What NYC's Most Powerful CEOs Think About Zohran Mamdani

When socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic party's nomination for NYC mayor, top business leaders experienced a bout of hysteria. That's according to Kathy Wylde, the president and CEO of the non-profit organization the Partnership for New York City. Founded in 1979, the organization assembles the CEOs of some of the biggest employers in New York City in order to work on city issues. Wylde herself is often characterized as one of the ultimate NYC power brokers. In fact, she's been actively facilitating phone calls and meetings between Mamdani and the CEOs (most of whom backed Cuomo in the primary) who are anxious about what a socialist mayor would mean for the city. We talked to her about what they're most concerned about, what they want to see from Mamdani (if he wins), what could push businesses and people to move out of the city, and what they think about him after they talk. Read more:NYC Billionaires Are Richer Than Ever as Mamdani Pushes for Higher TaxesCity-Run Supermarkets Aren’t New. But No One’s Tried Them in a City Like New York Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Finance is increasingly being built on digital rails. But as the adoption of virtual assets, tokenization and stable coins grows, can regulation not only keep pace but help accelerate it? Find out more later in the podcast.

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  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Business Week's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.

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  But according to recruiters, advisors and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company. And Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates, quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at chatgpt.com.

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• 2:29Joe Weisenthal?

  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

• 2:34Tracy Alloway?

  And I'm Tracy Alloway.

• 2:36Joe Weisenthal?

  A former Odd Lots guest is very likely to be the next mayor of New York City.

• 2:40Tracy Alloway?

  That's right. So we interviewed Zohran Mamdani, I think it was in early May. And right after that, I'm not saying, I'm not going to take credit for this, but right after that, he really started to surge in the polls and he went on to win the Democratic nomination.

• 2:56Joe Weisenthal?

  I think we take very, very minor credit.

• 2:59Tracy Alloway?

  I'm sure it was a coincidence.

• 3:00Joe Weisenthal?

  The thing actually that struck me after that episode was hearing from a lot of people who were basically like, I don't like any of his ideas at all, but I still like the guy and I still found him impressive and intelligent and very, you know, a strong understanding of policy. And look, I don't think his victory is attributable to us, but I did think that was telling in the sense that a lot of people who maybe on paper shouldn't or wouldn't really like some of his views, didn't seem particularly threatened by him, which I thought was like really interesting and may have contributed to his sort of extraordinary margin, his extraordinary victory.

• 3:40Tracy Alloway?

  I do think what's interesting about this whole story is the tension between New York City as this hub of capitalism, this hub of business. You have a lot of money here, a lot of billionaires, obviously with their own interests. And now you have this democratic socialist candidate who's proposing something a little bit new, although some people would say we had something more similar to that in, say, the 1950s, 1960s, New York. But that tension is what I find really fascinating right now.

• 4:09Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah. So we have to, we have to learn more. I mean, again, in the run up to the election, like what are New York City's business, financial elites thinking right now? What do they think of a possible Mamdani mayoralty? What do they think about New York City in general? All of this stuff, there's a lot, there's a lot to learn. This is going to be a rich vein of interesting stuff for us for a while.

• 4:30Tracy Alloway?

  We're going all New York local politics, I guess. But I do think it has National consequences.

• 4:35Joe Weisenthal?

  International.

• 4:36Tracy Alloway?

  So we should talk about it.

• 4:36Joe Weisenthal?

  We should definitely talk about it. Anyway, I'm really excited. We do have indeed the perfect guest to talk about how the city's business elite billionaires, et cetera, are thinking about the city, think about the election, the possibility of Mamdani being the mayor. We are going to be speaking with Kathy Wilde. She's the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which is an organization, a business leadership organization here, all kinds of major employers. If you read any article about Kathy in the media, described as sort of one of the ultimate power brokers of New York City.

• 5:13Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, words like power brokers, power player comes up.

• 5:17Joe Weisenthal?

  In every single one. And so truly the perfect guest. So Kathy, thank you so much for coming on Outlets.

• 5:22Speaker 06

  Thank you for having me, Joe and Teresa.

• 5:24Joe Weisenthal?

  Absolutely. We're really excited. Why don't you, just before we move on, describe what the Partnership for New York City is and what you basically do there?

• 5:32Speaker 06

  The Partnership is business working in the interests of the city. It's not a chamber of commerce. It was organized after the city's 1975 fiscal crisis by David Rockefeller, who was then the chair of Chase Bank and other CEOs of the major corporations that were not just businesses headquartered in New York, but were real citizens of New York and trustees of its hospitals and museums and real contributors to the city as philanthropists. So it is very much a business organization that is designed to tap the expertise and the influence of the business community to support New York City and to maintain it

• 6:17Speaker 06

  as the city of great economic opportunity.

