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Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.


Odd Lots

You probably already know someone doing peptides — the amino acids that form the basis of popular new drug treatments like Ozempic and Wegovy. Today there are peptides meant to help with everything from weight loss, to cellular regeneration, to improved eye contact while talking. In San Francisco, there are even organized “peptide raves.” Yet most of these underground peptides haven’t been approved by regulators for human use in the US. So where are they coming from? And how do they get here? On this episode, we speak with two guests who have seen this growing subculture up close, Jasmine Sun, an independent writer covering AI and San Francisco culture, as well as Zak David, managing partner of Pirsek Technologies, which runs a peptide supplier, Peptide Partners.
 
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The Booming Business of Chinese Peptides

The politics of AI are already exploding. Whether we're talking about data centers, electricity prices, labor displacement, water consumption, competition with China, or users of chatbots becoming psychotically obsessed, AI is already a major topic in elections. And since there's so much money at stake, the industry is already spinning up super PACs and lobbying arms. Last month, it was reported that a new $100 million AI-industry super PAC called Leading the Future would be directly targeting Alex Bores, a Democrat who is running for his party's nomination for New York's 12th congressional district. Why target Bores? Well, as an New York assemblymember, he has led the push for the regulation of AI at the state level. The industry, of course, views state-level regulation as an existential threat to their business. So on this episode we speak with Alex about how he views AI and the optimal approach to regulation. Alex also has a tech background, and so we talk about the technology more broadly, as well as other issues in contemporary politics.

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Meet the Politician the AI Industry Is Trying to Stop

When we think about America’s economic rise, we usually point to agriculture or the industrial revolution. But in the early days of colonization, one of the biggest economic drivers wasn’t crops or factories — it was animal products. Deerskins were a booming trade that pushed hunters into new frontiers. In the early 1800s, beaver pelts became a fashion craze. And of course, later that century, we nearly hunted buffalo to extinction in another frenzy of resource extraction. On this episode, we talk to Steven Rinella, author and founder of MeatEater, about this overlooked chapter in US economic history, plus how the hunting economy functions today.
 
Read more:
USDA Lowers Cattle Price Outlook After Tyson Beef Plant Closure
RFK Jr. Eyes Single National Standard on Food Labeling and Safety
 
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MeatEater's Steven Rinella on the Economic History of Hunting

Most people think of venture capital as funding software startups or, these days, some new AI tool. But VC also plays a major role in developing new medicines and treatments. That’s the world of D.A. Wallach — though he didn’t start there. Before becoming a biotech investor, Wallach was the lead singer of the indie rock band Chester French. So how did he make the leap from music to venture capital? How does he spot promising biotech opportunities? What does it actually take to bring a new drug to market? And how does biotech investing differ from traditional VC? We talk to the co-founder of Time BioVentures about all of this — plus we get his thoughts on AI’s impact on music and a special performance.

Have a question for Joe and Tracy? Now's your chance to be the perfect guest - record a voice memo with your name, age, location and question and email to oddlots@bloomberg.net for a chance to be included in the holiday AMA episode.

Read More:
Big Pharma’s Patent Cliff Puts China Front and Center
Novartis Strikes Deal With UK Biotech for Up To $1.7 Billion

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D.A. Wallach Explains Why Biotech VC Is So Different

Data centers are weird things. They're partly real estate assets. They're partly extremely advanced technological products. And they have to find a way to consume a tremendous amount of electricity from the grid -- or they increasingly have their own power plants on site. And beyond that, they've become extremely controversial, with more and more communities pushing back on their development. So how do you get all your ducks in a row when a new project is proposed? Who provides the financing at which stage of the agreement? What are the legal complications that arise? On this episode, we speak with Travis Wofford, a partner at the law firm Baker Botts, who works in the firm's AI practice. We discuss all the intricacies of these projects, the challenges that arise, and how things have changed in this space just since the beginning of the year.
 
