Odd Lots Entries

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-30 08:00:00

PHP2Shell Won't Be the Last Big AI Cybersecurity Risk (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Earlier this year, cybersecurity researchers discovered a vulnerability in PHP, an open-source coding language used in roughly 70% of the world's websites, that had been lying dormant for a long time, and if exploited, could have led to disaster. And the researchers only understood the extent of this bug through the use of frontier AI models. Today, we talk to two staffers at Calif (CEO Thai Duong and engineer Bruce Dang), the cybersecurity firm that was among the first to discover the PHP vulnerability. Their firm partners with the major AI labs and neoclouds, and they help these companies test models and look for vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. Duong and Dang tell us how Calif uncovered the PHP hack, what the firm exactly sells, and what the future of cybersecurity looks like in the age of AI.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-29 08:00:00

What Wall Street Really Thinks About the AI Trade Now (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

It has been a big week for the AI trade — we've seen wobbles in the market, many of them in response to headlines like the Anthropic S-1 and earnings from the hyperscalers (Oracle, Microsoft, etc.). So what does Wall Street make of all the news, and how are they processing an increasing sense that the laws of the economy barely apply to AI? Today, we speak with Alexander 'Alty' Altmann, global head of equities tactical strategies at Barclays, and he helps us make sense of how Wall Street really feels about the AI trade right now. We also talk about the KOSPI-fication of the S&P 500, if there are any historical precedents for the capex going into the AI buildout, and if AI is really immune to interest rates.

Read More: Microsoft Reports Rising Cloud Sales That Show Payoff From AI

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-26 08:00:00

AI Agents Are Already Changing the Price of Goods (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

It's obvious that things are getting more expensive, and there are plenty of reasons behind the surge in prices — whether it's wars or inflation or companies padding their profit margins. But with the release of AI agents like Meta's Muse, tech companies are promising consumers that agents will start saving them tons of money by finding the best deals. According to today's guest, Lindsay Owens, the history of price gouging does not bode well for claims that things might get cheaper because of new technology, and research conducted by her think tank Groundwork Collaborative shows that a number of consumer facing agents end up serving customers more expensive items after learning more about their financial situation. Her new book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — and What That Means for Your Wallet gets into the history of how companies got away with charging more for their goods, through means like data collection and surveillance. Today we talk to Owens about how AI agents are already changing the idea of a fair price, all the pre-AI ways that companies price gouged, and her new book.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-24 09:00:00

How a Chicago Restaurant Has Stayed Open For Nearly Three Decades (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Richard Mott's first foray into hospitality was in the 1980s at the University of Chicago, where he started running a coffee shop in the basement of the business school when he was a grad student. By the time he graduated, he helped grow that single coffee shop into four locations across campus. He's a longtime Chicago-based restaurateur and his farm-to-table restaurant North Pond has been around since the late 1990s. Lately, he's expanded his business to include Spark Shared Kitchen, a catering facility and incubator for food entrepreneurs. He knows a lot about the practical economics of restaurants and hospitality at large, and in his decades-long career in the Chicago scene he's seen about everything. On our recent trip to Chicago, we sat down with Mott to talk about the ever-increasing price of food and labor, why diners are drinking less, and the expected and unexpected reasons that restaurants so often fail.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-23 09:00:00

The Forgotten Godmother of Economic Literature (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In 1776, the field of economics was born with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. And among the book's earliest readers, and most ardent advocates, was a Regency-era novelist named Maria Edgeworth. In her time, Edgeworth was one of the most famous literary figures in England, and she smuggled into her stories economic concepts and debates around rent seeking, the idea of productive labor, and so on. These works were enormously influential and they helped expose a generation to practical applications of Smith's new theories. Yet when you read about the history of economics, Edgeworth's name is hardly ever mentioned. Jeanna Smialek, a veteran reporter and the Brussels bureau chief at The New York Times, thinks Edgeworth's name needs to be placed back in the pantheon of economic history. On this episode, we speak with Smialek about her biography, The Invisible Hand of Maria Edgeworth, and we discuss Edgeworth's friendly debates with the likes of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, how the Irish potato famine reshaped economic thought, and how Edgeworth used the novel form to educate the masses on the value of economics.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-22 09:00:00

Bhaskar Sunkara Thinks the Market Has a Place Under Socialism (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In September, Gallup released a poll that showed that 43% percent of Americans viewed socialism positively, the highest approval since Gallup began the poll back in 2010. Since Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral election, the left has made a number of gains across national politics. Still, the majority of Americans view socialism negatively, according to Gallup. As a longtime DSA member and veteran of leftist media, Bhaskar Sunkara is one of socialism's leading advocates, and he's spent much of his career charting what a socialist economy in America might look like. Unlike some other leftists, he believes the market has a place. In fact, he thinks markets and entrepreneurs are an objective good in society. He proposes a vision of so-called "market socialism" in his recent co-authored book The Blueprint, and he lays out this system for us in today's episode. We talk about how many features of capitalism — from small businesses to monetary policy — might be remade under socialist principles.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-21 09:00:00

James Robinson on What It Looks Like When a State is Failing (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The third and last episode from our Chicago live show is with James Robinson, a professor at the University of Chicago and a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics (which he shared with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson). His most famous work is 2012's Why Nations Fail, and in that book he and his co-author Acemoglu document the institutional factors — whether it is reliably run elections or open markets that help facilitate innovation — that determine why some states thrive and others don't. So we ask Robinson the big question: What would have to happen for the US to be considered a failed state?

Read More: ‘Middle Powers’ Grapple With New Survival Strategies Under Trump

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-20 09:00:00

CME's Terry Duffy on the Disconcerting State of Finance Regulation (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission was practically brand new when Terry Duffy started working at CME Gropu almost five decades ago, and over the course of his career at the exchange, this legend of the trading world has seen an enormous amount of change when it comes to finance regulation, including the rise of prediction markets, 24/7 trading and perpetual futures. Duffy is set to transition out of his current position as CEO next year, and this conversation, recorded live at City Winery in Chicago, is a sort of exit interview. He tells us how regulation has evolved since the start of his time at the CME. We also talk about why he is against perps, the credibility issues prediction markets face, his definition of spreads versus futures, and what he wishes he knew at the start of his career, now that he is nearing retirement.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-19 09:00:00

Don Wilson on the GPU Market's Trillion Dollar Question (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

When we spoke to Don Wilson, founder and CEO of DRW, in Chicago last year, he told us he wanted to build a market for GPUs that would eventually be bigger than oil. A year's time in the age of AI is an eternity, and so for the first episode of this year's Chicago live show - recorded at City Winery - Wilson joins us on stage again to talk about what's changed and what hasn't in his quest to help build this market. We get his take on the recent tech selloff, including credit concerns around neocloud CoreWeave. And we also discuss how DRW is developing a “crunch spread” (the GPU version of a crack spread), the latest on his plans to launch GPU futures, and the possibility of token futures too.

Read more: Jump, DRW Bet on New Compute Market as AI Boom Faces Scrutiny

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-17 09:00:00

David Byrne Explains How Forgotten Ideas Come Back to Life (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

History is littered with ideas that have been tossed aside, only for them to gain relevance at some later date. Think of Moby-Dick: forgotten in Melville's time, but now regarded as the great American novel. Or the work of economist Hyman Minsky, which became influential a decade after his death, when the 2008 financial crisis made “the Minsky Moment” a mainstream term. These are just a couple of the things we talk about with the legendary musician David Byrne on today's podcast. Byrne's new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, looks to categorize numerous “sleeping beauties” - ideas that were lost but then rediscovered. Besides Melville and Minsky, we also talk about the lost Roman recipe for concrete and we get into Byrne's thoughts on how to write a song and his own experience of having his music rediscovered by a new generation.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-16 10:00:00

The French Political Crisis That's Turning Into a Debt Crisis (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Just about everyone is worried about what is going on in France right now: the country's public finances are in sorry shape and there are fears that the French bond selloff, and the country's growing debt crisis, might spillover into the rest of Europe. On top of that, the 2027 elections have investors worried: The two leading candidates, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, aren't seen to be up to the task of taming France's fiscal turmoil. Shahin Vallée was an advisor to Emmanuel Macron when he was an economic minister and during his first presidential election campaign. Since then, he's paid close attention to the situation in France — he is currently a senior fellow at the German Council of Foreign Relations and he advises institutional investors — and he understands, better than most, what went wrong during Macron's nine years in office. Today, he speaks to us about the origins of the current French debt crisis, how similar it is to the challenges Greece faced during the first euro crisis, and why the 2027 elections are making an unstable situation even worse.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-15 10:00:00

Jeff Yan's Plan to Bring the Entire Financial Industry Onto Hyperliquid (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Traders and market watchers around the world started talking about a crypto platform called Hyperliquid earlier this year, when speculators used markets built on top of it to trade crude oil after war broke out in Iran. What Hyperliquid allowed for was a 24/7 market on the blockchain. Then in August, President Trump said the CFTC was working on bringing “Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion.” Hyperliquid currently operates outside the US, but that hasn't stopped it from growing prodigiously in the last year. Jeff Yan, CEO and co-founder of Hyperliquid Labs, joins us today to explain how exactly the platform works: He walks us through the protocol he and his co-founders built, the ecology of actors and assets that are tied to Hyperliquid (like the platform's cryptocurrency HYPE), how perps are bought and sold on the platform, he explains what a blockchain oracle is, and he discusses what has to happen for Hyperliquid to start operating in the US.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-12 09:00:00

Nate Soares on How AI Really Could Kill Us All (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Since the Hugging Face incident, concerns over AI doomsday scenarios has entered the mainstream. But of course, some people have been warning about this for years, long before LLMs or ChatGPT. In their 2025 book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky spelled out their vision of humanity's inevitable demise once superintelligent AI is built. In this episode, we speak with Soares, who serves as president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, about why he believes it's impossible to "align" superintelligent AI, and how exactly the technology can and will go rogue as it gets more and more advanced.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-09 09:00:00

How AI Is Upending the World of Mathematics (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Last month, OpenAI announced that it had produced an AI-generated proof for the Navier-Stokes problem, one of the most famous unsolved questions in mathematics. LLMs used to be bad at counting, but now they are solving math problems that have stumped humans for decades. Meanwhile, at universities, the problem of AI in education continues: Now that LLMs can do a student's homework, teachers are struggling to keep up. It is clear that AI is very quickly changing how math is taught and how it is practiced by professionals. On this episode, Justin Solomon, who is the associate dean for engineering education at MIT, gives us a primer on how mathematicians (both pure and applied) are responding to all the advances in AI. He also explains what exactly the Navier-Stokes problem is and why the OpenAI proof is hard for even the pros to parse, what movies get wrong about how mathematicians do their jobs, and how he's changing his pedagogical approach in the age of AI.