• 6:21Tracy Alloway?

  What's the Partnership's relationship like typically with the mayoral administration? And are there examples where you've worked together to effectively do something or maybe change the path of policy?

• 6:34Speaker 06

  Well, absolutely. The partnership's relationship to government is really is an intermediary between business and government, as I said, to provide expertise, to provide advice, to give feedback, really to be a resource more than an adversary of with the local government, in particular, local state government and to some extent, the federal government when there are overriding issues that make a big impact on New York that are being considered in Washington.

• 7:05Joe Weisenthal?

  When did Zohran come on the radar of the people that you talk to, of the CEOs, et cetera? Like, in the run-up, like, was it a month before? Was he, were they thinking about him at all three months before the election? I'm sort of curious, like, when it may have flickered in their minds that the Democratic Party could nominate a socialist?

• 7:22Speaker 06

  I would have to say that it was primary night about 10 o'clock.

• 7:28Joe Weisenthal?

  Really? Yeah, that's incredible to me. That's incredible to me.

• 7:32Speaker 06

  Well, I had forewarned them that it was a possibility, but I think Cuomo had been a figure in their lives as mayor's son, as attorney general, as governor for 20-some years, and it was kind of a foregone conclusion is the guy we know who's now running for mayor is going to be mayor.

• 7:54Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 06

  And especially after Mayor Adams announced he was not going to be in the Democratic primary. And so they had kind of zeroed in on accepting that it was going to be Cuomo. And really, no one had met Zohran.

• 8:11Tracy Alloway?

  What was the mood like on primary night? Did everyone immediately go home and start looking up socialism on the internet on ChatGPT?

• 8:18Speaker 06

  Well, I would say hysteria would be a good word for it. Shock was first, shock first, and what happened and who is this person? And so I tried to provide some reassurance. We had, for the past 20 years, led efforts to bring congestion pricing to New York City, to both manage traffic, but to really make the city a more efficient place. Excess traffic congestion was costing the city $20 billion a year with lost time, lost productivity. And what makes New York a great place to work is the productive workforce. So we'd been an advocate of congestion pricing, and I had actually Met Zohran in that context at the Riders Alliance,

• 9:03Speaker 06

  which is a group of subway riders advocates, and had found him to be a very smart, interesting young man. So I had known him. And then he reached out to me last September and said, I'd like to talk to you about my mayoral prospects, when he was polling at 1%. And so I met him for coffee at the LPQ at 85 Broad, and we had a conversation. And I found him to be smart. And I took him seriously from then on.

• 9:37Joe Weisenthal?

  Hmm. I'm impressed, from his perspective, that that early on, he wanted to sort of build that connection or make that connection with you. Before we talk more about him, a friend of mine described you as a therapist to the New York City billionaires. They're hysterical on, or they're experiencing hysteria on primary night. Did you feel like that was your role in that night? Did you feel like a therapist to the members of the partnership?

• 10:04Speaker 06

  To provide reassurance to the business community. I mean, number one, to remind them that many of the things they were most worried about from a democratic socialist candidate were things that he has absolutely no capacity to execute on. So, for example, raising corporate and income taxes is not something that the city or the mayor can do. Free buses is not something the mayor can do in figuring out where you make up that 800 million in revenues. So that was number one. Reassuring them that we have a moderate governor who's watching out for business interests,

• 10:49Speaker 06

  who says she's not going to further raise taxes in New York, which is the highest tax city in the country and in most cases, the world, for both individual income tax and corporate tax. So that was number one. Providing reassurance that

• 11:05Speaker 06

  As mayor, he would have an agenda, but there are a lot of checks and balances to work through in New York, and it's not a unilateral post. Now, that was more difficult with the real estate community because their concerns having to do with land use proceedings and approvals and construction permits, et cetera, that the mayor does control. Basically, a huge amount of control over that process. That is the one thing that's local and real estate taxes, where the mayor has significant influence. So it was more difficult with members of the real estate community, who after the primary quickly pivoted to remembering what a good friend Mayor Adams was.

• 11:46Tracy Alloway?

  So I want to talk more about the concerns of the business community, obviously, but before we do, I can't resist asking, when you first met Zohran over coffee, what advice did you give him? What did you actually say to him about a mayoral run?

• 12:02Speaker 06

  Number one, I said that you can't lead New York City unless you have a constructive relationship with the Jewish community, because that was the most obvious source of concern that he seemed not able to address. That worried me a lot. Number two, that the solution to affordability is not for government, local government, to spend more money. That the money that local government spends has to be accounted for, that you need to raise taxes to support it, and ultimately, that just ups the cost of living and the

• 12:47Speaker 06

  cost of doing business in New York, and that all ends up getting passed along to consumers. So the affordability question, which he was absolutely right to emphasize, and emphasized from the beginning, that we've got to make New York more affordable to not just poor people, to the middle class, to those people who rent an apartment, and now the average rent's almost $4,000 a month. This is the big concern of employers, and I said, this is their number one concern. How do we keep and retain young talent if they can't afford to rent an apartment in New York City? Big frustration. So that was, that was kind of the conversation that we had. And he was open to that conversation and interested in learning.

• 13:31Speaker 06

  I mean, he impressed me right away as somebody who is interested in learning more, but who has very strong opinions and is very committed. And, I mean, he's 33 years old and the world is his oyster.

• 13:47Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, you mentioned the importance of relations with the Jewish community. And I saw, I watched that, I didn't watch the whole debate, but I did watch the last debate and there was that question about which country are you going to visit first? And every candidate, but Soren said he was gonna, they were gonna visit Israel. He said he wasn't thinking about who he's gonna visit. Can you explain, from the perspective of the business leaders, New York City? Why did they perceive that good relations with Israel is such an important aspect of the job of?

• 14:18Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, why does the mayor of New York have to have a foreign policy?

• 14:22Speaker 06

  Well, their fear is that he has a foreign policy. I don't think anybody thinks the mayor of New York has to have a foreign policy, but he has a record of speaking out on issues that impact the Jewish community about Israel that they're very concerned about. And so their concern is not having, New York City has a long history of values that are very strong on supporting a diversity of people, are very tolerant of various religious beliefs, and a long history with Israel.

• 15:02Speaker 06

  I mean, when Cornell Technion partnered on, Technion is the university in Israel that really led the startup nation movement in Israel and did so much to propel their economy. And they were selected under the Bloomberg administration to establish a first-class

• 15:21Speaker 06

  Engineering School in New York on Roosevelt Island, which has been very successful and is producing a great number of PhDs. And so at the time that they came in, Technion came in, they told me how they had been funded originally. It was New York Jewish philanthropists that funded that effort. So there's this long-term relationship. And obviously, we have many people in New York who are family of Holocaust victims and survivors and for whom the fact of a Jewish homeland, a safe space for Jews around the world, is of top area of importance.

• 16:05Speaker 06

  I think that they are very concerned that the mayor of New York City respect and understand the importance of Israel and our long-term relationship. And that worries them a lot. And that's an issue that I think he has yet to resolve. I think it's difficult because he has strong support in the young Jewish community. And so I'm sure he feels that he's got a lot of people who are with him on the issues of protecting the rights of the Palestinians and concerns about that. So this is an area, again, where the fact

• 16:45Speaker 06

  that he ran a campaign and had built relationships that are a piece of New York City. He expanded the electorate to folks who have not participated. But he really did not develop much of a relationship with the historic electorate. He was running against the democratic establishment, not with it. And so the communities where much of the Jewish population is concentrated were not communities he was necessarily reaching out to, except for the young people and the social media crowd. And that's not the people who are most concerned.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  What's next for virtual assets? I'm Jacob Greece, host of Economy Scale, a series exploring growth in key global sectors. And in this episode, we're diving into the digital forces shaping finance. Sean McHugh from Dubai-based Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority has this to say.

• 17:59Speaker 07

  We're seeing a lot of institutional players come in, digital asset dedicated hedge funds, high-frequency traders and that sort of thing, and folks who service institutional clients.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  As more capital enters the market, adaptive regulation is likely to become increasingly key. Reese Merrick of Ripple says.

• 18:16Speaker 08

  A lot of regulators globally would like to keep the industry at arm's length. That's the opposite here. I think also what you'll find is that regulation and frameworks can come out, but some of them are maybe a slight iteration on some 80-year-old policy and not actually in line with what the technology can do and offer. And again, that's very different in Dubai.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. This series is brought to you by Bloomberg Media Studios and the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw, innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting

• 19:27Speaker 01

  and hiring practices, but according to recruiters, advisors and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company. And Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates, quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at ChatGPT.com.

• 20:08Tracy Alloway?

  So on the topic of the campaign, I mean, this was one of the really surprising things of him winning. He had this sort of grassroots campaign, which was very much focused on social media, lots of merchandise with really interesting designs. I've seen the Hot Girls for Zoran t-shirts, people wearing those around town, usually young women, as you mentioned. And I'm curious, are any of the people you're speaking to perhaps thinking differently about campaign donations going forward? If they donated billions of dollars for Cuomo and Zoran won?

• 20:43Speaker 06

  Well, not billions, but millions.

• 20:44Tracy Alloway?

  Okay.

• 20:46Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. I would say that, for the most part, what I'm hearing is that people feel that they contributed to Cuomo and that they don't feel they got a very good campaign out of it. They want to meet Zoran. And I think they're making, there are many, particularly in the real estate community, that are stepping up to transfer whatever donations they were making to Cuomo to Eric Adams, if you will, the, somebody that they know they can do business with and who has been supportive.

• 21:27Speaker 06

  Of tremendously positive growth in the city from the nadir of the pandemic and where our economy was, where our real estate situation. Eric Adams, it should not be ignored that he has, his administration has led rezoning efforts and really changed the zoning code for the first time since 1961. So he's made a tremendous investment in trying to begin the process of making it easier and less expensive to develop housing in the city and supported economic growth overall. So there was concern. I mean, obviously, he's the first mayor that's been indicted.

• 22:08Speaker 06

  And when he dropped out of the Democratic primary, I think that solidified most of the money going to Cuomo. But Eric is back in the general and in good form.

• 22:19Joe Weisenthal?

  I noticed you said something, I think your first answer, that the business elite had accepted Cuomo as who was going to be the nominee. Accepted, it does not sound the same as enthusiastically support. I hear that as sort of resigned. Yeah, OK.

• 22:38Tracy Alloway?

  Status Cuomo.

• 22:39Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, and so I'm curious, like-

• 22:40Tracy Alloway?

  Come on. You have to laugh at that. Good line.

• 22:43Joe Weisenthal?

  Right. Status Cuomo, that's a good one, actually.

• 22:46Tracy Alloway?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 22:47Joe Weisenthal?

  That was good. But how did they feel actually about Cuomo? And also, like, I know there's some question, it's still unclear whether he's going to run actively in November, but if they do coalesce around someone, does it definitely seem like it's going to be Adams?

• 23:03Speaker 06

  So far, I think, yes. I think it's going to be Adams. And again, it is the real estate community that's most concerned. You understand that the financial industry in New York basically is prohibited by federal regulation, SEC and FINRA and other regulation. From contributing to state and local candidates beyond a nominal amount of a few hundred dollars. So they are not, for the most part, money players in state and local elections, which has really disadvantaged New York's business community, which represents like 40% of our tax base, who can't participate in supporting candidates of their choice.

• 23:46Joe Weisenthal?

  Well, they can knock on doors like the Zohran volunteers did. They just can't donate gobs of money.

• 23:51Speaker 06

  And that would be great, but not happening.

• 23:54Joe Weisenthal?

  Okay.

• 23:55Speaker 06

  It's, most of them are beyond the door-knocking age.

• 23:59Joe Weisenthal?

  Sure.

• 24:00Speaker 06

  But your question about Cuomo. Cuomo was Attorney General during the financial crisis and was not very friendly toward the financial industry and did not develop relationships that were very positive during his tenure as Attorney General with the business community. So that was his job, to be an enforcer. And during his term as governor, he came in with a very strong agenda to try and get state spending under control and get taxes under control. But having made some, some real progress there on Medicaid reform and pension reform, as the political winds changed, there wasn't that same relationship with the business community.

• 24:42Speaker 06

  So with the exception of real estate, where he was very pro-growth, investing in infrastructure, supporting real estate development. So I would say that he had relative enthusiasm in the real estate community, but not broadly based in the business community.

• 24:59Tracy Alloway?

  So on this note, you've emphasized a number of times that a lot of business leaders obviously want to talk to Zohran, they want to get in the room with him. And you are organizing, I believe, discussions between the business community and the mayoral candidate. I think next week, we're recording this on, let's see, July 9. How do you decide who gets to be in the room with Zohran?

• 25:22Speaker 06

  Well, the first meeting we're doing, and I set this up with Zohran, he called me right after the election and said he wanted to establish those relationships. And I said, well, it's, so we set up a meeting with the CEOs of the partnership. That's on Tuesday. And so there'll be, some will join virtually, but it's going to be mostly an in-person, 150, maybe CEOs of major companies, major employers in the city, who have never met him and will be, for the first time, getting an opportunity. And that's going to be a conversation with our co-chairs, Rob Spire of Tishman Spire, and Dr. Albert Bourla of Pfizer.

