00:00This was a really fun piece.
00:01It's a very fun piece.
00:02It was a delight to report.
00:03Introduce us to David Lloyd, founder of this network.
00:07How did it come about?
00:08He'd had a long, successful career as a radio DJ.
00:10Was it something of a crossroads?
00:12He was definitely at a crossroads.
00:14So this was in the early days of the pandemic.
00:16He was 59, and he had been kind of phased out of his job.
00:20He was in music radio, very youth-oriented industry,
00:24and his husband had just been laid off from his DJ job,
00:27and all of his peers were kind of being phased out, taking consulting jobs.
00:31At the same time, as a listener, he was hearing some of his favorite hosts
00:35and anchors in news and music getting replaced.
00:38It's a peer.
00:39Yeah, and he was feeling, as a listener, a little alienated,
00:42like this wasn't for him, the music wasn't for him, the cultural references.
00:46And so he had this idea.
00:47He thought, you know, I think there's an audience for this.
00:49What if we made a radio station for older people?
00:53He emailed his old boss, who immediately emailed him back with a spreadsheet.
00:57Amazing.
00:57And said, I think we can make this work.
00:58That's all good bosses do.
01:00Yeah, it's ready with a spreadsheet.
01:01Exactly, it's ready with a spreadsheet.
01:02And he took money out of his pension.
01:04They started this.
01:05He said they called all these legendary presenters.
01:08He said everyone said yes.
01:10Incredible.
01:10And now it's this huge success.
01:11They have more than a million listeners a month.
01:13They've spun off two other stations.
01:15It's a really inspiring story.
01:17But this is part of a larger issue of people just not wanting to disappear.
01:22Because when this retirement age idea was set, people were living at the age of 43.
01:28I mean, that's just not the case.
01:29And 20 years is not only a long time not to make money, but it's a long time not to
01:33be engaging with anybody.
01:34I think we've got a cool little graphic from your piece, also about the graying populations around the world.
01:40Obviously, it's always a story that Japan has an aging population.
01:42But Europe is catching up.
01:44And the U.S. is not far behind.
01:45So are companies, are corporations, are people starting to understand, I think you call it phased retirement?
01:53Talk to us about what that is.
01:54The U.S. is a little bit behind in this.
01:57Countries like Singapore and Japan, as you mentioned, are much more ahead of the curve in addressing this.
02:02In the U.S., though, there are some companies who are kind of starting to sort of understand that the
02:08population is aging.
02:10One of the interesting companies, Microsoft, is doing something interesting.
02:13So they have kind of a phased situation where when you're ready to retire, you can go from full-time
02:19to part-time, but keep your full benefits.
02:21Which is huge.
02:22Which is huge.
02:23And then people can kind of mentor younger workers, create space for them, engage in teams, and still contribute and
02:29be active, but have some more freedom.
02:30I think about this in the – I was raised in a university town.
02:34This is really a facet of academia.
02:36The professors talk about phased retirement.
02:37It has been something that's been available to them for a long time.
02:40What was the catalyst to this becoming more common in corporate America, corporations more globally?
02:47Was it recognition of the demographics?
02:49Was it agitation by workers who perhaps wanted to stay longer, maybe not do as much as they were doing?
02:54How did it come about?
02:54How did this become more of a zeitgeisty thing than it had been?
02:57I think just practically speaking because there are older workers and because we are aging as a population.
03:05So it becomes harder to always want younger workers when it's harder to find workers full stop.
03:11There has to be like an acknowledgment of the need for that.
03:13I think you mentioned CVS as a company that's kind of identifying older workers who could do some of the
03:17pharmacy-related jobs.
03:18Yes, and I was actually – we have a clinic here at Bloomberg, and the doctor here was telling me
03:22that she'd been a New York public health worker for years.
03:24She didn't want to do that level of work anymore, but she wanted to still work.
03:27So now she works in, you know, a couple days a week at a health clinic in an office building.
03:31So there's just like broader response to these labor market trends that we've been talking about for a long time
03:35now.
03:35Yeah, absolutely.
03:36And I think we're going to see more and more of this because our population is aging.
03:39We are peak 65 right now.
03:41So there are thousands of people turning 65 around the world every day, and our median age is rising all
03:48the time.
03:48So companies are going to need to find ways to adapt to older workers.
03:54Also, older workers have a lot of experience and knowledge that's very, very valuable.
03:58Boom Radio, as you say, a success.
04:00I mean, as these guys who founded it talk about it, was it – was the aspiration for it to
04:06be more of a hobby,
04:06or are they at all astonished at how big it's grown and now that they're making money off of it,
04:10it's become a growing concern?
04:10I thought there was an audience for it.
04:12They were astonished, yes.
04:14David Lloyd said, none of us can quite believe how big this has become.
04:18And he said – you know, he's working seven days a week.
04:21He says he wants to pull his hair out sometimes.
04:23But he said – and I quote – I thought about this quote a lot.
04:26He said, this is by far the most fulfilling, beautiful thing I've ever done in my entire life.
04:32And if I die tomorrow, I'll feel like I've done it.
04:35And that quote has really stayed with me because it's very inspiring to hear someone seeing that level of fulfillment.
04:42He said, you know, this is the radio station we spent our entire careers getting ready to run.
04:46And it just seemed like a really beautiful example of someone using all the experience they had to create something
04:52new and really fulfilling.
04:55That's amazing because why can't you create something new at 50?
04:57Why isn't it just as exciting and new in the last 30 years of your life as it is the
05:01first 30 years of your life?
05:02Like, I think – I thought the whole thing was incredibly inspiring.
05:05And it seems like it's going to stick with you.
05:07Oh, absolutely.
05:08And we're living longer.
05:09We're healthier.
05:10There's no reason why we shouldn't also keep working and living and traveling and doing all of those things.
05:16Stacey Vannick-Smith, thank you so much for joining us and for this excellent piece.
05:20I highly recommend everybody goes and reads it.
05:22Stacey and I haven't been talking about retirement for a long time at a variety of jobs.
05:25Now we're at Bloomberg, we're able to talk about the prospects here as well, but we're at Marketplace.
05:29Please don't retire, guys.
05:30I need you to get us a break.
05:31No plans to do so as well.
05:32I mean, I'm focused on that gold watch still.
05:35Don't go – don't do away with that.
05:36We need those totems.
05:38We need that acknowledgement.
05:39I got it.
05:39I got it.
05:39Okay, very good.
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