carol: welcome to bloomberg businessweek. i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. we are here in new york. carol: happy 90th. we celebrate how the magazine covered business through the decade. jason: in the headlines, boeing halting production of the 737 max, that's been granted for many months. we look at what went wrong.

carol: more from the bloomberg 50. our exclusive interview with beyond meat founder, ethan brown. jason: first up, the top political story, impeachment. carol: congress will ring in the new year with partisanship and division. this time, in the form of the senate impeachment trial of president trump. foot skit to reporter -- let's get to reporter josh green with more on that. you have a fascinating story that talks about how, with everything going on, this could benefit joe biden. josh: as we look ahead to january and the beginning of the 2020 election voting, one of the big questions everybody and questions everybody in washington has is what affect his impeachment going to have on the democratic field? what i wrote in businessweek takes a look at joe biden and

his situation. one of the ironies of the impeachment trial is that it came about because president trump thought that joe biden looked like he was going to be a serious rival and embarked on this mission with ukraine to turn up negative information on biden. the irony is that it has led to trumps impeachment but it hasn't hurt his approval rating. biden is leading the field heading into iowa. however, because there is going to be an impeachment trial, he is going to sideline five of biden's contenders, all senators, who are going to have to spend their time on capitol hill while joe biden can be in iowa. carol: what about the other non- senators? pete buttigieg. does he benefit from this? josh: i think he does. iowa matters here. the caucus is on february 3. there are four front runners,

biden, buttigieg, warren, and bernie sanders. we know that the two liberals are stuck in an impeachment trial on capitol hill. that leaves iowa wide-open for joe biden and pete buttigieg. buttigieg would rather be a non-senator than a senator. he is going to try to close this deal in the weeks leading up to caucuses. jason: i want to take you back to something you said at the top, this notion that this thing has not stuck to joe biden in any meaningful way. does that surprise you? josh: it does a bit. when i say that, i mean among democratic voters. the has been popular throughout with key demographic roots in the demographic electorate. while trump and conservatives and conservative media hammered him over ukraine, that's almost made democrats defensive about not falling for that spin, not

listening to those attacks. biden has led throughout. buttigieg has been leading in iowa but overall, joe biden hasn't paid a price in the democratic electorate for these ukraine attacks. jason: thank you so much. carol: while washington news was one of many things our team was watching this week, for more on the issue, let's bring in joel weber with this cover story. happy holidays, a lot going on. joel: absolutely. we put together a holiday cover. jason: quite a cover there, talking about softbank. what a year. joel: this is one of the biggest stories of the year and it started with we work and it started early on, when there is going to be an ipo. as the coverage developed and went on, there was another story we begin to think about, softbank. carol: i do love the cover, seasons greeting from softbank. we did talk about it so much. what i love about the story, you guys go into the layers of

softbank division fund. obviously, the leader of at all. -- it all, but there are obviously other players. joel: masa, the guy who is the visionary at softbank, especially at division fund, this outside force into the con valley, $100 billion vc fund that can do a lot of things because it had so much money. one of the ways is to go into something like we work and bankroll we work, a business not ready for the long haul. carol: funny you talk about the business model. they were very aggressive. joel: they flooded the zone with money. go big or go home. sometimes that works. they have had some wins. other times it doesn't. the other thing it reveals is the culture within softbank, and

specifically, the vision fund, where there's a lot of tension. not always great decisions. carol: another big story, businessweek turns 90. joel: it's great. jason: you look great for 90. joel: the magazine has been around for 90 years. we honor that with an essay on how businessweek has covered business through the decade. sometimes we mark moments that history hasn't looked back on so kindly. as a cover about the, death of equities there for a couple years afterwards looked so good, then doesn't look so good now. it's an amazing accomplishment this magazine has been around this long. are we the authoritative voice we've been on business? jason: so interesting talking to the people who put together that essay. their combined tenure is almost 90 years, in effect. joel: we don't go all the way back to 1929, ready for the -- right before the crash, but

collectively, the people who worked on this essay can trace their lineage back to people they worked with who did it work back then. jason: thank you. 90th andr more on the its launch back in 1929 -- jason: someone who has spent three decades contributing to the magazine, it's economics editor, peter coy. peter: i was with the magazine from one third of my life, pretty proud of that, but i was not around in 1929. the fascinating thing is the magazine's launch in september of 1929, which history buffs would recall is seven weeks before the terrible stock market crash, which helped usher in the great depression. so, not an auspicious time to be launching a magazine. but we survived those tough times and ended up thriving, eventually, huge success. and at one point, had more advertising pages that any magazine in the country.

