Bloomberg Businessweek

Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

During the pandemic and the subsequent "Great Resignation," corporate leaders adopted an empathetic, employee-friendly persona, offering flexible remote-work policies, wellness perks, and mental health support to attract scarce talent. However, as economic pressures like inflation and high interest rates mounted, the labor market cooled, shifting leverage firmly back into the hands of employers. In response, CEOs quickly abandoned their "warm and fuzzy" approach to prioritize profit margins and shareholder demands.

This shift has ushered in a ruthless return to aggressive workforce management and cost-cutting. To extract maximum productivity, executives are enforcing strict return-to-office mandates, rolling back employee perks, and utilizing performance reviews to quietly downsize staff. With fewer job openings available, workers are being forced to accept heavier workloads and tighter corporate surveillance, signaling a definitive end to the brief era of employee empowerment.

On this episode, Carol and Tim speak with:
Matthew Boyle, Bloomberg News Senior Reporter, Work and Management on CEOs Drop Warm and Fuzzy in 'Ruthless' Push to Squeeze Workers
Nakul Duggal, Head of Qualcomm's Automotive, Robotics and IoT Businesses on Qualcomm and Stellantis announced a partnership to enable automated driving on millions of Stellantis vehicles using Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Ride Pilot system 
Stew Leonard Jr., Stew Leonard's President & CEO on Memorial Day grilling/grocery costs
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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

When Kevin Hart announced in January that he’d licensed his name to Authentic Brands Group, the popular comedian was silent on a key detail: the future of his namesake media company. Hart sold some ownership and oversight of his brand in exchange for an undisclosed sum of money and a stake in Authentic, a New York-based firm that manages the likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Shaquille O’Neal and David Beckham. Hart used the partnership with Authentic to reset his relationship with the people around him and his company, according to six current and former employees. Hart’s employees say they worry that this deal marks the beginning of the end of Hartbeat, the comedian’s namesake media company that produces films, owns a network of short-form video channels and handles marketing for brands. Though the announcement made no mention of Hartbeat, the agreement gave Hart money to buy out his private equity partner in the company over time and regain control of the use of his name, image and likeness. Hart’s endorsement deals, which had been a pillar of Hartbeat business, will now be handled by Authentic.

For more, Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo speak with Lucas Shaw, Bloomberg News Managing Editor, Media & Entertainment and writer of the Bloomberg Screentime Newsletter
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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

SpaceX is marketing itself to IPO investors as an artificial intelligence play targeting a $26.5 trillion potential market opportunity, signaling its intention to wrest business from investor darlings whose valuations have soared.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., leaned heavily on its ambitions in the ever-expanding AI market in its initial public offering filing Wednesday. Out of a $28.5 trillion total addressable market across its businesses, SpaceX sees AI opportunities accounting for 93%, with enterprise applications accounting for the vast majority. Space, Starlink internet and mobile would contribute close to $2 trillion.

Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company is effectively basing its pitch for the biggest IPO in history on the idea that it can capture a huge share of the market from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Alphabet Inc.’s AI systems: technology that will eventually automate large swaths of white-collar and administrative work, creating a massive market for software that can perform digital tasks traditionally handled by humans.

On this episode, Carol and Tim speak with:
Ed Ludlow, Bloomberg Tech Co-Host
Gautam Bhandari, Co-Founder, Managing Partner & Global CIO at I Squared on data from the ISQ OpenInfra Index, showing survey results of financial advisors who work with alternative investments
Tripp Hornick, Principal, Quince Street Strategy on national security, critical minerals policy, global supply chain risk mitigation of the Trump administration
Dr. Danish Nagda, CEO of Rezilient Health on Rezy AI health care platform and health care technology
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Active managers who briefly looked like they might finally have their moment earlier this year are once again confronting a familiar problem: a market rally driven by a tiny group of tech mega caps that diversified portfolios simply can’t keep up with.The share of mutual funds outperforming the S&P 500 this year has plunged to just 28%, according to the latest data from Barclays, down from over 60% at the end of February. After benefiting from a rotation out of high flying technology shares and into the broader market, stock pickers are getting left behind as money floods back into a narrow group of AI-fueled heavyweights.

For more on the generally bearish, Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo speaks with Thomas Thornton, President at Hedge Fund Telemetry and Alexandra Semenova, Bloomberg US Stocks Reporter
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