# BONUS: NY Comptroller Candidate Drew Warshaw on Changing the NY State Pension Funds

An episode of [Masters in Business](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/730188152), 11 Feb 2026, 59 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4e4cd910-40a1-4619-a5f3-ae2b0012ffff/4e50764e-985e-4ea3-917f-b3ee0164f928/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5873a3cb-298f-40bc-b71f-ae2b0013000d

On this special, bonus episode, Barry speaks with Drew Warshaw, Democratic Candidate for New York State Comptroller. They discuss his role in building the World Trade Center after 9/11. his career in alternative energy, and running for NY Comptroller. They dive into his thoughts on New York Pensions funds and the changes he'd make if elected. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Masters in
[0:11] Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio.
[0:16] Speaker 2: This week on the podcast a special bonus episode. Drew
[0:20] Speaker 2: warshow is candidate for New York State Controller. The Democratic
[0:25] Speaker 2: primary is June. That really is the whole shooting match.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Fascinating person. Helped rebuild the World Trade Center, background in
[0:33] Speaker 2: solar and alternative energy, affordable housing, worked for the Port Authority.
[0:38] Speaker 2: I thought this conversation about the New York State pension
[0:42] Speaker 2: and the role of the Controller was fascinating, and I
[0:45] Speaker 2: think you will also with no further ado, my conversation
[0:50] Speaker 2: with New York State Controller candidate Drew Warshaw. I'm really
[0:55] Speaker 2: excited to talk to you because of not just your background,
[1:00] Speaker 2: but some of your ideas about the New York State
[1:03] Speaker 2: pension plan. Nearly three hundred billion dollars. It's one of
[1:06] Speaker 2: the biggest in the countries. We'll get to that in
[1:09] Speaker 2: a bit. I have to start out asking you a
[1:12] Speaker 2: little bit about your background. You get a bachelor's in
[1:15] Speaker 2: history and government from Cornell, your MBA from Columbia Business School.
[1:21] Speaker 2: What was the original career plan?
[1:23] Speaker 3: The original path was public service, so that's I started
[1:27] Speaker 3: my career in government. I worked for a governor many
[1:29] Speaker 3: governors ago, and then moved up to Albany and worked
[1:35] Speaker 3: for that governor. And then when that governor resigned, his
[1:38] Speaker 3: name was Elliott Spitzer, which you may have remembered. This
[1:44] Speaker 3: was two thousand and eight. This was the same week
[1:46] Speaker 3: Bear Stearns went down, which I'm sure you remember. And
[1:50] Speaker 3: I had to get back to New York City where
[1:51] Speaker 3: I'm from, and the Port Authority was rebuilding the World
[1:56] Speaker 3: Trade Center at the time, and the World Trade Center
[1:59] Speaker 3: was still sixteen acre hole in the ground.
[2:01] Speaker 2: I remember. There was a whole lot of dysfunction and
[2:05] Speaker 2: arguing with the person who had originally owned the property.
[2:09] Speaker 2: I'm forgetting the name of Larry Silverstein. That's right, Silverstein.
[2:12] Speaker 2: I mean this went nowhere. It felt like, Oh, they're
[2:15] Speaker 2: never going to rebuild this. This is going to be
[2:16] Speaker 2: a horrific thing for New York City. Tell us a
[2:20] Speaker 2: little bit about your involvement in going from a dysfunctional
[2:26] Speaker 2: government entity to something a little more resilient.
[2:28] Speaker 3: Sure. So, I was blessed to become the chief of
[2:31] Speaker 3: staff to the head of the Port Authority in New
[2:32] Speaker 3: York and New Jersey, And this was seven years after
[2:34] Speaker 3: the attacks, and it was still a sixteen acre hole
[2:37] Speaker 3: in the ground. And to your point, it was peak
[2:38] Speaker 3: government dysfunction. Everyone was worrying with everyone. There was a
[2:42] Speaker 3: private developer, there were insurance companies, there was unfortunately, the
[2:46] Speaker 3: families of nearly three thousand victims, and there was one
[2:49] Speaker 3: of the most complicated engineering and construction projects in the
[2:53] Speaker 3: most congested area of New York City, while two mass
[2:57] Speaker 3: transit systems had to continue operating, the one train that
[3:00] Speaker 3: bisects the site and the path system that comes in
[3:03] Speaker 3: from the Hudson River. And we got there in two
[3:05] Speaker 3: thousand and eight, and it was basically a hole in
[3:07] Speaker 3: the ground at that point, and they called it the
[3:09] Speaker 3: pit if you remember, down at ground zero. And over
[3:13] Speaker 3: the next four years we got it built and we
[3:15] Speaker 3: opened the memorial. By the ten year anniversary, we secured
[3:19] Speaker 3: Conde Nast as an anchor tenant for one World Trade Center.
[3:23] Speaker 3: We ended up renegotiating the original real estate deal with
[3:26] Speaker 3: Silverstein Properties and rationalized the commercial development and the financing
[3:31] Speaker 3: of that project to phase it in over time, given
[3:34] Speaker 3: where we were in the market at the time. So
[3:37] Speaker 3: just the experience of a lifetime, especially for a lifelong
[3:39] Speaker 3: New Yorker, to have an opportunity to rebuild my hometown.
[3:42] Speaker 3: There's really nothing like it.
[3:44] Speaker 2: And what's fascinating and really relevant for today's circumstance is
[3:49] Speaker 2: how Lower Manhattan, which was never much of a residential area,
[3:54] Speaker 2: very much transformed into not quite Brooklyn Heights, but a
[3:59] Speaker 2: very residential friendly a whole lot more apartments and condos
[4:04] Speaker 2: and co ops. I wonder if that's a little bit
[4:07] Speaker 2: of a template for moving forward now that we seem
[4:11] Speaker 2: to have sixty seventy percent rates of return to office.
[4:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, and much much more mixed use. To your point,
[4:18] Speaker 3: I mean, no one would recognize Lower Manhattan today where
[4:21] Speaker 3: it was, you know, in two thousand or in the nineties.
[4:25] Speaker 3: And I live in Lower Manhattan with my two boys
[4:27] Speaker 3: and my wife, not far from the World Trade Center.
[4:29] Speaker 3: Just given the importance that it has in my life,
[4:32] Speaker 3: and it's an incredible area. I think it's you know,
[4:34] Speaker 3: the connectivity, the mass transit. You know, you're close to Brooklyn,
[4:38] Speaker 3: you can get uptown anytime you want or out of
[4:40] Speaker 3: the city. It's extraordinary.
[4:42] Speaker 2: So not only have you worked in government at the
[4:45] Speaker 2: Port Authority, but you've worked for a fortune two fifty
[4:48] Speaker 2: energy company. You've worked on affordable housing in the US.
[4:51] Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about your business experience.
[4:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was blessed to one get to help
[4:57] Speaker 3: rebuild the World Trade Center and work in one of
[4:59] Speaker 3: the most extraord ordinary government agencies that exist, and got
[5:03] Speaker 3: to do it at a very young age. And so
[5:06] Speaker 3: I had this extraordinary experience where I had the opportunity
[5:09] Speaker 3: to either keep going vertical and keep going up within
[5:12] Speaker 3: government or build out. And you know, I bet that
[5:16] Speaker 3: life is long. If it's not, we're sort of in
[5:19] Speaker 3: trouble anyway. And so you know, for my part, when
[5:23] Speaker 3: I do things, I want them to be meaningful and transformational.
[5:27] Speaker 3: To do that, I think you need experience and you
[5:30] Speaker 3: need to broaden your foundation and not just build on
[5:32] Speaker 3: high So I pivoted out of government. I went to
[5:35] Speaker 3: business school, as you mentioned, and then joined a fortune
[5:38] Speaker 3: two fifty power company that was trying to build a
[5:42] Speaker 3: renewable energy investment platform and development platform, and fortunately was
[5:47] Speaker 3: led by a very visionary CEO at the time who
[5:49] Speaker 3: saw the green revolution coming wanted to make sure that
[5:52] Speaker 3: the power company was positioned for that, and brought in
[5:55] Speaker 3: a bunch of different people, some with power and finance experience,
[5:59] Speaker 3: some with engine experience, and then you know others like
[6:02] Speaker 3: me who just were good at solving complicated problems. And
[6:06] Speaker 3: together we built a really strong renewable energy business.
[6:09] Speaker 2: And let's look a little bit about housing. We in
[6:13] Speaker 2: the United States have a shortage of single family homes,
[6:16] Speaker 2: of starter homes, and then just generally affordable homes. How
[6:22] Speaker 2: bad is the housing problem in New York City and
[6:26] Speaker 2: in the entire country.
[6:28] Speaker 3: It's as bad as it gets. But I think importantly
[6:31] Speaker 3: in your last point is spot on. This is not
[6:34] Speaker 3: just a New York City problem. It is not just
[6:36] Speaker 3: a city problem. It is an everywhere problem. And when
[6:39] Speaker 3: I left the renewable energy industry, and just to give
[6:43] Speaker 3: you a sense, this is late twenty nineteen, I was
[6:46] Speaker 3: at my unpteen ribbon cutting for however many solar farms
[6:50] Speaker 3: that we had built. And it's an extraordinary thing to
[6:54] Speaker 3: be at a solar farm to see the sun shining
[6:56] Speaker 3: on basically three pieces of equipment, clean electrons going into
[6:59] Speaker 3: the grid, and you're sort of like, this is a miracle.
