2025 Forbes Iconoclast Summit: The Great Content Convergence: Shaping the Future of Global Entertainment
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Jun 16, 2025, 04:10PM EDT
Forbes Editor-At-Large and Iconoclast Founder Maneet Ahuja is joined by Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and Mark Shapiro, President & Managing Partner, WME Group and President & COO, TKO at the 2025 Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York City.
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Forbes
23 minutes ago
- Forbes
NYC Whisky Mecca The Flatiron Room To Expand To Miami This Fall
Ask a New Yorker what The Flatiron Room is and you're likely to get several different answers. It's one of the premier whisky bars in the Big Apple. To others, it's a high-end restaurant. It's a cocktail bar with live music. And the fact that it's all of the above is one reason why the flagship establishment in Manhattan's NoMad neighborhood has survived and thrived since 2012 — its sibling location in Murray Hill opened in 2017. 2025 presents a new set of challenges to bars and restaurants, from potential tariffs to a shaky economy to a downturn in alcohol consumption. It's in this fraught environment that owner Tommy Tardie is expanding the Flatiron Room's reach beyond New York City. This fall, its newest outpost is planned to open in the Edgewater section of Miami, in a newly constructed building with approximately 10,000 square feet of space — far bigger than either of its Manhattan locations. It's a big gamble on the future of the hospitality industry and the Flatiron Room's place in it. But given that Tardie & Co. have already beat the odds before by keeping two venues going, even through the pandemic, it would be foolish to bet against them. I sat down with Tardie in the Flatiron Room Murray Hill and, over sparkling water (it was too early for whisky), talked about the challenges and opportunities of the new location, and how things are changing at the New York locations. The interview has been condensed and edited for brevity. Tommy Tardie outside the flagship location of the Flatiron Room in New York City. How much of a known quantity is the Flatiron Room in Miami? You've heard the term, [Miami is] the sixth borough. So there's a lot of people who go to Miami that are from New York. I don't know what the statistic is now, but when I first signed the lease, over 50% of the people purchasing the units [in the building that houses the Flatiron Room] were from New York. So yeah, I think there's seems to be some pretty good knowledge. We're getting a lot of people that are reaching out, you know, super excited that we're coming down there. And a lot of our members here, talk about, like, I go down to Miami so much. And I think that's part of the strategy. How knowledgeable are you about the Miami food and drink scene, and your potential clientele, going in? One of the fun aspects of it is the due diligence part. So we've been going down there quite a bit. I've taken our chef down there, our beverage director down there. And it's, it's good to go to other venues and see what other people are doing. It's one of the things I love so much about this industry. If you're an accountant, or if you're whatever specialized industry you're in, you can't go into somebody else's workplace and see what they're doing. In our industry, you totally can walk right in. You can see what glass, see what they're charging, see what kind of ratio of food to beverage they're doing, or what kind of offerings they have. That's not that you want to follow them, but you know, knowledge is power, and you at least have a kind of an educated awareness of what, what your competition is doing. And from that, you can kind of carve out your own thing. What are you seeing in the food and drink scene when you go down there? You can kind of think about those fun tropical cocktails, but you know, Miami, the food and beverage scene is definitely getting much, much better. A lot of people are migrating down there. I think there's a lot of opportunities for us. There is, there's some very nice cocktail bars. And, you know, there's diversity down there. How much is the Miami Flatiron Room going to replicate the New York experience? What I want to avoid is I don't want to make it purely New York. I love our concepts here. Customers seem to like the aesthetics. But I think if we were to try to match this down there, it just wouldn't work. We got lucky with our designer. She's really good. And I knew it was a tall task, because we have an established brand with its own identity. So to bring that brand and interpret it for a Miami market could be challenging. Like, how do we maintain this kind of maximalist design aesthetic in a place that's very minimal? But she did it. And I think when guests go down there, if they were to come in and not see our logo, they would probably be like, 'Oh, this reminds me of the Flatiron Room.' So we have certain brand pillars that we try to focus on. You know, the live music is one of them. Our bottle keep is one of them. Our distilled spirits program, which we've got a lot of fame from, and then the cocktails and food. So always want to maintain those things. Our distilled spirits program is super comprehensive, and we're excited to bring it down into Miami to see what people are gravitating for. I like brown spirits, but frankly, you know, we're gonna have brown spirits, we're gonna have agave based spirits, we'll have rum, and we'll see what people like, but we're definitely gonna, while we're a restaurant, we also want to have a very robust distilled spirits program. In your New York locations as well as in Miami, you're putting a greater emphasis on food and cocktails, spearheaded by a new culinary director, Jiho Kim, and a new beverage director, Ben Wald. We've been hearing about a decline in spirits consumption for a while, is this pivot the result of that? I like distilled spirits. I like whiskey. I know the most about whiskey. I enjoy tequila and rum as well. But with the economy the way it is, and with rents continuing to increase and inflation the way it is, we need to really make sure we get to maximize the revenue opportunity, and the operation we have now is very different than it was, you know, 13 years ago, when we first opened. Back then, an average ticket price of like, $40, we were still able to be profitable, right? But every year, you know, we have a 5% escalation on rent, or 3% escalation on rent, we have people wanting to get paid more. You know, ultimately we need to increase that. And if they're there, if we can have a food offering, then why not take advantage of it? And this part of us investing so much in our food offerings is, when we go down [to Miami], we do have to do breakfast and lunch. Dinner is what it is, but we also have to do breakfast and lunch. The view inside the Flatiron Room Murray Hill. The vibe in the Miami location promises to be quite different. How do you think tariffs are going to affect you? We fortunately have some flexibility, especially in the spirits world. Margins tend to be really good. [Spirits] have great shelf life and honestly, we're not greedy. When we go to Miami, we're not looking to do price gouging. If there's one thing I've learned is in this industry, it's easy to get them in the door the first time, but [then] it's more challenging. I've got the new kid on the block, and you can charge, and people will pay for it initially, because they want to experience, you know, the new shiny object. But we want retention. We want to really focus on the community. We want to tap into the people that live in Miami, and we're in an area that's super densely populated, with not a lot of elevated food options. We don't want to be so so outrageously priced that people can only afford to go on an anniversary or a birthday. We want a place that people can come and, you know, we're being Miami, what it is like? We want to have those high end items that that people may want to celebrate with both food and beverage, but at the same time, we want to have some options that are more affordable, that we can attract people that really just want to come down from their apartment and have a nice meal without feeling that they've got violated. No $1,000 martinis or anything like that? Yeah, well, we're gonna have some, you know, some higher end, large format items that, if people want to celebrate — it seems down there they like that, you know, we, we know our brand, and we're not going to, you know, we're not going to be the sparkler place. Right, but we, if people want to celebrate with something kind of extravagant, we want to have it on the menu, but we don't want that to be the norm. How have the concerns about the economy over the last couple of years, whether it's inflation or tariffs or recession scares, affected how you run the Flatiron Room? I listen to Bloomberg every morning — they talk about, like, last year was the restaurant recession. So people have been pulling back. And I think another trend we're seeing more of now is, is people are looking less at gimmicks, you know, the ... molecular gastronomy category. I think people are moving away from that, and they're looking more at storytelling and more at quality ingredients, the story behind the vendor that you're getting it from, and how items work together on your palate. And that's something we really want to focus on. We've been doing a lot of training for that, you know, sourcing from a local farm — people want to know why you're getting it there. What makes this particular oyster unique, or how this particular cheese pairs well with, you know, this particular protein. People want genuine experiences. They want value. And unfortunately, we are seeing, you know, a bit of a pullback on the average amount that people are spending. But it's all things we can work, and we just have to work a little bit smarter, streamline the operation, run lean. And for us, what we're super excited about is that it's we're able to, it's our third location, and we're able to, you know, spread out some of these fixed costs over multiple venues. So having more locations actually helps you? For instance, whenever you do quantity, you get bulk. So even now, like when we're purchasing glassware and we're purchasing plates, it's so much easier for us to hit that next tier of price discount, because now we're sharing the cost between three locations, and we've been doing that across the board, and we've been having a lot of fun with that. For instance, we we have some really fancy hand towels in our bathrooms, and they're very, very nice. They're a linen like towel, and they feel very, very durable, but they're expensive. We found a manufacturer that was able to print our logo on it. And even with the logo, provided we get 50,000 of them, our price is cut in half. Little things like that are opportunities, and unfortunately, we wouldn't have that opportunity if we had one venue, because it's just too big of a cost to eat. You've got a few zero-proof cocktails on your menu. What's your opinion of the category? Just personally, if there are good non-alc options on a menu, I'll have two cocktails, and then instead of either cutting myself off or having a third one and feeling awful the next morning, I will have a no-alc just to keep the fun going, but, you know, not get any more drunk. I was having dinner with a friend, and there's some cocktails that we offer on the menu. You've heard of our Garden of Eden [a Spanish-style gin & tonic]. We have [a non-alcoholic] one called Eve's Elixir, which looks exactly the same when you order it, it doesn't sound like you're ordering a non-alc cocktail. And I was having dinner with a friend, and he was enjoying his Garden of Edens while I was enjoying my non-alcoholic cocktails, unbeknownst to him, and he coincidentally mentioned the whole non-alcoholic cocktail scene, and as he's drinking with me, he's like, 'I just don't understand why these people drink non-alcoholic cocktails.' And he was, you know, he was getting lit. And I was not, and I thought it was quite humorous, but I felt a little bit protected that I didn't have some, you know, marker on my drink, Are you going to use the New York locations as sort of a testing ground for new recipes for Miami? We're so lucky, because typically restaurants have the evolution of a dish, even a cocktail — it evolves. You come up with something, you play with it, you take a picture of it, and you standardize it. You say, Okay, this is going to be a cocktail. Truth is, over the next couple weeks... it's going to be adjusted based on people's suggestion or feedback, or just how it works within the kitchen. And normally, when you you open up a restaurant, you don't have that luxury to have an active, live audience, giving you, you know, real life feedback. So we feel really, really fortunate that we have all that. So we're like, okay, it's just right. Bring it over there, and we could say, look, we've we've already tested this. It works. But there's certainly going to be certain nuances based on the kitchen's capabilities, and even like the climate — like down there, sushi is I think it's going to be really important. I think seafood is going to be really important, for sure, so probably more so than up here. But what we want in terms of growth is just really kind of maximizing the three different venues and taking advantage of the economies and of scale and being able to work collectively to just create a better product. Flatiron Room culinary director, Michelin-starred chef Jiho Kim, hard at work. You've been the face of the Flatiron Room since it opened. Now that you're presumably going to be spending a lot of time in Miami, how do you think that's going to affect the New York locations? The last year, I would say we've really been focusing on growth and making sure we have plenty of systems so that we can grow, and this place isn't as reliant on me. I've got a really good team. I love technology, and there's so much technology out there right now that really helps businesses grow and scale. So we're we're doing what we can. Obviously, there's gonna be things that fall through the cracks, but I expect when we first open to be down there most of the time. Fortunately, it's like a two and a half hour flight to get back and forth, so it gives me that luxury of being able to come back when I need on a moment's notice, without breaking the bank, because it's not crazy expensive. But as as a new business, I need to be down there and just see what's happening. You open up a new restaurant, you think everything through, and then there's certain nuances that just come out. There'll be a grumpy neighbor upstairs, a creaky step or, you know, a heater that isn't working properly. You just, there's things that you learn when you go there. And no matter how much you you plan it out, it's not until you open that you see how the restaurant actually flows, which is always the biggest challenge. It's that you want that kind of perfect balance of form and function, and you don't really know the form part until, you know, you start seeing bottlenecks, and you start seeing kind of irregularities or things that you didn't anticipate. Then you adjust. Do you feel like you need to have a new 'face of the brand' in New York? I don't think I want to be the face of the brand. I mean, I think inherently, as the owner, I probably will be. But you know, as we grow, I really want our members to have somebody that is going to recognize them when you come in. Why people buy our lockers or our bottles [as part of the Flatiron Room's Bottle Keep program] is, it's really so little to do about the alcohol and more to do about the experience and that kind of, I'd say, a bit of a notoriety or recognition or just that exclusiveness, right? So it can never be just me, the one that's going to provide that. So we — the general manager, the AGM, even our staff — we want to make whenever they come in, we want them to feel special. And yeah, if I'm here, I really enjoy doing that. But as we grow, I can't, I can't realistically think, Okay, well, I'm going to be the one that provides that experience. What is your secret to keeping a bar/restaurant going for so long? I think the secret is just, just keep focusing on what you're doing. Just keep focusing on what you're doing, believe in what you're doing, adapt when you need to, don't overreact. I still, unfortunately, fall into that, that hole. Every summer is very, very painful, July and August and beginning of September is really, really tough. When we first opened, we had a lot of fanfare, and we, you know, we were doing really well. And then summer came, and I was like, What is going on? You know, maybe, maybe they have shifted, and people don't like us anymore. And then fall comes, and then boom, Also, I think tightening the belt, running lean, is really, really important, It's in terms of cutting, we don't want to compromise on quality. It's more efficiency, you know, and being a little more strategic with our labor. You know, we're a small, lean restaurant. You want people to be able to wear different hats. And you know, I'm thankful that we have people that have been with us for a super long time, and they have that muscle memory where they're able to do things without even thinking about it, versus, you know, hire someone new, and they're just it's, it's almost requires more work on your end, and then to train and then to do it yourself. But you know, over time, you get people that have been with the company for a long time, and then they just, they know how to do it well. Who knows what the future is going to be like with the economy. But, you know, I think we've always comfortably been adaptable, and I think our business is adaptable enough to kind of kind of pivot a little bit without changing our concept — much. So we'll see.
Forbes
23 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Myth Of The Free Market: Chris Hughes' American Economic History
(Original Caption) High Officials Attend Funeral of William Woodin. Vice President John Nance ... More Garner, (left), and Jesse Jones, Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, pictured leaving the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, after attending funeral services for William Woodin, for Secretary of the Treasury. Chris Hughes's Market Crafters: The 100‑Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy, published just a few weeks ago in the Spring of 2025, is a masterful, humanizing journey through a century of U.S. economic history. Hughes—economist, former English major, Harvard roommate of Mark Zuckerberg turned multimillionaire after selling his Facebook stock, and public intellectual—brings a storyteller's instinct to a traditionally arid subject. He can make Fed policy gripping. His background makes him uniquely compelling: he understands both language and markets, and he writes with clarity but does not condescend to the reader. He shatters the myth that free markets alone produced American prosperity. Instead, he chronicles a persistent, bipartisan tradition of 'market crafting': the deliberate use of government authority to shape markets—investing, regulating, and stabilizing—for public benefit. This narrative covers episodes ranging from Jesse H. Jones's Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the 1930s to modern semiconductor policy under Trump and Biden. Hughes's first book, Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn, landed in February 2018. He began convinced that unconditional cash was the silver bullet for inequality. Over the course of his research, however, he shifted his position, recognizing the indispensability of public infrastructure—roads, schools, regulatory systems—that cash alone doesn't supply. It was an evolution worth noting, and in Market Crafters, that same curiosity drives a deeper exploration of institutional design. In 2019, Hughes authored a landmark essay in The New York Times calling for Facebook's breakup, the company he worked hard to build. That early and incisive stance on monopoly power foreshadows the themes that animate Market Crafters. Here, Hughes investigates the people and lawmakers – including it seems, Trump and Biden, who worry monopolies thrive when markets go uncrafted and how careful tariff, tax breaks, and direct investment can restore competition and innovation. The heart of the book is its cast of characters—detail-rich portraits of decision-makers whose lives shaped policy. These include Jesse H. Jones, William McChesney Martin, Arthur Burns, Nancy Teeters, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Lina Khan, Jake Sullivan, Brian Deese, Felicia Wong, and many others. Hughes's approach isn't ideological: he grants respect to pragmatic leaders—Republican and Democrat—who leveraged the tools of statecraft to stabilize and invigorate the economy. What is market craft? Chris Hughes writes 'it's the intentional use of state power to shape markets towards the political goal of stability. In the depression 'the alternative – – cascading bankruptcies in the banking, agricultural railroad sectors was out of the question.' Possibly the most satisfying lesson in marketcrafting comes early with Jesse H. Jones, who served as head of the RFC from 1932 until 1939. The RFC was not just a wartime lender—it was essentially a federal investment bank, channeling billions into faltering banks, railroads, and farms. Between 1932 and 1935, Jones authorized the distribution of about $74 billion in today's dollars. His vision of combining government money with private capital to prevent cascading bankruptcies defines 'market crafting': the calculated, visionary use of public power to engineer stability. Hughes devotes a section to the Federal Reserve's transformation. William McChesney Martin—Fed Chair from 1951 to 1970—famously insisted that the Fed's job was 'to take away the punch bowl just as the party's getting started.' And Hughes quotes him saying something like 'Markets are nursed along as children are nursed along,' explaining that policymakers guide markets because unregulated forces would otherwise leave economies vulnerable. Hughes also recalls Martin's innovation known as 'Operation Twist' in the 1960s, whereby the Fed sold short-term Treasuries to buy long-term bonds—an early instance of yielding to market needs without monetary expansion. Nancy Teeters, appointed in 1978 as the first woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is remembered not as a Chair but as a pathbreaker who often dissented during times of macroeconomic turbulence. Her role illustrates how even non‑chair governors can steer policy by holding the institution accountable for balance, not adherence to any dogma. Skipping ahead to the 2008 Hughes recounts the turbulent 2008 financial crisis. Bear Stearns was rescued on March 16, 2008, by JPMorgan Chase with a $30 billion-backed Fed loan—a classic move in the tradition of market crafting. By contrast, Lehman Brothers was left to fail when it filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, triggering global financial panic. The about-face in policy reflects a tension between the ideological belief that NOT creating moral hazard was the most important policy goal. Hughes suggests the imperative of preventing systemic collapse was not in focus because the Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson's, belief