Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Karl Masser. Every day
Speaker 1: we're bringing you the latest news from the world's of
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Speaker 1: us too on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the discussion point of the day for this
Speaker 1: pandemic has been the vaccines, the distribution and availability of
Speaker 1: the vaccines and how quickly is that occurring? Uh? And
Speaker 1: then once we do get the vaccines, how are people reacting?
Speaker 1: So let's get the latest. We can do that with
Speaker 1: our good friend Dr Ian LUs Bader. Uh. He comes
Speaker 1: on our show often to give us the latest intelligence.
Speaker 1: Dr LUs Beder is a clinical Associate Professor of medicine
Speaker 1: at the n y U Lane Going Medical Center. Joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone from New York City. Dr los Beder,
Speaker 1: thanks again for joining us. I understand you took the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Did you tell us about your experience taking a vaccine
Speaker 1: and then maybe any side effects you may have had. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Paul and Alex, thanks for having me on UM. The
Speaker 1: vaccine really for me was not that at all. That
Speaker 1: was the last week, last Wednesday, and there is for
Speaker 1: many of my colleagues who took them. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty people that day. Uh here
Speaker 1: at the n y U Center for Men's Health, and
Speaker 1: we've done you know, several thousand really throughout the city.
Speaker 1: Usually it's a localized pain, very similar to a flu shot,
Speaker 1: so you have some soreness at the site, usually for
Speaker 1: twenty four sometimes a little bit more than that. Um.
Speaker 1: I didn't even take Thailand all, so I was sort
Speaker 1: of underwhelmed. But remember that's the first shot. Many people
Speaker 1: seemed to have a little bit more of a side
Speaker 1: effect after the second shot. And colleagues of mine who
Speaker 1: who are physicians, who had COVID and appropriately said, you
Speaker 1: know where we know the vaccine gives us higher antibodies
Speaker 1: for a longer period of time. Several of them also
Speaker 1: took the vaccine, which was appropriate. A couple of them
Speaker 1: actually seem to have a little more severe reaction of
Speaker 1: some fevers and some eggs. So it does seem perhaps
Speaker 1: that in the people who have had COVID who take
Speaker 1: a vaccine, again that's appropriate. We think it does boost
Speaker 1: your you know, the length of the immune response, they
Speaker 1: seem to have a little bit of a harder time
Speaker 1: with it. Interesting, I think the first I've heard of
Speaker 1: that one UM technical question. So you're going to get
Speaker 1: your vaccine, How did you know when to get it,
Speaker 1: where to go? How do you know when to get
Speaker 1: back for your second doze? And I know that you
Speaker 1: might be in a different situation because you're working on
Speaker 1: when you land going and you're a doctor, but I'm
Speaker 1: trying to understand, like where the issue is with getting
Speaker 1: the shot in people's arms. So you're you're totally right
Speaker 1: that we all need to do to kind of role
Speaker 1: this out more. We can talk about that, but at
Speaker 1: least it didn't why you UM, I think it's really
Speaker 1: quite efficient. Almost everyone is on an electronic medical record
Speaker 1: system is called my chart. Everyone has a record. You're
Speaker 1: pinned when they when your shot is available, You then
Speaker 1: schedule a date and time show up for it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a wait, you know, everything does
Speaker 1: not go off exactly on schedule. UM, but it was
Speaker 1: very uh, pretty seamless, I must say. You know, first
Speaker 1: day there was a real surge of physicians and nurses,
Speaker 1: and we continue, you know, to bring people in and
Speaker 1: so really the chart notifies you when you're ready, It
Speaker 1: notifies you to make a date. Hopefully you show up
Speaker 1: for that and then you have the staff available, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to give it to you. Uh. And generally
Speaker 1: this is daytime hours. Some sites are running on Saturday. Uh.
Speaker 1: So basically as many as can be scheduled during that
Speaker 1: essentially eight to like that time frame, uh is done.
Speaker 1: So is the expectation doctor that as we get this
Speaker 1: to more broad rollout the city to some degree for posts,
Speaker 1: spokes for people in New York City, the city will
Speaker 1: have you know, the sourcing of the batches and then
Speaker 1: we'll allocate them to various distribution places, whether it's a
Speaker 1: hospital or doctor's office. Yes, that's exactly it. We've already
Speaker 1: had a lot of doses allocated. I think New York
Speaker 1: State is somewhere around nine thousand doses in the city.
Speaker 1: It's only been about fifty five thousand. This is what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from, you know, the sources shots actually given
Speaker 1: so far, and I think total New York State is
Speaker 1: about nineties thousand, So there is a gap between what
Speaker 1: is available and actually physically giving those shots out. And
Speaker 1: you know, at one point we heard about the military
Speaker 1: or other people doing it. To my knowledge, that's not happening.
Speaker 1: The medical centers and offices are giving it out, you
Speaker 1: know as hubs. It it comes to a hub, especially
Speaker 1: because of the refrigeration that's needed, so they're sort of
Speaker 1: come to a main hub like n YU. They're then
Speaker 1: distributed to several sites under normal refrigeration, and then you
Speaker 1: have X amount of time to distribute them and basically
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, they are courier to the to
Speaker 1: the sites when they're then distributed throughout the day. So
Speaker 1: it is not the you know, logistics I think are
Speaker 1: slowing this up a little bit. It's not those lines
Speaker 1: of people waiting in the old days for mass vaccinations.
Speaker 1: Uh even you know, whether it's at CBS where you
Speaker 1: know people would just come in because of you know,
Speaker 1: restrictions and scheduling, it's going to be unfortunately a slower process.
Speaker 1: But that's my take on it. When we start vaccinating
Speaker 1: the ordinary population how are those people going to get
Speaker 1: that information? Is their primary care physition, They're gonna have
Speaker 1: a number, what has it work? So it's unlikely it's
Speaker 1: going to be a while before the primary care for
Speaker 1: positions are doing it. Once we get the the healthcare
Speaker 1: providers vaccinated, uh and this is according to our you know,
Speaker 1: more senior administrators. Once the doctors and nurses and frontline
Speaker 1: people uh in the I c U s and so
Speaker 1: forth get the shots, and we're in the process of
Speaker 1: doing that. The next group my understanding is sixty five
Speaker 1: and older. And at least for the patients who are
Speaker 1: on the my chart system at n y U H
Speaker 1: they will receive an electronic messages. Often they communicate. Just
Speaker 1: as patients can reach me by sending me a message,
Speaker 1: n y U sends out this sort of mass information here.
Speaker 1: The people who meet the criteria, they then schedule an appointment,
Speaker 1: and I believe some of them will be at this office,
Speaker 1: at this hub where we do have the vaccine. They
Speaker 1: will have to schedule it and then they will come
Speaker 1: in and you know, uh, not past a certain amount product.
Speaker 1: So still with us. Dr Ian les Beda, a clinical
Speaker 1: associate professor of medicine over at m yu Land Going
Speaker 1: Medical Center. We were just talking about was light to
Speaker 1: get a vaccine, how you wind up blending up people
Speaker 1: to get their shot, how that's all going to work.
Speaker 1: But it's like we're getting ahead of ourselves, doctor, because
Speaker 1: first we're dealing with the virus that's in the here
Speaker 1: and then now. And that brings me to the new
Speaker 1: strain that we saw in the UK and it seems
Speaker 1: to be spreading all over the world. What do we
Speaker 1: know about that new strain? But we certainly know that
Speaker 1: in the UK they identify this and we also know
Speaker 1: that viruses mutate. We see that with the influenza virus.
Speaker 1: You know that we need a new vaccine every year
Speaker 1: because there's significant mutations. In this case, we think there
Speaker 1: are probably several reasons why the virus mutates. Already, there
Speaker 1: have been a number of mutations somewhere in the range
Speaker 1: of fourteen ors so, and likely that is due to
Speaker 1: a selective pressure. Uh. If the virus is too deadly,
Speaker 1: h you kill off your host and that's not good
Speaker 1: for the virus. So if you can increase transmissive ability,
Speaker 1: in other words, make it easier to spread, great the
Speaker 1: virus reproduces better. And if it's a little less lethal,
Speaker 1: you keep your host alive longer to infect other people.
Speaker 1: So there is this select of pressure not just for
Speaker 1: this specific coronaviruses, but many other viruses over time to
Speaker 1: become a little less a little less uh deadly. And
Speaker 1: we are seeing the case fatality rate come down a bit,
Speaker 1: but the numbers of cases and with something call they
Speaker 1: are not the number of people you can infect when
Speaker 1: you're infected, has gone up, and that's a concern. I
Speaker 1: think we're going to see continuing rise in numbers because
Speaker 1: of that. And I think there's some evidence that that
Speaker 1: variant is here, or if not, probably will be here,
Speaker 1: even if you cut off flights. As you know, people
Speaker 1: can be asymptomatic, they can harbor it. So I think
Speaker 1: it would not be surprising to see our numbers go
Speaker 1: up in January, both due to holiday gatherings, probably as
Speaker 1: well as due to h new strains that are appearing.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where I wanted to go, doctor.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, as I think back to that
Speaker 1: first wave in March and April, we were all hanging
Speaker 1: on um. It seemed like every word from Governor Cuoma
Speaker 1: and his daily press conferences and and looking at that
Speaker 1: chart and learning a new term, which is bending the curve.
Speaker 1: When do you expect that we will see a peak
Speaker 1: in new infections UH in the United States here in
Speaker 1: this latest wave. Yeah, we unfortunately did not do a
Speaker 1: great job in UH in bending the curve, really do,
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons, public health issues. We everyone
Speaker 1: was not worrying, you know, masks and and really doing
Speaker 1: adequate social distancing. And unfortunately, by sort of for longing this,
Speaker 1: we've paid a price, they think economically by these sort
Speaker 1: of shutdowns on and off. Again my senses, I think
Speaker 1: we're unfortunately going to peek into late January and February.
Speaker 1: Most likely there's about a three week two three or
Speaker 1: four week allay with all of this, so I suspect
Speaker 1: that's when it will occur. We will be getting more vaccine.
Speaker 1: I think we've had a problem with distribution with the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Part of it is the sub zero fiser temperatures. I
Speaker 1: think as Maderna comes out, as astro Zeneca comes out,
Speaker 1: as J and J comes out, it will be easier
Speaker 1: and hopefully distribution will be easier. Of course, all of
Speaker 1: this would have been easier had we had a universal
Speaker 1: health record where everyone is on the same electronic record,
Speaker 1: you can communicate with large numbers of people. Otherwise, mass
Speaker 1: vaccination is not easy to do. But my sense is
Speaker 1: that we're going to see some unfortunate numbers later in January.
Speaker 1: Real quick, how are we doing with deaths? The case
Speaker 1: fatality rate is down. We've changed our approach to treating people,
Speaker 1: were often less aggressive and putting people on ventilators, So
Speaker 1: that's the good news. The problem is a surge where
Speaker 1: you can overwhelm hospitals and that looks like that may
Speaker 1: be happening in various areas, which is the downside. So
Speaker 1: although case fatality is raids down, the numbers really are
Speaker 1: climbing uncomfortably. Dr inlus Bader, thank you so much once
Speaker 1: again for joining us and sharing uh your knowledge and
Speaker 1: wisdom of as we deal with this virus and now
Speaker 1: the good news of the vaccines. Dr inlus Bator, Clinical
Speaker 1: Associate Professor of Medicine at n y u Langown Medical Center,
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from New York City. We
Speaker 1: always appreciate the perspective from the good folks. N y
Speaker 1: uh Langgown School of Medicine. Boy A fascinating story in
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business Week this week. Uh, it's about how
Speaker 1: a charity, this one in Canada, the Superstar founders, how
Speaker 1: they innovated its way to political scandal. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of just a really deep, deep story that you can
Speaker 1: sink your teeth until let's get to it. Joel Weber,
Speaker 1: Editor Bloomberg Business Week, joins us on the access line
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn and Danielle Bokov. She is the medals and
Speaker 1: mining reporter for Bloomberg News. She is in Toronto. Joel,
Speaker 1: just a fascinating story here, how these two brothers came together,
Speaker 1: built up this really amazing philanthropic organization and then it
Speaker 1: kind of just went downhill recently tells a story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's been a dramatic year for we charity and
Speaker 1: if you're if you're not familiar with us, this is
Speaker 1: like a superstar charitable organization based in Canada, and it
Speaker 1: has has had this dramatic rise over over decades. And
Speaker 1: really if you think about where they were a year
Speaker 1: ago and where they are where they find themselves right now.
Speaker 1: I think that there's just been you know, COVID's hit everyone. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think in in particular, this organization found that
Speaker 1: it was not only derailed from its main sort of
Speaker 1: way that it would have been able to fundraise and
Speaker 1: and make money, but then on top of it, um
Speaker 1: it also found that it acquired a form of scrutiny
Speaker 1: that it was sort of unaccustomed to. And I think
Speaker 1: that is ultimately where Dan, Danielle and Natalie's reporting in
Speaker 1: this story is so so dramatic. So Danielle, can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more? And you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I find so interesting about this
Speaker 1: is you obviously being in Canada, what is we charity?
Speaker 1: And particularly the co founders, two brothers, the Kielburgers, what
Speaker 1: have they been known for? They're really well known here
Speaker 1: and they have been for some time, Joel. They started
Speaker 1: out as Free of the Children, which was a charity
Speaker 1: founded when Craig Kilberger was only twelve years old to
Speaker 1: combat child slavery, so he was a child activist. And
Speaker 1: then he and his brother Mark kind of built this
Speaker 1: organization up and they moved into other work in developing countries,
Speaker 1: so building schools, providing clean water, those sorts of projects.
Speaker 1: But they also did a lot of educational work in Canada,
Speaker 1: especially UM and and also in the United States in
Speaker 1: the UK. So you know, they would go into into classrooms,
Speaker 1: for example, and teach school children in the developed world
Speaker 1: about philanthropy and in fire them to volunteer to fundraise,
Speaker 1: often for Wee charity, but but for other causes as well.
Speaker 1: And I think what's sort of interesting is just how
Speaker 1: encompassing their reach was. So they had a lot of
Speaker 1: big corporate donors, they had celebrity supporters, scores of school kids,
Speaker 1: and we're just sort of generally really well connected in
Speaker 1: Canada's elite establishment, which is still pretty clubby. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing they were really famous for were these
Speaker 1: we Days, which were these kind of massive jamborees, these
Speaker 1: really feel good events at stadiums with pop stars UM
Speaker 1: where some of the school kids in the developed countries
Speaker 1: who were really involved, they were called change makers, were
Speaker 1: essentially rewarded for doing good deeds by by getting to attend.
Speaker 1: And that that was kind of like in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: they have a complicated business model that that's kind of
Speaker 1: it in a nutshell. Yeah, And you're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: celebrity is like their mentors, by the likes of like
Speaker 1: Oprah for example, UM So what happened? Where did things
Speaker 1: go wrong this year? Yeah, so Jewel mentioned that COVID
Speaker 1: was a blow to them, me too. WE, which is
Speaker 1: the war profit arm, operates trips to countries where the
Speaker 1: charity side does the development work. So you would have
Speaker 1: volunteers and big donors who would go and they would
Speaker 1: stay in these really kind of often quite luxurious surroundings
Speaker 1: and then maybe they'd help like biggest foundation for a
Speaker 1: school or something for a little while um or tour
Speaker 1: a community, and the revenue from those trips uh would
Speaker 1: would go into the organization and some of it would
Speaker 1: go into the charity. And obviously that was hit by COVID.
Speaker 1: You can't travel during COVID. UM the stadium stuff was
Speaker 1: was shut down as well because those events couldn't be held.
Speaker 1: But then the other thing that happened was in June,
Speaker 1: the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau awarded WE a lucrative
Speaker 1: contract to run a program offering COVID relief grants to
Speaker 1: student volunteers. And this would have paid a lot of money,
Speaker 1: like up to thirty five million dollars, which was like,
Speaker 1: you know, equivalent to a year of corporate and foundation donation.
Speaker 1: So it really seemed like a lifeline. But the contract
Speaker 1: was uncontested, and it turned out that Rudeau family members
Speaker 1: had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking
Speaker 1: fees and expenses for past rules supporting the charity. So
Speaker 1: there were immediately accusations of conflict of interest. And in
Speaker 1: the course of that scandal, as Jewel said, you had
Speaker 1: former employees stepping forward with allegations of racism, of exploitative behavior,
Speaker 1: and just generally a lot of people started looking much
Speaker 1: more closely at this organization. Okay, so where do we
Speaker 1: stand now for we and and what's the organization planned
Speaker 1: to do going forward? Going forward? UM, it's not entirely clear.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have said that in Canada the charity
Speaker 1: ARM is winding down. They're planning to sell they have
Speaker 1: quite an extensive real estate UM portfolio which they're planning
Speaker 1: to sell to fund an endowment that they say is
Speaker 1: going to be used to sustain their international projects. But
Speaker 1: they are still operating the charity in the US. UM
Speaker 1: they're looking at their UK ARM right now, and so
Speaker 1: the possibility of a comeback I think, I think is
Speaker 1: not out of the question. They have they have supporters,
Speaker 1: including some wealthy ones when US down or the Stillman
Speaker 1: Family Foundation has taken out full page ads in Canadian
Speaker 1: newspapers supporting the organization. Um, But but it's not clear
Speaker 1: and certainly, if WE doesn't survive, one of the things
Speaker 1: that makes me the most sad is that there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of collateral damage and communities in
Speaker 1: the developing world. Um. You know, obviously, the hope would
Speaker 1: be that some corporations that have parted ways with WE
Speaker 1: amid all of this may step into help those who
Speaker 1: are stranded, but we just don't know yet. So so Danny,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the most interesting things, um, that
Speaker 1: I think you're reporting broad Tellite was how complicated of
Speaker 1: a business structure WE has used. It's sort of it's
Speaker 1: for profit when it wants to be, but then it's
Speaker 1: also a nonprofit when it wants to be. What did
Speaker 1: your reporting reveal about that? And then I also just
Speaker 1: want to you know, touch on you know, the Africa
Speaker 1: element of the reporting as well. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean it's the story is quite long, the reporting um
Speaker 1: that that we did, and certainly Nadliobeko person it was
Speaker 1: absolutely exhaustive, but um, dozens of entities linked to the
Speaker 1: keel Burgers or to top We executive. There's a graphic
Speaker 1: in this story which was our attempt to kind of
Speaker 1: map the connections. Um We says. The complexity has been
Speaker 1: dictated by tax laws and regulations, especially in Canada that
Speaker 1: kind of trickled down to the structure elsewhere in the world.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if you if you look at it,
Speaker 1: it is it's kind of clear as mud. Uh. Even
Speaker 1: one of their their former longtime board members in parliamentary
Speaker 1: testimony this summer said she didn't know how many entities
Speaker 1: they had, so it makes it difficult to entangle. The
Speaker 1: accounting is also difficult to untangle. Sorry did you no? No,
Speaker 1: I think just be a run out of time here,
Speaker 1: So but I just want to thank you Danielle for
Speaker 1: that reporting and it's just a fascinating report. I urge
Speaker 1: everybody to take a look at it. The story in
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Danielle but Cove, she is Toronto
Speaker 1: bureau chief for Bloomberg News, joining us from Toronto, and
Speaker 1: Joel Webber, editor of Bloomberg Business Week on the remote
Speaker 1: access line from Boklan. Just a fascinating discussion, particularly those
Speaker 1: folks in Canada, but everybody, I think we'll find it
Speaker 1: very interesting. I'm Alex Steel alongside Paul Sweeney. Let's stay
Speaker 1: on tech for a second. We are joined now by
Speaker 1: Rob Licasio, founder and chief executive officer of Live Person,
Speaker 1: who joins us from Fairfield, Connecticut. Um Rob is the
Speaker 1: luddite here on the show. That's sub anchored less. What
Speaker 1: is Live Person? So we provide the technology when you're
Speaker 1: messaging with like Delta Airlines or T Mobile and you're
Speaker 1: like messaging them for customer care and sales, and we
Speaker 1: provide the platform to provide that technology, and then we
Speaker 1: provide an AI layer to do these conversations with automation
Speaker 1: what we call chatbots. Uh Rob, I'm a stock jockey.
Speaker 1: So the first thing I do and uh I talked
Speaker 1: to a CEO as I pop up with the symbol
Speaker 1: of the company and Live Person LPs N on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminals. The stock symbol market cap for the company
Speaker 1: about a little more than four billion dollars. The stock
Speaker 1: is up sixty six percent year to date. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about how the pandemic has impacted the way your
Speaker 1: clients companies you know, you know, like like Delta airlines
Speaker 1: like David's Bridle, like the Home Depot, like Gipoltle. How
Speaker 1: has it changed how they want to interact in message
Speaker 1: with their customers. You know, my original vision when I
Speaker 1: started the company was really about providing a digital experience,
Speaker 1: much like when you walk in the store. You walk
Speaker 1: in the store, you're talking to somebody, you can ask questions,
Speaker 1: they help you. Now, with stores being shut down during
Speaker 1: the pandemic or limited access, what happened is the acceleration
Speaker 1: of the use of our platform to recreate these store experience.
Speaker 1: But digitally is what really has driven the demand in
Speaker 1: our business. You know, we're we're going to grow this
Speaker 1: year and we three x the number of traffic messages
Speaker 1: in traffic on our our services because consumers they still
Speaker 1: want that personal service and they can't walk into a store.
Speaker 1: So that changed the game for us with companies like
Speaker 1: Chapolti and companies like that in Home Depot, So what
Speaker 1: do you do then, with say the customers at home
Speaker 1: DEEPO in Chipotle, that you do that's different than the
Speaker 1: standard like HSBC for example, or RBS. Yes, such pulpic
Speaker 1: was really interesting. Obviously pandemic hits. People are not walking
Speaker 1: in you know, to the stores. So how do how
Speaker 1: do we you know, really change the game there. So
Speaker 1: what we came up with was a bot called Pepper,
Speaker 1: and you communicate with Pepper through Facebook Messenger, through eye
Speaker 1: Message on Apple devices and you can start basically configuring
Speaker 1: your burrito right there and then you go to the
Speaker 1: store and they hand it to you when it to
Speaker 1: the door. So it really solved the problem of you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not walking in I'm not I need to be
Speaker 1: socially distant. But now I can do this without having to,
Speaker 1: you know, sit in front of Robrito and have someone
Speaker 1: two feet from me. So so that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff we're doing. We're doing for one of the largest
Speaker 1: jewelers in the country. They got shut down too, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to create an experience where a consumer could
Speaker 1: see the product, to communicate with someone and then once
Speaker 1: again comes to the door pick it up. Someone's buying
Speaker 1: a diamond ring. They still have a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about that. So that's really what we're we're we're powering.
Speaker 1: So Rob give us example of you know, maybe a
Speaker 1: company that came to you, uh after the pandemic hit
Speaker 1: that perhaps you hadn't seen before or you'd called on
Speaker 1: and then and they weren't interested. But they said, boy,
Speaker 1: the world has really changed. We need some AI driven messaging.
Speaker 1: We need to up our game. Yeah, I go back
Speaker 1: to this jewel You know, Jewelry a jewelry company was
Speaker 1: the largest in the country. They we would never go
Speaker 1: after them because nor only we are powering contact centers.
Speaker 1: So we're part of these large contact centers like the
Speaker 1: Team Mobiles of the World and HSBC's and and what
Speaker 1: happened was retail and especially this jeweler. We came to
Speaker 1: us and said, look, we can't get people into the
Speaker 1: stores they want to buy jewelry. How can we create
Speaker 1: a different experience with you? And then during the first
Speaker 1: couple of weeks we went live right after the right
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving. We sold a couple of million dollars worth
Speaker 1: the jewelry within two weeks. So they weren't even sure themselves.
Speaker 1: We'll make an announcement the name and everything that shortly.
Speaker 1: But they weren't even sure themselves. When people buy jewelry
Speaker 1: like this, how are they going? But they are so
Speaker 1: bought in on how this just changed the game and
Speaker 1: now they're rethinking, now, what's happened is not like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have to have our stores open or we've got
Speaker 1: to create the experience out of thinking this could be
Speaker 1: a main way in which we sell. So we're bringing
Speaker 1: video to that now too, so you can do a
Speaker 1: video conversation. And then we have all this automation, We
Speaker 1: have all the AI that will keep the consumer engaged.
Speaker 1: So maybe they bought something, there's a follow from the
Speaker 1: I how did it work? How is the gift for
Speaker 1: your wife? And we build all of that connected tissue
Speaker 1: to create this unique consumer experience versus they went into
Speaker 1: a store, went home, and now they're on their own.
Speaker 1: They're always connected to the branch. Okay, So based on that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I get why it would work for a jeweler, right,
Speaker 1: because you're not gonna drop like thousands of dollars just
Speaker 1: by looking at something online. Right, you want to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody. I get that. But for like a Chipotle,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't I just go to seamless and like buy
Speaker 1: it on seamless, Like there has to be some kind
Speaker 1: of barrier for entry. That makes the most sense, because
Speaker 1: first of all, Seamless is put themselves between the consumer
Speaker 1: and pultic. What do you think about it, they're in
Speaker 1: between them. They've got the relationships. Soul said, we want
Speaker 1: to have a direct relationship with our consumers. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is that you find consumers want to ask
Speaker 1: questions versus they may just be looking at a menu,
Speaker 1: but this case they may want to ask a question
Speaker 1: about Hey, I'm a vegan, can you help me with that?
Speaker 1: And they asked different questions with the AI versus I
Speaker 1: just see stuff on a menu, I may or may
Speaker 1: not see what I like. Where is this is the
Speaker 1: beef grass fed? Is it not? And those are the
Speaker 1: types of things we can clad in. The experience is
Speaker 1: what we call conversational commerce. So when you think about
Speaker 1: the vision of the company, is that you know, we
Speaker 1: know Alexa exists. Obviously, we've all used as so many
Speaker 1: people have. We're trying to bring that same experience to
Speaker 1: every brand in the world. What if every brand had
Speaker 1: their own Alexa and they had that you could talk
Speaker 1: to this machine and get help and get much more
Speaker 1: personal service than just a static menu. And that's the
Speaker 1: transition that's happening right now in digital commerce. Hey, Rob,
Speaker 1: what's in the next seconds. What's the next category that
Speaker 1: you think is right for your technology where you think
Speaker 1: you can help. We we lost the bank called Bella
Speaker 1: Bank and partnership with another company and it's out there
Speaker 1: now and you go and see the Bella loves dot
Speaker 1: me and we built this AI to bring love, empathy,
Speaker 1: trust to banking. And if you go an you download
Speaker 1: the app, there's this thing called Bella and it helps
Speaker 1: you and it it literally will like if you're getting
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee, sometimes it picks up your cup
Speaker 1: of a cup of coffee at she paid for a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee and says, look, this is on me.
Speaker 1: Maybe this will make your day brighter. And so we've
Speaker 1: built this technology because we wanted to change the banking world. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a great that's a great thing. We just put
Speaker 1: it out there. We now have close to eight thousand
Speaker 1: consumers that signed up in the last three weeks because
Speaker 1: they want that kind of trust and connection with something
Speaker 1: like a bank. Interesting. Interesting, Hey, Rob, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Really interesting story. I saw your copy
Speaker 1: with public in two thousand's. You guys have been around
Speaker 1: for a long time. Good to see the company doing
Speaker 1: well here in a very difficult environment. Rob Lacacio, founder
Speaker 1: and chief executive officer of Live Person based in Fairfield, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: just in a really extraordinary story there. Thanks so much
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