and more circulation then any business magazine in the world. jason: what was the idea from the beginning? peter: mcgraw-hill was the publisher. they bought a company called aw shaw, which had a magazine called system, a magazine called business. and that was a monthly. they spent about a year tinkering with it and relaunched it as a weekly, which was originally called v businessweek. it was intended to be, in a way, will we intended to do today, which was to be a quick read for people who care about business, whether you're a business person yourself or not. but you're interested. as opposed to the trade magazines which were very niche, vertical, it was intended to be for everyone. carol: that's what i think is great. for most, they have a core thing they are interested in, but they are interested in the world at large. as we've learned, it's all

interconnected. peter: it is. if you are working for a tech company, you'll be interested in the tech coverage. but you might be more interested in the coverage of adjacent areas, because you're not following that on a day-to-day basis, yet it will impinge on your life. carol: you guys go into it in terms of early history on how this magazine, whether through economists featured or some of the stories, could really put pressure on the government in terms of policy. it became a must rate. -- must read. peter: i think you're referring to our early coverage. we follow a specific economist not well-known in the united states.

businessweek was the first and most important publication that sort of championed some of his ideas. remember, when the depression hit, people had no idea what to do about it. there were a lot of people say, ok let's get rid of the rot. all ofan just liquidate these people who took on foolish loans, that will clean the system. what kane said that's the wrong solution. that will spiral downward. the government needs to support the economy with tax cuts and spending until it can get back on its feet. you don't put someone who's been in a car accident through vigorous physical exercise. you have to help them recover, give them i v fluids. that's the message. carol: coming up, peter coy will be back to tackle levels.

jason: we never get enough of peter coy. boeing halting 737 max production. we'll look at what went wrong. this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ carol: welcome back.

i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. join as everyday on the radio. also, catch up on our daily show. listen and subscribe to our podcast. get it at bloomberg.com. carol: you can find us online and on our mobile app. our top mobile story, it was boeing. jason: the company halting production of its grounded 737 max in january, which could deepen the crisis, engulfing the plane maker and ripple through the u.s. economy. carol: peter robison has been following boeing for years. he explains from seattle. peter: people focus on the pressure boeing put on its design team to finish the plane and the way the faa was blind to

the change because they had delegated the process to boeing. what we looked at was specifically within the group of boeing pilots. it's a group of people who test the planes and write the manuals and train customers. what we found was during that period when the max was developed, it was in disarray. they weren't speaking to each other because there were disputes over plans to make more money from jenny customers. -- training customers. training had been a service boeing provided, but boeing felt it needed to turn it into a revenue generator. there were disagreements over that. at the time the max development was peaking, boeing moved developers from seattle to miami. it put distance between design teams that were located pretty close together, especially given the difficulty crews had flying the plane. looking at training was important. carol: this was a big story.

this all concept of separating pilots from the engineers, where it used to be. boeing wrote the book on checklists and quality training and doing everything right. part of it was all the involved and important parties were physically near each other and constantly talking to each other. peter: exactly. there's a note of frustration i hear from people talking about this because they feel it didn't used to be this way. on planes like the triple seven, you had a lot of crosstalk and collaboration. time the max was developed, these groups were in different divisions. they had different managers, different motivations. carol: as a company, customer training used to be a service. it was a cost to boeing. they wanted to make that into another revenue line, a revenue source. that was at play, as well. peter: right, this goes back 20 years.

there was a point in 19 97 when boeing formed a joint venture with a company owned by warren buffett. that's when it got the training facilities in miami. by all accounts, that didn't work well. boeing continued this effort to make money from training. it's focus as all these new pilots coming in the industry, we need to cut costs. the manager of the units said our marching owners here, given what's coming, we need to make training less expensive. boeing introduced a point system where some of the instructors felt they created incentives for airlines not to train pilots. they felt pilots would use these points on training flight attendants or maintenance technicians. carol: there has been so much time trying to figure out what happened to these planes. there's been a lot of reporting, commissions looking into it, regulators looking into it. are we closer to finding out what went wrong here?

peter: there hasn't been a public chronology of who did what when that makes it comprehensible to everyone after the challenger explosion. but the report by national -- international aviation authorities, led by the former ntsb chairman, came the closest. the report concluded that boeing simply didn't test the specific malfunction that brought down these planes. it was a malfunction of a vein that set off the software the pilots hadn't been told about. ultimately, that comes down to not having sat down at the simulator, talked about it, worked through potential failure scenarios. carol: from boeing to the bull market. as we head into the new year and decade, the 2010s were really good for stocks, perhaps better than they seem. jason: that bull keeps running. here's this week's explainer on the longest, coldest -- call

-- calmest bull market in history. eisenhower was in the white house. tv was mostly black and white. and the baby boom was at its peak. that was the 1950's, last time the stocks had a decade like the one they are wrapping up now. stocks in the s&p 500 turned 249% in the last 10 years, 1.2 times the historical average. not only that, the 2010s were the first decade without able market, a 27% drop from the peak. there were plenty of moments to make investors queasy. six separate 10% correction, europe's sovereign debt crisis in 2011 and 2012, and now a global trade war. but none of those killed the bull. while perceptions of risk were high, fundamentals were stable. u.s. gdp extended to 2.9% each of the last nine years. is expected to be in the same range in 2019.

that's the smallest fluctuation in any stretch of data back to 1930's. led to a stretch of wins in the market and like a kids sports league, almost every investor took home a trophy. carol: we can't talk about the bull market without talking about bubbles. we have seen a few. jason: someone who has seen a , peter coy is back with this week's remarks. he talks about why the risky pursuits of returns and negative rates are no laughing matter. peter: the economy's recovering from the worst financial crisis since the great depression. we had a long run of growth. but what? we're heading into another bubble, as evidenced by the lowest interest rates in the history of the world. as far as i can tell, and somebody can disprove me, this has never happened before.

and so what happens when rates go so low? investors are desperate for yield. that means they take on more risk. that is the definition of a bubble, when you ignore risks and you just make a bet that this asset price is going to go up and up and up. carol: investors get stressed out when prices are down in terms of assets, yet that's the point where there's opportunity, versus when you've got valuations at a higher level. peter: right now, it's a holiday season. carol: there you go. peter: i'm not going to sing, but there is this attitude like, things are good. stock market is hitting new highs, there is a lot of jubilation in the air. well, that's when you should be worrying because that's when -- bad loans get made in good times. the american economist said

instability breeds instability. that's exactly when the y overreach. carol: coming up, and overlooked but vital corner of the financial system. the repo market. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪ jason: welcome back.

i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. you can also listen to us on the 119, on sirius xm channel 106.1 in boston. jason: amn 60 in the bay area. in london on a dab digital and through the bloomberg business app. carol: the repo market makes eyes glaze over, others turn away from you at a cocktail party, but it's an important one. jason: we needed to make sense out of it. there was a story online this week, we called on we called on joe weisenthal, markets editor,

markets guru. we have him on our show every day. he gave us a metaphor you are going to remember. check it out. joe: the repo market is essentially how various entities, whether it's a bank, whether it's a hedge fund, money fund, how they finance themselves on an overnight basis. nobody wants to hold cash because cash doesn't really earn anything and people want to be maximizing their profits. so what they do when they need liquidity's they borrow it overnight, and they might pay collateral like mortgage bonds, to make the cash bills that they need to pay so they can make the bills they need to pay. jason: it's one of those things no one cares about until it stops working, which is what happened in september. joe: exactly. in september, we saw the rates on overnight repo borrowing absolutely soar.

it's important to recognize that prior to that, for most of the time, it moves in line with where the fed sets the rate. it's one mechanism in which the fed sets short-term interest rates and you expect them to behave. the issue is, the cash that banks have is really reserves held at the fed and the fed trying to "normalize" its operations post-crisis has been reducing cash at the fed. at the same time, you have regulators telling banks you have to hold a certain amount of cash to ensure you have adequate liquidity. what we saw in september was a confluence of multiple things. there is the fed tightening. there's the regulatory restraints, saying you need to hold these reserves even though the fed is eliminating their existence. then you have the timing issue, where due to tax payments, treasury auctions, suddenly that

created a lot of demand. carol: it was the end of the quarter. joe: that's exactly right. end of quarter payments. there's another issue, where the quarter end and year end is when regulators take a look. the analogy i like to use is you might have a messy bedroom, but if you know five or 10 mins before your dad is home, you clean up. occasionally, the regulators come peeking in and they want to see how liquid is your balance sheet. what assets do you hold? everybody scrambles to hold their most liquid assets at the same time. the problem is if there's a finite amount of them, you have to pay up. carol: could we expect another squeeze in december? joe: this is a big question. the man everybody listens to his

-- two on repo is a strategist at credit suisse whenever he puts out a note, everybody wants to get it. he is concerned about this, there's going to be this major liquidity squeeze, various entities demand this liquidity ahead of regulators checking in. the flipside is the fed seems to be more cognizant of the risks. they've certainly stopped shrinking their supply of reserve balances. that eases some of the strain. they've engaged in operations, where people can borrow, is essentially, liquidity at the -- essentially, liquidity at the fed. it's kind of unclear right now. but what we saw in september may have been what have kicked regulators into gear to present a blow. but we don't know for sure. jason: coming up, we catch up with a guest on this year's bloomberg 50.

carol: going above and beyond, our exclusive conversation with the beyond meat founder on the company's banner year and what is to come in 2020. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

jason: welcome back. i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. still ahead, vanillanomics. watching global market forces at work. jason: i'm glad you said that, not me. it's great story. you've probably seen the ads, mission, wetheir hear from bombas, on growing the company. carol: love that story. first, beyond meat.

barclays has forecasted that meat alternatives will be a market. this might explain when they debuted back in may, shares soared, making the best ipo since the financial crisis. jason: it's also by the company and the ceo made the bloomberg 50 list. here's our chat with ethan brown. he joins us from los angeles, tells us what surprised him in 2019. >> it is around, continue to educate the media just how healthy and how much ever company is driven by the human health imperative. if you look at the products we're creating, take the duncan sausage. it has 50% less fat, 37% less sodium. more protein and more iron. when you're beginning with a blank canvas, you can leave out the things you wouldn't want to be consuming, such as cholesterol. you can lower things like saturated fat.

we provide a consumer with a healthy product they get to enjoy, yet continue to move the ball forward and make the products healthier. as we get into 2020, we drive toward goals that will enable the consumer to do what they love. carol: do you think about doing reformulating to lower calories or lower sodium? is that in the future? >> if you look at the dna, we are an innovation driven company. we produce all our products in the u.s. and have our innovation center in los angeles. we call that the manhattan beach project. more importantly, we want to invoke the sense of urgency and scale that occurred in the second world war with the manhattan project. we brought together the best scientists and engineers and have a clear goal. when you're doing that, you're always improving. we have flavor, aroma, flavor, and texture. it's also about market and helping understand the products.

when you look at the beyond burger, that has 16% the daily value of sodium. not 60, 16%. that's reasonable, such as two flour tortillas or half a cup of marinara sauce. a lot of it is separating the misinformation and reality. this is one i consume almost daily, something i feel good about giving my own children. let's educate consumers about the health of our products and the process. we're proud of our process. if you look at how we produce meat from plants, instead of running plant material through animals and the antibiotics and the hormones, depending on the species, what we are doing is taking the protein from the plant, running it through heating, cooling, and pressure, and that resets the bond.

that's it. that's a much better process. we offer complete transparency. you can be welcome at our facilities. people should see where their food is made. we believe strongly in that principle. jason: walk us through assessing these concepts. you've name checked some of the best-unknown fast food. you've got some partnerships in casual dining. how does that work? it feels like everybody wants a piece of this market right now. >> you always want to align yourself with marquee players. when we decided to go into retail in 2009, the first company will be called was whole foods. you look at our venture history, the first venture firm was kleiner perkins. we have a great list now. but if you're now looking at the fast food space, quick serve restaurants, you want to adopt the same philosophy. who are the marquee players? how do you become of service to

them. whether it is mcdonald's, subway, we are looking at carl's jr., we are looking to serve the very best partners in the space. carol: what is the focus? retail or food-service? a 50/50 split? >> it's a relationship with the consumer that makes the business special. we listen to what they say. they say to keep everything natural. that's what we do. that makes it harder. it would be easier for animal protein. we won't do that. we're focused on what the consumer wants. if it's quick serve restaurants, we'll be there for them. if it is retail, we will be there for them. right now it's 50-50. carol: it could change going forward. jason: when you think about the test -- let's talk about mcdonald's. what have you learned so far?

obviously, that's from a volume perspective, but also a brand perspective, something everyone has been looking at closely. what have you taken away from that test? >> i had the great privilege of being in the ontario area, and i drove out to mcdonald's. i went to three different stores and had the burger at each location. and they were identical and delicious. it was a fantastic experience for me, and one that was very satisfying. it was a goal i had for a long time to be of service to mcdonald's. it's going very well. i think you heard the ceo of mcdonald's canada say that. we cannot comment further than what they said publicly but we are enthusiastic. carol: does it expand into the united states? >> that's up to them. what you want is a great test and i think we have every sign that's the case. carol: china accounts for 27% percent of meat volume.

they already eat plant protein and they look at meat as a status symbol there. what's your approach? what are your expectations for china? >> we are aggressive in each market we occupy, whether he united states, mcdonald's, kfc, etc. you'll see us move with speed and exploit the first mover advantage we have in terms of building the brand closely associated with the plant meat movement. i can't disclose anything in particular, but we are excited about that market and very active in our plans. jason: let's talk about chicken if we can. big chicken fans. the kfc test, as it were, down in atlanta, was where it was. it went gangbusters. how soon can you get into that market in a meaningful way? >> you'll see exciting things from us in the poultry space in

2020. i can't name partners or developers, but we look at three core platforms. beef, pork, and poultry. you can see consumers pulling off beef and pork. you're also starting to see pressure on the poultry industry. we've done a lot of work there. you'll see the fruits of that in 2020. jason: i do wonder what you've learned along this interesting year as the ceo and leader of the company that is about a lifestyle and who we are. >> to get up every day and go into an office and work on issues that are important, not only personally but to the world, is a privilege. we were recognized by the markets for what we're doing. we don't believe that this is a short-lived trend.

this is something that has long legs to it. if you think about what we're doing, we are not suggesting people don't eat meat. that would be a big mistake. i love fried chicken and burgers. the idea behind the company is to provide a better form of meat, to provide meat that provides the experience we love but in ways that's healthier for the bodies and earth. if you look at what the mobile phone did, nobody had to denigrate the landline. we don't think we have to denigrate animal protein. we just have to provide the consumer with a new and better choice and let them make the decision. if we're successful, more and more will sign on. jason: coming up, the economics of vanilla. carol: dubai and saudi arabia. only a two hour flight, but one of the most profitable for the largest international airlines. jason: this is bloomberg businessweek.

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jason: jason: welcome back. i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. join bloomberg businessweek every day on the radio. you can catch up on every daily show by listening to our podcast. jason: and of course, you can find us online at businessweek.com and our mobile app. you pointed this out. this is the type of peace businessweek does well. it takes something many of us take for granted, in this case something in all of our kitchens, we're talking about vanilla. it goes deep and it explains the wild market economics. carol: it required a wild trip to get this done. here's the adventure in madagascar. >> this is a regional market, a place where vanilla enters the international marketplace. and it's really remote, really

hard to get to. it's basically a hut, a wooden hut in a really small village in northeastern madagascar. and just to give you an idea of how tough it is to get there, you fly to the capital, you take a small plane to a small airport in the northeast. then you have to drive over really bad roads to get to this particular market area. when we did that, our driver couldn't go any further because the road was swallowed by a river. we had to wade across the river and walk for a couple hours beyond that to reach this little hut in a village where dozens of farmers would bring their annual harvest of vanilla. that's where it would be bartered over by international flavor companies and exporters, and then go out into the wider world.

carol: there's a great line in your story where you talk about where you went, this great observation lab. i'm going to quote your line, " it exposes the genius and insanity of globalized commerce. -- commerce." that's what you saw at work. >> yes. it's almost hard to imagine what happened in the vanilla trade, for example, how the crop is paid for. it's all cash. it's a cash economy. the buyers have to get cash along the same route we took. the biggest denomination bill in madagascar is worth about five dollars and these buyers are buying tons of vanilla beans. these vanilla beans can cost as much as $600 per kilo. they need lots of cash. they bring bales and bales of cash to these markets on the back of motorcycles, and just being carried.

that is one example of kind of the strange market that vanilla is, because of its isolation in madagascar, and also because of price swings. jason: i have to say, reading this story, between the two of us, this notion of how is this market limited to this one really obscure place? this is not one of those things you read about, where only people who are billionaires can get this. this is something we both have in our homes. how has this been so limited to this one geography? >> it comes from an orchid. it grows from the flower of an orchid. it's native to mexico. but many years ago, it was transferred to africa and it was found that it grew very well in madagascar. vanilla is not one of those

products that can be grown like soybeans. an easily managed commodity. it is a stubborn crop. it likes to grow among other plants and it's incredibly labor intensive. so every step of the growing and cultivation process is done by hand, even the pollination of flowers is done by hand. so, it basically comes down to one of the main reasons madagascar dominates the trade so much, labor cost. the minimum wage is about $.18 an hour. so, in talking with people who work for vanilla companies, they talk about trying to grow, start plantations in other tropical areas like places like indonesia, countries in africa that have started to develop a vanilla industry.

but they say that works well when vanilla prices are at highs. but whenever the prices tank, it becomes financially unstable to invest in those kinds of operations. jason: for a long trip in search of vanilla, to a much shorter pedestrian trip that has helped build emirates into the world's largest international airline. carol: it's a story on one of the most profitable routes and how the airline got there. here's the editor of the business section, jim ellis. >> emirates, which a lot of people thought won't make it simply because it's got this hub in the middle of the desert, they've become the largest international airline. they have basically become a connecting point for long-haul traffic around the world. it makes a lot of sense because of the placement of the gulf region. traffic from asia, australia could connect from north america and it becomes a mega hub.

people think of it as the airline for long haul travel. what's interesting is it turns out one of their most profitable routes is a short, two hour flight from dubai to riyadh, the capital of saudi arabia. it's because of some truisms about business the saudis don't like, but a lot of people that work in saudi arabia don't want to live in saudi arabia, at least not all the time. there's no alcohol. there's a lot of restrictions on women. it's the exact opposite of dubai, the freewheeling fun spot of the middle east. it's a place where lots of people from outside the region love to live. a lot of people have moved to there. as dubai's growth has slowed, more have to look for work elsewhere.

a lot of them go to saudi arabia because the government has a lot of projects that need outside consultants and expertise. saudi arabia is responsible for half of the consulting revenue in the middle east. jason: that is amazing. >> it is a small country, even though it's a rich country, and it needs a lot of things, energy people, everything from education, energy, and diversification away from the energy economy. they bring in a lot of people for that. a cottage industry has broken out for people who live in dubai on the weekends and work in saudi arabia during the week. jason: coming up, many have heard of it. a stock brand with a mission, helping those in need. carol: we sat down with the founder. this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

carol: welcome back. i'm carol massar. jason: i'm jason kelly. you can also listen to us on the radio. three xm channel 119, 11 .0 in new york, 106.1 in boston. carol: am 960 in the bay area. in london on dab digital radio and the bloomberg business radio app. carol: -- jason: this direct to consumer suck company bombas started in 2013 as a way to help the homeless. for every pair of socks they sell, they donate a pair to those in need. carol: and they've done it at a profit, and with impressive growth. we caught up with founder david heath. david: we were always focused on positive roi, in terms of customer acquisition. one of the things that separates us from our peers is in total to date, we've only raised $4 million in capital, while a lot of our peers have raised $150 million. you peek behind the curtain, none of them are generating any

money because they are basing this ratio. -- chasing this lifetime value per cost per acquisition ratio. we went back to fundamentals. consumer businesses have been around 100 years now. the way consumer businesses work, you buy a product for y, sell it for x, and by the -- and run the company for margin. what is direct to consumer have to be different? so we bucked the trend and we've been profitable every single year, we've been in business except for year two. carol: what is your growth rate? >> 100% year over year. some years close to 200%. carol: and you're at $100 million, $200 million or so? david: just about. jason: talk to us about the customer. i am a customer. it's interesting because i've both bought socks, and they've been giveaways. carol: it's a great gift. jason: it is a great gift. who is the typical customer, if

you could generalize? david: there is not really just one. what we've been super surprised about we have broad demographics. that's to the point, socks are an item every single person wears, whether you're two years old or 92 years old, you're probably wearing socks at some point in your year, even if you live in warm weather climate. and i think the idea we produced something that stands out in the marketplace, super comfortable, comfort is not unique to millennials or boomers. everyone wants to feel comfort. we've got just as many customers 25-35 that we do that are 65-75 and older. same thing with demographics. 25% of our customers are under $150,000 a year. 25% earn over. we see it as an affordable luxury. one of the benchmarks we used was starbucks. we took a commodity product, improved upon it, provided a

good customer experience and great brand, and you can see how a customer who spent $20 a year on socks would spend $60 a year on socks. $20 is not the difference between them paying their mortgage or not. you can't do that with a car. because it's an affordable luxury and because we have our mission and because our product stands so much in the marketplace, it attracts a large group of customers. carol: i also think people are thinking about, let me do something. i'll pay up for quality. something that will last. that's also giving back and doing good, maybe not impacting the environment as much. we're slowly seeing that happen in retail. we see the waste in the retail industry, people starting to filter through. you're saying that play out. david: totally. we're living in a social media age, where information is king. no longer can you hide bad

company values behind a closed door. whether it's glassdoor with employees, social media where customers expressed a good a goodoing to post experience or bad experience, the benchmark and the standards by which you have to live are so high. but it's great because it makes everybody responsible. the lens and the voices moved. the power shifted back to the consumer. it used to be, there was a delay and you can cover it up for a while. this day and age? information is flowing rampantly. you can't hide behind these things. you look at these companies, wework, or even away, you can't prop up a company on bad actions. it will eventually suss out. you have to play by the rules. jason: bloomberg businessweek is available on newsstands now.

carol: and also online and our mobile app. you can find more stories, including this week's cover. alright, what is your must-read? jason: one of the shorter stories. it's a story about emirates. i love that airline. it's a story that tells the story of this route, but also the economics. carol: my must read was about vanilla, going to madagascar. the trip alone was difficult. he got into how does vanilla get to stores here into our pantries? it is a complicated story. it tells the story of global trade. jason: not such a rare element. wow, what a market. carol: check out our podcast on apple podcasts, soundcloud, wherever you get your podcast. jason: this week, the ceo of -- our whole conversation with the ceo of beyond meat. more bloomberg television starts

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scarlet: i'm scarlet fu, this is "etf iq," where we focus on the access, risks and rewards offered by exchange traded funds. scarlet: 2020 vision. global macro investor tpw not looking through rose-colored glasses and makes the case for why the america first trade still has legs. hoping for a roaring 20's? we will show you how to get there without backup gin. you will need more than that cheap index fund that did well in the last decade. remember the old saying, "be kind, rewind?" we have a blockbuster etf that