See Odd Lots live in Chicago! Tickets on sale here

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-08 09:00:00

What Everyone Gets Wrong About the Economic Problems in Europe (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In so many conversations, there's a widespread view that Europe is falling behind. Or it's in trouble. It has been two years since the publication of the Draghi report and the problems the report identified about European competitiveness are far from solved: Demographic challenges, rising energy costs, and a lagging tech sector still cast a shadow over Europe. But according to the economist and policy analyst Dominik Leusder (who also writes the Leusder of Last Resort Substack) the Draghi report might have mismeasured the true scale of Europe's issues, and he asks if the popular narrative of European decline is an accurate one. We also speak about whether Europe needs a frontier AI model, why long, wine-soaked lunches are not a good way to measure productivity, and the state of Europe's vexed relationship with China as a trade partner and competitor.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-05 09:00:00

Why Treasuries Became Risky Again (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We all know that US Treasury yields have been surging, alongside bond yields all around the world. So what explains the selloff and does this mean that bonds are becoming fundamentally riskier? What happens if investors can no longer hedge stocks with government debt? And how do expectations of the Federal Reserve's "reaction function" fit in? In this episode, we speak with Carolin Pflueger, associate professor at the University of Chicago and a resident scholar at the Chicago Fed Bank, about her work on the bond market and central banks. We discuss why bonds have become more stock-like, what that means for yields, and the role of the Fed's credibility in making bonds “bond-like” again.

See Odd Lots Live in Chicago!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-02 09:00:00

How Airlines Actually Hedge Higher Fuel Prices (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Fuel is a huge expense for airlines, and even on a good day, jet fuel prices are pretty volatile. Throw in two major wars now effecting energy infrastructure, and fuel prices across the board are higher and higher. Airlines have long tried to manage this expense through fuel hedging, using things like swaps and options to hedge against future increases in the price of jet fuel. David Kang, former group treasurer at Qatar Airways, has firsthand experience hedging for a large carrier, and he tells us exactly how it all works. He also explains why airlines use heating oil as a proxy for jet fuel, how much they can make by raising ticket prices and fuel surcharges, and why airlines and oil refineries aren't so different.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-01 09:00:00

Everything in Markets Is Now Moving Incredibly Fast (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The market is acting in ways that make it very hard to get a handle on what exactly is going on right now. The overall indices are surging, while many individual stocks are doing badly. Rates are rising, but the economy is still robust. There's capex spending and the AI trade. There's the war in Iran. And of course there's persistent inflation and the Federal Reserve's ongoing tightening cycle. On this episode, we speak with our former Bloomberg News colleague Luke Kawa, who is now head of markets at Sherwood News. We go over all the big market themes, and he explains why the one consistent theme of this moment is the sheer speed of the moves and the pace of the news itself.

See Odd Lots Live in Chicago!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-28 09:00:00

Why Building a Crosswalk in LA Is Kafkaesque (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Bill McBride did not just predict the 2008 housing bubble, he helped invent financial blogging with his Calculated Risk newsletter. Zach Lasry, meanwhile, is much newer to the scene, but in his career as a real estate developer, he is already responsible for building one of LA's hottest new neighborhoods — Melrose Hill. We spoke to both of them at our live show at the Vermont Hollywood, for a wide-ranging panel discussion on LA real estate. We talk about the difficulty of sourcing construction components, the Kafkaesque process of getting a crosswalk built in LA, and how self-driving cars might help reshape the city and solve its longstanding issues with parking.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-25 09:00:00

Hollywood Was Cooked Before AI, and Now It's Only Getting Worse (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Is Hollywood just screwed? Writers are earning less. There are fewer shoots taking place in Los Angeles. And people are freaked out about AI. But according to Hayes Davenport, things were starting to feel bad in Hollywood before chatbots showed up to the scene. Davenport — who’s written for shows like Family Guy and is now creative director of LA Material and the co-host of the fantastic Hollywood Handbook podcast — joined us on stage at the Vermont to give us a history lesson on Hollywood's steady decline from the pandemic to now. We also get into the changing norms of AI use among entertainment professionals and why Davenport is jealous of New York right now.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-24 09:00:00

AI Is Upending the Lives of People Who Do Social Media Professionally (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Social media is really strange these days: Increasingly, our feeds are starting to look uncanny, as AI slop proliferates all over the Internet. And for the professionals who are tasked with making content, whether it is social media managers or creators, it has been a head-spinning time of change. In this conversation, recorded at the Vermont in Hollywood, we get a primer on social media's AI era with two veteran Internet commentators, Rachel Karten (social media consultant and the author of the Link in Bio newsletter) and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag). We discuss why people are afraid to admit that they love some genres of slop, why the AI discourse is evolving so rapidly, and whether our time online is moving away from scrolling feeds to engaging with chatbots.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-21 09:00:00

How LA Is Quietly Becoming America's New Industrial Tech Hub (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The story you hear nowadays is that America is struggling to make things and can't compete with China when it comes to advanced manufacturing. But of course, there's tons of high-tech stuff being produced in the US, and more and more companies are doing it out of Southern California, with factories sprouting up around Los Angeles to build things like precision metal parts and jet engines. Two founders who are actively engaged in building things in LA are Tom Mueller, founder of Impulse Space (and Employee No. 1 at SpaceX), as well as Hadrian founder Chris Power. Impulse Space is building in-space transport vehicles while Hadrian is creating autonomous factories. This episode, which was recorded live at the Vermont Hollywood, is from our first ever Odd Lots live show in LA . We talk to Chris and Tom about how the US lost its manufacturing edge and why LA is becoming a destination for people who want to make and build hardware.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-20 13:00:00

Introducing: Bloomberg Money (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Bloomberg Money takes the pulse of your financial life, powered by the reporting of our global newsroom.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-19 09:00:00

A Goldman M&A Banker Helped Bring the Olympics to Los Angeles (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We're in an era of megadeals, with Goldman Sachs reporting a record year for big deal volumes as companies scramble to compete with AI. Gene Sykes has seen multiple deal cycles come and go over his multi-decade career. The co-head of mergers and acquisitions has worked on famous transactions like Comcast's purchase of Universal and Disney's buyout of Pixar. In addition to being "the most-influential M&A banker you've never heard of," as New York magazine has put it, he has also spearheaded Los Angeles's successful bid to bring the Olympic Games to the city in 2028. In this conversation, recorded live at the Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, California, we discuss how a city pays for a big event like the Olympics, and parallels between the early 2000s TMT environment and now.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-18 09:00:00

There's a Mind-Boggling Number of Rich People in America (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In 2014, the economists Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick were asked by the Treasury to conduct a study on the tax burden of private business owners. It was tricky to figure out how much these sorts of business owners — auto dealers, contractors, the like — actually owed in taxes: After Reagan's 1986 tax reforms, pass-through businesses and other accounting tricks became widespread enough to obscure this class of wealthy Americans hiding in plain sight. The research they conducted led to their new book The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There, and one of their central findings is that there are about three million private business owners who have an average wealth of around $25 million. They call this group “Main Street Millionaires” and their influence on the economy and politics in the US is considerable. We speak with Zidar and Zwick today about how they measured the actual number of rich people in America by sifting through reams of tax forms, why income inequality started to rise in tandem with the growing number of pass-through businesses, and how it's possible that the collective revenue of the nation's dentists far exceeds that of the NFL.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-17 09:00:00

What Francis Fukuyama Is Seeing at 'The End of History' (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Francis Fukuyama's essay “The End of History?” was published in the summer of 1989, a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The essay's argument — that liberal democracy would not only defeat communism, but that its partisans might, in victory, miss the “courage, imagination, and idealism” that defined the ideological battle — lives on as one of the most cited pieces of political theory in the last three decades. In his new memoir, In the Realm of the Last Man, he revisits “The End of History?” and for today's episode he talks to us about how his essay's argument has evolved in a world now defined by the intense technological change brought on by AI and by the many electoral defeats liberal democracy has suffered as of late. We also talk about how the Internet and social media are helping fuel the listlessness that “The End of History” brought about, how he uses AI, and what, if anything, will come after liberalism.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-14 09:00:00

OpenAI President Greg Brockman on Doing Business in the Wake of Hugging Face (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

According to OpenAI President Greg Brockman, the models that escaped their sandbox and hacked into Hugging Face's servers had yet to go through alignment training. That they were able to break free of the testing environment was not a surprise to OpenAI, but what has happened since has forced them to rethink some things. Today, we talk to Brockman about what OpenAI has learned since the hacking incident and we discuss why he thinks the conversation around model development has to change. We also talk about how OpenAI collaborates and communicates with competitors like Anthropic, how he thinks models should be evaluating what counts as “good writing,” and, of course, we get his thoughts on how seriously we should be worried about the AI doomsday scenarios.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-12 09:00:00

Robert Friedland on the World's Monumental Shortage of Copper (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Copper demand is booming, with the metal surging another 15% this year. Copper demand has always been tightly linked to economic activity, but now it's in overdrive, thanks to data centers, electric cars, and the global push to reindustrialize everywhere. Copper prices are also rising because it's caught in the crossfire of trade wars and resource nationalism; the US is expected to place tariffs on the refined metal. According to today's guest, Robert Friedland, the founder and executive co-chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, we're not even close to having enough copper for what's coming. We talk to Friedland about opening and running copper mines around the world, and what he's learned in his 40-year long career in mining (which includes a cameo from Steve Jobs).

See Odd Lots live in Los Angeles!

Read more: Copper Steadies With Dip-Buying From Funds, Chinese Industry

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/oddlots

Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-11 09:00:00

Why Bridgewater's CIO Says AI's Human Extinction Risk Is Real (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Greg Jensen was one of the earliest backers of both OpenAI and Anthropic, and at Bridgewater Associates, where he is the managing chief investment officer, he leads the hedge fund’s AI strategy. As an early adopter of the technology, he has a lot of thoughts on where things stand right now in terms of model capability and safety, as well as the broader economic impacts of AI. Just recently, he published an op-ed in the New York Times that proposes a “token tax,” to help mitigate the job losses that AI might cause. (Bridgewater predicts as much as 18% of US jobs might be displaced in five years.) We last spoke with Jensen in 2023, and so much of what we discussed then (like AI hallucinations) seems quaint now that models have come so far — capable of lying, cheating, and much worse. On this episode, Jensen tells us how Bridgewater is currently using AI, why there needs to be a stronger AI regulatory state, and why it feels like the AI discourse is starting to resemble the months before Covid-19 took over the world in 2020.

See Odd Lots live in Los Angeles!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-10 09:00:00

The Rise of Organized Retail Crime at Big Box Stores (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

If you walk into a local pharmacy in New York City, more likely than not, lots of the merchandise is locked behind closed doors as a measure to mitigate shoplifting. So how big is the “retail shrink” problem really? And why are stores willing to sacrifice customer experience to protect their inventory? According to today’s guest, the Home Depot’s VP of Asset Protection Scott Glenn, shoplifting is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to retail theft. What is really bedeviling companies like the Home Depot is something called organized retail crime — heists by criminal outfits that seek to nab large quantities of merchandise that eventually ends up in the black market. Today, we speak with Glenn about the in-and-outs of organized retail crime, the retail shrink problem, and what stores are doing to bring down theft right now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-07 09:00:00

Why Money Launderers Love $100 Bills (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Hardly anyone nowadays seems to carry much cash, never mind carrying around a bunch of $100 bills. So why does the amount of physical cash in circulation — especially big denominations like the $100 bill — keep increasing? There's a pretty obvious answer. All those dollars are being laundered and used by criminal enterprises. In this episode, we speak with journalist Oliver Bullough, author of Everybody Loves Our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won, about this cash paradox. We discuss how cartels balance their books by trading drugs for farm equipment, the gigantic parallel financial system that undergirds global money laundering networks, and why money laundering resembles Renaissance-era banking.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-04 09:00:00

Why Laser Beams Are the Hottest New Tech in Defense (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Our guest today is Colonel Sanders. More precisely, we speak with Wayne Sanders, a retired US army colonel who is currently senior defense research analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. During his military career, Sanders specialized in cybersecurity and weapon systems research and his work for BI has recently focused on directed energy weapon systems — better known as lasers. Just a few decades ago, programs like Star Wars, the Reagan-era missile defense system, seemed like a pipedream; today lasers can shoot down missiles and much more. Sanders tells us about the physics problems researchers had to solve to make laser weapons a reality, why we still don't have laser guns, what makes a weapons system "exquisite," the economic costs that factor into battlefield decisions, and the unique supply chain constraints that affect laser development.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-03 09:00:00

What's Behind the Big Surge in US Government Bond Yields (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Global bond yields are at their highest level since 2008, with the 30-year US Treasury touching 5% just before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a surprise increase of his department's bond buyback program and Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh made his hawkish speech at Jackson Hole. So what's driving yields higher? And what options do policymakers have to bring them down? In this episode we speak with Stanford Professor Darrell Duffie, who's been researching bonds for years, including presenting a paper at Jackson Hole in 2023 about how to fix the US Treasury market. A lot has changed since then, and at this year's Jackson Hole symposium, we caught up with Duffie to talk about everything going on in the bond market, as well as the challenge of shrinking the Fed's balance sheet.

Get tickets to see Odd Lots live in LA!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-01 09:00:00

Adam Posen Thinks Things Could Get Very 'Messy' for the Fed (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Kevin Warsh gave a hawkish speech at this year's annual Kansas City Fed Symposium in Jackson Hole, but that doesn't mean the challenges are over. Will the Fed actually pull the trigger on rate hikes? What happens if the central bank doesn't act quickly enough to curb inflation? And how exactly will the new chair want to leave his mark on the Fed? In this episode, we speak with Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who gives us his take on the direction of monetary policy and he grades Warsh's speech. We also discuss why high inflation in the US is different than the inflation seen in other countries, how the Treasury's wading into the bond market affects Fed independence, which of the Fed task forces might be the most impactful, the "messy jobs" theory of AI, and what Warsh really means when he says he wants the FOMC to have a “good family fight.”

Get tickets to see Odd Lots live in LA!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-31 09:00:00

Richmond Fed’s Tom Barkin on the Surprisingly Resilient Real Economy (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The implications of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech are pretty clear: Traders expect a rate hike given the hawkish hints littered in his address, largely focused on inflation. There are still a number of open questions and Warsh's lack of forward guidance does not exactly lend clarity to how the Fed will act in the coming months. Today, we recap the speech — in a conversation recorded from the Lodge at Jackson Hole — with Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Tom Barkin and he explains why his thinking around the Fed's communication policy is changing, and he gets into what is still useful about things like the dot plot. He also tells us what he's hearing at Chamber of Commerce meetings about the impact of AI on local communities, how businesses are using their tariff refund checks, and whether the Fed will have to start paying attention to the economic effects of data center politicization.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-28 18:23:16

Austan Goolsbee Is Worried the Economy Is Overheating (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Inflation remains high and the 2% target is farther away than it was this time last year. There are signs all over that the economy is overheating — the strange labor market where hiring and firing remains low, while GDP is growing, but mostly due to AI and the data center buildout — and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee is worried about how uncertain central bankers are about what to do to cool the economy. The next shock, he tells us, could be around the corner. In this conversation, recorded at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Goolsbee explains why he is skeptical of metrics like r*, why he is embracing Kevin Warsh's philosophy around reducing forward guidance, the purpose of the new Fed task forces, and the economic indicators that influence his thinking around reaction function.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-27 12:30:00

Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid on the First Jackson Hole of the Warsh Era (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We are back in Jackson Hole! And this year's Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium on monetary policy might be one of the most interesting editions in years. It marks the first under new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, and Fed observers all over the world will be closely watching his Friday speech for signs of how he might further distinguish himself, and the institution he is in charge of, from the Jerome Powell era. This meeting at Jackson Hole also comes at a fascinating, and pretty tense, time for monetary policy in the US and abroad: high bond yields, above-target inflation, and AI's still unrealized effect on broader parts of the economy like the job market. As we have in the past, we speak with Jeffrey Schmid, the president and CEO of the Kansas City Fed, about what to expect and he also shares his thoughts on the wave of baby boomer retirements and how it's affecting the labor force, his recent FOMC votes, and he explains why this symposium is so focused on payments.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-24 09:00:00

The Nigerian Industrial Behemoth That Could Reshape the African Economy (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Earlier in August, it was reported that Nigeria's Dangote Refinery secured a $1 billion underwriting for its upcoming stock market listing, which is set to become Africa's largest IPO. Indeed, the whole the continent has seen lots of economic growth in the last few years: According to the United Nations, growth across Africa was expected to reach 4.0% in 2026. The history of economic development on the continent is a vexed one; access to critical resources, whether its minerals or petrochemicals, has not always equated to improved economic conditions. To understand what is going on in Africa, we talk to Joe Studwell, the author of How Africa Works: Success and Failure on the World's Last Developmental Frontier. The product of a decade of reporting, Studwell's book argues that African countries, in many instances, have failed to adopt development strategies (an industrial policy that favors export manufacturing for instance) that mirror Asian counterparts. And while development has been uneven, Studwell is optimistic that the seeds of sustained development are increasingly taking root, at least in some countries. We speak to Studwell about the Dangote IPO, why development has historically been so difficult, Rwanda's dreams of becoming Africa's Singapore, and why Lagos is one of the most impressive cities in the world.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-21 09:00:00

Jasmine Sun on What the AI Industry Got Wrong About the Public Backlash (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Within the AI industry, even the builders of it have been very anxious about the technology. They've talked for years about its potential to create destabilizing job losses. They even spend a lot of time thinking about rogue AI that could lead to human extinction. But for all their anxiety, they missed the thing that's become the most publicly salient: how upset people would be about building data centers. Part of this was understandable. Data center construction has been happening for a long time in America, and it used to be relatively uncontroversial. In fact, cities and states would often design their tax code to incentivize data center construction. Now there's this complete 180. On this episode, we speak with independent writer and Substacker Jasmine Sun, who recently traveled to Wisconsin and Michigan for some on-the-ground reporting about the communities and activists trying to stop data center development. She explains what the pushback is really all about, what it represents, and what future developers will have to do in order to be welcomed in.

