Speaker 1: Global coronavirus infections falling dramatically, the US reporting the lowest
Speaker 1: number of daily COVID nineteen cases since March. Of worldwide
Speaker 1: infections for the week that ended on Sunday, we're also
Speaker 1: the lowest in almost three months, so certainly some good
Speaker 1: news when it comes to coronavirus. Joining us now is
Speaker 1: Dr Rachel Drew, a board certified a doctor of Natural medicine,
Speaker 1: also the CEO and co founder of Moody Health. It's
Speaker 1: a virtual health and wellness company. Doctor Drew, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. How are you this afternoon? Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. I'm doing fantastic. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Good to hear. Take us, Take us into what the
Speaker 1: last fourteen months have been like for you and and
Speaker 1: and for Moody Health. I mean, give us an idea
Speaker 1: of just how much business has increased because of the pandemic. Well,
Speaker 1: we've seen a dramatic increase of users and patients on
Speaker 1: our platform. Obviously, during the pandemic, when things were shut
Speaker 1: down and people were staying in, having access to virtual
Speaker 1: hair as well as virtual health and well being support
Speaker 1: was critically important. So the pandemic has really um skyrocketed
Speaker 1: us and really expanded our our platforms significantly over the
Speaker 1: last fourteen months. Dr dr do are you are you
Speaker 1: offering vaccinations? No, we're not. We're a truly virtual not
Speaker 1: even hybrid exactly. So we are a virtual platform that
Speaker 1: offers virtual care with every type of practitioner you could
Speaker 1: possibly want, so you can really get a holistic approach
Speaker 1: everything from traditional primary care to mental health, to complementary
Speaker 1: alternative life coaches, nutrition, as well as a streaming service
Speaker 1: and health memberships that allow a holistic approach to getting
Speaker 1: the support, guidance and tools you need. I'm really curious
Speaker 1: about the holistic approach because one thing that the pandemic
Speaker 1: has done, among the many things, is that it's shown
Speaker 1: us the disparities between many different types of people in
Speaker 1: the US and around the world. And indeed, we've seen
Speaker 1: those with higher COB comorbidities suffer worse fates when they
Speaker 1: do get sick with coronavirus. And I'm wondering if you
Speaker 1: can speak to the way that you perhaps think that
Speaker 1: we may start to actually think differently about taking a
Speaker 1: holistic approach to medicine. On the other side of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: it's such a critically important issue right now. You're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: people are really looking at their health from a different perspective.
Speaker 1: You know what we're seeing at MOTI Health and really
Speaker 1: within the industry of health and well being care is
Speaker 1: a higher level of interest and attention to preventive health
Speaker 1: and wellness, including mental health, and the pandemics really created
Speaker 1: a significant amount of stress and emotional strain on so
Speaker 1: many who are now also in need of mental and
Speaker 1: emotional health support. And you're completely correct when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the need for a holistic approach, more inclusive um
Speaker 1: abilities and access to people of all different backgrounds, and
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why a virtual health platform
Speaker 1: is such such a timely and important need right now
Speaker 1: within the industry. So having virtual access really does create
Speaker 1: more accessibility to people being able no matter what type
Speaker 1: of income, level of background, that you are, being able
Speaker 1: to have access to whole person care to really optimize
Speaker 1: your health and well being, not only during the era
Speaker 1: of COVID decreasing risk of getting COVID or becoming extremely
Speaker 1: ill from COVID, but also on the other side of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, to really optimize your health and well being
Speaker 1: so that you can experience health, wellness and really thrive
Speaker 1: as a human being is so important. But there is
Speaker 1: still this technology technological gap between many people in the
Speaker 1: United States, and we saw that really play out when
Speaker 1: it came to the way that people were scheduling and
Speaker 1: given access to vaccines. There were many people in the
Speaker 1: US who didn't necessarily have the technological know how in
Speaker 1: order to schedule those appointments. And I'm wondering how you
Speaker 1: account for that with a telemedicine service. Absolutely, yes, I
Speaker 1: mean I can relate to that. I had to assist
Speaker 1: my own parents try to schedule their vaccinations. It was, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, a system that was rolled out very quickly.
