kathleen: i'm carol massar. julia: and i'm julia chatterley. these are the men and women whose come -- accomplishments defined 2017. the entrepreneurs who may make ways next year. business work 50 starts right now. ♪ carol: we are here with the

editor in chief make and murphy. love this issue and the people you write about. what is the bloomberg 50? megan: this is the first time we have ever done this. when bloomberg thought about it, we thought, who were the 50 people that defined this? it is always the same people on this list. we thought, what if we did this differently and looked to find the people you have heard of. you are not going to have heard a lot of them, but who really changed the way you think, what you do, how you conduct your life or business and will be trendsetters in the future. we are really excited about the names on this list. julia: they certainly defined something in 2017, rose mcgowan and ashley judd, talking about harvey weinstein. landscape inthe media, and politics in 2017.

at thise were looking issue and the wave of sexual harassment that has spanned across industries. we are grappling with it. to try and single out anyone was hard, but the recent we chose rose mcgowan and ashley judd was because they were the ones who let the credibility -- they are the ones who first came forward and that seminal new york times piece that uncovered the extent of the harvey weinstein allegations. we have had the revelations in the tech industry, but it was that article and subsequent reporting at the new yorker that was the tsunami that has swept across so many industries and unleashed #metoo, and has so many women coming forward. we have not seen the end of these revelations, but we feel this is the tipping point. carol: and a story that will

continue. another story i think we'll have a lot of likes is robert mueller, special counsel looking into the trump campaign, connections with russia and the election. politics is the hardest to do because to pick out the people that have a measurable impact, the list is very short. in terms of who has offended washington and continues to define the landscape is bob mueller, who is conducting this investigation. i would say far more wide-ranging than people expected and will continue to uncover things we don't know even as well think we know at this point. he is the defining player in washington. thoughtful in a world where everything is quick and short. megan: people think this is one investigationsless in washington. julia: it goes right to the top,

as well. also the president himself. megan: we used to say that this was watergate without the tapes in terms of the cover-up may be the thing that does the administration and. when we look at the figures it is picking off, it looks like michael flynn might be next in line and these things are falling upwards, not done words. he didn't start with the biggest fish, he started the smaller fish. julia: you were searching for political action men. what about legal action women, in the form of nikki haley? megan: she may be our next secretary of state. rumors about rex tillerson and that job. one reason we wanted to capture nikki haley because she is a much different than people expected her to be. our photographer said she was so funny.

she has embraced this you and role and is the voice of foreign policy for america, the most coherent voice we have. julia: not afraid to push back on comments trump has made, especially with russia and syria -- nikki haley is an ambitious figure and has her sights on a different role in washington altogether. carol: we will be watching her in 2018. nikkiwe talked to the editor wt this edition together. here is more from him. >> the process was long and involved and took most of the year. all of did was survey the bloomberg reporters and editors, not just in the u.s., but throughout the world. thoseted through all of -- >> that's a lot of submissions. >> we ended up with 50.

the criteria and the thing that separates this list from other lists is that the person had to have a major a compliment in 2017. -- a compliment in -- accomplishment in 2017. our guiding principle was that there has to have been a very piece ofta point, some quantitative analysis that said this person belongs on this list this year. what i like about this list, some of the names are like , of course, and some are like economists and scientists. i had no idea. fascinating. >> the fun part about putting this together is that we wanted that sense of serendipity. when you are looking through the magazine, there are some you are familiar with and others you are thinking, i have never heard of

this person, so how can they beat one of the most impactful people in global business? but they may be a compass something that maybe didn't make the front page of newspapers that was really huge. julia: let's talk about one man individual. that would be jeff bezos. big shopping weekend, this is the perfect time. >> he is now worth $100 billion. not bad. his big moment came in june when forurchased whole foods $13.7 billion. julia: it's a grocery chain. within a couple of hours of that announcement, the kroger's of the world, the walmarts, cosco, lost a combined $30 billion in value and this is a sign that wall street thinks there is no stopping his ambition to not just be the

