0:01

You're listening to Math and Magic, a production.

0:04

I heart radio when

0:08

I got into banking, and I realized,

0:10

these guys every day are kind of going through the New

0:12

York Post or they're reading Time Out

0:14

or Zagas, and they need to take their clients

0:16

hot restaurants. My girlfriends at the

0:18

time worked in PR. I obviously

0:21

knew people, you know, in the nightclub and restaurant

0:23

industry because it's what young people do in New York.

0:25

And I would just book a table, and

0:27

I convinced the guys that I worked with, oh,

0:30

in order for you to get that table, I'm gonna have to go, You're

0:32

gonna have to have a girl at the table. And I hustled

0:34

my way in and it ended up being a

0:36

huge win for me because there I

0:38

was three four nights a week, out

0:41

to dinner for two and three hours

0:43

with all the people on my desk, all of their big

0:45

clients. And that's how I built relationships

0:47

and trust and really how I built my career. I'm

0:52

Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic

0:55

Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing.

0:57

As we explore the stories from marketing and busin

1:00

this one of the most important components to Greek

1:02

business decisions, is good information

1:05

garbagegen garbage owl. The term

1:07

coined by early computer programmers and

1:09

still a basic tenantive computer science applies

1:12

to our business decisions as well. Hard

1:14

to make a good decision with bad information.

1:17

Today, we have someone who lives in this world

1:19

of information and news. She's Stephanie

1:22

Rule, hosted The Eleventh Hour on MSNBC

1:25

and also senior business analysts for NBC.

1:27

Neeters a

1:32

Christmas Eve baby who fits most of the

1:34

Capricorn characteristics. Stephanie

1:37

was a child of the seventies, eighties and

1:39

early nineties. She lived and studied

1:41

abroad during much of her college, started

1:43

out in a career in finance, and even though she was a

1:46

big success on a fast track, she

1:48

jumped to media at Bloomberg Television

1:50

in two thousand and eleven. She's been a part

1:52

of NBC News since two thousand sixteen

1:55

and has never looked back. She's smart, she's

1:57

caring, and she's always in sight.

2:00

Well, Stephanie, welcome. I am

2:02

so grateful to be here and grateful to talk

2:04

to you. Before we dive in everything,

2:06

I want to warm up with you in sixty

2:08

seconds. Are you ready? Yeah, do

2:11

you prefer salty or sweet? Salty?

2:13

Early bird or night owl? Night

2:15

o? Trading floor of the TV studio

2:18

is the same room because nobody realizes in

2:21

New York or New Jersey. My

2:24

heart is in New Jersey, but

2:26

my soul is in New York. Introvert or extrovert

2:29

extrovert, Slow and steady or pedal

2:32

to the metal, Pedal to the metal,

2:34

But man, I wish I was slow and steady. Comedy

2:36

or drama? A little bit of both? Cats

2:38

or dogs. There's no question

2:41

dogs all day. Life work

2:44

balance or life work integration,

2:46

Life work integration absolutely, First

2:49

concert, Meat, childhood

2:51

Hero, My Grandmother, and

2:53

Miss Pig. Favorite news anchor from Before

2:55

your Time, Tom Broke, claw by a mile,

2:58

Favorite newspaper in New York

3:00

Time, favorite podcast, First

3:03

Computer Commodore takes before

3:06

This is the best one. Guilty pleasure,

3:09

Guilty pleasure, guilty pleasure.

3:12

Eating in bed while watching TV sounds

3:15

good. Okay, we're warmed

3:17

up. Let's jump in. I'm gonna

3:19

start with a big topic news. There

3:22

are two schools of thought today. Collect

3:24

all the relevant information about important

3:26

stories and then give the viewers, listeners

3:29

or readers all the information without

3:31

bias or twisting to any one point

3:33

of view. When Walter Isaacson

3:36

was on, he talked about in his days

3:38

at Time and CNN, he wouldn't even

3:40

vote because he was worried just by

3:42

deciding who to select,

3:45

he would have a bias and it would influence his coverage.

3:48

The other school of thought, of course, is to serve a particular

3:50

group and reflect their views and the news

3:53

tailoring it for them for their point of

3:55

view or beliefs, not necessarily biased, but covering

3:57

it from that angle. Clearly, the

4:00

ladder today gets a bigger audience and

4:02

out supported media lives on the sale of

4:04

advertising, so that's important. Where

4:07

do you come down on this and how do you see the current

4:09

state of news in the US. I

4:12

think it's sort of in the middle. I think sort

4:14

of this merely providing information

4:17

is limited and it's not necessarily

4:20

what people need from news organizations

4:22

because you can get basic

4:24

information from a lot of

4:26

places. I wish it was clearer who's

4:29

providing said basic information.

4:31

But I think there's something more than just straight

4:34

news that doesn't take you all the way

4:36

to bias, and that to me is

4:39

insightful perspective. Right, you mentioned

4:41

Walter Isaacson. If Walter Isaacson

4:43

were to come on television in conjunction

4:46

with a news story or a presidential

4:49

historian, let's say a Michael Beschloss, they're

4:51

not coming on and giving a deep bias.

4:54

They don't have deep ideology that they're

4:56

going to solve for at the end of any story.

4:59

But with they can do is give insightful,

5:02

educated perspective. And

5:04

I want that with my news. I want to

5:07

watch television where I understand,

5:09

here's the information out there, here's the

5:11

story that's happening on the other side of the world.

5:14

And then the second feet is here's

5:16

why it matters to you. Here's

5:18

what this means historically. Let's

5:21

put it in perspective, and to say

5:23

we cater to our audience, that's

5:26

different. That's not news. Right. So when I think

5:28

back to my grandparents, my grandparents

5:30

were religious listeners of someone who I know

5:32

you knew very well, Rush Limbaugh. They

5:34

loved Rush Limbach because Rush Limbaugh

5:37

was a radio personality who

5:39

shared some of their political ideology.

5:42

But they didn't turn to Rush Limbaugh to get

5:44

their news. They turned to Walter Cronkite.

5:46

Those are two different things. I think those

5:49

are two valuable things that exist

5:51

in news and entertainment and opinion,

5:54

but they should be marked what they

5:56

are and audiences should understand what

5:58

they are. I don't have have a

6:00

deep ideology, and my hope

6:03

is I want the world to get better and smarter.

6:05

I want to create content that helps people do

6:07

that. I want the world that I had

6:09

my kids to be better than the world I received.

6:12

How does social fit into all this.

6:15

I've been struck by a staff that about

6:17

fifteen percent of America is far

6:19

left or far right, but eighty

6:22

percent of the messages over social come

6:24

from the per cent. How does that

6:26

fit into a human in

6:29

the United States getting

6:31

the news and understanding it. You know, when

6:33

I really started thinking about the impact of social

6:36

during COVID, before I was

6:38

working from home, when I was sitting in a newsroom,

6:41

I felt like social was so tied

6:43

to sort of the zeitgeist of America, how people

6:46

felt, what they thought, what they were doing. And

6:49

then COVID hit and I was living in

6:51

a keeny tiny island in New Jersey,

6:54

and I was around my neighbors and small

6:56

business owners, and I realized how

6:58

keeny tiny a portion

7:01

of us are actually on social

7:03

tweeting following things, and

7:05

it got me thinking more and more how

7:07

twisted social media is and

7:10

how it does impact what we say and

7:12

how we think. And the truth is, we don't

7:14

even know who's behind half the people that are

7:16

tweeting. Let me ask you a question, Stephanie,

7:19

you just talked a little bit about the

7:21

difference between opinion and news when you're talking

7:24

about Russian Walter Cronkite

7:26

in social do you think we have an

7:28

issue of understanding

7:31

what is opinion and what is

7:33

news and what is paid for

7:35

and what's not paid for. It's

7:38

totally unclear what's sponsored

7:40

what's not sponsored. I might

7:42

send something out because I just

7:44

think it's funny or goofy, and what

7:47

if it's wrong And what if I sent that tweet

7:49

at two o'clock in the morning on a Friday and

7:51

I didn't do my research. Well, there's me, Stephanie

7:54

Rule, who's viewed hopefully as a

7:56

responsible journalist sending out nonsense.

7:59

Before so social media existed, I

8:01

had a really carry myself to a standard

8:04

as somebody is part of a news organization. And if I

8:06

was saying or doing irresponsible things, NBC

8:09

could say to me, Hey, Steph, you do that, you're

8:11

off the air. Now You've got

8:13

news quote unquote personalities

8:16

that consider themselves bigger than their news

8:18

organizations, and so they're saying and

8:21

doing wild, irresponsible things,

8:23

and their news organizations can't control

8:25

them. And so I think it's very

8:27

messy. I don't have an answer for it,

8:30

but I know it's not helpful. Well, let me ask you another

8:32

question on this. Bill Pailey, founder

8:35

and legendary head of CBS

8:37

a lot of news as sort of nonprofit

8:40

contribution. The cynics might say

8:42

he did it to keep Washington out of his business.

8:45

Others would say he did it because he felt it was his duty.

8:48

Our news organizations better if they're

8:50

part of big organization, so it's

8:52

not the whole business, but has

8:54

a little more leeway in terms of economics.

8:56

Or does it not matter? Sure in

8:59

theory, should news organizations

9:01

operate almost like a nonprofit, like a

9:03

public service. They should, But at

9:05

the end of the day, we're controlled by money, and

9:09

the most talented people,

9:11

the most valuable resources are

9:13

drawn to profit centers, not nonprofit

9:17

centers in a totally pure

9:19

world. Bill Paley's right, we

9:21

just don't live in a pure world. Anymore. Do you

9:23

think the public's view of news organizations

9:26

has changed? And how do you

9:28

think they see what you do? Of

9:31

course it has changed over time. But

9:33

I would also argue that because

9:36

there are so many news outlets, because the

9:38

barriers of entry are so much lower

9:40

today, I actually think in many

9:42

ways, the American public is better than

9:45

they've been before. Right, we keep thinking that,

9:47

like, oh, back in the day, when there was only a certain

9:49

amount of news organizations, you know, whether

9:51

it was TV news or radio news or newspapers,

9:54

weren't we all the better? I don't

9:56

know that that's the case, back when there

9:58

were such difficult called barriers

10:00

of entry. I wonder did

10:02

the whole truth ever get out back

10:05

in the day. Think about cylinders of

10:07

power, Right, you had media, you

10:09

had government, you had business, you had the church.

10:12

How could anyone break through those cylinders

10:15

of power? They couldn't. They were impenetrable.

10:18

Now, look at the state of Pennsylvania.

10:20

What was it fifteen years ago? Through tiny

10:23

social media campaigns, victims

10:25

of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church found

10:28

one another. And what did that end up doing?

10:30

Having a real impact on the archdiotis

10:33

of the state of Pennsylvania. That's huge.

10:36

Back in the day, what could someone do if something

10:38

corrupt was happening in their small town

10:41

Write a letter to their congress person. Good

10:43

luck with that. Now one

10:45

person's tiny voice can

10:47

have a huge impact because

10:50

of those social media channels, because the barriers

10:52

of entry are so much lower. That's extraordinary.

10:55

Now is that dangerous in terms of standards

10:58

and legal and best practice is in terms of

11:00

news? Absolutely, and we've got to figure that

11:02

out. Okay, let's go back in time.

11:05

Now. You grew up in New Jersey, born

11:07

in the mid seventies. Can you paint

11:09

the picture of those times that

11:12

location in your family life.

11:15

I grew up in northern New Jersey. My

11:17

dad was a mechanical engineer and my mother

11:19

was a state at home mom, and she ran

11:22

the p t A in my hometown and

11:24

the board of Education where I lived. My

11:26

mom devoted her whole life to

11:29

my sister in my my life, my success

11:32

and something I can remember from a very very

11:34

young age, how I didn't respect

11:38

and I have so much regret over it now what

11:41

my mom did for a living, which

11:44

was the most important job, being a full

11:46

time parent, and devoting herself

11:48

to my school system and improving my school system.

11:51

I viewed everything as the

11:53

person who makes the money in your house

11:56

is the boss of your house. And

11:59

I can remember a little girl driving

12:01

with my mom in the car to drop my dad

12:04

at the train station, and my mom being in

12:06

her pajamas and my dad in a passenger seat

12:08

and me sitting in the backseat. And I can remember my dad

12:11

getting on the train every day and thinking to

12:13

myself, I don't know where he's going

12:15

or what he's doing, but one day I'm

12:17

going to be the person on the train and

12:19

I'm not going to be the person in the car and my pajamas.

12:22

I mean, my mom pushed me very

12:24

hard from a young age to always have

12:26

a job, to be focused on my career, to be focused

12:29

on success. But it really wasn't until

12:32

I myself became a mom and

12:34

really struggle with all of the difficulties

12:37

of life and marriage

12:40

and parenthood and career that I

12:42

truly understand and I appreciate the

12:44

importance of parenthood, and as a working mom

12:47

myself now how to appreciate

12:49

those other mothers and fathers out there who

12:51

dedicate themselves to be full time parents

12:54

to improving school systems because I'm the

12:56

beneficiary of that. I read somewhere

12:59

that you were a serious kid that you

13:01

would rather make money babysitting on a Saturday

13:03

night than going out to parties. That an accurate

13:05

story a hundred. I mean, I

13:08

think if somebody met me out on any

13:10

Saturday night now in a wig and a costume,

13:13

and who knows what. I'm a pretty extroverted

13:15

person. I do love to party, but I've

13:17

always always been focused on making money

13:20

because it's Freedom's not greed, having

13:23

your own money. And I knew that from

13:25

when I was nine ten years old. It

13:28

gives you options. Money certainly doesn't give

13:30

you happiness, but it gives you options.

13:32

Bob, think about the industries

13:34

where you see the most abuse and the

13:37

most harassment. It's in industries

13:39

where women are backed against the wall trying

13:41

to make rent. And when I was in

13:43

the eighth grade, I met a family that I

13:45

could babysit for every Saturday night

13:48

and I could get paid fifty bucks a week. I

13:50

did the math as an eighth grader and

13:52

thought, is there a high school

13:55

party I could go to that's more fun than

13:57

fifty bucks? And the answer was no, And

13:59

I pretty much to have never been to a high school

14:01

party on a Saturday night because I always wanted

14:03

to make the fifty bucks in that time

14:05

period. What were the big issues that

14:08

you remember? I mean, what was consuming

14:10

your view of the world? Then, gosh,

14:13

when I was in high school, what was consuming my view

14:15

of the world, My social life,

14:17

my my popularity? Nonsense,

14:20

right, And now when I look at teenagers,

14:23

I think it's that times a hundred. To

14:25

be totally honest, Bob, it was the one thing that

14:28

gave me reservations about having children.

14:31

I can remember how painful it is to

14:33

be in junior high or to be in high school,

14:35

and I remember thinking, if

14:38

it's that hard to live that pain

14:40

yourself, it's going to be ten times

14:42

harder to be the parent watching a child

14:45

grow up. It's amazing to me

14:47

that from a young age, the way our society,

14:49

the way our culture works, the way our media works,

14:52

it's about being exclusionary. It's about

14:54

being popular, it's about having a best friend,

14:57

it's about being a captain of that team and everything.

15:00

How do I elbow somebody else out

15:02

to get on top? And that's

15:04

such a lonely, terrible place to

15:06

live. Wouldn't it be better to

15:09

teach our kids and live our lives, to be

15:11

part of a community and make the world around

15:13

us better. I wish that's how I thought

15:16

when I was younger. It's certainly how I

15:18

think now. Let me jump in here. Do

15:20

you think that that is more reflection

15:23

of the eighties of your time? I grew up

15:25

in the fifties and sixties, and in the fifties

15:27

and sixties there was a it

15:30

seems like much more of a social

15:32

conscience, more worried about the

15:34

world. For me, being a white

15:36

suburban girl in New Jersey. I grew up

15:39

in the eighties. You had just delivered me MTV,

15:42

So I lived in a time of a lot of pop

15:44

culture and privilege. To be totally honest, do

15:46

you think that was the first time that

15:49

pop culture really began

15:52

to influence society and that that

15:54

somehow hurt our kids being

15:57

detached from the world and not looking at

15:59

these bigger issue us or do you think this stuff

16:01

just comes in cycles. I think

16:03

this stuff comes from cycles, And I actually

16:06

think, you know, the advent of something

16:08

like MTV did a lot

16:10

for us in the fact that music connects

16:12

us and connects culture, and MTV I mean,

16:14

you know this better than I do. Also brought

16:17

things to the forefront and conversations,

16:19

whether down the road it was about wrap the boat

16:21

or really talking to people about

16:23

AIDS, or seeing people on

16:25

our TV every night that sounded

16:27

different or looked different. MTV

16:30

era really brought this idea

16:32

that being alternative wasn't

16:35

being fringe. It was just part

16:37

of the zeitgeist, part of culture. That's

16:39

what we want, right. We don't want our kids

16:42

to feel like fringe is weird or

16:44

on the edges or something that isn't part

16:47

of the mainstream. The mainstream should

16:49

include everyone, and that's actually

16:51

where we're getting now, to a more inclusive

16:54

society where we should just accept

16:56

people for who they are and where they are and where they

16:58

come from. More a Math

17:00

and Magic right after this quick break. Welcome

17:07

back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from my

17:09

conversation with Stephanie Roll. So

17:13

you go off to college. You survived

17:16

your your high school years, you went not too

17:18

far from home in Pennsylvania. You graduated

17:21

with a degree in international business.

17:23

How did you get there and what did you think that was going

17:25

to do for your life and business? I

17:29

accidentally ended up there Bob. I went

17:32

to college. I really thought I was going to study

17:34

engineering. Not

17:36

long after being there, I realized that wasn't what I wanted

17:38

to do. As I said, my guy is a really brilliant

17:41

engineer. He worked for an engineering company

17:43

and he eventually took it over. But

17:46

when I was a little girl, I can remember being

17:48

in a car with him and

17:50

realizing he was a lousy businessman. One

17:53

of their clients needed a part. They made very

17:55

very specific positioning devices, and

17:58

I had to drive into New York City and to over

18:00

this tiny part in a Manilla envelope with my

18:02

dad. The person stayed in a hotel

18:04

for a week waiting for my dad's company to

18:06

manufacture this piece. I remember

18:08

dropping the Manilla envelope off with my dad and

18:11

we get back in the car. We're on the ride

18:13

home and I said to my dad, so what did you charge

18:15

them? He said, what are you talking about? And

18:17

he said, what do you mean what I charge him? I said, that

18:19

person came here as an emergency. They needed that

18:22

thing. How much more did you charge them

18:24

for it? And he said, we didn't

18:26

charge them anything more. For them they needed a

18:28

piece. We gave it to them and Bob.

18:30

I can remember being a little girl thinking

18:33

this guy is not very good at business. That

18:35

guy flew all the way here to pick up this piece

18:37

that they desperately needed. Why didn't he charge

18:40

them double? Triple, quadruple? And

18:42

I remember in high school thinking, my dad's

18:44

this really brilliant engineer, but I don't

18:46

think you know that to build a business. And

18:48

I think I'm a great salesman. I'm gonna go work for him one

18:51

day. So I said I'm gonna study engineering. My

18:53

dad said, you're gonna hate engineering. You will not be

18:55

a good engineering student. Do not do this. So

18:57

I go to Lehigh to study engineering. I

18:59

get there and I quickly realized, oh yeah, I'm

19:02

not going to study engineering. I'm gonna fail with it. So

19:05

I had an older sister who was graduating

19:07

from architecture school, and I said, what am I gonna

19:09

do? I mean the middle of Pennsylvania at

19:11

this frat boys school, which and she said,

19:13

go abroad. The most important thing

19:15

is life experience. Go abroad

19:18

for as long as you possibly can. So I did.

19:20

I met the dean of the International Business School,

19:22

which I didn't even know what it was, and he helped

19:25

me kind of craft a new major, and I went

19:27

and I studied in Guatemala, Kenya, and

19:29

Italy. And when I was in Italy, I wanted

19:31

to stay living in Europe, but I had no money.

19:34

So I wrote letters to Lehigh University

19:36

alumni who worked in banking, because

19:38

I knew they had banks all around the world and

19:40

a real deer whomever, can you get

19:43

me a job? Blah blah blah blah, And Mary Lynch

19:45

offered me a job in Switzerland, and

19:48

before the summer started, the group

19:50

blew up and they said, you can go

19:52

work from Mary Lynch in New York. So I came

19:54

back to New York. I worked for Mary Lynch for a summer.

19:57

I didn't even know what they did. I had

19:59

some terrible back office documentation

20:02

job. And one day early in

20:04

the summer, I had to make a delivery under the Kicks

20:06

and Country floor and I just

20:09

love energy, and I said, I don't know what

20:11

these people here do for a living, but this is what I want

20:13

to do. And I met these two guys who

20:16

were interest rate derivatives traders, and

20:18

I said, can you teach me what you do? And I

20:20

would come in before my work day started, and I

20:22

would go see them when my work day ended,

20:24

and these guys taught me about interest rate derivatives.

20:28

So I applied to go work at all these banks

20:30

for their sales and trading programs. And because

20:32

I kind of had a wacky resume having studied

20:34

all over, I got in a bunch of interviews

20:38

the night before. It's a Sunday

20:40

night in New York City. So I go to the dinner

20:42

with these two guys and these four other guys

20:44

that worked with them, like just get friends of theirs in the

20:46

industry. And so they're all like twenty

20:48

seven years old. I'm twenty. So

20:51

they all worked at banks. They interviewed lots

20:53

of undergrads, and they start talking about

20:55

the math problems. They would ask

20:58

all the candidates all these word problems, you

21:00

know, like there's two trains going down opposing

21:02

train tracks. One's going sixty miles an hour, one's going

21:04

ninety miles an hour. Wehn can the first one get to talaf?

21:07

You know, one of those which Bob, There's

21:09

no way in God's green

21:11

Earth I could ever answer any

21:14

of these questions ever in my life.

21:17

But I'm sitting at dinner half listening. They're

21:20

basically talking through all the word problems

21:22

that they do in the interviews. I walk into

21:24

my interviews that week Jacome Morgan,

21:26

Smith, Barney, Credit, Sueez, and

21:29

I literally get asked every

21:31

single question that I had heard Sunday

21:33

night, and I can't do any of the map

21:36

on the you know, you know, if you're soppos to show your work,

21:38

And I'm like, uh forty

21:40

two you know, Los

21:42

Angeles, Seattle, and they're like, yes,

21:44

yes, yeah. So I absolutely ate

21:47

the test. And the truth is I

21:49

accidentally cheated on it because I

21:51

would never have been able to solve any of the answers.

21:54

But the truth ends up being it's

21:57

kind of how I ran my career in banking anyway.

21:59

I all, so I heard this story which sort

22:01

of goes along the same characteristics

22:03

the same person that when

22:06

you were working in banking in the late nineties,

22:08

you were able to get reservations at the hot restaurants

22:11

and clubs for the senior folks,

22:13

and the only caveat was they had to bring

22:15

you along so you could again

22:17

learn from them, meet their big clients. Really

22:20

get I guess it's the new world apprenticeship.

22:23

Is that a true story? And how

22:25

did you manage to figure that out.

22:28

It's absolutely true. When

22:30

I got into banking, I had all these

22:32

thoughts like, oh, maybe I want to work in equities, Maybe

22:34

I want to do this, maybe I want to do that. And

22:37

someone said to me, go where they need you.

22:40

And one of the first rotations I had was on a corporate

22:42

bond desk I knew nothing about, and they

22:44

had had a bunch of turnover, and so I thought,

22:46

I'm gonna stick here. They're short on staff,

22:49

So I end up on this desk and I realized

22:51

these guys every day are kind of going through the

22:53

New York Post or they're reading

22:55

Time Out or zagas, and they need to take

22:57

their clients the hot restaurants, and

23:00

so I figured it out. My girlfriends at the time

23:02

worked in PR. I obviously knew

23:04

people, you know, in the nightclub and restaurant industry

23:06

because it's what young people do in New York. And

23:08

I would just book table and I

23:11

convinced the guys that I worked with, oh,

23:13

in order for you to get that table, I'm gonna have to go You're

23:15

gonna have to have a girl at the table. And I hustled

23:17

my way in and it ended up being a

23:20

huge win for me because there I was

23:22

three four nights a week out to dinner

23:24

for two and three hours with all

23:27

the people on my desk, all of their big clients.

23:29

And in any business, I think news is the same.

23:31

Every business, Bob is about

23:34

trust and relationship building, and

23:36

that's how I built relationships and trust and really

23:38

how I built my career. So let's

23:40

jump. You had a really good career in

23:43

finance, and you looked like you were making

23:46

great headway and achieving your goals.

23:48

You're a credit suee SA dout your bank, and

23:51

then you jump to journalism. So

23:54

it's time for you to give us that origin

23:56

story of how you got into journalism

23:58

and news. You know, I always

24:00

wanted to work in journalism from when I had a

24:03

Fisher Price cassette player as a

24:05

four year old making commercials

24:07

with my sister. It's what I always wanted

24:09

to do. But I think people don't really pursue

24:11

their dreams when they had a day job, and I

24:13

was lucky enough to have a day job in a

24:15

very lucrative industry in banking.

24:18

Two years into banking, I almost left to go to

24:20

journalism school though, and

24:22

a mentor of mindset, don't leave. Do

24:25

this for ten years, make your own money,

24:27

and then figure out what you want to do. And

24:30

that really was very good advice at

24:32

the time, because it's a privilege

24:34

to pursue dreams when you've got

24:36

your rent paid for. And I worked

24:39

really hard for a long time, and I saved

24:41

my own money, and I worked really hard,

24:43

and I thought, I'm gonna do this for ten years and then

24:45

I'm gonna change careers, or then I'm gonna start a family.

24:47

And ten years in I did start a family, but I wasn't

24:49

ready to change careers. But I thought about

24:52

it a lot, and I thought about TV. One

24:54

day, I was giving a speech for a nonprofit called

24:57

the White House Project, and

24:59

a woman who ran it in Tiffany Defoo. He

25:01

was talking to the board after and she said, women

25:03

and minorities always get lumped together, but if

25:05

you take the fifty most powerful black men

25:07

in the United States, they help one another

25:10

more than the fifty most powerful women. All

25:13

of you are senior in your industries. You

25:15

each need to say what you want to do next, and

25:17

somebody else in the room has to say I'm gonna get you there.

25:20

And it was my time and I said, you know, I've always wanted

25:23

to work in the media. And

25:25

there was a woman at the cable who ran human

25:28

resources for Bloomberg, and she

25:30

said, I'm going to be the one to get you there. And

25:32

a few days later I met a guy named Andy Lack who

25:34

ran Bloomberg Media, and he said, in the

25:36

new world of media, there's no more teleprompter readers.

25:39

You have to know the information, you

25:41

have to love the content, and

25:43

the audience has to want to have a relationship with you. And

25:46

I said, well, Andy, I've got one

25:49

and two better than anybody you have in this

25:51

room. And number three that

25:53

would be a risk. Very good friend of

25:55

mine is a guy named Todd Bowley and

25:58

said, you go back to them. You tell them you

26:00

will do this job for the lowest amount of

26:02

money of any person who works as the whole

26:04

company. They can give you no contracts,

26:07

so they can fire you at any time, but

26:09

they need to give you a TV show to anchor, and

26:12

they need to hire somebody to teach you how

26:14

to be on TV. That way, you're

26:16

sharing a little bit of risk and they're taking

26:18

very little brisk And Bloomberg miraculously

26:21

said, yes, it was definitely a

26:23

leap. I took a nine pay cut, and

26:25

I was scared. You know, there was a good chance I was going

26:27

to humiliate myself, Bob, like, I wasn't

26:30

just changing careers. I was changing careers

26:32

publicly, right out there

26:35

in the open. By the time I made

26:37

that career switch, I had saved

26:39

a lot of money, and so I

26:41

was taking a huge pay cut, but it wasn't that big of a

26:43

risk. And I was making a move not to

26:45

cover pop culture but to actually cover Wall

26:48

Street exactly where I came from. Or

26:50

all of the guests that Bloomberg would want to

26:52

have on TV were people that I knew for

26:54

years and years. So it's about reducing

26:57

the risk when you make a leap like that. By

26:59

the way, at Bloomberg, I will point out you

27:01

had one of your early successes. You were

27:03

one of the folks who broke the story about the London

27:05

whale. For those who don't remember, that was the JP

27:08

Morgan trader who lost about six billion

27:10

dollars. It was a trader who basically

27:12

got off sides in the market, who got so so

27:14

big and so irresponsible he blew

27:17

up a huge portion of the market, breaking

27:19

the London Whale crushed my

27:22

husband. When I was in

27:24

banking, he ran credit to ri As, a credit Swiss.

27:26

I sold credit to ri it As at Deutsche Bank. I

27:29

was at Bloomberg for about six months

27:32

when a source of mine was an old relationship

27:34

of mine, calls me and said, you need to look into

27:37

this trader. You need to look into somebody who's gotten

27:39

so big so offside that like this guy

27:41

can't get out of his trade. I come home

27:43

from work that day and I said to my husband,

27:46

do you know somebody named Bruno. It's

27:48

Phil. They call him the London Whale. And

27:51

he looked at me and he said, I can't talk

27:53

about it with you. I need I need to

27:55

call my office. And he put his sneakers

27:58

on and he went running. And it's gonna

28:00

be said that. I was like, I guess we're onto something. It

28:02

turns out my husband running

28:04

at a riveter's desk was a huge counterpart

28:07

of the London whale. So when the London Whale

28:09

blew up, it was crushing two

28:11

banks all across the street, and it was crushing

28:14

to my own husband's business. And

28:16

when the story broke, people like really

28:19

came after me, like Oh my god, that you cook the

28:21

goose for us. I can't believe you did this, Like you're one of

28:23

us. Why would you do this? And I have to

28:25

give credit to my husband who

28:27

was like, this is a story that should be told.

28:30

This is totally wrong, what's happening in the market.

28:32

You know this industry better than anybody else

28:35

covering at sepany. It would

28:37

be a huge mistake if you didn't, and you

28:39

went on the NBC Great career. Now you've

28:42

got one of the great jobs and news anchor at

28:44

the eleven o'clock news on MSNBC.

28:47

I want to sort of use some of that perspective

28:50

now and I want to share some with the folks

28:52

listening today. When you look

28:55

at business leaders today, how

28:57

do you think they use information

29:00

and what do they need? If

29:02

you ask the business leader today two,

29:05

what are some of the most important characteristics?

29:08

They would say, being an

29:10

empathetic leader, understanding

29:12

your people. You'd be hard

29:15

pressed to find a business leader today who's

29:17

got sort of the Gordon get go rule

29:20

with an iron fist, my way or the highway.

29:22

It's so much more collaborative. And

29:25

I just think sort of the evolution of our

29:27

business leaders it's fantastic as

29:30

far as information goes, it's

29:32

all completely warped right now. Bob years

29:35

ago, Coke and pepsi right,

29:38

they would battle, their marketers, would battle

29:40

their advertisements like their campaign. Now

29:43

you could come out with a campaign and

29:45

immediately an underground

29:47

group of sort of social media guerrillas

29:50

could go after that new product and crush

29:52

it moments after it launches.

29:55

And what kind of business leaders do best

29:57

in this world? The biggest problem our

30:00

business leaders have today is that we

30:02

live in a world of short termism. You could

30:04

have the most productive,

30:07

thoughtful, long term vision for your

30:09

company, but in the world

30:11

that we're living in, with activist investors

30:14

banging down your door every

30:16

other day, nobody can make long term

30:18

decisions. For business leaders, everything

30:21

is about your next quarter earnings call.

30:23

Let's move from business to the

30:25

world we live in. We talked a little about

30:27

how technology social in particular,

30:30

is changing it. We talked some about

30:32

what's good and bad about it. Any other

30:34

technology here that's on the horizon

30:36

that you think is going to have the

30:39

kind of impact that the iPhone did fifteen

30:41

years ago. I don't think it's

30:44

necessarily a specific technology,

30:46

but I do think the impact COVID

30:49

had on us working from home, telehealth,

30:52

remote education, skills based

30:55

training is going to change things.

30:57

When we look at the jobs of the future, they

31:00

are not necessarily tied to four

31:02

year degree liberal arts education, and

31:05

they're much more skills based. During

31:07

COVID, you saw a lot more companies

31:09

like Google, like sales Cource, like

31:11

IBM create more skills

31:13

programs so they can recruit workers

31:16

that don't have four year degrees, that are coming

31:18

out of high school that can get higher

31:20

paid, higher skilled jobs. That

31:23

is something I'm excited about about where we're

31:25

going, rather than the scores

31:28

of young people taking six years to

31:30

get out of community college with communications

31:32

degrees that don't align with the jobs of tomorrow.

31:36

So let's talking about jobs of tomorrow. Globalization

31:39

is not a quaint outdated notion. Now what's

31:42

happening globalization is

31:44

important. But three years ago,

31:46

if I brought up supply chain issues to you, Bob,

31:49

you'd be like, what, I'm not thinking about the supply

31:51

chain, And neither was I. And because

31:53

of COVID, you're now seeing enormous

31:56

companies like Walmart not

31:58

just say we're going to buy them American because

32:00

it's the right thing to do. More and more

32:03

companies are saying we're trying to source

32:05

from American manufacturers because

32:07

it's the more economical thing to do. We're

32:09

never going to produce things cheaper than they do in

32:12

China and places in Asia, but we're

32:14

starting to realize we need to bring more

32:16

and more manufacturing back to the United States,

32:19

and that's a good thing. Advice

32:21

time here. If you could go back

32:23

in time, give your twenty one year

32:25

old self some advice. What would that advice

32:28

be? Mind your own business. That's

32:30

simple, Yeah, not mind your

32:32

own business in a petty way. Mind

32:35

your own business, meaning focus

32:37

on yourself, work

32:39

hard on yourself, don't be hard on yourself. We

32:41

keep looking at what other people do and what

32:44

other people have and minding

32:46

their success and using

32:48

that as a marker for our own. I

32:50

remember there was once when

32:52

I worked in banking, somebody who got

32:55

a huge opportunity that

32:57

I thought I should get, and

32:59

I would dying over it, like

33:01

I was in a bathroom, saw losing my mind,

33:04

crying like you gotta be kidding me. And I went

33:06

to go see somebody who's sort of a mentor of mind

33:08

and like this is bullshit, Like I'm gonna

33:10

bury this person like I can't believe

33:13

this happened. And he said to me, somebody

33:15

else's success could probably be explained in

33:17

three ways. Either they

33:21

are a super super talent that

33:23

you don't realize and maybe you're not as good as you

33:25

think. That's category one, so you

33:27

won't help you trying to bury them. Category

33:30

too, they're hooked up. The CEO

33:32

of the company loves them, They get a customer

33:34

who worships them like they are just in

33:36

the hook up alley, and you're not in it. That category

33:38

two or category three, there are frauds,

33:40

just like you say. They bullshitted their way up.

33:42

It's never gonna work out, and they're gonna blow themselves up

33:45

in a year. So why be the person they

33:47

try to bury them along the way? Be

33:49

the good person that was minding your own business

33:51

and focus on your own success. Seems

33:54

like the slow to blame, quick to forgive

33:57

philosophy of the world has got lost

33:59

a little bit. So I'm not gonna end this without,

34:02

of course, doing something very practical

34:05

here. I'm going to use your experience in

34:07

news. If someone has a great

34:09

new product or service, they have some

34:11

new development in their business. How's

34:14

the best way for them to get news coverage? Start

34:17

telling their story themselves. Do

34:19

it on TikTok, do it on Instagram.

34:22

Start showing it. Don't do it with a PR

34:24

firm. Don't do it with the pitch. Start

34:28

showing it and I think it

34:30

will get picked up. Someone's going,

34:32

great stuff. I'm in Iowa. How can I do

34:34

that? You know how you can do it? DM

34:37

me. We're journalists. We're all looking for

34:39

ideas, and I'm not looking for one

34:41

from a PR firm. You know, we live

34:43

in an age of Shark Tank, where the

34:46

Mark Cubans of the world discover all

34:48

sorts of businesses. Tell your story.

34:50

You can do it. We end each

34:53

episode of Math and Magic the same way.

34:55

We do a shout out to the greats in the world

34:57

of analytics, and the crea

35:00

is the math people for the analytics, the

35:02

magicians, if you will, for the wildly

35:04

creative parts. And it takes both of those to have great

35:06

business, great ideas, great products.

35:09

Who is your choice for the best in

35:12

math? Someone who blows my mind, who

35:14

I think is sort of the ultimate, would be Mike

35:16

Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg figured

35:18

out there is a product that

35:21

Wall Street means and I'm going to perfect

35:24

is one single product. I'm

35:26

not going to go outside my lane. I'm not gonna go too

35:28

broad, I'm not gonna go too big. I'm gonna

35:30

fill this hole for Wall

35:32

Street how they can communicate

35:35

and price assets. And

35:37

once I perfect this product, I'm

35:40

going to charge an enormous amount

35:42

of money for it, so I have no competition,

35:45

and I'm choosing the highest end market

35:48

where they can afford it, and I'm going to charge

35:50

them an enormous amount of money and never ever

35:52

ever give them a break. And that's what he did.

35:55

He is a brilliant risk

35:58

manager. And who in math you

36:00

don't laugh at this one. It's Harry

36:02

Styles. I didn't even know that

36:04

much about Harry Styles. And a few months

36:06

ago Harry Styles performed on The Today Show

36:09

and I brought my daughter to go see him. I

36:11

went in like, oh, he came from a boy band. He

36:14

has Mick Jagger

36:16

charisma and rock star status.

36:19

Everything about this artist is

36:21

absolute magic. The morning

36:23

I saw Harry Styles performed, that night, I

36:25

went to a dinner the Mark Benning off of Salesforce

36:28

hosted, and Matt Damon

36:30

was sitting next to me, Matt Damon, right born identity.

36:33

And I turned him and I said that I know I should

36:35

be sitting here so excited to sit next to you and blown

36:37

away, and I am. And I said, if I have to

36:40

tell you, I saw Harry Styles

36:42

performed this morning, and I've never seen

36:44

a star like this in my life. And are

36:46

you ready for what Matt Damon said to me, Bob, he

36:48

said, stay no more, he said,

36:51

I'm Matt Damon. He said, my wife has

36:53

gotten to meet celebrities do incredible

36:55

things. You know, he rattled off. He's like, you know, I know George

36:58

Clooney and Brad Pitt. We've got all these love of buy

37:00

any good And in all my years with her,

37:03

the one thing my wife has ever asked

37:05

me for in the world of celebrity and

37:07

entertainment its tickets to see

37:10

Harry Styles with my daughters tomorrow.

37:12

When his album dropped. He said, you are not

37:14

alone. So when I tell you I think

37:16

pure magic is Harry Styles, I'm

37:18

not alone. Matt dame Won agrees with me. There

37:21

you go, Mathew Magic, Mike Bloomberg

37:23

and Harry Styles. Probably the only time those

37:25

two are on the stage together Stephanie,

37:28

You've got an amazing story, You've got

37:30

wonderful insights. Thanks for sharing

37:32

it today. Thanks for having me, Bob, I love

37:34

you. Here

37:37

are a few lessons I've picked up in my conversation

37:39

with Stephanie. One new

37:41

should offer insightful perspective,

37:44

a middle ground between objectivity and bias.

37:47

As Stephanie said, the best journalism

37:49

tells the story and why

37:51

it matters. Too has proceed

37:54

at the table, whether it's writing letters to

37:56

bankers in college or insisting on going to

37:58

business dinners with their bosses. Stephanie

38:00

got where she is today because she advocated

38:03

for herself. Three. Mind

38:05

your own business. As Stephanie says, don't

38:07

compare yourself to others. Just work hard

38:10

and follow your passion. I'm

38:13

Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening. That's

38:18

it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening

38:20

to Math and Matchic, a production of I Heart

38:22

Radio. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman.

38:24

Special thanks to Susan Ward for booking and

38:26

wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small fees.

38:29

Marissa Brown for pulling research. Our editors

38:31

Derek Clements, Mary Dow and Ryan Murdoch.

38:33

Our producer Morgan Levoy, our executive

38:35

producer Nikki Eator and of course Gayle

38:38

Broul, Eric Angel, Noel and everyone

38:40

who helped bring this show to your ears. Until

38:43

next time,