Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stenovic from Bloomberg Radio. Hi. I am
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stenovick of Bloomberg Quicktake. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Weekend. It's here.
Speaker 1: It's week forty five. Though working from home still for
Speaker 1: so many we were at corporate headquarters for Bloomberg in
Speaker 1: New York City. A week was so much going on.
Speaker 1: A new US president was sworn in, and a week
Speaker 1: where US virus cases topping four hundred thousand, Tim and counting. Wow,
Speaker 1: a grim milestone, Carol, and it certainly shows that front
Speaker 1: and center for the Biden administration on day one is
Speaker 1: the virus and the recovery. This is the main backdrop
Speaker 1: for this week's magazine, the Year Ahead issue, covering the
Speaker 1: major trends, disruptions, breakthrough products, innovations and movements to watch
Speaker 1: for this year. I feel like there's so much to
Speaker 1: watch this year. We'll have a few highlights from the
Speaker 1: magazine and also from our daily radio show, including former
Speaker 1: Obama campaign consultant Spencer Critchley. He's also the author of
Speaker 1: Patriots of two nations where Trump was inevitable and what
Speaker 1: happens next. You and I love this conversation. We do.
Speaker 1: I love talking to Spencer and Carol. We're also gonna
Speaker 1: have the latest on COVID nineteen vaccinations. They are not
Speaker 1: happening fast enough. There's still a lot of bureaucracy and
Speaker 1: red tape. Go to voice on the front line, Surgical
Speaker 1: Solution CEO ALYSSA wrap. All right, so all of that
Speaker 1: to come. We're going to begin with this week's cover story. Well,
Speaker 1: the kind of story is really all about the year ahead,
Speaker 1: but kind of tying it together for us was our
Speaker 1: Peter Coy. He talked about more vaccinations, more stimulus, more sanity.
Speaker 1: He gave us kind of the guide toe and Tim
Speaker 1: I got to say, I love the tagline for this one.
Speaker 1: The economic outlook is starting to brighten, but the world
Speaker 1: well it still needs a shot in the arm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I certainly need that shot in the arm. We've got
Speaker 1: more on that with Bloomberg business Week Economics editor Peter
Speaker 1: Coy and Bloomberg business Week Editor Joel Weber. We tried
Speaker 1: to be slightly lighthearted and go with this tabloid look,
Speaker 1: which really just started with us asking a bunch of questions.
Speaker 1: And as we kept asking questions, I kept adding exclamation marks.
Speaker 1: I think the big debate on the staff is whether
Speaker 1: one is the year of the exclamation mark or the
Speaker 1: year of the question mark. UM. Right now it feels
Speaker 1: more like the latter. Just tons of questions. And as
Speaker 1: we started UM asking those questions, though we we did.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the tabloid thing is fun, but we
Speaker 1: we take this very seriously and we tried to just
Speaker 1: pack it full of as much useful information as we can.
Speaker 1: That's where Peter came in with the intro obviously, and
Speaker 1: you know that. I think the real takeaway Peter is,
Speaker 1: you know, our economic outlook is basically UM wedded to
Speaker 1: the number of vaccinations that the US is able to do,
Speaker 1: and that goes for the rest of the world as well.
Speaker 1: So what does that outlook sort of look like? UM
Speaker 1: from your reporting. If you look at the GDP forecasts
Speaker 1: for the world and and the US and many other countries,
Speaker 1: they look pretty good. You would think, wow, nice, that's
Speaker 1: healthy growth for example for the world five, for the
Speaker 1: US three. But you have to keep in mind does
Speaker 1: ASK off a very low base. So what's happened is
Speaker 1: that was an awful year, and we're getting a rebound,
Speaker 1: So it looks good, but we're not even rebounding all
Speaker 1: the way back to the trajector we were on. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's like the I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just glass is half empty kind of guy, but
Speaker 1: I'm not super happy about this. Oh, come on, maybe
Speaker 1: you're just a realist, Peter. Yeah, okay, Well, is there
Speaker 1: any I mean, is there any good news? Did you
Speaker 1: find anything to be optimistic about in your reporting? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, the obvious thing is that the vaccines were
Speaker 1: developed far faster than you know, a lot of scientists
Speaker 1: have been expecting. That's a huge positive. It is taking
Speaker 1: a while to get them distributed, but the US is actually,
Speaker 1: even though if you're living in the US it feels
Speaker 1: kind of slow, the US has has done a higher
Speaker 1: percentage of its population getting vaccines than most other countries.
Speaker 1: And I do believe that we're going to get our
Speaker 1: act together eventually, and that this will end up being
Speaker 1: um the year when the tide really does turn on
Speaker 1: the vaccine the second half is going to look better
Speaker 1: in the first half, and so it also looks different
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the world, Peter Um. In one place that
Speaker 1: it looks completely different is China, which even though they
Speaker 1: haven't really done mass vaccinations yet, the economy remains to
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't skip a beat last year. Only uh,
Speaker 1: you know, major economy that didn't have a contraction. And
Speaker 1: you know, here here we are projecting that you know,
Speaker 1: they will become the world's largest economy in just a
Speaker 1: couple more years. Um. What from an economy standpoint, Just
Speaker 1: how how legit are those Chinese numbers? You know, you
Speaker 1: never know whether to trust any given year, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly true that relatively speaking, they did better than the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. I mean, it's just obvious just
Speaker 1: walking around the streets of Beijing or Shanghai that people
Speaker 1: are going to restaurants, are going to theaters there, kids
Speaker 1: are going to school just as normal people are going
Speaker 1: to work, just as normal traveling. Um, that's just evidence
Speaker 1: that they've got the virus under control through you know,
Speaker 1: blocking and tackling, doing the basics right. So they had,
Speaker 1: as Joel said, positive growth last year, and they expected
Speaker 1: to have a strong growth this year. When you when
Speaker 1: you look in your intro, you had a couple of
Speaker 1: other countries that that stood out to you. What are
Speaker 1: the other ones that that you feel are gonna you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that will continue to talk about this year. Well,
Speaker 1: the UK had a terrible They did much worse than
Speaker 1: the US. US probably had about a three point six
Speaker 1: decline in GDP UK over ten decline in g d
Speaker 1: p UM. So uh Boris Johnson has his hands full
Speaker 1: trying to fix that and now looking so good so
Speaker 1: far with more lockdowns to try to suppress the virus um.
Speaker 1: Germany is done somewhat better. Germany has a bad habit
Speaker 1: of exporting its way out of its problems, building up
Speaker 1: huge trade surpluses that other countries resent, and that looks
Speaker 1: like that's going to continue in If a company does
Speaker 1: have a good chance of succeeding in the new environment,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to keep it alive. If it's business
Speaker 1: models fundamentally flawed because of the changes caused by COVID,
Speaker 1: then maybe it's better let it go. That pieced him
Speaker 1: really laying out the top themes for the year and
Speaker 1: how we may see a recovery from a time like
Speaker 1: no other. As we've talked about so much, Caroll, the
Speaker 1: recovery inextricably linked to the vaccine rollout. It cannot happen
Speaker 1: soon enough. That was, of course, Bloomberg business Week Economics
Speaker 1: editor Peter Coy and Bloomberg Business Week Editor Joel Weber
Speaker 1: coming up the year ahead when it comes to politics
Speaker 1: and government, Well, will the divisions continue to dominate? We'll
Speaker 1: check in with one Washington insider. He's also the author
Speaker 1: of Patriots of Two Nations, Why Trump was Inevitable and
Speaker 1: what happens next. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. Safe
Speaker 1: to say that one year ago this time we really
Speaker 1: had no idea of what would come on the political front.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to this year. We've got a new president,
Speaker 1: a Democratic Congress by a slim margin, and an administration
Speaker 1: to him with a year ahead to do list that's
Speaker 1: long and wide in a Washington that's still wheeling from
Speaker 1: the capital riot at the start of the year. And
Speaker 1: you know, Carol, this is really the reason that we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk with Spencer Critchley. He's managing partner at
Speaker 1: the marketing agency Boots Road Group. He's also an award
Speaker 1: winning journalist, a communications consultant who has worked for both
Speaker 1: of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns as well. He's a modern
Speaker 1: day renaissance man because he's also a digital media producer.
Speaker 1: He's worked with David Bowie, Moby Santana, Britney Spears, a
Speaker 1: bunch of others. He's also author of Patriots of Two Nations.
Speaker 1: Why Trump was Inevitable and what happens next? Top of
Speaker 1: mind for us right tim the inauguration and division in Washington.
Speaker 1: We have to have hope. I think today it's been
Speaker 1: so inspiring what's been going on, and I think that
Speaker 1: President Biden has followed exactly the right course here. You know,
Speaker 1: when he's talking about restoring the soul of America. I
Speaker 1: know people have probably assumed that that was standard campaign rhetoric,
Speaker 1: because politicians tend to talk in these you know, sweeping
Speaker 1: historic terms to try to motivate voters in this grand
Speaker 1: mission of their campaign. But I am confident that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden means that from his heart, and I think what
Speaker 1: he's referring to is the set of core moral values
Speaker 1: that are at the heart of democracy, and that make
Speaker 1: it possible. You know, we're a civic nation, the first
Speaker 1: one in history to not have a state religion and
Speaker 1: not have an official ethnic identity defining us. But instead
Speaker 1: we're really defined by the idea of America has embodied
Speaker 1: in the Constitution. And those shared moral values are values
Speaker 1: like freedom and equality and the rule of law and
Speaker 1: democracy itself. And that's what Biden has talking about. It
Speaker 1: goes way beyond the partisan differences and the other differences
Speaker 1: that have divided us so much and for so long,
Speaker 1: and really calls on all of us to renew our
Speaker 1: support for democracy itself. So, how does if you were
Speaker 1: advising President Biden, if you're advising him right now, how
Speaker 1: does he bring a nation together that is so divided.
Speaker 1: I think that that's where he needs to start, is
Speaker 1: appealing to people's hearts, because as I you know, as
Speaker 1: I say in the title of my book, the people
Speaker 1: who are divided consider themselves as patriots. Even if they
Speaker 1: hate the people on the other side of the divide
Speaker 1: and see the people on the other side as threats
Speaker 1: to the United States, they see themselves as patriots. And
Speaker 1: if you have a situation where two groups divided so deeply,
Speaker 1: both see themselves as patriots. The issue is they're seeing
Speaker 1: different nations. They're patriotic to different visions of what the
Speaker 1: nation is. And I think what Biden needs to do
Speaker 1: and will do is show people, in fact, we're united
Speaker 1: by one nation that's defined by these values that we
Speaker 1: do all share. If we don't share these core values
Speaker 1: and affect our civic religion of equality, freedom, rule of law, etcetera,
Speaker 1: then we don't support democracy. So if you're going to
Speaker 1: be in the circle of democracy, you must share those values.
Speaker 1: And I think you know most people believe in those
Speaker 1: values and want to be appealed to on that level.
Speaker 1: And so if he does, I think that goes much
Speaker 1: farther than any particular policy position. All right, Spencer, don't
Speaker 1: hate me, but I'm gonna I think I said this
Speaker 1: last time you were on because it was a line
Speaker 1: that in your in your book that just stayed with me,
Speaker 1: and you said, Um, how you think you understand what
Speaker 1: has happened here? And that is that this has been
Speaker 1: coming since the founding of the country. America's two nations
Speaker 1: occupying the same land, but seeing everything very differently, even
Speaker 1: including truth itself. And what's interesting is we do look
Speaker 1: at this division. I think one of the things Tim
Speaker 1: and I have thought was really important and our reporters
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News are are writing on it is talking to
Speaker 1: those right ers understanding why they did what they did.
Speaker 1: And I think we have forgotten Americans that we need
Speaker 1: to understand why they feel like they're not represented in
Speaker 1: this government or that they needed to overtake this government. Yes,
Speaker 1: although there is a certain point at which everybody has
Speaker 1: a choice, and um, I think we make a mistake
Speaker 1: if we see everything in terms of ideas. I've been
Speaker 1: working hard, including with this book, to try to help
Speaker 1: people understand each other, especially people on my side of
Speaker 1: the divide, which is the democratic liberal side of the divide,
Speaker 1: to help them understand why good people would support President
Speaker 1: Trump for example. Um, However, when you are offered the
Speaker 1: choice to storm the capital, to smash the windows, to
Speaker 1: attack police officers, to threaten the lives of elected officials,
Speaker 1: we don't need to understand that at that point, Um,
Speaker 1: you just need to be stopped and you need to
Speaker 1: be held to account. And this also is part of
Speaker 1: really understanding and defending the moral values that is not
Speaker 1: a partisan position. If we believe intomocracy you must not
Speaker 1: and cannot be allowed to do those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: So for the people, you know, think about it this way.
Speaker 1: We think about understanding, you know, what democracy is about,
Speaker 1: and all this sort of stuff, But think about the
Speaker 1: developmentally disabled, for the intellectually disabled, for example, there are
Speaker 1: no morally worse than anybody else. It doesn't require advanced
Speaker 1: intelligence or high education to understand that it's wrong to
Speaker 1: destroy things and to hurt people. And the people who
Speaker 1: participated in that attack, that is what they did and
Speaker 1: that is just wrong. Um. I think coming out of this,
Speaker 1: because things have gotten so bad, we're actually going to
Speaker 1: have to follow a truth and reconciliation process, as was
Speaker 1: followed in post apartheid South Africa, post World War two Germany,
Speaker 1: post troubles in Northern Ireland. We first of all must
Speaker 1: establish we must re establish truth, especially because autocrats always
Speaker 1: attack the truth. Uh an attack history. History is the
Speaker 1: enemy of tyrants and it's the friend of freedom. So
Speaker 1: we must establish truth and we must have accountability, and
Speaker 1: then we can work towards reconciliation. The first thing we
Speaker 1: have to do is re established this sense of shared values.
Speaker 1: I think that if we think too much at the
Speaker 1: tactical level. We won't get there because we're kind of lost.
Speaker 1: Our dispute really takes place over tactics and policy details
Speaker 1: and charges and counter charges, and and it ends up
Speaker 1: deepening the division and increasing the loss of trust. And
Speaker 1: when you're as divided as UM so many Americans are
Speaker 1: right now, the first thing to do is re established
Speaker 1: shared values, to re establish trust, because people really only
Speaker 1: listen to people that they trust. And if you've lost
Speaker 1: trust in each other, it doesn't really matter what you say,
Speaker 1: how valid it is, it's just not going to be
Speaker 1: heard or you know, given any any weight with the
Speaker 1: lack of trust. And this is one reason why I
Speaker 1: think Joe Biden was quite possibly the best choice the
Speaker 1: Democrats could have come up with for this time in history,
Speaker 1: because it's such a strength of his UM. I wrote
Speaker 1: a or a piece about this at Spencer criticley dot
Speaker 1: com just called a good man because aside from his
Speaker 1: other qualifications, and I think he's actually one of the
Speaker 1: most highly qualified on paper presidents in our history. UM,
Speaker 1: perhaps his most important quality is who's a thoroughly good person,
Speaker 1: As everybody who's been around him for any length of
Speaker 1: time knows and will tell you. And leadership is not
Speaker 1: about what you can impose on people. Ultimately, it's about
Speaker 1: what you can summon from them. And I think that
Speaker 1: we're already seeing. I don't think I'm dreaming. I think
Speaker 1: we're already starting to feel how different it's going to
Speaker 1: be when we have a leader who is summoning the
Speaker 1: best from us. It's always great to have Spencer Critchley
Speaker 1: join us. He is again the author of Patriots of
Speaker 1: Two Nations, Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next,
Speaker 1: also managing partner for Boots Road Group. I gotta say
Speaker 1: one of my favorite conversations this week, Tim still ahead Washington.
Speaker 1: We know the inauguration politics, as we said top of
Speaker 1: mine this week. So too were those troubling COVID headlines.
Speaker 1: How one healthcare ceo is supporting frontline workers and healthcare systems.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Your head will look a lot like unless we get Carol. Oh,
Speaker 1: sorry was a terrible year. I'm really sorry, but it's
Speaker 1: a reality. I mean, listen, we're getting out vaccines. We
Speaker 1: know that, but if you take a look at the
Speaker 1: headlines and still the obstacles, it's pretty dark and dismal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. US coronavirus deaths topped four hundred thousand this week.
