you've got free samples that you want. You can get them online. We take you through the whole consumer journey, how to design your deck. And at the very end, we offer up contractors. So really, really powerful. And this is one of the reasons why we also partner with Martha. because when you look from a marketing perspective, she has such a design influence in the way these decks look. And there's a lot of power in Trex and Martha teaming up.

45:41Carol Massar:Yeah, I think it's fascinating. Talk to us too about, as you say, the decking. Everything's made in the United States. Talk to us about your facilities, your supply chain, and walk us through that a little bit. Oh man, it's a great all-American story. So once again, the founders were started on green principles just for the simple fact that 30 years ago, this is our anniversary this year, they didn't want to see the plastic go in the landfill so it truly became something that is what do i make out of this trex is more or less like when you're a kid and you want to push play-doh out of a play-doh set we're pushing rectangles we're pushing the play-doh out of the play-doh set and so when you start to look over time we have the winchester virginia which is our home site and we manufacture there we also have nevada facility but what the problem was the last several years is we ran out of space so we bought a greenfield in little rock arkansas we have 300 acres down in Little Rock.

46:29We started our pellet processing last year, and then the plan was next year to start our decking production. But we've had such good, robust growth, as you saw our record earnings in Q2, from the wood conversion that we're actually bringing up the timeline on our Little Rock facility by six months. Now, there's a lot of strategic initiatives going on there. That is the hub in terms of where we get a lot of raw materials out of that area. It lowers the cost of freight in the Midwest, but the fastest growing part of the wood market, the Sunbelt region. New York, New Jersey, Illinois, a lot of people move south.

47:01Plus, there's a lot of southern yellow pine down there. So we think we're really strategically placed with that plant to take a lot of share.

47:07Carol Massar:I have two family members who moved down to outside of Charleston, South Carolina in the last, I don't know, kind of pre-pandemic, a little bit post-pandemic. Both have built outdoor decks, enclosures. I mean, it's just kind of how you live out there. But that's what everybody is doing. And you just continue to see that. What about from a manufacturing perspective, the labor picture? And if you're able to get enough folks to work, not just in the Nevada and Winchester facilities, but how it's looking in Arkansas right now. You know, we're bringing the best paying jobs down there. People are really appreciative of the fact that Trex has entered the market.

47:39They're aware of the brand. They love the fact that we are an all American made company. How many people do you have to hire down there? So we started with 50 on pellet processing last year. Within the next year, you're going to see upwards of 200 with the long-term plans getting upwards of 500. Now that's just for what we've built so far infrastructure wise. The plan longer term is we could put several decking plants there, several railing plants there. So there's really endless opportunities when you start to think longer term and how we can expand. And you think you can find the employees that you need?

48:07We already did. First job fair that came right out of the gates as we opened up this decking facility in Q3 of this year, a thousand people showed up, which to me was very, very strong. shows people want to come work for Trex.

48:18Carol Massar:I do want to ask you, because I think we are thinking about tomorrow's monthly jobs report and the types of jobs that are being created. And we know some of them certainly, uh, we cover it, but what, what kind of jobs are they? Are they hourly? Are they full-time? Give us some idea. It's across the board. So from the hourly perspective, you're going to have people at the end of the line, there's a lot of packaging opportunities, but then you move on up the line, you get into processing, right? So how you make the product forklift operators, so the distribution side, all the way to loading flatbed trucks.

48:47And then you also have engineers, process engineers, project engineers, and then you also have plant managers down there. So it's really a broad range. It's a whole site that we're going to be building out down there.

48:59Carol Massar:This is interesting. We've got some questions. We're taking questions in from viewers. This is Brendan from Rockville, Maryland. Brendan, thank you. He says, what is the return on investment of a Trex home renovation relative to other projects such as fiber cement siding. I don't know if like this comes into your world. Maybe he's thinking a little bit about Hardy Backer too and like the different composite materials that are available in siding at home. When you start to look at Trex decking, this is where we start to show the value of Trex versus wood. It's really about seven years when you start to look and it could be less than that.

