Speaker 1:
From the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, welcome Inside the ICE House. Our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange is your go to for the latest on markets, leadership, vision and business. For over 230 years, the NYSE has been the beating heart of global growth. Each week, we bring you inspiring stories of innovators, job creators, and the movers and shakers of capitalism here at the NYSE and ICE's Exchanges around the world. Now, let's go inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Lance Glinn.
Lance Glinn:
Each month on the Inside the ICE House podcast, we engage in insightful conversations with business leaders, CEOs of NYSE listed companies, entrepreneurs and visionaries. We explore their journeys, the challenges they've overcome and their aspirations to shape the future. You can tune in every week on all major podcast platforms to catch these discussions and watch full video episodes on tv.nyse.com and on the NYSE YouTube channel.
We kicked off the month with episode 507 and Jon Gray, president of NYSE listed Blackstone. Blackstone is marking 40 years of growth while positioning itself for the next era of global investing. Jon Gray goes inside the ICE House to reflect on the firm's evolution, his own 33-year journey, and the culture that has scaled alongside the business.
Jon Gray:
It's a reflective moment, not something we tend to do pretty well. We tend to look forward a lot, and that starts with Steve Schwarzman. We're always thinking about we're at Basecamp, how we can go higher. But to stop at a time like this and look down makes a bit of sense.
And it's incredible. I mean, when Pete Peterson and Steve Schwarzman started the firm, they had $400,000 in the dream of building, at that time, an advisory firm and ultimately getting into the investment side. When I joined seven years later, the firm had 75 people, it had 750 million in assets under management. Today, it's a company that manages one and a quarter trillion dollars. It's got a market cap of $175 billion. It's got 27 offices around the globe. I feel like in the last few weeks I've been at most of them. And it's got amazing people and it's got this incredible reputation too, that people trust us to be a steward of their capital.
And what I find fascinating is when I joined the firm, every meeting you had to tell people what Blackstone was.
Lance Glinn:
Sure.
Jon Gray:
And today, of course-
Lance Glinn:
Everyone knows.
Jon Gray:
Everyone knows this incredible brand, ability to attract people, to raise capital, to build businesses.
Lance Glinn:
Episode 508 featured Scott Boatwright, CEO of NYSE listed Chipotle. Chipotle, a brand that resonates with all of us, is celebrating a major milestone, 4,000 restaurants strong, while charting its course for global growth. Boatwright goes inside the ICE House to reflect on the brand's evolution and the strategies that keep customers craving more.
Scott Boatwright:
And we also offer them access to new promoted items that we bring into the business early. And so they take advantage of those. We lean into ideas that we generated around Freepotle, which offers our loyalty program members free offerings that bring them in. We think what we do is probably best in class, but we also think we can be better.
Speaker 5:
How do you want to improve that?
Scott Boatwright:
There's more we can do as it relates to personalization and we continue to, again, drive this AI generated content that is really unique for every user in the system because we have 45 million people that have joined the loyalty program. 20, 22 million are active today. I think there's an opportunity to recapture those that have joined the program that have maybe lapsed or potentially grabbed those that are at risk to bring them back into our funnel.
And again, continue to celebrate why Chipotle is unique and special. I think what we do at Chipotle is so unique to us in this idea that we bring in the best ingredients in the world with the best animal husbandry practices. And then we prepare our products in restaurants with pots, pans, knives, and cutting boards, and stove tops, leveraging classic culinary techniques. And so if you think about the core value proposition that is Chipotle, it is very unique, it is very special, and we can deliver that. The average price of a chicken burrito today across America is still under $10, and I don't think there's anyone in the space that can even compete or come close.
Lance Glinn:
NYSE listed Orla Mining CEO, Jason Simpson joined episode 509. Orla Mining is building a modern gold company through disciplined growth and responsible operations. Jason goes inside the ICE House to discuss Orla's evolution, the strategy behind its diversified portfolio, and the drivers of its strong long-term returns.
Jason Simpson:
The first is our industry has matured. It's an industry that's actually, frankly, quite old, but we've done a lot of maturing over the last 15 years. Maturing in the right way, I would offer. Evolving our business to understand the needs of society and how we can be an industry within society that people can get behind.
And so a lot of the corporate responsibility, we have a chief sustainability officer that keeps us focused on that every single day. So that we can honor our commitments to all of our stakeholders. The local communities where we operate, our employees, the neighbors that we have, and the host nations. So that's the one thing I would say has changed. When I began in 1995 was not really a consideration. 10 years later, it became sort of just something you had to do, to today where it's integrated in our very decision making.
Lance Glinn:
It's priority.
Jason Simpson:
It absolutely is. So that's the one change. And of course, that's for the better and made our business more tolerable for society.
Lance Glinn:
For our Monthly Markets and Focus series in partnership with Opening Bell Daily, we were joined, as always, by Phil Rosen. He explains how AI-driven productivity lets companies boost earnings without expanding headcount, how Boomer wealth and strong markets continue powering consumer spending, and why big banks remain well positioned as AI and tokenization transform finance.
Phil Rosen:
2025, it was the worst year for job growth in a non-recession year, I think in two or three decades. So it was very unusual to see such depressed labor market activity. And I wouldn't say the labor market is necessarily breaking by any means, but it's unusually slow right now.
And on top of that, the other unusual thing here is that the economy is kind of booming, on paper at least. You have GDP expected to come in over 5% according to the Atlanta Fed. And in the previous quarter, it also beat expectations by I think more than 1%. So you have those two dynamics happening at once. And in between, there's this great tension. Well, if the labor market is so weak, but the economy is still booming and growing very rapidly, more rapidly than usual, what does that mean for people trying to find jobs? What does that mean for corporate earnings? What does that mean for investors?
And really, as we saw in the last year, stocks did very well, asset prices did very well, and people took a long time in many cases to find a job. So this is like the Goldilocks scenario for Wall Street because they can grow their profit margins, grow their earnings without necessarily have to hire more people. So they're getting more for less essentially from their workforce. And I think in the last quarter we had productivity surge by almost 5%. So that happened and I don't think there was that marginal of an increase in hours worked.
Lance Glinn:
On episode 510, we were joined by Brian Evanko, president of NYSE listed Cigna. Cigna is reshaping the healthcare system by tackling affordability through innovation, transparency, and patient first solutions. He goes inside the ICE House to discuss the forces driving higher healthcare costs from demographic shifts to drug pricing and how Cigna is working to realign incentives across the system.
Brian Evanko:
Affordability is far and away the number one challenge we have in the American healthcare system right now, and it's been building over a long period of time. I like to think of it in two frames, demand and supply. So basic economic principles here, but apply them to the healthcare system.
When you think about demand for healthcare services in the US, there are a few forces really driving that upward. So one is the aging of the population. This has been a long-term secular trend in America that creates more and more demand for healthcare services. Secondly, we've got more and more chronic diseases across the US. So right now, if you look at all the spend in American healthcare, about 85% of it is attached to chronic diseases, and that's becoming a greater burden between aging, behavioral dynamics, et cetera, here in the US.
On top of that, we've got a culture that essentially wants healthcare on demand. America's a little different than most countries. Many other countries ration healthcare or they have waiting lists for healthcare. We don't really have that in the US. If you want healthcare, you get healthcare. So all those forces create insatiable demand for services. Then on the supply side, and when I say supply here, I'm talking about hospitals, doctors, drug companies, device manufacturers.
Lance Glinn:
Those who provide the healthcare.
Brian Evanko:
Yeah. Everyone that's providing or rendering the care that the demand side is consuming. So on the supply side, what you've got is new supply coming online constantly, but at very high prices.
Lance Glinn:
As the month came to a close, NYSE archivists, Dave D'Onofrio and Anna Melo were joined by Michelle Young of Untapped New York. In the first of our four-part history series, they discussed the woman that led the way on Wall Street and their impact all these years later.
Speaker 5:
There was a very good chance that without the proper management, that all of the banks would fail. And under her supervision, none of the banks failed, but that took her away from the stock exchange for a couple of years. And when she returned to the stock exchange, she discovered...
Dave D'Onofrio:
That well, her seat was no longer hers. So she had leased it out because essentially your force, just like most people who enter political life, essentially put your business into a blind trust. So she did that. So she was no longer running her company, but that essentially also had to give up her seat temporarily. And I guess without her realizing it was written into the contract, into the lease contract, that whoever leased it had the option to buy the seat out. And so that person decided, "Well, I'm going to exercise that right," and buys the seat out from under her. And then she had to go ahead, and I think it was only a matter maybe of days or weeks, she goes ahead and purchases another seat.
Speaker 5:
They didn't give her the runaround this time.
Dave D'Onofrio:
No, no. I mean, not as much of the runaround. And so she had to, except for a few days, had to come back onto the exchange again through her own means.
Lance Glinn:
You can listen to these episodes along with all past and future Inside the ICE House episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Remember that we also have ETF Central podcast episodes that release every two weeks on Wednesdays and the Market Storylines podcast that releases every Friday. Full video episodes of all our podcasts are also available on tv.nysc.com and on the NYSE YouTube channel. Be sure to join us every week for conversations with leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:
That's our conversation for this week. Remember to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen and follow us on X at ICE House Podcast. From the New York Stock Exchange, we'll talk to you again next week Inside The ICE House. Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties express or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the proceeding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.