[7:02] Speaker 3: We figured this out. We just need a battery, we
[7:05] Speaker 3: need an extension court, and we've got this but what
[7:09] Speaker 3: you don't have in that farm and a field somewhere
[7:12] Speaker 3: is people. And I'm a New Yorker and I'm a
[7:15] Speaker 3: state and local guy at heart, and the affordability crisis
[7:18] Speaker 3: was mushrooming around me, and I just felt like I
[7:21] Speaker 3: needed to do something that impacted a person's day to
[7:26] Speaker 3: day life as opposed to trying to save the species,
[7:28] Speaker 3: which we need to do. And climate change is real.
[7:31] Speaker 3: But for my part, the home is the centerpiece of
[7:35] Speaker 3: a good life. And if you have a good one
[7:38] Speaker 3: that provides safety and security and value, everything else opens up.
[7:42] Speaker 3: And if you have a home that is the opposite
[7:44] Speaker 3: of those things, or if you don't have a home,
[7:47] Speaker 3: then things close down on you. And so we have
[7:50] Speaker 3: I think the most serious domestic policy crisis in this
[7:55] Speaker 3: country is the fact that people cannot afford their own home.
[7:59] Speaker 3: My kids. My kids go to public school downtown in
[8:02] Speaker 3: Lower Manhattan. One out of every single, one out of
[8:05] Speaker 3: every seven public school students in New York City, they
[8:09] Speaker 3: don't go home at night because they don't have one.
[8:12] Speaker 2: That's unbelievable.
[8:13] Speaker 3: They are homeless. And when I'm sitting there, co CEO
[8:18] Speaker 3: of the most extraordinary Affordable Housing nonprofit in the country,
[8:23] Speaker 3: eleven hundred dedicated professionals who were there to address the
[8:26] Speaker 3: affordable housing crisis. And it occurs to me, Barry, that
[8:30] Speaker 3: we were losing. We were getting smoked. It wasn't even close.
[8:34] Speaker 3: And I look over to a government that we are
[8:37] Speaker 3: trying to make faster, better, cheaper, and more efficient, and
[8:41] Speaker 3: they have all this power and they have all this money,
[8:44] Speaker 3: and we could use those things to address this raging
[8:48] Speaker 3: affordability crisis. And that's sort of what turned me on
[8:52] Speaker 3: to doing you know what we'll talk about. I'm sure
[8:55] Speaker 3: because I was not someone who grew up, you know,
[8:57] Speaker 3: wanting to run for office. I was sort of the operator,
[9:00] Speaker 3: the heads down person behind the person. But I got
[9:03] Speaker 3: to the point where I realized that the cavalry is
[9:06] Speaker 3: not coming. The cavalry is us.
[9:09] Speaker 2: So let's stay with housing for a bit. We're going
[9:11] Speaker 2: to talk a lot about the controller position and really
[9:15] Speaker 2: what the main focus of that is. But I'm just
[9:18] Speaker 2: fascinated by the housing circumstance, starting with really, since the
[9:23] Speaker 2: financial crisis, we've underbuilt single family homes, to say nothing
[9:27] Speaker 2: of affordable homes. So just in terms of demographics, depending
[9:33] Speaker 2: on whether you believe the realtors, the economists, or the builders.
[9:37] Speaker 2: We're two three four million homes short. That's right, relative
[9:41] Speaker 2: to three hundred and thirty something million Americans. That is
[9:45] Speaker 2: very likely over the next twenty five years to be
[9:48] Speaker 2: three point fifty three sixty three seventy. So given that,
[9:52] Speaker 2: and given you have federal rules, you have state rules,
[9:56] Speaker 2: you have private sector rules, you have local city and
[10:00] Speaker 2: and county and town rules. What can we do to
[10:04] Speaker 2: improve the housing situation? What should we be doing at
[10:07] Speaker 2: each of those levels.
[10:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have a massive undersupply problem, a supply
[10:11] Speaker 3: demand imbalance. And you know, whether it's two million, whether
[10:16] Speaker 3: it's seven million, it's too many million home short and
[10:20] Speaker 3: people feel that every day, whether it's in their rent
[10:23] Speaker 3: or in home prices. And what we saw at Enterprise
[10:27] Speaker 3: Community Partners, which is the affordable housing nonprofit that I
[10:31] Speaker 3: worked for, as to your point, at every single level,
[10:34] Speaker 3: it is virtually impossible to build a home that people
[10:37] Speaker 3: can afford. And I thought citing a solar farm was difficult.
[10:40] Speaker 3: Then you get pushed back, try citing an affordable property.
[10:44] Speaker 3: And there's so many layers of bureaucracy, and whether it's
[10:47] Speaker 3: from the financing side, the capital structures of these affordable properties,
[10:53] Speaker 3: you needed to code a ring to figure them out.
[10:54] Speaker 3: They're so complex the building code, and you know that,
[10:58] Speaker 3: I think is the silent killer of affordable housing in
[11:01] Speaker 3: this country. We talk a lot about zoning, and that
[11:04] Speaker 3: is also an issue, but what gets talked about much
[11:08] Speaker 3: less is even if a piece of land is perfectly zoned,
[11:12] Speaker 3: it is still hard to get the mathwork because the
[11:14] Speaker 3: minute you hit dirt, particularly in New York, with the
[11:16] Speaker 3: complexities of the building code and the gold plated nature
[11:19] Speaker 3: and the outdated and so on and so forth, it
[11:23] Speaker 3: is a fortune to build. So, whether it's the cost
[11:25] Speaker 3: of construction or the cost of capital and the cost
[11:29] Speaker 3: of land, you have so many different things working against you.
[11:32] Speaker 3: And those are some of the roadblocks that we need
[11:34] Speaker 3: to start clearing.
[11:35] Speaker 2: How significant is the nimby not in my backyard issue
[11:40] Speaker 2: that once people are established and they have a home, Hey,
[11:45] Speaker 2: we don't want affordable housing, we don't want Section eight
[11:50] Speaker 2: housing in our area going to send property values down.
[11:54] Speaker 2: How legitimate are those concerns and how can they be addressed?
[11:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, you have this credible dynamic in this country where
[12:03] Speaker 3: the incumbents of home ownership are actually economically incentive in
[12:10] Speaker 3: theory to not allow greater supply, because just if we're
[12:14] Speaker 3: in a supply demand world, if the supply goes up
[12:18] Speaker 3: and demand stays constant, the value of their underlying property
[12:22] Speaker 3: either will sort of rest in a neutral position or
[12:25] Speaker 3: potentially go down. And so there is just this literal
[12:28] Speaker 3: economic self interest to not want to allow more homes
[12:32] Speaker 3: into your neighborhood. And then there's cultural things, and there's
[12:35] Speaker 3: all sorts of other cross currents. It is a big problem.
[12:41] Speaker 3: And unfortunately, what we've seen is if you actually study
[12:44] Speaker 3: this and you look at what happens when you introduce
[12:47] Speaker 3: new supply of homes, what you don't see is home
[12:51] Speaker 3: values plunging. You don't see wild traffic jams or the
[12:56] Speaker 3: schools getting filled up. You see a balance. Because things
[13:00] Speaker 3: can't come online all once anyway, they are phased in
[13:03] Speaker 3: over over time, and a place will naturally adjust to
[13:07] Speaker 3: the inflow of new homes and new people. And I
[13:10] Speaker 3: think much too much is made from a very small
[13:15] Speaker 3: but very loud group of people who, to your point, say,
[13:19] Speaker 3: not in my backyard.
[13:20] Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about the controller position.
[13:25] Speaker 2: Most people don't really know what this role is We're
[13:28] Speaker 2: going to go into a lot of details, but essentially,
[13:32] Speaker 2: this is one of the most significant financial roles in
[13:35] Speaker 2: the state. Their regular audits and oversight of all sorts
[13:40] Speaker 2: of tax and spending revenue, as well as overseeing the
[13:46] Speaker 2: New York State Pension Fund, which is almost three hundred
[13:50] Speaker 2: billion dollars. I think it's the third largest in the country.
[13:52] Speaker 2: Is that right? That's right, So tell us a little
[13:55] Speaker 2: bit about this role.
[13:56] Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, everyone's heard of the governor, everyone's heard
[13:59] Speaker 3: of the General. There's a third statewide position in New
[14:03] Speaker 3: York and it's the New York State Controller. And you know,
[14:06] Speaker 3: put simply, the State Controller is the state's chief financial officer,
[14:12] Speaker 3: chief auditor, and chief investment officer of the third largest
[14:16] Speaker 3: fund in the United States of America, all rolled up
[14:18] Speaker 3: into one job. One person has all three of those responsibilities.
[14:22] Speaker 3: So it's an extraordinarily powerful position. Unfortunately, too few New
[14:27] Speaker 3: Yorkers have ever heard of it, and the ones who
[14:29] Speaker 3: have can barely pronounce the titles. So we need to
[14:32] Speaker 3: do a lot more to educate the public on the
[14:36] Speaker 3: awesome responsibility and authority of this one office. And part
[14:40] Speaker 3: of the challenge has been it's been occupied by the
[14:43] Speaker 3: same person in the same seat for eighteen years, who
[14:46] Speaker 3: has stayed well below the radar, and unfortunately, I think
[14:49] Speaker 3: is sort of treating the position like a lifetime appointment.
[14:52] Speaker 3: And we have, as I mentioned, you know, being you know,
[14:56] Speaker 3: focusing on the affordable housing crisis. We have a position
[14:59] Speaker 3: that is sitting on all this power and all this
[15:02] Speaker 3: money and is not being flexed for the people without it.