biggest online retailer, but the biggest retailer in the world. that also includes going into space and a journal with the washington post. he is in many different sectors. : when you have a 100 billion dollars, you can buy a newspaper if you want and he has done these things. it is a huge year. he probably could be on last year and will be on last year -- on next year, but the purchase of whole foods was huge. another big name of course this is one must. we spent a lot of time talking about -- is elon musk. we spent a lot of time talking about him. competitor to detroit and it gave tesla a market cap around $50 billion

which is roughly in line with gm. he also wants to go to space with spacex and by 2022 aims to have a colony on mars. julia: even he has admitted it is on the ambitious side. carol: both of these companies are revered individuals and everyone is rooting for them in terms of what they are doing and then you have the financial community saying, they are spending a lot of money and maybe they are not as profitable as we would like to see. >> if you look at what they have done, it is pretty amazing. carol: turning the bloomberg 50 into a cover image was the job of the creative director. julia: talk about how you pulled this cover together this week. simple obviously a very cover, very large. things that makes this list different from others

is that it is not from 150 coming wanted to make that very clear, that all 50 are special in their own way. inside great photography but we didn't want to use any on the cover to see like they are the most prominent on the list. julia: 50 or nothing. carol: you could have put all 50 in little squares. >> true, but the inside but have been playing. julia: what about the color choices? you have gone for something very bold. they made a splash. they issue is celebratory in a lot of ways. there are people who make more positive differences than others, but it is a celebratory issue and given the news cycle when there are really tough stories, we wanted to be more celebratory. julia: up next, the goldman sachs executive revolutionaries

the way banks keep shareholding happy. kathleen: our conversation with the digital current seatgeek there. julia: this is the bloomberg 50. ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek with the bloomberg 50. julia: you can find us online at businessweek.com. kathleen: and our mobile app. chavez is one of those featured in the bloomberg 50. there is a plan to increase revenues by billions of dollars. ez is the cfo of goldman sachs. he was the deputy cfo getting in january. before that, he was the chief information officer at goldman

sachs. he was the guy that sort of lead their technology efforts, engineering efforts. carol: interesting career switch. >> yes, it is. if you look at the cfos across wall street, none of them have a background like marty does. none of them have come up to the cio technology part of the company and that makes him unique. carol: talk to us about his background. he has been with goldman for some time. >> he joined them in their commodities as this as many of the leaders, surprise, surprise. coming upays been through their strats business, which is their engineers. they were the first at sitting the engineers next to the traders and having engineers design algorithms or models through spreadsheets.

goldman was doing that years before much of wall street and that was largely led by marty. talk about the interactions he had with the chief accounting officer and the importance of data and analysis and the ease of which he wanted to read that. he didn't want to ask questions. >> if you talk to cfos across wall street, they will say, i don't know that answer or i just sat through three days of briefing to get ready for our 10-q and the head of latin america told me this. marty doesn't want to do that anymore. he wants an ipad that has a dashboard on it so he knows continuously real-time what the latin america business is doing or the fixed income trading business is doing. that means you are not wasting time. he would tell you, talking to heads of businesses or accounting officers and if you control down and have more

substantial conversations. carol: he is that primary voice one it comes to investors in the analyst immunity and you have a company struggling in terms of their trading revenue and he is tasked with that message of increasing goldman's revenues by $5 billion by 2020. he has to make sure the message is clear and they are getting to that target. >> that's right. the first earnings call he did, he would tell you he is very tight, he did not disclose much, he kept on message. cause,sequent earnings he has come into his own a little more. julia: bitcoin might have made huge headlines this year. carol: by the digital currency has an arrival called ether. here is our reporter. realized there was a lot you couldn't do with bitcoin. it is great for sending value around the world but he wanted to do more and he was interested

in trying to create a block chain that could post computer code. instead of sending coins around like bitcoin, you can program computer language onto this block chain and have it do more competition things. old, hee was 20 years had created this amazing sort of new breakthrough in block chain technology called ethereum. in the years since, it has grown and they aretially now sort of getting ready to take it mainstream. carol: but it is not worth as much as bitcoin. we spent so much time talking about the value of bitcoin. why is it not valued as much? we are early stages for ethereum and a lot of it is the radical. there are not a lot of voice we can touch the ethereum block chain.