Read more:
Oracle Earnings May Not Be Enough to Assuage Debt, AI Deal Fears
NextEra Shares Fall Amid Push to Move Into Data Centers and Gas
 
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This Is What It Takes to Get a Data Center Financed

In the years since the financial crisis, bond investors didn't get much return for taking on risk. With low interest rates and little sign of inflation, investors had to accept lower-quality assets to get any semblance of yield. Now that's changing according to Dan Ivascyn, the chief investment officer of Pimco, one of the biggest bond fund managers around. In this special 10-year anniversary episode, Dan reflects on longer-term trends in the bond market, as well as more immediate issues like independence at the Federal Reserve, concerns around data center financing, and worries of "dangerous" and inflated credit ratings.
 
Read more:
French Budget Endgame Means Stress Test for Stocks and Bonds
Pinebridge Sees Emerging-Markets Rally Tilting Toward Bonds
 
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Dan Ivascyn Is Excited About a New Era in Fixed Income

Excel. If you work in corporate America, that word either inspires laser-focused productivity or pure dread. Over the last 40 years, the spreadsheet software has become synonymous with the best — and worst — of late-stage capitalism. It’s seeped into popular culture and, along the way, made Microsoft one of the world’s most valuable companies.But in a world of AI and new competition where Excel=Sum(39+1), can it stay on top? From the Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Dina Bass and Businessweek’s Max Chafkin join host Sarah Holder to track the rise and challenges ahead for one of the most ubiquitous programs around.

Like this episode? Listen and Subscribe to the Big Take podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts

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How Microsoft Excel Conquered Corporate America

Max Levchin probably knows as much about online payments as anyone. He was part of the original "PayPal mafia" before going on to become co-founder and CEO of Affirm, the $22 billion player in the Buy Now, Pay Later industry that's hoping to disrupt the incumbent credit card companies. While BNPL is booming, there is still a lot of confusion about how it works, how it makes money, and how transparent its activities are. On this episode, we speak with Max about why he started his company, and why he believes that BNPL offers a superior product to traditional forms of payment and credit. We also discuss the current state of the economy, AI, and what he sees as the role of crypto in payments.

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Affirm's Max Levchin Breaks Down How Buy Now, Pay Later Really Works

There have been some wobbles in credit markets lately. It hasn't been too dramatic, but we've had some blowups, leading Jamie Dimon to speculate about the presence of other "cockroaches" lurking in the industry. But what do we actually know about the quality and practices of credit underwriting right now? Dan Wertman is the co-founder and CEO of Noetica, a startup that uses AI to scan deal documents and measure linguistic and term trends over time. Dan talks to us about what he's been seeing in the language of deal documents, and why there are reasons to think that more blowups are lurking around the corner. He also talks to us about how credit agreements are structured in the AI space, and how we should understand some of these huge data center financing deals we've seen lately.
 
Read more:
Oracle Credit Fear Gauge Hits Highest Since 2009 on AI Bubble Fears
Secretive $3 Trillion Fund Giant Makes Flashy Move Into Private Assets
 
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AI Can Tell Us Something About Credit Market Weakness

There's an incredible amount of focus on the grid this days. That's notable because for a long time, the grid was hardly of any interest. For years, load growth was flat. It was a sleepy market. And in fact, because it was sleepy, regulators and politicians and private companies started focusing on phasing out the dirtier parts of energy production. Now things have flipped. Prices are on the rise. Load growth is on the rise. And everyone's tying to figure out how we're going to attach all of these AI datacenters to the grid. On this episode, we speak with Travis Kavulla, the vice president of regulatory affairs at NRG. Prior to his current role, Travis served for eight years on Montana's Public Service Commission, and therefore has a good feel for what drives prices in both regulated and competitive electricity markets. He explains the factors that have pushed electricity costs up, particularly since the pandemic, and the calculations that have to be made to plan for the future burdens that will be placed on the grid.
 
Read more:
Americans Paying Record Electricity Prices as Gas Costs Climb
As Federal Support Withers, California Invests in Cheap Heat Pumps
 
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D.A. Wallach Explains Why Biotech VC Is So Different

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