[15:06] Speaker 3: And I think if we could get in there with
[15:07] Speaker 3: energy and surround ourselves with talent, we have all the
[15:11] Speaker 3: levers we need to address so many of the crises
[15:14] Speaker 3: that we face.
[15:16] Speaker 2: So I'm fascinated, and I bet a lot of our
[15:19] Speaker 2: audience is fascinated by We don't really think about New
[15:23] Speaker 2: York State pension. My wife is a teacher. I have
[15:27] Speaker 2: friends who are police and fire people, state hospital doctors
[15:33] Speaker 2: and emergency room nurses. There are just a whole run
[15:37] Speaker 2: of people that benefit from the New York State pension.
[15:42] Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about what's going on on
[15:44] Speaker 2: that pension. Three hundred billion dollars. Is that's real money?
[15:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's be clear, every New Yorker is impacted
[15:52] Speaker 3: by this pension fund. So one, to your point, they're
[15:55] Speaker 3: nearly one point twenty five million beneficiaries. These are public
[15:58] Speaker 3: school teachers, these are firefighters, these are cops, he's are
[16:00] Speaker 3: frontline government workers. So they are directly impacted. But who
[16:04] Speaker 3: funds the public pension fund?
[16:06] Speaker 2: Don't say kick in taxpayers.
[16:08] Speaker 3: They do kick in a portion, but taxpayers pay the
[16:12] Speaker 3: overwhelming amount of the contributions into the pension fund. So
[16:16] Speaker 3: your property taxes and your state income taxes, they are taxed,
[16:20] Speaker 3: and all eleven million New York tax filers pay into
[16:23] Speaker 3: our public pension fund. So everyone is impacted. And what's
[16:26] Speaker 3: so extraordinary is this is not only the third largest
[16:30] Speaker 3: public pension fund in the United States, but it's run
[16:33] Speaker 3: by one person. He is the sole trustee of this fund.
[16:36] Speaker 2: Meaning he's not an investment committee and a lot of
[16:38] Speaker 2: he does not report to a board of trustees.
[16:41] Speaker 3: The New York City Controller reports to five different fiduciary boards.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Right, He.
[16:48] Speaker 3: Those five boards, and it's currently there's the teachers, there's
[16:51] Speaker 3: the firefighters and cops, there's the public employees, and so
[16:55] Speaker 3: on and so forth. The state Controller reports to himself.
[17:00] Speaker 3: He is the board. He is literally the chief investment officer.
[17:04] Speaker 3: He is the fiduciary. He runs this money.
[17:07] Speaker 2: So should there be a board of trustees the controller,
[17:10] Speaker 2: as head of the pension fund reports to How do
[17:13] Speaker 2: you propose changing that structure?
[17:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. Just to be clear, only one
[17:18] Speaker 3: other controller nationally has that level of sole trusteeship that authority.
[17:23] Speaker 3: That's Connecticut, which is a much smaller fund. And I
[17:27] Speaker 3: think corporate governance is so critical here. I think a
[17:30] Speaker 3: board structure makes so much sense. But we have to
[17:33] Speaker 3: get that board structure right. And one of the challenges,
[17:37] Speaker 3: and this is, you know, I've looked at sort of
[17:39] Speaker 3: best practices across the country. One of the challenges of
[17:42] Speaker 3: these public pension funds is their boards are political appointees,
[17:46] Speaker 3: and so you get into a situation where you know,
[17:50] Speaker 3: the governor gets an appointment, and the state Senate majority leader,
[17:53] Speaker 3: and the Assembly and so on and so forth, and
[17:55] Speaker 3: so now you have this board that you hope is accountable,
[17:59] Speaker 3: but in many ways you've actually diffused accountability away from
[18:02] Speaker 3: a person who's publicly elected at least they have a
[18:05] Speaker 3: job interview every four years and have to come up
[18:08] Speaker 3: to a sort of anonymous, unknown board that sort of
[18:12] Speaker 3: operates wherever they operate, and are politically appointed. So I
[18:16] Speaker 3: think you know. Moving to a board structure, to me,
[18:19] Speaker 3: on its face, makes perfect sense. There is way too
[18:22] Speaker 3: much concentrated power in one human. But if it becomes
[18:25] Speaker 3: a politicized board, I think we have a problem. So
[18:28] Speaker 3: I think we have to move in that direction, but
[18:31] Speaker 3: we have to do that thoughtfully and carefully.
[18:34] Speaker 2: Really interesting coming up, we continue our conversation with Drew Warshaw,
[18:39] Speaker 2: candidate for New York State Controller, talking about what most
[18:43] Speaker 2: New Yorkers don't understand about the position. I'm Barry Richlse.
[18:48] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I'm
[19:04] Speaker 2: Barry Redlts. You're listening to Masters and Business on Bloomberg Radio.
[19:08] Speaker 2: My extra special guest today is Drew Warshaw. He is
[19:11] Speaker 2: a candidate for New York State Controller.
[19:15] Speaker 3: In New York.
[19:16] Speaker 2: Really the primary is the whole whole thing, and that
[19:20] Speaker 2: will be held in June of twenty twenty six. Let's
[19:25] Speaker 2: talk a little bit about this role that so many
[19:29] Speaker 2: New Yorkers either don't understand or don't even think about.
[19:33] Speaker 2: You mentioned Attorney General and governor. Everybody knows those titles.
[19:37] Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about the important powers of
[19:40] Speaker 2: the New York State Controller.
[19:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what is extraordinary and unfortunate is we
[19:47] Speaker 3: have a position in government that is sitting on all
[19:50] Speaker 3: this power and all this money, and it is not
[19:53] Speaker 3: being used for people without it. And what do I mean?
[19:57] Speaker 3: New Yorkers cannot afford to live in New York right now.
[20:00] Speaker 3: We have a massive affordability problem, not just housing anything,
[20:04] Speaker 3: electricity bills, insurance, and so on and so forth. And
[20:07] Speaker 3: there is a person up in Albany whose job it
[20:10] Speaker 3: is is to address things like that, although unfortunately I
[20:13] Speaker 3: don't think he understands that or knows that. And so
[20:17] Speaker 3: I want to take this position, and I want to
[20:19] Speaker 3: use the massive levers of power and massive levers of
[20:22] Speaker 3: money and help address the raging cost crisis and affordability
[20:26] Speaker 3: crisis of New Yorkers. And I think we can do that,
[20:28] Speaker 3: whether it is managing the public pension fund in a
[20:31] Speaker 3: very different way, and I'm sure we'll talk about that.
[20:33] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[20:34] Speaker 3: The incredible audit powers, the fact that this person could
[20:37] Speaker 3: audit anything that touches a state tax dollar. A quarter
[20:40] Speaker 3: of a trillion dollars gets spent every single year in
[20:43] Speaker 3: New York and he has an all access pass to
[20:46] Speaker 3: being able to audit any of that spending, which is
[20:48] Speaker 3: basically the ability to audit anything. And then what is
[20:53] Speaker 3: not well known is that the New York State Controller
[20:56] Speaker 3: also oversees this thing called the New York State Unclaimed Fund,
[20:59] Speaker 3: which is all which is where all of our money
[21:01] Speaker 3: or uncast checks are, you know, health insurance benefits that
[21:05] Speaker 3: don't somehow find their way to our mailbox, get gets
[21:09] Speaker 3: you know, goes out.
[21:09] Speaker 2: That's a pretty decent chunk of money, isn't it.
[21:11] Speaker 3: It turns out it is. It should be zero because
[21:13] Speaker 3: it's New Yorker's money and it is the State Controller's
[21:15] Speaker 3: job to give it back to New Yorkers. But it
[21:18] Speaker 3: is twenty billion dollars. There's twenty billion dollars in the
[21:21] Speaker 3: New York State Done Claim Fund. When the Controller was
[21:24] Speaker 3: appointed eighteen years ago, that number was only seven billion.
[21:27] Speaker 3: And by the way, that's still too high. And so
[21:29] Speaker 3: that is a rare thing to be able to quantify
[21:31] Speaker 3: the performance of an elected official sort of how do
[21:33] Speaker 3: you do that, especially with like a senator or an assemblymen?
[21:36] Speaker 3: Or is it how many bills that they sponsor? But
[21:39] Speaker 3: what if the bills are bad bills, or what if
[21:40] Speaker 3: they're in the minority and they don't get passed. This
[21:43] Speaker 3: is something in the job remit in the description that
[21:46] Speaker 3: a fund that is supposed to go down has nearly
[21:49] Speaker 3: tripled in size, and it's New Yorker's money in the
[21:51] Speaker 3: middle of an affordability crisis. This guy is sitting on
[21:54] Speaker 3: twenty billion dollars of our money.
[21:56] Speaker 2: So let me let me defend the sitting New York
[22:00] Speaker 2: gentleman named Tom DiNapoli. He's been in the job for
[22:04] Speaker 2: almost two decades. His reputation is he's a steady technocrat.
[22:09] Speaker 2: He's done some audits, he's found some waste and savings.
[22:13] Speaker 2: It's not like he's, you know, doing nothing. What do
[22:18] Speaker 2: you credit him doing right? And where do you think
[22:22] Speaker 2: the biggest area is he's fallen short?
[22:24] Speaker 3: Sure, well, look I think and this is not nothing.
[22:28] Speaker 3: And he he leads with this. Now, my problem is
[22:34] Speaker 3: this is a problem if this is your reason for running.
[22:36] Speaker 3: And what he says is he has never been indicted
[22:40] Speaker 3: and he's never been in a sex scandal.
[22:42] Speaker 2: Now, in New York, that's a pretty big thing. Elliott
[22:44] Speaker 2: Spitzer stepped down. Lots of other public officials in New
[22:48] Speaker 2: York have had a step down. And this predates me
[22:51] Speaker 2: too by a long time.
[22:52] Speaker 3: Yeah. For my part, though the bar has to be
[22:54] Speaker 3: a bit higher than that.
[22:56] Speaker 2: So no sex scandals is not just the miniment.
[22:59] Speaker 3: I don't think that could be the definition of success
[23:02] Speaker 3: in a position of this consequence, and unfortunately that is
[23:05] Speaker 3: what we have heard. So look, I think he is
[23:09] Speaker 3: not corrupt. I don't know of any sex scandal, but
[23:13] Speaker 3: we have to be doing more, and you ask some
[23:16] Speaker 3: of the things that he could be doing more of.
[23:18] Speaker 3: I think the way he has managed the three hundred
[23:21] Speaker 3: billion dollar public pension fund has amounted to malpractice. I
[23:25] Speaker 3: think it has cost New Yorkers, and you know, we'll
[23:27] Speaker 3: talk about this, nearly sixty billion dollars of extra taxes
[23:31] Speaker 3: that have come out of our pocket and literally just
[23:34] Speaker 3: been vaporized. So I think whether it's the public pension fund,
[23:37] Speaker 3: the fact that he hasn't been able to get twenty
[23:39] Speaker 3: billion dollars of New Yorkers back into their pockets in
[23:42] Speaker 3: the middle of an affordability crisis, or the way he
[23:46] Speaker 3: focuses the audit authority, not going after the things that
[23:49] Speaker 3: matter most to New Yorkers and instead spreading his staff
[23:53] Speaker 3: and diluting his staff over thousands and thousands of audits.
[23:56] Speaker 3: And if you audited two thousand things every single year,
[23:59] Speaker 3: is very difficult to get to the root cause of
[24:01] Speaker 3: any one of them. And so I think just even
[24:03] Speaker 3: the level of focus, and we could talk about some
[24:05] Speaker 3: of the ideas and some of the areas that I
[24:07] Speaker 3: would audit just need to be fundamentally more focused than
[24:11] Speaker 3: when you run large organizations or large businesses or even
[24:15] Speaker 3: large government agencies. Resources are finite at the end of
[24:18] Speaker 3: the day, and you need to understand that, and you
[24:20] Speaker 3: need to concentrate those finite resources on the things that
[24:24] Speaker 3: matter most.
[24:25] Speaker 2: So let's talk about the New York State Pension Fund
[24:27] Speaker 2: nearly three hundred billion dollars. You've taken to standing by
[24:33] Speaker 2: the Wall Street charging bull with a giant check for
[24:36] Speaker 2: twenty one million dollars. That you say is how much
[24:40] Speaker 2: the fund is wasting every week. So that's one point
[24:45] Speaker 2: one billion dollars a year in fees. We'll dive into that.
[24:50] Speaker 2: I'm just curious what sort of reaction do you get
[24:52] Speaker 2: from people down by the bull on Wall Street.
[24:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, true friend, why is what you're
[24:59] Speaker 3: talking about in terms of.
[25:00] Speaker 2: And by the ways lower Broadway near walls.
[25:02] Speaker 3: Right, So if you go to Drew fran Y on
[25:05] Speaker 3: Instagram or x or whatever social channel, you will see
[25:09] Speaker 3: what Barry is talking about. But every single Friday, which
[25:12] Speaker 3: is Payday, which is why New Yorkers get paid, I
[25:14] Speaker 3: go down to the Wall Street Bowl and I call
[25:18] Speaker 3: I don't know what we can say on this podcast,
[25:20] Speaker 3: Say whatever you want, okay. I called bull on the
[25:23] Speaker 3: fact that our New York State Controller for the last
[25:26] Speaker 3: eighteen years has given eleven point three billion dollars in
[25:30] Speaker 3: fees to hundreds of Wall Street bankers who fundamentally didn't
[25:34] Speaker 3: do their job, who did not beat the market net
[25:36] Speaker 3: of their fees, They did not even come close. In fact,
[25:39] Speaker 3: they underperformed his own market benchmarks by thirty nine percent
[25:43] Speaker 3: and got eleven point three billion dollars in fees. And
[25:46] Speaker 3: we got this all off of the controllers.
[25:48] Speaker 2: And is that how you got to fifty plus billion dollars?
[25:51] Speaker 2: Was the underperformance?
[25:52] Speaker 3: The underperformance would have had to be made up by
[25:56] Speaker 3: tax payers. Now the state controller walks around and he goes,
[25:59] Speaker 3: you know, I've done a really good job. Why because
[26:02] Speaker 3: the public pension Fund of New York is one of
[26:04] Speaker 3: the best funded in the nation. And he's right, it is.
[26:07] Speaker 3: But he doesn't tell.
[26:08] Speaker 2: You why it's funded through tax It's.
[26:10] Speaker 3: Funded because eleven million New York taxpayers over the last
[26:14] Speaker 3: eighteen years paid fifty nine point one billion dollars and
[26:17] Speaker 3: extra property taxes and extra state income taxes to make
[26:21] Speaker 3: certain it was fully funded. It was the taxpayers that
[26:24] Speaker 3: ensured that, not the stewardship and the investment fund, because
[26:27] Speaker 3: it is New York state law for the public pension
[26:29] Speaker 3: fund to be fully funded. Mickey Mouse could be the
[26:32] Speaker 3: state controller and it must be. The question is how
[26:35] Speaker 3: how is it funded? Is it through the investment income
[26:38] Speaker 3: and the returns if you're doing your job, or is
[26:40] Speaker 3: it through taxpayers subsidizing the underperformance? And that's what we found, Barry.
[26:44] Speaker 3: We found that fifty nine point one billion dollars of
[26:47] Speaker 3: additional taxes, what we call the dnapoly tax, has had
[26:50] Speaker 3: to subsidize that thirty nine percent underperformance over the last
[26:54] Speaker 3: eighteen years.
[26:55] Speaker 2: So I live in Nasall County, which I think is
[26:57] Speaker 2: like the third or fourth highest property tax in the country.
[27:02] Speaker 2: Are you telling me that my taxes are higher because
[27:07] Speaker 2: the New York State Pension Fund is not even getting
[27:10] Speaker 2: market beta? Is that when I'm to understand.
[27:12] Speaker 3: That is exactly the case. You understand this perfectly. And
[27:15] Speaker 3: that is the direct connection between this job and people.
[27:19] Speaker 3: And that's just one of the direct connection between this
[27:21] Speaker 3: job and everyday New Yorker's lives on Long Island. Last year,
[27:26] Speaker 3: ten of the thirteen towns on Long Island blew through
[27:28] Speaker 3: their property tax cap. The reason they blew through it
[27:31] Speaker 3: is because Toms and Appley did not do his job.
[27:34] Speaker 3: It's because he underperformed the market. And we are sending
[27:37] Speaker 3: billions of dollars of property taxes one point one billion
[27:40] Speaker 3: dollars last year alone, or twenty million dollars every single week,
[27:43] Speaker 3: every single payday alone in fees to a bunch of
[27:47] Speaker 3: bankers who fundamentally did not do their job. And if
[27:49] Speaker 3: you and I didn't do our job for eighteen street years,
[27:52] Speaker 3: what would happen to us? We'd be fired. And these
[27:55] Speaker 3: guys continue to get paid and paid and paid.
[27:58] Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about what that pension
[28:01] Speaker 2: fund should look like. And full disclosure, I've testified at
[28:06] Speaker 2: various state pension funds. I've made the argument, actually it
[28:12] Speaker 2: was about a dozen years ago to the Connecticut pension
[28:15] Speaker 2: funds that they should move away from high priced alts
[28:19] Speaker 2: and just simplify, what do you think we should do
[28:23] Speaker 2: with this three hundred billion dollar pension fund? How should
[28:26] Speaker 2: it be positioned?
[28:27] Speaker 3: So the state controller right now pays six hundred and
[28:30] Speaker 3: sixty four different investment managers to actively invest the fund,
[28:34] Speaker 3: and their promise is we will beat the market out
[28:37] Speaker 3: of our fees, and as we've established, they have not
[28:39] Speaker 3: even come close. And what I would do is I
[28:41] Speaker 3: would replace those six hundred and sixty four investment managers
[28:45] Speaker 3: with a diversified set of low cost index funds. To
[28:49] Speaker 3: your point, let's not pay all these fees for something
[28:52] Speaker 3: that they have been unable to do over the last
[28:54] Speaker 3: eighteen years, and let's take the market return. Let's focus
[28:57] Speaker 3: on asset allocation. To be very clear, that matters. You know,
[29:01] Speaker 3: whether it's between eighty nine or ninety three point four
[29:04] Speaker 3: percent of a portfolio's return will be driven by your
[29:07] Speaker 3: asset allocation. So let's spend our time and resources on
[29:11] Speaker 3: getting that right and making sure that asset allocation matches
[29:14] Speaker 3: the job description of the fund.
[29:16] Speaker 2: Right.
[29:16] Speaker 3: Assd allocation can look very different depending on what that
[29:19] Speaker 3: fund needs to do, the liquidity needs and so on
[29:22] Speaker 3: and so forth, So let's focus on that. Once we
[29:25] Speaker 3: do that, the picking and choosing of the underlying securities
[29:29] Speaker 3: and so on and so forth. To me, I think
[29:31] Speaker 3: that's a loser's game, as one person famously said it,
[29:34] Speaker 3: And I think we should save taxpayers their money in
[29:37] Speaker 3: the form of these fees, and we'd earn a better
[29:39] Speaker 3: rate of return for the pension and we'd be able
[29:42] Speaker 3: to lower property taxes in the process.
[29:44] Speaker 2: The data on active managers beating their benchmark, and to
[29:47] Speaker 2: be fair, a big chunk do every year, but it's
[29:52] Speaker 2: just about half, usually a little less each year. Over time,
[29:56] Speaker 2: that drops to about twenty percent over five years, ten
[29:58] Speaker 2: percent over ten years, and over twenty years, it's virtually nobody.
[30:03] Speaker 2: You know, the handful of names, Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, etc.
[30:07] Speaker 2: But the vast majority, vast, vast majority don't. What sort
[30:12] Speaker 2: of response do you think you would get from Wall
[30:15] Speaker 2: Street who is very happy to collect big fees on
[30:20] Speaker 2: underperforming funds. And again, to be fair, there is a
[30:25] Speaker 2: substantial chunk of fund managers that do greade each year.
[30:28] Speaker 2: It's just really hard to pick them consistently over time.
[30:31] Speaker 3: And that's the thing. So one the response that I've
[30:35] Speaker 3: gotten from people who understand finance and investments. No one
[30:38] Speaker 3: could possibly understand how someone could hire six hundred and
[30:42] Speaker 3: sixty four different investment managers. Effectively, he's bought the most
[30:45] Speaker 3: expensive index fund in the world with the worst tracking error,
[30:48] Speaker 3: and that's basically what he has done, right, and with
[30:51] Speaker 3: a lower sharp ratio than the market, So you're getting
[30:55] Speaker 3: a worse risk adjusted rate of return and you were
[30:58] Speaker 3: underperforming the market by thirty nine percent. So it's like,
[31:00] Speaker 3: on every possible level, this thing is not performing. And
[31:04] Speaker 3: I'm not here to say, you know, we can debate
[31:07] Speaker 3: active management versus passive management. What I am here to
[31:10] Speaker 3: say is, for purposes of a two hundred and ninety
[31:13] Speaker 3: one billion dollar fund that is managed by a bunch
[31:16] Speaker 3: of folks in Albany, I do not believe that fund
[31:20] Speaker 3: should or needs to try to pick the pickers and
[31:24] Speaker 3: to somehow be the ones who, frankly, I think would
[31:28] Speaker 3: be arrogant enough to think that they know how to
[31:31] Speaker 3: choose these folks, and they have six hundred and sixty
[31:33] Speaker 3: four of them. So I don't know how selective you
[31:35] Speaker 3: could be by basically hiring everyone.
[31:37] Speaker 2: Anyway, Hey, someone has to be pretty good in that group.
[31:40] Speaker 3: Right exactly, But how do I know which one. And
[31:43] Speaker 3: I'm not arrogant enough to think I do.
[31:45] Speaker 2: So here's the pushback, and I have this discussion on
[31:50] Speaker 2: the regular. But the pushback is, well, we could be
[31:53] Speaker 2: concentrated in anyone index or any group of indexes, but
[31:58] Speaker 2: we want none correlated returns and we want the potential
[32:02] Speaker 2: to outperform the market. So when we go to venture
[32:06] Speaker 2: capital or private equity, or private credit or real estate investments,
[32:14] Speaker 2: it allows us to withstand whatever the market or the
[32:18] Speaker 2: economy throws at us because these are so non correlated
[32:22] Speaker 2: and they give us the chance to outperform the market.
[32:25] Speaker 2: When you buy an index, all you're going to get
[32:28] Speaker 2: is the market.
[32:29] Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure, So I guess a couple of things on
[32:31] Speaker 3: that one. I think, I think, you know, diversification matters,
[32:36] Speaker 3: So you know, that's back to asset allocation. Absolutely, we
[32:40] Speaker 3: need to be thoughtful about diversifying. We need to be
[32:42] Speaker 3: thoughtful about you know, idiosyncrasies and trying to find those
[32:47] Speaker 3: non correlative asset classes. But to me, the idea that
[32:53] Speaker 3: we should put our money in a bunch of private
[32:55] Speaker 3: asset classes to basically, you know, perform an exercise in
[32:59] Speaker 3: volatility just because they may not have to mark to
[33:02] Speaker 3: market their valuations the way you know, every split second
[33:06] Speaker 3: in the public markets, we know exactly what an asset
[33:09] Speaker 3: is worth in terms of that value discovery and price discovery.
[33:12] Speaker 3: To me, that is not that. That can't be the
[33:15] Speaker 3: reason we are putting our money in private asset classes.
[33:18] Speaker 3: We can deal with volatility in the mechanics of the
[33:22] Speaker 3: contribution rates and you know, look back periods and smoothing
[33:26] Speaker 3: mechanisms and things like that, but let's not that. Let's
[33:29] Speaker 3: not have that be the reason we put our money
[33:32] Speaker 3: in private asset classes. If there are idiosyncratic opportunities, if
[33:37] Speaker 3: there are ways to diversify within the context of a
[33:40] Speaker 3: private market, I am open to that. But what I
[33:42] Speaker 3: am not open to is the idea that just because
[33:46] Speaker 3: it's somehow in private equity, the laws of physics and
[33:49] Speaker 3: gravity of the economy are not impacting the underlying assets
[33:54] Speaker 3: simply because the ownership model looks different, right, I mean,
[33:57] Speaker 3: to me, that doesn't mean that we've diversified. It just
[34:00] Speaker 3: means we've changed the ownership structure, not And if we
[34:04] Speaker 3: can diversify, I would love to have that conversation and
[34:08] Speaker 3: we could get the benefits of those idiosyncrasies. Then great like,
[34:13] Speaker 3: I truly am open to that conversation. But to me,
[34:15] Speaker 3: it can't simply be because we're going to wash away
[34:18] Speaker 3: the volatility, because that is a terrible reason to make investments.
[34:23] Speaker 2: The volatility washing. You're channeling Cliff Asnesz of AQR. He's
[34:28] Speaker 2: the one who's champion that phrased more than anybody else,
[34:31] Speaker 2: and he's a quant and an active manager, and he says,
[34:37] Speaker 2: if you're putting things into privates just so you don't
[34:41] Speaker 2: have to do quarterly reporting, you're probably paying too much
[34:45] Speaker 2: in fees and you're probably giving up too much in
[34:48] Speaker 2: terms of future returns.
[34:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a bad reason. And again, in the context
[34:53] Speaker 3: of a pension fund, we could deal with volatility. I
[34:57] Speaker 3: appreciate and am sensitive to the liquidity needs to sure
[35:00] Speaker 3: benefit payouts. But we can do those things outside the
[35:03] Speaker 3: context of our investment choices. We could do that in
[35:07] Speaker 3: the context of the mechanics of how the pension fund
[35:09] Speaker 3: is funded and smoothing mechanisms and averaging and so on
[35:13] Speaker 3: and so forth. We don't have to do it in
[35:15] Speaker 3: the in the actual job of investments.
[35:18] Speaker 2: So let's stay with that, because it's really a fascinating
[35:23] Speaker 2: way to think about whenever I talk about perpetual funds
[35:27] Speaker 2: like a pension or a foundation, they have certain obligations.
[35:32] Speaker 2: There's a substantial payout every year. If you're a tax
[35:37] Speaker 2: exam foundation, it's five percent at a minimum. I think
[35:41] Speaker 2: the pension fund pays out a whole lot more than that.
[35:43] Speaker 3: That's right, right, that's right, Well, fifteen or sixteen billion
[35:46] Speaker 3: dollars a year.
[35:47] Speaker 2: So that's not an insubstantial chunk of money. How do
[35:51] Speaker 2: you think about and how should whoever's running the New
[35:55] Speaker 2: York State Pension Fund think about the future liabilities that
[36:00] Speaker 2: fund has for forever and what it means for asset allocation?
[36:05] Speaker 2: Does this mean we steer away from a liquid assets?
[36:10] Speaker 2: Does this mean we steer towards fixed income? How do
[36:14] Speaker 2: you think about that asset allocation?
[36:15] Speaker 3: I think it's it just needs to be balanced and
[36:18] Speaker 3: it needs to align and reflect to the job description
[36:21] Speaker 3: of the fund. And you know, I was talking to
[36:23] Speaker 3: a chief investment of a former chief investment officer one
[36:26] Speaker 3: of the largest public pension funds the United States, and
[36:29] Speaker 3: he was the one, you know, who reminded me, you know, Drew,
[36:31] Speaker 3: what what is the job description of the New York
[36:33] Speaker 3: State Public pension fund. What does it need to do,
[36:36] Speaker 3: what are what is the benefit stream that it needs
[36:38] Speaker 3: to pay out, What is the income stream that is
[36:41] Speaker 3: coming in, whether it's from the investment income or you know,
[36:46] Speaker 3: public taxpayers and you know employers, the three thousand municipalities
[36:49] Speaker 3: that are paying into the public pension fund that are
[36:51] Speaker 3: funded by those property taxes. So to me, that is
[36:55] Speaker 3: first principles. And for my part, you know, I think
[36:58] Speaker 3: we absolutely can be in areas that are less liquid.
[37:03] Speaker 3: We just need to have balance liquidity. We just need
[37:06] Speaker 3: to ensure that. On the other hand, we have pockets
[37:09] Speaker 3: of the portfolio that we know can perform or we
[37:12] Speaker 3: know can pay out, and we know are highly liquid.
[37:14] Speaker 3: And fortunately in the capital markets there are plenty of
[37:18] Speaker 3: asset classes that can provide that liquidity. While some of
[37:23] Speaker 3: our assets may be tied up and you can either
[37:26] Speaker 3: get whether it's some illiquidity premium or some other cashflow
[37:30] Speaker 3: characteristic that is useful again for that broader job description
[37:34] Speaker 3: of the fund that has to pay out now, but
[37:37] Speaker 3: also to your point is the ultimate long term investor.
[37:41] Speaker 3: The State of New York is not going away anytime soon.
[37:44] Speaker 3: They are a forever open fund, and we need to
[37:48] Speaker 3: have that focus of and that balance of what are
[37:52] Speaker 3: our liquidity needs today and over the foreseeable future. But
[37:55] Speaker 3: how are we investing to ensure that the public employees
[37:59] Speaker 3: and the public school teachers who just centered the workforce,
[38:01] Speaker 3: who are teaching my two sons are are going to
[38:05] Speaker 3: have the benefits paid out, you know, thirty thirty, five,
[38:08] Speaker 3: forty years from now.
[38:09] Speaker 2: And for sure, ninety percent of the assets don't need
[38:13] Speaker 2: to be liquid each year, even if most of them
[38:16] Speaker 2: will be, it's less than ten percent annually that has
[38:19] Speaker 2: to be paid out. What you're proposing sounds radical, but
[38:26] Speaker 2: I could look at elsewhere around the country. I know
[38:30] Speaker 2: Kalpers made a shift a few years ago, ten years
[38:33] Speaker 2: ago where they took a lot of money away from
[38:37] Speaker 2: not just underperforming hedge funds but even fairly well performing
[38:41] Speaker 2: hedge funds that were kind of pricey and rolled them
[38:45] Speaker 2: into index funds. And then, very famously, the Wall Street
[38:48] Speaker 2: Journal did this somewhat hilarious article about the head of
[38:54] Speaker 2: a Nevada pension fund, and it's one person who is
[38:58] Speaker 2: fully indexed, and really he goes in, answers some email,
[39:02] Speaker 2: answers his own phone, has lunch, and goes home This
[39:07] Speaker 2: isn't really radical what you're proposing. This is Black Rock.
[39:11] Speaker 2: Half of their twelve trillion dollars is passive, or i
[39:15] Speaker 2: should say indexed. Even more of Vanguard's eleven trillion is indexed.
[39:22] Speaker 2: This is fairly state of the art.
[39:24] Speaker 3: Think if you want to use radical, it is radical
[39:27] Speaker 3: common sense. It is the first day of business school,
[39:30] Speaker 3: you know, they gather you around and they say, come close,
[39:33] Speaker 3: We're we're gonna tell you a secret. It turns out
[39:36] Speaker 3: it's really really hard to beat the market net of fees.
[39:39] Speaker 3: It's really hard to do that over a long period
[39:41] Speaker 3: of time. It's especially hard to do that with a
[39:43] Speaker 3: fun size as big as three hundred billion dollars. That
[39:46] Speaker 3: just wants to regress to the mean, and so focus
[39:49] Speaker 3: on assd allocation, think about diversification, think about that job description.
[39:53] Speaker 3: But once you do, don't worry about the last six
[39:58] Speaker 3: percent or whatever it is with which a lot of
[40:00] Speaker 3: people argue, you know, may not be skilled, could be luck,
[40:03] Speaker 3: could be a lot of other factors. I don't need
[40:05] Speaker 3: to have that debate right now. For purposes of the
[40:07] Speaker 3: third largest public pension fund in the United States of America,
[40:10] Speaker 3: we should not be trying to beat the market and
[40:13] Speaker 3: doing something that we can't possibly do, because it turns out,
[40:15] Speaker 3: over the last eighteen years, it is crush taxpayers in
[40:18] Speaker 3: the process in the middle of an affordability crisis. And
[40:21] Speaker 3: what we've seen, Barry, and what this basically amounts to,
[40:24] Speaker 3: is our state control over the last eighteen years has
[40:27] Speaker 3: overseen one of the largest wealth transfers that no one
[40:29] Speaker 3: knows anything about from ordinary taxpayers fifty nine point one
[40:33] Speaker 3: billion dollars to hundreds of Wall Street bankers who didn't
[40:38] Speaker 3: do their job. And if they were to do their job,
[40:40] Speaker 3: if they were to beat the market net of fees, great,
[40:43] Speaker 3: then it's a win win. Then everyone wins. Then we
[40:45] Speaker 3: are living in a world in which we can have
[40:48] Speaker 3: our cake and we can eat it too. But I
[40:51] Speaker 3: live in the real world. Nineteen million New Yorkers live
[40:54] Speaker 3: in the real world. It hasn't happened over the last
[40:56] Speaker 3: eighteen years, and that's why I think we need a
[40:58] Speaker 3: fundamental change.
[40:59] Speaker 2: Coming up, we continue our conversation with Drew Warshaw, candidate
[41:03] Speaker 2: for New York State Controller, talking about what most New
[41:07] Speaker 2: Yorkers don't understand about the position. I'm Barry, results you're
[41:13] Speaker 2: listening to masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Burry Redults.
[41:29] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My
[41:32] Speaker 2: extra special guest today is Drew Warshaw. He is a
[41:36] Speaker 2: candidate for New York State Controller in New York. Really
[41:40] Speaker 2: the primary is the whole whole thing, and that will
[41:45] Speaker 2: be held in June of twenty twenty six. So we've
[41:49] Speaker 2: talked a bit about the pension. Let's talk about some
[41:52] Speaker 2: of the other roles within the New York State Controller's Office.
[41:57] Speaker 2: You mentioned the office does two thousand audits a year.
[42:02] Speaker 2: What areas are they orderling, What's the purpose of it,
[42:06] Speaker 2: and how do you want to change that? What areas
[42:09] Speaker 2: do you think they should be ordering but are not sure?
[42:12] Speaker 3: So their remit. Their job jar is they are allowed
[42:15] Speaker 3: to audit anything that touches a state tax dollar, which,
[42:19] Speaker 3: if anyone understands public finance is basically everything because our
[42:22] Speaker 3: taxes go up to Albany and then they get redistributed
[42:25] Speaker 3: all across the state. So he, in theory, is able
[42:28] Speaker 3: to audit anything he wants. These are audits, I think
[42:32] Speaker 3: importantly to understand these are not only financial statement audits,
[42:36] Speaker 3: which they are. They do do those, but these are
[42:40] Speaker 3: auditing the efficacy of how our tax dollars are spent.
[42:44] Speaker 3: Are they spent well? Are they getting the results that
[42:46] Speaker 3: the legislature and these laws intended. If not, how should
[42:50] Speaker 3: we improve them? So this is also not just chief auditor,
[42:54] Speaker 3: but sort of chief efficiency officer of the State of
[42:57] Speaker 3: New York. And one of the things that you know,
[43:00] Speaker 3: and they're nearly three thousand employees who work for the
[43:03] Speaker 3: State Controller, which you know I hear, and that's that
[43:06] Speaker 3: seems like a lot. That seems like an extraordinary resource
[43:09] Speaker 3: to be able to deploy over a quarter of a
[43:11] Speaker 3: trillion dollars of spending. But when you dilute those resources
[43:15] Speaker 3: over thousands of different audits, and you don't focus your
[43:18] Speaker 3: finite resources I think on the things that matter most,
[43:22] Speaker 3: then you don't get to the root cause, such as
[43:24] Speaker 3: so many the challenges. Give us a few examples, So
[43:26] Speaker 3: let me give you three. Let me just give you
[43:28] Speaker 3: three examples, and everyone you know would start with the MTA,
[43:31] Speaker 3: And of course we're going to audit the MTA.
[43:33] Speaker 2: But was the first thing I was thinking of, is
[43:35] Speaker 2: why is it so expensive to build subway or roads
[43:39] Speaker 2: and tolls and books?
[43:40] Speaker 3: But one of the things that I want to get
[43:41] Speaker 3: to some of the other things, because the State Controller
[43:44] Speaker 3: actually does audit the MTA, And one of the things
[43:46] Speaker 3: that I would want to do is, because there have
[43:48] Speaker 3: been so many audits of the MTA, I would first
[43:50] Speaker 3: initially just do an audit of the audits. I would
[43:53] Speaker 3: want to truly understand what have been the findings, make
[43:57] Speaker 3: sure that those findings make sense, and then just simply
[44:00] Speaker 3: ross reference to what have they implemented and what are
[44:03] Speaker 3: still outstanding, and like literally just simplify it from that point,
[44:06] Speaker 3: and then we can get into the weeds once you've
[44:08] Speaker 3: gotten smarter on that. But for my part, before we
[44:11] Speaker 3: launch into some new MTA audit, there have been so
[44:14] Speaker 3: many MTA audits, let's just understand what of the findings
[44:18] Speaker 3: have actually been addressed and what remain outstanding. But I
[44:21] Speaker 3: want to talk about three audits, three things that I
[44:24] Speaker 3: think we should concentrate this authority on. One is I
[44:28] Speaker 3: think we should audit the Department of Financial Services. What
[44:31] Speaker 3: is the Department of Financial Services? It turns out the
[44:34] Speaker 3: State Department of Financial Services is the largest regulator of
[44:37] Speaker 3: insurance companies in the country. Insurance companies are not regulated
[44:42] Speaker 3: by the federal government. They are regulated on a state
[44:44] Speaker 3: by state basis, and the Department of Financial Services in
[44:47] Speaker 3: the State of New York happens to be the largest
[44:50] Speaker 3: among them. How are they doing We have no idea
[44:53] Speaker 3: because we have never done a top to bottom audit
[44:56] Speaker 3: on the way in which they regulate this massive sector
[44:59] Speaker 3: of of our economy, whose business model these days seems
[45:03] Speaker 3: to be to take our money and make it really
[45:05] Speaker 3: really hard to get it back, whether it's on the
[45:07] Speaker 3: health side and the health insurance you know gauntlet that
[45:11] Speaker 3: you have to run, or in my old world, in
[45:15] Speaker 3: the housing world, with property insurance premium skyrocketing, with deductibles
[45:19] Speaker 3: going up to the point where you basically are self
[45:22] Speaker 3: insuring anyway, So you need to start asking, you know,
[45:24] Speaker 3: questions like that, we are going to get to the
[45:28] Speaker 3: bottom of this insurance industry, and we can from this
[45:32] Speaker 3: position of state controller. A second area, the New York
[45:35] Speaker 3: State Public Service Commission and the Department of Public Service
[45:38] Speaker 3: another sort of mouthful of bureaucratics sounding things. Well, it
[45:43] Speaker 3: turns out this bureaucratic sounding thing is the largest regulator
[45:47] Speaker 3: of our electric and gas utility monopolies. This is the
[45:50] Speaker 3: one thing that ensures that these monopolies actually serve the
[45:55] Speaker 3: public interest. And I was in the electricity business for
[45:58] Speaker 3: eight years, building renewable enters G power infrastructure all across
[46:01] Speaker 3: the country, and I had to deal with these utility monopolies.
[46:05] Speaker 3: And these utility monopolies are broken and their regulator is
[46:09] Speaker 3: not doing anything about it. And what I would do
[46:13] Speaker 3: is go in and we would audit the regulator. The
[46:16] Speaker 3: one thing that's standing in between the public interest and
[46:18] Speaker 3: these monopolies. Why aren't we laser focused on that? When
[46:22] Speaker 3: electricity rates are going up by double digits. I was
[46:25] Speaker 3: up in Rochester, New York, and Rochester Gas and Electric,
[46:29] Speaker 3: one of those utility monopolies, proposed a one year thirty
[46:32] Speaker 3: six percent increase to your electricity rates. That is an
[46:36] Speaker 3: admission of failure. That is literally an admission that the
[46:39] Speaker 3: company in charge does not know what it is doing
[46:42] Speaker 3: and is not up to the task. We need to
[46:44] Speaker 3: fundamentally change the utility business model. I think we can.
[46:49] Speaker 3: I think they're a financial incentive structure that was built
[46:52] Speaker 3: for one hundred years ago, not for today and for
[46:54] Speaker 3: the next hundred years. And I think that that would
[46:57] Speaker 3: ultimately be good for ratepayers, good for consumers, and fundamentally
[47:02] Speaker 3: good for the investors and the developers of these power
[47:05] Speaker 3: infrastructures in the first place. And the third thing that
[47:08] Speaker 3: I would audit is I would audit the New York
[47:10] Speaker 3: City and New York State building Code. And people say, well,
[47:13] Speaker 3: wait a minute. You can audit agencies, you can't audit
[47:16] Speaker 3: something like the building code. But my authority extends to
[47:20] Speaker 3: anything that touches a state tax sellar. And if you
[47:22] Speaker 3: had energy imagination and urgency, you would recognize that the
[47:27] Speaker 3: silent killer of not just housing, but of anything in
[47:31] Speaker 3: this town or all across New York State is the
[47:34] Speaker 3: building code. This thing kills projects before they start, and
[47:38] Speaker 3: it is gold plated, and it is outdated. And what
[47:41] Speaker 3: I would do is propose a model building code that
[47:44] Speaker 3: we estimate will strip fifteen percent of the cost to
[47:47] Speaker 3: construct anything, not just housing, which obviously I care a
[47:50] Speaker 3: lot about and New Yorkers need more of, but anything.
[47:53] Speaker 3: And I would literally do the Audit would be a
[47:55] Speaker 3: track change version from the model building code to the
[47:58] Speaker 3: existing two codes that government construction New York, and we
[48:01] Speaker 3: would show precisely what would need to be changed to
[48:04] Speaker 3: get to that lighter, simpler, easier, and more cost effective,
[48:09] Speaker 3: effectively to build building code. We would do the work
[48:12] Speaker 3: for them, and then we would go to the mayor
[48:14] Speaker 3: and we would go to the city council, and they
[48:16] Speaker 3: have talked a lot about affordability, and we would say,
[48:19] Speaker 3: if you were serious about this, go adopt this code.
[48:21] Speaker 3: And we would go to the governor and the legislature,
[48:23] Speaker 3: and they talk a lot about affordability, as they should,
[48:26] Speaker 3: and we would give them a concrete way to be
[48:28] Speaker 3: able to deliver that. And that is how I think
[48:31] Speaker 3: we need to be thinking of leveraging the power of
[48:34] Speaker 3: this audit.
[48:34] Speaker 2: So is the code passed by a city or state
[48:37] Speaker 2: legislature or is it administratively that's rest.
[48:41] Speaker 3: No, it's adopted by the City of New York and
[48:44] Speaker 3: then the basically rest of state the state adopts a
[48:48] Speaker 3: building code. Different municipalities can add on. But that's one
[48:51] Speaker 3: of the challenges, Barry, is we always add we never
[48:54] Speaker 3: subtract to these things, right, And no one has done
[48:58] Speaker 3: a top to bottom audit of the thousands of pages
[49:02] Speaker 3: of code that drives up the costs to build anything.
[49:06] Speaker 3: And that's the type of creativity and energy and experience
[49:11] Speaker 3: driven audits that I think we need to bring.
[49:13] Speaker 2: So you're talking to a large degree about making this
[49:19] Speaker 2: position much more public, much more visible, much louder than
[49:25] Speaker 2: it's been what's been going on with the incumbent. I
[49:31] Speaker 2: don't think most people and in fact, the data point
[49:34] Speaker 2: that you've shared before, sixty two percent of Democrats don't
[49:39] Speaker 2: know who he is. Twenty percent of them view him favorably.
[49:43] Speaker 2: This has kind of been a stealth position. You're really proposing,
[49:49] Speaker 2: if not elevating this well, certainly making it much more
[49:53] Speaker 2: visible and public. To tell us about that and your
[49:57] Speaker 2: thoughts in that.
[49:58] Speaker 3: Space, Yeah, I mean, look, the job can be keeping
[50:00] Speaker 3: the job. That's not what this job is. And we
[50:03] Speaker 3: are in a moment where if you were sitting on
[50:07] Speaker 3: money and you were sitting on power and you were
[50:10] Speaker 3: not using that really really well, you have got to
[50:13] Speaker 3: step aside. When one out of every seven New York
[50:16] Speaker 3: City public school students do not go home at night
[50:19] Speaker 3: because they don't have one, and you were sitting on
[50:22] Speaker 3: the third largest pool of public capital in the United
[50:25] Speaker 3: States of America, and none of that money is invested
[50:27] Speaker 3: in homes that people can afford, by the way, while
[50:30] Speaker 3: earning a reasonable risk adjusted rate of return, which is
[50:32] Speaker 3: what we did for a living. Then that is a
[50:35] Speaker 3: massive problem. And so for my part, the fact that
[50:39] Speaker 3: no one has ever heard of this office is a
[50:43] Speaker 3: problem that is not an asset of the last eighteen years.
[50:46] Speaker 3: That is a massive liability. That is red blinking lights
[50:49] Speaker 3: that the fiscal watchdog of the State of New York
[50:53] Speaker 3: no one has ever heard of them. And if you
[50:54] Speaker 3: were to ask, if you were to make up a
[50:56] Speaker 3: name and you were to pull it, you know, it
[50:58] Speaker 3: is human behavior for least one out of every three
[51:01] Speaker 3: people to say, yeah, yeah, sure, I've heard of that person.
[51:03] Speaker 3: And so the fact that sixty two percent of New
[51:06] Speaker 3: Yorkers and New York Democrats have never heard of this guy,
[51:09] Speaker 3: to me is an indictment of the performance of this job,
[51:14] Speaker 3: and in terms of definitions of success, we need to
[51:17] Speaker 3: address this cost crisis. But after four years, you better
[51:21] Speaker 3: have heard of the New York State Controller, right, because
[51:24] Speaker 3: that means we are actually using this power and this
[51:27] Speaker 3: money for the people who don't have it.
[51:29] Speaker 2: So let's talk about some things that I think have
[51:32] Speaker 2: worked out pretty well, and they tend not to just
[51:36] Speaker 2: to be New York City or New York State programs,
[51:39] Speaker 2: but poort authority and bigger programs. Also, as a lifelong
[51:44] Speaker 2: New Yorker and a long time I've lived in the
[51:48] Speaker 2: city for a long time, I've been really impressed with
[51:53] Speaker 2: I think LaGuardia could be the best airport in the country. Now,
[51:57] Speaker 2: I don't know is that six or eight billion dollars later.
[52:00] Speaker 2: They should have done it twenty years ago. Adding moving
[52:05] Speaker 2: part of Penn Station to Grand Central as well as
[52:09] Speaker 2: the new facility, a huge when the extension of the
[52:13] Speaker 2: Second Avenue subway, and then as I drive around New
[52:17] Speaker 2: York State, we seem to be repaving everything. I know,
[52:21] Speaker 2: a big infrastructure bill passed a couple of years ago,
[52:25] Speaker 2: and the Long Island Expressway and the Interstate ninety five,
[52:32] Speaker 2: the New York State Thruway, and it seems everywhere I look,
[52:35] Speaker 2: new roads, new bridges, new tunnels are being laid. Are
[52:40] Speaker 2: these Are we getting the best bang for our buck
[52:43] Speaker 2: with these projects? And what other projects? There's talk about
[52:48] Speaker 2: a very expensive project to protect southern Manhattan from climate
[52:54] Speaker 2: change and rising sea levels. And I recall after Sandy
[52:59] Speaker 2: that was just every red superstorm standy. There was a
[53:02] Speaker 2: brief discussion about, gee, look at the towns that had
[53:06] Speaker 2: buried power lines. They didn't lose electricity as opposed to
[53:11] Speaker 2: half the state lost electricity for two weeks or longer.
[53:14] Speaker 2: How do we look at all these projects, how do
[53:16] Speaker 2: we manage the expenses of them? Are we getting a
[53:19] Speaker 2: bang for our buck on any of these tell us
[53:22] Speaker 2: about these big public works projects. What do you see
[53:25] Speaker 2: the next five or ten years looking like?
[53:27] Speaker 3: Sure? So the short answers, no, we are not getting
[53:30] Speaker 3: the best bang for the taxpayer buck in these projects.
[53:35] Speaker 3: And there are any number of reasons why I talked
[53:37] Speaker 3: about the building code as one of those reasons. Another reason,
[53:42] Speaker 3: and you know, I think listeners will appreciate this, is
[53:45] Speaker 3: you look at the Department of Buildings and where are
[53:49] Speaker 3: their service level standards? Right? Where are their turntimes? Where
[53:53] Speaker 3: are the things that they need to be doing to
[53:56] Speaker 3: ensure that the people out in the world who are
[53:59] Speaker 3: investing the capital and putting that capital to use, and
[54:02] Speaker 3: all the workers who are trying to build these projects
[54:04] Speaker 3: and build these infrastructures, these pieces of infrastructure, where are
[54:10] Speaker 3: those service level standards? You know, in the world that
[54:13] Speaker 3: I used to occupy, we would have service level agreements
[54:15] Speaker 3: right our counterparty would have to perform based on a
[54:19] Speaker 3: number of different metrics. And this is you know, goes
[54:21] Speaker 3: back to that audit authority. These are the things that
[54:24] Speaker 3: the state controller can do both by proposing those service
[54:28] Speaker 3: level standards and making sure that they are adopted. And
[54:31] Speaker 3: if they aren't adopted, that's okay. We can we can
[54:34] Speaker 3: still measure them anyway, and we can come back every
[54:36] Speaker 3: single year and see how they're doing. So the Department
[54:39] Speaker 3: of Buildings is one of those places where again sort
[54:43] Speaker 3: of projects go to die, and I think there there
[54:47] Speaker 3: just is a lack of discipline and focus around metrics
[54:51] Speaker 3: to just make sure that they are doing their legally
[54:55] Speaker 3: required job. You should not have to hire an expedi
[54:58] Speaker 3: or to have an expedite project. That seems to be
[55:01] Speaker 3: that's a layer of cost, right, that is a layer
[55:04] Speaker 3: of costs and a layer of friction that basically admits
[55:08] Speaker 3: that the status quo makes no sense. And so we're
[55:10] Speaker 3: going to have this off ramp for people who can
[55:13] Speaker 3: afford it, and only those people who can afford it,
[55:15] Speaker 3: and they will somehow get special treatment. And to me,
[55:18] Speaker 3: that is like the exact wrong thing and the wrong direction.
[55:22] Speaker 3: And we have to show that the regular thruway works,
[55:26] Speaker 3: that you don't need the Lexus lane that only certain
[55:29] Speaker 3: people can afford. And that's where we have to kind
[55:32] Speaker 3: of pull government back in that mindset that they should
[55:35] Speaker 3: just be able to do their core job.
[55:36] Speaker 2: So let's zoom out and ask you to imagine four
[55:40] Speaker 2: years or eight years into the job. What does success
[55:43] Speaker 2: look like? How do you define being able to look
[55:47] Speaker 2: back after a term or two when saying this is
[55:51] Speaker 2: where we succeeded, this is how it should be run.
[55:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, great questions. So a few very concrete examples. One,
[56:00] Speaker 3: hopefully property tax payers and state income taxpayers aren't bleeding
[56:05] Speaker 3: because they're paying a bunch of fees to a bunch
[56:08] Speaker 3: of bankers who just are not doing their job. So one,
[56:10] Speaker 3: we have pivoted the investment strategy away from that sort
[56:14] Speaker 3: of beat the market idea that has failed utterly over
[56:19] Speaker 3: the last eighteen years. And we are moving away from that,
[56:22] Speaker 3: and we are taking pressure off of taxpayers. That is
[56:25] Speaker 3: part of the cost crisis that we are facing in
[56:28] Speaker 3: New York and why New Yorkers cannot afford to live here.
[56:31] Speaker 3: So that's one thing, the cost of housing. I think
[56:35] Speaker 3: the state Controller has an ability, both on the capital
[56:37] Speaker 3: side and on the audit side to address it. We
[56:40] Speaker 3: talked about the audit side in terms of addressing this
[56:44] Speaker 3: building code issue, and I hope that that can lower
[56:48] Speaker 3: or at least keep neutral the cost of construction. And
[56:52] Speaker 3: on the financing side, I think we could bend the
[56:54] Speaker 3: cost curve of the cost structure, the capital structure, and
[56:58] Speaker 3: the cost of capital or affordable housing by making available
[57:03] Speaker 3: and I've proposed the largest housing fund in the United
[57:05] Speaker 3: States of America, a ten billion dollar housing fund to
[57:08] Speaker 3: invest in homes that New Yorkers can afford. Definition of
[57:11] Speaker 3: success that is deployed in what we estimate to be
[57:14] Speaker 3: one hundred thousand homes that New Yorkers can actually afford,
[57:18] Speaker 3: that is something that is absolutely concrete. And then this
[57:22] Speaker 3: twenty billion dollar fund of a New Yorker's own money
[57:25] Speaker 3: in the New York State Unclaim Fund, that we actually
[57:28] Speaker 3: start getting that money back. And you have to go
[57:31] Speaker 3: to some dopey website right now that is complicated and
[57:34] Speaker 3: hard to use, and if you have money, they don't
[57:36] Speaker 3: even tell you how much because they don't even really
[57:38] Speaker 3: want you to get it back, right it sounds like
[57:40] Speaker 3: you're trying to issue into a health insurance claim or
[57:43] Speaker 3: something like that. We are going to get rid of
[57:45] Speaker 3: this website. We're going to decommission it. We won't have
[57:47] Speaker 3: a website because we won't need it, because we're automatically
[57:50] Speaker 3: going to send New Yorkers their money back, because it's
[57:53] Speaker 3: their money. It is not Tom Dinapolis, it is not
[57:56] Speaker 3: the State of New York's. It is New Yorkers. We
[57:58] Speaker 3: have your name, we have how much you're owed, we
[58:00] Speaker 3: have your last sony trust, We have access to all
[58:02] Speaker 3: the data in the world, and we are in twenty
[58:05] Speaker 3: twenty six. My phone knows more about my personality than
[58:09] Speaker 3: I do. My phone knows where I live. Why can't
[58:11] Speaker 3: we figure out how to get you your money back automatically?
[58:15] Speaker 3: We can, and we will.
[58:16] Speaker 2: Drew, really interesting, Thank you so much for coming. And
[58:20] Speaker 2: I'm going to extend an invitation to Tom DiNapoli if
[58:23] Speaker 2: you want to come to Bloomberg and talk to us
[58:25] Speaker 2: about what you've been doing as Controller and what your
[58:29] Speaker 2: plans are for the future, We would love to have you.
[58:31] Speaker 2: I'm going to have my producer reach out. Really really
[58:35] Speaker 2: interesting stuff. Thank you for a thought provoking conversation. We
[58:40] Speaker 2: have been speaking to Drew Warshaw. He is a candidate
[58:44] Speaker 2: for New York State Controller and the Democratic primary in
[58:47] Speaker 2: June twenty twenty six. If you enjoyed this conversation, well
[58:52] Speaker 2: check out any of the six hundred we've done over
[58:54] Speaker 2: the previous twelve years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Bloomberg,
[59:00] Speaker 2: wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I would be remiss
[59:04] Speaker 2: if I not thank our crack staff who helps me
[59:06] Speaker 2: put these conversations together each week. Alexis Noriega is my
[59:12] Speaker 2: video producer. Sean Russo is my researcher. Anna Luke is
[59:16] Speaker 2: my podcast producer. I'm Barry Ritolts. You've been listening to
[59:20] Speaker 2: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio

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