Speaker 1: It was an emergency um you know response, and so
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily set up in the most accessible way
Speaker 1: to those who are elderly or those who didn't have
Speaker 1: access to a computer or a smartphone for example. So
Speaker 1: when it comes to platforms like ours, um, really all
Speaker 1: you need is Internet access and it's as simple and
Speaker 1: easy to use as something like a Facebook, right, So
Speaker 1: being able when it comes to health technology to make
Speaker 1: it more accessible, it's not only about having access to
Speaker 1: the physical platform, right, So that's Internet connectivity, but you
Speaker 1: really have to be designing the user experience for people
Speaker 1: of all different technology levels and skills, right, So, in
Speaker 1: order for those who are older to be able to
Speaker 1: use these types of um future more futuristic or the
Speaker 1: direction that we're moving towards in healthcare and well being
Speaker 1: using more virtual, using more high technology, we've got to
Speaker 1: build that out and create that with the user in
Speaker 1: mind and really meeting them where they are at their
Speaker 1: technical and skill set levels and being able to help
Speaker 1: them to have access in simple and effective ways. Dr.
Speaker 1: Do we only have about twenty seconds left, but give
Speaker 1: me an idea of some of the questions that you
Speaker 1: and your team are getting now as things start to
Speaker 1: open back up and vaccinations continue to roll out. Twenty seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so for those who are already fully vaccinated, we're seeing that,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of getting back to normal life
Speaker 1: is really exciting, and the question that we're getting a
Speaker 1: really focusing on preventative measures to stay healthy moving forward
Speaker 1: is a higher priority than it was pretty pandemic, and
Speaker 1: so people are really assessing it what it means to
Speaker 1: be healthy. Yeah, aly, emotionally right, I can certainly I
Speaker 1: can certainly relate to that. Dr Rachel do As, board
Speaker 1: certified doctor of Natural Medicine, also CEO and co founder
Speaker 1: of Moody Health, joins us on the phone from Los Angeles. Well,
Speaker 1: there are a few ways to get to space. You can,
Speaker 1: of course, become an astronaut. You could pay millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to hitch a ride, or you could be Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: who said earlier today on Instagram of all places, that
Speaker 1: next month he's going to space when his company, Blue
Speaker 1: Origin launches its first passenger carrying mission. Let's get right
Speaker 1: into it with Ed Ludlow, who's auto reporter and covers
Speaker 1: all things space and technology at Bloomberg News. He joins
Speaker 1: us from the Bloomberg nine six am studio in San Francisco. Ed,
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about going to space and
Speaker 1: and and and hitching a ride on a rocket ship,
Speaker 1: you maybe earth saying, Okay, well I'll do it, but
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want to be the first one. Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos not so much. Yeah. I mean, you know, his
Speaker 1: Blue Origin company have done fifteen consecutive successful tests, but
Speaker 1: all of those tests have one thing in common. They
Speaker 1: didn't carry any humans. Um, So I was joking a
Speaker 1: bit earlier with our colleague Matt Miller. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's a case of putting your money where your
Speaker 1: mouth is or your mouth where your money is. If
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. This will be the debut
Speaker 1: passenger flight for Blue Origin. You have to understand what
Speaker 1: kind of emission it is. It's an eleven minute trip
Speaker 1: up to the Common Line that's around sixty two miles
Speaker 1: above Earth a hundred kilometers. It goes through that launch
Speaker 1: sequence that we're familiar with with Blue Origin and SpaceX,
Speaker 1: where it takes off and over the series of a
Speaker 1: few minutes, the capsule that the rockets carrying separates. It
Speaker 1: has a brief period in low Earth orbit where it
Speaker 1: then kind of falls back down to Earth and land
Speaker 1: safely with a parachute. So it's not kind of deep
Speaker 1: space expiration we're talking about. It will be Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: his brother Mark Bezos, and then the eventual winner of
Speaker 1: an auction, and that the bid right now is at
Speaker 1: two point eight million, but it's open until mid June,
Speaker 1: at which point it becomes a one off live auction.
Speaker 1: The highest bid wins, so you'd expect that number to
Speaker 1: go up right two point eight million to go to space.
Speaker 1: It's like a bargain it does in plus to get
Speaker 1: a little FaceTime with Jeff Bezos, right right, exactly. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering specifically about the billionaire space race here. Richard
Speaker 1: Branson has has Virgin Galactic. Of course Elon Musk has SpaceX.
Speaker 1: How significant is it that that Bezos is the first
Speaker 1: among the billionaires. It's significant, and it's a complicated story
Speaker 1: because all of those companies, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and
Speaker 1: space X, they all have slightly different long term aims
Speaker 1: and they also have different success so far. So as
Speaker 1: I said, this is Luor Origin has done fifteen consecutive
Speaker 1: successful tests, but none of them carrying humans. So Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos will be the first billionaire into low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1: But if you compare that space x is ambitions and
Speaker 1: what they've already achieved to day, they are significantly ahead.
Speaker 1: Right They've done more than a hundred five flights using
Speaker 1: Falcon rocket, They've done around fifteen test flights with different
Speaker 1: heights and static fire tests with Starship. Their ambitions are
Speaker 1: much greater. By the fourth quarter of this year, they
Speaker 1: want to do a multi day trip with the CEO
Speaker 1: of Shift for payments. For example, where he and some
Speaker 1: other passengers will literally go into orbit for our period um,
Speaker 1: if not longer um. You know, they they aim to
Speaker 1: do space excess is to do a lunar orbit by
Speaker 1: three using starship. That lunar orbit by space X is
Speaker 1: even more ambitious than NASA's own ambitions to get real
Speaker 1: astronauts to the Moon. Um. And and then in the
Speaker 1: middle some way you have Virgin Virgin Galactic where their
Speaker 1: billionaire owner Richard Branson should be the first passenger sometime
Speaker 1: later this summer. But that's a different kind of trajectory
Speaker 1: that that that vehicle takes. It's more like kind of
Speaker 1: taking a leap frog from a commercial or jetline and
Speaker 1: aeroplane into very lower for bit um. So you have
Speaker 1: to kind of put that into context. And what's the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal for for Blue Origin and how it's different
Speaker 1: from SpaceX and from Virgin Galactic. Yeah, it's actually very
Speaker 1: much the same. I mean, their business is split up
Speaker 1: in the same way that space X is that they
Speaker 1: have the payload side of the business rockets that carry
Speaker 1: things into space for third parties, and they have the
Speaker 1: space travel, the space tourism side um. You know, for
Speaker 1: SpaceX is part a lot of what we see when
Speaker 1: we do these launches on a weekly basis, that is
Speaker 1: Falcon carrying Starlink satellites or it's carrying payloads for NASA
Speaker 1: like last week. But their ambition is very clear. All
Speaker 1: of that stuff is secondary to human travel to Mars.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has been really consistent on that, and it
Speaker 1: may be some time away, but he says that that
Speaker 1: is the mission statement for SpaceX. Last question, if given
Speaker 1: the opportunity, would you do it? I would. I have
Speaker 1: the same answer this every time. I actually respect Elon
Speaker 1: Musk who says that he would happily die on Mars,
Speaker 1: just not on impact. That's his his quote, right, So
Speaker 1: he wants to make sure that the technology works to
Speaker 1: get their safely, and he doesn't dine at crush landing.
Speaker 1: And I would like to see some success before I
Speaker 1: signed day. I'll be behind you. That's Ed Ludlow, auto
Speaker 1: reporter at Bloomberg News, joining us from the Bloomberg nine
Speaker 1: six am studio in San Francisco. Well. A story in
Speaker 1: the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine focuses on
Speaker 1: what are called the sedition hunters, amateur Internet sluice who've
Speaker 1: turned Washington, d C's insurrection on January six into the
Speaker 1: ultimate online man hunt. Joining us now is Politics editor
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Business Week, Amanda Hurley. She's on the she's
Speaker 1: from joining us from Washington, d C. And David Yoffie Bellini,
Speaker 1: legal reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Washington. A man, it's hard to believe that it
Speaker 1: has been five months since the insurrection. And one thing
Speaker 1: that that just stands out to me about it is
Speaker 1: how much video footage there was of the event, watching
Speaker 1: it play out in real time here at work and
Speaker 1: then also afterward. And it turns out that this army
Speaker 1: of internet sleuths has used that footage to focus on
Speaker 1: finding and then sending to the FBI those who were responsible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um, as you said, there was no no
Speaker 1: shortage of footage as well as photos and social media
Speaker 1: posts from that day. Uh So, you know, it was
Speaker 1: so much raw materials for these uh you know, amateur
Speaker 1: sleuth to dig into and UM to to kind of
Speaker 1: try to you know, piece together and cross reference as
Speaker 1: they were trying to create their own picture of exactly
Speaker 1: what what happened that day. And UM tried to kind
Speaker 1: of identify some of the people responsible. David, how successful
Speaker 1: have these loosely affiliated group of people been. I think
Speaker 1: they've been very successful. I mean the way I became
Speaker 1: aware of these efforts as i'm I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of my days pouring through the arrest affidavits they're released
Speaker 1: every time somebody's charged for their involvement in the Capital riot,
Speaker 1: and you periodically see the FED reference the sort of
Speaker 1: online man hunting effort to these sleuths in those official
Speaker 1: court papers, you know, saying you were able to put
Speaker 1: together evidence to identify this person because so and so
Speaker 1: on on Twitter made this discovery. And so that's a
Speaker 1: sort of powerful testament to how successful these groups of them. Well,
Speaker 1: as you point out in the piece, David, they don't
Speaker 1: have a perfect record when it comes to trying to
Speaker 1: identify people online. And you include an anecdote in your
Speaker 1: piece from the Boston marathon bombers, and it's one that
Speaker 1: I remembered as well, of suspects being misidentified, Um, what
Speaker 1: have they done to try to alleviate that risk a
Speaker 1: little bit? Yes, So I think as these sorts of
Speaker 1: crowd hunting efforts has sort of grown in maturity. As
Speaker 1: the Internet has evolved over the last decade, you've seen
Speaker 1: people sort of develop rules of the road for for
Speaker 1: these types of initiatives, and so some of the main
Speaker 1: Twitter accounts that kind of organized and Mollies sedition Hunting
Speaker 1: work urged their followers not to actually post the name
Speaker 1: of anybody online. You know, if you work out their name,
Speaker 1: report that directly to the FBI. Is what these groups advise.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course, there have been moments over
Speaker 1: the last few months where you know, sedition Hunters a
Speaker 1: deviated from that and have misidentified people publicly. It's impossible
Speaker 1: to control everyone, but I think over overall, um, the
Speaker 1: group has done a pretty pretty good job of stopping
Speaker 1: misidentifications from happening and sort of channeling these efforts in
Speaker 1: a more responsible way. I mean, what is it that
Speaker 1: that motivates this this group of people, Well, it seems
Speaker 1: like they have some of diverse motivations, um for some
Speaker 1: of them, you know, honestly being edelduce and during the pandemic, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was part of it. People were at home, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of cooped up. Some people were out
Speaker 1: of work, and this was a project that they could
Speaker 1: really threw themselves into UH. And you know, obviously people
Speaker 1: felt UH. I think many of them felt a strong
Speaker 1: motivation towards justice and the sense that you know, they
Speaker 1: wanted to see these people brought to justice. And I
Speaker 1: think one of them said, you know, not just a
Speaker 1: token group either. You know, we want to see some
Speaker 1: everyone responsible brought to justice. UM. So you know, some
Speaker 1: of them feel I think angrier or more passionate than others,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a mix of motivations. David I was
Speaker 1: surprised to read in the piece the reaction that one
Speaker 1: of these online sluice had after he used technology to
Speaker 1: identify a podcaster from from Washington who was later charged
Speaker 1: for his role in the siege. This person pleaded not
Speaker 1: guilty UM, but the person who identified him had some
Speaker 1: some sympathy for him. Yeah, I think that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a I think that's an unusual reaction. First of all,
Speaker 1: I think that most of those tradition hunters doing this
Speaker 1: type of work probably don't sympathize that much with the
Speaker 1: people that they're turning into the set. But I think
Speaker 1: that particular case kind of illustrates the sort of intimacy
Speaker 1: of this kind of kind of work. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're when you're tracking somebody online and learning as
Speaker 1: much as you can about them in order if they're out,
Speaker 1: if they're actually the person in the photo, that's a
Speaker 1: kind of sort of intimate experience, and you might get
Speaker 1: a sense of them as a fuller and more you
Speaker 1: once individual than you would if you just you know,
Speaker 1: read the court papers describing what they've done on January
Speaker 1: six the capital. So I think that's a little a
Speaker 1: little bit explains what was what was going on there.
Speaker 1: It's also certainly the case that you know, these people,
Speaker 1: the sort of online slews, you know, under understand that
Speaker 1: you know, there were bigger forces at play motivating the
Speaker 1: people who went to the capital, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them way more blame at the speed of President Trump
Speaker 1: and his his allies and they do it, you know,
Speaker 1: at the individuals who actually showed up. Um. So, I
Speaker 1: think it's that kind of combination of factors which produces
Speaker 1: that sort of, uh, surprising reaction. David, you mentioned that
Speaker 1: the core papers that you look through sometimes cited, uh
Speaker 1: that these folks who have spent so much time online
Speaker 1: trying to identify these insurrectionists, and I'm wondering how law
Speaker 1: enforcement officials feel about that. UM. I think they're they're grateful. UM.
Speaker 1: I mean when you talk to the FBI or the U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office in Washington working, they're constantly baying the drama
Speaker 1: need tips from the public. We need the public to
Speaker 1: help us as much as they can to identify these
Speaker 1: people because this is an investigation of really unprecedented scope,
Speaker 1: and there were so many people who showed up at
Speaker 1: the Capitol that day. UM that you know, any any
Speaker 1: help the government can get I think is really appreciated. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously the government has investigated resources that an
Speaker 1: ordinary person doesn't have. UM. But there were still so
Speaker 1: many people involved in the investigation so complex that that
Speaker 1: the help of this sort of cloudsourcing, that's what is
Speaker 1: pretty important. I mean, I just want to end talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about UM. What the vice president of
Speaker 1: the A D. L or In Siegel told David Um
Speaker 1: that it could potentially set up a dangerous precedent here. UM.
Speaker 1: What did he mean by that? Yeah? I think, UM,
Speaker 1: touching on what you and David were talking about earlier. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know about the potential for misfires, right and for um,
Speaker 1: you know, putting uh, people's personal information out in the
Speaker 1: public domain. Uh. And you know, because of the unreeldy
Speaker 1: power of the Internet, you sort of never really know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. I mean, um, and uh, it
Speaker 1: can definitely expose people to risk, whether they're you know,
Speaker 1: guilty or innocent. You just have to be really really
Speaker 1: careful about that. Well, it's a fantastic story and it's
Speaker 1: available in the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine.
Speaker 1: Amanda Hurley, Politics CD at Bloomberg Business Week, David Yoffi Belny,
Speaker 1: Legal reporter for Bloomberg News. Well, barely a week after
Speaker 1: the murder of George Floyd last year, soft Bank created
Speaker 1: the Opportunity Fund. This was a commitment to invest one
Speaker 1: million dollars in companies led by underrepresented racial minorities. And
Speaker 1: here we are a little over a year later, and
Speaker 1: SoftBank has already allocated half of the cash, and the
Speaker 1: company anticipates creating a second fund by the end of
Speaker 1: the year. Joining us now is Sarah McBride, venture capital
Speaker 1: reporter at Bloomberg Knew. She joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: from San Francisco. Sarah, I was just reading from your
Speaker 1: your story right there about SoftBank's Opportunity fund. What are
Speaker 1: the companies that it's so far committed to supporting. What
Speaker 1: has the bench and they are super diverse. UM in
Speaker 1: its portfolio are tens of companies from all around the country.
Speaker 1: There is a healthcare UM company that I spoke to
Speaker 1: for my fund. There's UM a company that UM developed
Speaker 1: software people operations called Gather. There are some education companies,
Speaker 1: really anything you can imagine in the diverse venture capital funds.
Speaker 1: The difference being that all the founders represent UH minorities
Speaker 1: that have had trouble attracting venture capital traditionally. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: these are these are minority entrepreneurs traditionally, as you point
Speaker 1: out in your piece, have have rarely had access to
Speaker 1: to seed capital. UM. You have the statistic that is
Speaker 1: absolutely startling here of those who receive venture capital from
Speaker 1: the years sixteen, only four two percent we're black Hispanic
Speaker 1: that's according to a Harvard Business School study. Does it
Speaker 1: look like that it's getting any better? I have to stay.
Speaker 1: Given all the initiatives that started last year, it has
Speaker 1: to be getting better. UM. The reason I looked at
Speaker 1: this a year later was I wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that wasn't just talk that all the people who had
Speaker 1: come out and promised to focus on this issue were
Speaker 1: in fact doing so. And I'd say that spending down
Speaker 1: or allocating half of a million dollar fund in a
Speaker 1: year is a really good sign of progress. They weren't
Speaker 1: the only ones, they were just the largest. And I
Speaker 1: checked up on some of the others that also appear
Speaker 1: to be following through on their promises from last year.
Speaker 1: So I think a difference is being made. And soft
Speaker 1: Bank told me I spoke to a partner shoe THEATA
Speaker 1: who's uh taking the initiative on the Opportunity Fund, and
Speaker 1: he told me he thinks the biggest difference can be
Speaker 1: made at the seed in Series A stages, in other words,
Speaker 1: the very earliest stages, and that by giving money to
Speaker 1: such young companies, they hope that it'll make difference down
Speaker 1: the line. So I think it will only be able
Speaker 1: to measure success in a few years, but there's a
Speaker 1: big effort. Yeah. And as it goes with venture capital, right,
Speaker 1: the idea that is is and and look, and this
Speaker 1: is the idea of venture capital is you you support
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of companies early on in
Speaker 1: their development, and by definition, many of them will not
Speaker 1: work out, and it's the home runs that end up
Speaker 1: being grand slams, right exactly. One of the more interesting
Speaker 1: firms that I spoke to UM comes out of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: It's called Collab Capital, and it's led by investors including
Speaker 1: Verry Gibbons, and he was taking a non traditional spin
Speaker 1: on venture capital and saying, look, the problem with under
Speaker 1: investment in black run firms isn't just the companies that
Speaker 1: aspire to be unicorns and grow into billion dollar businesses.
Speaker 1: It's also just regular business this around the neighborhood. They're
Speaker 1: having trouble getting capital too. So he's for his firm
Speaker 1: taking a look at companies that may be aspire to
Speaker 1: just have a few million dollars in revenue too, and
Speaker 1: also allocating money to them and just accepting some of
Speaker 1: the companies in my portfolio will never grow to be unicorns,
Speaker 1: but we need those companies to which I thought was
Speaker 1: a great approach. His fund is fifty million dollars. You
Speaker 1: also allude to the possibility of creating a second fund
Speaker 1: by the end of the year. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, So UM at Sauce Bank, they feel
Speaker 1: that it's going pretty well that they're making a difference.
Speaker 1: They've found all these businesses to invest in, and they
Speaker 1: want to raise more capital to keep going down this path.
Speaker 1: So they can either get that just from Sauce Bank
Speaker 1: or work with other companies that also have this commitment.
Speaker 1: And so there exploring opportunities now and thinking about should
Speaker 1: we bring in other corporates or other interested parties, should
Speaker 1: we keep just doing it on our own? And I
Speaker 1: think these we'll have the answers to these questions by
Speaker 1: the end of the year. Yeah. And I wonder too
Speaker 1: about other venture capital firms UM another venture capitalists doing
Speaker 1: something similar. You talked a little bit about those, right,
Speaker 1: So UM there's for example, the Collapse Capitals that I mentioned.
Speaker 1: And then there are some other initiatives. Lawrence Lenahan out
Speaker 1: of New York is UM running funding just for UH
Speaker 1: black entrepreneurs who are interested in fashion, for example. That
Speaker 1: initiative is going ahead. There's UM to find. There are
Speaker 1: a bunch of others as well as initiatives to focus
Speaker 1: on getting more historically black colleges and testing in these funds,
Speaker 1: some of which have really good returns and endowments of
Speaker 1: these institutions haven't traditionally invested in adventure, so it's happening
Speaker 1: on both ends. So that speaks to your point of
Speaker 1: whether or not soft Bank is going to tap its
Speaker 1: outside connections to raise the money or or use the
Speaker 1: part of the coffers that it already has. Right so,
Speaker 1: soft Bank is one of the biggest companies in the world.
Speaker 1: It has unlimited coffers, so it could just keep funding
Speaker 1: it itself, or it could bring in other corporates, which
Speaker 1: could have strategic advantages for the companies that enter the
Speaker 1: um fund that they're backing. Because right now, these young
Speaker 1: companies I spoke to a couple of them are just
Speaker 1: bowled over by all the doors that soft Bank can
Speaker 1: open for them, mostly other companies in the soft Bank portfolio,
Speaker 1: and if other corporates were doing that to it could
Speaker 1: be great for some of these we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that because you know, raising money, especially from
Speaker 1: soft Bank and hear the venture capital reporter here at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, so you're the best person to speak to
Speaker 1: about this. It's much more than just a venture capital
Speaker 1: firm providing funding to a company. Venture capitalists make introductions,
Speaker 1: they connect them with other portfolio companies. They can help
Speaker 1: get them really good employees. I mean, what is the
Speaker 1: role that a venture capital firm takes? Right? So I
Speaker 1: spoke to a company called Vitable, which is a healthcare
Speaker 1: startup based near Philadelphia. So for this founder, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just the cash. He spoke to me at length about
Speaker 1: the introductions soft banks making. So Vitable is trying to
Speaker 1: create more access to healthcare insurance for people who don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of money to spend on healthcare, and
Speaker 1: they are using online healthcare and home visits by healthcare providers,
Speaker 1: so creating a network of providers. The bank was able
Speaker 1: to introduce him to executives from the insurance company Lemonade,
Speaker 1: which is also in the soft bank arena, and they
Speaker 1: spoke to him about insurance and building up insurance programs.
Speaker 1: He got to speak to go Puff, the delivery start up,
Speaker 1: about creating a network. And also one of the investment
Speaker 1: partners at the Opportunity Fund is Stacy Brown Philpot, the
Speaker 1: woman who used to run task Rabbit, so he got
Speaker 1: to speak to her as well. And um, that's just
Speaker 1: invaluable for a young company. Yeah, and I encourage everybody
Speaker 1: to check out Sarah's piece. It's called SoftBank Fund puts
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars in Black and Latin X. Let's start up.
Speaker 1: Sarah McBride, He's venture capital reporter for Bloomberg News. She
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from San Francisco. Call the journal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, no, honey, please,
Speaker 1: I'll do the right vel. Ex I want to drive,
Speaker 1: Just drive, baby, good questions trying. This is the drive
Speaker 1: to the Globe Commune. Thanks, we'll drying us down on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Indeed, it is three forty nine on Wall Street,
Speaker 1: just over ten minutes until the markets close on this Monday,
Speaker 1: June seven. Tim Stanebeck with Bloomberg Business Week and joining
Speaker 1: us now as Jay Littman, the co founder and president
Speaker 1: of Ethic, approximately one billion dollars in assets under management.
Speaker 1: Jay joins us again on the phone from New York City.
Speaker 1: J It's great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 1: How are you doing to I'm fantastic to be here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for thanks for joining us today. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: June kicks off Pride and we wanted to have you
Speaker 1: on the show because Ethic is a sustainable asset manager
Speaker 1: and you're doing something in on ear of of Pride. Month,
Speaker 1: you're helping investors allocate capital toward companies that are supporting
Speaker 1: lgbt q I A plus communities. How are you doing
Speaker 1: it well? Here at Ethic, we work with investors to
Speaker 1: help them align their portfolios with the biggest priorities that
Speaker 1: they feel matter to them. So that can be things
Speaker 1: like climate, deforestation, human rights, racial justice. But LGBTQ plus
Speaker 1: is a huge priority for so many of our investors,
Speaker 1: and so we use data to understand, you know, fundamentally,
Speaker 1: which companies in our portfolios are either hurting or helping
Speaker 1: this community, either through the way that they treat their
Speaker 1: employees or their communities, or through the products that they
Speaker 1: sell and how they actually go about selling them to
Speaker 1: the broader world. So we look at a number of
Speaker 1: different issues and factors to understand which companies are going
Speaker 1: to be on either side of that equation and then
Speaker 1: look to build a portfolio to reflect that. So, what
Speaker 1: are the companies that do you support this? Well, it's
Speaker 1: companies that are making an explicit commitment to actually putting
Speaker 1: things like antidiscriminatory behavior in their policies and procedures right
Speaker 1: that as it currently stands in the US, over half
Speaker 1: of the state in this country don't actually provide explicit
Speaker 1: protections for the LGBTQ community, which means that it is
Speaker 1: actually up to companies, many of the companies in our
Speaker 1: portfolios to actually come out and explicitly tell their community,
Speaker 1: their investors, their employees that this is something that they prioritize,
Speaker 1: and this is something that they are going to put
Speaker 1: in their documentation to ensure that bias in the hiring,
Speaker 1: firing process, in promotions, in compensation is not something that's
Speaker 1: going to be taken on at those businesses. And what
Speaker 1: are some companies that aren't doing this? I mean, can
Speaker 1: you talk about individual companies that you find that would
Speaker 1: not meet the rubric? We don't typically name specific companies
Speaker 1: in this format from a compliance perspective, but we can
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of behaviors do no, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not just you know, the internal policies
Speaker 1: with employees. You know, what we seek to understand is
Speaker 1: all of the behaviors that companies actually have that can
Speaker 1: again help or harm this community. And you know, some
Speaker 1: of those things are more obvious, like antidiscriminatory policies and procedures,
Speaker 1: whether they have protections for domestic partners providing equal benefits
Speaker 1: whether they have um, you know, additional benefit to the
Speaker 1: trans community for additional medical coverage that may be required.
Speaker 1: But there's also you know, things that these companies do
Speaker 1: that might seem innocuous that are highly important to you know,
Speaker 1: solving this issue. Right, So something like data security and privacy,
Speaker 1: right that may seem really unrelated and it may seem
Speaker 1: really innocuous as related to this, but if you think
Speaker 1: about the fact that you know, ten to twelve or
Speaker 1: fifteen countries around the world actually make it punishable by
Speaker 1: death to be a member of the LGBTQ community publicly,
Speaker 1: it means that individuals in those countries are most likely
Speaker 1: living private, most likely keeping this part of themselves secret.
Speaker 1: And if they are living privately, and if they're living um,
Speaker 1: you know online and being this part of who they
Speaker 1: are online, then if that information is hacked, if it
Speaker 1: is leaked, then it is a matter of life and death.
Speaker 1: So what companies actually have good enough data security and
Speaker 1: privacy to protect this information and ensure that you know,
Speaker 1: this community in those countries is actually protected and safe.
Speaker 1: What about investor demand for a product like this? So
Speaker 1: what was it that that that made you realize that
Speaker 1: this was an opportunity for ethic Well, you know, really
Speaker 1: important part of our process in working with our clients
Speaker 1: is going through a really rigorous experience that we call
Speaker 1: the values mapping exercise to understand which issues matter to
Speaker 1: our investors, because so much of what we do is
Speaker 1: personalized to each specific investor. And so what we do
Speaker 1: is we create like a mission statement or you know,
Speaker 1: a map of what it is that people are actually prioritizing.
Speaker 1: And you'll see some issues come more than others. You know,
Speaker 1: you see climate is very popular, you see human rights,
Speaker 1: racial justice. But what we found is that lgbt Q right,
Speaker 1: lgbt Q plus rights is a fundamental human rights. This
Speaker 1: is you know, um, this is something that so many
Speaker 1: of our client have actually told us that they do
Speaker 1: want to prioritize. And it's also an issue that we
Speaker 1: hear at the company prioritize from a personal basis. So
Speaker 1: we made it a priority early on to actually think
Speaker 1: about this issue at a systemic level, looking at the
Speaker 1: issues that are really important, like antidiscriminatory policies as we discussed,
Speaker 1: but also looking at the additional factors like dates, privacy,
Speaker 1: like firearms, like these other behaviors that matter so much.
Speaker 1: I know, from a climp compliance perspective, you probably have
Speaker 1: to be very careful in in in what you can say.
Speaker 1: But but can you take me into and take our
Speaker 1: audience into the way that you think about different themes
Speaker 1: and and potentially new themes that you would come up
Speaker 1: with for four portfolios or products. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the themes is interesting where to put it? Because you know,
Speaker 1: if you were to be a sustainment investor ten years ago,
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, a hundred years ag, the priorities change, right.
Speaker 1: So in the last three or four years, we've seen
Speaker 1: issues like deforestation get a lot more popular because of
Speaker 1: the increased prevalence of wildfire. Right last year we saw
Speaker 1: racial justice get a huge amount of demand from our
Speaker 1: client base. But that was something that we had prioritized
Speaker 1: since we founded a business. And so what we do
Speaker 1: is we provide additional resources into thinking about how to
Speaker 1: address these things at a systemic level by looking at
Speaker 1: how you know, companies are actually interacting with these issues,
Speaker 1: either making them better or either making them worse. Right. So, again,
Speaker 1: with an issue like LGBTQ plus rights, we're looking at
Speaker 1: you know which behaviors that might not necessarily see the obvious,
Speaker 1: but a truly systemic are actually going to support this
Speaker 1: community with something like racial justice. Again, we want to
Speaker 1: look beyond diversity and inclusion, which is very important. We
Speaker 1: want to look at the systemic issues like private prison
Speaker 1: like predatory lending, like environmental racism, to see which companies
Speaker 1: are truly actually going to make the situation better or
Speaker 1: worse as it pertains to the theme. You know, play
Speaker 1: your question, hey, j I want to just take a
Speaker 1: step back and think about the market and have your
Speaker 1: your comments on the market in in a bigger way
Speaker 1: in that weak Now that we've touched on, what what
Speaker 1: you've been up to at ethics since we last spoke.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what you make of where the trade is
Speaker 1: and where the trade has been happening over the last
Speaker 1: six weeks or so. Our colleagues at Bloomberg News spoke
Speaker 1: to Jennet Yellen yesterday and she said that higher interest
Speaker 1: rates would be a plus for the US. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that? Well, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: the theme that we see, whether it's in the last
Speaker 1: four weeks, six weeks, six months, six years, is that
Speaker 1: investors are being more intentional about their investments, and they
Speaker 1: are demanding more information about how their portfolio is going
Speaker 1: to be affected by either these idiosyncratic market events or
Speaker 1: just longer term themes in the economy. Right, is there
Speaker 1: going to be an increased idiosyncratic impact based on you know,
Speaker 1: the larger part of the portfolio, or are the companies
Speaker 1: of portfolio going to be more impacted by an economy
Speaker 1: that is driving more towards relieable energy, more towards the
Speaker 1: systemic shift and our people positioned correctly. So for us,
Speaker 1: it's about you know, having that intention with our investors
Speaker 1: to recognize that they can put personalize their portfolios to
Speaker 1: potentially insulate themselves from the risks that come from an
Speaker 1: either those short term events for the long term offense.
Speaker 1: But we're just seeing investors being more demanding of intentional
Speaker 1: portfolios that are actually going to be insulated from them,
Speaker 1: rather than being you know, more passive and kind of
Speaker 1: staying in traditional index investments. For example, did you just
Speaker 1: in the last twenty seconds, are are you at the
Speaker 1: point where you're openly communicating with companies about what they
Speaker 1: need to be pushing pushing for internally, So our investors
Speaker 1: are able to participate through you know, proxy voters engage
Speaker 1: with the companies that are in the portfolio, and that's
Speaker 1: a really important part of the process that we provide companies.
Speaker 1: But you know, we did just cross a billion dollar threshold,
Speaker 1: which is very important to us in our community. But
Speaker 1: as we continue to get larger, we're going to be
Speaker 1: engaging more, especially as we have more weight and assets
Speaker 1: behind us. G Leman, it is always a pleasure. J
Speaker 1: is co founder and president of Ethic proximately a billion
Speaker 1: dollars in assets under management. He joins US from New
Speaker 1: York City,