Come see Odd Lots live in Los Angeles, get your tickets now.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-20 09:00:00

Nick Bostrom on What Happens if AI Solves All of Our Problems (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The philosopher Nick Bostrom was one of the first thinkers who mapped out the existential risk of AI. In his 2014 book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he delved into various scenarios — like the now-famous “paperclip maximizer” — to show the dangers that unfettered and highly intelligent AI posed to humans. A decade later, in Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, he looked at the other side of the AI coin, and theorizes what human experience might look like if AI is capable of solving all of our problems. What happens if AI and robots can literally do every single thing better than humans can? How would we find any meaning or satisfaction from life? On this episode, he speaks to us about the two divergent ways of understanding AI's future, what we might do, and what we can do right now to improve the chances that AI actually improves our lives.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-17 09:00:00

What the OpenAI-Hugging Face Hack Really Tells Us About AI Danger (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Scenarios that used to be the domain of sci-fi writers are coming true. We have machines that can talk. We have machines that are capable of ignoring the intent of their creators. And we have machines that are capable of planning and coordinating with other machines to deceive their creators. All of this came together last month, when it was revealed that an unreleased OpenAI model had hacked into the Hugging Face platform in order to obtain answers to an exam it was given. That was alarming enough, but the details that have emerged since then have been even more remarkable. On this episode, we speak with Miles Brundage, a former OpenAI employee who is the founder and executive director of the non-profit AVERI, which pushes for third-party auditing of model-makers and the models themselves. He explains what he learned from the attack and discusses what can plausibly be done to continue building out these models in a safe manner.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-14 09:00:00

A Historic El Niño Is Coming That Could Cost the World Trillions (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Every few years, weather nerds and agriculture analysts will talk about an upcoming El Niño, and then they mostly pass by with relatively few headlines. But sometimes El Niños end up being massively destabilizing -- leading to devastating droughts, flooding, and other catastrophes. And this year's emerging El Niño could end up being one of the big ones, with forecasters predicting record-breaking intensity. But what exactly is an El Niño, and what does it mean that this year's could be so big? On this episode, we speak with Justin Mankin, professor of geography at Dartmouth and director of the Climate Modeling and Impacts Group. We discuss the forecasting of El Niños, and why they can lead to large and long-lasting economic damage.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-13 09:00:00

Trucking Is Booming Again, And Drivers Aren't Happy About It (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In the last year, freight companies have seen a significant upturn in the business. Volumes are up. Billing is up. And in addition to growing demand, we've also seen new constraints on the supply side, with the administration cracking down on who is even allowed on the road. As we know, trucking is an especially cyclical industry, but is this current boom structurally different from past booms? Why is it that despite the boom, many of today's drivers are unhappy with the state of the industry? On this episode, we speak with Reed Loustalot, the chief marketing officer at the the Truck Parking Club, a company which aims to help drivers find parking, so that they're not using up valuable road hours just looking for a place to stop for the night. We talk about the crackdown on the supply side of the market, the rise of surveillance, and how a recent Supreme Court ruling could impair capacity even further.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-10 09:00:00

NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien on Running a Media Brand in the Age of AI (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In the last decade, the New York Times has remade itself many times over. It has done that through acquisitions (The Athletic, Wirecutter, and the ever-popular Wordle) and by navigating all the different challenges that have emerged in the digital age and now the age of AI. Its video operation, for instance, has grown exponentially in the last few years. And they've used AI tools in their reporting, namely in several pieces they did on the Epstein Files. At the same time, the company is also suing the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity for copyright infringement. To understand the modern media landscape, you really do have to understand the Times, so today we speak with The New York Times Company's CEO and president, Meredith Kopit Levien. We talk to her about how to run a media business without seeing the news itself as a loss leader, the NYT's evolving bundle strategy, how the paper retains talent, why the current pivot to video is different from the first one, and the ideal set-up for AI companies and media properties to co-exist.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-09 13:00:00

Introducing: Our Town (audio.mp3?t=1785873288&skipAds=true&utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83&accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6IklnczZMaEpobmtHNjU2NG5BRDJNX0EiLCJ0eXAiOiJKV1QifQ.eyJjbGlwIjoiODhmNzUwOTgtZTZmMC00ZTUyLTk4ZjEtYjQ5YzAxMjQ5ZjM2IiwiYWRzIjowfQ.O1j9fJntTnTpId5TSMsK4Ha2mbbrLolNkn3nxz3uRgU)

Our Town from Bloomberg’s Big Take podcast follows residents of Gainesboro, Tennessee, after a group of far-right Christians moves in with plans for a radical social experiment.

Listen to Episode 1 on the Big Take.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-07 09:00:00

How a Sardine Gets From the Ocean to a Can (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Just a decade ago, tinned fish was hardly a premium product. Most Americans likely associated cans of tuna with thrift. But that has changed a lot in recent years. The category took off during Covid and now shoppers are shelling out for high end brands like Fishwife. Today's guest Becca Millstein started the company in 2020, positioning it as a distinct, artisanal product, more akin to one might find in European grocery stores. In addition to the sheer challenges of scaling, the nature of the business itself has changed, influenced by climate change and geopolitics (shortages have led Morocco to suspend frozen sardine exports for instance). We discuss the tinned fish supply chain and how a new brand positions itself in today's media market.

Read more: What the American Tin Can Reveals About Trump’s Volatile Tariff Policy

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-06 09:00:00

Brad Setser on the US's Unusual Japanese Yen Intervention (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Last week, the US joined forces with Japan to try to stop the yen’s slide. It’s the first time the two sides have intervened in the Japanese currency in 15 years, and in many ways it was an unprecedented and unusual move, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent choosing to sell euros (as opposed to dollars) and the use of a little-known Federal Reserve repo facility. So why did the yen’s value drop so precipitously in the first place? And will this intervention be enough to stop it? Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, explains why the Bank of Japan initially refrained from raising rates, why East Asian currencies (not just the yen) have been so weak lately, the improving fiscal outlook for Japan, and what to look out for next.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-03 09:00:00

The Tungsten Market Is Warning of an Upcoming War (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Bloomberg Opinion columnist David Fickling tells us you can think of tungsten mining as “a century old prediction market for war.” As he writes in a recent piece, tungsten is “a super-element that can determine the fate of nations.” While the commercial market for tungsten is fairly small, it can be crucial in war manufacturing, due to its high density and melting point. He learned more about tungsten mining, and its increasing geopolitical necessity, during a visit to Australia's Dolphin Mine, which has a history of opening up during times of war, and then closing again during times of peace. He explains to us why investors are once again interested in tungsten mining and why it's been so hard (over the last century) to sustain production outside of China.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-31 09:00:00

Why Private Credit Got Entangled With Insurance (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Insurers have quietly become a major driver of the private credit boom, with numerous private equity shops striking deals with insurance companies or buying them outright. But the entanglement with private credit is also changing the insurance industry itself, raising a number of questions about risk and regulation. Today we speak to Andrew Granato and Pranjal Drall, authors of a new paper, “Private Credit's State Backstop: How Private Equity Socializes Risk Through Insurers," examining the relationship between private credit and insurance. Granato (an assistant professor at the UT Austin Law School) and Drall (JD-PhD student in Financial Economics at Yale) talk to us about how PE got so interested in insurance in the first place, how both sides benefit from the relationship, and why taxpayers might ultimately be on the hook.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-30 09:00:00

How the Iranian Economy Actually Works (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the country's new leaders — religious and political — promised to redistribute the country's wealth and made moves to make Iran independent from western influence and business interests. In the decades since, Iran's economy completely transformed, and it is closer to what Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin describe as a "mafia state," where fealty to various factions is baked into the country's political economy. In their new book Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran they trace the massive changes Iran's political economy has undergone since the revolution, and they speak to us today about this history, how average Iranians navigate everyday cronyism, how Iranian leaders treated the country's burgeoning tech sector, and why the recent peace talks might not change all that much about how the country's economy currently operates.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-27 09:00:00

Branko Milanovic on What Comes After Globalization (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

It's pretty obvious by now that globalization has fallen out of favor. And while many pundits have deemed economic globalism dead, we are still figuring out what to call this new era. Branko Milanovic's chosen phrase is "national market liberalism," a term that sums up how a world once defined by the free movement of capital has begun to contract as the most powerful governments have come to favor mercantilism and nationalism. In his new book, The Great Global Transformation: The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order, the famed economist explains what comes after globalization. He talks to us about China's economic evolution, the pressure it has put on elites in the West, and much more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-26 11:00:00

How Financial Advisors Can Grow During the Great Wealth Transfer (Sponsored Content) (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Over the next two decades, more than $100 trillion will change hands in the greatest wealth transfer in history. This is a massive opportunity for financial advisors, both new and established. This conversation provides detailed, research-backed information and practical advice for financial advisors who are considering their next move. Produced by Bloomberg Media Studios and Prudential Financial, this roundtable discussion provides clear and honest perspectives on the changes that are coming.