49:29Now it depends on are we building a really elaborate deck? So we've had no issues in that middle to upper tier in terms of people that want to buy Trex. It's that lower tier and we're trying to show them the fact that Trex not only has that return on investment, but you don't need to go out and build this extravagant deck, right? Even a rectangle, as you move out in the yard, because wood only lasts you upwards of 10 to 15 years before it might rot out with all the new species that are out there. So it's a great return on investment. It's one of those things when you look at the advertisements that are out there, many of the listings have treks in those advertisements because there is something that adds value to the home.

50:01Like the advertising for a home that's on the market. Home listing on the market is going to have treks decking in it. Oh, interesting. The other part of the labor picture that we're curious about to hearing from you is what you hear from contractors who, you know, in some cases, they're the ones who are offering their clients and the folks who buy who are buying their services. They're saying, hey, I recommend you use Trex, for example. Are they able to find the labor out there? Are they because in some cases I'm hearing stories of like, you know, you can't in New York's different, but you can't get a contractor to walk through for small projects.

50:35Like they're so booked out with big stuff. Yeah. So it depends on the part of the country where it can be challenging. I mean, many of them also hire subcontractors along the way in order to help build out those businesses. But I think they're very creative. What we've tried to do to address that is a lot of our new products, we're trying to make them more DIY friendly and contractor friendly. So let me get an example. Railings are fastest growing segment. It's really complex. It could take upwards of an hour to install a section of railing. now it takes less than 10 minutes because what trex has done on a lot of their new railings is they're all pre-assembled so you get it you have a post that already has the brackets in you drop those in you drop a panel in four screws and you're done so the simplification when we make our deck boards we put grooves in the deck boards and then we have a hidden fastener that helps pre-gap the grooves in there so you don't have to worry about the expansion contraction so we're trying to think of how can we make it easier there's a lot of diy tools that we make available out there on YouTube where people can go out and see.

51:30It's not as complex as you think. We help you walk you through the journey from step to step.

51:34Carol Massar:What happens to old Trek decks, Trek decks? Because you guys are made from what mostly reclaimed recycled materials, like 95%. So what happens to old ones? So here's what we're trying to do now. So the last several years we started to go out, we started locally and we're trying to expand out broader is we're starting to create with some of our dealers ways to collect material. So it could be a current Trex deck today where a contractor has scrap material or a homeowner has some. They can bring it back and we'll come collect it. Or even old Trex decks. You could take a Trex deck. Let's say we've had a couple different generations of Trex.

52:07Let's just say you had the first generation of Trex. We can take that back and recycle it. So we're trying to, once again, create that life cycle. And if we can get it back, we want it so we can go out there and reuse it.

52:17Carol Massar:Interesting stuff. You ready to build another? We're fully built out instead of at home right now. No more projects for a while. We're kind of built out too. Yeah. But we have our composite deck. But I have brothers who are contractors, and I know that they have definitely used Trex decks to do this, like, and build different decks for their customers. Adam, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. This was really interesting. Adam Zamanini, he is CEO of Trex, joining us right here on set in New York City. This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

52:56Listen 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.

53:40We'll be right back. visit vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat or prevent any disease everyone's talking about how ai is transforming work especially in sales while the landscape shifts one thing remains the same the thrill of closing a deal whether it's a gong or a confetti machine every team has its celebration rituals adio is designed for that moment it's the agentic crm that turns customer signals into actionable insights helping you close deals faster with revenue agents and automations working around the clock.

54:13You'll have everything you need to scale your go-to market efforts. Elevate your wins with Adio. Start your free trial at adio.com slash iHeart. Some people use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT work, you bring the goal, plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, prototype, or workflow you can review and keep shaping. You stay in control, giving direction and choosing the final output. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode.

54:50Available on Plus and Pro plans.