Jane Street Boss Says He Was Duped Into Funding AK-47s for Coup
39:00 Share

This is an iHeart Podcast.

When you're with Amex Business Platinum, you have the card that helps businesses dream bigger. Get a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business and earn 1.5 times membership rewards points on select business purchases so you can stock up on what you need to take your business further and get rewarded for growing bigger. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash AmexBusiness.

At GSK, our focus is on doing the right thing for patients. We believe they should be free to focus on doing what they love, especially when they're living with a disease like cancer. That's why we focus where we can make the biggest difference matching the right treatment with the right patient.

At GSK, we're pioneering advanced technologies like antibody drug conjugates that precisely target and attack cancer cells. By uniting science, technology, and talent, we work tirelessly to stay ahead of cancer together. Visit gsk.com to discover more.

For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order. But with EasyCater, you get a single workplace food vendor with the tools and resources to make it easy, giving teams across your organization an easy way to order from a huge variety of restaurants, all on one platform. All while consolidating your corporate food spend so you can control costs, streamlining billing and payment and simplifying reporting.

EasyCater, your business tool for food. To learn more, visit easycater.com slash podcast. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News.

This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.

All right, this is one of those moments, like, where do I start with him? Where do I start with him? Because there is a most read story on the Bloomberg that involves AK-47, Stinger missiles, and grenades to topple a government.

That's the one story. I think it's the most read all day today. And then there is the Wall Street decries a hot, cummy summer after the surprise Democratic primary outcome for New York City mayor. So we've got a little bit of a wacky Wall Street roundup for you, courtesy of our own Sheree Natarajan, chief Wall Street correspondent here at Bloomberg News, joining us in studio. Let's start with what is the most read story in the Bloomberg. Involves, as I said, AK-47s and so more, and a lot more. Who, what, where, and why?

Look, we write a lot about Wall Street bigwigs. We write a lot about CEOs and founders of big trading firms. I don't think I've ever written a story like this before. We'll probably get a chance to write another story where I get to say a Wall Street...

Co-founder, one of the biggest Wall Street trading powerhouses, accidentally funded an attempt to topple the government in South Sudan. This is just maddening. So let's try and set the scene a little bit here. For those on radio, Tim's mouth is open wide. He's like, what? And these are just accusations at this point. These are allegations in court. But last year, there was a court case.

There was a charge, charging document that said two South Sudan activists, one of them Peter Ajak, and for those in the human rights circles, a name well known to them because he was someone who was one of those lost boys of Sudan, a former child soldier who moved to the United States

studied at Harvard Kennedy School, then worked as a World Bank economist back in his home country in South Sudan, became an opposition activist, opposition leader, was imprisoned in South Sudan, and in 2020, after immense pressure on that country's government, was released, caught asylum in the USA, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Super credentials. People in the State Department, people in the United States government knew who he was.

But things went south soon after. According to allegations from the Department of Justice, he started scheming to put together a plot to procure weapons to smuggle into South Sudan. There is a ban, there is an embargo on taking weapons to South Sudan. But he decided, working with another activist, that

A coup, a violent coup, an attempt to overthrow the current government, install himself as a new prime minister of a new democratic regime was the best way forward. The only problem, well, two problems, was he was talking to undercover agents when trying to secure the arms. And where our interest comes in is the plan might have sounded great in his head. He lacked cash. What we found out in the last two weeks, and this is what piqued our curiosity, was that

The man who was fronting up that cash turned out to be a co-founder of Jane Street, Rob Grinieri. Because he is conceited, he's come out and said that, "Look, yes, I did provide the money to these guys,

But I thought I was supporting human rights causes. I thought I was doing simple stuff like food and shelter and blankets and whatnot. He says he had no idea that this was going to be used for anything other than that. Says he was defrauded and lied to. And, you know, even after having published the story, even after having spent the last week going through dockets, talking to so many people,

This one is still hard to get your arms around. Well, the web of names kind of grows bigger. And I think people will be familiar with some other characters who are involved in this story. How did Peter Ajak get connected to Rob Grineri? And that goes to your point of the web of characters getting bigger and more prominent. The middleman in this case appears to have been Garry Kasparov.