Guests on the show include:
David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research with Prudential Financial, and Portfolio Manager with PGIM
Brittney Castro, CFP, AAMS, CRPC, Financial Expert and Speaker
Chelsea Ransom-Cooper, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Planning Officer with Zenith Wealth Partners
Maggie Lake, Financial Journalist

Research sources:
Cerulli Associates: U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets, 2024
Cerulli Associates: The Cerulli Edge, U.S. Retail Investor, 2023
Alliance for Lifetime Income: Protected Retirement Income and Planning Study, 2024
Prudential Communications: Global Retirement Pulse Survey, 2025

For more about this series visit us at:
https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/media/prudential/the-great-client-transfer

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-24 09:00:00

How Franchise Restaurants Opened the Door to the Gig Economy (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

When the fast food industry began booming in the 1950s, it did so via a new business model known as the franchise. This model allowed independent operators to license trademarks from a business like McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts, and it soon spread across the country, with huge consequences for how Americans are employed. Legal battles fought by franchises eventually opened the door to what's now known as the gig economy, allowing Uber drivers to be treated in much the same way as the operator of a local Chick-fil-A. To better understand the history of the franchise model, we speak with Brian Callaci, chief economist of the Open Markets Institute, and author of the book Chains of Command: The Rise and Cruel Reign of the Franchise Economy. Callaci helps break down how the franchise model works, how franchise contracts are structured to precisely dictate how franchisees are supposed to run their businesses, the relationship between the franchise model and gig work, as well as how franchises pioneered worker surveillance.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-23 09:00:00

Why Apple Is Heading Into a Pivotal Moment (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

There used to be a time when the latest product release from Apple was a huge deal. But lately, it's been kind of 'meh,' and a lot of the hype in the tech world has been directed at companies doing things with AI. For better or worse, Apple seems to have largely missed the AI boom. But there are signs things might be changing. In addition to appointing John Ternus as the new CEO to replace Tim Cook, Apple is expected to unleash a slate of new products, including AirPods with cameras and foldable phones. Meanwhile, it's also raising prices on a bunch of its devices for the first time in its history, thanks to a shortage of memory. So can Apple recapture the hype and find new products to entice customers? In this episode we speak with Mark Gurman, managing editor for consumer tech at Bloomberg and one of the world's most prominent Apple-watchers. We talk to him about Apple's AI strategy, the origins of the OpenAI and Apple legal battle, what to expect with Ternus in the CEO seat, and when and why iPhones stopped being a sexy piece of hardware.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-20 09:00:00

The Creator of Claude Code on The Hottest Piece of Software in the World (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

2026 has been, in terms of software, the year everyone is talking about Claude Code. Indeed, Anthropic's coding agent incited a market scare — and helped usher in the era of vibe coding — through its promise of streamlining software development for both pros and amateurs. Famously, Claude Code began as a side project of Anthropic led by Boris Cherny, who speaks to us today about the early days of Claude Code and how he and his team approach building an agentic coding tool. We also talk about the business aims of a harness like Claude Code, safety and alignment research, the specific skillset he looks for in engineers now that code writing is a deemphasized skill, and what happens when Claude Code feels more like a co-worker than a tool.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-17 09:00:00

Lev Menand and Nathan Tankus on Why Fed Independence Is Now Hanging by a Thread (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Last August, President Trump made the unprecedented choice of moving to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook. The administration claimed she was being terminated with cause, citing an ongoing investigation in alleged mortgage fraud committed by Cook. The legal battle between Cook and the administration has been tangled in the courts for the last year, eventually reaching the Supreme Court. This June, in a 5-4 decision, the court ruled in favor of Cook. However at the same time, in a different case, the court allowed the President to fire individual members of the FTC, undermining its role as quasi-independent body not beholden to the executive branch. So what are the implications here? How can the court change the status of a body like the FTC while allowing the Fed to continue operating as is? And for how long will the Fed maintain some amount of operational autonomy? On this episode we speak with Columbia Law School's Lev Menand who just wrote a piece on these two cases for Just Security called The Federal Reserve Exception to the Slaughter Rule as well as Nathan Tankus (writer and president of Notes on the Crises). The two of them lay out the consequences of these two decisions and they dig into the generations-long legal history, starting with Alexander Hamilton, that explains how we got here.

Read more: Can Trump Still Fire Lisa Cook After Her Supreme Court Win?

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox now delivered every weekday plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-16 09:00:00

Why Soccer Analytics Works Like Volatility Arbitrage Trading (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

American sports fans have long been comfortable talking in the language of stats and analytics. Soccer embraced the 'moneyball' revolution later; the sport was once perceived as too complex to model analytically — there were too many players on the pitch, the game's progression was too random and chaotic to reliably predict. That's no longer the case, and soccer watchers are well aware of stats like xG (Expected Goals) and each match is an opportunity for a team to mine data, whether its tracking data, on-ball data, or even analyzing body poses and movement. Today, we speak with two soccer analytics veterans, Mike Treacy (head of risk at Apex Fintech Solutions) and Joris Bekkers (a soccer analytics consultant). Treacy's background includes a stint in analytics for a Premier League team and he's currently advising the MLS team Austin FC while Bekkers has built software that analyzes raw soccer data and he's worked with the US Soccer Federation. We talk to them about how VAR has affected the sport, how data analytics can capture ineffable things like hustle, how European leagues and the MLS differ in their analytics strategy, and why chess and soccer are not so dissimilar.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-15 09:00:00

NY Governor Kathy Hochul on Her One Year Data Center Moratorium (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

On July 14, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a one-year moratorium on new large data center projects in the state. It's the nation's first such pause at a time when anti-data center politics is on the rise around the country. But Hochul insists that she's not anti-AI, and that she's an avid user of the technology, as well as a believer that it can be a force for economic growth. On this episode, we talk to Hochul about the logic of the pause, and what she hopes it will achieve. We also discuss energy and housing stress in the state, and what it would take for New York to welcome in driverless cars.

Read more: Meta’s Louisiana Data Center to Surpass $250 Billion Price Tag

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-13 09:00:00

Why AI Might Actually Create More Work for Lawyers (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

It seems obvious that among the many industries that AI might disrupt, the legal profession might face some of the most adverse outcomes. When clerical, research-based tasks like searching through databases and reading contracts are automated, what is left for lawyers to do and how might they justify all those billable hours? In this episode we speak with Gary Wingens, chair and partner at the law firm Lowenstein Sandler. He talks about how his firm is using AI and why he thinks the technology could end up increasing legal work for lawyers as costs come down, creating a sort of “Jevon's paradox” for lawsuits, deals and litigation. We also talk about the billable hours model and training junior talent.

Read more: AI Legal Startup Norm Valued at $1.2 Billion Funding Round

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-10 09:00:00

The Korean Levered ETFs Shaking Markets All Around the World (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Retail participation in the stock market is booming. And of course the biggest story in markets is the AI trade, which has created an incredible amount of demand for chips and memory. These two broad themes have come together in the form of leveraged, single-stock ETFs. And while these products are popular in the US, the scale coming out of Korea is enormous. It's a good week to talk about this intersection, because some of the biggest stories of the week include Samsung's earnings and SK Hynix's new US listing. Barclays's Global Head of Equities Tactical Strategies Alexander Altmann has used the word “terrifying” to describe the amount of notional exposure coming from these levered ETFs. He explains to us why that is and we talk to him about why, in such a short period of time, the world of levered ETFs has gotten to be so large, with AUM increasing threefold in Asia alone. He also us gets into how he is thinking through risk management and how we as society — and retail investors in particular — got to be overexposed on equities and why that keeps him up at night.

Read: SK Hynix’s $26.5 Billion Listing Reopens Asia Route to US Market

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up: bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-09 09:00:00

One of the World's Largest Hedge Funds on Its 86x Growth in Token Spending (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We've gone through a number of a technological revolutions in investing, whether it was the dawn of the high frequency trading era or the introduction of robotraders. When it comes to AI, the big question that remains in the investment context is whether or not the technology will be implemented like those past tech innovations — meaning it will be integrated into the flow of the business without upending everything as we know it — or if AI will transform the very nature of investing. Right now, AI's use in investing is a mixed bag: People are excited about its potential, but several firms are still trying to figure out its value. Today, we speak with Man Group's CTO Gary Collier and Head of Data and AI Tushara Fernando about how one of the largest publicly-traded hedge funds in the world is actually implementing AI into its work. We speak with them about empowering their quants with AI tools, the challenge of integrating AI safely, and the creative ways their staff is thinking about token spending, which is up 86-fold this year.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up here: bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-06 09:00:00

These Are the Sharps Actually Making Money on Prediction Markets (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Here's a couple things about prediction markets. A lot of it is pure gambling and speculation, much of it on things with very little economic relevance. Another fact is that in all likelihood, if you yourself started trading right now, you'd probably lose your shirt. But there is money being made by some dedicated traders, really focused on areas like politics and economics. On this episode, we speak with Brian Golden and Daniel Reichman, who are part of a private Discord called Maga Kiwi Club, where serious prediction markets traders swap ideas and make real money. We discuss the remarkable efforts they go to in order to spot opportunities, the systematic biases among traders, how they feel about insider trading, and other major issues that surround the space. Alongside Brian and Daniel, we also speak with NYC-based journalist and producer Adam Iscoe, who recently profiled these traders for The New York Times Magazine.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-03 09:00:00

How a Major Grocery Store Chain Can Dramatically Lower the Cost of Food (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In June, grocery giant Aldi opened a store just off of Times Square in Manhattan. It's the company's first location in Midtown and, according to their US Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton, Aldi has to orchestrate a "logistical symphony" to get groceries into the middle of one of the busiest places in America. For instance, they use shorter trucks to navigate the tight corners of New York City streets. On this episode, we speak with Patton about what it took to open this specific Aldi and why they chose a busy tourist location like Times Square. He also explains how the company — famous for its low prices — is able to sell even wagyu ground beef at a consumer-friendly price point, how the mostly private-label grocer thinks through which name brands to incorporate into their stock, Aldi's cult-favorite "Aisle of Shame," a short history of barcode innovation, and how GLP-1s are changing consumer habits.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-02 09:00:00

What Dan Wang Saw on His Last Trip to China (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

There's this weird contradiction that hovers almost all conversations regarding the Chinese economy. On the one hand, the growth and rising material prosperity is undeniable. And of course, Chinese industrial giants are at the frontier in all kinds of things, like batteries. On the other hand, you always hear about a soft domestic market, and a general state of unease among workers who fear that precarity is around the corner. So how is this contradiction explained? And how does it affect day-to-day life? On this episode, we bring back one of our regular guests Dan Wang, who recently returned from a long trip to Shanghai. We discuss his observations, the general ennui he saw, the signs of domestic weakness, and the way in which phone culture is reshaping Chinese society.

