It's no secret that one of the fun things about Odd Lots is that it covers a lot of different topics, from the plumbing of the financial system to crimes in commodities to the ongoing impact of 100-year-old laws like the Jones Act. In this episode, Joe and Tracy collect their top 10 surprising and interesting insights gleaned from Odd Lots episodes this year.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brad Jacobs has founded multiple multi-billion dollar companies in his career. He turned United Waste into part of a major trash collection conglomerate. United Rentals has been a massive winner in equipment rental for the construction industry. And XPO Logistics (which has spun out GXO and RXO) is a freight behemoth. Now, he's planning on doing it again. His new company, QXO, wants to be a billion-dollar player in the area of building products distribution. On this episode, we speak to Jacobs — who is the author of the new book, How To Make A Few Billion Dollars — about why he chose to go into this industry, his philosophy of building businesses, and how he plans to win in this space.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode, our listeners called in with their questions. They ranged from the personal, like "What happened with Tracy's coal?" to the editorial, such as "What are the big stories we want to be covering more?" Hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway are the ones who get interviewed in this special holiday episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This time last year, almost everyone was predicting a recession would engulf the US economy in 2023. One of those forecasters was was Anna Wong, chief US economist for Bloomberg Economics. In October of last year, her model of the US economy showed a 100% chance of a recession happening in 2023. But, here we are more than 12 months later and US economic data keeps coming in relatively strong. Unemployment remains near multi-decade lows and inflation is pretty close to the Federal Reserve's 2% target. Yet there are still some confusing signals about the economy's overall direction, including surveys showing that many people are extremely pessimistic in their economic outlook. In this episode, we speak with Anna about how she's thinking about the conflicting signals in the US economy, why recession didn't materialize in 2023 in the way many people thought it would, and what she's looking out for next year.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg News Now is a comprehensive audio report on today's top stories. Listen for the latest news, whenever you want it, covering global business stories around the world.     

on Apple: trib.al/Mx9TCh1     
on Spotify: trib.al/T4BG8s4     
Anywhere: trib.al/O4EX6BA

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people think of publicly funded housing, they tend not to think about modern-looking apartments with all kinds of amenities. But a county in Maryland is trying to completely reframe how we think about public housing. The Montgomery County Housing Authority has been a pioneer in thinking about what the government can do in terms of accelerating housing production, even when the private sector is pulling back due to higher rates. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Zachary Marks, Senior Vice President of Real Estate at the Housing Opportunities of Commission of Montgomery County along with Paul Williams, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Enterprise, about what the county is doing, and how the model can be applied elsewhere to create more affordable, abundant housing.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week was a huge one for the soft landing camp. The inflation data came in cool and the Federal Reserve indicated its confidence that it can begin monetary tightening fairly soon. Meanwhile, baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani signed a staggering $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers that comes with a highly unusual deal structure. To break it down, we talked with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen about what it all means.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sweetgreen, the popular fast food salad restaurant, recently announced that it was eliminating all use of seed oils, in favor of higher quality oils such as avocado and olive oil. This is more costly, but the company sees it as worthwhile, given its reputation for high-quality ingredients, and growing public interest in oils. So how does a company like Sweetgreen decide what to sell? And how does it compete against the numerous other fast casual chains competing for lunchtime dollars. On this episode we speak with co-founder Nicolas Jammet about the company's strategy, how it deals with labor and commodity costs, and the future of the restaurant business. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the defining brands of the 2010s was Drybar. The popular chain of blow dry salons helped define the so-called experience economy, leading to numerous competitors and copycats. But of course, to go from a single location to a national chain is difficult in all kinds of ways, both personally and operationally. On this episode, we speak with Drybar founder Alli Webb on the experience, which she talks about in her new book titled 'The Messy Truth: How I Sold My Business for Millions but Almost Lost Myself'. We also discuss the truth about raising money, her new chain of massage studios, how to select the perfect retail location, and how operating a business is different in 2023 than it was 10 years ago. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration made moves to constrain China's ability to build out an advanced homegrown technology industry. But the country is still investing billions in its chip sector and there are signs that it's really starting to pay off. Huawei recently released the Mate 60 Pro smartphone, with capabilities that shocked the world in terms of its performance. So how is the country making such strides in face of technological trade restrictions? We spoke with Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis and Doug O'Loughlin of Fabricated Knowledge about how much progress China is making, and the policies that are accelerating these gains.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.