Speaker 1: It is a staggering number. Each one of those people
Speaker 1: leaving behind a family, leaving behind friends. Follows on the
Speaker 1: heels of global death Carol hitting two million just about
Speaker 1: a week ago, and on the front lines of it all,
Speaker 1: Alyssa Rapp, whos CEO of the healthcare solutions company Surgical Solutions,
Speaker 1: I am absolutely seeing more vaccine availability and our frontline
Speaker 1: healthcare workers in places like Houston and New York City
Speaker 1: are getting access to getting the vaccine, which is great.
Speaker 1: And I've known from personal anecdotes that family members seventy
Speaker 1: and up we're also getting their first shot this weeknnext,
Speaker 1: which is across many states. However, there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy and red tape, and what we've seen even
Speaker 1: at a couple of our hospital sites is even if
Speaker 1: you're a credential employee or contractor, even if you have
Speaker 1: a vaccine appointment, now there's a third database that people
Speaker 1: are expected to be tracked in when their vaccines are
Speaker 1: given and if any technical difficulties like we just had
Speaker 1: occur and a database doesn't map from the employee contractor
Speaker 1: database to the separate vaccine tracking database, even if you
Speaker 1: have an appointment in our bona fide employee or contractor,
Speaker 1: you can't always get the shot. And so there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of bureaucracy and there's got to be a
Speaker 1: streamlined way we continue to immunize or we will never
Speaker 1: achieve a hunter million in a hundred days. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: just disconcerting to hear their places, um, where your frontline
Speaker 1: staff are that are better than others. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that we've seen it be rolled out to accessfully
Speaker 1: in all places, and we've seen bureaucracy in all places.
Speaker 1: We have three employees in nine states, so it's really
Speaker 1: a facility by a facility or system by system question
Speaker 1: to be fair. But I will say the places I
Speaker 1: am most optimistic about having a partner to our federal
Speaker 1: government and our our our people on our American public.
Speaker 1: If we can partner with CBS, Walmart, Costco, Walgreen, name
Speaker 1: that tune and go to places where people are used
Speaker 1: to getting food shots, where they're used to shopping on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, leverage the notary like you read Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine MELSSA, because they have a story that's just
Speaker 1: specifically about that that maybe you know, the success in
Speaker 1: terms of getting that vaccine rollout is contented on relying
Speaker 1: on the big pharmacies, but even your local pharmacy, like
Speaker 1: they need to be the place to go. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: I even read recently this week that the governor of
Speaker 1: Washington State is going to partner with Starbucks. I mean,
Speaker 1: anything we can do to leverage existing infrastructure, because when
Speaker 1: we create new infrastructure, even in health care facilities, let
Speaker 1: alone anywhere, if it's expensive, bureaucratic, encumbersome, leverage what we have,
Speaker 1: keep things moving as quickly as possible, and get it done.
Speaker 1: Herd immunity being obviously the goal here. Um, you know it,
Speaker 1: It really raises the question a list of why we
Speaker 1: didn't see earlier on public private partnerships when it comes
Speaker 1: to a widespread vaccine rollout um to be discussed on
Speaker 1: a different day. Isn't that important? Like, well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: that forgive me because I just want to jump in
Speaker 1: because you know, you talk about the bureaucracy and the
Speaker 1: logistical problems, and I know what maybe Kansas needs versus
Speaker 1: what New York needs is going to be different. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: do you think those are quick fixes? And I don't
Speaker 1: say quick and then it's easy, but do you think
Speaker 1: that this new administration, approaching it differently, can get this
Speaker 1: quickly under control so that we are seeing the bureaucracy
Speaker 1: taken out of the systems and the logistical snaff oos
Speaker 1: ALYSSA taken out as well. I'm very hopeful. I'm very
Speaker 1: very hopeful there is an opportunity to hit reset and
Speaker 1: start sprinting, and if this administration is able to do so,
Speaker 1: we're going to be much better off. So listen, you
Speaker 1: mentioned that you have hundreds of employees and in nine
Speaker 1: states I believe um are what's the portion of them
Speaker 1: that have been vaccinated thus far? Because these are frontline workers,
Speaker 1: it's an excellent question. We have about twenty three percent
Speaker 1: that have been vaccinated to date, and there's a huge one, now,
Speaker 1: you know. I was I was expecting that's a really
Speaker 1: small number. And here I got an email this morning
Speaker 1: at one of our biggest facilities were one of our
Speaker 1: frustrated team members on the COVID list serves said, I'm registered.
Speaker 1: What I articulated earlier, I'm registered, I'm credentialed, and they
Speaker 1: don't have me in the third vaccine database. And it's
Speaker 1: very frustrating. Yes, not for lack of desire. It's it's
Speaker 1: got to cut through the red tape. Yeah, all right, Um,
Speaker 1: so if we can cut through the red I mean
Speaker 1: so okay, So how do you see this playing out?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just tim and I constantly are like,
Speaker 1: all right, so when do we get back to normal?
Speaker 1: Whenever we're talking to somebody who's at healthcare professional or
Speaker 1: head of a company like you are that are are
Speaker 1: seeing everything play out firsthand, Um, what's your expectations based
Speaker 1: on what we're seeing so far? What's your expectation if
Speaker 1: things can dramatically change in a positive way. If things
Speaker 1: can dramatically change in a positive way, I see seventy
Speaker 1: five and up having their second shots by President's Day.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that teachers and other essential frontline workers such
Speaker 1: as grocery store workers, etcetera, will be having their first,
Speaker 1: if not second, vaccine by the end of Q one,
Speaker 1: by the end of March, and I'm really hopeful that
Speaker 1: Tier two and Tier three let alone Tier four, like
Speaker 1: healthy people in their thirties and forties can start getting
Speaker 1: vaccinated and complete that April May June, and we can
Speaker 1: get back to normal come July August. The scientists are
Speaker 1: so brilliant in this country, and we have just done
Speaker 1: such an extraordinary job coming with a protein based solved
Speaker 1: in this particular vaccine that I am actually cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 1: That was one of our go to voices when it
Speaker 1: comes to COVID nineteen Surgical Solutions CEO, Allissa Rapp, you're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up next. It's it's
Speaker 1: been pretty challenging the story of how COVID is pushing
Speaker 1: a city block to the brain. This is an interesting
Speaker 1: story that was in Bloomberg Business Week magazine. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take you through a must read story. It's from our
Speaker 1: one Year, One Neighborhood series that's coming up next to him.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovy from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Hard to say with the year ahead holds for the
Speaker 1: real estate industry and the many businesses that occupy the
Speaker 1: commercial real estate landscape. But I will say Tim, this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that we have consistently and
Speaker 1: constantly talked about stories across the Bloomberg every day about
Speaker 1: what the future is of commercial and residential real estate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of unknowns, and if we think
Speaker 1: back to what happened, it was a real surprise to
Speaker 1: see residential real estate bounce back so quickly in some
Speaker 1: areas of the country and be left behind in other areas.
Speaker 1: So far, the pandemic hasn't triggered a real estate meltdown
Speaker 1: on Main Street, but his business week uncovered time is
Speaker 1: running out for one Seattle landlord and her tenants. Yeah, Tim,
Speaker 1: it's a personal story that's being told over and over again,
Speaker 1: Tim around the country because of the pandemic. And we
Speaker 1: got more from the writer of it, Mberg News finance
Speaker 1: reporter no Bu Hire. He joined us along with the
Speaker 1: Seattle landlord he wrote about was done. She's founder of
Speaker 1: Doune in Hobbs. It's a small business and both were
Speaker 1: in Seattle. Noah starts off by talking about how he
Speaker 1: connected with the subject of the story. Liz and I
Speaker 1: actually started chatting several months ago. Um. I think it
Speaker 1: was in April or May of last year, UM for
Speaker 1: a project that I'm doing for Business Week, UM following
Speaker 1: small businesses in one neighborhood here in Seattle through the
Speaker 1: COVID crisis and UM over the months. UH, in several
Speaker 1: conversations with Liz, I was just struck by all of
Speaker 1: the sort of financial um and business bonds that she
Speaker 1: had created and UM developing this really uh several properties
Speaker 1: on this really cool block and Seattle just how how
Speaker 1: COVID was was really putting a lot of those relationships
Speaker 1: under strain. And what I wanted to do was tell
Speaker 1: a story about real estate and small business and all
Speaker 1: of these links between people and how they got through
Speaker 1: the first ten months of the pandemic and what it
Speaker 1: might take to get them through the next time. So Liz,
Speaker 1: come on in on this. First of all, how's your
Speaker 1: year been, Oh, Carol Um, It's it's been pretty challenging.
Speaker 1: I've been doing small scale real estate for about twenty years,
Speaker 1: and I've survived through a couple of previous crises for
Speaker 1: nine eleven, and then you know the economic meldon that
Speaker 1: started in two thousand and eight. But boy, this just
Speaker 1: takes the cake for sure. Well, and to be fair.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting and it's one of the things we've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot, Liz, is you know, companies big
Speaker 1: and small had to learn to pivot. Like I feel
Speaker 1: like I've used that word a million times over the
Speaker 1: past twelve months. You did as well, and you had
Speaker 1: some things going for you in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: where your real estate was located, what kind of tenants
Speaker 1: you had. Tell us a little bit about that. Well,
Speaker 1: I kind of operate at a escape l that UM
Speaker 1: really caters to locally owned small business and so I
Speaker 1: love to renovate old buildings and then create a bunch
Speaker 1: of smaller users UM kind of into one project where
Speaker 1: UM it can create a real critical mass um of
Speaker 1: of UM you know, interested in terms of retail and
Speaker 1: restaurants for the for the customers. And we're in a
Speaker 1: really great neighborhood called Capitol Hill. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: you know, the cool, funky alternative neighborhood in Seattle and
Speaker 1: and um. But you know the problem is that these
Speaker 1: small family owned businesses are UM super vulnerable. And as
Speaker 1: Noah and I discussed of my twenty some customer facing
Speaker 1: businesses on this one block, you know, they were all
Speaker 1: impacted in various ways by by shutdowns, UM or other
Speaker 1: aspects of the pandemic. So, no, as you were doing
Speaker 1: your reporting and talking with Liz and and unfolding a story,
Speaker 1: what struck you, well a couple of things. One is
Speaker 1: just how um, how much the businesses their tenants at
Speaker 1: liz property were able to pivot and just sort of
Speaker 1: do what they could to keep revenue in the door.
Speaker 1: Another thing was just Liz's willingness to do whatever she
Speaker 1: could to keep them afloat. So what that meant a
Speaker 1: lot last year was Liz had to go out and
Speaker 1: negotiate with with her banks, the folks who have mortgages
Speaker 1: on her property, and get some sort of relief there
Speaker 1: so she could turn around and pass um basically give
Speaker 1: her tenants some wiggle room um and And I think
Speaker 1: that's like a hugely important and underappreciated aspect of what's
Speaker 1: been going on here. And you know, from the outside
Speaker 1: of this crisis, uh, you know, I spoke with one
Speaker 1: of Liz's lenders, um, the CEO of Home Street Bank,
Speaker 1: which is a regional bank here in Seattle, and that
Speaker 1: their willingness to work with Liz over the last couple
Speaker 1: of months has just been huge. But I think Liz
Speaker 1: and Home Street also thought that this pandemic would be
Speaker 1: over by now. A lot of us did. And so
Speaker 1: really the point we're at in this crisis now everyone's
Speaker 1: having to come back to the table now and figure
Speaker 1: out what makes sense for the next several months. What's
Speaker 1: interesting too, And there's a stat Noah, that jumped out
Speaker 1: at me about the strain that we're seeing in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, us retail landlords. We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about this on air, counting more than fifty billion dollars
Speaker 1: in miss rent payments last year according to estimates from
Speaker 1: co star Um, and some of those maybe will never
Speaker 1: get paid. But we've been watching so closely, no Uh,
Speaker 1: the real estate market for looking for signs of strain,
Speaker 1: and it's big players, smaller players, but we've been watching
Speaker 1: it very closely, especially as we increasingly see in our communities.
Speaker 1: We see in New York City a lot of retail
Speaker 1: restaurants they're not there anymore and they're just boarded up
Speaker 1: and they're empty places. Yeah, I mean, I think what's
Speaker 1: interesting about Lizze's property Um properties is the resilience. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of work that has gone in
Speaker 1: to keep those businesses afloat. And um, you know, another
Speaker 1: thing that should be noted is that the block where
Speaker 1: these properties are was was just really steps from where
Speaker 1: a lot of the racial justice protests were um in Seattle.
Speaker 1: And um, there were periods over the last year where um,
Speaker 1: these businesses had to board up. But UM, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Liz worked with her tenants. She could say
Speaker 1: more about this, I'm sure to just sort of make
Speaker 1: make it clear that you know, they were open and
Speaker 1: functioning to the best of their ability. So how crazy
Speaker 1: was it? Because it sounds like there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that made survival possible. It was government programs,
Speaker 1: it was bank forbearance. Um, there's a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I mean, just what was it like, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of finding the pieces to kind of keep it going? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. It was a jigsaw puzzle and
Speaker 1: it continues to be a jigsaw puzzle. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's why I really appreciate Noah telling this story because
Speaker 1: I think the plight of the mom and pop landlord. UM,
Speaker 1: I think that story is not really getting told as
Speaker 1: much as it should. But um, yeah, our our tenants,
Speaker 1: we helped all of our tenants connect with banks if
Speaker 1: they didn't have one, so they could apply for the
Speaker 1: p PP resources. We are once again with this round,
Speaker 1: coaching them and and connecting them, um if they don't
Speaker 1: have those relationships. UM. The protest zone was half a
Speaker 1: block from us, and that made the months of June
Speaker 1: and July UM really difficult. There was a swarm of
Speaker 1: bicycle copits um uh road around our block because our
Speaker 1: area has kind of become a flashpoint for UM protests
Speaker 1: on various issues, and so that that kind of continues.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm so lucky to have relationships with
Speaker 1: local banks. And that was intentional after the last down turn,
Speaker 1: when I realized that these big national banks, uh, you
Speaker 1: know that they're they're paying no attention to the plight
Speaker 1: of one little landlord in Seattle. UM. Now I only
Speaker 1: deal with local banks where I literally, if I needed to,
Speaker 1: could walk into the office. You know, that is such
Speaker 1: an important story. It's something actually my husband I were
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of like local community banks. UM.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about this, you know, the big banks,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of pressure even since, of course
Speaker 1: the financial crisis to you know, work within the smaller
Speaker 1: business community. UM, think about kind of neighborhoods, and there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of pressure on them, but we've realized
Speaker 1: how important it is the local community banks in terms
Speaker 1: of the relationships and understanding their communities and the needs
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, I think I think that's a good
Speaker 1: point and something that's very salient And and Liz's story
Speaker 1: is I mean, really what we're talking about is the
Speaker 1: difference between what what kind of what the city, what
Speaker 1: any city really looks like. Um, afterward, through this pandemic, it's,
Speaker 1: as Liz said, a jig. It's been a jigsaw puzzle
Speaker 1: and putting together all the pieces in a way that
Speaker 1: the world resembles something like what it was before the
Speaker 1: pandemic just requires a lot of action from a lot
Speaker 1: of different people. And um, you know, community bankers tend
Speaker 1: to have their finger on the pulse of what's going
Speaker 1: on in their backyard. And you know, uh, the loans
Speaker 1: that Liz has they probably you know, would be a
Speaker 1: complete rounding air for a large national bank, but they're
Speaker 1: not trivial for for a smaller bank. So, UM, I
Speaker 1: just my reporting, you know, what I gathered was there
Speaker 1: was a lot more willingness to sort of look at
Speaker 1: the totality of the situation and try and imagine a
Speaker 1: way to get through this together. Uh. What's interesting about
Speaker 1: Mark is that he helped turn around Home Street after
Speaker 1: the last um uh recession. He came in, I want
Speaker 1: to say, um maybe twenty nine, two thousand nine and
Speaker 1: another tough time. Yeah. What what he explained to me
Speaker 1: is that this this uh, this moment is fundamentally different. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Really wide ranging story there. It incorporates, Carol so much
Speaker 1: of what we continue to discuss on the show, the
Speaker 1: pandemic of course, real estate and the implications for business.
Speaker 1: That was Bloomberg News finance reporter Noah bou Hire who
Speaker 1: joined us along with the Seattle landlord. He wrote about
Speaker 1: Liz Dunn. She's the founder of Dunne and Hobbes got
Speaker 1: to say, I love the personal stories. It really gives
Speaker 1: you some insight into what's going on. That wraps up
Speaker 1: our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim
Speaker 1: Stenovic more Head. In our next hour, including from cannabis
Speaker 1: and coles to Hollywood's pay Model and Peloton more from
Speaker 1: the year Head and the consumer companies to watch. You
Speaker 1: Love your Peloton, Carol, plus the maker of Folgers and
Speaker 1: Jeff Peanut Butter on innovating at a nearly one five
Speaker 1: year old company. We hear from Smucker President and CEO
Speaker 1: Mark Smucker. Can I just say the new president loves
Speaker 1: this peloton too? Also guests who people around the globe
Speaker 1: trust the most. That from the head of the global
Speaker 1: communications firm Edelman, and the co founder and CEO of Twilio,
Speaker 1: Jeff Lawson, on a spectacular year and his new book,
Speaker 1: Ask Your Developer. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim stenovic
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. I am Carol Messer and I'm Tim
Speaker 1: Stanovick of Bloomberg Quicktake Clini head in our second hour
Speaker 1: of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including more
Speaker 1: from the magazines You're a Head issue plus a fifth
Speaker 1: generation Smucker running the company, what innovation and culture mean
Speaker 1: at a nearly one old brand. Gotta love your Jeff.
Speaker 1: Also government or business? Which one do people trust the most?
Speaker 1: The head of Edelman on the latest trust barometer, and
Speaker 1: Twilio has been on a tear. Co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: Jeff Lawson explains why and how to harness the power
Speaker 1: of software developers and win in the twenty one century
Speaker 1: that in his latest book, All of That To Come.
Speaker 1: We begin though with the year ahead. As we mentioned,
Speaker 1: the magazine is all about what's to come and look
Speaker 1: out for in one teeing up our Bloomberg Live event
Speaker 1: this coming week by the same name. Jim Ellis, though
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week Assistant Managing it or editor of the
Speaker 1: Business section of the magazine, caught up with Tim and
Speaker 1: me to talk about some of the consumer companies and
Speaker 1: stories to watch check it out well. I tried to
Speaker 1: think about what are the you know, sort of what's
Speaker 1: the range of companies and industries that have been sort
Speaker 1: of hit hard in that we're hit hard in in
Speaker 1: the consumer sector, and um, you know, how is one
Speaker 1: going to be different from them? Obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: that plays into how all the pandemic affected companies, and
Speaker 1: that's a range of companies, whether it was um, you know,
Speaker 1: going from consumer the traditional consumer retailing, but also looking
Speaker 1: at these sort of people who benefited from those you know,
Speaker 1: from the pandemic in a way, you know, things like
Speaker 1: Peloton at home sort of companies, delivery companies, um, all
Speaker 1: the way to companies that you know now have to
Speaker 1: look at ways that their business may be permanently changed,
Speaker 1: such as retailers who suddenly have discovered that things like
Speaker 1: the delivery things like um, you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: omni channel. In other words, having a big online business
Speaker 1: suddenly important as well. So we were trying to say
Speaker 1: what is one really mean and in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: you can't talk about that without looking at how changed
Speaker 1: them look affected. Each company that you look at, very
Speaker 1: differently in this issue in the industry is differently. I
Speaker 1: want to start with with drug stores because there's this
Speaker 1: fascinating story in here about how drug stores could be
Speaker 1: pivotal in mass vaccinations. Um, as you explore, they could
Speaker 1: be the heroes of one, right Jim, Indeed, I mean
Speaker 1: the thing is that we all know about the bumpy
Speaker 1: rollout of the vaccine so far. Obviously it's only been weeks,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, to meet the kind of deadlines
Speaker 1: that the new administration would like to see, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred million vaccines in a hundred days. That's that's
Speaker 1: gonna require a lot more than the sort of spotty
Speaker 1: effort we've seen so far. Inner America's drug stores. They're
Speaker 1: about sixty thousand pharmacies right now spread across the US.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of places that are very close to,
Speaker 1: you know, the homes of most Americans. The thing that
Speaker 1: really works in their favor is that a lot of
Speaker 1: them already have very sort of rich databases of people
Speaker 1: who shop at their stores, who already get their healthcare
Speaker 1: you know, needs met at their stores through their pharmacy
Speaker 1: um you know. And more importantly, they have experienced giving vaccines.
Speaker 1: I mean, pharmacy is in the US last year gave
Speaker 1: about a third of all the adult flu shots that
Speaker 1: were given. The huge number I mean this is, this
Speaker 1: is these are people who are suddenly having to learn
Speaker 1: how to do this. The issue is that they just
Speaker 1: have to be brought into the system to do it.
Speaker 1: Hey listen, and you know, listen, it's where I go
Speaker 1: for vaccines. At this point, it's pretty easy, breezy for
Speaker 1: me to do that one thing we all were doing.
Speaker 1: You mentioned at Peloton that was one of the huge
Speaker 1: stories of full transparency. I have one at home, but
Speaker 1: they just took off like a rocket. And I think
Speaker 1: the question is what's the longer term durability for this company? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the the the issue with Peloton. What I
Speaker 1: was sort of what attracted me to that was this
Speaker 1: the ultimate pandemic play. Is the company that depends on
Speaker 1: you staying at home doing something that typically you do
Speaker 1: in groups and so you know, studios or gyms and um.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people a year ago thought
Speaker 1: that this was a small thing that was not going
Speaker 1: to take off. What what interested me was that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, one UM short seller last year it said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a company that isn't going that it isn't
Speaker 1: gonna do much. It's worth about one and a half billion.
Speaker 1: If you look last week, you saw that has almost
Speaker 1: a fifty billion dollar market cap. Now that's because so
Speaker 1: many people have been driven to it. It now has
Speaker 1: uh what three point six million members it um you know,
Speaker 1: is working. It hit ninety million workouts in the three
Speaker 1: months ended in September, and its busiest day was Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: It did fifty thousand people were on doing classes in
Speaker 1: that single day. This thing is taken off like a rocket.
Speaker 1: And the thing is though that once you've made this
Speaker 1: huge investment in a piece of equipment, and once you've
Speaker 1: gotten into this notion that this is a community of
Speaker 1: other people which you can connect with digitally, that that
Speaker 1: actually gets sort of sticky. That's so in a way,
Speaker 1: they're trying to at the sort of feel of community
Speaker 1: that you get inside a a classroom structure within a
Speaker 1: gym or and and take that into the home. It's
Speaker 1: successful with it so far. I wouldn't count them out.
Speaker 1: And I said durability and wrong word, because they're pretty durable.
Speaker 1: I gotta say that bikes with the longevity of it
Speaker 1: is in question. Hey, and Joe Biden likes it. Um
Speaker 1: as well, just quickly. Um. Hollywood getting a new pay model. Um,
Speaker 1: that's another big thing. That's another thing. I mean streaming
Speaker 1: this year was a major major change in the way
Speaker 1: that people got entertainment. UM. Typically with movies, movies go out,
Speaker 1: they have theatrical release, and depending on the length of
Speaker 1: the theatrical release, you know, a lot of times that
Speaker 1: meant made a blockbuster and a lot of the the
Speaker 1: people in the trade are paid based on how much
Speaker 1: came out of the theatrical release. But they also get
Speaker 1: things like residuals and pieces of the profit for the
Speaker 1: after part of that. It goes to home video, you
Speaker 1: get a piece of that. It goes onto a TV
Speaker 1: network to get a piece of that. People are getting
Speaker 1: checks for years. And the big example is Michael excuse me.
Speaker 1: The big example would be Robert Downey Jr. Who earned
Speaker 1: what we think it's seventy five million dollars from his
Speaker 1: salary and to share profit check avengers in game. That's
Speaker 1: the positive of this. But a lot of people look
Speaker 1: lots of money in the movie business. That was Jim
Speaker 1: Elis Bloomberg Business Week, Assistant Managing editor and editor of
Speaker 1: the business section of the magazine. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: business Week coming up, speaking of consumer companies to watch.
Speaker 1: We hear from the CEO of one company that has
Speaker 1: been around for more than a century and transforming itself
Speaker 1: to stay around for a hundred more years. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. The yearhead from
Speaker 1: any companies to him, we know means continuing to innovate,
Speaker 1: sell off, under performing a non core assets, moved faster
Speaker 1: We've heard a lot of that in the past year.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, this week at a Bloomberg Breakaway
Speaker 1: town hall, I talked about just that with one company
Speaker 1: that is leaser focused on innovation and its culture. Carol,
Speaker 1: you caught up with the president and CEO of the JM.
Speaker 1: Smucker Company, Mark Smucker, a fifth generation member of the
Speaker 1: Smucker family who's running the company, which is nearly in
Speaker 1: its year. Wow. That is a lot of years of
Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly and folgers. I'm just going to say,
Speaker 1: put it out there. We talked about a lot, kicked
Speaker 1: it off, as we do with many of our conversations today,
Speaker 1: talking about the impact of the coronavirus. We can't diminish
Speaker 1: the significance of this humanitarian crisis that we all find
Speaker 1: ourselves in, but I think we do have to try
Speaker 1: to look forward to the future and think about how
Speaker 1: are we as a company helping society. How are we
Speaker 1: making society a better place. We obviously make food, we
Speaker 1: make things that are uh, you know, make the consumer happy,
Speaker 1: but we also have a responsibility to the communities in
Speaker 1: which we work as well. So all of the ways
Speaker 1: that we can support through through volunteerism obviously, UM education,
Speaker 1: UH feeding America, all of those things. It is a
Speaker 1: it is a dual role that we have in society today,
Speaker 1: Is it safe to say a stressful one? Because I'm
Speaker 1: curious about what your employees might be asking of you
Speaker 1: today and what you're asking of your leadership to kind
Speaker 1: of get everyone through this environment. Well, the first thing
Speaker 1: that we're asking our leadership is to number one focus,
Speaker 1: but also in focusing, we have to take care of
Speaker 1: our employees and that starts with UH mental health. We
Speaker 1: have made a significant push with our employees to make
Speaker 1: sure that they know what resources are available to them.
Speaker 1: It is a trying time, but fundamentally we have to
Speaker 1: start with keeping our own house in order protecting our employees,
Speaker 1: which will in turn allow us to do better in business. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting too, you know, you say to do better
Speaker 1: in business business Right now, I've talking to Richard Edelman
Speaker 1: of the PR firm Edelman and they do a trust
Speaker 1: barometer and they say that right now, business was more
Speaker 1: trusted than government in eighteen of twenty seven countries. And
Speaker 1: the expectations are for ceo s to focus on societal
Speaker 1: engagement with the same rigor thoughtfulness and energy you to
Speaker 1: deliver on profits. And I'm curious, do you are you
Speaker 1: seeing that? Do you see that now? It's kind of
Speaker 1: extra responsibilities in your role as a company, Carol. We
Speaker 1: always have taken a view again that that we do
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to society. I think what has shifted
Speaker 1: in the last five to ten years is you do
Speaker 1: see business leaders being more vocal and taking stances, not
Speaker 1: necessarily political stances, but fundamentally it's about doing what's right
Speaker 1: and so what even if we choose not to make
Speaker 1: a statement publicly, even internally with seven thousand employees, there
Speaker 1: is an expectation that we stand up for what is right,
Speaker 1: whether that's condemning violence in any form or what have you.
Speaker 1: But we we do see a desire for employees and
Speaker 1: the society at large to be a bit more vocal
Speaker 1: on those issues. Well, it's interesting to this whole focus, Mark,
Speaker 1: you know this multiple stakeholders, right, It's something that's come
Speaker 1: out come out of the business roundtable. Your history and
Speaker 1: help me if I've gotten the genealogy right. I think
Speaker 1: your grandfather and former CEO of the company, Paul Smucker,
Speaker 1: wrote a letter back in the nineteen eighties, and then
Speaker 1: I think it's your great great grandfather JM. Smucker, you know,
Speaker 1: laid out these core values, these basic beliefs, you know,
Speaker 1: about ethics and quality and people, and it's just pretty
Speaker 1: fascinating that it feels like the company in many ways
Speaker 1: was ahead of its time considering the environment we're now in,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden everyone's talking about this. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. You said it very well. We have
Speaker 1: been focused on this for decades, for our entire existence,
Speaker 1: even when before the Business round Table came out. We
Speaker 1: talk about our constituencies, right, and the employees, consumers, customers, suppliers,
Speaker 1: all of them leading to shareholders, and so philosophically, what
Speaker 1: we have always said is that if we take care
Speaker 1: of all of the other constituents, then automatically the shareholder
Speaker 1: will be taken care of. And that is essentially precisely
Speaker 1: what the Business Round Table said. There's no question that
Speaker 1: social media and technology has allowed consumers access to a
Speaker 1: variety of different brands and products that they may not
Speaker 1: have had access to in the past. And so in
Speaker 1: this time when consumers do want to simplify, we have
Speaker 1: seen millions of consumers come back to the Folders franchise,
Speaker 1: and we have actually seen and Folders start growing again,
Speaker 1: which has been fantastic. We're helping that along with again
Speaker 1: the advertising and so forth, but specifically to innovation, it's
Speaker 1: making sure that we continue to stay relevant. We are
Speaker 1: on a multi year journey with Folders, which starts with
Speaker 1: the consumer communication. UM. Consumers want bolder, darker rows, so
Speaker 1: we are providing those in a new product line called
Speaker 1: Folders Want No Air. It's constantly paying attention and speaking
Speaker 1: to our consumers and understanding what they want so that
Speaker 1: we can deliver that to them. And I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: with the process we've made, so more to come. You
Speaker 1: mentioned advertising a couple of times. I'm curious about social
Speaker 1: How important is that in kind of reaching a different audience,
Speaker 1: maybe a younger audience. UM. And I'm also curious about
Speaker 1: influencers or celebrities, Like, how do you guys think about that?
Speaker 1: You know, take a you know, a coker, pepsi right,
Speaker 1: they've often aligned with a celebrity, take you know, sports,
Speaker 1: you know gear. UM, So I'm just curious how that
Speaker 1: plays into it. Sure, so Folgers in particular as it
Speaker 1: relates to UM, influencers and and social across our portfolio.
Speaker 1: We have leverage those capabilities. Keeping these consumers in the
Speaker 1: franchise is largely about targeting. It's knowing which consumers are
Speaker 1: new and trying to push push messaging to them through
Speaker 1: the social channels UM. In terms of celebrities, as you know,
Speaker 1: we are engaged with Rachel ray on Nutrition, which is
Speaker 1: our one of our leading dogs brands. UM that has
Speaker 1: been a very successful partnership with for us. We also
Speaker 1: do think about whether it's influences or celebrities. Obviously, maybe
Speaker 1: our pockets aren't as deep as some of our larger competitors,
Speaker 1: but we will continue to look get those opportunities as well.
Speaker 1: You know, as we hear from a lot of leaders,
Speaker 1: change truly does start from the top down. The JM.
Speaker 1: Smucker Company President and CEO, Mark Smucker. You can listen
Speaker 1: to that full conversation where he talked about everything from
Speaker 1: the revival of Folgers to celebrity influencers. That's our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Extra podcast this week. Could Kim Kardashian be
Speaker 1: coming to Folgers? Maybe? I don't know. I'm just guessing
Speaker 1: this isn't a news flash. Alright, find that on our
Speaker 1: podcast feed still to come on Bloomberg Business Week, Company
Speaker 1: culture and Innovation. Yep, they're important, and so too is trust, Carol,
Speaker 1: when it comes to that, which one fares better business
Speaker 1: or government. The most important finding in the Edelman Trust
Speaker 1: Parometer this year is that we've got more on that
Speaker 1: with the CEO of Edelman that's coming up next. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Steinovich from Bloomberg Radio. I
Speaker 1: know I've said this already a million times on this broadcast,
Speaker 1: but it is still really hard to say, Tim, how
Speaker 1: this year is going to play out with so many
Speaker 1: factors like the virus, the vaccine, the economy all still unclear.
Speaker 1: There's so many unknowns here, and one thing is clear, Carroll,
Speaker 1: at least according to the latest trust parometer from the
Speaker 1: Global Communications from Edelman, and that is when it comes
Speaker 1: to trust in government and business, there's one that really
Speaker 1: comes out ahead. Yep. We got more on that from
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of the Global Communications from Edelman,
Speaker 1: Richard Edelman. He was back with us. He's someone in
Speaker 1: constant contact with corporate leaders. He's also someone who's constantly
Speaker 1: tracking how the general public feels about the current environment,
Speaker 1: how they feel about politics, how they feel about business. Look,
Speaker 1: I think the most important finding in the Edelman Trust
Speaker 1: Parometer this year is that business is the most trusted
Speaker 1: institution and that business is supposed to step into the
Speaker 1: void left by government. Last we talked, which was about May,
Speaker 1: government had become the most trusted institution because it was
Speaker 1: wartime and we were doing lockdowns and big spend to
Speaker 1: keep people afloat and you know, being in fired in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And now we're in a different point. Leaders
Speaker 1: of government have deeply disappointed and we feel like we've
Speaker 1: been lied to. UM. There is no really sign that
Speaker 1: the pandemic is ebbing and UM. So it's been handed
Speaker 1: over to business to fix and UM. In particular, CEOs
Speaker 1: have to speak up and stand up and talk not
Speaker 1: just about COVID but about systemic racism and about sustainability
Speaker 1: and UM. You know, it's really adults in the room.
Speaker 1: And whether it's Jamie Diamond or or or or Scott
Speaker 1: Kirby of United Airlines, everybody has to talk about how
Speaker 1: we get back to travel and how we get back
Speaker 1: to uh normal. Well, so let's talk about, as you say,
Speaker 1: business leaders now the most trusted institution here, uh, and
Speaker 1: certainly not government leaders here. And we have seen members
Speaker 1: of the business community backing off on political contributions, you know,
Speaker 1: being very outspoken about President Trump uh and what happened
Speaker 1: in the nation's capital. Where were they though, although I
Speaker 1: will say many members of the business community were pretty
Speaker 1: critical of President Trump as well through over throughout the
Speaker 1: past four years. But I think some would say, well,
Speaker 1: why don't why didn't business leader speak up even more
Speaker 1: um strongly to say that these things weren't right early on?
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a new learned behavior for ceo
Speaker 1: s to be public figures. They're they're normally, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to serve Wall Street and serve their employees, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, with this leadership vacuum, we we
Speaker 1: have a necessity of decency and of making sure Carol,
Speaker 1: the biggest stat that's fascinating is my employer is the
Speaker 1: most trusted institution, even fifteen points higher than business in general.
Speaker 1: So and it's my employer. CEO is trusted in my employer.
Speaker 1: UM media in fact, is more trusted than mainstream media.
Speaker 1: So therefore, people who are employees are looking desperately for
Speaker 1: quality information and that's what we're lacking in society. Now
Speaker 1: that's a new deal for companies. They're not used to
Speaker 1: being information purveyors. But that's the demand, that's the necessity
Speaker 1: right now. Richard, What how did the pandemic help create that?
Speaker 1: Because I do feel like you know individuals you know
Speaker 1: who were able to keep their jobs and stay employed,
Speaker 1: like the lifeline and the communication between the employee, especially
Speaker 1: working from home, it had to change, UM. And I
Speaker 1: do wonder how the pandemic impacted the employer employee relationship.
Speaker 1: It became, as you say, um, in a way, the
Speaker 1: normalizing force UM was the connection to the office, UM,
Speaker 1: even if you weren't in the office, and that you
Speaker 1: were getting better facts from the company about return to
Speaker 1: work or the opportunity to get vaccinated from the company,
Speaker 1: not from the government. I mean early on the government
Speaker 1: did this well, Governor Cuomo, others regular briefings and and
Speaker 1: at this have paid it over the summer and it
Speaker 1: hasn't returned. And the magic cures hyde ruxy chlora queene,
Speaker 1: all that just deeply, deeply hurt any credibility that government
Speaker 1: leaders had and Beyond that, the media has all of
Speaker 1: a sudden been categorized as politicized, biased, um, you know,
Speaker 1: be boring thought bubbles, and media has been crippled as
Speaker 1: a source of information. So again, government and media typically
Speaker 1: in a crisis period are the reliable sources. Not now
Speaker 1: it's business is turned. Hey, I want to get back
Speaker 1: to your Edleman trust barometer that you put out the
Speaker 1: Richard What I want to ask you, because you do
Speaker 1: you're constantly talking with CEOs from all different industries. What
Speaker 1: are the conversations you've been having. Well, one is about
Speaker 1: the position of America in the world. Our trust barometer
Speaker 1: found that the US is actually a third from the
Speaker 1: bottom in terms of how its owned um residents feel
Speaker 1: about its institutions. So we're just ahead of Russia and Japan.
Speaker 1: Japan still reeling from Fukushima and the nuclear accident in Russia,
Speaker 1: as it is, UM and trusting brand America and trusting
Speaker 1: the American government has really eroded. It's only globally, and
Speaker 1: it's just above China. You know, we're we're down there
Speaker 1: with Italy and Spain. We're not up there with Germany, Canada, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So that's a big concern. I'm also hearing from CEOs
Speaker 1: about how we're going to work with government. That's the
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of the global communications firm Edelman, Richard Edelman.
Speaker 1: And check out that full conversation. It's on our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week podcast feed. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: coming up. One of the fifty companies to watch that's next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So in the year I had issue. This week, we've
Speaker 1: got a list of fifty companies to watch, which includes
Speaker 1: a stock that was one of last year's tim high flyers.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Twilio, which saw its stock store two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty last year and at a time of
Speaker 1: robust demand for its communication software sales carroll up fifty
Speaker 1: two percent for the most recent quarter, blockbuster year, no doubt.
Speaker 1: I caught up with Jeff Lawson. He's chairman, CEO and
Speaker 1: co founder of Twilio. He's also got a new book out,
Speaker 1: Ask Your Developer, how to Harness the power of software
Speaker 1: developers and When. In the twenty one century, we talked
Speaker 1: about the year that was in the year ahead, really
Speaker 1: excited to get this book out there because I started
Speaker 1: writing this book about the power of software developers and
Speaker 1: of innovation and the power that software is playing in
Speaker 1: so many businesses and so many industries. Started writing this
Speaker 1: book actually you know before COVID, and I think the
Speaker 1: last year has just shown even more so how important
Speaker 1: digital innovation, digital communications, but agility essentially in business is
Speaker 1: when factors outside of our control are changing constantly. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that is spot on, and I want to
Speaker 1: dig into the book specifically, but I do want to
Speaker 1: ask you about this past year. Like some companies, your
Speaker 1: business to Reilio benefited as we were all working from
Speaker 1: home and companies needed more than ever before really to
Speaker 1: communicate with their customers and they needed you know, your
Speaker 1: infrastruction infrastructure software. Um, what was the year like for you?
Speaker 1: How would you sum it up? And when did you
Speaker 1: all of a sudden see that it was going to
Speaker 1: turn out to be a strong year for you financially? Well,
Speaker 1: you know Tolios product. We are a platform that enables
Speaker 1: companies who are building things in software to be able
Speaker 1: to communicate digitally using digital communication channels like voice, text, messaging, chat, video, email,
Speaker 1: and more. And so you know what we have always
Speaker 1: provided to the world even before covid was first digital
Speaker 1: customer engagement ability to connect people together using digital technologies.
Speaker 1: Number two software agility because we enable software developers to
Speaker 1: build communications into all the apps and experiences that we
Speaker 1: have every day. And third is cloud scale. When somebody
Speaker 1: builds something on tolio, it just works everywhere in the
Speaker 1: world that works at any scale. You have to worry
Speaker 1: about racking and stacking servers and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's why many of the best companies in the world
Speaker 1: have been using Toilio to build these amazing customer experiences,
Speaker 1: you know like Uber and Lift and Shopify and amazing
Speaker 1: companies that are leading the edge. But now, which are
Speaker 1: the companies we know about right as consumers, But we
Speaker 1: don't understand kind of how it all works or how
Speaker 1: it gets to us exactly. Too is behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: And if you think about those three things that I
Speaker 1: just mentioned like digital engagement, uh, cloud scale and software agility.
Speaker 1: While the world needed those even more because as we
Speaker 1: had to reconfigure our world to get rid of human
Speaker 1: to human face to face interactions replace them with digital equivalents,
Speaker 1: and we needed to red factor the whole world in
Speaker 1: real time with these changing conditions. While the things Atilio
Speaker 1: brought to our customers was incredibly valuable, were you surprised though,
Speaker 1: at how strong the demand ultimately and how it played
Speaker 1: out for you guys? You know, not rely. I had
Speaker 1: an early sentence. I'll tell you that when the when
Speaker 1: the pandemic began um in, you know, early to mid
Speaker 1: March of last year, we saw a really quick influx
Speaker 1: of customers all realizing that they needed to build. You know,
Speaker 1: there were say needs time to build, like we've never
Speaker 1: dealt with a global pandemic before. We need to reinvent
Speaker 1: our customer experience. We need to contact list delivery, we
Speaker 1: need to accelerate our online ordering abilities. We need to
Speaker 1: see patients remotely for for health telehealth, like there are
Speaker 1: all these use cases coming to prominence that in a
Speaker 1: very like in the course of a week, so many
Speaker 1: customers reaching out and saying, our roadmap has changed, our
Speaker 1: priorties all just changed, and Tolios be a big part
Speaker 1: of how we're gonna respond to the pandemic. And so
Speaker 1: I think we got a pretty early view into the
Speaker 1: importance of it. That's why we leaned in. We said,
Speaker 1: we're here to serve our customers during this time, to
Speaker 1: make them successful the pandemic and build even tighter customer
Speaker 1: relationships during this period of time. That's going to be
Speaker 1: so successful for our customers and for the world. Jeff,
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about the book. I do
Speaker 1: want to ask you what is one look like for
Speaker 1: you guys in terms of what kind of visibility. Well,
Speaker 1: we see twenty as having been an acceleration of the
Speaker 1: trends that have long gone on of the world moving
Speaker 1: to digital, of every industry becoming a software industry, and
Speaker 1: every company having to really up their digital game. And
Speaker 1: pandemic accelerated those plans, often times in companies by six
Speaker 1: years that road maps got accelerated. But one is going
Speaker 1: to be no different. That acceleration is a one way path,
Speaker 1: and every industry and every company who expects to win
Speaker 1: in this digital economy is going to have to keep
Speaker 1: up the pace of invention and agility in using software
Speaker 1: to serve their customers. And so I think we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to help companies unlock these amazing digital experiences.
Speaker 1: Forgive me Jeff, and we love talking with you because
Speaker 1: you've got to go a lot of places with us.
Speaker 1: But if I'm not a person who's into software, am
Speaker 1: I going to be like, Okay, why do I need
Speaker 1: to read this book? And it sounds like we all
Speaker 1: need to read this book in terms of understanding, especially
Speaker 1: in an increasingly high tech world. You know, we've certainly
Speaker 1: seen that over the last year. Why did you write it?
Speaker 1: Who are you addressing and what's the message you want
Speaker 1: to get out here? This book is written actionally for
Speaker 1: people who aren't the developers and aren't the software people.
Speaker 1: It's written for the wide variety of business executives who
Speaker 1: know that software in many ways represents the future of
Speaker 1: their company, because every company is in the Starwinian struggle
Speaker 1: to build great digital products and experiences to serve their
Speaker 1: customers in this era where the interface that we have
Speaker 1: with our customers is now oftentimes an app on a
Speaker 1: phone or a website. Therefore, it's the companies that build
Speaker 1: great software experiences. Those are the companies who win the
Speaker 1: hearts and minds and wallets of their customers. And so
Speaker 1: so much has been said about this, you know, and
Speaker 1: the software is eating the world and so many industries
Speaker 1: have been challenged by the nature of software and how
Speaker 1: software is changing the industries, but not a lot has
Speaker 1: been said about how the business people who aren't software developers,
Speaker 1: who aren't technologists, how do they partner with the technical
Speaker 1: talent in their company or the t people talent they
Speaker 1: want to bring into their company to actually successfully build
Speaker 1: those great digital products and experiences. Because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the technical people and the business executives
Speaker 1: are all aligned in what they want. They want to
Speaker 1: build amazing products and experiences that millions or billions of
Speaker 1: customers are gonna love that will drive business growth. Yet
Speaker 1: oftentimes there's this invisible divide between the business executives and
Speaker 1: the technical talent because they speak different languages. Right, And
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that I'm the CEO of a
Speaker 1: public company, I'm also a software developers. I've have a
Speaker 1: foot in both of these worlds, and so I wrote
Speaker 1: the book to try to build that bridge, to talk
Speaker 1: to business executives and tell them what goes on in
Speaker 1: the world of software and what their developers are actually doing,
Speaker 1: and how they can work with those developers to unlock
Speaker 1: innovation and build great software that will differentiate their company
Speaker 1: in the eyes of their customers, because that is how
Speaker 1: you win in this digital right Well, and I feel
Speaker 1: like in many ways, it's like after the financial crisis, Um,
Speaker 1: we looked at CFOs very differently because CFOs how to
Speaker 1: figure out financially, how to get their companies through a
Speaker 1: really difficult crisis. And it wasn't just you know, accounting guys,
Speaker 1: you know, checking out the numbers. They became really key
Speaker 1: and implement you know, and and strategical to companies. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's what we see now with C
Speaker 1: T O S and I T departments. Increasingly it's not
Speaker 1: just like hey, I need a new mouse pad, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more strategic. Um, you know, especially as
Speaker 1: almost every company has become a tech company. Well, first,
Speaker 1: I do need a new mouse Okay, I'll get I'll
Speaker 1: get right on it. You're absolutely right. Twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: You're right. I T was a cost center. It was
Speaker 1: about you know, laptops for the employees and printers and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe uh, you know, the financial system that
Speaker 1: customers never knew about or cared about. But nowadays, when
Speaker 1: companies their interface with their customers is a digital one.
Speaker 1: Customers suddenly care about the quality of your software. Are
Speaker 1: you using a software to differentiate? So software has moved
Speaker 1: from the back office and cost center to the revenue
Speaker 1: driver of so many companies, and it actually it's something
Speaker 1: that customers care about. Think about your bank, you know.
Speaker 1: It used to be that your bank was a bricks
Speaker 1: and mortar store that you walked into, and if it
Speaker 1: was well decorated, well lit, the teller was friendly and
Speaker 1: they gave your kid a lollipop, you'd say, well, I
Speaker 1: like my bank. Nowadays your bank is a software app
Speaker 1: on your phone, and you like your bank if the
Speaker 1: app is fast, if it doesn't crash, and if it
Speaker 1: makes you like easier. And the act of achieving those
Speaker 1: things is really the act of companies listening to their
Speaker 1: customers and answering the problems that their customers need solved
Speaker 1: with all that software. And that's fundamentally an act of building.
Speaker 1: And that's why so many Silicon Valley companies, who oftentimes
Speaker 1: higher developers as the first thing they do, that's why
Speaker 1: they end up challenging so many different industries. But every
Speaker 1: company is starting to adopt that methodology if they want
Speaker 1: to compete and win in this era and That's what
Speaker 1: this book is really about. It's the playbook for how
Speaker 1: to do that well and your customer line up, whether
Speaker 1: it's Uber, what's app, whether it's Left, whether it's Nordstrom,
Speaker 1: whether it's Nike. I mean you really kind of look
Speaker 1: into so many different areas of the corporate world based
Speaker 1: on what you're seeing from some of your customers and
Speaker 1: where they're spending money. What does it tell you maybe
Speaker 1: about our environment, our broader market environment. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that it's it's just it's just a truism that in
Speaker 1: the digital economy, of the companies with the best digital
Speaker 1: experiences are going to win the heart spinds of walts
Speaker 1: of customers. It's as simple as that, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I look at you know, it's not just about the startups,
Speaker 1: and it's not just about certain companies. It's really every company.
Speaker 1: In the book, I talked about the story about Domino's
Speaker 1: Pizza actually, which has been a huge, like look at
Speaker 1: their stock place over the last decade. It's an amazing
Speaker 1: story of a company that transformed from a pizza company
Speaker 1: to a technology company. Well, there you have it. Tuilio chairman,
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder Jeff Lawson, his book Ask your Developer,
Speaker 1: how to harness the power of software developers and win
Speaker 1: in the twenty century. And be sure to check out
Speaker 1: the full list of fifty companies to watch that's in
Speaker 1: the magazine, online and on the Bloomberg and Tim. That
Speaker 1: wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and I'm Tim Stanovk. Be sure to tune into
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg Business Week Daily show Monday through Friday, starting
Speaker 1: at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You
Speaker 1: can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Global News and check out to our Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week podcast. Find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and that's where you also
Speaker 1: find our extra podcast. This week, we'll hear more of
Speaker 1: that conversation with jam Smucker Company President and CEO Mark Smucker,
Speaker 1: fifth generation of the family running the company known for
Speaker 1: those iconic brands, and one that's made it through war, segregation,
Speaker 1: the financial crisis, and now the pandemic. And you can
Speaker 1: also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake, available on Bloomberg dot com,
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