Read more: It’s Too Soon to Breathe Easy on China’s Economy

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-29 09:00:00

Baidu's CFO on How It Became a Full-Stack AI Player (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In the China tech space, Baidu is now a full-stack player in the AI industry. The company makes its own chips, has its own AI models (Ernie), its own cloud system, and it's integrating AI into its self-driving car business, Apollo Go. But before all this, Baidu was known for being China's leader in search. Things, obviously, have changed a lot since the company was founded in the late 1990s. In today's episode, we speak with Baidu CFO Henry He about the company's AI ambitions. He talks to us about maximizing token spend, how Chinese tech firms are thinking about safety and alignment, the global robotaxi competition, and how the core search business fits into the company now.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-27 09:00:00

How Lenovo's CFO Is Allocating Capital During One of History's Biggest Booms (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We know that companies around the world are investing heavily in AI. So intense is the race to win the AI battle, that it feels like there's almost no upward limit on how much you could spend on it. So how are CFOs thinking about capex in the AI age? In this episode we speak with Winston Cheng, CFO of Chinese-founded multinational tech firm Lenovo. Lenovo is known for its personal computers, especially its Thinkpad line of laptops, but they are making a push to move beyond its role as one of the leaders in personal computing, integrating AI agents into their devices and investing in building out an “AI Cloud” infrastructure alongside Nvidia. We talk to Cheng about how Lenovo's allocating capital during one of the biggest capex booms in history. We also discuss involution and market competition in China, and how Lenovo's been adapting its supply chain to tariffs.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-26 09:00:00

Rory Johnston on Why His $200 Oil Prediction Didn't Turn Out Right (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The Strait of Hormuz has (mostly) re-opened! Crude prices are still up since the start of the war with Iran, but popular predictions earlier this year of $200-a-barrel Brent didn’t pan out. Why is that? We last talked to Rory Johnston, the founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, at the start of the conflict. And in that conversation he said that the Strait’s closure would lead to $200 oil if it persisted for any length of time. Today, he returns to tell us what he’s learned about the oil market since then. He explains the various factors that kept a lid on prices, including some re-routing, Trump jawboning, and (crucially) surprise import reductions from China.

Previous: Rory Johnston on How Oil Could Surge to Over $200 a Barrel

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-25 09:00:00

How the 1994 World Cup Transformed the Business of Football Forever (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The last time the World Cup came to the US was 1994. Before then, the World Cup was an enormously popular event with surprisingly limited commercial significance; the 1990 tournament in Italy, for instance, lost money for broadcasters. But that all changed in 1994, when American companies sought to make their mark in the form of advertisements and sponsorships: firms like McDonalds, Mastercard, and General Motors saw the potential to reach a global audience through one of the world's most watched sports events. Today, we speak with Joey D'Urso — a freelance sports journalist and author of the recent book More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power — about the 1994 World Cup and this year's competition, which is being held jointly, by the US, Canada, and Mexico. We also talk about other surprising stories of corporate and geopolitical influence in the world of football.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-22 09:00:00

Grace Shao on What the World Should Know About Chinese AI (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

China's AI industry has changed a lot since DeepSeek released its cheap frontier model last year, and briefly sent US tech stocks falling. After being locked out of the most advanced chips, Chinese companies are now allowed to buy some Nvidia H200s. In fact, many of the big Chinese tech companies — like Baidu — are making a push to become full-stack players, with their own chips, models, and cloud infrastructure. Today's guest is Grace Shao, an independent AI researcher and the author of the AI Proem Substack. She's a bit of an insider when it comes to China's AI industry, and when we were in Hong Kong we spoke with her about the latest in open-source models, the competition among Chinese frontier labs, DeepSeek's place in an increasingly crowded Chinese AI market, China's manufacturing edge, where bottlenecks exist right now (spoiler: it isn't data centers), if Chinese grandmas are actually using OpenClaw, and finally, of course, AI psychosis.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-20 09:00:00

How Substack Creators Are Covering This Strange Markets Era (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We closed out our New York live show on May 28 with a panel that featured three of our favorite Substackers: James van Geelen of Citrini Research, Sam Ro, founder of The TKer, and journalist Jasmine Sun. They've all been Odd Lots guests before, and we wanted to get them together to discuss how journalists and analysts are supposed to cover this incredibly strange and highly pressurized moment in markets. Not only has AI basically infected every corner of the world, the media included, but there's just so much news that it's sometimes hard to figure out what the focus should be. But James, Sam, and Jasmine have all found their own niches, and cover AI in a really unique way. This panel discussion debates how the media has covered fears over the AI bubble and the possibility of mass job loss, if people in Silicon Valley are scared about the future of society, if AI can really mimic a writer's voice and personality, and (if they can) how writers can hedge against that future.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-19 09:00:00

Anthropic's Co-Founder and Top Economist on Doing Research at the AI Frontier (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

There’s a lot to unpack with AI right now — everything from its potential impacts on the labor market and society to more extreme questions about existential risk. Anthropic, which builds frontier models like Mythos, Fable, and Claude, is actively grappling with these issues, including whether governments should limit AI development. Just last week, the Trump administration forced Anthropic to block foreign access to its two leading models. In this episode, we speak with Jack Clark (co-founder and head of public benefit) and Peter McCrory (head economist) about how Anthropic approaches safety and economic risks. We talk about its preparations for recursive self-improvement, the engineers it's hiring now, and why Jack left Bloomberg to enter the early AI industry.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-18 09:00:00

Jeremy Grantham on How to Tell If a Bubble Is About to Burst (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and long-term strategist of GMO, has a long history of calling bubbles. As he recounts in his new memoir, The Making of a Permabear: The Perils of Long-Term Investing in a Short-Term World, that includes spotting the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, which some people see as analogous to the current excitement over AI. And when it comes to today's market, there are a lot of signs of frothiness you could point to. In this episode, we speak to Grantham about how he sees markets right now, including a watershed change for Big Tech stocks, the signs he watches out for to spot when a bubble might burst, and what really keeps him up at night.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-16 21:00:00

The Iran War’s Lasting Scars Across Asia (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

An interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz offers relief, but Asia’s economic woes are far from over. Beyond the chokepoint, the conflict has forced long-lasting shifts in Asia’s food and energy flows.

On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, Oanh Ha joins Odd Lots co-hosts Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal to discuss why Asia is reeling from the conflict and what the “new normal” looks like for global supply chains.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-15 09:00:00

Carmen Li's Plan to Build a Futures Market for Compute (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

When we spoke to DRW's Don Wilson last year, he talked about building out a GPU market that might be bigger than oil. Now, a year later, he is working with Carmen Li to do just that. Li is the CEO of two companies — Silicon Data and Compute Exchange (where she works alongside Wilson). The former company is building the index for GPU pricing while the latter is a spot marketplace for GPU procurement. Today's episode — recorded at our live show at City Winery in New York — gets into how Li is building a whole new market for GPUs at her two companies. We talk about the challenge of standardizing compute, GPU price volatility, if used GPUs are like used cars, what goes into constructing a GPU index, and what it means to win the GPU lottery.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-13 09:00:00

Anjney Midha's Plan to Radically Lower the Price of Compute (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Anjney Midha wrote the first check to Anthropic. He teaches a viral course at Stanford on how AI works. And he was, until recently, a partner at a16z. In other words, he is AI-industry royalty. Midha's new project is AMP PBC, a company that believes it can radically lower the price of compute. To accomplish that, he is working on building a compute grid that turns GPUs into a standardized utility. But right now, compute is too fragmented. It's too heterogeneous. And given the way contracts are structured, he says that labs are being forced to spend money on capacity that often goes unused. In other words, small labs are forced to pay up for big, long-term contracts, even though their own demand (particularly during model training) may be very spiky. On this episode, Midha explains how the market for compute currently works and why he believes there's a software solution that could significantly improve compute utilization. He also tells us why he does not anticipate one company will emerge as the dominate player and that instead we'll have a wide range of models, each optimally used in specific applications.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-12 09:00:00

How a Vibecoded Newsletter Is Making the Hay Market More Transparent (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The hay market is not a transparent market: It is very fractured by types of hay, whether it is alfalfa or clover hay. There are a few opaque, illiquid markets like this — scrap metal for instance — that require some hands-on investigating to figure out. Aiden Johnson is co-founder and CEO of the HayWire newsletter, which aims to make the hay market more transparent: He and co-founder Cole Glasgow use an AI model to mine public data sources — like USDA reports on auction prices across different regions — to produce a weekly newsletter on the hay market. On this episode, we speak with Johnson as he explains why he chose hay over other kinds of markets, how HayWire was made possible through vibecoding, networking with hay farmers, why the ROI of owning a horse is dropping with hay prices spiking, and why hay demand keeps on tightening.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-11 09:00:00

