Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news As it happened. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messier and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Hi everyone, Welcome to the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Tim. It's week fifty three
Speaker 1: for many still working from home. Although our office definitely
Speaker 1: felt like a lot more of our team were coming back,
Speaker 1: it did. It's a nice feeling. It is a nice feeling,
Speaker 1: right Yeah, But the debate about coming back to work continues. Ford,
Speaker 1: for example, is letting thirty thousand employees remain at home
Speaker 1: post pandemic, and in the meantime. One of our most
Speaker 1: read stories this week was on how at long Last
Speaker 1: Wall Street is seeing a path to returning to work. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: that wasn't of our most read So with that is
Speaker 1: our backdrop, we'll get an update on COVID cases and surges.
Speaker 1: Will do that with the CEO of Atlantic Health System.
Speaker 1: We're also gonna have back with us the founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of the Global pr from Edelman and signing documents
Speaker 1: digitally during the pandemic. We've all been there, right. As
Speaker 1: a result, Doccu sign has seen its business taking off.
Speaker 1: We're going to check in with the company's CFO and
Speaker 1: talk about whether this is here to stay. I kind
Speaker 1: of like doing it this way, Yes, so do. I
Speaker 1: much easier by the way. I think Congress should do
Speaker 1: it this way instead of delivering, you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: pages of documents. It's time to come into the Congress.
Speaker 1: All right, all of that to come, We begive with
Speaker 1: this week's cover story, which is about an essential business
Speaker 1: to him during the pandemic that also happens to be
Speaker 1: the one company in the US that makes the nasal
Speaker 1: swabs for all of our COVID tests, and a little
Speaker 1: bit of drama the two feuding cousins behind that business.
Speaker 1: The tale told by Bloomberg News technology reporter Olivia Carville,
Speaker 1: who joined us along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber.
Speaker 1: This is I think one of my favorite stories that
Speaker 1: we've published over the last year. UM. I think it's
Speaker 1: a great untold story of the pandemic um which is basically,
Speaker 1: imagine having a business that, um, you know, a year ago,
Speaker 1: you basically the world discovers we're gonna need a lot
Speaker 1: more nasal swabs than you. Happen to be basically one
Speaker 1: of two companies in the world that makes them, and
Speaker 1: that's a company called called Puritan. It's a closely held
Speaker 1: family company in Maine. UM, at the very outside of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, we happen to have done a photo shoot UM,
Speaker 1: basically showing their their operation, and m Olivia came to
Speaker 1: us a couple of months later and said, by the way,
Speaker 1: do you guys know about this epic lossuit between the
Speaker 1: two cousins who own the business, And we're like, no,
Speaker 1: tell us more, so, Olivia, tell us more. Who are
Speaker 1: the owners and what are they funing over? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Um. The owners of Puriton is
Speaker 1: Timothy Tinplett and John Cartwright, the both based up in Maine.
Speaker 1: This is a family business. It's been around for you know,
Speaker 1: more than a hundred years now, and they haven't liked
Speaker 1: each other for a really long time. One of the
Speaker 1: most fascinating things about reporting the story is the timing
Speaker 1: of it all. Like in the lead up to the pandemic,
Speaker 1: probably two years before COVID really hit or became a
Speaker 1: household name. They stopped speaking to each other. One of
Speaker 1: them just walked out of a meeting and refused to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with the other. And um, they
Speaker 1: refused to be in the same room, didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk to each other. And that led to some really
Speaker 1: big problems inside the company. There was their manufacturing equipment
Speaker 1: wasn't being modernized, they weren't updating their technology. Their back
Speaker 1: office technology system was twenty years old. They had and
Speaker 1: updated their wages or given staff salary increases, and then, um,
Speaker 1: three weeks literally three weeks before the White House called
Speaker 1: this company to say we need you to ramp up
Speaker 1: swab production, one of them filed a lawsuit against the
Speaker 1: other to dissolve the entire business, all right, and then
Speaker 1: walks in the government exactly. Yeah, that brought the ball together,
Speaker 1: and they're not happy and happily living, you know, ever after. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting part of the story is that
Speaker 1: the government was like, we need you to sit side
Speaker 1: your differences for the good of the country, and they
Speaker 1: said that they would, but we access the legal file
Speaker 1: and inside private courtroom sessions, they continued to fight and
Speaker 1: are still fighting to this day, which, um, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's go ahead and talk about the money here. Um,
Speaker 1: how much money is the US government put into making
Speaker 1: Sure appeared and keeps coming? Over the past year, they've
Speaker 1: invested two hundred and fifty million dollars into the company
Speaker 1: and plans are underway for another facility in Tennessee. So
Speaker 1: that's only going to go up. I mean, why don't
Speaker 1: they get along? And I know in your story you
Speaker 1: talk about that it might have started as they were kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's noticeable. Employees know it. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until right the President visited that they were actually
Speaker 1: seen together. Yeah. I think that they're just both really stubborn. Um,
Speaker 1: they both have their own vision for how they see
Speaker 1: the future of the company going. Puritan has actually got
Speaker 1: a sister business called Hardwood, which started out making minted
Speaker 1: toothpicks like a hundred years ago. And John art right,
Speaker 1: one of the cousins, is really heavily involved in the
Speaker 1: hardwood side of the business, and Timothy Template is involved
Speaker 1: in the Puritan the medical side. And as these two
Speaker 1: companies had kind of gone in different directions, they really
Speaker 1: felt struggled to kind of work together to see a
Speaker 1: future for both of them, So, you know, just two
Speaker 1: stubborn people who had their own vision and just didn't
Speaker 1: want to back down. Okay, so you got to spend
Speaker 1: some time in Maine the summer, which made the reporting
Speaker 1: like so much greater. Carol. Just to have Olivia basically
Speaker 1: being like pitching the story and then being like, by
Speaker 1: the way, I'm going to be in vain for a
Speaker 1: little while, I was like, oh my god, you can't
Speaker 1: make this up. Amazing. So you got to know basically
Speaker 1: everyone in Guildford. So put us on the wasn't that
Speaker 1: hard job. There are only fifteen hundred people who live
Speaker 1: in Guilford. Tell us about the company and how it
Speaker 1: fits into two main and the meaning of it all. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: Guildford is a tiny town. There is one Staunt there,
Speaker 1: which also serves as the local bar. There's no Starbucks,
Speaker 1: there's no McDonald's, like very very small town America and
Speaker 1: Hardwood Purison or the business is the biggest part of
Speaker 1: the whole town. They do a lot for the for
Speaker 1: the town. They often put on fireworks shows, they donate
Speaker 1: playground equipment, They help maintain the local parks. Everyone who
Speaker 1: lives in Guildford knows the company had has either worked there,
Speaker 1: had a family member who worked there, or knows the
Speaker 1: owners specifically. This week's cover story, as told by Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Technology reporter Olivia Carville, along with Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: editor Joel Weber. Check out more stories in the current
Speaker 1: issue of Bloomberg Business Week, now on news stands, online,
Speaker 1: and on the Bloomberg So much good stuff coming up, though,
Speaker 1: more on COVID and the vaccine rollout. We'll do that
Speaker 1: with the CEO of Atlantic Health, who reminds us to
Speaker 1: him that we are not out of the woods, at
Speaker 1: least not yet. Yeah, the number is plateauing. It's concerning
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
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: We're thrilled with the response that we're seeing from our
Speaker 1: guests in terms of future reservations. That was Bob j
Speaker 1: Pex of the Walt Disney Company this week on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: talking about the reopening of Disney's to California theme parks
Speaker 1: on April this tim after they were dark for more
Speaker 1: than a year. It's kind of hard to get your
Speaker 1: head around it. It is. But you know, if people
Speaker 1: are vaccinated, if they're two weeks out from that second shot,
Speaker 1: in some cases, perhaps they're starting to feel comfortable with
Speaker 1: these things. And look, as Emily Chang pointed out to
Speaker 1: us on Quick Take this week, perhaps it could be
Speaker 1: a good time to go if you're feeling comfortable because
Speaker 1: there are those capacity restrictions in place and you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be waiting in line. Wouldn't that be
Speaker 1: sweet to do that at a Disney park. Well, we
Speaker 1: had a lot of coronavirus headlines this week, the Biden
Speaker 1: administration reaching its goal of rolling out one million vaccine
Speaker 1: doses a head of schedule, the President also eying mid
Speaker 1: May to begin relaxing travel restrictions, and the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization supporting astra Zenecast COVID nineteen vaccine after pushback by
Speaker 1: several European countries. All right, so every day we have
Speaker 1: a conversation on the virus. Many or voices that we've
Speaker 1: turned to over the past, and that includes this one.
Speaker 1: Brian grand new Lotty. He's the CEO of the Atlantic
Speaker 1: Health System. It's a massive system in the state of
Speaker 1: New Jersey covers more than half of the state. He
Speaker 1: reminded us, though kind of sobering, that we're still living
Speaker 1: with a pandemic. We are co existing with covid um
Speaker 1: and we've been at that plateau for a while and UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to care for those patients safely,
Speaker 1: and UM it's business as usual with everything else that
Speaker 1: we do. You mentioned and use the word plateau, and
Speaker 1: we've been hearing that from some of the different medical professionals,
Speaker 1: professionals that we've spoken to. Brian. UM, does that sitting
Speaker 1: at a plateau kind of bother you a little bit?
Speaker 1: You know? It does, because we'd love to see this
Speaker 1: UM start a straight line down. UM. But also we
Speaker 1: have to be realistic about the fact that this virus
Speaker 1: is in our communities and because people are not yet immunized, UM,
Speaker 1: we're going to be having this kind of level of activity.
Speaker 1: And what I point to for how long? You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're going to be in this situation, probably
Speaker 1: until May or June, UM, when we are able to
Speaker 1: get this vaccine into UM. You know, about sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the people in the community. UM, And UM, you
Speaker 1: know that's hopefully the plan here, but we're waiting on
Speaker 1: that supply. So I want to have realistic expectations about
Speaker 1: this and make sure I understand we are going to
Speaker 1: you think, see a plateau of tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: new cases each and every day in the United States
Speaker 1: until we get to that point where we can have
Speaker 1: the majority of the population vaccinated. Yeah, it's endemic in
Speaker 1: the communities that we serve. And so that's why masking
Speaker 1: is still really important. UM, that's why testing is still important,
Speaker 1: because we've got to stay on top of the variants
Speaker 1: that we're seeing coming out. UM. But that combination of
Speaker 1: of masking, social distancing, the things that Dr Faucci talks about,
Speaker 1: and then getting as much vaccine out as quickly as possible,
Speaker 1: those are the tickets that that we need to get
Speaker 1: back to UH state and get this economy completely open. Right.
Speaker 1: I heard you, you know, we heard you say, you
Speaker 1: know kind of we stay at this sort of the
Speaker 1: plateaus until we get more vaccines at what are you
Speaker 1: hearing about? The supply chain, uh and getting access to
Speaker 1: more vaccines. So right right now, uh, you know, here
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, we've been at this vaccine since the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year, and UM, you know, we've got
Speaker 1: about almost of folks that had either a first or
Speaker 1: second vaccine in New Jersey. Here at the Atlantic Health
Speaker 1: System of we've distributed over to We vaccinated over two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. UM. Already we have eight hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people on our waiting list and UH right now we're
Speaker 1: doing about six to seven thousand vaccinations a day at
Speaker 1: our eleven centers, but we're prepared to go to ten
Speaker 1: thousand a day as soon as we get the supply.
Speaker 1: And so the supply UM is on its way. UM.
Speaker 1: I think the combination of the steps that the Biden
Speaker 1: administration has taken to use the their power to get
Speaker 1: the vaccine manufactured. UH. The fact that we now have
Speaker 1: three vaccines that work UM equally well on the most
Speaker 1: important thing, which is getting really sick or dying UH
Speaker 1: is an important piece. And because we have a vaccine
Speaker 1: like J and J, which is a different format and
Speaker 1: it's a one shot vaccine, it gives us a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities to get more portable with that vaccine and
Speaker 1: to get into places that that we haven't been able
Speaker 1: to serve yet. UM. And we're excited about that. You
Speaker 1: heard me mentioned that Ohio is expanding vaccines to anyone
Speaker 1: over the age of sixteen. Alaska has already done that
Speaker 1: for people living, living and working in the state. Is
Speaker 1: that something you see as the essential next step to
Speaker 1: get over the next hurdle? Yeah, you know. UM here
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, UM, we've gone through different iterations of
Speaker 1: expanding the pool. But what that's done is it's created
Speaker 1: the waiting list quite frankly, because we don't have the
Speaker 1: supply yet to be able to serve the demand that
Speaker 1: gets created. So you know, we have over four point
Speaker 1: seven million people eligible for a vaccination right now. So
Speaker 1: you know, I understand why states are are, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of just completely opening up, but you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to be smart about this and some priorities or
Speaker 1: else you're just increasing a queue. And uh so I
Speaker 1: think the way that New Jersey is doing this is
Speaker 1: making sense. We've added teachers, which are really important. I know,
Speaker 1: at one of our mega centers that we do in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the state and the Morris County, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: you know, we just went over our hundred thousand patients.
Speaker 1: Uh and that happened to be a teacher from Morris County,
Speaker 1: New Jerseys. Hey, so, Brian, one thing we wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, Um, Tim and I. You know, we were
Speaker 1: noting that we are seeing restaurants in New York, in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, they are able to increase their capacity in
Speaker 1: a big way. So we are increasingly seeing our society
Speaker 1: in our economy opening up. Good on one hand, but
Speaker 1: I do wonder if somebody who oversees a massive health
Speaker 1: care system and can see how quickly it can get overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: does it worry you a little bit? And what are
Speaker 1: you worried about? You know, Carol? It it does. It
Speaker 1: does worry us a bit. Um. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that I have confidence in is that here in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, we've been following the science and we've been
Speaker 1: pretty careful, you know, And I think I think there's
Speaker 1: been some criticisms about that. So I'm confident that beginning
Speaker 1: to gradually reopen things like restaurants and other venues, it's
Speaker 1: an important part of getting back to a normal uh
Speaker 1: and I support it. But we also have to stay
Speaker 1: pretty vigilant, and we have to do testing, and we
Speaker 1: have to do contact tracing when we do see outbreaks,
Speaker 1: and then take the appropriate actions but again, if people
Speaker 1: use common sense, wear a mask, UM, wash their hands,
Speaker 1: stay socially distant. Uh, you can. You can go into restaurants.
Speaker 1: Right now, about six of our workforce has gotten vaccinated.
Speaker 1: UM and UM. You know, we've had a full core
Speaker 1: press on that since the beginning of the year, the
Speaker 1: vaccine playing a big role in people's decisions to return
Speaker 1: to workplaces. That was the CEO of the Atlantic Health System,
Speaker 1: Brian Granny Lotty. Still ahead. The most important thing to
Speaker 1: say out of this is America's in shock and as
Speaker 1: a result, most individuals don't trust many institutions. The latest
Speaker 1: trust barometer. When we come back, this is Bloomberg broadcasting
Speaker 1: from the financial capital of the world, Bloomberg eleven Frio
Speaker 1: in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine
Speaker 1: sixty to the country Sirius XM CHADO one nine team,
Speaker 1: and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. We all know.
Speaker 1: It's a little more than one year since the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak at global pandemic. So
Speaker 1: much has happened since, and many have said going back
Speaker 1: to normal quote unquote is not what happens next. Since
Speaker 1: so much has changed as a result of the health crisis.
Speaker 1: One way to see how that has impacted trust in
Speaker 1: our society is through the Edelman Trust Barometer. This is
Speaker 1: an index that really shows how individuals feel about business, government, institutions,
Speaker 1: media and more. The index has been updated throughout the year,
Speaker 1: including this past week. I find this is a gut
Speaker 1: check for me. So we got the latest data batch
Speaker 1: from the founder and CEO of the Global communications from Edelman.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Richard Edelman. He began with how they
Speaker 1: actually came up with all this data. We talked to
Speaker 1: Americans across the economic spectrum, as across the geographies, and um,
Speaker 1: we do it online and we lasted it in uh December,
Speaker 1: and you'll recall that business was the most trusted institution
Speaker 1: in the world for the first time. The deep divide
Speaker 1: between Trump voter and a Biden voter m for example,
Speaker 1: especially about media, where there was a forty point difference
Speaker 1: in terms of trust. Um, the only thing they could
Speaker 1: agree on was that business is trusted and especially and
Speaker 1: especially my employer. That my employer, the trust is local
Speaker 1: that you know, I trust my CEO, my colleagues at work,
Speaker 1: and so you know, things near me because I can
Speaker 1: control that relationship. Well, okay, and so that was last
Speaker 1: time around. What's interesting in this time around is there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of trust of anything. Yeah, well, Carol,
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing to say out of
Speaker 1: this is America's in shock. I wrote my essays about
Speaker 1: American trauma, and um, I think half the people we
Speaker 1: surveyed said they knew someone who had been hospitalized or
Speaker 1: was dead, and um, you know I had gotten sick
Speaker 1: from COVID and and uh, the two thirds said, I'm
Speaker 1: still living in a pandemic survival mode. And I know
Speaker 1: the markets are going up and and everybody's optimistic about
Speaker 1: the future, but the markets are not seen today. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a real, um, kind of stunning
Speaker 1: thing that more people have died than than in World
Speaker 1: War two, World War One, Vietnam and Korea. And it's
Speaker 1: we are literally the death of the world or something
Speaker 1: like this. It's scary, it's shocking. Well, I can hear
Speaker 1: it in your voice to Richard, and you're right when
Speaker 1: I think about this when we actually it's not just
Speaker 1: numbers and stats that we roll off here, it's it's individuals.
Speaker 1: And as you said, you know most people either know
Speaker 1: someone or know someone who lost someone because of COVID specifically.
Speaker 1: You know, listen, you have been talking to ceo s
Speaker 1: for so many years. You know, how is this kind
Speaker 1: of changing how they will run their companies going forward,
Speaker 1: especially if if they're seeing these surveys and they're saying
Speaker 1: people are employees, don't trust us. So I think they
Speaker 1: feel a special responsibility after this year to do differently,
Speaker 1: And I actually feel very inspired by that. You know,
Speaker 1: we have clients new Lever for change the song on
Speaker 1: the ice cream trucks because they found out that it
Speaker 1: was a racist minstrel song from the eighties, And within
Speaker 1: a month they said, okay, we're gonna missoning a new
Speaker 1: song with the Rizard from New Wittan Clan. And as
Speaker 1: songs for a World Day are going to be different,
Speaker 1: kids are gonna have a different jingle. That's the kind
Speaker 1: of speed, need and an agility that that American business
Speaker 1: is doing. Or Dan Showman of PayPal saying I found
Speaker 1: out that half my people were living kind of on
Speaker 1: a hand to mouth way and I had to raise
Speaker 1: their wages. That's amazing, Uh, flexibility like I've never seen before, Carol, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is really remarkable. You know it's interesting too, Richard,
Speaker 1: like some of the uncomfortable conversations we've been having. And
Speaker 1: one individual said to me and and she's like, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna believe this is going to come out of
Speaker 1: my mouth. And this is from a black American, said,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to kind of thank Donald Trump
Speaker 1: in some ways because there are conversations that came out
Speaker 1: over the last year to some extent because of some
Speaker 1: of what he said and the conversations that came out
Speaker 1: of that, and that we're having on a corporate level
Speaker 1: that that we didn't have before. To be fair, well,
Speaker 1: I think one big thing that that really is important though,
Speaker 1: that I want the listeners to processes. We cannot as
Speaker 1: business force our employees to get vaccinated. Our respondents said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm prepared to consider it, but don't compel me. And
Speaker 1: the same thing about only six are prepared to go
Speaker 1: back to work, to the workplace, to the city because
Speaker 1: there's still afraid. Only said that they're ready to take
Speaker 1: the subway said they're ready to fly, saying they're ready
Speaker 1: to go see Grandma. That's the founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: the Global Communications from Edelman, Richard Edelman. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week coming up next. How many of you
Speaker 1: out there signed at the bottom line digitally during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I know, I did, I did, I did, I did,
Speaker 1: and I kind of love doing it, kind of forgetting
Speaker 1: how to sign my name. Caro, Yeah, exactly, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll have more on that with the CFO of doc
Speaker 1: you sign. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovich
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio Docu Soon you know. It's the electronic
Speaker 1: signature company used by mortgage, government, insurance, healthcare, and many,
Speaker 1: many more industries. It has been one of the companies
Speaker 1: that's odds business boom during the pandemic. The stock to
Speaker 1: Tim on a tear in the last two years. We
Speaker 1: both have used their services during the pandemic, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to hear more about the company's business recent quarter.
Speaker 1: Any post pandemic world, what does it look like for
Speaker 1: the company. So we got up with Cynthia gay Lord,
Speaker 1: chief financial officer at covid has you know, just created
Speaker 1: huge challenges for everyone and disruptions, um everywhere. But amid
Speaker 1: those challenges, we found ways to really help our customers
Speaker 1: and and really have felt honored to play a critical
Speaker 1: role in helping people move forward all over the world.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of showed up somewhat in our business performance.
Speaker 1: But just how folks are using our product and this,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I've seen it in some of
Speaker 1: the documents you guys shared with us, And I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a milestone year for you, a game changer,
Speaker 1: safe to say, Yeah, for sure. We crossed the billion
Speaker 1: dollars in revenue mark earlier in the year, right before
Speaker 1: the pandemic hit. And um, we're well on our way
Speaker 1: to a billion and a half and kind of growing
Speaker 1: to two billion over the course of this year. So
Speaker 1: talk to us about some of the things that we
Speaker 1: saw in this most recent quarter. Um, you know, we're
Speaker 1: looking at quarterly revenue up fifty seven percent year over year.
Speaker 1: We're looking at billings an increase of forty six percent
Speaker 1: year over year. I mean, listen, these are off the
Speaker 1: chart numbers. What does a post COVID docum sign world
Speaker 1: look like it's it's really interesting and it's a great question.
Speaker 1: I mean, we think we're well positioned across all the
Speaker 1: secular trends that you're seeing. If you think about, you know,
Speaker 1: we're well positioned for the anywhere economy, if you think
Speaker 1: about just accelerating digital workflows and kind of digital first
Speaker 1: being a priority for so many people and and so
Speaker 1: many companies. Um, you know, docu science fits right in
Speaker 1: in kind of a major pillar across a anywhere economy
Speaker 1: where people are looking to do anything from anywhere. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of interesting. I ment Toed that, you know,
Speaker 1: we used it for something at home, and my co
Speaker 1: host did as well. Uh, it is interesting that there
Speaker 1: are trends out there, whether it was in detail retail
Speaker 1: e commerce specifically, there are things that many would say,
Speaker 1: we're not going back on telemedicine, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: if the world is ready based on what you're seeing,
Speaker 1: the people that you're talking to, your customers that you're
Speaker 1: you know, talking to that this is just one of
Speaker 1: those things that it just makes sense we're not going
Speaker 1: to go back. Yeah, for sure. I think the you know,
Speaker 1: the acceleration in our demand and the surgeon adoption over
Speaker 1: the course of the year was really accelerated by Covid
Speaker 1: and kind of an urgent need. But once people are
Speaker 1: working with our products on the platform and you can
Speaker 1: see that you can do things um faster, cheaper, smarter,
Speaker 1: more secure, you're not going to go back to pen
Speaker 1: and paper and the way you were doing things before.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because with our notary product coming out,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody would like to go to the notary
Speaker 1: and get things notarized pre pandemic um and to be
Speaker 1: able to do that online, we don't think people will
Speaker 1: will go back to pen and paper in that way. Well,
Speaker 1: and I do wonder too specifically. You know, what do
Speaker 1: you say to folks that say, listen, you're just a
Speaker 1: pandemic play Uh, it's a stay at home stock. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about them all the time on air and
Speaker 1: say that once we reopen, that's not going to be
Speaker 1: the case. I know you're talking about, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of making the case here, But what do you say
Speaker 1: to people who say that to you, it's that's not
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in the business. Um. You know, the
Speaker 1: strength that we've seen in the business UM is continuing
Speaker 1: and we're seeing quite a bit of tail winds coming
Speaker 1: into this year coming off of last year. But also again,
Speaker 1: once you use the products, they're easy to use. You
Speaker 1: look at our customer NPS scores, a lot of our
Speaker 1: customers say their customers love them because they used DocuSign, right,
Speaker 1: because it is just it's so much easier to do
Speaker 1: digitally and and kind of when you think about the
Speaker 1: digital digital transformation that so many UM companies are going
Speaker 1: through across industries, DocuSign is really a foundational building block
Speaker 1: of how to UH do agreements and do digital workflow
Speaker 1: UM online. All right, so let's talk numbers. So, UM,
Speaker 1: from what I understand is you've got you know, about
Speaker 1: nine thousand customers, more than a billion users right now.
Speaker 1: We're looking at revenue projected of maybe just under two
Speaker 1: billion for fiscal year, and I just wonder, give me
Speaker 1: an idea of the numbers. How many more customers can
Speaker 1: you do you anticipate in the next year or two years?
Speaker 1: How many more users? Yeah? So, I mean, we've seen
Speaker 1: tremendous growth in our customer base and and a data
Speaker 1: point for you as we added almost as many customers
Speaker 1: this past year as we had at the time we
Speaker 1: went public, and when we went public, the company was
Speaker 1: fifteen years old already, So we added a tremendous number
Speaker 1: of customers. And I think that's really a testament to
Speaker 1: just how people U use the product, but also uh
Speaker 1: covid accelerating things people would have done anyway, UM, they
Speaker 1: just did it faster, and so we we expect that
Speaker 1: to continue. We don't necessarily forecast out the number of
Speaker 1: customers per se, but if you think about it, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're ending the year with just over eight
Speaker 1: and ninety thousand customers, so almost a million customers. When
Speaker 1: you think about how many companies are in the US alone,
Speaker 1: it's over twenty seven million. So the opportunity we're just
Speaker 1: really scratching the surface of. Um, we have a fifty
Speaker 1: billion dollar market opportunity where the largest player by far
Speaker 1: in our in our space across the signature and the
Speaker 1: agreement cloud, and we just start kind of capsulating a
Speaker 1: year that's almost what a billion a billion and a
Speaker 1: half of revenue. So we just have a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of runway, and particularly because a lot of
Speaker 1: that market is kind of offline to online, we believe
Speaker 1: we can continue to add customers at a good clip
Speaker 1: here going forward. What do you say, though, Cynthia too.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking listeners in our audience and the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg investor that's out there, the Bloomberg audience. You know,
Speaker 1: your stock was up last year, it was up the
Speaker 1: year before. We're looking at uh your stock trading at
Speaker 1: more than a hundred and fifty five times estimated earnings
Speaker 1: per share over the coming year. UM, do you feel
Speaker 1: like you need to manage expectations a little bit because
Speaker 1: of the dramatic growth you've seen in the last year. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have seen tremendous growth, and as I said,
Speaker 1: we're kind of just scratching the surface of the opportunity
Speaker 1: ahead abous. And we're also you know, guiding to significant
Speaker 1: growth at scale. And I think when you think about
Speaker 1: fifty percent growth in the overall business over the course
Speaker 1: of the year, you know, our strong guide going into
Speaker 1: Cisco UM twenty two implies UM thirty five percent revenue growth.
Speaker 1: Kind of thirty percent revenue growth scale, that's pretty tremendous growth.
Speaker 1: There's not that many fast software companies that are growing
Speaker 1: at those rates UM, at this type of scale, and
Speaker 1: and because the market opportunity is so big and we're
Speaker 1: competing against pen and paper manual process to a more
Speaker 1: automated process, it feels like we have lots of runway
Speaker 1: and we really think long term about the business and
Speaker 1: how do we execute against the long term opportunity relative
Speaker 1: to kind of the you know, the day to day
Speaker 1: trading environment. How do you view competition Dropbox UM, you know,
Speaker 1: acquiring the documents sharing platform doc send, So how do
Speaker 1: you look at, you know, what's going on more broadly
Speaker 1: in the space. How does something like that that link
Speaker 1: up affect you? Sure, yeah, there, I mean there's been
Speaker 1: some consolidation of some of the smaller players in this space.
Speaker 1: But give you a sense, we spend more in R
Speaker 1: and D on the signature than our next nearest competitor
Speaker 1: has in revenue. So we have UM you know market
Speaker 1: or that that multiples of UM what others have. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of the companies that you mentioned, they
Speaker 1: are M they're actually partners of ours and and UM
Speaker 1: different companies made by a scribble signer UM to kind
Speaker 1: of add to their product portfolio. But when you think
Speaker 1: about doctu sign and you think that comprehensive nature of
Speaker 1: our application of our API and integrations, how we're integrated
Speaker 1: into workflows across the ecosystem. If you think about where
Speaker 1: we fit with customers that we serve, serve the smallest
Speaker 1: mom and top UM customers to the largest enterprises, and
Speaker 1: so the scalability, the security, UM, the workflow pieces of
Speaker 1: the agreement cloud that we serve. And we're a trusted brand,
Speaker 1: right we UM you know, have very high MPs scores.
Speaker 1: We have kind of the security and all the privacy
Speaker 1: features that a lot of these other companies don't have.
Speaker 1: So we partner across the ecosystem UM, and we're not
Speaker 1: as concerned about you know, different companies buying a very
Speaker 1: small player in integrating that into their products because it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily competitive with what we're doing and the broad
Speaker 1: the broad market that we're serving. I'll take that as
Speaker 1: you're not worried then, because okay, hey listen, you meant
Speaker 1: you took me somewhere where I want to go. Security
Speaker 1: issues and privacy issues. UM. You know, Bloomberg had an
Speaker 1: exclusive story about UM the hackavist hack activists who basically
Speaker 1: tapped into, you know, tons of surveillance cameras around the globe,
Speaker 1: just to show how easy it is. What about that
Speaker 1: when we're throwing up really important documents in the cloud
Speaker 1: and elsewhere, um, how do you ensure you know the
Speaker 1: security of all of that, because that's going to be
Speaker 1: a big thing that you know, people are gonna think
Speaker 1: twice if there's any kind of problems of course, and
Speaker 1: that's an area that we're investing a lot in across
Speaker 1: our platform and in our infrastructure, and so it's a
Speaker 1: really top of mind area, particularly for enterprises, but also
Speaker 1: kind of in the long tail of all the customers
Speaker 1: that we serve. So we invest a lot in R
Speaker 1: and D, insecurity, in kind of all the compliance pieces
Speaker 1: required to operate at our scale. So, I mean, international
Speaker 1: is growing tremendously for US. It's about of our revenue
Speaker 1: and in Q four p M, which is it was
Speaker 1: just quite substantial. It's um it's approaching a three hundred
Speaker 1: million dollar run rate um uh in terms of revenue
Speaker 1: for US UM and we have a really unique go
Speaker 1: to market with our digital which really feeds and creates
Speaker 1: legion into our direct business. Yeah, that's just one of
Speaker 1: those companies that will find out post pandemic whether or
Speaker 1: not the business momentum continues. That was Cynthia gal Or,
Speaker 1: Chief financial Officer, a docu sign And that wraps up
Speaker 1: the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanovick.
Speaker 1: More ahead in our next hour, including as the entrepreneur
Speaker 1: in the Businessman, I couldn't sort of stand back and
Speaker 1: uh and just let people continue to be executed, Sir
Speaker 1: Richard Branson talking to us all about a new initiative,
Speaker 1: plus from the Bloomberg Equality Summit, corporate voices, including one
Speaker 1: well known to our Bloomberg audience on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 1: Also a new data expose showing how white and male
Speaker 1: some US companies are. And we're gonna wrap it up
Speaker 1: with the CEO of Ocean Spray on the pandemic. Yes,
Speaker 1: and also on making his own TikTok video after another
Speaker 1: one of someone drinking Ocean Spray went pretty viral during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. You're the Fleetwood Mac. We've all watched it.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Business Week. Inside from the reporters and editors
Speaker 1: who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business,
Speaker 1: finance and tech news as it happened, s Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser. I'm Cley. In
Speaker 1: our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: including some highlights from our equality summit and coverage in
Speaker 1: the magazine. It's got a common thread about the role
Speaker 1: of corporations and corporate voices and bringing about shame aged
Speaker 1: when it comes to many things, including criminal justice. All
Speaker 1: that plus the CEO of Ocean Spray on the pandemic
Speaker 1: running a co op and a TikTok video that went viral.
Speaker 1: How many times did you watch it? Uh? Actually lost
Speaker 1: count Yeah, I watched it so much. We begin this
Speaker 1: hour with a few stories, though onequality. A big theme
Speaker 1: from the Bloomberg Equality Summit this week is the changing
Speaker 1: role that businesses and leaders are taking on society. One
Speaker 1: group of executives began a campaign to push governments to
Speaker 1: end the death penalty. Many countries have abolished it, but
Speaker 1: the US, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia are among those that
Speaker 1: still execute people now. This group is led by Virgin
Speaker 1: Group founder Sir Richard Branson. Ranson and the CEO of
Speaker 1: the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, Celia will Let,
Speaker 1: spoke with me and Jennifer's Abasaja on Bloomberg Quicktake. We
Speaker 1: talked about the group's mission, as well as balancing doing
Speaker 1: business in a country with human rights violations. It is,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, um, in humane and bobaric. Um. It
Speaker 1: doesn't deter or reduce crime. It doesn't make communities safer. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, perhaps most importantly, it has a shocking
Speaker 1: rate of arran. If you take UM the US, I've
Speaker 1: personally met a hundred and fifty people who have been
Speaker 1: freed from death row having been found to be innocent. Um.
Speaker 1: And it took enormous time and effort by lawyers to
Speaker 1: prove their innocence. UM. Most of those people were black
Speaker 1: um uh. And when you meet them, they are some
Speaker 1: of the most delightful people could you could meet. UM.
Speaker 1: The fact that they could could have they could they
Speaker 1: could have been executed was helpably wrong. Um. So As
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur in the businessman, I couldn't sort of
Speaker 1: stand back and uh and just let people continue to
Speaker 1: be executed crimes they didn't commit, and and and we
Speaker 1: we decided to try to rally rally business leaders to
Speaker 1: speak out strongly about it. Well, Selia, what wrong? What
Speaker 1: role does the private sector have when it comes to
Speaker 1: pushing govern main reforms? Businesses have like such loud voices.
Speaker 1: You know, they have kind of currency on the table
Speaker 1: when it comes to speaking to legislators in particular. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they have a kind of credibility and their
Speaker 1: sort of unusual allies at any campaign. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think when they joined forces and they kind of
Speaker 1: partner closely with the campaign community, and they really listen
Speaker 1: to what the campaigners and advocates need and movement meeters
Speaker 1: lead and offer that um that that thing in return
Speaker 1: and meet them at the table and offer them something
Speaker 1: to support. That's when kind of real impact and real
Speaker 1: change happens. And I think that's what we're seeing with
Speaker 1: this campaign. Richard. I'm wondering what role as a leader
Speaker 1: you have when you balance that you want to do
Speaker 1: business in a country, you want to do business with
Speaker 1: a country, but the country is doing something that you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily agree with, for example, the human rights violations
Speaker 1: that have been documented in China. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a global market where a lot of global companies want
Speaker 1: to be how do you balance that as a manager,
Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't do business. I mean like in Brunei
Speaker 1: when they said they were going to execute gay people,
Speaker 1: or in Uganda where they said they were going to
Speaker 1: execute gay people. We said, you know, we we we,
Speaker 1: we cannot do business with you as a country if
Speaker 1: you're going to behave like that. I think, I think
Speaker 1: when it comes to um capital punishment, um you know
Speaker 1: there there there are there's raging arguments on both sides,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people just don't don't know the facts.
Speaker 1: And you know, my my wife has you know, if somebody,
Speaker 1: if somebody commits her highness crime, she will want to
Speaker 1: see them executed, whereas myself and the rest of our
Speaker 1: family definitely definitely would not. And it's only when I
Speaker 1: explained explained to my wife and to other other businesses
Speaker 1: all all the facts and they have all the facts
Speaker 1: on their fingertips that they understand that the death penalty
Speaker 1: is wrong um um. And and countries can be a
Speaker 1: little bit like that too. You've you've got to get
Speaker 1: in there and uh and you know, and and and
Speaker 1: persuade them. And unfortunately, about a hundred and seventy countries
Speaker 1: have now been persuaded, and they webolished the left enerty.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got North Korea, you've got Iran, you've
Speaker 1: got China, um uh, you know, and I'm afraid you've
Speaker 1: got America. But the vast majority of civilized countries and
Speaker 1: western countries have abolished it, and some for as long
Speaker 1: as seventy years without any increasing crime as a result.
Speaker 1: Sir Richard, I gotta ask you about space and spacks,
Speaker 1: two things that you are are very involved in. Virgin Galactic,
Speaker 1: the space company you founded. Were you surprised that math
Speaker 1: Polly Hapatia that the chairman, of course a Virgin Galactic.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised when he liquidated his personal stake in
Speaker 1: the company earlier this month? After all? In an interview
Speaker 1: last month with my colleague Eric Shatzker, he said that
Speaker 1: he was committed to his Spack holdings. You know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the death penal Tuesday, and I'm not to
Speaker 1: get thrown on on other subjects except to say that
Speaker 1: I have enormous respect for Samath. He's still got his
Speaker 1: state in US through his spyt um and uh and
Speaker 1: you know, I think he's he he had he plans
Speaker 1: to make a big, big announcement of how he's going
Speaker 1: to use that particular money. And so I watch this space. Look.
Speaker 1: I had to ask him about Virgin Collector. It was
Speaker 1: a big deal when the chairman of that company just
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago sold his entire personal stake. Listen,
Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing that we focus on here
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg because it gives you an idea of the
Speaker 1: you know, commitment of an executive to the initiative that
Speaker 1: they're working on, and of course the important work that
Speaker 1: he and the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice are doing.
Speaker 1: That was Sir Richard Branson along with the nonprofit CEO
Speaker 1: Celia will Let You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Still ahead,
Speaker 1: more on criminal justice reform, this time with a well
Speaker 1: known hitge fund and cryptocurrency investor. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Carol at the Bloomberg Equality Summit. This week,
Speaker 1: you hosted a discussion on a corporate response to criminal
Speaker 1: justice reform. It focused on how companies and corporate voices
Speaker 1: are stepping into criminal justice reform conversations and speaking voices.
Speaker 1: I had two great ones. Michael Novograts, he's found in
Speaker 1: CEO of Galaxy Digital, he's chair of the Bail Project,
Speaker 1: founding partner of the Reform Alliance. And then, of course
Speaker 1: someone well known to our Bloomberg audience, Mike Is along
Speaker 1: with Robert Rooks, he's the CEO of Reform Alliance. He's
Speaker 1: also co founder of the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
Speaker 1: I began by asking, what's the smart productive conversation that
Speaker 1: we all need to be having when it comes to
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform. To start with, I think we need
Speaker 1: to grade ourselves and on a one to all under
Speaker 1: we're about a twelve. Uh. We really are an f
Speaker 1: We have a terrific system that de aids people from
Speaker 1: the moment they're arrested. Uh. And so if you think
Speaker 1: about the process of criminal justice, right, there's supposed to
Speaker 1: be some justice, which we have all kinds of racial biases,
Speaker 1: so there's not a lot of justice, but there also
Speaker 1: needs to be an end goal, and the end goal
Speaker 1: in the U S system really is caging people. It's degradation,
Speaker 1: it's it's humiliating people. There's nothing that tries to bring
Speaker 1: people from the system and bring them back as whole citizens. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can contrast that with what happens in Europe. Right
Speaker 1: to be the warden of a prison in Germany or
Speaker 1: in Norway, you need a master's or a PhD in rehabilitation.
Speaker 1: Every single prison ward than I've met in the United
Speaker 1: States starts as a guard and moves his way up
Speaker 1: the system with no formal education. And so the whole
Speaker 1: system in the US isn't geared to helping people deal
Speaker 1: with their trauma. And so we need a system that
Speaker 1: literally looks at people as citizens and says, Okay, these
Speaker 1: people have screwed up. We're gonna take their liberty for
Speaker 1: a while, and we're gonna help them re enter society
Speaker 1: as productive taxpayers. And so it's just it's economically a
Speaker 1: stupid system. It's moraldy a bankrupt system. Uh, and we
Speaker 1: need to overhaul from top to bottom. Robert, come on
Speaker 1: in on this in terms of what you think what
Speaker 1: Mike just said and what you think needs to be
Speaker 1: part of this big, broad conversation so that we get
Speaker 1: it right. Carol, thank you so much for the question
Speaker 1: that Mike, You hit it right on the head. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to come at the question from a personal
Speaker 1: perspective that I grew up in Dallas, Texas in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. I saw firsthand a community dealing with
Speaker 1: the crack cocaine epidemic. I experienced firsthand what it was
Speaker 1: like to live and grow up in that community where
Speaker 1: our needs were around treatment and poverty, but we got incarceration,
Speaker 1: We got cops and bars instead, and so over the years,
Speaker 1: what we've seen is this generational impact on misplaced investments
Speaker 1: in our communities, and our communities have suffered. So now
Speaker 1: we have a system that has two point three million
Speaker 1: people incarcerated at four point seven five million people on
Speaker 1: probation and parole, and we're not doing anything to solve
Speaker 1: or address these issues. The conversation we need to be
Speaker 1: having right now is one about solutions. People have been
Speaker 1: organizing and industries for years and we have done nothing
Speaker 1: about it, systemically, nothing about it. And I think now
Speaker 1: at the time of listening and we need to put
Speaker 1: forward real solutions so we can organize ourselves for better tomorrow.
Speaker 1: There is no doubt about it socially, the social component
Speaker 1: of just doing the right thing ethically. But there's a
Speaker 1: statistic I came across that about some seventy million Americans
Speaker 1: with criminal records are barred by law stigma from contributing
Speaker 1: to the economy. I mean there is an economic impact,
Speaker 1: there's a business impact. What role can business play in
Speaker 1: decreasing the rate of people entering the criminal justice system? Mike,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on that? Because I think they
Speaker 1: could play a big, big role. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: baj Angles box behind me. I'm not an investor in company,
Speaker 1: and me and our team at Galaxy, we pushed the
Speaker 1: management to hire formally incarcerated and it took six months
Speaker 1: of going down there and trying to convince them, and
Speaker 1: then they finally did. They were shocked at a when
Speaker 1: they announced it. They had managers crying that, wow, we'd
Speaker 1: be a company that would actually hire my second cousin
Speaker 1: who's been who's been unemployed for the three years he's
Speaker 1: been out of prison. Uh, And so there was an
Speaker 1: emotional win. But it turns out there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: less turnover with guys that get their their first job
Speaker 1: and you get started. And in the quick serve restaurant business,
Speaker 1: turnover is a big cost. And so it's been a
Speaker 1: usually successful program. And so part of this is educating
Speaker 1: businesses UH that formerly incarcerated citizens can make great employees. UH.
Speaker 1: Some of it was working with the state of North
Speaker 1: Carolina in this case, UH to change their parole ons. Right,
Speaker 1: we have horrific and stupid parole laws in America. It's
Speaker 1: like we put marbles on an ice skating rink in
Speaker 1: front of returning citizens who are barely standing to start
Speaker 1: because they've just been in jail for six years or
Speaker 1: eight years, and say walk. Uh. And so one of
Speaker 1: the Reform Alliance's main missions is, you know, probation and parole. UH.
Speaker 1: So in North Carolina in that case, we worked with
Speaker 1: the Attorney General to change the parole rules for our
Speaker 1: guys so they couldn't get sent back for a speeding
Speaker 1: ticket or an illegal u turn or a stupid parole
Speaker 1: violation because you can't be an employer and you know,
Speaker 1: have an employee not show up but not know where
Speaker 1: he is because he got to put back to jail
Speaker 1: for something done. So Robert, you know you too. As
Speaker 1: part of your platform and what you're working at at
Speaker 1: perform alliances. Jobs are an important part of this. Talked
Speaker 1: us about how jobs can prevent somebody from going back
Speaker 1: to jail, can can put them on a completely different trajectory.
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is most of the laws
Speaker 1: that created match incarceration came from politicians and media. Corporations
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with it at the beginning. However,
Speaker 1: corporation policies perpetuate over incarceration and systemic neglect for people.
Speaker 1: The seventy thousand barriers that people face, many of them
Speaker 1: had to do have to do with employment opportunities. So
Speaker 1: here are some very specific things corporations can do. Number one,
Speaker 1: background checks. Corporations do not have to use background checks
Speaker 1: as a way of keeping people out of UH that
Speaker 1: those those particular jobs. Background checks absolutely should be used.
Speaker 1: People should know who's coming in UM, but it should
Speaker 1: not be a single factor for people that have UH
Speaker 1: felony offenses in terms of keeping them out. So that's
Speaker 1: number one. Another key thing that corporations can do is
Speaker 1: to start to see the entire community and the and
Speaker 1: the and the full person. The truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is people probation and parole um are are living their
Speaker 1: lives in their homes, but they are still in prison.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is individuals often have
Speaker 1: stipulations to their probation and parole that keep them from work,
Speaker 1: that keep them from providing for that family. Let me
Speaker 1: have their family. Let me give you one example. An
Speaker 1: individual may have a nine am meeting with their probation officer,
Speaker 1: a three o'clock meeting UH for anger management or drug treatment,
Speaker 1: and then they have to be at home on curfew
Speaker 1: from eight pm to eight am. Where is it? Where
Speaker 1: are the opportunities for people to work? How can someone
Speaker 1: provide for their family if that's their day, if that's
Speaker 1: their schedule. So we need to have laws that allow
Speaker 1: people to check in with their probation officer but also
Speaker 1: be able to work and provide for their family. And
Speaker 1: that was Mike Novograt's well known to our Bloomberg audiences.
Speaker 1: He's founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, chair of the
Speaker 1: Bail Project, founding partner of the Reform Alliance along with
Speaker 1: Robert Rook, CEO of Reform Alliance, and co founder of
Speaker 1: the Alliance for Safety and Justice were conversations from the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Equality Summit. Just head to Bloomberg Live dot com
Speaker 1: to come speaking of equality when it comes to US companies,
Speaker 1: Guess what, Well, they're still largely white and mail. That
Speaker 1: story up next in Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg Eleve
Speaker 1: in Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine sixty to the Country Sirius XM Chado one
Speaker 1: nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned, Bloomberg Business Week did a deep dive into equality.
Speaker 1: We've covered several of those stories on air last week.
Speaker 1: Two more though in the issue we definitely wanted to
Speaker 1: bring you tim and that was one about new data
Speaker 1: that exposes precisely how white and mail some US companies
Speaker 1: really are. The other on the diversity officer hiring boom
Speaker 1: happening at US companies. Reporting on both is Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Managing Diversity reporter Jeff Green. He joined us along with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week un Joel Weber, who gave props to
Speaker 1: the team effort to bring the data story to life
Speaker 1: and make it interactive on the Bloomberg and online to
Speaker 1: be clear, the magazine and and me, which is a
Speaker 1: very little credit for this one. We we we tried
Speaker 1: to make the team tried to make the interactive be
Speaker 1: you know, the glory here and and we were able
Speaker 1: to take a slice of this and bring it into
Speaker 1: print because we thought it was such an important topic. Um,
Speaker 1: and that is really like the heart of this thing
Speaker 1: was to actually like look at corporate America and and
Speaker 1: it does as you would expect, it is very white.
Speaker 1: But to actually be Bloomberg and put data behind that
Speaker 1: and actually attempt to show progress was really what this
Speaker 1: project was all about. So so Jeff talked to us
Speaker 1: about how you went about getting this data, what it revealed,
Speaker 1: and what you're starting to watch as this is an
Speaker 1: ongoing project. Yeah, I mean, I think the really heat
Speaker 1: the really key thing here is when we first did
Speaker 1: this last year, companies we're agreeing to show us this stata,
Speaker 1: which is not required to be released publicly. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court has made it very clear they can't
Speaker 1: be compelled to do it, so it has to be voluntary.
Speaker 1: And so in this time around we have thirty seven
Speaker 1: with another thirty promising yet this year to show so
Speaker 1: the among the SMP one hundred, the hundred largest companies
Speaker 1: in the US, a majority, a significant majority. By the
Speaker 1: end of this year, we'll be sharing this data that
Speaker 1: they have been keeping private for decades. So I mean
Speaker 1: that's almost more interesting than what it's showing, which is
Speaker 1: kind of what we know, but in a way that
Speaker 1: now makes them much more accountable to it. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about this the e O one form because that's where
Speaker 1: some of this data come from, right right, And this
Speaker 1: is very important for people to understand because there's been
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people said, why are you
Speaker 1: being such a stickler, why are you saying EEO one
Speaker 1: or nothing. Well, what happens is every year all companies
Speaker 1: with more than a hundred employees accept during COVID. They've
Speaker 1: been delayed, but they will be doing it again basically
Speaker 1: next month, have to port the racial and gender breakdown
Speaker 1: of the workforce in detail. And there's a it's very
Speaker 1: you know, very instructive. Is how to do it. So
Speaker 1: even if it's not shared publicly, there is an aggregate
Speaker 1: database of the entire workforce for the United States that
Speaker 1: that that we can see, and there's no such thing.
Speaker 1: There's no other source for this kind of information. So
Speaker 1: when a company gives us their individual form, we can
Speaker 1: compare them against their industry, we can compare them against
Speaker 1: the country. We can do things that you can't do
Speaker 1: with what people just throw up on their diversity page
Speaker 1: and say this is what we're showing you. Well, I
Speaker 1: always feel like the devils and the details. The deeper
Speaker 1: you you really dive into numbers, you really get a
Speaker 1: much truer picture, and it's really cool. Like as Ti mentioned,
Speaker 1: it's interactive, so you can put in down costco, Facebook,
Speaker 1: UH and video and really get a good handle on
Speaker 1: how they're doing. Overall. Though, when we do take that
Speaker 1: big broad look Jeff, how our companies doing, what are
Speaker 1: the numbers? Well, I mean it's kind of where we
Speaker 1: know they they are, but in a much more detailed way.
Speaker 1: And it also just kind of shows how much diversity
Speaker 1: right now is sort of focused on um Asian employees
Speaker 1: tend to be overrepresentative in terms of where they where
Speaker 1: companies shift if they're not a lot of the companies
Speaker 1: that have given us their data actually are underrepresented in
Speaker 1: terms of white workers, but where they shift to is
Speaker 1: um in Asian workers, especially tech and Hispanic and black workers.
Speaker 1: The the I guess the poor employees are not faring
Speaker 1: as well. There's a few exceptions where you have companies
Speaker 1: that are maybe in the consumer space. Um you look
Speaker 1: at McDonald's and Starbucks have managed to move some of
Speaker 1: their employees from from the workforce into the into the
Speaker 1: management ranks. But it's it's it really kind of shows,
Speaker 1: especially if you if you look at it all as
Speaker 1: a big snapshot, which you can do with one of
Speaker 1: the graphics, kind of where everything falls out. There's very
Speaker 1: few companies that are um overrepresented or even represented in
Speaker 1: terms of black employees. For example. I think there's a
Speaker 1: very much a tone of like, you know, Okay, this
Speaker 1: doesn't look good, but it's better than being like cited
Speaker 1: as among the nose that won't share. Obviously, some companies
Speaker 1: are still willing to stand by. They don't think this
Speaker 1: is a good measure. They have lots of reasons why
Speaker 1: they don't want to show this to us. But I
Speaker 1: think Ultimately the you know, sort of the momentum is
Speaker 1: against them now and companies are basically saying transparency is
Speaker 1: part of the is basically the cost of entry now
Speaker 1: to show that you're you're serious about this where a
Speaker 1: year or two ago um the focus was on gender,
Speaker 1: which is a lot easier to show because it's one measure,
Speaker 1: incredibly important and really all about the data. Like so
Speaker 1: much we do at Bloomberg, it's telling a story through data,
Speaker 1: and the data is there, and I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: when you put the data points out there, there's no
Speaker 1: like wait is that you know, there's no gray lines.
Speaker 1: The data is what it is. That was Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Managing Diversity reporter Jeff Green, who joined us along with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Webber. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the interactive feature online. You're listening to Bloomberg business Week.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we wrap up with something that went bit
Speaker 1: viral during the virus. Yeah, you may have heard of it.
Speaker 1: How lip sinking to Fleetwood Mac got the attention of
Speaker 1: the world. End of the CEO of Ocean Spray. That's next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You go, you recognize that, right? I mean, who doesn't
Speaker 1: If you didn't, if you didn't know the song before,
Speaker 1: which you know you should have known the song before.
Speaker 1: You recognize it from the TikTok video, that video causing
Speaker 1: sales of a song that was decades old to spike
Speaker 1: for Fleetwood Mac, that viral video during the pandemic, Nathan
Speaker 1: Apodaca in Idaho cruising and lip sinking to Fleetwood Mac
Speaker 1: will drinking Ocean Spray Cranberry shoes. Yeah. I watched it
Speaker 1: a lot over and it just made me smile. And
Speaker 1: as you said, so did everyone else. It was watched
Speaker 1: tens of millions of times, and as you said, Nathan
Speaker 1: ended up Listen, we all saw him, we all got
Speaker 1: to know him, and he ended up with a new
Speaker 1: Cranberry red truck and a bunch of juice from the
Speaker 1: Ocean Spray. To hear about that, Carol, you caught up
Speaker 1: with Tom Hayes, the president and CEO of the agg
Speaker 1: Cooperative Ocean Spray. Tom also former CEO of Tyson Foods.
Speaker 1: When I first when I first heard it and saw
Speaker 1: it actually was a friend of mine sent me a
Speaker 1: text and I said, you got to check this out,
Speaker 1: because what an amazing opportunity for ocean sprice. It was
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine sent it along, and it was
Speaker 1: it was really cool. And I had the same sort
Speaker 1: of impression I think everybody did when they saw it
Speaker 1: that this this guy Nathan was EPI Docta was very
Speaker 1: sort of distraught on the one hand that he has
Speaker 1: broke to struck, broke down and could get the work.
Speaker 1: On the other hands, he sort of looking stride and
Speaker 1: made this video and everybody's like, wow, jeeson the time
Speaker 1: when we need it, need that positivity, he delivered and
Speaker 1: so was that was the first time I saw it.
Speaker 1: Was a lot of a lot of positivity. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can We talked about it so much of the
Speaker 1: newsroom and you guys ended up, you know, giving him
Speaker 1: a new Cranberry red truck in a bunch of ocean
Speaker 1: spray as well. Um so coudas to you guys. You
Speaker 1: also did a similar video, um and and that's pretty
Speaker 1: cool that you did that. Yeah. Thanks. You know, the
Speaker 1: team really sprung to action and they said, how can
Speaker 1: we take um full you know that to the opportortunity
Speaker 1: and take it to its fullest extent and really helped
Speaker 1: Nathan get you know, what he needs, which is a
Speaker 1: truck of transportation. Uh. And the team jumped to action,
Speaker 1: and we said, this is afraid. If we're going to
Speaker 1: do this for him and give him the transportation, why
Speaker 1: not make the truck cranberry red? And then why not
Speaker 1: loaded up with you know, cranberry crand raspberry juice in
Speaker 1: the back, which is what he was drinking on eskateboard.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I was asked to play a role,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, absolutely easy decision. YEA happy to
Speaker 1: do it. And I was skateboarder like you is. But
Speaker 1: I figured it out and you know, if mixed fleet
Speaker 1: we could do it. I figured, well I should give
Speaker 1: it a show. We've been playing it all for the
Speaker 1: folks watching right now on YouTube. Hey listen, So one
Speaker 1: year into the pandemic, you know, tell him what stays
Speaker 1: with you from a year ago and how do things
Speaker 1: look today? You know, So for a year ago, things
Speaker 1: were obviously very different mood wise. People were shocked and scared,
Speaker 1: not that they aren't now, but it was just nobody
Speaker 1: knew what to do now we do know what to do.
Speaker 1: Safety protocols and planks and our plants. People you know,
Speaker 1: certainly social distancing where they can, and we've you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately learned to sort of live with it. But I
Speaker 1: would say the thing that has changed at Ocean Spray
Speaker 1: beyond just safety protocols is how do we take this
Speaker 1: opportunity to build positivity in all aspects of our business
Speaker 1: where we can, so, whether it's through products and innovation,
Speaker 1: some of the new items, so we've been coming out
Speaker 1: less Ocean Spray Wave, which is a new sparkling beverage
Speaker 1: with caffeine, or Ocean Spray mentally snacking items that are
Speaker 1: taking the joy of dried cranberries and combining them with
Speaker 1: other cool new proofs to create some special moments for consumers.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk about how do we
Speaker 1: take what was last year sort of shocking and disturbing situation,
Speaker 1: and as we've moved through, you know, it's been a
Speaker 1: full year, like how do we make that, you know,
Speaker 1: a situation that's more of a positive experience for people
Speaker 1: to the best extent that we can well, and I
Speaker 1: do think about I want to ask you about the
Speaker 1: new products in terms of what consumers want. But I
Speaker 1: do want to ask you about the past year because
Speaker 1: it has been something where all of a sudden inequities
Speaker 1: that have been in society for a long time, really
Speaker 1: we're front and center and we're having discussions that maybe
Speaker 1: we weren't having before. What is the role do you
Speaker 1: think of companies and CEOs like yourself and leaders to help,
Speaker 1: you know, end the conversations or create conversations that result
Speaker 1: in deliberate action that actually make a difference. I think
Speaker 1: with all leaders, you know, they are on top of
Speaker 1: organizations and leaders leadership teams, so the organization and people
Speaker 1: that are attached to it, whether they're consumers with the brand,
Speaker 1: where they're following on you know, uh broadcasts like this,
Speaker 1: what leadership are doing. They're all looking up and they're
Speaker 1: looking for role models to you know, say and do
Speaker 1: what they expect, you know, good people, and differently than
Speaker 1: I think in past situations where people might have been
Speaker 1: slightly more distracted, they're really tuned in that people were
Speaker 1: focused on the tumbs in front of them or the
Speaker 1: phones in front of them, and they're they're just aware
Speaker 1: of what's happening. I think the moments that leaders have
Speaker 1: to say, you know, here's what we can do to
Speaker 1: help the situation versus exacerbate it and bring you calm
Speaker 1: with insanity back is really what we've tried to do
Speaker 1: with the company. And I think of order direct is
Speaker 1: very you know, uh strong group of leaders that have
Speaker 1: farmers you know, doing this for hundreds of years their
Speaker 1: families have they see an opportunity to say, look what
Speaker 1: we know stability, what it looks like. And you know, team,
Speaker 1: we expect you to do that and the fortunate position
Speaker 1: to lead and hopefully bring positivity and you know stability,
Speaker 1: you know, some some amount of certainty to where there's
Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainty. Hey, Tom, what's interesting is and
Speaker 1: I think about like the last year, I mean, companies
Speaker 1: continue to innovate, they continue to work on their strategies.
Speaker 1: You guys you know have new products that have come out.
Speaker 1: Talked to us about what that development process was like
Speaker 1: and what's been guiding you know what you the new
Speaker 1: offerings that you're coming out for consumers. Sure, you know,
Speaker 1: it's um an interesting environment for sure, because retailers are
Speaker 1: not as excited about putting new products on the shelf
Speaker 1: when they don't have consumers as much as they have
Speaker 1: walking through the stores. It makes it, you know, it's
Speaker 1: basis of premium. There's been certainly outages of products, as
Speaker 1: you're well aware, and so for consumer products, companies making
Speaker 1: sure that they're really unmarked with what their brands are
Speaker 1: going to represent to that consumer. What the insight that
Speaker 1: you're seeing and what we had benefited from is the
Speaker 1: Ocean Spray brand, uh, you know, is a hundred years old,
Speaker 1: nearly ninety years was the last year or ninety harvest
Speaker 1: and so that, yeah, it's right, and so innovation is
Speaker 1: against a brand that is well known and consumers find
Speaker 1: comfort in. It is a space that we took advantage of.
Speaker 1: So what we've been doing is trying to move ourselves
Speaker 1: from not just the Norman Rockwell painting, but to be
Speaker 1: a little more attached to you know, consumers that are
Speaker 1: newer consumer seves, millennials and younger consumers. And the way
Speaker 1: that we do that is to you know, make sure
Speaker 1: that we're speaking to them in the channels that they want,
Speaker 1: but importantly giving them the products they want. So Ocean
Speaker 1: Spray Wave is a product that is a sparking water
Speaker 1: is infused with you know, natural caffeine from tea as
Speaker 1: well as you know, the beautiful flavors that we offer
Speaker 1: at Ocean Spray and the combinations that we're still known for.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the things that we saw for
Speaker 1: sure that that consumers are attracted to having, you know,
Speaker 1: not only hydration all day, but also they want an
Speaker 1: energy pickup. So having an infused beverage that Misso's needs
Speaker 1: was was certainly first on the radar of The second
Speaker 1: thing that we just introduced and they have been making
Speaker 1: a big deal of it actually today is our new
Speaker 1: Fruit Metal East line. So that's thinking of you know,
Speaker 1: the dry cranberry or crazing that we have all come
Speaker 1: to know and love, combining that with other products that
Speaker 1: bring immunity, fiber, and probiotics to consumers life and so
Speaker 1: as they are looking for things that can help them
Speaker 1: get through this. Certainly immunity blends, fiber blends, probiotics are
Speaker 1: things that resonate, and having the Ocean Spray brand there
Speaker 1: as a trust to brand, but also bringing in these
Speaker 1: new ideas is you know, things that we hope are
Speaker 1: going to be really successful products for us as we
Speaker 1: pivot away from UH. Yet you know, sort of our
Speaker 1: old past, but still embrace the brand that has brought
Speaker 1: us to the party. Well, and that's what I think.
Speaker 1: A lot of brands that have been around for a century,
Speaker 1: right are trying to figure out how to adapt to
Speaker 1: the new market. And I think about I was listening
Speaker 1: to you as you were going through the fruit medley,
Speaker 1: dried fruit blend products like check check check in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, fruit. Um, we're talking about no artificial colors, flavors, preservatives.
Speaker 1: You know, people are increasingly and we talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot on our air, you know, looking you know,
Speaker 1: turning around looking at what's in a product. My teenager
Speaker 1: does it, Um, this is what people are looking for,
Speaker 1: and you know, you understand the food industry increasingly, is
Speaker 1: this where everything's going as much as it can, as
Speaker 1: much as it can and you call it, I think
Speaker 1: an important thing that the consumer also wants to know
Speaker 1: that what they're buying is not only healthy for them,
Speaker 1: but they're doing good things for you know, the environment
Speaker 1: and so forth. So many consumers, uh, you want to
Speaker 1: make sure that they're buying from a purpose druggling brand.
Speaker 1: What better purpose than the ocean Spray has, which is
Speaker 1: to connect our farms or families for a better life.
Speaker 1: Being in business for ninety years and owned by farmers,
Speaker 1: are all the profit we make goes back to, you know,
Speaker 1: seven hundred farmer owners. I mean, there's there's no better
Speaker 1: purpose duping company in my view, in the business of that.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is, you know, thinking about
Speaker 1: you know, what are we doing going forward? Is we're
Speaker 1: not just happy with the fact that, you know, we
Speaker 1: are owned by farmers, which we love, but what are
Speaker 1: we going to do to represent what they believe they
Speaker 1: can do for their future. That's Tom Hayes, the president
Speaker 1: and CEO of the a Cooperative Ocean Spray and that
Speaker 1: reps up the weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for joining us. I'm Terrel Masser and
Speaker 1: Tim Sneak. Be sure to tune into our Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week daily show Monday through Friday. It starts at two
Speaker 1: pm Walster Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch
Speaker 1: your daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News
Speaker 1: and check out to our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Find
Speaker 1: that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts and That's where you also find our extra
Speaker 1: podcast this week and recognition of St Patrick's Day, we
Speaker 1: caught up with the CEO at i d A Ireland,
Speaker 1: Martin Shanahan. He oversees Ireland's agency responsible for attracting foreign
Speaker 1: direct investment. And you can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake,
Speaker 1: available at Bloomberg dot com, slash qt and streaming platforms
Speaker 1: like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV and more. Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: It's available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg term will have a good week and
Speaker 1: everyone grabs some motion spray sing, a little bit of Fleetwood,
Speaker 1: Mac and b safe. This is Bloomberg