former world chess champion, who then, you know, prominent Russian dissident, lives in the United States, was the chair of the Human Rights Foundation. He obviously got to know Peter Ajak through those circles. He knew Rob Grignieri because, again, Grignieri is at the top of Jane Street and therefore a firm that has made like, what, $21 billion in trading revenue last year? You can be rest assured someone atop that firm

has a lot of money and he's been donating. Look, he's backed political candidates like Nikki Haley's presidential bid. He's helped build a casino in Mississippi called the Scarlet Pearl, by the way, quick shout out. And he's donated to a lot of humanitarian causes. So Kasparov knew both of these people. He's the one who connected the two of them. It appears that after a couple of meetings, uh,

Grenier, he thought everything was on the up and up and he was ready to sign off on some $7 million over the course of two weeks in two different chunks. He passed on the money to Peter Ajak and...

When Peter Ajax then started transferring bits of that money onto the arms exporter, or at least the weapons agents who happened to be undercover United States federal agents, that's when problems started. They were arrested soon after. And that's why we find Grinnelli in this slightly, let's call it embarrassing situation for now. So for him, he's saying, I didn't know that this is where the money was going. I did give the money, but that's what's at issue.

That is what he's saying right now, indeed. There will be a trial later this year. Peter Ajak and Abraham Keech, the other gentleman who has been accused in this case, have both pleaded not guilty. In fact, they've even indicated that they plan to use this public authority defense, which is basically saying, hey, we have the approval and the support of a government official. They're going to try and make the case that the United States government, or at least some elements of it, were backing their plan. The government obviously contends that, but that is the defense they plan to use.

God, it sounds like it should be a movie. Yeah, I mean, it has all the ingredients of a movie. We only have a couple minutes left. I want to go to your other story that is among the most read, too, on the Bloomberg Charm. We said it was going to be a little wacky. We weren't planning to talk about this. But then just before our show started, you published this piece. It's about Wall Street decrying the hot commie summer of Zoran Mamdani's shock election. So let's be very clear when we call it the hot commie summer. That is not our view. This is what Wall Street is calling.

One prominent Wall Streeter called it. One prominent Wall Streeter called it. Many prominent Wall Streeters, I would say, echo it. The problem here seems to be that the New York City electorate, the voters, the Democratic voters, clearly seem to have rebuked

This city's elite. You've gone for weeks and months on end where the city's billionaires, where the city's business owners, CEOs, senior executive has said a Zoran Mamdani as mayor of New York City would be catastrophic for the city.

But look at the results last night for someone who had no name recognition what three, four months back going up against the might of former New York City Governor Andrew Cuomo who's not just a former New York City Governor but a part of a major New York

a New York state governor and also part of a major New York political dynasty for him to be able to take him on, not just keep it close, actually jump out ahead of him in the first round of primary and all signs point to the idea that by the time we're done with this rank choice voting, he could be the Democratic candidate for being mayor of New York City.

That shows that there's a huge, huge disconnect between the voters who have backed this campaign that came with a lot of style, verve, charisma and populist appeal and the city's leaders who have these, I think fair to say, exaggerated perhaps concerns of doom and gloom in the city if Zoran Mamdani were to become mayor.

And we should point out that Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg, news parent, Bloomberg LP, was a supporter of Andrew Cuomo. All right. I mean, what we were reminded, and we just got about 30, 40 seconds here, Sri, is that a lot of what actually happens to New York City in terms of significant changes has to come out of Albany. Is he really going to change much for Wall Street just quickly?

And look, this is a point that other people have made it. And a lot of his proposals would require some level of tax hikes on the rich. A lot of his proposal would require the city taking on a huge amount of new debt. Kathy Hochul, the governor, isn't too enthused on any of those ideas. Doesn't look like she's going to be backing it. And those are parts of his...

platform that may not quite pan out as he has promised in the agenda. So there might have to be some compromise if he were to become mayor. Amazing. But clearly there's appeal. Got a wacky story on Wall Street. This is your guy. Talk to Shree. Shree, thank you so much. Shree Natarajan, Bloomberg News, Chief Wall Street Correspondent. For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order.