• 26:05Speaker 06

  And so they'll be having a conversation with Zohran, and then we'll have some Q and A with our members. And so that's, that's number one. And then

• 26:14Joe Weisenthal?

  You'll come back next week, right? And we'll do a follow-up to this episode, and you just tell us all about how

• 26:19Speaker 06

  It'll be interesting, yes. I'm looking forward, I'm looking forward to that conversation. But I think, again, it's an introduction. And I have full confidence, as you know, having met him, Zohran is pretty good at presenting himself and very fast in terms of his thoughtful responses on issues. So I'm looking forward to that because it'll save me a lot of time reassuring him that he's not the devil, he's okay. And then on Wednesday, Kevin Ryan, who is kind of the father of Silicon Alley, Alley Corp is the name of his corporation, has, has a prolific history of creating tech companies in New York.

• 26:58Speaker 06

  Kevin is going to moderate a conversation with him, which will be heavily tech-focused, more entrepreneurs than corporate finance types. So that'll be on Wednesday.

• 27:10Speaker 06

  And then I should add that on Thursday, we'll be doing breakfast with Mayor Eric Adams. Hmm, okay. And speaking to him about his path forward. And as I said, there's been a lot of support for the policies that Eric Adams has. He started out as mayor. I had the same conversation with Eric. I'm a Brooklyn person, so I've known Eric for many years and most recently in his capacity as Brooklyn Borough President. But when we started out, he didn't know anybody in the New York business community either. But he introduced himself as saying, "My number one priority is public safety and my number two priority is a thriving economy and I'm with you."

• 27:53Speaker 06

  And having lived through eight years of Bill de Blasio as mayor, who had nothing to do or to say to them except, "You're awful people." And as Jamie Dimon famously said, "For eight years, I never got a call from Bill de Blasio when he was mayor and have never had a conversation with him." So Eric immediately reversed the de Blasio, "Big business is bad for New York." And Eric said, "I want wealthy people in New York. I want big business in New York." So I don't expect that from Zohran next week. I think that he's not going to have the same unbridled enthusiasm for billionaires.

• 28:34Speaker 06

  But I do expect that he will come across as a responsible person who's thinking seriously and is open to learning, which is most important, to listening and learning. And I think that the number one concern is, is this a dogmatic ideological person who is just going to be not interested in what we can contribute to the city or what employers contribute?

• 29:02Joe Weisenthal?

  You mentioned Kevin Ryan. I used to work for Business Insider, which was one of the Ally Corp. companies. So I'm a beneficiary of his New York City investments. You know, when the night of the primary, I got some random messages online like, are you going to leave New York City? I'm never going to leave New York City. Like, it's the best city in the world, obviously. But, you know, people do leave. And in 2021 and 2022, people pretended to think that Miami was a better option for them. I think a bunch of them came back, or they spent just the, you know, minimum amount of time there so they could, you know, qualify for their local taxes, et cetera. In your view, or in the view of the employers of New York City, what are the threats, the substantive threats

• 29:45Joe Weisenthal?

  that would say, okay, this would meaningfully change the desirability of doing business in this town?

• 29:51Speaker 06

  Number one is public safety. And that's, again, they've appreciated, particularly under Commissioner Tish, and originally under Commissioner Kichin Sewell, they have appreciated that the Adams administration has focused on public safety and that we're-

• 30:06Joe Weisenthal?

  And that's more important than things like taxes for them?

• 30:08Speaker 06

  Yes, absolutely. Because the whole basis of business being here is the talent pool. And if talent doesn't want to be here, if they're scared to leave, be in New York City, if they're worried to go on the subway because they might get mugged or pushed in front of a train, that's the worst thing that could happen to New York. So, and importantly, Zohran has acknowledged that keeping New York a destination for talent is a priority for him. So I think that message is, is very important. So that, public safety, number one. And then, as I said before, affordable housing and affordability that, again, allows

• 30:47Speaker 06

  talent to be here and doesn't have a premium cost. I mean, already, in most sectors, New York City salaries have a 20% premium at least over if you're going to locate in Texas or Florida, whatever. When it gets higher than that, it becomes hard to explain to shareholders why you're here and why you're creating jobs here. So that's, that's the other consideration. So it's, it's really- Having a safe city and having an affordable city are the top criteria. And at least in terms of having an affordable city, they've got common cause with Zohran's campaign.

• 31:25Tracy Alloway?

  This is what I was going to ask you. Are there any areas of, I guess, overlap or agreement between Zohran's agenda and the concerns or the desires of the business community?

• 31:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned, one of the big questions that'll come up next week, probably the first question that'll come up, is what is your commitment to public safety? You know, symbolically, would you keep Jesse Tish as police commissioner? And she certainly won't stay if he's going to defund the police because she's looking for more officers, more resources to really make sure that we stay the safest city in America and the world, hopefully. So that'll be public safety. And then on affordability, it'll be hoping that they can communicate that just having city government increase its budget does not improve affordability. We've got to be more creative than that.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs, and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices. But according to recruiters,

• 33:17Speaker 01

  advisors, and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company. And Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at ChatGPT.com.

• 33:55Speaker 02

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• 34:48Joe Weisenthal?

  What do you see as the main constraints to affordability? What do you, from your, just from your perspective? How many years did they, were they debating about putting up some houses at the Elizabeth Street Garden? Like, these, the process take for ever, but like, I know it's like the most hot-button topic in the world, but just broadly, what do you perceive as the main constraints towards making rent cheaper in New York City?

• 35:11Speaker 06

  30% of rent is real estate taxes in regulated buildings. So, government spending that depends on real estate taxes, that's where the majority of the city revenues come from, is driving high rents. It's not that developers in these older rent-regulated buildings are making a huge profit. It's that their costs have gone up, their water bills, et cetera. All these are on water and sewer, these are under control of the city. So there are things government can do very quickly to reduce costs, as an example.

• 35:45Joe Weisenthal?

  What about just sheer volume of housing production? Because, right in the end, like, most people, okay, rent is very expensive. It's also scarce, and that contributes to the fact that rent prices go up and that landlords can, yeah, collect a lot of rent. Do you think there are meaningful levers that could be pulled to rapidly increase the pace?

• 36:04Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 36:05Joe Weisenthal?

  In which we build, whether it's affordable housing or market-rate housing, et cetera? Like, what would you identify?

• 36:09Speaker 06

  Absolutely. Again, it's reducing government bureaucracy. Right now, I'm on the City Charter Revision Commission, which is going to put resolutions before the public, I believe, in November to look at how we can cut down on the time and cost associated with development approvals, especially for smaller projects. The other thing I want to mention that affects the cost of construction very much, but also affects all other costs, is the cost of litigation, passed along to consumers through the high insurance costs. We have the highest claims and settlements. We have the highest degree of litigation in the country. It's almost impossible to get anything through the legislature that doesn't include a private right of action.

• 36:54Speaker 06

  The trial lawyers are the strongest lobby in Albany, also have a lot of influence within the city, and we have to get down our litigation costs. Our insurance costs are substantially higher than anywhere else in the country. Our car insurance costs are 49% higher than the average in the country. Our health insurance costs are 12% higher. These are all costs that we could absolutely contain and control. And the city, which is basically self-insured, ends up paying this out of pockets, with they pay billions of dollars a year in medical malpractice, in other government...

• 37:28Joe Weisenthal?

  It could fund a lot of free buses.

• 37:30Speaker 06

  That would fund a lot of free buses.

• 37:32Tracy Alloway?

  Aren't the higher litigation costs, aren't they just a reflection of, I guess, the higher cost of living and materials?

• 37:38Speaker 06

  No, no. They're a reflection of a system where our jury awards are much higher than any place else. They call them nuclear awards. No, it's all because of laws. We have one law in the books in Albany, it's part of the labor law. It was passed 100 years ago and it was passed before we had workers' compensation and other protections for construction workers. If you have a gravity-related injury, and many of these are staged, that one law can add 5% to 7% to the cost of construction. Just that one law. And so when we say, why does it cost $1 million to produce a two-bedroom rental apartment in New York, to build it? When you look at it, you'll see that a big chunk of that is the result of the litigation

• 38:23Speaker 06

  insurance costs and the time that it takes to get anything done, the carrying costs for the time.

• 38:29Tracy Alloway?

  I want to ask a sort of social question, given your role as therapist to the wealthy. But I get a sense sometimes that there is a feeling out there among maybe a lot of people that billionaires are less charitable than they once were. Certainly going back to earlier in this century, perhaps. And I think back to Rockefeller, who you know or knew and worked with, and him bailing out the city in the 1970s. That was an act where he decided, I am going to spend money in order to save New York and contribute to New York's future. Is that an accurate portrayal of billionaires nowadays? Are they less engaged in overall society?

• 39:14Speaker 06

  Well, in many cases, the family wealth, like in the Rockefeller family, has diversified. So you don't have one person who is as wealthy. It's spread out. But the commitment to New York, to its hospitals, its museums, its universities, its institutions, we have by far the most philanthropic city in the world. I get visitors from all over the world, from Paris, from London, from LA, from San Francisco, all of whom say, How does New York create a culture which is so giving, which is so generous? And the Rockefellers and the Astors and many of the families that, you know, the key families of New York did contribute to this.

• 39:57Speaker 06

  But then you saw the tributes to Leonard Lott, who died a few weeks ago. They were all, they were from every nonprofit institution. The generosity of New Yorkers is huge. The label billionaire is often attached to self promoters who are promoting themselves as billionaires.

• 40:20Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 06

  I would distinguish that. None of the people that I'm talking about want to be known or proclaim themselves or position themselves as billionaires.

• 40:31Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, that definitely resonates. I want to go back to something. You know, you mentioned the generational divide among New York City's Jewish community and the idea that the under 40 crowd may have a very different perception of the relationship that New York City should have about the state of Israel or a state of Israel, period. And you also mentioned that, you know, for many of the people that you work with, it only dawned on them that a socialist could be the Democratic nominee at 10:00 PM on election night, which makes me wonder like how plugged they are in. Because certainly in at least the month prior to the election, it became very obvious to me that this was like a very real possibility that he could win. Like, is there a persistent problem of sort of like generational awareness?

• 41:15Joe Weisenthal?

  And I'm thinking also about affordability and housing and some of these other issues where, I don't want to say like out of touch, but I guess out of touch between the business elites, the CEOs, et cetera, and what's on the mind of younger voters, period, across a range of issues?

• 41:33Speaker 06

  I think that's a very fair comment. Most of the mature business world is not living on social media.

• 41:41Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, they should be like I am.

• 41:43Speaker 06

  Well, they're not, they're not plugged into that world. And that's, that's a great contributor to the generational divide. I mean, I still read a paper, a real paper. And that's, that's a differentiator. And the other thing is that the globalization of the economy has meant, I mean, New York is a center of world industry leadership.

• 42:08Speaker 06

  And they are focused and spending their life traveling all over the world. So the fact that we're a headquarters city in all these diverse sectors in fashion and media means that the focus is global rather than local. Politically especially, the focus is Washington, which is where most of the regulatory activity is coming from, not local. City and state are sidelines compared. So it's just the nature of our changing economy over the last 50 years, which has gone from being a local 50 years ago industrial economy to being a service economy to today being

• 42:51Speaker 06

  a global digital economy. And all of that means that the attention of business leadership has been largely externally focused on the world, business, world markets, and on Washington. That just, there's only so many hours in a day. What we try and do at the partnership is synthesize for those global leaders what's happening locally and who's who and what's what. That's what we're doing with regard to the mayoral election now, is trying to bring them into the conversation at a point where they're taking it seriously and they have to prioritize it.

• 43:36Speaker 06

  But these are, these are people who are running global businesses. And that's the, that's what's changed. It's not anything else, but the focus of attention has to be global. And well, I would just mention, because we sit here in Bloomberg Podcast world, that Mike Bloomberg changed that when he was mayor. He brought the attention of our global leaders back to New York, which was extremely useful. I started as CEO of the partnership in 2000, right before 2001, before Mike was elected. And I took advantage of re-engaging. If you went to a cocktail party in New York,

• 44:20Speaker 06

  That Mike Bloomberg is going to be at. You had to talk New York. And he was a thought leader. He was the leading philanthropist. When people ask me, who replaced David Rockefeller as the leading philanthropist? And he was Mike Bloomberg. Simple.

• 44:35Tracy Alloway?

  I have to do the disclaimer here, which is, of course, Bloomberg News. Bloomberg Media is part of Bloomberg LP, which is owned by Mike Bloomberg.

• 44:43Joe Weisenthal?

  We didn't tell our guests to describe our boss as the new David Rockefeller.

• 44:48Tracy Alloway?

  No, we did not. I just have one-

• 44:50Speaker 06

  This isn't the first time I've said it, by the way.

• 44:52Tracy Alloway?