Why Tomatoes Are the Most Expensive They've Been in Four Decades (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In April, the price of tomatoes was around $2.69 per pound — the highest seen in some four decades. And tomatoes aren't the only food getting more expensive. From cauliflower to lettuce, fresh produce is spiking all over the place. So what's driving the price spike? And what can tomatoes teach us teach about America's political economy including changes in trade and tariffs? Our guest today is Jacob Krempel, senior vice president of procurement and merchandising at the wholesale food distributor Baldor, and an expert in securing fresh produce. We talk to him about where America's tomato supply actually comes from, why consumers are paying more and more, how restaurants navigate price fluctuations, and the influx of novel new tomato varieties.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-08 09:00:00

How CoreWeave Sees the Market for Compute Right Now (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

When we last spoke to Brannin McBee, the co-founder and chief development officer of cloud company Coreweave, his business was not yet public and sourcing GPUs was a key constraint on growth. But three years later, things look pretty different. CoreWeave IPOed and has been raising money in the bond market too, as well as signing more deals with chipmaker Nvidia. In fact, investors have basically been throwing money at all-things-AI. But there are persistent bottlenecks to further growth. Chip supply is still scarce, but so are transformers and electricity. In this episode, we catch up with Brannin on everything he's seeing in the market for compute right now, including leases, Nvidia's new Vera Rubin systems, demand for training versus inference, and the possibility of standardizing the market for compute.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-06 09:00:00

Why Susquehanna Is Building a Prediction Markets Business (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Prediction markets that enable you to bet on pretty much everything are everywhere nowadays. But there's still a big question over whether they can expand to include larger institutional investors like hedge funds. Part of the problem is that a lot of prediction market contracts are illiquid and trading volumes can sometimes be shallow. That's where trading firm Susquehanna International Group comes in. In this episode, recorded live at New York's City Winery, we talk to Jeremy Maletz, Susquehanna's head of macro trading and prediction markets, about the firm's market-making business with Kalshi. We talk about how big investors could use prediction markets, what Susquehanna is seeing in terms of flows, how a market-maker hedges risk on these contracts, and how it makes money from them.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-05 09:00:00

Inside Hudson River Trading's Blistering Token Burn (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Today’s episode, which was recorded at our recent live show at New York’s City Winery, follows up on a conversation we had with Iain Dunning, head of AI at Hudson River Trading. Last year, we talked about how his firm uses AI. Now, some seven months later, we follow up on how one of the biggest market makers around is deploying this technology. We talk about the price of memory, bottlenecks in compute, how much HRT employees are actually spending on tokens, why the firm might develop its own chips, as well as AI-induced delirium.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-04 09:00:00

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on Running a Bank in the Age of AI (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

There's a lot of debate about the future of AI — not just whether it will produce the returns investors are expecting, but also if AI will lead to mass worker displacement. Big banks are the perfect prism through which to explore some of these questions. Not only are they deploying AI very quickly, but they have a wide range of workers who are using the technology, from back-office employees to junior analysts to the most senior investment bankers. In this episode, we speak with David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, about the impact of AI on the banking business, and why he does not predict a major white collar wipeout. We talk about the outlook for headcount, current conditions in capital markets, and the bank's role in the upcoming SpaceX IPO and Alphabet's historic equity capital raise. He also tells us about his early career in junk bonds and (because of his love of electronic dance music) how AI is transforming music production.

Read: Anthropic Picks Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs to Lead IPO

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-01 09:00:00

The Hidden Plumbing of Commodity Finance (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We talk about the commodity supply chain all the time. We talk about the ports and the trucks and the ships and all of that. But there's another dimension to moving commodities all around the world, which is actually paying for it. Who funds the oil tanker and what happens when that tanker is, say, stuck in the Strait of Hormuz? Commodity finance underpins production, transportation and storage of a wide variety of the things that make the modern world, but you tend to only hear about it when things go wrong. Today we speak with Lewis Hart, head of corporate advisory and banking at Brown Brothers Harriman. We discuss how the business of commodity finance actually works, how risk is priced, what makes for a good or bad warehouse, and the difference between financing a commodity you can hedge (like oil) versus one where's there's no futures market (like cashews).

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-30 09:00:00

How the Invention of Rope Gave Us Modern Civilization (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Rope is easy to take for granted. It seems obvious and straightforward. But of course, it had to be invented. Early humans discovered that by twisting fibers around each other, the resulting structure would be something durable and strong. Without rope, all kinds of things aren't possible, from lifting objects into the air to whaling or modern bridges. So how was it developed and what were the big breakthroughs in its history? On this episode, we speak with Tim Queeney, the author of the recent book Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization. He walks us through the history of the technology, and its ongoing evolution, including how it might one day allow to build an elevator into outer space.

Only 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-29 09:00:00

Gita Gopinath on Why Interest Rates Have Surged All Around the World (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

There's been a massive selloff in the bond market and rates are rising all around the world. Japan, Korea, the UK... You name it. Gita Gopinath, Harvard economics professor and the former first deputy managing director of the IMF, has long warned that bond markets are "in a fragile place." She sees a confluence of demographics, high levels of public debt, and the intense capital needs of the AI boom creating inflationary pressure all around the world. Today we speak with Gopinath about the seeming disconnect between stocks and bonds and why investors may be wrong to assume that governments will have their back the next time there's a major shock.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-28 09:00:00

Brendan Greeley on the Real 500-Year History of the Dollar (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

We love talking about money. And of course, we love talking about the dollar, in all its varieties — from bank deposits to eurodollars to stablecoins. But what fundamentally is a dollar and who actually controls it? To understand these questions, you really need to understand how the dollar was born. Journalist (and current Ph.D. candidate in financial history) Brendan Greeley argues not only that the dollar is older than you might suspect, but that the dollar long precedes the United States itself. In fact, the word is derived from German, referring to a Spanish currency made from silver found in Mexico. In this episode, we discuss Brendan's new book, The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money. He explains not only the dollar's surprising history, but also what actually backs the US dollar and gives it purchasing power.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-25 09:00:00

What It Takes to Run One of London's Most Popular Pubs (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

As our listeners know, restaurants are great microcosms for macro-economic trends. They sit at the intersection of everything from consumer confidence to commodity costs to the labor market. So on our recent visit to London, we wanted to learn about the business of pubs. According to the British Beer and Pub Association, approximately two pubs a day have closed in England during the first quarter of 2026. Could pubs tell us something about larger trends in the British economy? And when it comes to the day-to-day operations of the business: How is a pub different from a regular bar? And how are publicans — pub managers — dealing with the era of the £10 pint? Today's episode is a special two-parter, devoted to the business of pubs. We talk to Oisin Rogers and Ashley Palmer-Watts, co-founders of the Devonshire, a famed London pub. The first part is with Rogers, who is the publican, and we discuss the difference between a good and bad pub, why he hates the word 'gastropub,' and how the indoor smoking ban changed the meaning of pubs for the average Londoner. Second up is a segment from our London live show with the Devonshire chef Palmer-Watts, who tells us about the complicated confluence of factors — from temperature to the right mix of gases — that lead to a perfect pint of Guinness, why higher ingredient costs (whether it's beef or scallops) don't always correlate to higher menu prices, and making a Victorian-era meat fruit for Apple's Jony Ive.

?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-23 09:00:00

Architect Norman Foster on Why the West Struggles to Build Big (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Not many people think of designing buildings as an exercise in economics, but the entire process is defined by constraints around resources (both physical and financial), and an iconic building can also have a huge impact on the wealth and development of the area around it. So how do you encourage private developers to consider the public good when designing new projects? And how are some countries able to encourage more landmark building projects than others? In this episode, we speak with Norman Foster, renowned architect and founder of Foster + Partners. We talk to him about how constraints impact his own design process, how building budgets actually work, what makes a building successful in the long run, why China keeps completing mega-project after mega-project, and why places like the UK and the US are now struggling to keep up.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-22 09:00:00

'The Assassin' Fahmi Quadir on How to Survive as a Short-Seller (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

A short-seller is a gum shoe who roots out a particular story about a specific company and brings it to light. In this way, a short-seller is similar to an investigative journalist. Fahmi Quadir, the founder and CIO of Safkhet Capital, is known as the Assassin. Her notoriety proceeds her: Among her most well-known bets include short-selling Wirecard AG and Valeant. In today's conversation with Qaudir — recorded at our live show in London at Wilton's Music Hall — she dishes on what life is like for a short-seller, especially one as famous as her. In her mind, short-selling is only getting harder; it's a corner of finance that is facing an existential crisis, one whose value is questioned in what she calls a "golden age of fraud." She also tells us, that for the first time ever, she is going long with a focus on Korea that has nothing to do with the AI boom.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-21 09:00:00

Why Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Built The World's Largest Computer Chip (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Size is the name of the game for the AI chipmaker Cerebras: Their chips are truly massive, about the size of a dinner plate. According to Andrew Feldman, CEO and founder of Cerebras, that is about 58 times larger than the average chip. That sheer size enables blazing fast inference for AI queries. Feldman joins us on the week of his company's IPO to talk about his core product and how it fits into the AI boom. We discuss the history of the GPU, competition between open-and closed-source models, the company's relationship with with TSMC, and more.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-19 09:00:00

Deutsche Bank's Ozan Tarman and Aditya Singhal on Understanding the Macro Risks (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

It is hard to have a markets conversation that isn't out of date within a minute or two. But we think this one, with Ozan Tarman and Aditya Singhal of Deutsche Bank, is basically evergreen. This conversation, recorded at our live show at Wilton's Music Hall in London, is all about fundamentals: How Tarman, DB's vice chair of global macro, and Singhal, the firm’s head of EM trading across rates, FX and Credit, make sense of conflicting headlines, whether the rally in tech stocks is to be believed, the tug of war between fast money and central bankers, and how traders are evaluating the difference between the AI models coming out of the US and China.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-18 09:00:00

Why the Price of Oil, Beef, Electricity, and Everything Else Makes No Sense (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Whether it's the price of a barrel of Brent crude or a pound of beef, it's clear prices are skyrocketing for all kinds of goods and commodities. Price shocks and shortages are, if anything, the way consumers understand the economy right now — at the grocery store or at the gas pump. Certainly, current (and future) shocks can be explained by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But the environment is weirder than just across the board price increases: The price of corn has barely moved, for instance, while fertilizer just keeps going up. We have not one but two perfect guests to talk to us today, our favorite commodity specialists: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas and Lorcan Roche Kelly, the business editor at Irish Farmers Journal. Today's episode — which was recorded on stage at Wilton's Music Hall in London as part of our first ever show outside the US — covers how the world's farmers feel about US trade policy, why today's energy shock is so different from 2022's, the true impact of the UAE leaving OPEC, and why it's going to get harder to buy hard cheese in the near future.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-16 09:00:00

Stripe's John Collison on How Agentic Commerce Will Reshape the Internet (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The internet is made for shopping. For years, the main inputs for e-commerce transactions involved targeted ads, algorithmic recommendations, SEO, and lots of mindless scrolling. But agentic commerce might represent a sea change for e-commerce: With the rise of AI agents doing shopping on behalf of consumers, how are retailers going to adapt? John Collison, co-founder of the financial services and payment processing company Stripe, has first-hand experience with all the ways e-commerce has changed in the last decade, and he thinks agentic commerce is going to completely transform the online shopping experience. On this episode, we speak to Collison about how AI has already changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions, why keyword search is a "ridiculous" way to find things to buy, what it means when brands will have to appeal to AI agents as opposed to human buyers, and if AI agents can truly mimic human taste.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-15 09:00:00

Why SocGen's Albert Edwards Sees Double-Digit Inflation Coming Back (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Making a long career as a bear at a sell-side institution is tough. Generally financial markets have done quite well which means forecasting doom and gloom is, usually, only tenable for so long. Which is why we wanted to talk to one of the most successful bears out there. Société Générale has let Albert Edwards out of the bear cage for today's episode. Edwards knows his reputation as a bear is well deserved: He believes, among other things, double-digit inflation is in the offing. We also talk about the attention span of readers on the buy-side, what success looks like for a bear, and how a bear avoids getting fired.

Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News 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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-14 09:00:00

Martin Wolf on the 'Terrifying' Superpower That the US Wields (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Last year, when we talked to Martin Wolf, the global order seemed like it was being upended after President Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs against nearly every US trading partner. A lot has happened since then. In fact, April 2025 seems almost quaint when compared to 2026 so far, from the Supreme Court's tariff ruling to the US-Israel war with Iran. The war's effect on the world's economy is at once stunning and utterly strange: even as the prices of major commodities — oil chief among them — rise, the markets seem unaffected, closing at record levels in recent weeks. Today we speak with Wolf, the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times, about all this chaos and why, so far, it seems disconnected from the logic of the market. There is, he says, a great deal of ruin in the world economy, but growth remains a constant fact of life. Why is that? There's no straightforward answer, but to begin understanding how we got here, Wolf takes us to the early 20th century and paints us a picture of the world after the two World Wars. We also talk about the "terrifying" power that the US wields over the globe, how a fragmented Europe is navigating anxious relationships with both the US and China, the Faustian bargain AI represents, and much more.

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/oddlots

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-13 09:00:00

Samanth Subramanian on the Undersea Cables That Keep the Internet Alive (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

In 2006, then-Senator Ted Stevens coined an infamous term for how to understand the internet: It's a "series of tubes." The funny thing is, that's a fairly accurate description. Underneath the world's oceans, miles and miles of fiber optic-cables send packets of information from one location to the next, serving as the backbone of the internet as know it. This infrastructure is delicate, too: Memorably, a 2022 volcanic eruption cut off the island of Tonga from web access for an extended period of time. Journalist Samanth Subramanian is the author of The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables That Connect Our World, a book that explains, in detail, that the internet is not, and has never been, truly weightless or wireless. In fact, the system in place right now is pretty old school and resembles the telegraph cable network of yore. We talk to Subramanian about the strange contradictions of the undersea cable system, how much basic marine geography — like the Strait of Hormuz or the Suez Canal — informs where cables are laid, and how hard it is protect this vulnerable and vital infrastructure.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-11 09:00:00

The Bank of England's Megan Greene on Monetary Policy in a World of Supply Shocks (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Ever since Covid, central banks around the world have had the same problem. They have tools that are designed to modulate demand, but so many challenges have involved the supply side of the economy. Whether we're talking about supply chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran, these are all issues for which monetary policy is of limited value. Of course, the temptation is to "look through" these events, recognizing the fact that these disruptions don't say much about the actual underlying state of the economy. But when we get one shock after another, it gets harder and harder to keep using words like "transitory." On this episode we speak with Megan Greene, an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England. We talk about the compounding effects of all these shocks (including the trade war and Brexit), how she's thinking about the first- and second-order effects of each, and why for now, despite the underlying weakness of the UK economy, she remains squarely focused on the risks of higher inflation.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-08 09:00:00

Mariana Mazzucato Thinks We Need More Moonshots (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Today's guest Mariana Mazzucato is one of our most requested. Mazzucato, who is the director of the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, specializes in the political economy of technological development and public sector investment. In our conversation, recorded in Madrid while at the Bloomberg CityLab conference, she explains her concept of the "mission economy," her definition of state capacity, how to prevent top talent from fleeing to the private sector, and whether consultants or governments should be blamed for inefficiencies and civic failures. It's a wide-ranging interview, one that covers everything from the initial public financing of Silicon Valley algorithms to the history of moonshots.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-07 09:00:00

How an American City Can Become a Manufacturing Hub (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

The residents of Allentown are still sore about that Billy Joel song. While it's true the Pennsylvania city became synonymous with deindustrialization after the US steel industry began its decline in the 1970s, Allentown should be known for more: In the 1950s, for instance, some of the first mass-produced transistors were made in the city, which were the precursor of today's semiconductors. The city is also a unique logistics and e-commerce hub — it's a day's drive from nearly 40 percent of the US population. Mayor Matthew Tuerk, who has held office since 2022, has made reindustrialization a focus of his mayorship. In today's episode, recorded in Madrid at the Bloomberg CityLab conference, we speak to Mayor Tuerk about the city's grand strategy for building back and sustaining its manufacturing base, implementing industrial policy on a local level, how rezoning has changed in the last decade, the political puzzle of data centers, recruiting companies to come to Allentown, de-risking the American supply chain, and our favorite new category of industry — weight-gaining industries — which Allentown specializes in.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-04 09:00:00

How Baltimore's Mayor Is Fighting the City's Vacant Housing Crisis (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Since Mayor Brandon Scott took office in 2020, he's fixated on a very visible problem in Baltimore: the tens of thousands of vacant homes that dot the city. It's hard to build new houses when there are so many that sit empty and unused. And the process of tracking down owners, convincing them to sell their vacant properties, and then converting those homes into usable housing supply is a tall task. In the last few years, the number of vacant homes in Baltimore has dropped from 16,000 to just over 11,800. On this episode — recorded in Madrid while we attended the Bloomberg CityLab conference — we speak to Mayor Scott about deindustrialization, redlining, and gun violence's historical effects on the current housing crisis, how his government identifies, block-by-block, redevelopment opportunities and matches projects with publicly-minded developers, and why Baltimore natives aren't huge fans of The Wire.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Odd Lots at 2026-05-02 09:00:00

Inside the Booming Market for Dinosaur Fossils (audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

Two years ago, Citadel's Ken Griffin paid almost $45 million for a stegosaurus skeleton, making it the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction. So why are dinosaur bones joining the collections of millionaires instead of museums? How does the private market for fossils actually work? And how similar is it to the market for art and other antiquities? In this episode, we speak with Salomon Aaron, a director at London-based gallery David Aaron, where he is the gallery's in-house broker for dinosaur fossils. We talk about how fossils are found and priced, what it's like to work alongside dinosaur hunters, how his gallery identifies potential buyers, and why Joe thinks something about the birds-to-dinosaurs evolutionary pipeline is off.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recent Entries

Podcasts (100)

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-30 08:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-29 08:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-26 08:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-24 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-23 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-22 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-21 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-20 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-19 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-17 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-16 10:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-15 10:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-12 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-09 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-08 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-05 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-02 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-10-01 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-28 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-25 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-24 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-21 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-20 13:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-19 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-18 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-17 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-14 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-12 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-11 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-10 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-07 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-04 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-03 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-09-01 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-31 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-28 18:23:16

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-27 12:30:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-24 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-21 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-20 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-17 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-14 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-13 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-10 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-09 13:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-07 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-06 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-08-03 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-31 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-30 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-27 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-26 11:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-24 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-23 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-20 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-17 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-16 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-15 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-13 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-10 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-09 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-06 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-03 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-07-02 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-29 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-27 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-26 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-25 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-22 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-20 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-19 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-18 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-16 21:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-15 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-13 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-12 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-11 09:00:00

From Odd Lots at 2026-06-08 09:00:00