But with Easy Cater, you get a single workplace food vendor with the tools and resources to make it easy. Giving teams across your organization an easy way to order from a huge variety of restaurants, all on one platform. All while consolidating your corporate food spend so you can control costs. Streamlining billing and payment and simplifying reporting. Easy Cater, your business tool for food. To learn more, visit easycater.com slash podcast.

When you're with Amex Business Platinum, you have the card that helps businesses dream bigger. Get a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business and earn 1.5 times membership rewards points on select business purchases so you can stock up on what you need to take your business further and get rewarded for growing bigger. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash AmexBusiness.

At GSK, our focus is on doing the right thing for patients. We believe they should be free to focus on doing what they love, especially when they're living with a disease like cancer. That's why we focus where we can make the biggest difference matching the right treatment with the right patient.

At GSK, we're pioneering advanced technologies like antibody drug conjugates that precisely target and attack cancer cells. By uniting science, technology, and talent, we work tirelessly to stay ahead of cancer together. Visit gsk.com to discover more.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube.

Now let's get to something else that's definitely been on our mind and the president's mind. Yeah, I think it's fair to say Iran said its nuclear installations were, quote, badly damaged by U.S. airstrikes. It's the first such comments by Tehran as debate grows over how much the bombardment managed to dent the Islamic Republic's atomic program. The comments coming hours after President Trump disputed a U.S. intelligence report

That said, the attacks had limited impact on Iran's nuclear program below the ground. And Carol, an assessment from the Pentagon's intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, actually said the bombing likely didn't cripple the core components stored underground, including centrifuges. We're super confused here. Hey, meantime, President Trump, he says he thinks the Israel-Iran war, it's over. The way I look at it,

They fought. The war is done. And, you know, I could get a statement that they're not going to go nuclear. We're probably going to ask for that. But they're not going to be doing it. But they're not going to be doing it anyway. They've had it. They've had it. Now, maybe someday in the future we'll want that. But I've asked Marco, do you want to draw? I just asked him the question as we were walking on the stage. Do you want to draw up a little agreement for them to sign? Because I think we can get them to sign it. I don't think it's necessary.

All right, that of course was President Trump at the NATO press conference earlier today. Hey, let's get more on what we know about Iran's nuclear enrichment capabilities and where that pile of uranium is. See what we know. John Areth is back with us, Senior Policy Director for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. We've had him before. It's a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating the threats posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Hey, John, great to have you back with us. What do we really know at this point about Iran's nuclear enrichment capabilities? We know that the United States Air Force struck these last weekend. The facilities where the enrichment takes place and some of the other key facilities associated with the nuclear program, we know that they were heavily damaged. What we don't know is the precise degree of the damage. And I would argue that that's not that important.

The White House uses the word obliterated. The initial reports coming out of the Defense Department that were, unfortunately, leaked, seem to use some lesser adjectives. The degree of the adjective is not what is important. What is important is that the damage was significant in nature, and that at least for the moment, Iran is not able to enrich uranium.

For the moment, I think, is it... Yeah, well, I want to just cut you off for a second because for the moment, I think, is a key phrase that I heard come from you just now. We've heard differing analyses based on intelligence just in recent days that says it could be set back a number of years or just set back a number of months. Do we know what the likely scenario is? At this point, we don't. That's going to require some further analysis and...

quite frankly, I don't think we will know until we get some international inspectors on the ground there. That's what is useful for the time being, that we use this space for diplomacy. And part of that should be to request access for the IAEA

the UN watchdog agency to get its inspectors in on the ground to assess what is the nature of Iran's enrichment program. And so that we can start building confidence that in the future, if there is an arrangement worked out, that we can have the confidence that Iran is not enriching, that it is not doing illicit activities of the sort that led to the cycle of violence that we have seen in recent days.