  Okay. I just have one more question, which is, have you noticed or seen at all, I guess, moments of introspection among the business community? This idea that like, oh, maybe we missed something about Zohran. Maybe we missed why he's resonating so much in the city. Maybe we should start doing something different. Maybe we need to, you know, actually build more housing or lower rents or whatever. Or are they still committed very much to this, not the status quo mode, but the Eric Adams status quo? And they want him to win.

• 45:27Speaker 06

  Again, distinguishing between the real estate community that sees the potential of an existential threat to private development. Putting that aside, in terms of the general business community, I think your point that they're feeling a little out of touch with what's been happening on the ground. And they want to plug in. They are really interested. I mean, we've had tremendous interest in meeting Zohran, speaking with him. He's made calls to some business leaders.

• 46:03Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, what do they say after like the, after those phone calls? Because they've, you know, you mentioned the meetings that are coming up, but some have already, they've already chatted. Like, what is, what is their response?

• 46:12Speaker 06

  Their response is that he is, you know, they said he's the politician of a generation. I mean, he's a generational figure. They're, they're impressed after a 10-minute phone call with him because he is-

• 46:29Speaker 06

  He's a very effective communicator and he listens. And, you know, business leaders like to be listened to.

• 46:39Joe Weisenthal?

  Kathy Wilde, that was fantastic. So glad we made this happen. And like I said, maybe we'll, maybe we'll have you back at some point. Er, would love to have you back on at some point.

• 46:47Speaker 06

  Thank you. Nice to be here.

• 47:02Joe Weisenthal?

  Tracy, I really liked that conversation. There was a lot to pull from. This idea, there are a number of things. This idea that the CEOs who are headquartered here in New York City, just by the nature of the changing economy are less New York City focused themselves, to me, is like something I hadn't really thought about, but makes a lot of sense to me.

• 47:21Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. The other interesting point that Kathy brought up was, I guess, the divergence between, you know, Wall Street CEOs and perhaps other businesses versus real estate, which really seems to be freaking out about the prospects of a Mamdani mayorship.

• 47:37Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah, no, that's really interesting, this idea that it's not monolithic. I said it in the intro or I said it early on, you know, I think a lot of people who are on paper, they're like, oh, you look down the list of his policies, maybe not something that they're too into, but the fact that they don't like find him to be threatening or they don't find him to be repellent in some way. And so it's striking that already he's having these conversations. Also, like, it is just striking to me that, you know, people see him as, you know, potentially this extremely ideological person. And yet, from the very beginning of his campaign in September, was reaching out to Kathy and like making these connections. I mean, it was a really savvy campaign.

• 48:20Tracy Alloway?

  Well, the other thing on that note, first of all, I'm really fascinated to see whether or not this starts to change campaign finance and the way it works. Because again, Cuomo had all the money.

• 48:29Joe Weisenthal?

  Terrible ROI.

• 48:30Tracy Alloway?

  Yeah, exactly. And the other thing I'm really interested in is, okay, the business community, Kathy was saying one of their primary concerns is attracting talent into the city. Well, you know, that talent, presumably, a lot of it is young. There's probably a large portion in there that is, you know, of a progressive bent.

• 48:49Joe Weisenthal?

  Yeah.

• 48:49Tracy Alloway?

  And so it candidly, like Zora might appeal to them and actually bring more people into the city, so.

• 48:54Joe Weisenthal?

  It's also interesting, I mean, the safety and crime thing is the number one thing, right? That would cause people to leave because, and again, there's a lot more talk about leaving New York City than there is actually leaving New York City. And it is true that I think a lot of those people who thought they were going to decamp to Miami during the post pandemic period have come back for obvious, for obvious reasons. But it's interesting that it's not even like any of the economic stuff, it's not the socialism stuff, it's just the basic safety stuff. And there is, I know, there's a lot of the question about whether M'Donny, if he wins, will keep the police commissioner. The crime stats have improved quite a bit in recent years.

• 49:36Joe Weisenthal?

  The idea that this is like the really big thing, more than, you know, the rent freeze or taxes or anything else, I think is just going to be an interesting executive question for M'Donny.

• 49:46Tracy Alloway?

  Lots of interesting questions thrown up by this whole election. Shall we leave it there for now?

• 49:52Joe Weisenthal?

  Sure, let's leave it there.

• 49:53Tracy Alloway?

  This has been another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

• 49:58Joe Weisenthal?

  And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen, Armin Dashel Bennett at Dashbot, and Cale Brooks at CaleBrooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg.com/oddlots, where we have the daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics 24/7 in our Discord, discord.gg/oddlots.

• 50:19Tracy Alloway?

  And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like it when we do local New York politics that has national relevance, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

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