in the market's ability to discipline itself and snap back. Paulson insisted in public statements that he wasn't going to tolerate bailouts. Just a few weeks later the officials learned a different lesson and bailed out AIG. The final chapters examine how both President Trump and President Biden departed from neoliberal economic policies to embrace market crafting to boost investment in key industries. Trump's Operation Warp Speed is framed not only as a public-health success but also as a market-crafting intervention: the federal government intervened directly in private pharmaceutical markets to ensure vaccine development and distribution. Biden led bold market crafting and perhaps his boldness came from years of experience as Vice President and Senator. He knew government could shape markets. And he knew it was in the American tradition. He wanted to help the middle class and create jobs. During the campaign he said to potential donors,' My Lord, look at what is possible, looking at the institutional changes we can make, without us becoming a 'socialist country' or any of that malarkey.' Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act on August 9, 2022, authorizing approximately $52.7 billion in direct semiconductor investments and research support, as part of a broader $280 billion science and technology initiative. What surprised many is how bipartisan the push became, with Republicans such as Senators Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young. Hughes discusses their rethinking and departure from free market ideology on the same page as he describes Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren's supporting for market crafting. Through these actions, Hughes suggests industrial policy is no longer a partisan liability but a pragmatic necessity. Both presidents, despite different rhetoric, drew from the same script: government can steer market outcomes for national stability and innovation. Hughes argues for a modern federal investment bank. t's hardly un-American—after all, the RFC came first. By tracing a narrative arc back to Jesse H. Jones and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Hughes suggests that a federal investment bank is not a radical departure, but a deeply American institution. The bank would have to be well – designed so it was evergreen, it could function across be swings in administrations, resist capture, and catalyze public‑interest investment. He writes, 'With smart design, a national investment bank could harness markets for social and political goals while building durable institutional expertise that outlasts any single administration. 'Market Crafters is not a partisan tract but an exploration of economic policymaking in action. It is, above all, a tribute to institutions that adapt and the people who create and recreate them -- RFCs, central banks, federal agencies. Readers get a renewed appreciation for American policymakers who navigated crises and steered the economy by not by retreating to free-market dogma – most of the time -- but crafting and shaping markets. Chris Hughes surprisingly readable economic history foregrounds the personalities behind policy while making a robust case for public policymaking as an art of market design. He makes the same argument in a recent New York Times article describing President Trump's conflict with Fed Chief Jerome Powell. Hughes book shows how, when governments act deliberately and skillfully, they can steady economies, spur innovation, and avert disaster. For anyone grappling with questions about tariffs, pandemic-era bailouts, industrial strategy, or Fed policy, Market Crafters provides both context and an invitation—to consider that markets are not self-executing, but human-crafted.
New York Times
24 minutes ago
- New York Times
Many Hoped Senate Republicans Would Save Clean Energy. They Mostly Didn't.
Climate advocates, Democrats, and even some House Republicans who last month had supported a tax package that gutted federal support for clean energy were hoping the Senate would make fixes to protect energy manufacturing and jobs. But on Monday, Senate Republicans disappointed them, proposing to quickly end most tax breaks for wind and solar power, electric vehicles and other clean energy. Draft legislation released by the Senate Finance Committee would terminate or scale back most of the major tax incentives for clean energy contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Biden administration's signature climate law. The plan would eliminate within six months a $7,500 consumer tax credit for purchases of electric vehicles as well as home energy rebates for things like electric heat pumps and induction stoves. A tax credit for homeowners who install solar panels on rooftops would end within 180 days. A subsidy for making hydrogen fuels would expire this year. Federal tax credits for wind and solar power, which have been in place for decades but were made more lucrative under the Inflation Reduction Act, would be rapidly phased out. Wind and solar companies could qualify for the full tax break only if they began construction in the next six months. They would receive 60 percent of the tax break if they began construction in 2026, and 20 percent of the tax credit if they began construction in 2027. Projects built after that would get nothing. That's a slightly longer runway for renewable energy than is in the House version of the bill, which would have ended those tax breaks almost immediately. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
