Communiqué 18: Bloomberg’s vision
Over 30 years ago, Michael Bloomberg saw something that many of us are only just realising.
Today, I’ll tell you a story in two parts -- the first is about an American billionaire who saw the future, and the second is about a young Nigerian code-named ‘Bartimaeus’.
Part 1: Bloomberg’s vision
In 1990, American businessman Michael Bloomberg approached Matthew Winkler, a former journalist at the Wall Street Journal, with a proposition to help build a news service. Eight years before, Bloomberg had founded Innovative Market Systems (now Bloomberg LP), a financial analytics and data services firm for Wall Street.
A core part of the firm’s success was a computer terminal, Bloomberg Terminal, which provided financial news and information to clients. With Merrill Lynch as its first customer, the business began to blossom, but Bloomberg needed to step things up. His idea? Create a news service (or content platform) to expand the company’s reach and acquire more customers.
And so, starting with a team of six led by Winkler, Bloomberg News was born. Over 30-plus years, that team would balloon into 2,700 news professionals and analysts operating out of more than 120 offices across 70-odd countries worldwide, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. What began as a news service has morphed into a media conglomerate.
By 1995, Bloomberg’s vision to use the media service as a customer acquisition strategy was already bearing fruit. There was a direct correlation between running the news service and increased terminal sales. The plan became so successful that the goal changed. Instead of focusing primarily on boosting sales, the company decided to spin off a media service to rival Reuters and Dow Jones. Sound familiar?
In 1992, Bloomberg began acquiring radio stations in New York, which now run through the Bloomberg Radio service. The strategy was to deliver news concentrated on the financial market and secure interviews with influential newsmakers, analysts, and executives. In 1994, the company launched a 24-hour TV news service, and in 1995, a magazine. It also launched a website to syndicate its radio broadcasts.
In 2011, Bloomberg LP officially merged all its consumer media services under the Bloomberg Media Group, bringing together the operations of Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Markets, Bloomberg.com and Bloomberg Mobile. In 2018, it ventured into consumer subscription media.
While its revenue data isn’t public, Axios reports that Bloomberg Media could bring in about $100 million from roughly 400,000 subscribers this year, even though it’s not yet profitable. The terminal business is worth around $10 billion, and Michael Bloomberg has a personal net worth of about $59 billion. Not bad, eh? A lot can happen in 30 years.
All of this began with Bloomberg creating a product for Wall Street that required the company to create loads of content. In the process, it saw the opportunity to spin this out into a media service that would increase sales, boost its reputation, and eventually grow into a competitive business in its rights.
Thirty years ago, Bloomberg latched onto a strategy for his company that is becoming mainstream again, especially within the tech industry.
Part 2: Bartimaeus receives his sight
The second part of our story brings us to Lagos, Nigeria. It’s a hot Sunday afternoon in 2018. We’re not quite sure of the date. Bartimaeus is hanging around after a church service and talking to some friends. Two of them work at a crypto startup and are trying to sign him up for their platform. But Bartimaeus doesn’t get the point of crypto. It all seems like a scam to him. Still, his friends are persistent, so he caves in. However, he doesn’t use the platform for another two years.
Fast forward to 2020. Bartimaeus is now a lot more familiar with the concept of crypto, but he still doesn’t fully understand it. He sees people talking about it on Twitter, and all he knows is that if he buys something called Bitcoin at a certain price and waits long enough, he can sell it at a higher price and make a decent profit. I should tell you that this is happening in the heat of a government-mandated, COVID-necessitated lockdown. So, he has a lot of time on his hands. His first Bitcoin sale excites him, so he tries some more. Now, it has his attention.
He begins to research what Bitcoin and crypto are. But much of what he finds he can barely understand. Some of it is digestible, like this article from McKinsey and this podcast explaining blockchain. The rest, however, flies over his head. Every attempt to understand the subject leads down a dizzying rabbit hole. Eventually, he gives up. “Maybe this thing isn’t for me,” he says.
Fast forward another year and a half later, Bartimaeus receives an offer to join a startup with the mission to bring financial freedom to people through crypto. It’s been four years since he first heard anything about the subject, and he has learned a lot about it within that time. However, the bulk of his learning has come with great pain. He’s heard for so long how revolutionary this concept is, but it seemed like the evangelists -- the people who swear by the deity of crypto -- don’t think it’s worth breaking down for mere humans like Bartimaeus to grasp.
If crypto is so great, if it will change so many lives across the world, then why is it so hard to understand? These are the questions Bartimaeus will now have to grapple with at his new job because he knows that in answering them, he is solving problems for billions of other people like him -- creators, entrepreneurs, policymakers and regulators, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and maybe even Martians.
Taking a cue (or several) from Bloomberg’s playbook, Bartimaeus knows how great a vehicle content can be -- first for educating and empowering people, then increasing the likelihood of adoption and sales. And that is what Bartimaeus and his team plan to do.
Crypto is mazy. Untangling it requires just as much labour as navigation does. But by simplifying what is ordinarily complex and esoteric, it becomes easier for millions (and even billions) of other people around the world to understand and embrace it. Many years ago, Bloomberg created a path merging financial services and content. Many years later, Bartimaeus seeks to walk down that path with a bag of crypto.
Part 3: An ongoing conclusion
At several points in history, our understanding of money and commerce have had to be shaken. First, we did business by barter, exchanging one item for another, then we switched to coins because we needed to transact with more people in distant places. From coins, we moved to paper notes and with them came greater variety in our trade relations.
As digital technology gained ascendency, so did digital commerce and the currencies that fuel it. What commerce is today is not what it always was, and what it is today is not what it will always be. Change happened in the past, and it will happen in the future.
The thing with change, though, is that it relies heavily on information. It can only happen as quickly as people understand what was and what is to come because those are the factors that influence how fast they embrace said change and how clearly they see its benefits.
In my essay on Africa’s creator economy, I mentioned in passing that crypto helps solve several problems for creators. In my new day job, we’re building products that span across decentralised finance, media, digital art, and gaming. All of these we tie together with the thread of simplicity. We think that if we can help more people (like me) understand what crypto is and then build easy-to-use products that meet their needs, the world will be better for it.
While Bloomberg wasn’t as bothered with simplifying finance as we are with crypto, he was particular about the value of content in creating a better-informed audience. We believe the same thing -- a world where more people have access to easy-to-understand information about crypto and easy-to-use crypto products will lead to a world where more people accept and benefit from it. Creators, regulators, entrepreneurs, and every curious soul in the universe -- no one is out of the picture. No one.
PS: A big thank you to CMQ Media’s research associate, Susan Akinade, for her work with this!
Very thoughtful and insightful!
Thoroughly enjoyed this piece!