Youtube Youtube's Cleanup Plan

○ Kraft Heinz must feed again 15 ○ Nafta’s five sticking points 32 ○ Tom Steyer, Mr. Impeachment 58 April 30, 2018 YouTube YouTube’s Cleanup Plan 46 Board game nights let P a new generation of executives compete—and collaborate By Mark Ellwood U THE Photograph by Stephen Lewis R POWER S OF PLAY U I T S 63 66 Behind the wheel of Lamborghini’s new SUV 68 Robert Stern, architec- tural conservative 70 The facial that came from outer space 71 Tools to spruce up your garden game 72 A philanthropist puts fnanciers’ anxiety to good use April 30, 2018 Edited by Chris Rovzar PROP STYLIST: KODY PANGBURN KODY STYLIST: PROP Businessweek.com OFF HOURS Bloomberg Pursuits April 30, 2018 he rattle of dice is syncopated but constant. regular gamer. “You would do it on the down-low. Now more A dozen or so men sit at diferent tables, each lit- people are doing it than I ever knew. In the fnance industry, tered with an elaborate assortment of board game you don’t have to play golf anymore—you can play games.” pieces—plastic fgures, cards, and tokens. A bowl flled He marvels at how wide-reaching his once-niche hobby is T with candy-colored dice sits on one table like a giant becoming. “My neighbor showed up the other day at a gam- assortment of the worst-ever M&M’s. ing event. He’s a doctor. I had no idea.” Although these guys are playing to win, there’s an One demographic that’s underrepresented is women. atmosphere of camaraderie more than combat—no money “The hobby as a whole is nowhere near parity, so it’s a is wagered—and they walk one another through each round, very male group,” Tracy says of his club. “But there are two thinking aloud and discussing strategies. No wonder, given women who come at least two or three times a year.” how complex many of the games are. “I could memorize the He pegs the gender divide to the hobby’s war-gaming her- Torah, or this,” says one man, laughing as he brandishes the itage, and Mindy Kyrkos, a corporate travel agent and avid brick of a rulebook for Advanced Squad Leader. gamer, agrees on its lingering impact. “Very often I’m the The group meets once a week in a gaming den in only woman at the table,” she says. “It’s not that women Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Every surface in the don’t enjoy confict, but not that type.” wood-paneled room is piled with bright boxes. They’re As with fraternal groups since time immemorial, this net- stacked precariously on the foor and windowsills and loaded work provides other advantages beyond the chance to unwind. onto shelves amid leather-bound books. The games display “When I was changing jobs, one of the best career decisions an array of styles: A Roman Empire-themed game is called I’ve ever made, it came directly through a gaming contact, Trajan; another one, Churchill, honors wartime politics; Star and I’ve certainly recommended people that way,” Tracy says. Wars: Rebellion lets you play on the side of the rebels or “And I’ve hired people I’d never have known without gaming.” the Empire. There’s even one based on Ken Follett’s epic There are no formal statistics on the number of such groups, The Pillars of the Earth. but the trend has caught hold enough that some compa- When J.R. Tracy bought this loft several years ago, he nies have opted to include gameplay in their hiring process. carved it in two—one half became the family home, the other Recruiters for Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna International 64 a dedicated gaming lab. Tracy works in fnance, and most Group LLP stage game nights at colleges and universities to of his fellow gamers are fortysomething bankers or lawyers seek out potential hires, looking for the strategic thinking or executives in other highly paid, highly stressful felds. such a hobby engenders. SIG also hosts regular play evenings “These guys come from taking depositions all day in a suit for employees; multiple groups will play the same game, and tie. Then they look so happy to leave that all behind for stress-testing it to see if it leads to good team-building. a few hours,” Tracy says, sipping a beer. “We approach it the same way we approach trading,” says Tracy and his crew aren’t outliers: They’re part of a quiet Todd Simkin, a 20-year veteran of the company who co-heads network that’s more Snakes & Ladders than Skull & Bones, its education team. “We look for ways to play the game, where groups of mostly white white-collar types come the diferent nuances, and we stop and discuss strategies. together to decompress with dice. “I used to be this weird Then we have a debriefng afterwards.” A favorite, Avalon, freak, who had this odd hobby that I didn’t share with any- divides players into good and bad guys, then tasks them with one,” says fnancier Jim Doughan, another deducing who is on each side. SIG operates a standalone, CURRENT OBSESSIONS You may know Monopoly and Risk, but these newer favorites are heating up game nights POWER GRID GLOOMHAVEN PANDEMIC TERRAFORMING CARCASSONNE In this German- Like Dungeons & Health experts work MARS This world-building designed game, Dragons without the together to stop the Aspiring Elon Musks game is often utility managers dice (or role-playing). global spread of a race together toward compared to Catan, bid for power Players team up for disease, amassing a common goal. where the goal is to plants in an efort to battles in a shifting, cards that bestow Gameplay is backed populate a French dominate supply. puzzlelike storyline. unique abilities. by real science. countryside. OFF HOURS Bloomberg Pursuits April 30, 2018 company-run website, raiseyourgame.com, maintained by company Oath. “I’ve helped people network—like, ‘Hey, my employees who share their observations, tips, and theories niece wants an internship, do you know XYZ person?’ ” he on all kinds of gaming, from sports to board games to cards. says. “It’s like getting people into a cult.” It’s this type of collaboration that makes board games dif- Justin Carroll is a bankruptcy lawyer and fervent board ferent from the every-man-for-himself mentality of poker, gamer. The crowd at Carroll’s games is a mix of gay and says Benjamin Hofstein, who works on the tech side of straight and largely white. Most players didn’t know one fnance. He runs Compass, a scavenger hunt and puzzle another before showing up and were drawn by word-of- competition where “New York City is the game board.” mouth. Indeed, that’s how he met a lawyer who specializes Every year it attracts almost two dozen teams from Goldman in pro bono programs, who in turn helped Carroll begin a Sachs Group, Bridgewater Associates, Barclays, BlackRock, similar project at his own employer. JPMorgan Chase, and other companies to compete in live- Wall Street insiders have been monitoring the rise of action puzzles at various locations across the city—and raise board gaming as a low-pressure networking device, accord- money for charity along the way. ing to executive coach Roy Cohen. Winning in business is rarely a He says playing such games has solo endeavor, and Hofstein says become more popular in the his successful players have a group last three or four years. Gaming mindset. “You might work on a “IN THE FINANCE cabals can prove so useful, Cohen trading desk for a frm,” he says, actively encourages many clients “where you’re trying to get a team INDUSTRY, YOU DON’T to seek them out to get ahead. One of people to quote- unquote win.” Scrabble-loving fnancier ended up According to NPD Group Inc., joining a group after a chance con- U.S. sales of board games in 2017 HAVE TO PLAY GOLF versation in a cafe in East Hampton, were $1.1 billion, up 7 percent from N.Y., and later found work through the previous year. Travis Parker, its members. “It’s for obvious rea- who runs Game Crafter LLC, a cus- ANYMORE—YOU CAN sons,” Cohen says. “They can blow tom game business, estimates that off steam, decompress, and net- 65 more than 3,000 games are released work all at the same time.” annually. Their producers range PLAY GAMES” British journalist Tristan from big companies such as Hasbro Donovan, the author of It’s All a Inc. to individual creators using Game, which explores the history crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter. Crowdfunding has and enduring appeal of board games, suggests their cur- been crucial to the board game boom: In 2017, for instance, rent popularity derives from a newly time-pressed culture. Kickstarter saw 400 more successful campaigns for tabletop Those who might once have spent an entire Saturday golfng games than in the previous year, and revenue was up 30 per- together see an evening of board gaming as far more efcient. cent. Not all titles become household names—the jury’s still Networking at the table is also simpler than on the links: The out on Advanced Squad Leader, for sure—but some have structure of the evening makes conversation easier and erases become best-sellers: Pandemic, Carcassonne, and Ticket to the hierarchies of the 9 to 5. “You’re sitting around pieces of Ride, though none comes close to the sales of Catan (origi- cardboard, leaning in close, and it all feels a little more inti- nally known as Settlers of Catan), a game in which players mate,” Donovan says.

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