Tom Keene – The Luckiest Guy on Wall Street

The Bloomberg radio and TV host reflects on his career, transitioning from radio to TV, his views on politics, and more.

“I'm the luckiest guy on Wall Street to have the ability to work at Bloomberg each and every day,” Tom Keene told Benzinga during a

. His love of Bloomberg isn't simply corporate BS; he truly loves what he does and the company that he works for. But his career, like so many at Bloomberg, is rooted in the financial markets. “[Before Bloomberg], I was working up in Boston in the investment business,” said Keene. “It was retail and institutional – mostly equities, but I was doing a lot of economic analysis. The industry was great, and then it changed.” That change came in 1987. “I remember clear as a bell the crash of 1987,” Keene recalled. “What's remarkable is that the business has changed so much from then. But it's also changed a lot from, say, the summer of 1998.” Keene is one of the most respected men in financial reporting. As the host of

, he has brought his trademark long form interviews to Bloomberg TV. “[Al Mayers] had come to me [eight years ago] and said that he liked the way I was interviewed when they interviewed me,” said Keene. “We developed a program around doing longer, more thoughtful interviews with all of the kinds of guests that we have. “The thing that surprised us is that it was relatively successful right away. We sort of carried that over four or five years later to Bloomberg Surveillance (on radio). Then, when Ted Fine came over from CNN, Ted and I sat down and we tried to take all of the advantages we could from radio and bring them over to the realities of TV at 12 noon.” But while Keene has been very successful at what he does, it is anything but easy. “I'm really, really big on some form of power function there – I'm going to call it a squared function – in that it's really easy to do a two-minute interview,” Keene explained. “And then a four-minute interview is twice as hard, but an eight-minute interview is four times as hard as a four-minute interview, etc.” What's interesting, Keene says, is that the longer interviews are harder for a lot of people. “[But] for the audience, they are more beneficial,” Keene insists. “You get a lot better insight in minute four or minute five of an interview than you typically do in minute one or minute two. So, the more you can extend out the interview to seven minutes, or fifteen minutes, you can really get to some important insights that you just don't get in the typical two- or three-minute interview.”

With regard to building his guest lineup on Surveillance Midday, Keene says having the support of Matt Winkler (Editor-in-Chief) and Andrew Lack (head of media) has been invaluable. “The people around me, we work very lean and very focused,” said Keene. “We've got an entire process of how to find the guests, how to make mistakes – and we do have guests that don't work out – and just constantly monitor who are guests that seem interesting to our viewers and our listeners. We've done this with trial and error over the years.” Another big advantage? The guests actually

to be on Keene's show. “We had on Ed Lazear today from Stanford University, and he's been very, very kind to come on for generous amounts of time,” said Keene. “The privilege of having an extended conversation with Ed Lazear is just incalculable. “By definition, 99 percent of the people in these jobs are smart. What we are looking for is a little bit of showbiz enthusiasm, but much more than that their ability to state clearly and cogently what they believe. It is extremely important to understand that the best guests are clear and cogent when they get things wrong.” For example, Keene says that if John Ryding of RDQ Economics was wrong on an interest rate call four or five years ago when he was at Bear Stearns, it is “extremely valuable if Mr. Ryding can convey why he was wrong.” “That,” Keene says, “is a very important skill” “They are all smart; it's just getting them where they can state it cogently and clearly.”

On Tuesday, Bloomberg will sponsor its first GOP presidential debate. When asked for his thoughts, Keene said that he is most fascinated by how the candidates address the economy. “From what I've seen so far, they really don't want to talk about [it],” Keene revealed. “They are much more comfortable talking away from the economics of the nation and much more toward social policy and politics, and they are much more comfortable taking shots at the president.” Keene said that one of the most important things here is that politicians think short-term and give lip service to the medium- and long-term. “It will be very interesting to see the language that they use in addressing long-term challenges,” said Keene. “What would Ron Paul do day one on the job? Mitt Romney, I think, has been somewhat clear about that – more in a consulting, McKinsey-Bain kind of way – but, what would be their action plans for these interesting structural challenges that we have? I think that will be fascinating.” When it comes down to it, however, Keene prefers to keep his opinions to himself. “One of the things I've really tried to do is keep my opinion, and particularly my politics, out of what I do,” Keene insists. “I think that's a hallmark of what Matt Winkler has built. I'll tell you, each and every day I understand more and more my decision and our decision to really try to be transparent and let the guests speak their minds without me getting in the way. “What I would like to see as an end result of this debate Tuesday night is for there to be a smarter audience, and particularly for the candidates to understand better what the other candidates think. I really wonder how much, say, the Romney campaign knows about the Perry campaign, and vice versa.” To hear more from the Bloomberg legend, don't miss Benzinga's

with Tom Keene.