{"id":1483,"date":"2014-03-04T12:41:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T12:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/distribution\/blog\/2014-03-04\/qa-with-bloomberg-photographer-alex-sherman\/"},"modified":"2015-06-08T20:46:06","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T20:46:06","slug":"qa-with-bloomberg-photographer-alex-sherman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/distribution\/blog\/2014-03-04\/qa-with-bloomberg-photographer-alex-sherman\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Bloomberg Reporter Alex Sherman"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/1″][vc_column_text]Alex Sherman is a reporter at Bloomberg\u2019s New York headquarters. He started at Bloomberg in 2008 as an intern out of graduate school and has since worked in a variety of roles and covered a number of beats. Now, he covers mergers and acquisitions in the technology, media and telecom sectors.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Depth recently spoke with Alex to discuss the hectic world of tech and telecom deals and his fast-paced life as a Bloomberg reporter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Can you discuss your professional background and how it led you to Bloomberg? What skills have you developed over the years that help you in your current role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started on the TV side as a writer and a producer. I was with TV for about two and a half years, and then I shifted over to the reporting side, which is what I had always wanted to do. I was placed on a beat permanently where I was covering the world of pay television \u2013 meaning Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others. I quickly was covering all media because there\u2019s so much convergence and overlap today. So I started to report, with help from colleagues, on Netflix, Apple TV and Hulu because they\u2019re either working with or against the big incumbents, and then I shifted over to become our tech, media and telecom mergers and acquisitions reporter. It was a natural transition for me because many of the things I was covering in the past year or so of my media beat were merger and acquisition deals \u2014 Hulu, Dish\u2019s attempt at buying Sprint, and Comcast\u2019s eventual deal for Time Warner Cable.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also working on getting your MBA at New York University. How relevant are your studies to the reporting you do now for Bloomberg?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a nice thing; it really adds to my reporting. As I covered pay-TV, I was taking these media and entertainment classes that were being taught by people who were running the companies I was covering. And as I\u2019ve switched over to the M&A beat, there are also plenty of classes on mergers and acquisitions and valuation of companies. So it\u2019s been very useful.<\/p>\n

How does the media and telecom deals beat compare to other related subjects, like reporting on general trends or developments in technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s very intense. It\u2019s extremely competitive. I would say it\u2019s probably the most competitive beat at Bloomberg. We\u2019re trying to break stories before the competition \u2013 and before the company issues a press release. The idea is we want to move markets. We want people to get their money\u2019s worth from the Bloomberg Terminal by having us break these stories. It\u2019s all hands on deck.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of collaboration between the company news teams and the deals teams. So if I\u2019m covering tech, media and telecom deals, I\u2019m working very closely with all the company news reporters in tech and all the company news reporters in media and telecom. It\u2019s me trying to get a good sense of what all these companies do and what they\u2019re looking for because, obviously, in the entire world of media and telecom, there are a lot of companies. So I rely on the company reporters to help me.<\/p>\n

Are there any trends in the deals space that you\u2019re seeing? Like for example, are you concerned about the magnitude of the deals happening nowadays?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s definitely a consolidation trend in telecom and media. We\u2019ve seen it with Sprint and T-Mobile potentially trying to merge, and with Comcast and Time Warner Cable, too. Industries that are large network industries (the wireless networks, the cable networks) have to get more scale to grow because their industries have matured. The bigger you get, the more profitable you can get, because each additional customer represents a lot of profit if you\u2019re thinking about the incremental cost of, say, an Internet subscriber. The cost is low to add you to the network once it\u2019s already built. So these companies just want to get bigger and bigger, and that means more M&A activity.<\/p>\n

On the tech side, there\u2019s no question that the old stodgy enterprise companies like Oracle and IBM need to get into the cloud. That\u2019s where it\u2019s moving. They\u2019ve spent years and years, and billions and billions of dollars, developing these enterprise systems for companies using hardware, but now everyone wants stuff in the cloud, so they\u2019re going to have to transition. How they get there is an interesting question; a lot of these cloud companies are super expensive these days. We\u2019ll have to see how this happens: if they build it organically or if they start to make really expensive acquisitions.<\/p>\n

And then obviously, all the Internet companies want to get into the mobile space, which is why we saw Facebook spend $19 billion on WhatsApp. They need to get mobile technology in order to stay relevant. So that\u2019s another trend.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like working at Bloomberg\u2019s headquarters in New York? Is it exciting to be in that fast-paced newsroom environment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I go into friends\u2019 offices occasionally, and I\u2019m reminded of how amazing this office is. After six years, you start to get used to it; it\u2019s just where you go to work. You have to go out and see other offices to realize that it\u2019s really unique to be here.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a vibrant place. There\u2019s a lot of light here, which is nice; a lot of other places are darker. The newsroom is always active. I like that our TV set is now in the newsroom, which is much different from when I started here; it\u2019s much lighter and more active. Of course, there\u2019s the free food. This is certainly the best office that I\u2019ve been in to work. It\u2019s a big perk of the job to come in to this office every day.<\/p>\n

What privileges do you enjoy as a reporter for Bloomberg? Do you get any kind of special access in the business world that you might not get otherwise?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely. The best part is that the Bloomberg brand is strong enough that people in the business world realize that if they talk to me, the message is going to get out to the people that matter for them, which is mainly their investors. That\u2019s the biggest perk of the job \u2013 that the brand is strong enough.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a nice feedback loop that happens here. The investors read my stories, so they\u2019ll talk to me, and they\u2019ll talk to executives out there in the world. The executives will then talk to me and read our stories, because they realize it will get back to their investors, the general public and so forth. That\u2019s the feedback that you want. If you\u2019re in that circle, you can beat the competition, and you add a lot of value to the Bloomberg brand.
\n\u00a9 2014 Bloomberg Finance LP<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0Lauren Meller<\/a><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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