one example to help you understand it, i was able to buy a record on the block chain a couple weeks ago. my money was processed by the code in the block chain and it sent say four dollars to the lead singer and three dollars to the guitarist and they programmed this ahead of time. there is no music company in the middle or publisher in the middle. it cuts out the middleman and the backers feel it is a new version of the internet that will be more peer-to-peer. ofyou can see the potential it, but a lot of it is still theoretical and still potential. but it has a lot of developers very engaged and committed to it. additiont was a good and something people should be on the lookout for. julia: you pointed out this had a few teasing issues. there is also a problem with hackers. we saw hackers steal $55 million

worth, $171 million lost when funds were frozen. just in terms of relative stability and ease of use, if we are simply talking about the currency bitcoin versus either. how do they actually compare? matt: when you see hacks and thefts and lost coins in either or bitcoin, there is a whole ecosystem being developed around these technologies. you've got wallets, exchanges, all these new -- they are like the new york stock exchange except digital. they are being created on the fly as we speak. this stuff is moving around the world and there is a huge valuation to it. they areare seeing is being tested, the extent's being tested, security is being tested. a lot of hackers have been successful at breaching the walls and stealing a lot of the

currency. and the digital world. i don't think it is different than what banks were less secure and bank robbers were a thing. that we are watching this in real time and it seems like the wild west and it certainly is. time, the underlying technology of the block chain itself is what is important and nobody has reached the block chain. happen, thato would be huge and a very bad sign. you have the block chain in one area and with all this other stuff, it has to have good security and really good programming behind it. some of it doesn't and that's when the breaches are coming. if you can change the history of the block chain, that is what getsds where every bitcoin transferred from and that is what is important about it. if someone was able to do that, that would send shocks to the

community and that has not happened. carol: the economist that says trade deficits harm marriage. julia: the first black and of the federal reserve bank. this is the bloomberg 50. ♪

♪ back to bloomberg businessweek, i'm julia chatterley. carol: i'm carol massar. you can listen to us on the boston,d in new york, washington, d.c., and the bay area. julia: and in london on dab and asia on the numbered radio plus app. carol: the economy plays a big role in the bloomberg 50. businessweek's peter coy

opens up the issue, discussing the theory of trickle-down economics. peter: essentially, the republican tax plan is a version of trickle-down economics. it is a phrase you don't hear a lot because, certainly on the republican side, because it is considered a term of disparagement, but funny enough, i went to an event in new york and steve mnuchin was interviewed. carol: well-known business journalist. a"ter: it was not a "gotch kind of moment, but he was asked, do you still believe in trickle-down economics? but he said, i do. julia: but he didn't tell you the republican tax plan for overhaul. peter: more than an inference. let me to you what we mean about trickle-down economics.

idea.not a crazy the idea is it comes from input and labor and capital. if you can increase the incentive for there to be more labor and more capital, by cutting taxes, then you can create the growth rate of the economy and everyone benefits. if we talk about the bloomberg 50, there are very potent and familiar names of their that are economists that have flight bearing this year. carol: not a household name. peter: he is if you live in a household with economists. respected labor economist. carol: globally respected. oner: yeah, and he works labor economics with technology and trade.

he has taken a special interest in the growth of china. the u.s. labor market. controversial because card-carrying economists believe in free trade and autor believes in free trade, but he is willing to say that is always beneficial to every person in the economy. influxument is that the of cheap goods from china undermine u.s. manufacturing sector, which to most of us is like, duh. we are a new that. but sometimes nailing it down with data, which he does with his regression analyses is what it takes to persuade other economists of this. anotheret's talk about person and the finance section, the new president of the federal reserve rate of atlanta. -- bank of atlanta.

he has been in southern california for many years and just appointed to run the atlanta fed. he is the first black man or woman to be the president of the federal reserve bank. is theenly gay, which first time for the 100-year-old said. 100-year-oldose -- fed. aside from those personal characteristics, he is an interesting choice. the two men using machine learning to upend the hedge fund industry. carol: the billionaire placing the big bad on integration of humans and computers. julia: this is the bloomberg 50. ♪ is this a phone?

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♪ still to come on this issue come up more from the 50 most influential people of 2017. carol: including the best-selling author, movie star, and youtube star with 2 billion fans. julia: profiting from approach him propaganda. propaganda. carol: all that still ahead. ♪ julia: