Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Jason Kelly and I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: It is week thirty, mostly working from home and a
Speaker 1: common thread to the week, Jason, Of course, the virus
Speaker 1: and whether or not more relief in the way of
Speaker 1: stimulus was coming or not. That guided the trade in
Speaker 1: the financial markets. It also guided the trade when it
Speaker 1: came to one stock. We're talking about Eli Lily absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know that company coming out with an antibody treatment,
Speaker 1: putting it up for FDA emergency approval. We caught up
Speaker 1: with the CEO of Lily, David ricks on what his
Speaker 1: company is working on, where he expected to be, and
Speaker 1: where the broader pharmaceutical industry is in fighting the virus. Plus,
Speaker 1: we need solutions that are larger than the problems that
Speaker 1: we seek. Operation Hope founder and chief executive officer John
Speaker 1: Hopebrien on the plight of America's middle class, particularly for
Speaker 1: people of color, and SAG after a President. Gabrielle card Harris,
Speaker 1: you know her from nine oh to one oh. She
Speaker 1: leads the massive union that's trying to get its folks
Speaker 1: back to work in TV and film. But first let's
Speaker 1: go to the cover story, A White House COVID outbreak
Speaker 1: is America's pandemic failure in microcosm. That's right, Jason, they're
Speaker 1: the remarks. They're written by Rob Langrath, who his healthcare reporter.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year he wrote another cover story about ramdesse Vie,
Speaker 1: and this week, as you said, he's taking a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the White House COVID outbreak. We got more
Speaker 1: from Rob and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. Everything
Speaker 1: basically started a week ago when Jennifer Jacobs, um wonderful
Speaker 1: DC based White House reporter for Bloomberg News, actually broke
Speaker 1: that hope pix had it had tested positive. And then, um,
Speaker 1: you know, basically a bunch of chaos started to ensue,
Speaker 1: and you know, within a couple hours, um, we had
Speaker 1: a positive confirmation that President Trump had tested positive. And
Speaker 1: then we just started to watch more and more people
Speaker 1: to the president come down. Um, and so we turned
Speaker 1: to Bob because you know, there's a political story there
Speaker 1: to be sure, but you know, the one that really
Speaker 1: stood out to us was this the the health side
Speaker 1: of it, right, and the science side of it, and
Speaker 1: the disease side of it, and all of those things
Speaker 1: are things that Bob knows um incredibly well, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it, This disease, as he points out in
Speaker 1: this remarks, make makes no exception of anybody. It does
Speaker 1: not care what your statue is, like what what president?
Speaker 1: What what country you're president of? It is just ruthless
Speaker 1: and relentless Um. And I think we've learned a little
Speaker 1: bit along the way, and Bob like I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: actually just kind of opening up with that question, like
Speaker 1: what did what did you learn over the past week
Speaker 1: about COVID? Well, I mean, it's just emphasizes just very
Speaker 1: clearly how how in sextuous and how easily it spreads
Speaker 1: and how tricky of viruses is because what happens is
Speaker 1: is that people are very contagious, often a couple of
Speaker 1: days before they get any any symptoms. That's one of
Speaker 1: the peak contagious periods. A lot of the spread occurs
Speaker 1: before people have symptoms symptoms at all, and that is
Speaker 1: may that that may may be something that happened in
Speaker 1: the White House, and that's you know, different from some
Speaker 1: other diseases like stars are. Most of the spread occurred
Speaker 1: when people had symptoms. So what the White Hush did,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of emblematic of the whole way
Speaker 1: the administration has approached this pandemic. They kind of relied
Speaker 1: on kind of a single silverable quick fix, or relying
Speaker 1: on a kind of Abbot Laboratory's rapid test, which is
Speaker 1: a perfectly good test, but if you use it correctly,
Speaker 1: but it's really supposed to be used for people with
Speaker 1: symptoms to confirm a diagnosis and get them isolate them
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. It's not supposed to be used
Speaker 1: as the solene of defense to either to keep to
Speaker 1: allow you to do crowded events without masking social distancing.
Speaker 1: And that's what the White House is doing again and
Speaker 1: again and and the problem with that strategy. Get one
Speaker 1: case slips through, one false false negative, and you have
Speaker 1: a super spreader event and not sure what appears to
Speaker 1: have happened. Yeah, and Bob, I mean it really is
Speaker 1: amazing because I feel like all of us, even those
Speaker 1: of us who you know aren't president or don't work
Speaker 1: at the White House, have been putting maybe too much
Speaker 1: emphasis or too much hope on this idea of like,
Speaker 1: well what if I could just get a rapid test
Speaker 1: and then I could go to work, or then I
Speaker 1: could go to a game, or then I could get
Speaker 1: on a plane or whatever it is. It's trickier than that, right, right,
Speaker 1: So the tests are very good and they're useful, uh,
Speaker 1: and there there are part of this part of the strategy,
Speaker 1: but they're not like a you know, a solution for
Speaker 1: everything just in isolation, because there's just a moment of
Speaker 1: time that will happen. Is you get infected with the
Speaker 1: coronavirus and then there's an incubation pure and not much
Speaker 1: is happening, and so you've been infected, there's a pine
Speaker 1: of devirus and starting to grow and grow, and you
Speaker 1: don't test positive, you know, uh, you know for several
Speaker 1: days necessarily, and you know, so you could have a
Speaker 1: rapid test in the morning it says you're negative, but
Speaker 1: you could be infecting people in the afternoon, and then
Speaker 1: you're effected a bunch of people and then like a
Speaker 1: day or so later, the test turns positive, but it's
Speaker 1: too late. Bob. We learned a little bit about how
Speaker 1: a certain course of treatments can go if you're the
Speaker 1: president of the United States. I suppose what what are
Speaker 1: doctors and others scientists, people in farm out, what what
Speaker 1: are people saying about sort of the course of treatments
Speaker 1: that President Trump was put on, because that's not something
Speaker 1: that the rest of us probably have access to, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, he may have been like the only one
Speaker 1: of the only people in the world to get this
Speaker 1: kind of combination of three treatments, including this one totally
Speaker 1: experimental one from Regeneral, and uh, you know, in such
Speaker 1: a rapid rapid time from he got this on a
Speaker 1: quote compassionate use basis. He got this experimental antibody cocktail
Speaker 1: from Regeneral in which they have you know, they're applying
Speaker 1: for authorization, but they have you know, very few doses
Speaker 1: of so most people couldn't get that. And then he
Speaker 1: quickly I was moved airlifted via the White House helicopters
Speaker 1: to Walt to Read Medical Center where he hut from Desaviere,
Speaker 1: which is a standard hospital treatment that's agilia drug drug
Speaker 1: cover story on before and he got that right away,
Speaker 1: and uh and uh, you know after he you know,
Speaker 1: he was having some breathing difficulties on Friday, and then uh,
Speaker 1: like the next day they put them on the steroid
Speaker 1: dexametha zone and after he had another bout of breathing difficulty.
Speaker 1: And that is a drug that's basically mostly usually used
Speaker 1: for severe cases, which you know suggests to a lot
Speaker 1: to doctors and some people that you know, the the
Speaker 1: White House doctors may have been much more worried about
Speaker 1: Trump and they have, you know, let on the fact
Speaker 1: that they put him on this third drug that's really
Speaker 1: for severe cases. And that was Bloomberg News Healthcare reporter
Speaker 1: Robert Langreth and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber coming up, Jason,
Speaker 1: as the case is connected to the White House continued
Speaker 1: to add up. A new addition to treating the virus
Speaker 1: was made public by drug maker Eli Lily. We talked
Speaker 1: with that company CEO David Rix. This is Bloomberg is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, there were a few important developments
Speaker 1: when it came to COVID nineteen this week. One came
Speaker 1: from Eli Lily asking US drug regulators to authorize emergency
Speaker 1: use of its experimental COVID nineteen antibody therapy that after
Speaker 1: some data show the treatment reduced hospitalizations. This was a
Speaker 1: big deal. Absolutely. We caught up with the CEO of ELI,
Speaker 1: Lily David Rex. We've submitted a request for an emergency
Speaker 1: use authorization. That's the um vehicle that you can use
Speaker 1: in the pandemic to get a quick approval without the
Speaker 1: normal full data package, but having proof of safety and advocacy.
Speaker 1: We're doing that on the on the monotherapy, the single antibody,
Speaker 1: and then we also disclosed new data on the combination,
Speaker 1: which also is shown to be quite effective and safe,
Speaker 1: and we're saying we're going to submit that over the
Speaker 1: coming weeks. We want to accumulate a few more patients
Speaker 1: on it to prove the safety. Based on decisions made
Speaker 1: months ago to manufacture of risk, we would expect to
Speaker 1: have something like a million doses available this fall of
Speaker 1: the monotherapy, the single one that we're submitting for today.
Speaker 1: So that's a big number of doses and could help
Speaker 1: a lot of people. We want that to go to
Speaker 1: work here in the US and around the world to
Speaker 1: arrest the worst consequences of the virus. Right, so, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about how that gets out there, because that
Speaker 1: clearly is a key question. You know, we're also focused
Speaker 1: on all the different things that we can throw at this,
Speaker 1: but ultimately you got to get it to people. How
Speaker 1: do you do that? What's the mechanism by which this
Speaker 1: all works? Day? Right? So in the in this emergency situation,
Speaker 1: we're not going to follow normal business course. What we're
Speaker 1: doing is partnering with governments and here in the US
Speaker 1: with the Operation Warp Speed effort Um and the d
Speaker 1: D which is in charge of procurement during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and similar mechanisms in in other markets. And the reason
Speaker 1: we're doing that is we know we don't have enough
Speaker 1: seerial to meet the demand, and what we don't want
Speaker 1: is the product to either sit idle, be hoarded, or
Speaker 1: go to the wrong patients who don't have the greatest benefit.
Speaker 1: So we're partnering with governments to ensure a good allocation.
Speaker 1: And then also we want to partner with governments to
Speaker 1: reduce patient out of pocket costs to zero or something
Speaker 1: very close to zero. Most of the developed world has
Speaker 1: already announced those kinds of programs, and so by working
Speaker 1: with governments, we can ensure that cost is not a barrier. Hey,
Speaker 1: what think I'm wondering Dave is how much of what
Speaker 1: happened to President Trump and his getting multiple treatments, um,
Speaker 1: different types of treatments. How to do with your news
Speaker 1: today and bringing up monotherapy out sooner rather than later
Speaker 1: or waiting for the cocktail. Well, for us, this this
Speaker 1: date was on the calendar long ago. Um. The data
Speaker 1: locked on some of these studies just yesterday, and we've
Speaker 1: been working with the career scientific professionals at the f
Speaker 1: D a kind of hand and glove for the last
Speaker 1: four or five months to get to this point. UM.
Speaker 1: We had the data matured and we thought it was
Speaker 1: appropriate to request a submission at this for for an
Speaker 1: emergency use authorization at this time that was in motion
Speaker 1: well before the news from last week. Of course, UM,
Speaker 1: we're all we've all learned in society more about aniboty
Speaker 1: therapy and their utility, and that's probably a good thing
Speaker 1: to raised the awareness, UM, so that it maybe seems
Speaker 1: beneficial in the moment. But this this was preordained some
Speaker 1: time ago in terms of when we would be pushing
Speaker 1: forward for the use well and and in some ways
Speaker 1: building on on what Carol was talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of what we saw with the President Obviously that's one patient,
Speaker 1: and he's a special patient in many ways. But I
Speaker 1: do think people are trying to understand and maybe you
Speaker 1: can help us understand what what's the effective way or
Speaker 1: what do we know about this virus in terms of
Speaker 1: what we need to throw at it when, and what
Speaker 1: do we need to be taking and thinking about is
Speaker 1: as individuals, especially since this is, as I understand, at least,
Speaker 1: sort of a bridge to a vaccine, right Like, so
Speaker 1: as a it's just a normal guy, like, how should
Speaker 1: I be thinking of a drug like this? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is it's a very important question. We're studying this medicine
Speaker 1: in three settings. One is the one we announced today,
Speaker 1: which is UM patients who are newly diagnosed, the so
Speaker 1: called mild to moderate UM that's their current state. But
Speaker 1: a portion of the patients and it's hard to predict
Speaker 1: which ones, but we we think age and obesity are
Speaker 1: two contributing factors. A portion of those patients never resolve
Speaker 1: the virus themselves or have a struggle to do it,
Speaker 1: and so by giving early, particularly in those high risk
Speaker 1: patients who are over sixty five and what's called the
Speaker 1: body mass index over thirty five, which is the definition
Speaker 1: of clinical obesity that they can benefit by avoiding hospitalization.
Speaker 1: And what the this medicine does is it knocks down
Speaker 1: the virus, kind of gives your body a jump start
Speaker 1: on its own immune response, and so that patients um
Speaker 1: don't get into this challenge where the virus is spreading
Speaker 1: faster than they can conquer it in sort of a
Speaker 1: turbocharger for your own immune system, that's an appropriate place.
Speaker 1: We believe. That's why we've pushed for the emergency use authorization.
Speaker 1: But we're also studying it earlier in disease and what's
Speaker 1: called primary prophylactus, where we're actually doing a study in
Speaker 1: nursing homes, where we know the tragedy of nursing homes
Speaker 1: in this country, of of all deaths due to COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen happen in nursing homes, and in these these settings
Speaker 1: where people are close together, all very high risk, the
Speaker 1: disease spreads quickly and with horrible consequences. So what we're
Speaker 1: doing is a study where if there's one infection in
Speaker 1: a home, we swoop in. We actually retrofitted r vs
Speaker 1: to be mobile research units. We swoop in, we we
Speaker 1: treat everyone with the antibodies, and then we watch like
Speaker 1: a vaccine study to see if we can knock down
Speaker 1: the reinfection rate and spread of infection in a home.
Speaker 1: And then finally there's a big study going along with
Speaker 1: NIH in hospitalized patients. But the general theory here would
Speaker 1: be earlier better for this kind of medication, you know,
Speaker 1: Dave one of the things, and we were kind of
Speaker 1: kicking this around in our newsroom UM and certainly with
Speaker 1: our healthcare team that's been covering UM the virus day
Speaker 1: in and day out NonStop. You know, I think one
Speaker 1: of the questions came up, like why focus on making
Speaker 1: the LOWD dose if it's the middle dose or the
Speaker 1: cap cocktail that has better results in the trial? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that was the headline from the first UM
Speaker 1: study we announced two weeks ago that the middle dose
Speaker 1: hit the primary endpoint. We showed all the data today
Speaker 1: because we wanted to make a point that probably that
Speaker 1: was just by chance that the primary endpoint we chose,
Speaker 1: which was the day eleven average VIRA load reduction, was
Speaker 1: not a informed choice when we when we made it,
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't choose that endpoint. Again, it turns out
Speaker 1: most people, including on placebo resolved the virus by day eleven,
Speaker 1: and here day eleven actually is something more like day
Speaker 1: fifteen because patients appeared in the study on average four
Speaker 1: days after symptom onset. So um, that's pretty long, and
Speaker 1: we know that from CDC guidance, which says if you
Speaker 1: feel sick, quarantine for fourteen days. Most people resolve it.
Speaker 1: But it's a disease of outliers and a few people
Speaker 1: don't clear the virus themselves and have persistent symptoms and
Speaker 1: show up to the hospital. So a better metric for
Speaker 1: viral load, we think, would be this idea of those
Speaker 1: who have persistent high viral load or even using it
Speaker 1: day three or day seven would be much more meaningful.
Speaker 1: That was Dave ricks Eli, Lily chairman and CEO, So
Speaker 1: good to catch up with him and Jason really getting
Speaker 1: into the weeds for us there when it comes to
Speaker 1: understanding the efficacy of COVID nineteen treatments. Definitely another step
Speaker 1: forward as we wait for a vaccine. Yeah, a step
Speaker 1: in a long road, that's for sure. We also know
Speaker 1: it's been tough across the business world. The founder and
Speaker 1: CEA of Noonday Collection, she caught up with us and
Speaker 1: talked about how even after some of the darkest days
Speaker 1: in that company's history, they're actually doing better than ever.
Speaker 1: That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So we're bringing you some of the highlights of our
Speaker 1: daily broadcast and podcasts. That included definitely a friend of
Speaker 1: our show, Jason's who we talked with back in March.
Speaker 1: Caught up with her again this week, Jessica Hanager, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO at Noonday Collection. They work with entrepreneurs artisans
Speaker 1: all around the globe. It's all about providing female lead
Speaker 1: in women oriented businesses some help and she pivoted and
Speaker 1: made it work better than ever before. But it didn't
Speaker 1: feel that way seven months ago. When we spoke in March.
Speaker 1: I thought it was the beginning of the end of
Speaker 1: Noonday after building a decade long company. But we crashed
Speaker 1: in March, and then we quickly rallied back and we're
Speaker 1: back on track with our sales projections meeting what our
Speaker 1: original projections were pre COVID. Wow. So tell us about
Speaker 1: that moment, I mean, tell us what happened? Tell us
Speaker 1: about the moment when it looked Sorry to take you
Speaker 1: back there, but like when it looked the darkest, what
Speaker 1: was going on? Well, when it looked the darkest. We
Speaker 1: are built around women physically gathering and inviting women into
Speaker 1: their homes. So we had thousands of those in person
Speaker 1: gathering scheduled in March, and those all quickly canceled. So
Speaker 1: obviously our March revenue plummeted. But we quickly pivoted to
Speaker 1: online businesses. So we empowered all of our entrepreneurs, our
Speaker 1: New Day Collection ambassadors, who are creating a marketplace for
Speaker 1: our artists and businesses that we work with around the
Speaker 1: globe to run online businesses. We pivoted to do gathers
Speaker 1: for good trunk shows where it would be a give
Speaker 1: back to anyone who was impacted by COVID nineteen in
Speaker 1: their communities. And so these women rallied And I've always
Speaker 1: believed that women on a mission are unstoppable, but at
Speaker 1: was proved correct because we rallied and we three months
Speaker 1: later in July had our biggest July in ten years.
Speaker 1: So it's been very humbling, but I have to say
Speaker 1: it is because our business model is not dependent upon
Speaker 1: brick and mortar stores. We are dependent upon woman who
Speaker 1: are at home and who need to earn income from
Speaker 1: their homes, and that ended up being a really good
Speaker 1: thing in a global pandemic. But one thing I wondered too,
Speaker 1: and Jason and I've talked to a lot of CEO
Speaker 1: s leaders of small, medium, large companies, and a lot
Speaker 1: of what happened because of the pandemic is things that
Speaker 1: they were planning to do, but all of a sudden
Speaker 1: the had to do it much more quickly because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And a lot of it was a pivot
Speaker 1: to digital. You know, you guys were online, right and
Speaker 1: you had a business online, but I'm guessing that everything,
Speaker 1: as you said, kind of ramped up. We were online,
Speaker 1: but really about ten or fifteen percent of our sales
Speaker 1: were e commerce based. And our social entrepreneurs are New
Speaker 1: Day collection ambassadors. Their primary way they were running their
Speaker 1: business and their local context was to go into other
Speaker 1: women's tones where women would gather their community and sell
Speaker 1: the product. So now that homes were no longer open,
Speaker 1: we opened up Zoom shows, and we opened up Facebook
Speaker 1: and other digital platforms, and people wanted to rally. I
Speaker 1: think people more than ever wanted to do something good.
Speaker 1: They wanted to use their purchasing dollars for good. And
Speaker 1: this being a global pandemic, our customer base is really
Speaker 1: cares about the globe and I think that really showed
Speaker 1: during the last few months. And so, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about in a minute, talk more in a
Speaker 1: minute about sort of what you've seen across your global
Speaker 1: network to um Jessica, because obviously you have a window
Speaker 1: far beyond even what we do here in this country.
Speaker 1: But I do want to ask you like that, did
Speaker 1: the did you have to change the economics for your
Speaker 1: ambassadors at all owing to this, or were you able
Speaker 1: to just sort of carry over effectively the same business
Speaker 1: model but just sort of keep it online. It was
Speaker 1: the same business model, the same commission structure. We did
Speaker 1: some things to instent them to ask other women to
Speaker 1: launch their own businesses because we realized that people were
Speaker 1: needing additional income in a very flexible environment, and that
Speaker 1: is what New Day Collection offers. But the only economics
Speaker 1: that really changed about our business is we canceled a
Speaker 1: ton of our international travels happen and so and then
Speaker 1: in person conferences and all of those things. So our
Speaker 1: actual profitability increase this year because of all our expenses
Speaker 1: that are normal are now not there anymore. I believe
Speaker 1: that we are actually going to have our strongest year
Speaker 1: ever in one because as we begin to gather again,
Speaker 1: women now know how to run a digital business and
Speaker 1: how to reach outside of just their local context. So
Speaker 1: now they have become highly attuned at how to do
Speaker 1: email campaigns and how to harness all of the different
Speaker 1: digital platforms to gather people and run their business that way.
Speaker 1: But I do believe there is a day when people
Speaker 1: are going to gather in person again, and that's Noonday
Speaker 1: Collection founder and CEO Jessica Haniger back with us. She's
Speaker 1: doing incredibly important work, and what a seven months it's
Speaker 1: been for her, Carol. I love her optimism, and she's right.
Speaker 1: We're social creatures. We're all going to be gathering again
Speaker 1: real soon. All right, still to come. Even if you
Speaker 1: want to distribute money, money like a socialist, you've got
Speaker 1: a first collect money like a capitalist. Operation Hopes founder
Speaker 1: and CEO John Hope Bryant with a reality check on racism.
Speaker 1: He's got a new book. It's called Up from Nothing.
Speaker 1: This is Woomberg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So Jason, common
Speaker 1: themes through many of our interviews throughout the week on
Speaker 1: our daily radio show continue to be about the two
Speaker 1: pandemics facing our country. We've talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: the virus, of course, and then racial injustice. And one
Speaker 1: voice that's been a guiding light for us, especially on
Speaker 1: that is John Hope Bryant. He's founder, chairman and CEO
Speaker 1: of the Atlanta based global nonprofit Operation Hope. He created
Speaker 1: that in the aftermath of l A Rights. I mean,
Speaker 1: every time we talked to him, we just love it.
Speaker 1: He's also got a new book at he does. It's
Speaker 1: called Up from Nothing, and he reminds us that all
Speaker 1: of this is intertwined, that so much of what we're
Speaker 1: facing is ultimately economic, but also intensely personal, also intensely
Speaker 1: historical in many ways. And I know every time you
Speaker 1: and I talked to him, were madly scribbling down the
Speaker 1: things that he's saying, because he spends a lot of
Speaker 1: his time thinking how do I communicate this. I know
Speaker 1: we conftantly are messaging back and forth. I mean, you're right,
Speaker 1: I'm furiously taking notes. He reminds us that and this
Speaker 1: is one of the things he said that stayed with me.
Speaker 1: Racism is a levy on everyone's prosperity. I mean, you
Speaker 1: just really have to sit with that and think about it.
Speaker 1: And remember, we caught up with him back in early June.
Speaker 1: It was just as the world was really and we
Speaker 1: were stuck, of course, in the middle of the virus.
Speaker 1: We were also, of course shocked by the brutal police
Speaker 1: killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. So here we were
Speaker 1: four months later and we had to check in with
Speaker 1: him again. America's found our heart button. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you can say you like what the protesters are doing,
Speaker 1: or you don't like what the protesters are doing, but
Speaker 1: what you absolutely have to say is my god, they
Speaker 1: have heart. Um. And you can say you don't like
Speaker 1: what's happening with uh some of this candidates supporters or
Speaker 1: that candidates supporters, But my god, do we have an
Speaker 1: active democracy? And if this had happened in China, you disappear.
Speaker 1: If this had happened in Russia, you disappeared. So in
Speaker 1: the so that's that's the It's sort of the larger
Speaker 1: scheme of things. And then specifically, I like that when
Speaker 1: this whole thing hit, I got a call from this
Speaker 1: administration's Treasury Department, who I actually I actually admire. The
Speaker 1: Treasury department has in problems with the other parts of
Speaker 1: the government, respectfully stated but the Secretary of the Treasury,
Speaker 1: and they called it the job. We need help, we
Speaker 1: want to help small businesses, and so I helped them
Speaker 1: design parts of the p p P program in a week.
Speaker 1: Um And now, of course not we now know the
Speaker 1: n of all black businesses don't have an employee that
Speaker 1: they don't the bank or was a bank teller and
Speaker 1: didn't have the bank relationship to get in line and
Speaker 1: get the money. And that's that's another point we now
Speaker 1: have to solve. But I like that that it was
Speaker 1: one government. It may have been for two weeks, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't Republican Democrat. It was for the two weeks,
Speaker 1: it was one America. And I like the fact that
Speaker 1: you have all these CEOs stepping up because the government
Speaker 1: leadership is unclear and markets hate clouds, you know, a bloomberg,
Speaker 1: and you have the CEO stepping up saying knock it off, America,
Speaker 1: let's stand up, and then making commitments. I mean real money.
Speaker 1: Some of it's pr but most of his real commitments
Speaker 1: and real money. CEO of Walmart, real dude, CEO of PayPal,
Speaker 1: real dude. You know, ladies and men, Uh, stepping up
Speaker 1: and doing real stuff because ninety percent of all jobs
Speaker 1: come from the private sector and a legitimate wealth comes
Speaker 1: from the free enterprise system. So you so when they
Speaker 1: stepped up, it reminds me of the Civil rights movement. Uh,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of what happened, and we had a
Speaker 1: last and I call the second reconstruction. This is my opinion,
Speaker 1: the third reconstruction, which is why this book I've got
Speaker 1: out now from nothing is so important for this moment
Speaker 1: getting our minds right. We need solutions that are larger
Speaker 1: than the problems that we seek. We need solutions. And John,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad you brought up the book because
Speaker 1: the timing is perfect in many ways, because I think
Speaker 1: we needed to be reminded in this pandemic. It's a
Speaker 1: moment of reflection for sure. And obviously the dueling pandemics
Speaker 1: that that we've all talked about in this national and
Speaker 1: long overdue reckoning about our history and and some systemic inequalities.
Speaker 1: But one of the things you remind us about in
Speaker 1: the book is that you can reflect, but then you
Speaker 1: gotta go do it. You gotta get after it. And
Speaker 1: I do wonder sort of what you learned about or
Speaker 1: sort of relearned as you were putting this book together
Speaker 1: along those lines of kind of getting after it. I
Speaker 1: learned that my gut instinct was correct on this that
Speaker 1: even if you want to distribute money money like a socialist,
Speaker 1: you've got a first collect money like a capitalist. Um.
Speaker 1: I learned that this country was made from poor people,
Speaker 1: struggling immigrants from all places and races, and people today
Speaker 1: forget these these yes, white mostly white immigrants. We're not
Speaker 1: allowed into the office buildings and they were not given
Speaker 1: business cards and salaries and the lad major protests we had,
Speaker 1: uh like this was a hundred years ago plus, which
Speaker 1: was the precursor to the New Deal, and these were
Speaker 1: all white people back then, folks care protests and the
Speaker 1: protests today it looked like h kindergarten compared to what
Speaker 1: was going on in the early nineteen hundreds by all
Speaker 1: white or new immigrants. And then they were allowed to
Speaker 1: come in to the economy and they got the new Deal,
Speaker 1: and then later on it was a new Martiall plan,
Speaker 1: that these were government initiatives used to invest, not giveaway,
Speaker 1: invest in the population, which then created economic return for
Speaker 1: the country and a sense of fair play. So I
Speaker 1: was reminded that we really that we are our worst
Speaker 1: enemy and our best asset. Everybody wants to be an American,
Speaker 1: but Americans. But what's wrong now is our mindset? What
Speaker 1: what what's wrong now that we were now pitted against
Speaker 1: each other. This is ridiculous. This only benefits China and Russia,
Speaker 1: and China and Russia who want to be us. It's
Speaker 1: crazy that we've got citizen against citizen against citizen, republican
Speaker 1: is against democrats, a black against white, rich against poor,
Speaker 1: capitalists against working class. What kind of crazy mess is this?
Speaker 1: The Bible says a house divided cannot stay, and that's
Speaker 1: biblical and it's also common sense. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I kept repeating after our conversation with you back
Speaker 1: in June was this whole idea of having a seat
Speaker 1: at the table, and after George Floyd and the protest,
Speaker 1: because I think you were having conversations with people about
Speaker 1: let's do this calmly and and people were coming to
Speaker 1: you saying, we'll wait a minute. John. It's easy for
Speaker 1: you to say you have a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: We don't. And so this is how we get noticed.
Speaker 1: Are we going to get to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: has a seat at the table. Are you seeing any
Speaker 1: signs of progress along those lines? Yes? I think that people,
Speaker 1: the leaders I'm talking to now get that this time
Speaker 1: is different. You know, this happens every hundred years or so,
Speaker 1: you know, eighteen sorry, seventeen sixty to seventeen eighty, eighteen fifty,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy, uh, sixteen, nineteen fifty, nineteen seventy. Um, we've
Speaker 1: killed the last two Um, great leaders by the way,
Speaker 1: who tried to push this innovation, Lincoln and Dr King.
Speaker 1: This is to me a third reconstruction. Um, that's gonna
Speaker 1: get last for about ten years. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's also happened thirty years early. This shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: This should have happened, you know, thirty forty years from now.
Speaker 1: But people, people are tired, they're tired of kicking the
Speaker 1: can down the road. And I think God has a
Speaker 1: sense of Humoris gave us a global health pandemic worse
Speaker 1: than a hundred years and economic crisis and afforded euro
Speaker 1: social justice reckoning and told us all basically to knock
Speaker 1: it off. On top of that an environmental crisis. I
Speaker 1: think we've got a chance for a reset here. We
Speaker 1: gotta get our minds back in the game. We've got
Speaker 1: too many people on with a surviving mindset. That mean
Speaker 1: that tends to make you focus on me and not
Speaker 1: we are politicians all the way down to our protesters.
Speaker 1: I told some'm gonna protesters who who? I said, Look,
Speaker 1: I understand your pain, I'm with you, but you but
Speaker 1: blaming your neighbor doesn't make you any wealthier and anger
Speaker 1: is not a strategy. We've got to get you from
Speaker 1: the sweet, from the streets into the sweets. The politicians
Speaker 1: can't keep cutting us up and dicing us, and it's
Speaker 1: spreading us because a house divider cannot stand. So we
Speaker 1: need to move back to the theme and made us
Speaker 1: who we are that made Bloomberg what it is, which
Speaker 1: is a winning mentality and a winner believed they were
Speaker 1: a winner before they wanted these things. This is fundamental
Speaker 1: and that comes from the way you were raised to
Speaker 1: raise your cultured, the way you were nurtured. We need
Speaker 1: hunters more than we need skinners and cooks. We need
Speaker 1: winners who build things more than we need, and we
Speaker 1: can have have the survivors outnumber the winners and drivers.
Speaker 1: The middle class is fantastic, but they we need things
Speaker 1: for them to do, which is what the winners build
Speaker 1: so that they can sustain. So that's John Hopebryant, founder
Speaker 1: chairman CEO of the nonprofit Operation Hope, author of the
Speaker 1: new book Up From Nothing, The Untold Story of How
Speaker 1: We and in parentheses all succeed. That full conversation check
Speaker 1: it out. It's on our podcast feed well. And I
Speaker 1: love it too because he ended up our conversation talking
Speaker 1: about my hometown, Atlanta. I obviously have a lot of
Speaker 1: affinity for it, as does he, and he understands the
Speaker 1: way that folks in that city feel because of the
Speaker 1: lineage of civil rights all the way back to Dr
Speaker 1: King and everything that's happened in the interim. You think
Speaker 1: about the late John Lewis and Good Trouble and all
Speaker 1: the things that he talked about, but you also understand
Speaker 1: and John Hope. Brian really brings this home, this notion that,
Speaker 1: as I said before, this is an economic story and
Speaker 1: that it's not black, it's not white, it's green in
Speaker 1: many ways. We've heard John Hope Brian say that. He
Speaker 1: said it again to us, uh this time around, and
Speaker 1: it's an important thing to remember well. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know, the leaders that he's talking to, they are
Speaker 1: truly saying it's different this time around. He calls it
Speaker 1: the third Reconstruction. He says it's going to probably last
Speaker 1: for ten years. And he you know, kind of took
Speaker 1: us back in history, right, Jason that he said about
Speaker 1: every hundred years, we kind of have this kind of moment.
Speaker 1: He said, this one came thirty years earlier. Um, but
Speaker 1: he just said, listen, we've got to get people, everybody.
Speaker 1: We've got to get him up from the streets to
Speaker 1: the suites, meaning the executive suites, the C suites. We've
Speaker 1: got to make sure that everybody has a seat at
Speaker 1: the table. So I really feel like every time we
Speaker 1: talk with him, I do have some hope that maybe
Speaker 1: we are actually going to make it make a difference. Right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna last forever. And that wraps up the first
Speaker 1: hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. More ahead in
Speaker 1: our next hour, including we check in with our colleague
Speaker 1: David Rubinstein, hosted peer to peer conversations on Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg TV. We're going to talk about leadership past
Speaker 1: and present, and also see what's on his reading list exactly,
Speaker 1: not a streamer, more of a reader, and listen. If
Speaker 1: he's reading it, you want to check it out. Plus,
Speaker 1: Rebel Girls CEO Jess Wolf at another one of our
Speaker 1: favorite conversations. She's also got a new book, A Hundred
Speaker 1: Immigrant Women who Changed the World Rebel Girls. We both
Speaker 1: got him. Yeah, we definitely do. Also, let's not forget
Speaker 1: Boom Technologies. They've got a supersonic jet. They're trying to
Speaker 1: usher in a new wave of super fast air travel.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business With with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Plenty ahead of for you
Speaker 1: in this hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: including checking in with an actress who's now in charge
Speaker 1: of all the actors. Carol, we're talking about Gabrielle car
Speaker 1: terrorists get radio you nine O two one oh fans. Also,
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as real presidential power. It's
Speaker 1: the ability to persuade people. Our conversation with Carlos Group
Speaker 1: co founder and co executive chairman David Rubinstein, also our colleague.
Speaker 1: He's the host of Peer to Peer Conversations on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio and TV, talking about his new book and leadership
Speaker 1: in the Time of Crisis. But we begin this hour
Speaker 1: with big news in the world of aviation and super
Speaker 1: fast air travel. It's a big week for the startup
Speaker 1: boom Technology. They unveiled a supersonic jet this week. Writing
Speaker 1: about it as only he can do, Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: feature writer and New York Times bestselling author Ashley Vance.
Speaker 1: He's host of Hello World. He's also author of Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: Testless Bass, and The Quest for a Fantastic Future. Check
Speaker 1: it out. There's this company in Colorado called boom Um.
Speaker 1: They've been at it for a few years, but now
Speaker 1: they're about to unveil their first supersonic plane. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's some caveats with this one. This this first one
Speaker 1: that's going to be unveiled, is essentially a test plane
Speaker 1: the pilots are going to take out and put through
Speaker 1: the paces with the hopes of getting to a commercial
Speaker 1: supersonic plane in the next few years. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is the first company to do something like this
Speaker 1: in a long long time. Alright, So we know the
Speaker 1: Concorde was so last year or so last several years ago.
Speaker 1: So how is this different? Like what I thought we
Speaker 1: were kind of over supersonic you know, jet flights, um,
Speaker 1: but obviously we're not. So what is it? How is
Speaker 1: it different? Why does it have the opera tune and
Speaker 1: maybe change you know, air travel, especially if you think
Speaker 1: about for business people once we get through the pandemic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well there, you know. So the Concorde stopped flying in
Speaker 1: two thousand three UM for a number of reasons, but
Speaker 1: the biggest one of which was that it just didn't
Speaker 1: make enough money. Uh, there wasn't enough interest from passengers
Speaker 1: and so so anyway, boom. They have this thesis that
Speaker 1: that as time has passed, you know, they can get
Speaker 1: over a lot of the shortcomings that that face the
Speaker 1: Concorde and so so the first one is they're making
Speaker 1: this plane at a carbon fiber instead of aluminum, which
Speaker 1: wasn't really possible back when the Concorde was first being designed,
Speaker 1: and so it's gonna be lighter, faster, more fuel efficient. Also,
Speaker 1: the engine technology has come a really long way since
Speaker 1: the Concorde was designed, and so again the new engines
Speaker 1: are much more fuel efficient. And so all this adds
Speaker 1: up to you can fly the plane more cheaply than
Speaker 1: he used to be able to do, and you can
Speaker 1: go on many, many more routes and go much longer distances,
Speaker 1: which opens up the market for this type of plane.
Speaker 1: And so Ashley framed this in the context of everything
Speaker 1: else we see going on more in terms of space, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like we talked about that all the time.
Speaker 1: We talked with you and and many of our colleagues
Speaker 1: about that, and obviously SpaceX was was part of your
Speaker 1: work that you've done, or has been part of the
Speaker 1: work that you've done around Elon Musk and and his
Speaker 1: vision for that. This is a little bit more I'm
Speaker 1: going to say it down to Earth. And yet it
Speaker 1: does feel like a lot of the technological advances this
Speaker 1: guy is drawing on are coming from this sort of
Speaker 1: move to space, right, Yeah, I mean, all this stuff
Speaker 1: plays off each other. You know, we're in this this
Speaker 1: time when materials have advanced a lot, things like electric
Speaker 1: motors and batteries and stuff has come a long way.
Speaker 1: Software more than anything, has come a really long way.
Speaker 1: So it's opening up these new possibilities. You're totally right.
Speaker 1: There's there's been way more attention and investment in like
Speaker 1: new rockets and satellites and all that stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're the average person, um, this probably hits a
Speaker 1: lot closer to home. I think we can all appreciate
Speaker 1: the idea of like a shorter, faster, more comfortable flight
Speaker 1: more than go to Mars probably, and so so you
Speaker 1: know this one feels right, yeah, yeah, if you think
Speaker 1: about all the leaders who are just probably like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: sign me up. So all right, Ashley, in your story,
Speaker 1: you say the only thing holding Boom back getting this
Speaker 1: supersonic jet out there is well reality. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be expensive. You've got to get regulators on board.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are big hurdles, right, Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: one of the funny things when I was reporting the
Speaker 1: story that I guess I hadn't thought about as much.
Speaker 1: You were just talking about the rockets lately, rocket companies
Speaker 1: have been taken about six to eight years to get
Speaker 1: a new rocket from a blueprint up to launching into orbit.
Speaker 1: Um this plane. So you know, in the best case
Speaker 1: scenario they would actually be able to fly the new
Speaker 1: commercial airliner called overture in and so you know, because
Speaker 1: you're taking people instead of satellites and and so much
Speaker 1: is at risk. This is a really involved process. Um
Speaker 1: that said, you know, I've been following his company since
Speaker 1: it started a few years ago, and they've made way
Speaker 1: more progress than anyone else who's tried to do it
Speaker 1: so far. And they have some pretty wealthy backers behind them.
Speaker 1: Who is this guy, Blake Show. I mean he's a
Speaker 1: young guy, right, Yeah, he's thirty nine. I think he
Speaker 1: turns forty in a few weeks. He's he's like not
Speaker 1: who you would expect to be a plane CEO. He
Speaker 1: came from. He was essentially like in the online advertising world.
Speaker 1: He used to work at Amazon and then he did
Speaker 1: a startup that he sold the group on and so
Speaker 1: he's kind of like a software guy. Um again on
Speaker 1: the ad side of things. Who he has flown his
Speaker 1: own plane since he was a kid and just wanted
Speaker 1: to decided he was going to build like a superslotic plane. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of where this comes from. It's
Speaker 1: just that love of aviation. And that was Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week's Ashley Van's author and journalist who's always looking around
Speaker 1: the corner, host of Hello World, and as you said,
Speaker 1: he really tells stories like no one else can. Carol,
Speaker 1: I love catching up with him. Yeah, check out that
Speaker 1: entire story, as well as pictures and video of Boom's
Speaker 1: jet that's online at Bloomberg dot com. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week, from bringing back super fast air travel
Speaker 1: to getting members of the Screen Actors Guild back to work.
Speaker 1: We check in with the president of SAG after a.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Andrea from nine o two and oh yep,
Speaker 1: she's in charge of all the actors. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, Carol, everyone's keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on Hollywood for sure. We've all been nesting at home
Speaker 1: and watching lots of shows, but ultimately they got to
Speaker 1: make more of them. So a great person to check
Speaker 1: in with, Gabrielle Cartera. She's the president of sag After
Speaker 1: and also she played Andrea on nine Oto and No
Speaker 1: so lots to talk with her about she did. Indeed, Jason,
Speaker 1: I know you were a fan, and I gotta say though,
Speaker 1: like all of us, her world because of the virus
Speaker 1: was turned upside down. The world has been really crazy,
Speaker 1: you know. It's uh, my world is all of our world,
Speaker 1: and we are definitely feeling the pandemic COVID nineteen and
Speaker 1: its effects on our industry. So it's been a it's
Speaker 1: been a challenging time, a real challenging time, but a
Speaker 1: I do believe we'll get through it. So that's that's
Speaker 1: my hope. And so, you know, Gabrielle in in your world,
Speaker 1: in your business, I mean, our understanding is that everything
Speaker 1: just ground to a halt, you know, during most of
Speaker 1: this pandemic. Like where are we now in terms of
Speaker 1: any sort of restart? You know, we've talked to some
Speaker 1: of your sort of colleagues in the acting and directing
Speaker 1: profession here in New York City as they've been sort
Speaker 1: of getting back to work. What is it like more
Speaker 1: broadly and maybe even more specifically there at the heart
Speaker 1: of it all in Los Angeles, Well, I would say
Speaker 1: the heart of it is not just l A actually
Speaker 1: the heart of his probably now being such a I
Speaker 1: always call it the movable feast. Our industries everywhere now,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, uh, the first we were the
Speaker 1: first really industry to shut down when the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: you know, March fifteenth, everything shut down, and our business
Speaker 1: was the first one to shut down. And our business
Speaker 1: was the one where, you know, from Washington dawn. People
Speaker 1: were saying, you know, now that you're at home and
Speaker 1: you're you know, being sequestered at home, please you know,
Speaker 1: watch all those Netflix shows that you haven't seen, watched,
Speaker 1: you know, stream the news shows. Everybody was depending on
Speaker 1: our Our workers are members, you know, the broadcasters, journalists
Speaker 1: are the ones who are giving news day in and
Speaker 1: day out to inform not just you know, America, but
Speaker 1: on a global level. So it's you know, they said
Speaker 1: to everybody, you know, watch and see what's going on.
Speaker 1: But most of our work, other than a few of
Speaker 1: our members, actually ground to a halt and um and
Speaker 1: that was devastating. It was really just like for everybody else,
Speaker 1: it was just like the ground was removed from underneath us.
Speaker 1: That being said, the minute it happened, we started working
Speaker 1: really closely with you know, the other unions, d G A, IoT,
Speaker 1: the teamsters as well as you know the AMPTP, which
Speaker 1: are employers, and we started putting together, um, working with
Speaker 1: scientists and epidemiologists and doctors. You know, what is it
Speaker 1: that we can do to put together some kind of
Speaker 1: protocol or guidelines so we can get people back to
Speaker 1: work in the safest way possible. We've literally had been
Speaker 1: working every day including weekends for the last like five
Speaker 1: six months, and came together finally with protocols that we
Speaker 1: officially released um. UM. I think it was like the
Speaker 1: September twenty one and um, and now people are starting
Speaker 1: to go back to work. UM. So I'm hoping that,
Speaker 1: you know, as we're ebbing and flowing back in because
Speaker 1: you know that we're seeing you know, numbers spike in
Speaker 1: certain places, but the protections that we've put in place
Speaker 1: to make it a safer way back to work, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping it keeps the industry open and we're able to
Speaker 1: move forward. But it's been, UM, it's really just been
Speaker 1: an interesting and painful experience to see so many people struggling.
Speaker 1: I mean people in foodlines, you know, actors, people think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all high pros, but a lot of
Speaker 1: our our members are really the day in and day
Speaker 1: out journeyman of this industry and they depend on those jobs.
Speaker 1: And it's been really, it's been really a hard road.
Speaker 1: And so Gabrielle, I know that there were many probably
Speaker 1: sticking points and and and tricky things along the way,
Speaker 1: But what really sticks out to you? I mean, what
Speaker 1: was the thing that once you solved it, you felt like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to get this done. We've got
Speaker 1: a broad agreement on on sort of everybody being safe
Speaker 1: and healthy. Well, first of all, everybody agreed when we
Speaker 1: started we wanted to base everything on facts, right, it
Speaker 1: had to be on the science, not just on how
Speaker 1: you felt. So we're working with the epidemiologist, the doctor
Speaker 1: is what we really recognize. The three vital things that
Speaker 1: we had to make sure it happened. We got testing
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. We have tracing because we want
Speaker 1: to know if something you know, where to occur, where
Speaker 1: it's coming from. And then of course we have social distancing.
Speaker 1: We created zones where actors who unlike you know, or
Speaker 1: dancers or thing or any of our members, they don't
Speaker 1: get to wear ppe when they work unless they're doing
Speaker 1: a hospital scene, right, they can't be like some of
Speaker 1: the crew could wear masks all the time. So we
Speaker 1: we actually went and created zones and so we're actors
Speaker 1: are in the zone a area where nobody can come
Speaker 1: in and out of that area unless they are also
Speaker 1: a part of that zone. And that's you know that
Speaker 1: testing takes place three times a week, so we really
Speaker 1: have found and what's helped us with that. It's been
Speaker 1: really interesting. I just got off a call. There actually
Speaker 1: have been a couple of shows where there was one
Speaker 1: in particular that um I had been talking to somebody
Speaker 1: where they literally had been tested. It was one of
Speaker 1: the leads just before they came on set. If they
Speaker 1: found out that that person had COVID nine, team stop
Speaker 1: that person from going on set and therefore protected the
Speaker 1: rest of the crew and the other UH performers so
Speaker 1: that they can continue performing and working so they didn't
Speaker 1: have to shut the set down. So that was for us.
Speaker 1: We had to we had to find an agreement, and
Speaker 1: again it was really important that we didn't just do
Speaker 1: it as bag after it, but that we did it
Speaker 1: with everybody, because if people don't all buy into it.
Speaker 1: Then you can't. You know, I can say a million times,
Speaker 1: look you have to test, and they're gonna say no,
Speaker 1: I don't you know. But if we we all come
Speaker 1: to this agreement together, it actually makes it a standard
Speaker 1: that we all follow. And it's been really thus far.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm hopeful that we have been able to
Speaker 1: stop some of the spreading that could have occurred, and
Speaker 1: that's closed down. There is a return to work agreement,
Speaker 1: UH that the union has negotiated, and Gabrielle and you
Speaker 1: know this better than we do. You negotiate something and
Speaker 1: not everyone is always happy with it. And so as
Speaker 1: we've talked to folks, one of the things that has
Speaker 1: come up is that, um, the premiums are going to
Speaker 1: have to go up in the health plan and that
Speaker 1: working spouses are no longer covered. What sort of feedback
Speaker 1: have you gotten and what are you saying back to
Speaker 1: your members as they do weigh in on this deal. Well,
Speaker 1: working spouses are actually still covered, it depends on it,
Speaker 1: unless they are covered by their UH at their work.
Speaker 1: You know, for instance, my husband has a job. If
Speaker 1: he's covered there then UH he would take that as
Speaker 1: his primary But um, yeah, you know what unlike, not
Speaker 1: unlike what's going on in our country. We're seeing it everywhere.
Speaker 1: The pandemic has actually, uh, you know, has really been
Speaker 1: devastating in terms of healthcare. So that's Gabrielle carteris president
Speaker 1: of SAG. After she's leaving the way back, Jason. For
Speaker 1: actors and members of the screen actors guilt, it's not easy.
Speaker 1: And as we just heard, she talked about something we too,
Speaker 1: have spent a lot of time on amid the health
Speaker 1: cry says, and that is the lack of healthcare or
Speaker 1: equal health care for many Americans. It continues to be
Speaker 1: one of the nation's chronic problems. Absolutely, you're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Weekend speaking of problems, problems when it comes
Speaker 1: to leadership, we're all facing them. What a difficult time.
Speaker 1: David Rubinstein, he is, of course, co founder, co executive
Speaker 1: chairman of the Carlog Group, also our colleague here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: He weighs in on leadership. This is Bloomberg. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business with with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg. So, Carol,
Speaker 1: it's fun when people that you've covered for a long
Speaker 1: time sort of come into the family, as it were.
Speaker 1: And that's the case with David ruben Stein, well known
Speaker 1: in the private equity world, but now really our colleague
Speaker 1: of a sort at Bloomberg. He's the host of peer
Speaker 1: to peer conversations and we were lucky to catch up
Speaker 1: with him. He's got a new book out and he's
Speaker 1: got some takes on leadership. Every Body has their own
Speaker 1: style of leadership. Napoleon seemed to do reasonably well without
Speaker 1: I imagine being that humble. Um, and I guess Alexander
Speaker 1: the Great and Ganghis Khan and uh, you know, um,
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other people. We could say Julia Caesar
Speaker 1: probably weren't that humble. Douglas MacArthur probably wasn't that humble.
Speaker 1: Some people just have a different style. In my book,
Speaker 1: I tended to talk to people who had more humility
Speaker 1: and as equality that I admire. And you also had
Speaker 1: a book out last year that was about that, where
Speaker 1: you talked with master historians about many American presidents as
Speaker 1: you have seen more modern American presidence, maybe including the
Speaker 1: current occupant. What did you take away for the from
Speaker 1: specifically around presidential leadership, David Well, presidential leadership is an
Speaker 1: interesting phenomena very good presidential Storian Richard Noostat, who advised
Speaker 1: President Kennedy, said there is no such thing as real
Speaker 1: presidential power. It's the ability to persuade aid people. That's
Speaker 1: what a president has. The very limited powers, really, and
Speaker 1: that's what you really need to village persuade people. And
Speaker 1: if you can persuade people of your your right, then
Speaker 1: you can have some power. I might say that the
Speaker 1: job is really difficult today in this sense. Um, when
Speaker 1: I worked in the White House for President Carter, the
Speaker 1: evening news was fifteen minutes at night and then you
Speaker 1: watched the Washington Post of the New York Times the
Speaker 1: next morning. There was no Internet, there was no constant
Speaker 1: cable TV UM, no social media, none of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And so it was a different game. Today it's a
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, seven day a week kind of environment.
Speaker 1: It's not easy to do this. And President Carter, my
Speaker 1: former boss, said that he felt at a certain age probably, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's much tougher today. And he would say I
Speaker 1: think he said over the age of I think he
Speaker 1: said seventy. But um, so you know, as somebody who's
Speaker 1: now seventy one, I would say, well, I feel as
Speaker 1: good as I felt when I was seventy, but not
Speaker 1: as good as I fail when I was sixty or fifty.
Speaker 1: So I recognize it's uh, you know, there's some challenges.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't wish this job on any body who really
Speaker 1: wasn't a workaholic and who really didn't have pretty good health. So, David,
Speaker 1: you mentioned your work in the Carter administration. I've heard
Speaker 1: you talk about that over the years, and I do
Speaker 1: wonder knowing the White House from the inside, and then
Speaker 1: also knowing the workings of government as well as you do,
Speaker 1: having been a resident of the capital city, having grown
Speaker 1: up but not too far away in Baltimore, I wonder
Speaker 1: what you make of this current moment of um shall
Speaker 1: we say, gridlock when it comes to fixing the economy,
Speaker 1: especially in the midst of this pandemic. Knowing the levers
Speaker 1: that work, were you surprised or are you surprised that
Speaker 1: we just can't get anything done when it comes to
Speaker 1: the fiscal side of this equation. I think what is
Speaker 1: going on is that the Democrats by and large, UM
Speaker 1: are not interested in giving your Republicans credit for something
Speaker 1: that might go through or the administration and Republicans are
Speaker 1: afraid that Democrats will take credit for it. So right
Speaker 1: now they've been standoff. Um. The Secretary of Treasure was
Speaker 1: negotiating something. It seems to be a standstill now. But
Speaker 1: you know, as we know in Washington, see things change
Speaker 1: on a dime very quickly, so Um, whatever um was
Speaker 1: said today could be changed tomorrow. There's no doubt in
Speaker 1: the mind of anybody in Congress that there will be
Speaker 1: a stimulus bill. Um. Everyone knows that there is a
Speaker 1: need for it. The Chairman of the Fed pretty much
Speaker 1: said we need to have it earlier today. The clearantly
Speaker 1: issue is is it before the election or after the election?
Speaker 1: And if the stock market had gone down by two
Speaker 1: thousand points after the announcement today, I suspect you'd have
Speaker 1: a stimulus negotiation. It didn't go down by that much,
Speaker 1: so upset everything. So I suspect that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it could happen. But right now it'll happen in my view,
Speaker 1: before the end of the year. It's just not clear
Speaker 1: whether it's going to happen the next thirty days or
Speaker 1: next sixty days. David, we talked about your new book
Speaker 1: that's out that's called How to Lead You you have
Speaker 1: another book that you did that's called The American Story
Speaker 1: Conversations with Master History. I do wonder as we talk
Speaker 1: about the breakdown. Uh. And you know, in terms of politics,
Speaker 1: certainly down in Washington, you know, why is it always
Speaker 1: about now you know you're going to get credit? I
Speaker 1: want credit? You know, this is what we're thinking about,
Speaker 1: rather than thinking about, Okay, what's a great policy for
Speaker 1: our country America. Well, um, this isn't new. Um, this
Speaker 1: has been going on for several thousand years. People like
Speaker 1: credit in the political world. So I wouldn't say it's new.
Speaker 1: I would say what is relatively new over the last
Speaker 1: twenty years or so compared to when I was in
Speaker 1: Congress briefly in the seventies and before, is that there's
Speaker 1: no sense of bipartisanship. It used to be that no
Speaker 1: major legislation would pass unless it was bipartisan. That's David
Speaker 1: Rubinstein host appear to Peer Conversations, one of our colleagues
Speaker 1: right here on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV. He's also
Speaker 1: co founder and co executive chairman of Carlisle Group and
Speaker 1: Jason there he was talking about bipartisan politics really a
Speaker 1: thing of the past, and we saw that play out
Speaker 1: a lot this week when it came to another round
Speaker 1: of virus relief. It just couldn't happen. Yeah, questions of
Speaker 1: leadership abound, that's for sure. Still to come. It's more
Speaker 1: important than ever for us to tackle gender disparaging issues
Speaker 1: once and for all. We look at the need for
Speaker 1: a more diverse series of voices in media. We check
Speaker 1: in with the CEO of Rebel Girls. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: for those fortunate enough to help the person who has
Speaker 1: always been their hero find the care guides you need
Speaker 1: to help at a a ARP dot org slash Caregiving,
Speaker 1: brought to you by a ARP and the ad Console.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, we had a bit of
Speaker 1: a theme this past week of successful women working to
Speaker 1: help others and other girls and women succeed as well,
Speaker 1: and that included our chat with Jess woll If. She's
Speaker 1: CEO of the Edge Utainment Company. Yes, it is a word,
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Rebel Girls. She heads that up. She's
Speaker 1: on a mission to empower girls around the globe through podcast,
Speaker 1: books and telling the inspirational stories of women and something
Speaker 1: she says is a top priority. It's more important than
Speaker 1: ever for us to tackle gender disparaging issues once and
Speaker 1: for all. Um, if you still look at the landscape today, UM,
Speaker 1: a third is kind of the number you want to
Speaker 1: look at. A third of children's books characters are female,
Speaker 1: a third of children's TV show characters a female, less
Speaker 1: than a third of podcast hosts are female. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the percentage of female and non white,
Speaker 1: it's about between five and ten across those three different dimensions.
Speaker 1: So it's time. It's time to showcase really diverse voices
Speaker 1: and characters and role models four girls, so they grow
Speaker 1: up with the same confidence that boys do. I have
Speaker 1: to say, Jason and I, okay are a little obsessed
Speaker 1: by a new Netflix series called Away, and we have
Speaker 1: yet to talk about how it all ended. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting about it is, first of all, the commander is
Speaker 1: a woman, and there's diversity, and there's you know, just
Speaker 1: all kinds of individuals that are much more representative of society.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we have to get get to
Speaker 1: a place just and you talk about multi platforms, you know,
Speaker 1: where we really represent what's going on to show especially
Speaker 1: for when it comes to girls and like women what
Speaker 1: like that they are as much a part of this
Speaker 1: world and can do truly anything. But if we don't
Speaker 1: show it, then it's going to be more difficult to
Speaker 1: get there. Absolutely, I could not agree more. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to push the boundaries in terms of representation,
Speaker 1: in terms of diversity, and in terms of just showcasing
Speaker 1: truly remarkable women that have done extraordinary things. Uh. We
Speaker 1: started with a hundred women across geography, across history, across
Speaker 1: field of excellence. We're now to three hundred women who
Speaker 1: we told the stories and um our latest hundred women
Speaker 1: that were showcasing this. In addition to being extraordinary brilliant
Speaker 1: women also happened to be immigrants and we're sharing their
Speaker 1: stories of how they moved from one country to another
Speaker 1: and then contributed what they did to the world. And
Speaker 1: I do sort of wonder why now for I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit obvious, but I want you to
Speaker 1: say it anyway, like why now for immigrants? For women
Speaker 1: who are immigrants. Yeah, well it should have been a
Speaker 1: long time ago, but it hasn't been done yet. So
Speaker 1: that's why we're doing it now. But we really want
Speaker 1: to foster a cross cultural friendships. We want to combat denophobia.
Speaker 1: We want to build awareness and acceptance for other cultures
Speaker 1: in the minds of these young girls. Um and and
Speaker 1: today's environment just showcases how that's ever more important for
Speaker 1: us to really foster these cross cultural friendships and and
Speaker 1: and combat denophobia. And in between the time we started
Speaker 1: last conversation and now I've already gotten a text just
Speaker 1: from my mom down in Atlanta, who sent me a
Speaker 1: picture of one of your books that a friend of hers,
Speaker 1: Lisa Carvolio, shout out, Lisa gave her to read you
Speaker 1: my now two and a half year old daughter when
Speaker 1: she visits. So it's already on the shelf, so you'll
Speaker 1: be happy to know that it's already. It's already in
Speaker 1: it's already in the mix, So you're well represented. So UM,
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you know, we were alluding to this
Speaker 1: on the way out of the last segment. You know,
Speaker 1: this notion of representation is such an important one. And
Speaker 1: I do wonder, knowing media as well as you do,
Speaker 1: where sort of the blockage is here, Like who who's
Speaker 1: making the decisions and making candidly sort of the wrong
Speaker 1: decisions that is keeping that one third number where it is.
Speaker 1: You know, I think if we look historically, uh, look
Speaker 1: at the traditional media that you know, I grew up with,
Speaker 1: you grew up with, it was princesses waiting to be
Speaker 1: rescued by princess right. And the princesses all looked a
Speaker 1: certain way, and they were all pretty helpless and they
Speaker 1: needed princess who also looked a certain way to come
Speaker 1: and rescue them. And I think that's just the background
Speaker 1: of what we're up against where throughout history, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what we portrayed in terms of gender roles and
Speaker 1: in terms of what beauty looks like and what you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful people we should try and aspire to be an
Speaker 1: X and Y, right, And so it's up to us
Speaker 1: now today, who are creating media, to be extraordinarily intentional
Speaker 1: about who we showcase, what characters we create, and how
Speaker 1: do we actually create media four children. I mean, fo're
Speaker 1: adults too, but let's start with the next generation that
Speaker 1: is representative of of what we look like and who
Speaker 1: we are as as global citizens right now. And so
Speaker 1: if you think about the traditional princesses, and only of
Speaker 1: children's books have female characters who have a job, right
Speaker 1: compared to one of children's books that have male characters
Speaker 1: that have a job or career ambitions. It's it's just
Speaker 1: up to everyone now to change things. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: Where would you like to see the needle pushed a
Speaker 1: little bit more? Is it entertainment world? Is it brands
Speaker 1: and businesses? I mean, it's probably all of the above.
Speaker 1: But who do you think could really do make a
Speaker 1: make a change that would really substantially change how girls
Speaker 1: kind of look at themselves and their roles in society. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Uh So, I think it's universal. Um. I think it's
Speaker 1: across television. I think it's across children's books. I think
Speaker 1: it's across podcasts. I think it's also across dolls, um,
Speaker 1: and and how girls play and and and should girls
Speaker 1: just play your house? You know? Or are there ways
Speaker 1: to evolve the products the girls play with and whatnot?
Speaker 1: And I think if everyone thinks about the characters they
Speaker 1: put forward and do they represent society and what are
Speaker 1: the values that they are conveying in those characters, in
Speaker 1: those stories, in those products, we'll get to much much
Speaker 1: better places of society. You know, Jesse, you met in
Speaker 1: podcasts a couple of times. I'm intrigued by that because
Speaker 1: it's such a booming uh market, and it is it
Speaker 1: feels like somewhat wide open at this point. What have
Speaker 1: you seen? Like? What are the things you're listening to
Speaker 1: that you feel like? All right, Well, that's a really
Speaker 1: good example of either a different sort of voice or
Speaker 1: an approach that other people should replicate or could follow
Speaker 1: from a role modeling perspective. Well, I'm going to say,
Speaker 1: you know, the good Night Stories to Rebel Girls podcast perfect.
Speaker 1: I just said that up for you. Thank you very much, Jason.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you why it's special. We take the
Speaker 1: stories of these remarkable women and we trim them into
Speaker 1: snack able twenty minute episodes that our story there are
Speaker 1: fairy tale like stories, and we take these girls through
Speaker 1: the journey of RBG for instance, or Oprah or Michelle
Speaker 1: Obama or Josephine Baker, and we tell their stories as
Speaker 1: who they we're as girls. So girls can relate to
Speaker 1: these remarkable women as girls and how they became the
Speaker 1: women that did the things that they did right. And
Speaker 1: so for us, it is a wide open space that
Speaker 1: because there's very little programming four girls out there and
Speaker 1: the programming for girls tends to be fictional, So we
Speaker 1: take a nonfiction story and turn it into a fairy
Speaker 1: tale and make it super entertaining, and then get an
Speaker 1: equally impressive narrator to host that story, to lend her
Speaker 1: voice to the story of the woman she's telling. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we think is is very unique
Speaker 1: out there and uh in our way in the audio
Speaker 1: world to bring more diverse stories to life. So what's
Speaker 1: next for you? Yeah, so, more more stories, more women,
Speaker 1: more diversity. We have our newest book, A Hundred Immigrant
Speaker 1: Women Who Changed the World, coming out next week. We
Speaker 1: also have a corresponding podcast from stories from the book
Speaker 1: on immigration. We are working on a television show right now,
Speaker 1: We're working on a Broadway show right now, We're working
Speaker 1: on a digital app right now. So we think there's
Speaker 1: a lot more formats for storytelling that we can bring
Speaker 1: to the world. And do you feel like Jess And
Speaker 1: we sort of alluded to the to this at the
Speaker 1: top of the conversation that there is and maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to end on a little bit of an
Speaker 1: optimistic note, but you know, even the outpouring of support,
Speaker 1: especially I think from young women and girls around um
Speaker 1: the death of URBG, like did feel different a little
Speaker 1: bit here in and had a sense of urgency around it.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that Do you feel that happening right now? Oh?
Speaker 1: My gosh. Yeah. We had thousands and thousands of people
Speaker 1: tag us on Instagram and Facebook after RBG past um
Speaker 1: reading their girls the story of RBG from our book
Speaker 1: and listening to the story of OURBG in our podcast
Speaker 1: and that communal, collective sharing of sadness and the importance
Speaker 1: of her legacy and her story and passing that on
Speaker 1: to generations. And so I do absolutely think we felt
Speaker 1: this community rallying around who she was and what she
Speaker 1: stood for, and that's rebel girls. CEO Jess Wolf And
Speaker 1: you heard her talk there about little girls, and as
Speaker 1: someone who has a little girl, really hit my heart
Speaker 1: when she talked about that. And listen, you and I
Speaker 1: are both were raising rebel girls in the best possible way.
Speaker 1: We certainly are. And I gotta say she's also that
Speaker 1: best selling series for children, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, your daughter, Alice, thanks to her grandmother,
Speaker 1: your mom has one of those books. She does indeed
Speaker 1: well that wroutes up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio and a notable one. It's my
Speaker 1: last show. Care I can't even imagine doing this without you.
Speaker 1: It's just it's not going to be the same. I'm
Speaker 1: going to miss you. You're not leaving the community, You're
Speaker 1: not leaving the Bloomberg family. You're just going to be
Speaker 1: in a different part of it. Absolutely check me out
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Quick Take that is launching on streaming on
Speaker 1: November nine. They'll still be around, Carroll. You can't get
Speaker 1: rid of me. That easily good. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get rid of you. And listen don't forget to our
Speaker 1: extra podcast. Ken Hicks, Jason and I talked to him.
Speaker 1: He's chairman Presidency of Academy Sports and Outdoors. They were
Speaker 1: taken public roughly about a week ago by the private
Speaker 1: equity firm kk R. He's got an impressive retail background,
Speaker 1: so we got to talk to him about virus impact
Speaker 1: and really the state of retail. And don't forget. The
Speaker 1: daily Bloomberg Business Week show starts at two pm Wall
Speaker 1: Street time. It's also on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global
Speaker 1: News and Bloomberg Business Week. It's available on newstands now.
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. Everybody. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: We'll I'll see you next week, but Jason, I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to see you around Bloomberg headquarters. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg.