YouSaid · the spoken record

Liz Hoffman

lines on the record: 125
first: 2023-07-28
most recent: 2023-07-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“No, right. And I think the pandemic been just not as bad. You wouldn't have seen that incredible geyser of financial support.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reaction. Same, you don't get six trillion dollars. You get real divergence in outcomes, which ultimately, and I'll tell you a funny story, that at some point the subhead of the subtitle of the book, I think was Fortune and Failure and Fortune in the pandemic economy or something like that. And at some point, I don't know, late from 2021, talking to my publisher. I was like, you know, Paul, like not a lot of failure at the end of the day, right? I think corporate bankruptcies were like an all-time low in 2020.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really, really bad. And in some respects, I just think the economic toll would have been worse if the pandemic itself was not quite as bad, right? There is a sort of a thought experiment that you can do. You're like, okay, we have a pandemic that's half as bad I'm not sure it generates the same”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hope so. I mean, at some point you get so close to these projects you kind of can't see them, so it's always nice to hear it from readers. But, you know, I think, well, just a high level, one thing that I kind of wasn't aware of at the time was just how close it came to being really bad.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the old joke, right? This meeting could have been an email. This email could have been a Slack. This Slack could have not existed, like whatever. There's some inflation that happens. And I think it's good that some of that got dispensed with, and look, maybe I'll be wrong about this, but AR, VR, it doesn't seem like a replacement to me. The replacements seem bad”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I completely agree. And I mean, look, every generation kind of shakes their fists at the next one. So these kids have no respect. They don't know how anything works. But I do think like losing two years of that, if you were in your 20s starting out, like there's a lot of just sort of like.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gonna get overpromoted, and we're starting to see it now. We'll see how it shakes out in the commercial real estate market, but companies are upgrading their space but needing less of it. So trying to figure out how to actually right size your footprint and have an office people want to be in.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Flexibility is deemed to be the most valuable are frankly like women with kids, you know, minorities who have like much further commutes and tougher personal situations that they need more time to deal with, but I actually think it's going to work against them, which is that the people who can afford, you know, for a bunch of reasons to come in every day and see the boss and slap some backs are going to get.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and right, because there's this sort of equity belief, right, that there's some, and by the way, I think a lot of this was said after the first promotion cycle when people realize that Facebook is a huge advantage, and it's actually unfortunate, I think, if you track these cohorts because the people for whom...”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Meeting sources or traveling or working at home or whatever. It's the ones in the middle where they're like, why am I here? This is a job that I could very much do from home and I'm not getting any additional support or mentorship or encouragement. Those are the people who are quitting.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The places that you're seeing the most turnover, we saw some data on this the other day, are the Why Am I Here Jobs, right? Which is the ones where people never left or have to go in. They work on assembly line. They got to physically be there. They get that. And then the ones where people understand that they can be remote. I'm often remote because I'm out.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of businesses like that, right? Like you hear, I would hear senior reporters on the phone like learning how to talk to a source. You follow someone to a meeting. You know, you learn how to deal with a client. That stuff is soft and is really hard to do. Remotely. And I think, you know, I think what young people actually want is I think they're mostly okay going in, but they want real value. They don't want taco Tuesday. They want to say, if I'm here, I need to go to that meeting, right? Collaboration, mentorship.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And nobody knew a company figured it out. Yeah, yeah. No, but I think to your point, journalism is an apprentice business. I learned how to do it by sitting next to people who are really good at it. Not every job is like that.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but then they start to, and I think it was Jamie Diamond last year who said, you know, as you can imagine, we keep quite close tabs in our employees and we notice that productivity on Fridays is really low. Right. Which like maybe we should have a four-day work week. That's a totally fair. It's not so far away? Totally not far off. There's actually a lot of pilots, mostly in Europe that are really interesting about this.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that I totally agree, though. I'm not sure that that's a trade most people are willing to make, right? More than Stanley, you mentioned. I think a lot of people made that trade. You don't have to be here, but we're going to pay you for where you live. And people lost their minds about it. You know, there was a study a couple months ago, I'd have to go pull it, but I think I found that Americans got like 93 minutes back or something from work from home. A day. A day. And spent it, I think it was a little bit of a gender split, but like spent it, you know, a third, a third, a third on work, personal life, and caregiving and some other things. And I don't remember the numbers. You could check me in Europe. They were lower. And then in Asia, they were like 120 minutes. So there is some, I'd be curious to see what happens if you overlay that. But I think there's this frog boiling thing, which is your commute as your life gets more complicated. You get older, you get wealthier, kind of just expands. And it doesn't occur to you that that's weird to spend three hours because everybody does it. And then you don't do it anymore and you realize this is great.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where genuinely like there were places that were not safe, and I talk in the book a lot about the New York Stock Exchange for that reason. But at some point that just wasn't true anymore. And, you know, you talked about flexibility and reassessing your priorities. And that's totally fine to a point, but there's clearly some professional self-indulgence that was baked in.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Goldman Sachs. He was infuriated. I tell that story because I think it sets the table for this fight that we are somehow now, two years later, still having. I am, I would say, at the risk of being called like a capitalist shill. I'm somewhat sympathetic to CEOs here, who for a lot of the pandemic, especially in places like New York, are walking around the city on the weekends and seeing the bars packed and then seeing their offices empty on Monday. So like the It's not safe for us to come in you are making us risk our lives was certainly true in the beginning and you'll remember an outbreak on the I think equity training floor.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not able to check that instinct in myself. But I was waiting for a table, and a young woman comes up to him and says, Mr. Solomon, I work for you. I'm an analyst at Goldman. And me and like six. And some of that is”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think he was using that trip, but I don't have access to his schedule. But, you know, is waiting in line at, I think, the Montauk Lobster Club? Jury. Yeah, I should remember this.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the idea that that was like a total stratospheric change, I think, is not true. The thing that I think is really lasting is the relationship between capital and labor, right? Between management and their employees, you know, I do tell this story in the book you referenced it early on. You've got the CEO Goldman Sachs, who's out in the Hamptons on a Friday.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Retail e commerce as a percent of retail, like it's soared during the pandemic, but now is basically back on the trend line that it would have been on. Which is in a year. Dramatically since the”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's the most lasting change to come out of this. I mean, people have talked about, you know, the digitization of the economy. Actually, a lot of that to me is overblown. Like if you look at, for example,”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Half of that, maybe two thirds has been spent down. So, like, if that's the whole story, then we'll see people go back to work very soon, you know, which ultimately wouldn't be the worst thing for the economy given where the labor market is. But I think it's actually just like a little more complicated than that, which is, and this is an economic book, I'm not a psychologist, but the pandemic was so weird and it was just such a reset for a lot of people. That's a great.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's two things like Tutor Point. Yes, people had all this cash. They also frankly because they were spending more time with family, in part because a lot of people died. You start to kind of reassess what you care about in life. And if you can afford it, given the stimulus payments, then you might do that. But that's not the whole story because those stimulus payments, a lot of estimates out there, it seems like probably two, two and a half trillion dollars of excess savings during the pandemic.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it's a pandemic story in two ways, right? To your point, people are bored. They have a lot of cash sitting around, but they could have bought the Fortune 50 with it. Not exciting. Not thrilling. But even more than that, they were angry, and there was a lot of angst. And they wanted, they were fed up with authority, I mean, a huge story coming out of the pandemic is, you know, I think fueled by it is this declining trust in institutions, right? Like why buy the S&P 50 when you can resurrect, you know, some dead retail store from your youth? I mean, there was a real political edge to it.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they made up this insane game. And then somehow won it and then lost at it. Everyone seemed to lose here. But no, but I think it was, I mean, it wasn't strictly a pandemic story, except that, you know, if you were sitting in March of 2020 and you're watching The Dow go from 30 to 22 in the course of a couple of weeks, the idea that it would be hitting fresh highs again, like by the end of the year seemed insane. And it was just such a good reminder that there was no ability to forecast this.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But in some ways, actually, it's never been friendlier to read. You're talking about if you want to have a basic, if you want access to basic investment products, it's never been friendly or cheaper, easier.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally. I mean, which isn't to say that the deck isn't in many ways stacked against retail, but I don't think it's some kind of like all consuming conspiracy that Ken Griffin is directing from Miami Beach or whatever.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, what's funny about, and I'm not an expert on payment for overflow, but the way that I think people commonly look at it is like your trades are being sold and people are trading ahead of you. That's not really why people buy order flow. They do it because it's random and actually uninformed. The sense is that retail doesn't know anything that Citadel doesn't. So they want that flow to kind of balance stuff out and just provide liquidity. Right, it's volume.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally. Like, you don't remember IPOs back in the day, investment banks used to win them by saying we've got retail, right? Give us that allocation. Doesn't matter at all anymore. And, you know, trying to see sort of retail reassert themselves. And I think it also, I don't know whether they were both just riding the same wave or one fuel or the other, but had that same sort of populist political establishment, right? Sort of putting your thumb in the eye of”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was interesting too because you know, retail had just been getting less and less relevant as a market force. Buying an ETF. Go.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And just this, like, you can't go to a sports game, bet on sports. No betting, no casinos. Yeah, you can't go to casino. No any. The stock market becomes a casino. Most, you know, stock markets are largely momentum driven, which is weird if you think about it, right? Like a stock goes up. It's presumably a little more overvalued than it was before it did. You should sell it, right? Same if it goes down. And instead, you end up having these waves that fuel themselves. you know your professional wealth manager you talk to investors they will say that underpinning it is some basic fundamentals of you know corporate analysis and management not really and actually the meme stock stuff just didn't even pretend right it was so nakedly goofy um and as you know spencer wrote this great book um certainly some people made some money but like ultimately a giant cell phone by that entire community”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, no, it's such an important part of the pandemic story because I think it's just so fueled by it, right? Like all of the very normal human behaviors came to an end. And there's that, A, a lot of money as we've discussed, these stimmies, stimulus checks.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I'd have to go back and look. My recollection is that he came out publicly, not in activist position. So we think this is a great company and literally did it right at like peak streaming, like the next quarter Netflix announced its like first subscriber, either slowing growth or loss. I don't remember and sort of kicked off this now two-year kind of slow bleed of peak streaming”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Called it coming and going. I will note that when he went back to doing what he is ostensibly paid to do, which is to take deeply researched positions in single name stocks, he lost a ton of money on Netflix.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people by and large, and this is true at kind of every income level, came out of the pandemic wealthier than they went into it, and just a total show on the supply side. We are going to have massive inflation here. And he put on a trade. He was a little earlier on that one. His actual IRR is not quite as good. But he has like another $2 billion trade.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But, you know, he called this thing coming and going, right? We talked about the coming on the way out back before inflation was really a thing. He does what any sort of freshman economic student could do, says, I don't know, man, like a lot of pent-up demand here. A lot of money.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bad month's work, right? The other thing about Bill, I don't know if you want to get to this later. Yeah, no, no, I love it.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, responded pretty responsibly, put out, I think, two shareholder letters about a week apart in late March, and actually did what no portfolio manager usually loves doing, which is he deconstructed the trade. He said, here's what we bought, here's what we bought, here's what we paid, here was my positioning, more or less when I went on the air. I thought handled it the right way, got a little lost in all the noise. Sure.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. And that's the way he thinks, right? The answer to him was so obvious that someone was going to do it and arb away the trade that he saw.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly right now, in fairness, live television is not a place that is super comfortable with a lot of nuance, right? What he did was he went on television and said, hell is coming. And the stock market went down. And I think Mike Novogratz was like, get him off your air. I mean, but you're right. He, I think ultimately and I spent a lot of time on this because I didn't want to carry anyone's water. He didn't do anything wrong.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But also, even that, you know, tears in his eyes talking about taking the battle to the ends of the earth, and you know, but they are genuinely felt. These are theses that he wraps himself in the flag of them. And he totally did it here, right? He takes to Twitter for the first time in a year or two and says, Mr. President, we can solve this, right? Injects himself right in the middle of this thing, ends up parlaying Matt into a CNBC interview where he roundly.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think so. I mean, that's the other thing about Bill, which is, you know, I can say straight face, like very impressive piece of financial footwork there. But also, is flailing a little bit, is a little vulnerable. Is, you know, the thing about Bill Ackman, and I write about this in the book, is he has this tendency.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't absolutely nail the timing. I mean, you're talking about, I don't, I could do the math. It's got 10,000% return in like three weeks. I mean, it's really crazy”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, you know, it's a pure trade. He saw something that people didn't. He was right on the thesis. He found a place to express it efficiently.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, say what you want about Bill. He's a controversial figure and he doesn't always get it right. And that is one of the best trades of all time. Yeah.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what it was, honestly? It was yes, and I think that story is going to take a couple years to play out. And I don't, I couldn't say at the time, and that's a hard thing about writing a book, particularly when you come from the world of journalism, particularly if you come from a place like the Wall Street Journal, which is that you're supposed to have a point of view on this stuff and you're supposed to be able to say something definitive. And it felt too early to me at the time. Yeah, it felt too squishy.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Places in six months. It's not how journalism works. It took me years to get the relationships that I have now. And so, yeah, there is a little bit of self-selection there, which is like a totally fair criticism of the project if you're making one. And then there were some that I pursued that ultimately just... I didn't think we're additive. So Macy's is a good example. Kind of thought they would have a more interesting pandemic than they did. I got to the end and we sort of, my editor and I kind of looked at the storylines. What are we doing here? And we threw one or two overboard. Right.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That makes a lot of sense Yeah, there's two buckets of those, I would say. Like, you will notice, and I think it's better to just address it straight on there's not a cruise company in the book. There's not a meatpacking. There's not like what we would consider to be like bad, or at least slightly dubious actors here. What a shock. And like, look, I never covered those industries and a challenge of a project like this is you just can't source up it.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, I mean, I think readers can draw their own conclusions. I think what I had said when I approached people was, you know, here's how I want to tell this story, which is very voice of God, very fly on the wall. I think just from a reader, that's really what you want. You don't want to be jumping back and forth between live quotes and old things. And you're trying to tell a story. And I think that gives people the safest space to speak.”
2023-07-28 · Masters in Business · Liz Hoffman on the Pandemic Stories Impacting Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source