So, John, if they get those inspectors get on the ground and they're looking at the sites that were attacked, the targets by the U.S.,

Do they also get access to Iran more broadly? So in other words, other installations or activities or capabilities when it comes to uranium enrichment or nuclear enrichment? Do they get a full picture or is it just what was hit? I'm just trying to get an idea of what they really have access to and what still might be unknowns after their visit.

if they visit? - You ask a very good question. That will be a subject for very intense negotiations. In the past, Iran has always been very secretive and they have always given the impression that they are hiding something. And this has led to a lack of confidence. I think what we want to achieve is a set of arrangements where there is confidence, where there is transparency, where there is confidence that Iran is not hiding something, that they are not putting on a show

for the benefit of the inspectors and doing something behind the scenes. This is how we know that there is not some sort of illicit activity going on. And this is where we will have confidence that there is not a nuclear weapons program. Iran says there is not. The arrangement that is put into place should be one that shows that.

What did you make of the comments that we got from Tehran that the nuclear installations were, quote, badly damaged? Because... And look...

I'm not a military strategist, but just basic logic as I think this through would be if I wanted to hide a nuclear program or if I wanted people to think that I wasn't doing enrichment, I would say that facilities were damaged and not allowing me to do this, these enrichment activities. Is that a fair way to look at these comments from Tehran?

It could be. It's also admitting what is clearly the truth. There were thousands of tons of explosives dropped on these facilities. They are going to be heavily damaged. And that, I think, is merely accepting reality. And bottom line, I mean, do we ultimately know where the uranium is and where that pile has been moved? We don't know that, do we?

We don't. The enriched uranium is in a highly transportable form and containers that can be moved relatively easily from one place to another. So this is something also that if I were on the negotiation team, I would make a point of asking for early on in the process. Where is the uranium? Can we have an accounting for it? Can we have some tracking and transparency on where it is?

And as part of the final arrangement, I would want some accountability and some safeguards placed on that material. That's very dangerous.

How do you view the role of members of Congress? And the reason I ask here is because Axios reported just in the last 90 minutes that the president is set to limit sharing of classified information with Congress after this leak on the Iran bombing damage. Is that, in your view, a move that could make it more difficult for the United States and members of the United States Congress to sort of understand national security issues that affect the nation?

Well, there are two issues. The first is that the information leaked. I don't know that it leaked from Congress, but it leaked and that's unfortunate and that absolutely should not happen. This is highly sensitive classified information and everybody who has access to it should know the procedures for maintaining control. John Arath, Senior Policy Director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2 p.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say, Alexa, play Bloomberg 1130.

Well, once again, Iran said its nuclear installations were, quote, badly damaged by U.S. airstrikes. These comments coming just hours after President Trump disputed a U.S. intelligence report that said the attacks had limited impact on Iran's nuclear program below ground. Meantime, the president said that he had a good meeting with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in The Hague. Needless to say, a lot happening around the world.

and especially a lot happening if you're thinking about political risk. And that's what Kevin Kajawara does. He's managing director and co-president at Teneo Intelligence. He focuses on geopolitics. He's also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. In our introduction, we talked about two different things. One is the latest from Iran.

and the relationship between Israel and Iran and how the U.S. fits into that or lack thereof relationship. And then two, the latest when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war between Russia and Ukraine. You also have geopolitical risk, I think, here at home in New York City with the shock upset in a Democratic primary last night that business leaders are trying to digest today. What is the biggest risk to your clients right now?

Well, I think you highlighted just the variety of issues that are out there, right? And the fact that they are all happening at the same time. What's, you know, more typical historically, right, is to have a number of sort of discrete events and you can respond to each of them. But these now happening with greater frequency, right?

they are happening simultaneously and they are therefore compounding on on one another in ways that you know you look at any individual issue and you might question why the market reacts in that way but there's really you know there's a lot of different inputs uh coming in so i think that the you know the challenge for say a ceo um

or frankly an institutional investor for that matter, but for a CEO is, you know, how do I triage everything that's going on and what is actually kind of signal

for the business that I'm in versus trying to cut through all that noise. Well, that's where I want to go, Kevin, because companies are going public, right? IPOs are happening. Companies are doing deals. Companies are making decisions. They're spending CapEx. So what are you hearing from the community about? What are the lines to say, all right, I'm ready to pull the trigger on spending money or hiring people or expanding versus it's just too unclear, I'm out?

Well, I think the way that they look at it is that uncertainty is essentially a tax, or it is effectively a tax, in the sense that it perverts what would be otherwise normal economic behavior, right? So in other words, you know, if you were trying to anticipate tariffs,

you probably tied up capital building inventory that you wouldn't otherwise do. Or because you have no visibility on what the runway is looking like, you're going to hold off on that potential M&A transaction or opening that new factory or rejiggering the supply chain in some way, shape or form.

So I think though that while there's this realization that there's a lot going on, there's a lot of uncertainty CEOs, just like the president himself, always making decisions based on imperfect information. And now it's perhaps more imperfect than usual. But any moment that you get that clarity and there's an opportunity, you know, you and your CFO had better be ready to act and be able to commit that capital.

On the uncertainty tax, on the uncertainty side of this, there's certainly geopolitical uncertainty, but there's also the uncertainty about policies that are coming out of Washington, that are coming out of the White House. And we've seen this sort of changing way that companies are speaking or communicating with the president, especially companies outside of the United States announcing investments, companies in the United States announcing investments in the U.S. How would you say

that your clients or you're advising your clients to communicate with Washington, to communicate with the president? Well, look, I think that there's a, the, the,

The issue is that it gets really bespoke really quickly, depending on the sensitivity of the industry you're in, depending the country that you're from and what the trade relationship is or the overall nature of the relationship is. You have to take all of those things into consideration. I think that there is a focus, perhaps a greater indexation, if you will.

on things that you know are going to resonate well and via avenues that you know will resonate well with this administration and with this president, right? So for some people, that means we've got to go to Mar-a-Lago. For some people, that means appearing on certain news outlets. And in others, it means taking- Wait, for executives? Yeah, sure. We saw Jamie Dimon, I think it's fair to say, Carol, communicate

That morning on Fox with Maria Bartiromo. Yeah. And it seemed like he made his message known to Washington through that interview. It was an audience of one. So understanding that going on there, that President Trump is listening. Yes. And watching. Huh. You know, we've had a lot of conversations here. Like, it's just amazing the fear of executives to speak out in the United States of America. Tell me, give me, what...

And I understand you can't tell us specifics and stuff, but I'm just curious, like what is kind of the psyche of the corporate clients that you're dealing with and why there is that fear? Well, I mean, I understand if you're publicly held, you don't want to be a target, but aren't you surprised? I mean, these are leaders that are supposed to speak out when things are,

maybe they don't agree with things. - Well, I think that there are, there's again, there's a hierarchy of leaders, right? You just mentioned Jamie Dimon, who's probably the closest thing we've got to sort of a head of state level chief executive in this country and perhaps further in power, but it also plays into his own personality. He is comfortable in that role in a way that not every executive is, I think.

But secondly, I think this has forced executives not necessarily to shrink, but to refocus on what's important to them, their industry, their company, the stakeholders they have, and to focus in on those things rather than feeling like they need to weigh in and opine on every single issue that is out there. So you think that's a good thing? Yeah.

Well, I think it's just the new reality. I don't think any of these things are good things or bad things. It's just the thing. This is the environment that we are currently in. That environment will change four years from now, and they'll shift again. Because it's such a swing if you think you go from the murder of George Floyd and COVID and executives were out talking about everything, and we thought that there was this real opening, and then it just feels like, I understand, pendulum swing, but...

It swung another direction. Well, of course, the other thing is action, right? And I think being on the other side of this now, right, where we're looking at, for instance, DE&I initiatives, right, being rolled back in terms of how they're promoted and so on and so forth. But a lot of executives have bought with their stakeholders and their employees and their customer bases. They bought a lot of goodwill because of the

actions that they have taken over the years. And now, even if you change the website a little bit or something of that nature, but you remain committed because you can see the bottom line positive impact of these types of policies, you've got a lot of goodwill already built in with your stakeholders. So you consider the stakeholders...

the ones who work for you, the employees as a group of stakeholders, you don't necessarily talk about the DEI policies outside of the company in the same way, or maybe you don't even talk about them internally in the same way, but perhaps you did see a return on the investment. So you keep doing those things and you call them something else. Like what happens here? There's elements with it. And, you know, and Teneo is a perfect example of the type of company that has a lot of people who are devoted toward helping executives grow.

you know, kind of thread this needle, so to speak. And some need more help than others. And also, you know, it's an awareness of who your audience is, who your customer base is. Some are going to respond, you know, and we all know the companies, right, where, you know, we're taking certain stands has stood them in good stead with their audiences and others who've had a more challenging time. So it's, you know, it's about being...

smart and surgical about this. But you've seen cycles. Like I think about, you know, in this world, and I think about the great financial crisis, there's COVID, there's just so much stuff. War overseas, different presidents, and so on and so forth. How do you describe this cycle?

And how do you think a lot of CEOs, and I hate to dump everybody in a bucket because it's just not the way the world works, but I am just curious, you know, historically, business-wise, economically, the role of the United States in the world, like how do you see this cycle? There is something changing right now. This is not just a cycle. This is a secular change, right? And this is something that

can no longer be punted down the road. In other words, the decisions that CEOs are making today are existential decisions for their companies and whether they are going to be nimble enough to be some of the winners on the other side.

Think about it in the context of like climate change as an example, right? Remember a few years ago, companies, managements were, you know, making zero carbon commitments and the like. But the reality of it was, it was like a generation or two down the road of management that would actually have to implement that. That was an easy commitment to make in a sense, right? Yeah, exactly. But right now...

like you say, the playing field is actually fundamentally changing. And it is not hyperbolic to say that it's a paradigmatic shift right now. But it is this generation of leadership that's having to have the situational awareness and kind of realize that even though you've got all these balls in the air right now with the just-in-time, you know, just what's happening right now with trade, with geopolitics, with the fiscal bill, all of that, this is a bigger picture. So this isn't just a presidential administration thing? No, not at all. So you're talking about supply chains? You're talking about, like...

What? What does that mean? What we think of as the international rules-based order, which is a system that laid the groundwork for the multinational corporation to be the single most important economic actor. If that is evolving, if the role of the U.S. is evolving,

Is it axiomatic that those same economic actors are going to be the big winners in the next? Or do you have to be nimble enough to be thinking ahead of how this might change? I mean, this interim period, I don't know if it's going to be long or short. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like on the other side. But, you know, those who are aware, it's like Eisenhower said, right? The plan is worthless when the first bullet flies, but planning is everything, right? Yeah.

So, putting you on the spot, NetNet, is this a positive development in the work that you do? Well, I mean, I think so, in the sense that it is inevitable that, you know, over time, strategic decisions have been made predicated on a certain perspective on what the global operating environment is going to look like. And then all your other decisions change.

stem from that. The global operating environment being a world of liberal democracies and a liberal world order. But not just that, right? This ability to have, to take advantage of the free flow of labor, free flow of capital, you know, a just-in-time global supply chain system, opening of markets, all of that, right? The sort of the key variables of globalization. Right. If that's,

shifting, right? If that's shifting, you've got to start scenario planning for how that might impact your business. - 25 seconds, it's a question Tim and I like to ask a lot of folks who come on here because in January we thought about American exceptionalism a lot. Is that going away? And forgive me, only about 25 seconds.

Look, the United States has certain built-in advantages, scale, the English language, the dollar, an economic ecosystem and financing ecosystem that finds phenomenal ideas and can bring them to market and so on and so forth. Nobody else has got that still, even with all the challenges we've got.

What a great conversation. Kevin, thank you so much. Come back sooner. Don't wait so long. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Kevin Kajawara, he's Managing Director, Co-President at Teneo Intelligence. This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily. For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order.

But with Easy Cater, you get a single workplace food vendor with the tools and resources to make it easy. Giving teams across your organization an easy way to order from a huge variety of restaurants, all on one platform. All while consolidating your corporate food spend so you can control costs. Streamlining billing and payment and simplifying reporting. Easy Cater, your business tool for food. To learn more, visit easycater.com slash podcast.

When you're with Amex Business Platinum, you have the card that helps businesses dream bigger. Get a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business and earn 1.5 times membership rewards points on select business purchases so you can stock up on what you need to take your business further and get rewarded for growing bigger. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash AmexBusiness.

At GSK, our focus is on doing the right thing for patients. We believe they should be free to focus on doing what they love, especially when they're living with a disease like cancer. That's why we focus where we can make the biggest difference matching the right treatment with the right patient.

At GSK, we're pioneering advanced technologies like antibody drug conjugates that precisely target and attack cancer cells. By uniting science, technology, and talent, we work tirelessly to stay ahead of cancer together. Visit gsk.com to discover more.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. I'm driving in my car. How about you let me drive? Oh, no. No, no, no. This is not a toy. Who's gonna drive you home? Honey, please. I'll do the driving. Drive home. Excuse me. I don't want to drive. You drive.

It's the question that drives us. This is The Drive to the Close. That's funky music. We'll try it once we kill the dawn. On Bloomberg Radio. All right, TikTok, everybody. We're coming up on about 18 minutes to go until we wrap up the trade on this Wednesday, June 25th. Where the heck did June go? It is behind us, Carol. We can only look forward to the third quarter of the year. What are you, like in Hamilton or something?

You start rapping and I could say you're in Hamilton. Did I say this yesterday on air? I think I said it not on air. I've never seen Hamilton. I know. I don't even know why I can share space with you. I've lived in New York for 15 years and I've never seen Hamilton. You gotta see Hamilton. It's really, really good. It's even on, you can watch it on streaming. I know, but like I said, I don't want to watch it on streaming without seeing it on Broadway. Don't get us singing.

All right. We don't have the rights to that music. All right. We've got the S&P little change down two points, 129 to the downside on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, if you care about that index. And

And the Nasdaq 100 up 22 points, up a tenth of a percent. This is kind of a, I almost feel like a sideways move. Let's see what Jeanette Garrity has to say about all of it. She's managing director, chief economist at the wealth management firm Robertson Stevens. She's joining us from Menlo Park, California. Robertson Stevens, by the way, has about 7.1 billion in assets under management. How are you?

I'm fine. How are you guys? Okay. Okay. Um, you know, another week where a lot comes at us, we had a rally yesterday. Today feels like we don't know where we're going. Um, tell us what your clients come to you or your team comes to you and says, you know, I don't understand where we go from here or what's next or what's top of mind.

Well, you know, actually, they haven't, at least in the last six weeks, they haven't been saying so much of where do we go from here as where can I go from here? Where are the opportunities? What am I going to do? Certainly, everybody feels a bit better than they did in April.

I don't know, and I think the market reflects that, the equity markets reflect that. The amount, as you said, just look at this week. I mean, the news cycle this week is head spinning the last couple of weeks. And so it's just kind of interesting. I think people are energized, they're trying to find opportunities.

But there are still a lot of challenges out there. And it's just a little bit more about reminding them what some of those might be. Well, what's the biggest challenge that you see right now? I mean, if we were to talk to you back in April, I think it would have been navigating tariff policy. Here we are two months later, just a few days away from that July 9th deadline.

for the extension of some of those tariffs. Is that the biggest challenge for investors navigating what these companies are going to do in the face of changing policy or uncertain policy?

Well, I think the biggest challenge is, let's not say tariffs, but trade in general. Just figuring out the relationships that are in place, what new relationships are maybe going to be in place. Some of that is influenced by tariffs. Some of that is influenced by geopolitics,

as we've seen the topic of the day, the disruptions in the Middle East. Trade is changing in front of our eyes. These relationships are changing. So I think that is a big challenge. And maybe the fundamental challenge from investors is it's not an easy environment perhaps in which to pick winners and losers because a lot of it is going to come down to company management,

dynamic you are, the right educated guesses that you make. We're going to see winners and losers everywhere. And a lot of it is some of it's going to be luck, some of it's going to be skill, better to be lucky and good, actually, not just one. So

We talked earlier with our Tyler Kendall about kind of the next couple of weeks, two or three weeks or so that are facing President Trump. And there's a lot on his docket, you know, wanting to get this tax and spending bill done. He's got a deadline on that one. The deadline ticking on the imposition of higher tariffs against some of our allies or really on everyone. So it's a lot on his plate.

Are you anticipating that he does an extension, pushes it down the road? And so we continue to live in this world of uncertainty as we get ready to kick off another earnings season. And we'll see what that means for companies. But how what's what's your take on that? Do you expect things get done or do you think it just gets pushed down the road?

Oh, I do think things get done, but we're not sure what thing and we're not sure what done really means. So there are going to be deals. We'll see how he feels coming back from NATO. That'll be about more than just NATO. That'll be about who he sat down with and how the conversations went.

It's also a bit about the people around them and what they think they can be able to achieve. Look at Chairman Powell in the press conference last week had this nice little unappreciated distinction between

and uncertainty. And he said, the level of uncertainty is down, but the risk is still high. And what he was getting at is uncertainty means you can't see anything at all. If you will, you can't see at all what might happen. Risk is that you don't, you have a wide range of outcomes. So I think more so than in April, we sort of know what's going on out there. There are these trade negotiations, occasionally a trade fight, and

there are these surprises that are going to be coming out of the one big budget bill act, OBAA. So we know what that sort of is. I know. We know what that sort of is. I haven't heard that. Wait, is that what you're saying? I didn't hear you say beautiful. Yeah. One big beautiful act. Excuse me. I left out beautiful. It's so much easier just to say OBAA.

right i haven't heard that yet yeah because you lose track of the bees but but that you know so you know that that's there you know the general parameters you can see but the the range of outcomes from any of these things is very large and i think that's what defines

The variability and the volatility as we go into the third quarter, that's still there. Okay. So we just want to end hearing what you're hearing from clients right now. You're in Menlo Park. You're in the heart of Silicon Valley. I imagine your clients, a lot of high net worth individuals who made their money in technology. Correct me if I'm wrong, though. What do you hear from them? I think what I hear is, please tell me that I can...

think like the growth investor that I really genetically am predisposed to be. There's a lot of focus on growth. There's a lot of focus on AI. I think

in looking at the fundamentals, I want to broaden it from AI, there's an understanding of what the secular trends are, tight labor markets, slow labor force growth, predictions for slower economic growth.

How do we ride the wave that will kind of get us to a different place? What can we do? Where can we be that will be consistent with what we think is going to happen, which is people are going to strive for doing something new and different and higher growth, higher labor productivity?

and i think that that has merit i i think that is where we are going to be this is a this is remains an extremely dynamic economy look at everything that has been thrown at this well and yet we're here and right now the difference between got it today april is people saying i can figure it out jeanette we gotta run jeanette garrity managing director chief economist at robertson stevens joining us from menlo park california

This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order. But with EasyCater, you get a single workplace food vendor with the tools and resources to make it easy, giving teams across your organization an easy way to order from a huge variety of restaurants, all on one platform. All while consolidating your corporate food spend so you can control costs, streamlining billing and payment and simplifying reporting.

EasyCater, your business tool for food. To learn more, visit EasyCater.com slash podcast. Career changers, including veterans and active duty service members. Your transition starts here. Go from GI to IT in a matter of months. Become a certified cyber warrior with training at My Computer Career. Cyber security specialists are in high demand, offering IT pros great opportunities and a rewarding lifestyle while protecting our people, liberty, and treasured institutions from cyber threats.

Deploy your career in IT today. Learn more at mycomputercareer.edu. SkillBridge and other VA benefits are available to those who qualify.

This July 4th, celebrate freedom from spills, stains, and overpriced furniture with Anabay, the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly pricing. Sofas start at just $699, making it the perfect time to upgrade your space. Anabay's pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and interchangeable slipcovers are made with high-performance fabric that's built for real life. You'll love the cloud-like comfort of hypoallergenic,

high resilience foam that never needs fluffing and a durable steel frame that stands the test of time with modular pieces you can rearrange anytime it's a sofa that adapts to your life now through july 4th get up to 60 off site wide at washablesofas.com every order comes with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee if you're not in love send it back for a full refund no return shipping no restocking fees every penny back

declare independence from dirty, outdated furniture. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This is an iHeart Podcast.