Space, Robotics, and the Next Investment Boom

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

SPEAKER_2 (0:08)

You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.

Tim Stenovec (0:16)

You know, we talk a lot about the public markets, and we focus on that a lot. We've talked a lot about fixed income today coming off of the Fed decision. I feel like our next guest, definitely paying attention to those markets, looking at both what's in the private world and then also thinking about maybe how to take them public.

Carol Massar (0:31)

Yeah, we got a lot to talk about with Joe Magazine. He's a partner at Fortuna Investments. He's on set here at Future Proof. He's also a Miami Beach City Commissioner.

Welcome, welcome trading the East Coast beaches for the West Coast beaches. What do you think?

Joe Magazine (0:44)

Well, thank you for having me out here. This is such an incredible event. What Matt and his team, Josh Brown, have put together here at Future Proof is you have to really be here on the ground to appreciate the scope, the camaraderie, the fun, and how much work actually gets done out here. You might look at it from a far and say, oh man, this is a conference on the beach. This isn't serious. People are in shorts and polos. There's a lot of serious people here, a lot of serious firms. The who's who of Wall Street is out here, and they've done a great job curating, and we're really excited to have brought this special event to Miami Beach.

SPEAKER_2 (1:20)

Go ahead.

Carol Massar (1:20)

I was just going to say, Joe, you work at this really interesting intersection of public companies, private companies, you're this private equity venture capital hybrid. Explain what you do at Fortuna and where it fits in the ecosystem.

Joe Magazine (1:35)

Yeah, we're a great America first venture capital firm, and we do have that hybrid of a private equity field because we don't traditionally just do a lot of passive investing. We have had rounds in issuances like SpaceX and Rocket Lab and things like that, but our more bread and butter model is to find great founders, great companies, some of the technology that is really on the frontier of American exceptionalism and look to take an active role.

More of a partnership, but we won't just give a dollar and go away. We will look to provide that strategic advisory, the infrastructure, whether it be CFO, accounting, relationships, networking, and it's access to the public markets. If you look at just some of these IPOs that have happened over the course of the SpaceX and when we see Anthropic, I truly believe at some point in time, it will become a societal issue where these are creating unprecedented amounts of wealth in such a concentrated amount of hands. If you look, what, just 15, 20 years ago when Amazon won Peblic, a $400 million dollar market cap, and now these companies are...

Carol Massar (2:43)

$400 million.

Joe Magazine (2:45)

$400 million, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said it, I almost second-guessed myself, but yeah. But think about the wealth that that is created for doctors, for teachers, for lawyers, for the everyday person. That is just not available when these companies are staying private until they get into a $1.5, $2 trillion dollar market cap. So we truly believe in a model where if you take these companies public at an earlier stage, that's not an exit into the public markets. That's providing the-

Carol Massar (3:14)

There's no incentive to do that. Like, why do you want to be bothered by the regulatory challenges of being a public company? Quarterly calls, you're annoyed by people like us calling you and saying, hey, come on our show and what are you-

Joe Magazine (3:25)

That's why I have more gray hair than you do.

Carol Massar (3:28)

The incentives just aren't there for that. And that's why these companies stay private for longer.

Joe Magazine (3:32)

And even right now, you're looking at things like Anthropic and you're wondering, well, do they really have this incentive to go public now with all this scrutiny and the S1s that they'll have to file and things like that? But I'm the biggest believer in our capital markets. I got my background. I started my career in 2005 at Merrill Lynch on the Structure Credit Trading Desk.

And if you look at how things have changed, I think that is one of the primary drivers of what has changed, is how our capital markets function. And we are huge believers at Fortuna in American exceptionalism. And when I think about what competitive advantages America has versus the rest of the world, just make no mistake, the world is better when America leads.